Coral Rhedd

In general, it seems to me that the relationship between the power to abuse and the exercise of abuse rarely goes unexploited in areas where institutional power exists. Our democratic way of life in the U.S. and the Consititution that protects it was created from a deep understanding that our founders had about the tendency for government to tyrannize. It is true that when it was drafted that for census purposes slaves were only recognized as 1/5 of a person and were not allowed to vote at all. Nor were women allowed to vote. Overtime these rights were added. First blacks got the vote after a bloody and divisive civil war and many years later women won this same right. Why did this take so long? Because the people that held power over these people did not want them to have this voice. This nation is nothing if it does not continue to expand its constitutional protections to minorities. Atheists are a minority. Agnostics are a minority. No power has ever been lightly surrendered by those that hold it. At issue with the pledge is whether children (relatively powerless folk) who hold atheistic, agnostic, or religious view that do not encompass the word God are de facto forced to make this avowal by teachers and school systems and, by extention, the state and federal governments. This is an abuse of power. The words "under God" should be stricken from the pledge. Some would argue that you cannot help being a woman or being born black and therefore protections for these people who sometimes suffer discrimination should remain. I would argue that as important as these protections are, nothing is more fundamental to us as individuals than how we think. If we cannot think and believe as we choose, if at a young age, when easily pressured and influenced, these rights are thwarted, then this is an abuse of power that needs to be corrected.

My previous post was edited to provide color for emphasis. But since then I have been pondering one sentence from Syntax: Note the BIG GRIN after he thanked me for explaining about the abuse in my/my daughter's history. As an English major with an interest in small instances in which people reveal their intent in language, I wonder why that BIG GRIN was added. Could it be he found the story I related funny?

Are you one of those who would violate the current law which does not allow teachers to suggest prayer? I think you are contradicting yourself all over the place. You deny that peer or institution pressure exists yet you imply that your beliefs are such that you might -- if you were in a teaching position -- be one of those people who would apply such pressure. True or false? You don't understand the dynamics of child abuse. I am not criticizing you for your ignorance. Most people don't. What is not excusable is that, since you can't blame the child, you resort to blaming the mother. This is the behavior I was speaking about in my previous post. Curious? You don't seem inclined to blame the perpetrators of abuse. You also seem to now want to overlook the fact that the teacher who punished my child was a perpetrator of institutional abuse. When it comes right down to it most abuse is pretty much alike. Someone who has power gets off on abusing someone who does not. Just for your own mental edification and for the enlightenment of the rest of us, just what do you think the signs of abuse are? You did not read atinymonkey's source: http://www.ffrf.org/awards/heroine/1998_durkee.php The girl in this incident was fifteen years old. What if she had been seven? You overestimate the power of people who would speak for the victims. I offer recommendations to the judge. I do not make the decision. I often deal with outcomes that are not very pretty. In the rather small city I live in two or three infants or toddlers die every year from abuse. After my daughter's abuse, I became active in these issues. Before I was like any other trusting wife. Remember the marriage vows. Honor and obey and all that. After I fled my husband. I educated myself and I attempted to rear my daughter in safety. My mother told me that my daughter's father remarried a woman with two daughters and they had another of their own. My daughter and I lived a sort of underground life for 14 years. This, in itself, was traumatic for both of us. You cannot work if you cannot use your Social Security number. We lived in abject poverty. I kept my promise to my daughter: She never had to see her father again. He never found us. The courts, if they had had their way would have had her visiting him unsupervised in a matter of months. Since then I have met other women like me. Underground women. Mostly, overtime their strength is totally depleted. It is hard to live with an ongoing emergency. After you tell us what you think the signs of abuse are, tell us how long you think the recovery process is. If you reply to my post please address the issues I have highlighted in red. Otherwise, let us not pretend we are having a dialogue.

You're right. It is I who like coffee breaks! I meant "coffee breaks" in the generic sense as in "work break." I can remember when my daughter had a Mormon babysitter who poured her thermos of milk down the sink because drinking cold drinks was forbidden.

