I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 – 1822
There has been discussion of what to name Trump’s ever-expanding ballroom. Some have suggested naming it after Epstein. I would suggest naming it after Ozymandias from Shelley’s poem.
There is something about building projects that feed to the patriarchal ego. The Patriarchal ego stands on permanence, largess and if that involves crushing those “below” them, that is just how it is. Pre-patriarchal pagan systems focus on the cycles of life and are based on an understanding that impermanence is what life is all about. Life works on cyclic movement. The seasons, the moon, the sun, the stars, all is in motion and all presages different aspects of the wheel of life.
Racism and misogyny form the foundations of the patriarchal ego. Why? Because it is based on a hierarchical frame of reference and “others” are lesser than and subject to the whims of those “above” them. The pagan mindset recognizes the gifts of all varieties, sees life as a tapestry of values and diversity. In fact, science agrees with this as it is important in the work of evolution to combine as much diversity as possible.
The patriarchal ego wants to stop the processes and hold them in place. Maybe even step backwards to a time which felt “purer” to them. The pagan mindset wants to honor and harmonize with the cycles.
The more I look at this administration, the more I see a cartoon generation come to life. In cartoons, nothing is real. Someone gets splattered against the ground and they pop up back to life. It tends to be a source of laughter. The boat strikes in the open ocean are likely illegal by international law. They are also likely illegal here in the US but there is no agency to stand up to stop it so far. And our Defense Secretary actually posted a cartoon character meme to describe what is happening. Homeland security is naming detention centers with cutsy cartoon names which, on the surface, take away the horror of them actually being concentration camps. I call them that because there is little if any due process. Nor is there due process in the boat strikes nor in any aspect of the process of deportation. The game is rigged to power.
Due process affects everyone of us. It is what protects us from the worst of administration abuses and it promises everyone their day to challenge extra-judicial arrests and killings.
I think of the case of the Honduran woman, Any Lopez Belloza who came here when she was 7. She was a college student from Boston flying home to Texas for the holidays when she was arrested by ICE, shackled (as if arrest by itself is not traumatic enough) and deported all within 10 hours. There was a court order that she not be removed from Mass, in fact from the USA entirely. But ICE moved her so quickly, the court’s order lacked any teeth. The courts couldn’t catch up. Its like a game of Whack-A-Mole with the authoritarians setting the terms. This is all a giant game to them and with it they are ruining people’s lives. Lives which will not just pop up again after being splattered. Fragile patriarchal egos need to have a target, those they can belittle, possibly destroy to feed upon the power. Any is the one who made the top of the media scrum. There are hundreds maybe thousands we haven’t heard of.
Immigration judges work on a different system than criminal and civil judges. They can be fired – or so it appears at will. The administration is not only firing them but looking to replace them with what they are calling deportation judges. Here is the description of one such firing: Tears flowed in S.F. courtroom as immigration judge was fired mid-hearing
In this, they are rigging the game all the more. That is the patriarchal mindset in action. The hierarchical work to force the rules of the game into what they see as their advantage. The juxtapositions of the treatment of immigrants and those in power is just too striking to ignore.
I, as are many, am loathe to make Nazi comparisons but sadly there are a growing number of them. One that surprised me is that Hitler built a ballroom in 1933. Underneath it he built what is believed to be his first bunker called the Führerbunker. For more information you can read the Snopes report here.
I guess the ruling class needs to party while the oppressed struggle to survive. The fuel of patriarchy is to downplay others to raise up the status of those in power. It’s an age-old tale. And for me the greatest irony is this as it says on the Snopes site: “The Führerbunker was the final headquarters of the Nazi regime and where Hitler committed suicide in 1945.”
And to this I say to all fascist leaders, “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings . . .”
***
There are updates about two of the people we highlighted in our #ShareTheirStories posts.
- Rümeysa Öztürk. The court ordered the administration to restore Öztürk’s legal status which will allow her to continue her research and schoolwork. The administration is still trying to deport her so the story is not yet finished.
- Kilmar Abrego Garcia. The court finally ordered his release from detention because of a technicality. It turns out there was no final deportation order. He was released, the administration ran to a “deportation judge,” got a final deportation order and ordered Abrego Garcia to report to immigration. The judge had to issue another order that he not be deported. It is a temporary order so again a story not yet finished.
And again, these are the people who have lawyers, their stories have hit the press, how many hundreds, even thousands of others are facing life-threatening, cruel treatment? The system is overloads and rigged.
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Oh my gosh Janet – this is super!!! You made me laugh – gallows humor of course – but I’ll take it anyway….You name it – we are the CARTOON generation – we’re the joke or jokester and don’t know it – too busy destroying – those of us with varying degrees of conscious awareness recognize that patriarchy has gone amok… breakdown is our hope.
