Friday, March 12 2010 @ 09:41 AM GMT+5 Contributed by: VTCHIP
I'm wondering if anyone else, observing the current situation surrounding VT Yankee - Entergy, feels that the citizens of Vernon are exhibiting the symptoms of the "Stockholm symdrome" toward Entergy.
As defined by Wikipedia, "Stockholm syndrome is a term used to describe a paradoxical psychological phenomenon wherein hostages express adulation and have positive feelings towards their captors that appear irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims."
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Stockholm Syndrome at VY?
Authored by: Tylerhillgarden on Friday, March 12 2010 @ 12:24 PM GMT+5
Hi - I'm probably not the audience you're looking for here, because I'm a Vernon resident opposed to re-licensing. After doing part of my civic duty and voting this year (the Australian ballot vote, not Town Meeting), I did hear from a few folks about how Entergy deserved what they got (re: the Senate vote) with a direct quote "How stupid do they (ENVY) think we (Vermonters) are." SO, despite what you hear in the Times and the Reformer, not all residents are pro-VY. But it's true that feeling like it's "Us against the world" (popular victim stuff) comes easy in this situation for some Vernon residents and certainly can look like Stockholm Syndrome as defenses are put up.
Authored by: pjmelton on Friday, March 12 2010 @ 12:31 PM GMT+5
I would think it's more complicated than that, since many people's livelihood is tied up in the plant. Many people feel loyalty to their company, and, more especially, to their fellow workers.
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"Economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings." -- FDR
Authored by: VTCHIP on Friday, March 12 2010 @ 03:19 PM GMT+5
That is just my point. I understand the good people of Vernon are not physically prisoners of Entergy. I think they have convinced themselves they are hostages economically. They are imprisioned by bars of gold not steel.
Authored by: pjmelton on Friday, March 12 2010 @ 04:08 PM GMT+5
You could make that argument, I suppose. My point is that the relationship between employer and employed is more mutually beneficial than the relationship between kidnapper and hostage. So I find the comparison rather silly.
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"Economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings." -- FDR
Authored by: cbridge on Saturday, March 13 2010 @ 08:17 AM GMT+5
I agree that the comparison is inapt. And the benefits to Vernon of
hosting the nuke go well beyond jobs. Yankee has been a tax windfall for
Vernon for decades, a benefit not shared by those towns that share the
risk. One could infer from public comments that at least some Vernon
residents have come to regard that windfall as a permanent right ('Build a
new plant on top of the old one!'). Nor has the state as a whole has not
planned well for what was always meant to be the end of VY's working life.
Authored by: Maus Anon E on Sunday, March 14 2010 @ 10:15 PM GMT+5
Why is that such a propsterous idea? Well, to begin with, because Entergy won't have enough money to demolish and cart away the old plant and remediate the problems they already have for decades.
Authored by: GSamson on Monday, March 15 2010 @ 10:38 PM GMT+5
How nice. People take a point of view contrary to that of the
poster, so the poster accuses them of having a psychological disorder.
Such tolerance! Such humanism!
