Archive for September, 2009

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Dr. N Buster on Glenn Beck


2009
09.26

Posted in Narcissists in the News | 4 Comments »

Dr. N Buster returns for a guest post to explain the mystifying behavior and popularity of ex-drunk demagogue, Glenn Beck.

Recently Beck appeared in an interview with Katie Couric where his answer to her direct and persistent question as to what exactly constituted “white culture” – that which he claimed President Obama detested, was unresponsive and incoherent. How is it he can get away with this mumbo-jumbo?

Like all typical narcissists, Beck is a habitual and unrepentant liar. It’s not only that his personal reality is distorted and self-serving, but he is patently unaware of the consequences of his behavior and how his unsubstantiated and often ludicrous accusations affect public discourse. When challenged, he feels no responsibility to defend his reckless fear mongering and considers himself entitled to say and do whatever he wants. He does not adhere to any social or ethical mores; they don’t apply to him. He operates from a consistent double standard and seems oblivious to his hypocrisy.

Is Beck’s schtick for real or is he faking his outrage and pathos?

It’s obvious after several painful episodes that Beck is faking virtually all of his emotions; his affect is uncontrollable and bizarre. His main emotions that he understands and doesn’t fake are rage and fear. He operates from a core of unnatural paranoia, which could be the result of brain damage he did while an admitted drug addict and “raging alcoholic” for years, or is simply the way he has been hard wired all his life. Only his family and oldest friends can attest to how he behaved before he became a drunk. I suspect the alcohol and drugs merely exacerbated his personality.

Why is he so popular and how did a guy like him get his own cable TV show?

Beck articulates and sanctions the fear, anger and superstitious belief system of a minority of hardline wingnuts, probably the infamous 27% that continued to support George Bush and currently believe the President was born in Kenya and that our country is simultaneously fascist, communist and socialist, regardless of how impossible and ridiculous that would be. Beck gives credence to crazy, deluded people whose worldview is based on willful ignorance, deep-seated bigotry, and sour grapes. Clearly, Fox sees the commercial potential of tapping into this loyal base and through repetition, shock jock style, and publicity, enables the manifestation of this fringe group into mainstream consciousness. In addition, Beck is homely, unthreatening, not very bright, emotionally infantile, prone to irrationality – thus appealing to the lowest common denominator.

How does one defeat this Flim-Flam Man?

Exposure is greatest way to defeat any narcissist. Their greatest fear is to be revealed as a sham, liar, fraud and con, and their ideas to be shown as unoriginal, preposterous and mendacious. As long as the 27% tune in, the powers that be at Fox give Beck a platform, and MSM covers him like a celebrity, he will continue to spread his toxic waste. If more reporters and commentators exposed and ridiculed his fraud (rather than only Keith Olbermann of MSNBC and Rick Sanchez of CNN, and occasionally Fox’s own Shep Smith), he would eventually retreat in shame. Apparently, even losing over 60 corporate sponsors to his show has not deterred Fox, but we can hope that sensible viewers prevail or that Beck will self-sabotage in a Cecil B. DeMille fashion as all textbook narcissists do, eventually.

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You’ll Never Be One of the Boys – Part I of a Series


2009
09.21

Posted in Kids of All Ages | 2 Comments »

Every red-blooded American girl born in the last 50 years has a deep, dark secret she won’t admit to anyone. No, she doesn’t fake all her orgasms. Ok, some of you do, but that’s not it. This is not about sex. Well, not about that kind of sex.

No, the secret is… she wishes she was born a boy. Yes you do. Liar. Admit it.

She may enjoy being a girl and does a bang-up job of it, maybe she’s the most feminine little kitten you’d ever meet, but she at one time, or a lot of the time, or possibly most of the time, wishes she were a man.

Why? Well, come on. Who runs the world? Men – most of them white men born in the 50s. All that “women’s lib” and “You’ve come a long way, baby?” It’s a bunch of crap. By the time girls figure out they have to wear pink booties instead of blue booties, they know the jig is up: doomed to have to work twice as hard, be twice as talented and be twice as smart just to prove they’re equal to their brothers. And even after how many years now? – they still get paid about half of what men get paid for the same job.

And the worst thing is? Women can’t get old. We’re expected to be youthful, beautiful, fit, feminine, and fertile. Men are allowed to get old – they get “distinguished” and “seasoned.” Men can get fat and hairy and reek like the county fair cattle pen and still have power, money, careers, young lovers. But women? No way. If a woman gains weight, turns gray, wrinkled or sick, she’s shipped off to the glue factory like a lame brood mare. This happens sometime around age …. 35.

Now, I’m not telling you this to whine about inequality. That’s just reality. What discourages me most about is that we were lied to! I came of age in the last 20 years of the 20th century in the richest, most advanced country in the world and all the adults in my life – parents, teachers, professors, bosses, politicians – told me that if I worked hard, kept my nose clean, got good grades and followed the rules I could do anything a boy could do. That, my friends, is a big, fat lie.

I’m not ashamed to admit I wish I had been born a boy…just because you won’t. Back in the 70s when boys looked like girls and girls looked…androgynous, I was mistaken for a boy a few times in the girls’ locker room at the local swimming pool. Some little girl would point to me and call out to her mother, “Mom! There’s a BOY in here!” I had short hair, wore baggy t-shirts and cut-offs like every other girl in the neighborhood. Ok, I had an ironing board shape and a lanky build, so it wasn’t that crazy. And at first, I was insulted, but then I decided this might prove amusing, so I played a little game seeing how often I could pass myself off as a boy. I even called myself “Adam.” Sometimes I had to get my little sister or a friend to play along, but it worked. A lot. I even won a few bets.

By the time I was 16, I didn’t want to look like a boy anymore, but I still didn’t have any…curves. One of my first jobs was at the Brown Derby where I was a “salad girl” back when salad bars were all the rage. I wore the same uniform as the bus boys. Really sexy. I used to haul out heavy crocks filled with garbanzo beans or Thousand Island dressing or disgusting pickled beets (I can still smell those things), and replace the empties and freshen the ice and clean the counter. Yeah, it was harder than being a bus boy and I got paid about half since I didn’t get any tips. One day this huge 300-pound man was standing in front of the salad bar piling on the fixings as if he hadn’t eaten in…oh, about an hour, and I had to get by. I’m standing behind him struggling with these 40-pound crocks, asking in my most polite voice, “Excuse me, sir, can I get in there?” I said this like four times and finally I nudged him a little with my elbow. He turned around, bloated face reddened with rage, grabbed my arm, nearly knocking me over, and said, “Look here, Sonny! I’m gettin’ my salad!”

Sonny?! I mustered up my courage and said, “I’m not your SONNY! I’m a girl! And I need to get in there!” He looked a little embarrassed, but he didn’t apologize. This was just one of many lessons I’d learn about what it was like to be a girl in a man’s world, feminism be damned.

 

To be continued.