Dysfunctional Planet

Sometimes we are so blinded by the bigger picture that we fail to notice it's made up of small pieces of exquisite and painful artistic moments that pass for our collective lives. And there's nothing like a death in the family to bring everything to a flash of blinding and humbling clarity.

For me, my mother's death and the circumstances around it painted a very clear picture of the world we live in. We are one large dysfunctional family who desperately need to change our relationship to each other and the planet if we are to survive as anything but wounded automatons. Within each of our own families are the families that occupy this planet. Within each of us and our respective villages lives both the cause and the cure. We have to open our eyes and our hearts and set aside the divisions or it's the end of us as a species worth anything but a scornful footnote in the passage of time.

Think carefully on this because it means our survival. Think of the last decade, the Bush/Cheney/Rove years, the divisions, the taking of sides, the losses, the rage, the despair,  and apply it not only to my family but to your own, and then apply it to the planet.

Look and see how expertly our fears and hurts and disappointments were and continue to be manipulated by those who can see what we no longer even recognize in ourselves anymore--that we are being led to the slaughter by those who care nothing about us other than the material sum of our parts. We are used by the politicians, the churches, the greedy until there's nothing left inside us that is our own anymore. We belong to them and they use us and then toss us aside because there's a continual replacement for us when we no longer suit their needs.

They are able to do this because dysfunctional is the new normal when it comes to families. How many of us have family members who don't speak to each other over something that happened years ago, something that I doubt most people can remember in complete details anymore if asked to explain it to someone else. All that remains is the gaping chest wound of misunderstanding, of division, of taking sides, of the us and them that divides us all.

How many of us have people in our lives from broken relationships that fester in pain, that isolate us and them from the heartbreak of loss? How many shattered friendships do we have that can never be repaired? How much of our lives are taken up by avoiding people instead of welcoming them? How much hate grows inside us like an evil little seed waiting to destroy everything in us that can love?

When we are like this, we are weak instead of strong. The users come along and find easy pickings. All they have to do is put on a TV show that gives us images of those we fear and then play upon that fear. Why, in the 21st century, do we still allow manipulative and evil entities like Fox News and its hateful talking heads, the Rush Limbaughs pushing drug-fueled hatred, the politicians who are beholden to corporations instead of people, to define us?

Can anyone on this planet who swallows that crap on a daily basis explain to me in anything but slogans why they hate someone? Or is everything now a talking point written by someone else, reduced to a sound bite with no substance, with no purpose but to divide us from one another?

How far back in time does someone have to go before the immigrant becomes the invader? When these hatemongers talk about taking our country back, who do we take it back from? The Native Americans we stole it from, the Mexicans who were disenfranchised from it because white people wanted it without having to pay anything for it? The Canadians whose boundaries crisscrossed our own so often we can barely tell each other apart?

Where are the papers of those who invaded this country and filled it with hateful white people? Under what justification did those same people enslave other people based on the color of their skin and think of it as anything but the most evil of actions another human being can perpetuate on another?

When did religion become an excuse to hate, to divide, to conquer? Do these haters even bother to read the Bible and its message sof love, tolerance, and acceptance? When did unholy intermediaries with hateful agendas become humanity's direct link to spirituality and connectedness with nature and each other? And why in this supposedly advanced civilization do we still allow the same people who believed the earth was flat to define who we love and marry? What the fuck is wrong with us that so many swallow this crap so easily?

I think the answers to all these questions lie within our own families, our own relationships, our own discarded and destroyed friendships. We are the small pictures within the large picture and we need to take a very close look at it before any hope of a better world for those that come after us, dies with us. Will our decade be the one that destroys hope for the entire planet because we were so obsessed with our own wounds that we failed to see how deeply others were wounded too?

I'm asking people to start within themselves and heal at least a small piece as a precious beginning to a new world. My own family never had a chance because war took their humanity before it had a chance to grow into something strong enough to fight against the divisions. But that doesn't mean I can't heal at least a small wound in myself that is there because of their wounds.

Maybe by doing so I can forgive those who hurt me so they won't continue to hurt me by taking up permanent residence in my heart. I understand all too well my parents were victims of things beyond their control but that doesn't mean I have to follow on that path. I have options they never had and if I let those options go to waste, then what was the point of their hurt, for nothing exists just to exist. Something gives it birth, something feeds it to make it live, something makes it grow strong and powerful.

I've said over and over again that working for peace is not for the weak. It takes strength to move forward when others view it as wasted idealism. It takes courage to look war in the face and say I will defeat you. It takes setting aside the divisions and working together to stand up to power and say we are stronger than you. It takes finding the place inside yourself that wants peace and making it strong enough to defeat hate.

That place is there inside us all. We must find it. We must ignore the noise machine of hate and work together for a better world, one where corporations don't destroy our planet in their greed to satisfy our own greed. We must simplify what we believe and how we live. We must reach out to each other and stop putting up walls, stop blaming others for things that are our own fault. We must grow up and be accountable for our own actions and quit using Bibles and religions and dead friendships as excuses to be complete and total jerks. We must embrace our humanity or we will lose it forever.

Love's Truest Language by orsobear
Get poster printing done at zazzle.com

Dysfunctional Planet

And the story ends this way...

The reason no one in the family was notified of our mother's death was because she requested no one be told. She asked only to be allowed to die alone. It was her last fuck you to anyone left in her life, which was a very short list. She went out the way she lived, alone, oblivious to the pain and suffering of others and concerned only with her own needs.

But she left a legacy in me, a stubborn legacy not even her meanness can kill. Unlike her, I care about people. I will always care about people. I will always trust people until they give me reason not to. And in her memory I will work for peace, for the poor, for the disadvantaged because she was a victim of war, a pampered rich child who one day found herself out on the street having to work, having to survive, having to live like those she disdained, lived during most of her privileged life. This, I will always believe was the true source of her anger, that she was suddenly one of the people she had always looked own upon. She didn't care about people. She cared only about what was done to HER and that's how she lived her life.

Yes, she suffered greatly during the war, but so did a lot of people but most did not allow it to destroy their humanity. My aunt who lived side by side her most her life was a kind, compassionate and delightful human being. My mother was just the opposite, and she chose to be that way. That was a choice she made, to punish the world for what was done to her, to hate, to condemn, to live as a bigoted hateful person.

It's a familiar perspective to those of us who lived with her. Life was about her. I think sometimes she put up with the abuse because it allowed her to reaffirm the world sucked and she wanted us children to get a permanent lesson on how badly it sucked, on why it was a bad idea to fall in love, to care about people, to allow yourself moments of weakness that others called happiness. She wanted us to know how disgusting and horrible life was so we wouldn't be disappointed as she was disappointed. She wore her suffering as a badge of honor, as some kind of demented trophy, and she did nothing to stop us from getting beat, hurt, and abused. It was the message she wanted to send us, that life really sucked and we didn't deserve better. So it's only fitting that in the end, her death was also all about her.

I know that it's not the end of it for me yet. I know I'm angry, especially for my sister who really did try and help her, who stayed in touch, who sent her money, who made sure she had what she needed. I'm sorry she never thanked my sister for this, that she never appreciated what she did for her, and in the end punished her for caring too much. I'm sorry for my cousins who treated her with love and kindness and even though they lived in Las Vegas where she died, she didn't allow them to say goodbye.

But anger can be a useful thing. It can help you grow. It can help you move forward. It can motivate you in ways nothing else can. The way I see it, my life begins new every day. On this day, it just took a larger beginning than most. It allowed me to see the richness of my life, the love I have, the cherished friends who mean more to me than anything.

