America Has Battered Wife Syndrome
A truly inspiring editorial I found
Sun, September 18, 2005 - 11:04 PMDate: Wednesday, September 14 @ 14:01:47 CDT
Topic: Editorial
First let me say that I love my country and all that it has...or had...to offer. But my love for my country is an adult relationship type of love. That means that even though I love her, I understand that she is not
perfect. I also understand that she has problems, and I do what I can to help her work thru them.
I also understand that when she gets sick, she needs me there even more than usual. But this particular form of sickness is the kind that she will have to admit to first before anyone is able to truly help her. It is a sickness that is somewhat akin to an addiction. That is something I know plenty about. I was a Chicago Cubs fan for many years...
America's Battered Wife Syndrome
by Gail Thomas
Dear America,
As a friend of the family I can't sit back and watch you do this to yourself without saying something. Consider this a long distance intervention.
Your man is no good. He treats you like crap, lies to you, abuses you, bullies you, exploits you, takes your money.
As a friend I want to tell you that you deserve better. You deserve a person that treats you with respect, cares about your welfare, and your children's welfare, but that's not George and it never will be.
Do you tell yourself that he'll stop, or that it won't get worse? He won't ever stop, every insult, injury and death he has caused are a line that once crossed will never be uncrossed. Forget the dream. You will never have the American dream with George. You have to forget about what might have been, what George might have been, and realise that at the end of the day you are what you do, and look at George's track record...
Notice how he's alienated all your friends? Who can blame them, they can't understand why you stay with him when he treats you like shit and embarrasses you in front of everybody. The more his public behaviour
overshadows yours, the more doubt creeps over them, they wonder if they knew you as well as they thought they did. You seem to have changed - if you condone his behaviour- and your silence can create the
impression that you do.
People are more inclined to take things at face value when they feel alienated.
Your friends remember the good times you had together, the heroic battles you fought together, all of the intricate interweavings between their families and yours through time and space. Do you even recognise
yourself anymore America?
He is a drunken, coke-addled loser and he always will be, you should kick him out of your house today before he can destroy any more members of your family, your history, your culture, before he decimates your bank account so irretrievably that China and Saudi Arabia repossess all your stuff.
YOU CAN DO BETTER! You are an amazing country, beautiful, interesting, funny, positively glamorous, you wouldn't stay single for five minutes, you
know that suitors would be competing for your affections and any one of them would be ten times better than George. And how can you stand his god-awful Stepford's answer to Marie-Antoinette mother, piping up with
another casual atrocity every time she opens her mouth.
Because of George and his friends global warming is now upon us - I know what it has cost your family already, combined with George's complete uselessness and indifference in a crisis. It would probably
now be possible for a mathematician to calculate exactly how much of all of our futures we are losing for every minute you stay with that sick, twisted, idiot.
I see you doing what everyone in your position does - you end up looking to the perpetrator for comfort because theres no one else left, and look at how he reacts for Christ's sake, look at what he did to New Orleans, and you should know that yet again he did it in front of all of your friends, all of us saw nothing happening whilst thousands died, all of us heard Ray
Negen and the president of Jefferson Parish (I must have heard him 30+ times now and I still cry every time) and all of us heard George's bloody mother. We have been trying to help and he won't let us.
We are all appalled and aghast, it breaks our hearts to see him hurting you like this, and you not fighting back, you just take it and take it as it slowly spirals down into the pits of hell.
What will it take America, will you let him kill you before you'll kick him out? This is not rhetoric America, he is killing you every day you stay with him.
If I had described your relationship with George to you back when you were still with Bill you never would have believed me.
He degrades you in little increments, every day he erodes your assets as well as your dignity, your reputation, your legacy and your life America.
All of our TV crews were rescuing survivors as they filmed the devastation because there was nobody else there to help them, all of us saw the victims being treated like some sudden new insurgency, with suspicion and hostility. Those poor people, the heart & soul of New Orleans, the very people whose culture and history made New Orleans beloved around the world, He just left your brothers and sisters to die.
Can you really continue in your relationship with George after this? There is a degree at which cognitive dissonance becomes outright delusion. He is a maniac, he is destroying your life, please, please leave him, just leave him, only you have the power to make it stop.
