Discrimination Today in the USA
I have decided that discrimination is alive and well in the USA. Let me tell you why I believe this is so. We have just had over a year of inflammatory, judgemental finger-pointing in our election process, state and national elections. It has been dirty politics, each contender trying to make us–the voters–believe one is superior to the other. One thing is sure. There are those in office everywhere who certainly believe in male superiority over females. Today there are fewer of those discriminatory office-holders than there were on last Monday. Or at least it will be so when the newly elected take their places in their offices on January first, 2013.
Women are frankly sick and tired of being second to men. We have discovered we have rights and have voted many of those office holders who believe in suppressing women OUT, and have replaced them with people who do believe in equal rights–from the bedroom to the boardroom. The last century saw many advances in women’s rights. This century will see many more. We refuse to be held down, our opinions disregarded, our bodies beaten, our brains washed by men who believe they are superior to women. Am I equal to a man or am I inferior to him? Just try to strike me one more time…and you will see my rage.
In fact, I believe we saw a lot of women’s rage in this 2012 election. Rage over being told that rape isn’t rape, pregnancies begot by rape should never be terminated, and in fact termination of any kind should be outlawed. If that happens, out come the coat hangers and knitting needles once more. More illegal terminations, more deaths via infection and shock-trauma, more women so injured internally that child-bearing would be impossible. Who the hell are you men telling us what we women can do with our bodies? You are part and parcel of the problem now. You get your partner, who trusted you, pregnant and then walk away from her and the child. That says much about your integrity and values. So…all she was was just a fuck to you, and you don’t give a damn, really? And now you call her a “pig, “whore,” “slut,” and never take responsibility for your child. Oh, your famous excuse: “She was screwing other guys, and I don’t think I am the father.” Well, then, get a DNA test done, Casanova! Am I being sarcastic? Yes, and plenty sarcastic! I am for birth control for every women who desires it (from 14 on up without parental permission. Just facing the reality of active sexuallity in the young, folks).
The Christian Coalition Right–far, far right, really, is now staunchly behind the Republican Party, that Grand Old Party of yore (source: PBS special documentary). It is advocating discrimination of women. It is advocating that men are superior to women. It is advocating that their group is superior to any other Christian (or other) group. Now that black-white discrimination is mostly in our past, we have veered into another kind of discrimination. That of I am better than you are. I am superior to you and you are inferior to me. Very backward thinking. this was what women fought against when we fought for the right to vote. When we fought for the right to have birth control. When we fought for the right to have terminations, when we fought for the right to own our own property, to be ourselves, and not a slave to man’s wants and domination, and continue to fight for equal wages for equal work. We are individuals in our own right, and we demand to be treated as equals to men, in a true partnership, and not as an inferior to his supposed superiority.
I am fortunate that I live in the 21st century and not the 15th. I would then have been burned at the stake like Joan d’Arc for heresy. I was born on the anniversary of her death. I will cut my hair as I see fit, I will wear clothes which I like. I will have differing opinions from you. I will own my own property. I will own my own chamber-pot. I will have my own checking-savings account, I will have a say in our children’s upbringing, I will have control over my own body, I will have control over my pregnancies. I will look at you as my partner in life, unless you view yourself as superior and me as your inferior. If that happens, we are done.
Some things should never become a political issue. We just voted to oust those who think these issues should be a political issue. I hope the next few years make a difference, and this type of discrimination finds its end. By the way, I am not some young chick fired up about all of this. I’m 77 and have seen much too much of this type of discrimination.
Tweaking Brains
Here I am, once again, ready to rattle the brains of those who will allow me to get in their brains and get their fancies tweaked.
By fancies, I mean anything which they have an opinion on and perhaps are extremely opinionated on, so much that they wear horse-blinders and cannot see anything which is to one side or the other. Just straight ahead, no looking anywhere else, up, down, left or right.
