The Invisible Counterpoint

Child abuse doesn’t get talked about much by progressives these days—the prevalence of it, especially. When we hear of abuse against a single women, the story is usually expanded so that it illustrates how women in general have been suffering. When we hear of abuse against a minority, the same. But when we hear of a horrid case of child abuse we rarely are encouraged to think of its prevalence. Instead, we row against the perpetrator. Or, if it’s one of those women driving all of her children into a lake, balk back from it exploring it entirely—no thanks! But the case of Adrian Peterson was different. It was going along its normal route—how dare he, stuffing leaves into his child’s mouth and then beating him bloody with a belt! Destroy the beast! But then something unexpected occurred. This story of child abuse got innocently expanded, and you could feel in its brief flash of a full expose of the nature of childrearing across a broad swath of Americans, not what occurs when th...

Andrew O’Hehir recently wrote about the Republican victories in the midterm election, saying essentially that it really doesn’t matter if one party wins or loses because without systematic change, either way we’re headed for doom. Specifically he wrote:  This is not a “seismic shift” in favor of the Republicans or the so-called conservative agenda, no matter what John Boehner and Mitch McConnell may say this week. Reading an off-year election result as an indicator of larger societal trends is like interpreting a blizzard as evidence against global warming. The political clock is already ticking toward 2016, when the pendulum will swing in the other direction and Democrats are nearly certain to win back some or all of what they just lost in Congress. If the human conundrum known as Hillary Clinton runs for president she will be the prohibitive favorite; Democrats have won the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. No, what the dire 2014 midterms re...

Jenny Kutner at Salon.com recently wrote about the change in how Cosby is being assessed, asking herself why it finally now occurred: Now, we’ve reached a point where it would be irresponsible not to publicize the allegations against Cosby. It would be just as irresponsible not to share news of his efforts to avoid talking about the accusations, which is exactly what the Associated Press did with its recent interview footage for weeks before finally making the tape public. Why did the responsibility change? Is it simply that we are at a moment in time, right now, when accusers’ stories suddenly seem more believable? (The outcomes of other alleged sexual assault cases would indicate otherwise.) Or, is it because with this particular case, we’ve reached a critical mass of accusers whose stories we can no longer ignore? Is 13 the magic number? 14? 15? What about  the multiple women who accused Jian Ghomeshi  of brutalizing their bodies as well? Are these s...

Original Article: Meet the “experts” using bogus science to prop up nationwide abortion restrictions FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2014 3:56 PM If the nation starts to have qualms about abortions, if the nation as a whole tilts that way, it'll be because they sense women being burdened by mouths they cannot feed, and like the image.  That is, they'll want them to have children so to be properly overwhelmed and depressed -- what we expect of people in this time of sacrifice, of self-flagellation, of purging ourselves so to be worthy of love once again. We'll take photos of them, their blank faces, barely surviving in the inner city or out on the plains, with children wandering about them everywhere, in true Walker Evans-style, and, say, "what noble sufferers!" Permalink Original Article: Animals that kill their babies have bigger balls FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2014 3:08 PM gerryquinn The_Pragmatist Not amongst human beings. When a woman has a child ...

Salon.com has an article today about animals that kill their young. I'll use this as a prompt to remind everyone again why humans kill their young. From Lloyd DeMause's "Origins of War in Child Abuse": ROUTINE INFANTICIDE AND CHILD SACRIFICE IN EARLY STATES Clinical studies of violent mothers show the reason mothers are sadistic toward their children is that they have internalized their own mothers, and fear that the very act of having a child is “the most forbidden act of self-realization, the ultimate and least pardonable offense,” bringing with it inevitable fears of maternal retribution. 11  Infanticidal mothers fear punishment by their own mothers for daring to have a baby, so “to save herself she must disown motherhood by destroying the child.” 12  Mothers in antiquity continuously hallucinated female demons (Lamia, Gorgo, Striga, Empusa) who were inner maternal alters that were “so jealous of their having babies that they sucked out their blood… So ...

Original Article:  You don’t protect my freedom: Our childish insistence on calling soldiers heroes deadens real democracy SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2014 3:23 PM alacosta1224 They prefer the warm home because they're not unconsciously drawn to repeat/restage their cold and terrifying childhood environments, which is what soldiers are doing. Hating the very sensible warmer abode comes out of the same childhood environment too: everything self-enriching was IDed by your parents as spoiled and bad, who expected you to give everything to them.  Permalink Original Article:  You don’t protect my freedom: Our childish insistence on calling soldiers heroes deadens real democracy SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2014 3:13 PM alacosta1224  because I honestly cant stand people who try and destroy our troops from their little computers, You must be one of the people we've been pointlessly bombing.  Permalink Original Article:  You don’t protect my freedom: O...

Original Article:  The Ghomeshi syndrome: Delusional creeps, from Clarence Thomas to Gamergate SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2014 8:56 PM gootserdaddy  What's happening is "switching," literally a switch into using different brain pathways, associated with early childhood abuse. It isn't the woman before her that makes him snap, rather in a sense he "snaps" first and projects childhood demons onto the person he's driven to destroy. He literally is not the same person he was beforehand, just like someone with multiple personalities isn't when they switch into their alters.  It's discussed here:  http://primal-page.com/psyalter.htm http://www.psychohistory.com/originsofwar/03_psychology_neurobiology.html Permalink Original Article:  The Ghomeshi syndrome: Delusional creeps, from Clarence Thomas to Gamergate SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2014 7:51 PM nodarksarcasm   Patrick McEvoy-Halston   Ktimene   The mother could have been abused by...

Original Article: We must abandon Bill Cosby: A broken trust with women, black America WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2014 9:17 PM Rex Harrison contessakitty SarahWestofToronto Maybe. But some art we've left by the wayside for good. Progressives have always wrestled with what you're wrestling with, and not always come to your conclusion. All great art gets produced during periods of latitude, where all of a sudden latitude, transgression, "the new" isn't just stomped on but allowed some life. This is why all great art sings so much ... it's all conveys human promise.  But there is a psychological limit to how much anyone who feels the need to stigmatize and hate can realize, and eventually all their "truths" begin to seem insufficient -- "someone" is still watching over them. This could still be the fate of Shakespeare.  And if he goes, thank you so much, Mr. Shakespeare! But along we go on this great human ride, embracing different vo...

Original Article: Jian Ghomeshi to #Gamergate: Our culture’s toxic masculinity crisis on display TUESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2014 2:08 AM HappyJack Interesting response. Seriously disturbed people are seriously disturbed because they were assaulted or apocalyptically abandoned, early -- when they were new to life, extremely vulnerable infants/children, and their brains hadn't yet figured how much they were going to allow for the conscious "you" to control. This means problems with an insufficiently loved mother -- because if two caregivers were heavily involved in a child's life, we're talking progressive neighbourhoods in New York, not locales for mental disturbance of the kind that lead to delight in raping and killing another human being. So the pattern I'd recommend looking for in the various ways disturbance gets "expressed": one, someone who when revenged upon means revenge against the terrifying mother; two, someone when attacked means rev...