by Underground Panther in the Sky, Unknown News
Oct. 22, 2004
I gotta ask -- Why in the hell do Americans believe they need to be led
by a “big man”?
I know (looking at the statistics of abuse in this country) a lot of
people grew up with disciplining parents who threatened, spanked and
dominated the home like a self sovereign dictator over the family .
A husband-father-wife-mother whose inferior integrity could not be
questioned by the kids under his roof subjected his family-victims to this inferior
morality they didn't respect. The truth went unspoken unless it was
spoken out of earshot.
Such is life growing up in the nuclear family gulag, for plenty of
us. This kind of betrayal leaves scars.
A man's home is his castle. And what goes on in the dungeon will never
see the light of day unless you escape that place.
America still lives in the dungeon ... just look at the TeeVee News.
The psychological-emotional parallels are stunning. When I look at the
Bush Regime, the media, and the blind loyalties of fundies,
I see people wanting a less abusive father than Bush, and seeing hope in Kerry.
Yet like a battered wife when a man treats her well and does not abuse
her, she becomes insecure ... feeling she does not deserve him. Why? Because she
has internalized the abuse language and believes herself deserving of
less (see "It's OK for men to hit us, says wives' poll in Turkey").
A close vote?
Likewise the American public do not think they deserve Kucinich or
Sharpton, or any candidate that would care about their interests at the
expense of the kings, greed and claim to authority. They see Kucinich
and Sharpton as motherly leftists. Americans in general are still looking to obey father. They think they need discipline.
How much of a beating will the American
people endure in the name of being strong for daddy? Will they run to a
mommy (liberal) candidate when enough of us are bloody and angry from the
unjust beatings by (rightwing republicans), starving from
deprivation (when the government is run like a corporation)? Or will
Americans leave the house all together, and go to other places (other
countries, communes or mindstates) and endure the hardship to find a way
to live where they do not have to sell their soul or endure abuses to
survive?
The borders are closing, and escape to Canada or other places is not a
given anymore. We are locked in here now, with a serial killer government
waiting for enough of the public to give up on its own integrity to
beat us black and blue ... especially if you are poor, GBLT, female, or brown-skinned.
Do these fundies and fascists ever wonder, in their secret hearts, if Bush is a “bad father” for
the nation? In private moments, do they ever think
that Bush may be hearing his own hubris and just think
he's hearing God?
I'll bet if they got honest about whether their own
father was a rigid control freak they may be able to break the Bush
enchantment working their emotions. People who have been abused as kids
or lived under tyrannical regimes or in cults have trouble admitting
this kind of thought about a leader's integrity to anyone. They are
scared.
Better watch what I say, huh?
It's impossible to discuss why God looks like a bully at church. The Bush campaign
gives people attending his rallies loyalty tests -- literally. He can't stand
discussion either, if it makes him look unflattering to the true
believers. The leadership and the congregation following this king
or god will not dare imagine their king could be a capricious abusive
jealous god out to hurt them ... until they get hurt.
It is impossible to say out loud in an abusive home (or
country), that father is a tyrant. You can't say it aloud, when you are a powerless kid
depending on father for food and shelter. Adult fundamentalists may have thought
their 'father' was an asshole once, before their human emotions and sane
impulse towards rebellion and doubts about the injustices of tyranny were
beaten out of them, oppressed, restricted, faith-bashed, threatened, and spanked out of
them.
Ever notice it is the authoritarians fundies and bullies saying "spare
the rod spoil the child"?
Remembering back when I was a kid, the rod broke my heart worse than it
hurt my body.
The rod was a betrayal against my own spirit. The parents who claimed
to love me were the ones who beat me for speaking against their own convenience and
shattering their false self-image.
Kids are taught to not question sovereign fathers ... or
else. Reconstructionist Christians (some are running our government) are
saying kids deserve the death penalty for cursing their parents.
