Mood:  sharp

When I was younger – I am talking like when I was age 10 - 17, I was fairly religious and pretty conservative. I believed in freedom so long as it conformed to Jehovah’s guidelines as set forth in the scared texts of the Bible. I was firmly a creationist, did not believe in a woman’s right to choose, and was not very accepting of the idea of homosexual relationships. I can admit that I let my personal religious beliefs dictate my world view on what other people should or should not be doing in their daily lives – their personal daily lives. Then, my eyes were opened by a series of personal events that caused me to reevaluate my belief structure.

The Massacre in Tiananmen Square in China opened my eyes. How could a government hate its people so much as to run them over with tanks and shoot them when all they wanted was freedom? That is what was running through my mind. I was thankful that I lived in a country where I was free. I started to evaluate my freedoms and I realized I took a great deal of them for granted. My mother had talked to me about the Civil Rights movement and the Women’s Liberation movement, but I really didn’t “get it” until I saw that poor Chinese man stand in front of tank, stand up and say, “We are not going to take this anymore” and they killed him and a host of other protesters. Why? What For? Was all this because Communist leader Deng Xiaoping wanted to shore up his leadership? It was a peaceful mass protest, and the Chinese government’s response was violent and brutal. Yes, June 4, 1989 affected me greatly. It led me to some deep soul searching. Who are we to deny others the right to choose they way in which they want to spend their precious hours on this marvelous creation Earth?

Other things happened in 1989 and 1990 that shaped my view of our government and society in general.

Reagan left office and the first Bush presidency began. Things just did not seem to be going in a good direction for the country. Bush was out of touch with the American people, and he just seemed ‘smarmy’ to me. Not long after he took over the reigns from Reagan, the whole Iran-Contra affair was wrapped up with a US jury convicted Oliver North. I wondered why Bush and Reagan didn’t get something done to them. It didn’t seem fair. This secret arrangement in the 1980s to provide funds to the Nicaraguan contra rebels from profits gained by selling arms to Iran was just a terrible thing for the Republican administration to do. The Iran-contra affair was the product of two separate initiatives during the administration of President Ronald Reagan. The first was a commitment to aid the contras who were conducting a guerrilla war against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. The second was to placate “moderates” within the Iranian government in order to secure the release of American hostages held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon and to influence Iranian foreign policy in a pro-Western direction. I wasn’t too thrilled when just over a year latter Oliver North’s conviction was overturned on appeal. It just didn’t feel like justice.

I remember very clearly when I heard about Salman Rushdie being condemned to death by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini because he wrote Satanic Versus, and then just a short time later Khomeini dying. I never liked Khomeini because of the entire mess with the hostages in Iran, and I didn’t get why this guy had so much power. It got me interested in WHY he was in charge of Iran (as I understood it at age 17), and I found out he was a cleric – yeah, a holy man. Something like a priest or rabbi, or congregational elder but on an entirely more powerful level, because he told people how to live their lives and made it the country’s law. He made Islamic law the law of the land in Iran and when I found out about how they treated women – OH MY GOODNESS – was I ever pissed.

I hadn’t understood the whole Iran-Contra thing but when Khomeini started up with his death threats against Rushdie, I started to think long and hard about theocracy, democracy, and our government, particularly the party that was in charge at the time – the Republicans.

Anyway – stuff was happening around the world and it came at me and I really started to focus on something other than “my personal little world.”

The Solidarity movement winning elections in Poland on June 5, 1989 was such a contract to the events of the previous day in China. It gave me a little hope that people who worked through grass roots movements and strived for freedom – democracy, free elections, rights – could win if they stuck together. The Berlin wall coming down – that was huge. October and November of 1989 was massive in my world political view. Then fall of communism in the Soviet Union in February 1990, wow, no more USSR. Was it the end of the Cold War? Well – not yet, that didn’t happen ‘officially’ until July 1990.

Followed closely by the US invasion of Panama in December, and the arrest of General Manuel Noriega for drug trafficking. I did not agree with the extreme clamp down by Noriega’s government on the limited democracy that existed in Panama, but I certainly didn’t think it was up to the US to be the world’s watchdog and invade a country.

OH - and also, the revolution in Romania. I clearly remember the face of Nicole Ceausecu, the deposed dictator of Romania – shot dead with his wife. It was bloody and terrible, the civil war in Romania, but it led to freedom for the Romanian people.

There were also tremendous environmental issues that opened my eyes. The Exxon Valdez tanker ran aground in Prince William Sound in Alaska. The HUGE environmental impact on that pristine wilderness coalesced my anger with large corporations and the greed of the oil industry giving me another topic to read about. See – my government studies teacher gave me a list of books that I needed to choose from and read. One of them was “Rating America’s Corporate Conscience – A Provocative Guide To the Companies Behind The Products You Buy Every Day”. That book really was a shake up for me, as did some of the other books I read, like, “The Movement and The Sixties” by Terry H. Anderson.

