Many blindly follow Bush despite failings

[hadrons]

BY JOHN SOMMERS-FLANAGAN


I still feel stunned when a woman tells me she's returning to live with a man who recently broke her jaw. With her teeth clenched and mouth wired shut, she says she's going back, "because he loves me and I love him." Pardon me if I'm not bowled over by the magic of love.

....

In psychology, the enhanced allegiance to a person associated with your abuse is referred to as trauma-bonding. It is a powerful phenomenon. It accounts for why a woman might return to the husband who broke her jaw. It explains why otherwise intelligent people begin worshiping those very people whose behaviors have threatened their safety.

....

The abuser never admits mistakes, never truly apologizes and never shows weakness. The abuser, despite his inconsistent and capricious decisions, insists he has not changed his philosophy. He is determined and resolute. The abuser manipulates us with fear.

Unfortunately, the abuser does not have our best interests at heart. He's interested in oil, money and power. He's interested in control and domination. He will act like he's concerned and compassionate, but when he has regained control, he will turn away from the poor, the weak, the hungry, the women and the children.

....

http://www.freep.com/voices/columnists/eflana1_20041001.htm

[PATRICK]

1. It will become

the discouraged minority without spine that it is.

[meow2u3]

2. Trauma-bonding = the Stockholm Syndrome

Another thing I read between the lines: abusers pose as protectors, rescuers, and saviors. They come across as strong at first, but only after they have you in their grip do they show their true nature--and it's not pretty.

What Bush is doing is creating a mass Stockholm Syndrome, where millions of otherwise rational Americans, held hostage to the empty promise of protection from harm, identify with the man who's holding their minds hostage, only to have Bush show his true nature as an abusive ogre once they have sworn blind support to him.

[Rainbowreflect]

Oh my God, that is it.

Perfect comparison. I did volunteer work with an abused women shelter for years & saw this over & over again.
It is alway someone else's fault, usually the person they are abusing. That is bush to a T.

[Rainbowreflect]

3. Sorry, got so excited I posted twice.

My bad!

[whirlygigspin]

4. victims for Bush

well that's one alternative to responsible citizenship

[Larkspur]

5. Read the CT uncommitted woman voter leaning towards Bush

from my post in Campaign Underground http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=143x488

[Bark Bark Bark]

6. All Sorts Of Reasons...

...None of them good, mind you, that people chain themselves to Bush.

We've heard my 'favorite' before, during Gore-Bush: "I'm gone vote fer Bush b'cause that other guy thinks he's smarter'n I am." And we're hearing the same junk now with Kerry.

Purple Hearts and words with more than two syllables make some 'folk' feel...inadequate.

On the other hand, a gutless dumbbell with a drinkin' problem? "One of us! One of us! Gooble-gobble, gooble-gobble!"

This is the scary part: if as many people are voting for 'dumb--like me' as I think, that means that Bill Clinton didn't get into the Oval Office on the basis of his policies; he won because he played sax on TV and was a fat party dude who still got hot chicks hot.

And that means we're a lot worse off than I used to think, which was pretty bad to start with.

[The Zanti Regent]

7. My family is brainwashed by the Assemblies of God and Jesus TV

They still blame all their problems on Bill Clinton's penis, every Sunday they go in for their brainwashing. Incredible seeing the e-mails they send me. Stuff like Teresa Heinz and Hillary are lesbian lovers, because that's what their pastor and Jan and Paul Crouch tell then on Jesus TV.

I sent them the articles about Paul Crouch's rather curious sex life from the LA Times. Why the LA Times is just one of them LIEBERAL papers, you know...just as liberal as their owners at the Chicago Fibune!

It's time to tax all the churches. If they wanna play, the gotta pay!

[indypaul]

8. In other words

Color of terrorist alert today is Yellow we will
be serving lemon Kool-Aid and these people will
drink heartily. "There are none so blind as those
who will not see."

[Demeter]

9. Birds of a Feather Flock Together

The Bush supporters I have known have been at least borderline psychopaths: disrespectful of others, intolerant, arrogant and hyperaggressive, not to mention ignorant, abusive, self-abusive, and fully into denial.

They are the disease, not the victims of the disease, carriers of the culture-war virus. And there are far too many.