abuse | The Direction of Intention

Shine The Light [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on November 20, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Impressions in the moment:

It’s a miserable day with freezing rain so bitter that Dogga does not want to go outside. He would leap with glee into a blizzard so it’s a potent statement that he, our snow-dog, chooses to stay warm and dry inside.

We are writing this post in the space between the press conference with the Epstein survivors and the House vote. By the time you read this the vote will have been taken. If I was a better writer, I’d narrate this story of this limbo moment, or perhaps the liminal space in our nation’s history, in which it became crystal clear how hard the patriarchy, the powerful male elite, will fight to maintain their privilege, their protected position above the law. This vote will pass the House. What comes next will reveal whether we are we witness to a tipping point or yet another act of avoidance facilitated by a system that grants immunity to the male gentry at the exclusion of the rights of women. What new obstacle will arise to prevent the release of the files and fail to expose the rot in the halls of power? What information will be scrubbed?

I watched the Epstein survivors holding photographs of themselves, taken at the age of their abuse. Children. I saw a picture of Kerri taken at the age when she was sexually assaulted. She looked barely a teenager. I couldn’t speak for several moments after looking at the photograph.

In Seattle I was summoned to jury duty. My pool of 50 citizens was called into voir dire, jury selection, for a case about sexual assault. It was unusual because we were the third group of 50 called before the judge. In the courtroom, the judge made a simple request: Raise your hands if you have been the victim of sexual abuse or if you know anyone who has been sexually abused? Every person in the pool raised their hands. The judge sighed, exasperated. He said, “I’ve now asked this question of three groups. That’s 150 people. Every single person has raised their hands. I believe I could go on like this all day and not find 12 people to seat a jury who have not been impacted by sexual abuse. What’s going on here?”

Indeed. What’s going on here.

She knelt on the trail to get a picture of the dandelion. The sun, low in the sky, made it luminous, gorgeous. This dandelion was scrappy, still hanging on even in the November cold. “I wouldn’t have seen it at all if the light hadn’t been just right,” she said, showing me the photo. “It’s amazing what you see, what emerges, when something finds its way into the light.”

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE DANDELION AND LIGHT

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Edges, Perspective | Tagged: abuse, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Epstein files, justice, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, light, liminal space, patriarchy, sexual assault, story, studio melange, survivors, the melange, truth | Leave a comment »

Definitions [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on August 18, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’m a big fan of secondary definitions. Not only does the word addle mean to confuse, it also means to make an egg rotten. In my mind the two definitions are connected: addle a brain too long and it will rot.

A case in point: while forwarding our smack-dab cartoon on Saturday I happened upon a disturbing comment thread. Members of the maga-cult were abusing a woman who dared to defend the plight of immigrants.

2. Abuse (verb): treat (a person) with cruelty or violence.

The harangue included demands that the woman “get her facts” straight, which I found particularly obscene since the maga-abusers were astonishingly-fact-free while the woman was rooted in reality. The maga-big sticks included two easily debunked claims: 1) The Biden administration paid millions of social security dollars to “illegals*”, and 2) the “illegals” were bleeding the system without paying into the system.

This took less than a minute to fact check: Can undocumented immigrants collect social security? No.

Are undocumented immigrants eligible for Medicaid? No. (bonus fact: Is misinformation rampant? Yes).

And, here’s the kicker for anyone who cares to live in a world of easily checked facts: Undocumented immigrants paid more in taxes than Amazon, GM, IBM, and Netflix combined.

I recognize – as I believe we are all coming to recognize – that the maga-mind is particularly resistant to any bit of data or fact that contradicts their fever-fantasy. Their adamant defense of the indefensible has little to do with truth or fact or historical accuracy or hard science – they hold fast to their absolute right to muddled minds because it gives them license to abuse. They mimic their dear leader. The bully-impulse is the bond that unites them.

*Take, for instance, the fox-generated-and-now-widely-maga-touted-term “illegals”:

Illegals (plural noun. derogatory. north american): a person present in a country without official authorization.

In the fascist handbook it is a hard and fast rule to first dehumanize a group of people before subjecting them to inhumane abuse. For instance, making people wear yellow stars before herding them into train cars and disappearing them into concentration camps or – as is currently happening – calling people illegals en route to suspending their (and our) constitutionally protected right to due process – so that masked agents of the government can pluck people off the streets and disappear them into…concentration camps.

inhumane (adjective): without compassion for misery or suffering; cruel.

I hope we can all agree that the sadistic treatment of other people is barbaric. Well…if you are maga, your mind is so addled that your moral compass no longer functions, as is evidenced in daily celebrating ruthless savagery – like ICE – while claiming to be ethical, christian, and upstanding.

