And If You Did Know?

Today I went to some sites under the name Feminism. I was surprised to find so many. I went into a few of them. One was interesting in that it seemed to say at the outset that it was about feminism. But as I read the piece it seemed to be saying that feminism is a very bad thing and that feminists are responsible for much of what is wrong with society today. Some on the information presented was interesting in that it compared feudal society to capitalism. In talking about feudalism the author spoke of how the owner of the slaves under him was responsible for them. He was supposed to take care of them when they could not produce. The author said that under capitalism the care of the family was the responsiblity of the father and mother. That left the coporation free to pursue profit. The author also spoke of feminists trying to equalize society. One of the outcomes of this was the “de” masculinization of the military. The author also spoke of fire fighters being made to take females into their ranks and in doing so having the find ways to make up for the lack of upper body strength needed to deal with the job. The most curious piece for me was that the author spoke of female headed families creating more violent males. The author spoke of drive by shootings and streets gangs as being the result of female lead families. I was taken aback by this observation. My questions are how have female lead families created street gangs? I would also ask how gangs have been created before the feminist movement—you know such gangs as the Crusaders, the Inquisitionist, the Monguls, the Taliban, the Washington gang. I think trying to answer complex problems with easy answers is the problem.

I think of myself as a feminist. I also think of myself as a humanist. I joined the Tampa chapter of NOW in the late 80’s because I wanted to explore my feminist side. I found some personal answers as a result of being on the board of that organization. I also found some rhetoric to be just that, rhetoric. I do not blame men for my situation as a woman. I found a number of other women within the movement felt the same way. I am always amazed at the number of people who talk of feminists as a group with one ideology and one mind set. What I found within the group was diversity. Just as with any set of people. I found my own feminity within the organization because that is why I joined. I suggest that anyone, famale or male, who want to find that part of them could by joining and keeping an open mind and heart.

This type of thinking is what is behind all prejudice. If I can look at you and minimize you and make you the enemy then I do not have to look at myself. There are many ways in which this is done. One of the most common is to see anyone else as the “other”. Once we can see the person or group as the “other” then we can start to blame them. One of the problems I had with my chapter of NOW was that it had no males. That made it easier to make them the “other”. I think we can only work past our own prejudices by confronting them. The best way to do that is to be honest about what we think and feel, especially to ourselves. One of the best ways to do this is to gain actual knowledge of the “other”. I have spent time trying to understand my feelings about men. I was raised by a violent and selfish man. My brother sided with him very early and I felt abandoned by men. So I did not trust men when I got out into society. I had a lot of work to do to separate my fears about men with actual knowledge about what was male and what was myth. I found out that men are not my enemy. That I am the only true enemy of me. Especially when I do not understand me. I do understand that there are realities about society and that I can be seen by others in ways that are not true. I have found that this is not about me. So if a man sees me as being bad or not enough, that is about him and not me. This is true about the way anyone sees me. I think the best thing I can do as a woman is to be confident and know that the only opinion that counts is mine. I do attribute some of this confidence with my being with NOW. I also attribute some of it to being with a truly wonderful man who is not at all interested in my being subservient. But I want to thank me for not believing what others said above what I thought.

I just read an article on AlterNet.org. One of my very favorite sites on the internet. They have such interesting stuff. This one was about sex. The author is a psychotherapist who works in New York. She was talking about a seminar she attended in New York. She is from Europe originally. There was a couple talking about their sex life. She reported that the couple who were being discussed had been married for about 10 years and had 2 children. The husband was not feeling excited by his wife, and the wife reported that she did not feel like having sex with him. The author of the article was talking about how Americans are goal oriented and too involved in having “open” and “honest” communication. She said that in talking with other non-American therapists at the conference they all decided that we are too inhibited. We need more mystery in our sex lives and that this will make eveything alright. We women need to understand that it is important to be more sexual with our men. That because we have been repressed in our upbringing, we are not sexual enough. Further that men have more of a need for sex, they need to be able to have their needs met, and that it is our job to see to that. What a bunch of hooey!!!

As a psychotherapist myself I have heard all of this as being the right way to counsel people. For that matter as a women I have heard this from men as a way to take care of them.

Let me begin with a simple statement. Sex is good. Sex can be a wonderful part of life. Sex is normal and appropriate. Sex carries on the species and this is important. I gave all of these disclaimers so that I could say some other things and not leave any impression that I am anti-sex or anything close to that. But I will say that we have been far too wrapped up in sex (and by this I mean intercourse) as being the most important thing there is. Because we think that intercourse is the only expression of sexuality it becomes the most important thing.

