Man's Greatest Fear: The Final Phase of Human Evolution

MAN'S GREATEST FEAR

THE FINAL PHASE OF HUMAN EVOLUTION

Tim Marshall, Ed.D.

Out of my loue for Nicholas, Jerry, Cheryl, Cameron, Melissa, Bryan, Marrisa, Joshua, and Andrew, this book has been written. The author is deeply grateful for permission to quote extensiuely {rom copyrighted material published in the foUowing sources: Dr. Jared Diamond! C 1988 Discover Magazine. ''The Golden Age That Never Was." Reprinted by permi.sion. All rights reaerved. Nabil Megalli/" 1985 Deutsche Presse Agentur. "Battered Women." Reprinted by permi•• ion. All rights reserved. Lori Heise! C 1989 "A World of Abuse." Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Nikki Lastreto! C 1989 ''The High Price of Marriage in India - Burning Bride .... Reprinted by permission. All right. reserved.

Reprinted from the August 1992 issue of MONE Y by special permi.sion; copyright C 1992, Time Inc. All rights reserved.

Don HewittlExecutive Producer! C 199060 Minutes. CBS News. "St. Peter's Banker," produced by Jeanne Solomon Langley. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission C 1992, Omni Publications International, Ltd. All rights reserved. The excerpt on page 49 is reprinted courtesy of Sports Illustrated from the March 14, 1988 is.ue. Copyright " 1988. Time, Inc. ''The Forest Follies." by John Skow. All rights reserved. NEWSWEEK, September 18. 1989 C Newsweek. Inc. All rights res.rved. Reprinted by permission. Edited by Robert Vare, from Rol/if18 Stone. May 3. 1990. Straight Arrow Publishers. Inc. 1990. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.

Copyright C 1988 by Richard Shenkman. Legends. Lies. and Cherished Myths ofAmeri.canHistory. Reprinted by permiuion of William Morrow and Company. Inc. All rights reserved.

Reprinted by permission .. 1984.NOVA. "Acid Rain: New Bad New.... producer John Angier. WGBH.A11 rights reserved. Reprinted by permission

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1983 , Robin MorgaD and Gloria Steine'm. "The International Crime of Genital

Mutilation." from Outrageous Acts and Eueryday Rebellions. Reprinted by permission of Holt. Rinehart. aod Winston. All rights reserved. Excerpts on pages 51 . 52,60,61,62,63,64 , 68, and 69 are reprinted with the permission of Greenpeace and are

excerpted from: "Finite Fish. Infinite Greed." December 1993; "Children of Chemobyl" by Andre Carothers. February 1991; "Radioactive Seas: Cold War Relic. Threaten World Waters." December 1993; "Crime in the Suites" by Russell Mokhiber. October 1989. C Greenpeace. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permis.ion C 1957 by Loren Eiseley. The immense Journey. Random House. All right. re.erved. Copyright C 1990 by Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich. The Population Exp/osion. Reprinted by permis.ionof Simon'" Schuster. Inc.

Copyright C 1992 by East-West Reaean:h.Inc. Seize the Moment. Reprinted by permi.sion of Simon & Schuster. Inc. Copyright C 1987, by Mikhail Gorbachev. Perestroika. Reprinted by permi.sion of Harper Collins Publishers. Copyright C February 12,1990 and November 20.1989. Reprinted by permission of U.S. News & World Report. Copyright 0 1989 and 1992. Reprinted by permission of Worldwatch Institute. All rights reserved. The excerpt on page 105 is reprinted from WOMEN'S ENCYCLOPEDL4 OF HEALTH & EMOTIONAL HEALING C 1993 by Rodale Press. Inc. Permission granted by Rodale Press,Inc.; Emmaus. PA 18098. 800848-4735. All rights re.erved. Reprinted by permi••ion of Common Cause Magazine C 1989and 1994. 2030 MStreet.N.W., Washington. D.C. 20036.202·833-1200. Reprinted by permi.sion of Nalional Geographic Society. Copyright C September 1989, "Retracing the First Crusade" by Tim Severin. Copyright C June 1986. "Bikini - A Way of Life Lost." by William S. Ellis. Reprinted by permission of USA Today magazine. Copyright C 1993: Time. ''The Nuclear Scandal- They Lied To Us," October 31.1988. ''The Ozone Vani.hes." February 17. 1992. "Beyond the Year 2000." Fall 1992. "SeIfor Sale. The Skin Trade ." June 21.1993 . "Why? The Killing Field. of Rwanda." May 16,1994. Copyright" Time. Inc. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. The Amicus Journal. Summer 1991 and Fall 1992. Copyright 0 1991 and 1992. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. ''The Big Picture," by Ed Dobb. The excerpt on page 56 is reprinted by pennissionofThe Sciences and is from

the MarchlApril1989 i••ue. Individual.ubscriptions are $21.00 per year. Write to: The Science • • 2 East 63rd Street. New York, New York 10021 or call1-800-THE NYAS. All rights reserved. Reprinted with the permi.sion of Simon & Schuster, Inc. from Beyond Power, by Marilyn French. Copyright C 1985 by Belles-Lettre •• Inc. In God:' Name. by David A. Yallop. Bantam books, 1984. Copyright C 1984 by Jonathan Cape . Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission. Rainforest Action Network. Copyright C 1994. All rights reserved .

Copyright

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1978 by G.P. Putnam's son •. Final Entries 1945, The Diaries of Joseph Goebbels. Reprinted by

permission of G.P. Putnam's 80ns. All rights reserved.

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Man Greatest Fear Copyright e 1995 by Tim Marshall. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

For information write to: ATHENA BOOKS, P.O. Box 2282. Gilroy, CA 95021-2282 FAX: 408-842-1019 ISBN: 0-9645750-0-0

DISCLAIMER The human animal is a complex form of life. The two sexes are similar and yet biologically and psychologically different. This book contains a theory based on generalizations about the sexes. The author believes the vast majority of the time these generalizations are accurate. Exceptions to these generalizations are obvious: mothers who do not love their children, who abuse or even kill them; men dedicated to saving the environment to protect the health of future generations; women in business and politics obsessed with greed, power, and the glorification of self; men repulsed by the human carnage and suffering of war, and the list of exceptions goes on. Moreover, it should be noted the majority of world-wide organizations committed to the mitigation of human suffering and the protection of the environment have been created by and are directed by men. When examining the history of the human animal, however, the generalizations put forth in this book are valid. The vast majority of the time woman is the creative, life-sustaining force on the planet, whereas man is the self-serving, destructive force. The overwhelming incidence of human suffering has been, and continues to be, caused by man.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Although I am responsible for the contents of this book, my wife Cindy and my editor Linda Richards deserve much of the credit for how clearly it is written. A paragraph of acknowledgment cannot express the gratitude and appreciation I feel for all the hours they have spent in reviewing and editing this manuscript over the past several years. Without their expertise, dedication and tenacity, this book would be incomplete. They are in large part responsible for bringing this project to fruition. I would also like to thank Laura Graff, Arlene Silva, Grant Richards, Marianne Yuste, and Ana Garcia for reading the final draft and offering their valuable suggestions and Eduardo Alazraqui for his research assistance.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One WHY MAN DOMINATES WOMAN 1 Chapter Two MAN - A CREATURE OF DESTRUCTION 30 Chapter Three WHY MAN DESTROYS 72 Chapter Four THE DEFENSE MECHANISMS OF MALE THOUGHT

87 Chapter Five MALE LEADERSHIP: LEADING TO WHAT? 113 Chapter Six STRATEGY FOR SURVIVAL - THE FUTURE IS NOW

135 APPENDIX A Articles pertaining to the international abuse of women 164 APPENDIXB "Bird Woman" drawing analyzed

182 REFERENCES

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"WOMAN, ONCE MADE EQUAL TO MAN, BECOMES HIS SUPERIOR" Socrates Greek Philosopher (470? to 399 B.C.)

CHAPTER ONE

WHY MAN DOMINATES WOMAN A woman, a dog, and a walnut tree, the more you beat 'em, the better they be. 36 Thomas Fuller (1608-1661) English Clergyman From the dawn of recorded history to the present, men have dominated women. At fIrst they relied primarily on their brute strength to achieve their position of superiority, but as societies became increasingly sophisticated, men created social customs, laws, and even religions to legitimize their control over women. Now, through childhood indoctrination, and sometimes through force, women frequently learn to su bmit to the will of men, often blindly following their dictates. During the twentieth century men have advanced, technologically speaking, at an incredible pace, and yet their treatment of women has remained, for the most part, primordial. Around the world, on a daily basis, women are beaten, raped, and even murdered by men. In India, a new bride can be burned alive if her husband is not pleased with the dowry he receives from her parents. 1 In Brazil, a husband may kill his wife in a jealous fit of rage if he suspects she is sexually attracted to another man. The cultural mores allow him to cleanse and redeem his honor with his wife's blood.2 Even within the boundaries of the United States, arguably 1

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the most highly developed nation on earth, a woman is beaten every 18 seconds and four are murdered each day by men. (ABC News, December 18, 1986). The timeless phenomenon of prostitution, continually growing in scale, graphically illustrates women's oppressed status. For example, Time magazine reports (June 1993): A 1991 conference ofSoutheast Asian women's organizations estimated that 30 million women had been sold worldwide [into prostitution] since the mid-1970s ... Wassyla Tamzali, director of UNESCO's· women s - rights department [states}, 'You have an infernal race between the client and the pimp to expand the boundaries, to find the newest experience possible. Selling a 14 year-old girl has become so commonplace, it is banal. ' The article quotes a Hungarian pimp describing the type of female he kidnapped for prostitution: I took the kind of girl no one would miss. So when they were resold, no one would look for them. It is as if I sold a kilo of bread. They buy them like that. Women are not immune to the possibility of being forced into prostitution even within the sanctity of their own homes. In the northern Thailand village of Maeoonai, for example, 80 percent of the 246 families have sold at least one daughter for $1,070 to $1,430.3 Perhaps nowhere is a woman's inability to control her own destiny more evident than in the arena of reproductive rights. In many countries, women cannot make decisions

• United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization

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pertaining to their own bodies; they are denied contraceptive choices as well as access to legal abortions. Ironically, even in the United States of America, a nation built on the premise of human rights and individual freedom, it may soon be illegal for a woman to have an abortion. Sometimes man's oppression of woman is obvious, sometimes it is subtle, but the notion of male sovereignty permeates the cultural customs developed and enforced by man. It can be found, at least to some degree, in almost all aspects of civilization, from the practices of man-made religions to the management structures of many corporations. For instance, the May 1995 issue of Forbes magazine lists the top 800 public corporations in America -only three are headed by women. Furthermore, although women comprise 52 percent of ,the population of the United States, only 49 of the 435 members in the House of Representatives (11 percent) are women. The U.S. Senate has 100 senators of which eight (eight percent) are female. A review of history reveals a long, unbroken chain of male domination. According to the American anthropologist Margaret Mead (1901-1978), almost every society in the history of the human animal has been controlled by the male of the species. For instance, in China during the time of Confucius (551-479 B.C.), women were thought to be inferior to men. The religious beliefs of Buddhism stressed that women were the personification of evil, and, therefore, had to be controlled at all times.4 They obeyed their fathers, husbands, and if widowed, their sons. The husband was allowed to sexually interact with a variety of women, however, his wife, whose primary function was child production, was expected to remain faithful to him. The wife obeyed her husband in all matters; he was her master. His power was so absolute he could even murder his wife and children or sell them as slaves if he so desired. Sometimes female babies were drowned at birth or sold to grow up as servants in the households of other families. If a girl stayed at home, she usually had to endure

4 the custom of footbinding (bending back and breaking the bones of the instep) so she could be considered marriageable when she matured.· In the third century, Fu Xuan wrote the following poem: How sad it is to be a woman! Nothing on earth is held so cheap. Boys stand leaning at the door Like gods fallen out of heaven. Their hearts brave the Four Oceans, The wind and dust of a thousand miles. No one is glad when a girl is born; By her the family sets no store. 5 In ancient Rome, a man was the head of his household, and as such, he decided whom his children would marry. He could kill members of his family or sell them into J laven:. Mter the birth of each baby, he decided whether the child would live or die. In the words of the Roman statesman · Marcus Porcius Cato (234-149 B.C.): The husband is the judge of his wife. If she has committed a fault he punishes her; if she has drunk wine, he condemns her; if she has been guilty of adultery, he kills her. 36 In the early Hawaiian culture, male priests constructed and administered a taboo system. Inherent in this system was the basic belief that a constant conflict existed between the two world forces - the sacred male and the corrupt female. • The custom of footbinding started in the Tang Dynasty (618-906). This tortuous ordeal took place when the child was between the ages of five and seven. It made her more marriageable because a fashionable-sized foot was three inches long. Footbinding severely restricted the female 's freedom of movement so that once married, she would be relegated to literally shuffling behind her husband.5

5 Women were considered earthy and impure, and their behavior was severely restricted. They were not allowed to eat Hawaiian delicacies. Men did all the fighting, farming, and cooking. Women were expected to care for the children, construct floormats, and make clothing. Men and women even ate and slept in different houses. In pre-revolutionary Russia, man also viewed woman as inferior and impure. As a child, a girl received little education. Her marriage was prearranged by her father. During the marriage ceremony, the bride's father would give the groom "the durak," a whip indicating male dominance and authority. For the rest of her life, this whip would hang over the bride's head while she slept, symbolizing her husband's role as her "father-protector."6 The Code of the Russian Empire stated a husband should "love his wife" and directed a wife to: ... obey her husband as the head of the family,

to be loving and respectful, to be submissive in every respect and show him compliance and affection, he being the master of the house. 6

Pre-revolutionary Russian proverbs stated: A dog is wiser than woman; he won't bark at his master. 6 A wife isn't a jug - she won't crack if you hit her a few. 6

Pope Sylvester II (945-1003 A.D.) advised any husband receiving opposition from his wife to: Beat her with a whip, according to the measure of her guilt, but not in the presence of others, rather alone. Do not strike her straight in the face or on the ear, be careful how you strike her

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with your fist in the region of the heart, and do not use a rod of wood or iron . . . keep to a whip, and choose carefully where to strike: a whip is painful and effective, deterrent and salutary. 36

In The Taming of the Shrew, the English dramatist William Shakespeare (1564-1616) reflected the thinking of his time by writing, "Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper, thy head, thy sovereign." Until the American Revolutionary War, women were fined or jailed for speaking in public in many areas of the colonies. Like children, they were expected to be seen but not heard. Consequently, women were not even allowed to vote in a presidential election until 1920. When the American suffragist Susan B. Anthony (18201906) became the principal of the girls' department at the Canajoharie Academy in New York in 1848, one of the trustees of the school proclaimed of Ms. Anthony, "This woman is the smartest man that ever came to Canajoharie." Many men of the community proposed marriage to her. As one of her suitors explained, "A fine figure of a woman. She'll do a good job milking those 60 cows of mine ." Susan B. Anthony refused all offers of marriage stating, "No, thank you, I don't want to be any man's legalized servant."6 According to the legal code at that time, a married woman became the property of her husband. A man could beat his wife, yet a wife could never divorce her husband. The husband had total control over the children. A wife was not entitled to the money she earned at work, nor could a woman sue for breach of contract. Even unmarried women were required to assign their property to a male guardian.6 Distressed at the lowly status imposed upon women, Susan B. Anthony joined the feminist movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Ernestine Rose. Following one of her speeches, a journalist wrote:

7 What a magnificent address . . . But I would rather see my wife or my daughter in her coffin than hear her speaking before a public assembly. 6

Undaunted, Ms. Anthony petitioned the New York Legislature for women's rights. The politicians were shocked. Assemblyman Burnett exclaimed: Are we, sir, to give the least countenance to claims so preposterous, disgraceful and criminal as are embodied in this petition? ... Are we to put the stamp of truth upon the libel here set forth that men and women . .. are to be equal? We know that God created man as the representative of the race; that after His creation the Creator took from his side the material for woman screation . .. and that they thus became one flesh and one being, the man being the head. And if the women persisted in demanding their rights, there would be no way ofpreserving men's honor except by locking their wives behind bolts and bars.6

For centuries, famous and highly intelligent male scholars have revealed their hostility and disdain for woman through their words. For example, the Greek poet Hesoid (eighth century B.C.) called woman, " ... a necessary evil."4 Hundreds of years later, his fellow countryman, the poet Palladius (fourth century A.D.), wrote a married man's happy days were only two: The day he takes his wife to bed and the day he lays her in her grave.36

The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) believed woman's role in childbirth was merely as a carrier of man's

8 seed. He wrote that woman was inferior to man because she contained less "vital heat"; instead of producing semen, she could only produce menstrual blood. 4 Martin Luther (1483-1546), the German religious reformer, explained the differences between the sexes in the following way: Men have broad and large chests, and small narrow hips, and are more understanding than women, who have but small and narrow chests, and broad hips, to the end they should remain at home, sit still, keep house, and bear and bring up children. 7

The Italian statesman and writer Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) warned: /judge impetuosity to be better than caution; for Fortune is a woman, and if you wish to master her, you must strike and beat her. 7

The English statesman Lord Philip Chesterfield (16941773) described women as: Only children of a larger growth; they have an entertaining tattle . . . A man of sense only trifles with them, plays with them, humors and flatters them. 4

The French philosopher Jean Rousseau (1712-1778) said: The whole education of women should be relative to men. To please them, to be useful to them, to win their love and esteem, to bring them up when young, to tend them when grown, to advise and console them, to make life sweet and

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pleasant to them; these are the ¢uties of women at all times, and what they ought to learn from infancy. 4

Artur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), a German philosopher, wrote women were: . . . childish, frivolous and shortsighted. [They exist] solely for the propagation of the species. 4

He also surmised: That woman is by nature meant to obey may be seen by the fact that every woman who is placed in the unnatural position of complete independence, immediately attaches herself to some man, by whom she allows herself to be guided and ruled. It is because she needs a lord and master. If she is young, it will be a lover; if she is old, a priest. 36

According to Charles Darwin (1809-1882), the English scientist who developed the theory of evolution: The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shown by man attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, ... whether requiring deep thought, reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the senses or hands ...

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We may also infer, from the law of the deviation from averages, so well illustrated by Mr. Galton, in his work on Hereditary Genius, that if men are capable of a decided pre-eminence over women in many subjects, the average of mental power in man must be above that of woman. 36

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Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), the American poet, expressed similar sentiments when he said: In the East, women religiously conceal that they have faces; in the West, that they have legs. In both cases they make it evident that they have but little brains. 36 The American sociologist Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929) noted: Coddled wives or daughters are useless and expensive, and . . . consequently valuable as evidence of the pecuniary strength of her husband or father. 4 Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), the dictator of Germany responsible for the slaughter of millions of people during World War II, said of woman: The man's world is large compared with that of the woman. The man is committed to his duty and only now and then do his thoughts touch on the woman. The woman s world is the man. Only now and then does she think of other things. That is the great difference. A woman can love much more deeply than a man. Intellect is not a woman s affair. Compared with educated, intellectual women, my mother was most certainly an insignificant little woman. She lived for her husband and her children. She would have certainly been at a disadvantage in the company of our educated women - but she gave a great son to the German people!8

11 Even the Bible, the most "sacred work" written by Christian man, directs him to control woman. For example, Deuteronomy 24: 1 commands: When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it has come to pass that she finds no favor in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her; then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.

Although many of the aforementioned opinions are antiquated' man to this day continues to exhibit hostility towards woman as evidenced by his treatment of her. As the articles in appendix A attest, women from Kuwait to Peru, from Nepal to the United States, suffer daily at the hands of men. Even more alarming is the fact this abusive behavior is often entirely legitimate, sanctioned by the religious and legal codes of many cultures. In her book, Beyond Power (1985), Marilyn French describes two torturous customs; both are not only condoned but advocated in many societies worldwide: Usually a little girl of six or seven is seized from sleep in the middle of the night and hauled into a room where a woman, using no anesthetic and a crude knife, cuts out the childs clitoris, while her mother and other family members watch approvingly . .. Clitoridectomy makes sexual pleasure and orgasm impossible for the girl; the operation and the way it is performed also engrave upon her mind her impotence and isolation within the culture. It does her no good to cry out: there before her, smiling, are the very people she would have counted on to help her.

12 Even worse than clitoridectomy is infibulation. All external genital organs are cut away: the clitoris, the two major outer lips of the vagina (labia majora), and the two minor inner lips (labia minora). Then the wound is sewn up. The only portion left intact is the outer opening of the vagina, but even this is narrowed during suturing, by a few extra stitches. On the marriage night, the vagina opening is slit open with a sharp scalpel or razor. If the woman is divorced, her vagina is again sewn up. The operation is both dangerous and agonizing, done as it is without anesthetics. It also makes childbirth agonizing, for the normal function of the labia is to assist that process. It is practiced in Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti, the Sudan, Kenya, Egypt, Nigeria, Mali, and the Arabian peninsula. It produces 'a chastity belt of flesh.' Both operations are performed to guarantee a woman s virginity at marriage and her fidelity within it - for she has no pleasure in sex and therefore presumably is not tempted to search for it with other men. But, like footbinding, it carries another message: impotence, pain, and victimization . ... Clitoridectomy is practiced today on thirty million women in twenty-six countries. 19

In an article entitled "The International Crime of Genital Mutilation," authors Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan maintain 75 million children and young women have suffered some form of genital mutilation during religious or cultural ceremonies. They write: ... international health authorities (WHO) find the most extensive evidence of such customs on

13 the African continent and the Arabian peninsula ... Nor are these rites limited to one religion; they are practiced by some Islamic peoples, some Coptic Christians, members of various indigenous tribal religions, some Catholics and Protestants, and some Fellasha, an ancient Jewish sect living in the Ethiopian highlands. 9 The reasons for man's brutality against woman lie in his subconscious mind. Man's writing can be a projection of his subconscious mind and, as such, provides a "window" exposing his deepest drives, needs, and fears. The following statements transcend time. They reveal man's underlying conflict with woman and its impact upon his perception and subsequent treatment of her. According to the Bible (Genesis 3:16), man's male god said to Eve: I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception: in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. The Biblical God not only directs man to dominate woman, He also expresses great hostiiity for her, to the extreme of cursing her with pain during childbirth. Unless one can perceive of a hostile God, the hostility expressed in the Bible towards woman comes directly from man. Since man wrote the Bible, its contents are a projection of his thoughts and feelings. Tertullian (160-230 A.D.), a Carthaginian Italian theologian, explained man's rationale for his anger towards woman in his work De Cultu Feminarum: The judgment of God upon your sex endures even today; and with it inevitably endures your

14 position of criminal at the bar of justice . .. Do you know that each of you women is an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age; the guilt must necessarily live too. You are the gate of Hell, you are the temptress of the forbidden tree; you are the first deserter of the divine law. 7

In other words, Christian man believed his loss of eternal happiness in the Garden of Eden was due to the poor judgment of Eve. Therefore, he "reasoned" the only way to prevent further catastrophes from befalling him in the future was to continually control woman. As Saint Ambrose, an Italian theologian (340-397 A.D.), instructed: Adam was deceived by Eve, not Eve by Adam ... it is right that he whom that woman induced to sin should assume the role ofguide lest he fall again through feminine instability. 4

The New Testament, I Corinthians 11:7-9, further explains man's responsibility to lead woman: For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.

Consequently, the Apostle Paul demanded: Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the

15 church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be subject to their own husbands in everything. (Ephesians, 6)

Following church doctrine, Pope Clement I (30 to 100 A.D.) described the ideal wife as one who: . .. loves her husband from the heart, embraces, soothes, and pleases him, acts the slave and is obedient to him in all things except when she would be disobedient to God. 36

During the Middle Ages, the vast majority of church leaders viewed women as unstable, weak, and dimwitted because of Eve's disastrous advice to Adam in the Garden of Eden. However, the church leaders reasoned it was not Christian to resent a creature considered to be biologically inferior.4 Consequently, church doctrine dictated that man must take care of woman. Saint Augustine (353-430 A.D.), an Italian theologian, instructed: They who care for the rest rule ... and they who are cared for, obey.36

While claiming he rules woman for her own good, man's domination of her is actually motivated by an intense fear of her. Throughout history, man has frequently described woman as potentially dangerous. For example, an ancient Welsh poem warns: For woman is so sly, expert in devilry, that even if you surprise her at her villainies she U make you doubt your eyes. 4

The folk tales from many cultures have repeatedly contained the theme of woman being dangerous to man. According to a Siberian tale, for instance, a hunter perceives a

16 beautiful woman emerging from a wooded area on the other side of a river. Waving to him, she sings a beckoning song. The hunter quickly disrobes, dives into the river and begins swimming towards the enchanting woman. Suddenly, she transforms herself into an owl and flies away while mockingly laughing at him. When the hunter attempts to swim back to shore, he drowns. Likewise, in Slavonic mythology, the Rusalka are evil spirits of drowned girls who bewitch and subsequently drown any man who ventures near their watery home and place of death. In Teutonic myth, female spirits called the Lorelei dwell in bodies of water and, with their beautiful appearance and singing, lure men to their demise. Similarly, Greek mythology contains the tale of the Sirens, sea nymphs who, with their singing, lure sailors to steer their ships onto rocks. Collectively, through his literature, man repeatedly attributes to woman the power to lead him into suffering and/or to his death. But what could the sex of superior brute strength possibly have to fear from the physically weaker sex? The answer becomes evident after examining man's primary area of vulnerability. In addition to possessing the power and aggression with which to physically dominate woman, man simultaneously possesses one biological need which places him at her mercy - his sex drive. Specifically, man fears woman's innate power to sexually attract, manipulate, and hurt him.· That fear underlies the hostility expressed in the following letter written by Martin Luther to Stephen Roth on April 12, 1528:

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. .. her {Roth wife] disobedience to you displeases me greatly . .. for by your soft-hearted-

• Contemporary examples of men who destroyed their careers via sexual relationships with women include the late congressman Wayne Hays (1976), former governor Gary Hart (1987), and evangelists Jim Bakker (1987) and Jimmy Swaggert (1988).

