(photo: Wikipedia)

Do you know what victim mentality is?

A person with victim mentality loves to lose, because they get a reason to rub it into everybody’s faces. “Pity me,” demands the victim. “I have been, as always, mistreated by fate.” Every day, every hour the victim finds a reason to pity themselves: they have a cold, the weather is bad, their diamond shoes too tight.

And then one day there is a real reason for self-pity. They break a leg, develop cancer or their house burns down. And then all self-pitying hell breaks lose. The victim suffers more than anybody has ever suffered, anywhere and anytime, and demands only the best quality pity to be descended upon them.

That’s what Poland has been like for the last nine days. Nine days of national mourning.

*

I have seen an article today with the headline: “During Polish president’s funeral, Obama has been playing golf.” What a horrible, horrible person Obama is! We should retaliate! He should have been watching every second of the horrible events, glued to TV, tears flowing down his face in sadness at the fact that he couldn’t have flown to Poland. Not playing *splutters* GOLF. Something sordid would have been a better choice. He could have perhaps been forgiven for playing bridge, while dressed in all black, in immaculate company of bishops. But NOT GOLF. I mean REALLY.

The Polish media haven’t really written about anything else than the deaths and the funeral for nine days. After two days they finally relented a bit and wrote some small side-line notes about the Icelandic volcano. (Have you heard that it was the last wish of the Icelandic economy that its ashes are scattered all over Europe??) The funeral has been transmitted live all over the world — I have seen it personally at my gym of all places? well, I have seen five seconds of it, which was as long as it took me to switch it off.

Russians have not only admitted that it was Stalin who ordered the massacre in Katyn 70 years ago, they have also played the Andrzej Wajda movie on public TV, provided all help, including financial and psychological help to families of the victims, responded positively to all Polish requests, and their prime minister has flown, despite the ash, to witness the funeral. The funeral has taken place in Cracow, hundreds of kilometers from Warsaw, where Kaczynski family lives and where the president spent most of his life. Cracow, you see, has a crypt on Wawel where kings of old have been buried, and so it is the only place respectable enough for Our President.

Thousands of people gathered to say goodbye? or, one could say, to eat a few hamburgers queuing with friends, be photographed with a coffin in the background, then go home and post pictures on Facebook. Polish politicians also gathered, in hopes of welcoming Obama, Sarkozy, Prince Charles and Dimitri Medvedev to the country. The papers printed longer and longer lists of guests, next to bigger and bigger photographs of dead president and his wife. Everything, of course, in tasteful black and white. TV stations cancelled all shows that could possibly be misread as ‘jolly’ and replaced them with priests and commenters discussing the possible repercussions and remembering Our President for the hero he apparently was.

Thing is: Our President will not be remembered positively by history. As a president of Warsaw he has mostly achieved total and utter paralysis of all decisions, stopped a few gay pride parades and had one museum built. As a president of Poland he has mostly kept himself busy with history-based politics, been photographed acting awkward with many foreign politicians and fought with the prime minister when it made sense and when it didn’t. His death in a plane accident has suddenly elevated him from the least popular president ever into a national hero who died for his views.

His death is the greatest thing that happened to Poland since the death of John Paul II. (It is not accidental that Poles keep on remembering JP2’s death anniversary, not the anniversary of his birth or him being elected the Pope.) Poland is, suddenly, front page news again. Not because of our incredible successes (there aren’t any), scientific achievements (there are few) or our pop stars, actors, sports personalities. Because of 96 people dying in a plane crash. Well done everyone, we are on the news. What a bloody shame Obama, Sarkozy and Prince Charles have cancelled. Also, as I have just read in this article, the American media haven’t reported on the tragedy often enough, the politicians haven’t reacted quickly enough and there aren’t enough flowers under the Katyn monuments in the US. Our president has died! And 95 other important people!!! We demand MORE PITY DAMMIT!!!

I find the protests against Ahmadinejad amazing. As the communists learned in USSR, Poland, Czechoslovakia etc. before, the real problems don’t come when people have to be told to go to elections, then the elections are blatantly falsified and result of 99% pro- votes published. The real problems arise when people actually believe their votes matter, only to find out they didn’t. MAJOR mistake. If Mousavi was arrested a month before elections, opposition politicians sent away and cut from the media and their supporters, this wouldn’t be happening. But those people believed things were going to change — whichever the direction or scale of changes — and they were shown a finger.

(Oh by the way, it would be pretty interesting to forward that last bit to Obama administration. It’s all very nice and exciting to say that Defense of Marriage Act will be repealed during the second term, but LGTB people might not feel like believing that and then — shock horror — there might not be a second term.)

The winner of nine air medals for distinguished service in flight, including one for heroism the night U.S. forces captured Baghdad International Airport in 2003, Fehrenbach is in the process of getting kicked out of the military a year after an acquaintance told his bosses he was gay. [...] Obama “was someone who had experienced discrimination firsthand and that’s why I had a lot of faith,” Fehrenbach said. “I thought, OK I can fight this, and maybe by January Obama could be inaugurated and this won’t matter. That hasn’t happened.”

