lierdumoa:

betterbemeta:

betterbemeta:

I don’t think that they’re oblivious but I’m pretty disappointed by a lot of coverage of Donald Trump blaming the family separation policies on the democrats. A lot of the commentary has focused on how this is a lie because right now, the democrats don’t control any branch of government, can’t easily pass laws, and have a bill in play that could stop policies like what’s going on right now.

But that’s the thing. Trump’s not ‘lying’– he’s just behaving like an abusive husband. To him, the democrats ‘pushed’ him and his party to employ such cruel policies for not allowing progress on the border wall among other things. He isn’t trying to spread misinformation that the democrats made the policies. Trump is trying to say that if the democrats truly wanted the cruelty to stop, they’d give him everything he wanted and never cease to please him again.

It’s useless to treat this like he’s senile or a panicked man trying to spread direct misinformation– it’s not like that. He is actively threatening that unwillingness to submit to his demands will ‘make’ his administration escalate violence. But any abuse survivor knows that just caving doesn’t actually stop an abusive person from just continuing their abuse, or make them reverse the damage that has been done.

it doesn’t surprise me though that widespread culture isn’t immediately zeroing in on this angle, because the Trump administration brings abuse dynamics to people who would never otherwise have experience with them. People who would never be in a position to be gaslighted are baffled when Sarah Sanders comes on the news. People who’ve never been told that their refusal “pushed” a family member or partner to violence go away scratching their head when Trump says the Democrats are to blame for his administration’s atrocities. 

To someone who doesn’t recognize these tactics because there is no one in their life that wields that power over them, these seem like inane lies, easily rebuked “no, that’s literally not true.” But can you imagine telling that to an abusive husband that says his wife serving dinner late ‘pushed his temper?’ What would that even accomplish?

Liberal media’s too cowardly to use the word lie to describe his lies, let alone use the word abuse to describe his abusive behavior.

rainaramsay:

Ready? 

Humans are packbondy creatures.  I mean, there’s just no arguing it.  They packbond readily, and quickly, and unbelievably strongly.  Once a human has packbonded with a thing, they will do anything to help and protect that thing.  

There’s a downside to that, not often mentioned.  It uses up a lot of their time and energy to build those packbonds, maintain those packbonds, and most especially to do the work of helping and protecting those with whom they have packbonded.  It doesn’t leave them a lot of time and energy for helping other beings. 

If you want a human to help you – if you want to reliably get their best effort – you have to packbond with them first.

“Yeah? So?”
So you’re probably going to be working with humans for most, if not all, of your career.  No matter how good or bad you are at your job, there will come a time when you need someone else in your workspace to help you with something, whether that’s manning the fry station for 2 minutes while you pee, sending over those numbers from marketing, or dropping everything to teach you how to do a thing that your boss told you to do or else you’d be fired.  

Not to mention the big things.  They don’t give promotions to just their friends – at least not so much any more. Promotions go to the people who’ve completed big, visible, important projects.  It seems fair until you consider,,,, who gets the big, important, visible projects assigned to them in the first place?  

Humans give boosts to the people they’ve packbonded with.  They mention packbondee’s accomplishments to the boss (or the boss’ boss).  They cover for the mistakes of people they’ve packbonded with.  

“That’s not right! It shouldn’t be a popularity contest! It should be about who does the best –” 
Listen to me. 
Listen.

You may be right.  You may be the most correct creature to have ever spoken since the beginning of galactic civilization. 

It
does
not
matter

Humans packbond. It’s what they do. I can’t stop it. You can’t stop it.  No power in the ‘verse can stop it. This is how the human do.

All you can do is work with it. 

If you want a human to help you – if you want to reliably get their best effort – you have to packbond with them first.

“Look, I’m introverted and scared of people and I have social anxiety so I really don’t know how to –”
Hey, my pal, I feel you.  I, too, am introverted. And I have social anxiety. And I have PTSD that actually – and I recognize that this is bizarre – has ‘business networking’ as a trigger.  

For you, I have good news:
Humans will packbond with anything.  

Like, you don’t really actually have to do anything. You kinda just have to… exist. In their presence. They kinda do the rest.  

If you can talk with them, that speeds things up.  But it doesn’t have to be, like, good conversation. Like, it can totally go

You: boy, sure is hot out!
Human: Man oh man, can you believe it?
You: Wow, yeah
Human: Totally
You: ….
Human: ….

This conversation – as awkward and uncomfortable as it felt to you, has caused this human to packbond with you a little more. If you repeat it weekly, you will get good results. 

THE TAKEAWAYS

• You need to packbond with the humans you come in contact with
• Taking time to do that is not only justifiable, it is an important part of your job, and should be treated as such
• That is to say that, as much as you hate it (and believe me, I understand), you have to take time away from actual work and dedicate it to packbonding with your fellow workers

Tips

• Plan out your packbonding time. It’s easier if you can initiate than if a human springs packbonding-time on you all unexpected.  In an office job I like to use Friday afternoon, but adjust according to what makes sense to you and your situation.
• Keep some packbonding-time questions handy.  My go-to list is:
• (If it’s Monday or Tuesday) How was your weekend?
• (If it’s Wednesday) How’s your week been so far?
• (If it’s Thursday or Friday) Any big plans for the weekend?
• How’s your day been?
• You don’t have to care about the answers to these questions. All you have to do is remember that if the human is answering questions, they are not asking you any questions.  Therefore questions are your friend.  If you ask follow-up questions, you may be able to get through the entire packbonding time without having to do any of the talking
• Learn to disengage from packbonding.  You can use basically the same sentence (or variants on it), but you’ll want to practice it so that you can make it sound natural.  I use “Awesome! Well, I gotta get going. Have a good one!”

I know it feels overwhelming, but a few minutes of packbonding, once a week, is all you need.  Once you build it into your habits it can be no more annoying than doing dishes or showering.  

sirfrogsworth:

“But Obama did a bad thing too!”

Agreed. 

Now that I’ve acknowledged that, can we please stop the bad thing currently happening that doesn’t require a time machine to fix?