Dysfunctional marriage; dysfunctional country. Similarities?

Today we have a post from Peace Tree author, W. Christopher Epler, Phd.

Dysfunctional marriage; dysfunctional country. Similarities?

Perhaps if we reason by analogy, we can shed some light into our profoundly dysfunctional country.

Most of us know quantities more than we ever wanted to know about a dysfunctional marriage, so let's see if we can extrapolate from these wounding experiences to our now desperately wounded Constitutional Republic.

If you yourself are now buried in just such a marriage, why don't you fix it? Just get a divorce or mutually commit to vulnerable soul searching, Or whatever. The point is, why do resign yourself to marital hell? Why don't you leave? Or more conclusively, why don't you CHANGE things?

Ah, that's the rub, isn't it, the "change" word.

An insightful psychologist once came up what he called the "paradoxical theory of change", which is that acceptance doesn't come from change, but change comes from acceptance. Said differently, acceptance isn't the "reward" of change but the MEANS TO change.

But "acceptance" as in what? How can you accept what seems to be killing you?

The point is acceptance is not being used as a synonym of resignation -- rather it has the sense of beginning where you are and/or "seeing things" like they are.

Which is exactly what we DON'T do in a dysfunctional marriage. Sure, we can be miserable as hell, but we never DEAL WITH the "core issues". Rather, we keep dancing around, over, and under the interpersonal mess. In short, we live in the Kingdom of Denial -- which is where most (all?) of our friends live too, so we've got lots of validating company.

Thus, the "institution of marriage" generally turns out to be our number one social scam for NOT dealing with the core interpersonal challenges of life.

Well, extrapolating here is cake, because we certainly also have "core issues" as a country that we are not now, and never have been, fundamentally dealing with. And BECAUSE these matters are avoided, our country is in danger of dying from what is quite literally a neo-Nazi Bush/Republican infection.

Top of the list! The United States of America is now and always has been a Dictatorship of the Rich. The less then 1% has always had all the rest of us cleaning their commodes, paying their taxes, and even willingly sacrificing our children to sate the appetites of greed vampires like the Bush Royal Family (alias, the Saudi Royal Family). By now, even barnyard animals know the Bush Iraq war is all about oil -- as most of us secretly knew from the beginning (but lived in denial land about it).

Religious fanatics are nuts. Period. And once again, most of us have always known this, but denial is so seductive! Look, how sane can you be if you honestly expect the Baptist Big Bang (Armageddon) to go off in the next week or two? You know what? I bet you'd never find a single porpoise who believes that, and their brains are bigger than ours.

The neocon lobby (i.e., the dog which is still wagging the tail of American foreign policy) self evidently has un-American agendas. Thus the REAL turning point in recent American history was less 9/11, than when George Bush sold his soul to Paul Wolfowitz and company. The denial here is twofold. First, the suicidal transfer of foreign policy power to the neocon lobby, and second is our unwillingness to take a long, hard look at these specific individuals and determine their common agenda. They absolutely don't represent the wishes, well being, and national security of the United States of America, as the last few years of failure, tragedy, and virtual genocide conclusively shows. So the question of questions here is for whom does the neocon lobby lobby? A question which never quite gets out of denial land.

Enough already, right? This stuff is very depressing, but in your heart of hearts don't you agree that these are just the forces and facts which define who we are as a country? God in heaven, so long as greed vampire elites keep draining the blood of America, what chance do we have as a people?

And so long at certifiably insane religious fanatics are taken more seriously than dogs and cats, they will keep fouling our governmental nest with Duh, Duh, and more Duh.

And so long as the treacherously (treasonously?) un-American neocon lobby keeps dictating policies which are bankrupting our country, killing our children (count to 3,000 slowly -- it will break your heart), and raping Mother Nature, we are inevitably doomed.

But you know, not all marriages are dysfunctional. The good ones often have their bloody patches, but they WORK THEM THROUGH and now they're holding hands, taking vacations, and loving each other (emotionally and otherwise).

So, clearly television isn't the answer, or booze . . . or changing the subject.

Our trump card is that realism liberates creativity and energy, so the more we see things "like they are, the more action will be ignited. Change comes from awareness -- as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.

And to borrow another psychological/existential image, "hitting bottom" ain't so bad since that's where all the bounce is!

W. Christopher Epler (Bill)

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By the way, y'all check out this story over at Liberal Catnip.

Nice one, Bill

Peace y'all

Tags: Dysfunctional Marriage