I pen this lesson for those who may be in the process of considering the impeachment of the President and the Vice President of the United States.
Domestic violence towards women and children occurs worldwide. Sometimes women and children can escape it, other times not. In more affluent societies, in therapy or spiritual counseling, women can be helped to prepare themselves to reject someone they once loved and trusted. If they are co-dependent emotionally, economically, and in other ways, the collapse of self-confidence, along with the meltdown of home and family -- as well as the loss of artistic, business, and spiritual relationships -- may be at issue.
In my experience, when women learn to separate from abusive men, they often go through a process of coming out of denial. Facing that one's "protector" is actually a perpetrator -- doing that emotional calculus -- is devastating. Inconceivable in love, common in reality, breaking up with an abuser in power is hard to do. How do you rid yourself of an abuser when the family/group relies on him (and, yes, her)? How do you remove a diseased portion of an organ, without killing the patient?
There is heightened danger during breakup. A woman is most vulnerable to a perpetrator who has become accustomed to unchallenged control when she announces that she will no longer put up with abuse. Following such a broadcast, women become vulnerable to stalking, violence, even murder -- to say little of the social abuses, like the sabotage of their time, treasure, and talents -- and any helpful friendships they may hold dear.
A perpetrator, accustomed to unchallenged control, becomes dangerous, and will do anything, including changing the rules of the game, at whim, to place an affective barrier between himself and the truth. And what is that truth? He is not a good man. He is not a brave man. He is not a godly man. He is not a hero. He is a vile coward, a liar, and a scum, unworthy to be called a man.
Breaking free of abusers in power takes guts. It takes faith and vision. It takes hope, too. Hope that things can become better. Faith that we deserve better and that we can take greater responsibility for improving our lives and those of our children. We cannot do it alone. We need support from people to help us, as we move from entrapment towards freedom. From legal advice to safe places to stay, women have been helped by myriads of people, as they have learned to say, first to self, then to trusted others, then to him: "NO and no more! It stops here, it stops now. It stops with me. I will not allow this legacy to continue. I do not accept abuse as the price tag of being loved and having a family. A loving and fair god does not sanction the abuse of power in my life, or in any other life."
Here's the analogy I draw today:
Whistleblowers and advocates for impeachment are consciousness raisers. Exposing the complicity of Congress in the crimes of the executives now in power is somewhat akin to exposing a degree of complicity of wives and mothers in the abuses of men against their families. I have spoken with hundreds of women who have successfully rid their lives of power abuse. One of the key lessons commonly learned has been this: If we don't stop him, the kids will learn that this is okay. What kind of parent would I be if I allowed my sons and daughters to learn that abuse is acceptable?
Fellow citizens, if we do not stop the current administration through impeachment, I ask you: Will it matter which party wins the 2008 presidential election? Having become accustomed to abuse, as a nation, we will have lowered the bar of the presidency itself to such a degree that we, ourselves, will have become complicit. We will be the ones to have invited into our history a pattern of serial abusers -- dictators -- who will operate entirely outside the parameters of our Constitution and of international law. Hence, we will become lawless.
But America is a nation governed by laws, not men.
The situation in which we find ourselves is like that described by sixteenth-century French writer Étienne de la Boétie, speaking of the power of tyrants: He who abuses you so has only two eyes, has but two hands, one body, and has naught but what has the least man of the great and infinite number of your cities, except for the advantage you give him to destroy you ...
A power relationship can only exist when it is completed by subordinates. Let us impeach, not ratify, the abuse of power. If America is anything, she is still in our hands. We can still help her to break free of those who would unconscionably abuse her.
More soon,
Ticia
April Impeachment Watch here.
Cross-posted at my diary, at Daily Kos here.