So glad you decided upon this ad hominem approach. It is what I expected you would do and actually what I hoped you would do. It allows me to explain something about family dynamics which you clearly do not understand. First, I am a mother not a dad. Second, I was not "inaware." Instead, I was unaware. Third, I chose this anonymous small Mormon community to hide out in when my daughter and I escaped her father who was sociopathic, manipulative, abusive, and who had provided me with some very definite evidence that he was planning upon killing us. I knew a Mormon community, since I was an adamant former LDS, was the last place my ex would think to look for me. My daughter was not confiding anything to me at that time because she had learned the hard way that telling the truth about people who misuse their power only ends up in upheaval. In short, she was both a frightened and vulnerable child. She wasn't even confiding in her therapist at the time and she saw me -- the protective mother -- as the person who had caused her to have to move three times. Of course, I did this out of fear and desperation. It was not my intention to traumatize my daughter. She had already been traumatized enough. Of course the problem is with the teacher. The teacher chose to abuse her power. As a devout religious person in a homogenous community, the teacher would have had even more latitude to retailate against my child had my child chosen to sit during the pledge. Allow me also to say every morning in that classroom the children had a moment of silence during which the teacher instructed them that it would be a good idea if the they prayed. I later learned that every year that teacher chose a non-Mormon child to pick on. The next year it was the child of a friend of mine who got The Treatment. Don't worry. I am eager to enlighten you. I had previously attended the school open house and I had spoken with the teacher previously about my child's academic progress and behavior. The teacher said my child was "slow" but did her work and that she was very quiet and nonsocial. Since I couldn't get the information from my child, who was I to get it from? Be careful when you level personal criticisms against people you don't know. Remember that you also do not know their circumstances. I know more from personal experience about the abuse of power than you ever will. I know for instance that most people would rather pass judgement than solve problems. When others are victimized, many people look for reasons to blame the victim rather than correct the injustice. I am quite familiar with people like this. As a former victim avocate, as a public speaker on the subject of sexual abuse, as a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate for Children), as an independent contractor working with people with disabilities, and as a member of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and an advocate for people with mental illnesses, I see the abuse of power, the casual judgements, the lack of funding, the blaming, the indifference and the manipulation that the holier-than-thou-but-don't-ask-me-to-live-my-faith types of people inflict on others all the time. I have done extensive research into the subject of child abuse and I know how often children are actually blamed for not speaking up. I know the limits of the power of children. I know how often their lives are destroyed by parents, teachers, and ministers, youth advisors, social workers, and that oh-so-friendly guy next door. If children should not be a protected class, then who should be? You, however, clearly think they should shift for themselves. I suggest you do a little research in the area of child psychology so that you understand the difference in relative power between children and adults.

Ramin, would you please pick a specific disorder that you feel best fits your thesis so this discussion can proceed in a coherent manner? Maybe you feel that some particular disorder is caused almost entirely by environment? Go for it. The range of disorders is so wide that I feel no rational discussion can take place without narrowing at least somewhat your approach. It is well documented and known even to ignorant lay people like me that Huntington's is entirely genetic. However, I would have some sympathy for the thesis that in disorders such as PTSD and major depression environment is not given appropriate weight as a factor in the expression of the illness. I think there are significant societal reasons for this.

I believe the discussion citing peer pressure and its power to intimidate children is quite valid. Syntax wants to discount it on the grounds that five year olds should get a spine. What is being ignored here is intitutional pressure. Teachers are powerful people in the lives of children. They not only serve as role models but they also have the power to not only punish but to destroy academic careers. A few years ago I was a substitute teacher. I had to observe several days of classes to attain this position. I never heard a single teacher inform her class that the pledge was voluntary. Moreover, had I done such a thing as a substitute teacher I can assure you that I would have been "informed on" by one of the students to their parents who would have called the principle to complain. Even if students can withstand peer pressure in elementary school -- and few of them can, many teachers with "religious angles" would surely treat a child less fairly if he or she refused to say the pledge. Here is an example of a teacher using punitive measures towards a child who disagreed with her: My seven year old daughter was coloring a handout of a frog. She colored the frog red and blue like a South American frog she had seen in the magazine Ranger Rick. The teacher took her coloring away from her and demanded that she color another frog green or brown because "that is the only color frogs are." My daughter told the teacher that frogs could indeed be other colors and that she wanted her picture back. For this infraction, she was seated in a chair with her nose facing the blackboard for three months. I only discovered it when I went to pick my child up from the school instead of the sitter doing this. It was the teacher herself who gave me the three month time frame. She said: "That child don't understand that there are only green or brown frogs and I wanted make it clear she couldn't be allowed to argue with me." I did not call the teacher an spiteful ungrammatical hick but I did go straight to the principal who explained to me that my child needed to learn to conform. This was in a small town that was 95% Mormon. Everyday the Mormon children over 8 were taken out of their classes and moved to an on campus classroom where they were given religious studies by priests. The non-Mormon children were left behind to be tended to by resentful Mormon (I never heard of a gentile teacher holding a teaching position in that school.) teachers who would rather have had an extended coffee break. I was attending college in this town and had a job at this same college. What do you think would have happened to me (a poor single mother), my child and my job if I had demanded that my child be allowed to sit down for the pledge? We don't live in fantasy land. All of us have to live in the real world. I know well the tyranny of the majority. Syntax, you don't seem to be willing to acknowledge that the abuse of power exists.

Updated my virus protection. I will see if that solves the problem. Thanks to all of you for your help. This nontechie will no doubt be posting in this forum again.

