Women in America: will we soon be wearing “burqas” too?

Posted on September 7, 2018 by luckyotter

Women in Afghanistan wearing burqas.

If Trump’s ultraconservative pick Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed, we women are vulnerable to losing all our rights — and I’m not just talking about abortion. It may well include birth control as well, and a lot more. There’s already a horrifying new Arkansas law that was just passed last week. The law says a rapist can sue a victim if she seeks to obtain an abortion. Rape victims in our culture are being newly demonized, just as they were in patriarchal times in the past, of being temptresses who “teased” or tempted the man to rape her, because, you see, men are incapable of controlling their lustful urges. It’s always the woman’s responsibility to tame them.

I hear more and more horror stories about pastors at fundamentalist and evangelical churches who tell abused wives that the way to solve the issue is to “get right with God” and “submit” to their husband. Of course we all know how well that works out in real life. It doesn’t. Many of these women end up emotionally or physically destroyed, or dead. Such women are often forced into leaving their churches in order to stop being shamed for being an abuse victim. If they leave their abuser, the church will usually shun them rather than offer any kind of support, even if children are involved.

This regime would like to erase everything women achieved during the 1960s and 1970s. Ideally, they would like us to lose our voting rights too, bringing us back to the early 1900s.

All this is only the tip of the iceberg, of course. Life for women who are not wealthy, white, evangelical Trump supporters is going to be hell on earth, and that’s what they want for us. This regime is misogynistic and hates women. They don’t want us to have any kind of voice or any autonomy at all. They want us barefoot, pregnant, and subservient to the patriarchs who get to tell us what we can and cannot do.

We all know what will happen if Kavanaugh gets confirmed. I’m not going to name what those things will be. We all know. It may take some time, but it will happen.

I’m not giving the man the benefit of the doubt. At first I wanted to, but after seeing his cold and heartless reaction to the father of the murdered Parkland student (and then calling Security to have the man removed), with his assistant making the “white power” symbol with her fingers right behind him, the message was loud and clear.

Here is a picture of some young Afghan women in the the early 1970s, before the Taliban and Sharia law came and changed everything. They look like any women of the free world, don’t they?

afghanwomen1970s

This quote is from the article, Women in Afghanistan: The Back Story:

Until the conflict of the 1970s, the 20th Century had seen relatively steady progression for women’s rights in the country. Afghan women were first eligible to vote in 1919 – only a year after women in the UK were given voting rights, and a year before the women in the United States were allowed to vote. In the 1950s purdah (gendered separation) was abolished; in the 1960s a new constitution brought equality to many areas of life, including political participation.

But during coups and Soviet occupation in the 1970s, through civil conflict between Mujahideen groups and government forces in the ’80s and ’90s, and then under Taliban rule, women in Afghanistan had their rights increasingly rolled back.

This is what happens when religion and the state merge. The end result is always oppression of women and groups of people deemed to be “other” or “sinners.” There are no exceptions to this. Mixing religion with politics always ends badly, especially for women and those who do not submit easily to the regime.

In the 1970s, women in Afghanistan, like American women (and women in all developed countries) were discovering new freedoms, finding their voices, and being granted new, hard won rights. The young women in the photo above look happy and carefree. Most likely, they had no idea that in a few short years, all that would be lost.

Another image of young women in pre-war Afghanistan, 1970s

I’ve always wondered what it must have felt like to be an Afghan woman during the early Taliban years, as the regime began to remove women’s freedoms and rights while enforcing draconian new laws on them that were much harsher than the rules men were expected to follow.

It must have felt quite a bit like what it feels like today to be a woman in America.

The Handmaid’s Tale seems like it could be prophetic: a peek into a possible future for American women if Christofascist politics isn’t stopped in its tracks right now. I can’t even watch the show. I find it too upsetting. The book was enough for me, but boy, was it eye opening.

Let’s party like it’s 1399.

Posted on June 16, 2018 by luckyotter

Originally posted on December 30, 2017 as The Unholy Alliance That is Ushering in a New Dark Age.

Although I have made few editorial changes and no factual updates to this article, I’m reblogging it in light of Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ and Jeff Sessions’ quoting of the Bible to justify the inhumane separation of children and babies from their parents at our southern border (it’s not just illegal immigrants this is being done to, but to mothers and children legally seeking asylum) as well as the incarceration of children in what can only be called concentration camps. Using the word of God to justify these cruel atrocities and human rights abuses — inflicted even on innocent children — is the pinnacle of blasphemy as well as an egregious example of the Trumpian GOP’s constant gaslighting. In fact, the Bible takes a very dark view of those who would deny refuge to a stranger and inflict abuse on children. I won’t list all the quotes proving that here for lack of space, but anyone with a cursory knowledge of the Bible knows this. Jesus was himself a dark skinned immigrant whose parents were fleeing from persecution in their home country, and I have no doubt that in Trump’s America he would be separated from Mary and Joseph and thrown in a cage like an animal. Let’s not forget that the Bible was also once used to justify slavery and even by some Nazis to justify the extermination of six million Jews and other “undesirables.”