In that sense, I already have more than she ever did. She was a lonely, bitter excuse for a human being and the best we can do as her children, is to not let what infected her also infect us. We are all works in progress and the message here if one is necessary, is that it is never too late to give birth to yourself.

I just did.

Top left to right, my uncle is the third one. From top row right, my grandparents are the second couple. Bottom row, my mother is the child on the pillow surrounded by servants.

The castle in Trieste where she lived until the Germans took it over for their headquarters as it sat on a hill and was accessible only by a tram car.

My grandmother who was the one who actually raised us. She was born in what is now Pazin, Croatia.

My brother and I. Of us all, he inherited her anger and hatred at the world. My sincere hope is that one day he allows himself to heal from it and grow into a good human being. It's in him, he just has to find it.

I don't have anything but recent pictures of my sister and since this is about the past I'll refrain from posting any new ones.

"Our parents give birth to us twice, the second time when they die."  Anais Nin

And the story ends this way...

Closure

The update on my mother is that after spending all day and most of the night yesterday contacting all the records divisions of various counties in California to see if they had a death certificate for anyone matching my mother's name, age, and/or description, my cousin found out she died in Las Vegas and had never made it to California. She was cremated and is in one of those pleasantly named crypt memorial "parks" in Las Vegas.

First of all, other than an immense sense of relief that it is over, I have to say that my faith in the essential goodness of human beings has been heartily reaffirmed. I talked and corresponded with some of the nicest, most caring people on the planet. These clerks didn't have to go out of their way to help me. They had nothing invested in helping find a missing 87 year old woman who was dead and buried who knew where.

But they did with a kindness and compassion that brought me to tears many times over. California, you have some astonishing public servants. Value them for the good people they are. So many went out of their way to help me, even to the point of tracking down where my mother had died and having the Las Vegas coroner call me this morning.

The only exception that stood out in the sea of kindness was Marin County. If you have to die somewhere, make sure you can at least crawl to the next county...or have money to buy someone's interest. Enough said about them. Karma's a bitch and it will find them too one day. I will forever see that place as California's sore thumb and avoid it like the plague it is. And I will also forever know that all the kindness that surrounds them will more than make up for their cruel indifference. Such as the balance of earth, time, and human nature.

I gained some and I lost some in all this. I gained a new appreciation for my cousins on both sides of the family. Not only are they exceptional people, but they chose as their mates other exceptional people. They really took to heart the words "you must be kind" that both Jerry Garcia and Kurt Vonnegut conveyed so beautifully.

I learned to appreciate the strength of my sister, the youngest in our family who held it together as a strong and powerful woman. After what she's been through in her life, to see her this way is an unforgettable affirmation of the awesomeness of inner strength. I don't know how she dealt with it all privately and I hope it was merciful and she was easy on herself. She deserves to praise herself as much as we all need to thank her for taking on the brunt of this.

I only did what I do best, write letters, talk to people, and find a way to push aside the sadness over what might have been instead of what was. The saddest thing is the knowledge my mother died alone with no family. But it was her choice as was much of her life. She really had no family other than the husband she lost several years ago. If she loved anyone it was him, for all his faults, his cruelty, his horrible treatment of us children. In her mind he always was the man who saved her even if she had to pay for that salvation every day of her life. Still, I see now in retrospect that the decay in her personality began the day he died. She no longer had anyone to be against the world with and was left to fight alone. It was more than she could handle alone and yet she chose by her actions to be alone.

One day my brother will understand just how much he is her son and maybe that will be the day we can finally sit down and talk with each other as reasonable adults. Until then he is as much a casualty of war as we all are. It just took longer for his wounds to manifest.

I am convinced she went the way she wanted to go, quickly, privately and with all the details taken care of before any of us knew she was gone. She controlled her passing as she controlled her life and that was her choice. I must respect and honor that.

I feel both a sadness and a sense of freedom and understand so well what Anais Nin wrote about our parents giving birth to us twice, the second time when they die. I am new today. I am free. The fear is gone and there is only one direction, up.

And yet, I know how clearly I am not and will never be my mother. I have always had a close circle of friends, people I love, people who would notice if I was missing for a few hours and would send out the hounds if it was longer than a day. I will not die alone. I will have a crowd around me propping me up so I can get one last dance in before I go, and I will be loved and cherished and missed. In that knowing is the realization that the wounds of the past can heal. We just have to want ourselves badly enough.

Just yesterday I wrote to a former professsor friend whose art blog I accidently stumbled across. I had spent several minutes admiring his incredible work, noticed the familiar name and wrote to him. One of the things I said was in the time since I graduated from college and now, I have always been my own bear. Yes, it hasn't led me to the kind of life many people would have chosen for me, but it did lead me to a life I chose for myself. In the end, that is all we really have, isn't it?

Love Poem and Log on Beach by orsobear
Browse Love Posters

Closure

On the death of my mother.

Today I found out that my mother died the way she lived--alone, among strangers in a place she was in the process of going to or from. We just don't know the answers right now, only that she died on February 10th in Placerville, California, a place we'd never lived. No one knew she had children and other family members to notify. We don't even know where she ended up, if she was buried, cremated, or what caused her death.  

We found out  by accident. My sister had taken on the chore of trying to keep track of her, trying to follow a woman from destination to destination that not even she knew she was heading for. She just ran, from one bus to another, from one hospital, nursing home, public housing to another. She would stay long enough for her social security check to be deposited and then she would talk whatever caretaker she perceived as the most malleable into letting her have "her" money, even though my sister told them never to give her money, that she would take it and disappear, run from some past that was always tapping her on the shoulder forcing her to run from whatever demons haunted her.

Always it was the same story. She refused to believe the doctors who told her she was too ill to live the way she was living. She began to accuse my sister of stealing from her, of total strangers stealing her clothes, her money, her belongings. Yes, she belonged locked up, but she was a woman who always knew the limits of her rights. She knew that no matter how ill she was, how crazy she was, if she didn't want to be locked up there wasn't a damn thing anyone could do about it. So she lived without an address and went from cold climates in winter coats to the desert and then to cold climates wearing only summer clothes. My sister would get phone calls from hotels she'd checked herself into and told the desk my sister would pay. She would get calls from hospitals where she'd been taken after falling and hurting herself. She would get calls from nursing homes saying she had once again escaped.

My sister last heard from her at the beginning of February. She had once again taken off and was on her way to some place in California. And then all communication ended. She had disappeared and no one knew where she was. My sister suspected she had died just as my sister feared she would die, alone in some strange place among strangers. But no matter where we searched, nothing came up. You can't find someone who doesn't want to be found.

Unless they die and then their lives are reduced to a simple one line public record. Today my brother typed her social security number in the death index and there she was and none of us knew how. She died eight days before her 87th birthday.

It all sounds so clean written down in black and white on the computer screen. There's nothing there about the damage war did to her, the many times she almost died, the hunger she suffered. There was nothing there about having her appendix taken out during the war with nothing to blunt the pain except a bottle of whiskey. There was barely any food, no medicine, and people were dying all around her at the hands of the Nazis, the Fascists, every single occupying army that came through town.

There was nothing there about her first love and how she went home and told her mom she had fallen in love and finally there was something to look forward to. Until my grandmother dashed that dream and told her that she couldn't marry a local boy, that she had to find an American and get the family out of the living hell their lives had become. She was ordered to give up love and find a ticket to America and she did. Or I should say we did because I was born there in the aftermath of war, in the broken dreams and bodies of the worst evil humanity can imagine. I almost died the first three weeks because five years of near starvation made her breast milk poisonous to me. And there was very little to give me to eat in its place. Six months after my birth I weighed just a few pounds more than my birth weight. But I survived just as she survived and all the awesomely strong women in my family survived.

