werknotgoin2takeit
werknotgoin2takeit's JournalTerrorism by another name still smells as foul
Terrorism: The use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.
I think this word has been bandied about so much that the literal definition has been lost. Today it’s all about those scary brown mooslims. The definition above is simple but it is not black and white. There is the cliché that one countries terrorist is another countries freedom fighter. There is domestic terrorism like the Oklahoma City bombing. There is large corporation’s trying to classify any organization that threatens their hegemony with terrorist designation. But I have been thinking a lot about this word and a couple of documentaries I watched recently made me think that the biggest terrorist organization on the planet right now has not nor will it ever be classified as such. Instead it is respected, pandered to, immeasurably wealthy, and impacts the lives of millions across the globe. It is the Catholic Church.
Now, before the flame wars begin let me explain myself. I have nothing against good people who practice this religion, nor do I take issue with religion itself. I don’t practice but I am not an atheist. Some people need and want church in their lives and that is their prerogative unless they attempt to interfere in my life with their beliefs. But, it is with those that have power within this branch of Christianity and who make the decisions that I take issue with. The Catholic Church may have done much good for many over the years but I believe that the atrocity, fear, ignorance, suffering, and death they have wrought far overshadows whatever good work they have done past, present or future. I classify them as a terrorist organization because they fit the definition that heads this article. Let me just share a few examples from their 1000 year reign of terror.
1) Keeping man in ignorance -- Not allowing the common man to have any input in the religion that is supposed to succor them, to do mass with their backs turned, to keep knowledge locked away making priests and nuns the only path to salvation is terror for power. This includes killing scientists, philosophers, and thinkers who may wanted to break away from the stifling of innovation that the church thrived/s on.
2) Indulgences -- Selling forgiveness from God while sowing fear of going to hell without this forgiveness is terror for profit.
3) Inquisition -- Enough about this has been written and the stories of the atrocities committed on millions of people for the most banal of offenses to keep control and accrue power is obvious why this is included.
4) Holy Wars
5) Burnings -- This could fit under the inquisition but it was done for other reasons too.
6) Political and Religious Assassinations -- http://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/estimates.html
7) Child Molestation -- I don't have much more to add on this sad subject.
8) False Imprisonment -- The Magdalene Laundries is one example of this but was not the only one. Many young men and women were also forced into monasteries over the centuries.
9) Book Burnings
10) Pogroms
The men in this church live in unrivaled luxury, both here and abroad, while poverty is rampant all over the world. They keep knowledge that might threaten their power in the world hidden even though it might advance mankind and do untold good. They operate in secrecy and seek to shield its members from taking responsibility for their actions no matter how reprehensible. Their policy against birth control threatens the lives of men, women and children right now. All throughout their history they have used fear and intimidation to further their own ends, so I ask how is that not terrorism? The Church is not as powerful as it once was but wields far too much influence in negative ways still to this day. Just ask all those who were violated by their priests with no redress if this is not so.
This is just something that has hit me within the last week. It’s hard not to believe it after watching Mea Maxima Culpa (priestly molestation of deaf children) or Sex in a Cold Climate (Magdalene laundries) plus knowing the extremely violent history of the Church. In light of the surprise resignation of Pope Benedict, it just seems like a timely subject.
Am I totally off base? I welcome comments from those who would talk me off this ledge and from those would like to join me.
I also think that the early sexualization of girls is part of this too.
Girls are sold little bikinis with padded tops, wear inappropriate sayings across their butts and chests, there is even a lingerie line for elementary school girls. In a non-patriarchal society this would not be tolerated. Little girls are bombarded with the images and ideals that all they are good for is how they look and being too smart is just the worst. We are reduced to being nothing but play things for men. Look at these pictures:
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I find this disgusting and is becoming all too normal. Little boys, although they are frequently the target of pedophiles, don't have this blatant sexualization foisted on them at such young ages.
To expand on that thought
Regarding your sisters curfew or your ability to work late without worry several more things.
If you have never felt afraid to go any where alone at night (a concert, a bar, the movies) you benefit from it.
If you never turn on all the lights or jump at any unfamiliar sound when home alone,
you benefit.
If you were never admonished to always use the buddy system or never leave your drink unattended you benefit.
If you felt free to apply or take jobs in certain fields without worrying about assault, discrimination, or harrasment, you benefit.