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When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. –Sinclair Lewis, 1935.

This article is going to be dark. I wasn’t looking forward to writing it, but I must do so. Dark as the subject matter is, it’s the light within most of us that makes us able to know when darkness is descending and take the necessary action to avoid being annihilated by it.

Education and science are under attack by an unholy alliance between right wing evangelical Christianity and far right politics. This has been going on since the late 1970s (The Moral Majority was the first obvious sign this was beginning to happen), but only now has the situation in America become critical, so critical we are fast losing our democracy and becoming a fascist state.

Protecting democracy and liberty is the primary reason why the Founding Fathers made sure the Constitution protected the separation of church and state. It’s not because these men regarded religion as a bad thing. In fact, some of them were personally quite religious. It’s because mixing the two always corrupts both. Enter politics into religion, and religion becomes authoritarian and punishing; enter religion into politics and government becomes the same way. Religio-fascist, authoritarian states like Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan became that way because religion (in their case, Islam) was allowed to infiltrate politics without regulations to keep its excesses at bay. Islam itself became corrupted due to the influence of radical Islamists (ISIS and the Taliban) who wanted to make their religion about politics and use it as an excuse to control the people. The same thing is happening in America with certain factions of evangelical Christians (dominionists) who believe their Godly duty is to force others to think and behave the way they do. And they have created a God — a cruel, narcissistic, sociopathic, constantly enraged God devoid of empathy or love — in their own monstrous image.

Christian Taliban1

I realize not all conservatives are like this — if I made this table, I would substitute the term “Trumpist GOP and Dominionism” for “Republicans and Conservatives.” I’d also leave out the term “Muslim” since most do not support ISIS and Sharia Law.

Unfortunately — but not surprisingly, given their belief that they have been chosen by God to “take dominion” over other mortals and the planet itself — the highest echelons of government are now populated by toxic dominionist Christians who believe tyranny and oppression is the God-ordained way to rule a nation and the only way to bring about God’s kingdom on earth. I’ve come to believe the real reason so many right wing Christians hate Muslims is because they see radical Islam as competition for their own desired Christian Taliban — it’s the same damn thing with a different name! Trump and his cronies don’t seem to hate Saudi Arabia or its richest, most powerful rulers at all (Trump seemed to be having the time of his life when the Saudis treated his arrival last spring like the arrival of a beloved king) — they only hate powerless Muslim refugees coming to America to escape from that oppressive regime. Radical Christian extremists and malignant narcissists like Trump who crave and admire only power and wealth have far more in common with regimes like Saudi Arabia’s than they do with western democracies where the people have a say in how they are governed.

Authoritarian religion –whether Christian, Islam, or some other faith system — tends to attract people with narcissistic or sociopathic personalities, and research has shown that people with these personality types also score high in authoritarian traits. Authoritarian religion provides a handy way for people without a conscience or with sadistic tendencies to justify their abuse and judgment of “the Other” — anyone who they believe is inferior to them — or anyone who threatens to shine the harsh light of the truth on them. It’s easy to say, “Well, it’s what God wants” or “it says right here in the Bible” (which more often than not, is a faulty interpretation of Scripture anyway) than to say, “I’m a sadistic SOB who wants to control you and make your life a living hell.” Malignant narcissists do not want to take responsibility for their inhumanity; they’d much rather blame it on someone else. If they can “blame” it on God, that’s even better, because then they can tell you “it’s for your own good.”

A personal story.

A few years ago, I had a falling out with another blogger who wrote about narcissistic abuse. We are still not on speaking terms, and probably never will be again, but recently I started to read her blog again, not just because she happens to be a good writer, but because during the past few months I’ve actually found her blog inspiring. I won’t go into all the details of what led to the falling out, but one of the reasons was because of the woman’s religion. She had made some critical — even cruel — comments about and to me, using what I felt to be her fundamentalist Christianity as a weapon of judgment and intolerance. From what I could observe from her older writings, she appeared to be stuck in a victim mentality, unable to move forward in her recovery due to her tendency to judge others harshly because of her fundamentalist Christianity. I saw no evidence of any real self awareness or willingness to self-criticize. So, at the time, I dismissed her as a covert narcissist masquerading as someone with “only” C-PTSD.

