Series Introduction and Home Page
This work describes how formal trauma management, in particular and significantly Etiotropically engineered and applied trauma management (ETM), can and should be used by open political systems to strengthen the definition, pursuit, defense and maintenance of Western-styled, and emphasizing the American form of, freedom. "Etiotropic" means to focus management activities — analysis, definition, decision making, and its interpretation — upon the source, core, or (speaking synonymously, but from another word venue) etiology of a problem, as opposed to addressing its consequences or symptoms.
The effort merges three bodies of thought and writing: pertinent history of civilization as interpreted through the lens of the referenced trauma management; an intendedly layman-friendly parallel explanation of that professional experience; and demonstration of how it relates to both the historical interpretation and theoretical achievement of noted goals. From this work, those goals are to not just ensure, and where needed restore, freedom, but to along the way bring an end to, if not prevent outright, those processes which sunder it: criminal violence, politically inspired atrocity through applications of terror, individually and collectively retained perpetrator-caused psychological trauma, hegemonic social management, and the catastrophe of world war prospectively won by those anti-freedom forces of darkness with which, it seems, we repeatedly have to contend.
How the Westbury High School Rebels
Saved Western Civilization from Extinction
The Pretty True Texas Stories Series
Standing in the ballroom at a Houston high school forty-second reunion and looking up at a giant wall hanging of his school’s mascot — a Confederate veteran from America's Civil War — the author was struck by the changes in perception he and the community had undergone since that Rebel had been established as the school’s icon. What was once — only a near half century earlier — heralded as a protector of a valued culture was now being shamed by that same community. The mascot was opined to be not just unrepresentative of any aspect of the current environment, but now was even argued to be a symbol of scourge, hatred and bigotry. Initiated as a reunion-supporting website hobby, this author would investigate that change. However, he would not just do it from within the influences of his professional experiences in trauma management, or as one of the first Westbury Rebel students, but more importantly for this story through the perspectives accorded him as a veteran of another war. It resulted in the application of opprobrium to a rendered service. And it, too, had once — before that invading dark view was to be spread across his world — been epitomized as the best demonstration available of American character.
The Westbury Rebel mascot, address of the new challenge to — even dismissal of — its iconic authenticity, and discussion of the nature and importance of both the individual and social role of the rebel in all of us, would become the motif for sharing the results of that exploration. Because these two subjects, manipulation of iconic expression of identity and trauma, were related, a theme recognizing the confluence would be forthcoming.
That theme, and others, plus combination of the investigation and earlier referenced trauma management description are published here in a series of essays. The compendium is entitled "How the Westbury Rebels Saved Western Civilization from Extinction." Because it is framed in grassroots language and style both indigenous and intendedly complimentary to the region, the presentation utilizes an additional and local-reader-friendly heading, “The Pretty True Texas Stories Series.” To us who've lived it, that second heading means that we, probably following the practical advice of two Yankees, Abigail and John Adams of eighteenth century Massachusettes, "strive to do good," and "to be good," sometimes and more simply, to do the best for which we are capable at the time in making a contribution.
- Series Introduction (and Home page): Will Western Civilization's Freedom Survive? Essays from the Heartland on How to make it Do So
- Author's Message: This missive describes ETM TRT SHOM's purposes and goals developed and pursued during the past nearly four decades, and now established herein for the rest of the twenty-first century
- Dedication
- Part I: A Regret
- Part I: Eden, Guadalcanal, a Westbury Rebel, and La Bahia Road; From 1838 to 2014
- “Part I: Navy Corpsmen: Tribute to a Westbury Hero”
- "Part II: (beginning) The Westbury Rebel's Meaning to Me," or "The First Play from Scrimmage in the Westbury vs Bellaire Fifty Year Rivalry"
- "Part II: (conclusion) What Happened at the End of the 1962 Westbury vs. Austin Football Game?"
- “Part II: Entertainment in the 1960s”
- "Part III: The Good Rebel in Most of Us (beginning); For What Do Good Rebels Fight and Die?"
- "Part III: The Good Rebel in Most of Us (continued); Competitions, Challenges, and Making Things Right"
- "Part III: The Good Rebel in Most of Us (conclusion); Distinguishing Good from Bad Rebels"
- "Part IV: Westbury Rebel Management of Really Serious Troublemakers in (and from) the Global"
- "Part IV: Master of the Lake; The Great Peking Duck and Yorkshire Terrier Battle; or, A Scientifically acceptable Anecdotal Example for the Study of Visceralness in Fighting"
- “Part V: Turn the World Right Side Up: Theory and Application for Depowering Psychopaths, BS Managers gone Berzerk (Bad Rebels), and the National to International Institutions they Manage"
- "Part VI: Series Conclusion; Semper Fi; Tribute"
- "Part VI: Series Conclusion; Combat: The Animal Self Unleashed; A Docudrama"
- "Part VI: Series Conclusion; The Last Flashback"
- "Appendix A: OPED regarding Board Removal of Westbury High School's Historic Mascot, the Rebel"
- "Appendix B: The Genghis Khan of Psychotherapy; Behavioral Therapy and its Reformation, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy"
- Appendix C: Glossary
- Appendix D: Reprinting the Preface from the "Whackomole" Book