Obama Stalks Our Collective Souls
from: STALKING THE SOUL
Perverse abusiveness fascinates, seduces, and terrifies. We sometimes envy abusive individuals because we imagine them to be endowed with a superior strength that will always make them winners. They do, in fact, know how to naturally manipulate, and this appears to give them the upper hand, whether in business or in politics. Fear makes us instinctively gravitate toward them rather than away from them: survival of the fittest.
The most admired individuals are those who enjoy themselves the most and suffer the least. In any case, we don't take their victims, who seem weak and dense, seriously, and under the guise of respecting another's freedom, we become blind to destructive situations.
In fact, this "tolerance" prevents us from interfering in the actions and opinions of others, even when these actions and opinions are out of line or morally reprehensible.
We also weirdly indulge the lies and "spin" of those in power. The end justifies the means.
To what degree is this acceptable? Don't we, out of indifference, risk becoming accomplices in this process by losing our principles and sense of limits? Real tolerance means examining and weighing values.
This type of aggression, however, lays traps in the psychic domain of another person and is allowed to develop because of tolerance within our current socio-cultural context. Our era refuses to establish absolute standards of behavior. We automatically set limits on abusive behaviors when we LABEL them as such; but in our society, labeling is likened to intent to censure.
We have abandoned the moral constraints that once constituted a code of civility which allowed us to say "That just isn't done!" We only become indignant when facts are made public, worked over and magnified by the media. [...]
Even psychiatrists hesitate to use the term "abuse"'; when they do, it's to express either their powerlessness to intervene or their fascination with the abuser's methods. [...]
[Psychopathy] arises from dispassionate rationality combined with an incapacity to respect others as human beings. Some [psychopaths] commit crimes for which they are judged, but most use charm and their adaptive powers to clear themselves a path in society, leaving behind a trail of wounded souls and devastated lives. ...
Designating [psychopathy] is certainly a serious matter... whether the subject is serial killing or perverse abusiveness, the matter remains one of predatory behavior: an act consisting in the appropriation of another person's life.
The word "perverse" shocks and unsettles. It corresponds to a value judgment, and psychoanalysts refuse to pronounce value judgments. Is that sufficient reason to accept what goes on?
... Emotional abusers directly endanger their victims; indirectly, they lead those around them to lose sight of their moral guideposts and to believe that freewheeling behaviors at the expense of others are the norm.
by Dr. Marie-France Hirigoyen, Stalking the Soul
~~~~~~~
Obama's facade fades
In this ultra-orchestrated new administration, the Obama team has demonstrated a deft touch in the way it has rolled out its cool and articulate president. But Barack Obama himself could use some fine-tuning.
Every new American president in the all-seeing era of television has his every word and action examined as if under a microscope. This one is no exception, and by and large he has come through with flying colors.
But if President Obama has one apparent vulnerability so far, it is his penchant for overselling on one hand and undercutting on the other.
In his first televised White House news conference, he ducked questions about the details of the administration's new economic recovery plan on grounds they would all be laid out the next day by his treasury secretary, Tim Geithner.
"I don't want to preempt my secretary of the treasury," Obama said. "He's going to be laying out those principles in great detail tomorrow."
Another questioner wasn't satisfied. She pressed him on how his administration was going to "require financial institutions to use the (stimulus) money to loosen up credit and new lending."
Obama replied: "Again . . . I'm trying to avoid preempting my secretary of the treasury. I want all of you to show up at his press conference as well. He's going to be terrific."
The presidential boost drew laughter, but the next day Geithner by a host of press accounts was anything but terrific. He was wooden in delivery and, more significant, unspecific in details of the administration response to the financial crisis. Beyond the critical comments from Congress and the financial community, Wall Street itself immediately gave Geithner resounding vote of no confidence, sending stocks plunging 281 points in the Dow Jones average that very afternoon.
Obama's cheerleading for Geithner may have been an attempt to put a shine on the plan or on the presenter, whose failure to pay certain income taxes had already cast a public cloud over him.
