About the Writing Style (Getting It Out without going PTSD), Locating this in Time and Space…
Just a word about the situation here, the conversational, almost patchwork style of this blog.
And why I’m unapologetic, if defensive, about the uncopyedited factor.
Here was my excuse, about four years ago, shortly after starting this blog:
My Copy Editing Disclaimer: While I can Copy-Edit for stylistic consistency, Let’s Get Honest: This blog ain’t about to be Copyedited.”
(Proofreaders, copy editors, and some others may notice that there are three different forms of the same phrase in the title — run together, two words, and hyphenated). Also see (under there), the section on Csikszentmihalyi and the psychology of flow. Why not have some fun while telling the truth?….
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.09/czik.html
According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, great Web sites are not about navigating content, but staging experience. A compelling Web site transforms a random walk into an exhilarating chase. The key, says psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, is a finely tuned sense of rhythm, involvement, and anticipation known as “flow.” Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced “CHICK-sent-me-high-ee”), a professor at the University of Chicago, has spent more than 25 years researching flow, a state of “intense emotional involvement” and timelessness that comes from immersive and challenging activities such as software coding or rock climbing. His work is studied by marketing specialists like Vanderbilt University’s Donna Hoffman and Thomas Novak, who write that flow is “a central construct when considering consumer navigation on commercial Web sites.” In books like Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention , Csikszentmihalyi explores the implications of flow for personal and societal evolution.
(1996, John Geierland)
Wired: [magazine, obviously]
What do you mean by flow?
Csikszentmihalyi
: Being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.
Kind of like a buoyant trance state, only not really….
Apparently intrinsically motivated people (which I am) are, or have, “autoetelic personalities” (so glad to know we have a label). (I’d looked up “flow” and found the unique name of someone who wrote about it: “Csikszentmihalyi” 🙂
How important that state of “flow” is if one has been dealing with years of abuse, and it’s constant, intentional, disruptions // interruptions // stopping a person involved in the activities of life for cross-examination, etc.. …
But seriously, this state of centered, flow there, coercive controllers, (or, as it were, abusers, or those who seek to enslave and manage people against their will, for whatever reason such people do this) — can’t STAND to permit this flow, or source of intrinsic happiness, which (who knows? perhaps?) highlights their own miserable, small, souls which gain a sense of self from having others serve and focus on THEM, in a dependent fashion — in people they want to control. So there’s a constant interruption of activities, of flow, of jobs, of relationships, of anything which could produce a positive momentum in the other person’s life.
We don’t need a book to tell us that, however, one book which did describe it includes Patricia Evans’, The Verbally Abusive Relationship.
One thing that centered, intrinsically motivated, and focused people who know how to find their “state of flow” very often are, is PRODUCTIVE (let alone, creative). Our society doesn’t respect this, nor do “our” school systems, which seem designed to drum that out of individuals, while claiming to want to do the opposite.
Giving a spit in the wind’s chance, this type of “personality,” is inherently and without being completely destroyed or sidetracked, derailed, or wasted, is going to be a game-changer; the creators and inventors and originators of the next generations. They will annoy and irritate plenty of other people along the way by not being psychologically “for sale” to the closest bidder. They will pay attention to things or think about things that many think just aren’t important(but they nmight be), and may get a nice ADHD label for boring easily in class, etc. they actively engage in thinking, or problemsolving, building, or (whatever it may be). As kids, they may tune you (the leader, director, the head of the class) out mentally while thinking about something more interesting, with a view to actually getting the project up and running — instead of the assigned projects, or in addition to them). They ARE disciplined, but it’s not the kind of discipline that always builds social respect.
This type of motivation also frightens some in their circle who don’t know how to react when the normal forms of control and persuasion, or doomsday talk, don’t persuade the individuals from going ahead and doing what they intended to all along. I’m speaking of at least one of my own children, and of course remember being this way most of my life. As I said, these people’s souls are not for sale — and it’s harder to break their spirit. Someone is usually around, however, to try.
A person “in the flow” and well-grounded is harder to do the usual “gaslighting” routine on. That’s a source of strength (inner) for such an individual, and a source of personal power. Personal power is “anathema” to controllers, and to controlling systems.
If you think about this, some forms of brainwashing include not just sleep deprivation, constant interruption, keeping a person off-balance. Hence, it’s known by controllers, and is be generally known, that a sense of flow and purpose are important, healthy and ought to be normal in our society, part of it. They aren’t, though..! Colonizers, and conquerors knew, and individual “home terrorists” (abusers) also know — don’t let the person you want to control, dominate, break down, humiliate, and manipulate — find THEIR personal sense of flow; or if they do, make sure it’s unpredictably interrupted, dramatically sometimes, and other times, not — only to be later stomped out — til they are so off-balance, they can barely stand to get started in something.
(That’s probably the quickest description of the last two decades of my life! Repeated sabotage of the inspiring, productive, creative, income-producing, network-engaging, centered and healthy activities, AS I STARTED THEM. The tool in which many times the interruption took place was these courts. During some of those times, journaling helped keep me sane. Then the journals were targeted for physical destruction, so I moved them off our property to what I THOUGHT should be a safe place. My ex then developed a sudden close interest in the people’s home they were stored at, which prompted me to go fetch them back. I can almost not stand to read them, they also narrated constant interruptions of me doing the littlest things, and the large things — not the type of naturally-generated ones, but coming out of a knowledge of what produced joy and relationships with support systems outside the home.
[I’d say more but some people may also be reading this site. In short — the constant interrupting is a form of control, and it’s intentional. It’s to indicate the other person doesn’t deserve to have some of their own thought time, or occupations…]
I have had over two decades of dealing up close and personal with this, in-home, out of home, in the courts, through my kids, through extended relatives and affecting MOST primary relationships. It has affected my ability to communicate. To communicate effectively — that is, to even be able to “get it out” at times, I have to write from the inside out, which also helps give a sense of peace and safety (focus and concentration) about these matters. That is probably my longsuit. If I don’t get there, and it’s a touchy topic, or one on which a “sell” is needed (for example, I still have to deal with some of the former abusers, including the main one) — I’m sometimes speechless until I can get it flowing. The fear is experienced in advance, resulting ina need to take several “running starts” at the same topic.
EDITING is a very different process, best done on OTHER’s work.
So, I have expressed this before, and yes, am defensive about it. But you should know it’s a current choice relating to the situations here. 2013 update (I looked up the former “declaration” only after writing this post)….
The short answer:
1. I’m still in a volatile situation, but feel pressed to publicize what is an outrageous situation nationwide, and too few (though some, too few) willing to handle it.
2. Time limits, especially given long-term underemployment while in the courts.
3. Self-defense from PTSD precludes over-editing (explained better below).
4. To not write, including probably to not write about this material, is not a real option. I am a person who has been “disappeared” to my own children, lied about in court, driven out of a wonderful situation in life post-separation from a very violent and nearly lethal marriage which I all along REFUSED to be defined by — but had to fight when faced with (relatives, in particular) who engaged in gas-lighting and denial — and sought to attempt me to join them in perjuring my own past. This is a common experience, I”m sure.
