Democrats & Progessives: Get That Chin Up Off the Floor!
Reported by Marie Therese - December 17, 2004
Essay by Mel Giles, who works as an advocate for victims of domestic abuse.
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 the Democrats 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 if you don't resist and fight back.
Instead, you walk away. You find other folks like yourself, 57 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 57 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 57 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 fail-proof, 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. (end of essay.)
COMMENT
Many of you have probably already seen this. I hadn't until I opened an e-mail from Michael Moore this morning and - lo and behold! - there was Ms. Giles' masterful analysis of the current state of mind of those who opposed BushCo in this last election.
The words above hit a raw nerve in me. I grew up with a father who was verbally abusive, manipulitive, Irish Catholic and a drunk, a man who could rake your being over the coals with a few carefully chosen words or - even better - crush you completely by correcting your grammar. This absolved him of having to listen to the CONTENT of your thoughts. Since none of us could never be perfect, we were never listened to.
By the time my parents split via a Church-sanctioned separation after twenty years of "staying together for the kids and because God doesn't allow divorce," my mother stammered - she could not string two words together without stumbling. She was in such awful shape that her doctor put her on Valium and that's how she got through working twelve hour days as a nurse while caring for three damaged and angry children who made her life a living hell because their lives were a living hell because the "man" of the family was no man at all.
So, I understand something about survivng abuse and finding one's own voice. And I, for one, will NOT be silenced or intimidated or mowed down by the dripping vitriol of Bill O'Reilly or John Gibson or Sean Hannity or Karl Rove or George Bush or any of the legion of snake oil salesmen who palm themselves off as "beloved of God and blessed by his Son." I will NOT allow the Rove-Bush machine to blind me to the truth - this country is going to hell in a handcar. The rest of the world knows it. Why do you think foreign markets reaped a greater return than ours did last year? (Power Lunch, CNBC, 12/17/04).
The FOX News crowd rants and raves that Kofi Annan should be held completely responsible for EVERYTHING that's happened while he's been Secretary-General of the United Nations. Just this week Scott Garrett, Republican Congressman from New Jersey, called for Kofi Annan to be put in jail and went so far as to claim that, if elections fail in Iraq, it will be Kofi Annan's fault, personally! (My transcript of this interview was posted just prior to this.)
Well, by Garrett's same inexorable logic, our Fearless Leader Geroge the Second should also be held responsible for everything that he's presided over.
Let's see. That would be September 11th. Afghanistan's burgeoning heroin industry. The glorious resurgence of the Afghani war lords. The Iraq War. Abu Graib. The incarceration of CHILDREN and other human beings at GITMO for years without benefit of counsel! 1,200 American soldiers dead. 8,000 wounded. 15,000 dead Iraqi civilians (from Iraq Body Count) or 100,000 dead (The Lancet in collaboration with Johns Hopkins). American tanks that rolled over the living and the dead in Fallujah. The four burned and mutilated American contractors who may or may not have committed personal crimes against some citizens of Fallujah. The young mother whose seven-month old fetus was exploded out of her body in an American attack on a "non-militant" section of Fallujah (according to her sister's testimony). The overwhelming hatred for this country that increases every day Mr. Bush is President. The falling dollar. A massive trade deficit. A massive budget deficit. Eight million Americans without jobs and limited prospects of getting the same pay when and if they do find a job. 150,000 American families with a loved one serving in harm's way who won't be home for the holidays - oops! - sorry - the federal holiday of Christmas commemorating the life of the PHILOSOPHER, Jesus (O'Reilly's description, not mine!).
Who cares if some of those soldiers might be Jewish? Or Muslim? Or athiest? or Buddhist? or Hindu? Or agnostic? Who cares if they're offended, as long as they're willing to die for the armchair generals who direct the war from their comfortable corporate offices in New York and Washington?
I care. You care. Millions of us care. We only need of 3.5 million like-minded souls to take back the Senate in 2006. We can do this. But not by acting like doormats!
Have a wonderful, safe holiday season.
And remember to observe Blue Flu Day. Inauguration Day. January 20, 2005. It's a day to flex our economic muscle.
Wear all-blue, all day. Don't spend one RED cent. If you can take a sick day, take it. If you have to go to work, pack a lunch pail. Walk, bike or scooter to work if possible.
If you live in the vicinity of Washington D.C. join the Blue Flu march.
If you can't make it to Washington, contact a local activist group and encourage them to sponsor a local march or demonstration of solidarity with the Washington group.
Remember: Isolation and marginalization are weapons of the abuser. Joining a community of like-minded spirits bolsters your own feelings of self-worth.
We're True Blue and proud as hell! And we won't take it anymore!
