Newt on Child Abuse, War, Immigration? Not?

There is a good deal else

That would not exist

Without "poisonous pedagogy."

It would be inconceivable, for example,

For politicians mouthing empty cliches

To attain the highest positions of

Power by democratic means.

Alice Miller

Can't help wondering... what you're wondering about?


Did John hear the bells toll yesterday? Barack and Hillary grab their helmets and flack jackets, begin to run faster and harder? If not, then they missed Newt's speech at AEI.

Whatever one thinks of Newt, and this isn't the place for that, the man is brilliant…almost beyond belief. Some months ago in an interview when asked if he'd run, he said no reason to do that as Republican's had a full field of good men running.

The speech he gave yesterday is either being thrown into the ring…or about to become the ring around all future Republican talking points. Newt managed to wrap himself in everything Barack, added a few touches of Hillary, coated himself with pure Repubican brass and came out looking like a gold ring looking for a finger…or a nose.

But this isn't about Newt, John, Hillary or Barack…what their positions on issues look like, how they compare or contrast. This is about something they all have in common with each other and the vast majority of politicians.

They talk about the 3 million in prisons, not about the 3 million reports of child abuse each year. They talk about the 4,000 soldiers killed in this 5 year war, but not about the
7,000 children killed by child abuse during that same time. They talk about the thousands of wounded soldiers who will suffer and struggle the rest of their lives, but not the hundreds of thousands of child equally as wounded each year by child abuse. They talk about people losing homes, but not about children who are homeless. They talk about poverty but don't mention the 12 million children who go to bed hungry every night. They talk about the sad state of illegal immigrants hiding in the shadows, but not about the child abuse of having children grow up without education, medical care, or much else besides a venomous rage that encircle their young hearts, then wells and swells until it can no longer be contained and brings them finally to uncoil and strike at anyone for any reason. They talk about human rights for all but the United States hasn't ratified the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Children. (Somalia is the only other one!)

In this speech, Newt in his cleverness managed to avoid alienating the black voters by throwing a few glittering pieces of mica in their direction as he shifted the focus of compassion away from other minorities to the Native Americans. He managed to make everything Barack and Hillary offer to champion education, poverty, race relations, look like paupers offering to share crumbs. When he offered free college to students who finish high school in two years rather than four, while coating them in tax cuts and the talking points always popular with the Republicans, I almost had to stand and applaud the man for his creativity.

Say what you will about Newt. He knows his stuff, and how to use it for best advantage. He proved that 30 years ago. In this one speech he gives the deserting Republicans a path on which to run back to the fold, the wavering independents a means to get out from the stress of indecision, and the disgruntled Democrats not happy with the idea of voting for a black or a woman, a time-tested old white guy saying what they want to hear.

But what about John, the war, immigration, and child abuse? Dogs that don't bark?

HMMMM...I had a dog once... a German Shepherd... she didn't bark, but she was the best watch dog in the world...anyone coming over the fence never knew she was there before she pounced.

Here are some links:

AEI Address by Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich

Obama Campaign Speech on Race

An Open Letter to all Responsible Politicians from Alice Miller

Spanking is Counterproductive and Dangerous

Alice Miller: The Childhood Trauma

UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in Child Friendly Language

Convention on the Rights of the Child

UN Convention on the Rights of Children

What Are You Going to Do About Child Abuse?

The Limits of Politics I: The Roots of the Politics of Power

The Politics of Lies: Suffer the Child

A Child is Waiting,
Take care...be aware,
Nancy Lee

Reflections on Child Abuse, John McCain and Watermelon

Shame is the apprehension of a vision

Reflected from the surface of opinion--

The opinion of the public.

Aristophanes

The Frogs

WHAT'S THIS???

Can't help wondering...
what you're wondering about?


This morning I'm wondering about Senator John McCain and his five years as a prisoner of war.

Five years of physical, emotional, psychological, environmental deprivation, abuse and neglect… even torture... are significant experiences for any person.

