Complacently Ignorant Fascist Attack

At a park community center in Topeka, Kansas, I went with Aunts Bertha and Hilda to a special Saturday lunch thing, chili and potato soup, and it turned out to be sponsored (or at least frequented by) at least one politician, a Democrat. She’s running against this white male Republican representative to whom I send lots of complaint letters and petitions via e-mail.
The politicians stopped at our table and introduced herself and let us know she was running against him. She also said that she thinks he’s a nice person but that an issue he doesn’t address is getting jobs for people, he thinks that people either are rich or are lazy even though people who are not rich are, surprise, very hard workers (from what I see, harder workers than those pricks who are CEOs and the like). She talked about how the country is divided between the people who have lots of money and people who are poor. Auntie Hilda, on the other hand, went on a spiel about how she doesn’t think outsourcing is such a bad thing, because she just looked at her house assessment and was alarmed that people here in Kansas have houses that costs ten times as much as hers. Let’s disregard the fact that there’s a recession going on, hello, and that there are a lot more people who are struggling than there are people living in million dollar mansions.
When it came out that the politician who was speaking to us was a Democrat, Aunt Bertha sat back and said, “Oh, well, then forget it,” in a you-are-dismissed-and-I’m-not-listening-to-you sort of way. She proceeded to complain about getting political e-mails from her niece, T, "one of those east coast California liberals," with a scathing wave of her hand. I am glad that Aunt Bertha is not a writer, because today I came to the conclusion that she’s similar to that lunatic Anne Coulter. But I digress. The politician (too bad I can’t remember her name) asked each of us if we like this female politician. When she asked me if I liked her, I made a thoughtful, hesitant facial expression, reluctant to say in front of these republican relatives that I find her too conservative for my tastes, and Aunt Bertha said cheerfully of me, “She’s quiet.”
Oh, so she has noticed how I refrain from saying anything around her, her husband Mr. NRA, and Aunt Hilda when the topic of conversation is politics—the reason being not that I’m apolitical, but because I have been severely persecuted all my life and have an absolute horror of being persecuted and am attempting to avoid it and to stay on their good side, especially given that I “got the house” and all that. And, of course, I’m a radical with these delusional republican (a.k.a. fascist or simply white male supremacist war-mongering fundamentalist christian) relatives living up the street.
Next our companion asked Aunt Bertha what she thinks of a particular female Democrat currently in a state office, and she said, “Oh, she’s OK.” This gave the politician hope, and she explained that she’s moderate something something, much like this other politician (in other words, conservative by my standards—but at least she’s grass roots enough to be here in person talking with us, and since she’s a young female there’s some hope).
After she was at our table, I thought I could breathe and once more get by without letting my delusional aunts know anything about my politics. I should perhaps mention that I was wearing a Bohemian shirt and a great many Indian beads, with a black 1820s-style homemade frockcoat, and that these two aunts have seen me dressed like this plenty of times. Politics and costume do mix. I might also mention that they both know perfectly well that I’m a single female, a writer, and an artist. Therefore, duh, obviously I have a brain and use it, and anyone who’s a single female who values her freedom, a writer, and an artist, and who carries around a canvas bag with a Natural Resources Defense Council on the side, and who is a vegetarian…well, obviously such a person wouldn’t be a republican. Oh, yes, and they’ve seen little Buddhas suddenly appearing around the house—me and my sculpting projects, that I make out of materials from Hobby Lobby, which I have reason to suspect is run by a fundamentalist Christian—the joke’s on that store manager, since I buy arts and crafts supplies at their store for shameless Pagan and Buddhist projects. But I digress.
Well, I wasn’t off the hook yet. A guy with a clipboard came along. He went from table to table asking people if they were registered to vote as Democrats. I think he just wanted to sign people up who were not already registered to vote as Democrats. Oddly, I’m not sure if I am registered under Democrat or under Independent. Hopefully the latter. When he came to our table, he asked my aunts first, and they made it quite clear that they’re delusional fascist penis-worshipers I mean republicans. Then he came to me. I opened my mouth and paused. Bloody hell. In the hot seat. Aunt Bertha looked at me suspiciously and said, “Are you registered Democrat?” Finally, out with it, I lifted my chin, smirked, and told the guy, looking at him and not at either of my aunts, “I’m with the Green Party.” Just imagine the reactions I got from these delusional relatives.
“Green Party!”
“Good lord!”