But apparently I was wrong. It seems like Trump’s election changed her in a positive way. She wrote about what she saw happening with politics and the religious right, and became increasingly critical of both. She began to realize that her fundamentalist church was infested with malignant narcissists who judged her negatively for her poverty and health problems, believing, as they did, that wealth and good health were proof of God’s approval. It wasn’t long before she ditched her fundamentalist church and began to seek answers outside religion. This actually didn’t surprise me, since I always got the impression her religion was a bad fit and she was miserable within its confines. This woman was clearly intelligent and well educated, but it was almost as if she had been trying to force herself to adapt to a restricting mold that didn’t allow her to grow as a human being. She was telling herself lies that she knew were lies, because of the fear of Hell and judgment. Freed of that, suddenly she was exploring and seeking answers in secular fields like science and psychology, and her mind seemed to blossom. At the same time this happened, she seemed to develop more tolerance and empathy toward others. Most impressive of all, she began to develop an ability to self-reflect and as a result, began to make changes to herself. Her writings indicated a new insight into herself I hadn’t seen while she was under the thrall of toxic religion. She seems happier than she ever did, and a lot less angry in general. She’s exploring old interests and talents that she had neglected while she was in that church, and more positive things seem to be happening to her now too. I’m sure being happy and using one’s mind to question and explore the world aren’t sins, and God is not judging us harshly for doing so. If God didn’t want us to ask questions or think critically about things, he would not have given us brains!

I won’t link to her blog here or even name it, due to the fact we stopped speaking several years ago, but her most recent article about the religious right’s war on science was one of her most enlightening and insightful. It was also very dark and unfortunately all too true. In it, she criticized the religious right’s scorched-earth mission of squelching all independent thought and critical thinking, which has led to an all out war on secular education itself and an accompanying celebration of ignorance and superstition.

The war on science and education.

Religio-fascist societies always attack education and science as the enemy, because the ability to think and ask questions challenges their belief system. This always leads to the decimation of civilized society and overpowering oppression, premature death, human suffering, and covert or overt genocide to “purge” the society of undesirable populations (I believe the current GOP’s tax bill and attempts to destroy the social safety net is a covert attempt to dispatch the elderly, poor, disabled, and sick). Such rigid and cruel regimes held power during the European Middle Ages, when the Catholic Church doubled as government and forbade the questioning of religion and condemned scientific thought, even sentencing scientific thinkers to be burned at the stake (the Catholic Church has since renounced and repented for this dark period in its history, and today embraces science, and since Vatican II, this includes the acceptance of evolution). It happened more recently in countries of the Middle East, with radical Islam taking over government and leading to the oppression of women, expansion of the death penalty to include personal or sexual “immorality” like homosexuality, abortion, contraception, adultery, and even a child’s disobedience to their parents; and other human rights atrocities.

“We made God in our own image.”

Any religion whose dogma regards the fight for human rights as a sin (as dominionist Christianity and radical Islam both do), is one where God isn’t benevolent or good, but is a false entity made in the rulers’ own image: their God has become a malignant narcissist who does not care about the well-being of his creation, demands adulation and worship, and only approves of and rewards narcissistic or sociopathic behavior. Leaders of such religions shift the blame for their society’s ills to their most vulnerable or powerless members (the poor, women, immigrants, or others), gaslight their followers and those under their rule by saying that we, as humans, are unable to determine what God deems good because we are so “depraved,” and hence the means, no matter how cruel, always justify the ends. Dominionists believe that only certain “elect” (God’s “golden children”) have been given dominion over creation — with wealth and power being proof of God’s favor — and must do whatever it takes to destroy the old ways (which includes jettisoning empathy for the vulnerable) in order to usher in God’s kingdom. Apparently, they forgot about God’s grace and mercy and the earlier fundamentalist belief in free will.

7-mountains
The 7 “mountains” of the New Apostolic Reformation (dominionism)

There are two glaring problems with dominionist doctrine. First of all, if humans are so depraved, why is the cruelty of certain powerful religious people okay to God but not the benevolence of others? Second, their doctrine flies in the face of everything Jesus taught in the New Testament. It’s interesting the dominionists rarely quote from the New Testament, unless it’s from the missives of Paul, who lived after Jesus and seemed to have harsher views toward women and sexual behavior than Jesus himself did. They justify cruelty by misinterpreting Scripture to fit their harsh narrative. As one example, they often use the verse, “Those who do not work do not eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10) as proof that Jesus was a Republican who didn’t believe in helping the poor. What Jesus actually meant was that if you are an able bodied person who can work, you shouldn’t sit on your ass expecting handouts. This is common sense! But Jesus never said we shouldn’t help people who truly are in need — in fact, the New Testament (and even parts of the Old Testament) are full of verses instructing us to care for the “least among us.” Dominionist evangelicals cherry pick from the Bible and conveniently ignore the many passages telling us to be inclusive and loving toward the most vulnerable members of society, while glorifying the the most punishing parts of the Old Testament as God’s true nature.

America today is extremely narcissistic, and celebrates narcissistic, even sociopathic, values. It’s become an orgy of malignant narcissism, and its associated traits and values (lack of empathy, arrogance, coldness, racism, sexism, sadism, bullying, dishonesty, cheating, unchecked power, greed, revenge, war, division, destructiveness, and hatred) have become synonymous with both the Trumpian Republican Party and far right Christian extremism. These two groups, thanks to Trump and his far right evangelical supporters and donors, have become increasingly merged to the point it is sometimes hard to separate one from the other. This, of course, is part of their plan — destruction of the separation between church and state would allow these sociopaths to carry out their plans to destroy or punish anyone they dislike, all in the name of God. It’s heresy of the highest order, but there are people who really believe a white, conservative, Christian society is the only kind of society acceptable to God. To them, science is a creation of Satan and critical thinking or questioning of any kind is flirting with the devil. That’s why they hate education and science so much: because only the gullible and uneducated will unquestioningly believe — and obey — such a toxic and destructive doctrine. They want obedient sheep without working brains. That’s the most effective weapon they have, and the one that will catapult us into the new Dark Age.