From my prespective a more important thing is intimacy and sensuality. I have been married for 6 years and what I am learning is that there is no right way to do anything. If we can let things happen naturally it will work. Now this does not mean just mean drifting along and not paying attention to the relationship, it means being very connected and doing work of being human. I think the hardest part of being in a relationship is building the intimacy. There are many components of this. Each person, or couple, has to decide what this looks like. We bring with us so much from our childhood and from the societal norms. We tend to want the other person to be what we want so that we can be alright. This does not work. No one can be what we want them to be. In my case I am in this relationship with someone who can give me a safe place to grow. If I become bored or unhappy whose issue is that? It is mine. I am the only one who can decide what is going on with me. My partner is not responsible for what I feel or do not feel. We have discovered that our relationship does not look like what we saw portrayed on television or the movies. The point of being together is to help each other grow and learn and discover who we are.

Perhaps when people began to come together as couples they did so in order to have families so as to help the species continue. But today we are not truly in need of more people so this reason is not quite as pressing. Marriage is about many things. Having children is perhaps one for many, but not all. Today marriage is more about two people coming together and creating an atmosphere wherein each can find what they need so as to discover who they are.

I think that when we discovered the need for formal marriage it was about children. It was very important to have them, they were important for many reasons. Helping on the farm or the family business, carrying on the family name, etc. We also died about the time they grew up. So marriage was about children. Today we live much longer. The children are grown and gone long before we die and so marriage is not just about children. There is no right way to be married. I am not trying to say people should do anything in particular to have a good marriage. I think marriage is an opportunity to discover who we are. This can be accomplished in many different ways. One example of this is that the traditional roles may fit you, or perhaps they do not. Perhaps some men are better at childcare or cooking. Perhaps some women are better wage earners. I think marriage can be a wonderful situation when everyone gets to find out what is important to them. When we struggle to fit into the traditional, when it is not truly you, perhaps it actually restricts us. The point I am trying to make here is that marriage is not about sex or children or doing what is expected. It is about finding out who you actually are. Letting this happen is not easy. We are rather goal-oriented and perhaps that puts unrealistic expectations on the marriage and our partner. What is the goal? The only one who can truly say is you. Your marriage is your own. Whether you are the “perfect couple” as defined by society, and we have all seen how well this works by looking at the divorce rate, or your marriage is between the person who will help you grow is up to you. It would be helpful to look at marriage as something vibrant and alive as opposed to some amorphous “thing” that is driven by arcane and outdated ideas. In so doing this would be an opportunity to be with the person who helps us grow and discover the truth of ourselves as opposed to the one that “looks” like our mate.

I just read an article on AlterNet, one of my favorite sites. This one was by Professor George Lakoff of the University of California at Berkely. He was talking about the various frames used by politicians and how the Republicans have learned to frame their rhetoric in ways that help to make their points. For instance he talked about how in their various think tanks the republicans have formulated frames that help them present their agendas. One of them is about how giving tax breaks to the rich is done by calling it “tax relief”—-as Professor Lakoff says “Think for a minute about the word relief. In order for there to be relief, there has to be a blameless, afflicted person with whom we identify and whose affliction has been imposed by some external cause. Relief is the taking away of the pain or harm, thanks to some reliever.” The Republicans then present themselves as the hero of the day by providing the “relief”. How noble. The problem, according to Professor Lakoff, is that “The term tax relief evokes all of this and more. It presupposes a conceptual metaphor: Taxes are an affliction, proponents of taxes are the causes of affliction (the villains), the taxpayer is the afflicted (the victim) and the proponents of tax relief are the heroes who deserve the taxpayers’ gratitude. Those who oppose tax relief are bad guys who want to keep relief from the victim of the affliction, the taxpayer.” His assertion is that the Republicans have been saying this for years so as to make themselves look like heros to the American public when they give hugh tax breaks to their friends and financial backers. This degenerates the system and gives us situations such as the financial problems we have today. Taxes are actually the price we all pay to live in such a wonderful system. His article is very good and I would recommend it to everyone.