Yeah, did I mention that the reason I get quiet around these Topeka relatives when the topic is politics is because I DON’T LIKE BEING PERSECUTED?! Oh how dare I have a brain and use it. How dare I believe in honoring the environment, not raping it. Time to whip out that button that says, “Vote Republican. It’s easier than thinking.” Actually, I don’t own such a button, but I had a college friend who wore it on her denim jacket, and it put me in stitches.
“Is there Green Party in Kansas?” the guy with the clipboard said. I just shrugged and said, “Yes, though I certainly don’t have many people to vote for!” and that sent him away to another table. I should have perhaps told him that since there aren’t many Green Party candidates on the ballot, I vote for a lot Democrats.
“What are you doing in Kansas?” one or both of my aunts said.
They—particularly Aunt Bertha—gave me grief about the Green Party thing. My delusional aunt made the inexplicable comment, “You should be in the ocean, sinking ships.” I sneered at her and said in an openly scathing voice, “What are you talking about?” Given that this git was the one who supported the party of violence, that was extremely hypocritical. She oh so ironically was under the impression that I must not know much about the Green Party and said, “You’d better research carefully.” I said in my dangerous deep voice, with another sneer, “I do research carefully.” It was on the tip of my tongue to add, “Practice what you preach. Perhaps if you’d pay attention to the right news, instead of the most ultraconservative news, you’d notice that the Bush Administration is trying to open up the National Parks for oil drilling and snow mobiles and the like, not to mention generally raping the environment every possible way, and that they’re taking away women’s rights to safe abortions and birth control, and that Bush is stacking the federal courts with a bunch of racist, homophobic, misogynist Christian Coalition judges. And it goes on.” And, gee, how about the subject of war? That’s a big tangent right there. Personally, I’ve become infinitely more conscientious about nonviolence and pacifism and generally going as much as possible in the opposite direction of this abomination called the Bush Administration.” Not to mention all the more away from national boundaries and this “us and them” mentality that seems to be quite the norm with ignorant Americans. Oh, yes, it’s overwhelming ironic for a republican to think that I must not understand the Green Party in order to vote Green Party; if you vote republican, and especially if you support the Bush Administration, you are either delusional or evil or a combo platter. Absolute blindness and complacent ignorance.
I will give credit for Aunt Hilda for admitting, “I was more liberal when I was your age.” (She’s not another Ann Coulter, though perhaps more like Phyllis Schlafly.) And what happened? I wondered. Did you wake up and decide for no explicable reason that war is good and peace is bad and white male christians who make over $80,000 a year are superior species to everyone else?! Andrea Dworkin warned me several years ago, when I read a speech of hers addressed to college students, in which she commented how it’s funny, but you do become more conservative as you get older, so while you’re still young, you’d better do as much activism as you can. I took that as a warning—I shall make sure that I continue to be radical, even when I’m ninety years old.
As I’ve no doubt mentioned before, for women who are conservative, the joke is on them. They’re against their own kind, not to mention against the environment, peace, truth, justice, and freedom, all of which are tied in with civil rights and women’s rights—which is to say: power with others, not over or under others.
After this torturous luncheon experience, I drove off to the local bookstore. One of my former coworkers greeted me and said, “How’ve you been?” I said somewhat dramatically, “I came here, because it is a haven from republican relatives!” She thought this meant I had out of town house guests, but I explained briefly about going to a lunch event that turned out to be sponsored by Democratic politicians, and how it came out that my aunts are republicans and I’m Green Party, and they gave me grief about, gasp, being a liberal. As my former coworker put it, “Sanctuary! Sanctuary!” I take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the bookstore. Or something like that.
That night, I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, feeling as though I should just pack up and get the hell out of here immediately. I had no inclination to stay in the Midwest, perhaps to even stay in the United States, for another week. The persecution had gotten to me really badly, to the point where I was in a constant state of rage, rage, rage, and indignation. I desperately wanted to never see these local aunts ever again, to not live in the same city as they. I realized that for some time now, whenever these aunts were around, I behaved, thought, and felt like someone who’s surrounded by spies. I put on a mask, walked on eggshells, and would rather talk about mundane material things just to avoid anything that leaned toward religion or politics, and for someone who believes that “the personal is political,” all kinds of things are political, including religion. Although I’m not in danger of literal imprisonment and torture, I notice a similarity between my lifestyle and that of a Buddhist nun living under the watchful eye of Chinese pseudo-Communist authorities. In the presence of conservative relatives, when they talk politics, I am quiet and deadpan, but when they’re not around, I’m a determined activist and artist against the very evil that they support.

