If you have never watched “The Handmaids Tale,” which I suspect most local Kauai people have not, you have no idea to what I am referring.
But if you are a breathing human of certain age categories, either my age category of the 50s or younger, and you are a woman who has access to the Hulu subscription service, you know exactly of what I speak.
Margaret Atwood, the original author and brilliant writer, who’s weirdly prophetic novel became a movie in the early 1980s, ironically the same time period as when the Kavanaugh accusers place most of his “alleged” behavior, seemed to foretell the history of this country as it is now unfolding before our eyes.
In my lifetime, I never in my wildest dreams thought that we would actually be living out someone’s fictional, but cautionary tale in real time. Yet, here we are, doing just that.
In this country, as we face hurtling backwards in time, and returning to our most ugly histories and past, we watched as the real life “Aunt Lydia,” in the form of the prosecutor who tried her best to do the will of the all-white, male senators who were so terrified of facing a lone woman, with her humbleness and humility, that they had to hide behind the skirt of a woman to do their dirty deeds.
The prosecutor played her role well. Like the Aunt Lydia character, she expressed a twisted sort of “empathy” for her “charges,” as she carried out the grisly orders of the laws of the land under a brutal “New America,” which had de-evolved into a misogynistic utopia for Alpha males.
What we witnessed during the Kavanaugh hearings was that de-evolution of the fabric of American life right before our very eyes.
What we see when we see our misogynistic president support his flawed nominees for appointments one after the other, is exactly this structure blatantly asserting itself into the fabric of our fundamental institutions.
Like a cancer cell run amok, it is beginning to branch out subtly into every aspect of our lives. Those citizens of this country who lackadaisically go about their daily tasks and miraculously feel untouched by all of the goings on. They are going about their lives in tiny bubbles, or stupors, unable to open their eyes and face the ultimate breaking down of our society and our country, and put their heads in the sand and refuse to see.
Soon, it will be too late to turn back the hands of time.
The grooming of American hearts and minds and the complete gas-lighting of the entire country is currently and actively occurring and yet people like sheep, are being led to the slaughterhouse and refuse to save themselves, the country, or their collective souls.
They continue to believe that women are evil and liars, and the women acolytes of the misogynistic right are each and every one of them living embodiments of the “Aunt Lydia” archetype. Psychologically, they have been groomed, and are grooming their daughters to follow in their footsteps.
In this country, we are covering up our souls in the mantle of indifference, self-denial and ignorance, in order to comply with the will of the budding regime currently occupying our nation’s capital — a “New Order” in which women are put back in their place and kept there from now on. If you are a woman, this means you, and every female human in existence in this country currently and in the future.
Women who go against other women who step forward to tell their truth, demonize those who do so because they themselves are so deeply mired in the quicksand of misogyny and patriarchal order themselves. They are the ones who shield these perpetrators who allegedly commit these crimes, and y hold as much guilt as the men. In fact, they hold more guilt, since they are willing and active participants in the subjugation of their own gender.
We are doomed to repeat history. To fall as a nation and a people, and women, teens and children will suffer horrors in the future because of our complacency, and our acceptance of the misogynistic and patriarchal order that wants to rule us all.
Obey or be annihilated. That is our fate.
“I am an active participant in my own destruction, and the destruction of those around me, to protect and support the patriarchal order because I do not have a spine or a will to stand up to it. Because I resign not only myself, but all of the generations in the future to the same miserable fate because I did not have the courage to speak out.”
Say that into the mirror 10 times. Think about it.
•••
Anne Punohu is a resident of
Lihue.
“Let the jury consider their verdict,” the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.
“No, no!” said the Queen. “Sentence first–verdict afterwards.”
“Stuff and nonsense!” said Alice loudly. “The idea of having the sentence first!”
“Hold your tongue!” said the Queen, turning purple.
“I won’t!” said Alice.
“Off with her head!” the Queen shouted at the top of her voice.
— Lewis Carroll, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”
Is this what you mean Anne?
RG DeSoto
Teddy Roosevelt “It is both foolish and wicked to teach the average man who is not well off that some wrong or injustice has been done him, and that he should hope for redress elsewhere than in his own industry, honesty and intelligence. ” We are experiencing the result of teaching inferiorrority instead of math. The propaganda about how horrible teachers were in the 50’s and the labeling of unions as socialist so that the middle class has no power.
Surely you jest!
This current regime fuels the low socio economic caucasian male power that although his net worth has dissolved he is still superior and proof is that he can always dominate the scutt woman. My nieces and nephews are unable to buy starter homes because their tech employment has zero guarantees. No pensions, no colas, use your vacay lose your job.