Marta, please spare us that tripe. The fact of the matter is that today you cannot control unruly children without risking being accused of child abuse (which unlike criminal charges do not require any "due process" to be followed by investigating agencies, a mere report can result in a child ending up in a foster care).
So if the brat that happens to be your child throws repeated tantrums, say, because you did not buy him what his peers have, you have basically two choices:
(1) sending the brat to a boot camp (if you can afford the $2,000 -$6,000 per month tuition), or (2) medicate him (most insurance plans cover prescription drugs).
Now, if you are, say, a single parent with a "hyperactive" (i.e. out-of-control) child, which option would you be able to afford?
Thank goddess for drugs - without them mental asylums and prisons would thrive.
Marta responded more completely first with her post:
I think you need to realize that "controlling" children is not everyone's goal. It is giving children what they need to thrive. The capitalist culture would like all children to be docile and grow up to be docile worker bees. It that takes drugs, hey they will do that. I'm not even going to bother answering the rest of this ridiculous email - only two choices? Absurd. The fact that you refer to a child as "brat" shows how hopelessly twisted you are. Marta
I was commenting both on your initial spew which seemed to lump together kids throwing temper tantrums with kids who are much more dangerously violent and viewing both as needing doping, and on Marta's insulting description of you with no attempt to inquire what brought on your use of the word "brat."
Wojtek said:
I hate kids. I've had two of my own, and I've been terribly lucky that they were good kids, despite me being a single parent for about 5 years. But I also know things could have been much much worse.... hence I loathe th every idea of having children.
Fine, you hate kids. It was (what seemed to me) the poor quality of the argument you gave re. drugging which first helped prompt me to say something.
And said:
Now that you know how terrible a monster I am
>From that one post you seem to have trouble with clarity, but I don't know
enough about you as a person to downright condemn you.
And said:
There is a difference between medicating children with severe behavioral problems and abuse of prescription drugs.
You didn't make that distinction in your post.
And said:
What to untreained eye may appear as a source of embarassment to the guardian, is often a symptiom of a serious emotional disorder. Thus, I suggest reserving judgement before knowing all the "gory details."
A kid can get unnecessarily hyper and upset without being a psychotic.
And said:
"toil without expecting any returns, but if you are not diligent enough - you will be prosecuted, especially if you are a single working class woman." It is difficult to blame anyone for wanting to ease that burden, especially if it is unsually difficult to handle.
I agree, but I find that as an explanation to justify excessive behaviour on the guardian's part a bit hard to swallow. "Beating/drugging-the-shit-out-of-the-kid-to-keep-it-quiet-until-the-Revolut ion-comes-and-I-can-have-socialised-child-care" is a piss-poor alternative. There has to be something else that could be done before taking out frustration on the kid (assuming it is not psychotic).
Carrol wrote (pointing a finger at me and others I assume):
Now as to the left and self-nominated leaders of the left. Self-nominated because there is no other way to nominate them but that nomination must be ratified in struggle. Rosa Parks is an archetypal instance. Anyone who posts on this maillist, for example, is such a self-nominated leader. So viewed, Gordon's comments on the POW/MIA hoax _and_ the bellyaching of the SUV hating/book loving posters vividly illustrate two polar ways _not_ to be worthy of selection as a leader, in that each illustrates a different form of contempt for those who, if the world is to change, must do the changing.
If one were to engage in psychology, I would say the only point of the SUV thread is to make a few lazy leftists feel morally superior to the great washed. Perhaps we should go back to pre-19th century standards and proclaim not ever washing as a political standard. Until people are politically organized -- until a movement exists capable of raising a banner to rally around, people live as individuals in capitalist society, and it is fucking stupid to keep bellyaching at them.
So stop bellyaching at individuals until some sort of political power is exercised in a decisive manner. You said much the same thing to the fellow who left the list in a huff; I did and still do agree with you. But what happens if an individual, to whom there is no point bellyaching under capitalist society, does something or says something that another individual finds offensive? The usual response (in my case, on this list, at least) is a quick vent. I realise that my alone saying something may or may not (most likely the latter) create a change, but what else should I do, shut up? A few years ago, I happened upon a woman and a man beside a store in a deserted parking lot. He had her pinned against the wall, she was crying while he was snarling something at her in some language I don't know. When I asked her if she wanted me to call the cops, he just smiled brightly and said, "No, everything OK!" They soon after got into a car that drove up with two other men in it then drove away. I still wonder what happened to the woman and what I might have prevented had I just called the police.
Do you have some advice, Carrol, on how (besides deliberate ignorance) to act until something political gets done? I'm not mocking you, BTW; I would like to hear what you have to say.
Todd