Wednesday, January 05, 2011

A Nation Of Sheep

If you have ever watched a dog herding sheep, you know that the dog uses his/her ancient predatory instincts to frighten the sheep into running in certain directions. The sheep, natural prey animals, respond with the natural fear of attack and move as directed. It is unfortunate that I see this tendency towards knee-jerk reactions to fear-mongering in our general populace.

Going back to our Puritan progenitors, run out of the United Kingdom for their zealous excesses, fear of Hell and damnation was used to keep the colony in check. The more ignorant and uninformed the person, the more easily they can become alarmed by the specter of gloom and ruin. The biggest supporters of the status quo, the Tea Party and the rantings of Beck, Riley, Limbaugh and Gingrich are the ones who don't realize they are being robbed blind by the financially elite who propagate this fear-mongering.

It disturbs me to realize that our power structure is comprised of the wealthy, the social engineers and the dogmatic. Back when I was a pregnant teen, I was as unaware as anyone else of what was being done to the general citizenry. Religion and psychology joined forces to make a perceived threat out of unmarried mothers and their children. We were doomed to poverty, reliance upon the taxpayers and to raised damaged young or so they said. We were also, in the male-dominated society in which we still, unfortunately, live, damaged goods, unworthy of a "good man" or a normal life.

Our parents, families, communities, preening, newly-professional social workers and the general public saw nothing wrong in using us for breeding stock for the more deserving, wage-earning, married infertile couples. The sheep ran as the dogs directed and it was seen as a win-win situation all around. As sad as it is, that is still often the case with the unmarried mothers of today, especially with that stupid idea of "born-again virginity."

People fear things that they don't understand or that are not part of their life experience. I look at the Tea Party and the Christian Conservative Machine and see them using every fear card in the deck: racism, sexism, homophobia, radical nationalism...you name it. Just like the BSE, I am hearing the sheep bleat in terror as they run in the direction the powerful wish them to go. The ability to think for oneself is not valued in the areas of religion or politics. There lies danger and sedition in the eyes of the herders.

I am a sheep that morphed into a person when I learned that I was sold a bill of goods when I was young enough, dependent enough, ignorant enough and vulnerable enough to buy into it. Once I questioned the nature of what was done to me and to my children, it led me to question a lot of other things, among them the Capitalistic nature of the adoption industry in the "free" world. What I have seen in my quest for answers has frightened me a lot more than any barking pundit. The arrogance of the shepherds is starting to cause quite a few cases of morphing from sheep to real people.

I was raised to love my country, to be loyal to my government and to adhere to certain standards of "acceptable" behavior. I love my country. If questioning the efficacy and honesty of my government is disloyal, so be it. And while I still have standards, I am not the blue-nosed prude I was, even towards myself. Talk about your split personalities. I did have sex with my boyfriend and felt guilty as Hell about it, every time. No wonder I never enjoyed it.

I hope that more and more Americans will get tired of being herded, marked, shorn and scared. I don't have HIGH hopes, but I still have hope. A human mind should never take on ovine characteristics. It defeats the definition of human.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

What an absolutely fantastic, thought provoking post. Thank you!!

Von said...

Another great post!

maybe said...

Why is it that every time I see the name "Gingrich" my mind reads it as "Grinch?"

Robin said...

LOL..I don't think you are alone there, maybe.