©Danise Codekas, 2012
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.” ― Mahatma Gandhi
The continued build up of social networking around the globe is leading to some interesting match ups. Right in your face confrontations, as in the case on my Facebook page, www.facebook.com/danisecodekas, and on other FB friends' pages.
Realize it is an open forum once you are befriended, however, a name calling, cruel toned, diatribe-tossing forum, on my FaceBook pages gets no action on my part except to un-friend or delete the conversations. Branch.com can be used for those nasty word-throwing, typing fests. Go to your rooms.
The irony of the argument is that the discussion was about war: which president started it, which one inherited the legacy. Like one man has the power to push that button, now. Since Google+ kicked in with circles within circles, I tend to look at universal arguments about war and peace as citizens, 6 billion of them, within the circles, interlinked, and anchored on this planet, together, trying to survive.
Yes, cruelities are abhorrent, and cruel people exist. Yet, in my lowly estimation, there are more balanced, good people on the planet than the un-balanced, vicious ones. I am not a foolish woman, although foolish things I have done, however, from my experiences around the world, the good guys showed up, eventually.
I was once dumped out of a car, in the middle of a snowstorm, in a field above a lake. It was the results of an argument with the person driving the car. Tempers flew, words were said and the argument I cannot remember now.
Stricken by the enormity of the act of this individual, trying to find shelter from the snow, didn’t register, so shocked was I to be standing in the field. I could see the huge maple trees, denuded, frozen, the wind and snow whipped my face as I looked down the road waiting to see backup lights, when the fool realized the danger I was now in.
The silence caught my attention. The quiet of the falling snow. The sound of my boots crunching through the top-frozen snow layer as I walked to a tree, for shelter from the whirling wind.
Thank God for down clothing. Leaning against the tree, on the leeward side, clarity came about this person which could of only happened being in this cold,precarious situation. There were no houses around, and the walk to the lake would be a few miles. Too cold, windy and slippery. Next to the tree, I had shelter.
It was then I realized my intolerance towards acts of cruelty, in any form. Forgiving someone because they make an error in judgment, and do not act with intent to do harm, I can do.
The action of this person, purposeful, with intent to do harm, would never be forgotten,as you can read, however, eventually, I forgave them. I would never trust them again and no longer have anything to do with them.
I was left in the middle of a snowstorm, atop a hill, in the dark for an hour, in which fear, exhaustion, and frozen flesh began to give into wanting to sleep. Dying was a thought, and an argument should never get to a point where we begin to think we could die.
Unfortunately, many do, every day. Luckily I was not one of them. However, my first taste of cruelty, was my badge for the days to follow. Cruelty had touched me and I am grateful to be able to have had a touch of it, this lifetime. There is no excuse for it. None, ever.
Generalist are dangerous spokespersons for causes and political entities. They bore me as they did not do their homework. Grand statements that classify, criticize or demean any living being on this planet, are not worthy of a seat at my dinner table.
To wake today and find out that a populace’s government voice had said that women who are raped can do something to prevent getting pregnant during a rape, well, made me very curious. i had to read the entire story before listening to women screaming about his comments.
It’s easy to tell a woman you should bear the child of your rapist, because the child shouldn’t suffer for the rapists actions. He is opposed to abortion. His right. Pros and Cons on both sides and we all know the arguments. We all have the right to our choices, also.
There are some women who have birthed babies of their rapists for philosophical and religious reasons. To others, to be reminded of the act in which a child was conceived is abhorrent, so abortion ensues. Their right.
That right exists, for women, in this country. A majority vote of men and women carried it forward as law in America. That he was so cruelly ignorant of the horror his words imbedded in the hearts of women, who worry about rape, is inexcusable.
For centuries women bore children from rape, if they didn’t commit suicide first, or be stoned to death by their tribes. Women still are faced with these options throughout the world. However, not in America. Women have a choice, thanks to men who helped make it a law, along with women who felt it was time.
My opinion on the topic is superfluous as I have never become pregnant from a rape. It is a situation, like me alone in a snow-stormed field, miles above civilization, tired, frightened, freezing, that you can not say what you would have done until it happens.
I will say, for Todd Aiken his lesson today may be a re-look at his values and principles, which is what these self-created annihilations are all about, which we do to ourselves.
In the meantime, I see him and those who defend his cruel remarks, as a flock of Stymphalian birds. With their feathers, like arrows, causing pain and death wherever they fly. Until, Hercules arrives with his bronze rattle gifted from Athena, chasing them from the Stymphalian lake in Arcadia to Ares Island, where eventually Jason & his Argonauts take up arms.
The wonderful aspect of today’s events is had Todd Aiken not said this, had he been elected and had the power to enact a law disallowing a woman her right, to terminate pregnancy, after rape, we would be saying that we wish we had found out before the election.
Be glad for transparency, and the power of the media and us. Those of you who picked up your bronze rattles of Athena, and rattled them in the face of these cruel words and punishment Aiken thinks raped women should bear.
Hard to hide who you really are, and what acts you are committing or allowing, in this super conductor, Internet freeway we are on.
There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist, who is willing to sit out the course of any battle, willing to cash in on the blood of the innocent or to crawl on his belly to the guilty, who dispenses justice by condemning both the robber and the robbed to jail, who solves conflicts by ordering the thinker and the fool to meet each other halfway. In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromise is the transmitting rubber tube.” -- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“The States are not free, under the guise of protecting maternal health or potential life, to intimidate women into continuing pregnancies.”-Harry A. Blackmun, Associate Justice, US Supreme Court. (Majority opinion in 7-2 ruling that established the constitutional legality of abortion, 22 Jan 1973)
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