Good Friday Evening! We Stand Afraid...... People are intimidated. No longer in America do we hear bold, fresh and bright ideas or thoughts brought to words, spoken with the broad, firm passion of conviction. The voice of the learned, deep and timberous, drawing you into a circle to discuss ideas or impart a peculiar observation is now fearful. We are afraid because we have been made timid. Long forgotten or perhaps in this day and age of the rallying cry of bully , we cant reach down into our protective gunny sack to silently repeat the childrens rhyme (Sticks and stones may break my bones / But names will never hurt me). Instead, we are angry. And this anger plays itself out in ways as non-violent as attempting to suppress another by restrictions on speech and thought, name calling and derision. Or wishing them dead as people have expressed about my family. People become afraid to think in ways that counter the mob lest the mob turn upon them. When the mob says something is unfair, then it is unfair (no thinking allowed) and damn those who think differently. The victim of unfairness this month is the woman. According to the First Lady, Michelle Obama, -----God forbid that she should bring up the plight of women in the Middle East where in some places they can not even drive, nor some regions of Africa where rape is brutal and systematic. It was the United States she spoke about --- you know , the place where women are really mis-treated. We are told that women make between 79 - 81 cents for every mans dollar. Problem is, with statistics, we do not take into consideration the type of job nor the fact that in many womens lives, there exists a gap ..... often large, where she take a great deal of time to raise her children. Speaking as a working woman and one that has spent a lot of time obtaining degrees, licenses, and experience, when I looked into my babys eyes, nothing else mattered. Reading The 100 Dresses or The Jungle Book took precedence over other thing, singing Barneys airplane song was more important that the opera --- for a little while. I became a stranger to people I knew in college, because I changed, and now I cant remember nor do I even care to remember their names. I lost time, chances, income and possibilities.... so I make 30 percent or more less than the guys down the hall....... the experience, at least for me, was priceless. I am not speaking for everybody, but I say this firmly and clearly for myself. I think that there are many women who feel the same but out of fear of being ridiculed, they hesitate, they get angry and some might give into the idea that they were victims...... but of what? The most gender-specific gift that God bestowed..... the privilege of motherhood? Nope..... instead they become convinced that they are the victims of the male dominated American society .... the War on Women.... and they become so moved that they vote ...... for any woman.....But that was the point. In todays world we are even afraid to believe the truth that our lying eyes are revealing to us. We dont want to be called names once again..... especially one of those names that end in phobic..... A guy with a British accent tells us he is going to chop a few heads off, and we nickname him Jihadi John as though he and his band of merry dudesters are a singing and dancing group. Then they begin to chop off heads. Then we have a bloke who transformed himself, in the middle of Oklahoma, into a Muslim while incarcerated. He begins to talk about stoning women or converting to Islam or some other blather.... so he gets fired. He then returns to his former place of employment and chops off the secretarys head, stabs another or two. The Police spokesman rushes to a press conference to announce that it was workplace violence...... disgruntled worker...... Newscaster after newscaster rush to their mikes to extol how Islam is a religion of love and peace..... God luv em they would not want to be ISLAMO phobic .... would they? So how else does this anger play out and why? First and foremost, people dont understand that their heads and feelings are being played with. Politics, money and power. Ferguson Missouri was a little town in the middle of nowhere. The plight of Michael Brown was an opportunity.... to rally..... the Black vote which might be apathetic this mid-term. Just as quickly as they appeared on the scene, they disappeared. The grandiose funeral was to be the end. They did not understand that and riots broke out anew, sparked by a fire which burned down a make-shift memorial full of stuffed animals, toys and paper.... a fire broke out and destroyed all of those keep-sakes. They then beat the police-chief who moments before tried to humble himself to the mob. The mob feels angry and rejected..... they dont understand it was never personal. And finally, those environmentalists, the rich and famous who fly in on private jets from their large homes to complain about people who dont believe in climate change. They forget while cursing the millionaires, they they are also millionaires. For the moment.... they are down with the people. And their fellow environmentalists sip lattes from Styrofoam cups, eat take-out in paper wrappers, drink Vaas water from plastic bottles and leave them in the streets, on front porches or just about everywhere they can find to put it. Because they are special and the award they pick up tells them so.... so there....and besides that, they want you jailed .... or at least punished severely if you dont agree with them. And thus we are afraid. Because the human mind seeks equilibrium, logic, order.... and safety. That no longer exists...... it needs to be re-found, and it will take time. This took a short time to create, and it will get worse before it gets better.... maybe. But if that day ever comes when fear no longer leads the day, we will find greatness again.... boldness again..... the ability to dream great things again.....
Posted on: Sat, 27 Sep 2014 04:38:07 +0000
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