17 ness you have turned into tyranny that Christian service which you owe her, and you have hitherto so encouraged her that it would seem to be your own fault that she now ventures to defy you in everything. You should have remembered that you ought to obey God rather than your wife, and so you should not have allowed her to despise and trample underfoot that authority of the husband which is the glory of God, which St. Paul teaches . . . By your own fault you are now opening a window in this weaker vessel through which Satan can enter at will and laugh at you, irritate you, and vex you in every way.46

In this letter Martin Luther is expressing his fear Satan will manipulate Stephen Roth by using woman, the so-called "weaker vessel." This attitude is consistent with early Christian doctrine which labelled woman "the Devil's gateway."4 In this instance, man's fear of the Devil is actually his fear of woman's power to sexually attract and control him. Man's sexual need and corresponding fear of woman was described by the French novelist Honor'e de Balzac (17991850): Women are demons that make us enter hell through the door of paradise.10

The painting on page 27 by sixteenth century German artist Hans Baldung Grien depicts the triangular relationship between Adam, Eve, and the serpent in the Garden of Eden, and graphically illustrates man's fear of woman's power to destroy him. As Adam clutches Eve 's wrist, the serpent she holds in her hand is biting Adam's outstretched arm. The poison from the serpent's venomous bite is causing Adam's body to decay. Often interpreted to represent the Devil, the serpent in this biblical scene actually symbolizes woman's

18 power to sexually attract man. By grasping Eve's arm, Adam has yielded to the temptation for sexual intercourse she stirs within him. Adam's lust for Eve is leading to his moral and physical deterioration as well as his spiritual damnation. , In comparison to woman, man in general has a stronger and less discriminating sex drive. The international epidemic of prostitution, for example, thrives due almost entirely to the strength of the male sex drive. When examining the sexes from an evolutionary perspective, man's more intense sex drive, combined with his superior brute strength, has served a crucial purpose - to ensure the procreation of our species. It guarantees the impregnation of woman with or without her consent. If, on the other hand, woman had received the stronger and less discriminating sex drive, man literally could have fought her off whenever he did not feel in the mood for sexual relations. * The magnitude of the male sex drive even necessitated the creation of a biblical commandment reflecting only man's sexual tendencies: ''Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Wife." Centuries later, Honor'e de Balzac noted the strength of man's physical attraction to woman when he wrote: Men are like that, they can resist sound argument and yield to a glance. 10 And, the English author Sir Henry Saville {1549-1622} expressed a similar sentiment when he said: Women have more strength in their looks than we have in our laws, and more power in their tears than we have by our arguments.11

• Moreover, from an evolutionary point of view, with the physical and emotional strain of bearing and caring for their offspring, it would have been counterproductive to the survival of our species for women to possess the more intense sex drive. Women would have been more interested in sexual intercourse, for example, than breast-feeding their hungry babies.

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Man's constant awareness of woman's power to sexually attract him, to the extent of even causing biological changes in his body, may form the basis for the Greek mythological tale of Medusa. Medusa was a hideous female monster possessing serpents for hair, gold wings which enabled her to fly, and glaring eyes which turned any man to stone who dared t0look at her. When man speaks of Medusa's power to turn man to stone, possibly he is acknowledging woman's power to turn part of his body to "stone." He may be referring to the male biological reaction of an erection when he sees a woman whom he finds sexually exciting. Such a male reaction to just the sight of a woman is an obvious indicator of her power over him.· Beyond her ability to sexually attract him, man is well-aware of woman's power to subdue him through the act of sexual intercourse. Following the tension release of orgasm, man enters a physiological state of relaxation which various cultures have interpreted as a loss of strength and/ or aggressiveness. The American Indian warrior, for instance, did not participate in sexual relations with his squaw too often because he believed such activity "stole his strength," thus making him less powerful in hunting or in battle.4 More recently, some professional football coaches, including the late Paul Brown and Otto Graham,·· requested their players refrain from sexual relations with women the night before a football game. They believed sexual intercourse with a woman prior to the contest would make the football players less aggressive during the violent battle of the game.

• Moreover, Medusa's "hair" of serpents may be interpreted as phallic symbols of men whom she lias killed and castrated during previous sexual encounters . •• Coach Otto Graham had a "Tuesday Rule" for his football players, meaning his players were to refrain from sexual relations after each Tuesday so as to save their strength for game day.55

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A similar belief is contained in an ancient Chinese philosophy which states that two opposing forces exist in the universe - Yin and Yang. Yang represents the light, active, and penetrating male force, whereas Yin symbolizes the dark, passive, and absorbing female force. The ancient Chinese believed women possess the power to drain men of their positive life force, presumably through the act of sexual intercourse.· At a subconscious level, man fears woman may harm him while he's in the relaxed state following orgasm ~s, for example, Delilah did to Samson. The Bible contains the story of Samson, the epitome of masculinity, who was deceived and destroyed by Delilah. The source of Samson's great physical strength was his long, dark hair. Following sexual relations that left him weak and thus vulnerable, Delilah sheared Samson's hair. Delilah exploited Samson's sex drive; she physically drained his strength and, in doing so, was ultimately responsible for his death. Symbolically, she cut off much more than his hair.·· Similarly, the Greeks wrote of Empusa, a deadly female spirit who enjoyed sexually seducing men. After sexual relations, when the men were physically weakened and vulnerable, she would eat them alive. Woman, in fact, has used her ability to sexually attract and subdue man through intercourse to achieve a degree of control over him. Centuries ago, woman learned the futility of trying to reason with the physically stronger and more aggres-

• Man, at times, has believed sexual intercourse with woman could drain more from him than brute strength. For example, Gregory Hemingway writes of his father, the American author Ernest Hemingway, " ... Papa's often stated belief was that too much intercourse was counterproductive to good literature. To put it simplistically, he felt he had to save some of his creative juices for his writing."l 2 •• A contemporary example of this occurred in 1993 when a woman (Lorena Bobbitt) cut off her husband 's penis following the act of sexual intercourse . Ms. Bobbitt justified her assault by stating that her husband had raped her while in a drunken state.

21 sive male who has continually behaved according to the belief "might makes right." In order to survive and fulfill her own needs, as well as those of her offspring, she had to develop more subtle ways of subduing the violent male. Long ago, woman discovered she could control, manipulate and, if need be, exploit man via his sex drive. Such innate female power serves to counteract man's brute strength. As the Irish dramatist George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) explained: No fascinating woman ever wants to emancipate her sex. Her object is to gather power into the hands of man, because she knows that she can govern him.36

When Martin Luther wrote to Stephen Roth: You are now opening a window in this weaker vessel through which Satan can enter at will and laugh at you, irritate you, and vex you in every way,

he was voicing his fear of woman's power over man's behavior and simultaneously giving us a clue as to how woman can manipulate man. The "weaker vessel" is actually not woman, but man. The "window" through which woman enters man's mind is his aforementioned sex drive in combination with his ego. Together, his sex drive and ego are the most vulnerable parts of man. Man's ego can be defined as his sense of identity, of which his feelings of self-worth are paramount. Though man may try to validate his sense of self-worth by undertaking a myriad of endeavors, one of the major ways he can obtain a sense of significance is by gaining the admiration of woman. The British author Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) described woman's ability to bolster man's ego when she wrote in A Room of One's Own:

22 Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size. Man's ego, with its inherent craving for female acceptance and adoration, makes him vulnerable to be manipulated by woman. The father of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis understood the frailty of the male ego. "Black Jack" Bouvier offered young Jackie ten pieces of advice to use throughout her life when interacting with men in order to gain greater influence over them. One of which was, "Pay attention to everything a man says and fasten your eyes on him like you were staring into the sun. " 42 Sometimes a woman's admiration for a man is sincere and other times it is feigned. As long as man believes the admiration to be genuine, he will be inclined to please his female admirer. For instance, in 1994, a 26 year-old model married an 89 year-old man. It may just be a coincidence that this particular man was worth over $400 million. This weakness in man's ego is revealed in the words of Francois La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680), a French philosopher, "Man's own vanity is a swindler that never lacks a dupe."lo The manipulation of man's ego and sex drive is a primary component of political sex scandals. In 1976, for example, a scandal was exposed involving one of the most politically powerful men in the U.S. Congress, Wayne Hays, and his secretary-mistress, Elizabeth Ray. The congressman's secretary-mistress released her story to the newspapers after her lover had married another woman. When we analyze this relationship, we see a young, beautiful woman pretending to be sexually attracted to an old, overweight, balding, and self-centered man. Her trade-off in the relationship was simple; she fed his ego and satisfied his sex drive in return for celebrity status, a luxurious life style, and career opportunities.

23 Woman's power to sexually attract and manipulate man also proved to be one of the most potent weapons of World War I. Possibly the greatest espionage agent in the history of warfare was a Dutch dancer named Mata Hari (1876-1917) who became a spy for Germany. Because of her success as aspy, her name has become synonymous with the beautiful "femme fatale" who utilizes her sexual attractiveness to obtain military secrets from men. On October 15, 1917, Mata Hari (which means Eye of the Dawn) was executed at Vincennes, France. Her espionage activities were responsible for the deaths of an estimated 50,000 men.56 A Russian version of this type of espionage occurred in 1987 when female Russian spies sexually seduced several male marine guards in order to gain access to the files inside the American Embassy in Moscow. Yet, as much as man fears woman's power to control him through his ego and sex drive, he simultaneously is drawn to her because she fulfills many of his emotional needs which Honor'e de Balzac alluded to when he wrote, "Woman is the altar of love."lo Man's attraction to woman results from more than a basic need for sexual gratification. By establishing an intimate relationship with woman, man can fulfill not only his need for physical contact but also his need for emotional nourishment. Emotionally, man seems to need woman much more than she needs him. Not coincidentally, married men live an average of six years and seven months longer than their unmarried counterparts,l3 Furthermore, it is common for a man to die a few months after the death of his wife if they have lived together for many years. Once he loses his wife, frequently his primary source of emotional nourishment, his life often loses meaning, and he gives up the will to live. * • Many women also suffer greatly when their husbands die, but the fact remains that women continue to live an average of 7.7 years longer than men.

24

Moreover, man needs to feel needed by woman. He needs to believe he is essential to her existence. Subconsciously though, he has always feared, should woman escape from the confines of the kitchen, nursery or bedroom and become self-sufficient, she would demonstrate to him he is no longer needed to ensure her survival in the environment. If woman was to gain total independence, man would suffer a significant loss of purpose. Man's need to feel needed by woman provides yet another reason for his domination of her which, taken to the extreme, is evidenced by the tragic fact he will even murder his wife (or girlfriend) rather than allow her to leave him. Conversely, a woman rarely murders her husband or boyfriend even when he leaves her. Many men seem to possess a love/hate and need/fear relationship with women. The picture on page 28 is a reproduction of a drawing made by a nineteen year-old male whom I tested in a halfway house for boys. This picture reveals the artist's inner-most feelings, fantasies, and needs. It also graphically illustrates the deep and consuming conflict many men experience in their relationships with women. By drawing a bird's head with a long, sharp beak atop a voluptuous woman's body, the artist is expressing an emotional paradox. He views women as attractive and potentially loving, but simultaneously he finds them dangerous and thus revolting. These conflicting feelings probably began developing during his first relationship with a woman -his mother. For an in-depth clinical interpretation of this drawing, see appendix B. Because of the conflict that exists within man as a result of his fear of, and need for, woman, it is significant that the mysterious, frightening phenomenon of death is portrayed as a woman in the mythological tales of many cultures. For example, death appeared to the Slavs as a woman dressed in white. In North America, the goddess or messenger of

25 death for the Huron Indians was a woman called the She Manitou. During a battle, the Vikings believed a brave warrior would see a blinding flash of light at the moment of his death. Surrounded by that light, a beautiful female messenger of death called a Valkyrie would ride her horse to the warrior and carry him off to Odin's castle in the heavens. Similarly in Ireland, Morrign Morrigan, the "Queen of Ghosts," was a war goddess. To soldiers about to be murdered in combat, she would appear in a grotesque masquerade. The Scandinavians believed the kingdom of the dead was guarded by a woman, the Goddess Hel. The movie,All That Jazz (1979),is a contemporary example of man depicting death as a beautiful, pure, and tranquil woman dressed in white. Man's tendency to symbolize death in the female form may be a ramification of his relationship with the most powerful woman in his life - his mother. The Norwegian artist Edward Munch even described the smile of the Madonna in one of his paintings as, " ... like the smile of death. "4 Death, the termination of life, is the end of human struggle and suffering. Subconsciously, man's perception of death in the female form may stem from the peace.he first experienced in the security of his mother's arms following the traumatic event of birth.· Later in life, the connection between the tranquility of death and woman may be further reinforced in man each time he experiences serenity in the arms of woman following the orgasm that accompanies sexual intercourse. By portraying death as female, regardless of the underlying reasons, man is again expressing his paradoxical feelings toward woman.·· He is, simultaneously, both attracted * The myths mentioned earlier in this chapter, of beautiful women luring men to drown in a body of water, may symbolize man's subconscious wish to return to the peace of his mother's womb. ** Part of woman's power over man is his subconscious desire to please her, as he tried to please his mother in childhood.

26 to woman and fearful of her. The French philosopher Marie Stendhal (1783-1842) described this conflict when he wrote: A man who trembles is not bored. The pleasures of love are always in proportion to our fear. 10 Stendhal's words explain why man attempts to dominate, as opposed to destroy, the source of his fear. When man fears something in his environment he destroys it, unless his need for the creature is greater than his fear of it. Man's fear of woman is only surpassed by his need for her. The American actress Glenn Close offered her insightful assessment of the sexes in 1989: Men have always been at the mercy of women and they still are. We are emotionally and spiritually stronger than men . . . Men, I think, are more vulnerable . .. I have never wanted to be a man. I feel sorry for them. Sometimes I think they'll never know how to deal with women. 14 Due to his dependence on woman to fulfill his sexual and emotional needs, man instinctively realizes her innate power is pervasive, as proclaimed in the Parliament of England by Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Sir, nature has given woman so much power that the law cannot afford to give her more. 36 Man has consistently tried to suppress woman's power by creating cultural customs, religious doctrine, and societal laws which subjugate her. Usually man cloaks the rationale for his dominance in shrouds of paternalistic excuses based upon his claim of woman's biological inferiority and her alleged inability to exercise wise judgement. These excuses are a smoke screen obscuring man's true reason for his

29 domination; on a subconscious level man fears, should woman ever break free from her yoke of cultural and religious subjugation, she will use her unbridled power to rule over him. Instinctively, man understands the warning of the Roman statesman Marcus Porcius Cato (234 to 149 B.C.), who over 2,000 years ago wrote: Suffer women once to arrive at an equality with you, and they will from that moment become your superiors.29

CHAPTER TWO

MAN -A CREATURE OF DESTRUCTION The greatest joy a man can have is victory:

to conquer ones enemys armies, to pursue them, to deprive them of their possessions, to reduce their families to tears, to ride on their horses, and to make love to their wives and daughters.48 Genghis Khan (1162-1227) Leader of the Mongols When examining the history of man, do we see a savage evolving, becoming more intellectual and socially cooperative, or do we find man becoming a more knowledgeable and sophisticated savage possessing immense destructive capabilities? Because man's purpose in the evolutionary process has been to conquer and control the environment, he is naturally violent.· In the past, man's aggressive nature was required for subduing the hostile environment to make it safer for his mate and offspring. His tendency to dominate everything in his environment increased the odds of survival for his species of animal. Contemporary man has fulfilled his

• Man is physiologically designed and hormonally programed to fulfIll his purpose.

30

31 evolutionary purpose, but his obsession with destruction has become counterproductive to the survival of human life on this planet. Ironically, man is now threatening to destroy the very life he was designed to protect. Man's obsession with destruction, coupled with his intelligence, has allowed him to harness enough nuclear power to destroy all human life on earth in 28 minutes. Obviously, man has thus far refrained from obliterating all humanity with his nuclear weaponry. Yet, everyday, he nonetheless destroys increasing portions of his environment, leading humankind to the same eventual end, just at a somewhat slower pace. He creates toxic waste, carcinogens, acid rain, and "greenhouse gases"; he contaminates the earth's water and air; he destroys the jungle forests, the ozone layer, and many species of animal life, and murders his fellow man (as well as innocent women and children) in his never-ending wars. Taking his thirst for conquest into space, man landed on the moon in 1969. Before leaving, he placed a sign on the moon which reads, "We come in peace" hoping another intelligent life form will eventually discover and understand his message. However, one questions if man is capable of living in peace with beings from other planets when he can't even harmoniously coexist with members of his own species. Judging from his behavior over thousands of years, man's nature is not to live in harmony with others, especially people with different physical characteristics or religious and cultural beliefs. Whites, Blacks, Indians, Hispanics, Asians, Christians, Protestants, Muslims, and Jews are but a few of the many groups of men who have, for centuries, failed to live in peace with one another. Since the day, centuries ago, when Cain slew his brother Abel, man has established himself as a creature who consistently kills his fellow man. The American writer Mark Twain (1835-1910) captured the darker side of man when he wrote in Letters from the Earth:

32 The higher animals engage in individual fights , but never in organized masses. Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, war. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and with calm pulse to exterminate his kind.

Man is not repulsed by war. On the contrary, he is drawn to it like a moth to a flame. He will frequently boast of his victories, as did General Westermann to the National Convention on December 23, 1793 at the height of the French Revolution: There is no longer a Vendee . .. I have crushed the children under the hoofs of my horses and massacred the women . . . I have no prisoner to reproach myself with. I have exterminated all!15

Many scholars have written about man's obsession with war. As early as 850 years before the birth of Christ, the Greek poet Homer wrote, "Men grow tired of sleep, love , singing and dancing sooner than of war. " 44 The eighteenth century German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) explained: With men, the state of nature is not a state of peace, but of war; if not of open war, then at least ever ready to break out. 7

James A. Froude (1818-1894), an English historian, said: Man is the only animal to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself 16

33 The twentieth century American anthropologist Robert Ardrey has said of man, "Human war has been the most successful of all our cultural traditions."16 George Bernard Shaw believed:

In the arts of life man invents nothing; but in the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself, and produces by chemistry and machinery all the slaughter of plague, pestilence, and famine. 36 The Greek historian Thucydides (471 ?-400? B.C.) once wrote, "Peace is an armistice in a war that is continuously going on."16 Obviously, man has not conquered his addiction to war in the twenty-four centuries since Thucydides made his observation. A United States Marine General, Smedley Butler (1881-1940), when asked about man's capacity to stop killing one another answered:

There is no use talking about abolishing war; that's damn foolishness. Take the guns away from men and they will fight just the same. 7 It is a supreme irony that many of man's most savage actions have been perpetrated in the name of his religion. Instead of loving his neighbor, man has frequently killed or enslaved him. For example, the Crusades were a series of invasions by Christians against the Jews and Muslims in the Middle East. The Christians rationalized their murderous behavior by invoking their religious beliefs. The first Crusade was started in 1096 by Pope Urban II in answer to the request of Emperor Alexius Comnenus, Byzantine emperor of Constantinople, for assistance against the Muslim Turks. Duke Godfrey of Bouillon was its leader. Armies were raised in France, Italy, and Germany. In the battle for the city of Nicaea, the Christian Crusaders catapulted the heads of slain soldiers over the city walls to terrify the inhabitants as well as to emotionally torture the families

34 of the dead. The residents of Nicaea, the site of Christianity's first ecumenical council in 325 A.D., finally surrendered.25 On June 7, 1099, a five week siege of Jerusalem began. According to National Geographic magazine (September 1989):

'No one has ever seen or heard ofsuch a slaughter ofpagans, 'recalled one knight grimly. 'Almost the whole city was full of their dead bodies. ' The temple where the Muslims made their last-ditch stand, he said, was 'streaming with their blood. ' ... The siege ended when Godfrey [the Christian leader} and his knights overran the ramparts from a tower and stormed the city. The Muslim defenders, their wives and children were massacred with such ferocity that the victors 'waded in blood up to their ankles. ' In Europe during The Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) and The Hundred Years' War (1337-1453), Catholics and Protestants tortured and killed one another, confident that their god approved of the slaughter. During The Inquisition (fifteenth and sixteenth centuries), the leaders of the Catholic Church ordered the torture and murder of thousands of Jews, Muslims, and other non-Christian people in self-righteous adherence to their religious beliefs. During the fifteenth century, male priests indoctrinated the masses of the Aztec society to believe the sun god (a male) would keep burning only if the people would daily offer him, in sacrifice, the blood and lives of prisoners taken in continuous wars. Members of the Aztec society, including children, were also sacrificed.* The victims were led up the steps of giant

• Similarly, in the Mayan society, human sacrifice was a daily ritual. For example,at Chichen Itza on the Yucatan Peninsula, babies and children were drowned in a natural well 42 meters deep to please the rain god Chaco

35 pyramids and forced to lie back down on a stone altar. Next, a male priest would cut out the beating heart of the victim with a wide-blade flint knife. The corpse was then thrown down the steep steps of the pyramid to another level where other priests would dismember the body so it could be distributed for the act of cannibalism. University of California historian Woodrow Borah estimates the Aztecs sacrificed 250,000 people each year to nourish the male sun god. In other words, at each one of the thousands of temples in Mexico, an average of two thousand people were murdered each year. Andres de Tapia, a soldier under the command of Hernando Cortes, the Spanish conqueror of Mexico, was ordered to count the skulls on a giant rack at the temple-pyramid of Huitzilipochtli; he tallied 136,000.39 , 40 Hundreds of years ago, the French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal {1623-1662} noted the moralistic hypocrisy of man when he wrote: Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction, 36

Man's propensity to wage war and cause great human suffering and carnage in the name of his particular god has not changed. Currently, Protestants and Catholics are killing each other in Northern Ireland. Simultaneously, Jews, Christians, and Muslims are at war in the Middle East, as are the Muslims of Azerbaijan and the Christians of Annenia, the Hindus and Muslims in India, and the Christians and Muslims in the Philippines. In the Middle East, minefields, anti-tank ditches, and fighter jets have replaced primitive weaponry, but the hate and desire to murder transcend time. A recent newspaper picture shows a soldier walking through the rubble of a building in Le banon carrying a rocket launcher on his right shoulder. Such an image is quite typical of "modern" man. What makes this picture significant is that the man is missing his left arm

36 from an earlier battle. It graphically illustrates man's inability to learn from his mistakes, hence history continually repeats itself. The German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Hegel (1770-1831) understood man's inability to change his basic nature when he wrote, "What history teaches us is that men never learn from it."ls History books testify to man's thirst for human carnage on a large scale. For example, World War I claimed the lives of over 20 million people. More than 50 million lives were lost in the horror of World War II. Moreover, man can be just as savage to his own countrymen. For example, during the Taiping Rebellion in China (1850-1860), 20 million people were murdered.5 During the American Civil War (18611865), over 500,000 people were killed. More recently, in Rwanda, Mrica, Time magazine (May 16, 1994) reported: There are no devils left in Hell, , the missionary said. They are all in Rwanda. ' Actually they brought Hell with them; you have only to watch the rivers for proof. Normally in this season, when the rains come to these lush valleys, the rivers swell with a rich red soil. They are more swollen than ever this year. First come the corpses of men and older boys, slain trying to protect their sisters and mothers. Then come the women and girls, flushed out from their hiding places and cut down. Last are the babies, who may bear no wounds; they are tossed alive into the water, to drown on their way downstream. The bodies, or pieces of them, glide by for half an hour or so, the time it takes to wipe out a community, carry the victims to the banks and dump them in. Then the water runs clear for awhile, until men and older boys drift into view again, then women, then babies, reuniting in the shallows as the river becomes the grave.

37

Aid workers have guessed that anywhere from 100,000 to 500,000 Rwandans have died since the civil war between the Hutu and the Tutsi [tribes} reignited a month ago. Despite such monumental carnage, man's primordial nature seems to render him unable to conquer his propensity for murder. As Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965), the prime minister of England during World War II, observed, "War is the natural occupation of man."36 Contemporary man is now, or has recently been, at war in Rwanda, Yemen, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kuwait, Somalia, Lebanon, EI Salvador, the Philippines, Panama, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Israel, Northern Ireland, Cambodia, the Sudan, Mozambique, Nicaragua, South Africa, Iran, Iraq, Ethiopia, Mghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey, Liberia, Angola, India, Sri Lanka, the Falkland Islands, Vietnam, Korea, etc. Based on his behavior, man seems to agree with the American General George Patton (1885-1945) who once remarked:

Compared to war, all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance.36 When man views a society as different from his and weaker, his temptation is to conquer it. If, however, he refrains from killing the inhabitants it's often because he desires to enslave them instead.· In fact, man seems at times to enjoy enslaving people even more than killing them. He derives satisfaction not only from the subjugation of others, but from exploiting their labor to build and maintain his empires.··

• Besides war, contemporary man also tries to conquer other societies with economic power or religious conversion . •• The Egyptians, Romans , Greeks, American Indians, Japanese, Spanish, and European white men in America all used slaves to build and sustain their societies.

38 Christopher Columbus, for example, is often praised as a courageous explorer, but an aspect of his legacy is missing from traditional history books. According to Richard Shenkman in his book Legends, Lies and Cherished Myths of American History:

Unbeknown to much ofthe public, he [Columbus] was directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of Arawak Indians on Haiti. One historian [Howard Zinni even believes Columbus should be thought of not as a hero but as a murderer. His first encounter with the Arawaks could not have gone better. He himself wrote that the natives on the island, 'are so naive and so free with their possessions that no one who has not witnessed them would believe it. When you ask for something they have, they never say no. To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone. ' ... They would make fine servants . . . with fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want. ' Columbus, however, did not reciprocate the Indians' kindness. Under pressure to bring back riches to Spain, he required Indians over fourteen years old to make regular contributions of gold. Indians who did not comply, according to historian Howard Zinn, 'had their hands cut off and bled to death. ' Those Indians who weren't killed were often enslaved and shipped to Spain. On one trip, 500 Arawak men, women, and children were loaded onto ships bound for the Old World; during the voyage 200 died. Far from feeling guilty about the practice of slavery, Columbus boasted about it.

