Archive for the ‘Transactional Analysis’ Category
Dr. Jeffrey Young created a form of Cognitive Therapy that utilizes a concept called “Schema”. This is in my opinion a sort of “VIRUS OF THE SOUL”. Now you may be asking what does this have to do with the political process we are facing today! Dr. Young lists about a dozen schemas but the one that is relevant to us today is the “Alienation/Social Isolation” Schema. Like a virus the “schema” hijacks aspects of the host. In this case the individual’s libido and mind to perpetuate the schema! Similar to what some other therapists termed “Behavioral Trans-generational Migration Patterns”.
My own Democratic Party “sometimes” becomes a festering ground for this Virus of the Soul in several ways:
- Hillary Clinton’s behavior toward winning the nomination: The hell with the popular vote! Full speed ahead for the 2012 Election! Damage Obama so bad he cannot win the general election. This compounded by some who take this as a racial thing! Hell no it is just pure SELFISHNESS on the part of Hillary Clinton. She would do the same thing regardless of the candidate! She supported NAFTA and still supports “H1-b” that destroyed the technology job market! The payoff is we can all feel alienated!
- Promoting masochistic self hate of America with PC Collective Guilt: Especially among people who rose above the religious collective guilt of Adam and Eve. Having rejected “Apple Theodicy” these very same folks now embrace the PC theory that “America is always wrong”. No that does not mean some things aren’t wrong with our society! It is the masochistic zeal that these PC Liberals, who renounce the Adam and Eve theory of collective guilt, now substitute being white, middle class and Oh My Mother Goddess, “Male” for Apple Theodicy! The idea of trying to improve things is completely vacant. Instead the joys of Masochistic hatred of America are glorified then they wonder why they loose elections to right wingers who covert the center!
- Jeremiah Wright and the wimpy reaction to his speach: His behavior shows no concern for his so-called “friend” Barrack Obama who is running for the highest office in the land! Oh yes we hear that short sound bytes should not be used to judge a person’s whole career. Well imagine if John McCain were to use the “N” word just once or twice! What is so hard for Pastor Wright to say “look I am sorry forgive an old man who got stuck in a prior era”. Hell I would then even say let him back in Obama’s campaign! We all have a right to a “Mu-tack-a Moment” now don’t we? Listen to the video by Pastor Wright. Ask yourself what kind of friend could he be to Barrack Obama to not recant this? His speech glorifies being a victim! Not to mention racist statements.
Alienation is perpetuated by Pastor Wright’s speech and the lack of forceful repudiation by Obama and the Democrats. Yes I am an Obama supporter and a liberal. Just not a PC Liberal! While Dr. Young may never have thought his concept could be applied to politics, I believe it can, especially one of his concepts called “schema maintenance”. In the video above we witness “schema maintenance” at work! Note some things Pastor Wright says may have truth, but that is how schema maintenance works. The payoff is helplessness, ALIENATION and the protection of the status quo even though such is being argued against by the Reverend!
Let me add a “Transactional Analysis” footnote to the “Alienation Schema Maintenance Behavior” of both Pastor Wright, and the tepid response by Barrack Obama and many Democrats! That footnote is that the behavior of all of the above players could cause the defeat of Obama in the general election or even at the party convention! Ah yes but then we would be “Entitled” to cash in our Politically Correct TRADING STAMPS and engage in payoff game of “Ain’t It Awful” and “Wooden Leg“! Maybe nobody noticed but we have a war raging and the opportunity to elect either a Black or Female President! While I don’t believe race or gender automatically entitles one to be President it would be a nice moment in our history! So Barrack should cut loose from his so-called friend and not get caught up in this “Schema” of Alienation! Else he will be drinking “Bitter Beer”!
In conclusion we Democrats practice the schema maintenance of “alienation” and bitter beer drinking with our
- Use of the DENIAL MECHANISM rather than face dealing with Pastor Wright’s anti-patriotic and even racist statements!
- Then not Moving on to the real issues that face voters! Instead this campaign is turning off voters initial enthusiasm! Rush Limbaugh is laughing!
