We're up Oak Creek

                     I wanted to write about this yesterday but had to take time to gather my thoughts they were so scattered. The first thing I heard actual news wise about the Oak creek shootings in WI was the interview with policeman saying he had put the guy down that had entered shot 6 people including an officer. I had just got done talking to my husband about oh crap he shot a cop that guy is not making it out a live we will never know why this deranged man did this. Not that anyone can wrap their mind around hate, ignorance and plan crazy that goes into something like that. It urked me at the term 'put down', I know, bad reaction to a way of looking at this. It was so big I could not wrap my head around this happening hours away from me. I heard my friend through Facebook wondering if her brother was in the fire fight and worrying he was the one shot. The interviews started to come out the wailing people and horror of it all crept into my brain. Of being an officer walking into that situation and the families knowing they do. I have thought of that before since my brother in-law is an officer, but I had a weird video game image of walking into the smoke of gun fire and hearing people calling fear pumping because it could be any person there you don't know who the shooter is. Over whelmed but the images of the families waiting for their loved ones and the crying I had to turn it off. It was too much to process for a slow processor like me.

                       It was not till the next day I saw his hateful picture with the Nazi symbol  behind him with vampire teeth on his guitar strap and the new of his hate music being popular made me ill. I am not violent but I was so glad at that moment the officers had done what they had. I was appalled that I could feel the anger I did that a white supremacist was still around and had done such a horrible thing. I pride my self in not judging others and trying to understand but there was no understanding here I was mad and glad he was dead. Then I saw the glaring truth or hate is hate breads more of the same, but my heart knew the second it saw the symbol I hated this man and was ok with that even as in my head I was not. Then I started to hear the explanations from the media of the difference between Sikhs and Muslims as if killing Muslims in hateful rage was ok but to confuse them with others was not.  And knowing that difference would make you not shoot oh lets see.... um let me think.. any of them. Really we are going to debate if he possibly confused one people for another in error like it makes it ok? What does that say to our Muslim neighbors facing this kind of ignorance that we could possibly be ok if he had shot the "right" minority.

not that I am saying it's just fox

                          I have to say this kind of talk I hear  from news people where the fire of hatred are stoked with a wink and smile with a morning zoo crew grin, it bothers me. there has been a tapping into fear and stoking that hate and dissatisfaction of doing something about all this insecurity they are building in certain people done by them that should be held to account. The weak minded and prone to violent people hear these messages too about the Mexicans taking advantage of us and our systems and the Muslims trying to take over with Sharia law and make us all were burkas and do the hokey pokey or what ever the message is from the latest fear monger. They see nothing being done about a threat made up to keep people on edge so they can easily take rights or make questionable policies based on race. Without being called a bigot. so these unstable people besides in ignorance to "do something about it." and wham everyone is shocked that in a land where the discourse between the top running presidential candidates could be at best described as infantile some idiot takes it upon him self to take out "unwanted" people. Words are powerful thoughts have a strength that does not go away when is someone going to hold this stoking of unrest and fear of those not like us accountable for the actions brought by it.

                               Then we wait to see if the "christian" they choose to voice will come out on the side of they are attacking our religion and right to worship or it is God's judgment for us: abortion, gay rights, or parking closer to the store when we could walk if want to leaving the places for those who need it. This bothers me so much, I am a follower of Jesus believe it or not. (I am not going to debate if I am christian enough with you in the comments so save your breath) SO this what God is doing these days? Guess he missed the whole punishing those for genocide, war crimes, sex trade, letting people starve so we can make a profit, and raping of women as a weapon of war, but these things is what he is cracking down on now. Wow really I have to say this you do not speak for me! Stop giving these dicks a microphone and a platform to speak on they do not represent Christ or those that follow him.

                             And now we start the talk about guns and how they do not shoot people and it being disrespectful to the victims to talk about guns so close to the incident. "Only people who follow laws will follow the law so if we regulate the automatic bad ass gun it will just leave them in the hands of the criminals". Followed by the please of people just to talk about it, followed by a "do you want the government to run over you? when our founding fathers had their muskets...." sigh,  the same talk you don't even have to have the actual conversation any more it drones on,  hit repeat and repeat as more psycho men gun down good people. All bought legally within days of the event. Since our Founding Fathers did not have bombs and tanks to worry about... they are regulated. I am fairly sure talking about this will be ok and actually having a new actual conversation not trying to make shocking statement that slam prove your point and your done out of here unproductive chatter we have been seeing.