39 'Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity,' he wrote, 'go on sending all the slaves that can be sold. ' Within two years of Columbus's arrival, says Zinn, half of the 250,000 Indians on Haiti had died 'through murder, mutilation or suicide.' Under Columbus s Spanish successors the mistreatment continued. In 1515 there were just 50, 000 Indians left. In 1550 only 500 remained. By 1650 there were none. 38

Likewise, Father Junipero Serra, who led an expedition to California in 1769 to claim the land for Spain and convert the California Indians to Catholicism, is rarely portrayed accurately in history texts. Prior to his death in 1784, Father Serra supervised the construction of 12 missions located from San Diego to San Francisco. In 1993, Pope John Paul II made Father Serra a saint because of his dedication to, and accomplishments for, his god and the Catholic Church. In extolling the virtues of Father Serra, the Pope failed to mention how Serra forced the California Indians to build the Catholic missions and accept the Catholic religion. According to the book Indians of California, published by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Mfairs (1966): The effect of Spanish law was subjugation of the Indians to de facto slavery. Roundups of native Indians took place periodically to acquire new workers. Adequate rations for an Indian man, woman, or child laborer, whose workday was from morning prayers until dark, were considered to be a pint ofmaize a day . .. In their hopelessness and suffering, Indian mothers were known to have smothered their babies at birth rather than condemn them to live such an existence. More insidious was the mass psycho-

40 logical depression that overtook the Mission Indians. They lost, as a race, the will to survive. The Comte de La Perouse, a French nobleman who visited Monterey in 1782, wrote that the Indian under the control of the mission system was, " ... too much a child, too much a slave, too little a man." The way the Spaniards enslaved the Indians with torture and brutality, and hunted down those who tried to escape, reminded the nobleman of the slave plantations he had seen on his visit to Santo Domingo. Similar plantations existed in the United States, entirely dependent on the sweat of slavery for subsistence. As a consequence, American white men would frequently sail to Mrica where they would forcibly take the inhabitants from their homes and families. After chaining them together, they would ship them to America and, through torture, make them slaves. This barbarism was perpetrated because the African people were black, a difference which the white men reasoned made them inferior and therefore supposedly provided a justification for their sadistic behavior. Like many other historical icons, George Washington, the first president of the United States, has been highly idealized. Not commonly acknowledged, however, is the fact that when Washington purchased his Virginia home, Mt. Vernon, he acquired 20 slaves; but, by the time of his death, he owned 314.34 In the more than two centuries since his death, Mt. Vernon has been painstakingly preserved, a shrine signifying the importance of his existence. Like generations of visitors to Mt. Vernon before me, I have wandered in awe through the same halls George Washington once passed, stood in silent wonderment in the exact rooms Washington once occupied, touched the very desk upon which

41 he wrote letters to Thomas Jefferson,· Benjamin Franklin, Marquis de Lafayette, and others, and sat transfixed on his porch, my eyes gazing upon the identical beautiful view of the Potomac River Washington's eyes once beheld. Yet, I was deeply saddened to learn he owned slaves and even more dismayed to see their meager living conditions. While a huge monument graces Washington's burial site and a museum and gift shop are filled with items commemorating his life, except for a small plaque, no recognition has been accorded his slaves. Their burial site, a tree-covered hill, bears not a single marker to even acknowledge their existence. Contrary to its reputation as a land of freedom and democracy, the United States was built on a foundation of exploitation. Besides the African Americans, the indigenous Indians also suffered the tragic consequences of man's frequent inability to tolerate people who differ from him. When the European immigrants first arrived in what is now the United States, the Indian inhabitants helped them survive. They trusted the white strangers who eventually decimated their race and their culture.·· More than 300 treaties were made and broken. Chief Sitting Bull (1834?-1890) of the Dakota Sioux bitterly complained:

What treaty that the white man ever made with us have they kept? Not one. 36

• Thomas Jefferson wrote much of The Declaration of Independence which, in part, states, " ... all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." And yet, Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. In fact, in the Constitution, slaves are referred to as "other persons." Furthermore, the Constitution clearly denied Congress the authority to abolish slavery in the states. 27 •• Man has not changed. In 1991, Brazilian men systematically killed people called Urueu-Wau-Wau in the Amazon Jungle because they were considered primitive, inferior, and a hindrance to their money-making projects.

42 The American Indians must have resented the conquering white man terribly. He demonstrated only contempt for the Indian culture and "mother earth." For example, the Indian would huddle close to a small fire, whereas the white man would build a huge, roaring fire and sit far away from it. The American Indian was a savage in some aspects,· but he respected his environment and had a profound appreciation for his fragile relationship with it. Other races of men rarely have. The following is an excerpt from an article entitled, "The Golden Age That Never Was," written by anthropologist Jared Diamond (Discover magazine, December 1988):

Environmentalists sickened by the damage that industrial societies are wreaking on the world often look to the past as a golden age. When Europeans began to settle America, the air and rivers were pure, the landscape green, the Great Plains teeming with bison. Today we breathe smog, worry about toxic chemicals in our drinking water, pave over the landscape, and rarely see any large wild animal. Worse is surely to come. By the time my infant sons reach retirement age, half the world's species will be extinct, the air radioactive, the seas polluted with oil. Undoubtedly, one simple reason for our worsening mess is that modem technology has far more power to cause havoc than did the stone axes of the past. . . The nostalgia for a lost golden age extends beyond the environmental view; it's part of a larger, historical tendency to see the past as

• He would dominate his women, raid and kill members of other tribes, take slaves, cut noses off of female "adulteresses," torture men to death to obtain their spirits, etc.

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golden in many other respects. A famous exponent of this outlook was the eighteenthcentury philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose 'Discourse on the Origin of Inequality' traced our degeneration from a shining past to the human misery that Rousseau saw around him. When eighteenth-century European explorers encountered preindustrial peoples like Polynesians and American Indians, those peoples became idealized in European salons as 'noble savages' living in a continued golden age, untouched by such curses of civilization as religious intolerance, political tyranny, and social inequality. Even now the days of classical Greece and Rome are widely considered to be the golden age of Western civilization. Ironically, the Greeks and Romans also saw themselves as degenerates from a golden past. Half-conscious, I could still recite those lines by Ovid that I memorized in tenth-grade Latin . .. 'First came the golden age, when men were honest and righteous of their own free will . . . 'Ovid went on to contrast those virtues with the rampant treachery and warfare of his own times. I have no doubt that any humans still alive in the radioactive soup of the twenty-second century will write equally nostalgically about our era. Given this widespread belief in a golden age, some recent discoveries by archaeologists and paleontologists have come as a shock. It's now clear that preindustrial societies have been exterminating species, destroying habitats, and undermining their own existence for thousands of years.

44 Because of the destructive nature of man, a "Golden Age" has never existed. Jared Diamond concludes: Man has never lived in harmony with nature. Our ancestors were no less rapacious than we are - just less powerful. * Man's reach is extending beyond earth, ever farther into the cosmos with each passing year. He eagerly studies the signals sent back from his multimillion dollar satellites and wonders if another planet could sustain life. Man would be ecstatic to find even a few microscopic fonns oflife in the dust of another planet. Yet on earth, without hesitation or regret, and always in the name of "progress," he systematically destroys one plant and animal species after another. Man does not have the capacity to appreciate the many unique life forms which exist on our own unique planet. He has single-handedly succeeded in destroying hundreds of species of animals such as the Moa (a ten-foot tall bird extinct 1000 years ago), the Aurochs (a wild ancestor of cattle which stood six feet tall at the shoulders and was hunted to extinction during the Middle Ages), the Dodo Bird (extinct by 1668), Stellar's sea cow (thirty feet long - extinct by 1768), the Quagga (half Zebra and half horse - disappeared by 1883), the Passenger Pigeon (gone by 1914), and the list goes on and on. Man nearly succeeded in driving the buffalo to extinction in the late nineteenth century. Instead of hunting them for food and clothing he killed them for fun, sometimes shooting thousands of buffalo from moving trains . The carcasses were left to rot in the sun. An August 1989 documentary on public television (KQED, San Francisco) reported over ten million elephants roamed the African planes in the 1930's. At the time of the

• Because of his powerful inventions, man can now do more environmental damage in a matter of moments than our ancestors could have done in a lifetime.

45 show's broadcast, only about 750,000 remained.· During the mid-1980's over 80,000 elephants were slaughtered a year, primarily for their ivory tusks. The black rhinoceros, like the elephant, is also being hunted to the brink of extinction. In 1970, it numbered 65,000. By 1989, however, only about 3,000 were still alive. They are not killed for food, but solely for their horns which are used as a part of "magical" potions sold in the Orient. Sometimes the horns are ground up and used as an aphrodisiac by men. The horns are also made into knife handles which are sold in North Yemen and provide their male owners with social status. Many other animals are also killed solely for their body parts which are subsequently sold as novelty items. For example, men hunt and kill gorillas, taking only their hands and heads. The severed body parts are made into ashtrays, ottomans, baskets, and other curios. The World Wildlife Fund estimates only 400 mountain gorillas are alive today. The courageous anthropologist Dian Fossey was murdered by poachers because, in attempting to study and protect the gorilla, she became an obstacle to their profit-making endeavors. Similarly, on August 20, 1989, the conservationist George Adamson was murdered in Kenya, Africa by a group of animal poachers. Prior to his death, he had been trying to stop the killing of endangered animals. He and his late wife Joy wrote the book Born Free which describes their work with the lions in Kenya. Efforts similar to theirs have been in vain; the Bali Tiger was hunted to extinction in the 1940's, the Caspian Tiger suffered the same fate in the 1970's, and the Javan Tiger was lost forever during the 1980's. Besides endangering our wildlife, man is destroying our forests at an alarming rate. For example, in Brazil, several

* The fact that male elephants must be over the age of thirty before they can mate increases the danger of eventual extinction since fewer and fewer males are living long enough to mate with females.

46 dams were constructed in order to generate electric power. The dams, in turn, caused the flooding of thousands of acres of jungle forest. The flood waters destroyed thousands of animals, trees and plants. According to Time magazine (September 1989): Fabio Feldmann, the leading environmentalist in the Brazilian Congress, alleges that much of the momentum behind the dam projects and other large public works derives from an extremely lucrative relationship between the major contractors and politicians. A dam may not have to make all that much sense if it generates sufficient commissao (commissions) for the right people.

Chico Mendes was a leader of the native "rubber tappers" of Brazil. They harvest sap from rubber trees which is then processed into a variety of rubber products. In December 1988, he was murdered because he was a conservationist and an outspoken critic of the wealthy cattle owner's destruction of the Amazon rainforest in which he lived. The cattle barons of Central and South America clear the land of forest so their animals can graze on the poorquality grass grown in place of the jungle. After a few years of grazing, the grass fails to regenerate and more forest must be cleared in a continuous effort to feed the cattle. Many of the cattle are sold to the U.S. and wind up as hamburgers in fast food restaurants. The rainforests are also being destroyed by farmers struggling to support their growing families. These men diligently slash and burn the forest in a futile effort to farm the infertile soil. When their crops invariably fail, they move on to another parcel and begin their destruction anew. In Peru, manufacturers of illegal drugs are cutting down and burning thousands of acres of the jungle forest to grow coca that will be processed into cocaine. The wealthy and

47 well-armed drug producers also use powerful chemicals (herbicides) to kill the plant life of the jungle. Rain then washes some of these chemical poisons into the Amazon River and both fish and land downstream are consequently contaminated. Moreover, people eating fish from the river or drinking the water are ingesting these toxic chemicals. On April 14, 1989, a Nature documentary on public television (KQED, San Francisco) reported one half of the world's tropical rainforests have been destroyed since World War II. One hundred acres of tropical rainforests are being cut, bulldozed, and burned per minute. At this rate of destruction, all remaining rainforests will disappear in forty years. Man's destruction of the rainforest affects not only the trees but the great variety of life forms which have prospered within these jungle habitats for thousands of years. Brazil's jungles, for instance, have one third of the species of plant and animal life found in the world's eco-system. A Rainforest Action Network newsletter (1994) reports, "A four-square mile area of rainforest teems with a colorful variety [of life]: 750 types of trees, 1,500 different flowers, 125 mammal species, and 400 kinds of birds." In the near future, our children may only be able to see these plants and animals in books. Peter H. Raven, the director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, warns (Time magazine, January 1991): It appears likely that no fewer than 1.2 million species, at least a quarter of the biological diversity existing in the mid-1980 will vanish during this quarter-century or soon thereafter, and that a much higher proportion of the total will follow by the second half of the next century, as the remaining forest refuges are decimated.

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Ironically, the plant life man destroys within the rainforests holds the possibility for prolonging human life. A Rainforest Action Network newsletter (1994) states:

48 . . . two of the most famous drugs which come out of the tropical rainforests are the alkaloidal drugs, vincristine and vinblastine, derived from a plant called the rosy periwinkle. Thanks to the alkaloids yielded by this plant, a child suffering from leukemia now has a 80% chance of survival instead of a 20% chance. Tragically, whole species of jungle life are being eradicated by man before medical science even has an opportunity to investigate their life-saving potential. Unfortunately, an equivalent to man's destruction of the South American jungles can be found in the United States. Life magazine (May 1992) reports 68 golf courses presently cover the Hawaiian Islands. Yet, more jungle forest and wildlife are currently being destroyed in order to build another 93 golf courses! While millions of acres of tropical jungle are being eradicated all around the globe, similar actions are occurring within the national forests of the continental United States. Embroiled in the midst of this destruction is the very agency originally designed to protect the timberlands, the National Forest Service. On March 14, 1988, Sports Illustrated printed an article written by John Skow entitled, "The Forest Service Follies." Mr. Skow contends, " ... the Forest Service ... has long since stopped faithfully serving the forests, or even the timber industry. It seems committed to nothing except its own steady growth." The Forest Service has lucrative contracts with paperpulp companies, so in areas such as the Tongess National Forest in Alaska, giant trees, many of which reached maturity before the U.S. Constitution was signed, are being cut down. Mr. Skow writes:

49 Powerful environmental reasons exist for not cutting them. An untouched, old-growth forest is not merely a stand of trees with an animal population, but an enormously complex and delicate organism, consisting of trees, other plants, animals, water, sunlight, atmosphere and flows of thermal and chemical energy. Mr. Skow states the U.S. Forest Service is an inefficient bureaucracy that is terribly wasteful of the natural resources of the national forests. The agency earns $3 billion a year and spends $4 billion. These huge operating losses result, in part, from a runaway road-building program and timber mismanagement. As an example, in the Tongess National Forest in Alaska, the agency sanctions the cutting of 400 year-old spruce trees each containing 1,000 to 2,000 board feet of lumber. The Forest Service then sells the trees for approximately $2.00 EACH! Compton J. Tucker of NASA's Goddard Space Center said in World Watch magazine (December 1992): When you compare the [deforestation] in the Pacific Northwest to the Amazon of Brazil, the Northwest is much worse. The pictures show this amazing graphic situation - the severe fragmentation of the forest . .. According to The Washington Spectator newsletter (October 15, 1992): Since 1972, the planet has lost nearly 200 million hectares (77 million square miles) of trees. Deserts have expanded by 120 million hectares, more land than is planted in crops in China and Nigeria combined. The world's

50 farmers lost about 480 million tons of topsoil, roughly equal to the amount of farmlands of India and France combined. The destruction of forests is a tragic story of greed and lack of concern for the future .

Worldwatch'sState of the World (1992) reports: Over the last 10,000 years, the Earth's mantle offorests and woodlands has shrunk by a third as trees were cleared to make way for crops, pastures and cities, and to sell lumber. Some 17 million hectares of tropical forests are being lost per year. Demand for forests' main commodity - wood - is at an all-time high and growing.

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Almost all ofEurope original forests are gone. In the U.S., barring Alaska, less than 5 percent of the primary forest remains . .. More than 3.4 billion cubic meters of wood are taken from the world's forests and woodlands yearly.

When looking at the pictures of devastation caused by man in the once lush forests in Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, or the Amazon, one is reminded of the egotistical boast of the Roman general Gaius Julius Caesar (100-44 B.C.) who said, "I came, I saw, I conquered."17 Man's appetite for destruction is just as voracious in the earth's oceans. Japan, for example, a highly advanced industrial nation, continues to hunt and kill hundreds of whales each year even though all whale products can be synthetically produced. In 1965, approximately 11,000 blue whales swam in the oceans of the earth. By 1989, their numbers were reduced to about 200. The Japanese also hunt and kill rare sea turtles because they believe they contain magical ingredients for healing potions and aphrodisiacs.

51 World Watch magazine (August 1989) reports: ... huge trawlers are catching up, reducing, and moving on from one fish species to another. In the northemPacific, more than 700 Japanese, South Korean and Taiwanese fishing boats equipped with 20 to 40 mile-long drift nets sweep an area of sea the size of Ohio each night. In these nets, hundreds of dolphins and other sealife are recklessly killed and then thrown overboard as garbage. Scientists blame driftnetters for last year's (1988) crash in the Alaska pink salmon fishery, in which only 12 million fish of an expected 40 million were taken by Alaskans. If man does not take precautions as he harvests the life in the ocean, he will be doomed to repeat the mistakes made in the 1930's by the sardine industry at Cannery Row in Monterey, California. Greed prompted man to overfish the sardines in Monterey Bay. Subsequently, the economy of Cannery Row collapsed in the late 1940's. Greenpeace magazine (December 1993) warns in an article entitled, "Finite Fish, Infinite Greed":

It's not just about saving the whales any more. Virtually every commercial species of fish is in deep trouble, declared 'depleted, ' 'fullyexploited, ' or 'overexploited' by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAD). The primary reason for this global crisis is crystal clear: more fish nets scooping up fewer and fewer fish. FAD figures indicate that the world's marine catch has increased more than four times in the past 40 years - from 20 million tons in 1950 to 86 million tons in 1989. Though

52 unprecedented, it may yet get worse as the world population continues to grow. Overfishing is not the only danger to our seas. Daily, man recklessly pollutes the oceans with dangerous chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), DDT, mercury, and cadmium. According to World Watch magazine (August 1989): These chemicals come from a variety of sources industries, airborne pollutants, shipping accidents, pesticide runoff, mine tailings, and waste incineration. Once toxics enter the marine environment, it's very hard to get them out, since they seep into the sediments, enter the food chain, or simply flow with the currents. More than 2.1 million tons of liquid chemical waste is poured into the North Sea alone each year, and the ship-board incineration of more than 100,000 tons of hazardous wastes adds an unspecified amount of toxic ash. These chemicals move through the food chain and can also end up in humans. Between 1953 and 1968, some 649 residents of Minamata, Japan, were killed after they consumed seafood contaminated by industrial mercury. [Many pregnant women who ate the contaminated seafood gave birth to brain damaged and physically deformed babies}. Seafood from Minamata Bay still cannot be eaten. In the United States, lobsters containing up to 20 times the allowable limit of PCBs have been caught off the Massachusetts coast. Fish with tumors from unknown causes also are being caught with greater frequency along the eastern seaboard of the United States, as are fish in Florida with high levels of mercury.

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Marine habitats which nurture life in the oceans are also disappearing because of exposure to chemical pollutants. Coral reefs, sea grasses, and mangroves, which serve as feeding grounds for many types of marine life, are being affected. World Watch magazine (August 1989) reports:

Coral reefs are home to an estimated one million species . . . and are considered the tropical rainforests of the oceans. They also happen to be the ecosystems most sensitive to changes in temperature and light. Healthy coral reefs are becoming hard to find. Rivers choked with sediment from deforested lands or eroded agricultural fields cloud coastal waters and kill reefs by blocking sunlight. Along Costa Rica s Caribbean coast, sediments from local rivers have killed 75 percent of the reefs. Local fishers in Indonesia, Kenya, and elsewhere add to the damage by using dynamite to kill and collect fish that hide in the coral reefs. Also, reefs throughout the world are mined for construction material or ornamental pieces. By 1981, 70 percent ofthe reefs in the Philippines (7,000 islands) had been damaged, many beyond recovery, by the cumulcitive effect of poisoning from cyanide, mine tailings, pesticides and erosion. Particularly damaging is the use of cyanide in collecting tropical fish for the commercial aquarium business. The director general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Edouard Saouma, warned in April 1989, "overfishing and pollution threaten the future productivity of the seas." In October 1993, World Watch magazine released the following ominous fact:

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Commercial fishers spend about $124 billion to catch $70 billion worth of marine fish worldwide. Government subsidies are thought to make up much of the difference between expenditures and income. Too many dollars chasing too few fish contributes to the overexploitation of the oceans.

One of the worst instances of environmental pollution occurred on March 24, 1989, when the oil tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground and spilled 10,836,000 gallons of crude oil into the ocean at Prince William Sound in Alaska. According to Newsweek magazine, it eventually contaminated 1,090 miles ofthe Alaskan shoreline while killing 33,126 birds, 138 eagles and 980 otters. Years before this environmental tragedy, Alyeska (a service company of Exxon) stated in a 1971 press release reported in Newsweek (September 18, 1989): What would happen if there was (sic) a large oil spill? First of all, the spill would be contained and localized. Secondly, any ecological damage would be rectified. Newsweek continues: Despite that glib assurance, Alyeska . . . never really believed it could 'contain and localize' a spill the size of the Exxon Valdez. The company admitted as much, not in a press release but buried in the two-volume cleanup plan it was required to file with the state.

The Exxon Valdez could have steamed through the floating chunks of ice in Prince William Sound as opposed to trying to move around them and running aground on a reef. According to Newsweek magazine (September 18, 1989):

55 James Woodle, a former Coast Guard commander at Valdez, participated in some studies of ice for Alyeska before the accident. They came to the conclusion, ,he recalled, , that in the event of heavy ice, tankers could slow down to five knots (from a typical cruising speed of 12) and steam through the ice without incident. ' The only reason that isn't done, he told Newsweek, is that it adds about four hours to the trip. Carrying a cargo worth $20 million, he says, you never want to slow down. Never.'

Exxon executive Don Cornett claimed, in World Watch magazine, the spill was, " ... just another cost of doing business." Newsweek reported, "Chuck O'Donnell, Alyeska's ranking executive in Valdez, was called at home within half an hour of the grounding. He dispatched a subordinate to the terminal and then rolled over and went back to sleep." Tragically, for three days, the oil spill floated near the ship while Alyeska and Exxon wondered what to do. If they had responded to the spill quickly, much of the shoreline and the wildlife of Alaska could have been saved. Not limited solely to the planet, man's power to disrupt the delicate balance of nature reaches into the atmosphere which envelopes the earth. When toxic emissions are dispersed into the atmosphere, some follow natural chemical reactions and form acid rain. For example, coal-fired power plants produce sulphur oxides and nitrogen oxides, while automobiles emit hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides, all of which contribute to the production of acid rain. According to a NOVA documentary (aired December 11, 1984,onKQED): Up in the sunlight and moisture of the atmosphere, this chemical cocktail goes through more than 150 reactions over the course of a day or

56 two. The result - three main pollutants: ozone, a corrosive gas, and two important acids: nitric and sulphuric. By the time these reactions are complete, the pollutants may have traveled hundreds of miles {before they fall to the earth in raindrops},

The Environmental Defense Fund reported (New York Times, December 26,1984) that sulfur dioxide gas emitted by copper smelters in southern Arizona can cause acid rain to fall on the lakes and forests ofIdaho, a thousand miles away. The toxic chemicals in acid rain slowly kill trees, vegetation, and even the animal life in lakes, leading to the collapse of the delicate aquatic ecosystems. Severe damage to forests and lake fish has been recorded in many areas around the world including the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Russia. Man's technological progress is also responsible for unnaturally warming the atmosphere surrounding the earth. His development of, and dependency on, the gas-powered automobile is one factor which has contributed to the greater accumulation of carbon dioxide (C0 2 ) in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide acts as a blanket which traps the heat from solar radiation close to the earth's surface. Increased amounts of CO 2 have led to escalating global temperatures, the socalled "greenhouse effect," which threatens the delicate homeostatic balance of the earth's ecosystem. According to Ed Dobb in The Sciences (March 1989): Earth system scientists have predicted that, as a direct consequence of increased carbon dioxide levels and the resultant greenhouse effect, storms will become more numerous in the coming decades, and they will be far more severe, with winds in excess of two hundred miles per hour (high atmospheric temperatures will accelerate evaporation, which will speed up atmospheric

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convection currents}. Droughts will become common in the middle latitudes; rivers in the American Southwest, for example, may shrink by as much as forty to seventy-five percent, all but obliterating agriculture. And polar ice will begin melting, causing sea levels to rise by as much as two hundred feet and submerging such highly populated coastal areas as Hong Kong, New York, and Rio de Janeiro. The specter raised by such changes, at least in the minds of some scientists, is that man constitutes a threat to the global processes that, until now, have maintained the conditions necessary for life.

The greatest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the world is being financed by the World Bank. A Friends of the Earth newsletter (August 1, 1994) states: For three decades, the World Bank has been financing a massive series of coal power plants and open pit mines in central India at Singrauli. . . . Currently, five coal power plants are in operation at Singrauli, and the Bank intends to finance 6 more power plants along with 12 massive open pit mines.

While carbon dioxide is accumulating, another element in the atmosphere, the ozone layer, is dissipating. Michael Lemonick of Time magazine (February 1992) reports:

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The evidence is overwhelming that the earth stratospheric ozone layer - our shield against the sun hazardous ultraviolet rays - is being eaten away by man-made chemicals [chlorofluorocarbons] far faster than any scientist had predicted. No longer is the threat just to our future; the threat is here and now.

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58 ... The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, along with scientists from several institutions, announced startling findings from atmospheric studies done by a modified spyplane and an orbiting satellite. . . . Previous studies had already shown that ozone levels have declined 4% to 8% over the northern hemisphere in the past decade. But the latest data imply that the ozone layer over some regions, including the northernmost parts of the U.S., Canada, Europe and Russia, could be temporarily depleted in the late winter and early spring by as much as 40% . . . Says Michael Kurylo, NASA's manager of upperatmosphere research: 'Everybody should be alarmed about this. It's far worse than we thought. ' The vital gas being destroyed is a form of oxygen in which the molecules have three atoms instead of the normal two. That simple structure enables ozone to absorb ultraviolet radiation -a process that is crucial to human health. UV rays can make the lens of the eye cloud up with cataracts . . . The radiation can cause mutations in DNA, leading to skin cancers, including the often deadly melanoma.

Depletion of the ozone layer can also have disastrous effects upon the world's food supply. Lemonick continues: High doses of UV radiation can reduce the yield of basic crops such as soybeans. UV-B. .. penetrates scores of meters below the surface of the oceans. There the radiation can kill phytoplankton (one-celled plants) and krill (tiny

59 shrimplike animals), which are at the very bottom of the ocean food chain. Since these organisms, found in greatest concentrations in Antarctic waters, nourish larger fish, the ultimate consumers - humans - may face a maritime food shortage.

Besides releasing carbon dioxide and chlorofluorocarbons, man on occasion discharges an even more potent pollutant into the air - radioactive particles. This has been publicly acknowledged to have occurred at least twice at the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant near Denver, Colorado. Operated by Rockwell International, the Rocky Flats facility was built secretly in 1952 to manufacture plutonium triggers, the "heart" of the hydrogen bomb. It operated in a clandestine manner until a plutonium fire in 1957 sent a heavy black cloud floating over Denver. A full week later, air monitors on the plant's smokestacks measured the release of 16,000 times the permissible level of plutonium into the air. Another plutonium fire erupted in 1969 and burned enough plutonium to build 77 atomic bombs. No one seems to know how much plutonium dust escaped during that fIre. According to the 1987 public television documentary Dark Circle, under normal conditions, air filters in the smokestacks of the plant capture 99.97 percent of the radioactive plutonium dust. The .03 percent that escapes can not be seen by the naked eye but remains radioactive and lethal for 250,000 years. When inhaled into the body, these radioactive dust particles can cause cancer and genetic abnormalities, effects which can take 20 years to appear. Lloyd Mixon, a farmer who raises animals a distance of six miles from the plant, reported chickens, geese, and pigs stillborn and severely deformed. Investigators from Rocky Flats told Mr. Mixon his feed was poor and thus causing the deformities. Prior to the construction of the plant, animals

60 deformed at birth were a relatively rare occurrence on Mixon's farm. In 1974, the county health director, Dr. Carl Johnson, analyzed soil samples near the plant, a routine procedure required prior to giving approval for new housing developments. His findings revealed 285 times as much plutonium in the soil than was reported by the United States Department of Energy (which had used a different test). Housing developments were approved, constructed, and sold over the objections of Dr. Johnson. At the time Dark Circle was produced, potential new home buyers in the Rocky Flats area received an advisory notice from the U.S. Department of Energy stating, "Plutonium contamination of the soil exists in varying levels but below limits developed by the Environmental Protection Agency - this particular area can be used without restriction." Christine Haag, a little girl who grew up three miles from the plant, developed a tumor in her left leg. Even though her leg was amputated, in 1979 at the age of twelve, she died of cancer. Her father sent her ashes to a lab in Richmond, California for analysis. The lab results "detected a large amount of plutonium in the ashes, a type of plutonium routinely released from Rocky Flats." The documentary reported the incidence of brain cancer in the local population is 20 times higher than normal. The overall cancer rate for people living around the plant is 16 percent higher than other counties in Colorado. The workers at the Rocky Flats plant suffer a cancer rate five times higher than the state average. A spokesperson for the plant, Dr. Marilyn Werkema, told a concerned group of people who live near the plant, "Rocky Flats is a safe healthful place, and ... the environment around it likewise is safe and a healthful place to live." Following a June 6, 1989 raid on the Rocky Flats plant by federal agents, Greenpeace magazine (October 1989) reported FBI agent Jon S. Lipsky filed a 116-page affidavit which:

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. . . accused Rockwell International and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) of 'knowingly and falsely' stating that the plutoniumprocessing plant complied with this country's environmental laws. In doing so, the contractor and its government client concealed 'serious contamination' at the site. Lipsky charged that Rockwell and DOE secretly dumped hazardous waste into public drinking water and surreptitiously operated an incinerator they said had been shut down.