But it came with a heavy cost. In the lines on the screen, there was nothing about the woman who alienated her children to the point where we literally ran from her and never went back. I spent most of my life afraid of her, afraid of her demons that filled the room. She drank heavily the first few years we came to America. My earliest memories of her were the smell of vodka mixed with mouth wash. I know she quit drinking a few years later, but the meanness that replaced the alcohol made me long for the sweet scent of listerine scented vodka. My brother and sister were born after she tried to leave her past behind and make a life for us in America.

But it was a difficult life. The man she married was an abusive gambler who beat her and then left us with nothing as he gambled away the rare paychecks he managed to earn. She worked several jobs to support us and it was never enough. He always came back and beat the money she earned out of her until she gave it to him and we went back to living on whatever we could scrounge. We lived in cars, in cheap hotel rooms, or on a bus going from one town to another. There wasn't any welfare or food stamps. You begged, borrowed, stole or you died. Life had become what she thought she had left behind.

I last saw her in 1979. It had been about three years since the last time and it ended badly with the police coming to help me get away. I never went back. Periodically she would find out where I was and send me letters telling me she drank when I was two years old because I was a really bad kid and drove her to it, or that her husband never hit her, that he never hit me, that I imagined it all, that it was all in my head, that the scars on my body were from my clumsiness, my lack of grace, my inability to walk without falling down and having some expensive accident like a broken arm or leg. Or I would get letters saying he beat me because I was bad and it was my fault, that if I had been a nicer kid he would not have ever hit me, that he would have stayed home with us and life would have been grand and wonderful. I stopped reading the letters after a while as they became as painful as the beatings.

My brother stopped seeing her when she told him he imagined all the beatings from his father, that he was a good man who would never abuse his children. It was too much for him just as it was too much for me. But our sister was stronger. She was the only one who one day decided she'd had enough of being beat and delivered a powerful kick to him that assured he would never lay another hand on her again. I'd always admired my sister for that moment. She was about 11 years old and gained my lifelong respect that day.

And because my brother and I were too wounded emotionally to deal with her, my sister took on the task of keeping track of our mother. It became a part of her life, the good daughter who took care of her mother. But even she didn't have skin thick enough to deal with the hatred and mean-spirited crap she received in thanks. She bought her a phone, replenished the card every month so she could call anytime, and for the last year only talked to her on the phone,mostly because the only time she could see her was if she was in a hospital for a few days. That's where my cousin found her and managed to get her to talk into a recorder and share some of the least horrifying memories of the war years. An after a couple hours of taping, she was once again gone, denying she was sick, denying she was old, and off to who the hell knew where.

We laughed about it but seriously, it had little humor to it when you think about it.  I've always known I could never survive what she and those of her generation survived at the hands of the madmen, the cruel beasts that passed for humanity for most of her early life. It is one thing to outlive everyone you know from old age, and quite another to outlive them because they weren't strong enough to escape from the Nazis and Fascists. In spite of our rough childhoods, the poverty, the pain, none of us kids ever had to watch those we loved die at the hands of monsters. In our hearts we know we were good kids because those of us who had parents who suffered through that knew intuitively that we could never be bad kids, we could never add to their suffering. We were children of survivors and we never forgot it.

But it turned us into pacifists. It made us adamantly anti-war. It made us hate authority and totalitarianism with a passion that consumed our lives. I often wonder what my mother would have been like without war and the glimpses I get of laughter, of softness, of brief glimpses when she allowed herself to forget always made me long for it to be true, for her to turn into a mother who didn't hate, who didn't condemn, who didn't see the world as a hateful and ugly place waiting to kill the spirit of anyone weak enough to resist it.

The hardest decision I made in my life was to stay away from her. It felt unnatural at the time and in moments of despair I sometimes wonder if I could have helped her become more human. But then I come to my senses and realize that for some people the damage is just too deep and when they go down, they take you with them. I wanted to live and getting away from her was the only way I knew to do it. I don't regret the choice I made. I grew into a better, stronger person because of it. But I also know there's damaged parts of me that won't heal. I know that my brother is a damaged soul as I am a damaged soul. I know my sister has her deep wounds. But what we share is that spirit of survival. Just as war couldn't kill her, she couldn't kill us even though she tried. Maybe she reallly did believe if she killed us we would no longer suffer.She didn't drown us in the bathtub, but it was close enough and I have to take a deep breath sometimes and take in the love that surrounds me in order to remind myself I made the right decision.

I think we all feel that way about her. I no longer live in fear of her finding me, of hurting me, of trying to destroy my life. I can live openly now knowing she won't show up on my doorstep with some crazed idea of people out to get us or attack those I love simply because love in her damaged soul, was a weakness that would one day kill me. I think what we want now is closure and we can't have that until we find out how she died, how it ended, where she was, what her final moments were. I suspect a stroke that left her unable to speak and have someone call my sister. Or maybe she just died knowing that she finally succeeded in escaping for the last time. I wouldn't be surprised if her last words were simply "fuck all of you."

 As I told a good friend this evening, grief is a strange thing. You don't mourn for what you lost but for what you never had. I think that describes me perfectly tonight as I write this. As I dug out this photograph I see a woman I never knew. Yet, she gave birth to me. She is in me. And maybe the real reason I'm still alive is because she was strong enough to give up love so I could survive. I want to believe that and maybe one day I will. I know the saying she is now at peace is so trite, but it's true. For a woman like her who went through what she went through, only death can bring peace. I am grateful she found it at last.

On the death of my mother.

Live Feed of BP disaster

Live Feed of BP disaster

Why I'm A Political Beast

Someone asked me the other day why I let myself get so wrapped up in politics. It's one of those questions that's nearly impossible to answer because it falls in the category of  if you don't live it as I do, then I can't explain it so you will understand. Because I care about the person who asked, I'll try and explain my passion for this mean and nasty piece of life.

I wasn't always political. What people often misinterpreted as politics was an inner sense of fairness that could never be denied. To me it is not and will never be a complete world until it is a just world. And I really believe we can't have a just world as long as there is war. We can't have a just world as long as people aren't equal. We can't have a just world as long as there are victims. We can't have a just world as long as there is greed, selfishness, intolerance, racism, bigotry and hatred.

It's as simple as that on the surface.  In my life I've learned there are certain things that  need to take place before the world becomes a just place, and they won't happen by themselves. It's too big a job. So I use my talents as a writer, as an artist, as a passionate person who cares about this planet to educate others into what needs to be done.

First and most importantly, we need an end to war. There can be no justice without peace as a foundation for a better world to grow its roots. People tell me it's an impossible dream, that we humans are a warlike species that will never know peace.

I disagree completely. I believe we all begin as peaceful creatures but life twists us around, wounds us, teaches us the wrong things, and we grow up believing we are a warlike species that will never know peace.

We need to walk back from this untruth and it requires the most difficult of all things to even get a grip on the path toward peace. It requires first and above all that we take a good look at ourselves, that we learn who we are, what shaped us, what created us, what gave form to the essence of opinions, dreams and desires we are as human beings.

But to do that we have to set aside a lot of crap. One of the biggest pieces of crap is religion. I don't care what people believe individually. I even think spirituality is good for people, that it gives them a focus, a center from which to evolve. But religion is a different thing all together. It is a business, a giant system of brainwashing large groups of people to believe just one point of view and nothing else.

This is not spirituality. This is mind control for the purpose of using human beings for things they were never intended to be used for. Religion fills the heart with hate instead of love. It creates an us and them world where there is only you and those who believe as you do against the enemy, the outsiders who are bad where you are good.

Without religion, people would question the need to go to war. They would question the need to believe in only one ideology. They would go outside their own safe little reality and explore, examine, and come to understand there are many truths.