The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, an advocacy group seeking equal treatment of gays in the military, estimates that more than 200 service members have been discharged under “don’t ask, don’t tell” since Obama was sworn into office. [...] Most of the estimated 13,000 service members discharged under “don’t ask, don’t tell” since the law was enacted in 1993 have opted to leave quietly and close the final chapter of their military careers in private. Groups calling for the repeal of the ban, however, say Fehrenbach is among a growing number who are going public with a newfound sense of urgency.

In September, Fehrenbach had decided to accept an honorable discharge and waive his right to a military hearing, where he would have to lie about being gay in order to stay in the Air Force. He refused. [...]

“I will fight this in uniform and I’ll fight it without,” Fehrenbach said. “I swore an oath to defend and support the Constitution, I’m going to speak out and fight this until the law is repealed because it is not constitutional.”

He said “don’t ask, don’t tell” denies American service members their constitutional right to privacy, due process and equal protection, and forces them to lie about who they are when honesty is part of the code they serve under. [...]

Obama’s top advisers want the president to move more slowly in overturning the policy than many gay-rights activists would like, citing other priorities including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “We have a lot on our plate right now,” retired Marine Gen. James Jones, the White House’s national security adviser, said this month.

On the other side of the debate, the Michigan-based Center for Military Readiness gathered signatures earlier this year from more than 1,000 retired military officers urging the president and Congress to keep the ban. “It’s really not fair to the women and men of our armed forces to be part of this social experiment,” said center president Elaine Donnelly. “Military life is difficult enough without having this additional burden. This is harmful to good order and discipline and morale.”

Personally I couldn’t care less — the only interest I have in army related matters are certain movies I have, ahem, accidentally downloaded from torrent sites — but I applaud people like Lt. Col. Fehrenbach for no longer going away quietly. This is the only way to get DADT repelled, I believe — not voting for Obama, Clinton or McCain and hoping miracles will happen but actually showing America the people they lose. Translators from Arabic? Winners of medals for outstanding service? Who cares? They’re FAGS. What Ms. Donnelly doesn’t seem to realise is that — as the case of Victor Fehrenbach proves — gays ARE in the army. The fact that she can’t see them doesn’t mean they don’t exist. For 18 years Victor Fehrenbach kept his private life private; his straight colleagues didn’t have to do anything such. Now he is being fired — not for molesting anyone, for destroying the morals that Ms. Donnelly cares so much about, but for the simple fact of having been outed by someone. 18 years of service? Who gives a fuck. We have discipline and morale to protect! (And many more gay soldiers and officers to hurt by not allowing them to live in the open.)

I never expected Obama to do wonders. There are voices already saying “we shouldn’t have voted for him”, which strike me as idiotic — as if McCain would have done much more. Perhaps Clinton would have. We don’t know that. But while the wait continues and White House “has other things on its plate”, the White House spokesman continues to not ask and not tell much about the policy and plans regarding it, lives get ruined and careers wasted. If the measure gets repelled sometime, I will cheer Obama for that. If it doesn’t… I think it might not be a good idea to campaign for the second term saying “but really this time we will, like, totally bring the change, just give me five more years”.

Harvey Fierstein via Joe.My.God.:

“A couple of boys were calling my best friend a faggot one unhappy day at summer camp. Courses of action seemed slim to my adolescent mind. I could stand up for Jack branding myself a fag as well and insuring myself a miserable summer, or I could join in with the name callers, lose my closest friend, but assure my standing with the majority. I sacrificed my friend on the altar of popularity. I don?t think I need to tell you that political expediency was a terrific short-term solution but a long-term nightmare. My summer concluded uneventfully but none of those boys became my friend or did me any favors. And forty years later I still feel the loss of Jack along with a piece of my self respect that I can never win back. Mine was an act of cowardice and betrayal.

“It seems Obama is now maneuvering through the summer camp of his political adolescence and is about to make the same bad choice as I. He can call the placing of a hate monger like Rick Warren on the world dais political healing or inclusiveness or any other nicety he?d like, but I call it pandering to the lowest instinct of the worst kind of politics.

“President Elect Obama, your victory was made possible in no small part to the votes and wallets of the gay and lesbian community along with our supporters. Turning your back on us does not make you more mainstream American. It just makes you a coward.” – Harvey Fierstein, writing on Facebook.