The Prosperity Gospel and positive-thinking movement’s connection to authoritarian Christianity.

The “prosperity gospel” used to be a seemingly harmless, feel-good vaguely Christian doctrine that gave people permission to not feel guilty or ashamed of achieving great success or wealth, or about their desire to have those things. It held that God wanted his people to be successful in life and in fact it was their duty to strive for that. While I can’t argue that there’s anything wrong with ambition or wanting to be successful (who wants to be a poor failure?), the real problem started when the prosperity gospel (and other “positive thinking” belief systems) began to regard the emotions of guilt, remorse, and shame as something shameful in themselves. Anything went, even if to get what you wanted, you had to exploit or hurt others (which is why Ayn Rand became so popular in recent years). It wasn’t okay to feel guilty — unless you felt guilty about feeling guilty! But guilt, though unpleasant (and unhealthy when excessive) is necessary for civilized society. The ability to feel guilt (and the related ability to feel empathy) is what separates sociopaths and narcissists from people who care about other people.

At the same time the more new-agey positive thinking movement (which also eschewed guilt and shame) was gaining steam, the prosperity gospel (basically a Christian version of the positive thinking doctrine) and Christian evangelism/fundamentalism were beginning to merge. It wasn’t long before having great power or wealth, rather than being a sign of a Pharisee or false prophet, became a sign of God’s favor. Christianity as taught by Jesus in the Gospels was turned on its head into its polar opposite! Given that sociopaths and malignant narcissists tend to be attracted to any religion that tells them their power or wealth is holy, soon the prosperity gospel took on a dark cast by demonizing those without such power or wealth as somehow sinful or even evil. The Christian Dominionist/Reconstructionist movement (which had been considered “loony fringe” ever since Rousas Rushdoony published his Institutes of Biblical Law in the 1960s), now known within evangelical circles as the New Apostolic Reformation (don’t read late at night if you don’t want nightmares), exploded into the upper echelons of the Republican Party. Suddenly, it was perfectly okay for a narcissistic sociopath like Roy Moore to run for Senate, regardless how immoral his personal behavior (in his case, alleged pedophilia and stalking teenage girls) because he also promoted the extremist Christian doctrine that fit in so well with far right Republican politics.

What they really want.

Both dominionist Christianity and Trumpian Republicanism are fascist movements that believe anything they do is alright, as long as it achieves their desired ends: unlimited accumulation of wealth and power (which includes unbridled corporate power), ending the right to vote for anyone who isn’t a white male property owner (this is actually part of their overall plan and explains why they don’t seem to care anymore what the public thinks), repealing the First Amendment, putting women back in the kitchen without access to contraception, removing laws that protect women and children against abusers, decimating the social safety net (getting rid of Medicare and Social Security is a big part of their agenda), denying facts and science, rolling back all protective regulations, including those that protect our planet; building walls to separate us from our allies, revising history so it supports their fascist agenda (the insistence that the Founding Fathers intended to create a Christian nation is one example of revisionist history used to justify the legislation of ~~Sharia~~ biblical law), denying access to education unless it’s fundamentalist religious education, privatizing all public goods and infrastructure so nothing is free (anyone like toll roads or for-profit prisons and fire departments?), and oppressing, punishing, deporting, and killing anyone who isn’t rich, Republican, Christian, or white. How very Christ-like of them.

The means to achieve their nefarious ends simply don’t matter, no matter how immoral or how many people they hurt. It’s okay to lie, cheat, steal, break the law, deride the FBI and the Justice Department, collude or conspire with hostile foreign powers, even to the point of treason; accumulate obscene amounts of wealth on the backs of the working and middle class, emotionally harass and abuse, gaslight, blame-shift, project onto, mislead, arrest without due process, and inflict draconian punishments on others who don’t fit their ideal or who dare to speak out against such harsh treatment. They talk about “small government” but that only means small government for them — they are above the law, you see. They want to inflict a Big Brother government on all the rest of us lowly ingrates.

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Ignorance and moral bankruptcy.

Of course this is all incredibly sad and scary, but what’s even more tragic is that one third of the country is seemingly so ignorant they support Trump and his billionaire, white supremacist, and evangelical cronies’ vision for America and the world. I don’t really think they are as ignorant as they seem. I think they are perfectly well aware of the fascist hell on earth that Trump and his minions are aiming for. It’s even beginning to dawn on a few of them that maybe Russia was involved in the 2016 election, and maybe Trump did collude with them. But that doesn’t faze them one bit: now they say that maybe Russia is better than America, and that Trump was in his right to collude with them. Far right extremists and trolls are still promising civil war against the rest of us if he is removed or impeached.

