Oppression, Persecution and Repression

Good day, good people.

For devotees of the English language: Mulierose is an adjective. It means excessively fond of women.

Before I started this essay, I wanted to make sure I was on solid ground. I opened my Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testaments in the King James Version. I went to the author’s page and did not find one. There are those among us whom believe the Bible was written by God. These delusionals are not open to discussion, nor will they receive any accurate information from the scientific community to consider otherwise. One of the many wonderful things about the United States is everyone is entitled to their opinion, no matter how ill-founded in fact it may be.

Among the apparent charlatans in the religion business is Joseph Smith, Jr. In 1830 he published his Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of Mormon upon Plates Taken from the Plates of Nephi. The large and small plates made up the record of the Nephites. Mormon inscribed the truncated version onto gold plates. Joseph Smith said he found them in the hills of Palmyra, New York and translated them into the Book of Mormon. When asked about the gold plates, Smith told anyone who asked they had been returned to an angel by the name of Moroni and were not available.

Actually it appears, Smith set out to plagiarize twenty-seven thousand words from the King James Bible which he owned. Also, his research for the Book of Mormon allowed him to use without attribution from the same version “and it came to pass” about two thousand times. Bellwethers and charlatans have always been illusionists and good salesmen.

Karen Armstrong, a former nun, has written a New York Times bestselling book, A History of God, which leaves no doubt that all gods Pagan, Christian and others are all man made. She states: “Science seemed to have disposed of the Creator God, and biblical scholars had proved that Jesus had never claimed to be divine.” Therefore, the question to be asked is: Who or what will be the next god or gods of the different religions when the present gods do not produce the results the worshipers want? For this is the history of gods. It is fair to say Wall Street and the banks have already replaced their God and selected their new deity to worship — Greed. For surely they have lost their moral sense.

Almost every week, I am emotionally pummeled and appalled by man’s inhumanity to man — a culture and story of oppression, persecution and repression of women. Unfortunately, most of the stories come out of countries in which Islam is practiced. I often wonder when the perpetrators are going to leave the seventh century AD and join the Twenty-First Century. Or, when is their country going to stop these inhumane practices?

A man can tell the tribal elders any story about his wife he wishes. And without any other proof he can ask the elders at a meeting, a jirga, to seek revenge, “justice”, for whatever his reason. He told them his wife had committed adultery. And without any other proof, the misguided elders who are still living pursuant to a delusion gave him permission without limitations to exact punishment. The husband and the male members of his family armed themselves and went to the home of the man accused of participating in the adultery. They only found the man’s mother. They dragged her to the center of their town, stripped her naked, humiliated and tortured her by dragging her in the dirt so the villagers could view her. The emotional scars will never heal. Finally, there are the honor killings of women by a dishonorable and misguided patriarchal society. Obviously, these are mulierose men in this society.

The Internet, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and human-rights workers around the world publish these atrocities. I have always admired those among us for their lack of cowardice when they oppress, persecute and repress the defenseless — women and others.

Does an American have the right to criticize any other culture considering the following?

• The delusional-Christian zealots in New England who engaged in the humane practice of burning women at the stake. In 1694 in Plymouth, Massachusetts a woman found guilty of adultery had to wear a scarlet letter A on the front of her dress. What letter did the man have to wear and what color was it?

• Then, there is the well-known and documented U.S. prolonged mistreatment of the American Indians which is ongoing.

• According to Slavery by Another Name by Douglas A Blackmon, slavery which perpetrated mayhem and other mistreatment of Negroes brought to the United States and their descendants and other black Americans did not end with the Civil War. It ended in 1974. Racism in the south is replete with the acts of kindnesses bestowed upon black Americans when they whipped, lynched and dragged them behind pickup trucks until they were dead. Then some white southerners honored themselves again when they murdered black and white civil-rights workers. With racism in the fore, white southerners dynamited a black church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. As a result, the white bombers murdered four children and injured twenty more inside. Many black churches had been burned to the ground.

