For women everywhere, we do get close to this thing called equality. We can see it in the eyes of the oppressors, they are not smug anymore, they are not anxious, but they are not smug. And for those women who bow down to a God that tells them that they are inferior to a man, stay away from my daughter! I don’t want her tainted with your poison.
To all my sisters in the fight for freedom, I tell you that we come close and closer. We are no longer easily tormented as we once were.
We have redress, though it often fails, yes, we still have redress. Living yesterday, there was no redress, there was only punishment.
Men believed they were entitled to women. They grabbed, beat, raped and sold and gave away women as they desired. Because men are bigger and stronger, they used their muscle to reinforce their opinion, wishes and desires onto others. They beat on all of those who disagreed or otherwise made it difficult for the man to find comfort. He ruled supreme in his home, in his community and in his country.
We make slow progress; we often have to argue with our own to make our progress. When we work hard to go forward it is often a woman who tells us to back off, or perhaps that we are in the wrong for not being gentle. Women will often be the ones to tell us the appropriate role of a woman. Because women often take on the opinion of the oppressors, women will join in the fight against equality. Again, keep these women away from your daughters so that they don’t taint our future freedoms and bring us back to an age of submission to those who are physically stronger.
There will come a day when the beatings will stop. Physical strength will not rule homes and societies. But no strength will rule. We will find ways of living together reasonably and equitably. We won’t have to keep others down in order to feel up. We will be comfortable with our space in the universe. That space will be full of abundance and life.
Dissecting a conversation after it has occurred- conversations don’t need review, they are what they are. Sometimes you may need to process the conversation, but that is vastly different than judging and taking it apart to judge it.
Commenting on dress or style – is automatically judgmental. No use denying this fact.
If you call something or someone trashy- it is definitely judgmentalness when you believe the least about someone else.
Reviewing an experience ad nauseam- if you need to discuss the experience beyond processing it, you are definitely judging the experience based on how you felt. If you didn’t like the experience you are sure to judge it harshly
Any review of an experience is an opportunity to judge and to judge all of the humans involved in the experience. Leave the experience as it is.
Who knows why humans are so judgmental towards each other. There are some benefits of judging. Knowing who you want to work with is one such judgment that is important. What humans have done with it from an evolutionary standpoint is make judging into a sport. This sport has some very negative consequences.
Being human is to be judgmental, it’s judgemental, it’s just so very important to recognize it.
This is what you get when you Google “Abusive”: Abusive — extremely offensive and insulting. “he became quite abusive and swore at her”.
What President Trump has been doing with female reporters is quite abusive.
President Trump-Mean as a snake
Let’s call it. President Trump is abusing female reporters:
To Nancy Cordes, CBS’s White House correspondent, he said: “Are you stupid? Are you a stupid person? You’re just asking questions because you’re a stupid person.”
About New York Times correspondent Katie Rogers: “third rate … ugly, both inside and out.”
To Bloomberg White House correspondent Catherine Lucey: “Quiet. Quiet, piggy.”
Robert Reich is calling it aging. I’m calling it abuse of women.
I recently had a spirited discussion with my male friend, who stated that he thought that people are being victims “many people are living from a disposition of being a victim.” “They go to the notion that they are being oppressed somehow, even when they are not.”
I believe that this is true. It is easy to develop a victim mindset within American Culture. “Martin Seligman’s research “learned helplessness” is strongly related, showing that experiencing a series of uncontrollable negative shocks can lead to a passive, “victim” mindset.” Quoting Google with research attached.
I thought we were heading towards one of our interesting debates that reflected some of the information included in this research.
We did not have that conversation. What I recognized instead was an idea that those that see themselves as victims should receive legal consequences when their behavior became reckless. I perceived that point of view as an attack. That’s because I feel victimized by my culture. I am a woman who has suffered many consequences put in place because of my gender. I don’t want anyone from outside punishing me for my point of view. I missed his point which is that, when your victim mentality makes you a vandal, you should be prosecuted for your actions. This is a good point. However,
My thinking is negative in that, I watched the Capitol 1/6/21 insurrection and the consequence to the criminals who perpetrated it, which was very little, because of the commutation of sentences by DJT.
I am back to zero and instead of seeing a judicial consequence for victims, I see chaos until our world is righted from these wrongs committed by our highest trusted and elected officials.
Define victim? After the Vietnam war thousands of Officers in the Armed Forces were RIFed (meaning a reduction in force which led to being terminate/fired). To a man, every single one I met, quit filing their income taxes or cheated on their income taxes. Not one of them ever trusted the Federal government again.