Be it the vengeful but loving Biblical father-god or the idiotic yet
'fun' presidential father or the father of the home who beat you
senseless but brought home candy for you.
You must make
believe bad is good and good is bad or you will be hurt. What an abusive
lie!
This cultivation of broken souls that do not understand the reasons
behind right and wrong is the dirty secret of power.
A broken soul is a person who's scared to live, scared of
responsibility, of failure, scared to grow up and face risk, scared to love the self, trust
the self and be itself.
If they developed too much integrity they'd start
growing up, and they'd rebel.
They also fear father would not be pleased.
Tyrants have no tolerance of anything that challenges that so-called
divine right to be king. A tyrant's heart isn't divided. He can act in
confidence and look strong, like he has resolve and command of a
situation -- because he has no heart or conscience.
Child abuse, and the systematic crushing of differences and
silencing of dissent by threat or harm is perpetrated in our culture
from cradle to grave, by top-down institutions( the modern feudal
arrangement of work, family, school, government, etc.). All these
institutions are working in the interests of domination. They break
us, to make us believe authority has power greater than our own
integrity, and that is an ILLUSION (all authority is an illusion
for these big men are no better than you are, no more powerful
than any person if everyone around them loses faith in their show
of power).
Any aspiring authority figure tries to cultivate a perception it
is powerful. They do this by exploiting a person's
conditioning, their beliefs taught from growing up, that authority
or symbols of authority are more powerful than they are.
Authority
relies on masses of people with the same beliefs about power that
go against your own heart, your own self-interest, your own natural
desire to be. And more often than not, this kind of belief is
installed in children by threats, betrayal, bribes, behavior
modification, rewards, pain, boredom, denial, and peer pressure, among
other things.
From the irrational homophobia, racism, religious tyranny, well-meaning
parents and bully parents for generations assume they have the right to
impose their beliefs upon their kids' minds.
This is all a symptom of how this society keeps the morally
bankrupted elevated into a lofty position of dominance and authority. They
teach us to sell our souls so easily, for the promise of a better life
that ironically the tyrants keep out of reach for most people. Desperate
insecure people, who are scared of punishment, work harder and will brown-nose better than people who don't care. Every abusive father, every tyrant knows this.
Want to know what I think of “leaders”?
I don't respect ANY leaders.
None of them are better people than me. In fact, a lot of them are
inferior to me, ethically. Leaders more often than not are true moral
relativists. Moral relativism is a self-serving belief system that often
claims absolute authority, and lacks empathy. It is "ends justify means",
"who cares who gets hurt", "black and white" ... it is bullshit. It is the morality of
authoritarians, narcissists, elitists, and fascists of every stripe.
Moral relativism is how the Bible describes God and godly people.
I know Christians don't like to hear that, but when they call hell
(torture forever) a good god's fair justice, that is severe case of
moral relativism. Eternal torture is wrong, period. I don't give a shit why
or who the torturer is, or who says the tortured "deserves it".
Godly moral relativists can accept the immoral and evil actions of
torture by their vengeful god and call it necessary or even divine. They call hell justice.
Unlike a moral relativist, I condemn all torture as wrong,
evil -- in this world and in the next.
I am a moral absolutist about the
injustice of torture. In my moral understanding no one deserves to be
raped, tortured, molested, terrorized, abused, bullied, threatened
stalked, humiliated, dehumanized, scapegoated, exploited ... I have a moral
issue with abusers, and there is no ethical justification for how they
choose to treat others.
Christians and Republicans are proponents of moral relativism. The
rationale of abusive fathers, who can rationalize spanking (abusing) his
child and resort to 2,000-year-old texts as a bogeyman in the sky to excuse
themselves. Gods, tyrant fathers, and dictators cannot tolerate
challenges from the children (citizens, flock) to their self-made illusion, their conditioned enchantment of moral superiority and authority that we must
believe in or else. Or else we'll all be children, orphans on our own.
We as a society play this vast game of make believe and it's killing us.