But that makes humans dangerous to those who need war, because you see, war is a need. It is what makes people obscenely wealthy inventing and selling machines meant for only one thing: killing people. And that's where politics enters the picture. No arms merchant can sell his death tools by standing on a street corner with a cart and a cardboard sign. Arms merchants need politicians to convince the people of the need for war. And their reward is wealth and power and prestige. For a politician, this is what it means to be a human being.

And that's why I spend so much of my life educating myself and others about politics. I want people to see how they are manipulated, how they are used, how they are controlled  by those whose only desire is to make themselves richer. It's all about money and that is the disgusting simple truth of it all.

I can't fight the powerful with money because I don't have any. But I have a strong sense of who I am from decades of taking a stand for things that affect me but are not me. It is how we grow. We MUST step outside ourselves and look at what's out there from a different perspective. This is my fight, this understanding that what we are and what we believe was fed to us by those who don't really give a damn about us as living beings. We're tools to them and I am offended and disgusted by this.

And since I've never been one to sit around, I let people know about the corruption in politics, the bad people, the hypocrites, the racists, the bigots, the mean-spirited and greedy. I treat them like the cockroaches they are and shine a light on them because as they scatter and run for the darkness where they can destroy the world for their own personal gain, they know that I'm out there, that there are others like me out there, and that we care enough about the earth and those who share it with us to never let them operate freely without fear of being caught. We're waiting to catch them and they know it.

It won't stop them completely but it will slow them down. And since I believe in evolution, I have faith that even the worst in our species will change over time if they have something to change towards that is vital and alive and precious instead of evil, greedy, and dead.

 I am a patient person as is anyone who has ever planted seeds in a garden and waited for them to grow. I know I won't see world peace in my life time, but I learned long ago to content myself with seedlings knowing I  had a hand in their growth. And those seedlings are why I stay aware of politics and politicians, why I'll never shut up, why I'll never stop doing my part to make a better world. Multiply me by several hundred thousand over a period of time and you have the world I know is possible.

Corporate Planet by orsobear
Create a customized t shirt using zazzle

Why I'm A Political Beast

The Cycle of Abuse's Nasty Little Friends

Like many children who were beaten into submission on almost a daily basis, it's taken me a lifetime to heal from the wounds. I was very aware of the obvious things I had to do to break the cycle and I can proudly say that in my nearly sixty years on this planet, only one man dared to hit me after I left home,  and he only got that one shot. I walked away forever and never looked back.

There's never been any since because that one lapse helped me refine what became an innate sense of who would and would not resort to violence against me. My childhood taught me the signals to look out for and I spent my adult years like an animal who had been shot at by some crazed hunters and would forever recognize the scent when it crossed its path again.

That was almost the easiest part. The inner damage was the hardest to heal and that will be with me for life because those are wounds that are damaged emotional tissue. It's like there's permanent patched rips and tears in that fabric that will never be the same. I've had to learn to live with that, same as anyone learns to live with a handicap.

But before I could make the necessary patches to the damaged fabric, I had to find what else was tugging at it, what else was digging into the weak threads and threatening to pull them apart. And that exploration was and still is, far more painful than some of the beatings I endured because emotional damage is always at the mercy of those who seek to exploit it for their own gains.

The most intense damage is done to our sense of self. There's nothing like daily beatings and humiliation to make you doubt yourself, to make you question your right to even exist. Everything becomes a potential for insecurity to manifest in all of life's little situations. The need to be accepted often overwhelms everything else. It's why so many people go back to or find other abusers; they don't believe they are good enough for anything better.

I fell victim to this a lot. When you grow up in the kind of family I did and you're a sensitive kid, you become very aware of those who judge you, who reject you, who shun you. And it's not even your fault but you take it on. You take the side of the abusive father against the neighbors who condemn all of you for his sins. You pretend to be strong so your classmates who mock you for wearing long-sleeved shirts in the summer won't ever discover you wear them to hire the welts and bruises of the previous night. And you run like a wimpy little lap dog toward anyone, anyone at all, who is the least bit nice to you, no matter their reasons for being nice to you. You don't care. You just want something that is not pain, that is not condemnation, that is not judgment, that is not exclusion.

This need to be accepted makes you willfully blind and those are the wounds that continue to wound long after the scar tissue has formed. The wounds get deeper because insecure people attract those who use them. Insecure people attract those who are selfish, who are looking for numbers to beef up their agendas, their revenges, their paybacks. You end up being used because you believe that is the only way someone will accept you. You end up looking away and pretending not to see someone's bad side because you're too afraid they'll reject you if you speak up and tell them their behavior is bad, or that they are not nice people, or that you don't feel good about the way they treated or continue to treat other human beings.

When you're an abused child, you spend a lot of your adult life pretending you don't see a lot of what you see. But at some point, and I say this with all the hope and optimism I can muster up from the depths of what is still whole in me, it becomes time to walk away from that kind of abuse as well. It may not seem as bad as the beatings, but it is because it destroys your inner sense of right and wrong, the same way as physical abuse does.

At the point in my life where I had to finally confront the abuse I endured as a child, I also had to confront the abuse I endured as an adult. I had to let myself see that those who are not nice people, those who are selfish, those who spend a great deal of their lives trashing and tearing down other human beings are just as destructive to the human psyche as physical abuse is to the human body.

It's like racism or bigotry when you break it down. If you are able to stand up to a racist or bigot and say I will not allow you to trash a people or culture in my presence, then you help move the dialogue away from racism and toward tolerance one person, one conversation at a time.

It's the same with letting people abuse you with their meanness toward others, because that's what it is--abuse. If you let yourself remain silent while a friend or acquaintance says and does awful things about or to someone you share a friendship in common with, then you help perpetuate the meanness, the selfishness, the use and abuse of another human being with your silence. And you become part of the abuse, same as you become part of the racism with your silence.

I think for me that has been the hardest part of recovering from the violent abuse of my childhood. I had to let go of some people in my life that had been there for many years because I realized I didn't like them as people, I was appalled at how they treated others, I was often shocked into silence at the depth of their vengeance, mean gossip, and just flat out selfishness. But I stuck with them because I was too insecure to walk away. I was too insecure to believe other people might actually like me for myself and not for what they could use me for, that I could have friends who were good people and that no, I didn't have to settle for less than that.

So I eventually did walk away when the same people ganged up on yet another person and made him the scapegoat for everything that was wrong in their own lives. This time I didn't just shake my head at the wrongness of it, the sadness of it, the injustice and meanness of it. This time I walked way and at times it's still hard. That old insecurity comes out and I question myself, I question if it's the right thing to do, if it will really make a difference.

But then I realize those are the same questions anyone leaving an abusive relationship asks themselves. And when I measure myself inside, there's a peace which wasn't there before. I have nice people in my life. I made it happen. I saw myself as a person of worth and made it happen. I am strong and at almost 60 years of age, I am finally starting to heal all the wounds, not just the most visible ones.

She Who Must Be Respected by orsobear
Browse more Women Mugs

The Cycle of Abuse's Nasty Little Friends

Reunions, Life, and the Authenticity of Friendship

Every once in a while you have a conversation with someone and end up extremely grateful they're in your life. That happened to me the other night when I talked with my cousin Mara for about an hour and a half. It's not something we do a lot, but every few years it happens. This time it seemed to catch both of us at a time in our lives where we had a lot to say. And like all good conversations, it continues to reverberate over a period of days.

The telephone call started over a High School reunion. We had very different experiences at the same school. For her the idea of not going to her reunion was unthinkable. She still lives in the same town and the friendships she formed are still solid. She also had a lot of friends, hung out with large crowds of people. She has good memories, just as my brother has good memories and my sister has good memories. I can understand them wanting to go.