Photo by Ann on Unsplash“Everything about it was wrong except the Soldiers“
In retrospect, I am ashamed of what I said to him. “Your birth family was professional at victimization – you recognize it but are blind to other things.” Of course, he was angry with me. That’s one side, and it is a valid one, the other side is that if you want to have a scholarly opinion about something, you better damn well plumb the depths of your soul so that you can speak about the concept fairly. Otherwise, you are just Stephen Miller on steroids, out there amplifying the conversation of “others do not have the privilege and rights that I enjoy and I must destroy anyone who doesn’t agree with my personal opinion.”
Back to the concepts of victimization and victims. The victim mindset is pervasive in our culture, but that is because our culture is especially mean to those who live below the middle class. We allow them to suffer the most and pay the most for the privilege of America. No one missed the story of Warren Buffet who paid less in taxes than his secretary. No one misses the brutality of ICE in the headlines today. Anyone who believes that the brutality of ICE is a new phenomenon, think again. This brutality is pervasive in the blue culture of policing in America.
If you have ever worked in an office environment you are acquainted with the egos of any supervisor. People who use their positions to lay blame and shame to subordinates, it’s the American Way. Anyone who says different has never worked more than one job.
We don’t have family leave, we don’t have vacations, we don’t have housing, we don’t have any number of things that would allow Americans to build a family with happiness.
But to my friend’s point. You can be victimized, you can even be a victim, but you cannot violently torture others with your own personal torture. To my friend’s point, downtown Portland is effectively closed down because vandals keep causing massive property damage. My friend is angry and wants the vandals prosecuted and sees this issue as a DOJ problem. I do not. Fixing this issue externally with jail time will only increase the vandal’s victim mindset of being persecuted.
I don’t see an external fix to this internal problem. If you have been victimized, you do not have to have a victim mindset, you can break through to a different and better reality.
But fixing victimization in our culture is amazingly complex and requires a focus on Americans and away from elected officials, their collective egos, war and personal aggrandizement at the cost of the most vulnerable. In other words our social structure gives all to the winners and nothing to those who serve them.
Americans are being victimized, and they are the victims – mindset or not.
I’ve just watched an interview on Sunday Morning with Amy Coney Barrett. I am a trained counselor who has spent thousands of hours listening to patients justify their actions. We justify in order to hang onto our beliefs about ourselves. In other words, if I’m a good daughter, I won’t yell at mama. So, if I do yell at mama, I have to produce a justification. Particularly mean people spend a lot of time justifying themselves. You’ll find it by the boatload with domestic abusers. They must find a way to show the world that they are good people, so they spend most of their time telling the world how it was the victim’s actions that forced them to act cruelly.
That’s what Amy Coney Barrett is doing. She has seen the results of her vote regarding Dobbs and she needs to tell us why, because she is a good person. Her entire book is dedicated to self justification. The truth is she unleashed the dogs. As a self proclaimed defender of women, she has instead become a part of the legions of humans who harm women.
Of course, it’s not her fault. She was returning a piece of legislation to the states. So she says. Again, she unleashed the wolves.
I’m exhausted with human posturing. Amy Coney Barrett you are the same as this: I’m a good person, I just had to sell drugs to survive.
She has a lot to justify, she has harmed America’s women more than can be counted.
Dobbs: “those are issues inherent in medical practice” The courts say “those calls are left to the democratic process”, again she unleashed the dogs. May the pain and anguish of a million women follow the Supreme Court to their graves.
The other question she didn’t answer this morning is her thoughts about the judicial branch being a check on the executive branch. She denies this simple fact, stating that it’s not up to her to monitor the presidency.
Regarding Trump overreaching the office of the president with illegal tariffs: “ it’s not our job to survey and decide whether the current occupant… in this particular moment to form a political view” That’s the job of journalists that’s the job of other politicians and the people.” It sounds like the tagline for this entire Supreme Court.
Excuse me, if what you say is correct, then the teachings of the entire national American school system, is wrong. The judicial and legislative branch are designed to be a check on the Executive branch and Ms. Barrett, you are not doing your job.
Are you currently paying $150 per month for electricity? Prepare yourself to pay $450 per month. The sad fact about our president is that he is a conman and a grifter, but that’s not unusual in the United States. That truth leaves him ignorant in so many areas. This is the land where senators and congressmen alike have sold out all Americans to capitalism, often ignorant of the consequences of their actions. But I digress…
There are three factors that are creating a perfect storm in the bid for electricity and energy.
