Wednesday, October 29, 2008
BDS claims another victim
Writing in his latest book, “An Enemy of the People,”(Doukathsan Press) Velvel said, “In everyday life, someone who refuses to recognize the actual facts of the world around him, and who instead lives in a dream world in his head, is regarded as not being sane, as being, to use the blunt words, insane or crazy. Why is it different when it is a national leader who refuses to recognize facts in the world and instead lives in a dream world in his head?”
Velvel goes on to say, “Most interesting is the idea that Bush suffers from a condition called ‘dry drunk’. Essentially, this means that even if one eventually stops drinking, as Bush did, years of alcoholism cause irreversible damage to brain chemistry. Results of this damage include such Bushian traits as rigid judgmentalism, irritability, impatience, grandiosity, obsessive thought patterns, incoherent speech and other unlovely characteristics.”
“Bush also seems to have chacteristics,” Velvel continues, “that, whether or not they are characteristic of ‘dry drunks’ are symptomatic of people who don’t fully have a grip. These include immense anger, exploitativeness, arrogance, lack of empathy, and difficulties arising from relationships with one’s father.”
“With regard to the specific analyses of Bush, there seems to be wide agreement that Bush is a sociopath, defined, one gathers, as someone who feels no empathy with others, who cannot feel for others, who does not feel or care for their pain (to use Clintonian jargon,”) Velvel writes.
“That Bush is utterly devoid of empathy seems plainly true to me. Unlike Lincoln or even Lying Lyndon Johnson, who sent people to their deaths but agonized over it, Bush is thought by the shrinks, and appears to the lay eye, to give not one damn about how many Americans he kills, let alone Iraqis.”
Explaining why Bush can’t feel guilt, Velvel writes: “Given his defense mechanisms, one gathers, and his psychology of having to overcome obstacles, overcome his father, etc., one gathers that Bush is a sociopath (or another word for it, a psychopath). Using charm as a vehicle for aggrandizement, he can’t allow himself to feel guilt and so feels no empathy for all those he smashes up in his pursuit of is grandiosity and delusions.”
There "seems to be wide agreement" that Velvel suffers from "Bush Derangement Syndrome", a condition which causes the victim to:
- become unmoored from logical argument and unburdened with using facts in argumentation, seeking to foreclose any conventional argument by loudly asserting personality deficiencies or insanity of those with differing views
- be prone to grandiose delusions of omniscience particularly with respect to 'knowing' the underlying psychology of people they have never and will never meet
- experience intense feelings of inadequacy, usually due to the deteriorating status of their title and/or institution, typically overcompensating with violent and narcissistic group-identification behaviors, such as intense class-ism or regionalism.
-speak in self-contradicting psychobabble; rationalize empty, emotive arguments by the sheer intensity of their feelings
This condition is particularly common in academia, where many professors have found their position in society is not nearly as revered as they hoped, often, they suspect, for good reason. As a noted expert said "“In everyday life, someone who refuses to recognize the actual facts of the world around him, and who instead lives in a dream world in his head, is regarded as not being sane, as being, to use the blunt words, insane or crazy." But we must have more empathy than to just label these well-meaning souls insane.
There is plenty to criticize in this administration. Thank goodness we have Velvel, Oliver Stone and their ilk to provide light comic relief!
PS: "Dean Velvel is cofounder of the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover, a law school purposefully dedicated to providing minorities, immigrants, and working-class students a quality, affordable legal education." Let's hope the students emerge from the School with argumentation skills better than their Dean, who wouldn't make it in 1L (or high school history) with this - unless it were delivered on cabaret night.
6 Comments:
By 
Steve M. Galbraith, at
Wed Oct 29, 01:02:00 PM:
Just one response (many more can be cited): As a number of neutral observers have stated, George Bush has done more to mitigate the suffering of the African people due to AIDs and other problems than any other President in history.
So much for the argument that he is unable to empathize or show compassion for others.
By Elise, at
Wed Oct 29, 01:07:00 PM:
Okay, relatively minor point, I suppose, but since their are, shall we say, alcohol abuse problems in my family, it's driving me nuts - and making me furious.
In the addiction recovery world, "dry drunk" doesn't refer to "years of alcoholism caus[ing] irreversible damage to brain chemistry". A "dry drunk" is someone who has quit drinking but not done the psychological (or if you prefer, spiritual) work to truly accept that alcohol was a terrible problem and has caused terrible damage to his life and that of his family, friends, and co-workers.
If you think about it, you'll see that the recovery community's definition of "dry drunk" is far more hopeful than Velvel's. To the recovery community, this is a condition that can be overcome with work, counseling, religion, whatever it takes. To Velvel, once your brain is baked, it's baked. You'll never get better. Idiot!
Dry Drunk 1
Dry Drunk 2
By Simon Kenton, at
Wed Oct 29, 03:14:00 PM:
Elise is right about dry drunks. I think what Vervel is trying to get at is "wet brain," or Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, which really does cause irreversible brain chemistry damage. It seems a little unlikely that someone suffering wet brain could ride a mountain bike so vigorously that he burns 1500 calories in a little more than a hour, and exhausts his secret service minders. However, IANAA. I am not an academic.
See
http://www.bettyfordcenter.org/news/askdrwest/warticle.php?id=6
Actually, Bush's compassion to the families of soldiers is pretty well known and appreciated in the military community. Perhaps his ability to fake sincerity has deceived them all. TTANA - they too are not academics.
By 
, at
Wed Oct 29, 04:23:00 PM:
Seldom does somebody, eager to slander another, provide such a clear and disturbing window into his own soul. Velvel is indeed a pitiable figure.
But don't tak emy word for it - the testimony of countless unnamed experts is unanimous.
By Andrew X, at
Wed Oct 29, 07:37:00 PM:
By now I tire of cuffing these idioic twits around, while noting that Freud would have a field day with the biblical level flood of tranference, and anyway... George who??
But something about Bush that goes virtually unnoticed, possibly because it is not a something but a lack of something....
.... is his absolute serenity in his job and life. This guy has been attacked in a manner unlike I have ever seen a human subjected to, and you get the feeling that he really really does just shrug it off. Politcs, whatever, part 'o the job...
So. Will our next President be that way. Especially the notoriously thin-skinned and rather highly-opinionated (ofhimself) One? He'd better. Because if he isn't, it will be noted and compared, big time.
Oh, and by the way, is ANYTHING off the table in attacking the next President? Anything?
Can we compare him to a chimp?
Sure. You bet. Number of hits when you Google 'Bush + Chimp' = 1.1 million.
Fair game, Big O, better batten down the hatches. And we will see just how "serene" you can be. Better get ready.
('Coure, it ain't over yet!)
By Elise, at
Thu Oct 30, 09:40:00 AM:
Simon Kenton - I suspect you're right about Velvel meaning "wet brain" when he refers to irreversible damage but the symptoms he lists are not those of "wet brain" but of being a "dry drunk". I suppose the confounding of the two conditions bests suits his purposes.
Now that I've calmed down a little, I'd like to point out that whether President Bush (or any other politician) has some type of psychological "condition" - dry drunk, wet brain, sociopath, psychopath, or, heck, arachibutyrophobia - is totally, completely, and utterly irrelevant to me. If I like the person's policies, I vote for him and support him; if I don't, I vote again him and complain endlessly. Period.
If people like Vervel aren't willing to argue their case against Bush (or Obama or McCain for that matter) on the merits of his actions but instead resort to spinning tales about his underlying psychoses in order to convince me, well, I'm sure there's a name for that psychological condition, too.
