Written by Burl Hall for OpEd News
I watched a preview of a Kirby Dick movie that identifies rape as a common experience for women who serve in the military. It appears that the military brushes the complaints of women (and men) who have been raped “under the carpet.” It’s a non-problem.
While the mainstream has laws regarding rape, and, indeed, some serve jail sentences for raping women, men and children, rape is simply a reflection of how we interact with life. Rape is our mode of operandi. In our standardized “no child left behind” schooling, we are in essence raping children by forcing ourselves upon their Psyche’s or Souls. Education, meaning “to unfold’ potential has become “indoctrinate them’ while we make them conform to the tests we create. The difference between education and indoctrination is that of one allowing someone to enter and someone forcing entry.
And, we wonder why children rebel during teenage years while ultimately winding up submitting to the status quo? The socio-pathology of many of our rebellious teenagers is nothing less than a holographic mirror to the greater culture. Is there any difference between a gang member in New York City using fear to control a potential victim and the “shock and awe” campaign used by George Bush? As Mick Jagger and Keith Richards say in “Sympathy for the Devil,” “Every cop is a criminal and every sinner a saint.”
Consider yourself as being a mother to a child in a middle-eastern state that is being bombed by American fighter planes. Can you imagine the horror of trying to protect your child while also fearing for your own life?
Is that woman’s Soul being raped by succumbing to the fear induced by the probability of losing her child’s life as well as her own? What damage is being done to the child’s Soul? Is this what we call collateral damage?
Where does this kind of bullying come from? How can George Bush Jr. refer to the bombing of a people a “shock and awe” campaign? “Shock and Awe?!” Seriously?! Can you imagine your child being blown to bits and saying, “wow! I’m shocked and I’m awed. Those Americans sure have the power!”
Meanwhile we fight terrorists who by definition terrorize in order to gain control over a population by using fear. And we are different how? Perhaps the terrorists should reframe what they do to “Shock and awe” campaigns. Then they wouldn’t be terrorists anymore.
Most often people that rebel, bully, use drugs, rapes others, and steals is doing nothing less than mirroring the greater culture. Is there any difference to those behaviors than our raping the land of resources, addicting people to television, computers, and foods highly flavored with various chemicals in order to control them? No longer does a producer of a food say “keep coming back,” now he just adds an addictive chemical into your food which makes your body yearn for that food. It’s cheaper than advertising costs!
How do we get past this mess? Our first step is to look at ourselves and how our conditioning mirrors the system. If we don’t see the holographic connection between us and our culture, we are going to get nowhere. By holographic, I mean the part mirrors the whole. Thus, we must pay attention to John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s line in the Beatles’ “Revolution” which encourages us to “change our minds instead.” The culture isn’t going to heal until YOU/WE heal. It’s not “them” it’s “us.” Point the finger outwards towards “them” and you’ll find 3 fingers pointing back at your chest.
Second we need to identify ways in which we want to live. For example, how do we begin to live more sustainably and lovingly while networking with like minded folks? Don’t sweat those that don’t agree. When they begin to see the results of real self-sustaining community and the work that gets us past conditioning, they’ll come over. Third, we have to begin taking care of ourselves and our family and stop being dependent upon government and the boss of government, corporations.
We need to take charge of how we do business including how we trade, develop currency, and support our community so that it can support us. This is being done by the use of alternative currency (e.g., Ithaca) and time banks (e.g., Central Maine Time Bank). Fourth, we need to question everything. For example, many say our “savage ancestors” were happy to have our ways of living thrust upon them. It’s easy to challenge this by simply looking at how the Native Americans resisted our ways of living during the 1800’s while also seeing how many of those Natives (e.g., John Trudell) speak to the dominate culture.
It is important to note that a fetus evolves from the inside out, not the outside in. It is interesting that author Daniel Quinn states in his Ishmael, that we have stopped evolving. Perhaps we have stopped evolving because we have surrendered our power to the external authorities? Who are these authorities to author our lives? While all authors have basic rules to follow to help make their message clearer, then so do we. But, ultimately, the author’s words originate from the inner world while it is often enticed by the outer. As eggs are within a woman’s ovaries even when she is still in the uterus, we contain within us an infinite array of possibilities waiting to unfold. All creativity is a form of intercourse in which what happens externally is seminal to the conception of an idea or a work. This is how babies come to be and it is how new ideas are formed in the psyche. Thus, we need to allow a world to unfold by allowing ourselves to be influenced and impregnated by the external. At the same time, Eve (the Psyche or Soul) of all of us need to say “no more to rape!” while saying “no” to rape and “yes” to loving embrace.
Or as all the great religions teach, the Kingdom (or Truth) is within us.