Prior to its closing in 1989, Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant manufactured three plutonium "triggers" a day, 15 a week, 720 a year. Production continued despite the fact the United States was quickly accumulating a stockpile of over 26,000 hydrogen bombs. Each of these bombs is hundreds of times more powerful and destructive than the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan at the end of World War II. Ed Magnuson wrote in Time magazine (October 1988) about the dangers of other nuclear power plants including the facility located in Fernald, Ohio: [Charles] Zinser recalled how beginning in 1984 he had rented a vegetable garden near the plant. He often took his two young sons along as he worked. Two years later, both were found to have cancer. Samuel, then eight, had leukemia, and Louis, two, had part of a leg amputated. Zinser contends that tests of his garden soil show it was contaminated with enriched uranium 235. And the doctor who tested his son's amputated leg told him it contained ten times more uranium than would be expected to accumulate naturally over a lifetime. The doctor said Louis could have eaten dirt and not got that much, ,

62 says Zinser. 'He said the only way he could have got that much would have been to breathe it.'

The article further reports: At the sprawling Hanford plutonium-processing complex in Washington State, managers once deliberately released 5,050 curies of radioactive iodine into the air. The reason: To see if they could reduce the amount of time uranium must be cooled before being processed into plutonium, presumably to increase production. The federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta plan to study how individuals living near Hanford have been affected physically. In a preliminary estimate, CDC researchers suggested that 20,000 children in eastern Washington may have been exposed to unhealthy levels of radioactive iodine by drinking milk from cows grazing in contaminated grasslands.

On April 26, 1986, the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl in the Ukraine blew up and spewed forth over 50 million curies of radioactive material into the atmosphere. Five years later, the Times newspaper of London reported: ... hospitals in the Ukraine, Byelorussia and adjacent provinces are filled with victims. Whole wards are lined with gaunt, dying children.

According to Greenpeace magazine (February 1991): Ukrainian doctors now routinely refer to what they call 'ChernobylAIDS, 'a radiation-caused immune deficiency that is not understood, or even accepted, by the medical community. Yet

63 a vast array of illnesses, including pneumonia, tuberculosis, vision problems such as cataracts, anemia and other blood disorders, headaches, sleeplessness, nosebleeds and hair loss are all on the rise ... Much of the damage that radiation causes to living cells manifests itself long after the exposure - from tumors and leukemia that show up after three or four years, to genetically determined disorders that appear in the next generation. 1t is not like anything we deal with in terms ofdisasters, 'says Tom McDowell, the director of Union Chemobyl USA . .. 1t's not like an earthquake, it's not like a flood. It keeps demanding lives and it doesn't stop in our lifetime. '

A by-product of man's work in the nuclear industry is radioactive waste. Worldwatch Institute (1992) reports: Half a century after the world's nuclear industries began accumulating radioactive waste, not a single country has found a safe, permanent way to dispose of it. In 1990, accumulated spent fuel from nuclear plants exceeded 80,000 tons, twice as much as in 1985. This radioactive material, which will remain deadly for tens of thousands of years, is accumulating in temporary storage facilities in all of the 26 countries that have used nuclear power . .. Cost estimates for handling the radioactive waste [in the U.S.] have risen to $36 billion.

Unfortunately, although man discovers evermore complex and sophisticated methods for manipulating radioactive elements, he remains remarkably primitive and reckless in his methods of disposing ofthe toxic waste he creates. One of

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man's primary methods of disposal has been to seal his radioactive waste in metal drums and dump them beneath the sea. The San Francisco Chronicle (November 11, 1990) reported: ... within the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, scientists have confirmed that corroded, collapsed drums of radioactive waste, a by-product of decades of government dumping, litter the ocean floor for at least 30 miles . . . . the estimated 47,500 drums filled with plutonium and other dangerous nuclear material were disposed of under Atomic Energy Commission contracts near the Farallon Islands from 1946 to 1970.

According to Greenpeace magazine (December 1993): Since [1954} ... almost 500 nuclear-powered ships and submarines, carrying more than 740 reactors, have been built by the former Soviet Union, Russia, the US., the UK., France, China, Germany, and Japan . . . . For some countries, the preferred method of retiring these vessels is simply to dump them at sea. Nineteen naval nuclear reactors have been deliberately dumped at sea: one off the US. Atlantic coast by the US. Navy; the rest in the Russian Arctic and Pacific coasts by the Soviet navy. . .. Five nuclear submarines have [accidentally} sunk two American and three Russian - carrying seven nuclear reactors to the ocean floor, where they remain in a volatile, eroding state.

Man's failure to develop safe methods for the disposal of radioactive waste has not hampered his ability to accumulate

65 tons of lethal material each year. On May 22, 1994, the San Francisco Chronicle reported: The end of the Cold War has left U.S. and Russian officials stuck with some 50 tons of 'excess' plutonium from dismantled nuclear bombs. Experts are debating how to get rid of it: Proposed schemes range from blowing it up with bombs to burning it in nuclear reactors to launching it into the sun. Meanwhile, commercial nuclear reactors generate 60 to 70 tons of plutonium each year that is highly radioactive and, hence, less likely to be stolen {by terrorist organizations]. Man is notorious for finding and using the quickest, easiest, and cheapest way to rid himself of radioactive and toxic waste. He demonstrates little concern for the environment because he thinks he won't live long enough to suffer the consequences of his selfi$h behavior. Yet, an immediate consequence of his toxic waste disposal has proven to be the contamination of drinking water. CBS News reported (May 17,1986) in Woburn, Massachusetts, following the dumping of toxic waste which subsequently contaminated the local water supply, death from leukemia was three times higher than the national average. Other health problems, including irregular heartbeats, are also much higher than average in Woburn. Using data released from the Environmental Protection Agency, The Natural Resources Defense Council discovered "one in five Americans drank unsafe or poorly treated water last year." According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle (July 28, 1994): The Natural Resources Defense Council said that during 1992 and 1993, nearly 50 million people consumed water with unlawfully high

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levels of toxic chemicals, microbes and other pollutants, or water that was inadequately treated for those disease-causing agents. Similarly, the television show West 57th St. (June 6, 1989) reported an estimated one quarter of Los Angeles ground water is contaminated due to the illegal dumping of toxic waste. Each day, the amount of toxic waste produced could fill four superdome football stadiums. The cost oflegal toxic waste disposal at the time of the broadcast was $150 per barrel, whereas the cost for illegal disposal was $75. Man tends to foist the waste he produces off onto others, a fact graphically demonstrated in 1987 when a barge loaded with 3,100 tons of industrial waste was shipped from Islip, New York to the Mississippi River Delta in a vain search for a landfill that would accept it. Mter being rejected by six states and three countries during sixty days and six thousand miles of floating, the garbage-laden barge returned to New York City. In recent years, men have even proposed loading industrial waste (including toxins) into rockets and launching it into space. Likewise, many American corporations are moving their operations to Mexico in order to freely discharge their highly toxic waste (produced during the manufacturing of their products) into the environment without governmental sanctions or penalties.· Mexico has laws to protect the environment, but as an incentive for American corporations to do business in Mexico, those laws are not stringently enforced. Although such reckless discharge of toxic waste translates into greater profits at the quarterly board meeting, the physical and emotional damage to people in this generation, and even the next, is enormous. According to the March 17,

• In Mexico, these companies also reduce their production costs by paying their workers a fraction of what they would earn in America (about $83 a week) and by not providing any health benefits or worker's compensation insurance.

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1994 television documentary Discovery Journal, towns on both sides of the 2000 mile border are reporting significantly higher rates oflupus, cancer, and birth defects. For example, the incidence of babies born with spina bifida (having a portion of their spinal column exposed) and anencephaly (lacking a brain) have increased dramatically in Brownsville, Texas. Dr. Carmen Rocco, a pediatrician in Brownsville, cites studies completed in 1991 by the Citizen's Environmental Laboratory from Boston, Massachusetts, which found the irrigation canals around the factories immediately across the border to be highly contaminated with chemicals which cause cancer and birth defects. In the documentary, a man was interviewed who was dying of cancer. He lived in Nogales, Arizona, and believed his cancer was caused by inhaling toxins released from American companies operating less than a mile away in Mexico. On his street of 18 houses, 14 cases of cancer had been reported in the past 5 years. He also maintained that Nogales is now infamous for having the highest rate of lupus patients in the world. The public relations personnel of the offending companies all claimed they dispose of their toxic waste in environmentally safe ways. Dr. Laurance Nickey, the Director of the Health and Environment Department in El Paso, Texas, complained that the Rio Grande River has become so polluted he wouldn't even put his big toe in it. He also voiced his concern that Mexico is being viewed as the optimal place for American business to dump its toxic by-products. He gave the example of a semi-truck his department stopped at the border from Denver, Colorado. The truck was loaded with chemical carcinogens and bound for Mexico. Man's reckless disposal of his toxic waste will detrimentally impact future generations in the same manner our ancestors' shortsighted behavior negatively effects our lives today. In Colorado, for instance, rivers are contaminated with sulfuric acid because of the greed of men who lived over a

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hundred years ago. Men stopped mining precious metals such as gold and silver from the mountains of Colorado in the 1870's because none remained for them to take. Ever since then, when winter rains have filled the mine shafts, water mixes with the exposed non-precious metals and forms sulfuric acid. The sulfuric acid then overflows the mine shafts and drains into the fresh water streams, thus contaminating the streams forever. The miners who dug those deep shafts never bothered to fill them because they never stopped to consider the problems they were creating for future generations. Similarly, the residents of Los Angeles are choking on the greed of men who lived over forty years ago. Greenpeace magazine (October 1989) reports: General Motors (GM), among others, has been campaigning actively against public health for decades. In 1949, the company was convicted of conspiring to destroy the nation s mass transit systems by buying up and then dismantling electrical transit systems in urban areas around the country. The environmental consequences of this crime are still felt today. Los Angeles, which in the 1930s boasted an efficient system of electrified public transit that served 56 cities, saw the system destroyed and replaced with diesel buses and a freeway network for GMs cars. The city now has one of the worst air pollution problems in the country, and the Bush administration has proposed exempting it from some provisions of the Clean Air Act. With enormous resources available to them, companies like General Motors can ensure that the laws protecting us from them remain weak. During the last decade, for example, General

69 Motors has successfully opposed amendments that would strengthen federal clean air and federal fuel-efficiency standards. GM has spent more than $1.8 billion lobbying Congress against clean air amendments since 1981, the year the Clean Air Act came due for reauthorization. In addition, GM's political action committee made more than $750,000 in campaign contributions, much of it to legislators who sit on committees with jurisdiction over clean air issues.

In 1952, the president of General Motors Corporation, Charles Wilson (1890-1961), told a congressional committee, "What is good for the country is good for General Motors, and what's good for General Motors is good for the country."58 Obviously, that statement is not true. Man believes he's in control of his destructive behavior in his environment, but he's not. When environmentalists complain about the clear cutting of national forests, the million-gallon oil spill in Alaska, the dumping of toxic waste, or when they question the need for more nuclear warheads and reactors, corporate CEO's and government leaders respond in the same way, "I know what I'm doing, I know what's best for the economy, trust me." Generally, however, man is doing only what's best for himself. He has little desire to protect the environment for the next generation. Mr. Larry Summers, the chief economist of the World Bank, argues in World Watch magazine (December 1992): The premise that our first priority should be to do more for our descendants is, anyway, debatable . . . Should my American grandparents have reduced their standard of living, when life was considerably more nasty, brutish, and short than now, to leave raw materials in the ground for my benefit?

70 According to the Environmental Defense Fund, Mr. Summer's World Bank is funding "massive rainforest clearing and agricultural resettlement in Brazil and Indonesia ... " Such action is seen as the answer to the overpopulation problem of these countries. At the present rate of destruction, all the earth's rainforests will be gone by the year 2032. Rarely in his history has man demonstrated an appreciation for life. His self-serving behavior continually reveals a primordial obsession with destruction and death as the English psychologist Havelock E His (18 5 9-19 3 9) noted when he wrote:

The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago, had they happened to be within reach of predatory human hands. 7 Man, in his haste to accumulate money and the power it brings, doesn't understand that the environment he is so furiously destroying is the force which sustains his life. Peter H. Raven of the Missouri Botanical Garden explained inan's self-destructive relationship with his environment (Time magazine, January 1991):

Like a careless mechanic, humanity is dismantling its life-support system, tossing components every which way and paying little heed to how the parts fit together. This isn't survival of the fittest, it's suicide of the fittest. The Norwegian scientist Thor Heyerdahl likewise lamented, "Man is demolishing nature ... We are killing things that keep us alive."16 Over a century ago, an American Indian chief tried to warn man about the dangers of his disregard for the environment. Today, as then, man neither respects nor heeds the wisdom of Chief Seattle of the Suquamish Tribe (1786?1866) who, in 1855, wrote to President Franklin Pierce:

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Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people . . . The white man . .. is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother but his enemy . . . Continue to contaminate your bed, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste./ B

Chief Seattle's insight into the destructive and shortsighted nature of man may also be a chilling prophesy of our man-made destiny.

CHAPTER THREE

WHY MAN DESTROYS The civilized man is a more experienced and wiser savage. 7 Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) American poet Several years ago I was riding in a car with an acquaintance of mine whom I hadn't seen since high school. The years hadn't changed him much. He was still very bright, ambitious, and aggressive. My acquaintance had reached his goal of becoming a millionaire by the time he was thirty almost solely due to shrewd real estate transactions. He called himself a "land developer." As he drove down the back roads in the countryside near our hometown, we discussed the incredible population growth and the corresponding building boom of tract homes and shopping centers that had taken place since we graduated from high school. He then explained his future development plans for the area, telling me in detail how much money he would make from each of his projects. While traveling through the small hills covered with lush vegetation and green trees, I felt very sad envisioning the destruction his dreams of "progress" and personal wealth would cause. As we passed a lake on our right, I saw a mallard duck paddling into the water's reflection of the setting sun with a hen swimming close behind. As I stared at the beauty of the moment, my male acquaintance abruptly pulled the car off to 72

73 the side of the road. He was now looking at the ducks with great interest too. Excitedly he said, "Watch this, you won't believe it." He got out of the car and opened up the trunk. I became impatient and yelled, "What are you doing?" He replied in a preoccupied mumble, "Watch the second duck." As I turned my head, I heard the loud cracking sound of a rifle shot and saw the duck's head disappear in the distance. The rest of her body rolled over in the water. The leading mallard kept on swimming, oblivious to what had just happened. In great glee and with obvious pride, my acquaintance returned to the driver's seat while exclaiming, "Almost a hundred meters and a moving target, not too shabby, huh?!" To this man, and others like him, life on earth exists to be exploited and consumed for their own pleasure and profit. The reasons for man's destructive behavior can be traced to his physical vulnerability and his innate subconscious feelings ofinsignificance.* Because of his brain's capacity for intellectual thought, man realizes he is physically weak and vulnerable when compared to other forces in his environment (e.g., wild animals, diseases, tornados, earthquakes, etc.). Experience teaches him reality is unpredictable and can be very dangerous to him. Much to his chagrin, man learns he is mortal - he will eventually die. His awareness of his mortality intensifies his drive for survival. To decrease his feelings of physical vulnerability, as well as increase the probability of his species' survival, man has been instinctively driven to conquer and control his environment. He has used his intelligence to invent things to help him gain this control such as bulldozers, chain saws, weather satellites, pesticides, vaccines and antibiotics, a variety of guns,jetfighter planes, submarines, atomic bombs, • A third physiological reason is man's high level of testosterone - the hormone of aggression. Man has always been hormonally programed for violence; in ancient times, this increased the odds of his survival.

74 etc.* Blaise Pascal explained the relationship between man's physical vulnerability and his intellectual power when he wrote:

Man is but a reed, the weakest thing in nature. But he is a thinking reed. 16 Unknown and potentially dangerous situations in the environment create a sense of vulnerability in man and stimulate within him the physiological reaction of anxiety. *. To rid himself of the biological discomfort caused by anxiety, man instinctively struggles to change the unknown to the known. If, for example, you hear an unfamiliar noise outside your bedroom window late at night you wonder who or what is causing it. You then look out the window in an attempt to change the unknown to the known. Your need to identify the cause of the noise, in order to determine its potential for danger, is prompted by your drive for survival. Curiosity, stimulated by the unknown, caused ancient man to wonder, "What or who is on the other side of that mountain?" The implication was "it" or "they" might be dangerous to him. To eliminate his fear of the unknown, he explored the other side of the mountain and frequently felt compelled to kill or enslave whoever or whatever he encountered. Curiosity results from man's physical vulnerability and has continually fueled his scientific exploration. New discoveries in medical science have been fostered by man's need

* Human intelligence can be defined as the ability to think, reason, solve problems, and plan activities that will take place at a certain time in the future. ** Anxiety is a biologically inherited survival response that prepares man (without any conscious thought) for fight or flight via stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system. Some of the physiological changes which occur within the body when experiencing anxiety are increased heartrate, increased blood pressure, increased rate of breathing, dry mouth, body sweats , blood moving away from the digestive tract to the large muscles of the extremities, and coagulants being released into the blood.

75 to understand and control any disease which can kill him. When someone dies, man's apprehension over that death motivates him to research its cause. Man has always been driven to find out what kills people and control it, because he fears he could be the next to die. Man is terrified by the thought his existence will cease with his death. This fear prompted man to invent superstitions and religions which provide him with the comforting delusion his life will be everlasting. As the Greek philosopher Plato (427?-34 7 B.C.) said, "He was a wise man who invented God."7 On a broader level, superstitions and religions provide man with the means to both explain the unknown and gain control (he believes) over those forces frightening to him. Ancient man, for instance, explained thunderstorms as a sign of a god's wrath. He often decided to send his god something he valued; consequently, he sacrificed female virgins as a way of appeasing the god. When each storm eventually subsided, man erroneously concluded he had discovered how to control the forces of nature. This increased the feelings of security within the tribe by decreasing everyone's anxiety (except for the virgins of the tribe). Because they provide emotional stability, brought about by the delusion of security, man has clung to his superstitions and religions even though they have no scientific basis. Contemporary man is anxious to conquer and control AIDS, cancer, tornados, earthquakes, crop-eating insects, terrorists, and people of other religions and countries who appear to be a threat. In other words, man still struggles to understand and control or kill anything which can destroy him. When man distrusts or fears other men, he invades and conquers their society, always rationalizing his behavior in one way or another. He will justify his aggression by explaining his leadership or form of government is best for the people or his religion is the only acceptable one, etc. The true reason

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for his domination of others is his own insecurity; he feels he must conquer them before they conquer him. * Man's physical vulnerability and his corresponding drive for survival also create within him the need for group affiliation and acceptance. The survival of human life has been contingent upon people cooperating in groups. Ancient man, even with his intelligence, could not survive alone - other animals were just too dangerous. Living and hunting together in well-organized groups allowed man to pool his intellectual and muscular abilities, and thus dominate or kill any animal to feed or to protect his group. Man's efforts to overcome his physical vulnerability also contribute to the fulfillment of his basic purpose in the overall scheme of life. As mentioned previously, man's purpose has always been to conquer and control the environment, to make it safer for his mate and offspring. Man is physiologically designed and hormonally programed for that purpose." Consequently, man is the expendable sex. Should he be maimed or even killed while struggling to make the environment safer, his species has only lost a few million sperm, an inconsequential loss when compared to the life-creating and sustaining power of woman. Man's expendable position in life explains why 106 males are born for every 100 females. 52 Extra males are naturally required to replace the ones killed or maimed while fulfilling their purpose. The second reason for man's destructive behavior is the innate subconscious feelings of insignificance which plague him throughout his life. Because of his intelligence, man is aware of his existence. As the French philosopher Rene' Descartes (1596-1650) explained, "I think, therefore I am."30

• Man also conquers other societies because he needs to feel more important and powerful. Ruling a greater number of people and controlling a larger area of land helps feed his delusions of grandeur and mitigates his feelings of insignificance . •• Testosterone, the hormone of aggression, is literally in man's blood. Women also have testosterone, but at a much lower level.

77 Because of man's awareness of self, he needs a purpose for existing, which explains why the Greek philosopher Plato (427? - 347 B.C.) described man as, "A being in search of meaning."16 Everyday man needs reassurance that his existence is meaningful. He frequently seeks this reassurance through his career. Through interaction in a business environment, he often achieves a sense of importance as well as the fulfillment of various psychological needs. * Consequently, it is not uncommon for a man to die shortly after he retires. Without his job, which had previously provided him with a sense of self-worth and purpose, he perceives his life as meaningless, and he quickly perishes. While I was working as a hospital psychologist, for instance, a physician requested I evaluate the prognosis of a retired man who was literally drinking himself to death. This man's retirement prevented him from fulfilling his psychological needs through interaction in a business environment. He was, at one time, responsible for the construction of national highways. His daily routine was one of great responsibility, challenge, and achievement. Continually, he was approached by people asking his permission and advice prior to carrying out their respective duties. He experienced the intoxicating power of direct control over men and their giant earthmoving machines. Now, following his retirement, the highlight of his day was a walk around the block. Because he no longer felt significant, he was getting drunk to escape the pain of his meaningless life. During the interview I said to this man, "You realize you're killing yourself with alcohol?" To which he replied, "Well Doc, so what does it matter?" Some successful businessmen refuse to take vacations from work. They usually rationalize they can't afford one. The implication is they or their company would suffer finan• Such as the need for attention, social acceptance , achievement, structure, intellectual stimulation, challenge, and a purpose in life.

78 cially. The truth is, while away from their jobs, they would suffer psychologically. They need the daily reaffirmation of self-worth that ajob of great responsibility can provide. Even when they become presidents of companies, they still can't relax. They fear another ambitious executive, eager for advancement, will out-perform them and take their position. They must daily prove to themselves, and to others, they are indispensable to their organization. Likewise, young millionaires who retire don't remain on the sidelines of business for long. They need the daily thrill of the "battle" of business to reaffirm their sense of power and self-worth. A career can be such an important way for men to validate their existence that some even take their own lives after losing their jobs. Many men, for example, committed suicide during the Great Depression. They killed themselves because what they lost (e.g., jobs, money, social status, the ability to purchase expensive things) represented their total sense of self-worth. Conversely, women, even when miserable and consumed with despair in the Great Depression (or in the aftermath of a man-made war), have almost always struggled to stay alive for the welfare of their children. The supreme importance of the female in the reproductive process also fuels man's subconscious feelings of insignificance. Woman carries, and ultimately gives birth to, the next generation of life. William Shakespeare was a literary genius, Thomas Edison and Benjamin Franklin were brilliant inventors, Michelangelo was a master painter and sculptor, Albert Einstein possessed possibly the greatest mind of the twentieth century; but none of these highly gifted men could create life, and none of their contributions to humanity are as significant as the creation of life. As a result of his feelings of insignificance, man suffers from what could be called "uterus envy." Man does not want life growing within his body, but subconsciously he is jealous of the sense of purpose and self-worth woman derives from giving birth to the next generation. Each month she is re-

79 minded of her power and her value in life; she is immortal because of her offspring. Each day man struggles to prove his significance to all, including himself. While continually searching for meaning, he must find contentment through the creation of electric toothbrushes, DDT, mechanical hearts, shopping malls, nuclear weapons, computer chips, Agent Orange, skyscrapers, spaceships, and other inanimate things. Woman doesn't struggle in life for her significance, she creates it naturally. Havelock Ellis addressed man's restless quest for significance when he said:

Nature accords the male but a secondary and comparatively humble place in the home, the breeding place of the race; he may compensate himself if he will, by seeking adventure or renown in the world outside. The mother is the child s supreme parent. 7 In part, because of "uterus envy," man has an insatiable psychological need for significance. While overcompensating for his subconscious feelings of insignificance, man is driven to create an illusion of importance which can be demonstrated in a visual manner.· He usually feels compelled to accumulate anything deemed socially valuable (e.g., money, land, buildings, stocks, paintings, stamps, businesses, etc.). Man needs to reaffirm the value of his existence by proving to himself and to others that his days are worthwhile. A man may demonstrate his own perceived value in life in many tangible ways. For example, he can show off the material goods he owns, such as the car he drives. Why does a man choose a BMW, Mercedes, or Porsche? He certainly doesn't choose one of these cars for greater fuel efficiency or in-

• Overcompensating for feelings of insignificance is an example of the defense mechanism Sigmund Freud termed "reaction formation," which will be explained in Chapter 4.

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creased reliability, but rather for social status. His car is a tangible symbol of his financial worth which he views as synonymous with his self-worth. Other ways for a man to demonstrate his success or value in life is by the beauty of his wife or girlfriend, the size and location of his house, the style and cost of his clothes, the restaurants where he eats, and the clubs to which he belongs. Man values possessions that bring him attention and admiration from others, which, in turn, serve to increase his feelings of self-worth and counteract his subconscious feelings of insignificance. In his quest for significance, the wealth a man accumulates is never enough because he usually believes the more money he obtains, the more valuable he is as a person. The acquisition of money is of utmost importance because with it he can gain greater status in society, as well as buy the power to manipulate others. When the American oil tycoon J. Paul Getty (1892-1976) said, "You can never have too much money,"45 he was voicing a common belief. Even though the stress inherent in a money-oriented society can lead to ulcers, high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes, migraine headaches, alcoholism, and drug addiction, man relishes the competition he encounters. Competition is actually a euphemism for comparison. Competition is a socially acceptable way to compare oneself to others on the field of battle - be it sport, business, or even war. Competition provides an opportunity for man to gain an emotional fix of significance - providing he wins. If he continually fails, he frequently gives up the struggle for significance and becomes part ofthe male refuse of human life (e.g., a drifter, alcoholic, drug addict, or suicide statistic). Winning in any form of competition is a way for man to demonstrate his superiority to others and most importantly to himself. People instinctively value winners, not losers. We are interested in, and reward, whoever is number one; we place little value on being number two. For example, two weeks after Charles Lindbergh flew solo across the Atlantic

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Ocean and landed on May 21, 1927 at LeBourget, France, another man duplicated the flight but landed in Berlin, Germany (300 miles farther). Do you know the name of that pilot? Most people don't. * At sporting events, the audience frequently behaves as if the athletic contest is a life and death struggle. People are personally upset, even enraged, when their team loses, and sometimes their frustration is released through acts of violence. For example, 39 people were killed in riots following a "game" of soccer in Brussels, England in 1985. Likewise, after Columbia lost at the 1994 World Cup soccer tournament, their star player was murdered by a fan who blamed the athlete for the loss. Many participants and fans would agree with the words of the late football coach Red Sanders, "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing."35** In sports, whoever finishes second is a "loser." Such an attitude is consistent with man's animalistic nature because, in true warfare, whoever finishes second is dead. Competition in sports, to demonstrate who is superior, evolved from man's instinct for war. Civil War General George McClellan (1826-1885) noted this connection by stating, "War is the greatest game at which man plays."5o General George Patton echoed a similar sentiment: Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best; it removes all that is base. 45

When contemplating man's propensity for violence and war, as well as his innate desire to compete and conquer, the origins of some sports are not surprising. Modern soccer, for example, originated in England; the first "ball" was the head • His name was Clarence Chamberlain . •• This statement was later echoed by, and erroneously attributed to, the Football Hall of Fame coach Vince Lombardi.