John, I think you may have Quakers confused with Amish. I have known many Quakers who use electricity. Also I think the private sphere differs from the public sphere and the law acknowledges this. If an Amish person moved next door (an unlikely circumstance given the Amish rules about shunning the outside world) that person could choose to use electricity or not. It is sort of like this: You can smoke in your own home but you are not allowed to smoke in the nonsmoking section of public restaurants. Also, we are dealing with a specific class of people (children) in an involuntary circumstance. The law requires them to go to a school of some sort. Most parents cannot enjoy the luxury of educating their children at home and most cannot afford private education. Don't mistake my POV on this as an explicit endorsement of Michael Newdow's methods. I disapprove of people who use their children merely for political purposes, but I think his cause is a valid one. I cannot remember who in this thread said that Christianity is the majority and used this to justify keeping the word God with its Judeo-Christian baggage in the pledge, but I think if most of you care to examine which is the fastest growing religion in this country you will come up with two contenders: Islam and the Latterday Saints. Consider if the future majority decided that the word Allah should replace God. Would anyone here have problems with that?

No expert here but maybe this will keep your thread in play. Increasing your serotonin level is thought to help OCD. Natural methods might involve supplements such as 5HTP or melatonin. Prescription methods involve SSRIs. I would certainly try supplements first. If you mean by conquer it that you would apply some force of will I suspect this would be difficult. Try to force yourself to stop some activity or shift attention would probably only add to your stress level. You don't say if you are self-diagnosed or not or how much you have educated yourself about your symptoms. Surprisingly a number of people with ADD are also OCD. See if you can find a support forum. While I don't have OCD myself -- despite compulsively surfing the net -- I have known enough people who have it to know you are not alone.

Thanks. That's an interesting link. My favorite argument was Religious Egocentrism. You see some of that in this thread in the assumption that the "Under God" part of pledge encompasses everyone therefore should be acceptable, conveniently overlooking the fact that it may be annoying or even offensive to atheists and agnostics among others. Obviously, the feelings of these nonbelievers deserve to discounted.

I know little about computers. I can barely navigate to this forum and a few others. Lately I have been receiving emails from this organization: abuse@smileglobal.com They are accusing me of sending illegal attachments to someone I have never heard of. Since I have trouble sending attachments at all and only send them to a few friends, I am baffled. Could this mean someone has obtained access to my email login info and is using my email to spead some sort of mayhem? Are these people connected to some sort of scam? Should I respond to their accusations? I know this isn't an honest-to-god techie question but I would nevertheless appreciate some advice. I am a 55 year old woman and not into porn. Regards, Coral

Thanks. Like your Asimov quote. Darned if I can figure out how those creationists' brains work.

That would be of enormous benefit to rapists and armed robbers. Even figuring out how dispense insurance payments from car accidents requires witnesses. Since I have enough trouble retaining my own memories (ADD) I have little sympathy for forgetting pills. Every morning I get up and feel incredibly grateful for Adderall -- the remembering pill.

One of my favorite fantasies has always been that I was adopted. Let's put it this way: Because I read all the time they thought I was strange. Because I questioned things they thought I was rebellious. Because I refused to beat my daughter they thought I was a bad parent. Talk about a mismatch.

Of more interest would be examining why 36% of people so far said yes. I suspect they won't tell you why. Nor will I.

What I am getting at is that there are emotional consequences of traumatic events. For a person not to suffer those consequences they would have to take the wipe-out-memory pill immediately after the traumatic event. Otherwise they would experience emotions from the event perhaps and not know why. I am not an expert on memory however but I have, in the course of work I have done, noted children who "repressed" memories of traumatic events but continued to suffer emotional damage. Would this mean that: 1. No memory can ever really be repressed and that it (memory of traumatic event) was available on some level? 2. A memory can be completely destroyed but still influence behavior because it caused reactions that are enforced by habit?

You should be afraid of hospitals. I almost died in one last summer due to being overdosed in the hospital on a drug that actually aggravated the symptoms I was experiencing. My friends had stayed with me all day but when they finally left to get some rest a nurse double dosed me on a sleep medication I should never had had in the first place. The doctor, in an unguarded moment because she was exhausted from a double shift actually said to me: "She (the nurse) just wanted you to sleep so she wouldn't have to be bothered." Instead I nearly bled to death internally. No one in an ICU staffed by inexperienced nurses should ever be left alone. You need people -- family or friends -- with you to watch and question the people who are "treating" you.

I am opposed to any use of a death penalty. Because it is state-sanctioned it increases a toleration for violent solutions. However, I am not opposed to personal vengeance. Go figure. To be inconsistent is to be human.

Thanks to this thread, I just remembered to take my Ginkgo.

If behavior had already altered due to the traumatic event, wouldn't you just struggle with feelings that you could not attribute to anything? Sort of the equivalent of repressed memory in a pill.

It is not that I don't believe you 5614, but I would appreciate the links. I work with people with disabilities and one of my clients has environmental illnesses and says she is being affected by EMFs from a power station near her home. I would like to understand this better. She has an odd cluster of symptoms. Regards, Coral

I watched part of it at a friends house and later watched in Inaugural Ball. I came to one conclusion: Oscar de la Renta for 2008.

From the Hetero vs. Homos . . . again thread in the politics forum: Originally posted by Lance