5. There is an experience of having been “eviscerated.” Like war, this form of warfare against basic human and civil rights really is a visceral experience. If there is no place for it, no name for it, no explanation for it, no cultural historical accounting in time and space for this — it is experienced, but not overcome. I have yet to find the place between sanitizing and cleaning up the dialogue (as a solo, volunteer operation, it’s not going to happen) and dropping the dialogue in favor of basic selfishness including self-preservation.
6. As part of establishing and continuing to assert my existence as a sentient human being and being unable right now to go do some more college, or certain kinds of work which actually have “colleagues” of any sort, or stability off any sort — I choose to read, to think, and to talk about what I think about what I read, and how it relates t our times. In doing this I am connecting with history and culture and uttering opinions about it. Don’t take that for granted, to have a voice and have an opinion. In the 1990s and in the 2000s, I’ve noticed with the increasing regionalization and centralism of government — the intent to conduct dialogues and make major decisions WITHOUT feedback from the people most affected by them — is the norm.
For some reason, this page here brought up a figure from the 1500s as a demonstration, elaborated on it, and compared it to some events 300 years later (same country involved, England). I’m talking William Tyndale and the Cecil Rhodes thing, again– the issue of colonization. I hadn’t known that Rhodes (and friends) were Freemasons. Along the way, is the topic of, why monarchs burn dissidents at the stake (along with their books) — somewhat comparable (at least in some aspects) with simply standing up to domestic tyrants, or to tyrannical policies. It turns out that one of Rhodes’ ‘buddies,” was written out of his will because he disapproved of the Anglo-Boer war (speaking of HOW to colonize Africa, that is). William T. Stead (that person) was as it turned out, influential on both sides of the Atlantic at the turn of the century (1900s); as a journalist.
Perhaps this is just a way of conversing. I don’t do the usual social circles of non-marginalized people; sometimes it’s too much doing the identification with the likewise marginalized — and it’s simply interesting to speak freely about what seems relevant, and claiming a viewpoint (subject to change if new insight or information warrants it) on the world at large, in which I am a so-called “stakeholder” because I live here! In this time and space, which also has a history. I also believe in underlying causes and effects, which are often simply not noticed by people who aren’t paying attention, or aren’t looking for them. I am not a passive floater satisfied with passively floating down the lifestream of post-abuse dependency having given up on standing up, or quit the concept of addressing the “system change artists” whose intents and origins (and I have more proof now than did in 2009, both individually — and socially, macro-level history of USA and countries and corporations it’s been dealing in the sly with…) need to be confronted, exposed, and countered..
So this is part a scouting report, to be compared to other scouting reports and evaluated for truth (etc.). It gives some of the lay of the land. But it is composed by someone IN the foreign territory, marginalized mothers in post-welfare reform America attempting to journal it from the front lines, compile a quick history of the matter and do this halfway sensibly. It’s a LARGE topic. Terms have to be defined that are not often talked about. Concepts shared, and much more. It takes a while, and my style is, what it is.
I experienced marriage as a POW situation, and a place in which I learned to locate and enjoy oases of peace or safety, often related to engaging with our children, or helping them engage with others outside the home, in the process of growing up, learning, and the things many parents do with and for their children, and gladly so. The tough part was the domestic violence, and fighting to preserve, an economic identity after it was first wiped out shortly after marriage. In retrospect, it was amazingly instinctive and progressive, filled with “shock” tactics and surprise demands — like shutting down credit or bank account; quit a job, take a job, and after the first few years, none of this occurred in the absence of the initial physical assault and battery that became a habit. How do you NOT have the marriage be a POW experience when that’s the bottom line about how all decisions are made, and all differences settled? Family court functions in a similar matter, as what appear to be obligations, rules, commitments, or even laws (or, court orders) evaporate quickly and after a bit of time are literally flapping in the wind as meaningless, in practice. It’s in this context that I have lived a full generation of my adult life; and stood in wonder at what happened to this country, when, and how did it happen? Who did what, when, where, and why? became valid questions.
This blog occurred in what I’d hoped would be the “final quarter” of these matters, as the children eventually simply turned 18. You can never go back, but the question is, how to go forward when living among, for a reference, “the Hatfields and the McCoys” (family feuds, intergenerational) and the economic landscape is littered with events affected by it.
So in this blog, apart from the technology (formatting issues, such as wordpress adding and stripping out codes at random, particularly paragraph returns, or how long it took me to figure out HTML to quit having quoted sections spread past the right margins…
… Like many people, I write as the situations we are in may still be developing, spinning or running out their courses with various individuals giving them a kick, or the steering mechanisms a twist, from time to time, while the social illusion is that we are to look for some sort of regular, STABLE work, and from there draw bi-monthly paychecks, or weekly, and being thus in predictable status, landlords or other business contractors (like, utilities, etc.) — could work with us. In reality, such people, and I just hope that our learning and “what next?” action curve outpaces the aggressions and cycles of abuse and control.
About the over-writing and under-editing, and not copyediting, in fact, most times not even spellchecking; here’s my story and I’m sticking to it til further notice — until and unless I find another way to survive (psychologically and personally, not to mention economically) and exercise it with prospects of breaking off the current abusive relationship, which is no longer the one with my ex-batterer.
Speaking of which (anecdotal, general, and of course to you, hearsay, I know, I accept that), he appears to have gotten what he wanted — out of (essentially) paying any significant child support (including the arrears) AND by abandoning them after extracting them (illegally and with plenty of collateral damage) from their mother’s household, that is, mine — of supporting our children, the entire time without having developed a solid work ethic or, it seems, even the means to support himself independently (which was the alleged purpose of all this fatherhood funding in the courts).
He’s also gotten “even” — what looks like sufficient payback for leaving him; essentially has destroyed my personal and social networks, cut off communciations (for too many months and years) with the children I had, and raised (until they were overnight removed), and in that process wrecked what otherwise would’ve been a good life, absent ongoing abuse from this man and his post-kickout-acquired friends’ abuse.
This individual also has become a joke, looks like, to people locally — and from what I can tell, to our children as well. the purpose he appears to have served some of my family is to facilitate getting our (his and my) children away from me, and thus justifying other forms of (economic and other kinds of) abuse, which are going on to this day. Through all this extremely nasty experience, I watched, observed, learned and made a note through the examples of how gangs are formed — common shared interests incited to band against a common, often unoffending, chosen, target. This seems to hold true in other situations, like schools which are too large student/teacher ratio, or have other cultures that go with them. For all I know, maybe it’s human nature — to exploit the different or weak — in certain situations.
What I’m saying here is, it couldn’t happen without enablers and active helpers. In the face of this neutrality, or detachment, “noninvolvement” — hurts the targets. And their kids, who are naturally going to be conflicted in loyalties. In this regard, failing to separate out the actual abusers from the “co-parenting” quadrant is going to bring it down another generation, and cause all kinds of ethical, logical, and moral dilemmas, a literal state of confusion… among those not fully informed of the dynamics.
So, what’s been done (in my life, to date), is done — but the cumulative damage is significant, and this person appears to have passed the “coercive control, threat, create crises and specialize in causing collateral damages) ball to others, who had mutual shared interests in our children, not in the larger public (as reflecting in law-abiding behavior).
So, I am not out of the woods here.
