Why aren't we free?

[undergroundpanther]

'MAN IS BORN FREE, AND EVERYWHERE HE IS IN CHAINS'

"It is possible to get out of a trap. However, in order to break out of a prison, one first must confess to being in a prison." (Reich, 1973, p. 470)


Why are we not free? Why are we suffering? Why are we, as individuals and as societies, suffering from wars, violence, poverty, emotional distress, mental and physical illness, perverse sexuality, corrupt politics, institutionalized oppression of minorities, women, and children, and a long list of other destructive forces? And why do we accept this as 'normal'?

Why aren't men, women and children everywhere questioning this normality, taking to the streets, challenging their parents, overthrowing schools, churches and governments, and demanding radical change establishing healthy, functional social and familial structures for us all? In other words, why are we so messed up, and why aren't we demanding fundamental change?

During my efforts to understand these and other questions -- revolving as they do around the question of why human beings oppress each other -- I stumbled into the arena of psychological trauma. Psychological trauma and social oppression, I soon realized, are intimately related. Without a doubt, the most surprising thing I have learned in my year and a half of clinical counseling internship has been the extent of trauma suffered by children within their families. This heart wrenching realization, however, led me to better grasp the question with which I started my graduate program, "why do we oppress each other?" My clinical experiences, my own life process, my experience working with Burmese refugees and political exiles, and the emerging psychological literature pertaining to this field together led me to link unresolved personal trauma with the creation, maintenance and growth of oppressive social structures. These social structures in turn produce more individual trauma. This can be viewed as a never-ending, cumulative cycle of trauma, oppression, violence, disease and destruction.

In this paper, I contend that the major source of oppression and sickness in our society -- manifesting in individuals, relationships, families, communities, and other social institutions -- is unresolved, unhealed personal trauma. Moreover, this unresolved trauma becomes institutionalized as oppressive forces which propagate more personal trauma. Although the process of healing and integrating such traumatic life experience could be a transformative influence in our selves and in our society, we are caught in the vicious cycle of trauma and oppression, with no end in sight.


http://www.avoiceforfreedom.com/devolution.html

[stirlingsliver]

1. I Charge $10.00.

I'm not free.

I charge $10.00.

;-)

[undergroundpanther]

10. I say come on over, if you be thirsty..

I'll get you a glass, for free. I unlike this crazy empire, Share.
Sharing destroys the lie.
Face the fear of scarcity,and give some of what you got away anyway and expect no returns because sharing is not an investment..

[villager]

2. I need to re-read Alice Miller's "Drama of the Gifted Child"

I think she covers a lot of this - the barrage of trauma we are subjected to as children, and then, thusly "programmed," turn around and inflict on children.

The questions you ask here on spot on, and I've been wondering about them, to one degree or another, since I was a kid myself.

Why do we let it stand?

Why?

[porphyrian]

11. Just start doing it.

I know, do it anyway. See what others do when you do.

[undergroundpanther]

13. Yeah!

Sharing is one way to DESTROY the empire of lies crushing your heart. Walk the path of right relation and self actualization,and fuck what the system says, for ultimately the system only rules because we believe we need it. We don't need it. We need each other.

[porphyrian]

16. Exactly. And some people just need to know someone else can do it to believe. - n/t

[undergroundpanther]

17. That's why

I pound my heart out here,To FUCK THE LIES and to get people thinking and asking WHY? IN THIER OWN WAYS ,and FIND THIER OWN VOICES! Asking themselves WHY over the din of shoulda, woulda coulda, can't, fear and loathing..and oh my god it is so scary finding out what I want to be and what happiness means to me..It's easier to take that leap into the wild freedom and terror of the unknown and abandon this burning mess our lives are deep down shatter the veneer of all is'normal'and try something else, We can do it much easier when we decide to walk our own paths together.

[undergroundpanther]

14. this answers part of why..

FREEDOM OF THOUGHT & THE FIRST AMENDMENT

The United States Supreme Court has recognized:

"Freedom of thought... is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom. With rare aberrations a pervasive recognition of this truth can be traced in our history, political and legal" (Palko v. Connecticut (1937) 302 U.S. 319, 326-27.)

Without freedom of thought, the First Amendment right to freedom of speech is moot, because you can only express what you can think. Constraining or censoring how a person thinks (cognitive censorship) is the most fundamental kind of censorship, and is contrary to some of our most cherished constitutional principles.

