[Oe List ...] Any one heard of the DMA syndrome?

Wed Nov 11 00:00:04 PST 2020

Thanks Jim.  It's absolutely relevant.
Ann

On Mon, 9 Nov 2020, 20:03 James Wiegel via OE, <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
wrote:

> I ran into this term working with 2 partners from Austria who were engaged
> in trying to mediate the Tamil conflict in Sri Lanka.  DMA stands for
> dichotomy - manicheeism - Armageddon.  It is a phenomenon that can emerge
> out of a protracted experience trying to deal with a conflict or
> contradiction.  Sometimes it happens that the conflict resolves down to 2
> perspectives, 2 parties, 2 sets of goals and the situation gets perceived
> as a dichotomy -- either this way or that way, becomes my way or your way
> -- This is starts to happen deep within.  As it grows, the stymiedness in
> the experience of the contradiction / conflict becomes more and more the
> focus -- the actual stuff to be dealt with takes a back seat to the
> experience of being blocked.  This experience of conflictedness,
> contradictedness becomes the focus.  Manicheeism is the stage where the
> situation is seen as 2 sided -- a good side (mine) and a bad side (yours),
> this goes to sort of global perception -- the world is divided into 2 camps
> -- good and evil -- the prince of light, the prince of darkness -- and then
> the only remaining solution becomes Armageddon, the final war in which Good
> (our side) triumphs over evil or Evil (your side) defeats and humiliates
> the Good (our side)
>
> So, from the first day in office we restart the campaigning, no matter who
> wins, because we are really no longer focussed on the complicatedness of
> moving forward on sticky and painful issues (plus, to those of us who are
> mostly spectators the moving forward is tedious and frankly boring)  We
> stop thinking about that, our news sources report what is thrilling -- the
> coming final battle.  Everything becomes a final battle.  Every moment is
> reported breathlessly.  Our glorious champions, however bloodied, never
> give in.
>
> I don't know -- just seems somehow relevant.  No, I don't have an answer.
> Here is a link.
>
>
> https://www.galtung-institut.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/RETHINKING-CONFLICT-THE-CULTURAL-APPROACH.pdf
>
> Jim Wiegel <http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=123>
>
> The unknown is what is.  And to be frightened of it is what sends
> everybody scurrying around chasing dreams, illusions, wars, peace, love,
> hate, all that.  Unknown is what is.  Accept that it's unknown, and it's
> plain sailing.    John Lennon
>
> 401 North Beverly Way,Tolleson, Arizona 85353
>
> 623-363-3277
>
> jfwiegel at yahoo.com <marilyn.oyler at gmail.com>
>
> www.partnersinparticipation.com
>
>
> On Monday, November 9, 2020, 11:53:33 AM MST, Milan Hamilton via OE <
> oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
>
>
> Well I hesitate to weigh in after Marshall’s eloquent, penetrating, or at
> least articulate diatribal attempt at trans-establishment speak, which I
> have to say I found myself resonating with. I agree we need to listen to
> the pain, the grievances, and whatever else drew nearly half of us to push
> the T-button for a second time. And I add my fearful and tentative hopes
> for a Biden/Harris administration that can restore some civility to the
> discourse going forward. But my concern has been with the great divide in
> the Congress, especially the Senate. What was it that allowed Mitch
> McConnell to begin with in Barack Obama’s very first day in office “I will
> make it my mission to make sure he is a one-term President” and carry on
> for eight more years with the same stance, symbolized in the refusal to
> even allow Obama’s Supreme Court nominee to get a fair consideration. Now,
> will he take the same stance with a Biden presidency? And Lindsey and the
> other sheep follow along bleating the same tone for four or eight more
> years? This may take a full eight years to even get the conversation
> established on a new basis, and do we really have time, given the social
> collapse on all the other fronts, cultural, economic, as well as political.
> Where do we think this trans-establishment perspective is going to come
> from? How many of us are willing to stay present to the dark night of the
> national soul that we are finally becoming aware we are in? Will the
> Biden/Harris team even be willing to acknowledge the depth of the swirling
> cesspool that they are about to dive into? My only hopefulness is in the
> conversations going on at the local levels of our society that I’ve seen
> happening, mostly among the young ones and the old ones. With the climate
> crisis looming ever more daily in our awareness, will we have time enough
> for the grieving process to get to the national consciousness. And that
> doesn’t even touch dealing with the global crises, the “cascading
> catastrophes” as my friend and mentor, Bob Vance used to talk about twenty
> years ago. How long can we tread water doesn’t even apply as a metaphor
> when we can see the coming multiple tsunamis approaching. Do we have time
> to build the ark? Wait! What’s an ark? Time for a total spirit re-set.
> Where are the poets and song-writers? Send in the Clowns. Maybe next year!
> MM
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Nov 9, 2020, at 10:03 AM, W. J. via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
>
> 
> Thoughts on TrEXIT
>
>
>
> Much as I totally detest her surreal political biases, I say that we NEED
> to pay attention to Susan’s voice. While I disagree with her stance that
> Mr. Biden is not (yet) President-elect, Susan HAS pointed out the obvious:
> that almost fifty percent of the voting electorate is ALL FOR continuing
> the mirage of Trumpworld. More or less.
>
> Or maybe they’re just stuck in their little time-warped bubble of
> political illusion and reductionistic, fear-filled defensiveness.
>
> So Susan is the canary in our coal mine.
>
