Abuse of Power Under a Guise . . .

This month, in a few days, the death penalty may be carried out in Utah by means of a firing squad.
In Utah . . . in the United States . . . in 2010!

A man who volunteered to be on the firing squad, who has been on a firing squad before, and is currently a law enforcement officer in Utah . . . spoke to CNN* about the use of firing squads for death penalty cases, and about his experience of being on a firing squad.

Here are some of the things he said:

“How often does this come along? 100 percent justice.”
“The process is instantaneous and carried out with the utmost professionalism.”
“It was anti-climactic. Another day at the office.”
“I’ve shot squirrels I’ve felt worse about.”
“There’s (sic) just some people we need to kick off the planet.”
“The death penalty is nothing more than sending a defective product back to the manufacturer. Let him fix it.”

Does it take your breath away to hear this?  It does mine. Does it break your heart to hear this? It does mine. Imagine!

The abuse of power often takes place under a guise . . .
under the guise of taking care of people,
under the guise of helping people,
under the guise of serving people,
under the guise of justice. **

I urge you to see through the guises . . .
so you aren’t abused under a guise,
so you don’t collude with someone under a guise,
so you don’t remain passive in the face of a guise.

And here, in the form of a firing squad, is a guise for sure.
100% justice . . . that’s the guise.
The signs of the guise . . . what the law enforcement officer said:
“Another day at the office.”
“I’ve shot squirrels I’ve felt worse about,”
“There’s (sic) just some people we need to kick off the planet.”
“The death penalty is nothing more than sending a defective product back to the manufacturer. Let him fix it.”

If you experience being on a firing squad and shooting someone to death as “another day at the office,” you are numbed out and your heart is hardened and closed . . . abuse of power under the guise of professionalism and objectivity.
If you feel worse about squirrels you’ve shot than a human being, you are so disconnected from and misusing your feelings . . . which feeds the abuse of power you are committing.
If you have decided some people need to be kicked off the planet and set yourself up to participate in deciding who and how . . . you are not valuing human life and you are revealing your commitment to destroying what you don’t value. And kicking someone off the planet is abuse of power no matter how you describe it.
If you have decided “the death penalty is . . . sending a defective product back to the manufacturer,” you are abusing power under the guise of a belief and relationship with God.

We need to understand this. We need to know it, hear it, see it, and feel it.
We need to not be fooled by the guise that attempts to justify or hide abuse of power.
We need to understand this and not be fooled by the guise that attempts to justify or hide abuse of power anywhere – including in the bedroom, the living room, the classroom, the boardroom, the legislative halls, and the halls of justice.

* https://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/06/09/utah.firing.squad/index.html?hpt=C1

** In my book, Power Abused, Power Healed, I state:

“Every form of power can be used well or misused.
“The law has been used to manipulate as well as to serve justice. Parenthood has been used as a means of captivity, and it has been used to nourish a soul, helping it grow into fullness. Sexuality has been used as a weapon to rape and dominate, as a substitute for unmet childhood bonding and physical touch, and as an exquisite sacred expression of love and union.
“Even God’s name has been used both to destroy and to heal. Christian Inquisitors burned midwives at the stake; zealots have committed acts of violence all over the world in the name of religion. In contrast, people of many religions pray for peace; practitioners all over the world speak different names for God as they lay hands on suffering bodies to touch hearts and souls and restore them to health.”

(c) Judith Barr, 2010

WHERE IS YOUR VOICE?

In my work as a psychotherapist, I work tirelessly to help people either birth or reclaim their voices.  It’s not that they can’t speak. It’s that they are unable to speak up – for themselves, for someone they love, or for something they believe in. 

Perhaps that ability was squashed when they were babies, before they barely birthed and found their own voices – literally and emotionally.  When they cried – the way babies speak – someone was triggered by their crying and got frustrated, angry, or even abusive.  Or perhaps they were two years old, saying ‘no’ as a way of finding their individuated, own unique selves, and again, someone was evoked by their expressing themselves. That adult someone mistakenly thought the child was trying to control him or her and decided “I’ll show them who’s boss.”

Children can be scared out of using their voice – out of speaking their minds and their hearts – by the threat or actuality of attack or abandonment. When that happens, the work of healing to use their voice is deep, touching, and very real.

