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August 20, 2002Our Therapetic Culture Goes toOur Therapetic Culture Goes to War Listening to the radio as I drove through Manhattan recently one would think the main effect of the 9-11 attacks was a psychological one, widespread and devastating. A dulcet and caring female voice informed that countless numbers of we New Yorkers are suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. A similar 'public service' announcement blares forth at the baseball game I am attending in Coney Island, encouraging us to seek professional help. Psychiatrists around the city are congratulating themselves on their skillful empathic ability to heal the victims. As the first anniversary of the attacks of 9-11 approaches, these urgent warnings of impending depression and anxiety will no doubt become more frequent. One would think we were the nation the Islamists describe--- a nation of decadent weaklings, unable to cope without the help of professional empathizers. And why not, after 8 years of a Mourner-In Chief, who could trump any failings of his presidency by biting his lip and shedding tears to indicate he felt our pain?However as the psychiatrist Sally Satelexplained, no such predicted psychiatric public health emergency has occurred. I can anecdotally attest to the same in my own psychiatric practice and those of colleagues. Amongst those who experienced the horrors first hand I found strength and resilience, none of the predicted psychic collapse.There has been no flood of new mental illness even with all the insistence that people need help. However, in the wake of the Clinton presidency we do have a veritable industry of empathizers and psycho-political pundits ready to explain everything in order for all of us to be more caring, forgiving and above all else, not to be angry. On the National Education Association's Health Information Network is an item titled Remember September 11: Tolerance In Times of Trial. Following the links to PBS we are urged to commemorate Sept.11, not by renewing our determination to defeat our enemies, but rather by reflecting on the sins of America in the past! Thus we should understand the Islamo-Nazi killers who seek to destroy us by recalling the ways in which German Americans and Japanese Americans were stereotyped and poorly treated during WWll. Teachers are instructed to "Ask students to brainstorm a list of descriptors that come to mind when they hear the word "terrorist." Ask students to share their ideas (verbally, or anonymously by collecting papers and reading aloud). Note how many times "Arab," "Middle East," or "Muslim" get mentioned. Ask students if they think this characterization is fair. How does it compare to the characterization of Japanese-Americans and German-Americans during World War II?" Nowhere is it suggested that we are entitled to strike back vigorously and seek to annihilate our enemies before they have the chance to express their, no doubt understandable, sense of grievance again. Who could possibly believe that a vigorous, aggressive response to murderous barbarians might constitute the actual essence of mental health? All of our national counselors are really utopians who believe that disputes arise only through misunderstanding, that rationality will always prevail, and if it seems not to, that is because we have failed to empathize sufficiently with The Other. Misguided and foolish as these utopians are, they are matched by the diagnosticians of the New York Times and other establishment media op-ed pages. Thus Maureen Dowd has no interest in what may seem self evident to some, namely that we are in a war to the death and our President grapples with the best strategy for waging war. No, all is reduced to a pop-Psychological Oedipal drama,Dowdwhich allows her to cast the President as a dumb and silly baby struggling to overcome his daddy's influence by lashing out mindlessly at Iraq. Dowd consistently adopts a stance of self-flatteringly deep psychological awareness which allows her to demonstrate her imagined superiority to her ignorant subjects. Yet her psych.101 level of awareness is actually pathetic, the maundering reflections of an ignorant yuppie. If it were up to Maureen Dowd we'd all forget about Iraq and go for a facial. There are many more hand wringers like her, the descendants of Neville Chamberlain with the same effete delicate sensibilities as the British pre-World Warll governing class. Only now, they possess a gloss of psychotherapeutic awareness. Now as in the 1940's victory in this struggle will do more for our collective mental health than all the counselling of the therapeutic chattering classes. 