No, Trumpists are not all ignorant. After reading many comments on right wing websites and studying the right wing mindset in depth over this past year, I have come to believe that people who like Trump and the new Republicanism are attracted to it precisely because it is so sociopathic. They love it for the same reasons the rest of us hate it. They don’t care if they lose their healthcare or their rights — as long as they get to see the people they hate suffer. Trumpists are people who are either narcissistic or sociopathic themselves (how else does one explain the preponderance of Internet trolls and neo-Nazis among them?), or who have severe codependency issues and look up to narcissists and sociopaths as viable leaders. They want a strongman leader and admire dictators, either because they don’t want to have to think for themselves and gain a perverse sense of security from being told exactly what they have to believe and do, or because they are narcissists and sociopaths who regard higher human values such as empathy, kindness, fairness, compassion, civility, generosity, and love as “feminine” or weak. On the contrary, it’s the strongest and most spiritually evolved people who are able to embrace these higher values and act on them. If Jesus, the embodiment of these virtues, were to walk on Earth today, he would be despised by the religious right. I’m pretty sure they would persecute him all over again.

Going forward.

It is not too late to nip this cancer in the bud and return to America as the land of freedom and democracy, even improving on what we had before — preferably with some new checks and balances put in place to prevent anything like this from ever happening again. But the hour is getting late and the cancer is metastasizing. One positive effect of Trumpism and the carnage it’s creating is that finally, higher human values like I mentioned in the last paragraph are being given the respect due them again. There is a general recognition by two thirds of Americans — even by traditional Republicans (both Bushes are among them) — that these values have been devalued for so long that they are now are nearly nonexistent in American politics, and demonized where they appear (compassion and kindness are now “socialism”). Narcissism has run amok, ignorance is admired, and greed has been glorified. Sociopathy is now becoming acceptable. Over time, these vices have been turned into virtues instead of the destructive forces they really are. But there’s a painful awareness now, a passion for truth, and a desire to repair or reclaim what has been lost or damaged that I see now among most people. Two thirds of us strive to be rid of the invasive cancer of societal malignant narcissism, a desire that wasn’t evident before 2017. In addition, like the narcissism blogger I discussed in the beginning of this article, some of us have been transformed spiritually in the face of this existential darkness, and in spite of the ominous threat of being silenced held over us, we are finally finding our voices.

I have to believe that good will always “trump” evil (pun intended).

It always does, in the end.

Can we ever stop the hemorrhaging?

Posted on January 21, 2018 by luckyotter

America is sliding backwards in almost every way imaginable. Like it or not, as a country we have become far more superstitious, fearful, intolerant, and tribal than we were twenty, forty, or even sixty years ago. Such a worldview is incredibly dangerous to any real progress and the sustainability of democracy.

The following article will provide a background of why this happened, its historical roots, how our situation compares with the rest of the world, and what, if anything, we can do to reverse our destiny and restore democracy as we used to know it.

The Middle Ages.

feudalism

Hundreds of years ago, tribalism and irrational fear of the “Other” was the norm in the West. During the Middle Ages, the only form of government was basically a theocracy with “one party rule” by the medieval Catholic Church. Feudal lords ruled over the serfs with an iron hand, with meager benefits, such as a small patch of land for a family to subsist on, handed out in return for loyalty and backbreaking labor. There was very little to no chance of a common peasant or serf escaping their grim reality, or ever rising to the merchant class and certainly not the nobility (the oligarchs of those times). For almost all who weren’t part of the nobility or merchant class, life was “brutal and short.” Harsh punishments were meted out liberally against those who dared question the regime or their overlords. It was a life not much better than slavery. Science was considered heresy and education was discouraged. Higher education was limited to the clergy and the nobility, and even that was primarily religious education.

During these “dark ages,” which lasted approximately a thousand years following the fall of the Roman Empire, there was little to no progress, scientifically or otherwise. Each generation lived pretty much the same way as the one that came before, and people did not live very long. Daily life revolved around religion and the church and people were very superstitious. Women were considered the property of men, their only role (besides backbreaking labor alongside the men) was producing as many children as possible as quickly as possible. Most of those children died of illness before the age of 5 or so. In fact, infant mortality was so common that medieval women didn’t bother to name a child until he or she was several years old, and more likely to survive. Not naming a new child made it possible to not get too attached to the child and enabled the mother to take its death in stride without undue grief.

Modern feudalism and third world countries.

shantytown

Today, there are such societies. But they are not in the West. You can find feudal-like living conditions under harsh dictatorships and theocracies in third world countries in South America, Africa, and other parts of the undeveloped world. Unlike advanced western democracies, these developing countries have not advanced in any discernible way, and do not contribute knowledge to the rest of the world. The vast majority of their people live much as Europeans did in medieval times. The rulers and kings of these impoverished nations may themselves be very wealthy, but they keep their wealth for themselves at the expense of the populace, who have no chance to ever live a good life within their own countries. These regimes are rife with corruption, oppression, sexism, and violence. They are societies where hatred, fear, tribalism, and often religious superstition take the place of rational and enlightened thought and higher values such as inclusiveness and empathy for others.