Hmm. Don’t look up, don’t see the clouds or the blue sky or the promise of a sunny or stormy day. Don’t look down, and somehow find yourself in that pothole in the road, or the big puddle of muddy water covering it, or maybe never see that rattlesnake waiting for a treat. Ugh. What a mess that would be, just because you were not looking ahead for hazards. Don’t look left or right, and miss a good turn toward an easier path to your goal. Plus, you miss a lot of nice scenery on the way. But you go on your course, straight ahead, because you feel that is the way and that is the ONLY way to arrive at your goal. No, ifs ands, or buts, about it. You know best, because the road ahead is the only road you see. So that is it, and you follow it. Your mind is made up with no reason behind your thinking. Has someone else convinced you this was the way to your goal? Was it a religion, politics, educational institutions, culture? What do they base their tenets, beliefs and ethos upon? How do they know what IS right? How does anyone? Does it work for them while being respectful to others? So perhaps with trepidation in your heart, you follow their plan for your own. You don’t look up, down, side to side or even think about taking off the blinders placed there by another. You miss many signs along the path, many places you could explore, to learn about and from, because your mind is now in a closet with the door shut tight, the light blocked out, and you think you are making an intelligent, rational decision for your self.
You may never realize that you’ve been HAD. Had by the choices and set-in-stone opinions of others. Do you realize what you are doing? I believe not. If you did know, you wouldn’t be going down the road with blinders on in the first place. Just because someone told you something is true, does not make it so. Look at a map for example. How do you go from point A to point B? someone tells you this way, another tells you that way, and someone else says another way is the best. None of them are really wrong. But none of them are thoroughly right, either. You must examine the map and find YOUR best way to go on that road. If you do not do your own research (by looking at your map) you are not using your own mind to form your own decisions. YOU are allowing others to lead you to their goal, and not heading toward your own goal. You are actually following the others, allowing them to make your mind up for you, and when it begins to tweak your gut feelings, and makes your brain rattle, you don’t like it.
You realize something is wrong here. What? Well, you are allowing others to run your life by thinking for you, making decisions for you, making plans for you, and you are allowing your self to never see the many tremendous options you have in making your own decisions and choices in your own life for your own self. In order to find your way on the road of life, you must learn think, and to explore our options. And these are many. Take off the blinders, see the pot-holes and the muddy puddles, the other wonderful side-paths to your goal, find the beauty of your life on the way. But on the way, THINK. Then look at all sides, forward, backward, up, down, left and right. Inform yourself, learn from life, your self and others and then decide for your self which path you will take on the way. Above all, be respectful of others, even if you don’t agree with them.
Go for it.
The Shadow in Our Midst
Who Knows What Evil Lurks In The Minds Of Men?
The Shadow Knows. Hahahahaha!!!!
How many of my readers remember this radio program? The man with the powers to journey into the land of our shadows had studied the Mysteries in Tibet, allowed to be known to only a select few outsiders. I was fascinated by this program which dealt with the hidden aspect of man –the evil shadow of himself. It was a program of psychological delving into the darkness of man’s soul, the evil shadow, exposing it for what it is. All humans have a dark side, one that is hidden from their own self. Denied , but running rampant with life itself. The great psychoanalyst Carl Jung wrote extensively on his study of the shadow living within our selves. Although the Shadow in the program was the Good guy, conquering the evil of man throughout the earth, man’s actual shadow is something else.
You probably have heard someone say “So-and-so is a nice guy,” and then qualify it with “When he’s sober…” The shadow side is controlling that individual’s life. Some shadow’s are less evil than others, but, inevitably, evil. Serial killers and spree killers have shadows which are very black, and very evil. You must have read or heard in the media, how intelligent Ted Bundy was, of John Wayne Gacy’s involvement with his community and church. How “The Birdman of Alcatraz” wrote the book on bird medicine. But–he told the parole board if he got out, there were “other people” he was waiting “to kill.” The Catholic priests who molested the boys in their parishes. The boy scout leaders, youth leaders, teachers, nice next door neighbors, the loving grandfather, step-dad, sibling, father, uncles, cousins, mothers who kill their children. This is their shadow basking in the sunshine. Then we comment; ”But he/she is such a nice guy/gal!”