As a result of reading it I thought I would love to read something else by him. So I went to Amazon and put in his name. I found several books by him and began to look through them to see if I wanted to buy one. But I was immediately struck with how completely dry and uninteresting they were. I had just read his article and was captivated by his explanations. I then began to feel as I did in college when I would try to read a text book. I would be able to read every word, I would know the meaning of them and yet I did not understand them. I just felt stupid. I would be able to get what the professor said about them, I just could not understand the books. So I got through college and graduate school by: having someone smart around that I could talk to about what the book said, by attending class and trying to get what the professor was going to test on, and by taping the books and then reading them again as I listened to the tapes. As a result of all of this extra effort I managed to get through college. But just now I was sitting here and thinking. I could read his article and understand it completely. Why then do I not understand his book. Then it struck me. His article had some emotional content. His book was an academic model. Ergo all of the emotion was gone. What I need in order to understand something is balance between emotional content, intellectual content, and sprititual content. I have worked for years at being balanced. At one point I worked for a police department as a crime scene investigator. Part of my job was to report what I had discovered at the crime scene and to do it without emotional content. The thinking is that if you display any emotion on the stand that people will think you are trying to get them to agree with you or that you have a hidden agenda. So I learned about not letting people see my agenda. I hid my emotions, or tried not to have them. The price I paid for that was that I distanced myself from my emotions and it took years to start having true access to them after I quit that job. So being unemotional about something may give the appearance that it is rational and therefore more acceptable, but I think the actual reason we have accepted this model is that we then do not have to deal with any emotion. But I have just realized that I need there to be a balance between the emotion and the intellect before I can make sense of it. The reason I could understand Professor Lakoff’s article was that he had not worked at getting the emotion out of it. I could connect with it on various levels. I do not understand his academic work because it lacks that emotional content. I like that I know this now. I do not have to feel stupid because I do not understand something. For me it is about the balance of the intellect and the emotion. Thank you Professor Lakoff, you taught a good lesson.

Well here we are four months after Dubya declared the end of the war in Iraq still knee deep in it. We are losing troops everyday. Our brave soldiers are dying and being maimed for what? To bring Democracy to Iraq? I don’t think so. What we are truly trying to bring to Iraq is our own state sponsored religion. This is Capitalism. We worship the Almighty Dollar here. We are sold on the concept that the only thing worth having is money. We work our entire lives, and for more and more Americans this means that they have to work two or three jobs each to make it at all. But we must work, must have money, must have things. We have been brain-washed into thinking that the person with the most money is the best person. But can we “make” another culture believe in Money as the most important thing there is? Perhaps the people of Iraq believe something else is important. Perhaps they pray five times a day because they believe in something beyond this world. But that does not seem to stop Bush and Company from trying to privatize their country in the name of our religion. L. Paul Bremer is trying to give their country to the highest bidder. I wonder how many Americans would feel good about some other country coming over here and selling off our assets? At any rate Paul, good luck with turning their country into America of the Middle East. Perhaps he should start with commercials, we all know how much they keep us buying and in line. They he could bring some of the neo-cons like Rush, Ann Coulter, and Sean Hannity over to demoralize any opposition. Keep up the good work Paul. Always working for the rich has its rewards$$$$$$$.

I am sitting here reading a news story about the devastation in Iraq. I am saddened and angry about what has happened to a sovereign nation as a result of this ridiculous war. The fact that we are there at all is stupid. We have no right to march into another country, who posed no threat to us, and start telling them what to do with their country. I read about the groups of men maurading through the streets raping women and girls who are then put back on the streets to be killed by their male relatives in honor killings. I read about soliders who are being killed daily by the angry people of the country. I read about 60% unemployment and people starving to death. The water, electricity, and food is not getting to people. The infrastructure is in ruins. I then read about Paul Bremer and company working on ways to privatize all of the essential needs of the people of this devastated country. They want to help American companies make a lot of money. Then I start to think about what is happening in this country. I see how our jobs being outsourced to other countries. I see our state’s cutting back services. I see millions of jobs having been lost over the past two years. I see hugh tax breaks for the top 1% of wage earners being given, which further erodes the ability of government to do what they are here to do. I see our evironment being attacked by big business. So I begin to put this together and what do I see. I see that the Bush administration is has no desire to be fair and to help. If you want to see the truth of how much human suffering matters to them just look at what they are doing in Iraq. Our soldiers are being put in harm’s way just to make money for Halliburton and Bechtel, et al. They could not defeat a country that had been significantly weaken by 10 years of sanctions. Now they are treating those poor people as non-indentities for their own selfish purposes. The rich are getting richer and the poor are being ignored in the name of Capitialism. How awful. I am ashamed of our country’s elected officals. I think it is important to look at how they are treating Iraq. They are treating us the same way. For just one example of this look at the way the police here are being treated. They have to spend most of their budget on homeland security measures, for what????? Nothing that has been done will stop a terrorist. We are not engaged in a traditional war. This is about fighting poverty and injustice, not people. But the cowheads in Washington have their own agenda. They are not sharing the truth of that agenda with us, but they have their own. We need campaign finance reform, because they just cannot say no to big business. They just keep giving them what they want because they get money to do it and big business has more people on the elected officials than we do. So we need to start paying attention and doing more. I am doing this, and voting. You can do what makes you feel connected and involved. But get connected and involved. We can make the difference.