Random violence and harsh and unforgiving laws are common in these societies, and people live in fear of their own government, who care nothing for them and treat them as vermin or at best, as inconvenient burdens. Some people have been fortunate and able to escape from these regimes. Many of those refugees emigratred to America for what they believed would be a better life, and for the most part, they have not been disappointed.

Tyranny outside the third world.

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Islamic theocracies in places like Saudi Arabia and Iran are slightly better as far as quality of life than impoverished third world countries (most people have access to modern technology and generally have at least the basic necessities for survival), but are still rigidly authoritarian states that tolerate no dissent from the national religion and Sharia law. These regimes especially fear feminine power — a power which draws from the higher human values of empathy, altruism, and inclusiveness — and so women have been oppressed and denied a voice. The rulers of such nations are always men, and they rule with an iron fist. Toxic masculinity, where power, wealth, violence, and complete control are lauded as virtues, ensures that the “feminine” is kept silenced and where qualities associated with the feminine are dismissed or even considered evil (in medieval times, these qualities were usually associated with witchcraft). Keeping women in line and obedient safeguards against the risk that the power of the feminine could ever threaten the hypermasculine regime’s control.

The Enlightenment.

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While these harsh conditions used to exist in the West during medieval times, since the Renaissance and Enlightenment they have gradually been discarded. Since then, the West has come to embrace rational thought and democratic, humane values over superstition and religious intolerance — and has changed their beliefs and laws in keeping with that. The recognition that science (over religious dogma) is about truth and secular and higher education is valid and desirable, coupled with the idea that different kinds of people can and should learn from each other — and that difference is not something to be feared but something to be celebrated — paved the way for western countries to establish new policies that greatly enhanced the quality of life for all their citizens. Policies that recognize that each human being is intrinsically valuable and worthy (instead of valued only for what they own or the power they wield) and should therefore be nurtured and encouraged to develop their full potential instead of punished and controlled for attempting to assert that potential has led to greater happiness, prosperity, and longevity for almost all people who live in those societies. This recognition by the west that the “feminine” is as important (or more important) to the advancement of humanity as the “masculine” is the foundation for democracy, the most spiritually advanced and humane form of government that currently exists.

“Manifest destiny” and the roots of American tyranny.

americansoldier

America was, unfortunately, founded at least partly through the invasion and oppression of the native people who lived peacefully and sustainably on this continent for thousands of years. This unpleasant reality has always hindered us as far as advancing in democratic values as easily as other western countries have been able to do. There has always been that undercurrent of violence and intolerance of the “other” that has darkened our path to true progress — even though our Founding Fathers did everything they could when writing up the Constitution to protect against tyranny, whether religious tyranny or some other form of it.

Since the Enlightenment, this reality has been concealed, even to ourselves. We have convinced ourselves America is the most advanced, prosperous, and humanitarian democracy that ever existed, a concept known as “manifest destiny.” We have long believed we are the one shining example of morality, liberty, and prosperity to the rest of the world — and that they should follow our example (even if by force at times). But the reality is, while we lurched toward democracy with the rest of the west, we were never a true democracy. We have always been more hubristic and narcissistic than other countries, believing ourselves to be morally and in every other way better than anyone else, but it’s proven to be a slippery slope that has led to the serious problems we are facing right now. In fact, our narcissism and belief in “manifest destiny” is causing us to slide back into a more medieval, almost feudal, type of society. We are being sucked into a moral vacuum that was formed by our fear of the “other” and the feminine strengths that, for at least a while, forced us to face those fears and attempt to toss them on the ash heap of history. The Roman Empire fell for the same reasons we are now. In fact, America’s system of government was based on ancient Rome, and just as the ancient Romans did, we are eating ourselves alive with our wrongheaded belief that we are the rightful Masters of the Universe and should be treated as such by the rest of the world.

True democracy cannot exist when there is a moral vacuum where feminine qualities and higher human values that recognize all humans are intrinsically valuable are dismissed, ignored, or oppressed. Toxic masculinity and “strongman” policies are, ironically, born in a crucible of fear. Fear leads to nationalism and tribalism, which leads to hatred, which inevitably results in violence, oppression, and even tyranny. The undercurrent of terror and superstition that has always existed in America is poisoning our fragile democracy, which never had a chance to fully flourish and become what it could have been. Other western countries are far ahead of us in this sense, and now we are falling even farther behind. We can no longer even pretend to be the “shining light on the hill” to the rest of the world, and to do so would only make us even more laughable to the developed world than we already are.