There was in Obama's premature praise of Geithner's presentation a trace of Jimmy Carter exuberance. Carter as president was noted for making silk purses out of sow's ears. My favorite was when he accompanied his health secretary, Joe Califano, to tobacco country and told the locals that Califano's tough anti-smoking campaign would make cigarette smoking "even safer than it is today."
In contrast to Obama's advance assurance that Geithner would deliver a "terrific" rollout of the economic recovery package, he applied in the same press conference a not-too-subtle needle to his hand-picked vice president, the famously garrulous Joe Biden.
He was asked about Biden's comment on the same plan that "if we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty, if we stand up there and we really make the tough decisions, there's still a 30 percent chance we're going to get it wrong."
The reporter said that, according to Biden, the comment had come up in a conversation with Obama, and he asked if Obama could say "what you were talking about." Obama, laughing, replied: "You know, I don't remember exactly what Joe was referring to," adding, "not surprisingly," to laughter from the reporters. "But let me try this out."
The president then said while he would not "ascribe any numerical percentage to any of this . . . that given the magnitude of the challenges that we have, any single thing that we do is going to be part of the solution, not all of the solution." After some more verbiage, he concluded: "So I don't know whether Joe was referring to that." As to Biden's reference to their private talk, he added: "I have no idea. I really don't."
The response came off dismissively as, "There goes Joe again," an offhand slap that doesn't enhance Biden's value to him or his administration. It also brought to mind how Obama nudged Biden at the inaugural lunch when the new vice president jokingly chided Chief Justice John Roberts for his mistake in administering the presidential oath.
So much for the celebrated cool and discipline of the new man in the Oval Office.
Jules Witcover is a columnist for Tribune Media Services.
SOURCE
Perverse abusiveness fascinates, seduces, and terrifies. We sometimes envy abusive individuals because we imagine them to be endowed with a superior strength that will always make them winners. They do, in fact, know how to naturally manipulate, and this appears to give them the upper hand, whether in business or in politics. Fear makes us instinctively gravitate toward them rather than away from them: survival of the fittest.
The most admired individuals are those who enjoy themselves the most and suffer the least. In any case, we don't take their victims, who seem weak and dense, seriously, and under the guise of respecting another's freedom, we become blind to destructive situations.
In fact, this "tolerance" prevents us from interfering in the actions and opinions of others, even when these actions and opinions are out of line or morally reprehensible.
We also weirdly indulge the lies and "spin" of those in power. The end justifies the means.
To what degree is this acceptable? Don't we, out of indifference, risk becoming accomplices in this process by losing our principles and sense of limits? Real tolerance means examining and weighing values.
This type of aggression, however, lays traps in the psychic domain of another person and is allowed to develop because of tolerance within our current socio-cultural context. Our era refuses to establish absolute standards of behavior. We automatically set limits on abusive behaviors when we LABEL them as such; but in our society, labeling is likened to intent to censure.
We have abandoned the moral constraints that once constituted a code of civility which allowed us to say "That just isn't done!" We only become indignant when facts are made public, worked over and magnified by the media. [...]
Even psychiatrists hesitate to use the term "abuse"'; when they do, it's to express either their powerlessness to intervene or their fascination with the abuser's methods. [...]
[Psychopathy] arises from dispassionate rationality combined with an incapacity to respect others as human beings. Some [psychopaths] commit crimes for which they are judged, but most use charm and their adaptive powers to clear themselves a path in society, leaving behind a trail of wounded souls and devastated lives. ...
We have all been fooled by abusive human beings who passed themselves off as victims. They fulfilled our expectations in order the better to seduce us. ...We subsequently feel betrayed and humiliated when, in their search for power, they show their true colors. This explains the reluctance of some psychiatrists to expose them. Psychiatrists say to each other, "Watch out, he's a [psychopath]", the implication being "This could be dangerous," and also, "There's nothing that can be done." We then give up on helping the victim.