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Thank you Sara, It certainly is head-spinning, from crying to laughing and back again. There are many that say, including my previous shamanic teachers and theologian Matthew Fox that we need to be breaking down before we can rebuild. My teachers pointed out that we can’t go on destroying the environment. If we don’t stop it, we will be stopped in other ways. Hope in a bittersweet kind of way.
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Matthew Fox – ah my friend! All wise folks tell us the same thing – breakdown is inevitable – it’s part of the life process…. and breakdown is slow and excruciatingly painful to some who watch this happening outside our window or go for walks and feel poison enter our lungs, feel our losses – breakdown just is – our problem is that we refuse to honor the grieving first and allow enough time (not our time) for life to be reborn
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I hear you Sara. The problem with breaking it all down is the suffering that is being wrought upon us. We see the deliberate cruelty, the families being broken apart, the deaths. So yes, as you put it – it is “excruciatingly painful.” It is just tragic.
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Oh Yes Janet – breakdown is inevitable in the big picture but we live our brief lives in the little picture – my god the suffering is intolerable – human cruelty is so overwhelming that I can’t bare to engage with it – I just don’t have the filter that most people seem to have that allows them to keep on with this terrible deception – You stand up for humans I turn to the rest of nature because almost no one does…
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What a powerful piece, Janet. Sobering in so many ways. The way so many lives are being shattered to feed the egos of those in power is devastating. Thank you for consistently bringing them to our attention.
At our local rapid-response press conference yesterday, it was reported that over 500,000 have been detained.
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Just adding to my first comment — it’s over 500,000 deportations, not just detentions.
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Thank you Beth, It is painful to just write about. But I feel we must stand in witness and name what is happening. I also feel this is a continuation of the work of Carol P. Christ who taught us what patriarchy is. I do wish she was still here to guide us through this morass and to help give voice to what is happening.
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It is painful to write about, and read about, and witness. Thank you for continuing to do so. I wish Carol were still here as well, though she would admire and appreciate all you are doing to carry on her legacy.
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And so many of those deportations were in contravention of court orders. And to countries the deportees have no connection to and which also have a poor history of civil rights. But then again the US has a poor record as well and its getting worse. Again deliberate cruelty. Tragedy upon tragedy.
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Thank you for bearing witness, Janet. This is a painful and profound take on what is happening now. And the historic parallels throw the horror into sharp relief.
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So glad you wrote this essay, Janet. I often go back to Carol’s definition of patriarchy where she focuses on domination as the core of that putrid social system. You said it: “The fuel of patriarchy is to downplay others to raise up the status of those in power.” For some reason, people have a hard time wrapping their heads around the danger and damage of that vile way of living. I used Carol’s definition in my religious studies and what was formerly called women’s studies (now GSEX) during my teaching years. Somehow, many students could not/would not absorb that concept of domination (over everybody and everything) being at the core. I would even tell them I would ask on their next exam “What is at the core of patriarchy?” We’d talk about the answer out loud and even still, most would not be able to answer. Social wheels move slowly…..
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Wow Esther, I am sensing a project, maybe a FAR project. Why is it so hard to wrap our heads, other heads around what is happening? Why did people not see that Harris was offering real solutions (even if you don’t agree with them) while the other one was holding a racist rally in Madison Square Garden? (Another throwback to the Nazi era). This is starting to make me think of patriarchy as a cult where the task is de-programming. I belonged to a cultish group for a long time. Here is what it felt like to leave – I thought I was going to die. I not only lost teachers who were precious to me, I also lost my community of people. Its a big ask of people. And patriarchy has had thousands of years to brainwash us all.
I wrote a blogpost after the election – Harris could not outrun 2000 years of patriarchy
I am thinking back to that post and how important it is for people to understand how we have all been initiated into a system that is destructive to us and to the earth (which is basically the same thing). How do we move forward?
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Yes, this: “I belonged to a cultish group for a long time. Here is what it felt like to leave – I thought I was going to die. I not only lost teachers who were precious to me, I also lost my community of people.” Those two sentences encapsulate my experience as well. How do we move forward? Good question. I’ve been talking about “patriarchy” and its manifestations for a long time. Not too long ago, one of my women friends(?) told me to “Just stop it–all you ever talk about is patriarchy. Nobody cares!” She is probably accurate–most people seem impervious, even bored, to the pain and anguish that system brings. Right now, am reading AWAKE, a memoir by Jen Hatmaker. One of the things I like (so far) is that she points out how patriarchy is destructive to men as well as women. Maybe people are inured to the suffering of women or at least tired of hearing about it. If we start talking about it’s destructive to people like DT and his sycophants, would that stir up interest and subsequent action? I don’t know.
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Sara, The work you do and the writings you share are very special and very needed. Another important part of the prism of consciousness raising.
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