Sic'em

The Step Up Report - Month 48

December 1, 2005

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"All truth passes through three stages.

First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed.

Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."

- Arthur Schopenhaur

Norm Steps Up in Arizona Valley

Loathe as I am to wax negative in this Season of Joy, something has
occurred here that must not pass without comment: There was recently
held in our community a three-day conference on the theme of "domestic
violence", yet not a word did the presenters utter about the physical
punishment of children. Billed as "Causes and Effects of Domestic
Violence", its central theme was wife beating, and secondarily, the
grossest child abuse. Well before the event I volunteered to speak on
my specialty, "The Root Causes of Violence Against Children". To all of
my several calls, I received zero response. "Just a minute...Oh, she's
gone for the day." Most troubling was the premise that there were no
children in this valley. To speak of.

While there were the clinically objective presentations on brain
trauma, and cursory references to "violence prevention", it was as if
it was all happening elsewhere, as in, say, Phoenix, or Afghanistan.
Certainly not here in this Valley of the Innocent. THE TALK WAS ALL
ABOUT SOMEBODY ELSE, IN SOME OTHER PLACE. So, exempt from
responsibility, there was nothing to do but take notes and get credits.
That is, until I began mouthing off - with the intention of comforting
the disturbed and disturbing the comfortable. I glanced to see the
conference director, an ambitious vice-mayor, with his face in his
hands. A decent fellow who's worst fears were playing out.

I have witnessed this massive denial repeatedly for nine years.
Conferences such as this are ceremonial; not real but ritual, like
church; you sit for a while and condemn the sin committed by others,
then go home feeling virtuous again. In similar public cleansings of
past years, I have stood up and quoted Pogo: "We have met the enemy,
and IT IS US!" I could as well have been talking to fence posts.



Five years ago Arizona Governor Napolitano, to her credit, mandated
these annual "rural summits on domestic violence". Locally they are
staged by "SAVE (Stand Against Violence Everywhere)" the ad hoc civic
group already in operation for three years. It was created from
elements political, medical, religious, and "mental health" after a
killing on Main Street where one teenager shot another to death. The
shock was felt all over the State; such an occurrence was not possible
in this Mormon-dominated community, where group fantasy held that
Mormons were beyond reproach for their wholesome childrearing modes.
Where the goose-stepping children of "Sound of Music" and the dancing
children of Disney Land are role models. Surely the tragedy was caused
by "outside influence", and the answer was in escalating the control
and "discipline" of the youth population, while keeping out - or
driving out - the "outsiders" who dared do their own thinking.



I was in attendance at the first meeting of "SAVE", inputting at
my subgroup as the lone voice for alternatives to the call for
increased suppression of youth. When our spokesperson totally omitted
from our committee report my contribution, I stood up and gave a
"minority report"; that more restrictions and punishment would be
counterproductive. The 50 or so in the room sat stunned. I could have
walked in naked. Independent opinions were simply inappropriate here.
The solution was perfectly obvious; the avowed, unanimous purpose of
"SAVE" was to "crack down on teenagers" with more "control", more
"discipline", harsher penalties.

More amazingly, no one debated me. The group simply answered with
the traditional "treatment" given to "outsiders": meetings and times
were changed, with everyone notified except Norm. Never to be included
in another meeting, it was assumed I'd been silenced. What they didn't
know is this: when I returned with a chest full of decorations from
three years fighting Communists in Korea and landed in San Francisco, I
said, "I'm home!" Wheresoever I choose to walk and sit in the U. S.,
I'm home. NOBODY can tell me I'm an "outsider". And as a Jeffersonian
Democrat, I was determined that the freedom of expression would not die
of atrophy. So when I later met a SAVE member I related Pres. Johnson's
reaction when told of a severe critic: "Hire him! I'd rather have him
inside the tent ****ing out, than outside the tent ****ing in."



Armed with the fantasy of self-righteous and biblical "discipline",
they were to "save" local youth from the much-feared invasion of
big-city gangs that were imagined to be poised at the Valley outskirts
to deflower our virtue-loving daughters and draft our brave sons into
the armed ranks of the Devil. (Where is the legendary moral strength
now? I wondered.)

"SAVE" staged its public event, with a theme of "discipline" for
youth. I kept my silence as politicians and state-paid "mental health"
psych majors in "behavioral modification" spoke their views. Next came
a big city detective - a gang expert - to deliver The Answer to raising
obedient children. Then came the drama: six or eight very large and
resplendently-uniformed bull cops filed in, each prominently displaying
his service revolver, confronting the audience. I could keep my silence
no longer.

I rose and took on the detective, countering his arguments point by
point. He had never heard of Alice Miller, or Murray Straus, or Philip
Greven, or Lloyd deMause. Or PTAVE, or EPOCH. He was ignorant of the
research showing the serious harm done by corporal punishment. He
admitted he spanked his daughter, but denied that CP was widespread. He
was unaware there had been 40+ years of science showing he was skipping
down the wrong road in his authoritarian approach to childrearing. His
answer to "misbehavior" was to treat normal kids like criminals. I said
it seemed his purpose was to create them. I followed with a series of
letters and articles in the local paper.



At every session of the recent conference I had spoken about
corporal punishment of children, without having provoked a question,
discussion, or challenge. The final speaker, a pediatrician from
A.S.U., gave a fine presentation, with excellent graphics, on brain
trauma. I was preparing to applaud, until he related his parting
antidote: being pursued by his mother swinging a leather slipper. The
audience roared in cheerful hilarity; but I was steamed. "Do you know,"
I began, "that it took us YEARS of effort to get the American Academy
of Pediatrics to oppose corporal punishment? Do you know," I continued,
"that when you slap the face of a child, it's called 'discipline', but
when you SLAP THE FACE OF A PEDIATRICIAN...suddenly it becomes
'assault'! Call the police! Bring in the lawyers! Handcuffs! But
pediatricians, I assume, can defend themselves. But who will step up
for the defenseless child, who must look to others to stop the
violence? I'll tell you who, doctor. I WILL! And I'm asking you and
everyone else here to do the same."

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