All this goes on while the victims sit an suffer.  My heart goes out to them, those who lived the shooting and their families seeming to be forgotten in all this those that follow their belief and are now living in fear of hate taking them out. You are not forgotten. To the Muslims in the US it would not have been ok if it had been you. We need to start holding those using this fear for their gain in our government accountable. We should be holding the new corporations accountable for the dumb way they cover this kind of thing and we should be reaching out in love to those around us. You can't educate hate like if a Nazi guy understands the difference between the two religions it makes any difference, No, it is his hate of others that is the issue. I think until this changes we will see more of this unbalanced hate needing a target and innocent people paying the price. We must be better than this. America, we must stop this decent in thought we have been going on we must speak up, we must learn about and embrace our neighbors so that they do not live in fear but know acceptance and we all can gain from each other rather than missing out on who we could be. Lets be the nation we once were. Holding those ideals true for all in our nation not just the few the while the like us. Lets live what that document every bigot in America is hold up as a shield and Let All Men Be Treated As Equals.

 I leave you with the words of the pastor's son and wife as interviewed by Anderson Cooper.
 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/07/anderson-cooper-wisconsin-sikh-temple_n_1751874.html?utm_hp_ref=media

How did that happen?

                        I have a hard time alining my self with being a christian most times. Not because I  do not love Jesus or am not a follower of his way but because of what the word has come to be associated with. I was watching a show on PBS about our founding fathers and their struggle to write the constitution of the US and the times and reasoning around that. For a people who came from a land where the monarch and the church aligned under pain of death letting people worship as they wished was a bold dream never before given to a people. A boldness that was fallowed by an out poring of the holy spirit. Also accompanied by a crack down of the established churches of the time as they feared this freedom.

                      I know a few of the things fallowing the ways of Jesus has Effected the world. The right for women to vote and be heard in the public arena, fighting against abuse on women and children, end of slavery, the humane treatment of prisoners, care for widows the poor,  orphans , and the ill, stopping child labor in the US, the red cross and salvation army still care for the poor and those in war and disasters, the YMCA, and laws that are for all people where previously they had been power birth right influenced. So why is this such a contradiction to what it is seen as today. Where people shout at others holding offensive signs and are known more for what they are against than what they are for.

                                         I a world full of red faced talking heads shouting against this and against that . UGh who needs it. There is that annoying christian saying that goes if you stand for nothing you will fall for anything.  What about standing for love standing for the oppressed standing for people. I love people people are the best people I know. Since when does loving someone mean you have to agree with everything they say and do. If that is a requirement we would be very lonely people or just not know each other very well if this was the case.
                                      

                                         I look at the raging debate over gay marriage and all I can see is cherry picking of verses you do not understand mixed with homophobia that pushes people God loves further from him. How would you feel if you are constantly told someone hates you. If you were thinking about the person rather than who they love or how they do that the behavior see today would not happen. I look at the history of marriage and just less than a generation ago my marriage would be illegal, being interracial. I had an uncle who was with the same partner for years they loved each other so much you could tell even as a child I knew they loved each other it did not scar me to know this. If they had the choice I do think they would have gotten married it pains me to think they could not. Talking the religion out of it they are Americans they pay taxes my religious right should not stop them from having their civil rights.

                                   I am not sure that this did much as far as a post if I made any points or not or even if this is a coherent string of words it just has been simmering in me a long time. I long for followers of Jesus to be known for what he was about freeing the enslaved , loving your neighbor, and  the fierce rebellion against the oppressors. After all it is what they tried to kill him for.

Facepalm

                       It is hard for me to write today the day after the day after the vote in WI is done. It should not be so hard but since I love to write about community lifting each other up and inclusiveness when I see a vote that to me symbolizes the turning our back on Women and children our future tossed out. Money from little men that toy and tinker with the world to make it suit them and their pockets to hell with everyone else and their right to education, health and equality: Even to hell with being able to stand up and say this is wrong. It makes it hard for me to write or feel like what I right matters.

                            I have never been particularly proud to be from WI, I admire things about it but pride was never part of that. I honestly have never wanted to live my whole life here a lot of my marriage I have been trying to convince my husband to move, thought that would have been easier since he is not from here. Last year was the first real pride I had in WI seeing hundreds of thousands of peaceful protesters standing up fighting for others. In my experience here that was a rare quality not helping one another but to publicly do so with drums and vigor. There is a lot of neighbor leaning on each other people quietly being kind to one another standing up for this person or that but this was different this was devotion to something bigger than the packers. The thing that makes even the most hardened line backer love being part of a that team with such devotion: being pored out into the community into real life being used for a purpose other then sport idles.