It's really not that hard of a concept to grasp. These are things that I who have lived with this sort of subtle fear my whole life am only now starting to grasp. It's not any individual mans fault but it is inherent in our culture just the same. Being a man gives you a degree of freedom I've never had. Being a woman makes mundane activities frightening and does dictate the choices I may make. When I graduated from college I was approached by a military recruiter. I decided to go in for testing and was a very high percentile. The recruiter said I would have been perfect for their language program and been trained to be a translator. I decided not to because I was afraid, not of war, this was one of the few times we were not fighting somewhere. It was fear of being seperated from my family and being at the mercy of so many men who could tell me what to do. Men don't have that worry, they feel free to take the opportunities that come their way and mostly it works out. Honestly, the degree of obtuseness of some on this thread is stunning and is yet another example of what is being discussed.
Such a wonderful film
(A FEW MILD SPOILERS)
I was lucky enough to see it twice. Over Thanksgiving my MIL/FIL were visiting and this seemed a great way to spend an afternoon after binging on turkey.The second time was the day after Christmas in an old pre-WWI theater with my mum and brother. I thought it was riveting from start to finish both times. Daniel Day Lewis will be remembered as the penultimate Lincoln putting another notch in his illustrious career. I kept forgetting that at its core it was about the passage of an amendment. There was so many incredible performances. The ones that really stick out is Mary Tod Lincoln greeting Thaddeus Stevens at their party, Lincoln confronting Mary about grief after Robert decides to join the Army, and (even though I knew the outcome) the voting on the amendment. Someone above said this movie was about compromise so they didn't like it but look again. Lincoln knew what he wanted and he would have it. It had to LOOK Bipartisan but there was no real compromise. That is why Stevens would not allow the one Senator to change parties until after the vote. Lincoln would have it done and brought his considerable personal strength to bear and would brook NO dissension.
Lukily not too many.
But the one I have is bad enough. My beautiful bright 21 year old cousin suffered horrendous abuse at the hands of his step-father and had untreated manic depression. He joined the military to escape. Everyone who knew him knew it was a mistake as he did not have the temperament of a soldier. In the end, he went AWOL and killed himself with a shotgun alone and far away from those who loved him and could of helped him. That was over 20 years ago and we still miss him every day.
Everybody Knows...
A missile and some turkey toes help to make the season bright! **hum** That doesn't sound right. Oh well, those were hilarious and my wishes to you dear Salmon for a wonderful Christmas. 
This incident is bringing the nuts out.
Many families are probably going through this reckoning now and lines are being drawn. I had no idea until this that my husband was such a gun nut. He owns a shotgun and even though he had no plans to buy an assault rifle he didn't want anyone to tell him he couldn't. I asked him why he felt that he our anyone needs that kind of fire power he started to spout off nonsense about government takeovers and invaders from China. I was sure he was joking but he wasn't. Apparently he never outgrew his Red Dawn fantasies of being a wolverine. I told him that if he wanted one of those god awful guns he is not to tell me and it is not to be brought into my home. In the end, I forced the conversation to a stop as I said there was nothing that he could say to me and vice versa that would change either of our minds and we were just going in circles getting progressively angrier. I'd never seen this side if him and it is giving me serious pause.
This is my first post & its a doozy
This post sprung from a thread that I read earlier that concerned the slaughter on Friday. It was all about nature vs nurture and I wanted to post this there but once I got off work it was gone and I could not find it again. The reason I don't let it lie is that this incident will give me no peace. I keep seeing the faces of those beautiful children. Even though I got the mail after 10 posts saying I could start a thread and my first post should be an introduction I have chosen to ignore that. I have been a lurker member for years and the salmonenchantedevening incident brought me forth. Now, I feel blessed because the shooting of those babies has wounded me more than I want to handle alone and DU is here. I am hurting more than I ever thought possible for people I have never met. The children's sweet faces haunt me day and night and I just wanted to share. Below is what I wrote in response to the original post that now I cannot find. There is no one right now that understands, even my husband doesn't want to hear it and said tonight that he still wants our gun laws to say the same. I have no support (except my brother and mum who are far away) so I ask it of all of you, a faceless contingent of people who all seem to be so kind. Please don't be too hard on my ramblings... I am sharing a lot of myself.