For me it was something I just couldn't imagine myself going to as I had a total of three friends if you didn't count the carload of drama geeks who filled out the car at the drive-in once a week. I didn't fit in at school or with just about anyone else. I was different. I didn't have the pretty home life every one else at least pretended on the outside to have. My mother and all of us kids suffered horrible abuse at the hands of the man she married. The police had our house on their daily circuit. People spoke with accents. We were poor.

My brother and sister found their own ways to cope and compensate. I found my salvation in friendship. I cultivated friendships with people who were odd like me. They were from poor, broken homes. They were shunned by the other kids for their differences, for their old and used clothes, their  lack of possessions that are now long gone and were such a worthless thing to judge anyone on, even if it was High School.

This was the time in my life where things and I parted company. I preferred to be rich in friendships and because of this I found people like me. We didn't fit in anywhere else but with each other. We were serious, not necessarily about school but about life. We were ripe to develop lifelong friendships with each other based on our mutual place in the universe.

It was the late 60's and people were dying in Vietnam. Our heroes were getting assassinated. We grew our hair, quit wearing make-up and shaving our faces, armpits, legs,  and spent a lot of time out on the streets trying to save the world and making it a better place for women and minorities. I became heavily involved in  an anti-war group that helped write Conscientious Objector letters and provided assistance to escape to Canada if that was the only option left. This was High School for me, not proms or parties or silly gossip.

As a result I became even more alienated from my classmates who were focused on getting married and having babies if they didn't plan on going to college. As an Atheist from about age 13 or so, I didn't have anything in common with the Mormons or Catholics which dominated our school. As I said, I had three people I considered friends.

This was also the period of time I almost moved to Paris. I applied and was accepted to the Sorbonne. The tuition was manageable and I had enough working skills from growing up in restaurants and other businesses that I knew I could find some kind of work to make up for the rest of the money I needed to make the move. I was going on this great adventure with my two best friends from the antiwar group.

But life has a way of intruding and it intruded in the rudest most possible way. My friend's draft number came up and instead of Paris he was going to Vietnam. After all the work we did together to help people get out of war, he did something that completely astonished me and his girlfriend. He chose to go to war. He was dead in six months and neither I nor his girlfriend had the heart to go to Paris without him. I left school, finished up my degree at a school for dropouts. I was an honor student when I dropped out, just 1/8th of a credit from graduation,  so the school "found" something for me to enable me to get my diploma without having to go back to High School. I got a job in a casino and stayed there until I started college. It was one of the saddest times in my life. I broke ties with everyone so I could heal from my broken heart. And in my spare time I fought against the war with every spare moment I had.

And it was there, in Las Vegas where I started college,  that I met many of the people who would become my life long friends. We spent every weekend camping in Utah, Arizona, Death Valley. We lived outside together for most of our college years. It was from them that I learned if you share a campfire with someone, there's a good chance your souls will be forever joined from staring at the flames together. I scaled back my attempts to save the world and tried to live a less complex life, to fall in love, to wake up without having a list of serious things to accomplish. I'd been an adult my entire life and this was my first time actually being young.

When we graduated, we went our separate ways but stayed in touch and took the lessons we learned about friendship forward to the next world. I came north for graduate school and once again my friends were not the ordinary group of people, but those outside the group. Jeff, as the spouse of a graduate student, could take classes for next to nothing and since he already had a degree, he took classes for fun at the liberal arts college where he introduced me to people he met.

For me right from the beginning it was the same nightmare of over-privileged selfish  children who lived by the power of their respective tantrums to get what they wanted, which was everything. Going without, having nothing was unimaginable to them. My first few months living with them, they stuck me with their unpaid utility bills I had foolishly put in my name. They helped themselves to the deposit of the houses only I spent hours cleaning in order to get it back. They ate the food I had scrounged to buy and never thought to replace it. They gossiped maliciously about everyone and made up lies and stupid shit about those who dared to break off relationships with them. They were shallow and self-centered, ignorant about politics and the world they lived in. They bought clothes and 100 dollar haircuts instead of contributing to the rent and felt no guilt over my working extra hours to support them. They were some of the meanest, nastiest, most self-centered people I ever met in my life. They're the kind of people you don't go around without having a bullet and knife-proof vest on your back.

I couldn't relate to them and they would never understand a great deal of my life. I was ten years older than most of them and far more serious about everything. But fortunately they weren't the only students even if they liked to tell themselves they were the only ones on the planet. If it wasn't for the household of poor kids of working class parents that I eventually ended up living with, I think I would have given up on the human race.

For the rest of my friendships, as always, I gravitated toward the working class, those without trust funds, without any hope for help with our educations other than the financial aid office and part time work. I wanted to be around people who knew what it was like to work for a living, to have to struggle for everything they had because those that didn't would never understand me and I would never understand them. The friends I made were the people who were the equivalent of the anti-war group in my early teens. They devoted their time to helping others and took jobs that were good work as opposed to profitable work.

While the wealthier and upper middle class of our classmates were off on parent funded ventures to Europe and other exotic and expensive locales, the rest of us took to the forests, the beaches, the deserts, the lakes and shared our souls over campfires on our days off from the jobs we held to survive the expense of getting educated. We became a solid group of friends who were often older and far more mature than our classmates. And like my other college friends, these became lifelong friendships that were formed in nature. These are the people who are still in my life, who are equals, who are serious, responsible, unselfish, kind, and don't spend their time making up evil shit about people who aren't there. When they fuck up, they take full responsibility and don't shift the blame onto others. They don't have scapegoats. They have friends. In other words, they are decent and mature human beings.

If High School and College reunions meant seeing these kind of people, then yes I would be there in a minute. But let's face it, a whole lot of people go to reunions for revenge, to rekindle some lost fling, to show off their possessions, their children, their lives. They're there to share gossip, to talk bad about those who aren't there, to rehash and open old wounds, to make themselves seem better than everyone else. They're not there because they care about and love each other. They only tell themselves that lie and so many more.

Yes, I have friends in town because it's reunion time. I always have friends in town because I have friends all over the world who like to travel and they come and visit me and when I can afford it I go visit them. But at almost 60 years of age, I've learned a valuable lesson in life: choose your friends wisely because if you don't, you're going to spend a large part of your life being disappointed. I may be a lot of things, but disappointed is definitely not one of them. And those I value in my life also value me. That is my reward for not compromising my ethics, my honor, my integrity and my responsibility to the planet. We do find each other if we stick to who we are and for that I am eternally grateful and blessed.

So no, I will not be at "the reunion." But I will be here and I'm sure there's a small, lovely handful of us ready to add to some already wonderful memories. Or not. Life is like that. We know there is always a next time when the friendships are true and solid.

Ceramic Cats by orsobear
Create a personalized note card at zazzle

Reunions, Life, and the Authenticity of Friendship

Note to Bigots, Racists, Homophobes, and other Losers

I was blessed or cursed, depending on your perspective, with an abundance of the optimism gene. It's allowed me to get through a life that might have killed those weaker or less stubborn. I've always been able to see the positive side of a situation along with the negative. I've always believed that evil can be overcome by good, that hate takes effort and love does not, that humans for all of our flaws, are basically good creatures.

I still believe that, but in the last few months with the advent of the teabagging crazies and  their "creative" spelling known as TEABONICS or Texas Schoolbook Learning,  infecting the country with such manipulated bigotry and hatred, I have finally accepted that in order to be a decent human being some basic requirements must be met.

First, you must understand the planet is home to many people and they're not all going to look like you, worship the same imaginary friends, embrace your narrow ideology, or have the same definition of truth. If you think it's all about you, then you need to seriously grow up and open your eyes and especially your heart.