I do not need praise, really I don’t. I’m stronger than that. I have never been socially accepted, never respected, and I have always been a fish out of water. That’s nothing new, so perhaps it shouldn’t bother me, and I shouldn’t let it bother me. Through my miserable childhood and adolescence, and often enough since graduating from college, I have been reviled, misunderstood, alienated, same old, same old. I try to be strong, but sometimes I get so depressed I fall into this wallow-in-self-pity hole. It’s absolutely absurd, but it’s certainly a reminder that I’m merely human. That is, I am a human with creative genius in a society that thinks art comes out of thin air, not from artists, especially not female artists. I am also a thinker in a society that doesn’t believe in thinking. Actually, it’s quite a complement for complacently ignorant white male supremacists to sneer at me for not being delusional like them. They can go ahead and be complacently ignorant, white male supremacist, war-mongering fascists: they will die long before I, and meanwhile more and more people will think progressively, and therefore penis-worshipping dominator culture will fade away more and more.
A supportive cousin—yes, I do have such a thing, though she lives in California and we communicate by e-mail, while here I am living among enemies--suggested that I send my complacently ignorant aunts a letter about refraining from persecuting me for thinking and living, and I’ve come up with the following, composed primarily in my head while at work. I shall only send it to Aunt Adolf Hitler, the one who went on and on, rather than Aunt Hilda, the one who admitted to having been more liberal when she was younger (and wiser).
Although the following letter contains the somewhat accusatory word "you" and the phrase "Georgie Porgie and his minions," I made a serious effort to make it nonviolent, especially since I talk about nonviolence in the letter! Unlike certain relatives, at least I am willing to acknowledge that I have plenty of room for improvement and am attempting to become a better person and studying up on nonviolence. After much indecision about this, I figured I may as well send this letter, because a) it proves that I'm not so delusional or ignorant as my delusional and ignorant aunt thinks I am, and b) I have no inclination to socialize with her anymore, for the (hopefully very short) time that she will remain in Topeka. I have, in the past week, visualized myself going over to her house for dinner and getting ganged up on by all three republicans, for no doubt she will have told Uncle Ken (Mr. NRA) that I support the Green Party. So sending this letter will probably spare my being in a face-to-face situation like that, because I’ll never be invited to the psychopath’s house again. That is not exactly a great loss to my social life.
All told, the following letter is very fair and nonviolent compared to the way my aunts persecuted me. And I have brooded so much in the past week--they actually gave me high blood pressure for several days, along with weird dreams.

IN RESPONSE TO A SMUGLY UNENLIGHTENED BULLY
Closed-minded bullies have persecuted me for as long as I can remember—you are nothing new. You have merely joined their ranks. Persecuting me will not transform me into a delusional, complacently ignorant, penis-worshipping, homophobic, white male supremacist, war mongering, and environment-raping fascist. In fact, your offensive behavior only inspires me to work all the harder at making the world a better place.
Ever since I moved to Topeka, I have made a diplomatic point of not commenting whenever you brought politics into conversation. Despite how blind and nauseating I find your views, I have never said any word of criticism, out of diplomacy and my absolute aversion toward persecution. People who support republicans—which is to say the white male supremacist party--naturally do not have the word “tolerance” in their vocabulary, and therefore it has always been obvious to me that if I let you know my political beliefs, you would persecute me. Surprise, surprise, that’s exactly what you did.
Complacently ignorant humans attacked radicals like Susan B. Anthony, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. These are radicals who improved the world and have been a great inspiration for other people who believe in thinking, such as myself. By persecuting me, you do not make the world a better place or make yourself a better person: in fact, you do quite the opposite. Bullies and intolerant fascists do not make the world a better place; they do quite the opposite.
Last time I checked, thinking was still legal in this country. Although Georgie Porgie and his minions obviously frown on it. They are attempting to set women’s rights back two thousand years, attempting to write homophobia into the Constitution, trying to turn the National Parks into wastelands, illegally invading third world countries with lies for excuses and following such behavior up with other lies contradicting the previous ones, and stacking the courts with racist, misogynist, homophobic, fundamentalist christian judges.
And just for the record, violence is always wrong, which is to say war is always wrong. If that concept is beyond your comprehension, refer to the works of Gandhi and the Dalai Lama for details. Personally, I’ve become infinitely more conscientious about nonviolence and pacifism and generally going as much as possible in the opposite direction of this Bush Administration. Nonviolence does not only apply to literal war, but to everyday life. That includes refraining from persecuting, verbally or otherwise, people who think differently than you do.