For over 240 years, in spite of our issues with narcissism, we were still able to make much progress — but we never let go of our need to regard ourselves as superior and make others treat us that way. And because of our prosperity, our enviable technology, and our comfort with great power and wealth, other countries did in fact look up to us as the rightful leaders of the free world. Yet most of this was their perception — that being nothing more than an acknowledgement of the glorified image we wanted to project — not the actual reality of things. No other western country ever had any concept of themselves comparable to “manifest destiny.” The erroneous belief that we are “best” and should be admired and emulated by the entire world has kept us from developing sufficient humility to be able to empathize and take care of each other, never mind those “foreigners.” Humility — the opposite of hubris — is necessary for the development of the feminine and the humane in any society, and that is why other western countries have had a much easier time adapting to true “social” democracy and the concept that good governance means “we’re all in this together” and not “I’ve got mine, screw you.” Power and wealth has become more important in America than compassion and inclusiveness, and probably always was, if truth be told. Democracy and unbridled, unregulated power cannot coexist. Since the days of Reagan, the idea that deregulated power and unlimited wealth trumps compassion, inclusion, and humanity (demonized by the right as “socialism”) has increased exponentially.

Our experiment with democracy.

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“Spirit of America” by Norman Rockwell (1894-1978).

For a relatively short time — from sometime in the 1940s through the late 1970s — we experimented with social democracy. Following FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society, American life and prosperity improved immensely for most (though racism and sexism were still issues, no one anywhere had really recognized those things as problems yet — reform was to come later). The middle class grew and poverty diminished greatly, though it was never completely eradicated (and probably can’t be anyway). Still, the uniquely American concept that some people were “better” or more “deserving” than others by virtue of their wealth, social status, or what they owned were still the true measures of human worth, even though this remained hidden or denied during those decades where we experimented with real democracy. The truth is, we were never entirely comfortable with democracy. Reaganism came as a relief to many people who feared the kinds of changes democracy could bring about. Reaganism also began the slow unraveling of our developing, but still fragile and easily derailed, progress toward a more fair and humane society. Forty years later, we are confronted with the terrifying spectre a near- fascist regime whose moral bankruptcy, brutality, ruthlessness, and lack of any semblance of conscience and empathy seems to have no limits.

We all know (or should know) how Reaganism eventually morphed into Trumpism, so I won’t detail the whole story of how that happened here. Trump is not really the problem, nor would his immediate removal stop the hemorrhaging. Trump is merely a symptom of a very deep and pervasive problem we have always had and that has become cancerous in the past four decades. Other western democracies don’t have this problem, at least not to the extent America does. Because humility and “feminine” values (seen by tyrants as “weakness”) are not anathema to them, and narcissism and hubris hasn’t taken over their concept of themselves, they have always been more immune than we are to backsliding into tyranny. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen in other countries, but it is less likely and their far right factions wield less power. Our own fear and narcissism is destroying us from within. We are regressing.

America is no longer a first world country.

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We have arrived at a point where we are not far ahead of places like Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Russia. While these are not third world countries in the strict sense, they are second world theocracies or dictatorships where the common people have no freedom (though they may be told they do and believe they do), lies are passed as the truth, history is rewritten, the free press is replaced by state propaganda, and fair elections are either outlawed or a sham, dissent is punished, journalists are jailed, and the “different” are ostracized or even eliminated. Such regimes have a number of things in common: oppression of women, criminalizing perceived “immorality” (homosexuality is an almost universal example in all these regimes), general intolerance for outsiders, an emphasis placed on buildup of the military, police states, suppression of the arts and humanities, disdain or hatred for scientific thought, silencing the free press, revisionist history, the merging of religion and state, and state propaganda (whether religious or not) that passes itself off as “education” (in Communist regimes, atheism is treated as the state “religion”).

Lies are their currency; truth is always the enemy. Compassion is seen as weak and toxic masculinity (violence, controlling others, harsh punishment) is seen as “strong.” Higher human values — gentleness, inclusiveness, empathy — are not just regarded as weak, but sometimes as outright evil. Such regimes are prone to constant wars and violence. Poverty is a given. The wealthy few rule. There is no middle class and it is not possible for a person to move upward from one class to another. The “values” that are rewarded — wealth, power, total control — are often aided and abetted by authoritarian religion whose beliefs dovetail with the regime’s hypermasculine values. American evangelical right-wing Christianity has much in common with radical Islam and organizations like ISIS. In theocracies, whether the state-sanctioned religion is Islam, Christianity (so far, we have managed to avoid a religious theocracy here, but it existed during the Middle Ages and in Puritan times), or something else, there is no separation between religion and state and the leaders rule over the masses with an iron fist. Any deviation is not tolerated. As I mentioned earlier, this was par for the course during medieval times, but this form of governance was discarded by Europe hundreds of years ago when rational thought supplanted superstition, tribalism, and fear. America, though denying it, was never able to completely let go of it.

Looking in the mirror.

Trump did not cause our decline, but through his hyper-masculine “strongman” words, actions, and tweets, has emboldened those who have always secretly wished for a return to authoritarian, medieval-like conditions and have never been comfortable with democratic values because such values demand we accept those who are different or more vulnerable than we are. It also demands we embrace so-called feminine values, and that we recognize that every human being is intrinsically valuable. To be able to recognize the value in all people requires empathy, a quality that may be lacking in many Trump supporters, or seen as a “weakness” by people — usually men — who cannot accept any feminine softness within themselves.