The Silent Majority must stand up and demand an end to this! We need to take our nation back from the effete snobs of Corporate America who do not want us to have job security and Universal Health Care!
I do not believe there should be a “religious test” to be President of the United States. But then some in the Christian might say otherwise! I find the news media is treating Mitt Romney’s religion with kid gloves! If the Christian Right find religious doctrines to be important to their vote then let’s supply them with the relevant data!
Being a psychology major from the 60’s when Transactional Analysis was popular let me remind my readers of a neurotic “game” that Eric Berne listed in his book, “Games People Play”. That game was called “Let’s you and him fight”, where someone would set two other people up to fight. Well I don’t like those who flip flop on abortion and Gays in the Military just to win elections. Nor do I like the Christian Right for labeling denominations whose services I attend as cults! While I am a liberal Episcopalian I also attend services of Unity and Religious Science! So I suggest we wage Psychological Warfare on the conservative block by getting the Evangelicals and Mormons to go at one another. Oh yes Merry Christmas!
Here are some “talking points” concerning Mormons vs. Christians.
- Mormons believe that God has a Divine Wife who we will meet in heaven.
- Mormons believe that the reason marriage is so important is because those who achieve an ideal Mormon marriage go on to become the Gods of new universes.
- God and his Divine Wife were once not Gods but mortal humans like us in another universe. There in that other universe, the God we worship today (and his Divine Wife) served another God and his wife.
- This gives a new dimension to the latest cosmological theories of the “MULTIVERSE”.
- Christianity, while the true religion and Mormonism the only true Christian Church, is none the less only the valid religion of THIS UNIVERSE!
Again Mormon Theology is none of my business! But since both Mitt Romney and the Christian Right seem to want to drag religion into politics I believe they should deal with the consequences. Show the above “talking points” to your Christian Right friends! Mitt Romney flip flops and was for abortion and Gays in the Military when he ran for election in liberal Massachusetts! Now that he is running in the national Republican arena his values have changed. He says he is “PRO-LIFE”! Well below is a video that someone posted to You Tube that shows how devoted he is to the quality of life when it conflicts with dogma!
This poor guy has no relief from pain except with doctor approved marijuana. Yet our pro-life hero will not even answer his question.
In this era where Conservatives whine and wail at every possible slight by the national news media no one is asking:
Why is there an almost complete blackout on the anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination? Oh these crock’s of the right wing who love to play “professional victim”, ranting and moaning that the news media is not covering their pet news items because of some sinister Liberal conspiracy to block the news! Yet the news media is bypassing remembrance of this great Presient.
Back in the late 1960’s and early 70’s when I was a Psychology major, Eric Berne was promoting his pop psychology called “Transactional Analysis”. Some of you might remember the book, “Games People Play”. Two games that comes to mind in regards to the conservatives are:
- “Injustice Collector” and
- “Now I Got You, You Son of a Bitch” (NIGYYSOB).
Please understand I don’t really believe the news media is trying to screw Democrats or Liberals. But if we were to use the same criteria that Conservative Republicans use then the news media is slanted against Liberal Democrats! But then again maybe the news media is pro-conservative!
Just look at the last Democratic Presidential Primary and the way they “Pontificated” on Howard Dean. They made such a big thing about Howard Dean because he got emotional and screamed enthusiastically with his supporters. The news media made Howard Dean out to be unstable. Hey it’s not like Howard Dean was a National Guard Air force pilot who was on crack and/or alcohol and then went absent from his required military duty for 18 months! Now that would be scary if such a person went on to be President of the United States!
Ooops wait oh no it’s not a nightmare it’s real! Hey I would have preferred Howard Dean four years ago for President. I prefer his ethusiam as opposed to Fred Thomson who is D.O.A. Check the You Tube Video out for yourself and see if the national news media did not destroy Howard Dean’s creditability. Ask yourself what was so wrong about his perforamance? I don’t just mean Fox but all the news media. Really what was so awful about Howard Dean’s performance? Yet NBC, CBS and ABC ran this like Dean was flying on crack! See for yourself!
What is insane is that this war has gone on when it should have ended! The time has come for the Middle Class to take our nation back from these effete snobs of the corporate rich!
