no_hypocrisy
no_hypocrisy's JournalWhen will it be my turn?
When will ICE come for me?
When I leave for work? At work? When I return from work? When I go to bed? When I'm sleeping?
Will it be because I live in a small town that's been monikered as a "sanctuary city"? Because my three neighbors are immigrants and ICE rang the wrong doorbell or they're just emptying out our house?
Because Musk has the passwords for DU and I've been singled out? Because I mouth off at work to a particular co-worker?
Because I was the former producer of a progressive radio talk show?
Because my sister hates my guts and called ICE?
Because I'm a registered Democrat?
All of the above?
When are they coming for me?
When I was growing up, I didn't consider myself to be brave.
I was raised by two highly-educated people who also happened to be alcoholics and narcissists. My father was worse than my mother.
My father tried to keep me "under control" by intimidation, by threats, by punishment, by fear. Why: because I challenged him. That's all. I kept our family's dark secrets just that, secret.
Even into my thirties, my father threatened to destroy me while taking me out to dinner.
My siblings and my mother tried to tell me to tone it down with my arguing back, not to get Dad mad.
But he was so wrong about so many things.
I paid the price until the end when he disinherited me.
Think about what you just read. My father. My father!
He's gone and I'm here. And I'm the better for all those battles. Stronger. Wiser.
And I look at those Republicans in the House and in the Senate. Nary a backbone amongst them. They can't speak up for what they know is right. And they could be punished for being right.
Well, f*ck! I did it, over and over and over. And I'm still here.
I was told when I was growing up, that American Exceptionalism was our ability to fight to be right. Trump took that away too.
But when an adult survivor of family abuse is braver than a member of Congress, you'd better step back and think about it.
1984. I was sitting with my family in synagogue on Yom Kippur,
the Day of Atonement, the holiest day in the Jewish Calendar.
And I was mindlessly intoning the words from the prayer book, at least the English stuff.
And I had an epiphany: There is no God/god and nobody's listening to me. And I wasn't sorry for anything. I had spent the year apologizing and making amends for my "transgressions" and "sins" and I didn't need to do it now. And I was hungry. Why was I fasting?
And I got up and walked away from Judaism. And I became a Humanist, later a freethinker and ethical culturalist.
A lifetime of my father attempting to bring me to heel.
It started at age 2. I lied about brushing my teeth. Instead of explaining to me why I should brush my teeth and not lie, I was swooped up in the air, laid across his knees, and given two hard swats on my ass. Both my derriere and my trust in my father ached long afterwards.
Childhood: My father was easy to anger if things didn't go exactly his way. Yelled. Terrified. So bad that when the babysitter threatened to call our parents at the restaurant (it was a bluff), I went hysterical. So scared of what would happen if they had to leave mid-meal to come home and teach me a lesson.
High School: More of the same. Fast forward to when I was exactly 18 years and one week. I had a 5:00 curfew. I missed it and didn't call to say I would be late. Dad had the police file an APB on me and the town was scoured to find me. I was supposed to leave for college in less than six months and he was doing this.
College: Essentially, my father chose my college. It had to be all women. And he put me on the "restricted floor" where you could not sign in male visitors, save for two hours on Sundays. And he also chose my initial roommate that the college arbitrarily chose. He was on the phone, insisting that I be given another roommate. Why? Because she was Vietnamese. I begged him not to do it, but he did. I ended up with a roommate who moved out after a week and then the third roommate ran away in March to go to San Francisco.
Post-College: I had found a place to live in Washington, D.C. Big ole Victorian home. Home of the former Chief Justice of the D.C. Circuit Court (Henry Edgerton). Dad insisted on seeing it and freaked out. Literally, the night before I graduated, he humiliated me in front of my friends and told me I wasn't going to be moving to D.C. to that house. And I buckled.
Fast Forward. I was 32 and had been admitted to law school. Out of my father's house and living on my own. I qualified for a scholarship for tuition, but Dad insisted on paying for the three years. I was working at his doctors office until school started. A contretemps broke out b/c one woman was not doing her job. (Exhibit One: she was scheduling her son's bar mitzvah.) I didn't take her side, which infuriated Dad. He made it a point to make me go out to dinner alone with him. Where he concocted a BS story that b/c of me, the doctors office would have to close, and therefore, no money for law school, which was going to start in three weeks.
