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A few articles and some replies to other articles by this author have dealt with the subject of transference, a human proclivity behavior scientists have identified as the habit of people transferring to others despicable or embarrassing aspects of their personalities they won't accept about themselves.It covers any area but will always project negative aspects of a person's persona; no one ever transfers positive aspects to others.
Nothing is more hypocritical than Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin making the rounds of news programs for interviews in which she blasts the just-completed campaign for its dirty attacks against her when she was the dirtiest campaigner on the presidential tour. That is classical transference by Palin.
Then we had Cindy McCain, the Sugar Momma of GOP presidential candidate John McCain, claiming that president-elect Barack Obama had run the "dirtiest campaign in history." Any fair-minded person could see that it was the Republicans running the dirty campaign, and Mrs. McCain was practicing transference.
The Democrats by contrast were a perfect picture of gentlemanliness.
To Wit:
Palin made much of Obama "pallin' around with terrorists" because he had crossed paths with Bill Ayers a '60s-era radical who apparently did dastardly deeds in opposition to the Vietnam War. Nothing was said by Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden about McCain "pallin' around with subversives" like G. Gordon Liddy, who went to prison for his involvement in the Watergate subversiveness of the Richard Nixon administration. Nothing was said by the Democrats about McCain's affinity for Oliver North, another subversive whose conviction was overturned on appeal because it was obtained from evidence that Congress had given immunity to. A subversive of our American principles is worse than a "terrorist" whose group he co-founded apparently placed small bombs in unoccupied buildings; unoccupied because the group always gave advance warning of a bomb's presence. But Ayers was never convicted of terrorism; both Liddy and North were convicted. Sarah was transferring again.
Obama was blamed by the McCain-Palin transferrers as the cause of the developing mini-depression brought on by George W. Bush adding his incompetence to the nonsense given to us by Ronald Reagan. Obama was even blamed for the outrageous prices of oil and gasoline that occurred only under Bush. The Democratic ticket only addressed the deteriorating economic conditions while treading gently over who was at fault even though they would be justified if blasting Bush more harshly than Americans blast Herbert Hoover for his contributions the last time the economic theories of Reagan and Bush were implemented.
We were berated by McCain claims that Obama would tax Americans to death, when in reality any onerous taxation burden Americans would ever see would be necessary to handle the $10 trillion (and rising) national debt given to us by one Reagan and two Bushes with only a slight respite between the Bushes by one Clinton. No Democrat brought up the GOP taxation plans which take from the poor and middle class to give to the rich or are designed for the specific purpose of financially crippling the United States so that it could no longer act to alleviate unfairness of life for its non-aristocratic citizens.
So when Obama told "Joe the Plumber" that he supports "spreading the wealth" of America, the McCain-Palin transference machine went into high gear to try to project onto him what the GOP has been practicing since 1981 when Reagan's policies began to redistribute the wealth of the nation upward on the promise it would 'trickle down" from the top to enrich us all. Spreading the wealth is not redistribution of wealth of taking from some to give to others. Spreading the wealth of the nation simply means that everyone would participate in the economy and receive a living income from that participation, but the McCain-Palin team tried to make it appear that Obama advocated what the GOP practices. That is transference.
McCain and Palin warned the public repeatedly that Obama was a "socialist: who would destroy our capitalist system of commerce, when in reality it was the Republican administration of Bush that is bringing to our capitalism the socialism of financial institutions that had failed miserably under the Reagan-Bush doctrine of "free-market" run-amok capitalism, which McCain totally supported. And that "socialism" is a direct result of conservative economic policy that failed and had to be corrected by "socialism" just as failed conservative economic policies of the 1920s needed to be corrected by FDR's "socialism." No Democratic candidate called out McCain and Palin for Republican involvement to socialize America. Democrats were not transferring but the GOP McCain and Palin certainly were.