Time Writer: Obama Is a ?Very Rational Sounding Sort of Bigot? Against Gay Americans (via my boss)
http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=246723

There is an article in today’s “Gazeta Wyborcza” — leading Polish daily paper, viewed by most as left-wing/liberal — about the “gays fighting against Obama”. Written by Marcin Bosacki, it contains all elements of the semi-civilised right-wing speech I got used to: careful choice of words to depreciate the “gays” (lesbians, as always happens in Polish press, barely get a mention); the gays, also known as “they”, “boom” and “accuse”; anyone who in any way supported Prop 8 is their “mortal enemy”, and in the eyes of “most members of the gay environments” Warren has “committed an unforgivable crime” by “supporting the introduction in the California constitution the definition of marriage as an union between a man and a woman”. The article does not mention that Prop 8 has taken away an existing right, nor that the loving pastor’s way of supporting was comparing gay marriage to incest and pedophilia (the quote is mentioned in a different paragraph, which also informs us that Warren has many gay friends with whom he wouldn’t be seen dead in public — which sounds strangely similar to “I am not racist, my best friend is beige”). Andrew Sullivan “has loudly publicised his own gay wedding” — because heterosexual couples make sure nobody finds out about theirs. And so on.

LGTB, or “they” are unhappy because “in their opinion there is no space for compromise”. What kind of compromise is there to be made? Either you think non-heterosexual people are fully human, or you don’t. Either you believe a gay or lesbian couple should have the right to get married, or you don’t. Where’s the space for compromise? The “civil unions” aren’t a compromise. As handy as they can be, as much as they are a step into the right direction, they are yet another way to underline that LGBT people are less human; no, you can’t get married you stinky little queers, that one not for you, but here, here, have a civil union, go get civilly unionised and shut up about your rights for fuck’s sake, naah you don’t have to thank us, just don’t publicise it like that awful, awful man Andrew Sullivan (probably not one of Rick Warren’s gay friends) did. Would it not be racist if there was a Prop 21 taking away the right for interracial couples to marry? Would it not be racist if those couples were informed their love is equal to incest and pedophilia? Would it not be racist if they were told that, if they must, they can get certain rights as long as they don’t call themselves married? Would the supporter of such law get invited to speak during Obama’s inauguration? And remember, there was a time when the definition of marriage did not cover mixed race couples. I’m not writing science fiction here.

In the last words of his article, Bosacki writes, cynically: “After failing in California and on the same day in Florida and Arizona, gays go on comparing their fate to that of Negro slaves or even Jews during the Holocaust.” (No quotes there somehow, but I’m sure that’s just because the author ran out of space, there must be millions of “members of gay environments” comparing themselves to Jews during the holocaust.) “But, in fact, outside of making an uproar in the media, they can’t really hurt Obama politically. Their numbers are less than those of the members of Evangelical churches, whom Obama wants to reach via Warren. And even if their vote counted more, what would they do? Vote Sarah Palin four years from now?”

I don’t think that Darian, the author of Living Out Loud With Darian has read Bosacki’s article (which by the way sounds like something straight out of a right-wing competition of “Gazeta Wyborcza” — “Rzeczpospolita”) when he wrote this:

There comes a point when a person gets sick and tired of being sick and tired. When fighting for the same amount of respect, recognition, and access to equal protection under the law should not be a battle but a given.

When you can no longer deny the hostility directed at you from a group of people who look like you but are the first to disown you. Yet for the sake of “belonging” you continue to endure the torture hoping by some state of osmosis things will change.

There comes a point when you get sick and tired of having to explain your right to exist on this earth as you are.

[...] There comes a point when you get sick and tired of hoping that religion will catch up with science and when the word abomination is mentioned in a sentence it won’t be directed at you. Or when you hear the word spoken again you won’t buy into the lie that it defines you.

When your happiness doesn’t require the approval of family, society, or an ancient book that was once a source of hope for so many, but has now been turned into a weapon more dangerous than anything requiring a bullet.

There comes a point when you get sick and tired of your rights being put up for the popular vote and you get so angry that all you know to do is take to the streets by the thousands.

When you get sick and tired of explaining that a dog or a goat can’t sign a marriage license but another human being can.

[...] There comes a point when you get sick and tired of being marginalized and the second class citizenship you’ve become accustomed to is no longer sufficient.

When you expect your leaders to carry through with campaign promises to make this country a place where all men and women truly are equal regardless of race, class, sexual orientation, or gender identity instead of the same old empty rhetoric.

Yes there comes a point when you’ve had about all you can take and your body and mind becomes numb and you can’t feel anything.

The fact that Rick Warren will speak at Obama’s inauguration doesn’t actually have a meaning by itself. It’s not like Obama’s years in office are doomed because of that, or like the gay vote has suddenly turned to Republicans. What it does is give a very clear signal: The Change you Believed In is not for everyone. Yes, We Can, but the definition of “we” must now, post-election, get somewhat narrowed down. Thanks for your votes — but really, it’s not like you could have done anything else, I mean, Sarah Palin anyone?

Also, yes, I am aware that I am not American and that in the country I come from civil unions would have been a MAJOR step. But my belief in the change to come is right now a bit less than it was a few weeks ago — and supporters of John McCain and Sarah Palin just got a reason to celebrate; perhaps it will be same old, same old after all.