Learned helplessness, and abusive capitalism.

[undergroundpanther]

I think the apathy people complain about in society is really a kind of learned helplessness, a result of systemic abuse and feeling powerless to change the circumstances one lives under. The fuckers in power abused that power today.Again. Seems the only promise Obama has kept from the campaign days was getting that puppy for his kids.


As a nation we are being financially abused by predatory lenders, banks,corporations, the state, the churches ,and con men of every stripe, and they are the sociopath minority.

The non-sociopaths in this country has suffered enough abuse from those in power already,but sadly the citizens again have been cut out of meaningful participation in the government's decisions that effect our very lives by the abusers of power over us.

Psychopaths like to stifle the voices of people in pain, they like ill gotten gains,and control, they enjoy instigating others suffering. Is it any surprise the abusive people,in power,will lie,betray us,don't care what we think,and draft exploitative legislation?

This country has battled abusers of power in places of power over and over again. And the abusers just roll back the hard won gains the people won against abusers. Rights gotten by hard civil struggles and the desire of good hearted people to defeat the bad.
Again and again we organize,hit the streets, peacefully and fight for reform, equality,fairness, justice and nothing changes in our lives really to make things BETTER enough to reduce the stress we deal with everyday.

Remember when the whole world joined with us to scream for Bush to not start another war in mass protests before the war in Iraq even started? Never before had a war been protested over the entire globe BEFORE it even began.
Yet predictably no one with power to NOT start that war back than heard the world say NO,and it looks like Obama does not care about the people's needs or the things we say either.He does the OPPOSITE. And he gets away with it.

So why be surprised if what looks like apathy results? This is a learned thing it comes from being betrayed,silenced,and abused.We are an abused nation. We need to stand, fighting the abusers of power. But also we need to acknowledge generations of fighting and losing ground again and again to the vicious predatory class has made us learn to be helpless, frozen... Our lives are stressful and threats or realities of debt,foreclosures,bankruptcy, poverty, homelessness hangs over us, daily it depletes us, stifles hope,and to witness our hard fought progress rolled back again and again.. by the same old pasty faced control freak shit heads and ththeirapdogs and by the arrogant double speaking, sold out slimeballs..It is abuse.

Obviously doing the same thing over and over(protests) is not bringing changes to our lives that is MEANINGFUL,and no one is offering new solutions to this old problem,of the shock doctrine,of old money and this entrenched corporate predatory class exploiting us, this is why systemic apathy results.
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PSYCHIC DEATH
Waites (1993) refers to "The shock of a sudden trauma" that "throws body and mind off balance" (p.21). She notes that if the body survives the traumatic shock "subtle or dramatic alterations occur, some of which resemble a kind of psychic death; a sense of aliveness may be temporarily or even permanently lost." (p.21). Waites (1993), continues, "...other victims of trauma, depleted of energy for reconstruction, may languish in a lethargic state that feels dead," (p. 21).
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So do not blame the dead inside,tired, down trodden,the abused ,scared and confused people for their suffering,and being too overwhelmed to fight..

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/152054-Our-Learned-Helplessness
Instead put the blame on the causes of this systemic misery. Blame the abusers of the people,the psychopath powerful exploiting predator class and their enabling sycophant puppets that teach us to be helpless with each defeat.We are not born apathetic,we are TRAINED to be apathetic by a system that abuses people and people that live to exploit us.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x984791
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Learning to be Helpless

One of the ways psychologists study behavior is by setting up problems for laboratory rats used as experimental subjects; consider one of those experiments. A rat is put in to a small enclosure. His food and water dishes are in one corner placed on an electric grid. When the rat goes to his dishes sometimes he is allowed to eat and drink. At other times he gets a shock. There is no way for him to prevent the shock because it is administered entirely at random. No matter how he tries to approach his dishes sometimes he is shocked and sometimes he isn’t. The rat has no control over the shock in this situation because getting the shock has nothing what so ever to do with the rat’s behavior. If the gate to his enclosure is open, studies have shown that the rat usually doesn't’t leave. Instead he cowers, positioned somewhere between the food and water he needs to sustain his life and the gate through which he could leave. Essentially he is frozen, unable to approach or leave his source of sustenance.

