SYMPATHY FOR BEGINNERS

by Malik Isasis






















Sympathy is defined as the capacity to share feelings, the ability to enter into, understand, or share somebody else’s feelings. The lack of this emotion in Bush’s and Cheney’s emotional repertoire and the abundance of apathy has resulted in mass death and destruction, political corruption and pathological lying.

We know that Bush and Cheney can love; they love their family and their close friends—although they are known for throwing the friends overboard if they need to lighten the load of the perennial boat that’s up the creek without a paddle. They can usually break through their narcissism briefly, but only for the people they love. For the rest of us…well, we get the finger.

I have used so many analogies of Bush’s narcissism that it’s difficult to think of more creative ones.

Bush is like a child with two teddy bears and he is asked to share one of them with another child who doesn’t have one.

“No!” Baby Bush says.

Okay, this is normal—this is fine, there are some children who are naturally selfish, however, this is the point in which the parents step in and teach one to share with others because it’s the right thing to do, and two, because it’s embarrassing as hell to have a child who won’t share an extra teddy bear with another child in front of another parent. This lesson is often reinforced all throughout the formative years, right? This builds sympathy.

Apathy, the inability to feel normal or passionate human feelings or respond emotionally, is built in several ways, but the way it was built in George Bush’s scripted life was through his failure at every profession he has pursued. He failed in school and ended up in Yale and in Harvard; he failed as an oilman, but somehow ended up a millionaire. He failed as a businessman but somehow became the owner of a professional baseball team; he failed at being a politician but ended up governor of Texas and eventually the President of the United States.

There’s nothing in Bush’s aristocratic narrative to suggest greatness—quite the opposite, but there is a common thread and that is Bush’s father picking up the broken pieces left in Bush’s destructive wake. Bush senior always made sure his baby boy was a success. As I said before, Bush senior has failed Bush junior because Bush junior was never allowed to feel the failure, and develop an emotional connection to it and grow from it, rather Bush senior protected his son from what most of us struggle with frequently, and that is failure, disappointment and sometimes success. It is failure and disappointment which grounds us—of course these feelings aren’t pleasant, but they make us better people because we can enjoy the moments of success when they come around.

Bush has a distorted view of the world in which he operates. He has slipped on banana peels all the way up the ladder of success, and doesn’t even appreciate the hired hands that catch him when he falls.

During the Republican Party absolute power hold for some six years, they and the corporate media have offered their breasts for Bush to suckle on, to coddle his narcissism—they were just like Pop: he break things, steal things and kill people and someone else pick up the pieces.

Since the Democratic Party took hold of Congress and is starting to hold Bush accountable for his decisions with subpoenas, he is acting out like an undisciplined child, claiming Executive Privilege, left, right and center. Of course it makes sense that he would cry privilege, right? What else does he know? If the Democrats hold true to their word, Bush for the first time will have to account for his failure and like the rest of us, he will have to spend sometime with those feelings.


From the mouth of babes

Here is an email sent to me by a friend. I think Bush and the Republican Party can learn a lot about love and sympathy from these 4-8 year children in this questionnaire.


A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, "What does love mean?"
The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think:

"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore.
So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love."
Rebecca- age 8

"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different.
You just know that your name is safe in their mouth."
Billy - age 4


"Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other."
Karl - age 5

"Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs."
Chrissy - age 6

"Love is what makes you smile when you're tired."
Terri - age 4

"Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK."
Danny - age 7

"Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more.
My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss"
Emily - age 8

"Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen."
Bobby - age 7 (Wow!)

"If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate,"
Nikka - age 6 (we need a few million more Nikka's on this planet)

"Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday."
Noelle - age 7

"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well."
Tommy - age 6

"During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling.
He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore."
Cindy - age 8

"My mommy loves me more than anybody
You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night."
Clare - age 6

"Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken."
Elaine-age 5

"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford."
Chris - age 7

"Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day."
Mary Ann - age 4

"I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones."
Lauren - age 4

"When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you." (what an image)
Karen - age 7

"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross."
Mark - age 6 (gotta love that one)

"You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget."
Jessica - age 8

And the final one -- Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge.
The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child.

The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife.

Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there.

When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said,
"Nothing, I just helped him cry"

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