Oh the bleeding hearts of the right wing! Whenever the new media does not follow their agenda and advance their priorities they label it “liberal news media biases”! Those of you who are old enough to remember the 60’s might recall a rage of the time called “Transactional Analysis” with such books as “The Games People Play” and “I’m OK, Your OK”. Well it seems to me that the Ann Coulter crowd loves to play the game of “Injustice Collector”. When she and her fellow travellers collect enough “trading stamps” in their imagination they are then entitled to call liberals “unpatriotic” or as in the case of the 40 something miniskirt wearing Ann Coulter, she labels those she disagrees with as “fags”!
As a Non-PC liberal I suggest we play the Transactional Analysis game of “Injustice Collector”! Using Ann Coulter’s standards I believe NBC has pro-conservative news media biases! Has anyone heard that the President of Iraq believes most American troops can be out by the end of 2008! Also he backs Senator Joe Biden’s plan for a soft partition of Iraq into three states, Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite!
Yet NBC did not report this on their nightly news cast! They are practicing Pro-Conservative News Media Biases! Heck the news media hardly even reported that Senator Joe Biden’s plan for a soft partition of Iraq received 75 votes! Kudos to the Boston Globe for noticing that aspect of the pro-conservative news media slant!
WARNING WARNING: Blog master is about to also play the Transactional Analysis game of “Injustice Collector” and for those who really remember T.A. the game of “NIGYYSOB” or N.I.G.Y.Y.S.O.B! (Can you name that game?)
The time has come for America’s Silent Majority (our great Middle Class and those who aspire a better lifestyle) to take our nation back from these effete snobs of the right wing and their fellow travelers in the Republican Party! There I feel better!
Personally I don’t care for either Imus or Sharpton. In the midst of this controversy one voice did stand out for reason and intelligence. That voice belonged to the coach of the Rutgers University Woman’s Basketball Team and to her players as well. Rather than embark on a particular agenda’s such as Al Sharpton’s continuous playing of the Transactional Analysis GAME of “Now I Got You, You Son Of A Bitch”, with his cashing in of “TRADING STAMPS” of victimization in order to “PURCHASE” a free whine of self righteousness on the news media, the Rutgers Woman’s Basketball team stuck to the issues and did it magnificently!
These woman were insulted without justification and they stuck to their guns helping listeners to identify with them regardless of race, sex or class. Their protestations came from their humanity. Their coach and also the team captain were fantastic in helping ordinary Americans see the real issues and their real life impact in our society!
By the way I did not hear Al Sharpton who does not seem to suffer malnourishment, apologize for the Tawana Brawley incident that he capitalized on some decades ago and propelled him into the national arena!
Don Imus also used the politics of entitlement. True he does a lot of good work with charities but does that “entitle” him to make fun of these women who are fine examples of athletic and educational achievement! I see Imus wearing his long hair from the hippie era and I do feel jealous of him that he can keep it as I am now bald. I can identitfy with both the long hair and the cowboy hats as I was a college student in Missouri. But where are the free spirited VALUES that those things represent? I only hope his apology is geniuine!
Does POWER come from inflicting HURT or from the ability to foster dialog and HEALING? These young woman were not politicians. I agree even I use cutting humor in this blog but that is only directed against politicians not the average cititzen even if they disagree with me. It seems to me that the Rutgers Worman’s Basketball Team and their coach have role modeled genuine power! Maybe the rest of society can take note!
I do hope for Imus’s eventual return and that he can still be pointed in his humor but not at innocent Black and White young ladies whose only sin is that they are achievers!
Now we also need to focus on the racism and sexism of the “Rap Music” Industry that also disparages both African American Woman and Whites. Ah but don’t forget the lawyers and music industry investors who profit from “identity creations” for the young! Where is the consumer protection movement or do liberals call on them only when little Johnny gets a G.I. Joe action doll? It seems that Corporate America and Al Sharpton make great bedfellows!
