The fact that the recent police killings have been associated and lumped in with recent protests against police brutality is an attempt at changing the people’s right to protest into something that the powers that be can give and take away when ever it suits them. Like the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, this idea that it is people’s rights that are somehow up for debate should scare shit out of the public. But, what do many in the public believe? “If I haven’t done anything wrong, I have nothing to hide”. The people themselves are being trained to negotiate with what should be NON-negotiable!
These are the same issues I was trying to bring light to at the age of 7 in the abusive environment I had to live in where I was being raised with that VERY attitude: that your self worth, confidence and your rights, were something up for sale in times of “emergency”. We are in no position to be worrying about your self worth, they said, of the VERY things it was my job in life to protect!
There it was! As plain as day! How it all happens, how people learn to allow themselves to live small and to be alright with losing what they were born with. What they come into this world with is theirs and no one, especially authority figures, have no right to steal the very muscle they’re entrusted to build up. If you’re not being treated with dignity and respect by parents when you’re at your most vulnerable then, how can you have the leverage to know you’re being taken later on?
People grow to be accustomed to feeling small, to live with less of themselves than they had when they were born! If “parents” can’t or don’t even know how to treat you and your feelings as if they’re important, you will grow to believe its normal to have no esteem and end up being a poor negotiator of your own worth.
Like in life, the issue comes back to: How does someone stop themselves from being robbed by the very people who are supposed to be protecting and building us? If your authorities are working for the wrong system, then when people try to grow in that kind of environment, they have NO protection from the system! The system invades everything, steals everything, and INFECTS everything! And who will know whether to stand and resist rather than bow and conform?
A Nation Where Rights Are Non-Negotiable
Ironically, today America is a country that knows no boundaries of greed and where power is not true power but is domination or profit under the guise of safety. The powers feel free to do anything and say ANYTHING to get control the people. At the same time many people blindly trust an authority who they’ve never met rather than treating them like any stranger who needs to clear due process.
But, nature’s own processes eventually intervene when the powers that be begin running over decency. Why would people grant their government power over their lives when that government will steal from them? Why would someone support a government that is stealing their rights? This is the system I lived in as a child and I knew better at 7 years old! But today, who is teaching people that these rights are natural rights?
Like muscles that need exercise and strengthening, our rights need to be exercised to keep them fit and sharp. Today in America, authorities feel confident to ask you to surrender your rights and you should run the other way as fast as you can. James Madison said, “I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedoms of the people by those in power by silent and gradual encroachments than by sudden and violent usurpations”. Those in charge of our government are showing they think it’s their prerogative to play and be frivolous with people’s rights. As time has gone by, the system has made its way into our houses and our way of life.
Adrian Tawfik says
Welcome to the DC team Catherine!
Cat says
Thank you! Just so you know,, I always been a Health and Fitness person who felt the need for Mental Health in our Society decades ago. Now, many people in the Political and Economics realms are realizing that Health Trumps Everything! And are saying what I knew and have been saying and studying for decades :)
Michael Ossipoff says
Catherine–
Thanks for the article.
One thing must be made very clear:
The Republocratrs (Republicans & Democrats) will never change the rotten and corrupt conditions that you describe. The Republocrats have no motivation or intention to bring any changes for the better.
So, we progressives have absolutely no reason to vote for a Democrat, the “lesser-evil”.
Maybe it would be improper for me to advocate a political party in this comment to your article. So let me just advise progressives to vote for a progressive party’s candidates, when they vote.
Look at Democracy Chronicles “Third Party Central” pages where you’ll find a vast, and nearly complete, listing of U.S political parties, including the progressive parties.
You’ll find (among others) the following subcategories of progressive parties:
Nonsocialist progressive parties. That includes the Greens and the Justice Party. I personally feel that the Justice Party has more success-potential than the Greens do.
Democratic Socialist Parties. That includes the Socialist Party USA, as the largest.
I suggest that all progressives (people who want government that is honest, humane, peaceful, and pro-humans–as opposed to pro-rich) vote for their favorite progressive party, whichever one it may be.
If enough progressives do that, then soon the votes for the progressive parties will add up to a majority. When that day comes, then, in the subsequent election, all progressives should vote for the candidates of whichever party’s presidential candidate got the most votes in the most recent election.
In that way, we could elect a progressive government to office, even with our flawed Plurality voting system.
But, before we can accomplish anything by voting, we must first demand verifiable vote-counting. Without that, our elections are illegitimate.
As I’ve been saying, we must hold (peacefful and legal) demonstrations and marches to demand verifiable vote-counting. One of my most recent articles is about that.
March to, and demonstrate in front of, your local Department of Elections, county building, etc.
Another thing that we should be insisting on is open, honest, inclusive media. I suggest that a good first place to concentrate our effort would be NPR stations. Those local FM stations, claiming to be “progressive”, are transmitting NPR’s pro-rich propaganda–and calling it progressive.
On NPR, you’ll never hear about the Greens, the Justice Party, or the Socialist Party USA.
In fact, you’ll never hear about any proposal or position that differs from the mass-media’s official Republocrat party-line.
So, I suggest demonstratinbg (peacefully and legally) in front of NPR stations, with banners saying something like:
“No, we won’t subscribe to rich propaganda”
and
“Dump NPR., or we won’t subscribe anymore”
and
“Dump NPR–Open public access and discussion”
NPR claims that they only leave out what people aren’t interested in. But people are disgusted with corruption, and with the richest 1% owning 40% of the country’s wealth, and running the country entirely for their own benefit. Therefore, those topics should be aired.
And that means allowing open public discussion of solutions. That means that represenatives of alternative political parties must be heard, because it’s they who are addressing the things that people are disgusted with, and offering solutions.
Michael Ossipoff
Cat says
The people have a Lot of work to do and not doing it, in my opinion. The people are on the Defensive,, and don’t have the leverage. They’ve allowed themselves to be Led for too long. The leverage it would take for the people have a good enough grip is going to take great effort.
I write from a Health/Fitness perspective instead of a political one. To me, people have it in them, they just need to exercise it. It’s scary. People fear their own power because their Natural development has been scrambled, like animals to slaughter.
It’s about getting Oriented, getting in touch with anger and power.
You make a lot of good points. People have to know who to trust, what outlets to listen to,, it’s like starting a Diet & Exercise program.
Peace