Was Dick Cheney ever abused as a child? He must have been. He certainly knows how to abuse two entire nations: Iraq and the United States. He rides a power wave on that.
Just how Cheney may have been abused as a child is anyone's guess. Theory has it that intimidation and exploitation of any family member, by a family, give rise in that family member to a quest and desire for domination (power) and control.
Although biographies of Cheney on line are filled with resume bullets, highlighting the stepping stones of his political career, they lack any mention of the building blocks that make him the human being that he is. They mention nothing of the quality of his childhood, or of the kinds of relationships he had with either of his parents and siblings, or they with him. These biographical sketches of Dick Cheney online show us a one-dimensional character whose life is filled with his ability to manipulate, power research and power grab and who seems to have grown not knowing the hands of caring and protection.
So ... with little to go on, through the maze of published biographies, to figure out just who, Dick Cheney, the human being, is, I, nevertheless try to discern just that.
Dick Cheney was born in 1941. His father, WIKIPEDIA tell us, worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a Soil Conservation Agent.
Soil Conservation was the arm of the Department of Agriculture which
allowed the government to pay farmers to reduce production so as to "conserve soil", prevent erosion, and accomplish other minor goals.
(What were the other "minor goals"? I wonder. WIKIPEDIA doesn't say. It does say that, Soil Conservation was an offshoot of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of l933 which intended to reduce surplus in order to raise the value of crops...
By the time the Adjustment Agricultural Act [of 1933] began its operations, the agricultural season for many crops was already under way. The agency oversaw a large-scale destruction of existing cotton crops and livestock in an attempt to reduce surpluses ... six million piglets and 220,000 pregnant cows were slaughtered in the AAA's effort to raise prices. ... many United States citizens saw the AAA as cruel: while they were often hungering, the federal government was destroying crops and livestock. WIKIPEDIA.
Going out on a limb ... today I wonder if father was an agent of the Department of Agriculture between 1933 and 1935 who may have been involved in overseeing, or carrying out, any of the mandate (the slaughtering of millions of pigles and thousands of pregnant cows) of the Adjustment Agricultural Act of 1933 before it was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and before the Soil Conservation Act of 1935, "intended to correct some of the problems of the AAA of 1933 ..." was instituted.
I also find it ironic that, as reported in WIKIPEDIA, the Agricultural Adjustment Act was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court because, "among other stated reasons it taxed one group to pay another [...]" these days, just the mention of taxes and tax struggles between one group and another, brings to mind some of the tax break policies instituted by the current Bush/Cheney Administration in which the super rich pay almost zilch and the weight of the country falls on the shoulders of the middle class and downward, from the blood of their war for oil, to the ever increasing property taxes which have ballooned in the six years of the Bush/Cheney Administration as counties, states and cities adjust their taxes to make up for those dollars they no longer receive from the Federal Government.
Out on a limb again, and ... although Dick Cheney was born in 1941 and the major horrors of the Agricultural Adjustment Act were, seemingly, long past by then, one wonders what sort of stories filled with reminiscences of those days, father may have told at the dinner table during Cheney's growing up and how these may have impressed young Cheney's mind, or even what sorts of stories, from father's current experience as a Soil Conservation Agent, father may have brought home to his wife and children to impress them with ... Did these stories reflect, as they reached young Cheney's ears, any sense of the intimidation and exploitation which the government may have used sometimes to convince farmers not to plant cotton, grow cattle, or raise pigs? Did father enjoy having power over people; over his son? Did these stories, if they were there, provide any kind of a thrill for young Cheney?
More importantly, if tactics of power and intimidation had to be employed by Cheney's father in his job to get people to comply to government request, did he also use any kind of intimidation tactics in his role as father to guide his children and to get them to comply to home rules? Or, was he the kind of parent who would and could nurture and encourage young Cheney to be who he was even if that differed in any way with father's perception of what or who Cheney ought to be? Did he have flexibility to allow for differences within the family members? Did he quash, through manipulation or intimidation any deviance from his norms which his children may have shown? Was young Cheney shown caring and protection? Was he not? Was there room in the home for anyone to listen to whatever dreams or aspirations young Cheney may have had? Did young Cheney feel, in some transactional way, cared for and protected by his parents, or did he feel intimidated and exploited by them?
Were these the seeds that gave young Cheney a first hand look at how any one group can be intimidated or exploited and manipulated by another group?
Did Cheney grow up with a sense of fear? Did he grow up feeling diminished to be himself because in some transactional way there would be dire consequences for him to pay if he dared to be other than what father or mother expected him to be? Were his spirits quashed, or squashed, by the strict hand of an enforcer, a father who would or could only see his way or the highway? Would father or mother exact punishment, or threaten to, if he were to follow his wishes and not theirs? Was he forced, or intimidated into toeing the family line regardless of the cost to his own personal freedom to be himself?
WIKIPEDIA and other online biographies tell us that Dick Cheney went to Natrona County High School in Wyoming and that, there, he was among the top 10 students of his class; they also tells us that he has a brother and a sister but they tell us nothing to indicate what kind of a relationship he had or has with either of his siblings. We are told that he went to Yale for about a year but that he left that institution because of poor performance there. (What sort of dreams did this experience quash for him?) Actually, was he a man who had dreams? Were they always about power grabbing and dominion or did that come later?
We are also told that while trying to evade the Viet-Nam Draft, Cheney subsequently enrolled at the State University of Wyoming where he obtained a Bachelor and a Masters Degree in Arts (it does not specify Arts in what) and that in 1963 he married his high school sweetheart, Lynne Vincent, who was given high honors on receipt of her Degree in Arts [also from said University?]
Wouldn't a degree in the arts of whatever sorts require anyone to have a certain sensitivity of heart? A sensitivity of heart which might cause him to question the rights, or lack thereof, of the United States to invade and occupy Iraq or to wonder why should the Iraqis not resist the power which intends to dispossess them of their lands? Questions that have obviously not come up for Dick Cheney and if they have, he has just pushed down to the bottom of some dark, deep mud hole inside himself. It is interesting that it is his heart which has given him so many health problems beginning in 1978 with his first heart attack. I wonder if there is a long standing struggle inside of him between what he does and what his buried sensitivity may be telling him is not the right thing to do. Does he even have a moral compass of any sort?
Teresa Simon-Noble is a computer activist for peace. She is a former mental health clinician. A poet and a freelance writer. Her work has been published in several online publications.
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