In 2003, the CCLE filed a legal brief on the relationship between Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Thought, and psychotropic drugs in the United States Supreme Court. We are now examining other aspects of the First Amendment that protect freedom of thought. Scientists, for example, are discovering that nearly everyone engages in what they are terming "internal speech." We use language to navigate within our own thoughts. The CCLE is examining whether the freedom of speech protects "internal speech." (We think it does, and we're working to prove it).

In addition, while most people are capable of shutting their eyes and thereby blocking out external images, it is not so easy to shut one's ears. New technology like Hypersonic Sound -- which transmits a beam of sound that is silent until you walk into it -- is raising the question of what rights people have to internal auditory integrity. If the First Amendment blocks the government from putting words in a person's mouth, does it also block the government from putting words in a person's head? (We think it does, and we're working to prove it).
http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/issues/first_amend_index.html

Because the definition of power as the ability to compel obedience fails to distinguish between coercive and non-coercive means of securing obedience, it is imprecise and potentially misleading.
http://www.unknownnews.org/070602a-Panther.html


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All the rules of productivity,conformity,economic domination,silencing of emotion,forgetting and legal contracts."Mental illness" is the label we give to a citizen who is disloyal to these laws.
Such heresy implies tremendous, outright disloyalty to our empire, in particular to the zealous worship of the great god of materialistic productivity and hyper extraction of resources , the hierarchy of haves and have nots,and the dance of trauma and oppression. the search for meaning and purpose above the search for money. Above all, it involves placing your own truth above the truth of the tribe, and this is the greatest and most unacceptable heresy of all. Jesus was crucified because of it; today, we incarcerate these heretical souls, drug and electroshock their brains and bodies..(from the article linked in the OP)


For the first few dissidents or"activists"who get hurt and made as"examples" to show the 'consequences' of not bowing down, a technique of sadism to compel obedience which is as sophisticated as a head of a slaughtered rebel stuck on a pike and marched through a conquered city to strike fear in the potential rebel.Today we rebels get called mental patients we get drugged we are poor as dirt in a system that is pathetic and controlling,dehumanizing and often is a fraud,and our states drive them to day programs in vans loudly advertising ..here is were the unproductive and rebellious to empire belong so if you don't want to be rejected,and dehumanized like THEM,get thinking the way empire wants, GET TO WORK lie,and sell your soul for a bit of'security' that is not ever secure ,grab that carrot dodge that stick we might give you a glass of water if you earn enough tokens in the big behavior modification system called civilization,...Systemic abuse of the "dissidents" and"deviants" that are not psychopathic,by the system, the resistance appears risky and futile, take that fear with learned helplessness and broken social connectivity and dislocated kin networks,..and trauma memories rolling around in the deep unconscious,and deep betrayals,..who has the courage to not by-stand? Who has the courage to actively resist? Neurotic caged animals forming a rebellion against the way things always have been? You mean we gotta go stepping OUT THERE, into the big UNKNOWN??
The numbers drop dramatically.

[Annces]

3. There is also a concept of devouring ghosts

Martin Prechtel describes this as coming from Western Society conquering and killing other cultures, and this creates hungry ghosts who need more death to feed on.

""Though capable of feeding all creation, the spirit is not an omnipotent force, as Christianity would have us believe, but a natural force of great subtlety. When its subtlety is trespassed on by the clumsiness of human greed and conceit, then both human and divine nature are violated and made into hungry, devouring things. We become food for this monster our spiritual amnesia has created. The monster is fed by wars, psychological depression, self-hate, and bad world-trade practices that export misery to other places.

We inflict violence upon each other as a way to replace what we steal from nature because we’ve forgotten this old deal that our ancestors signed so long ago. Instead, we psychologize and objectify that relationship as a personal experience or pathology, rather than a spiritual obligation. At that point, our approach to spirituality becomes rationalist armoring, a psychology of protection for the part of us that creates the greed monster, which causes us to kill the world and each other. As individuals, we become depressed, because the beings of the other world take it out of our emotions.""

http://www.derrickjensen.org/prechtel.html

[undergroundpanther]

12. When you live in a world of bent-over people,

When you live in a world of bent-over people, the one standing upright looks strange.
And I know do..oh well,better to be true to myself than endure the torment of my own shame by betraying myself with living lies. besides bending over all day tends to be a pain in the neck for me.
Some people they do it as if they like being bent up that way for some bullshit they believe.To me, bound up in chains like that, it looks helluva painful.It does not have to be this way,