In fact, I do not know, personally, almost any mother who, in the post-1990s feminist backlash family policy era, successfully left a dangerous relationship, went on to live a reasonably normal solvent life with contact with the children. If there are a substantial number of these, where is their writing and documentation about how they did it, and why the courts saw fit to leave THEM along, or how they overcame the objection of the courts to letting people alone? If you are one of such people, please write — send a link! I HAVE met some people whose children aged out, they were burnt out, and don’t want to talk about it; obviously they want their life back. This includes, in my neighborhood.
The court cases never close! If they do close, it’s never over til at least all surviving (some don’t) children turn 18. So, as to narrating what’s happening in the court policies, while ALSO getting it up to speed on what led to the present situation — I am writing on the run and for a track record (at least to lay down a trail) of how the situation. I DO know that before me, others had valid information, it wasn’t promoted sufficiently; and that certain groups ignored it and deliberately silenced and derailed discussions about those matters, primarily referring to the “conciliation courts” themselves and the federal incentives. These groups want women to “leave the analysis to us, please post this!” and are not producing a group of better informed mothers on how the courts are actually funcitoning, leaving them too clueless and too defenseles. That said, there’s a choice involved in who to associate with, and it was mutual; it’s not all the professionals. It’s where women’s heads are at.
And this may not make sense except to people who have been in these situations:
- For many years I wrote less and acted more, however until the connection with certain individuals (or systems) who have their collective “talons,” into too many aspects of my life, is successfully and PERMANENTLY broken, I am writing in survival mode, on the fly and as a means of survival. When you are living with people who counteract and contradict everything from small to large (in other words, you are dealing with a sociopath, control freak, or people on a “mission” which has you (or something your being there makes available to them) in its cross-hairs — writing and telling IS an act of defiance.
- Listeners sometimes mistakenly (projecting) say, we (people that “go on and on” like this) are writing to “discharge” or to solicit empathy.
NO!!! We are writing — at least I am writing — because this material is actually our truth, it is in a larger sense (because it’s so common) THE truth. Knowing that the telling of this truth has been repeatedly bastardized as it got commercialized (in addition to as in many lawsuits, there’s a war of words about whose “version” is correct), some of us (myself included) are sometimes daily, often weekly, when it comes up, letting the public (people we interact with) know about this — your taxes (like the English et. al’s middle class’s taste for the luxury of sugar, in the 1650sff) are being diverted into systems that hurt people (fathers, mothers and children) in the name of fatherhood. Your justice systems, that you believe are there for a strong infrastructure and for which you which justify your tax base HAVE ALREADY been bastardized into regional, administrative, social science policy-led directives, which then seek actively to “change the courts” without representation by those who are going to live, or possibly die; eat, or possilby starve, stay housed, or possibly go homeless — as a direct consequence of their handling in the state courts.)
Is that message a pathetic, “empathize, have compassion, have mercy, pity, please help?” etc. appeal? At times, that may be needed, but rather it’s a statement, a declaration of “how I, that you are now looking at, or dealing with, came to this place in life. I am part of a class of people, many of them, who are in this situation by these factors, which you ought to know about, and eventually as a citizen take interest in.”
I’m currently looking, for example, much more closely at the collective “conferences” of mayors, governors, etc. and how they have operated under different, self-contracted, self-directed, and mutual-interested organizations, to make sure the courts function nationally according to plans decided in conference with EACHOTHER – not with the constituents of the states dealing directly (or up through the chain of accountability) with state legislators. it’s a simple concept, but a little complicated to explain if people have not developed some awareness of the groups. I could explain it better, probably, in person and with diagrams or at a conference — things which people in my situation often just don’t have access to. However, it’s very important information.
The participants of those various conferencdes already know this material. The average American who wishes to leave most of government up to government (and picks what to pay atention to from the evening news, or maybe mainstream newsprint: NYT, WSJ, etc.) just doesn’t know. They have not put on the corporate/economic mindset and fully developed it. So, I could go back and collect, index, properly tag, and maybe even write up this blog. However, I am a volunteer investigative blogger, and right now am educating myself (and starting to speak more) about these things. In this blog.
I have 560+ posts published, and about 300 more in draft. I have a very active thought life, and an ongoing learning curve. That’s who I am. I am learning this material with a view towards communicating it, as I can. I do not expect to be burned at the stake, in particular, and ‘sudden death overtime” isn’t as “front-burner” as it has been in some prior times (NOT too long ago), but it’s still a survival situation. Therefore, I’d rather put more out — for at least an awareness, and worry about the perfection of the presentation, when I am NOT in survival mode. I write in segments, and string the segments together. That’s how it happens. I work certain themes in certain timeframes — and my change direction if there’s an immediate cause (for example, when some papers were published in Connecticut re: judicial employees and AFCC, I took time out to look it up and talk it up).
As this is being written, my children have aged out — but the legal cases underlying the whole situation have not. The cumulative effect of double-whammy years of abuse, years of court abuse, child-snatch, child-abandonment, court hearing after court hearing, periodically (for many years) with lots of police involvement as a regular part of having to do frequent exchanges with (the sociopath) and the widening circle of people involved, as I continued to say (to this day) No means no, and there exists a right and wrong in how I am to be dealt with: ABC is acceptable and XYZ is UNacceptable.
I don’t need every single word here to be read (or have any illusions that it would, or should be). However, I AM continuing to put out this information, repeatedly, and I already know it is having an impact — if not direct cause-and-effect — it is having a collective impact on topics that have been censored within a community I’d otherwise still be among, if one goes by the profile: Battered mother, single mother, noncustodial mother, exposed to certain forms of family violence year after year, escalating, and un-remedied, multiple job-losses and eventually PTSD sufficient to make the former lines (plural!) of work unavailable, not to mention, engaging in them seems to have infuriated the adversarial side (don’t let anyone kid you into thinking that the people talking about “nonadversarial” ways of resolving family matters are themselves nonadversarial. They simply are aiming for a certain result (systems change) in a way which is adversarial to some people’s safety and accountability interests. It’s domination by social science theory, and in that equation, some people are subject amtter, and others are lab assistants and yet other see themselves as the great theorists who are above justifying why they should get humanity to practice upon.
- I haven’t felt able, at least on this material, to take the tough writer’s pill and swallow it whole YET (which is — basically, cut it out, shut up, and put yourself in the reader’s shoes) (or, write to the market niche only, instead of attempting to develop one in an area of need). I have my voice, but what the style is, that’s what it is. I cannot go first draft, second draft, third draft — for copyediting purposes — without going into PTSD, or overloading on the vicarious awareness of the overall situation.
If I switch out of investigating and expressing mode for too long, it goes into the frustrating, self-censoring mode, which is a real issue for survivors of abuse. They begin to stand emotionally outside themselves (a very GOOD act, and important for writers — in its place and time in the writing process). But when you are writing to “tell, not sell” it is to INTEGRATE that which has been fractured from violence — you just don’t do it. It’s a matter of what mode one is in. There’s a sense of peace and safety in telling the truth from the center-out; from the observation into the documentation.