Ohhh, we hear it from the Bush cabal daily, how we (in the role of Bush's children) are so vulnerable to all the Osamas in the
world. But Bush is Osama's oil buddy. They are tyrants of a feather, and they father crazy
cultures together.
It's so easy to forget how Americans volunteered for their own
interests and protected each other without a father figure. Once upon a time a long time ago, a bunch of
adult self-sovereign rebels got together and fought the king -- that bad
father in England -- until he and his invaders left us alone.
The King was
acting like a stalker, terrorizing the colonies he abused, he assumed
America was still his property (children). A lot like our leaders today.
Bush is a sociopath, an abuser, a drunk, a criminal from a family of
gangsters with a long sordid history of abuse, crime, and corruption. He
is an abusive
father.
Bush was abandoned by his father and an abused mother, so if he sees
this nation as his child to mentor he will abuse us. And if you look at
his policies, he is abusing us, like his parents abused him.
How much vacation
time has Bush taken, before and after 9/11? He read the goat story to kids while his
political "children" were killed by the thousands on 9/11. Bush acts toward America so much like
an abusive father it's scary.
In example after example, this Boston Globe article (see sidebar) methodically exposes Bush's failure to
live up to accepted ethical standards regarding military force, stem
cell research, taxes, freedom, abortion, empire, the environment, power
sharing with other nations, and extending justice and opportunity at
home. In a telling passage, Singer shows that the salient features of
Bush's morality resemble not those one would expect of a mature adult,
but rather those of an adolescent child.
Most revealing of all, are the conclusions of psychologist and professor
Justin A. Frank M.D. in his "Bush On The Couch: Inside the Mind of the
President." Utilizing long accepted techniques of U.S. intelligence
agencies for the analysis of foreign leaders, and a wealth of
biographical and historical writings on the Bush family, Frank reveals
not a moral man, but one marked by a profound deformity of character.
When will we stop thinking of ourselves politically and personally as
dependant children in need of a father figure to discipline us and give
us jobs or police us?
When will we stop trusting BAD people as if they are
potential parents?
Don't we realize that human rights, independence and the
kind of freedom and democracy we say we hold dear cannot occur without
saying no to BAD PEOPLE -- no to a political father and his bid for
control?
Rebellion is what breeds our bottom-up freedom -- freedom for the
people of a nation cannot exist under a tyrant bully or king.
The human drive for justice equality and peace creates insurgency, a
revolt against the abusive, institutional power that thrives on our
obedience, internecine conflicts, rewards, punishments, deprivation, betrayal,
and fear.
Documents like the US constitution are forged by people
who were emotionally mature -- like a kid who says, No, father, you will
not whip me for speaking my true thoughts about you again. I will not be
quieted by brutality or threats any more, because you are truly an asshole,
and I will not lie about your character to others for you. I will not say bad is
good, not anymore!"
Usually at this point, the abusive father kicks the child out of the house, or on the national scale the tyrant fires someone or
jails someone, rather than admit he misused his authority. Tyrants act like insecure bullies, they are insecure bullies, because
no-one has forced them to grow up.
It's time to force the bullies to grow up.
If fears of deprivation or hardship become too difficult to
deal with, because a victim lacks a community when he leaves a corrupt tyrant,
he may grovel back into the home, sell himself out, and learn to silence
his own emotions and morals ... for a while, until he becomes like the king he ran away
from.
This is why all authoritarians hate equality and
undermine communities and support "family values" (isolated mother-father-kid family arrangements) and reject communal situations -- they want the kid
to be dependant on abusers, so they are indoctrinated with the
authoritarian-dependency enchantment.
And if parents are not abusive, the
school will be. If the school isn't abusive, work will be. They must have people
terrorized of risk, fearful of diversity, afraid of failure, deprivation, and life, so as not to
revolt against their corruption and oppressive authoritarian games until
it gets too intense. Bully-tyrants can't have an ethical, informed citizenry that takes charge
of themselves, that does not tolerate crime, abuse, hypocrisy,
and manipulation. A citizenry with that kind of backbone, that level of integrity, will have no use for bully-tyrants.
