Nancy Pelosi: In need of treatment?

[pat_k]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/terry-leach/battered-womens-syndrome_b_40353.html">Battered Women's Syndrome and George W. Bush
by Terry Leach (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/contributors/bio.php?nick=terry-leach&name=Terry%20Leach">bio)
Huffington Post
02.03.2007

. . .
Why are the members of Congress arguing over the wording for a non-binding resolution to inform the president that they don't like the idea of a surge of troops for a failing military strategy in Iraq? Think of the women you know who should have left a bad situation a long, long time ago. Sound familiar? Pitifully familiar? . . .
I've done a bit of research here, so I'm not completely off-base. Plus, I have to disclose that before I was a lawyer and political strategist, I was a public health nurse and my main job was monitoring so-called 'failure to thrive' babies; babies whose weight after birth dropped perilously low. These babies were often parented by ill-prepared, unsupported teenage mothers, too many of whom had relationships going nowhere fast with battering men. . .

BWS is characterized by two fundamental premises: a cycle model of violence and 'learned helplessness.' . . When this cycle is repeated over time, it is linked to the undermining of the women's self-belief and is believed to create a situation of 'learned helplessness' whereby the woman feels 'trapped in a deadly situation.'

. . .members of Congress will acknowledge that we don't have the stomach, troops or the money to invade Iran. They might even acknowledge skepticism over the build-up in tension, seeing as how the top 10 reasons Bush et al gave for invading Iraq five years ago didn't amount to a whole lot of beans.

So why are they waiting until the inevitable occurs? Learned helplessness might be one reason. I'm convinced of it.

Postscript on my public health career? Walking past a gauntlet of a dozen or so men and their motorcycles thrown haphazardly on a front yard in a small town in the Central Valley of California, on a sizzling hot day, to visit the second baby of a young couple who was dying from failure to thrive (the first baby having died from malnutrition the year before), . . .

On the way to my car, the father, sporting tattoos, a bottle of beer, and a mean streak, stopped me, scaring me not a little, and declared that if I turned him into the protective services' people and they came and took his baby away, and locked him up in jail, he would find me one day at the health clinic and kill me.

I reported that father for child abuse twenty minutes later, and resigned five minutes after that.

Sometimes, the people in a position to stop the violence, like the battered mothers, can't take the necessary steps to throw the bums out because they're just plain helpless. Like the literature says. Or maybe they just love their jobs too much.
Whichever it is, we---the people who, against all odds, elected a Democratic majority in the House and Senate--have got to help the Members of Congress and our military leaders come out of their lethargy to stop the cycle of violence now.
The next generation deserves no less from all of us.

DU Post Mon Mar-20-06

. . . We have to stop obsessing about what the reactionary right is doing, or might do, or did do.

A battered woman can only hope to escape when she stops obsessing about her abuser ("what is he gonna do?" or "what can I do to placate him?" or "will he beat me tonight?") and starts focusing on her options and the practical steps she must take to attend to her own interests -- and to hell with what he might do in response.

The key is realizing that your abuser is going to keep abusing you whatever you do. Since you have no real control over his actions, you might as well stop trying to read his mind and do what you have to get to safety.

Our Party is suffering from a terrible case of battered Democrats syndrome. If we hope to recover, we must stop obsessing about what "they" will do to us.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2524663&mesg_id=2525727">More. . .

[givemebackmycountry]

1. What was that movie with Farah Fawcett?

Where she overpowered her assailant and beat the shit out of him?
Tied him up and sprayed RAID in his eyes and generally fucked his ass up?

"Extremities"...that's it.

Let's stop whining and KICK SOME ASS!

We got elected for a reason!
The American people expect us to DO SOMETHING!

[Evergreen Emerald]

5. "The burning bed"

After that movie came out I used to tell my husband, "just go to sleep honey." (I was joking of course.)