Commonly, I will say the same thing, in slightly different ways, several times during a post, or in several different post with variations and different supporting examples. The intent is that people get a general understanding of where to specifically look for the data, and what kinds of data are relevant. Except for “Look up a Nonprofit (Impromptu), this is not technical writing, and it’s not a how-to manual (I HAVE written those before, for businesses). It is to raise consciousness about the Macro and microdynamics of this situation.
So communication becomes a very touchy issues if it actually matters what the other person thinks!
In addition, I’ve always been a voracious reader, and I’ve been writing (journaling) since I was a kid, because it was fun — and because my childhood predates facebook, not to mention I wasn’t raised by the TV either. So you’re going to get long sentences….
One of my personal heroes, by the way, was a man who lived in another century, William Tyndale, who translated much of the Bible into English, and a good portion of it, while on the run — as a fugitive. He was brilliant, he was committed to translating what he saw, and as a result, was excluded from certain social, religious circles. He also, in the end, was betrayed by an apparent friend, and burned at the stake, in 1536. He stuck to what he felt was his calling, which ended up also causing his premature death, and was ridiculously gifted in the ability to fulfill it. Two brief segments describe this. It’s not as though there aren’t plenty of other role models or “heroes,” but something of the matter of “translating” is central to me, for a long time.
William Tyndale: Priest Scholar, Martyr:
Thomas More, Scholar, Martyr (6 July 1535)
John Fisher, Bishop, Martyr (22 Jun 1535)
William Tyndale was born about 1495 at Slymbridge near the Welsh border. He received his degrees from Magdalen College, Oxford, and also studied at Cambridge. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1521, and soon began to speak of his desire, which eventually became his life’s obsession, to translate the Scriptures into English. It is reported that, in the course of a dispute with a promminent clergyman who disparaged this proposal, he said, “If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plow to know more of the Scriptures than thou dost.” The remainder of his life was devoted to keeping that vow, or boast.
Finding that the King, Henry VIII, was firmly set against any English version of the Scriptures, he fled to Germany (visiting Martin Luther in 1525), and there travelled from city to city, in exile, poverty, persecution, and constant danger. Tyndale understood the commonly received doctrine — the popular theology — of his time to imply that men earn their salvation by good behavior and by penance.
Economically, the poor of this world are given the same Calvinist Protestant lecture; are coached by the same “economic elite” (see Private Equity, MDRC, and in short, a good deal of this blog) to believe that the real cure to poverty is a good ol’ work ethic; honesty and hard work is rewarded, and the poor are poor because they’re simply lazy. Or, they’re fatherless. Or they’re “Disconnected Dads” not motivated to pay child support because of the disconnection. Or there’s not enough workforce board outreach. Or . . . . . Pass the plate, pay more taxes…).
Is that how the rich got rich — exclusively through their honesty and work ethic? Or is there an inverse correlation to why the poor are so poor and the wealthy are so wealthy? (See “Robber Barons,” etc.) WHile concealing from the poor that many of the wealthy got wealthy by cheating the public (i.e., tax loopholes, slush funds, drug-running), or legally — if immorally — by simply focusing to do their main business with government contracts (see “The Iron Triangle/Carlyle, etc.”). Or using the welfare system to franchise their personal downloadable curricula, OR, by using slave labor, i.e., prison labor, or in otherwords, by thinking strategically to profit wherever possible, cut losses everywhere possible, DIVERSIFY HOLDINGS (which the poor are NOT supposed to do — they are supposed to work one steady job, trust the government to handle their benefits, their union to handle the bargaining and the school system (and after school/pre-school child care) to handle their kids, etc. etc.
I’m hyper sensitive to this issue as a DV survivor, knowing how easy it is to sabotage a job when the intent is to keep a person dependent, knowing how many types of work I was forced through, and quickly out of, whiel married, and afterwards. Meanwhile, the people lecturing me about work, had already engaged in THEFT, and interference through harassment, a topic which is not to be discussed, and which I have already taken retaliation for raising — in prior years, and in this past year.
For years my strategy in the family courts was an appeal to just that — to support my children, I need to work. Clearly at this point in time — to maintain my work – and clearly father is less motivated to engage in the workforce — I need protection. I need a restraining order. OR, you need to enforce child support, providing me at least the times this man is at work when I am free from harassment as a mother, etc. BOTH were rejected, and ONLY the situation of utter dependency was culturally acceptable to the courts — and to my family line. After enough of the line of B*S*, one wants better explanations for such chronic dishonesty + zero accountability.
Ideally, if there weren’t abuse, theft, harassment, and criminal intent, and drug money influencing politics (see “Narco-Dollars for Dumbies,” by C.A. Fitts) and so forth — then “jobs” and creating them would solve the poverty problem. BUT, there is — making that lecture, coming from certain sources — extremely dishonest.
There seems a parallel to an extremely wealthy church (at the time) and its elite telling people that the way to heaven would be through good works and doing “penance” and the self-appointed priesthood of our time lecturing the poor about jobs. To tune in any time, just go to the current House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources (I have link on post near the top of the blog) — and listen in on the discussions and objections to “Obama” as if this were actually a partisan issue.
MORE “WILLIAM TYNDALE, PRIEST, SCHOLAR, MARTYR”
He wrote eloquently in favor of the view that salvation is a gift of God, freely bestowed, and not a response to any good act on the part of the receiver. His views are expressed in numerous pamphlets, and in the introductions to and commentaries on various books of the Bible that accompanied his translations. He completed his translation of the New Testament in 1525, and it was printed at Worms and smuggled into England. Of 18,000 copies, only two survive. [[!!!]]] In 1534, he produced a revised version, and began work on the Old Testament. In the next two years he completed and published the Pentateuch [[that’s FIVE large books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy]] and Jonah, and translated the books from Joshua through Second Chronicles [[Joshua, Judges, Ruth, I & II Samuel, I & II Kings, I & II Chronicles]] , but then he was captured (betrayed by one he had befriended), tried for heresy, and put to death. He was burned at the stake, but, as was often done, the officer strangled him before lighting the fire. His last words were, “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes.”
Miles Coverdale continued Tyndale’s work by translating those portions of the Bible (including the Apocrypha) which Tyndale had not lived to translate himself, and publishing the complete work. In 1537, the “Matthew Bible” (essentially the Tyndale-Coverdale Bible under another man’s name to spare the government embarrassment) was published in England with the Royal Permission. Six copies were set up for public reading in Old St Paul’s Church, and throughout the daylight hours the church was crowded with those who had come to hear it. One man would stand at the lectern and read until his voice gave out, and then he would stand down and another would take his place. All English translations of the Bible from that time to the present century are essentially revisions of the Tyndale-Coverdale work.
The best summary I know of Tyndale’s writings on grace is found in C S Lewis’s English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, Excluding Drama (Oxford Up, 1954), pp 187-191. I will go out on a limb and say that any Christian who reads English and is interested in the theological questions of the Reformation ought to read large portions of this work. In particular, I recommend pages 32-44, 157-221 (or at least 157-165 and 177-192), and 438-463.