This hypothetical rebel may choose to endure hardship of
homelessness, make alliances with equals, and stand up against abuses of
power, keep his moral character intact ... or he may die trying.
When we as human beings begin to grow up, we may reject the notion we
need a symbolic father in the sky, a father in the home, or a father in
office to lead us. When we begin to relate politically as adults, we stop
looking to 'big men'. We grow up and lead ourselves and run our
societies by mutual agreement and negotiation that helps everyone. As mature adults, we
come to truly understand we are all people, all equally deserving of our
lives, liberty, happiness, and resources.
And we are all vulnerable to the lure of power
and authoritarianism too.
Individuals choose, moment-by-moment, whether to keep their integrity intact
or not. It isn't an easy choice sometimes, and it sometimes hurts. But it's an important
choice.
Calling a bad thing a good thing is a lie, an invalid choice. People who believe that lie are not ever going to be free.
But once you stop lying to yourself about what bad is, once you stop
calling evil good, the father tyrant in your world and heart is shown
for the asshole he is and always was. And you can reject him, reject it all, and grow up.
Sadly, I don't see much emotional growing up going on in America. America
still calls evil good. Our moral and emotional maturity is lacking.
More often than not, Americans apparently fear wielding true power for
themselves, because they are infantilized by hierarchical social
institutions, conditioned by abuses of power and evils done to the
spirit, heart, emotions, mind, and body. This conditioning begins in the
cradle and lasts to the grave. It's a lie so many are taught is truth, a
lie made to appear necessary, a lie called leadership -- hierarchical institutional
authority.
As a human being you can disobey any authority's wishes. It is
our right to say no to anyone we want to. Anyone who believes we can't refuse to
obey a leader, who believes we can't have our own thoughts about the leader, or believes we can't voice our thoughts, has lost his/her own freedom, and threatens yours.
Hierarchical authoritarians need free people to give up freedoms. And who wants us all to live under their authority? Bullies, abusers, CEOs, criminals, religious or cult
leaders, kings, tyrants -- they all want us to live under them, under hierarchical institutional authority.
All the tyrants and
bullies of the world and beyond the world create this lie. They are bully gods
who abuse in the name of love, like the father who spanks his kids mercilessly,
calling abuse a good thing (good for whom?).
These are the 'powers
that be' that you sell your soul out to everyday.
They need you to believe that you need them.
And they'll make us go crazy on the inside, until we become “normal” enough to
believe freedom from authoritarians and abuse is somehow not our right.
I ask you
to consider -- What if we don't need them? What if we never did need a
hierarchical social institution to manage us?
Please think of your secret thoughts in your hearts, your own futures,
your friends. Think of America, and think of the wellbeing of our shared world.
Let's for
once as a nation choose to do the healthy, empowering thing. Let's stop
calling evil deeds "good work". Let's stop being so myopic and self-absorbed. Let's not redefine evil beliefs as good or holy things, Let's reject
notions like torture is good or just, sane or normal, or that raped
women wanted to be abused, for instance.
Let's not be perpetrators.
Let's
not sell out our fellows citizens' wellbeing or ourselves, to calm our own
anxieties or fear of punishment, or for convenience, or for a career. Let's
grow up and stand together as adults, recognize our innate humanity and
our diversity, and be all we are, fearlessly.
Let's refuse, together, to take any more
bullshit from all of these self-appointed authoritarian "strong" father
figures. You know the ones, those who would be kings because they are
always carrying the insignia of power, those carrots and sticks.