Designating [psychopathy] is certainly a serious matter... whether the subject is serial killing or perverse abusiveness, the matter remains one of predatory behavior: an act consisting in the appropriation of another person's life.
The word "perverse" shocks and unsettles. It corresponds to a value judgment, and psychoanalysts refuse to pronounce value judgments. Is that sufficient reason to accept what goes on?
A more serious omission lies in not labeling abuse, because the victim then remains defenseless...Victims are often not heard when they seek help. Instead, analysts advise them to assess their conscious or unconscious responsibility for the attack upon them.
... Emotional abusers directly endanger their victims; indirectly, they lead those around them to lose sight of their moral guideposts and to believe that freewheeling behaviors at the expense of others are the norm.
by Dr. Marie-France Hirigoyen, Stalking the Soul
~~~~~~~
Obama's facade fades
In this ultra-orchestrated new administration, the Obama team has demonstrated a deft touch in the way it has rolled out its cool and articulate president. But Barack Obama himself could use some fine-tuning.
Every new American president in the all-seeing era of television has his every word and action examined as if under a microscope. This one is no exception, and by and large he has come through with flying colors.
But if President Obama has one apparent vulnerability so far, it is his penchant for overselling on one hand and undercutting on the other.
In his first televised White House news conference, he ducked questions about the details of the administration's new economic recovery plan on grounds they would all be laid out the next day by his treasury secretary, Tim Geithner.
"I don't want to preempt my secretary of the treasury," Obama said. "He's going to be laying out those principles in great detail tomorrow."
Another questioner wasn't satisfied. She pressed him on how his administration was going to "require financial institutions to use the (stimulus) money to loosen up credit and new lending."
Obama replied: "Again . . . I'm trying to avoid preempting my secretary of the treasury. I want all of you to show up at his press conference as well. He's going to be terrific."
The presidential boost drew laughter, but the next day Geithner by a host of press accounts was anything but terrific. He was wooden in delivery and, more significant, unspecific in details of the administration response to the financial crisis. Beyond the critical comments from Congress and the financial community, Wall Street itself immediately gave Geithner resounding vote of no confidence, sending stocks plunging 281 points in the Dow Jones average that very afternoon.
Obama's cheerleading for Geithner may have been an attempt to put a shine on the plan or on the presenter, whose failure to pay certain income taxes had already cast a public cloud over him.
There was in Obama's premature praise of Geithner's presentation a trace of Jimmy Carter exuberance. Carter as president was noted for making silk purses out of sow's ears. My favorite was when he accompanied his health secretary, Joe Califano, to tobacco country and told the locals that Califano's tough anti-smoking campaign would make cigarette smoking "even safer than it is today."
In contrast to Obama's advance assurance that Geithner would deliver a "terrific" rollout of the economic recovery package, he applied in the same press conference a not-too-subtle needle to his hand-picked vice president, the famously garrulous Joe Biden.
He was asked about Biden's comment on the same plan that "if we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty, if we stand up there and we really make the tough decisions, there's still a 30 percent chance we're going to get it wrong."
The reporter said that, according to Biden, the comment had come up in a conversation with Obama, and he asked if Obama could say "what you were talking about." Obama, laughing, replied: "You know, I don't remember exactly what Joe was referring to," adding, "not surprisingly," to laughter from the reporters. "But let me try this out."
The president then said while he would not "ascribe any numerical percentage to any of this . . . that given the magnitude of the challenges that we have, any single thing that we do is going to be part of the solution, not all of the solution." After some more verbiage, he concluded: "So I don't know whether Joe was referring to that." As to Biden's reference to their private talk, he added: "I have no idea. I really don't."
The response came off dismissively as, "There goes Joe again," an offhand slap that doesn't enhance Biden's value to him or his administration. It also brought to mind how Obama nudged Biden at the inaugural lunch when the new vice president jokingly chided Chief Justice John Roberts for his mistake in administering the presidential oath.
So much for the celebrated cool and discipline of the new man in the Oval Office.
Jules Witcover is a columnist for Tribune Media Services.
SOURCE
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