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  %LACK SANCTUARY NEVER RELAX ACCEPT HONOR LOVE SEX+931027
%DENY HONEST DESCRIPTION EXPERIENCE PERCEPTION TRUE 931027

     Individual   incidents  of  violence,   coercion  and
threats of punishment inflicted upon people who have  done
no  wrong are  exceedingly  destructive  of  personal  and
communal  integrity---and the news is often  dominated  by
reports of such incidents.

     It is hard to make clear the ways in which  pervasive
patterns of violence,  coercion and threats of  punishment
undermine   personal  and  communal  integrity  when   the
pervasive patterns leave  no  place to hide,  no sanctuary
and no chance  to relax --- for  oppressed  people who are
systematically persecuted by a dominant group of addictive
leaders in a community.

     The   total   lack  of  public  acceptance,    public
affirmations,   and public honor generates high levels  of
defensiveness  with  both  the overt and  covert  violence
which   defensiveness  breeds.    In  the  face  of   such
defensiveness true security  is impossible for any members
of the  community; for  true security is the freedom to be
safely vulnerable. If  even a minority of the members of a
community are  not safe  to  be  vulnerable,   then  their
defensiveness  will  inevitably  undermine the possibility
for   true  security  of  the  dominant  majority  of  the
community.

     A  powerful  and  dominant majority  in  a  community
cannot  achieve  true  security  at  the  expense  of  any
minority  within  the community;  for  by  dominating  any
minority   the  powerful  majority  creates  a   defensive
minority which will make it  unsafe for any members of the
community to be vulnerable in a public way.

     When  people  are at all times and in all  places  on
edge,  apprehensive, tense, and ready to do battle because
they are totally  defensive---then it is  inevitable  that
overt  physical violence will erupt and make explicit  the
covert violence which dominates the lives of some  members
of the community.   Such eruptions of physical violence do
not  cure the disease or in any way mitigate the  dis-ease
which is caused by the underlying patterns of injustice.

     Systemic  injustice involves  covert  violence  which
leads systematically  to  overt  violence.    When society
behaves systematically in the manner of  addicts and their
supportive codependents  the systemic injustice inevitably
erupts  in overt violence which  reveals  the patterns  of
covert violence which are  denied by the dominant citizens
of the  society.    Dishonesty  about injustice  leads  to
violence which  is  not necessarily  directed toward those
who   are  most  guilty  of  dishonesty,   injustice   and
dominance.    All  people  who  tolerate dishonesty  about
injustice  are  likely to become victims of  the  violence
which  is  engendered  by  such  injustice, dishonesty and
tolerance.
                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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