I had enough. I had no job. No law school. But also no more paternal BS. Independence Day.
It was one thing to discipline me when I was a minor, when I was in college, when I lived in his home. But I was 32 and sick of it all.
I simply leaned back in my chair, took a sip of wine, and told him cooly that it was his prerogative. Took away his oxygen.
He eventually paid for law school and I graduated.
I was not brought "to heel". Don't get me wrong. He still tried until I was 57 and he died.
I suppose my point is my own father used every psychological device to break me, to make me "obedient". It didn't work. Each test was a struggle.
And I suppose as well when I read about TSF essentially doing to same thing to those in opposition to him, it brings back memories. And I'm primed for a new battle. I've done this before and I'm ready to be the last one standing (again).
The effect of listening to progressive radio for 2-1/2 years.
I've been a Democrat forever. Marched to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the 19th Amendment (women's right to vote). Marched for abortion rights several times.
But I wasn't that engaged in the government (federal, state, county, local). Sure, I had the seventh grade primer into the three branches of the federal government. And the mandatory two years of American history. I voted for the party more than the issues because I didn't know or understand the issues.
Then while stuck on the Garden State Parkway in 1999, I happened upon WEVD, broadcasting from New York City. First, Jay Diamond. Then Sam Greenfield. Then Bill Mazer (who really could interview columnists and politicians as well as spit out sports statistics). Then Alan Colmes.
A whole new world was introduced to me. No proselytizing. Just information I had not had access to. (Yeah, there was WBAI on the FM dial, but I found the programming disjointed.)
The hosts discussed local, regional, state, and federal issues. And made them intelligible. And the callers were equally amazing with their insight and knowledge. Matter of fact, it was the only station where the callers were a majority of Roosevelt Democrats.
We went through the Clinton White Water BS, the Lewinsky "scandal", the Impeachment, Gingrich's Contract for America, the antics of Tom DeLay, Traficant, and more. And of course, the 2000 Election with the USSC. There were several callers who regularly called to complain that Shrub cheated.
WEVD was sold by the Jewish Forward to Disney-ABC Corporation, which turned it into one of three sports stations in the City. WEVD was off the air on 9/11, when we needed our community the most.
Air America sort of replaced WEVD, but not to my satisfaction.
Because of WEVD, I now do my own "homework" and research. YouTube videos, TikTok, online articles, magazines, and more. And of course, DU.
I'm a critical thinker who is informed. I'm not a democratic MAGA corollary.
I now think of my life as wholly changing because of one radio station. It was wonderful while it lasted. I now understand that the station did its job by infusing me with the tools to continue to do the job it once did.
Processing the loss
About 10 days ago, I learned that my BFF passed away. I found out on Facebook of all places.
Needless to say, it was a shock on several levels. 1. I wasn't expecting it. 2. I wasn't expecting it because he never even hinted that he was dying. 3. I hated the idea of him suffering but being stoic. 4. He was in Rehab at the time. He was supposed to be getting better. 5. We spoke on the phone 36 hours before he passed. 6. I depended upon him for sage advice, for humor, for emotional support.
And now he just doesn't exist.
I couldn't stop crying for 4-5 days. The first day that I didn't spontaneously weep or get wet eyes, I worried whether this meant that I was in denial, that I didn't care, whether I would relegate him to a memory locked off somewhere.
And the memories. So many that I started jotting them down on pieces of paper. Things he said. Things he taught me. Dedicated to keeping him "alive".
And finally, where does the love go when someone dies? Just because they left doesn't mean they didn't love you. It wasn't their choice to leave.
This is the first person who died in my life who was a very special friend. His loss is more than palpable. I didn't grieve like this when either of my parents passed.
My college friend taught me this saying, and I'm using it for the timebeing: Every day it's easier to wake up. I hope so.
I have had a startling and comforting revelation today.
After reading online and watching some videos, I believe that I have autism, the high functioning kind.
As I read and confirmed the traits of someone with autism, I was checking off the boxes, immediately remembering instances and experiences from my childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, up to now.
Until now, I just shrugged off these memories as growing pains, but I never let go of them. Stuff that didn't make sense, such as unduly walking on tiptoes, being a very finicky eater, talking in a singsong voice, and more. And these things drove my father crazy, agitating him. (I'm also wondering whether my father was a high-functioning autistic individual as well.)
