It's Really Wild To Me That, When I Point To Our Economic System And Hierarchies And Condemn The Damage

It's really wild to me that, when I point to our economic system and hierarchies and condemn the damage that they've done to me and to my life, there are people who would scoff and say, "Yeah well, it COULD have been so much worse though! You got off easy, considering!"

Is that…supposed to make it better? Should I really be grateful for that?

DOESN'T THAT MAKE IT WORSE??

Look, if I'm on a train, and there's a horrific crash, and I stumble out of the train car bloodied and "only" missing an arm and one foot…should I go up to the conductor and shake his hand and thank him for a job well done?

Am I not IGNORING the literal bloodbath -- the piles of human bodies and lives still unmoving on the train cars that I left behind?

The mangled pieces of my friends and family, their cries and frustrations and struggles -- hell, the bodies of STRANGERS, who are human beings just like me -- suffering and crying in needless pain…

And I'm supposed to smile about that, because my pain was and is lesser than theirs??

I don't understand the kind of ghoul you want me to be.

No, it is NOT a good system, just because others got hurt worse than me.

The fact that others get hurt worse than me, and are struggling more than me, is an INDICTMENT of immense proportions. Not a redemption of the systems causing it.

Just because someone "doesn't know what eugenics is", doesn't mean that they don't engage in it; the same way that people who have zero idea how racism works, can still be racist.

Plenty of people, during the covid lockdown, were of the opinion that elderly, disabled, very young, and chronically-ill people were being "entitled" for expecting others to have the decency to mask up around them.

To the anti-maskers, the lives of these vulnerable people were not worth the slight inconvenience of wearing precaution. They instead believed that the vulnerable should just go ahead and get sick and die in order to "improve the species" or some nonsense.

Many of them have no idea what the definition of eugenics is. Yet they engaged very eagerly in eugenicist thinking and behaviors.

The owning class ultimately want there to be not ONE inch of earth that is not monetized, paved over, or existing in their personal gardens.

Meanwhile, people have to shift around like a card game, chasing employment and affordable housing: never getting to know and to work with and to be nurtured by the lands in which they live.

We are Earth's children.

The theft of humanity's connection to her is just one more insult that comes part and parcel with the deep injuries of capitalism.

One finds more crime in societies that operate more off of shame.

This dovetails with the data showing that regions with higher expressions of christianity, have more domestic violence, child abuse, grooming, SA, and other kinds of harm.

I've often noted that the worldview inherent to christianity -- in which humans are seen as naturally evil and given to the questionable concept of "sin" from the moment of birth -- can help excuse even one's bad treatment of innocent people.

After all, ALL humans are bad…right? So, oppressor or victim....in the end, who cares? 🤷🏾‍♀️

This worldview makes christian morality inherently corrupt.

Not to mention that the god character already displays all the classic behaviors and desires of an abuser: 'Love me or die', and 'Obey me or die', are not actually expressions of love or caring at all -- much less are they markers of a healthy relationship dynamic of any kind!

Yet, this "divine" example of actually toxic behavior, unfortunately, further entrenches those biblically-modeled abusive behaviors as 'acceptable' -- even as 'holy' -- in the worshippers' understanding.

And any disagreement -- much less outright protest -- is further maligned… because that worldview will go on to insist that we are all of us potentially demon-riddled and deserving of hell, unless we eagerly bow and scrape before the tyrannical god character.

The bad treatment and victim-blaming of marginalized, disabled, sick, poor, or homeless people, is also very much excused within this worldview... because, when your religion makes the entirely-too-pat assertion that good people are sure to be protected, rewarded, privileged, and empowered by god; while bad people are abandoned, disempowered, and punished; what else will religious people believe; but that to be good is to be rich, "normal", and "strong", and that all those who are being harmed by the hierarchies and oppressions around them therefore deserve what they get?

This is a sadly double-edged blade.

I remember how it felt.

The sheer self-loathing, self-dismissal, and anxiety ingrained into religious people, who are constantly told that they are worthless and evil unless they follow the whims and nonsensical, arbitrary rules of the capricious and authoritarian god character, can be immense.

It encourages just as much self-abuse and self-neglect as it encourages the neglect and abuse of others.

Internalized Fascism

Seriously.

If you want to know the shape of the fascist cage that media has constructed inside our minds, our parents' minds, and our grandparents' minds over the years?

Read that awful "Screenwriter's Guide for Americans" slop that Ayn Rand wrote.

And then, if you're a creator?

Go forth, and do your damnedest to make works that depict and stand for the OPPOSITE.

When I came out as atheist, I sat at the kitchen table -- maybe, 4 to 5 hours straight -- explaining what I used to believe as a christian, and I debunked each point of belief with the new things I'd learned: effectively mapping out my deconstruction.

Directly after that, one of the family members, looking at me with a rapt expression, said, "Wooowwww….you believed in god for THOSE reasons? That's so smart!! That's why I'M going to believe from now on! :DD "

…as if I hadn't just thoroughly explained, in minute detail, why those reasons were absolute trash🤦🏾‍♀️

The only thing that upsets me more, is trying to imagine…why on earth did she believe in god BEFORE she had all these new (though thoroughly debunked) reasons handed to her? 😕