I am finding this discussion fascinating and as I love to read and learn, I will pick up some books by Alice Miller from whence I can make my own decisions. But I have to agree with many posters that although nurture can be a big part of what makes a person a psychopath, nature is equally if not more important. I personally am of the opinion that people like this are born without a soul (that is the word I use; I know that there are many that don't believe we have such. I am not religious but I do believe in the soul) and it is a birth defect like being born blind or without a limb. I am by no means an expert but I can bring my own experiences to bear.
I was born to a young mother who had to marry a man she didn’t love because he got her pregnant with my brother and that is what you did then. She came from a violent and dysfunctional home wracked with extreme poverty, fighting and alcohol abuse with here 5 sisters and 1 brother, some of the stories she told me of growing up would curl your hair. My dad on the other hand, seemed to come from the perfect all American family, although they were Canadian. There were 3 well-behaved kids of parents who adored each other and a mom who stayed home while dad worked hard to earn the money for their solidly middle class life. My dad’s biggest trauma from that time was losing his beloved father to a heart attack when he was still in high school.
After I was born, mom started to have an affair with my father’s sister’s husband, a classic case of looking desperately for love in all the wrong places. You can imagine the horrible strife that was caused when that came out and both families were torn asunder. I was spared the worst because I was only a year old when my parents divorced but my brother was 3 and I think he carries that with him still even if only subconsciously. My brother often got into trouble as a child and he was cruel to me many times, while I was the good one never trying to rock the boat. Additionally, I was molested repeatedly by a boyfriend of one of my Aunt’s when I was 8 years old which I can still remember clearly to this day right down to his smell and that was 35 years ago. My father loved us but was distant and during the 70s my mom had to work many jobs to support us and became a bit of a partier so my brother and I spent a lot of time being raised by our Aunts who, happily, never let us forget that we were loved. Shuttling back and forth between parents was hard on us also. My mother had her own struggles with substance abuse (actually both parents are alcoholics) and she had many boyfriends plus, we were constantly moving. My brother and I had very little stability growing up. As we got older, my brother got involved in drugs, dropped out of school and was repeatedly arrested. For me, I waited into my 20s for the problems to present themselves and alcohol was a big part of that.
It wasn’t until I was a teenager that my brother and I started to become friends. Now, he is a diehard liberal, kind and soft spoken, but he still has many issues. He can be cruel at times to those he loves and he has never married or had children even though he wants to badly. He just can’t seem to make it work with anybody long term. I, on the other hand married a kind man who I respect but am not in love with and decided not to have kids as well. My brother and I both feel that we have lost the loves of our lives. This is my background and I went through many bouts where I thought that I was a shallow person who could not feel things deeply but I just think I shielded myself; we have both also dealt with deep wells of anger. I am gaining more empathy and peace as I get older and the state of the world today causes me so much physical and mental pain at times, that I have to step back from it. I work to make my world better in small ways so I deliver food to home-bound elderly in my city and have many shelter pets that I love as children.
Enough with the digression but once I started typing I couldn’t seem to stop. Back to the subject at hand, my mother even with all her trauma is one of the sweetest kindest people that you could ever be lucky enough to meet. She would do anything for anybody and I love her dearly. All of my mother’s sisters are the same way while her one brother is evil. He once brought over a bunch of his friends to molest his youngest sister when they were kids. My dad is a right-wing prejudiced rigid thinking conservative. He is the angriest bitterest person I know. If nurture was all there was to it that should be the opposite and all my Aunts would be like my one twisted Uncle. My brother and I would surely be more selfish and cruel people then we are. Example, my brother is a handy man. He fell off a ladder recently onto broken glass and nearly cut off his arm. His first thought was to the woman whose house he was working on and that he was getting blood everywhere. Nurture can make a naturally empathetic person even more so but people who have it have it no matter how they are raised. Those that don’t, don’t no matter how much you may love them. I’m so sorry for the length of this and I don’t know if it makes sense and it’s all over the place but it’s my 2 cents.
Bad Apples
{Cross posted from another thread but thought it would work in this one as well. Plus I love Michael Moore and I wish we had listened to his prescience years ago and maybe those sweet little ones would still be alive. Those pictures tear me apart, they were all even lovelier than I imagined.}
One of the main conservative arguments for lower taxes is that it stifles growth and the job creators won’t create jobs. In practice, if this were true, America would be swimming in jobs. It is proven false in practice no matter how loud Republicans scream. Now with this horrible shooting, gun proponents say that only more guns will make us safer. Let's arm the teachers and the students, lets have armed guards on campus, lets put us all into permanent lock down.