Which leads me to the requirement of compassion. If you don't have it, then you really don't have any claims to the title of human being. You're something else, something small and mean, something incomplete and lacking an essential component that says I am more than a list of skin, bone, chemicals, fat, and ego.

If you can look at another human being and consider him or her less than you because he or she does not worship where you do, does not have the same skin color as you do, does not stay within the same gender lines as you, does not speak with the same stress or lack of it on the same syllables of the same words, does not come from the same piece of dirt that held your mother's body as you fell out on it, then your claim to the label of human being is seriously in doubt.

I've said many times that love is easy, it's hate that requires you get up every day and say today I am going to hate, today I'm going to be an intolerant asshat shoving my worldview down everyone's throats. And all day long you have to feed that hate. You have to make up stupid shit about people and then get others to believe it and help you spread it, much as most of the world spreads manure on their crops.

But the crops of those who hate, those who are intolerant, are the mean and hungry gardens of bigotry and intolerance. And the most fallow of those grounds belong to the racist, that fraud of a human being who thinks that people are things to categorize like so many dead insects on a cardboard backing. The only reason to separate human beings into little herds is so they can be separated from the rest of humanity and be at the mercy of bigoted jerks who take out their hatred of life on them.

For many months now, and for a good deal of my life, I've dealt with bigots and racists differently, depending on who they were. I was much more willing to ignore the stereotypical joking of some elderly old fellow who barely remembered his name ,much less understood that his world  changed so much that the mildly racist joke that cracked everyone up in his youth, now made his listeners uncomfortable.

I never laughed, but I wasn't strong enough to walk away, especially if he was a relative or the relative of a friend. I called that being tolerant, being accepting of someone who meant no harm, but was merely old and oblivious to the changing mores of the planet.

I don't know if I was wrong to not say anything, to just listen uncomfortably. Was I respecting the elderly or was I helping grow what became the overtly racist and intolerant Teahadists with my silence? If I was wrong, I can console myself with knowing I never had a bit of a problem openly calling out a racist who was motivated by pure hatred and nothing else.

There were several times in my life where I put myself in really stupid situations for the sake of my ethical soul. I don't regret them even though I'm appalled at how oblivious I was to the danger. Idealism is like that. It blinds you to the dangers so you can move forward and make the world a better place. Not everyone survives that leap. I was lucky and lived to raise hell another day.

And because I did, I continue to speak out to the obvious racists. I won't let up on the Teahadists because they are as ugly as the KKK is ugly, as ugly as jackbooted thugs are ugly, as ugly as the Inquisition burning Pagans and other non-Christians in the name of their viscious and bloodthirsty god is ugly. Hate is ugly. Bigotry is ugly. Intolerance is ugly. Selfishness is ugly.

As human beings, we have only one enemy and it the ugliness that ferments in other human beings. I thought it could be defeated by love and yes, in those that still have a heart, those that are not sociopathic thugs, those that can see beyond the smallness of their world view, it can be defeated and made whole by love.

But I also understand there are those who are lost to humanity. They are mean little creatures who both direct the haters and thrive on the hatred they create. They do not know what it means to love authentically. It is all about usage rights with them, things that do not require compassion or understanding.

And yes, many who hate are poorly educated and ignorant. Racists are people who have only had their own race as friends. They are ignorant of other people, cultures, literature, music, ideas, and beliefs. It is a willful ignorance because it is the most easily cured if they wanted to cure themselves.

But they don't because more than anything, bigots and racists are lazy. They don't want to make the effort to understand because it requires doing more than moving sluggishly through a life where everyone but them is calling the shots. People who think for themselves are not easily led.

Freethinkers would never let a hateful, pill-infested moron named Rush Limbaugh tell them what to think, what to believe, and whom to hate. That's for the masses, the ignorant and willfully uneducated "morans" who are too lazy to think for themselves. They are the fodder, the rabble, the used and abused by everyone who has more power and influence. They are nothing and know it, which is why they hate.

And they allow the Becks of the world to yank their very short leashes and command them to take to the streets in support of the very corporations who keep them at the bottom of the shit pile of life. This is beyond stupid. This is lazy, willful ignorance. And it is damaging to the planet, to human beings and all living creatures.

These are the people I will no longer politely turn away from. I will fight them with everything I have. I will expose them for the miserable pieces of human shit they really are. I will write about how easily and stupidly they allow themselves to be manipulated because they are too lazy to take charge of their own lives. I will be mean. I will be nasty. I will beat them over the head with facts. I will humiliate them with truth. I will overpower them with the forces of good that drive me and command me to defeat their forces of evil.

And I will win because love is stronger than hate, peace is more powerful than war, and truth always always wins, even if it takes a while. Do you hear me, losers? Truth ALWAYS wins. And when it does, this is what history will show as your legacy:

As for the rest of us, we'll be working to make a better world, one where all living creatures have an equal right to exist, to share in the bounty of life, love, and yes...happiness. Without mean, hateful people to infect the earth with their vitriol, maybe that happiness thing will be a lot more in reach. Especially if people like me and others keep lifting the rock on hate because we all know it can't survive once exposed to the light. It needs the dank, ugly darkness to survive and decent people are all carrying lights these days to expose you.

Note to Bigots, Racists, Homophobes, and other Losers

First Response back from AZ based company

I've been writing to the list of companies  based in Arizona asking them about their stand on the adoption of racist Apartheid laws and including the following:

Ethically, I can't continue to support a company based in Arizona unless they publicly speak out against this horrible new law. Will you do this or does your company approve of the new law?

 

I received the first response back from GoDaddy.com. If you will notice it DOES NOT say anything against the law other than we didn't do it and I'm guessing the comment about free speech reveals more about their approval of the law than against it. So feel free to draw your own conclusions from the letter. I'm moving the last of the domains I have with them and will quit recommending them to customers.

Letter from GoDaddy:

Our Office of the President has responded to your request, details of which are described below:

Discussion Notes
Office of the President Response
Dear Ms.xxxxx,

Thank you for contacting GoDaddy.com. Your correspondence has been directed to the Office of the President.

We appreciate you taking the time to contact our office to share your opinion about the recent State of Arizona legislature. Although we wish your opinion in this matter did not affect your relationship with Go Daddy, please know your feedback is highly valued. At GoDaddy.com, we strongly believe that the freedom to express one's opinions is one of the defining factors that makes the United States a great nation.

Please also know that Go Daddy has multiple locations in several states and countries abroad. Furthermore, understand that Go Daddy did not create nor influence the state legislature in question. As such, we hope you will re-evaluate your final determination about your relationship with GoDaddy.com.

Should there be any other matters requiring the attention of our office, please do not hesitate to bring them to our attention.

Kindest Regards,

The Office of the President

Love More Hate Less by orsobear
Browse more Peace Postcards

First Response back from AZ based company

What is a Fundamentalist?

Exactly what do these whacked out fundamentalist christian crazies believe? This is a very nice little video that breaks it down quite simply, so nice and simple that even the Christian Taliban won't need Teabonics to understand it.

Holy Orgasm Temple by godless_heathen
Browse other Atheism T-Shirts

What is a Fundamentalist?

Boycott Arizona

Governor Jan Brewer, poster child for everything that's wrong with the Republican Party and their Teahadist minions, signed one of the most bigoted pieces of legislation into law today since blacks were ordered to drink from different water fountains. read more

In doing so she guaranteed that anyone who isn't a white, christian Republican in Arizona will be pulled over to produce their papers to whatever passes for authority that day, whether it is legal law enforcement or some whacked out racist Teabagger who's convinced his white power militia membership gives him the right to terrorize anyone with a different color of skin.

