Lately, I've been watching old movies about ordinary people forming unions to fight for their rights to be treated decently. Wilmar 8, the Salt of the Earth, powerful woman striding forth into battles, leading the way. Then there are the books I've read and movies I've seen seen about the gay rights battles, the civil rights era, and the anti war era, all of the 60's rebellion. I was alive through it all, yet completely oblivious to almost all of it.
If there is any more vivid example of why the white male religious right is again fighting to turn back the clock on women's rights, across the board, I don't know what could demonstrate that more powerfully than the example of my own life as a female born into a 1940's fundamentalist ruled Small Town USA. The religious fundamentalists ruled that world. It was their kingdom, and they want it back.
If I had been allowed to become the person I finally know myself to be, I would have been one of THEM, the strong proud powerful warrior women willing to stand up and fight back against oppression, and for the equal rights for all. I would have been a terrible thorn in the side of the powerful, along with all my other warrior sisters.
But the fundamentalists took me out of the game very early on. I didn't even know about any of these things until they were part of the past. Because my entire life was consumed 24/7 by my roles as a Good Christian Woman providing selfless service to others, as a mother of two, a wife to a sick husband, primary caregiver to my old and frail elders (and any ill family member who needed my care) plus weekly volunteer service to the church and my community, while also working to bring in needed income.
The powerful white men in charge of the churches, were in charge of the whole world I grew up in and they made damned sure that before I grew up, I knew exactly what my role in this world was. I was here to serve, period. End of job description. I was here to serve selflessly, all who needed me: husband, family, church, and community. This was what God intended, and it was my only chance to avoid the wrath of God and to win my salvation.
Children however, tend to come into life with a free spirit, that of course must be shaped and molded and taught. The church and it's teaching did a fine job on me: by age 6, I knew exactly how bad and sinful and ugly I was, and that my chances of not being struck dead by a vengeful god were next to nil.
My spirit, my sense of self, was all but destroyed. Early physical and sexual abuse, especially when sanctioned by, and/or delivered by "men of god", tend to do that to kids. It was replaced by the kind of self hatred they needed me to feel, so that after I got too big to beat or be used as a sex toy, I would continue the abuse all by myself.
They won, and I ended up struggling to live their version of the life they set out for me for 40 years. The last ten of those years were spent in the purgatory of fighting against then nearly dying from end stage alcohol addiction. Oblivion was my only desire by then, so I could survive just long enough for my children to grow enough to survive without me. Then I could finally leave this hated existence. You cannot kill a soul, and expect the mind and body to go on for long without one.
And then, they lost. They lost me 30 years ago, when I escaped their world, by chance and by the actions of others, and ended up amidst awake and wholly alive and powerful women, who could tell my spirit wasn't truly dead, and who stuck with me through it's resurrection. Native America women gently helped me walk away from that angry vengeful god and introduced me to the soft and welcoming arms of Mother Nature and her wonders, and to my first awareness of the power of authentic human love and unconditional acceptance. Other skilled, strong, free women helped me heal and rediscover who I was intended to be.
But now, I sit and watch with growing horror, as these same "men of god" grow more and more powerful again. I read over and over of the grand plans so carefully laid for so long, to infiltrate all levels of governance, so as to instill "Gods Laws" over us all.
I see an unholy, immensely powerful alliance formed between these "Men of GOD" and "Men of GREED", alliances fed well by rivers of money that can buy all the power they desire now, including the people we elect to govern. I see a steady, erosion of women's reproductive freedom, basic civil rights men are automatically granted. I just watched my own state Legislature vote to allow the straight god-fearing citizens of Minnesota chance to decide to amend the state constitution so that marriage for me and my own family members will never be legal.
I see the Men of God and the Men of Greed teaming up and fanning the flames of sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia and hatred against everyone they consider an "other", because we are ALL powerful people, and if we ever claimed our power, they know they would lose their own.
So women, people of color, GLBTs, all "others" must be contained, controlled and if possible, eliminated. Because we are too great a threat to their status quo. Because if we're NOT contained and controlled, the world will change, and their golden goose will be taken from them.
So they feed the culture wars with tons of money. They do everything they can to turn all of us against each other, because while we're battling each other, we won't notice what they are up to, behind the scenes, as they consolidate even more power over all aspects of our society.
If you dismiss me as a mere swallow in a coal mine, or as some semi senile old woman, you will be playing right into their hands.
If you were not alive in those "good old days" or have never been a woman, or have never lived in a completely sexist world controlled by fundamentalist religion, you simply cannot understand know how deadly oppressive a world that is. If you are wise and want to preserve the progress so many fought and even died for so far, you WILL listen to those of us to DO know, who DID live it, and are still here and able to tell you how it was. Because that is how it will be again, if we don't wake all the way up and do whatever it takes to stop this.
I can never fully understand what a black person's life experience has been like, or even partially understand, unless I am willing to listen to them when they share it with me, in places like Black Kos. If I do not listen to what they know, that I cannot ever know, how will I ever know anything about being black in America?
How could a straight person ever know anything about what life is like for homosexual people, if they never listen to them tell you? How can any of us, that this society has labeled an "other", ever come to know each other as human beings, if we never choose to hear what each other has to share?
And if we never come to know and accept and care about each other as fellow human beings with different life experiences, how in the hell can we EVER come together in any common cause, or to fight against any common oppressors?
We can't. It's that cut and dried. We cannot, and we will not ever come together in any effective way if we continue to allow outside forces to feed the conflicts between us.
How well they know this, those Men of God and Men of Greed.
How effectively they use this against us all.
And how tragic that so many of us let them, even help them do it.
When I sat down to write I did not intend to write a diary for publication. It just turned out that way. Happens sometimes.
I am an expert only on my own life. I know what I have experienced in these 70 years, and I only wish share it with those of you who have not had the these experiences, and might not realize what can and has happened in the worst parts of our past. It is merely an offering, yours to accept or reject as you do choose. I hope some can hear me.
Either way, apparently I intend to keep whistling until I can't pucker up anymore, because it is what I have to offer. I also promise to keep listening to all of you telling me of your lives, lives I've never lived, because I know I can learn so much I need to know, by seeing world through eyes other than my own.
Thank you for reading.