Who wrote this summary (which I chose because it was pretty short!)? James E. Kiefer: “James E. Kiefer is a quiet soul whose day job is in a government research laboratory, but who enriches all of us by using his spare time to write down the stories of the people who, through the centuries, have made the Christian church be what it is today. . . . Kiefer has resisted all requests to write a biography of himself; we know that he lives a quiet life in Bethesda, Maryland, and that he is willing to work hard to share his knowledge of, and enthusiasm for, church history…. ” Never heard of the guy. It came up in the search results…
Two more sketches (including of the two men mention above: More and Fisher, who were also martyred around the same time) mention that at this time, hanging wasn’t fast, but gruesome and deliberately prolonged. These men faced the possibility not just of death, but of extreme torture before death — to make them and example to others who might, in short, disagree with the King, specifically King Henry VIII of England. They understood in advance the high cost of speaking out, and speaking up, and did so anyhow, and paid that cost, although these were at least not tortured — but they WERE killed after basically some mock trials….
After the brief bio sketch of More, and Fisher, who through his position apparently was responsible for bringing (back) Greek and Hebrew to Cambridge…
John Fisher was born in 1469, enrolled at Cambridge University in 1483, ordained in 1491, and in 1502 became chaplain to Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of King Henry VII. With her money and his ideas, they greatly altered Cambridge, restoring the teaching of Greek and Hebrew, bringing Erasmus over as a lecturer, and endowing many chairs and scholarships. In 1504 Fisher was made Chancellor of Cambridge and Bishop of Rochester. In 1527 he became chaplain to the new king, Henry VIII, and confessor to the queen, Catherine of Aragon. He stood high in the favor of Henry, who proclaimed that no other realm had any bishop as learned and devout.
. . . . comes this segment:
Thus for many years, More and Fisher prospered and enjoyed the King’s favor. Then the political winds changed. Henry (for reasons that I have discussed at length elsewhere) declared that his marriage to Queen Catharine was null and void. He was opposed in this, by More and Fisher, by Tyndale, and (less promptly and vigorously) by the Pope. Henry broke off relations with the Pope, and proceeded to set Catharine aside and take another wife, Anne Boleyn. Fisher, as a Bishop and as a member of the House of Lords, was called on to ratify this decision, and dramatically refused.
More, who by this time was Lord Chancellor of England, resigned his position and retired to private life, hoping that he would be allowed to remain silent, neither supporting the king nor opposing him. But the king required him to take a loyalty oath which recognized the King as the earthly head of the Church in England. This Thomas could not do. He did not believe that the authority of the Pope was a matter of Divine decree — he thought that it was a matter of usage and custom, and expedient for the unity and peace of the Church.
He believed that there were many practices in the Church of his day that needed to be reformed, but he did not trust Tyndale, or Luther, or above all Henry, to steer reform in the right direction. So he refused the oath, and was thrown into the Tower of London.
While in prison, he wrote A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation, a work still in print, and well worth reading. It is deeply moving to see the contrast between the generally gloomy atmosphere of some of the devotional works that More wrote when he had health, riches, honors, high office, the comfort of a devoted family… and the serene cheerfulness of the Dialogue of Comfort, written when he had none of these, and had every reason to expect that he would eventually be executed for treason
… and as described in an utterly horrible and agonizing manner, i.e., slow hanging to unconsciousness — not death, revived only to be castrated, disemboweled, chopped up while still living, then beheaded, head on a pike on London Bridge, and the quartered body parts sent round for a warning to others, etc.)
A lot of where we are today is because of this type of mentality among the noble, authority-respecting, monarch-honoring, and aristocracy-revering. Anglo-Saxon race, with parallel sectors (under different names) in the American culture.
CECIL RHODES, AGAIN.
Over three centuries later, and AFTER the Irish Slave trade had begun (see religious wars) Cecil Rhodes in his 1877 trust, was still waxing poetic about how wonderful the Anglo-Saxon culture was, and why it, along with the Germans (some German monarchs were descendants of Queen Victoria; there’s been inbreeding, and serious love-hate issues among them all) should dominate the earth… and what a shame Britain had lost the American colonies. Does this form of monarchy and religion in the service of the state, really sound admirable? Shifting political winds and drawing and quartering of dissidents, spreading fear around, and only the most dedicated are willing to sacrifice their lives for the truth, or to stand up to a monarch?
(Search field may produce some writings on this blog, on that topic as well. I DNR what was the context).
The Irish Slave Trade — The forgotten “White” slaves (“The Slaves that Time Forgot”)
(see link — this piece has about three or four different title lines….it’s posted on a canadians site; see URL. I’m not clear if it’s 2013 by John Martin, or April 2008 by someone else…). I’ve combined paragraphs with an “~” in places to save space.
They came as slaves; vast human cargo transported on tall British ships bound for the Americas. They were shipped by the hundreds of thousands and included men, women, and even the youngest of children. ~ Whenever they rebelled or even disobeyed an order, they were punished in the harshest ways. Slave owners would hang their human property by their hands and set their hands or feet on fire as one form of punishment. They were burned alive and had their heads placed on pikes in the marketplace as a warning to other captives.
We don’t really need to go through all of the gory details, do we? We know all too well the atrocities of the African slave trade. ~ But, are we talking about African slavery? King James II and Charles I also led a continued effort to enslave the Irish. Britain’s famed Oliver Cromwell furthered this practice of dehumanizing one’s next door neighbor.
The Irish slave trade began when James II sold 30,000 Irish prisoners as slaves to the New World. His Proclamation of 1625 required Irish political prisoners be sent overseas and sold to English settlers in the West Indies. By the mid 1600s, the Irish were the main slaves sold to Antigua and Montserrat. At that time, 70% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves.Ireland quickly became the biggest source of human livestock for English merchants. The majority of the early slaves to the New World were actually white. ~ From 1641 to 1652, over 500,000 Irish were killed by the English and another 300,000 were sold as slaves. Ireland’s population fell from about 1,500,000 to 600,000 in one single decade. Families were ripped apart as the British did not allow Irish dads to take their wives and children with them across the Atlantic. This led to a helpless population of homeless women and children. Britain’s solution was to auction them off as well.
During the 1650s, over 100,000 Irish children between the ages of 10 and 14 were taken from their parents and sold as slaves in the West Indies, Virginia and New England. In this decade, 52,000 Irish (mostly women and children) were sold to Barbados and Virginia. Another 30,000 Irish men and women were also transported and sold to the highest bidder. In 1656, Cromwell ordered that 2000 Irish children be taken to Jamaica and sold as slaves to English settlers.Many people today will avoid calling the Irish slaves what they truly were: Slaves. They’ll come up with terms like “Indentured Servants” to describe what occurred to the Irish. However, in most cases from the 17th and 18th centuries, Irish slaves were nothing more than human cattle.
As an example, the African slave trade was just beginning during this same period. It is well recorded that African slaves, not tainted with the stain of the hated Catholic theology and more expensive to purchase, were often treated far better than their Irish counterparts.African slaves were very expensive during the late 1600s (50 Sterling). Irish slaves came cheap (no more than 5 Sterling). If a planter whipped or branded or beat an Irish slave to death, it was never a crime. A death was a monetary setback, but far cheaper than killing a more expensive African. The English masters quickly began breeding the Irish women for both their own personal pleasure and for greater profit. Children of slaves were themselves slaves, which increased the size of the master’s free workforce. Even if an Irish woman somehow obtained her freedom, her kids would remain slaves of her master. Thus, Irish moms, even with this new found emancipation, would seldom abandon their kids and would remain in servitude.