I'm queer,crazy ,feline and proud to be free,wounds and fire,and sparking wings .I'll say it even when the normals get scared, freaked out or offended..Those chains do not have to be..You don't have to feed the system and crush your body into what's acceptable to a system of oppression and trauma inflicted programs from parents police and perpetrators,that denies you your humanity,vulnerability,tenderness in relationships,your true range of emotions, dignity and person hood anymore.Step out of the cage.
Come fly with me..my wings are strong..stand up. get to know who you are,. you can be free.We can be free we need to be here for each other to unlock this trap we all suffer from one way or another.

[scarletwoman]

20. Wow! I am so totally blown away by seeing a Martin Prechtel quote referenced on DU!

I first met Martin in 1995, although I had been hearing about him from close friends for a few years prior while I was living in Alaska.

Got nothing to add, really -- I just couldn't help but react to seeing Martin brought up here. Far freakin' out...

sw

[undergroundpanther]

21. Pretchel is a good thinker.

[scarletwoman]

23. Oh, indubitably! The thing is, I sorta owe my life to him -- or at least what sanity I have.

Twelve years ago when we met, I was in a serious crisis. He zeroed in on exactly what I needed to hear and know; I'm still deriving nourishment from it.

sw

[undergroundpanther]

25. Wish I could meet him

Lucky you!
Damn If we all met,it would be an all nighter.We'd be sucking down coffee, bouncing off each others thoughts until it felt like being stuck in that huge circular miles long particle accelerator in France. Damn that would be fun wouldn't it? .Thoughtcrime ain't it Beautiful thing?*smirk* Oh forgot to add, Thanks.. You showed me how to spell indubitably! Cool!!! That word has a fun sound to it, I like it.Never figured out how to spell it.

[scarletwoman]

26. I love what you said about "if we all met" -- yeah, it would be WAY fun, for sure.

Regarding "indubitably": for the record, I looked up the correct spelling before I used it. I knew it was the word I wanted, I just wasn't sure if I was spelling it correctly -- so before I posted I quickly looked it up.

;)
sw

[Annces]

24. I had heard of him at various times

Then I was searching for a good book on the Mayans, and a reviewer recommended his books. I think he has a new one out, I hope to read it sometime soon.

[coco77]

4. Why do we have to pay for water...

when it freely falls from the sky...

[razors edge]

5. You don't.

If you collect it yourself at that point in time.

Afterwards though, it has come into contact with all the polluted material on the public ground which requires it to be then tested and documented, so that records can be kept as to how much of this shit you can consume before dying.

This way the rich can know when to install filtration systems.

All that shit costs money to protect the wealthy, and they certainly didn't get wealthy by paying for something they can dump on the poor to pay for instead, now did they?

[undergroundpanther]

8. they got wealthy by theft,and inflicting trauma,that makes

a cycle of oppression,it began with the theft of the commons we should all be SHARING.But we fear sharing..because of the lies we believe and because we do not face the reality of how this society this empire keeps us in pain subjugated and in a mind like a machine.while our souls cry out in dreams for the truth to become consious..


"It is possible to get out of a trap. However, in order to break out of a prison, one first must confess to being in a prison." "The first thing to do is to find the exit out of the trap" Wilhiem Reich.

"The violence of civilization provides us with two options. We can distance ourselves from the world of experience, sense, and emotion, or we can die" (Jensen, 2000, p. 122).

" If we could really feel, the pain would be so great that we would stop all the suffering",..And I feel it,do you feel it too?

A self-regulated human being could not tolerate being in a position of subjugation; nor could they support any system that would subjugate other human beings. Only an individual denied access to their primary impulses for feeling life, using life-denying justifications to avoid and/or resist life, would put themselves under the authority of destructive social structures."

