no_hypocrisy
no_hypocrisy's JournalImpending Government Shutdown
This reminds me of the scam my father (!) ran on me when I wanted to attend law school.
I didn't have the money for tuition, so I intended to apply for a scholarship and I would have been granted one.
But my father told me not to get the scholarship, that he would pay for everything including books, etc.
As it was my father, I relied on his promise.
But it didn't happen that way.
I was working at his office and there was an inter-office scuffle between co-workers. I wanted nothing to do with it and flew under the radar -- or so I thought.
Three weeks before law school started, my father insisted that I go out to dinner with him. From past experience, this wasn't going to be good. The MO was to drop something bad on me in a public venue.
And so I went. There was thick tension in the air. And my father dropped the bomb. He claimed I was the impetus behind the office scuffle, and therefore he was forced to consider premature retirement. And premature retirement meant no funds for law school. Obviously, that meant no law school for me.
I saw through the charade. I was blameless for his office politics. He wanted to punish someone, and it was me. He expected a meltdown with my expected indignation and outrage. I wasn't going to give him what he wanted. I had enough.
I figured, OK, no law school this year; I'd apply for a scholarship for the next year.
Let's say the meal ended with FAFO. I amiably agreed that was his prerogative. He wasn't expecting that and I think that made him angrier.
The parallels between the prospective shutdown and my father are this:
1. Past federal funding to states was reliable and they set their budgets with the expected money. Not necessarily this time. I relied on my father for the tuition; he withdrew it; and it was used as a weapon against me.
2. TSF is going to make Democrats and the states the scapegoat just like my father tried to make me the reason why he wasn't going to fund my law school tuition after I didn't apply for other funding and I relied upon his promise.
Postscript: This stuff from TSF and his republican accomplices is giving me PTSD.
When I was in high school 50 years ago, there were kids who "followed Jesus".
They were influenced by Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell. They had their Mustard Seed Coffee Houses. They went to church and read the Bible. Carried big Bibles to class. Probably more pious than their parents.
They were the "Jesus Freaks".
They were different than the kids who follow Charlie Kirk.
JF's preached and lived Love and Peace and stuff. Jesus even looked like the guys. Religious hippies. No hate. No anger. No desire to take over the constitutional United States.
I'm an atheist. Bring back the Jesus Freaks.
On a microcosm level, that's the MO my father took.
My father was a malignant narcissist.
He targeted me, criticized me, punished me, threatened me, etc. because I was "on" to him. He couldn't gaslight and fool me, and he knew I knew.
He went after me to send a signal to my mother, my sister, and my brother not to challenge him. He was in charge, and we weren't free to criticize where it was warranted. (Dad didn't have good judgment.)
While Dad is dead, my sister has taken on his role to keep me in my place. Except I haven't let her. She doesn't have the economic power, familial power, the psychological power to do that. I stood up to our father and I stand up to her.
My Mother
My mother was an interesting combination of being a narcissist, an enabler of a narcissist, and a scapegoat of a narcissist.
The narcissist was my father. Meaning that I was raised by a pair of narcissists.
But today, I wish to focus on my father's treatment of my mother, his wife.
I witnessed it all. The more money my father attained and the higher his social status rose, the more narcissistic and authoritarian he became.
And he married my mother partly because of her elevated academic pedigree. Not only did she graduate EARLY from Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn (a big deal), she had her undergraduate degree from Barnard College and her master's degree from Wellesley by 1950. That made her a desirable mate for a future physician society-wise.
But unexpected consequences: she could not only match wits with my father, but my mother often could win arguments with him. That's not what makes a narcissist happy. So, there were consistent powerplays in my household.
My mother wanted to work outside the house. My father forbid it. And my mother wasn't a "happy housewife". Or a mother. She did it because, despite having a maid as a constant in our house, it was overwhelming, especially to my father's satisfaction.
I believe the straw that broke the camel's back for my mother was my father interfered with her few but close friendships she had with other disaffected and educated women. He used a bad business deal with his close friend to sever ties with him. Unfortunately, that friend was married to my mother's close friend. And the women were forbidden to socialize with each other. Sort of like Fred Flintstone telling his wife, Wilma, that she could no longer be friends with Betty Rubble. That kind of stupid. Another instance decades later: my mother was friends with a divorced woman who was a close golf buddy. The friend was outspoken, bawdy, and loved a good strong drink. My father couldn't stand her. And again, the friend was banished from my mother's life, leaving her lonely and frustrated.
My point of this essay was the authoritarian control my father yielded over my mother. And no wonder my father went after me when I exercised even a modicum of independence, even as a child. He couldn't let me get away with something he denied to my mother.
Back to my mother's friends. My father couldn't abide with women who were encouraging my mother to get out under my father's thumb. They had to go.
