Dear Steve

Looks like we’ve taken another step closer to realizing Bull Dog’s goal of destroying her and our family. Sometimes I wish he killed her that day in Chicago when the assault occurred. It would have been “cleaner.” Though, I suspect the Bull Dog prefers this long drawn out suffering.

She has never been the same since he assaulted and battered her after a meeting in Chicago. Following that he systematically bullied her for a year before finally making false accusations about her integrity and competence in the summer of 2008. Among other things, he falsely accused her of stealing a $100k.

Today she called me from her car on the way home from her psychiatrist. She plans to leave me and the kids, she said, because she can no longer tolerate the pain of her injuries and the pressure of worrying about money. She told me our marriage never worked and she’s too exhausted to continue.

She asked me if I agreed. I don’t.

The answer to that question lies in how we look at “life.” I go with the Buddha’s view: life is suffering. People say death and taxes are the only guarantees in life. They’re wrong. Suffering and death are the only guarantees as in “Life sucks and then you die. Paying taxes requires having money.

She has a point, though. Things are often difficult. We have not prospered financially–well we did for a while until until Bull Dog succeeded in convincing a board of directors of some 20 successful lawyers to fire her on the basis of those lies in 2008.

Since then we’ve struggled to keep a roof over our heads and to maintain some sense of normalcy in our family life. In the years prior we had our share of tough times to be sure, but we also had many, many good times. Consistent throughout the years has been a profound sense of connection between her and me. But the last four years have been nothing short of Greek Tragedy. Things have been as bad as bad gets for an American middle class family.

This emotional and financial tumor that has attached itself to our lives is full of cancer and pernicious. We’ve had the meritricious remissions followed by the devastating setbacks. The treatments cause more pain than they’re worth and ultimately they just prolong the inevitable.

We’ve fought the good fight. Truth be told, I am tired too. Living with the victim of an emotional injury is complicated. It’s easy to forget the extent of injuries because the wounds are not visible to the naked eye. There are obvious triggers like Bull Dog’s real name or the name of her former employer. But there are also the hidden ones lying just below the surface like anti-personnel mines just waiting to erupt into a fight at a little league game or to ruin a pleasant evening by the TV.

Thank God for catastrophes like running out of money. There is much to do to secure our situation before going our separate ways. We’ve agreed to work together to solve our immediate problems of getting our mortgage current, refinancing our home, and applying for RomneyCare, better known as MassHealth. That will go a long way toward relieving the intense financial pressure, which will allow us time to sell our house and prepare ourselves and our children for the change.

I didn’t think it was possible for things go get worse but they have. She has informed me we are months behind in our mortgage and out of money. At this point we have exhausted our resources.

I honestly do not know what we’re going to do to solve thiis problem. She is a mess and getting worse. I’m frightened she will commit suicide or will end up instutionalized. I’m also scared we will not recover from this setback.

If we don’t get help from someone soon we will not be able to keep our house or feed our children or provide them with health care. These are the real consequences of the Bull Dog’s depradatons.

Kama is a tricky thing. According to Zen teaching, this situation is a result of dependent origination, which makes it our fault as much as yours. But I think that’s bullshit. We  did not deserve this fate.  She worked tirelessly for many years to sustain and grow the organzation. Those years of service should have accrued enough good will to protect her from the Bull Dog.

There’s something fundamentally bankrupt about the whole affair. How could you and your colleages allow the Bull Dog to succeed? How could you turn your backs with no thought to the effects on her, me, and our children?

There are children involved. The Bull Dog’s depredations t will affect them for their whole lives, whether it’s college loan debt or mistrust of others or resenting their parents for failing to overcome this setback.

It’s bizzare to me that I even think of you–especially since you made a pass at her.  I think I have a fantasy that if I keep on writint  you’ll eventually apologize and convince ther others to take moral and financial responsibility for your failure to protect her from the Bull Dog.

Fantasies are just that. Make believe. Mirages. Figments. Unfortunately that’s sll I can see right now.