Obama was a "communist," the McCain-Palin propaganda machine constantly informed us, while no Democrat even thought of labeling the right-wing competition as "fascists;" a term that would be closer to the truth than the claim of Obama's communism. McCain and Palin were transferring yet again
Then there's the matter of the GOP campaign claiming that Obama would bring a left-wing dictatorship to America. But it has been the right-wing Republican party building dictatorship, while trashing the United States Constitution. It was Bush and his cronies who have committed numerous crimes and anti-constitutional acts including revealing the identity of an undercover intelligence agent; lying under oath; ignoring congressional subpoenas; appointing officials on political and religious basis in violation of law and Constitution; libeling and slandering opponents; disregarding treaties that are "the supreme law of the land;" lying the nation into war, presenting false evidence to the United Nations and the American public; torture of "enemy combatants;" secret warrantless spying on Americans; suspension of habeas corpus for anyone Bush claims is an "enemy;" authorized abuse of civil and individual rights; kidnapping of foreign citizens in foreign nations and sending them to be tortured in other foreign nations' prisons; creating special courts to try "enemy combatants" even though creation of courts is Congress' authority under the Constitution; innocent people detained indefinitely in prison without charges, counsel or civil trial, subjected to abuse and or torture, and denied access to judicial review of their incarceration, not even being told the charges against them and withholding evidence from their legal representatives if they have legal representation; issuing signing statements that say the President can violate any law he chooses because he is the "Commander in Chief," and then disobeying any law he chooses. The McCain-Palin ticket was transferring to Obama the sins of the president they supported wholeheartedly until his approval ratings hit all-time lows.
The constant harping about whether Obama was a "real American" was merely trying to transfer to Obama the taint worn by the Palins and their involvement with the America-hating Alaskan Independence Party, in which Sarah's husband Todd was a member in good standing for six years, and to which Sarah Palin gave a rousing speech endorsing the group's activities. No Democrat candidate ever questioned Sarah Palin's patriotism or loyalty to this country even though both were certainly lacking in this unfit candidate for an important American office.
Then Obama was an "elitist;" told to us by a man who had seven or eight separate houses ~ he couldn't remember the exact number ~ and dozens of automobiles. True elitists, like McCain who wears $500 shoes, have been telling us for decades that we must pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps ~ that advice doesn't apply to those who inherit or marry fortunes ~ but after Obama truly did pull himself up by his bootstraps he was derided by those who transfer their own "elitist" status to others.
Obama was then accused of "hating the troops" because he had opposed the Iraq War, the most blatant example of war crimes since Hitler's Third Reich marched into Eastern Europe. The "hating the troops" nonsense was only transferring to others the stain that most of the Republican Party wear for avoiding military service while cheering on those who die in their places, most notably George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
Religious bigotry raised its ugly head near the end of the campaign when, in desperation, the McCain-Palin campaign resurrected the Jeremiah Wright controversy designed to portray Obama as "un-American" by broadcasting TV ads of Wright howling about the sins of America. Sins such as slavery, apartheid, Jim Crow laws, racial segregation and lynching of black Americans by whites who never were brought to justice in courts of law. When Wright screamed about such injustices he was depicted as "hating America," which the right tried to transfer to Obama, who was once a member of Wright's church in Chicago. No Democrat ads ever ran showing the despicable antics of far-right preachers, who McCain reached out to attempting to get their support. No ads showed conservative preachers calling on God to smite the US because it protected rights of gay Americans (in some instances) or praising a hateful God for semi-destroying New Orleans because that city had planned to allow a gay-pride parade. No Democratic ad showed hate-filled preachers claiming that AIDS was God's revenge on gay people (even though it is more prevalent with straight people world wide) nor showing righties calling for a divine destruction of San Francisco because of its tolerance and "sanctuary" for gay Americans. Nor did Democrats capitalize on the right-wing preacher McCain "recruited" who called the Roman Catholic Church " the great whore" of Revelation and who claimed Hitler was put into power by God as the way to get the Jewish people to return to the land of Israel.
It is hard to fathom that the most-respected and honest Palin in the world would be Michael Palin of the Monty Python's Flying Circus British comedy series. But Michael ~ an Oxford University graduate ~ has never pretended that he was something other than a clown.
Yes, transference was widespread during the recent campaign and it was the conservative Republicans who were transferring their despicable odors onto the Democrats.
