misogyny Archives - Owl Medicine: Shamanic Healing

Twisting the Process and Making a Mockery – Photo: L. Weikel

Mockery

I’m trying really hard to stay away from commenting on the confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. The mockery that’s being made of this process, our judiciary, our Senate, and our country as a whole is at once infuriating and devastatingly sad. It’s also just plain wrong.

It is maddening to witness the histrionics and pearl clutching these Republican Senators are engaging in, when the entire time, they are brazenly accusing Democrats of doing precisely what Republicans did. Over and over again, too. While their whataboutisms are astoundingly off-base and hypocritical, they engage in them nevertheless.

It’s exhausting.

They Count On That

And the depressing thing is, they count on regular people becoming exhausted by their endless switching things around, denying things, and harping on snippets of information they very cynically mischaracterize and then propagandize until the cows come home.

Is this any way to run a country? Is this any way to rule the world? (Apparently some think it is: the Putins, Xes, Trumps, and Kim Jong Uns of the world, to name a few.) It’s not the way our country is supposed to operate, but when civility and the ability to agree upon fundamental tenets of reality and facts disappear, we end up with performative government. And that’s where we are today.

It’s never a good sign when I yell at the tv. And, to be fair, I engage in that extreme behavior far less often than I used to, when we were subjected to TFG’s relentless lying on a regular basis (i.e., whenever we turned the tv on and news came on). But it’s extremely difficult to refrain from berating the garbage being broadcast when I see white men with pedigreed educations acting as if they can’t read or have lost all ability to hold a reasonable thought in their heads. Or whining and grandstanding about how other candidates were treated. (Less qualified and credibly accused of awful behavior that should have been investigated, too.)

As if any of that has an iota of relevance to, or can be opined on, by the current nominee. And Marsha Blackburn trying to ‘trap’ the judge by asking her to define ‘woman.’ Good grief. I just can’t.

Performative Ignorance

It enrages me to hear Ted Cruz or anyone else bring up Critical Race Theory and act as if they don’t understand what it is or that it is taught in graduate school (not grade or high school). And even if it were taught in high school, for instance, it is telling the truth about racism in our country. And it describes how racism has been perpetuated and built into the fabric of our country to such an extent that we don’t even realize its profound implications or insidious effects.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. I do not know how Black women (especially) maintain such an overall calm and patience with the state of life in the United States. Their husbands and sons are at risk when they walk out the door. Hell – let’s face it. Black people and people of color aren’t safe in their own houses. And yes, I know they’re not monolithic. But it’s also true that there is a ton of shared trauma and outrage amongst them.

How do they abide this, day in and day out?

And now, to watch the utterly disgusting double standard being heaped upon this Supreme Court nominee simply because she is a black woman?

I’m ashamed of the level to which our country has sunk. I would pity the obvious insecurities of Republican party members if I weren’t so incensed that they’ve sold our country out on so many levels.

Oops

I guess the rant escaped anyway.

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson needs to be confirmed. She deserves a unanimous consent. Anyone voting against this eminently qualified individual is afraid she will treat them the way she has been treated. Luckily for them, she has integrity.

We need to pay attention. The fringe is getting perilously close to seizing the reins of power.

(T+105)

Tonight’s sky – Photo: L. Weikel

I Just Can’t

I woke up this morning and was feeling remarkably ‘down.’ This feeling was as pervasive as it was unexpected. There was no obvious reason for it, either – dietary or otherwise.

But then, the day unfolded, and I made the mistake of reading news headlines.

I have to admit it: My stomach has been hurting all day. I’ve felt a little short of breath all day.

Honestly, I feel as though there is nowhere to look anymore that is not shocking, awful, and hateful. The blatant racism, misogyny, corruption, and deliberate attack on the rule of law being spewed and inflicted on our country is beyond the pale.

My heart hurts for our country. My heart hurts for our integrity. My heart hurts for our children – yours, mine, and everyone else’s.

My heart hurts for the soul of us all – and by that, I mean everything we stand for, believe in, and hold sacred.

If we don’t take a stand now, when everywhere we look we’re slapped in the face with vile divisiveness, cruelty, and utter corruption and self-dealing, we never will.

So Many Secrets/So Many Compromised People in Power

It broke my heart to read that so-called leaders of the Republican party such as Lindsey Graham were actually condoning Trump’s hate-filled racist rants of yesterday and today. His comments do not reflect simple policy-related differences of opinion with my own views. His comments reflect a fundamental abrogation of everything I was taught our country stands for.

Yes, I’m calling Graham out. Why? Because Donald Trump may be the biggest liar to ever cross the doorstep of the White House (and yes, I am saying with absolute lack of equivocation that he is the single biggest serial liar to ever cross the threshold of the White House), but we knew he was an ignorant con-man for decades. We knew it when he declared he was running. We’ve known it all along. All we had to do was read the background. All we had to do was open our eyes and read.

But Lindsey Graham? I remember a time when he appeared to be a man of principle. A man who had courage and integrity. So I have to say…this behavior of his, including his kowtowing to Trump since the inauguration, tells me there’s something about Lindsey Graham we don’t know. I think we have yet another example of a puppet whose strings are being pulled by a power that has the dirt.

The case that’s unfolding with Jeffrey Epstein is horrific. But you know what? I read about it at the very beginning of Trump’s candidacy. I was aware of the young girl who dropped her case because of death threats. I was aware of Alex Acosta. This has all been readily available. It is not ‘fake’ news. It is entirely documented.

This Is All About Power OVER

And it is all related. The utterly malignant foundation of so much of what goes on in our country is tied to and inextricably bound up in rampant, unabashed, unchecked, abuse of power. Power over women, power over young girls, power over little boys, power over the homeless, power over the defenseless, power over the poor, power over the black and brown in our country (and outside – you know, entire ‘shithole’ countries).

This has gone on for so long, they laugh and clink their glasses behind their billion dollar enclaves and think they’ll rule the world forever. But they’ve become sloppy, which comes from feeling they can live their exploitive, debauched existences out in the open, simply because they hold so much power.

Well, we’re the ones who have the power. We’re the ones who must look each other and ourselves in the eyes and act in a way that serves something greater.

I believe in us. But really, we must, must, must look at the raw truth of what is unfolding before our very eyes. And we must do it NOW.

Let us stand together and say “ENOUGH.”