http://annveilleux.com/articles/why-women-stay-understanding-the-battered-wife/
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Think of the bankers, corporations,employers insurance companies what do they have in common? They can control access to sustenance for life and well being of a person via money and paychecks fees or denial of care.
It's obvious these corporate assholes raise rates,charge fees.fire people and deny help at THEIR whims..So what does such unpredictable capriciousness do to a person who's sustenance( as in food, shelter, health care,etc.) is being surrounded by unpredictable shocks to the person's livelihood,and well being?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x358987


*Essentially he is frozen, unable to approach or leave his source of sustenance.*

This is not mere apathy, it is learned helplessness ,the results of systemic ABUSE of power by a predatory social class and personality type.And denial of this situation will only harm us more.
http://www.letswrap.com/dvinfo/psych.htm

In his book Soul Murder, Shengold (1989) states that what happens to a child subjected to "soul murder is so terrible, so overwhelming, and usually so recurrent that the child must not feel it and cannot register it, and resorts to massive isolation of feeling....A hypnotic living deadness, a state of existing `as if' one were there, is often the result." (p.25).

Many trauma survivors speak of feeling numb, empty or dead inside.
*snip*
a “fog” they existed in while living with their abusers.Psychologists recognize this dangerous state of apathy in domestic abuse victims. It can signal the time just before these women are finally killed by their perpetrator.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/12/19/MNVS1B6E4C.DTL
http://dieoff.org/
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There is no "good" capitalism.
http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/2009/03/marazzi-on-violence-of-financial.asp
http://siivola.org/monte/papers_grouped/uncopyrighted/Misc/corporate_psychopathy.htm
http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/2009/03/marazzi-on-violence-of-financial.asp

Economic or financial abuse
Remember, an abuser’s goal is to control you, and he will frequently use money to do so. Economic or financial abuse includes:

* Rigidly controlling your finances.(prices increase, but wages do not, taxing the poor and working class more than wealthy people)
* Withholding money or credit cards.(garnished wages,bank fees overdraft fees)
* Making you account for every penny you spend.(SSI, Food Stamps,Sect.8, while tarp funds asked NOTHING of the corporate rich to PROVE if they were poor enough to"deserve" help)
* Withholding basic necessities (food, clothes, medications, shelter).(insurance companies,bank forclosures etc.)

http://helpguide.org/mental/domestic_violence_abuse_types_signs_causes_effects.htm

There is no"good" reasons to suffer or tolerate abuse.
http://lee_hardiman.tripod.com/trauma-god.html
Psychopaths do not change, they cannot be taught or"rehabbed" into stopping thier abusing, hurting,exploiting or destroying others.
http://www.cix.co.uk/~klockstone/spath.htm

[Hannah Bell]

1. k/r

[undergroundpanther]

2. Thanks Hanna

Sitting here in 20 inches of snow.How are you?

[midnight]

3. When the banks didn't want to explain or be accountable the writing was on the wall.

conomic or financial abuse
Remember, an abuser’s goal is to control you, and he will frequently use money to do so. Economic or financial abuse includes:

* Rigidly controlling your finances.(prices increase, but wages do not, taxing the poor and working class more than wealthy people)
* Withholding money or credit cards.(garnished wages,bank fees overdraft fees)
* Making you account for every penny you spend.(SSI, Food Stamps,Sect.8, while tarp funds asked NOTHING of the corporate rich to PROVE if they were poor enough to"deserve" help)
* Withholding basic necessities (food, clothes, medications, shelter).(insurance companies,bank forclosures etc.)

[Delphinus]

4. Bookmarking

to read after work.

[safeinOhio]

5. Larger groups may have an option

that individuals lack. A movement or leader can give hope through revolution to counter the false power of the elite. The tipping point may not be obvious, but it remains as history has shown.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

6. K&R

[defendandprotect]

7. kick