But the proverbial phoenix rises from the ashes. Fortunately, those of us who believe in true democracy and embrace higher human values over base ones like wealth and power greatly outnumber those who do not. Trump, as bad as he may be, has done one very good thing: he has provided a mirror for us to see ourselves as we really are, and how sick a nation we have become. Sometimes the cure for cancer is painful, sometimes more painful than the disease. Trump has woken us up from our complacency and our apathy — which, had they continued, would have allowed the incipient authoritarian regime to take full control. Though unwittingly, he gave us a window of opportunity to recognize the truth and finally take action against the horror that faced us. Had Clinton or someone else been elected, we might have missed the opportunity. There would have been no Resistance movement, we would have continued to sit home during elections, and the thoroughly corrupted new Republican party would have continued to consolidate power and increase their stranglehold on our democracy without us ever realizing it until it was too late. The cancer America is battling would have metastasized to the point that our destruction was inevitable. Yes, Trump is extremely dangerous and yes, we could still self destruct just like the Roman Empire did, but I think with things having happened as they did, such an outcome is actually less likely, even as close as we are to destruction now.

The future.

We have a long and difficult journey ahead, if we are ever to liberate our country from the jaws of fascism and return to the democratic, humanitarian values that leaders during the WWII and postwar years recognized were necessary for us to thrive and become a real inspiration to the rest of the world, instead of a flashy sham of one.

There may be war. It’s inevitable people will die. No revolution ever occurred without bloodshed and great sacrifice. We can’t be cowards and just wait for things to change, because they won’t on their own. Inaction is death. America’s soul is in the balance: do we want democracy or tyranny? The choice is ours.

The unholy alliance that is ushering in a new Dark Age.

Posted on December 30, 2017 by luckyotter

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When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. –Sinclair Lewis, 1935.

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I realize not all conservatives are like this — if I made this table, I would substitute the term “Trumpist GOP and Dominionism” for “Republicans and Conservatives.” I’d also leave out the term “Muslim” since most do not support ISIS and Sharia Law.

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The 7 “mountains” of the New Apostolic Reformation (dominionism)

There are two glaring problems with this doctrine. First of all, if humans are so depraved, why is the cruelty of certain powerful religious people okay to God but not the benevolence of others? Second, their doctrine flies in the face of everything Jesus taught in the New Testament. It’s interesting the dominionists rarely quote from the New Testament, unless it’s from the missives of Paul, who lived after Jesus and seemed to have harsher views toward women and sexual behavior than Jesus himself did. They justify cruelty by misinterpreting Scripture to fit their harsh narrative. As one example, they often use the verse, “Those who do not work do not eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10) as proof that Jesus was a Republican who didn’t believe in helping the poor. What Jesus actually meant was that if you are an able bodied person who can work, you shouldn’t sit on your ass expecting handouts. This is common sense! But Jesus never said we shouldn’t help people who truly are in need — in fact, the New Testament (and even parts of the Old Testament) are full of verses instructing us to care for the “least among us.” Dominionist evangelicals cherry pick from the Bible and conveniently ignore the many passages telling us to be inclusive and loving toward the most vulnerable members of society, while glorifying the the most punishing parts of the Old Testament as God’s true nature.

The “prosperity gospel” used to be a seemingly harmless, feel-good vaguely Christian doctrine that gave people permission to not feel guilty or ashamed of achieving great success or wealth, or about their desire to have those things. It held that God wanted his people to be successful in life and in fact it was their duty to strive for that. While I can’t argue that there’s anything wrong with ambition or wanting to be successful (who wants to be a poor failure?), the real problem started when the prosperity gospel (and other “positive thinking” belief systems) began to regard the emotions of guilt, remorse, and shame as something shameful in themselves. Anything went, even if to get what you wanted, you had to exploit or hurt others (which is why Ayn Rand became so popular in recent years). It wasn’t okay to feel guilty — unless you felt guilty! But guilt, though unpleasant (and unhealthy when excessive) is necessary for civilized society. The ability to feel guilt (and the related ability to feel empathy) is what separates sociopaths and narcissists from people who care about other people.

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This is all incredibly sad and scary, but what’s even more tragic is that one third of the country is seemingly so ignorant they support Trump and his billionaire, white supremacist, and evangelical cronies’ vision for America and the world. I don’t really think they are as ignorant as they seem. I think they are perfectly well aware of the fascist hell on earth that Trump and his minions are aiming for. It’s even beginning to dawn on a few of them that maybe Russia was involved in the 2016 election, and maybe Trump did collude with them. But that doesn’t faze them one bit: now they say that maybe Russia is better than America, and that Trump was in his right to collude with them. Far right extremists and trolls are still promising civil war against the rest of us if he is removed or impeached.

I have to believe that good will always “trump” evil (pun intended).

It always does, in the end.