***
***this may not be a good comparison; it doesn’t do justice to the original slavery, but it’s pretty well common practice now — a woman might get out of an abusive relationship (violent) with a person considering himself HER master (whether spouse or not, “partner,” etc.) — but if she wants in THIS century to fully break loose, she may have to let go of the children — that’s our culture now, thanks to the court practice, and fatherhood promotions nationwide. This doens’t mean the courts are also good to fathers, uniformly; they have different forms of punishment available to them, and can become useful in the FAMILY COURT VENUE to bring business to that venue, inciting more battles. Minor Children have social security numbers attached to them, generally speaking; it appears that those ##s are worth profits; services (including services not even delivered sometimes) can be billed to the number without even the physical presence of a child. When it comes to the foster care population, particularly any institutionalized — they can be drugged, and they ARE drugged. Get the point? ??? That’s our culture these days. Mom can go, but if she doesn’t want to co-parent right, she can leave the children behind, or stick around for more punishment.
From The Irish Examiner (Feb. 2013) responding to the above article, in Cromwell and the Irish Slave Trade:
. . . His essay The Irish Slave Trade — The Forgotten White Slaves is about the 100,000 Irish people and probably far more, sent as slave labour to the new British colonies in the 1650s to 1660s. It began in 1625 when James 11 issued a proclamation that 30,000 Irish political prisoners be sent to the Caribbean. It escalated 25 years later under Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. By his death in 1658 from pneumonia safe in his England home, the Irish population of 1.5 million was down to an estimated 600,000.
[[Some “protector!” But notice, it began with an edict by a monarch. It as continued in policy by Cromwell. Specific targeted attempts to decimate a profiled and marginalized population, from the TOP OF GOVERNMENT DOWN:]]
What happened to the rest? They were killed in battles, resisting his well-armed force, large land thefts by his supporters leading to starvation and famines. His was the most successful of English conquests. It led to more men, women and children being shipped to Liverpool port and to the British colonies of the Americas and Caribbean islands.
Many were held on Spike island in Cork’s lower harbour. They were sold in the slave ‘markets’ to plantation owners for sugar, which was highly prized for the middle classes of England and Western Europe. This was political policy and documented at the time from debates in Westminster parliament. PR spinning disguised the reality of this human trade. …
The scale of it is shocking. Or at least it should be. He [County Cork-born journalist and writer, Sean O’Callaghan; it cites his wookb] wrote how the history of sugar in the Caribbean is also the history of slavery and oppression on a scale that Europe had never known. [He was a journalist for a Kenyan newspaper in the 1960s and in the 1980s wrote a book on modern slavery in parts of Africa.Oliver Cromwell could be charitable and was a family man — but he and his army generals were seriously bad news for the Irish, Scottish and perhaps England’s Catholics too. ~ It is worth a thought, that we, who are born of Irish families going back 400 years in Ireland, are the descendents of those who were not taken.
For further reading see White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain’s White Slaves in America published by New York University Press, 2008.
Merely about 225 years after all this (1650s – 1877) here’s how Cecil Rhodes is describing his own race and nationality:
You will find this “The Legacy of Cecil John Rhodes” from “Southern Times, The newspaper for Southern Africa,” (1/13/2012, “The Form and Structure of International Capital”) interesting reading (despite faint and tiny print). It says, among other things, right before writing his 1877 trust, Rhodes had just been initiated as an English Freemason at Oxford, becoming a “Master Mason,” as well as joining a Scottish Rite lodge. The graphics are (bad) but the material showed the Mason influence, which I hadn’t known about previously….
Rhodes began developing his imperialist vision after hearing a speech by John Ruskin which espoused an opinion, which by extension, furthered the teachings found in Plato’s “The Republic”. … [Ruskin] spoke to Oxford British undergraduates as members of the privileged ruling class and that they were possessors of what was called a magnificent tradition of education, beauty, rule of law, freedom, decency and self-discipline.
…Plato, an initiate of ancient mystery systems of Africa in ancient Egypt, called for “…a ruling class with a powerful army to keep it in power and a society completely subordinate to the monolithic authority of the rulers”. [“to make war impossible” says a current source, about the Rhodes Trust]
Keeping in mind the practice of burning learned people, and their books, particularly variations on the Bible, at the stake, and slave trading, attempted genocides of whoever was on the wrong side, religiously, at the time (within England), which surely Cecil Rhodes being British already knew about, we have….
In June 1877, soon after he became a Freemason while at Oxford University, he wrote a Will what he referred to as the Confession of Faith in which he said: “It is our duty to seize every opportunity of acquiring more territory… more territory simply means more of the Anglo-Saxon race, more of the best, the most human, most honourable race the world possesses…the absorption of the greater portion of the world under our rule simply means the end of all wars.”
It was this mentality that fuelled his desire to unite the world under one form of government.
Rhodes’s first Will included the following passage directing that his fortune form the endowment of a “secret society” devoted to:
“The extension of British rule throughout the world…. The colonisation by British subjects of all lands where the means of livelihood are attainable by energy, labour, and enterprise and especially the occupation by British settlers of the entire Continent of Africa, the Holy Land, the Valley of the Euphrates, the islands of Cyprus and Canada, the whole of South America, the islands of the Pacific not heretofore possessed by Great Britain, the whole of the Malay Archipelago, the seaboard of China and Japan, the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of the British Empire…” (Christopher Marlowe, “John Cecil Rhodes: The Anatomy of an Empire,” London, 1972).
“What sort of character was Cecil Rhodes? Rhodes was a critic of English Freemasonry ‑ of its impotence and incompetence in advancing British race interest. Here’s some more:
“Lord Milner once remarked of himself, ‘My patriotism knows no geographical but only racial limits. I am a British race patriot’.”
All these motives and impulses were combined in Rhodes’ ambition, whose original intention for his secret society, as indicated in his correspondence with Lord Rothschild (a Jewish financier who funded his South African diamond mining enterprises), was to create “a society of the elect for the good of the Empire” based on the model of the Jesuits: “In considering question suggested take Constitution of Jesuits if obtainable and insert English Empire for Roman Catholic Religion.”Founding of the Empire
The British Empire was built through the following motives:• Exploitation of natural resources of other countries, trade and commerce;
• The creation of settlement and penal colonies in other people’s lands;
• The creation and defence of British trade routes and markets;
• The spreading of Western civilisation (in its British incarnation); and
• The missionary spread of Literalist Modern Christianity.
He saw the reunification and “the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of the British Empire”. If the Catholic faith and Latin learning had allegedly united Christendom, then the “White Man’s Burden”, then he envisaged the English language and ‘William Shakespearean’ literature, government, and culture (whisky, cricket and the BBC) uniting the British Empire.
In February of 1891, Cecil John Rhodes had met with fellow Freemason friends, William Thomas Stead** and Reginald Baliol Brett.
Stead was a famous British journalist of the day and was an early imperialist dreamer, whose influence on Cecil Rhodes in South Africa remained of primary importance. Stead was intended to be one of Rhodes’s executors but disagreed with the British government over the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) and his name was struck out from the Last Will and Testament of CJ Rhodes in 1902.
