Dream of a Present Heaven: Imagine

John Lennon's song "Imagine" spoke to my heart when I was very young. How did I understand what it meant, I wonder? Perhaps that was the gift of his lyrics, strongly influenced by Yoko Ono's work in her book Grapefruit.

Men have organised civilisations in ways that make slavery, genocide, and rape crucial to some men's well-being. Surely many of us can gather our energies and transform what these men have made into something far more humane and sustainable. Can't we?

I know some very kind men, het men and bi men and gay men, who would be on board with this more humane world. I know far more women who have been working for decades to bring this world into our present, against great odds, with so many men calling them horrid names and threatening them in vicious ways.

It's time to wrest corrupt forms of power out of the hands of men who value destruction, oppression, and war more than creativity, humane being, and peace. It's been time for centuries.

The reason I don't think the problem is "men" exactly is because many men, not necessarily people who have called themselves that English term have lived on the Earth for thousands of years never inflicting the horrors on people we've seen in the last five hundred years especially. Whiteness is a new phenomenon and brings with it an especially horrid form of human being that finds slavery and genocide and rape to be politically necessary, sexually pleasurable, and economically profitable.

I have to believe that everyone who follows this blog believes the world can be better than it is, and that girls-in-slavery, Indigenous people being threatened with genocide worldwide, and white supremacy and capitalist patriarchy are not good for us, if "us" means "all life on Earth".

Please write in to say you agree that the world needs to be radically different than it is. And that Indigenous people ought not be threatened by non-Indigenous people; that women and girls ought not be threatened, exploited, and assaulted by het men; and that life on Earth can be in harmony. Not a bliss-only kind of harmony; but a harmony that doesn't make room for gross atrocities perpetrated by oppressive humans, in groups, against other groups seen and treated as inferior.

Dream strong and bring this dream to life. And if possible, stop harming people who are not the enemy. Stop abusing and exploiting people who are female. Stop threatening and scaring people who are oppressed. Stop using terms that make women into evil things, like b*tch or wh*re. All women are fully human. There's no such thing as a "b*tch" or a "wh*re", even while so many men and women believe there is.

To all men:
Treat all girls and women with respect and regard. If a woman has harmed you harshly, get out of her life and leave her alone. Treat all oppressed people as if your life was dependent on their well-being, because it is.

One day the Sun and the Earth will work together to turn everything we know into dust. The Earth, before that time, will find ways to regain balance and make itself a far more heavenly place than the hellish one it is currently. No matter how much cancer-causing radioactive elements, diseases, conditions of preventable suffering, and other forms of pain men unleash on the Earth, it will emerge healthy--but probably not with lots of people living here. But we don't all have to perish for Life to thrive on this planet. And the most humane beings and those of us who are caring of the Earth shouldn't be the first to go.

We just need to replace the powerfully corrupt anti-woman, anti-Indigenous people with caring, compassionate people who are able to challenge and change every social, economic, religious, and political system that requires organised harm. We have to be those people. We have to work together. Now.

Build loving relationships. Build loving communities. Build loving resistance movements. Build loving revolutions.

Peace.