Anger

Anger is a natural response to harm, deprivation or helplessness. Anger which is not acknowledged or examined surfaces in unpredictable and unproductive ways. This morning on NPR, I heard a stunning example of anger misplaced.

Anti-reproductive-rights protester.

The NPR story was about increased Federal prosecution for harassing and attempting to intimidate women on their way to family-planning clinics. Protesters proudly abuse women in the name of their religious beliefs. They see themselves as a crusaders for unborn children. In fact, they are more likely demented, angry and unable to process their normal human emotions. 

The current feel-good, it's-all-good culture in America is admirably optimistic, but probably not very healthy. The simple fact is that it all isn't good. Gigantic social and economic problems loom. The environmental problems, which threaten the survival of civilization, are largely being ignored by the U.S. government. Wars are being waged on the poor in other nations at great expense to the people of America. Yet, through clever propagandist manipulation, the government has managed to rally the poorest citizens around the sanctity of Homeland Security. The poor are willing to sacrifice their own children in exchange for hollow nationalism and the gamble of eventual veterans' benefits. 

Religious leaders and politicians exploit submerged rage for their own purposes. The Tea Party and Rick Perry are obvious examples of the sympathy that exists between these exploiters of public anger for power and wealth. The Catholic Church, under the leadership of self-loathing homosexuals, both abuses and then exploits the rage of the abused by focusing on women's reproductive rights, which threaten the subjugation of women which the Church has propagated for thousands of years.

Abusers manipulate the anger of the abused because they fear it. They know and fear their own rage which motivates their own abuse of others. The remedy for that rage is to expose it for what it is. This is a long and painful process which few human beings dare undertake. However, when undertaken, it is perhaps the first and greatest step to personal liberation and true freedom.