I don't have these traits (to my knowledge) at this time, although autism never leaves you; you just learn to manage it if you're high-functioning.
It's comforting because to me, it explains a lot of personal imponderables.
I'm not going to go to a psychiatrist for a formal diagnosis. First, it's not worth the expense to me. Second, I can live with this revelation.
But today, it just feels weird. I see it as assuming a new identity and not as a deficit.
What the threat of "Retribution" feels like.
Someone who has authority can make veiled threats against your security, personal and/or financial. They made it clear that their goal is to destroy you. And they're serious and they have the means.
I lived through it with a narcissistic father. It was like having Damocles' Sword over my head.
You get to the point where you say, "F*ck it, go ahead." And you openly defy your tormenter. And you wait and look for signs that you're the target of their wrath.
While I never had the threat of physical abuse or death, the spectre of "Gotcha!" is real and abiding.
When you stand up to a bully (or worse), you reclaim your integrity, your self-worth by being brave. You define yourself.
OK, let's go through this . . . . .
First, TSF and his minions are trying to make abortion illegal again. And there will be babies because of that.
And women may or may not have a husband, a baby-daddy, or family to help support this unexpected child. (This doesn't exclude married women who were trying to have a child.)
So the mother has to go to work to house, feed, and care for this child. And most jobs don't even offer enough wages to support the child.
And the mother can't financially provide for that child with the added expense of a babysitter. And she can't leave that child home alone (at least without Child Protection getting involved).
And for more than 50 years, Head Start has been providing care and education for these children, allowing mothers to work and leave their children in a safe haven simultaneously.
I worked in a daycare center in Harlem for 12 months in Harlem in 1984. It wasn't Head Start per se, but NYC paid for it. Students were in three classes (2-3 years; 4 years/nursery school; and 5-6/kindergarten). They were offered freshly prepared food for breakfast and lunch. I'm talking nutritious and tasty food in our kitchen. Rice and beans, oxtails, fruits and vegetables, etc. (At home, at least one child was only eating Fritos and soda.)
I had the Kindergarten with an Assistant Teacher and an Aide. 21 students. We had a valid education plan with reading, mathematics, four languages (Spanish, Patwa, Mandarin Chinese, and Universal Sign Language). I added African-American history, African art, African dance. We even snagged a computer (this was 1984!). And the kids progressed. Of course, we had no money for our curriculum, and we donated a chunk of our salaries to make our program work.
I was proud that 4-5 students were accepted into private schools upon graduation to first grade.
Plus, I traveled 2-1/2 hours (each way!) from New Jersey five days a week.
Back to TSF cutting funds for Head Start. I see schools closing due to lack of funds. I see more children biding their time in public schools, oblivious to their learning, graduating without knowing how to read or do simple math. And their projected failure with vocations except for the most menial labor genres. And in addition, they won't be able to negotiate their way through society with the necessary social skills, such as disagreeing calmly with words, not with physical stances.
And more child abuse as these children will be neglected and/or arbitrarily punished by their caregivers for just existing.
This will not end well.
A friend's wife was and is still doing it.
Both parties are over 70.
First, she squanders her pension and Soc. Security on Amazon purchases. You should see the piles of unopened packages in their home.
Second, she is disabled and is in constant pain. She has her adult son buying Oxycodone from street hustlers. So she needs more money that she doesn't have.
Third, more than three times, she has taken out a loan, forging her husband's/my friend's name -- and then not paying any of it back. They almost lost their home due to nonpayment.
Fourth, she knows his birthdate and SS #. She went behind his back online to get access to his bank account and without his permission, she took hundreds of dollars from him. And that money was needed to pay the utilities, municipal taxes, etc. (These are not rich people.)
And you're wondering, why my friend has said nothing, done nothing. Because he's afraid of her and her violent outbursts of anger.
Finally, the wife's last act: As she steals from her husband, they are left in dire financial straits. Her husband/my friend has had to go to his sister for "loans" (which will never be repaid) to keep their house from tax sales, even gas for his car. His wife knows this and expects her SIL to subsidize their expenses. (No more. SIL is on to his wife.)
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Member since: 2003 before July 6thNumber of posts: 52,098