Changes that result from such experiences may not be obvious to others. However, small things may be big clues to deeper gaps in what might be considered pressumed knowledge, shared perceptions, assumed connections, expected reactions, and so forth.

For example, when John McCain is caught not knowing something considered common knowledge, such as long gas lines and alternate days, he laughs. He reminds us that he was living a different reality then, as a POW, not sharing in ours in the USA. Without too much effort on our part we understand what he doesn't say. We see the bigger picture even without all the details. We accept the differences that have to be.

Abused and neglected children frequently lack common knowledge for much the same reasons. They, too, live in a different reality. They, too, lack opportunities, exposures, materials, tools and products necessary for learning about the world in which they live. Recently a few experiences raised my awareness of how extensive that lack may be. I wondered just how such missing bits of knowledge, otherwise considered "common," to the majority might skew developmental and other kinds of tests given to abused and neglected children.

Consider a watermelon, a sweet potato, and a pair of scissors. Common enough things by most standards. While discussing children's adjustment to recently moving in with her, the foster mom mentioned how amazing it had been to watch the 4 children (ages 5-10) when she brought home a watermelon.

"What's that? We never had it," they told her. She thought they were kidding.

The children's emotional responses ranged from laughing disbelief…"Are we really going to eat that?"…to faces contorted with disgust…"Yuk, that looks like blood and guts"…to determined grimaces… "No way I'm going to eat that"…to grinning amazement…"Wow, this is really good"… to finally, a bright-eyed eureka moment…"Hey! I've had this stuff! I didn't know it was watermelon!"

The foster mom, convinced it was a new experience after all, asked me how that could be.

I thought about a single Mom, with the kids in tow, walking to the store . She has no car. Public transportation isn't available. Small town grocery stores aren't likely to use space for cut up watermelon. Food stamps limit what to buy. Buying a watermelon and lugging it over a mile just wasn't a likely scenario.

Mom, peppered by too many questions as she shopped for too much with too little, ignored most of them. The home environment lacked books and magazines where children might have seen a picture. The television they watched included MTV and other age-inappropriate shows and movies that probably don't include a lot of watermelon preparation. The children didn't go to extended family gatherings where watermelon might have been served as a summer treat. Neighbors lived the same environmentally deprived lifestyle. Very possibly the children never experienced cutting up a watermelon or connected that big hard green thing to the pieces of red stuff they might have had in school.

Which brings me to the 13 year old friend who crinkled her nose at baked fresh sweet potatoes. "What's that? We don't eat them at my house!"

"You kidding? You mean that's the same stuff we get in cans from the food pantry? Doesn't look the same. We don't eat that either."

"Okay, I'll try it. But just one little bite!"

She ate the two baked sweet potatoes…

hers and mine…

then asked for more.

Three 11 year olds worked on a craft project with me. They couldn't cut with scissors any more efficiently than average five and six year olds. At first I thought they were kidding me. I watched them struggle, then quit, then begin clowning around. Once children fear ridicule, shame sets in and acting out begins. Clowning around hides a lot more than a lack of basic skills resulting from environmental deprivation. No kidding.

A Mom visits, notices the scissors on the table. She scoops them up, then snaps at me. "I don't let my kids use scissors! We don't even have them in the house."

"Why not?"

"Because the kids don't know how to use them. They might cut themselves."

"How," I ask, "will they ever learn to use them if they can't use them?"

She shrugs. "I can't cut with scissors Hasn't been a problem for me." No kidding.

People joke about kids who fail everything in school…even art!…they laugh and ask, "who could possibly fail art?" John McCain lost much during his five years of abuse and neglect. Fortunately for him, he had already learned the basics.


And this picture?

Oh, that's just a photo of sunshine on a shadowed rock wall, reflected in crystal clear water.

No kidding.

http://www.cyc-net.org/cyc-online/cycol-0402-pringle.html
Deprivation and Education
A Child is Waiting,
Take care...be aware,
Nancy Lee