Posted on 12/02/2004 4:53:34 AM PST by JesseHousman
[Mel Gilles, who has worked for many years as an advocate for victims of domestic abuse, draws some parallels between her work and the reaction of many Democrats to the election.-- Mathew Gross]
Watch Dan Rather apologize for not getting his facts straight, humiliated before the eyes of America, voluntarily undermining his credibility and career of over thirty years. Observe Donna Brazille squirm as she is ridiculed by Bay Buchanan, and pronounced irrelevant and nearly non-existent. Listen as Donna and Nancy Pelosi and Senator Charles Schumer take to the airwaves saying that they have to go back to the drawing board and learn from their mistakes and try to be better, more likable, more appealing, have a stronger message, speak to morality. Watch them awkwardly quote the bible, trying to speak the new language of America. Surf the blogs, and read the comments of dismayed, discombobulated, confused individuals trying to figure out what they did wrong. Hear the cacophony of voices, crying out, “Why did they beat me?”
And then ask anyone who has ever worked in a domestic violence shelter if they have heard this before.
They will tell you, every single day.
The answer is quite simple. They beat us because they are abusers. We can call it hate. We can call it fear. We can say it is unfair. But we are looped into the cycle of violence, and we need to start calling the dominating side what they are: abusive. And we need to recognize that we are the victims of verbal, mental, and even, in the case of Iraq, physical violence.
As victims we can’t stop asking ourselves what we did wrong. We can’t seem to grasp that they will keep hitting us and beating us as long as we keep sticking around and asking ourselves what we are doing to deserve the beating.
Listen to George Bush say that the will of God excuses his behavior. Listen, as he refuses to take responsibility, or express remorse, or even once, admit a mistake. Watch him strut, and tell us that he will only work with those who agree with him, and that each of us is only allowed one question (soon, it will be none at all; abusers hit hard when questioned; the press corps can tell you that). See him surround himself with only those who pledge oaths of allegiance. Hear him tell us that if we will only listen and do as he says and agree with his every utterance, all will go well for us (it won’t; we will never be worthy).
And watch the Democratic Party leadership walk on eggshells, try to meet him, please him, wash the windows better, get out that spot, distance themselves from gays and civil rights. See them cry for the attention and affection and approval of the President and his followers. Watch us squirm. Watch us descend into a world of crazy-making, where logic does not work and the other side tells us we are nuts when we rely on facts. A world where, worst of all, we begin to believe we are crazy.
How to break free? Again, the answer is quite simple.
First, you must admit you are a victim. Then, you must declare the state of affairs unacceptable. Next, you must promise to protect yourself and everyone around you that is being victimized. You don’t do this by responding to their demands, or becoming more like them, or engaging in logical conversation, or trying to persuade them that you are right. You also don’t do this by going catatonic and resigned, by closing up your ears and eyes and covering your head and submitting to the blows, figuring its over faster and hurts less is you don’t resist and fight back. Instead, you walk away. You find other folks like yourself, 56 million of them, who are hurting, broken, and beating themselves up. You tell them what you’ve learned, and that you aren’t going to take it anymore. You stand tall, with 56 million people at your side and behind you, and you look right into the eyes of the abuser and you tell him to go to hell. Then you walk out the door, taking the kids and gays and minorities with you, and you start a new life. The new life is hard. But it’s better than the abuse.
We have a mandate to be as radical and liberal and steadfast as we need to be. The progressive beliefs and social justice we stand for, our core, must not be altered. We are 56 million strong. We are building from the bottom up. We are meeting, on the net, in church basements, at work, in small groups, and right now, we are crying, because we are trying to break free and we don’t know how.
Any battered woman in America, any oppressed person around the globe who has defied her oppressor will tell you this: There is nothing wrong with you. You are in good company. You are safe. You are not alone. You are strong. You must change only one thing: stop responding to the abuser. Don’t let him dictate the terms or frame the debate (he’ll win, not because he’s right, but because force works). Sure, we can build a better grassroots campaign, cultivate and raise up better leaders, reform the election system to make it failproof, stick to our message, learn from the strategy of the other side. But we absolutely must dispense with the notion that we are weak, godless, cowardly, disorganized, crazy, too liberal, naive, amoral, “loose”, irrelevant, outmoded, stupid and soon to be extinct. We have the mandate of the world to back us, and the legacy of oppressed people throughout history.
Even if you do everything right, they’ll hit you anyway. Look at the poor souls who voted for this nonsense. They are working for six dollars an hour if they are working at all, their children are dying overseas and suffering from lack of health care and a depleted environment and a shoddy education. And they don’t even know they are being hit.
Many of these people, like homosexuals who wonder why they have contracted AIDs and can't be cured, are incurable leftist scum. Some will think more rationally and may repent and become better Americans.
Mike
ROFLMAO!! Thanks for posting the funniest article I've seen in sometime.
Isn't it downright hilarious? It is, indeed, the biggest display of juvenile stupidity ranted by the left in years.
Hit 'em while they're down...at the ballot box that is!
I read this and think: Republicans are going to be winning elections for a loooooong time to come.
This is politics where might(measured in votes) is right. And a 61 to 56 margin leaves no doubt about who is the winner and who is the whiner.
OMG! They are really reaching, aren't they? Therein lies the difference between "them" and us.
As dogs return to their vomit; so the liberal Democrats return to their "modus operandi"
Blame others for and make them pay for "our" poor life choices! ...and the Democratic favorite: The promulgation of Government Dependence.
LOL
Matthew you twit. You think you've been beaten? You haven't been beaten; yet. Keep trying to take my guns and you'll find out what a beating is. I promise!
Hey, Matthew! (SMACK!) Take that!!! Take it and like it, Bitch!!!
I hope you're right. But before they can begin to think rationally, reasonably, and logically, they need to accept personal responsibility for the choices they've made that have led them irrevocably to where they are right now. And before any of the foregoing can occur, they need to stop fooling themselves that AIDs is contracted in the same manner as mumps and measles. That is the answer I received when I entered into the discussions taking place about AIDs in a large radical homo discuss group. When I pointed out how and why their sex practices, most particularly anal sex, lead to STDs and AIDs, I was told...... "It has nothing to do with our sex practices....We get it like you get mumps or measles."
"Enlightenment," as defined by modernism means believing whatever you want to believe, even myths and fairytales.
Yeah, we got nearly 60M abusers in this country.....
Enlightening.
Matthew may have to be Hillary-slapped.
YES!!
Be MORE radical than you are now!!
America is waiting for your progressive beliefs. Don't wait - start today.
Good analogy.
DemocRATs are much like dogs. When they greet each other in the corridors of government (where they slave for an hour or so per day), or in their local cell meetings, they have a way of greeting one another that is very reminiscent of canine behavior.
I have said from the beginning of the Clinton Saga that both of these things are candidates for straitjackets and lobotomies. They are certifiable nut-cases and that's what makes them so attractive to the leftists, who see nothing wrong in turning the country over to them.
The rest of us, in order to size up the enemy, are occasionally forced to watch them deliver speeches while studying them like they're bugs under our microscopes.
What we realizes is that nothing...absolutely nothing of any substance or meaning passes their lips. They talk for hours and say nothing; however, those from the left sit there, legs crossed and bobbing their heads in the same manner as their queen.
It would be funny if these people weren't so dangerous to America.
Republicans have a downright eerie way of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, however.
Then too we are well aware that the ranks of Republicans are larded with RINOs who "cross the aisle" and "reach out" to their leftist buddies and join them in defeating a piece of conservative legislation that would have benefitted the nation.
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