As for “What are you doing in Kansas,” another blatant example of destructive rather than constructive communication: the truth is, just because I live in a lunatic asylum does not mean I should be insane. My immediate physical environment is extremely trivial compared to the worlds inside my head, and compared to my citizenship in the global community. As Virginia Woolf put it, “As I am a woman, I have no country. As I am a woman, I want no country. As I am a woman, my country is the world.” I am nurturing the whole world. A refusal to acknowledge that we’re all on this earth together, and to think of “us and them,” is a truly archaic mindset.
To quote Ralph Waldo Emerson, “To be great is to be misunderstood.” Persecuting me because I am working to make this a better world, and persecuting me because I have the audacity to have a brain and use it, is inexcusable and un-American. I know better than to expect you to be proud of me for working to make the world a better place, but the least you can do is refrain from persecute me for it.


It is rather typical of fascist bullies, such as Nazis and pseudo-Communist authorities, to bully and oppress and shout down anyone who disagrees with them, which is to say anyone who believes in peace, truth, and justice. You conservative humanoids use violence against people who think differently, since by definition you don’t believe in nonviolence—otherwise you wouldn’t be conservatives and wouldn’t vote republican. I shouldn’t expect better from you, really.
In response to the above letter, Aunt Bertha sent me a totally insane “letter:” THIS IS THE STUPIDEST BULL SHIT I’VE EVER READ. I DON’T CARE ABOUT YOUR “SEXUAL ORIENTATION.” YOUR INSULTS OF ME ARE BULL SHIT. I’VE KNOWN FOR YEARS THAT YOU SUPPORT THOSE ENVIRONMENT GROUPS. WHY DON’T YOU TRY LIVING OUTSIDE YOUR HEAD FOR A CHANGE AND FIND OUT HOW REAL PEOPLE LIVE AND WORK. I DON’T CARE ABOUT YOUR LITTLE LIFE.
Talk about the ultimate in self-righteous hypocrisy and utter barbarism and violence. This humanoid damns itself with its own words. I decided to write a response, just to get it out of my system, although since communicating with such a psychopath is totally futile, I have no intention of sharing the letter with this human.
Undear Humanoid,
Congratulations! You’ve declared yourself a patriarchal, barbaric, psychopathic philistine with absolutely no redeeming qualities, and you will make the world a better place when you die. And, incidentally, you will probably come back as a tapeworm. You damn yourself with your own words, and you’re too stupid to even know it. I’d like to point out that the main point of my letter is that I would appreciate it if she’d refrain from persecuting me, and that I support nonviolence, which includes the absence of verbal abuse. So what does she do? Verbally abuse me all the more, in a truly barbaric, irrational, and unforgivable manner.
The list of insults that, funny thing, you assume are aimed at you, are my general description of people who vote Republican, as you would figure out if you had an adult reading level. However, you have now proved that these words describe you very well.
If you don’t care about my alleged sexual orientation, then why did you bring it up? Just because I’m not a homophobe and don’t like fascists bigots putting homophobia into the Constitution doesn’t mean I’m gay. You have simply proved that you are a homophobe, even boasted about it, and that you have extremely poor reading comprehension. Perhaps you also accuse me of being gay just because of the fact that I haven’t married the first macho creep I met, or because I’m—horrors! —a “mere female” who has the audacity to enjoy what freedom she can get in this society and is thus extremely single and celibate. Just for the record, being celibate is infinitely better than cohabiting with a patriarchal, macho perp.
It is unfathomably ironic that you slander my sexuality, when your own is obviously questionable. Nobody who is truly female, regardless of that person’s biological accoutrements, takes patriarchy to such an extreme as you do. You are living, shameless proof that one doesn’t need a penis in order to be a patriarchal, Goddess-rejecting fascist.
Another way that you have proved yourself to have poor reading comprehension is to, ironically, accuse me of insulting you, when I was merely describing what the so-called “republican” party stands for. You have now proven that you also stand for all these evil things, and you’re too messed up and evil to be ashamed of this.
As for my supporting the environment, anyone with more than five brain cells would consider that an admirable trait. Yet, strangely, you make it sound like a crime. That means you’re infinitely more screwed up than I ever would have imagined, although since you’re married to a human who has NRA mailings displayed on the coffee table, perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. If you shit in your bed, you have to sleep in excrement. Gaia, the Earth Mother, is here to honor, not to rape. Raping the earth and turning it into a wasteland where the water is undrinkable and the air unbreathable, means that humans will be unable to live on the earth. So even if you don’t care about nature or pretty scenery, one would think that you’d at least be concerned about humans, since you are, according to rumor, a human yourself. After all, as you conservatives have yet to figure out (because you wouldn’t be conservatives if you knew this) everything is interconnected.