So I finally realize why I am here. I am here to give this information to the world. This is something I have been wanting to do all of my life, but first I had to get out of the way.

To give some background, I knew from the time I was a little girl that I had something to give the world. I remember as a small child standing in my bedroom looking at the back of my hand. I heard a voice saything “Look at that and remember how it looks. As you grow it will change and it will help you remember that you have changed”. I remember thinking that the voice sounded loving and kind. It was neither male nor female. It was just there. This happened when I was five. Then at about age six I remember coming home from an outing. I was on a bus. I remember it was night and I was tired but I also felt very good. The voice said “Remember this and enjoy it, this will help you when things are not going well”. I also remember listening to the voice as I did things. It always helped me feel as though everything was going to be alright. On another occasion I was in church. The minister was talking about the Sermon on the Mount by Jesus. I was following along in my Bible. When he got to the part about “seek and ye shall find. Knock and the doors will be opened for you”. I knew that it was very real. I saw the words on the page glow. I even heard some beautiful music in the background. I remember thinking that I had been given a very important truth. I knew that I had something to give the world and that I just needed to begin looking for it.

Over the years I began to search. I went to many churchs. I tried many different philosophies. I did not find my truth. I knew I was looking for something and I knew I would know it when I found it. But I just could not seem to get to it. So I went to work. I began working at a police department as a clerk and soon got promoted to crime scene technician. Over time I got promoted again and again. Then after ten years I made a mistake. I lied. I said I had a degree before I actually did. I had been going to school to get the promotion to crime scene technician. I worked at it for two years. I then stopped working on it because it felt hopeless. But after a while it happened. I got the promotion. So I just let myself talk about the Associates degree as if I had it. After six years and four promotions I was in line for another promotion. I was asked to list all of my training and experience. I put on the form that I had the degree. I was actually sixteen hours short. So they asked me to produce the degree. I could not. I was shattered. I felt as though my world had fallen apart. In fact it had. I now realize that I had based that world in part on lies. I hated the job, but told myself that I loved it. I did not like the working conditions, but told myself that I loved it there. I hated the hours, but told myself that it was just part of the job. So I now see that the lesson was that I needed to be more honest about what was going on.

I then went to college in earnest. I got the Associates degree and went to work on my Bachelors. I then went on and got my Masters. During my Bachelors degree I majored in psychology. While there I took psychopathology. Like everyone else I saw myself in all of the illnesses and personality disorders there were. But one of them truly stood out. It was post-traumatic stress disorder. I began to have a physical reaction when the teacher spoke of the symptoms. At first I thought I was having this reaction because my father had been in World War II and Korea. I thought I was beginning to see how he had gotten into such trouble emotionally and spiritually. I was so upset by this that I went to the counseling center to talk about it. I then joined a group of others who needed to talk. I began to talk about myself and discovered that the reaction had been about my life experiences. My father is a rageaholic. So I grew up in a combat zone. I never knew when he was going to explode. So I began to distance myself from my feelings because it was not safe to have them in such circumstances. My mother is a borderline personality disorder and that is a very difficult thing to deal with. She lied when the truth would help her. So I learned at an early age to be distance from myself and to lie. I had quite a job on my hands. I needed to get in touch with the actual me. One of the major roadblocks to this is that there is no easy way to do it and that it is an individual thing.

I got my Masters degree and became a psychotherapist. I was in supervision from the beginning. In my case I had a brilliant supervisor. She talked about what I was doing and why. I had to go inside myself and discover what was standing in my way. Over the next eight years I worked as a therapist and talked every week about who I was and why I was doing what I was doing. It was at times excruiating and very disheartening. I thought I was going to just lose it. But I kept going. I also got involved in several weekend retreats where I got to even more of my issues. I did not hear from the voice during these times per se, but I always felt as though I had love and support.

