Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Why the Penis is Like Religion

Please forgive my using someone elses' idea. It was referred to as "something I saw on the internet" which, to me, it is a terrible citation. If you need someone to blame for it, I take full responsibility. "It's okay to have a penis. You can even be proud if it if you want. Just don't whip it out in public and certainly, don't ram it down any child's throat." Now, to be clear, the substitution of the word any for my at the end is completely mine.
Having survived child sexual abuse, including, at birth, with circumcision. I know that it was wrong, but that it was the sole responsibility of the person or persons perpetrating, each, their own particular type of torture. There is no universal evil force, like a devil on one's shoulder telling them to do wrong, every abuser chooses their own path. Often in a demented way, they are feeling powerful by dictating what goes on by their particular choice. We are all survivors of a pathological culture. This male dominated top-down approach survives on command and control, or "power and control" if you will. The new age is cooperative and sustainable, which is on the opposite end of the socio-political spectrum. The current fight between those who have status, privilege and wealth (In America, they call themselves "conservative")and the vast majority of the United States Citizenry, no longer serves any purpose but enslaving greater numbers and amassing ever more fortune on ever fewer individuals. No matter what the rich, or their supporters might say. Oddly enough, many of the most unlikely groups often fall in with the right leaning folks. Poorly educated, make for the saddest segment of the population to take up the repressive standard. I believe this is mostly due to the exploitation of residual hatred for any minorities, and the myth that illegal immigrants are taking most of the available jobs. In fact, the biggest growth in jobs has often been in low level service sector positions that pay poorly and have little security. The kind poorly educated whites are in competition with "smarter" read more affluent, people for anyway.
Seniors, who by their designation are recipients of entitlement program funds that the conservatives often ransack and threaten will be "broke" by the time young people need them. Closer analysis reveals that small changes over time yield big savings and rebuilding the economy with wages and benefits for the lowest level workers would do the most to "rescue" the system. For a group that touts themselves as "defenders of commerce", they sure suck at bookkeeping. Again, playing both sides of the fence with the "We can't afford it, but we're the greatest country in the world" logic. The one thing to be said about the last hold-ons, many elderly are old men, they are dying off. Grandmothers are, on the whole a lot more sensible.
The creepiest sector that still votes with the money are the survivalists. They think that projectiles will keep one "safe" in a scenario that goes totally awry. Again, with millenarian fervor and conviction. Reality Check Guys! If it goes back to survival, love and a sense of community is going to get you further than bullets.

The very terms that we use, in conversation about issues, are dictated by the wealthy purveyors of truth. Like a referee at a boxing match, the media is supposed to keep both sides honest. If we fight fairly, the politics of reason should win out over lies. After all, lies need to be constantly propped up, you might say. In America today, politics is more about the concept of one dollar one vote. The Supreme Court in the USA, ruled that "political" speech can equate to dollars and that corporate money, even that from overseas, including that from media magnates, sent out over "public airwaves", is both free and protected. We have the technology to screen political ads for truth, but when these political action committees get going it is more about innuendo and half-truth anyway. Bad campaign ads are obvious to those who have seen any. Democracy would be further ahead if we spent just half what is currently spent on campaigning on funding social programs.
Religion aside, there are millions of reasons to get government right. look around at the children. They do not deserve a culture based on consumption alone. They should not have to bear the burden of our addiction to cheap oil. When the soils are all blown from the prairies, the watersheds tainted with chemicals and the very groundwater that slakes our thirst is made poison, how will we eat our profits and the factories that grew up around our extractive culture? Perfecting what polychronic creatures have known for ever, can help us grow and adapt to different time signatures throughout the seasons, the moon cycles and the different phases of life itself. Thinking only to next quarters' profit ossifies development and ham strings creativity limiting our ability to find new solutions.
Evolution of our species requires reveling in uniquely variable characteristics to achieve more than a sum of parts. Compelling evidence shows that humans are born magnanimous and compassionate, unselfconscious and endowed with generosity and helpfulness, until they are faced with neglect or abuse. Calvinists and many who have tried to limit the development of humankind with statements about the "human nature" of "brutishness" and rancor have done nothing more than to perpetrate the worst kind of self-fulfilling prophesy. It is time to break free the shackles of old way thinking. Justice and peace go hand in hand. The dawning of the new age requires us to liberate our minds from old strictures, old convictions and out dated limits to growth, awareness and synchronous action. Spin the wheel of life and often you will find that there are many more winning numbers than the ones you bet on. giving away your limits might be the best way to find harmony, or at least resonance with a larger whole.
The art of the give away needs to be explored if we are to

1 comment:

saraeanderson said...

I think there's a real miscommunication between liberals and conservatives about things like privilege. When liberals say that white men have things relatively easy, white men will say to themselves, "Hey, I've suffered and I've worked. Life isn't easy for me." Because people will isolate themselves within their own SES and racial groups, they don't get much of a chance to see what is harder about being non-white or non-male. Plus, there's so much incentive to keep non-privileged voices out of the media that they're unlikely to get schooled when they pick up the wall street journal.