If you think this is an unlikely scenario then you haven't been paying attention to the bigoted violence and hatred that is the root of the militia/teahadist/white power/neo nazi groups in America. They don't need facts. They don't need equal rights guaranteed by the Constitution they are so fond of parading around. They don't need anything but a law like this and hate radio/Fox News's Talking Morons to move them toward what they really want to do: create a country where only white assholes like them have the right to live.

Think I'm wrong? Here's video proof of what manipulated hatred does:



On days like this I sometimes think I should just crawl into bed and stay there until the stupid hatred goes away and human beings return to the planet. Just yesterday I had the unreal experience of trying to explain to someone that being nice to bigots and racists doesn't teach them love and tolerance; it makes them think being bigots and racists is okay.

I ended up nearly screaming at this person that I would continue to challenge, humiliate and shame bigots and racists every time they opened their mouths in my presence. I would continue to call someone a racist who generalized and tried to box one race of people into some stereotyped category, no matter how good a person they were/are in every other aspect of their lives.

That one bigoted statement is enough to tarnish their humanity and I really do consider it my job to let them know that's how it sounds and why. I also expect everyone else who cares about humanity to have the same job because that is how hatred is wiped away, by stopping it in its infancy when it's still a harmless joke, a mild stereotype, a seed of bigotry waiting for a weak moment to grow and become something far far worse that leads to laws like the one passed today.

And if you think Arizona made a bad decision today to embrace hatred, racism and bigotry, just be thankful America didn't make that same decision when its Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) was running for President. We'd all be having to show our papers to the militia thugs running the country if he had won.

Boycott Arizona by orsobear
Shop the t-shirts section of Zazzle

Tax Political Churches by orsobear
Browse Proposition 8 Bumper Stickers

Boycott Arizona

Crazy Whackjobs in the Senate

Democrats expose the absurdity of Goposaur obstructionism. Read more

Unfriend by humor_shirts
See more Humor T-Shirts

Crazy Whackjobs in the Senate

Yo! Moran! Back away from the Karaoke machine and no one gets hurt!

One of these days the Tealiban will have someone very patient and well-versed in Teabonics (Yo! Moran! USAUSAUSA), explain to them how Teabaggers were used by Corporate puppetmasters to help them loot the country. You see, that's how they will finally understand it, by being told it was all about money. Especially since they won't have any as it will all be in the hands of the obscenely wealthy.

But even some of the smarter ones who can count without their fingers and toes, will never understand they were manipulated because their hatred, their racism, their moronic love of slogans, was a big old long leash hooked around their necks just waiting for some huge self-interest group to drag it wherever they wanted it.

These neck leashes allowed the wealthy and powerful insurance industry to drag teabaggers around to protest everything except the continued overpriced, punitive, and ineffective health insurance most of them didn't even have.

I am convinced this was the test for what is to come. They took some really stupid people who were "educated" with highly censored and biased Texas schoolbooks that left out all that annoying thinking for yourself stuff, and instead presented conformity and fear as the lifeblood of America, and saw how much they could use them for their own purposes.

It must have been quite a celebration the day the Insurance company execs looked out their windows and saw their first teabagger protest. Look! they must have shouted with glee, they're demanding we continue our horrible and expensive policies and deny them any chance of surviving an extended illness without losing everything.

And the backslapping and the laughter must have been something else when they realized many of them didn't even have insurance...or holding their sides with hilarious laughter...they realized a whole bunch of them were getting either VA or Medicare benefits AND protesting against government handouts.

Corporate America realized on that day they had a whole contingent of ready fools at their disposal. Now they're cranking them up for the fight against financial reform because every good American Patriot will gladly suffer through sky-high credit card rates, junk overpriced mortgages someone's betting will make them lose their homes, pay day loans with usury rates instead of low interest rich people loans, and cars that automatically turn themselves off if they're ten minutes late with the payment.

All they have to do is convince them anything that benefits ordinary people is Socialism/Communism/BatManism. The Teahadists' masters know most of them haven't a clue those are all radically different things. Those Texas schoolbooks again...

But let's not forget or be distracted by where the sheep are led and instead let's take a look at the sheep. It's really about the bigotry, the outright hatred of Obama because he's black. Read some of their signs, listen to what they say: THEY HATE HIM FOR BEING BLACK, and that's how the wealthy, corporate sleazebags can lead them around and make them do and say whatever they want them to do. They appeal to that hatred, that racism, that bigotry, and like the dumb jackasses they are who believe such crap, they follow their wealthy masters wherever they are led.

But like racists everywhere, they do and say things to try and convince others they are not really racist because it's not the 50's where people kind of chuckled and looked away. There are actually some people (gasp!) who will give you grief for being a piece of shit bigot.

They will go to extreme lengths to explain they aren't racist; they just don't like how all of "them" are on welfare, or how all of "them" are in gangs, or how all of "them" are on drugs. And when the light is shined on their racism, they do stupid shit to prove they're not racist--like make a really bad rap video.

Untitled from elizabeth glover on Vimeo.

Baba Dioum by orsobear
View other Global warming T-Shirts

Yo! Moran! Back away from the Karaoke machine and no one gets hurt!

Religion, the oppressive master.

One of the mistakes people make about me is believing because I'm an Atheist, then I must live in some kind of empty, immoral and inconsequential world. They believe this because religion has created a wall between them and the world beyond things. Unlike those who live behind this wall, I have no problem seeing myself as part of the greater whole that is nature, that is earth and sky, that is me in everything and everything in me.

The believers try and claim this sense of wholeness by calling it "the world god created." To me this is putting oneself in the position of renter on the planet instead of an inseparable part of it. No god created me or any such nonsense. I AM just as a tree is, just as a mountain is.

The advantage to this is huge because it means I can't be disconnected from myself by something as shallow as religion. I can't be led around by prejudices about the world to the point where scientific evidence is dismissed to pacify superstitious nonsense. I can't be swayed by material rewards or pacified by the promise of a life beyond the reality of the present.

That makes me dangerous because if I can't be bought then I am neither for nor against. If I can't give up my ferocious hunger for peace and justice for the lie that my perfect world exists somewhere I have to die to see it, then I become even more dangerous because I am never satisfied with platitudes. I want actions. I want tolerance. I want equality.

Most of the people in this country right now have been fed so much divisive crap they can't even consider anything but their place in the herd. Everything outside it is a threat, complete with color coded fear levels. Everyone who isn't them, who doesn't go to their church, who doesn't believe exactly as they believe, is somehow defective, wrong, or gasp! a socialist leftist terrorist who aspires to nothing more than sitting on a death panel that will get to off grandma.

I don't know if we can ever come together again as a country, as a people, as a nation. Maybe America is still too young. Maybe this country is like a belligerent teenager who has to say no to everything to establish its independence, no matter how much he or she needs what they are rejecting.

We've created these caricatures of human beings in people like Sarah Palin and her Paliban followers. We've scraped the bottom of the human barrel and out came the Becks, the Limbaughs, the Teahadists and their hateful rhetoric fed to them as talking points with no substance to distract them from what their masters want them to believe.

Maybe America is the stupidly materialistic hell where all the dumb people who valued things over anything else, ended up to wallow forever in their misguided ignorance. Maybe we're all dead and this is how it ends, buried in a landfill with all the insignificant crap we were convinced meant true happiness. Maybe hell is that house we over-bought to impress who the hell knows. Maybe hell is everything in that house, in its closets, in its garages that were supposed to buy happiness but failed miserably. Maybe hell is the pile of discarded relationships that lost out to the things mattered more than love. Maybe there really isn't much hope for us as a species. Maybe we're a worthless pile of failed ideology that someday will be studied and used as an example of how not to live a life.

