Sen. Bernie Sanders: Man among children and clowns - from the world-famous Waitsfield Fourth of July Parade, 2009.
Scapegoating - whether it happens to Howard Dean or Ralph Nader - is not a healthy phenomena for the American family. The blame game never stops, though.
Bagnewsnotes has an interesting thread about why Dr. Dean is being silenced. This thread actually dates back to 2005. But the BAG reposted it because of its relevance today, with Dean being attacked by Obama press secretary Gibbs for Dean's call to kill the bad healthcare reform bill currently on the table.
Dean's fellow Vermonter Bernie Sanders was forced to withdraw his universal healthcare, 767-page Medicare for All bill yesterday by Clown Coburn of Oklahoma. Coburn demanded the clerk of the Senate read the entire bill, forcing the Senate to stop for 10 hours. Sanders backed down.
And then we are all pissed at Lieberman for derailing healthcare and the medicare buy in at 55, but he too makes a convenient target. He in turn blames us bloggies for his decision, but we make a convenient target. This is the healthcare reform Obama wanted all along.
Obama has jettisoned the netroots, he is using Lieberman to push his agenda. Lieberman is using the moment to punish the netroots, and blame us. We in turn will find someone else to blame, like Lieberman, instead of Obama.
This all ties in yesterday to the discussion Matt W. and I had about Nader and third parties, which of course never comes to any resolution. But discussion is positive.
On Bagnewsnotes, I found a link describing the pathology of scapegoating, which pop psychology I thought worth reprinting here:
Scapegoating is a serious family dysfunctional problem with one member of the family or a social group being blamed for small things, picked on and constantly put down. In scapegoating, one of the authority figures has made a decision that somebody in the family has to be the bad guy. The mother or father makes one child bad and then looks for things (sometimes real, but most often imagined) that are wrong.
There are different reasons one child is singled out to be scapegoated. Perhaps the child is vulnerable. Or the child is hyperactive, noncompliant or acts out. Sometimes the scapegoated child is viewed as weak who cannot defend himself. At times the parent heaps on the blame because he cannot stand the child who has traits and characteristics that are similar to his own! Sometimes the child has personality traits that are similar to a disliked relative (She reminds me of my aunt Tillie who I never liked.) Other children in the family can pick up the scapegoating pattern and join in taunting and hurting the scapegoated child. In extremely dysfunctional families, the parent may goad the other children to pick on the disfavored one.
Further, the author, Lynne Namka, Ed. D, notes:
Often an insecure parent will be aggressive with one of the children to vent his own sense of frustration at not doing well in life. Aggression in families creates decrease in self-esteem in the children. Aggression, the use of force against another human being, is always present in scapegoating. As Elizabeth A. Kaspar says, "The aggressive person is one who tries to dominate others. Aggressiveness, too, can take several forms. The aggressive person is frequently rude and humiliating, (e.g., "What do you mean, you aren't going to do it?"), or the aggressive person can become self-righteous (e.g., "I am only insisting on this for your own good."), or she/he can resort to being manipulative (e.g., "If you refuse, what will everyone think of you?")."
Bullying is always scapegoating. Abuse is always scapegoating.
It seems as if we humans as a species seem to need someone to vent our anger on and make wrong. Scapegoating is a projection defense. It is the ego saying "If I can put the blame on you, I don't have to recognize and take responsibility for the negative qualities in myself. What I can't stand about myself, I really hate in you and have to attack you for it in order to deny that I have the same quality."
Back to studying...
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