Interrupted blog

I had to rebooot my computer, so this is a continuation of the prior blog. Now, where was I? Oh, yes, telling you about the things I learned on the Internet that I thought were solely my own experiences with stalking but were instead common to many vicitms. One of the most influential books I have read is Pedagogy of the Oppressed. It opened my mind to see the commonalities in all forms of oppression perpetrated by those who falsely believe they deserve more power than others. It inspired the following observations.

Oppressed groups are silenced by fear and by the denial of the right to name their world. They do not tell others like themselves what is happening in their lives because they believe the victimization is about them. They are being personally singled out. As different kinds of oppression emerge in our collective consciousness, there is the startling realization that we were not ignored or shamed because we are bad, crazy, stupid or wrong. We were ignored and shamed because that is what oppressors do to the oppressed in order to keep their power. One of my favorite quotes is, "It is a principle of truth that it requires only the right to appear."

The truth about racism, ethnic cleansing, sexism, tyrants, homophobia, battering, rape, and all other forms of oppression, emerge as we as a people progress in our emotional civilization. The silencing erodes. We claim the right to name our world and to shed the personal shame that victimization brings. Like every other past, present and future form oppression, the silence around organized stalking is starting to end. The world we thought was only our private hell is now shared and faced by others like us.

So all the strange phone calls, turning off and on off lights and appliances, bizarre noises, the hacked computers and phones, the discrediting reports that are filed, all of these things and others are known to other victims. Loss of friends, families, careers, and health are not our fault. They are not failures to cope or personal weaknesses. They are techniques and strategies developed by grown-up bullies and would-be tyrants to keep us scared and silent and ashamed. We can now give them names, and our world makes more sense.

Another issue that crystallized for me in my Web research was the fact that the people who first bring any form of vicitmization to the world's attention have to be a little crazy, aggressive, odd and extreme. Only those kinds of people are willing to take the first risks of ridicule, isolation and death that exposing violence brings down on pioneers. Carrie Nation wasn't a psycho with an ax trying to keep people from the demon rum; she was a crusader trying to bring God-given rights to women who lost their homes and children to alcoholic husbands. Sojourner Truth was not a cruel mother when her child laid down on the doorstep and told her mother that she would have to step over her body on order to leave to fight for women's rights. She was eccentric, bold and courageous, for that is the only kind of person brave enough to begin a true fight for power and change.

Now I must admit that I do not want to pay any of those kinds of costs. I want to be Minnesota nice. I already paid a horrendous price taking on the issues of preschool and infant sexual abuse, talking about the horrors of cult and ritual abuse and fighting for recognition and treatment for the most vulnerable and brutally abused. And I was in the second wave, not the front-line charge for change. The radicals always go first. A friend said yesterday that he felt better about his fight for equal education when he heard the quote, "It is lonely to arrived at the future first."

I don't want to be first, but this time I will not denigrate the "crazies" who speak without a precise, orderly knowledge base before they begin attacking an evil crime. For those academics, researchers, public policy makers and advocates with beautifully organized systems to assist survivors of stalking in the years to come, I want to be like a kid and say "That's easy for you to say--now." Let's not envy or judge pioneers just because they have the qualities to be pioneers and we don't. Let's start offering them respect, not hindsighted, supercilious judgments.

So to all those stalking advocates who dare to talk about government conspiracies, electronic assaults, mind control and CIA plots, I want to say this: you may or may not be right in your beliefs, but thank you for starting. Nothing would have never happened without you.

My next post will address why people engage in group stalking and why I was targeted. I hope that this will help expose the true nature of the elephant. (Am I torturing that metaphor?)

Fact of Interest: Check out the youtube video from ABC's "What Would You Do?" at http://gangstalkingworld.com/obedience-to-authority/. I wish I knew how to install a hyperlink.