LGF posts a DU rant:
mopaul (1000 posts)
Sat Sep-17-05 06:40 AM
what the f*ck america? what the f*ck?
what’s keeping it from utterly collapsing? you can only put duct tape and lipstick on it for so long before it sinks asunder. how can it continue as if nothing were wrong? why aren’t people rioting yet? why do so many STILL support the ape? where are the f*cking democrats? how is it all propped up and held together? what fog is blinding so many millions to the actual state of the union? what mind trick? what curse?how long can it stand before it finally implodes like the twin towers? not much longer i’m afraid. how long before the distracted masses have that ‘what the f*ck’? moment? what invisible string binds it all together still? what hypnotic trance are we in that prevents us from surrounding the white house and ridding it of the cockroaches?dead people are floating down the streets of america, and we all go to church on sunday like robots. what the f*ck america? what the f*ck?
Then there's this post about Donna Brazile being a "Stockholm Syndrome Victim" because she wants to support Bush's plan to rebuild NOLA:
Let me be plain. There isn't a SINGLE shred of evidence that George Bush and his corrupt crony government has the capability of rebuilding New Orleans. None. To argue that we should join with him now, and that somehow together this will cause the madness to stop is a sign of severe psychological disorder.
You know what Donna, I can't imagine what you're going through right now, your hometown utterly destroyed and your friends, family, and community scattered to the winds. I won't pretend to know how that feels. I can't. I've seen the overlay maps showing the amount of flooding in New Orleans relative to other large cities, like the entire city of Boston and surrounding communities completely submerged. I can't conceive of what that might mean.
But as devastated as you feel right now, as heartbroken as I can imagine you are, I have no idea what you are talking about. Did George Bush speak from the heart on Monday August 29th at the country club he was visiting as the levees broke? Did he speak from the heart on Tuesday August 30th from California talking about VJ day? Did his government speak from the heart on Thursday September 1st when they told the nation that they didn't know about the people in the convention center?
Did they speak from the heart when they granted no-bid contracts to Halliburton? Did they speak from the heart when they suspended the prevailing wage? Did they speak from the heart when they told us, once again, that even an epic disaster such as this doesn't warrant raising taxes even for a moment?
I would like to believe that this country is one big family. It isn't. Does a family bash their gay members like George Bush did to win an election? Does a family not even sit and listen to a grieving mother whose son was killed as a result of the President's actions? When choosing who will protect them, does a family pick the most incompetent member to lead the charge?
Until we stop letting Republicans abuse us and stand up for ourselves, the madness will never end. After reading what Ms. Brazile wrote today, it is clear to me that this won't happen in Washington anytime soon - it will have to be forced onto Washington in a vast intervention.
Let's consider for a moment the intensity of the emotions expressed in the above two posts. The sheer intensity of hatred (despite the crocodile tears of empathy for Brazile in the second quote) borders on an almost monomania regarding the supposed "evil" of GWB and all Republicans. Both contain explict calls for violence and force to impose their points of view. One is concerned that this hasn't happened yet. Both express their confusion about how America could possibly stay together (or be a "family") and wonder why it hasn't collapsed due to the injustices and outrages they can so clearly see.
All this reminds me of a severely paranoid patient I had a few years ago. He came to my office, a bundle of outrage so intense that he was barely coherent. How could the the FBI and CIA get away with planting electrodes in his brain? Wasn't there someone who could stop this? Why was I permitting them to tap into his thoughts and broadcast them on TV? Didn't I realize that they were abusing him? Didn't I see that they intended to kill him? THEY were the one's who needed to see a psychiatrist! What, he demanded, was I going to do about it?
I mildly suggested that perhaps we could try to understand why he believed these awful things to be true, and that he might feel better if I could help him see if he might be misinterpreting some things. (What can I say? I was young. Back then, I thought you could reason with paranoid delusions.)
He, of course, became even more enraged. It was clear to him that I must be a part of the conspiracy! In fact, now that he thought about it, he had been subtly maneuvered to come to see me. I WAS AN AGENT OF THE CIA!
He ran from the room, screaming this very loudly. The police picked him up a few days later, when he tried to break into the local FBI offices to steal his "file".
He was hospitalized involuntarily (rather than arrested) and I understand that his paranoia subsided after appropriate treatment.
Sadly, the paranoia and delusions exemplified in the above two quotations are probably not amenable to treatment. They are part of a self-induced personality disrder, called "Acquired Narcissism" (although there are plenty of others in their mental world who are clear-cut Narcissists).
People with any type of narcissism believe their feelings and beliefs should be adopted by the world in general--if not voluntarily, then they are prepared to use violence. They believe that their needs are the center of everyone's universe. When confronted by reality, they become enraged and frustrated that it won't conform to their will. It makes them want to destroy reality. Like petulant children, they want what they want when they want it or they'll threaten to do something horrible to you.
The paranoid statements quoted above demonstrate that these people are the ones not capable of living in a democracy--unless they happen to be in the majority. Then everything is fine. When they have to endure policies they don't happen to agree with then they must project that inner rage and frustration and OUILA! It become the evil of the...Republicans! Or...Bush! Or...just about anyone that prevents them from getting their way.
These people rarely come to treatment because theirs is a world view that they want desperately to believe. Unlike my paranoid patient above, who was terrified by his perceptions--they were "ego-dystonic", meaning that they were incompatible or inconsistent with his sense of himself; our Leftist paranoids find their views of Republicans as evil and their desires to violently make everyone believe as they do extremely validating and even comforting on a conscious level (we refer to this as "ego-syntonic", or compatible/consistent with their ego or sense of self).
If they believe these things are true, then they do not have to trouble themselves to think or to take responsiblity for their own emotional destructiveness. They don't have to check the facts because facts would only get in the way of how they "feel" things are or should be.
Remember their confusion at why America still stands? Why Americans put up with "Republican abuse"? Why so many Americans "still support the ape"?
Simple. Most Americans are incredibly and boringly normal, sane, and have an abundance of common sense; and hence are not prone to the narcissistic extremes exhibited by the lunatic fringe of society.
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