We do not know what lies down deep in the psyche of others until the sun casts the shadow long enough for the world to see. Other times, when the sun is directly over their heads, there is no shadow to see, but it is there, hidden under the facade goodness and righteousness and respectability, inside him, ready to show itself when the sun goes down and the shadows grow long. It is the father who molests his own children when he is drunk. It is the mother who is bipolar, not taking her medications, and murders her children. It is a teacher who has an affair with her young under-age student. It is the priest who molests his alter boys. A grandfather who molests his grand child. The good friend who has inserted himself into your life and is so good to your kids, building trust. You even have him baby-sit your kids.
Then it is happening to your children. These people know no personal boundaries, and do not respect any one else’s boundaries or society’s’ laws. There are no taboos, whether it be molestation, rape, murder, torture, thievery, scamming of others, bringing grief to others. Recently a man found his good friend molesting his little girl. She was not old enough to protect herself. The dad did it himself. He beat and killed the molester. He is not charged with any crime. He was protecting his daughter from harm. The so-called “friend” may have molested other little girls, who knows?
“Stranger Danger” is taught in most of our schools. We teach our children to be wary of strangers. But we DON’T do the same concerning people who are members of our own families, friends and communities! THIS unfortunately is where the problem lies, not with strangers. Of course, sometimes it does occur. Just watch Nancy Grace. But we must come to the realization that our children are in more danger of harm, sexually, psychologically, physically, mentally from people who are close to us in proximity in our families, communities, friends! Statistics are out there proving what I have related. I will leave it to you to research the subject on-line. Start educating yourself today.
Who knows what evil lurks in the minds of men?
The shadow knows!!! Hahahahaha!!!!
Our Basic Human Needs
To need is to have one’s body telling you there is a basic survival function which needs to be met. Needs are physical, as in safety, hunger, thirst, elimination, warmth, shelter, and creation (sex). When these basic needs are not met, fear enters, anxiety comes, and then full panic may ensue.
Safety is a basic need. Safety begins in the womb, as we are safely surrounded by the waters inside our mother’s warm body. We grow from one ovum and one sperm multiplying many times, growing into a fetus, then a viable human infant onward toward the day of birth when the first breath gives us life. Once we are outside of the womb, our safety needs must be met by our mother, and other caretakers in our immediate circle. Our mothers, and in the past, perhaps a “wet’ nurse, feed us. Others may burp us, change us, clean us, hold us, interpret our cries, and keep us safe. These others are mostly biologically related, and they teach us as they urge us on to learn new things, like becoming able to recognise our needs, our own faces, our loved ones, to learn symbols and language, to help us learn the mechanics of our bodies, and to learn what is, and is not, acceptable and appropriate behavior within our culture. As we mature, we tend to push for independence. Loving caretakers help us by leading us on our journey. Their job is to set positive examples of life and living while keeping our primary needs fulfilled, creating s safe environment about us in which to live, love, and learn.
But we are nor perfect humans. Parents and other caretakers more often than not, bring what we term as “baggage” into our relationship with our children. In doing this, we place a burden of baggage upon our children’s shoulders. It is then parents and caregivers fail in their mission and are not meeting the emotional, psychological, mental, physical and safety needs of our growing child. This burden of parental baggage becomes the child’s and stunts their mental, emotion and physical growth, literally and figuratively.
IF–there is yelling and arguing in the home, there is physical abuse seen and/or heard in the home, then the primary emotional, mental, physical, safety needs are not met because the clinical and emotional and psychological dis-eases of the parents/caretakers are not treated and neither treated in the children. Because safety within the shelter is not provided, stability in life is absent. Caretakers/parents may be physically present but emotionally absent due to addiction, rejection, illness, and/or ignorance.
THEN–anxiety is produced in the child and this becomes the “normal” state and is never relieved. When contact with similar circumstances to those which produce anxiety occur, then a full-blown panic attack may happen. This reeks of PTSD. This is NOT a tantrum. It IS a panic attack produced by fear produced by anxiety triggered by an event on par with similar negative and frightening stressful experiences in which the basic need of safety is not and has not been met.