Well lets look at that, “In the period between 1968 and 1992, gun ownership in the U.S. increased 135 percent--and during that same period, handgun ownership increase 300percent.” AND “As historian Michael Bellesiles notes, during the time between the American Revolution and the Civil War, no more than one-tenth of the American population owned guns.”
http://www.faqs.org/health/topics/9/Gun-control.html#ixzz2FGevImzv
AND “There were 1.5 million guns produced in the United States in 1950, 5.6 million in 1980, but astoundingly in 2010 there were 47-53 million households in the U.S. with guns.”
http://www.chacha.com/question/how-many-people-owned-guns-in-the-usa-in-1950%2C1980%2C-2010
AND “Forty-seven percent of American adults currently report that they have a gun in their home or elsewhere on their property. This is up from 41% a year ago and is the highest Gallup has recorded since 1993, albeit marginally above the 44% and 45% highs seen during that period.”
http://www.gallup.com/poll/150353/Self-Reported-Gun-Ownership-Highest-1993.aspx
So, if gun ownership makes us safer, why have we seen the inverse? The more guns Americans acquire the more violent our society becomes.
Personally, these shootings are a symptom of a deep sickness in our society, a pathology rooted deep. Other countries have guns and although violence does happen, it’s not with the frequency or savagery or high death counts we are continually witnessing here. I don’t know the answer; all I know is that we have to do something. We have tried more guns and more guns and more guns, it is not working. We don’t have to live this way, its time for a new approach. The saying goes that a few bad apples destroy the whole bunch. I have had my life impacted over the years by these few bad apples, mostly in relation to flying by plane. Why should gun owners be any different? There have been too many bad apples lately and so those who own guns responsibly or not must pay the price for that. That is part of living in civilized society, where the needs of the many should outweigh the wants of the few. If we can no longer abide by what is, its time to change it, in this case far past time. As Michael said, I can feel the change, a shift in our consciousness. A sleeping giant is awakening and boy is he pissed.
The definition of insanity...
One of the main arguments for lower taxes is that it stifles growth and the job creators won’t create jobs. In practice, if this were true, America would be swimming in jobs. It is proven false in practice no matter how loud Republicans scream. Now with this horrible shooting, gun proponents say that only more guns will make us safer.
Well, “In the period between 1968 and 1992, gun ownership in the U.S. increased 135 percent--and during that same period, handgun ownership increase 300percent.” AND “As historian Michael Bellesiles notes, during the time between the American Revolution and the Civil War, no more than one-tenth of the American population owned guns.”
http://www.faqs.org/health/topics/9/Gun-control.html#ixzz2FGevImzv
AND “There were 1.5 million guns produced in the United States in 1950, 5.6 million in 1980, but astoundingly in 2010 there were 47-53 million households in the U.S. with guns.”
http://www.chacha.com/question/how-many-people-owned-guns-in-the-usa-in-1950%2C1980%2C-2010
AND “Forty-seven percent of American adults currently report that they have a gun in their home or elsewhere on their property. This is up from 41% a year ago and is the highest Gallup has recorded since 1993, albeit marginally above the 44% and 45% highs seen during that period.”
http://www.gallup.com/poll/150353/Self-Reported-Gun-Ownership-Highest-1993.aspx
So, if gun ownership makes us safer, why have we seen the inverse? The more guns Americans acquire the more violent our society becomes.
Personally, these shootings are a symptom of a deep sickness in our society, a pathology rooted deep. Other countries have guns and although violence does happen, it’s not with the frequency or savagery or high death counts we are continually witnessing here. I don’t know the answer; all I know is that we have to do something. We have tried more guns and more guns and more guns, it is not working. We don’t have to live this way, its time for a new approach. The saying goes that a few bad apples destroy the whole bunch. I have had my life impacted over the years by these few bad apples, mostly in relation to flying by plane. Why should gun owners be any different? There have been too many bad apples lately and so those who own guns responsibly our not must pay the price for that. That is part of living in society.
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Member since: Mon Sep 7, 2009, 04:31 AMNumber of posts: 172