Wednesday, July 18, 2012

The Larger War

After attending the Michigan Women's Power Assembly event today in Lansing, I have reached a conclusion. The "War on Women" is just one campaign of an even larger, and if possible, even scarier war.

While standing in the House gallery speaking to a young woman, a man came by and shoved her aside as he walked by (there was plenty of room to pass us without any contact). She rebuked him for putting his hands on her to which his companion replied that she should get out of the way. When I challenged them about their rudeness, these two brave patriots keep walking away.

Later, I spoke to a woman in a wheel chair from a group called Mothers of Lost Children. Her abusive ex-husband had broken her back and then somehow managed to convince a judge to obtain custody of the children. Another woman told me that her ex-husband artificially inseminated her against her will when she threatened to divorce him, in an attempt to trap her in the marriage.

The more stories I hear, the more incredulous I become about the state of our nation. I cannot even begin to fathom how women today keep their sanity living in this hostile and misogynistic society. And yet, I have decided that the War on Women is, in fact, just one large campaign that is part of an even larger, more insidious war against the soul of the American people.
  • Government officials routinely raid undocumented immigrants' homes, whisking parents away from children in the dead of night. They receive no due process, and are treated like animals for years before eventually being deported. 
  • Loving adults who happen to be of the same sex still cannot marry in most places, and face thousands of disciminatory and often heartless laws. 
  • Millions of hard-working Americans cannot find work that pay a living wage, while the 1% continue to export jobs overseas with inpugnity. 
  • The Emergency Management Law in Michigan has single-handledly wiped out representative democracy for most African Americans in the state. Across the nation, voter restriction efforts target the poor, the elderly, and other oppressed minorities. 
  • Politicians are hell-bent to ensure that tens of millions of Americans receive no health care insurance. 
  • The obsession over fetal life consumes the majority of legislative agendas, while these same politicians cut public school funding, work to wipe out family planning resources, and continue to support capital punishment, the American war machine, torture, and unlimited access to guns. 
We are facing a war against decency, a war against dignity, a war against our core liberty. In summary, we are defending ourselves from a War Against Love.

The antagonists in the War Against Love lie without shame, abuse without remorse, rationalize any moral indiscretion, and steal in the name of justice. Their agenda is the total submission of the American population, using the full might of our increasingly paramilitary police forces to crush even the most peaceful and law-abiding opposition with tactics of humiliation and violence. These forces have unlimited funds because our highest court has given corporations the rights of people without any of the responsibilities. And like unruly children with absentee parents, they are taking full advantage of the situation.

This blitzkrieg seeks to pick us off one at a time, just like every other brute horde throughout history. Immigrants, gays and lesbians, the poor, labor unions, racial minorities, religious minorities, women, the elderly - one by one, they seek to isolate us, set us against each other, and conquer us. And with each battle, America loses one more shred of civility, of compassion, of its vision as the land of the free and the home of the brave.

America, please wake up! If you are sitting at your computer reading this in the comfort of your home thinking these issues don't affect you, then you are deluding yourself. You are your brother's and sister's keeper. As Jacob Marley said in Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," 
"The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am a bit confused. Do you mean there is an organized War Against Love as a vast conspiracy? Who are these antagonists, these forces that you are talking about? Do they all share the same agenda?

Rev. Jeff Liebmann said...

All valid questions.

Organized ? No. But the antagonists comprise a dangerous combination – a handful of inordinately well-funded and coldly calculating individuals and hundreds of millions of people who are indifferent to the plight of others so long as it doesn’t affect them.

Vast? Yes. I see this War as society-wide, in that there is not one aspect of American society left untouched by it.

Who are the antagonists? Readers of my blog know I am an Occupier, so clearly the 1% are included. But, it also includes the everyday John Q. Public who sits back and does nothing – doesn’t vote, doesn’t stay informed, doesn’t speak up when others are suffering, doesn’t stand up for the rights of others.

Do they share the same agenda? No. They share a common strategy, however. They hate something so much, that they will not even act in their own best interests just so they can achieve their goal. Nothing is sacred, even democracy, even freedom, and most especially even Love – all they care about is their primary issue, whether it is carrying guns wherever they want, controlling women’s bodies, or applying their religious views on the entire population.

Anonymous said...

This is so sad, but true. Being a young woman, it angers me that they are still trying to take away my reproductive rights even though Roe v. Wade occurred years ago. In this day and age it disgusts me that politicians are trying to take my rights away, along with denying my LGBT brothers and sisters the right to marry. I try my best to be vocal and speak up about these issues, and I hope that my generation can make things right.