** I didn’t know who Wm. Thomas Stead was, but we see he lived 1849-1912, died on the Titanic on the way to a Carnegie peace conference, having previously (1886) published a warning of what could happen at sea without enough lifeboats, as happened with the Titanic. This other site calls him a pacifist, journalist, and spiritualist. In 1885 he published a shocking expose of child prostitution [[site also contains a little biography and note that he was son of a Congregational minister, zealous (homeschooled by his father) but ended up as a journalist]], “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon,” and in the process, as they actually demonstrated this by buying and going through the motions (allegedly not completing them) of a certain girl, did jail time for it in the ensuing outrage. Context: Sounds like he was favorable of saving lives, protested wars, and the great “peace-lover” Rhodes struck him out of the will… ALSO OF NOTE: In 1895, similar timing, Freud was presenting elsewhere his “THe Etiology of Hysteria” exposing the same thing to his colleagues, resulting in the cold shoulder by his colleagues (see “Stunning Validation” post for details). While here, there are two 1912 commentaries on Stead by “his peers” probably after the Titanic. Interesting: “Lord Esher” (figures in the Rhodes article also) and Lord Milner (ditto).
This (short enough) review of Stead, particularly his vision of “The Americanisation of the World” at the turn of the 1900s, is a good read. I get the image of the guy as relentless, zealous, all over the place, and definitely influential. He saw the combined British/American empire as a source of (police-state enforced) peace for the world. It is a good general read.
He perished en rte to America for — get this, a Carnegie Hall meeting of “The Men and Religion Forward Movement.” One hundred and one years later (1912 – 2013), some things never change, eh?
In March, 1912, Stead received a telegram from the United States inviting him to speak at a convention at Carnegie Hall of the National Men and Religion Forward Movement. The Men and Religion Forward Movement was a sort of early twentieth-century version of Promise Keepers intended to get men and boys back into what some saw as a dangerously feminine church. The movement gained the attention of the Federal Council of Churches which tried to bring the organization under its ecumenical and social reform umbrella.** The announced topic of the event in New York was world peace; featured speakers were in include President Taft, James Bryce, William Jennings Bryan, and Booker T. Washington. Stead eagerly accepted the invitation, hoping the men’s movement signaled a step toward his ideal of the “Civic Church.” On April 10, 1912, he set sail on the Titanic, doomed to be one of the nearly 1500 who drowned.
**women didn’t have the vote yet in America. They got it in Ireland before they got it in America.
(Another article, citing Stead’s article on Americanisation of the World in part — on Globalization, interesting….)
Well, maybe this isn’t TOO inappropriate, this discussion of British imperialism, the intent to dominate the globe with Anglo-Saxon race and traditions (whiskey, BBC, and cricket) — as I hear there’s a new Prince born to William and Kate, and the nation and the news reporters (international) are in alignment to celebrate the royal fertility.
as a window into why I narrate this objectionable material
IF THIS IS OUR CULTURAL MODEL, THE COLONIAL MODEL, WHICH SUPPRESSESS OTEHRS FOR TRADE, GOD, AND THE ANGLO-SAXONS (WITH HELP FROM THE US), I THINK WE NEED TO ACKNOWLEDGE THIS AS EXPLAINING A LOT OF THE CENTURY’S DISTRESS — AND THE CONTINUING HOSTILITY TOWARDS WOMEN AS PARTICIPANTS, WHICH WOULD REPRESENT SUCH THINGS AS AN EQUALITY (MORE COMMON TO CERTAIN OTHER CULTURES PRE-SCRAMBLE, AND PRE-COLONIZATION OVER HERE), AS ALSO MEMBERS OF CONGRESS WHO MIGHT, JUST, STOP SOME OF THE WARS…. AND HAVE THE GUTS TO STAND UP TO OUT OF CONTROL CEOs, i.e., the White Houses and Governor’s houses running franchises to disenfranchise women….)
Well, back to the TYNDALE discussion:
This is how the prose (More vs. Tyndale) was described by C.S. Lewis, “p. 192” (see site):
What we miss in Tyndale is the many-sidedness, the elbow-room Of More’s mind; what we miss in More is the joyous, lyric quality of Tyndale. The sentences that stick to the mind from Tyndale’s work are half way to poetry–“Who taught the eagles to spy out their prey? even so the children of God spy out their Father.” — “that they might see Love and love again” — “where the Spirit is, there it is always summer” (though that last, we must confess, is borrowed from Luther). In More we feel all the “smoke and stir” of London; the very plodding of his sentences is like horse traffic in the streets. In Tyndale we breathe mountain air. Amid all More’s jokes I feel a melancholy in the background; amid all Tyndale’s severitites there is something like laughter, that laughter which he speaks of as coming “from the low bottom of the heart.” But they should not be set up as rivals, their wars are over. Any sensible man will want both: they almost represent the two poles between which, here in England, the human mind exists — complementary as Johnson and Shelley or as Cobbett and Blake.
MY COMMENTARY: the role of Religion
I was not raised “in the Church” although I was exposed to it, so my exposure to Christianity comes more from the Bible itself as literature, some experiential awareness of what was lacking in our family line’s values (including, to this day even a language to state what they are, which certainly the scriptures at least hold — they are language and a system of meaning, and at least one entrance into the exploration of history) and of course there was an experiential element and some community elements as well. I have over the past five to seven years heard and seen SO MUCH of various women/mothers coming out of church situations whose early experiences included either incest, molestation by a father, or molestation within the church — and a parent (often a mother) refusing to confront it — resulting in inappropriate first relationships, often violent — that I have to say, this is a serious source of trouble, in the coverup of abuse; it is causing inter-generational trauma and distress.
These women, sometimes as teens, and other times as young women, apparently managed to free themselves economically from their bad relations, through forming businesses, or jobs, or a work life — and were attacked by the previous generation (parents) when the failed to do like “Mama,” did, i.e., stay married and just continue the “I see nothing!” dynamic.
They are then being attacked for the very act of saying No, and showing commendable independence. I wonder how many inappropriate marriages, nationwide, were in essence, the only way some woman — or even young man – could get out from under the home roof where abuse happened.
For this brand of mothers, they are NOT going back to the church community, nor would it support them in their attempts to address this serious problem — or in their individual cases. Some do, but many do not, depending on how submissive a woman behaves, when in fact, the last thing such a woman probably should do at that point is master more “submission.” !!!
In this context, to have the government doing “faith-based outreach” on domestic violence matters, is a joke, and an insult. In my opinion. It is essentially to bypass the women’s voices and simply give it to the existing leadership, to dilute, translate, sanitize and reframe at will — and with grants.
I see the world differently, this was exacerbated by trauma (of course), but moreover — societies that don’t recognize the need to make an effort to understand others languages, and points of references (and find what’s indeed in common) — are going to end up hurting the non-prevailing view; up to and we have already seen this, beyond, the point of genocide. And tolerating societies or cultures that continue to commit genocide it is for any society, suicidal — sooner or later, it’s going to be someone else’s turn next.