Mention “Global Warming” and you evoke both the secular doom dayers plus the scoffers. I am neither! Basically I believe the earth is facing a crisis due to carbon emissions from our species. Yet I also believe there are many on the left who have adapted a new fundamentalism. That of “Secular Dooms Dayer”. I used to believe religion was anti-life! Making folks believe in original sin so we could all wallow in collective guilt and play a nasty Transactional Analysis game of “Ain’t it Awful”. Back in my college days Hal Lindsey wrote a religious dooms day book predicting the second coming and the end of the world within ten years. Funny thing at the same time circa 1970 the ecology movement was predicting a “Secular Dooms Day” scenario with the book, “The Population Bomb”! These latter day secular masochists joined with the “Club of Rome” to produce dooms day reports concerning the end of oil resources on this planet within the same time frame.
I recovered my religious faith as I came to realize the negativity that I experienced in religion was not intrinsic to religion rather something about the human psyche. I called it “Original Masochism” in my other website that is devoted to progressive religion. I will not get into that here but to say that in the late 60’s and early 70’s when I attended college I came to realize that being a “free thinker” sometimes meant renouncing liberal orthodoxy! Instead of hating life on earth due to some “original sin” and man being depraved and a collective sinner, now we who attended the early Earth Days went forth with our new scripture, “The Population Bomb” to preach SECULAR repentance to a DECADENT “Bourgeois Middle Class”! Oh the joys of collective guilt for being White, American and Middle Class!
Naturally there were some who while of good nature did not yet know the TRUTH! They suffered from Bourgeois Middle Class Hang-ups! They did not realize that they were the cause of all the world’s problems! You know we are “x” percent of the world’s population yet use “x + y” percent of the earth’s resources. Did anyone notice that at Al Gore’s meeting with the Congressional Committee they all were drinking bottled water? Gosh how much plastic is that going to throw into the environment? I am an avid hiker and have lead for hiking clubs for 35 years! Not to mention the webmaster for two clubs. Yet I say most environmentalists are hypocrites! Years ago nuclear energy was considered the way to go. In my area wind mills were going to be built! Guess who put up a big stink? The hikers! Make no mistake about it these folks have a distinct need for masochism! Instead of fundamentalist religion with it’s need to feel guilty for Adam and Eve plucking a stupid apple off a tree, these new advocates of collective guilt want us to feel guilty for living middle class lives! Let me give you three examples:
SOLAR COLLECTORS AND STAR WARS: I don’t believe it’s nice to have an enemy capable of nuking us. Yet the orthodox liberals call it a “star wars fantasy” to have a anti-missile defense system. Yet years ago they advocated the creation of giant space stations with solar collector’s miles wide that would beam a concentrated energy beam back to earth. Now imagine if you will what would happen if the angle of that beam went off by just a fraction of a degree! Talk about scourged earth! They had no problem with the feasibility of shooting high energy beams back to earth as an alternative form of energy but if the energy beam where used in the opposite direction to shoot down an incoming nuclear missile then they called it mockingly “star wars”.
RECYCLING: In my locality we are required to place plastic and metal in a separate container for recycling. Despite the fact that now no one wants to buy this junk, the eco-masochists continue to insist we continue this. How much water is wasted in each household to wash and clean the various plastic containers that are then thrown out? How much energy is used to heat that water?
BLIND CONSERVATION: Oh God remember the idiocy of the late 70’s with the air conditioning in the office work place being set at 78 – 80 degrees while we all walked around in three piece suits with tight neck ties! Hell I don’t care what it does to my karma turn up the God Damned air conditioning and also lets throw away the suits and ties!
However in our secular culture where we do not have rituals we need a subsitute means of connection! Recycling, conservation and a vegan diet are a means for New Age folks (and I am one of them) to have “communion” with the sacred, in this case the earth! It makes folks “remember” but does little more! Self flagellation secular style anyone? Further as each new alternative energy form is developed, I believe the very folks who advocate it will then turn against it. Why? Because while there is a valid danger of global warming, they are not trying to solve problems! They are infected with this secular version of “original sin” that I will term “original masochism”! I remember one professor who actually said, “the human race does not deserve to survive”! As China and India develop large middle classes the time has come to find a safe sane approach to conservation and rapid development of alternative fuels! Evolution yes, lifestyle throw back NO!