Thomas Szasz' book, 'Cruel Compassion', in which he shows how psychiatry serves a societal function in modern times, analogous to prisons and poorhouses of the recent past. Large numbers of people are drugged, confined and supported by the state, not because they are sick, but because they are unproductive and unwanted. "

Hence my other post my life as a useless eater/

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/undergroundpanther

[undergroundpanther]

6. I think it's because we believe we have to buy..

Because we believe someone can own it and deprive us all of access to what the Earth has always given for free,water.This belief is reinforced if we believe we lack the right slips of paper or metal tokens to BUY what we all should have and share, we believe we deserve to thirst,as if we were less of a human being,deserving to thirst,for lacking the paper slips metal tokens. We suffer for a LIE. WE THINK we can't afford to buy the water,and so we dare not TAKE it..You know this kind of game is the biggest lie ever told,it's a deep economic cocercion, and it is a lie. but when many people believe a lie does it make a lie true? No it just makes the lie more convincing and appear like it is true.It's still a lie.

You see most of humanity dies of a false belief, those chains keeping us from drinking our water,are made of trauma and BELIEF.

All of authority is an empty sound,and in reality a president is but one human, one that can be punched in the nose like you or I could for doing wrong and hurting people.. But because we are taught to believe in authority and obey authority,and to defend the 'owner' at any cost,he can make himself appear to be a faceless monster with a billion eyes(cameras) and fists boots and guns,and because of what we believe and how we are conditioned.

It is crazy how one puny human with CEO after his name can steal water from us,get it out of a tap, put it in plastic bottles, charge 2 bucks for it,pollute it and create scarcity,to get control over us. This game is reinforced through the many cooperative obedient believers in the that lie called 'power' over ,and 'productivity'..all too willing to shoot us for being thirsty and taking what the Earth gave to all of us,freely.

This empire does not exist to create real free human beings who know what they are, it creates machines out of our broken minds and bodies. For those who fail to"socialize to this sickness ,empire discards us as"mental cases" and tortures us when we are no longer "productive" or do not want to bow down and we suffer for the ultimate heresy, to try to be caring ,feeling, seeking,free, honest,true to ourselves and good to each other human beings in a society built on reducing us to machines for reinforcing a betrayal, the system..

[TahitiNut]

7. We often would rather complain than get off our asses and do something.

It's easier to have someone "take care of us" than decide to work with others (like that asshole next door, for instance) and take over our own self-governance. Sheesh! We might actually have to paricipate! God forbid! (It's more fun to throw stones than to catch them.)

[undergroundpanther]

9. Why do people sit on thier ass?

Ever ask that?
The concept of Learned Helplessness ring a bell?

And how to people learn to be helpless?

Trauma.

[CGowen]

15. "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. " Goethe

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/johannwolf134023.html

[undergroundpanther]

18. yes

First step to getting OUT of prison, is to admit we ARE in a prison.

If you can admit we are in prison than the next obvious question is how do we get OUT?

There are many possiblities.We don't have to keep living the same way that does not help us live as if this fucking empire of lies is the only option, you know.

We are in Jail. How do we get out? What do we have, What do we need? How much is enough? What are you willing to change,give up, learn,face,speak,share and do to grow and get out of jail?

[scarletwoman]

27. I think you might enjoy the "game" at the link I will post below -- an "imaginary prisoner" game.

This link goes to the instruction page, click on the link at the end of the instructions (if you so choose) to get to the actual game.

I have only played it 3 times. The 1st time I hesitated too long, not sure if I had understood the instructions, and was unsatisfied with the result. The 2nd time was "AHA!". The 3rd time was to make sure. I think you'll like it.

sw

edited for speeling...

[undergroundpanther]

29. weird tried it 4 ways..

First time both the prisoners had white,I just walked to the door because I really had no way of knowing my disc color probably black don't care and I got dead.
Second time one prisoner had a black disc one had a white I went to the door I got dead.
Third time I clicked the clock and clicked the prisoner on the left, he began to go,I clicked the door got freed
Fourth time different discs still free.It seems if you wait for another prisoner to move first or you click on them to move first I am not sure if they move by themselves or not, you get out free.
If I got out I would have left the door open hoping the other two would go by default.but seems that wasn't factored in.
Colors of disc does not seem to matter here, it seems only when another prisoner"leads" you and you don't just go for the door or if you click command them to go to the door and than you go twords the door you get free, if you get to the door first.weird seems kinda sadistic to the prisoner slower than you tho..Feels weird to set another prisoner up too.

But if you self initiate like I did the first time, click on the clock click on the door, the program does not let you live.Regardless of disc colors and that distraction with the guess the color thing.because the way that question is worded it is a pretty much even chance what color disc you got,black or white so why not just go for the door and fuck the disc game?
Seems like it reinforces conformity/authority.Seems like it's set up to use a distraction, to keep you stymied in jail unable to decide what to do.. Weird game.