He is selling out your family business, if you let him continue like this how are you going to live? How are you going to feed your children, what happens if you get ill? Everything he has ever touched has turned to shit, he puts any idiot that'll kiss his ass into positions of power and New Orleans is the result.
Kick him out America! Do it today! I know it feels like you would be leaping into a void, but I promise you, you will be leaping out of one. Your friends will come back as soon as they see you are back to your old self, they really miss you.
I know that less than 36% of your heart is still in it. Go with the 67% of you, that 36% is just that vestigial, primitive part of the brain that clings to the familiar no matter how badly the familiar sucks.
It all comes down to you, America. I know no-one likes other people passing comment on their relationships but this is an extreme situation. You are in very real danger, he is hurting you everyday and he is hurting
us, your friends as well. But only you can make it stop. We are all rooting for you, although we don't get to talk to you very often anymore, because he cuts us off from you.
We are on your side, we will all be over the moon the day you finally kick him out. You know he really should be thrown in jail for the things he has done to you. Him and all of his gangster friends.
Please, please, do it America, you know I am right. If not for yourself then do it for your brothers and sisters and children. Do it before he kills any more of your family or anyone else's. We are all really worried for your welfare.
Your friend,
Gail
Gail Thomas is am a British/ Australian dual national living in Sydney with her American partner.
Her website is 12thharmonic.com
This article comes from www.mystolennation.com : We're On Our Way Back!
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Sun, September 18, 2005 - 11:46 PM
My Thoughts
I truly feel that Bush and his Administration have done more harm to the United States than any other President we have ever had.
He has almost completely dismantled The Constitution. He has trodden upon our rights, corrupted and reshaped them to fit his own Fascist ideas. We, as gay people, should not have to live here as "second class" citizens. This is our country too and we deserve to be treated with respect. Under the Patriot Act, if he decides we are a threat to America he can have us locked up indefinitely without trial or access to anyone who would try to help us. With absolutely know other proof than his word. His ability to rig the elections by having his Republican Congress require that every district use "paperless" electronic voting was made glaringly obvious in the 2004 elections when, once again, he was put into office despite Exit Polls, which have never in the history of voting deviated from what the official tally was, showed overwelming democratic wins, yet the Republicans were the ones that were actually put into office. The ONLY districts that showed democrates being elected were the ones that either didn't use the machines or required that they have a paper trail. Diebold corporation, one of the biggest contributors to the bush campaign, created the majority of the voting machines knowing full well that they were subject to fraud. California refused to use them because it was shown that the voting results could be changed without leaving a trace thus corrupting the voting process. If we do not standup and organize, we are most certainly doomed. It may already be too late since Bush now controls all 3 branches of the government. We, the people, have the ability to make the Congress listen to us and at least try to correct some of the damage that has been done to Democracy, Equality and Freedom in this country. If we continue to hide our heads in the sand in the vain hope that we will not be seen, than we are only delaying the inevitable and that is the creation of the American Police State. Much of the apparatus for this creation have already been put into place. The Department of Homeland Security has already passed a law creating a defacto internal passport system through the issuance of driver licenses and identity cards. Under this law it is illegal to travel anywhere in this country without one and to produce it to the police when demanded. You cannot fly, drive, use trains, buses or any other form of transportation to get around the country without one. If you think that this is going to stop at the city limits you are just fooling yourself. The FCC has now passed a law that requires that there be a "backdoor" placed into computers, fax machines, answering machines, phones, e-mail accounts as well as every other form of communication, that will allow the government to tap into the device and "listen in" without being detected. This law alone has almost completely destroyed our right to privacy. The "Sneak & Peak" law allows the government to enter our homes and places of business to plant recording and video devices while we are away and they ARE NOT required to inform us it has been done. I know some people may feel that I am being a little extreme but these are very dangerous times for us now. Once the government has solidified all of the formidable controls it has planned for us we may never be able to correct it. The information I have provided here is available to anyone who chooses to investigate it themselves and I strongly urge you to do so. Then you might realize just how scary and destructive to our way of life in this country truly is. |