Addle a brain too long and more than the mind will rot.

read Kerri’s blogpost about ADDLE

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Filed under: Language, Perspective | Tagged: abuse, addle, artistry, data, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dehumanize, fact check, facts, fascist, ice, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, MAGA, muddle, rot, science, story, studio melange, the melange | 2 Comments »

Hit The Button [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on April 7, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

For an unrelated project research, I was reading an article about the tactics used by psychological abusers in a relationship; I found myself reading about the tactics employed by the current resident of the White House. Gaslighting, negging, emotional manipulation. Isolationism. And DARVO, a new acronym to me: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender…a very common tactic, in which the aggressor uses different elements of reality to cast the victim in the role of abuser and position themselves as the victim. Of course, this is not a new revelation. Plenty of people are writing about it. Plenty of people have been writing about it since 2016.

I suppose the penny just dropped for me.

“The penny dropped”. It’s an adage that comes from a coin getting stuck in a slot machine and the user having to wait for – or jiggle the machine – to get the penny to drop.

The most chilling thing about the article – the jiggle that made my penny drop – was not something in the article. It was the two choices at the very bottom of the site: “Emergency Exit” and “Clear Browser History”. A quick escape just in case the reader is afraid to get caught by the abuser. They are on the site because they are scared and trying to find help. They are looking for a way out of the abuse.

I wondered what happened – what had to happen – for them to finally admit to themselves that the violence is not normal. Were they abused one too many times and the penny dropped? What made them finally admit that their abuser is not the victim? They are. What finally popped the illusion that their relationship is not normal? It is dangerous. The buttons at the bottom of the site served as a testament to the truth of the relationship.

We generally write a few days ahead and lately it’s been almost impossible to stay in front of the abuse of our system. Each day there is another act of aggression. Violence enacted on the democratic system and the citizenry. By the time we publish, our thoughts are old news. Yet another blow has already been delivered and left a deep bruise on the face of the nation.

And, now, the abuser is spilling his aggression onto the world.

The Republican party is married to the abuser. Their silence during this daily beating is deafening. The Congress’ participation in the abuser’s aggression is disheartening since they were the original target of his violence. They are classic: filled with fear and whipped into compliance, they defend and enable their abuser. For them, the penny has dropped. Instead of seeking an exit to the abusive relationship they wear the smarmy sad mask of see-no-evil.

I wonder when they will acknowledge the choice at the bottom of the page: Emergency exit. They alone have the power to end the abuse. The Constitution is hanging on by its fingernails but it grants them the power to stop the bludgeoning of democracy. There’s still time.

There is a third button at the bottom of the site page: Contact Us. It takes courage to ask for help. It is possibly dangerous but certainly self-loving to exit an abusive relationship. It requires support. It necessitates protection. All the Republican congress need do is hit that button. They could stop the abuse today. Their relationship with the bully is toxic and they know it. It is not normal. And when it destroys our democracy it will take them – and us – with it.

It takes courage to hit the emergency exit button. Congress – all of them – need to remember that they are the button for We-The-People. It is the reason we have in our constitutional design three co-equal branches of government: protection against an authoritarian takeover. They are now the button for the rest of the civilized world, too. We are en masse pressing the button. We are wondering why they are not responding.

They should know that, were they to find the courage to hit the emergency exit button, to do what they know they need to do, we would be there to help. As citizens of the United States. As servants to democracy. We share a common abuser and it is not each other. It is the current resident of the White House, everyday casting himself as a victim while he does violence to others – to all of us.

It’s way past time to stop the abuse. This is not normal.

read Kerri’s blogpost about NOT NORMAL

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Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor | Tagged: abuse, abuser, abusive relationship, aggression, artistry, Congress, DARVO, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, escape, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, psychological abuse, Republican party, story, studio melange, the melange | 5 Comments »

Second As Farce [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on March 1, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

My friend Roger once said that the real problem pathological liars face is that they can never keep track of their lies so they must continually heap lie onto lie onto lie until their narrative is a tumorous absurdity. The same rule applies to the enablers of liars. They, too, must heap justification upon justification until their justifications are preposterous. Ridiculous. Harebrained.

And, so, here we are. Tumorous absurdity propped up by preposterous, ridiculous, harebrained justifications.

With a pathological liar-in-chief and his party of dancing-bear-enablers, the story gets more and more barmy. A rapist leading the charge to eliminate abuse. An oligarch profiting mightily from the government he proclaims to be cleansing of fraud. Republicans, in the name of cutting waste, race to run up the national debt to provide tax cuts for billionaires.

It leaves me wondering how much balderdash a maga-mouth can swallow, how much rubbish a fox-infused brain can justify before it (they) wake up – you know, become “woke” – to the fact that America is not being made great, it’s being plundered. When do the sheep realize that they are being fleeced?

Karl Marx called it: “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce”.

read Kerri’s blogpost about WASTE, ABUSE, FRAUD