If safety is not met, then all of the other human needs are not being met. The child becomes emotionally, psychologically, mentally, and perhaps physically, dis-abled, and never feels safe because he or she has not learned to have a life without fear. Without feeling safe, no one can enjoy the rest of the needs in life.
Janus Lives In Us Today
The two-faced Roman god Janus, one face looking back, the other forward, is an ancient symbol of the change from the old year to the new year, endings and beginnings, past and future, closed doors and open doors. Janus may also represent people who say one thing and belie themselves with opposite actions, hoping and believing they are deceiving others. These others are very often ones who have a stake in the issue at hand, exhibit belief in the deceiver, and become disparaged and horrified to know, in retrospect, they have been “taken.”
Selfless and compassionate people–the givers in life–are the ones who are usually abused by such behavior, and to know they have been used by these others–the takers in life–to the advantage of themselves is hurtful to their soul. The taking two-facers, on the other hand, look only forward to their own selfish desires, without compassion, without regret, and without honor, for they are not honorable people. The adage ‘Treat others as you would have your self be treated” is lost upon them. They satisfy their own desires at will with no account on how it shall affect others, and certainly care less about any others, in spite of their words.. The “Me” generation fits this description perfectly,bragging like the girl with a wet T-shirt at a party. For life is a party to them. They have no serious concerns about others, they have only concerns about satisfying their immediate pleasures for them selves, and they look back at yesterday and say “What a wonderful time we had” in doing for themselves. They are the watchers when there is trouble for others, thinking only of them selves first. These are our anathema.
On the other hand, Janus-style, the compassionate people give of them selves selflessly, and are honorable. They look to the future and say “I want to make life better for those who follow.” Their children, grandchildren, and for future generations to come. They seek no reward, only to know that what their action did was to matter to at least one individual , one person, in this world. These people will be happy and satisfied in their souls, because they DID for others. They are the doers when there is trouble for others, thinking of others first, and themselves last, or not at all. These are our heroes.
The big doors spoken of in the Janus legend represented the large doors in the gates of the cities. They were said to be closed in peace and open in war. No one can determine why this was so. Perhaps, during war, it was considered “open season” on the enemy. Two-faced Janus-type people are all around us today. Simon was a Janus when he pointed at Jesus. In families, churches, governments, the world organizations. But correcting that flaw begins right at home, in the family of origin. Where does your family stand? Do you have Janus? Are you a Janus? Pause to think a moment or three about it.
I Want That! Not!
When our eyes see, the brain is alerted to desire, then the feed-back loop drives certain hormones to surge in our brains telling us that we are in lust, whether it is for things, another person, food, or intangible. Advertisers use this well to sell us what they wish to sell and often something that we do not need. Visualize your kids watching the ads near Christmas, for one.
Many times what we yearn for is not realistic, practical or affordable. It may belong to someone else, and thus illegal to obtain. It may be something which would be dangerous for our self or others to have in our possession. It could be beyond our financial means. But the desire still goes on, unsatisfied, out of reach like the gold ring when we ride the carousel.
So now that we have reasons to not satisfy this want, frustration enters our emotions and we feel stressed out. What can we do to reduce this stress and also satisfy this urge to obtain? For if we suppress or repress these desires, then psychosomatic problems may occur. Like head-aches, belly aches, indigestion, irritability, insomnia, and over time even depression. We may need to settle for “good enough” rather than what we believe must be a perfect match for our desire. Like having hamburger instead of that steak we drooled after.
First, we must recognize and incorporated the reasons above into our being. Then we must form a secondary course of action. Something that is obtainable within our physical and financial means, that is neither dangerous or illegal. This secondary course of action may be a counter-point to the first. It is using plan B instead of plan A. This is substituting something for something. Like acting compassionately toward others when we are feeling angry toward somebody. If we substitute, we are finding something else which is good enough. Our inner desires will have been appeased and satisfaction obtained because we will have had something “good enough.”