For me tho I look at the whole situation differently.
Death is liberation from the big jail,this planet.I won in my mind the first two times.
Getting out of the prison cell is just being freed into a bigger cage it ain't free.I liked getting DOA first time when I did what my instincts led me to do was to try to escape ASAP.

[scarletwoman]

31. Hmm, it worked very differently for me. After I posted the link, I went back & tried it again, with

the same result -- that is, 3 times now I've just clicked on the clock and immediately headed for the door, and all 3 times I got the flashing "YOU ARE FREE!" message.

So, basically, I was thinking that the whole setup was just a trick -- that is, if you try to think through a strategy and worry about which color disc everyone has, you'll just stay caught. If, on the other hand, you just barrel straight ahead for the door, you ARE "free". That's the only reason I posted it -- I was looking at it as a demonstration of how we ARE free if we THINK and ACT as if we are free. Sort of the opposite of what happened to you. Weird is right! Sorry about that.

I'll obviously have to try it again now. I'm going to keep doing the exact same thing and see if I eventually get a different result. I'll let you know...

sw

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

19. Because no one wants to give up power over their lives to share with others.

Well,...people want a sense of consistency within their framework because life throws punches at everyone (e.g. none of us have have CONTROL over 'life', we need eachother to get through it and to create the dreams and joy and love necessary to make life worth living).

[undergroundpanther]

22. Ben Franklin had some pointed words to say on that..

Something about people giving up their freedom for security deserve neither?
He said this because in this world security is an ILLUSION. To call a cruel capricious world secure if you have this or that,is a huge lie you tell yourself and traumatized people know the world is fucked up, it is people who have had rather fortunate lives, who haven't been hurt all that much,..yet.. who need to remember how to feel the pain and empathy enough to understand the world is not what they want or believe, the most,and stop turning away when reality gets ugly,makes no sense, destroys a sacred cow, or gets painful...They need to listen to those who have been through hell so they can help us all get out of it together.To know good and evil means to know reality enough to not be lulled into complacency by prosperity and lies that comfort without awareness of how fragile life is brings .


The just world hypothesis it gets in the way of all our freedom and it dulls justice and perverts it. So that belief it has to be challenged and torn down.From positive think and destructive thought controls that make you unwilling to ask certain questions and feel certain emotions. Until more people look at reality as it is, the good, bad and horrific ..Look until it hurts and deal with the raw emotions it causes ,there will not be enough pain felt by humanity to form a desire to change our culture, and no urgency from the heart's bleeding from the truth, if you don't let yourself cry ,to get out ,quit playing games,and turn to each other and turn away from this empire and market mentality and consuming to numb the truth away, we must stop doing this same thing we do. For good fortune and the just world hypothesis is among other things leading us into the ruin that right now our "way of life" is rushing all of us into, that abyss of no return nobody wants to face up to really for fear of looking crazy....We must feel this craziness and realize we are not in control as much as we want to be,we never were in control, but we can in small ways can change things one drop of water ain't much but alot of drops make an ocean, and we need to feel these chains chafe us directly or indirectly to want to change and want to desire to free each other and walk away from this system, of pain for each other's sake as much as for ourselves or we will all die.

So...

[rudy23]

28. Cause Congressmen and Congresswomen aren't free either

and they're too expensive for us

[Hydra]

30. I have a simple answer

It doesn't matter how badly someone screws you up, as long as you want to get back to being what you were.

Value of Self. If you sufficiently value yourself, believe yourself to be worthwhile and important, then your words, you actions and your beliefs have worth.

From there, you can be guiltlessly selfish. You can do things that make you stronger, smarter and happier. From there, you'll want your family and friends to be the same. Eventually, if you've become strong enough, your circle will be big enough for everyone, and you'll realize that a better world for everyone is a better world for you than just a place where you have an advantage of authority or economy.

Enlightened Selfishness could indeed end the cycle of abuse. Anyone think this is a bad idea?

[undergroundpanther]

32. and selfishness

can lead us right back to the mess we got.Selfishess isn't always aware of itself as it becomes unenlightened it's too selfish to notice things interfering with self gratificartion and ego glorifying,so people get hurt..Ayn rand and objectivism is a fucking crockBTW.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[Wiley50]

34. We will never be Free as long as we are BOUGHT and SOLD. Just that SIMPLE. n/t