The Suckers behind the Angry White Men

As a social worker in grad school I studied many child development theories.

Watching the "Tea Parties", the "protests" over health care and the angry white men interviewed on television, with red faces, shouting, indignant, one theory sticks in my mind.

Expect a negative behavior to increase before it is extinguished when you set boundaries with a young child.

A child exhibits a behavior you want to stop. You say no and remove the child from the behavior. The child will inevitably return to do it again. Often times it will become a power struggle.

The answer is to divert the child. The child may return to the spot and the behavior at a later date and the same process is repeated. Eventually the behavior s diminished and eradicated.

The angry white men in congress are in the last throes of their petulant, spoiled little boy behaviors.

The behaviors are increasing and exacerbating.

For example;

"You have some splainin to do"-totally unacceptable and racist behavior on the part of an educated, grown man. A grown up should have removed him from the situation-

The "Tea Parties"-look around. Angry white men with signs during the worst economic times in our lives-protesting taxes which have not been raised.

The temper tantrum is someone else has the ball and they don't like it. Interrupt the game by calling names and diverting attention.

The insanity of it all has me shaking my head in wonder.. The oldest primitive responses in behavioral science are played out for all to see and no one sees them.

President Obama's birth certificate elicits crazy behavior. For those who want to believe no amount of proof will satisfy them. Who carries this message forward? Who encourages this behavior? The same angry old white men who, behind the scenes, tap into that two year old boy behavior-no one can make me change-I won't do it-I won't do it!"

Ironically, this is the legacy of the Baby Boomer generation.

Look around you. Health Care Corporations, Insurance companies, oil and energy companies, utilities, Wall Street, banks, mortgage companies-all owned or run by angry white men in their sixties.

Who are the talking heads for the angry white man being told no? Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs, Bill O'Reilly, Glen Beck, -check out their ages..

News media? Owned and run by many of the Baby Boomer generation.

Government? Look at those having the temper tantrums?

Makes one wonder if the Baby Boomers sincerity of the sixties-for equal rights, desegregation, equal pay and free speech weren't really just throwing big temper tantrums because they could.

Now the Generation of Baby Boomer males fight the dirty fight.

Why?

Because they think they can get away with it, once again.

Las Vegas homeless meets the NY Times

Las Vegas Wash Homeless

(New York Times description of above picture)

Some of the Las Vegas homeless resort to living in a maze of underground flood channels beneath the Strip. There they face flash floods, disease, black widows and dank, pitch-dark conditions, but some tunnel dwellers say life there is better than being harassed and threatened by assailants and the police.

Las Vegas is never far from the minds of reporters. Sadly, it is a microcosm of traits the rest of the country would rather not own up to.

Historically the city liked to hide the homeless. It is bad for the image. Tourists don't want to come here to lose money from tight slots machines only to see the results of compulsive gambling on the streets.

Recently a man shot himself in front of the Las Vegas sign.

Pretty symbolic.

Homeless living in the washes is nothing new-in fact it has been an address for the homeless for many years. You can follow the path of the homeless by following the empty shopping carts from the side of the road to the wash. Homeless individuals use them to carry their belongings.

While my son was attending school in Las Vegas for EMT training he worked at a take out pizza place next to a wash. At night when he cleaned up, he would save the leftover pizzas and rather than throw them out place them in a box and leave them on the top of the dumpster. The homeless men who lived in the wash would come up and retrieve them.

One day the police came to the store asking him questions.

Later he told me about it-tearfully. Someone had murdered them.

It never made the paper and no one was arrested.