Finally over time I worked at several jobs. Then I began to work with sex offenders. This was a challenge on many levels. But the biggest part was about being honest. When I first began to work with them I thought they knew they were lying. I thought it would be a matter of my just pointing it out to them. I was very wrong. They became even more defended. So I began to look at what I was doing. I was being judgemental and punishing. Much the way I was treating myself. I was not helping anyone. So I began to look at me. I saw that I needed to be honest with myself and not judgemental. I began to do just that. It also began to happen with the clients. Over time I began to get some information that I found very helpful.

Throughout my life I have been led to some wonderful and special information. I realize that the beginning of this was the Bible. From there I was led to other information that has been helpful. At one time I was in a bookstore in Elizabeth City, NC. I was in the back of the store and a book suddenly fell down in front of me. It was called Messages From Michael by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. It was about information given to a group of people from a reunited entity. I could not read it fast enough. I knew I had found some very fundamental truth. The entity talked about soul levels and and soul types and many metaphysical truths. I knew I had found a great deal of truth. At another time I was coming home from work and stopped in at a 7-11. When I drove up to the front of the store I saw a book rack. One of the books seemed to float in the air for just a split second. I went in and bought it. It turned out to be Illisions by Richard Bach. I knew that I had found another part of the truth. This one helped me to see that this is all an illusion and that my perspective of it is up to me. Everthing I read talked about how I was in control of me. I had been raised to think that I was not in control. My father wanted control because he felt out of control himself. My mother wanted control for the same reason. The schools I went to had similiar issues. In fact it always seemed to me that everyone wanted control and that I needed to give up control in order to be alright. I was very wrong.

While working as a therapist I began to discover something that I now know I need to pass on to the world. So here it is.

We are all in complete control of ourselves. This sounds so simple and yet it is very difficult to do. One of the most important things I got is this simple statement: 100% responsibility equals 100% freedom. What I now understand is that in order to be free I have to be responsible. So I worked at helping the clients with whom I came into contact and in the course of working with them I discovered myself.

The way we work is this: We have a brain that is divided into two parts. One side is the logical and reasonable part–the left brain. This side gets developed from the time we are born. We learn language and math and science and many other facts with this side of the brain. We even have schools that help us learn how to use this side of our brain. We take in information continuously and it goes into the system. We are looking for a place of recognition so that we can make sense of it. If we understand basic math for instance then 2+2 equals 4 and that makes sense. As you read these words they make sense to you (at least I hope they do). You have enough background and knowledge to make sense of the world in a logical and real way. The problem is that is that this is not all there is to you. You also have a right brain. This one is much less understood and much less dealt with. This is the emotional side.

The right brain helps us understand the world as well. It is about who we are in the world and what we need to do to take care of ourselves. When information comes into our system it is also filtered down through the right brain and it is also looking for a place of recognition. We need to find out where this touches us in order to understand who we are. But this is not taught. Unless you find this for yourself you will not understand who you are. Without that information you will not know yourself or why you are here. You will simply exist without doing what you are here to do.

When we were babies we began to attach emotions to certain events. For instance when our caretaker was present, in most cases, we felt safe and loved. However when they went away we felt scared. Since we were just babies we did not know that they were coming back. This is a very powerful emotional upheaval. It is fear of abandonment. We begin to establish a fear and had no way to understand it or deal with it other than crying. So we cry and hope that the caretaker comes back. For some the caretaker does and for others they do not. So we form a core fear. Anything that feels like this from now on touches us at a very basic level. Over time unless it is understood and resolved it becomes bigger and bigger. This explains one of the most basic fears of all people. We are all afraid of being abandoned. Unless we recognize that is the case then we do all sorts of things to keep this from happening. Some never let anyone in so that they do not have to deal with the fear. This can be a very lonely and difficult life. Others want to keep the other person from leaving so they try controlling, either themselves or the other. In the first instance this means doing things that keep us hidden such as trying to have an identity based on other’s perception. This can be very difficult. Some of the ways we do this are: trying to fit into the stereotype of male or female. Since these are externally determined they are not real and not our truth. The result is often trying even harder to fit in. Some men work hard at being what they are supposed to be instead of who they are. They adopt the attitudes they should have and never get past it. The same is true of women. They try to be what they think others want. All of this so that we can avoid feeling abandoned. One of the most important problems with this is that we abandon ourselves in trying to fit in. So we perpetuate that which we are so desparte to avoid.