There was a teacher’s strike at my high school and my government studies teacher was the ‘ringleader’. Several of his ‘favorite’ students staged a student protest on the front lawn. 600 other students to followed (about 34% of the student body) and joined the sit in. We didn’t feel that the teachers were being paid enough AND many of us were upset that ‘downtown’ was directing things at our school when we thought it should be the staff at the school who knew our needs best that should be directing things. This went along with what the teachers union said and felt too. We carried protest signs and supported the striking teachers with coffee, donuts, and brown bag lunches. None of us were suspended and several of the others had their parents come and join the sit in. This girl I knew actually called the news networks to get them to come down and film the protest. They never aired it because they didn’t want to encourage other such protests by students across the district. Still – the news spread and within a week, a great number of high schools across the LAUSD were faced with massive student protests on behalf of the striking teachers. So, in1989 when after a two-week strike the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) settled a labor contract with LAUSD that mandated a shift toward site-based management (SBM) of the district’s schools and budget.

I participated in a march on the Federal Building in Westwood on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Then, Nelson Mandela was released from prison in February 1990 and I became very interested in South Africa and their civil rights issues.

The US Supreme court overturning the law banning flag burning June 11, 1990 was HUGE for me.

I took trip to Europe and went to college there in the fall of 1990. The Persian Gulf War broke out while I was there. Margaret Thatcher left office and John Major became Prime Minister. Americans abroad feared for their lives. It was horrible and even though I thought the evasion of Kuwait by Iraq was wrong, I was angry at then President Bush for sending my friends there to fight over oil.

History has made me who I am, and shattered my personal beliefs I once clung to like a security blanket. It became clear to me that overly zealous religious conservatives caused a great deal of turmoil in the Middle East. I analyzed my own religious beliefs, took several classes in religious studies in college (Judaism, Eastern Religions, “Pagan” Religions). I figured after studying the Bible since I was three years old, I needed to hear what other religions thought and believed. It was a true eye opener. I realized that there were huge differences and yet tremendous similarities. The one thing that became very clear to me was the religion was really about control and fear. By implanting fear in the populace and then telling them that only through the clergy can one find ‘salvation’ from whatever is causing the fear, the clergy was controlling the masses. The skeptic in me was born and yet, the little girl who wanted to believe that there was a purpose and a masterful design to all things didn’t want to let go.

Here I am, 36 years old, and still baffled by the gullibility of people who don’t seek their own personal relationship with the divine, but rather have it spoon fed to them by oppressive organizations like the Taliban, the Vatican, Al Qaida, Watchtower Society, etc. About two weeks ago or so, I was driving home and I heard that a part of the Episcopalian church had broken away because of issues over women being ordained, women being ordained as Bishops, and about openly gay clergy. The guy that was leading the people to leave the church had some pretty hateful speech going on. It was very anti-woman and anti-gay as if they weren’t living breathing creations of God. He was going on and on about this and that being unchristian and all I can think of was, Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law, and that the only guidance Jesus left us was to love your neighbor as yourself. Everything Jesus wanted us to do could be summed up with – love everyone and be good to and understanding of each other. Here was this ‘man of God’ on the radio saying that gays were sinners destined to burn in Hell. Boy that just chapped my hide. Who is he to judge? He’s not perfect, and he himself is a sinner. AND, if you believe in the Bible and what it says, you can believe that Jesus died for everyone’s sins, to wash them clean, so that even people who are sinners can be cleaned of their sins if they accept Christ as their savior.

Well, listening to that stuff on the radio, on NPR no less, reaffirmed my belief that organized religion does more to separate people than it does to bring them together.

So what do I personally believe or what are my ideas? Here goes:

• I believe the Earth, Solar System, Galaxy, Universe – all of it – is wondrous no matter how it got here. It’s glorious and spectacular and should be appreciated, cared for as best we can, and respected.
• I believe that each living individual entity (plant, mammal, bird, fish, etc.) has an inherent right to exist in its natural setting and should be allowed to do so without undo harm, abuse, or destruction
• I believe that people should stop hurting other people; that too many people take pleasure in creating discord and anarchy for the sake of their own personal enjoyment and fulfillment causing suffering to others
• I believe that all genders have the same rights of existence and are absolutely of equal value to the universe
• I believe that all cultures have their inherent value and that no other culture should try and destroy another
• I believe that although there are many different varieties of people, we are all humans needing sustenance, companionship, love, respect, hope and peace.
• I believe that as long as I am not hurting another separate independent living entity, I should be allowed to do whatever I want with my own body including ending my own life if that is what I choose to do
• I believe that no government or organization has been true to its established charter, constitution, founding papers, etc. and that they are imperfect groups run by imperfect people
• I believe that you have the right to believe whatever you want to, but that your beliefs don’t necessary make you right, nor do my beliefs make me right, and we do not have to agree with each other, merely acknowledge that we have differences, that each individual has the right to their personal beliefs, and that in no way, shape, or form should anyone try to force their personal moral code upon another
• I believe in harmony – differences blended together to create a working balance of tones