And in my case, I couldn't turn to my mother when my father turned his ire on me.
Postscript: the first friend of my mother cared a lot about me. She could see my father's excessive interest in controlling me. I was 12 when I no longer was associated with her. In 2001, she passed away. I went alone to her church service. (My mother didn't even go.) Afterwards, her neighbor took me aside and confided that my would-be mentor spent years after the break, inquiring about me and my siblings to see if we "were alright". Because of my father. This still brings tears to my eyes. I'm certain my mother suffered more than I did.
Some (not all) men dedicate their marriages to destroying the women they married.
Addressing any of you who are on TSF's Death Watch . . . . .
I can testify from experience that don't waste your time. It happens when it happens.
My own experience: My father was a malignant narcissist. I was the only one of the three children who returned home to look after him as he was 92 and our mother was predeceased. And he was a handful and still abusive.
You bet I had passing thoughts about his demise. But I didn't dwell on them.
Sunday night, I kissed him good night. Didn't see him at all on Monday. Tuesday at 6 p.m., I was having coffee at D&D when the town police called to notify me that he had been taken to the regional hospital.
I notified my siblings and rushed to the ER. The staff worked on him for 3 hours, but he was gone.
I found out later that his death was caused by his own hand. One week before, he rear-ended a van at a gas station, causing his breastbone to hit the steering column. (It was an old car w/o air bags.) He refused medical attention and hid from me and my siblings his accident. But because he didn't follow up with a doctor, he didn't realize that he had a partially dissected aorta, with a slow bleed into his chest for seven days. And on the day of his death, he had actually gone for a therapeutic massage, not realizing that his backache was a warning of an impending heart attack, which he later sustained. (The massage hastened the heart attack.)
And you bet I didn't see THIS coming . . . . .
So, my point is life and death are sort of like the theatrical device of deus ex machina, the proverbial hand of God coming out of the clouds and messing with the plot of the play. TSF will go when he goes and you won't see it coming.
Go get another cup of coffee or an icy cold bottle of beer. You'll know soon enough.
This article reminded me of my sister's insipid trope about Hillary Rodham Clinton.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/not-only-donald-trump-and-melania-these-first-couples-reportedly-slept-in-separate-beds-too/ar-AA1LgIwSScrew the article. Here's my story.
My sister wanted to demonstrate to our mother how politically savvy she was. She told Mom that Hillary was a lesbian. (Clutch the pearls!) Mom, employing her usual Socratic Method, asked my sister how she knew that. And my sister triumphantly stated that Bill and Hillary Clinton had separate bedrooms at the White House. And that was it.
After a pause, Mom, in her ill-suppressed frustration and exasperation, retorted, "Your parents live in separate bedrooms right now. Where are you going with this . . . . "
That shut up my sister.
And I still love that story.
He's behaving like my 92-year old father before he died.
He would start cooking stuff on the stove (1-2 pots) and then literally leave the kitchen to return to his den to watch FOX News. Burners still on.
He wouldn't walk his dog. Had a neighbor do it. The dog then shit all over my late mother's $40,000 Persian rugs (rendering them worthless). And he'd yell at me (!) when I bent over to pick up the dried shit on the carpet of his den.
The house fell to wrack and ruin, including prominent leaks in the roof.
He put a window air conditioner in an adjoining room to cool off, but not in the window in his den where he stayed most of the day. (Nothing wrong with the two windows in the den)
On summer days when the temperature was over 90 degrees, he purposely left his dog in his locked car, where the temperature was over 120 degrees.
He got into dozens of fender-benders but kept his license because he paid off the damages in cash in return for not calling the police.
He had trees cut down on our property that were over 100 years old, just because.
During SuperStorm Sandy, he intended to get a generator. Nothing wrong with that except he thought he could pick up the phone during this crisis and get one delivered within hours -- and he intended to install it in the garage underneath the house (where you should never install it.)
SS Sandy Part II: Even though we still had propane gas for the stove, Dad refused to eat breakfast that I prepared. He insisted on driving about 10 miles away to dine at a nearby regional hospital where visitors were served. This is significant because: 1) Having no electricity, the garage door couldn't be engaged. Dad pushed it opened, and it was a heavy door; 2) Heavy tree branches and downed electrical wires covered the streets. That didn't stop Dad. 3) The region was in crisis with no electricity, no heat, no gas. And Dad essentially took a joy ride to a hospital where one would guess that only people in crisis would go to. 4) Gas stations were closed, making gas limited. Everyone was saving their fuel -- except Dad.
There's more, but you get the gist.
How easy it is to sway the mindset of a MAGA or someone with no inclination to think.
Cast of characters: my sister, my cousin, my aunt, my aunt's ex-husband.