82 of a slain Danish brigand. King Edward III tried (but failed) to prohibit the game in 1365 because his soldiers would rather kick heads around a field than practice archery. Similarly, the game of polo originated in Tibet and was later modified by victorious warriors who buried captured enemy soldiers in the ground up to their necks and proceeded to crush their skulls with a club while riding by on horseback. Man also counteracts his subconscious feelings of insignificance by performing acts of destruction (such as those examined in the last chapter). The killing of his fellow man and wild animals provides him with an emotional thrill. Years ago, the American psychologist Willam James (1842-1910) observed man's affinity for murder:

Man, biologically considered . . . is the most formidable ofall the beasts ofprey, and, indeed, the only one that preys systematically on its own species. 16 Consistent with man's desire to kill, one of the most powerful lobbies in Congress (The National Rifle Association) is devoted solely to the ownership of guns.· The purpose of the gun is the same as the nuclear bomb or mustard gas - to destroy life. The use of a gun creates iIi man the delusion of omnipotence. Man has always relished using weapons to kill large animals. He no longer must kill wild animals for food - but he still kills them for his own pleasure··. His desire to kill

• Many women also belong to the NRA. They purchase and practice shooting guns primarily to protect themselves from tile greatest threat to their lives - men . •• An acquaintance of mine hunts doves for, as he explains, the challenge; they fly ina very fast, darting manner making them difficult to shoot. After killing his limit of ten he throws the dead birds away. Since the only edible part of the dove is the meat on the rib -cage, which is hardly a mouthful, he believes cleaning the bird to eat is not worth the effort.

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is a consuming passion, which overpowers even his greed. Elephants, for instance, are hunted for their valuable ivory tusks. Why doesn't man wait for the elephant to grow old and die of natural causes before harvesting its ivory? Obviously, the older the animal, the larger the tusks would be at the time of death. Simply stated, man gains no feelings of power and significance waiting for the giant beast to drop dead of natural causes. Instead, he feels at the zenith of his existence as he hears the loud explosion of his powerful gun, feels the force of the weapon as it recoils, and watches excitedly as the huge animal bellows in agony, struggles to maintain its balance, and then collapses in death. The ultimate "power trip" for man is the destruction of something ALIVE with just the pull of his trigger finger. He lives for the thrill of conquering and destroying, rarely worrying that his behavior will lead animals like the elephant to extinction. Many men collect animal heads, horns, or skins as indications of their power and bravery. Likewise, during the Vietnam War, some soldiers cut off the ears of their slain enemies as tokens of their own lethality. A few B-52 bomber pilots even returned to the scene of their bombings and posed for pictures, kneeling beside enemy corpses. Similarly, during the Persian Gulf War in 1991, some American soldiers climbed atop the Iranian tanks they had just destroyed in order to savor their sense of victory and take photographs documenting their moment of glory. Pride in murder and destruction, as well as the dismemberment of bodies, are examples of the barbaric depths to which man will sink in order to experience the exhilaration of destruction. Contemporary man also participates in many forms of death-defying activities, not for survival, but simply to psychologically reaffirm his significance. To demonstrate his courage, he'll ride wild animals in a rodeo or tame them for a circus act, climb mountains when it's very dangerous to do so (and when he already knows what's on the other side), break a

84 brick with his hand or even his head, walk across a wire secured between two skyscrapers, catch a .22 caliber bullet, fired from a rifle, with his teeth, or jump over a car traveling towards him at 60 miles per hour. The French dramatist Pierre Corneille (1606-1684) understood what man gains through performing death-defying feats. He wrote, "To conquer without risk, is to triumph without glory."45 Conversely, most women, because of their innate feelings of significance, rarely feel the need to perform tests of courage. Except for changes in fashion and advances in weapon technology, man hasn't changed much since the time of the Roman Empire. In those days, when a victorious Roman conqueror returned to Rome, he and his army received a grand welcome from the citizens of the city. As he paraded through the streets of the city, the slaves, captured from the lands he had conquered, shuffled in chains behind his horsedrawn chariot. Custom dictated one slave stand behind him and, while holding a laurel wreath crown over his head, whisper into his ear, "All glory is fleeting," implying he should enjoy the moment because it wouldn't last. Subconsciously, man understands and fears the fleeting nature of glory. He must constantly perform acts of bravado to experience a tangible reaffirmation of his significance. He knows his life is fragile and his death is inevitable. At a subconscious level, man senses the validity of the timeless wisdom of Aristotle: Time crumbles things; everything grows old under the power of time and is forgotten through the lapse of time. 45

The insignificance of man's life was expressed bestin the words ofthe Roman poet and satirist Horace (65-8 B. C.), "We are but dust and shadow. "36 Such awareness of his mortality instills in man a restlessness which fuels his drive to make his

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mark in the world.· Often, unfortunately, the mark man feels driven to make is detrimental to the environment. When a man writes graffiti, he deliberately mars his surroundings and is essentially saying, "I was here. My presence has impact on the environment. My life has meaning. Don't forget me!" Similarly, man instinctively attempts to mark or claim his territory by physically changing it as noted in Desmond Morris's book, The Naked Ape. After purchasing a house, for example, man must paint it or cut down some shrubs or add a fence or do something to make the statement, "This territory is mine and my being here has made a change for the better." Whenever a new male commander takes control of the Air Force base on Oahu, Hawaii, one of his first orders is to switch the numbering ofthe holes on the military golf course; the front nine becomes the back nine and the old back nine becomes the new front nine. The commander is demonstrating his power and claiming his territory much like a dog marks his domain by urinating on surrounding bushes. As a business consultant, I often find an organizational problem can be traced back to the hiring of a new male manager. Seeking to make his presence known, the new manager often had changed the internal operations of his department. Even though his department had been functioning quite well, he sought to demonstrate his power and rationalized his ,changes by saying, "We can do much better." The decrease in business efficiency caused by man's egotistical attitude has led to the development of the following business axiom: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

* Man often talks of leaving a legacy behind, like a son, a successful business, or a sports record, which demonstrates his life had meaning, Because she is of a different gender, it is difficultfor a daughter to be a man's clone, and so frequently he hopes for a son to take his name and "follow in his footsteps ," The father will often pressure his son to achieve all the goals the father desired but failed to accomplish during his lifetime.

86 Unfortunately, because of man's desperate need to visibly make an impact on his environment, a more accurate statement might be, "If it ain't broke yet, it certainly will be soon." The survival of the human species is endangered by man's relentless need to make his mark in life, almost always to the detriment of the environment. Humanity is further threatened because man is usually unable to confront the fears, resulting from his physical vulnerability and feelings of insignificance, which fuel his destructive behavior. These fears almost always stay shrouded within his subconscious mind, protected by defense mechanisms, "psychological shields" which prevent him from seeing and experiencing his true essence. Because man is unable to face and be at peace with his own vulnerability and insignificance, he will be forever at war with his environment, his fellow man, and even himself.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE DEFENSE MECHANISMS OF MALE THOUGHT The devil can cite scripture for his purpose. 16 William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English Dramatist Most men are not consciously aware of their feelings of vulnerability and insignificance. Such an awareness would cause them to suffer anxiety and depression. These feelings would have hindered ancient man's ability to venture from his cave and consequently would have proven counterproductive to man's original purpose - conquering and controlling the dangerous environment to make it safer for his mate and offspring. In order to concentrate on his immediate survival, the mind of man utilizes defense mechanisms, "psychological shields" which protect him from the potentially paralyzing thoughts and feelings stimulated by his insecurities (e.g., his fear of death, his fear of his insignificance, his fear of women, etc.). Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, theorized the human mind is divided into three levels: the conscious, pre-conscious, and unconscious. The conscious level consists of thoughts we have at a given moment in time. The pre-conscious level is comprised of memories that are easily retrievable through

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conscious effort (e.g., your date of birth, your father's first name, your favorite color, etc.). The third and largest level of the mind is the unconscious. We are not aware of the fears, needs, emotional conflicts, and painful memories which exist at this level. (In this text, the term "subconscious" will be used synonymously with the term "unconscious.") Freud wrote that all behavior has purpose, and that the true reason for behavior usually lies in the unconscious. When attempting to enter this level of the mind, the psychological barriers he termed defense mechanisms are frequently encountered. Defense mechanisms originate within the unconscious mind and are activated without conscious awareness or control. To understand man's actions, we must first identify and then decode the defense mechanisms he inadvertently uses to mask the real motives for his domineering and destructive behavior. Although Sigmund Freud wrote about many defense mechanisms, the ones pertinent to this book are: 1. Rationalization - when an individual attempts to apply the rules of reason to an unreasonable conclusion in order to hide the true motive for a particular behavior. 2. Projection - when an individual remains oblivious to his or her own undesirable emotions, impulses, or behavior by attributing them to other people. 3. Sublimation - the process by which unacceptable, sometimes dangerous, unconscious impulses are channeled into socially acceptable, even admirable, behavior. 4. Reaction Formation - when a person avoids his or her unconscious, dangerous and/or frightening desires or feelings by overtly expressing the exact opposite desire or feeling. 5. Repression - the "forgetting" of painful and/or frightening thoughts and/or experiences. These thoughts and/or experiences are "drawn" into the unconscious mind. Repression will be examined in Chapter 6.

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6. Denial - when a person does not want to confront dangerous, frightening, or painful aspects of reality, he or she will not acknowledge their existence. Denial will be examined in Chapter 6. This chapter concentrates on the defense mechanisms which allow man to dominate and abuse woman, murder his fellow man, destroy the environment and other forms of life, and escape his ever-present feelings of insignificance. Chapter 6 examines and explains the two defense mechanisms most people use to ignore the catastrophic human and environmental consequences of male leadership. Defense mechanisms protect the problem-solving function of the mind from debilitating stress. In the process, however, they often distort peoples' perceptions of themselves and their interpretation of reality. Defense mechanisms frequently allow people to fulfill their selfish needs and impulses without accepting responsibility for their actions and without feeling anxiety or guilt for their wrongdoings. As a consultant to the California State Department of Parole, I frequently encountered people who unwittingly utilized defense mechanisms to justify their behavior. I once asked a convicted murderer why he had killed his wife. He responded, "I killed her because I loved her." Another time, I asked a man who repeatedly battered his wife to explain why he hit her. He answered, "I only hit her when she asks for it." Both responses demonstrate the convoluted logic of rationalization. By using rationalization, these men were making their violent behavior acceptable in their own minds. They were simultaneously denying the emotions of hate, rage, and fear that triggered their violent behavior. Rationalization enables man to justify his domination of woman. In the newspaper article on the next page, two men utilized rationalization when explaining the murder of their wives. These murderers, when caught, probably said, "I killed my wife because she disobeyed God's law." In other words,

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they killed their wives for God. In truth, their wives were slain beWives Who cause they did not succumb to Broke Moslem their husbands' demands . These Rules Reported men felt afraid because they perceived their masculine authority Slain was being challenged when their Istanbul demands were ignored. They were Two orthodox Moslem villagers shot and killed their frightened by their wives' show of wives for their failure to uphold independence and chose to kill one of the five basic principles their wives rather than lose conof Islam. fasting during the current holy month of Ramadan. an trol over them. Istanbul newspaper said yesterRationalization completely day. permeates the cultural and reliThe Daily Milliyet reported that Tahir Akcay fired his shotgious structures man has created gun at his wife of 12 years after in order to control woman. During she refused to observe the tradition and was late in setting up man's prehistoric existence, his the table for breaking the fast superior brute strength and his after sunset. hormonally stimulated aggression The paper said Akcay surrendered to police in Mardin. in made him the natural choice (of a remote area of eastern Turkey the two sexes) to meet the more where Moslem traditions are strictly followed. physically demanding and danThe other incident took place gerous life and death struggles in Diyarbakir. near Mardin. occurring daily outside his cave when Mehmet Veysi had a heated argument with his wife trying dwelling. Because of his role as to convince her to fast along hunter and protector, man was with him. the paper said. thrust into an environment When she refused. Veysi shot her with a pistol. the report said. which he struggled to interpret He fled to the mountains. but and understand (e.g., lightening was found by police and arrested. the paper said. storms, the rising and setting of the sun and moon, the appearance of stars at night, etc'.) He subsequently structured cultures comprised of social mores, customs, laws, taboos, and religions based on his own needs and insecurities. Meanwhile , because she had less brute strength and aggression, woman received little respect from man and

91 therefore was rarely allowed to contribute to the construction of cultures and religions. Woman quickly learned the danger of disagreeing with the doctrines set forth by the larger, more violent, and self-centered male. To continue living and caring for her young, she complied with the dictates of the dominate male. At the heart of much of the cultural and religious doctrine man has created lies the belief that woman is a biologically inferior creature. Aristotle captured the essence of this male perception when he said women are: Female by virtue of a certain incapacity . .. weaker and cooler by nature than . .. males and we must regard the female character as a kind of natural defectiveness. 4

St. Thomas Aquinas (1226-127 4), an Italian theologian, called women: . . . defective and accidental . . . a male gone awry . . . the result of some weakness in the father's generative power . .. or of some external factor, like the south wind, which is damp.4

Jules Michelet (1798-1874), a French historian, gave further support to the belief of female inferiority when he inaccurately described menstruation as: ... a cicatrization of an interior wound [which means that] 15 or 20 days out of 28 woman is not only an invalid, but a wounded one. 36

Moreover, the male leaders of the Catholic Church were so convinced of the inferiority of woman they even questioned whether or not she possessed a soul. In 585 A.D., the Catholic clergy at the Council of Macon debated and decided by only one vote that woman does have a soul. Contemporary man continues to reveal his belief of female inferiority. The Orthodox Jew, for example, still prays:

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Blessed art Thou, oh Lord our God, King of the Universe, that I was not born a slave. Blessed art Thou, oh Lord our God, King of the Universe, that I was not born a woman. 4

Man often tries to support his claim of superiority by citing his bible. As mentioned in Chapter 1, Saint Ambrose, Saint Paul, and Tertullian all echoed the sentiments of Saint Augustine who preached that man must rule woman for her own benefit because Eve succumbed to the lies of Satan in the Garden of Eden. By stating woman is biologically inferior and incapable of good judgment, man has been able to use the defense mechanism of rationalization to legitimize his creation of societies in which his power is pervasive. In Mexico, for instance, the cultural philosophy of "machismo"· views man as the brave, strong, dominate sex. As a little boy, he learns his responsibility is to work outside the home. Early in life, he follows his father out into society to learn a trade so he can support his family. As a man, he rarely helps his wife with the children or the household chores because doing so would be humiliating. Conversely, woman is viewed as weak, submissive, and subservient. As a little girl, she prepares to assume the role of motherhood - learning to cook, clean, wash clothes, and care for her younger siblings. She is not educated because this male-dominated society deems it unnecessary. It is understood that she will marry a man who will take care of her, as long as she takes care of him and his children. Likewise, she is thought to be incapable of filling a responsible position of employment outside the home. If she does obtain a job, it is usually as a maid, clerk, secretary, or baby sitter. Woman often blindly accepts her subjugated status because once indoctrinated during childhood it is difficult, if not • Machismo means "male animal" in Spanish.

93 impossible, for her to see beyond the societal limitations man has imposed upon her. I remember talking to one of my former Mexican-American community college students who had transferred to a state university and earned her Bachelor of Arts degree. Upon seeing her again, I congratulated her on her achievement and asked her which graduate school she was planning to attend. Her reply caught me by surprise. She said her husband had decided she should concentrate on taking care of her family and not go on to graduate school. She said to me, "We're different from you Anglos. We believe our husbands always come first." Man has frequently used his religious doctrine to rationalize his domination of woman, in essence stating, "I'm following God's will." For example, the Lord supposedly instructed woman in Genesis 3:16, " ... thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." Unfortunately for woman, Genesis 3:16 was written by man and is therefore his interpretation of God's will. Likewise, until recently a woman's marriage vows dictated that she "love, honor and obey" her husband. A close examination of today's major religions reveals little has changed since the times of Moses, Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammed. Male domination is obvious in the lack of female participation in the power structures of the major religions. For instance, the upper echelons of command in the Catholic Church are all filled by men - the pope, cardinals, bishops, priests, and brothers. At the very bottom of the hierarchy reside the females called sisters or nuns who possess little, if any, power. The male leaders of this organization rationalize their domination of these females in a variety of ways, such as: "We are following the teachings of the Holy Scripture," or "Jesus and all His disciples were men," or "Nuns have a special place in the church as they are married to God," etc. In the power structures of the Morman and Muslim religions, male domination of the female is so extreme women are not involved at any level.

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Similarly, Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), the woman who wrote speeches for Susan B. Anthony and Ernestine Rose, once said of Judaism: I found nothing grand in the history of the Jews nor in the morals inculcated in the Pentateuch. I know of no other books that so fully teach the subjection and degradation of women. 7

Statements from the Skandapurana, the sacred text of Hinduism, describe the appropriate conduct for a married woman: · . . a wife should take her meals after her husband . .. sleep after he sleeps. If he assaults her, she should not lose her temper. If she has to offer a suggestion, she should say, 'Sir, this looks advisable but do what you think is right. ' She should never sit in an elevated place and never look angrily at her husband. She should wash his feet, shampoo him, fan him. I

Moreover, the Hindu Code of Manu directs: Day and night females must be kept in slavery under the domination of their mates. 56

Nowhere, though, is male domination more evident than in the religious dogma man has created which dictates woman's primary purpose in life is bearing and caring for children. For example, Pope John Paul II has said: I want to remind YO':lng women that motherhood is the vocation of women. It was that way in the past. It is that way now and it will always be that way. It is women's eternal vocation. The world has a hunger and thirst more than ever for motherhood, which physically and spiritually is the vocation of women as it was of Mary.

95 Someone should remind Pope John Paul II, however, that Mary had only ONE child, not a half-dozen or more as is common in many Catholic families. Most organized religions prohibit the use of birth control and abortion consequently encouraging large families . Church leaders rationalize their abhorrence of birth control by stating God wants more souls to eventually attain everlasting life in heaven. Creating souls to appease God, however, is a manmade excuse to keep woman confined in her house, caring for her children. As a result, women continue to be controlled by their husbands via church doctrine. Man is able to keep woman available for his sexual enjoyment while simultaneously creating and indoctrinating another generation of females whom he can manipulate accordingly. A woman who does not wish to be home caring for five to ten children must use some form of birth control in defiance of her religion. Such rebellion, however, can be punishable by verbal and/or physical abuse from her husband or even excommunication from her church (which she frequently is taught means eternal damnation of her soul after death).· Man rationalizes these punitive consequences for women attempting to govern their own bodies by, again, professing that woman's primary purpose is child-bearing. His real motive, however, is to extend his reign of dominance into the next generation. This desire is often so pervasive it can lead man to attach more value to the unborn than he does to the life of woman, as evidenced in the words of Martin Luther:

If a woman grows weary and at last dies from childbearing, it matters not. Let her only die from bearing, she is there to do it. 7 Along with rationalization, the defense mechanism of projection lies at the foundation of man's domination of woman. Throughout history, man has projected his tendency to cause chaos onto woman. Such mental manipulation of • Tertullian instructed, "Prevention of birth is a precipitation of murder."36

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reality allows him to avoid facing his own destructive nature while simultaneously gaining another excuse to control woman. In other words, he claims he must dominate her or she will cause great human suffering and possibly destroy the world. The ancient Chinese philosophy of Yin and Yang, mentioned in Chapter 1, is an obvious example of the defense mechanism of projection. Man maintains, in this dualistic philosophy, that woman is the negative force in the universe, whereas he is the positive force. Similarly, the Greek philosopher Pythagoras (? - 497 B.C.) taught: There is a good principle which has created order, light and man; and a bad principle which has created chaos, darkness and woman. 4 When studying the history of man's violent behavior, it becomes clear Pythagoras was wrong. Man's obsession has been war and the continual destruction of his environment, whereas woman's preoccupation has been the creation, sustenance, and protection of life. Examples illustrating man's projection of his destructive nature onto woman can be found in the mythological tales of many cultures. These stories often warn of woman's predisposition to cause chaos, destruction, and death, while man is repeatedly portrayed as an innocent victim of woman's failings. The deadly powers of the Sirens, Rusalka, Morganes, and Lorelei have already been described in the first chapter. In summary, they were beautiful female creatures who lured naive men to their watery graves. Another example is Eris, the goddess of strife and discord in ancient Greece. By throwing an apple to a guest at the wedding of Thetis and Peleus, she became indirectly responsible for starting the Trojan War. Homer writes that once the Trojan War began, she wanted to hear nothing but the groans of dying men. Similarly, a goddess called Kishimo-jin exists in Japanese mythology. Said to be the mother of demons, she

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exhibited many destructive behaviors, probably the most extreme being a penchant for eating children. In the end, however, Buddha (a male) converted her from evil to good. According to Hindu mythology, the most powerful goddess is Devi or Mahadevi. She is terrifying and complex, existing in many forms. In her most evil form, Devi becomes Kali, "the black earth mother." Kali enjoys killing. She practices human sacrifice and devil worship. She is depicted nude except for earrings made of children, a snake necklace, a necklace of human skulls (including her sons' heads), and a belt of hands. Her skin is black and covered with blood. One of her four arms holds the bloody head of a giant. Usually she is portrayed with blood dripping from her tongue and mouth. On one occasion she would have destroyed the world had she not been stopped by Shiva, a male god. In the Greek myth of Pandora, a box held all evil so mankind lived without pain; all men were content and at peace with one another. The god Zeus gave this box of evil to a beautiful woman named Pandora with strict instructions never to open it. Eventually she succumbed to her curiosity and opened the box, thereby releasing all the evils in life which subsequently afflicted man. The Greeks blamed their suffering on Pandora just as the Christians have continually indicted Eve for their misery. In their article "The International Crime of Genital Mutilation," Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan report:

Myths of the Mossi of Upper Volta, and the Bogon and Bambaras of Mali, clearly express the fear of an initially hermaphroditic human nature and of women s sexuality; the clitoris is considered a dangerous organ, fatal to a man if brought into contact with his penis. In 1982, the father of a family from Mali that was residing in France was arrested for re-

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moving his three-month old daughter's clitoris with a pocketknife.9 This is a tragic example of man using mythology to rationalize his vicious torture of his own child. Like rationalization, the defense mechanism of projection is interwoven into the fabric of religious doctrine. Careful analysis of the Martin Luther letter cited in Chapter 1 reveals the frequent use of both these defense mechanisms. Martin Luther rationalized that man must dominate woman, not only because he "owes" her the "Christian service" of domination, but also because he must "obey God rather than [his] wife." As a good Christian, he "must not allow her to despise and trample underfoot that authority of the husband which is the glory of God, which Saint Paul teaches." Martin Luther utilized projection when he wrote: ce. • • you are now opening a window in this weaker vessel through which Satan can enter at will ... and vex you in every way. "

In the phrase "Satan can enter at will," Martin Luther is projecting his sexual temptation to mate with woman onto Satan. He is implying that his sexual attraction to woman is wrong, but simultaneously denies his responsibility for the control of his own sex drive. In the phrase, "and vex you in every way," Luther is voicing his fear of woman's power to sexually attract and manipulate him. During the Middle Ages, men believed women were sexually insatiable. A priest wasn't even considered safe in confession with a woman. 4 At times, women exhibiting behavior interpreted as lustful were considered witches in alliance with the Devil. This belief is yet another example of projection. Here man is transferring his more intense sex drive onto woman. According to male rationale, these dangerous witches had to be savagely tortured and executed. Instead of restraining his own sex drive, man chose to kill

99 woman, the object of his sexual attraction. Conveniently, the Bible (which man wrote) enabled him to rationalize the murder of such a woman by stating in Exodus 22:18, "Thou shall not suffer a witch to live." Mark Twain reflected on religion's power to legitimize, through rationalization, man's propensity for murder when he wrote: During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. The Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church, after doing its duty in but a lazy and indolent way for 800 years, gathered up its halters, thumbscrews, and firebrands, and set about its holy work in earnest. She worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood. Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry. Who discovered that there was no such thing as a witch - the priest, the parson? No, these never discover anything. At Salem, the parson clung pathetically to his witch text after the laity had abandoned it in remorse and tears for the cruelties it had persuaded them to do. The parson wanted more blood, more shame, more brutalities; it was the unconsecrated laity that stayed his hand. 7

Like witches, prostitutes throughout history have been viewed as subhuman which is why they've frequently been labelled sluts, whores, harlots, hookers, etc. Even now, when

100 a prostitute is beaten or killed, little public outcry arises. Ironically, while the woman who sells her body· to a man for his temporary sexual enjoyment is scorned, the man who has sought out and paid for these sexual services is usually seen as entirely normal. Man excuses his lust as a biological need, but condemns the prostitute as being the evil temptress who draws him into sin. As mentioned in Chapter 1, Mata Hari was executed for her espionage activities during World War I. Instead of murdering the male generals who gave her military secrets, those in power (men) judged it appropriate to kill only Mata Hari. The generals probably realized they had been sexually manipulated and felt humiliated. They probably also knew they were responsible for the deaths of their men. As Adam did to Eve, these men used Mata Hari as a scapegoat and thus were able to rationalize their recommendation for her execution as a spy. The judges in the courtroom must have rationalized that the generals were helpless when under her seductive spell.·· Likewise, several years ago, a male judge in the Midwest dropped rape charges against three high school boys because he judged the victim's attire to be seductive. In defending his decision, this judge must have rationalized that the victim provoked the attack. The laws of societies have frequently contained sexual inequities, written and sustained with the use of rationalization. In Medieval England, for example, during King Canute's reign in the eleventh century, men found guilty of adultery were forced to pay a fine, but for the adulteress the law decreed, "her lawful husband have all that she possess and let her then forfeit both nose and ears." When a woman was found guilty of adultery in the society of the Apache Indian, her nose was cut off.59 Even though the man involved, • Male prostitutes, including young boys, also sell their bodies - primarily to men . •• As evidence of her alluring nature it is noteworthy that, of the thirteen men in the firing squad which killed Mata Hari, only four shot her. 43

101 with his superior brute strength, could have overpowered and raped her, he was in no way considered responsible for the sexual act. To escape any punishment for wrongdoing, he would blame the woman for instigating the act of fornication, thus using the defense mechanism of rationalization to explain his innocence and the woman's guilt. The defense mechanisms of projection and rationalization are evident in the customs of many cultures. Men in ancient China, for example, rationalized the custom of footbinding (mentioned in Chapter 1) by stating it would make the girl marriageable. The true purpose of this practice was to control women - to prevent them from "running around" with men other than their husbands once they sexually matured.5 Man felt compelled to instigate this custom, not because woman was untrustworthy, but rather because he projected his own sexual desire onto her. He was sexually promiscuous but did not want his wife to emulate his behavior. Similarly, before the English knight embarked on a religious crusade, he locked a metal "chastity belt" around the genitals of his wife. 4 Here again, man projected his intense sex drive onto woman and then rationalized his domination of her by implying she was promiscuous and therefore untrustworthy. * Man's sexual attraction to woman is so compelling, and his fear of her power so intense, he frequently forces her to conceal her body when he does not want to be sexually drawn to her. For instance, prior to converting the inhabitants ofthe Hawaiian Islands to Christianity, missionaries covered the female bodies of the islanders with long gowns called muumuus. The missionaries were fearful of their sexual attraction to the female natives and the temptation this attraction created within them. Likewise, until recently, Catholic nuns *The other reason for the chastity belt was the husband's fear that his wife would be raped by another man while the husband was away for years at a time fighting in the Crusades.