Another core fear that is fairly universal is fear of getting caught or fear of exposure. This one starts in childhood. One of the ways it can start is to have our caretaker suddenly become upset at what we are doing and wanting to stop us. As a child we just do what pleases us and makes us happy. However this does not usually mean the same to others. I may have enjoyed writing on the walls with a marker, but my mother did not want me to do it. So she became upset with me for doing it. As I child I did not truly understand why she was upset other than I was wrong or bad. So I connected other people being upset with my being somehow wrong or bad. I usually got punished for being wrong so I began to connect having fun with being punished. I began to try to hide my feelings because I associated having good feelings with being wrong. So I did not learn to express myself in ways that were true for me. My mother did not try to hurt me she was actually just trying to take care of herself by not having me do things that cause her more work. But we never talked about what it meant to me so I made connections that did not help me feel safe in the world.

I think the main reason for being here is to discover our truth. Not the story for publication or false personality (see Messages From Michael by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro). This false personality begins in childhood, it is the way we take care of ourselves. We develop coping mechanisms or ego defenses that help us get by. The problem is that unless we discover why we do this we just continue to do it throughout life, usually in a childlike manner. The way to uncover this type of behavior is to stop and listen to ourselves about what we are truly feeling and when we felt this way the first time. If we let ourselves get down to this core of truth we will begin to live our truth. It is a difficult task, and not one that is taught, but it is the only way to do it.

Today I read on AlterNet.org that the Congress of this great country fought for us today. They voted to stop some of the more extreme parts of the Patriot Act. This one was about law enforcement being able to just walk into our homes without judicial oversight and arrest who ever they wanted. Wow, I am so very proud of our representatives right now.

It has been scary to watch the types of manipulation and lies be perpetrated upon our country by some very slick and shady people. From that spoiled brat who is our President Select – baby Bush and all of his self-important and nutty appointees, from Cheney (I love money & power), to Wolfowitz (my hero is Hitler), to Michael Powell (I love being courted by big media), to Condi Rice (I love pleasing my men), to Carl Rove (I love being in control).

But today our representatives did what they are there to do. They said, “That is enough.” I have been very upset and scared about losing this wonderful home of mine ~ the USA. I have always loved this country. I know we have problems but one of the things that has always made us so strong is that we admit mistakes and grow as a result.

The basis of democracy is that this is a place where everyone gets to be who they are. I think that for the first time in the history of the world we have a source of information that is available to everyone. We have the Internet.

It is an unblinking and unflinching beacon. It gives even those of us with little power the ability to get the truth. Here is a place where you can instantly find out what is going on in the world. We can talk to people from around the world. We can see news sources from around the world. This is especially important in times like this when there are those who only want us to see or read what they want. Big media is mostly interested in profits, they do not want to upset anyone. Therefore they want to give only the party-line. The neo-cons (the current reactionary group) want to remake the country in their image. They only want us to follow. The biggest media group that completely fits this image is Rupert Murdock’s Fox news—just tune in a watch the slanted and funny antics there. But at this point in history we have a way of finding out more about what is going on than ever before.

I am so happy to see some break in the strangle hold the rich and ultra-right religious have been getting. I know it is really only the beginning, but it is a beginning.

[Note: This parody is circulating on the Internet. Sung to the tune of “If you’re happy and you know it”]

If you cannot find Osama, bomb Iraq.
If the markets are a drama, bomb Iraq.
If the terrorists are frisky,
Pakistan is looking shifty,
North Korea is too risky,
Bomb Iraq.

If we have no allies with us, bomb Iraq.
If we think someone has dished us, bomb Iraq.
So to hell with the inspections,
Let’s look tough for the elections,
Close your mind and take directions,
Bomb Iraq.

It’s “pre-emptive non-aggression”, bomb Iraq.
Let’s prevent this mass destruction, bomb Iraq.
They’ve got weapons we can’t see,
And that’s good enough for me
‘Cos it’s all the proof I need
Bomb Iraq.

If you never were elected, bomb Iraq.
If your mood is quite dejected, bomb Iraq.
If you think Saddam’s gone mad,
With the weapons that he had,
(And he tried to kill your dad),
Bomb Iraq.

If your corporate fraud is growin’, bomb Iraq.
If your ties to it are showin’, bomb Iraq.
If your politics are sleazy,
And hiding that ain’t easy,
And your manhood’s getting queasy,
Bomb Iraq.

Fall in line and follow orders, bomb Iraq.
For our might knows not our borders, bomb Iraq.
Disagree? We’ll call it treason,
Let’s make war not love this season,
Even if we have no reason,
Bomb Iraq.