In thirty plus years doing this work, I would say every single person I’ve worked with has experienced this wound and needed to do the healing to have and be able to use their voice well and without abusing it. Not because these people were sick, but because they were wounded in relation to their own voices.

Watching our country over the past years, I would say many, many citizens in our country are suffering from the same wound. Some who don’t speak up when they need to.  And some who speak up so abrasively, even so abusively that you might mistakenly think they had no problem with their voice at all.

This shows up in our elections. It shows up in our disagreements about important controversial issues such as healthcare, a woman’s right to choose what happens with her body, and prejudice about people who are different from us. And most recently, it is showing up in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision that a corporation has a voice – a limitless voice – through unlimited use of its money to fund campaign ads for candidates of its choice.*

It is bizarre to give a corporation voice that in the constitution was meant for human beings.  It is bizarre to give a corporation such unlimited voice in elections, and especially under the guise of protecting first amendment rights to freedom of speech. That in itself will likely squash people’s individual voices, especially those of politicians running for office.  That is one of the potential consequences of this decision. But that’s not the voice I’m most concerned about today.

Today I’m concerned that I haven’t heard enough voices of individual citizens expressing themselves about this ruling.  Usually when something that has this much impact occurs, many of my clients talk about it in sessions.  They discuss their feelings about it, and they explore what it brings up in them. Something it would serve us all to do.  Very very few are exploring this event. My colleagues usually speak up about something like this . . . I’m not hearing any talk about this other than passing comments right after the decision.

And I’m concerned that I’m not hearing or reading very much about it in the media. It hasn’t come up on my internet news page since the day after the decision. And I haven’t heard it on the news to which I’ve listened since that same day. 

I shudder to think what such voicelessness can create in our country.
Actually, I shudder to think what voicelessness created an environment in our country in which such a ruling could be made and people would be quiet about it.

We have a lot of healing to do to move from being a voiceless people to a people who will and do use our precious voices to speak up for truth and justice . . . consistently, effectively, and impactfully.

Where is your voice?

*From MSNBC: “In a landmark ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday struck down laws that banned corporations from using their own money to support or oppose candidates for public office. By a 5-4 vote, the court overturned federal laws, in effect for decades, that prevented corporations from using their profits to buy political campaign ads.”
(https://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34822247/ns/politics-supreme_court/ )

(c) Judith Barr, 2010

Domestic violence abroad . . . and right here at home

In these times of financial, religious, social, and political unrest, those who have not learned to handle their feelings responsibly are increasingly lashing out at other . . . especially those with whom they are closest. The article below is a glimpse through one facet of this issue.*
 
The attitude of men and of the judicial system in Iraq toward women and girls, as demonstrated by the article referenced below – It’s Ok to Slap Spendthrift Wives** – is outrageous, tragic, heartbreaking.
 
You may think this is limited to Iraq . . . or at least countries other than the United States. If you do, you have a shock in store for you!
 
I have worked with women, in the supposedly cultured and advanced northeast United States, who were abused in their marriages and frankly! Even more in their attempts to divorce. These women were, in the process of divorce, abused by their husbands, their lawyers (men and women alike), the judges, and the legal system.
 
Some of the women would have been homeless had it not been for the resources of their families of origin. Some were unable to feed and clothe their children because the courts did not assure them the money to live on even during the divorce process. I’ve seen women lose their children. I’ve seen women lose all their savings. I’ve known of women who stayed with their husbands for fear the courts would make the children have visitation with a father they were terrified by.
 
Don’t tell me courts expected the wives, whose husbands had insisted they stay home and take care of the children, to suddenly be able to get the level of jobs that would support them and their children . . . especially when all the while their lawyers were telling the wives not to get jobs or they’d get no alimony and child support.  Don’t tell me the courts can’t see abuse when it’s right in front of their eyes, for example wives, who had been so abused that they had no confidence in themselves anymore.  Don’t tell me the courts do such voluminous business in divorce and don’t know the shame the wives feel in their plight. Don’t tell me the courts were fooled by the husbands’ attempts to wriggle out of their responsibilities to take care of even their children . . . by claiming they’d lost their business, by claiming they didn’t have the assets they had.  And don’t you dare tell me that the courts are so heartless that they favor the wallet of the abusive man over the means to heal the heart and soul of his wife and children.
 