102 were dressed in long black robes with large white "bibs" hiding the contour of their breasts; the only portion of their bodies not shrouded in clothing were their faces. In a similar vein, the Moslem faith demands women dress in long robes often with only their eyes exposed. The male religious leaders teach that female sexuality is so powerful it can threaten the stability of a society and therefore must be hidden from men. Any resistance by woman to this male decree is interpreted as defiance of Allah's (the Muslim name for God) will and can be punishable by death. Moreover, during the last few years of the regime of Mao Tse-Tung (1949-1976), Chinese men and women dressed in identical pants and coats and wore their hair cut short. All sexually alluring curves of the female figure were minimized or completely hidden. By trying to make the female appear less provocative to the male, the government may have been subtly promoting birth control measures. Essentially, through his social customs and religious dogma, man is implying he can't control his sex drive when he's near a woman who reveals certain parts of her body. He not only refuses to accept the responsibility for this failure, but he proj ects that responsibility onto woman and forces her to cover her body. When woman refuses to conceal her body, man is capable of vicious assaults. In a southern republic of what was previously the USSR, for example, women in 1990 had their faces slashed with knives by Muslim men who objected to the women wearing make-up. These men were enraged at the women's power to sexually attract them. They were destroying that power by attacking its source, hideously disfiguring the once alluring female faces. They rationalized their cruelty by stating they were following the will of their god. Some men are even sexually attracted to their own children. Societies have constructed taboos prohibiting men from initiating sexual relations with their daughters, stepdaughters or other children. While some men refuse to con-

103 trol their incestuous impulses, defense mechanisms frequently prevent men from sexually assaulting their daughters. For example, during a therapy session one of my fourteen year-old clients tearfully complained of her father's violent outbursts in which he threw her against the wall screaming, "You look like a slut! You're not my daughter!" This girl was developing physically and, for the first time, had tried on some make-up. She was trying to establish her identity as a young woman. Her father, however, was becoming uncomfortable with the sexual impulses her body and facial makeup stimulated within him. He projected all responsibility for his sexual impulses onto his daughter. His anger was fueled by both fear and guilt, fear of losing control and sexually molesting his daughter, and guilt for being attracted to her in the first place. Two other defense mechanisms man frequently uses are sublimation and reaction formation. When using sublimation, man channels unacceptable, even dangerous, subconscious impulses (usually of a sexual and/or aggressive nature) into socially acceptable, often admirable, behaviors. As a result, sublimated impulses have provided the fuel to fire many successful careers in numerous occupational arenas. Some salesmen, lawyers, politicians, and business executives inadvertently utilize sublimation to channel their subconscious impulses of aggression into work behaviors which are socially sanctioned. They can lie to and manipulate others under the protective guise of being a productive and successful man. Their sublimated aggressive impulses result in work behaviors which are encouraged, even admired, and often richly rewarded by society. The defense mechanism of sublimation is also evident at athletic events. Sports are a way of channeling violent and potentially dangerous impulses in a socially acceptable manner. For example, professional boxers, hockey, and football players have jobs which allow them to express their aggressive impulses in a game of structured violence - under

104 the guise of entertainment. Sports heroes would be arrested and thrown in jail if they displayed their aggressive athletic skills off the field. Moreover, sporting events provide a means for audiences to verbally release their aggressive tendencies, usually in a harmless manner. This is especially apparent in professional wrestling. Most spectators realize the matches are predetermined and are nothing more than choreographed dances a form of "battle ballet." Still, the fans vicariously participate in the "mayhem" of the event by venting their emotions, and when the show ends, no one has been deliberately injured. The military, especially during war, serves as an avenue for man to channel otherwise socially unacceptable behaviors such as murder. Sublimation provoked the ensuing comment of General George Patton, nicknamed "blood and guts" by his soldiers. * He was a World War II hero and brilliant military strategist who, while overlooking the carnage of a battle, has been quoted as saying: I love it. God help me, I do love it so. I love it more than my life!57

Sublimation may even provide the impetus for those in one of the most socially respected professions - surgeons. In an attempt to prolong life, a surgeon will cut into a patient's body. People attracted to this career perform surgery because the rewards exceed money, prestige, and the pride experienced in saving someone's life. Sigmund Freud believed some surgeons emotionally enjoy the physical act of cutting into bodies. Through the practice of surgery, socially unacceptable subconscious impulses, such as aggression, are released and channelled in a culturally admirable manner. Moreover, sublimation may be the reason behind the proliferation of unnecessary surgery performed on female -His soldiers complained that Patton's victories in war were due to his guts and their blood.

105 reproductive organs by a still predominantly male body of health professionals. According to the Women s Encyclopedia of Health and Emotional Healing (1993):

Each year, 650,000 American women have a hysterectomy, a major surgical procedure that removes the uterus and puts an end to a woman's childbearing years. It's an operation so prevalent in the United States, in fact, the odds are that one out of every three women will have the operation by the time she reaches age 60, according to the National Center for Health Statistics . .. Concerned doctors and other health care practitioners say that up to 90 percent of all hysterectomies may not be necessary [not due to life-threatening conditions]. 54 Some surgery is obviously necessary and lifesaving. Many hysterectomies, however, are due to man's subconscious and destructive impulses towards woman. In such instances, man is releasing his resentment for her ability to create life by cutting out her reproductive organs. * The defense mechanism of reaction formation is most often used by man to overcome his feelings of insignificance. Specifically, he acts in ways opposite to how he subconsciously feels. A literal example of reaction formation can be seen in what is called "small man syndrome." Some short men will overcompensate for feelings of inadequacy, created by their small physical stature, with a daily show of arrogance. Ironically, their inner feelings of inferiority can make them intensely ambitious and lead them to great financial success and corporate power.

• Simultaneously, he may be unleashing his hostility for her power to sexually attract and control him (as mentioned in Chapter 1) by attacking the essence of her sexual power.

106 As explained in Chapter 3, man's feelings of insignificance fuel his obsession to accumulate money, attain social status, and gain control over other people and things of value (e.g., businesses, property, animals, stocks, rare works of art, etc.). However, when his feelings of inadequacy are intense, no amount of money, power, or social status man attains is ever enough. He continually tells himself, "I can do better. I want more." As mentioned earlier, a dangerous by-product of man's reckless quest for significance is his destruction of the environment. Modern man is redesigning his environment. He continually destroys other forms of life and replaces them with what the British anthropologist Desmond Morris calls "a concrete jungle." Man builds steel skyscrapers, miles of paved road, sprawling subdivisions, acres of shopping centers, and huge stone churches. He seems to prefer inanimate objects to life. Ironically, man praises his God for the creation of an immense variety of life and simultaneously works feverishly to destroy it. The defense mechanism of reaction formation is most obvious and dangerous when being channelled through man's religious dogma. It is significant to note, although woman is the creator of life, all the gods and the prophets of the major religions are male. Whether discussing Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Buddha, Moses, Allah, God the Father, God the Son or God the Holy Ghost, one is talking about male prophets and male deities. Man's admiration of self is described in the words of William Shakespeare, through his character Hamlet: What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an Angel! in apprehension how like a god!

107 It seems odd, however, to envision the ultimate creative force of energy in the universe as having a sex and especially as taking a man's form. If man must attribute a sex to God, it seems more logical for that sex to be female, the legitimate source of all human life (man's contribution, after all, is minute - one sperm). Subconsciously, man resents woman's innate power to create life; she is the personification of God on earth. He is jealous of the feelings of significance woman experiences by giving birth to the next generation of life. When the British politician Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) asserted, "The only useless life is woman's,"36 he was guilty of using the defense mechanism of projection and actually describing the life of man. To overcompensate for his feelings of inferiority, man uses the defense mechanism of reaction formation when stating God is human in form and of the male gender. When man professes that this supernatural force has designed man in His own image, he implies that each man, at least in appearance, is a miniature god. Thus, man can rationalize anything he does by stating or implying he knows and is following God's will. An intelligent, destructive creature who views himself as a miniature god is very dangerous to the survival of life on this planet because he never stops to question the morality and long-range consequences of his self-centered behavior. In his daily quest for power and significance, man demonstrates little understanding of the warning of Chief Seattle:

This we know, all things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself 36

108 Man does not see himself as merely a strand in the we b of life. Because of his demigod attitude, man sees himself as the central force in the web of life. He lives with the delusion he can exert his selfish will on nature without suffering catastrophic consequences. The former Congressman Morris K. Udall succinctly explained the human repercussions of man's assault on the environment:

The more we exploit nature, the more our options are reduced, until we have only one: to fight for survival. 16 Man lacks an appreciation and respect for the value and beauty of other forms of life on this planet. He believes other types of life are inferior to him and exist only to be used or even destroyed by him. He has continually chosen to ignore the warning of the Christian Bible, "Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees ... " (Revelation 7:3). Man thinks his species will survive to dominate all life on earth for eternity. As an extension of the god he created, man has consistently acted as if he believes the words of Protagoras of Abdera, a Greek philosopher (fifth century B.C.), who boasted:

Man is the measure of all things, of things that are that they are, and of things that are not, that they are not. 7 Man's demigod attitude has also permitted him to cause great human suffering in the name of his god. Manmade religion allows him to self-righteously rationalize the carnage of war. Man uses his religious beliefs to imply his god approves of murder, as long as it's done in his god's name. In fact, during the Crusades, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), a French monastic theologian, taught:

109 They [Christian soldiers} are to wage the war of Christ their master without fearing that they sin in killing their enemies or of being lost if they are themselves killed, since when they give or receive the death-blow, they are guilty ofno crime, but all is to their glory. If they kill, it is to the profit of Christ; if they die, it is to their own. 7

As mentioned in Chapter 2, countless examples of murder for religious reasons litter the history of man (e.g., the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the current killing in Northern Ireland, the Middle East, India, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Philippines, and Bosnia-Herzocovina, etc.). When the American author Gordon Johnstone (1876-1926) wrote "On Fields of Flanders," he revealed man's perception of his violent god who, supposedly, condones the slaughter of nonbelievers: I have seen a sight under Heaven That only God understands, In the battle glare I have seen Christ there With the Sword of God in His hand. 36

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Moreover, man frequently boasts with confidence that God is on his side during a conflict and will ultimately guide him to victory. Prior to the Persian Gulf War in 1991, for example, both President Bush and Saddam Hussein of Iraq stated God was on their side, which they each maintained was "the side of righteousness." In 1945, U.S. President Harry Truman (1884-1972) said prior to ordering the murder of over 100,000 men, women, and children living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki: We thank God that the atom bomb came to us and not our enemies. We pray that He guides us to use it in His way and for His purposes. 19

110 Similarly, following a battle in which he is victorious, man will frequently give thanks to his god believing his god approves of the bloodshed. For example, in one day of fighting during the Civil War battle of Antietam (1862) , over 8,000 men were slaughtered. While sitting on his horse, overlooking the human carnage and eating a peach, General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson said, "God has been very kind to us this day."50 Although one of the Ten Commandments brought to man by Moses directs: "Thou ShaltNot Kill," man behaves as though this commandment does not apply to him. Man's "miniature god" complex, combined with his intelligence and growing arsenal of weapons, has brought him to the brink of his own extinction. Ironically, no matter how ominous the destructive force of his inventions , man continues to stubbornly cling to the belief that he is in control of every destructive device he creates; he therefore believes these devices can't possibly destroy him. In an article from National Geographic (June 1986), several male VIP's are pictured watching the 1951 detonation of a nuclear bomb only 12.5 miles from ground zero. The caption below the picture states, "Naivete was the order of the day." These men were more than naive. They behaved in a very foolish and dangerous manner. They felt invulnerable because of their false sense of omnipotence. Far from being terrified of nuclear explosions and the horrific destruction they cause, man is drawn to them with a childlike fascination. After witnessing the first atomic blast in 1945, American scientist Donald Horning said: Aside from being tremendous, it was one of the most aesthetically beautiful things I have ever seen. ? Not possessing the power to create life, man rejoices in his power to destroy it. In the 1987 documentary Dark Circle,

111 one of the scientists described his experience of watching a nuclear blast as an: Absolutely incredible rush . . . incredible fireball . . . absolutely immense, covering the whole blooming sky. I know I've described, almost with enthusiasm, the excitement of seeing a nuclear bomb go off and that's as a scientist or just as a male human being that likes to see an explosion - that gets a kick out of dynamite ...

Man doesn't realize his fascination with destruction will eventually cause him to incinerate himself in nuclear fire or drown himself in radioactive waste. Blinded by his narcissism, which is actually the defense mechanism of reaction formation, man has learned nothing from the nuclear horrors of Chernobyl, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. Ominously, as of June 21, 1993, eleven countries in the world possessed nuclear weapons and another six were working to obtain them, according to Time magazine. A Soviet expert on nuclear weapons states in Omni magazine (March 1992): In 1946 the U.S. had only three atom bombs. There was no mention of a hydrogen bomb. Now the five of us [U.S., the former Soviet Union, China, Great Britain, and France] may be reaching 100,000 warheads. The whole history is one of proliferation.

Man fails to understand true security will not exist in the world until he overcomes his thirst for power and destruction. Such self-control is unlikely, however, since most of his destructive behavior is fueled by his subconscious feelings of insignificance, shielded from his conscious mind by defense mechanisms. As man's innate insecurity leads him to produce burgeoning stockpiles of armaments, he lives with the

112 false belief that his increasingly destructive, highly technical weaponry will render him invincible. In the process, man seems oblivious to the warning of the American historian Henry Brooks Adams (1838-1918): I firmly believe that before many centuries more, science will be the master of man. The engines he will have invented will be beyond his strength to control. Someday science shall have the existence of mankind in its power, and the human race commits suicide by blowing up the world. l

CHAPTER FIVE

MALE LEADERSHIP: LEADING TO WHAT? The mind of man is vastly like a hive; His thoughts are busy ever-all alive; But here the simile will go no further; For bees are making honey, one and all; Man s thoughts are busy in producing gall; Committing, as it were, self-murder. II John Wolcott (J 738-1819) English satirist With few exceptions, civilizations throughout history have been governed by men. Because of his brute strength and corresponding attitude of "might makes right," man has culturally shaped and dominated societies for centuries, thereby leading one generation after another into the future. A review of human history reveals the consequences of male leadership, a myriad of problems continually plaguing our species (e.g., war, environmental destruction, starvation, and overpopulation). An examination of some recent male leaders reveals a pattern of self-serving and shortsighted decision making consistent with man's constant quest for social status, money, and power. Consider for example the Pope, John Paul II, spiritual leader of millions of people belonging to the Catholic Church. Catholics believe the Pope is the vicar of God on earth. The Pope maintains he loves his followers and is 113

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concerned for their happiness and well-being. He is supposed to be the model of humility, charity, generosity, and compassion. Theoretically, the Pope models himself after Jesus Christ, but the life he leads is drastically different from that of Jesus. After all, Jesus didn't live in a palace like the Vatican (with 10,000 rooms and halls and 997 stairways), wear beautiful and expensive robes, eat like a king, or horde art treasures. In reality, Pope John Paul II is a mere man elevated to a position of extreme power operating in a closed system of thought - the Catholic Church. He is not a humanitarian leader because he lacks the courage to implement the changes necessary within his organization to truly help his followers. He will not attempt to mitigate the suffering of those faithful to the Catholic religion because that entails changing church doctrine, which in turn means risking his position of power and status in the church hierarchy. Consequently, he chastises anyone, especially nuns or priests, who cry out for change within the Catholic Church. He threatens critics of traditional church policy with excommunication unless they quietly follow his dictatorial rule. As an example, John Paul II refuses to permit Catholics to use birth control despite the human suffering such a stance produces. Many Catholic women, faithfully adhering to church doctrine, are creating very large families, only to watch their children suffer in poverty and frequently die of malnutrition. Meanwhile, the Pope callously directs them to produce more offspring. The February 12,1990 issue of U.S. News and World Report stated that on his trip to Burkina, Africa, the Pope: ... spoke out against contraception, pointedly contradicting the policies of those African governments that view unbridled population growth as a major cause of poverty.

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Tragically, in predominantly Catholic, third-world countries, progress in the areas of food production, housing, and health care often quickly collapses under the tremendous burden of overpopulation. John Paul II blindly supports the outdated laws of the Catholic Church not only because he fears losing his position of power, but also because change, in general, is frightening to man.· Altering the status quo, especially when doing so would result in increased freedom, independence, and power for women, requires great courage.·· The previous pope, John Paul I, did possess the courage to challenge the existing doctrine of the Catholic Church, however, this may have ultimately cost him his life. Pope John Paul I, a brave and compassionate leader, saw his people suffering under an archaic religious dogma in urgent need of a major philosophical overhaul. David A. Yallop, author of the book, In God's Name, states: Albino Luciani [Pope John Paul If had a dream. He dreamed of a Roman Catholic Church that would truly respond to the needs of its people on vital issues such as artificial birth control. He dreamed of a Church that would dispense with the wealth, power, and prestige it had acquired through Vatican Incorporated; of a Church that would get out of the marketplace, where the message of Christ had become tainted; of a

• During the Inquisition, the Church threatened to execute the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) for heresy because his scientific research revealed that the earth was not the center of the solar system. Such statements contradicted the teachings of the Church. It was not until 1993 that the Catholic Church, through a proclamation from the Pope, bowed to scientific fact and accepted that the calculations of Galileo were accurate . •• As explained in Chapter 1, man fears the power of woman. Permitting women to use birth control gives her more freedom which could ultimately result in her obtaining greater political power in society.

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Church that would once again rely on what has always been its greatest asset, its source of true power, its greatest claim to a unique prestige: the Gospel. 53 Pope John Paul I had watched his brother, his sister-inlaw, and their ten children struggle for survival. He openly voiced his desire and commitment to change the outdated church laws which were subjugating women and leading to the creation of thousands of unwanted babies each day. He approved of birth control and was planning to incorporate it into church doctrine. Pope John Paul I also ordered an investigation into the financial operations ofthe Vatican Bank. On June 10,1990, the television show 60 Minutes presented a segment entitled, "Saint Peter's Banker." According to commentator Ed Bradley:

The Vatican Bank was founded to handle the extensive investments of the Catholic Church, but the bank has been under pressure to increase profits because the Vatican has been running a deficit of about $20 million a year. Bradley interviewed a Jesuit priest who said:

I don't think I can escape the conclusion that certain employees of the Vatican - lay and/or clerical - are involved in that which caused the embezzlement of funds and, ultimately, . . . the death of Robert Calvi {president of Italy's largest bank}. The priest, Dr. Malachi Martin, continued:

The fact is that within the space of 15 years, the Vatican, through its financial arm, the bank,

117 has been associated with a long list of those things which are utterly repugnant ... many people assassinated, people being thrown out of windows or jumping out of windows, embezzlements, and . .. many small investors . .. reduced to misery in their middle age, because of the machinations of people sitting in deep chairs, moving vast bulks of money, sometimes in the name of Christ.20 After learning of this corruption, Pope John Paul I had planned to transfer certain high ranking bank officers out of the country. Shortly after voicing these plans, as well as his intended changes in the Church's stance on birth control, he mysteriously died. The bottle of medicine for low blood pressure which he kept at his bedside disappeared so its contents never underwent analysis for poison. Yet, over 200 poisons are colorless and odorless, and death from many of these poisons resembles a heart attack. Curiously, no autopsy was performed on his body, and he was embalmed several hours earlier than the 24-hour minimum delay required by Italian law. In his book In God's Name, David A. Yallop maintains Pope John Paul I was assassinated because of the changes he was determined to make in the Church and the Vatican Bank. John Paul I would no doubt have agreed with the sentiments of Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964), the former prime minister of India: I want nothing to do with any religion concerned with keeping the masses satisfied to live in hunger, filth and ignorance. I want nothing to do with any order, religious or otherwise, which does not teach people that they are capable of becoming happier and more civilized, on this earth . . .7

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While Pope John Paul I displayed a courageous willingness to propose controversial, though desperately needed, changes within his organization, most male leaders tend to tell their constituents only what they want to hear in an effort to remain popular and consequently secure their careers. Former President Ronald Reagan was a master at this form of public manipulation. He trivialized the dangers of overpopulation, global warming, nuclear waste, deforestation, air and water pollution, animal extinction, the depletion of the ozone layer, and acid rain. Throughout the eight years of his presidency, he and his secretaries of the interior repeatedly ignored the many warnings of alarmed environmentalists and even the pleas from the international community. Dr. Edward Rubin wrote in USA Today (September 1993): In the early 1980's, international calls from Canada and northern Europe for reductions in the sulfur dioxide emissions believed responsible for acid rain largely fell on deaf ears. The U.S. economy was pinched by a recession which especially had hurt the industrial Midwest. Instead of immediate action, the Reagan Administration favored a program of research to understand the effects of acid rain and ways of controlling it. For a full decade, the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program labored at this task. However, the 10-year, $500,000,000 program to guide U.S. policy on acid rain control proved largely irrelevant when the time came for action on the new Clean Air Act Amendments in 1990. Rolling Stone magazine (May 3,1990) noted of Reagan: The man who once said that trees cause air pollution made the appointments and set the

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tone for the anti-environment decade of the Eighties. The damage he did was incalculable from naming the infamous James Watt as secretary of the interior; to eviscerating the powers of his own EPA to enforce environmental laws; to handing public lands over to private profiteers; to failing to address new and important problems like acid rain, ozone depletion, global warming and ground-water pollution.

When Reagan claimed that trees cause air pollution, he revealed his ignorance and contempt for nature.* He believed that the country's resources exist to be exploited and consumed through money-making endeavors. He rationalized that his shortsighted and destructive directives were designed to "stimulate the economy." Mike Clark of Friends of the Earth lamented, "The worst thing about Reagan was his attitude. He didn't give a damn about what kind of future we were creating for our children."28 Reagan also poured millions of tax dollars into the military-industrial complex demonstrating little concern for the skyrocketing national debt. He acted as though the government could simply print more money should the need arise. The federal debt of the United States is more than $3 trillion according to The Kiplinger Washington Letter (April 9, 1993). In 1980, before Reagan took office, it was about $700 billion. The former chairman of the Chrysler Corporation, Lee Iacocca, voiced his concern for the next generation in 1986 during his address to the graduating class at Duke University (Time magazine, July 1986): • Reagan said that "oxides of nitrogen" are one factor contributing to air pollution and that more than 90 percent of such oxides come from trees and plants. As he explained, "This is what causes the haze that gave the big Smokey Mountains their name is oxides of nitrogen from decaying vegetation." In making that statement, Reagan was confusing harmful nitrogen oxides (which contribute to smog and acid rain) with nitrous oxide, the benign chemical that decaying trees and plants produce. 47

120 · . . Something else you'd better do better than we have: learn how to balance the books. We're leaving you with a $2 trillion national debt. Along with your own problems and your own bills, you're going to get the privilege ofhandling some of mine. I'll tell you one thing: don't try to pay it off in cash. It would take the U. S. Mint 5 7 years, two months and two weeks just to print it. We've been using your credit card, and you didn't even know it.

In Newsweek magazine (January 9, 1989), conservative George F. Will said of Reagan: The cheerfulness that has defined Reagan sera of good feelings has been a narcotic, numbing the nation senses about hazards just over the horizon.

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Mr. Will continued: As Pat Moynihan has said, something fundamental happened in American governance when a conservative Republican administration produced deficits of $200 billion - and nothing happened. Nothing, that is, dramatic and immediately visible. Much happened in the way of silent rot as we mortgaged much of our future vitality. But for the political class, the event was a splendid liberation: all the rules were repealed. It was a particularly perverse event coming from conservatives: there were no longer restraints, practical or moral, on government spending.

Former Speaker of the House Thomas P. (Tip) O'Neill said of Reagan (Newsweek, January 9, 1989):

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His increasing the deficit is going to be a disaster. Within 10 years, West Germany will be the richest nation in the world and Japan will be the strongest economic power. We're losing the economic leadership in the 20th century because of Reganomics. Reagan also stressed that the government should not act as "Big Brother" and regulate private industry. Instead, he believed that corporations should be free to invest the public's money as they so desire. This governmental laissez-faire approach allows corporations to operate in ways which can prove disastrous to the American public. For instance, unrestrained by governmental regulation and supervision, Savings and Loan executives succumbed to their greed and ultimately caused the bankruptcy of their institutions. The cost to the American taxpayer for the savings-and-Ioan scandal is estimated to be about $200 billion as of October 1994, according to Common Cause.* The Rev. Jesse Jackson, president of the National Rainbow Coalition, offered the following assessment of Reagan (Newsweek, January 9, 1989):

The gap between the haves and havenots has widened. We have witnessed the most economic polarization in our history. Eight years later, one third of all black people are in poverty. And it is much the same for Hispanics. We've lost more family farms than at any other time. There has been a record number of foreclosures by banks. Our glitter is brighter, but our foundation is weak. Reagan has left • Common Cause, founded in 1970, is a nonprofit, non-partisan citizen's lobby that works to improve the way federal and state governments operate .

122 a trail of sleaze, corruption and contemptible acts against the American people and the Congress.