It has often come to my mind to compare the events of her story to those of other crimes against women. Here’s a story from the Huffington Post to consider. Police: People Watched Gang Rape Of Teen And Did Nothing To Help. It’s not the most recent but they all follow an all-too-predictable narrative in the upshot of which is that no one helps during the crime and after everyone blames the victim,

RICHMOND, Calif. — Police believe as many as a dozen people watched a 15-year-old girl get beaten and gang-raped outside her high school homecoming dance without reporting it . . . . “She was raped, beaten, robbed and dehumanized by several suspects who were obviously OK enough with it to behave that way in each other’s presence,” Lt. Mark Gagan said. “What makes it even more disturbing is the presence of others. People came by, saw what was happening and failed to report it.”

If 20+ years of  periodic association have taught me anything about you, there is little doubt in my mind that were we talking about that incident over $15 single malts at  a five star hotel, as was our wont, you would have shook your head and decried the reprehensible behavior of the spectators.  We likely would have talked about the moral decay of society and how people should take more responsibility toward their fellow human beings. We would have judged the guilty spectators as moral inferiors.

Can you explain how your actions were different when witnessing The Bull  Dog attacking her at meetings or by email? You can’t because there is none. You, yourself, in private emails said thing like “I am not sure what is the explanation for The Bull Dog’s s success in bullying her (and the board).  And he seems to be picking up support.”

You knew he was a liar and a bully.  Yet the extent of your rancor was to say, “I did say something at the last meeting, and was immediately “impeached” by several members of the board on the basis that my obvious friendship . . . disqualified me from offering an objective assessment of her performance.”

Impeached? It is hard to imagine someone with your accomplishments and intellect as ineffectual. It is hard to imagine someone like you as an impotent spectator. It’s hard to imagine the eventual outcome of that situation had you an iota of passion for the issue.

The best you could come up with was, “I spoke on the matter and was impeached?” That doesn’t sound like much of an effort from a guy who has shaped the minds of people world leaders.

Your inactions speak for themselves, don’t they? In the final analysis, you stood by and watched The Bull Dog destroy a good person’s career without any meaningful interference.  You behavior demonstrated that you are no different than the people who did nothing as a poor teenaged girl was gang raped and beaten.

Sure you could argue, the crimes are not morally equivalent and therefore justify your behavior. But really they are not. Violence against women take many forms. Verbal and emotional violence is just as bad as their physical siblings, if not worse.  Cuts and bruises and broken  bones manifest themselves outwardly and demand attention and explanation. They automatically imbue the victim with  sympathy.

With emotional violence the victims feel shame and suffer in isolation.  As a result of their injuries they often engage in behaviors that invite criticism and judgment, creating further shame and isolation. Those behaviors lead to karmic ripples in the lives of the victims families and associates.

You represent to the world as a wise, compassionate and caring individual. On paper, you help the disadvantaged both here and abroad. Yet the bulk of your work is about helping financially and intellectually advantaged individuals make money off the misery of others., both in your day job and in your work on the association.

And you help yourself to the spoils of your position too.  You sit on numerous boards of directors, which pays your way to meetings held at five star hotels. You drink expensive liquor, eat  sinfully expensive meals, and blow hard for a couple of days.

Perhaps you recall one such meal  the evening before the very meeting where The Bulldog, after waging a year long campaign full of blustering, bullying, and outright lying,  succeeded in terminating her, you and the others partook in a meal that cost over $7,000 for less than 20 people with assorted  guests.

Ironically, one of the Bull Dog’s claims was the organization didn’t have any money because she mismanaged the company’s funds. yet the bills always got paid and some how there was enough money to spend hundreds of dollars per guest for a self-congratulatory meal. Where did the money come from? From sweat of her brow.  And the very next day, your colleagues pulled the trigger on her career and well being. They went as far as retroactively canceling her health insurance. (Oh and by the way, she was nursing a cancerous tumor at that very moment.)

Fixing your karma is a tough one, Steve. The reasons for so doing are self-evident.  But much time has passed. Scar tissue has likely developed over your regret and compassion (if you actually had any) . You are comfortable. Your mind habits are well established.  You probably do not see the need to undertake the necessary self-examination to support a meaningful attempt to make thing right.

But you should.

Unfortunately for her and for  you, “There is no way you can ever work on someone else’s karma, only your own,” (John Burdett, The Godfather of Kathmandu). I believe that. Otherwise for compassion’s sake, I would do it for both of you.  But I can’t.  Letting go and moving on are the cures for her. But letting go of the past is the obstacle face by every PTSD victim.