Narrative: (This happened in 2003.) I'm very close to a cousin, Frank. He was estranged from his father since his parents' divorce, but always hoped for reconciliation. One day, Frank asked if I would speak with his father, who had a legal matter. I had no relationship or contact with Uncle Jay whatsoever, but I agreed to speak with him on the phone. And we connected very well. We ended up with a very strong relationship whereby one of us would call the other on a Monday evening and excitedly discuss (what we thought) the end of democracy for at least one hour. (Ah, the good ole days with Shrub, Cheney, Newt, Hastert, Tom DeLay, etc.) I was in my mid-40s and he was turning 80. One night, Uncle Jay solemnly told me that his doctor told him he had less than six months to live. I cried and he yelled at me for being overly sentimental. And he died. I drove from NJ to IN just to attend his memorial. Of course, I told nobody in my family (save for Frank) as Uncle Jay was considered a heel by accounts told by my aunt. 12 hours each way.
Frank's brother (my other cousin, Colby) also was in attendance. He actually was nice to me as I sent one last e-mail to Uncle Jay, not expecting an answer. He was responsive and appreciated my grief. I still have his e-mail after the service where he told me how much he appreciated my coming to his father's memorial. (Put a pin in that.)
Fast Forward: 2003. Our mother was dying and it made the family particularly more dysfunctional. Her sister, Uncle Jay's ex, was arriving before the inevitable death. What I didn't expect was this: Our aunt told my sister two things that were wholly false: 1) That she came home from work when I was visiting her and found me rummaging through her underwear drawer, looking for money, and 2) Her son/Cousin Colby was disgusted by my appearance at her ex-husband's memorial.
And the point of this post: My sister believed her. No ambivalence. Believed her before she spoke to me. And my sister came to me with these accusations, almost hoping they were true, or at the least, to witness a bad performance at lying. Now, I could have just denied it, walked away without responding, yelled at her, etc. But I didn't. At this point, my head was swirling with a cocktail of the impending death of our mother, PTSD of the death of Uncle Jay, the betrayal of my sister. I cut my sister off short: I found and printed the afore-referenced e-mail from Colby thanking me for coming to his father's memorial. Hardly any disgust to be implied. I simply gave the print-out to my sister and told her that either I was right or our aunt was right, couldn't be both.
To my surprise, my sister accepted the e-mail and decided I was right. And was she mad at our aunt for telling her this BS. Not that I wanted to win . . . . I just wanted some peace while I sat alone with our mother, waiting for her to pass.
Epilogue: My sister is back with our aunt, conveniently forgetting what transpired right before our mother died. And I've divorced myself from both my sister and my aunt. Our aunt is in her 90s, more or less forsaken. Cousin Frank and I have a pact to let each other know when she's gone. Cold? Maybe.
Final point about my sister: In 2016, she told me that she was voting for Hillary; she didn't trust Trump. Six months later, she told me that she was voting for Trump; she didn't trust Hillary. What changed? A male friend gave her frequent and long soliloquies about Trump and my sister adopted his positions without understanding anything.
I'd call my sister a passive MAGA -- doesn't know and doesn't care about Trump. Just wants to be part of the club.
From personal experience, you have no idea how close a caller is
to attaining their ambition to die. And you try minute-by-minute to negotiate with that caller.
I was an overnight operator for a generic answering service. Doctors, Attorneys, Long-Distance Telephone service, commercial rental properties, etc. Essentially all I had to do was get the name of the caller and get the right phone number.
One night, I got a caller for a psychiatrist and I thought it was just to make or cancel an appointment. No. He wanted to speak with the doctor NOW. It was 4:00 a.m. I was hesitant, but I woke the doctor and patched the caller through to him. And hung up.
The same caller called me back in 5 minutes, to thank me for my courtesy, and now he was going to kill himself. I wasn't prepared for that situation. So I tried to keep him on the line as long as possible, told him that I couldn't understand why. He was the first decent person who had called all night and I wanted to talk to him longer. After 10 minutes, he had enough and hung up. I immediately called his doctor and told him that his patient was about to kill himself. And the doctor blew me (and the caller) off, saying he was an ex-patient. A combination of panic and infuriation compelled me to tell the doctor that if someone didn't act immediately, the caller was literally going to be an ex-patient. I didn't have time to call the owner of the answering service as I saw potential liability if I didn't get help somewhere else.
I called 9-1-1 and told them to contact the local police. I at least had the caller's name and phone number. The Police traced the number and got to the caller's home before he died. I called later in the day as a follow-up, to be informed that the caller was in the Psych Ward of the local hospital and that he was being treated.
And my take-away from this is if someone tells you s/he is going to kill her/himself, BELIEVE IT.
When 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?
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Member since: 2003 before July 6thNumber of posts: 53,708