links: political prisoners, liberation psychology, diseased america, and jokers

These articles all popped up in my feed reader in the past 36 hours or so.

Every Prisoner is a Political Prisoner: A Memoir by Kelly Pflug-Back

All I wanted was to move past the negative experiences I’d had and work towards piecing my life back together. But I realized that the pain I felt was trying to tell me something: I would not be able to forget and move on as though none of this had happened. In a way, I think the disgust and pain we feel when we see or experience something horrific can be the greatest catalyst for creating positive change. When we experience something firsthand we are better equipped to understand it—and with that understanding we can educate others and give real support to those who are also experiencing it. We can see its flaws and weak points, and we can use this knowledge to criticize, discredit, and eventually destroy it.

Is Mental Health a Smoke Screen for Society's Ills? by Vaughan Bell

How would you react if instead of supporting the American civil rights movement in the 1960s, you were told the major problem was that people were being affected by a mental illness called ‘post-discrimination stress disorder’?

The Nauseating Grief of Diseased America by Arthur Silber

These are the remarks of a man who has suffered an irreparable break with reality, a man who who has rendered himself unable to connect obviously related facts. If Obama genuinely meant these comments -- if he understood how these remarks apply with far greater force to him ("we may never understand what leads anybody to terrorize their fellow human beings like this") -- his realization of the monster he has allowed himself to become would reduce him to gibbering incoherence for the remainder of his life. In varying degrees, the same is true of any individual who remains in the national government at this point.

The Joke's on You by Steve Almond

In a sense, these quacks have no more reliable allies than Stewart and Colbert. For the ultimate ethos of their television programs is this: the customer is always right. We need not give in to sorrow, or feel disgust, or take action, because our brave clown princes have the tonic for what ails the national spirit. Their clever brand of pseudo-subversion guarantees a jolt of righteous mirth to the viewer, a feeling that evaporates the moment their shows end. At which point we return to our given role as citizens: consuming whatever the quacks serve up next.

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I think they have a common thread.

Granted, that thread may double as the yellow brick road leading to the shining, green towers of The Disillusioned City, where you're fated to pull back a pretty curtain and learn that the world is ruled by one tiny, mortal man, forever wanking.

Still.

They're all very good, but if you click only one link, let it be Arthur Silber's piece. His thoughts are very much along the lines of what was going on in my own head upon hearing our Dear Leader's reaction to what happened in Aurora.

I'm not sure what kind of reaction I want out of my fellow citizens at this point. A few months ago I was having thoughts like "If only they knew..." or "If only they were enraged enough... then they would do something." Those fantasies seem as far away as Oz itself now. Lots of people do know. And lots of people are enraged. And yet little of interest is occurring on our side. Are we actually unable to think up a viable plan to help right our nations' ill-mapped courses? Or are we (for whatever reason) unable to implement the plans we hatch? Are we too scared, too busy, too vulnerable, too sick? All of the above, I guess. Maybe we're all waiting on each other.

I'd love to change the world

But I don't know what to do

So I'll leave it up to you 

As for me and my house, lately we are busy planning the coming insurrection playing the new Skyrim expansion pack. Well, that along with getting stronger, getting out more, and improving our gallows humor. I think I'm aiming in part to adopt the demeanor of my grandparents and great-grandparents, particularly their resilience and flexibility in the face of challenges.

I have a few stories to tell about the changes in my own neighborhood since the economy tanked, but I'll save those for later (they're not that great).

Oh, and here are the first two pea pods from my very own garden, built, planted, and nurtured by my own two hands. Pea blossoms look so demure until they suddenly drop a giant dong-like pod right out from the middle of their dainty little folds. Then the jig is up and the flowers fall off, having served their purpose.

In another few days those peas fattened up and we shucked and ate them raw.