She and you have to do your own work but I can educate you and others on the consequences of both the association’s and your failure. Clear teaching can help people in their karmic journeys.

Maybe you’ll come across this someday? Or maybe a bully who reads this will repudiate his actions and fix what he broke? Or maybe a bystander will defend a victim?

Dear Steve,

Guess what our daughter learned from your abandonment? She told me there’s no point in working really hard because all it gets you is screwed by your colleagues. Thanks to you and that sick fuck from DC and all your sycophantic colleagues who refused to stand up to that motherfucking bully.

You’re nothing more than a deluded old douche bag who thinks he’s do-gooder but in fact is just a spineless douche bag who hangs around for the free hotels and fancy food, like a freeloading fuck. Fuck you. You made a pass at her and didn’t have the balls to stand up to that sicko bully fuck. Fuck you.

Dear Steve,

It’s time for me to stop feeling like a victim.  Wish I could.  Sadly, the evidence of that mess is a daily part of my life.  During sleep.  While I’m awake.  It hurts so much to realize that people who purport to be “good” can have so callously tossed away a person and her family.  You and your colleagues just plain suck.

Look in the mirror. If you saw yourself as I see you, you’d fall to your knees in abject pain.  You and those other douche bags are no better than the callous urban dwellers who turn a deaf ear and blind eye to a crime victim because they don’t want to get involved.  How do you not hate yourself?  Fuck you and fuck your colleagues.

Dear Steve,

One of the things that amazes most about Her situation is how He was able to so easily shuck the bully mantle for that of victim. It’s so disingenuous and unbecoming of a man who is supposed to be powerful.

That approach and it’s rhetoric is part of a disturbing trend among perpetrators of all stripes to adopt the language of victimization and to use it to turn the tables on their victims thereby doubly victimizing their prey.

I really thought you guys were smart enough to see through that sort of bullshit.

Do you know the Buddhist concept of dependent origination? Had the accusations been legitamate or had people acted with decency, that would not have been necessary.

Even if the accusations were true, which they were not, or even if the organization concluded it was in its best interest to make a change, there is no defense for tolerating the bullying, or for retroactively cancelling our health insurance or ending the relationship without transition assistance or for calling the unemployment office and explicitly accuusing her of stealing $100k.

Those behaviors were indefensible and positively indecent. Did you know, for example, that she was diagnosed with cancer shortly after our insurance was cancelled?

Things ended badly. The lack of decency was extremely injurious to Her (and her family). Everyone abandoned her in the end, whether out of self-interest or bien-pensant–despite many years of sincere and devoted service.

As for the “other reasons.” That’s your karma Only you can fix it.

Dear Steve,

She  just received an email from a former colleague containing a link to a virus.  Weren’t the false accusations and the betrayal enough?  Isn’t the organization content with ruining her career and health?  Now we have to worry about our computers being attacked!

I say this without an ounce of hyperbole, you cannot begin to fathom the suffering visited upon Roberta and our family.  Sick fuck that his is, I’m sure that would make a certain individual very happy–maybe others too?

Please take the necessary actions to motivate the responsible parties to leave her alone once and for all. She’s trying hard to get better and these sorts of things set her back.

P.S., If the organization is going to send us anything else, how about her personal effects or my computer equipment, which they (what’s that clever legal euphemism?) converted without permission? -B

P.P.S, I can’t believe you are still with the organization.  Don’t you find it the least bit ironic that that such a cast of characters pass judgment on other people’s ethical behavior?  Weren’t you in the least bit troubled that they so easily turned their backs on her?  Come to think of it, to this day, you have never once inquired about her well being–despite numerous protestations of affection and love.  I guess either you believed the lies or you didn’t want to know the answer.  You wouldn’t want to get the ivory town dirty, would you?

Dear Steve,

It’s been over three years and still you have not made good on your promise to leave the organization in protest for how it’s former Executive Director was mistreated.  The Bull Dog who was president at the time has severely injured the object of his hatred which in turn plunged her family into chaos and profound sadness. It has affected her children’s grades and outlook on life.  How do you reconcile your continued association?  Especially since you do so much work for the disadvantaged through your job and especially since you travel to a war zone on the other side of the world to help  people.  Shame on you.