Or maybe we will wake up and realize how badly we've all been manipulated, how efficiently we were taught to hate with no facts to back up the reasons for our hatred. Maybe we'll realize that we allowed ourselves to be led and herded into like-minded groups so we would never become dangerous, never explore outside our comfort zone, never accept anyone different than ourselves, never demand that our leaders lead instead of herd. Maybe one day we will turn off the TV, throw out the hate radio, use the propaganda that passes as newspapers to start a great big bonfire we can dance naked around together and start over as a species.

And maybe, just maybe we'll come to the realization that religion was and always will be the problem. Not god, not spirituality, not dancing naked in the forest, but religion--that evil, dogmatic chain so many willingly strap around themselves. On that day, a whole lot of people will finally understand that the best way to make someone your obedient puppet is to lead them around by their hate, and that religion is what mainlines the hatred directly into the human being. And hopefully the desire to escape, to finally live free and by their own terms, will allow them to throw off the shackles of religion forever and grow that perfect world without having to die first to see it.

Chess Skeletons by orsobear
See other Art Magnets

Religion, the oppressive master.

What to do about the Pope and his crimes.

As an Atheist I believe our actions have consequences and no god/religion/easter bunny will remove the stain of those actions if they are wrong and immoral. In nature, the relationship between different parts of it affect the whole and create the future.

In a spiritual sense this can be referred to as Karma, but when you take the mysticism from the idea, then what you have left is the purity of action reacting to something done to it. For example, a drought will kill the vegetation and wildlife, and a flood will do the same. A volcano will erupt and destroy all life within the path of its destruction, but over time the ground will absorb the volcanic debris and create rich, fertile soil. It is a delicate and timeless dance throughout time of balancing the actions with the reactions.

For me, life, as in nature is all about seeking and maintaining that balance, so when asked recently what I, as an Atheist, would do about someone like the Pope, I first measured the enormity of the crimes committed over time by the organization he heads.

This is no different than examining the history of a company like Exxon spilling oil and fouling nature before determining what the punishment would be if they repeated that action. Or a petty criminal whose crimes add up to lifetime criminal status before he or she is locked away for society's protection.

Included in the punishment of both these examples is the concept of retribution such as a fine that might go to the victims, or a requirement that certain amounts of money go to clean up the damage done by neglect fed by long-standing corporate philosophy. The same criteria should apply to the Pope when you consider the crimes committed by the corporation he heads.


Most of us are familiar with the
The Crusades. They are often cited as the dark side of Christianity.

But that was a minor mass murder committed in the name of religion. The crimes go far deeper and cover more people. For example, religion also killed Pagans, those considered Heretics, Atheists, Witches, Jews, and others that don't get nearly the same press, such as many of the 20th Century crimes committed against humanity in the name of religion. Many native people were slaughtered in the name of god. During the second world war, death camps were also run by Catholics. Christianity had its foul little hands in mass murders in both Vietnam and Rwanda. Read more on this.

In light of this criminal history, what should be the punishment for the current CEO of the Catholic Church who looked away, denied, and covered up the abuse of children by his Priests? How about something that restores balance to the planet by taking into account the concept of Karma, the act of natural cleansing, and consequences for committed actions? Here is my proposition:

Find one of those dungeons/catacombs where witches, pagans, heretics and others were tortured and left to die? Strip the Pope naked and let him hang by chains on one of the dank walls like those who were treated this way by his church. Once a day throw some slop at him so he will continue to live. Hose him down and let him drink his own urine to survive. Isolate him so he can't infect others anymore. And pray he lives a long life so the Karmic debt his corporation inflicted on humanity evens out and restores balance to our planet.

Arrest The Molesters by godless_heathen
Browse other Atheism T-Shirts

What to do about the Pope and his crimes.

Teahadist Oath

I, ________________________, do solemnly swear to uphold the principles of a socialism-free society and heretofore pledge my word that I shall strictly adhere to the following:

I will complain about the destruction of 1st Amendment Rights in this country, while I am duly being allowed to exercise my 1st Amendment Rights.

I will complain about the destruction of my 2nd Amendment Rights in this country, while I am duly being allowed to exercise my 2nd Amendment rights by legally but brazenly brandishing unconcealed firearms in public.

I will foreswear the time-honored principles of fairness, decency, and respect by screaming unintelligible platitudes regarding tyranny, Nazi-ism, and socialism at public town halls. Also.
I pledge to eliminate all government intervention in my life. I will abstain from the use of and participation in any socialist goods and services including but not limited to the following:

· Social Security
· Medicare/Medicaid
· State Children’s Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP)
· Police, Fire, and Emergency Services
· US Postal Service
· Roads and Highways
· Air Travel (regulated by the socialist FAA)
· The US Railway System
· Public Subways and Metro Systems
· Public Bus and Lightrail Systems
· Rest Areas on Highways
· Sidewalks
· All Government-Funded Local/State Projects (e.g., see Iowa 2009 federal senate appropriations)
· Public Water and Sewer Services (goodbye socialist toilet, shower, dishwasher, kitchen sink, outdoor hose!)
· Public and State Universities and Colleges
· Public Primary and Secondary Schools
· Sesame Street
· Publicly Funded Anti-Drug Use Education for Children
· Public Museums
· Libraries
· Public Parks and Beaches
· State and National Parks
· Public Zoos
· Unemployment Insurance
· Municipal Garbage and Recycling Services
· Treatment at Any Hospital or Clinic That Ever Received Funding From Local, State or Federal Government (pretty much all of them)
· Medical Services and Medications That Were Created or Derived From Any Government Grant or Research Funding (again, pretty much all of them)
· Socialist Byproducts of Government Investment Such as Duct Tape and Velcro (Nazi-NASA Inventions)
· Use of the Internets, email, and networked computers, as the DoD's ARPANET was the basis for subsequent computer networking
· Foodstuffs, Meats, Produce and Crops That Were Grown With, Fed With, Raised With or That Contain Inputs From Crops Grown With Government Subsidies
· Clothing Made from Crops (e.g. cotton) That Were Grown With or That Contain Inputs From Government Subsidies
If a veteran of the government-run socialist US military, I will forego my VA benefits and insist on paying for my own medical care
I will not tour socialist government buildings like the Capitol in Washington, D.C.
I pledge to never take myself, my family, or my children on a tour of the following types of socialist locations, including but not limited to:
· Smithsonian Museums such as the Air and Space Museum or Museum of American History
· The socialist Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson Monuments
· The government-operated Statue of Liberty
· The Grand Canyon
· The socialist World War II and Vietnam Veterans Memorials
· The government-run socialist-propaganda location known as Arlington National Cemetery
· All other public-funded socialist sites, whether it be in my state or in Washington, DC
I will urge my Member of Congress and Senators to forego their government salary and government-provided healthcare.
I will oppose and condemn the government-funded and therefore socialist military of the United States of America.
I will boycott the products of socialist defense contractors such as GE, Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Humana, FedEx, General Motors, Honeywell, and hundreds of others that are paid by our socialist government to produce goods for our socialist army.
I will protest socialist security departments such as the Pentagon, FBI, CIA, Department of Homeland Security, TSA, Department of Justice and their socialist employees.
Upon reaching eligible retirement age, I will tear up my socialist Social Security checks.
Upon reaching age 65, I will forego Medicare and pay for my own private health insurance until I die.
SWORN ON A BIBLE AND SIGNED THIS DAY OF __________ IN THE YEAR ___.
_____________
Signed
_________________________
Printed Name/Town and State

Stupid People by humor_shirts
design your own tee shirt using zazzle.com

Teahadist Oath