JB Collection
1. AI is in a race currently using almost 5% of all U.S. electricity.
2. Trump has sold our available and unavailable energy, (example liquified natural gas LNG) to the European union.
Trump’s rush to win the Tariff war had him signing a deal with Europe. And America can’t fulfil the deal without serious changes to our capacity in the oil and gas industries. This will make Europe a serious competitor of the American people trying to heat or cool their homes.
Trump (as is the Congress) is invested in all of the old ways to produce energy: oil, gas and coal. While those industries pay off our elected officials, they are now working hard to ensure that they have no competition. Wind and sun energy are huge competitors of the old guard. While the new industries are working hard to get senate and congressional support for their products, it is very difficult if not impossible in Trump’s administration. We don’t know why except to comment that oil has always been a friend of Trump’s. Rex Tillerson, former CEO of ExxonMobil served as Trump’s Secretary of State during his first term. Chris Wright, another CEO in the oil and gas industry is the current Secretary of Energy.
Ironically, some of the top producers of wind energy are red states that received substantial grants from the Biden administration to scale up their industries. According to Climate News, a new bill passed by our congress, “reduced or eliminated many of the tax incentives offered to renewable energy projects.”
Now we circle back to item #1 which is AI. If you don’t realize it, let me tell you that AI is out of control. No legislation has been effectively implemented. If the current usage is 5% of energy consumption nationally with an increase to at least 12% by 2030, how will Mr. & Mrs. Smith compete? How will the town of Podunk, USA compete?
There is no comprehensive Federal law governing AI or data centers in the United States. There are some environmental protections setup regarding data centers that are not often enforced.
Americans, please consider your plan if your electricity costs double and then triple? Will you address Congress, will you assemble and march on Washington? It’s worth thinking about and it’s worth making a plan, because it’s coming.
You are not – in any way – doing anything for the American people
First, I did NOT give you permission to bombard my phone. How dare you? I am so sick of your daily pleas for money, it’s become disgusting.
I don’t respect you, I don’t respect the job you are doing and I won’t be donating any more.
I send monthly checks to AOC and Bernie Sanders along with EarthJustice, and for each donation I receive twenty texts from you – Democrats – asking for more.
AOC and Bernie register as Democrats, but they are much greater than Democrats. They are humans fighting for freedom, sacrificing for the common good and making sure that there is a goal. They have goals that I appreciate like Universal Healthcare. You see, because I am sick. So, every time there is a change in healthcare policy at the national legislative level, I immediately know and oftentimes I know because of my checking account. Almost always it costs me more money.
The Republicans have punished my household nonstop for decades. They are legislating my household into poverty. How you ask? Because I am sick and disabled. I am now retired, but I have been on disability payments since 2018.
I am keenly aware of what the various legislations are doing to my household. But I digress.
Stop texting me! Stop pretending like you have a party, you don’t. If all your leadership can produce is a “strongly worded letter”, then you are doomed.
I won’t follow Democrats, even though I am a registered Democrat. I am in the party of the people – whatever that is.
Between 2020 and 2023, the COVID-19 pandemic claimed the lives of 941,425 Americans over the age of 65. These deaths were not part of the expected mortality rates — they were above and beyond what we would normally see in this age group.
Each of these individuals was a parent, a grandparent, a neighbor, a friend. The emotional toll on families and communities is immeasurable. But there’s another side of this tragedy that isn’t often discussed — the financial impact on Social Security.
The average monthly Social Security benefit for a retiree is approximately $1,999.97. Multiply that by the number of seniors we lost, and you arrive at a shocking figure: $1.89 billion less paid out every month. That’s a total reduction of $22.7 billion per year in Social Security disbursements. These savings are not the result of policy or reform — they’re the result of mass loss of life.
And yet, even with these reduced outlays, we’re repeatedly told that Social Security is on the brink of collapse. While we must take the long-term health of the program seriously, it’s important to question the narrative that Social Security is irreparably broken. Recent years have brought unexpected relief to the system, albeit at a devastating human cost.
We can’t exaggerate the importance of the covid vaccine in ending this awful pandemic.
Concerning is the growing political opposition to vaccines. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the current United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, has repeatedly voiced distrust of vaccines, including those that have saved millions of lives during the pandemic.
This raises an urgent question: What happens if someone like RFK Jr. who has been given this office enacts policy based on personal vaccine skepticism? Medicare decides which vaccines to pay for primarily based on recommendations from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). RFK Jr. has replaced this Advisory Committee with the vaccine skeptical.
Here’s one possible outcome: Medicare and Medicaid could stop paying for vaccines, making them inaccessible to the very people who need them most. In my own town, a flu shot costs $135 if you purchase out of pocket. Many seniors and low-income families simply cannot afford that. Vaccination has never just been a personal choice — it’s a public health strategy. And policy decisions that undermine access could result in more preventable deaths, more strain on our healthcare system, and more unnecessary grief.