Now . . . I know that each woman needs to do her own work about the early wounds that may have caused her to end up with an abusive husband. About the early wounds that may have caused her to be frozen when wanting to leave. About the early wounds that may have caused her to perhaps even leave and then return to her abusive husband.  And it is true!

Each woman in this situation does need to do her own inner healing of psyche and soul – so that she doesn’t recreate the same situation all over again! So that she models the deepest healing for her children! So that she heals on the inside, too, to the very root of the wound, and not just the outer level.  
 
So that she knows her part and doesn’t disempower herself by pretending it was only his responsibility. Yes! If she makes it all his responsibility, she does, in fact, disempower herself. She keeps herself from finding the roots in her own life of her becoming entangled in an abusive relationship.  And no matter what anyone says, that is extremely disempowering . . .  for if she doesn’t know her part in the creation and perpetuation of the abusive relationship, she does not have the power to heal it and to prevent a recurrence.
 
Both of these elements must be attended to.
The abuse from the outer world . . . particularly the court system.
And the disempowerment not only from the outer world but also from the inner world of long ago.

If you are a woman who is in an abusive relationship . . . please get the help you need, and don’t stop until you do.

If you are a woman or a man who knows a woman in an abusive relationship and want to help . . . keep your heart open both to her current situation and also to the childhood wounds that are still alive inside her. And please do your own work, so you don’t act out of your own childhood wounds, and so you don’t act in her behalf to avoid your early wounds. If you have additional time and energy, help to work for exposure of and changes in the system . . . the lawyers, the judges, the legal system itself, and, of course, the law.

Now let’s go back to the countries like Iraq, where dealing with domestic violence is different in significant ways than in the USA. Where women are, in essence, prisoners in their own homes and their own countries, by government sanctioned practices? What can we do to help those women? Pray for them. Dedicate our own healing work not only to ourselves but also to them. Find organizations that we know will help them and contribute to those organizations. Found such an organization. Organize a fundraiser to raise money to contribute. Gather our friends and colleagues to brainstorm and heart-storm other ways to help . . . both at home and abroad.

This issue of domestic violence abroad and right here at home is a clear example of the crucial need for prayer, outer action, and inner healing combined if we are going to resolve problems in our lives and our world and sustain the resolution and changes both inside and out.

 (c) Judith Barr, 2009

*I could write on this theme for days . . . months. There are many facets, including domestic violence in which women are violent to their husbands. But today, I am writing about the woman receiving the violence. 

**https://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/05/10/saudi.court.wife.slapping/index.html

EXPLORING THE ROOTS OF A SHOCKING EXAMPLE OF POWER ABUSE . . . AN UPDATE

As of Thursday, April 16, 2009, Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan, has responded to demonstrations in his own land and criticism from Western leaders against the bill which he recently signed into law, including a provision which essentially legalizes the rape of womenwithin marriage. Karzai claimed that he was not aware of the provision in the law, and told CNN:

“Now I have instructed, in consultation with clergy of the country, that the law be revised and any article that is not in keeping with the Afghan constitution and Islamic Sharia must be removed from this law.”

We have cause to celebrate all those who took action. We have cause to celebrate that President Karzai did respond. But this does not sound like a clear and solid commitment to remove the article from the law. We cannot stop here. We must continue to keep our eyes, ears, hearts and voices on this issue in Afghanistan until it is resolved in favor of a woman’s right to say ‘no’ to her husband’s request (or demand) for sexual contact.

And we cannot stop here. We cannot limit our attention to the outer world manifestation of such abuse of power. We need to remember that a core part of healing this in the outer world is healing it in our inner worlds, too . . . healing the misuse and abuse of power it reveals in our lives – current and long, long ago – and healing the powerlessness it reveals in our lives – current and long, long ago. Only by including the inner work of psyche, heart, body and soul, will we be able to help make changes that are sustainable.

Please read my original post at
https://judithbarr.com/2009/04/05/exploring-the-roots-of-a-shocking-example-of-power-abuse/
to expand your understanding and inspire you even more to do your part, too.

(c) Judith Barr, 2009