                            The narrative I wanted to hear was that people cared that women were being set back, that people saw education and those giving their lives for other peoples children in more than dollar signs, that jobs were not more important that the strip mines that are going to poison an environment that has been cared for and preserved carefully, that men not even from here that pored money into an election to line there pockets would be seen through and a criminal that pits a states people against each other to concur it would be seen as decisive leading people to remove him and find common ground to tread. (I know huge run on sentence.) Instead I feel like I got bitch slapped with the fact that if you take peoples unsettled fear and uncertainty in life and blame others as the cause you win there devotion for doing so. With general sweeping declarations and fascist actions can win the hearts of a people. It is hard to put a word such a Fascist on to a situation we are in with out seeing Hitler death camps around, or for thinking the person saying this is being dramatic. When you look at that started and what is going on now in our country and my state I can not help but draw the parallels. I think we do not learn from history because we separate it into parts. the war is told here, the camps and repercussions are told there, this is the political time here,   and  the real life of people here. In doing so we strip it of the value we rely on it for to teach us. Germany was ripe for the fascist that took over when they did it was an unsure economic time people had been breaking out of conventional thinking taking on more modern ways, So in swoops this group that plays on their virtues and called people "back" to fiscal responsibility and the way things should be the old ways that worked for people before us "traditional" thinking. Need to retrain the minds hire Joseph Gerbbels to "show and tell" them what the "real" news was Fox news as the Gerbbel propaganda of our day doing the same all Preying on peoples deep insecurities about this new life and that changes happening would not bring new developments and possibly improve their lives no it would lead them to destruction and humiliation. It does not sound that different to me than the tea party people and Walkers brown bag ads.

                               Being an optimist people often seem to think I do not see the world as it is,  to believe better things than I actually see rose colored glasses and all. I long to think that money can not buy every thing or everyone,  people do not what to be lied to by the pied piper or at least recognize the tune and the death it leads too, and  criminals get punished not elected. I know in my heart these things happen regularly but the blatant ones get caught right? I hate the part in the story when it looks like the good person is ground into the dust and there will be no rise to stop the bad. That darkness will not only win but dominate. I cringe at it as much as I hate the sap ending the wraps it all up neat and clean it is so much worse when the bad guy is standing victorious. but I suppose either side of that is an extreme in life. But it how I feel right now. Life will balance out and the world will right it's self right? I suppose that is what the German people who resisted thought as they saw the rising Nazi culture too. (Que the Darth Vador music don don don don da don)

                        

I'm right and you are stupid

              When did we stop listening to each other? I get the people getting paid to sling mud being this way but as humans one person to another when did another opinion become a threat? Are we so insecure in what we think that we can not allow for others to have their own thoughts. This is just not in political arguments it is in all discussions if you can call them that. Listening to others can expand our own world, most of us are trapped in a very small world view, other people have other experiences that we do not.

            People wonder all the time why more people vote for Dancing with the Stars than give a crap about things that actually impact their lives. I think it is this kind of talk that is driving people to focus on the trivial. People are rabid about their ideas and even if someone is a little interested in something they get blasted as soon as they ask or look into it with negativity and hostility, they then just check out again.  We take our selves way to seriously, we are more than our opinions as humans. It is not a bad thing to evaluate our ideas from time to time. If they are worth keeping they will make it if they are not we should have the courage and humility to  admit it and move on.

                                              Is being right worth loosing relationship over or berating a person for? When did a need to be right become more important than another person? I am not saying we should not have an opinion or state said opinion in fact I think it necessary. However I am not willing to let that be all that matters.

Talking Russian Monkey

                                               I was thinking today about the messages we receive. The cold war with Russia has been over for decades hell the country that was the embodiment of every villain I grew up with as a child of the US does not even exist any more. Yet most times in my dream when there is a villain or someone to be suspicious of they have a heavy Russian accent. The messages of  childhood implanted so deep in my brain that more years of my life have past since I heard those message but still happened when the monkey tells me to do something in my dream with a thick Russian accent I stop and think there is something wrong going on here: Not just because it is a talking monkey that never entered into it it was the accent that tipped me to the problem. Made me wonder about all the messages we receive I have not met many Russian people but the ones I have have been wonderful.  If I think about it the Borg freak me out so much more than any people on Earth ever could, Do the actions of a few people or their leaders have the right to dictate how we see a people as a whole? There should be no reason this reaction still plagues my dreams. I think this is something to think about. Even if talking monkeys and the Borg seem more fun to think about.