Think about this father issue on November 2, as you prepare to vote. Some people in this nation
are still not emotionally mature enough to see this stuff, they still
want a daddy to discipline or take care of them, and they will get a daddy
elected despite how you may feel about it. So ask yourself which kind
of father you prefer to live with:
Your vote counts. If not in the
ballot box, it counts for proof of theft. Do you want four more years of a
tyrant sociopath, drunken frat boy, homophobic, cultist, asshole, greedy,
traitor, abuser ... or do you want something else?
How you decide on November 2 will impact my life as well as yours, and it will impact the lives of everyone else you hold dear. You
are accountable, as I am.
I hope America has grown up, enough to
comprehend the dire meaning of this.
© 2004, by the author.
What do you think?
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White House Chief of Staff
says Bush sees America
as a ''10-year-old child"
by Sarah Schweitzer, The Boston Globe
Sept. 2, 2004
White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card said yesterday that President Bush views America as a ''10-year-old child" in need of the sort of protection provided by a parent.
Card's remark, criticized later by Democrat John F. Kerry's campaign as ''condescending," came in a speech to Republican delegates from Maine and Massachusetts that was threaded with references to Bush's role as protector of the country. Republicans have sounded that theme repeatedly at the GOP convention as they discuss the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq.
''It struck me as I was speaking to people in Bangor, Maine, that this president sees America as we think about a 10-year-old child," Card said. ''I know as a parent I would sacrifice all for my children."
The comment underscored an argument put forth some by political pundits, such as MSNBC talk-show host Chris Matthews, that the Republican Party has cast itself as the ''daddy party."
A Kerry spokesman, seizing on Card's characterization of Bush as a parental figure for the nation, contended that the president had failed.
''Any parent that ran a household the way George W. Bush runs the country would find themselves in bankruptcy court on the way to family court," said Phil Singer, a Kerry spokesman. ''Just over the last year, 1.3 million people have fallen into poverty, including 700,000 children, and 1.4 million people have lost their health insurance while family incomes have declined three years in a row. America can do better."
In his speech at the W Hotel, Card offered a glimpse of the themes Bush will emphasize in his address to close the Republican convention tonight. He said Bush would stress a forward-looking vision for the country, contrasting it with the one presented by Democrats at their convention in July.
''The Democrats who met in Boston had a wonderful party, because Boston hosted a wonderful opportunity for them to get together," said Card, a former state representative from Holbrook. ''But they tended to talk about yesterday, and our president knows that leadership is all about tomorrow."
Card, the person who informed the president nearly three years ago about the attack on the second World Trade Center tower, also sought to cast Bush as a decisive leader who chose to remain seated in a Florida classroom after hearing the news in order to avoid creating fear.
''The president accepted my words but did not introduce fear to any of those young students or through the national media to the American people," Card said. ''After an appropriate period of time, he excused himself from the classroom . . . and exercised the ultimate responsibility of a president."
He added, ''But there is no doubt about the president's commitment to make sure that he protects us no matter what the polls may say, no matter what focus groups might suggest, no matter what the UN gave permission to."
Card made little mention of the war in Iraq but told of his trip accompanying Bush to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where injured soldiers have been treated.
''He has walked into a room, where a soldier tries to stand, to pay respect to the president," Card said, ''but he doesn't have any legs, to give an officer's salute, but he doesn't have any arms. And the president leans over and everyone stands at attention, and as the president presents a Purple Heart, tears flow.
''And I can honestly say that never once have I seen a situation where a soldier or a Marine or a sailor or an airman didn't say, 'Thank you for the privilege of serving, Mr. President, and I'm anxious to get back to help my comrades.' "
Published by
The Boston Globe
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George W. Bush
God
Hierarchical authoritarians need free people to give up freedoms.
And who wants us all to live under their authority?
Bullies, abusers, CEOs, criminals, religious or cult
leaders, kings, tyrants -- they all want us to live under them, under hierarchical institutional authority.
All the tyrants and
bullies of the world and beyond the world create this lie.
They are bully gods
who abuse in the name of love, like the father who spanks his kids mercilessly,
calling abuse a good thing (good for whom?).