August 15, 2002Freud Museum Forgets the PastFreud Museum Forgets the Past Horsefeathers has exposed the appalling misuse of the Freud Museum's website for terrorist propaganda. A particularly egregious technique employed by its proprietor, Ivan Ward, is the severing of current events from the past, both immediate and distant. For example, citing the death of a young Palestinian child, supposedly at the hands of the brutal Israeli army, no context is supplied. The fact that Israeli soldiers were responding to terrorists who routinely employ women and children as shields is not mentioned. Like the big lie concerning the so-called "Jenin massacre", we are expected to recoil in horror at the actions of the Israelis, while ignoring the past events that dictated such action. It is shocking that a psychoanalyst would ignore history, for if anything Freud taught us the relevance of personal history and group history to understanding the present. The Freud Museum's blatant support of a corrupt and murderous plutocracy requires the effacement of history.But history is not so easily ignored, as Daniel Doronmakesclear. They cannot, of course, openly admit such cynical behavior, since it might not sit well with their "liberal" constituencies and leftist supporters. So they cover up their cynicism with the pretence of seeking justice for the Palestinians — a pretence that plays well among their pro-third world, anti-American supporters. The European elites are thus willing accomplices in the propagation of Arab lies that demonize Israel. Demonizing Israel makes it possible for them to support, with a clear conscience, the most horribly repressive Arab dictatorships and even the destruction of the only democracy in the Middle East. Barely 60 years after the Holocaust, Arab calumnies help the European salve their conscience so successfully that they are even ready to help Muslim rogue states acquire weapons of mass destruction, and to protect these rogue states against preventative action by the U.S. Not only is the immediate past relevant, but as Doron points out, there is long continuity between the Jew-hating Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Yasser Arafat and his followers. To understand the current terrorist Intifada vs. Israel, as well as the Islamo-Nazi assault on the West, the following historical record of a meeting between Hitler and the Grand Mufti is illuminating:Muftism and Nazism:World War ll Collaboration Documents Haj Amin al Husseini, recording in his own handwriting his meeting with Hitler in his diary, says: The words of the Fuehrer on the 6th of Zul Qaada 1360 of the Hejira (which falls on the 21st of November 1941) Berlin, Friday, from 4:30 P.M. till a few minutes after 6. The objectives of my fight are clear. Primarily, I am fighting the Jews without respite, and this fight includes the fight against the so-called Jewish National Home in Palestine because the Jews want to establish there a central government for their own pernicious purposes, and to undertake a devastating and ruinous expansion at the expense of the govemments of the world and of other peoples. It is true that our common enemies are Great Britain and the Soviets whose principles are opposed to ours. But behind them stands hidden Jewry which drives them both. Jewry has but one aim in both these countries. We are now in the midst of a life and death struggle against both these nations. This fight will not only determine the outcome of the struggle between National Socialism and Jewry, but the whole conduct of this successful war will be of great and positive help to the Arabs who are engaged in the same struggle. This is not only an abstract assurance. A mere promise would be of no value whatsoever. But assurance which rests upon a conquering force is the only one which has real value. In the Iraqi campaign, for instance, the sympathy of the whole German people was for Iraq. It was our aim to help Iraq, but circumstances prevented us from fumishing actual help. The German people saw in them (in the Iraqis-Ed.) comrades in suffering because the German people too have suffered as they have. All the help we gave Iraq was not sufficient to save Iraq from the British forces. For this reason it is necessary to underscore one thing: in this struggle which will decide the fate of the Arabs I can now speak as a man dedicated to an ideal and as a military leader and a soldier. Everyone united in this great struggle who helps to bring about its successful outcome, serves the common cause and thus serves the Arab cause. Any other view means weakening the military situation and thus offers no help to the Arab cause. Therefore it is necessary for us to decide the steps which can help us against world Jewry, against Communist Russia and England, and which among them can be most useful. Only if we win the war will the hour of deliverance also be the hour of fulfillment of Arab aspirations. The situation is as follows: We are conducting the great struggle to open the way to the North of the Caucasus. The difficulties involved are more than transportation because of the demolished railways and roads and because of winter weather. And if I venture in these circumstances to issue a declaration with regard to Syria, then the pro-de Gaulle elements in France will be strengthened and this might cause a revolt in France. These men (the French) will be convinced then that joining Britain is more advantageous and the detachment of Syria is a pattern to be followed in the remainder of the French Empire. This will strengthen de Gaulle's stand in the colonies. If