In 1773 George Mason spoke at the Virginia Constitutional Convention. “Slavery . . . that slow poison, which is daily contaminating the minds and morals of our people. Every gentleman here is born a petty tyrant. Practiced in acts of despotism and cruelty, we become callous to the dictates of humanity, and all the finer feelings of the soul. Taught to regard a part of our species in the most abject and contemptible degree below us, we lose that idea of the dignity of man which the hand of nature had implanted in us, for great and useful purposes.” Well said, Mr. Mason.

• In the beginning of our great nation only the wealthy landowners and merchants could vote. The U.S. oppressed and repressed women and did not give them the same rights as men and did not allow them to vote until 1920. Women fought alongside men in the Revolutionary War but were not rewarded with full rights for their sacrifices. Why?

• Can anyone deny that the decision makers in 1860 were not smart enough to avoid the American Civil War? Without honor the war killed 620,000 Americans.

• The ugly American persisted. Dick Cheney in his desire for a unitary presidency — a shift toward fascism and his marionette, George W. Bush, and their cabal conspired without honor to illegally invade Iraq. The U.S. was not attacked nor was it in imminent danger of being attacked. The administration ruled by fear, implemented secret-illegal wire taps and committed other crimes because it believed erroneously it was above the law. The Lancet and The New England Journal of medicine are two of the most respected medical journals in the world. It is important to realize that all studies of this kind regarding the deaths [homicides] committed with disgrace by the Cheney administration in Iraq have a large margin of error. According to The Lancet study, it was stated they had a ninety-five percent confidence that the deaths [homicides] figures were in the range of 392,979 to 942,636. The New England Journal of Medicine has a ninety-five percent confidence that the deaths [homicides] committed with disgrace caused by the illegal invasion of Iraq is in the range 104,000 to 223,000. This includes U.S. and Iraqi military personnel and civilians. There is dispute amongst serious epidemiologists as to the total numbers. But there is no dispute as to whom is responsible. The brackets are mine.

• To compound the crimes of the Cheney administration they tortured people by using the euphemism “enhanced interrogation techniques” instead of torture. As result of the torture memo issued in 2002 by Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, waterboarding and other torture methods were legal. Past Democratic and Republican administrations had opposed torture. The Cheney administration also used the practices of extraordinary rendition and irregular rendition to illegally torture people and also had them tortured by proxy. No moral sense in this administration.

The United States had ratified the United Nations Convention Against Torture in 1994. “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever . . . may be invoked as a justification of torture.” Does anyone really believe that anyone’s legal memo particularly from a sycophant like Jay Bybee who had a conflict of interest was justified in overruling the Convention? I know this is unimportant, but I will just mention it in passing. Bybee was rewarded for his conspiratorial-illegal act with a judicial appointment to the federal bench. When is Eric Holder going to indict Cheney, his marionette George W. Bush and the twelve members of their cabal for engaging in a conspiracy to commit these illegal acts and practices by the their administration, the CIA and others? My fellow Americans who have a moral sense have been shamed by the Cheney administration, Bush, and their cabal. No one respects a bully except maybe another bully or a dictator.

The English language is not adequate to describe the despicable conduct of the people above whom are without a moral sense who perpetrate these acts with their above the law attitudes. Fortunately for all of us, Cocytus has room for them all. Or is it, my limited education and vocabulary that does not allow my inadequacies to describe the lowest depth of their inhumanity? And, apparently they are right — for few have been prosecuted.

What is your thought on the contribution you can make to the human rights movement to improve the lives of women in oppressive and repressive circumstances and countries?

Has the United States progressed sufficiently from it past, so a tolerant American can comment on other cultures oppression, persecution and repression without being a hypocrite?

I hope this post will give you something to consider. To be successful you must understand other people’s opinions and care about them.

I care about your opinion. Contacting me with comments and constructive criticisms at Daniel McNeet with honesty and pleasantness their constant companions will always be welcomed.

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