Today I am reading news accounts of events leading up to the war with Iraq. One of the mainstream reporters is trying to make a case for the intelligence community having purposely put erroneous information in their communications with the President in order to pay him back for saying some negative things about them.

He (Jim Hoagland) then goes on to talk about why the war is a good thing and that we should not allow this feud to get in the way of supporting this war. How absurd. I have been reading a great deal from various sources about what got us into this situation. It looks to me as though it is a series of events. Most of which involve the current administration and greed and wanting to be in control.

From the beginning of recorded history wars have been fought. Although many reasons have been offered, the truth is war is about power and control. In this country we now have an administration that has become drunk with power. Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, and the rest of the Project for the New American Century crowd feel invincible right now.

They lie directly to us about very important matters. I understand why a number of Americans are not looking beyond the lies. I have worked as a psychotherapist with sex offenders. When I first began working with them they were directly lying about their offenses. I was sure that just by telling them that I knew they were lying they would break down and admit it. Boy was I wrong.

They convinced themselves that they were right. I remember one in particular who kept saying, “She wanted it. I could tell. She would walk through the house wearing very little. She would smile at me. She would sit on my lap and wriggle around.” I remember saying to him that, “She was 3 years old!”

What I did not understand at the time was that he was coming from a place of protecting himself from any information or thoughts that would interfere with his being able to continue feeling good about himself. For the first year and a half that I worked with this population I kept trying to get them to admit what they had done by coming straight at them with the truth. It did not work.

I then began to look at myself. I was the one directing this and I needed to see what I was doing that was not helping. I began to talk in my own group, a supervision group with other mental health professionals. There I began to understand that I could not deal with the people in my offender group until I found that place inside me that could connect with them. I saw that in order to understand where they were coming from that I would have to find my own offender truth.

So I began talking in my own supervision group about that. I began to see that I could offend people. While I do not sexually offend, I am capable of offending. I looked at the time I spent with the Tampa Police Department as a crime scene technician, and how I had become cynical about entire groups of people. For instance, I began to see that I had started to see black people as being mostly bad, criminal, and scary. I remember being with a group of whites once, and joining in the negative comments about blacks. I also remember feeling badly about myself afterwards.

It was around that time that I began to understand that I had allowed myself to slip into negative thoughts and feelings about an entire group of people. I felt I needed to make some changes. I became involved with the Urban League. I knew that I needed to look for situations that were different. In being with the dedicated men and women of the Urban League, I was able to stop thinking negatively about a group of people.

So while I was in my supervision group I began to talk about how disgusted I was with the people I was working with in my offender groups. I saw that I was giving myself permission to ignore my own prejudices and project all of my stuff onto the offenders. I began to see that I had put them in the “others” category so I could tell myself that I was not like them.

I had to finally admit to myself that I had the ability to hide from my own truth and pretend that others were the problem. Over time I began to develop a better working relationship with the people of my groups. At one point a few years later I was helping a person set up an offender program. he said something to me that made a big impression. He said, “It is amazing to me that you can hold their feet to the fire and never let them off the hook without ever trying to take away their dignity.” That meant a lot to me and it took a lot of personal work.

So what I am trying to say here is that if we want to change the current problems in America and around the world we are going to need to look at ourselves first and try to figure out what is stopping us.

I know that during the Clinton administration I paid little attention to the politics mostly because I found the whole thing to be stupid. I could not have cared less whether he had an affair. I also saw that some people were trying to find more dirt on him. I understand that a man named Scaife, from the Mellon fortune, had spent millions to find more dirt. Nothing came of it but it was 8 years of little people who wanted to get Clinton out so they could have their way.

Well now with the President “Select” in office they finally have it. This is the most corrupt, deceitful and greedy group to ever be in power. And make no mistake, it is all about power and control. The way I see it we already have a state sponsored religion in the US. It is called capitalism. The God is the dollar, that is actually printed on the dollar “In God We Trust”. The places of worship are the malls and stores. The ministers are the media. The hub of the religion, or the sponsors of it are the Washington DC crowd, our ‘Vatican City.”

The dollar has become more important than anything in this culture. It is what drives so many. Yet there is no truth to money and yet it has become the measure of what a person is. That is ludicrous. There is no truth to money it only means what we say it means it has no actual value. We have lost a great deal of liberty and freedom in our pursuit of it. Today many in Washington are closing their eyes and their hearts to the needs of society so as to continue to have a job. I know that I have at times run after the dollar as well.