> Let us pay very careful attention to the thrashing, dying throes of this
> political Monster.
>
> And to the unnamed grief of seeing their longed-for political messiah
> slumping off the stage and, likely, going to jail.
>
> I, for one, have struggled with co-existing with my Trump-voter siblings
> in my family of origin.
>
> But their reality is that they’ve never even *tried* to understand me
> and/or my *weltanschauung*, let alone the former Order:Ecumenical.
>
> Instead, they went for the obvious Evangelical Jesus-y version of
> Trumpworld. All to get a conservative Supreme Court majority, mostly. And
> to reverse everything from Roe v. Wade to Obergefell v. Hodges.
>
> So they winced at the pussy-grabbing and still pushed the Trump button.
>
> If I have just ONE insight after four years of living in Trump Hell, here
> it is:
>
> MOST Trump voters WERE--and some still ARE--somewhere between naïve and
> innocent.
>
> They *innocently* voted for the Monster (as he turned out to be) who
> promised them their version of Heaven in America.
>
> What I fail to understand is *why* they voted for him twice!
>
> Especially considering the incredible pile of more than a quarter million
> corpses of those who died because of his malfeasance—and worse.
>
> We need to make room for our national grieving process.
>
> We have ALL lost a major war with a virus that resisted our half-hearted,
> scatterbrained, self-sabotaging attempts at containment.
>
> And it WILL get way worse before January 20.
>
> Our grieving needs to include grief over realizing our complicity in
> letting all this come down on us. Divided as we are politically, we are ALL
> in this together, and ALL of us need to take on the burden of social
> reconstruction.
>
> What we must face is like nothing since the aftermath of the Civil War.
>
> And it’s WAY BEYOND the aftermath of the Viet Nam War that still continues
> as we fail to reckon the human cost of that political disaster in body bags
> and ruined lives.
>
> And it’s NOT as simple and easy as making a political course correction
> “back to normal“ after a short four-year side trip to the edge of the Abyss.
>
> It ain’t over until those on *both sides* of our polarized body politic
> can engage in a healing process.
>
> So let’s get over our exuberant partying and horn-honking in the streets.
> After four years of Hell, it’s a wonderful moment! But enough already!
>
> We are witnessing the slow, painful, final hours of the Monster as
> Trumpworld gradually disintegrates into a steaming, slimy pile of fetid
> lies and frivolous court cases designed to poison the American electorate
> with mountains of disinformation and Trumped-up conspiracy theories.
>
> It's a direct assault on democracy that seeks to plant the seeds of
> disillusionment and support targeted attacks on American institutions and
> marginalized groups of scapegoated people.
>
> And the Monster of creeping Trump-tocracy is just now entering the
> breakthrough stage.
>
> To quote The New Yorker:
>
> "When it is no longer possible to reverse autocracy peacefully, the
> autocratic breakthrough has occurred, because the very structures of
> government have been transformed and can no longer protect themselves.
> These changes usually include packing the constitutional court (the Supreme
> Court, in the case of the U.S.) with judges loyal to the autocrat; packing
> and weakening the courts in general; appointing a chief prosecutor (the
> Attorney General) who is loyal to the autocrat and will enforce the law
> selectively on his behalf; changing the rules on the appointment of civil
> servants; weakening local governments; unilaterally changing electoral
> rules (to accommodate gerrymandering, for instance); and changing the
> Constitution to expand the powers of the executive.
>
> "For all the apparent flailing and incompetence of the Trump
> Administration, his autocratic attempt checks most of the boxes."
>
> And then, it gets WAY worse:
>
> ". . . if he is elected, Biden will likely proceed as if politics as
> normal has been restored, because he and the Democratic Party treat Trump
> as an aberration—cured simply by being voted out of office.
>
> "The last two days have, once again, shown that Trump is neither an
> aberration nor the product of Russian interference, but rather the
> conscious choice of roughly half of the voters, or some sixty-five million
> Americans. This is a giant and, now, aggrieved movement, capable of
> carrying Trump or, more likely, one of his children, back into office in
> 2024 or 2028. . . . . If, upon his Inauguration, a President Biden acts as
> though our national nightmare is over—if he attempts to build bridges and
> fetishizes bipartisanship in order to pass some watered-down legislation,
> rather than, say, even acknowledging the necessary and probably impossible
> task of unpacking the federal judiciary—then the autocratic attempt can
> return, and it will be stronger."
>
> I’m almost done, and this is more like a Rant than a Witness.
>
> But my truth is: I’m finally eighty years old, and I’m finally clear that
> I’m no longer Mister Nice Guy. Avoidance of truth-telling may have looked
> like a good idea in the past, but just LOOK at where that got us!
>
> So I’m going for our Painful Reality, rather than trying to make Nice,
> Meaningful Transestablishment-type Comments to try to make us feel a little
> better.
>
> And thank you, Susan, for alerting us to the internal reality of those who
> voted for Donald Trump.
>
> Marshall
>
>
> By Declaring Victory, Donald Trump Is Attempting an Autocratic Breakthrough
> <https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/by-declaring-victory-donald-trump-is-attempting-an-autocratic-breakthrough>
> Links in the message (1)
> By Declaring Victory, Donald Trump Is A...
> <https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/by-declaring-victory-donald-trump-is-attempting-an-autocratic-breakthrough>
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