the declaration is issued now, difficulties will arise in Western Europe which will cause the diversion of some (German-Ed.) forces for defensive purposes, thus preventing us from sending all our forces to the East. Now I am going to tell you something I would like you to keep secret. First, I will keep up my fight until the complete destruction of the Judeo-Bolshevik rule has been accomplished. Second, during the struggle (and we don't know when victory will come, but probably not in the far future) we will reach the Southern Caucasus. Third, then I would like to issue a declaration; for then the hour of the liberation of the Arabs will have arrived. Germany has no ambitions in this area but cares only to annihilate the power which produces the Jews. Fourth, I am happy that you have escaped and that you are now with the Axis powers. The hour will strike when you will be the lord of the supreme word and not only the conveyer of our declarations. You will be the man to direct the Arab force and at that moment I cannot imagine what would happen to the Western peoples. Fifth, I think that with this Arab advance begins the dismemberment of the British world. The road from Rostov to Iran and Iraq is shorter than the distance from Berlin to Rostov. We hope next year to smash this barrier. It is better then and not now that a declaration should be issued as (now) we cannot help in anything. I understand the Arab desire for this (declaration-Ed.), but His Excellency the Mufti must understand that only five years after I became President of the German government and Fuehrer of the German people, was I able to get such a declaration (the Austrian Union-Ed.), and this because military forces prevented me from issuing such a declaration. But when the German Panzer tanks and the German air squadrons reach the Southern Caucasus, then will be the time to issue the declaration. He said (in reply to a request that a secret declaration or a treaty be made) that a declaration known to a number of persons cannot remain secret but will become public. I (Hitler) have made very few declarations in my life, unlike the British who have made many declarations. If I issue a declaration, I will uphold it. Once I promised the Finnish Marshal that I would help his country if the enemy attacks again. This word of mine made a stronger impression than any written declaration. Recapitulating, I want to state the following to you: When we shall have arrived in the Southern Caucasus, then the time of the liberation of the Arabs will have arrived. And you can rely on my word. We were troubled about you. I know your life history. I followed with interest your long and dangerous journey. I was very concerned about you. I am happy that you are with us now and that you are now in a position to add your strength to the common cause.
Source: The Arab Higher Committee .... The Documentary Record. It is patently, self servingly absurd of Ivan Ward to speculate about what Freud would think were he alive today.We can know, however, that Freud knew the importance of history and the dangers of effacing the past.
August 13, 2002The Freud Museum: Apologist ForThe Freud Museum: Apologist For Terror In a recent Horsefeathers piece the Freud Museum of London's website propaganda on behalf of Yasser Arafat's terror apparatus was exposed. Now the Museum has responded to criticism by identifying the author of the repellent cant and offering his further reflections. However the response is, if anything, worse than the original. Particularly offensive is the effort to claim the mantle of Freud's authority in support of the author, Ivan Ward's views. Among these views is the idea that the barbaric practice, endorsed and financially rewarded by Saddam and the Saudis, whereby mothers happily send their children off to be homicide bombers, is no different from what mothers have always done everywhere--proudly sent their sons off to war! What repellent and offensive nonsense, as anyone whose memory stretches back to World War ll can attest. Mr. Ward in a torrent of psychobabble manages to equate the glee of families of homicide bombers with the grief of those who lost loved children in past wars, including the war to save Western civilization from Hitler. I don't seem to recall Londoners cheering and exulting in the deaths of their sons, or in the deaths of innocents. Particularly offensive is Mr. Ward's assertion that his views are the views Freud would most likely hold were he alive today. "How might Freud have responded to my young friend? Perhaps he would have pointed out that generations of mothers stretching back in time have sacrificed their sons to the male gods of war. In his characteristic way he may have generalised the experience to show that the idea of sacrifice - often of a child - is at the core of many religions. Whether by accident or design this has been one of the roles of mothers throughout history." Herbert M. Wyman, M.D.
August 03, 2002War in the Age ofWar in the Age of Therapy
"Gee Officer Krupke we're really upset/ We never got the lovin' any child oughtta get." The bloody history of the twentieth century should have taught us that violent utopians--Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, et.al-. were not to be reasoned with. As the evacuation of Dunkirk began, Lord Halifax, the establishment leader of the Conservative Party advised Churchill that a negotiated peace was the only logical course, and was quoted by UPI as inviting "Chancellor Hitler to make a new and more generous offer."
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