Former President Bush continued Reagan's political practice of mindfully telling the public what they wanted to hear. Yet, his actions at times contradicted his words. For example, when asked directly if he would raise taxes he replied, "Read my lips. No new taxes!"· In 1991, however, he signed legislation to increase tax revenue. Moreover, during his 1988 campaign, Bush favorably presented himself as the "environmental president"; his legislative decision making demonstrated otherwise. The Sierra Club, for example, maintains Bush sabotaged the 1990 Clean Air Act. He believed forcing corporations to screen the toxins from their manufacturing emissions was an expensive and therefore unfair hardship. Simply stated, the public's health was not as important as industries' profit. Bush placed former Vice-President Dan Quayle in charge of the Council on Competitiveness. Nancy Shute, in The Amicus Journal (Summer 1991), writes: The vice president is now on a quiet crusade to rein in federal regulation, an effort critics say is undercutting the Clean Air Act, the keystone of President George Bush environmental agenda, as well as a range of other environmental protections.

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Following congressional hearings held by the Subcommittee on Health and the Environment, Representative Henry A. Waxman said (The Amicus Journal Summer 1991): • In the 1984 presidential campaign, Democratic candidate Walter Mondale killed his chances for election when he merely suggested the possibility of new taxes to balance the budget.

123 While Mr. Bush cultivates the image of the environmental President, his vice-president is part of a shadow government that works behind the scenes to help polluting industries undermine the law by weakening EPA s regulatory proposals.

David Hawkins, a former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assistant administrator, said of the Council (The Amicus Journal Summer 1991): They are not reviewing the regulations to assure that the EPA is protecting the environment. They are reviewing the regulations to assure that EPA is not causing discomfort to industry. The Amicus Journal continued on to report: ... This spring, the Council re-wrote air-pollution permit standards, the first major regulation implementing the 1990 Clean Air Act. Congressional aides and environmentalists who had worked with EPA in drafting the rule were stunned to find that the 'minor permit amendments' had been changed to allow 34,000odd pollution sources to increase the amount of pollution they generate as much as they choose, merely by notifying their state that they plan to do so . ... The council s version of the regulation, {representative] Waxman said, fails to do what Congress intended and, in many instances, directly contradicts the law it is supposed to implement. {He maintains that] The legislative process has no meaning if the Bush administration can ignore the law and give polluters carte blanche to do what they please. '

Bush consistently supported the profit objectives of large corporations at the expense of the environment. At an

124 international environmental conference in the Netherlands in November 1989, the U.S.joined Japan and the Soviet Union to block a timetable for reducing carbon-dioxide emissions. According to the U.S. News & WorldReport (November 20, 1989):

· . . it represented a major defeat for William Reilly of the Environmental Protection Agency [who supported this agreement} and a victory for Energy Secretary James Watkins . .. Last spring, Reilly, a highly regarded environmentalist, promised that the U.S. this year would host a multi-national workshop to lay the groundwork for an international treaty on global warming. . . . Reilly was preparing to follow through by announcing a time and place for the workshop at last week s meeting in the Netherlands. But when he informed the White House of his plan, Reilly was ordered to cool it. The reason . . . [was that} Watkins convinced White House Chief of Staff John Sununu that Reilly splan would burden U.S. industries with enormous costs. Bush also refused to join the majority of nations at the 1990 Rio De Janeiro Environmental Conference in signing environmental protection agreements. The Amicus Journal (Fall 1992) reports:

In June, President George Bush refused to sign the Earth Summit Convention on Biological Diversity, which requires signatories to develop national strategies 'for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity. ' The president said, in rejecting the treaty: We cannot permit the extreme in the environmental movement to shut down the United States. '

125 As the environmental president, George Bush "delivered much talk and little action, leaving a trail of broken promises," says Rolling Stone magazine (May 3, 1990). The magazine further charges: ". . . he has backpedaled on a number of key issues, including his own campaign pledge to take steps against global warming . . . After promising to preserve every inch of remaining American wetlands, his actual policy gives developers large discretion over their use and effectively writes off an additional 500,000 acres now under federal control. A powerful obstacle to change in the United States' energy policy was former President Bush's loyalty to the oil industry which provided him with major financial support. Bush's allegiance to the oil industry kept him from pushing Congress to pass legislation encouraging Americans to shift from gasoline-fueled cars to automobiles powered by alternative means (e.g., propane, alcohol, electricity, etc.). Rather than alienate the oil industry, the Bush administration consistently fought efforts to invest more money into researching and developing alternative fuels. This governmental resistance to investigating other possible energy sources compounds a similar reluctance on the part of the oil industry, which naturally will discourage the search for alternative fuels until all oil resources have been depleted.* The old saying, "Necessity is the mother of invention" describes man's basic system of problem-solving. He waits until an environmental problem directly impacts his life style, and only then does he take action to save himself.

*It is estimated that the United States will have depleted its oil supply by the year 2020; the world is expected to run dry by 2040.4 1

126 Many of the United States' senators (92 percent male) and congressional representatives (89 percent male) also realize that alienating large corporations can result in a major loss of campaign contributions. Members of the Senate and House of Representatives are continually solicited (lobbied) by political action committees (p ACs) representing the oil and automobile corporations, the nuclear power industry, mining and timber companies, defense contractors, etc. Many members of Congress end up selling their votes to the highest corporate bidder, their pay-offs technically classified as "campaign donations." An executive of one of the "Big Three" automakers, which altogether made $3.3 million in PAC contributions to legislators from 1983-1990, simply explains, "Obviously we support people who support US."2l These legal payoffs result in politicians whose main concern is not creating an efficient government responsive to the needs of the people, but rather remaining loyal to corporations that subsequently make contributions to their re-election funds. Although some politicians can't be bought by campaign contributions from political action committees, many members of Congress have learned to use the political system for their own profit. Time magazine reported (June 1989):

The real scandal in Congress is not what's illegal; it is what's legal: the blatant, shameless greasing of congressional palms that violates good sense, good taste and good government. Capitol Hill is polluted by money. John F. Jennings, the staff director of the House Elementary, Secondary and Vocational Education Subcommittee was quoted in Common Cause Magazine (July 1989) as saying:

We've had vacancies on our committees for years, and we've had to accept temporary mem-

127 bers. Part of the reason is that members go to committees where they can get more PAC money. In April 1989, Common Cause Magazine warned, "PAC donations by FSLIC - insured thrifts and their trade associations to congressional candidates in 1987-1988 [totalled] $1,850,000." Money of this magnitude wields power which can be abused as was demonstrated when Lincoln Savings and Loan Corporation was seized for investigation by the government and subsequently closed in April 1989. The deliberate misuse of public funds by Lincoln Savings & Loan owner Charles H. Keating Jr. will cost the American taxpayer approximately $2.5 billion dollars (as of March 1991). Five prominent senators intervened on Keating's behalf when his operation was under investigation by Federal Home Loan Bank Board officials. * Their paid interference caused such delays the American taxpayer lost another $1 billion dollars. When Keating was asked if his generous campaign contributions bought him influence with key politicians he replied, "I want to say in the most forceful way I can, I certainly hope SO!"51

The Washington Spectator (November 1, 1994) quotes the following assessment of Congress by Senator George Mitchell (D-ME): The fact of the matter is . .. [that] every Senator knows this system stinks. Every Senator who participates in it knows this system stinks. And the American people are right when they mistrust this system, where what matters most in seeking public office is not integrity, not ability, • The five Senators were John Glenn (D-Ohiol, Alan Cranston (D-Californial, Donald Riegle {D-Michiganl, Dennis DeConcini {D-Arizonal, and John McCain (R-Arizona l.

128 not judgment ,not reason, not responsibility, not experience, not intelligence, but money. We could have a candidate of the highest integrity, highest intelligence, the most vast experience, who can be overwhelmed by a tide of money by someone who has none of them. Money dominates this system. Money infuses this system. Money is this system. According to Common Cause Magazine, $175 million in PAC contributions were made to politicians in Congress in 1994. Many politicians maintain PAC money is a requirement for their re-election campaigns. Moreover, they also say they cannot survive on their governmental salaries. Apparently former President Reagan agreed because he proposed a 51 percent pay hike for members of Congress, cabinet secretaries, judges and other top-level government officials despite a rapidly growing budget deficit. Even though the members of the U.S. House of Representatives receive salaries which put them in the top one percent of all wage earners, they continually vote themselves pay raises. As the following figures (from The World Almanac) indicate, between 1982 and 1994, members of the House more than doubled their salaries from $5,000 to over $13,000 a month: YEAR 1982 1987 1990 1994

SALARY $ 60,662 $ 77,400 $ 96,600 $133,600

The August 1992 issue of Money magazine reported: The cost of operating the U.S. Congress [535 members} plus its 38,696 person support staff has zoomed from $343 million in fiscal 1970 to an estimated $2.8 billion for 1992 .. . our

129 legislature is now the most expensive in the world. Congress' estimated $2.8 billion tab is more than 10 times the cost of the 346-member Canadian parliament. Or measured another way, U.S. taxpayers will spend an estimated $5.2 million per lawmaker this year. The article continues:

As much as 80% of legislative staffers' time is devoted to getting their employers re-elected . .. Postage-free mailings to constituents, a 217 year-old privilege known as franking, is among the most prized and abused perks on Capitol Hill. And Americans pay dearly for it: $80 million to $90 million this year alone. Members of Congress officially earn $129,500 a year, up a munificent 45% from $89,500 in 1989. But according to Money's calculations, the typical lawmaker actually collects $168,202, if you count seven key taxpayer-paid perks that are the equivalent of extra pay. Besides postage-free mailings to constituents, other perks include a pension plan, a thrift plan, health insurance, free parking on Capitol Hill, a tax deduction for living in Washington, D.C., subsidized gymnasiums, and life insurance. Money magazine concludes the "creme de la perk" is "an extraordinary pension plan": ... an estimated 300 or so members will each collect lifetime pension benefits of $1 million or more, while roughly 90 will pull down at least $2 million. 'Congress has become a pension

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millionaires' club,' says David Keating, executive director of the National Taxpayers Union. Common Cause Magazine (July 1989) quotes Representative Les AuCoin (D-OR): Something is systematically wrong with Congress today, and it's money, the pursuit of money, the endless pursuit of money, the virtual hourly pursuit of money, either to finance the perpetual campaign or to maintain a certain standard of living.

In the congressional elections of 1990, 96% of the incumbents (391) returned to political office. Time magazine (November 19, 1990) explains: Voters' choices are . . . reduced because so many potential opponents do not see much point in mounting a challenge. The advantages of incumbency are virtually insurmountable: voluminous free mailings, easy fund raising, large staffs, access to the press. That power creates a vicious circle: incumbents are so entrenched that few challengers of any caliber will run against them . .. Common Cause Magazine (April 1989) reported: A record 98 percent of Members of Congress seeking re-election in 1988 won. Only seven House incumbents lost during the 1988 elections. In comparison, seven House incumbents died in office during the past Congress. In other words, the odds of being defeated in the House of Representatives were the same as the odds of

131 dying while in office. The present PAC-rigged system is creating a challenger-proof Congress that is making a mockery of our elections and destroying representative government.

Mark Twain once described the United States Congress as, " ... the only native American criminal class."36 Unfortunately, Twain's assessment may be an accurate description, in general, of the Congress operating in Washington today. Besides Congress, many other segments of the United States' government also reveal man's insatiable quest for self-importance through the accumulation of money and power. In his book, The Government Racket, Martin Gross documents several examples of greed, inefficiency, and waste on the part of our male dominated government. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency listed 1250 toxic waste sites in 1980 to be cleaned up with a "Superfund" of $15 billion. By 1991, however, only 65 sites had been cleaned up at the enormous cost of $10 billion. Mr. Gross contends that much of that money was lost to fraud and incompetency. The Housing and Urban Development (HUD) scandal of the Reagan era lost, "Hundreds of thousands to prominent Republicans; millions to crooked agents; a billion in bad loans" according to Time magazine (September 18, 1989). For example, the article states: After eight telephone calls and one 30-minute meeting with [Secretary of HUD, Sam} Pierce, the former Interior Secretary [James Watt} was paid $300,000 in lobbying fees for winning a contract on a Maryland project.

When Senator Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) learned James Watt had been paid $300,000 as a consultant to HUD he commented, "Mr. Watt's only known experience in the field of housing was making Bambi homeless."

132 Due to their subconscious feelings of insignificance, men can easily be corrupted by positions of power. In an effort to quell their sense of insignificance, they strive to amass ever greater amounts of money, social status, and power frequently in exchange for their moral integrity. A few male leaders have shown a resistance towards the corrupting nature of power. They could not be bought or intimidated by forces attempting to manipulate them. They courageously proposed changes to better the lives of their followers. Yet, as a result, many have been expelled from office or even killed. Mikhail Gorbachev, former General Secretary of the Communist Party in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), risked his political career in a sincere effort to change his country and the world for the better. His policies of Glasnost and Perestroika ultimately led to the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Iron Curtain. On October 25, 1989, Gorbachev announced in Helsinki the Brezhnev Doctrine was dead. Warsaw Pact tanks and troops would cease to interfere with the political will of the people living in Eastern Europe. This decision freed those countries to discard the Communist Party and to choose their own form of government. Shortly thereafter, on November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall was dismantled. Gorbachev's policies of Glasnost and Perestroika also inadvertently caused the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The political, economic, and social ramifications of this upheaval are still unfolding. The former Prime Minister of England Margaret Thatcher said the social change in Eastern Europe was due to the " ... courage and vision of Mikhail Gorbachev." And yet for his courage and effort to affect positive change, Gorbachev was removed from office and the future of his political career has been severely jeopardized. Likewise, Egypt's Anwar Sadat demonstrated great courage when he defied the threats of Muslim extremists and signed the Camp David Accord with Israel's Prime Minister Menachem Begin and U.S. President Jimmy Carter. His

133 vision was one of peace and prosperity for all in the Middle East, and for this vision he was assassinated in 1981 while reviewing a military parade. President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated because he inadvertently challenged the directives of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the military-industrial complex of the United States. He wanted to withdraw U.S. troops from Vietnam in defiance of the CIA, the Pentagon, and defense contractors, all of whom claimed communism was quickly spreading to America's borders. The new President, Lyndon B. Johnson, immediately and dramatically increased the number of soldiers and the amount of supplies sent to Vietnam. This escalation ultimately resulted in an increase in corporate profits in America and the loss of over 50,000 American lives in the jungles of Vietnam. Dr. Martin Luther King campaigned tirelessly for, and ultimately died for, the dream of universal civil rights. In an atmosphere of hate , his was a message of nonviolence, love for one another, and the unification of all Americans. His charismatic personality drew Americans together to force equal rights legislation through nonviolent means. He was slain because his vision of racial harmony threatened the status quo in America. In summary, man's subconscious feelings of insignificance fuel a constant quest for money, social status, and power which hinders his ability to make decisions conducive to the survival of humanity. Although exceptions have existed, the vast majority of male leaders have displayed a pattern of self-serving and shortsighted behavior. They live for the moment while struggling in vain to fulfill their ever-present need for significance. Consequently, they demonstrate little concern for the long-term destructive ramifications of their selfish behavior.The German medical missionary and theologian, Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965), reflected on the future of man:

134 Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth.36

Meanwhile women, in general, continue to follow the social, governmental, and religious leadership of men without question. They adhere to his dictates with an intense blind faith which ultimately will prove disastrous to the welfare of their children. Women must understand and heed the warning of St. Augustine, "Cursed is everyone who placeth his hope in man. "1 6

CHAPTER SIX

STRATEGY FOR SURVIVALTHE FUTURE IS NOW You can no longer save your family, your tribe or nation. You can only save the whole world. 36 Margaret Mead (1901-1978) American Anthropologist If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will immediately jump out. If you put a frog in a pot of cold water, however, and gradually turn up the heat, the frog will continue to adjust to the slight change in temperature and eventually be boiled alive. Like a frog in water that is becoming increasingly uncomfortable, people continually adjust to the consequences of man's destructive behavior in the world. Everyday, through television broadcasts, newspaper reports, and magazine articles, we are bombarded with news of man's obsession with war and his destruction of the environment. Not only do we fail to realize the threat his behavior poses to future human life, most dangerously, we become desensitized to the news reports. Such desensitization takes place because:

1) The human mind utilizes the defense mechanisms of repression and denial to avoid the discomfort of fear. 2) People do not want to change their hedonistic behavior and make sacrifices for the good of their society and future generations.

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As mentioned in Chapter 4, psychological defense mechanisms protect us from frightening thoughts and feelings. Under their influence, we become consciously oblivious to many aspects of reality which can cause us anxiety. For example, rarely do we think about death (specifically, how and when we will die). Why? Because it is an unpleasant and anxiety-provoking thought. Anyone reading these words is alive and intellectually realizes he or she will eventually die. And yet, when a person has some advance warning of his or her death (i.e., learning he or she has a terminal illness), the natural response is shock and disbelief. Most people seem to react to their impending demise as if they are totally surprised they are mortal. They seem to believe death is something that happens to everyone else. The psychological defense mechanisms Sigmund Freud labelled "repression" and "denial" are primarily responsible for sparing us the emotional pain of thinking about our inevitable death. Repression means "forgetting" thoughts which are distressing to us. If something is too painful to think about, the subconscious mind represses it. Consciously, the anxiety-provoking thought has been forgotten, but it still exists at the subconscious level. Denial means failing to acknowledge dangerous, frightening, or painful aspects of reality because they are too emotionally overpowering for us to cope with. For instance, we plan our lives many years into the future because we deny the possibility we will die anytime soon. These defense mechanisms protect us from potentially crippling anxiety. If we were constantly questioning, "Is this the day I'm going to die?," we would become consumed with worry and have difficulty functioning on a day-to-day basis. Likewise, when environmentalists warn us of the dangers of overpopulation, global warming, ozone deterioration, acid rain, water and air pollution, radioactive nuclear waste, forest destruction, and the overfishing of the oceans, many people believe the environmentalists are exaggerating and pretend our problems aren't that serious. They are using denial to

137 minimize the severity of the situation and spare themselves the emotional discomfort of fear. They then forget or repress their fears by turning their attention elsewhere, for example, to choosing which television shows they will watch for their evening entertainment. The defense mechanisms of denial and repression help provide us with a delusionary future of plenty and therefore are detrimental to our survival. Even if man truly appreciated the severity of the world's problems, he would find sacrifice extremely difficult because people have a tendency to be pleasure seeking. The human animal is basically ruled by a hedonistic drive which Freud called "The Pleasure Principle."* Simply stated, people continually strive to rid themselves of discomfort by attempting to satisfy their biological and psychological needs immediately after they arise. People instinctively do not enjoy pain; they try to escape from it as quickly as possible.** They do not like being hungry, cold, sick, or lonely. It is not surprising, for example, that most people readily take painrelieving drugs at the first sign of physical discomfort or experience great difficulty when trying to stay on a diet or quit smoking. The illegal drug trade flourishes, in large part, because of our basic hedonistic nature and our desire to escape from the problems of life. Any stress or psychological pain created by the daily struggle of life, or by the failure to succeed in our competitive society, is temporarily obliterated by the use of drugs or alcohol. Rather than face our frightening social and environmental problems, we would much rather indulge in pleasure

• Capitalism is predicated upon our hedonistic drive. Television advertisements convince people purchasing a particular product will make them more socially acceptable and thus happier. That delusion creates the fantasy happiness can be bought. •• Masochistic people, such as prostitutes and battered women, possess an un· healthy and self·destructive need for pain.

138 directed activities. If, however, we continue to ignore these urgent issues, the problems man has created will eventually destroy all human life on earth. Even though man is capable of intellectual thought (he can design and build a mechanical heart, a Cray Computer with 128 million word memory, a satellite that can track the wake of a ship from 400 miles up in space at night, and even a rocket that can fly people to the moon), he seems unable to stop himself from killing others or from systematically destroying the ecological systems of our planet. Paradoxically, man's intellect may hasten his own extinction and not, as one might think, guarantee his survival. The American physicist Albert Einstein (1879-1955) explained the self-destructive connection between man's primitive nature and his incredible intelligence by writing:

Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal. 37 Man's intelligence and corresponding technological progress have frequently been harnessed to destroy life, not enhance it. Destructive acts that used to require a great deal of man's time and effort, are now commonly "accomplished" in a matter of hours or even moments. As each year passes, man's inventions allow him to destroy his fellow man, the forests, wild animals, and ocean life at an increasingly rapid pace. The crowning achievement of man's technological progress can be seen in his favorite passion - war. During the 1991 Gulf War, for instance, TV news coverage of Pentagon briefings repeatedly showed the technological advances of modern man; viewers watched "smart bombs" being guided to their targets with pinpoint accuracy (i.e., literally down the smokestack of a building). Everyone in the briefing room seemed greatly impressed with these achievements. At one point, they gasped in admiration at the force of an explosion which

139 ripped a building into pieces. No one in the audience of the briefing room seemed alarmed at man's fascination with killing and destruction. As Commander Henry Urban, Jr. confessed during the Vietnam War: There are also a lot of nice buildings in Haiphong {Vietnam}. What their contributions are to the war effort I don't know, but the desire to bomb a virgin building is terrific. 16

Man's intellect, his ability to reason, and his potential to learn from the mistakes of his ancestors seem useless against his primitive, animalistic nature. Loren Eiseley (1907 -1977), an American professor of anthropology, wrote in The Immense Journey (1957): The need is not really for more brains, the need

is for a gentler, a more tolerant people than those who won for us against the ice, the tiger, and the bear. The hand that hefted the ax, out of some blind allegiance to the past, fondles the machine gun as lovingly. It is a habit man will have to break to survive, but the roots go very deep.

Man, with all his intelligence, has conquered everything but himself. Such weakness in man was apparent centuries ago. Aristotle believed: I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is the victory over self 16

More than just being difficult for man, such a "victory over self" may be impossible. Charles Darwin captured the essence of man when he wrote: Man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped, probably arboreal in its habits . .. For

140 my part I would as soon be descended from (a) baboon . .. as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies . . . treats his wives like slaves . .. and is haunted by the grossest superstitions. 7

More recently, the Austrian ethologist Konrad Lorenz (1903-1989) offered his evaluation of modern man: I believe I've found the missing link between animal and civilized man. It is us. 14

Such an analysis of man was echoed by David OrmsbyGore (1918-1985), a former British ambassador to the U.S.: It would indeed be a tragedy if the history of the human race proved to be nothing more than the story of an ape playing with a box of matches on a petrol dump. 16

From an evolutionary "survival of the fittest" perspective, man's violent, primordial nature is understandable. Without a savage or animalistic nature, our ancestors could not have survived and you and I would not now exist. Physiologically speaking though, man has not changed in the last 100,000 years.* Moreover, judging from man's behavior, he has ceased to evolve beyond his primitive quest for power and his zeal for destruction. As Albert Einstein lamented, "It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man."16 Man's counterpart in the ocean is the shark. The shark stopped evolving millions of years ago because it physiologically achieved optimal efficiency. The shark kills because that's its purpose in nature - it knows nothing else. Like the

*This is approximately when our species evolved into its current form,Homo sapiens sapiens (Wise, Wise Man) .

141 shark, man is an adept destroyer. Also like the shark, man seems to have stopped evolving. Unfortunately for the survival of humankind, while the shark's power for destruction is limited, man's is technologically expanding daily. If contemporary man's violent nature is left unchecked, human life will eventually cease to exist on this planet. The French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau has warned: If we are not willing to change, we will disappear from the face of the globe, to be replaced by the insect..12

Despite his intellect, man cannot free himself from his subconscious feelings of insignificance which fuel his destructive behavior and contaminate his attempts at rational thought. Sigmund Freud understood the cognitive limitations of man: I do not have a very high opinion of the bulk of mankind. I feel that the irrational forces in man nature are so strong that the rational forces have little chance of success against them. 16

s

A television newscast on February 24, 1992 reported, for instance, that 80 percent of the island of Haiti used to be covered by thick jungle forest. The Haitians burn the forest to create charcoal which they sell to fuel fires for cooking. At the time of the broadcast, only six percent of the forest remained. The news reporter asked a hardworking Haitian man, "What happens after all the trees are burned?" The man replied, "That will be the end of the world - we will all die."* • Actually, the starvation, poverty, disease, crime, civil unrest, and human suffering will all increase with overpopulation and the destruction of their environment; they will then want to come to the United States for salvation.

142 The statement of this Haitian reflects the basic shortsightedness of man. It illustrates his inability to reason in a rational manner which consequently prevents man from changing his destructive behavior. After gaining an understanding of man's violent nature and man's limited capabilities for rational thought, Albert Einstein concluded: We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive. 37

Judging by thousands of years of his destructive behavior, man is not capable of the "new manner of thinking" referred to by Einstein. If humanity is to survive, woman must intervene. Without woman's intervention, man will ultimately destroy all human life on earth. Man calls woman the "weaker sex," but she is the only force strong enough to control him. Mahatma Gandhi {1869-1948}, a political and spiritual leader oflndia, understood the relationship between woman and the survival of the human race: To call woman the weaker sex is libel: it is man's injustice to woman. Has she not greater courage? Without her, man could not be. If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with woman. :J6

For centuries, woman has followed man's lead not only because she fears his violent nature but also because she has been exposed, since birth, to man's cultural and religious indoctrination. Consequently, she usually doesn't think to question his authority. The Russian Communist Nikolai Lenin {1870-1924} spoke of the power of childhood brainwashing when he boasted: Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted. 7

143 Once indoctrinated culturally or religiously in childhood, woman unwittingly becomes an active participant in man's universal scheme of male domination; as a result, her independence is suffocated and her unquestioning obedience is ensured. Women who blindly follow men can begin emulating their destructive behavior. A misplaced trust in man has even led women to the ultimate act of barbarity - killing their own children. On the March 4, 1994 television documentary Let Her Die (Jnvestigative Reports), women were interviewed in India who were killing their newborn female infants. Because this male-designed culture views the female as innately inferior, thousands of baby girls are murdered each month by mothers who had hoped for sons. Likewise, on April 28, 1945, a mother named Magda Goebbels· wrote: My Beloved Son, We have now been here, in the Fuhrer's bunker, for six days - Papa, your six little brothers and sisters and I . . . Our splendid concept is perishing and with it goes everything beautiful, admirable, noble and good that I have known in my life. The world which will succeed the Fuhrer and National-Socialism is not worth living in and for this reason I have brought the children here too. They are too good for the life that will come after us and a gracious God will understand me if I myself give them release fr om l't . . . 20Elizabeth Cady Stanton addressed the self-destructive phenomenon of the female religious faithful when she said: • She was the wife of Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda and Enlighten· ment for Adolf Hitler.