[Bitwit1234]

2. Behind the news---

Nancy Pelosi and the HOUSE are going to debate the debacle bush caused in Iraq. They are not waiting for the senate where the republicans are blocking it. Didn't the republicans call the democrats obstructionists when they did not vote to kiss bush's ass. WHAT DO YOU CALL THE REPUBLICANS NOW. They are more than kissing butt. They are violating the trust of the American people, they are acting like a bunch of traitors. THEY REALLY ARE TRAITORS. Traitors to America. Treasonist to the constitution. They should all be impeached..and kicked out of office.

[pat_k]

7. It is the "leadership" of the 110th that is submitting to the abuse

Every Member of Congress, Republican and Democratic, is betraying their oath. But the Republicans are NOT doing so because they suffer from "battered wife syndrome." They are minions of the abusers or abusers themselves.

It is the so-called "leaders" of the 110th who are demonstrating the symptoms of "battered wife syndrome." They are surrendering their power to stop the abuse. They are succumbing to their baseless fears of impeachment, while denying the very REAL devastating consequences to both the nation and their political futures of failing to impeach. (The BIGGEST political problem the Dems have is the perception that they are weak. Their failure to impeach confirms and strengthens that perception. Their failure stains every member of the Party.)

The ONLY way the so-called "leadership" can fulfill their oath and rescue the Constitution is to remove the abusers' power to abuse by removing them from office.

Anything less than impeachment is self-destructive rationalization.

More in http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3099491&mesg_id=3099901">Reply 6. . .

[KoKo]

3. Terry Leach maybe should have put Harry Reid's name in there since the Senate

is the one with the "troubles." The House under Pelosi is doing just fine and so didn't understand why he would single her name out in the article. :shrug:

[pat_k]

6. The irrational pre-emptive surrender by Nancy "off the table" Pelosi .. .

. . .is a stubborn denial of reality that approaches the level of mental illness we are seeing in the WH.

The only defense against the beatings of an abusive spouse is to remove yourself or call on the police to remove/incarcerate the abuser. The risk of escalation and eventual death trumps all feared consequences and rationalizations for staying and submitting to the abuse.

Members of Congress are sworn to defend the Constitution. When the attack comes from within Members of the House are duty-bound to make the "complaint" and Members of the Senate are duty-bound to remove the threat. Their oath is an individual oath. Each and every one has an individual duty to act, whether or not their colleagues join them.

We would be horrified if a group of police officers stood by and watched an abuser beat the hell out of their spouse. We would hold each and every one of them individually responsible for the injury, disability, or death.

Bush and Cheney are attacking the Constitution in plain sight of our "police" (Congress).

Like the police officers who stand by and watch as a spouse is beaten, each and every Member of the 110th Congress is betraying their oath? As so-called "leader" of the House -- the body with "the sole power of impeachment" -- Pelosi dooms the nation to the devastating consequences of the criminally insane fascist fantasies of the bushcheney White House. This irrational submission to our abusers requires immediate intervention (i.e., "treatment").

Sure, Reid is also the victim of "battered wife syndrome", as is every Member of both the House and Senate who are supporting/submitting to Pelosi's "off the table" edict, but it is Pelosi who is leading the way; it is Pelosi who is listening to the insider rationalizations and http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=82492">baseless fears; it is Pelosi who surrendered their power to rescue the nation.

Duty trumps any fear. We call on members of the Armed Services to risk life and limb to support and defend. Why should we expect less of Members of Congress, who take the same oath. Even if duty did not trump, the reality is that the risk -- to the soul of the naion and their personal political aspirations -- of FAILING to impeach is FAR greater than their fearsthan any of their fears.

If we are to rescue the nation and in the process, rescue themselves from themselves, we must wake Pelosi up to reality or move her out of the way.

[Senator]

4. Therapy? The DC Dems Need Cranial-Rectoscopic Surgery

100 hours of public masturbation has somehow convinced them that "non-binding resolve" is somehow not an oxymoron.

It's impeachment intervention or invariable impotence.

Only one of these stops the battering.

--

[rinsd]

8. What a bunch of sexist bullshit.