These are the 'powers
that be' that you sell your soul out to everyday.
They need you to believe that you need them.
And they'll make us go crazy on the inside, until we become “normal” enough to
believe freedom from authoritarians and abuse is somehow not our right.
I ask you
to consider -- What if we don't need them?
What if we never did?
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We are not children.
Recent articles by this author:
Aug. 10, 2004:
The election and the nature of shit
by Underground Panther in the Sky
July 12, 2004:
A sane voice shouts NO
to Bush's 'mental health' plan
by Underground Panther in the Sky
June 22, 2004:
Damn nation
by Underground Panther in the Sky
March 5, 2004:
Dear Mr/Mrs. Heterosexual
by Underground Panther in the Sky
Feb. 27, 2004:
The mystery of identity
by Underground Panther in the Sky
Feb. 26, 2004:
Write with no regrets
by Underground Panther in the Sky
Jan. 31, 2004:
A comfortable state of mind
by Underground Panther in the Sky
Jan. 26, 2004:
A surprise in a Wal-Mart shirt
by Underground Panther in the Sky
Jan. 16, 2004:
Trying out for The Apprentice
by Underground Panther in the Sky
Jan. 14, 2004:
Sekhmet visits the White House
by Underground Panther in the Sky
Dec. 30, 2003:
I am afraid for their minds,
their characters, their sanity
by Underground Panther in the Sky
Dec. 18, 2003:
More dangerous than Osama bin Laden: Chemical pollutants near U.S. military bases
by Underground Panther in the Sky
Dec. 8, 2003:
Making monsters
by Underground Panther in the Sky
Dec. 3, 2003:
Answer to a military man
by Underground Panther in the Sky
Nov. 26, 2003:
Military morals
by Underground Panther in the Sky
Aug. 29, 2003:
Takin' out the trash
by Underground Panther in the Sky
Aug. 5, 2003:
Gay rights:
A threat to the traditional insult
by Underground Panther in the Sky
May 16, 2003:
We are all flames here flickering
by Underground Panther in the Sky
May 5, 2003:
The paradox of privacy
by Underground Panther in the Sky
April 28, 2003:
Forever wild
by Underground Panther in the Sky
April 9, 2003:
Have you ever
yellowed your own smile?
by Underground Panther in the Sky
March 24, 2003:
Terror alert! (a poem)
by Underground Panther in the Sky
March 19, 2003:
How to be a good kitty
by Underground Panther in the Sky
March 17, 2003:
Neocon irk
by Underground Panther in the Sky
March 8, 2003:
Losing your religion
and gaining your soul
by Underground Panther in the Sky
March 7, 2003:
Who gave us the "right" to make
death trails all over the earth?
by Underground Panther in the Sky
Feb. 6, 2003:
Your 'borders' piss me off
by Underground Panther in the Sky
Jan. 7, 2003, 2003:
Rhetorical pizzazz or socialized psychopaths?
by Underground Panther in the Sky
Jan. 1, 2003:
The Normal Game
by Underground Panther in the Sky
Dec. 17, 2002:
the unseen hate epidemic
by Underground Panther in the Sky
Nov. 18, 2002:
The Power of Self-Disclosure
by Underground Panther in the Sky
Oct. 11, 2002:
Home is where the hurt is:
The roots of war
by Underground Panther in the Sky
Oct. 9, 2002:
The Trouble with Civilization
by Underground Panther in the Sky
Aug. 23, 2002:
The trouble with al Qaeda ...
by Underground Panther in the Sky
July 26, 2002:
The trouble with Aryans.... (scroll down)
by Underground Panther in the Sky
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Let's refuse, together, to take any more bullshit from all of these self-appointed authoritarian "strong" father figures.
You know the ones, those who would be kings because they are always carrying the insignia of power, those carrots and sticks.
Think about this father issue on November 2, as you prepare to vote.
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