                                       

                                         These things in movies and on TV did not seem a big deal to me then and honestly till I could not shake the Russian monkey today I had not thought much about it it just was what it seemed part of what was happening in the world right they were just being topical, relevant. Weren't they? Maybe but how much was true and how much was fear and propaganda? Are the people we having conflict with really as we see them or does our conflict by it's nature distort our view of things. Where anything they do is filtered through the our pain and defenses. Bring this down to a personal level out of the realm of nations if Mo and I bump into each other and our relationship is fine then no big deal but if mo and I bump into each other and we had just had a fight or are having a strain in some way on our relationship real or imagined then there are motives attached to it and I am going to give her a piece of my mind and the heads and fingers start to wag. right? both are the same action but the feel of it is different for us. I would say that I think of that feeling that motive is the same thing as war propaganda put out by other nations. someone move in or upgrades there shoes (or weapons) next to us and if we are ok with them we are like OMG I love your shoes can I get a closer look? BUT if we are not ok with them we are like OMG did you see those shoes really you think you can pull them off. who do you think you are? our own personal propaganda. Take a step back they are just a nice pair of shoes no more no less in the other example it is just a bump no more no less.

                                              Rather than taking a situation for what it is we make it more than it has to be. rather than asking if everything is ok and having some hard conversations with people we accuse and build our propaganda against them. I can say I am not above doing this I have had a hard time learning this to slow down and ask more questions not thinking I know what is going on all the time. This does not mean every situation is going to be great or easy but it does let you into the other persons point of view and can lead to better understanding of each other and a deeper relationship. I can't say I have mastered this or anything but I am working on this not easy change for me to make I come from a long line of propaganda makers but I am working on it.

The Others

           I have been thinking this morning about a challenge a friend of mine made to me to think of  the 10 things that are most important to me. with all the things going in politics here in WI and around our country I am thinking of Arizona and North Carolina as I write this One jumps to mind I wanted to share here. I have been noticing it all day in looking at the propaganda posts of all sides the cartoons and "news" posts is that the old ways are still effective. Making some one other than us makes them distant and then we can cast all our fear and negativity on them. It is dangerous in my mind to do so all propaganda has started this way all hate lives here. When someone is unlike us we distrust them because after all if they had the same information as us they would believe as we do, and if they do have the same information they must be stupid or evil wanting destruction of us all.

                 Look at the stereo types placed in cultures The Indians wanted to kill us, the Micks were rats taking over. IN our own day look what is said about people that are Arab, Black, or of Hispanic decent in the name of saving our people / protecting our borders or gay marriage. They are going to bring the destruction of us all. We will live in jejad, and the Mexicans are going to over run us, and the gays will bring about the down fall of marriage. The call for this is is that they are other than us they are not like us, their values are different so they are flawed. This has all been said before Russians in the cold war, the Irish in the turn of the century were going to over run our nation The end of slavery and Jim crow laws were going to bring down our economy and letting couples from other faiths or races marry was going to bring down the institution it self.

                               If the border thing is so true why is it always the southern border we worry about I am closer to the Canadian border both our our allies there are as many Canadian people here illegally as any other.  No one disparages the  pick up hockey team from there, or the very polite people at the coffee shop, But the very polite people buy salsa are so different? The equality of all people in our nation has done so much to enrich our lives as a people so many people from other cultures have added to us as a people not taken away.

         Couples inter marry with other religions and races (my self being one) and very live happy lives. This was not so in just the generation before us. Hundreds of thousands of Arab people live in our country and want it to do well for their children and them selves because it is their land too. That actions of a few horrible people should not taint our view of all people. Most serial killers have been white do other people need to worry that we will go all Dexter on them?
              The moment we make someone different from our selves an "other" it makes it ok to do things say things we could not do when we see them as our selves as valuable. It allows fear to rule us, fear makes a poor ruler. If someone is valuable even if they are different from us, if not only that but they can offer us a wider view of the world then we hold in our singular look at it. Giving perspective and wisdom to us that other wise would be lost showing things we would not want to see or would gloss over, makes us stronger. It takes hate out of it. How can you hate someone like you how can you hate one of us. Hate never rings perspective never brings growth it keeps one trapped. I listened to a TEd talk the other day about being wrong and the one thing that stood out to me in it is that being wrong has no feeling it feels very much like being right, till we are proven wrong. If all we do is hang out with those like us there is so much we could be wrong about and never know. I am a firm believer Love wins every time Love is stronger than hate. In Love for others there is not room for making someone other than your self they are like you human. Love can cast out fear, there is no reasoning with fear and hate. It does not make us free it enslaves us limits who are as a people: makes who we will be smaller then who we could be. Both as a nation a people and human-beings.