Yesterday's item on Mel Gilles's comparison of Democrats to a battered wife brought this comment from reader David Bricker, who describes himself as "a psychologist who specializes in marital therapy":

Gilles takes the position that the Democrats are looking a lot like a battered wife, and there is something to this. Some of the behaviors do overlap. But the logic breaks down immediately. Gilles sets it up so that the partner in this analogy is the Republicans, who defeated them. And she suggests that the 56 million Kerry voters form a kind of really big support group to get by. But where does this lead? And specifically what are they going to do about the next election? Is Gilles suggesting that they secede and only deal with good folks like themselves? Because if they come back to contest the next election, they are going back to the abusive spouse, something that no one in the domestic violence field is ever going to feel too good about.

A better analogy is that the partner is the country as a whole. The marital analogy is a good one if we see the Democrats as the rejected spouse and the U.S. as the rejecter. This makes much more sense. The insistence on recounts is like the husband who stalks his ex-wife, who doesn't understand what "no" means. The denial, the rationalizations, the vilification, the aimless depression are all typical of someone who's in the early stages of rejection and can't figure out what to do next. Likewise, Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton experimenting with finding religion look a lot like someone trying anything to get the partner back. "Maybe if I get a hairpiece, she'll come home."

Gilles also errs in assuming that since the Democrats are acting battered that someone must be battering them. It doesn't work that way. As the saying goes, "If you walk around with a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail." Closer to home, if you walk around with control issues everyone looks like a bully.

I am not criticizing David here. The Kerry-mourner rant which inspired this reply gave him a set-up that few could resist.

Most of the metaphor torture at the Sudan rally was conducted by earnest young social activist rabbinical students, who are systematically taught how to force quotes from Torah, descriptions of Jewish ritual, and references to the Shoah, to perform duties for which they were not originally intended. This was a candlelight vigil in Washington Square Park, during Hanukkah, the Feast of Lights a holiday commemorating freedom, partly sponsored by Jews who understand what oppression is like and say "Never Again!" You can compile your own sermon at this point.

The most interesting thing about the rally were the African speakers. Since this rally was not sponsored by A.N.S.W.E.R. or UFPJ, the leash of political correctness was looser than at the usual moonbat-fest, and of course since the speakers were People of Color and not yet revealed to be CIA Stooges (which I expect by next week), they had to be taken seriously. They said things like this:

There is an Arab conspiracy to take over Africa. Let us call things what they really are. The Arabs are trying to install their governments all over Africa. We are all Muslims, but this is an Arab conspiracy. They want to force us all to be their kind of Muslim. They try to force their traditions on us black Africans.

Why is there no action from the UN about the genocide in the Sudan? I will tell you. The French are all over the country, because of oil. They don't want to be disturbed. The Arab block will not condemn another Arab government. George Bush and Tony Blair are trying to explain their catastrophic war in Iraq to their people. The UN does not care about Africa. Do you want to know what I call the UN? I call them the United Racists!

Mary, Van, and I muttered "Fuck, yeah!" under our breaths and peered around in the dark to see how the various lefties were responding to these accusations. In truth, the crowd was respectful, and the applause was only slightly more subdued than for the American white speakers. Faces were impassive. Perhaps the Africans got away with it because the one speaker did observe the cardinal rule of political correctness (the Third World can be condemned as oppressive and corrupt only if the Anglosphere is made to look just as bad) by totally ignoring the early and strong condemnation of the genocide by the Bush administration, substituting a weak irrelevent false statement about the Iraq War. To be fair, this crowd was more reminiscent of the 60s civil rights movement than what passes for social justice agitation these days, paying the price in a relatively low turnout compared to the typical A.N.S.W.E.R. circus. The first really cold weeknight of the season and the location probably also put a damper on things.

The contrast between politically incorrect victims of oppression and earnest white leftists was starker at the larger rally in front of the UN on September 12th.

Gloria Steinem puzzled the Mauritanians by patiently telling them that slavery is a European invention. Yes, Arabs had been enslaving them since the beginning of recorded history, but Gloria knew that it was somehow generated by European colonialists. She went on to chide a man who was holding up a poster thanking Bush for all he'd done, then stated that she couldn't feel much pride for her country. The crowd responded with stares and some polite clapping. A photographer who had been standing behind the stage loudly disagreed. Gloria said something about this movement needing more artists and writers to give it life, confused everyone some more, then tried to end on a positive note.

Dr. Charles Jacobs, President of the American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG) told the crowd that he wouldn't be using diplomatic speech. They cheered. When he said that America and other nations had made mistakes in the past, and that we would have to change our attitudes towards Islamists, when he said that world must resist Islamic fundamentalism and their racist jihad, that the press should tell the truth about the fundamentalists & the Arab bloc in the UN, that the UN shouldn't debate because 'there's nothing to debate', most in the crowd raised their signs, moved towards the stage and loudly cheered. When he said that Kofi Anan should stand up and and say "Let my People Go" they cheered more.

I wish I could be a fly on the wall at the negotiations between the battled-scarred survivors looking for a platform and the know-it-all political organizers trying to fit them into an existing ideology. Roger, could you put some of this in your next screenplay?