From: cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Templars not Masons <flame risk HIGH>
Date: 1 Sep 92 21:13:51 GMT
Organization: University of California, Irvine

In article <1992Sep1.153238.25897@lmt.mn.org> ciaran@county.lmt.mn.org (Ciaran Benson) writes:
>
>  On another note ...
>
>  Some folks have asked me wherein lies the wisdom of being
>rageful about things which happened a long time ago.
>
>  Well, in the case of Lithuania, I think it could be argued that
>its just NOW climbing out from underneath oppression and looking
>for its cultural roots.
>
>  Also, although it's potentially (and, I'm sure, arguably) a
>BAD THING to allow anger about past transgressions serve as a
>portion of your definition of yourself, I find that anger about
>Tienemen (sp?) Square, Nixon, the Kent State shootings, the 

Tien An Men, as far as I know. 

>(still on-going) Iran Contra coverup, Little Big Horn, The
>Holocaust, the attempted reconstruction of the history of The
>Holocaust, the burning times, the inquisition, and What Happened
>In The Baltic States and What CONTINUES to Happen In The
>Baltic States helps me define myself and what I DON'T like
>about the world, and what I like to keep an eye out for.

Where is the "wisdom" in getting angry about things that happened years
ago?  Oh, really.  This from a bunch of people who use the phrase
"Burning Times" regularly.  

Chr-r-r-r-r-rist, people, the past creates the present.  It's what got
us where we are.  Of COURSE it's constructive to get pissed about it --
how the hell else are you going to avoid doing the same old shit again in
the future?  Ask a Native American whose stuck in some dirt-poor
reservation somewhere with no job, no land, and no hope of improvement,
"Why get so angry about what happened to your ancestors years ago?" and
see what they say.  What happened to their ancestors years ago is what
put THEM in such a shitty situation, stupid (not you, hon). 

If anger is part of your definition for yourself, well then it's part
of your definition for yourself.  I've found that (and I am NOT making an
open slam on SWAGs so puh-LEEEEZE don't accuse me of it; I happen to be
in LOVE with a SWAG) only people who are SWAG or at least SW have
the nerve to look people who have suffered great injustice in the eye and
say, "But your anger is just not constructive, dear."  It reminds me of
a line in _To Kill a Mockingbird_ when a bunch of white women are having
a little coffee get-together, and they are all complaining about how the
news of Tom Robinson's conviction is just making their lives harder by
making their darkies so uppity and hard to deal with.  One of the women
said something like, "I know just what you mean.  My girl has been just
such a grumbler since it happened (Robinson was accused of rape unjustly
and convicted by an all-white jury when it was obvious he didn't do it).
I said to her, `Prissy (as good a stereotypical name as any), Jesus
Christ didn't go around grumbling when things got bad.'  And she just
looked at me and said, `No ma'am, He didn't.'"  

People get pissed about this stuff, especially when it hits close to
home; deal with it.

Again, and pardon my shouting -- THE PAST CREATES THE PRESENT.  IT HAS
EVERY POSSIBLE BEARING ON WHERE WE ARE NOW, AND AS SUCH IT IS PERFECTLY
LOGICAL TO GET BUGGED ABOUT IT.  IT CAN HAPPEN AGAIN, AND GETTING ANGRY
MAY HELP PREVENT THAT. 

>  Sure, the dog that bit us during the burning times is dead and
>buried.  But it had puppies, and those puppies have had puppies.

MARVELOUS metaphor! 

>So I kinda walk carefully whenever one of those puppies starts
>making yapping noises about my freedoms -- its ancestors bled
>my ancestors to death, and not so long ago that the pattern
>is completely unrecognisable.
>
>  But you're right.  I spewed about the wrong group.

You are a very big person to be able to admit that after spewing such
venom. 

>  Maybe this is some of what's going on in what used to be
>the Urals.  Old you-killed-my-brother-and-I'm-gonna-kill-you
>the-second-I-get-the-chance feuds getting passed from parent
>to child until it's ethnic groups rather than individuals mad
>at each other and finally getting the chance.

As long as you try to approach people individually, it's okay to spew.
I was trounced soundly day in and day out for being a dago girl (tall,
skinny, funny-looking, with glasses, and getting straight A's) by nice
little cute freckled Irish kiddies, and to this day, I cannot enjoy
Celtic music and go out of my WAY to wear red on St. Patrick's day.  My
father's home in Philadelphia was also broken into and trashed by the
neighborhood Irish wives who didn't want those smelly wops moving in.
These things have an impact on someone, and if I an angry about them --
well, we are all created by our past.

If, however, I were to personally blame every American Irishman I meet
on the street for what I went through, I would be bluntly in the wrong.
I am very angry about what happened to me and my family.  I will admit
openly that it prevents me from enjoying Celtic-flavored things, which
may be one of the reasons I'm a Solitary.  And I will not pin it on Dan
Raney or Marilyn Flynn -- two friends of mine and incredibly sweet
people.  (Dan is also a very good Catholic boy -- went to mass every
day.  However, and as my SO says, he doesn't let it interfere with
having a good time.  I've worn my pentacle around him, and he's asked 
what it's for, and I told him, and he just nodded and continued
talking.)  I can be pissed about what "the Irish" back home did and not
hate every single one of them.  Maybe this seems strange to you people;
it's not to me.  I hate the old ethnic hatred that brought those things
on me and mine; I hate those who did it, and no one else.  I am angry.
I will not judge people I meet because of it.  If I meet what is called
a professional Irishman back home, I do prepare myself for anti-dago
propaganda; I've had far too much experience not to.  However, if the
propaganda does not materialize, so much the better.

If I meet a frat boy, I prepare myself for misogynist shit.  If I does
not materialize, great.

If a gay/les person meets a het, they must do the same thing.  If the
homophobia doesmn't materialize, fine.

But that doesn't mean that the anger isn't still there, and that doesn't
mean that it isn't valid.  And that doesn't make the anger wrong.  

>  "...And here, Queen Aphrodite, pour heavenly nectar into gold
>   cups, and fill them gracefully with sudden joy."  -- Sappho >>

Where did you get this?  I thought Sappho's stuff was gone.

Blessings,
Janis
Newsgroups: alt.pagan