We must be able to talk about difficult truths. The Social Security system is not untouched by the pandemic — it has benefited financially from the loss of its recipients. And the future health of our elderly population is under threat if vaccine access is politicized or stripped away. But it’s not just the elderly, it’s anyone who benefits from protection from diseases, dangerous diseases that can cost you your life.
You don’t have to ask if it’s okay to protect your wealth against a “philandering or spendthrift husband”.
You don’t have to ask for advice about “should you” leave an abusive boyfriend.
You don’t have to pretend that your child doesn’t know that your husband: uses drugs, cheats, beats you or verbally abuses you, or all of the above. Your child knows it all, trust me, your child knows what happens at home.
My darling woman, you don’t have to hope that life will get better. You can make it better with different decisions.
JB Collection
You don’t have to think that you could do better unless you really can do better. Only you know that, no one else knows that. You are the one who determines whether you do well or not.
You do not have to hear another’s judgment and take it as your own. You don’t, judgment is not real, it is just another’s thoughts. Leave it at that. It’s just someone else’s thoughts.
My darling woman, you are powerful, strong and beautiful. You don’t need manmade accoutrements to prove that, at all. No amount of hair styling, make up and perfect clothing makes you better.
Who you are is not the subject of another’s thinking, it is the subject of your own thinking.
My darling woman, do for yourself what no one has done for you in quite some time. Give yourself compassion. That means to reach out and express love and understanding for yourself.
JB Collection
Act on your compassion: have a cookie and take a nap.
My darling woman, you are all you need. Don’t be afraid of loneliness, instead be afraid of never making your own decisions to live your own life.
Part of my job, for at least 25 years, was instruction and training about my profession. As a Certified Addiction Professional (CAP), my work was to educate staff, patients and the public.
My organization had a contract with the Department of Corrections (DOC). Each Spring our residential program patients spent an entire day with instructors learning about integrity, addictions and living in the world as a sober person.
For whatever reason, that Spring, my staff (from the outpatient program) and I were dealing with a lot of victims of violence, both domestic and public. Domestic violence was on my mind.
The DOC in-patient program asked me to come and present to their program. I didn’t realize that this DOC program was 100% male. My presentation was on how to stop violence in your lives, either as a victim or as a perpetrator. As the patients got involved in the discussion, we got into this idea about large people hitting people that are smaller than they are. I expressed an opinion that in general, it is a situation that should be avoided. Large people have no business hitting and pushing smaller people. We then talked about the concept of anger and whether or not anger was a reason and justification to push violence on another person.
As one, this crowd of approximately 100 men, shut down. They were done with my instruction regardless of whether I was done with my instruction. To this day, I don’t know what the trigger was. I assume it was the concept that our feelings (anger) had to be separated from our actions (violence). I was never invited back to the all day in-service. I must point out that the program managers were also male.
WOKANDAPIX on Pixabay
I have been thinking hard about this incident as I watch ICE agents harshly and violently push and hurt people who are much smaller than they are. ICE agents do not appear to have remorse for their own violent behavior.
ICE agents are having a conversation with themselves that gives them a reason to be hurtful and to inflict pain and anguish on others. Sometimes, I wonder what this conversation is? I am talking to myself and I have to justify my behavior, what do I say to myself? “These brown people are criminals and blood suckers.” “These people steal from the economy and that money comes directly from me, I’m getting rid of them!” Or do they go with the white supremist story: “I’m so much better than a brown person, get rid of these people, they belong on the bottom of the pile anyway.” In the face of your own violence, do you tell yourself that you are still a good person? Do you say “this is a job, I’m not responsible for what happens to the brown people?” Or even worse is the objectification of these humans, perhaps you decide that they aren’t really humans, you call them something else. This is another way to justify hurting humans.
What do you say to make it okay to hurt, maim or kill another human being? I’m not talking about war here. I’m talking about storming into someone’s home, declaring that person a criminal and then beating back their wife and children. Then comes the transport of the immigrant “criminal” and the housing in horrible conditions. As a human being, how are you okay with putting another person in inhumane conditions without at least allowing that person to speak for themselves in front of a judge?
Again, the concept that feelings are not justification for actions. Violence and hurting other human beings is never okay. Please don’t tell me that war has always been around and so therefore will always be around. I don’t believe that. For tens of thousands of years humans did not brush their hair or bathe. That changed. Violence can go the way of the filthy human. That means to disappear into the ether.
