Well not just today. It’s a longheld belief of mine, being a structuralist at heart.
Religion and politics are structures we created to corrupt things people are perfectly capable of doing on their own, without hierarchies.
For those of you who are believers- do you really need a man in a glorified bathrobe who stands above you, lecturing at you, to know god? Or does that man, and the man above him, and the man above him, and the funds that must be collected to build the buildings to house the place where the man stands above you and collects money and lectures at you, create a structure that increases the space between you and your deity of choice? Or maybe I’ve just been soaking in protestant culture all my life and thought Martin Luther was on to something. Maybe I’ve spent too much time reading about our famous local godbags, the Mars Hill Cult Church, and can’t see any benefit from one or a few godly men bullying people because god says he can.
Now politics, we all think we get something out of politics because roads get built or schools get run. That’s not politics. That’s governance. Politics is taking the power from the people and turning into a game for fun and profit at the expense of the people. That’s true, even in a democracy. Politics is the way we choose (or are forced, bludgeoned, tricked, and cajoled into “choosing”) who we give power over our lives to. Even democracy, supposedly the most self-regulating of all power structures because us peasants have to option of firing the king(s), eventually breaks down in oligarchy. Like gravity, it is a law. What goes up must come down. What is for the many will be narrowed to the few.
Perhaps Diderot is a bit bloody in his quote (and completely ignores when us lady types will be free) “Man will never be free until the last king is strangled by the entrails of the last priest”. After the last week of politicking and religiousizing over women’s bodies*, I would toast that dual execution gladly. Let the patriarchy kill itself and it’s minions with it.
*FYI- while everyone (with a uterus) was all “Shit look at fucking Virginia and it’s rape-o-sound law! Look at all the fucking dudes in tacky blue suits testifying about what god thinks of lady-parts!” Arizona was passing a law that makes it legal for a man or an underage girl’s parents to force a pregnant woman to stay pregnant against her will. And if she has an abortion anyways, dude can sue her for damages due to “lost companionship”.
On that note, TMI TIME!!!!I had an appointment with the gyno of Valentine’s Day (most romantic of all doctor’s appointments. I told her that I would have bedazzled the bits or shaved the pubes into a festive shape if I was going to have an exam- but this was just a consult) and I begged, pleaded, damn near cried for her to take out my uterus or sand blast it’s baby making properties into non-existence. She wants me to try getting an IUD one more time (round 4- if you’re keeping track) and I said I would not do it unless I was given enough drugs to make me damn near unconscious. I had an abortion once where I was given a lovely demerol/valium cocktail and I don’t remember a thing. It was, for a surgical procedure, lovely. Gyno (who is supposed to be the best per my regular doc) is consulting with SUPER GYNO! who can bend and twisted uterus to her will. I am doubtful. It’s like a bendy straw in there and there is no way to get a straight stick through a u-shaped curve.