It is unfathomably hypocritical of you to accuse me of not knowing “how real people work and live.” You haven’t had a paying job in ten years, and you sit around a cushy house with three computers, two scanners, cable TV and a cell phone, while I’m working overtime at the office. You have never even worked in customer service jobs, but only office jobs, many of which were probably cushier than my current job. I, on the other hand, worked in customer service jobs for eight years. During that time, I saw people from all walks of life in urban St. Louis—in fact, the St. Louis Symphony is housed in the slums, and so by “all walks of life” I am including homeless people. All kinds of malicious, nasty people have bitten my head off at work. I also lived in a small apartment inside the city of St. Louis, in a racially mixed neighborhood, on a narrow one-way street where people parked on both sides of the street. Thus, of the two of us, despite my having a brain and talent unlike the git, and despite my being a dreamer, I am not the one who doesn’t know how other people live and work.
If you knew “how real people live and work,” you wouldn’t vote republican, since republicans only represent domineering and arrogant white male fundamentalist christians who make at least $80,000 a year, the people you support by voting Republican, particularly by supporting the Bush Administration. “Real people” are much more diverse than that. Of course, the republican party is supported by ultra-conservative, greedy, selfish, materialist, corrupt, dishonest jerks who run corporate America, despite your hypocritical lies about “a lot of these liberals are rich, and it’s because they don’t know how real people live and work,” not to mention your ludicrous notion that somehow republicans are the party for the people. The only person you’re fooling is yourself. Your fascist Republicans are the ones who ignore the fact that we are all connected and stealing from the poor and giving to the rich is wrong. Yes, I’m back to that interconnectedness thing: people who become millionaires or billionaires because they think they’re entitled to all the money in the world while other people are homeless are, invariably, ultraconservative perps and invariably do this, just as they rape the environment, because they are too shortsighted to have ethics and because they don’t comprehend the simple concept that we are all interconnected.
Real people include citizens of a poor third world country, fifty percent of whom are under the age of fifteen, upon which your precious Georgie Porgie drops bombs. Real people don’t like being raped, tortured, or murdered, or to see such things happen to their loved ones. Real people include the fifty-two percent of the population that happens to be female, and real females (which obviously excludes you) do not like to have their rights to safe abortions and birth control taken away from them by a bunch of white male creeps. Real people don’t like having toxic levels of mercury in their water, or snowmobiles polluting their national parks, or acid rain and lumberers taking away their forests. Real people know that there are much better solutions to conflicts than violence, much better and more effective and more permanent solutions. Real people don’t like to work their asses off for minimum wage only to hand that money over to the greedy, selfish millionaires that you, as a Republican, keep wealthy. Real people don’t like doing this while they see their children gunned down in the inner cities. A real person has a conscience. Real people have wisdom, compassion, and kindness. You are utterly devoid of such virtues, which you obviously don’t value in the least.

Oh, so you don’t care about my “little life.” Call me crazy, but somehow I think that creating art and saving the world are infinitely more important than your directionless genealogy research and your sitting around in front of the TV for hours on end watching the Food Channel. Given that I am putting a great deal of effort into making the world a better place, it is unfathomably ironic that such a shallow materialist trivializes me.
It is a fact of life that some people are artists and writers and philosophers. If we didn’t have artists, we wouldn’t have artwork. If we didn’t have writers, you wouldn’t have mystery or romance novels to read—yes, even though that’s all you read, you seem to think I’m not in touch with the alleged world, even though I read plenty of sociological nonfiction. It’s not my fault that you’re so shallow and unimaginative that this material world is the only one you acknowledge. A thinker such as myself is someone who observes her surroundings and comes up with ways that society can change for the better. If she had any clue how other people live and work, she wouldn’t support the Republican Party, especially not the Bush Administration.