I was very caught up in the pursuit of it in 1995. I was in private practice and doing quite well financially. But the person I was working with kept taking more and more of the money. I worked harder and harder. I got breast cancer. I then began to re-evaluate my life and my priorities. I saw that I was wasting my life pursuing something I would never get. I thought I would be happy if I could make enough money to feel secure. It just never happened. I then saw the cancer as a wake-up call. If I did not begin to live my true life and begin to discover my true self I was going to die. This was a very loud alarm signal for me. I began to think that perhaps I had the wrong priorities.

Within 3 years I closed my practice, packed what would fit in my car and began a new life. This was very difficult. I left everything behind. I now have a new kind of life. I know more about who I am and why I am here. I have time to think now; I am taking the time to get to know me.

I think that is the true purpose for being here. Shakespeare said, “To thine own self be true.” But to do this I have to know who that is. It takes time and quiet to listen to myself. I think all of the people in Washington are young souls who do not see anything beyond their own physical needs. I think this is common for many. I also know that I have been there. It takes work to change the mind set. It takes a willingness to look at self. It also takes a willingness to admit you are wrong. As Aristole said “Unless we cad admit we are wrong we cannot grow.” George W. Bush is a good example of not being able to grow. He acts like a petulant and spoiled child. The fact that he does not want to take responsibility for what is going on is a true indication of how immature and child-like he is.

I can understand it, but from the President I expect more. They are now involved in spin control that frankly makes little sense. They are doing little to deal with all the other huge problems. Once again we are focusing on minutia instead of seeing the big picture of corruption, lies and tax cuts for the rich. We are in danger of losing more than just money. I read something today on Bush Watch by Dr. Gerry Lower which talked about something very important. Dr. Lower said, “Much of what we Americans have been asked to believe over the past half century is simply not worthy of human belief, and parents have largely dealt with that fact by covering it up, ignoring it and going with the flow to provide their children with really no viable information as to how the world does work or ought to work. One just needs money, that’s all, don’t ask what for.”

This was an “aha” moment for me. I see this as a truth. I can see that over the years we have worked harder and harder to get less and less. When I first began to work in private practice I was getting 70% from the group. as the man who ran the group got bolder he took more and more. He finally took 70% and I got 30%. He simply did it. Of course I realize that I did not insist upon a contact that would have prevented this. I will have to live with that fact. He will have to live with his actions. I can see how different things are now. I am sure that this happens with people as the mature. We can see more and understand more. I think money has become the desired objective in life. The problem with this is that because there is no truth to money it does not satisfy. Just like all the addictions it does not bring the desired objective.

Today I got word from my friend Linda that a friend of mine died. My friend Kathleen Graber. She had suffered from diabetes for years. It seems she was having an operation and that afterward she died.

I have been working on dealing with this all day. Kathleen and I went to college together, in fact we took all of our courses together through our junior and senior years. We then went through graduate school together. Kathleen took me into her heart and into her family. I spent a great deal of time with them. We talked often about our hopes and dreams. She was one of my truest friends.

After we graduated we drifted apart. She moved to be closer to her mother. We had come together to help each other and our time was over. Although I did not see her much after I left Tampa, she has always been in my heart. She helped me learn a great deal about myself and others. Kathleen listened to me in a way no one every had. She heard me and gave me feedback. She was honest with her feed back without ever being judgmental. I always felt as though I was important to her. She was a very loving and giving person.

I think one of the only problems she had was that she did not give to herself. Kathleen was hard on herself. She did not take time for her. She pushed herself and did not stop to listen to what she needed.

I did not have much contact with her for the last few years of her life so I do not know what her life was like. I have gotten married to a wonderful man. I know part of the reason I did this was because I saw a good marriage between Kathleen and her husband, Lyle. He is a very good man. I saw a man who was not afraid to love and be loved. I realized that not all men are like my father and brother. They are traditional men who are fear-based and angry. I had stayed away from men because I did not want to end up with someone like them. But seeing Lyle be who he was and watching them together helped me let Mark into my life.

As a result of knowing Lyle I began to see men differently. I could see that there are men who will be open and loving and trusting. That is what I have now. Because I am in this wonderful, loving and supportive relationship I am able to grow to expand myself. I am healing the wounded parts of me.

I also know that one (or two) of the reasons I am where I am today is that I knew Kathleen and I let her in.

Thank you Kathy – just know that I love you and always have.