One of the handiest excuses for committing this kind of genocide (or, on a smaller level, extreme personal violence, a.k.a. “domestic violence”) IS religion, briefly described (here’s my paraphrase) as “over-entitlement wearing the robes of the priesthood of the specially anointed — which is not to be demonstrated in action, simply “take it on faith.”
AND — like it or not — Christianity as a religion — in particular has chosen to help indoctrinate people into this (it being first necessary to dumb them down about basics, like the Bible, and the history of their own religion) — and insist in other times (i.e., “chronology of Namibia”/Klaus Dierks that I keep referring to) and in America — both in the founding times, and exacerbated by the Bush Family brand of “Family matters” — that as MAN was made to dominate the earth, somehow MAN was made also to dominate women — all men, collectively, anywhere, are to feel especially entitled to dominate any woman within range, within their community and particularly within their family, by any means necessary if she’s too independent-minded. I have both experienced this and sat next to (in public places) men coaching other men how to do it; I have also as a single person confronted it in certain communities and finally said, “that’s it — I won’t be back.” Also see a 2013 post, referring to the Iroquois Federation, Six Nations, the Hausonee — “The Eagle Screams Atop the Tree of Peace.” In that culture, women participated in government, and had a say in whether or not war happened. This form of equality and participation of women was rejected by the “founding fathers,” while exalting the concept of “equality” (for those within the brotherhood).
This male-dominant model then was expanded and applied consistently to “the other,” which typically had a different color skin, or a different religion — whether Jewish, Catholic, or at sometimes Protestant. It is a culture that thrives on hating certain types of people — rather than a culture which hates certain forms of unethical and destructive behavior — per se, and without special exemptions for the “elect” or the elite.
As I am looking at this in the first two decades of this millennium (i.e., I’m alive, that’s What time it is!) — I HAVE to admit that there seems to be a culture of haters, and this includes hating the earth itself, the environment, including ripping ores and metals out of it to make things to kill and pollute others with (for profit) and then having created a scarcity of food, water, and nature — taking proprietary control of the same and leasing it back to others for royalties, rents, or as a privilege. Then the drugs are added to counteract the previous poisoning done, sometimes, in the pursuit of things like gold, or other minerals.
How much “Culture” and fine arts can compensate for some of this behavior? How much commerce and — while I’m the first to appreciate the automobile, having lived most of my life WITHOUT one — how many roads and cars are really needed? When food isn’t locally grown, and the entire globe is setup to become a multinational CORPORATION; consumers and producers, manufactures and investors, and some get dividends while others get wages, if they’re lucky, enough to buy food with.
Anyhow I have been for a long time aware of shortcomings of my own cultural background, and longsuits of others, as well as the difficulty of not really having a home culture, either with the dominant or the “subdominant” ones. Towards the end of my life, most of the extreme struggles have been with people who have plenty for themselves, and yet chose to steal anyhow, to get more, while leaving my children bereft of what they’d have had with a more balanced worldview, where “live and let live” is a reality, except where there’s a legitimate risk to anyone, based on prior destruction or threats. I have had a lot of thought, most of it pretty painful, on what does or does not cause an individual to become a home or family terrorist — and what causes others to turn a very blind eye to the obvious need for intervention, once the damages start.
And as to what I’d be doing absent this fight, and still plan to, with what time and energy is left.
And of how ongoing social, cultural abuse literally sucks the blood out of, saps the energy (the creative energies) of a society, leaving it passive, and increasingly callous to each other — not a good place to be.
Sometimes looking at different centuries and cultures, or about America a few decades earlier, seems to help.
Anyhow, here’s more regarding TYNDALE:
(from a site specializing in older manuscripts)
Tyndale was a theologian and scholar who translated the Bible into an early form of Modern English. He was the first person to take advantage of Gutenberg’s movable-type press for the purpose of printing the scriptures in the English language. Besides translating the Bible, Tyndale also held and published views which were considered heretical, first by the Catholic Church, and later by the Church of England which was established by Henry VIII. His Bible translation also included notes and commentary promoting these views. Tyndale’s translation was banned by the authorities, and Tyndale himself was burned at the stake in 1536, at the instigation of agents of Henry VIII and the Anglican Church.
The Early Years of William Tyndale
Tyndale enrolled at Oxford in 1505, and grew up at the University. He received his Master’s Degree in 1515 at the age of twenty-one! He proved to be a gifted linguist. One of Tyndale’s associates commented that Tyndale was “so skilled in eight languages – Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, English, and German, that whichever he speaks, you might think it his native tongue!” This gift undoubtedly aided him in his successful evasion of the authorities during his years of exile from England.
Early Controversy Surrounding Tyndale
Around 1520, William Tyndale became a tutor in the family of Sir John Walsh, at Little Sodbury in Gloucestershire. Having become attached to the doctrines of the Reformation, and devoted himself to the study of the Scriptures, the open avowal of his sentiments in the house of Walsh, his disputes with Roman Catholic dignitaries there, and especially his preaching, excited much opposition, and led to his removal to London (about Oct., 1523), where he began to preach, and made many friends among the laity, but none among church leaders….
Unfortunately for him personally, fortunately for following generations, his life’s calling, sensed apparently from a very early age, included confronting the status quo. He chose to live, while he could, with his conscience, rather than betray it and live a lie to the evidence in front of his eyes, testifying to “spin” on the book which was politically safer. I think that once one starts on this path, it gets rockier and tougher year after year, but it is also healthier personally to climb, rather than to reject what’s clearly in front of one’s vision and seek to instead “go with the flow” and coast with the tides of society and fortune.
So, about Blogging these Family COurt issues, and the underlying Economic Issues they entail, while in many respects “on the run” and without a real “home” in any sense of the word….
In that comparison only (and WITHOUT attempting to compare talent — I don’t have that training or gift of languages, only an ability to see certain past some finely-spun rhetoric and see where apparently conflicting rhetoric actually converges [to consider alternate interpretations and viewpoints, and see who seems to have developed them), and a strong desire to make this known, understanding the high cost of “getting it wrong” to society. I don’t know where it comes from, I just know it’s there.
I believe most longstanding “problems” either have actual causes, or (when they are social and economic), that what’s a problem for one sector, is a profit for the other. And that this is where words and deeds point in different directions, creating a new reality called, “lies,” a.k.a. “PR” (public relations).
I am “narrating” somewhat on the run (not geographically, but in other ways) and not up to that quality of work; however, obviously, I do not want to end up like Tyndale. But it’s clear that there’s a danger in standing up to “abuse,” or in standing up to people pretending to stand up to abuse, but not actually willing to.
I believe that in the long run, more truth = more liberty, less bloodshed; that less-truth = more bloodshed. That you can’t have a healthy society where people have “outsourced” truth-finding to the paid prophets. We each have to make time for it.
In the matter of this economy, there is a specific and intentional plan that some will NOT have time to “see” and profit from knowing the underlying truths, and among those plans are the basic workforce and school models. The biggests profits lie in the myths, or in proprietary knowledge about legal loopholes (like tax loopholes) or private connections with others.
Hopefully that makes some sense. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. WYSIWYG in this blog. I’ve tried to improve “on the run” some aspects; if there are months where you see more “tables” and less images — those were periods I didn’t have access to a normal laptop for input.
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