If you’d live inside your empty head for a change, maybe you’d actually learn how to think. Not to mention develop an appreciation for other peoples’ ability to think. Who knows, you might even figure out that thinking is a good thing and that everyone has a right to think. Even you have a right to think, but you don’t take advantage of it, and instead you grasp onto wrong views as though they were life-saving rafts. If you’d take your head out of your ass once in a while, you’d figure out that power over others is wrong and that there are other possibilities, vast improvements that society needs to go through and is gradually working toward. But no, you live in some bizarre, sick reality in which truth and peace are “bull shit” as you so eloquently phrase it, and where abuse and malice are the best way to treat others. Someone who hasn’t had a paying job in ten years and who sits around a cushy house with three computers, two scanners, cable TV and a cell phone, while I’m working overtime at the office, has no room to accuse me of not know “how other people live and work.” In fact, I don’t believe you’ve ever even worked in customer service jobs; you’ve only worked office jobs, many of which were probably cushier than my current job. I, on the other hand, worked in customer service jobs for eight years. During that time, I saw people from all walks of life in urban St. Louis—in fact, the St. Louis Symphony is housed in the slums, so by “all walks of life” I am including homeless people. All kinds of malicious, nasty people have bitten my head off at work—although coming to think of you, you are the only humanoid I know whom I consider to be genuinely evil, in spite of all those nasty customers. I also lived in a small apartment inside the city of St. Louis, in a racially mixed neighborhood, on a narrow one-way street where people parked on both sides of the street. So don’t get all holier-than-thou and pretend like I’m the one who doesn’t know “how real people live and work.”
You add more insult to more injury by, essentially, saying I shouldn’t be a writer or an artist. After all, writers in particular live inside their heads. It’s called creating the worlds in which fiction takes place. No doubt you think that the insipid romance novels and mystery novels that you read grow on trees, since you otherwise would respect the mind and lifestyle of a writer, rather than have this attitude that writers shouldn’t exist. You are the ultimate philistine: you think that writers and artists have no right to exist, or failing that, have no right to be artists and writers, which is the same thing as not having a right to exist. Creating art is, for me, like breathing. I can’t help it if I have things like talent and imagination and creativity. And like environmental activism, anyone with more than five brain cells considers talent, imagination and creativity to be really good traits.
Anyone who is truly spiritual knows that this physical, material reality is not the only reality, and that there’s nothing whatever wrong with thinking and creativity. You must really disapprove of the lifestyles of monks and nuns, not just the Buddhist ones but even the Christian ones, despite your alleged religion, which from what I have seen consists of pretending like Christianity is the only religion. You obviously are very shallow and unimaginative and don’t value spirituality, philosophy, or imagination, ironically considering that you reads fiction—you’re one of those fools who think that art comes from nowhere.
Your poor reading comprehension pretty much screams for attention when one considers that the whole point of my little essay is that I would appreciate it if you’d refrain from persecuting me and that thinking is legal. And yet, oddly, you verbally abuse me infinitely worse, in an even more fascist/patriarchal/evil and inexcusable manner, and you advertise, even more, the ludicrous fact that you’re such a total fool that you don’t think that people who are not fascist patriarchal perps like yourself have a right to think.
Go ahead and be as unenlightened and white male supremacist as you want. Go ahead and be a total psychopath. Go ahead and be as determined as you like to not become a better person. These faults are your own problem, not mine. You will die long before I, and I shall continue changing the world when I’m not dancing on your grave. When you abuse me for not being a white male supremacist and for being an artist and writer and for thinking and acting and living like an artist and a writer, then you step over the line. Your behavior is completely uncalled for and ludicrously stupid.

After a lifelong fascination with nineteenth century Western culture in particular, I have just lately, shortly after the bombs started falling on Iraq, become truly fascinated with Eastern culture and religion/ philosophy, and as if to make up for lost time, I’m obsessed, particularly with Tibet. All of this, of course, is tied in with developing a more global perspective and becoming more conscientious about nonviolence and pacifism, since 9/11/01. I think it is also a good sign that I am no longer so Eurocentric, and this interest in cultures that are not predominantly white or Christian is at some level in reaction to my conservative relatives and the current fascist regime that has taken over this country.
While conservatives such as these relatives have if anything regressed into even more unenlightenment since 9/11, I have gone in the opposite direction, as I’ve observed many liberals and radicals have. The flag-waving yahoos, and God-Bless-America crowd turned my stomach from the very start, making me think, “Goddess bless peace and understanding.” After 9/11, people should be acutely aware of the folly of having an “us and them” mindset, the very sort of mindset that causes violent acts such as the planes crashing into the World Trade Center. As Gandhi said, an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
Associating with fools, specifically with white male supremacist relatives is, I find, psychologically and emotionally oppressive. It hinders my progress in becoming a better person, having such negative and violent communication. This is not merely a self-centered issue: the more I am held back, suffocated, prevented from progressing inside me, the less likely am I to change the world as much as I would like. Put simply: if you can’t even save yourself, you cannot save the world.