Anna, I think we agree on a lot more than we disagree on and I respect your opinion and you for speaking out.hi sela - i think we do too.
i respect your opinion too. we each have a right to ours, no matter how different they may be.
Two thingys here, though, kind of wanting clarification. One is that I wasn't implying anything and I'm sorry it may have seemed that way. The other is that that is one of the good things about the blaming, placing responsibility, the coping mechanism of assigning fault....I agree.....it helps to end enabling and denial and it might even help good changes to occur.ok - thats fine if you werent implying anything. thats ok.............. i stiiiillll get the implication that just the act of naming 'assigning fault' as a 'coping mechanism' --- pigeonholes it as something that it might not be. see what i mean? just the act of calling it that, subtly assigns it meaning that might not be accurate.
you know - thats why the first thing they do after any plane crash is send out the team and dig out the black box and do a total meticulous reconstruction of the accident until they find the precise and exact cause. thats not any coping mechanism - they are technicians who are deadly and dispassionately seroius about preventing another plane crash.
i can say this, i didnt learn much of use from my parents. but, as emergency room physicians, they provided a pretty good model of useful vs unuseful action in an emergency. i do feel i have a good understanding of the difference between personal emotional reaction to an event, and technical reaction, namely action geared towards rapid, efficient fixing of event, determining rational cause of event, or preventing recurrence of event...... people trained to react to emergencies are very good at drawing that line. so id just like to see us be careful that we arent pigeonholing rational efforts to fix event, as an emotional coping mechanism when they might not be at all. its subtle, but i think it makes a difference. what we name things, makes a difference.
The part I was disagreeing about, mostly, I guess, was this:
i hope the whole world is finally made aware of this and that bush is shamed in front of the world as -i- feel he should have been, for -years- now...
Your resentments toward Bush are your own feelings, which are valid and I don't want to discount those in any way. [/i]
im sure i dont have to tell you, it isnt just me. a whoooooooooooole lot of other people feel the very same way. i emphasized 'i' beucase i was speaking for myself right then...... but you know it isnt just me. and of course, hes definitely only a tiny figurehead for everything going on... no way is he smart enough to figure out how to do half the damage being done in his name...........
but also, its not a republican/democrat thing for me anyway. im not either. i look at what people -do-, not what they say, or whats on their name tag.
But I just see it as unfair to put the responsibility for the whole disaster squarely in any one's lap, so I pointed out my responsibility/fault/blame too. Mine may not be equal to Bush's or that of some big greedy oil company big wig, but I will have to take my part of the shame, if it's being doled out. i think it is funny that you are so interested in taking blame for this, but if you really want it, i wont stop you... but im not sure why you are. it feels almost codependent. to me that is like we are little kids in a preschool class, and the teacher offers us either peanut butter or cream cheese, and then we blame ourselves becuase we failed to insist on steak. well for one thing it simply wasnt one of the choices on the menu. theres a huge power imbalance between us and 'our leaders'. and they would probably laugh at us if we told them we wanted steak for lunch, and asked us who we think we are.
we can get together and draw our demands in crayon and offer to hold our breath til we turn blue, until they give us steak. and i have a feeling i know how far that would get us. so, i see our part of the 'blame' as the little people, as quite minimal. we really have very little power and influence over what is going on. if you are exercing your influence to the greatest degree you can, which i am assuming as a conscious citizen of the world you are, then im not sure i would assign you all that much blame. if ther were better choices on the menu, you would probably pick them. fact is, they arent there.
those technicians digging out the little black box wil assign blame. burnt wire, pilot error, engine failure, bad weather, fuel problem. whatever it is, there is a cause. there is something to which it will be traced back. you can go on and on with it, like that poem, 'for want of a nail a shoe was lost, for want of a shoe a horse was lost, for want of a horse a soldier was lost, for want of a solider a battle was lost, for want of a battle a kingdom was lost, and all becuase of a horseshoe nail'........ but either way, something went wrong, maybe a number of things, and they -can- be identified, dispassionately and technically and unemotionally. i think being too eager to act as though we have more power than we do, and take more 'blame' then we should, actually strikes me as a form of codependence.
like saying you are at fault for that plane crash becuase you sold the plane mechanic a stale muffin at the coffee shop the week before. maybe if he had more vitamins in his system he would have done a better job and the plane wouldnt have crashed. it gets crazy. how much can you control with a damn stale muffin. you know. at a certain point the buck has to stop.
i -also- happen to have emotional feelings related to the poor citizens who are paying for it, as poor citizens always must.
I think this is a wonderful thing. For you, for me, for SallyF and for all who are experiencing this, as awful as it might feel, as upsetting as it is, as many triggers as the whole situation might snap......if we didn't feel strong emotions when we see people going through such horror, or when we consider contributing factors....we'd be selfish, insensitive, uncaring and numb. Yucky! Just wanted to let you know that that's what I'm trying to communicate, with both feet in my mouth as usual, that my opinion is.....it's ok to feel.....as a matter of fact.....it's what probably also causes good changes to happen. Without all of those strong feelings.....no one would notice the turmoil and nothing would ever get assigned or fixed. That would be truly apathetic.[/i]
yes of course its ok to feel!!! people have to feel, if anything usually people do not feel enough. thats part of the problem. if a person didnt feel id be seriously worried...... its also useful and appropriate though to be technical and dispassionate about dissecting cause and effect. both are valid and i think seperate parts of an appropriate reaction.
Sorry to have done my part of hijacking your thread SallyF and thankyou for unlocking it.me too! >> im glad you redirected what you really wanted onto a more specific thread. >>
I can relate to being discarded and I feel for you for this having triggered so much pain for you. me too also sf. i relate precisely to being discarded, maybe not as much as sf does. but its an issue for me as well, always has been. more on the level of trust/betrayal. as in, we trusted you. we put our trust in you to care for us, you did not come for us. thats why the animals being left is very difficult for me. i am giving more money to the efforts to help the animals then to the efforts to help the people right now.
for instance, there are sometimes on tv when they will have footage of elephants that become furious after being abused or mistreated in a circus. i absolutely freak out and become unreasonably hysterical seeng footage like that. becuase i cannot stand the implication, of the intelligent, social creature, forced to live in chains, submissive, and finally just going berserk and usually being shot becuase of it. the desparation, that anything is better than living like this, in chains, forced to submit. it gets me.
last year i absolutely lost it beucase of a stupid tv show where people were living on some land and had a lovely pig that someone had entrusted to them. the pig was about to have babies...... they stupidly allowed the pigs enclosure to catch fire. and basically failed to rescue her, she was badly injured and obviously in so much pain. i could not turn it off in time, and the sounds that she made, calling for help, are just seared onto me. she trusted them. she was in an enclosure that they built. they were supposed to care for her. she called to them for help, and they failed to come. they let her suffer until the neighbor came and shot her. i was so unreasonably hysterical over that, i didnt think i was going to survive. it still is very disconcerting to think about today.
i -still- get shaky whenever i think about that. placing trust in caretakers that fail and abandon is also very much an issue for me. this situation very much brought up images like that on so many levels.
but- i can still be quite dispassionate about rationally dissecting whos responsible (each party and to what degree or in what capacity) and its -not- a repub/democrat thing. im not either.
ps on the last post sf - fascinating....... yes i totally agree. >>>>
this is interesting, thanks
