"The Rack" and Modern Politics

Do you ever feel like you're on the rack and the bad guys are turning it?

Helplessness is the most destructive human emotion, worse than grief, self-hatred, guilt, or anxiety. Helplessness is so toxic, in fact, that we'll do anything to try to alleviate it. We'll even become self-blaming--e.g. it wasn't that my parents beat me and I couldn't do anything about it...it was just that I was bad. Often, we get enraged. Rage is simultaneously a reaction to helplessness and an ineffective way to try to master it.

For me, and many others, this election stirs up feelings of helplessness and, therefore, rage. I'm doing what I can to help the good guys win, but so much of what's said and done is obviously out of my control. And my love for and belief in Obama only makes it worse; when he gets slimed, I feel slimed and helpless to do anything about it.

I have spent much of my professional and political life trying to understand people who are fucked up, both in my consulting room and in the society at large. And I believe at the deepest level that people do bad or dumb things for reasons that make psychological sense if you really put yourself in their shoes.

Still, I'm human. I can't help it. I hate McCain, Palin, and the neo-cons and christian fundamentalists making up his base. When I read again about another lie, baldly repeated and propagated in the face of universal condemnation, I want tro rip their throats out. When McCain insinuates -- as he and Palin and the Rove-termites working for them are now doing--that Obama is a terrorist, a muslim, connected to palestinians, etc., I want to stick a shit-dipped punji in his eyes. And when I hear the so-called "ordinary guy or gal" say that he or she does think that Obama is a Muslim despite being told 22 times he's not, I want to do the same to them. You fucking morons, you racist, small-minded, anxious, self-righteous victims turning on the only champion you'll ever have in favor of someone who despises you and your social class---you should rot in hell, the hell that this society will become if McCain wins. THEN we'll have a nation of whiners--you --and a little part of me will think--serves you fuckheads right!

Whew! Well, you know, that particular flavor of vomit fortunately doesn't dominate me, nor do I act on it or advocate it for a second.

But--hey--come on...the most "reasonable" leftist opinion leaders I know all feel a version of this...We just don'e say it in print.