Be the 1%?

Hi Maggie,

I don't know how you can sit and listen to that.  I get so upset, I cry, I lose it.  It's too much.  It's too sad. It's too overwhelming.

And yet, it happens and I know it happens.

The rapists and users are middle aged, white, married, employed daddies.  They are the ones who have figured out how to succeed within this system.

But there is something wrong with this system. The masses are enslaved to support the 1%.  The Earth is raped and owned, objectified.  Animals are owned, objectified, and oh yeah, part of the industry is the rape rack.   Women are owned, objectified, raped.  So are the men who are least like the 1%.

But those who are akin to the 1%, they are given a little. They are allowed to be slightly better than those of us who are actual, obvious slaves.

In order for this system to work, we all have to be oppressed.   I know damn well that those "consumers" of pain and innocence were preyed upon.  I know it.

I know our Dad could only molest his children because his Dad did it to him, and so the chain goes back into our black and slightly royal past...because who were the 1%?  Royalty.  I'm pretty sure that's where it started for us.

And to be a man in this violence - what does it take to appear successful?...Be strong, do what has to be done. Ignore the pleas of the weak.  Be strong, don't show emotion, don't show weakness, no matter what they do to you. Be strong, leave your competitors choking in your dust - don't stop, don't look back, success is only for the strong, those who take care of themselves...

By protecting these men, these rapists, I think that maybe, at a deeper level, rather than protecting their reputation, we are protecting the system.  The system thrives on the pain of using whoever is below you.

The military always stands out as a symbol for me. I read that 80% of female military report being sexually harassed.  I have read articles about women soldiers dying in Iraq of dehydration. They do not drink during the day to avoid having to walk to the latrine in the dark. If they walk outside, they are raped by our own men.  Our side attacks itself - male against female, the worthy - those most like the 1% - versus the lesser being.  This week I read an article about a man trying to report his sexual assault in the military. Can you imagine how hard it must be to be a male and ask for help?  Men are supposed to be strong, emotionless, self-sufficient.  The response - further assaults.  You can bet he was a man not like the 1% in some way - not tall enough, not white enough, not blue-eyed enough, not manly enough.

It just hit me that some of the power that comes from the "consumers", from the young man I wrote about earlier this week who was taunting a black man for no other reason than the color of his skin, there is an inner belief that we want to be like them.  There seems to be an underlying understanding that we all want to be white, male, wealthy.  I saw it in the man's eyes as he made monkey sounds at the black photojournalist...I saw the entitlement. I saw the surety that he was highest, and therefore allowed to behave in a cruel manner.

But rape, sexual assault, I am also convinced it releases pain.  It numbs.  It may become addictive.

So we can say these are simply bad men, or maybe they can soften, be vulnerable, admit who did it to them, so others can remember.  Others can say, Me, too, and change.

The big question is - do we want this system to crash?  Because this objectification is the basis of our western civilization which is threatening to dominate the whole world. Looking at child exploitation, looking at sex slavery, looking at environmental issues,all the issues...they are all about the few owning and controlling all.   If it goes down we will all be dumped into turmoil.  And who knows what our species will look like when we emerge.

I'm willing. I trust humanity.  I do not trust this inhumane mindset which is threatening to destroy all.

Didn't know I was thinking this, but I guess I am.

Love and hugs from Clare