144 The religious superstitions of women perpetuate their bondage more than all o.ther adverse influences ..16 On November 18, 1978, in Jonestown, Guyana, 918 loyal followers (many among them mothers) killed themselves and their trusting children in a hysterical frenzy of blind religious faith. These mothers must have suffered terrible anguish as they poisoned their own children and watched them die in their arms, but their devotion to their leader, Jim Jones, was absolute. A similar tragedy occurred on April 19, 1993, in Waco, Texas when 17 innocent children clung to their mothers and were burned alive in an inferno deliberately set by their leader, James David Koresh, who had convinced the women he was the second coming of Jesus Christ. Ironically, the following warning is written in the Bible (Matthew 15:14): If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. Women must become aware of the dangers of blindly following man's cultural, political, and religious doctrine. They must hear the fury and heed the wisdom of Susan B. Anthony: I really believe I shall explode if some of you young women don't wake up and raise your voice in protest . .. I wonder if when I am under the sod - or cremated and floating in the air - I shall have to stir you and others up. How can you not be all on fire? 6 Inexplicably, women frequently seem to be their own worst enemy. Women's groups splinter into factions and waste time, energy, and resources attacking one another over such issues as a woman's right to have an abortion and career

145 versus family priorities. Furthermore, some women's groups display a self-defeating tendency to underestimate the potential power of their housewife counterpart. These groups frequently look upon women who are not aggressively career minded as inferior. This type of thinking underestimates and even trivializes the potential power these women possess to affect change in our society. For example, one woman, Candy Lightner, founded Mother's Against Drunk Driving (MADD) after her daughter was killed by a drunk driver. MADD is now a national organization with thousands of members, proving how much can be accomplished by a woman some would call "just a housewife." Women, especially housewives, mothers, and grandmothers, comprise the foundation of power from which social change can, and must, be constructed. They possess the potential to change society, if they believe change will create a better world for their children. Mothers and grandmothers in particular, whether career women or not, are generally much less selfish than their male counterparts. They are usually not as interested in wealth, social status, power, or the glorification of self. Their overriding concern is the welfare of their children and grandchildren. With that goal in mind, they possess the judgment and integrity with which to guide man into the future.* Women possess an intuition that Honore de Balzac called "instinct" which can force great social change if properly pooled and directed. Specifically, Balzac believed:

Every woman carries in the depths of her soul a mysterious weapon, instinct - that virgin instinct, incorruptible, which requires her neither to learn, to reason, nor to know, which binds the strong will of man, dominates his sover• Loving fathers and grandfathers will also recognize the urgency of woman's quest and join her in her efforts to harness the destructive nature of man.

146 eign reason, and pales our little scientific candles. 10 Underestimating the potential power of a woman, regardless of her educational level, social status, or age is a grave mistake. She does not have to be hostile, radical, welleducated, or even outspoken to exert power in society. In America, women comprise 52 percent of the population, and at the marketplace, in the voting booth, and by modifying their religious practices, they can affect enormous positive change. One of the most effective ways women can empower themselves is through the wise use of their purchasing clout. Women are the primary consumers of a wide range of products (e.g., food, clothing, household goods, etc.) and, as such, exert incredible influence over American industry. Women must become better-educated consumers so they can utilize their buying power to purchase environmentally safe products while simultaneously avoiding products that are environmentally destructive. The easiest way to become more knowledgeable about our environmental crisis is to join one or more of the organizations listed at the end of this chapter. Well-organized boycotts, directed at products which contaminate or destroy the environment, can be powerful economic tools for women to use to achieve positive social change. Boycotts often bring forth change much more rapidly than waiting for governmental action. In recent years, for instance, enlightened consumers have successfully boycotted tuna processing companies which were using driftnets to capture their fish. In addition to the tuna, thousands of dolphins, seals, turtles, and other sea life were also ensnared in the nets and subsequently killed (70 percent was thrown back into the sea as garbage). Many tuna processing companies showed little concern for this unnecessary, large-scale loss of aquatic life until a well-organized tuna boycott threatened their profits and effectively forced them to change their fishing policies.

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A similar boycott could be lodged against the fast-food hamburger industry. Currently, cattle ranchers in South America are cutting down jungle rainforests so their cattle can graze on the poor quality grass grown in its place. The cattle are then sold to various U.S. fast-food chains which save only five cents per burger by buying the foreign beefP A hamburger boycott would force fast-food chains to buy their beef solely from American producers and again eliminate the need to wait for Congressional action. An even better alternative would be to boycott meat hamburgers in favor of hamburgers made of soybean patties. Vegetable hamburgers are much better for the consumer and will spare the environment the destruction caused by grazing cattle. In his book Diet for a New America, John Robbins writes that some 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared in order to raise livestock. Seventy-five percent of the original U.S. topsoil has been lost to date and four million more acres are lost to soil erosion yearly. Many companies produce soybean burgers including the Archer Daniels Midland Company. A boycott should also be organized against Mitsubishi. This giant corporate conglomerate is the largest destroyer of forests in the world (according to the Rainforest Action Network). The Mitsubishi corporation is relentlessly logging in Canada, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Brazil, Indonesia, Bolivia, Chile, the Philippines, and Siberia. The quickest way to force Mitsubishi to cease its onslaught against the remaining forests of the world would be to threaten its corporate profit margin. A boycott of Mitsubishi products would encompass Mitsubishi cars and trucks (including vehicles made under the Chrysler name - Dodge Stealth, Intrepid, RAM 50, Colt Vista, Eagle Talon, and Summit Wagon), VCRs, TVs, Nikon cameras, and Kirin beer. Besides organizing boycotts, women can empower themselves politically. It is imperative that women go to the voting booth and exercise their ballot power to elect increasing

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numbers of leaders intent on protecting the environment. By joining the League of Conservation Voter.s, women will learn which politicians legislate to protect the environment. Moreover, greater numbers of women need to become elected officials in government. In the United States, women must become more politically involved, especially at the congressionallevel. As members of Congress, women would be much more likely than men to steer the government in the necessary direction of protecting the environment, while simultaneously placing much less emphasis on the accumulation of personal wealth and political power. Their specific goals should be to: • develop an energy policy which emphasizes natural resource conservation as well as alternative fuel development and use. * For example, propane gas can be substituted for gasoline in cars. Propane gas costs less than gasoline, provides the same mileage, and causes no air pollution. • phase out the nuclear power industry and increase efforts to clean up radioactive and other toxic waste sites. • increase protection of coastal fishing areas by directing the U.S. Navy to assist the U.S. Coast Guard in patrolling those waters. • protect national, especially old growth, forests and use substitutes for wood products. For example, tree-free kenaf paper and hemp/cereal straw paper are already available.**

• The war with Iraq in 1991 was aimed at protecting U.S. oil interests in the Middle East and cost the country's taxpayers over $100 billion. That money could have been used to discover, through research, alternative fuels that may have replaced oil, coal, and nuclear power. Moreover, that war illustrates the consequences of America's energy dependency and vulnerability due to the purchasing of oil produced in foreign countries . •• The Earth Care Paper Company produces paper from the Kenaf plant which can grow 12-feet-high in four months. The Tree-Free Eco Paper Company uses a 50-50 blend of hemp and cereal straw to make paper that has a shelf life of over 1500 years, compared to 75 years for wood-fiber paper. This blend of paper also uses 90 percent less chemicals in its production. (Earth Island Journal, Spring 1993).

149 • re-train displaced workers for new jobs in emerging environmentally safe industries. • research ways to decrease global warming, acid rain, water and air pollution, as well as limit the depletion of the ozone layer. • develop and implement environmentally safe agricultural practices (e.g., protect the topsoil, limit the use of pesticides, develop organic farming techniques* and biotechnology**) . The funding of these programs will represent a monumental shift in the spending priorities of the United States and must come, for the most part, from money presently allocated to the Defense Department. As reported in Time magazine (February 1990), Robert McNamara, the former Secretary of Defense, believes the Pentagon's budget could be cut by 50 percent by the year 2000 without jeapordizing national security. By the turn of the century, the Pentagon's budget could be reduced to $146 billion, a drastic decrease from the $291 billion spent in 1991. By making such a reduction in the Pentagon's budget McNamara says:

We could powerfully enhance our status as a world power, strengthen our military security, and redirect resources to more deserving sectors of our economy. If the U.S. Congress would restructure its funding priorities for the social benefit of the country, much could be accomplished. The following table appeared in Worldwatch magazine (October 1989):

• Such as alternating crops and planting cover crops which ultimately become natural fertilizer . •• For example, tomatos have been genetically developed which are immune to the mosaic virus.

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"Trade-offs Between Military and Environmental Priorities" Military Priority Trident II submarine, F-16 jet fighter programs.

Social/Environmental Cost Priority $100 billion One-third of estimated cleanup cost for U.S. hazardous waste dumps over 50 years.

Stealth bomber program.

$79 billion

80 percent of estimated costs to meet U.S. clean water goals by 2000.

$4.8 billion Approximately 2 days of global military spending.

Annual cost of proposed U.N. Action Plan to halt Third World desertification over 20 years.

MK-50 Advanced Light Weight Torpedo program.

Annual cost to cut sulfur dioxide emissions by 8-12 million tons per year in the U.S. to combat acid rain over five years.

$6 billion

The Center for Defense Information reports (December 12, 1992) one B-2 bomber costs $2 billion which could be used to build 424 elementary schools for 254,000 children; one F -117 Stealth Fighter costs $140 million which could be used to hire 4,200 police officers for one year; one F-14D Fighter Plane costs $121 million which could be used to pay 3,600 teachers for one year; nuclear test explosions for one year cost $500 million which could be used to increase by 50 percent the federal funds for alternative energy; one Aegis Destroyer costs $832 million which could send 263,000 children to Head Start for one year; one Seawolf Submarine costs $2 billion which could pay for prenatal care for four million low-income families for one year; 370 Tomahawk Cruise Missiles cost $500 million which would pay to clean up the worst 15 hazardous waste dumps in the U.S.; one aircraft carrier costs $4.2 billion which would provide Pell education grants to 2.8 million students; one V-22 Osprey Aircraft costs $42 million which would fully fund vaccine research for AIDS

151 for one year; and the Star Wars project would cost an incredible $100 billion which could be used in countless humanitarian ways. Most of the other male-controlled countries in the world share the United States' obsession for weapons much to the detriment of the earth's ecosystem. For example, Worldwatch magazine (October 1989) has estimated:

... a cumulative sum of about $774 billion would have to be expended worldwide during the final decade of this century to turn around adverse environmental trends in four priority areas: protecting topsoil on croplands from further erosion, reforesting the earth, raising energy efficiency, and developing renewable sources of energy. This is, at most, 8 to 9 percent of current annual world military spending. The American mythologist Joseph Campbell (19041987) identified man's priority in life when he said, "The business of man is war."4; As evidenced by his global obsession with the manufacturing and sale of weapons, man apparently chooses to ignore the wisdom of Albert Einstein:

Working towards peace and preparing for war, are mutually exclusiveY Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), the dictator of Italy during World War II, addressed the innate difference between the sexes when he said, "War is to man what maternity is to a woman." 7 The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom sells T-shirts with a slogan reflecting the mutually exclusive priorities of the two sexes:

It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the air force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.

152 Such a day will never come as long as man rules the governments of the world. Most men will not accept the advice of Mikhail Gorbachev: The only way to security is through political decisions and disarmament. In our age genuine and equal security can be guaranteed by constantly lowering the level of the strategic balance from which nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction should be completely eliminated. 24

The goal of diminishing man's affinity for the weapons of war is not enough. One of the greatest threats to the survival of the human species (second only to a nuclear holocaust) is overpopulation. The organization Zero Population Growth reports that in 1650 only about 500 million people inhabited the earth. That number doubled by 1850. By 1930, the number of people on the planet grew to 2 billion and, by 1975, increased to 4 billion. As of 1994, the population of the world numbered 5.7 billion, but at the present rate of reproduction, the population of our planet will double in only 60 years. As the earth's population "explodes," people will intensify their competition and struggle with one another for the limited natural resources and basic essentials necessary for their survival (e.g., food, clean air, fresh water, medical aid, etc.). Zero Population Growth also reports the population of the United States is growing by 2.5 million people per year. Without a population control policy, the future of the United States can be foreseen in the miserable social and economic conditions which currently plague many over-crowded countries including India, China, Mexico, Brazil, and Haiti. The Japanese are so desperate for space they plan to build future cities underground. Presently, at the end of a workday in the city, many Japanese husbands even rent cubicles downtown for a few hours of sleep while their wives put their children to

153 bed. Their tiny apartments are not spacious enough to permit the entire family to move around simultaneously. In the United States, women must force the legislation of a population policy limiting immigration while simultaneously funding a large-scale birth control program. Americans can no longer afford to support the idealistic and romantic "save the world" notion inspired by the beautiful verse on the Statue of Liberty:

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your ~eeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost, to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door! When the American poet Emma Lazarus (1849-1887) wrote those words of freedom, economic opportunity, and brotherly love in 1883, the population of the United States was about 35 million. By 1994, the population had exploded to 260 million. The Census Bureau projects that by the year 2000, the population of the U.S. will reach 275 million. The United States of America prides itself on its benevolent history of serving as a "melting-pot" to immigrants rich in cultural diversity. However, the U.S. currently has its own "tired and poor" in the ghettos of numerous cities. Charity begins at home. The limited resources available to help people must be used to stabilize the nation's growing population as well as assist the poor who already live within the country. Former President Jimmy Carter demonstrated the fallacy of the "give me your tired, your poor" philosophy in the late 1970's when he showed his good heart and poor judgment by accepting thousands of immigrants from Cuba. In a very clever social/economic ploy, Fidel Castro opened up his prisons and insane asylums and sent his country's criminals, drug addicts, and mentally-ill people to the United States

154 where they now burden overcrowded social service agencies and criminal facilities.* To further limit population growth, the U.S. must have federally funded family planning services. All women must have access to contraceptive devices and birth control pills, including RU 486, a contraceptive pill currently used in Europe. A woman's right to have an abortion must also be protected. Recent decisions by the male-dominated United States Supreme Court are eroding a woman's right to govern her own body. In 1992, the Court gave state law-makers increasing control over a woman's right to have an abortion. This decision signals a move by the Supreme Court in the direction of those who site man-made religious ideology to support their anti-abortion stance. In fact, Chief Justice William Rehnquist has said:

The 'wall of separation between church and state' is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned. 13 This statement, issued by the highest ranking member of the Supreme Court, stands in direct opposition to the basic constitutional premise put forth by Thomas Jefferson calling for a "wall of separation between church and state." The blurring of the line between religion and law is ultimately damning to women. If man is given the opportunity to use his religious ideology to fortify his laws, he then, through circular reasoning, will inevitably be further able to justify his subjugation of woman. On an international level, instead of sending weapons to Third World countries, the U.S. should be a world leader in • In 1994, Fidel Castro again attempted to ease his country's economic burden of overpopulation by encouraging his people to flee to the United States.

155 the exportation of birth control information and products. Moreover, the U.S. practice of sending food to nations whose populations are growing out of control, without also helping them with the means to control their numbers, is counterproductive and cruel. Under its present policy, the U.S. provides enough food to keep the poor people of those countries healthy enough to produce more children who will be sentenced to a life in increasingly overcrowded societies rife with hunger, poverty, disease, and crime. Former President Richard M. Nixon (1913-1994) wrote in his book, Seize the Moment (1992): We must help break the link between spiraling population growth and poverty . ... Where they have been tried, family planning programs have largely worked. . . . Many pro-life advocates . . . contend that to condone abortion even implicitly is morally unconscionable. Their view is morally shortsighted . .. if we provide funds for birth control . .. we will prevent the conception of millions of babies who would be doomed to the devastation of poverty in the underdeveloped world. Tragically, World Watch magazine (December 1993) reports, "Forty thousand children die every day from hungerrelated causes." Twenty thousand adults also starve to death each day. Drs. Paul and Anne Ehrlich, in their book The Population Explosion (1991), make the following ominous warning: The population explosion will come to an end before very long. The only remaining question is whether it will be halted through the humane method of birth control, or by nature wiping out the [human} surplus.

156 To stabilize the world's population in a humane way, woman must rebel against the teachings of religions which direct her to bear many children. Such a change in attitude and behavior will be extremely difficult for many women because it means challenging the religious teachings they have been indoctrinated with since birth. A magazine article recently quoted a Catholic mother of 18 children explaining her purpose in life is to be fruitful and bring forth as many children as her God commands. She and her husband do not practice birth control, but she admits to hoping God will choose not to make her pregnant again. She accepts absolutely no responsibility for preventing her repeated pregnancies. Apparently, this woman has a very healthy uterus and a mind which was brainwashed in childhood by the Catholic Church. She is a living example of the Catholic Jesuit Maxim: Give me a child for the first 6 years of life and he'll be a servant of God till his last breath. 36 *

Religious indoctrination in childhood effectively blinds woman to the question raised by American Congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce (1903-1987): But if God had wanted us to think with our wombs, why did He give us a brain?16

Where reproduction is concerned, many religiously devout women show little evidence of thinking in a rational manner. A mother of eight children recently talked to me about her devotion to the Baptist Church. She agreed that we are overpopulating the earth. She admitted her children will probably never live a full life. But she quickly explained a • This phrase mirrors the pedagogical philosophy of the Communist leader Nikolai Lenin as noted on page 142.

157 nuclear holocaust was inevitable, signaling the end of the world as prophesied in the Bible. Though she believed nothing could be done to reverse man's destiny, she claimed, by giving birth to her children, she was responsible for their opportunity to share a life with God. She exclaimed, "The reward for a few years of suffering on earth is eternal life in heaven." This convoluted "reasoning" is truly frightening, and if it is indicative of the thinking of the majority of women, it will seal the doom of human life on this planet. Perhaps the destiny of human life is extinction. Maybe all life has a beginning and an end. The dinosaurs ruled the planet for over 125 million years, yet the last one died over 65 million years ago, and all that remains of their legacy of domination and power is their bones. Man, even with his extraordinary capacity for intellectual thought, may be destined for a similar fate. A tombstone in a graveyard in Essex, England dated 1440 bears the following prophetic inscription: When pictures look alive with movement free When ships, like fishes swim beneath the sea When men outstripping birds shall scan the sky Then half the world deep drenched in blood shall lie. 26 If man is allowed to continue on his present course of destruction, Armageddon or Jihad (the final religious war culminating in human annihilation) may well become a selffulfilling prophesy. Albert Einstein made his own prophesy when he warned:

I don't know about World War III, but in World War IV, we'll all be throwing rocks. 7

Any hope humanity has for survival lies with woman. The Chinese men who created the philosophy of Yin and Yang (mentioned in Chapter 1) accurately described a posi-

158 tive and a negative force in nature, but they inaccurately labelled those forces. In truth, the creative, life-giving, positive force is woman, not man; the negative, destructive force is man, not woman. Only woman can harness the destructive force of man. Only woman can save man from himself and protect human life from extinction. As Madame Marquise de Maintenon (Francoise d' Aubigne, 16351719), the commoner wife of King Louis the XIV of France, once said, "Woman is the eternal savior of man."6 When attempting to change the male-dominated societies of the world, every woman must decide what degree of involvement is comfortable for her. It may include joining environmental groups, refraining from purchasing products which damage the environment, recycling, voting for environmentalists in elections, writing letters to politicians, networking with friends, participating in political demonstrations, or even running for a political office. Women must choose between meekly following men down the path of destruction and human extinction or leading them, and their children, to human survival. Most male religious and governmental leaders would agree with L. Ron Hubbard's (1911-1986) assessment of a woman's place in society. The American author of Dianetics and the founder of the Church of Scientology voiced a common male belief when he warned:

A society in which women are taught anything but the management of a family, the care of men, and the creation of the future generation is a society which is on the way out. 16 Disguised in, and the force behind, Hubbard's statement is "man's greatest fear," specifically that woman will emerge from the cocoon of male domination and take control of her own destiny, thus eroding his power. In doing so, she will turn Hubbard's fear into a prophesy; the male's propensity

159 for war, destruction, and human suffering will indeed be "on the way out." As the Canadian physician Augusta StoweGullen {1857 -1943} explained: When women have a voice in national and international affairs, war will cease forever. 16

The Columbian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez described his assessment of humanity's only path for survival in a special issue of Time magazine (Fall 1992): The only new idea that could save humanity in the 21st century is for women to take over the management of the world. I believe that male hegemony has squandered an opportunity of 10,000 years. . . . The masculine power structure has proved that it cannot impede the destruction of the environment, because it is incapable of overcoming its own interests. For women, on the other hand, preservation of the environment is a genetic vocation. The reversal ofpowers is a matter of life or death.

Humanity is running out of time to save itself from certain extinction. The multitude of immense problems brought about by man's selfishness must be confronted, and the appropriate sacrifices made, by this generation to save the next. E very time I hug and kiss my child, nieces, and nephews, I feel the warmth of their spirit and see innocence and trust in their eyes. They have no thought or concept of the future, they just know that I love them. They trust me completely to take care of them. I am reminded of the wisdom of the Old Pennsylvania Dutch saying: We don't inherit the earth from our ancestors, We borrow it from our children. 36

To protect and care for our children we must realize the future is now. Please get involved today. Eleanor Roosevelt

160 (1884-1962), wife of the 32nd President of the United States, once advised: It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. /6 You have just read my "candle."

161

ORGANIZATIONS TO JOIN: Greenpeace USA, Inc. 1436 U Street, N.W. P.O. Box 96128 Washington, D.C. 20090 202-462-1177 Zero Population Growth 1400 Sixteenth Street, N.W., Suite 320 Washington, D.C. 20036 202-332-2200 Natural Resources Defense Council 40 West 20th St. New York, New York 10011 212-727-2700 The Nature Conservancy 1815 North Lynn St. Arlington, Virginia 22209 703-841-5300 Association of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics P.O. Box 11615 Eugene, Oregon 97440 503-484-2692 Common Cause 2030 M Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036 202-833-1200

162 Environmental Defense Fund 257 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010 212-505-2100 Rainforest Action Network 450 Sansome, Suite 700 San Francisco, California 94111 415-398-4404 League of Conservation Voters 1707 L Street, N.W., Suite 550 Washington, D.C. 20036 202-785-8683 The Wilderness Society 900 Seventeenth Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20006 202-833-2300 Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund 180 Montgomery Street, Suite 1400 San Francisco, Calif. 94104-4209 415-627-6700 Friends of the Earth 1025 Vermont Ave., N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 202-783-7400 Center for Marine Conservation 1725 DeSales Street, N.W., Suite 500 Washington, D.C. 20036 202-429-5609

163 Defenders of Wildlife 1101 Fourteenth Street, N.W., Suite 1400 Washington, D.C. 20005 202-682-9400 American Oceans Campaign 725 Arizona Ave., Suite 102 Santa Monica, Calif. 90401 310-576-6162 The Cousteau Society 930 West 21st. Street Norfolk, VA 23517 804-523-9335 National Abortion Rights Action League 1156 15th Street, N.W., Suite 700 Washington, D.C. 20005 202-973-3000 International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War 126 Rogers Street Cambridge, MA 02142 617 -868-5050 Union of Concerned Scientists 26 Church St. Cambridge, MA 02238 202-332-0900 Population Communications International 777 United Nations Plaza, Suite 7C New York, NY 10164-0154 212-687-3366

APPENDIX A

Battered Women Self-professed Arab sadists brag of wife beatings

By Nabil Megalli Deutsche Presse-Agentur MANAMA, Bahrain - "When she starts arguing with me, I take off the chord around my headdress, drag her by the hair and whip her senseless," an Arab husband bragged publicly in Kuwait. "This is the only way to treat a woman so that she does not imagine she is in the saddle," said another. "And, frankly, there is not a lovelier sight than a woman in pain. It brings me so much pleasure that I sometimes beat her for no reason at all. " "It asserts my manhood, and if she doesn't like it, the door is big enough to let a camel out," said a third. The astounding confessions were recently published by the Kuwaiti newspaper AI-Anbaa as concerned social care organizations began to shed light on the problem of battered Arab wives. The husbands quoted in the AI-Anbaa article spoke on the condition they not be identified. "I have been involved with a group of women who suffer excruciatingly from constant beatings that go to the extent of bone breaking," says Fatouh AI-Waitian, one of the few Kuwaiti women who practice law. The phenomenon is by no means uncommon, and Kuwait is not unique among Arab countries. In some countries the

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165 problem is publicly ignored while in others, such as the United Arab Emirates, concerned groups have started Battered Anonymous meetings through the press to encourage victims to come out and seek help. AI-Waitian believes that the husband , not the wife, is the one in need of professional help. "A real man never beats up his wife," she stated. "Most of the cases that have come to my attention involve abnormal individuals - alcohol and drug addicts and psychopaths." But the self-professed sadists included a wide crosssection of society, among them a well-known physician noted for demure social manners who told a female reporter: "A husband must show his wife who is boss from the very beginning. If I tell her red is blue and she disagrees, she is in big trouble ." He compares his lot with that of other associates "who envy me because they did not do this and now their wives dominate them." "I know it is wrong and I am crazily in love with my wife, but I can't help myself," admits a senior government employee. "I just love to torture her, and I shall keep on doing it even when I am too old to walk." "I started two months after our marriage and it has been nine years now. She has been to the hospital several times, but she always comes back because of the children." Some battered wives stay with their husbands for the sake of their children. There also is the law to contend with. Many countries still have family laws that allow such practices as forced conjugal cohabitation. Also, the laws in many Arab countries provide for lengthy litigations before even meager alimony is paid. In theory, a woman may be granted divorce if the husband inflicts severe bodily harm. But that is difficult to prove, and many of the victims are virtually under lock and key in their own homes. "She has a strict code to observe," said a man who admitted to having once broken his wife's hand. ''Never go out

166 of the house, never talk with the neighbors, and never open the door to anybody including your own mother." "Islam is clear: The husband must first discipline his wife by argument and then by not sleeping with her," said Ajeel An-Nashmi, assistant dean at Kuwait University's faculty of Sharia (Islamic jurisprudence). "Beating is the last resort, and it must not be severe. In fact, Islam says the beating should be withmiswak (a straw)," An-Nashmi said. "When I get angry, I use anything within reach, an ashtray, a chair or even a side-table," said one husband. "Frankly, both me and my wife love the beatings, and that's that," said a secondary schoolteacher who asserts that women are "attracted by nature to rough and cruel men." Individual abnormalities aside, psychologists theorize that wife beatings reflect feelings of inadequacy in the husband and may be the result of residual conflicts that harken back to the early epochs of human evolution. "It is not uncommon to find sadomasochism," said one psychiatrist who requested anonymity. "But I am afraid what we are talking about is a tragedy of perpetual suffering which the law is doing nothing about. "To the few husbands who venture to seek treatment, I start with a simple question: Do you really believe any human being - male or female - would enjoy having their bones broken? It is just like the Western pornographic culture, which tries to insinuate that women enjoy being raped." The psychiatrist said he believes the phenomenon of battered wives may be less common in the Arab world, where family ties are generally regarded as being much stronger than in the West. But the Arab woman is less likely to seek or be able to get help.

San Jose Mercury News December 19, 1985

APPENDIX A

AWORLDOF ABUSE By Lori Heise Violence against women-including assault, mutilation, murder, infanticide, rape and cruel neglect-is perhaps the most pervasive yet least recognized human rights abuse in the world. Despite the problem's invisibility, its dimensions are vast. In Bangkok, Thailand, a reported 50 percent of married women are beaten regularly by their husbands. In the barrios of Quito, Ecuador, 80 percent of women have been physically abused. And in Nicaragua, 44 percent of men admit beating their wives or girlfriends. Equally shocking statistics can be found in the industrial world. Then there are the less recognized forms of violence: In Nepal, female babies die from neglect because parents value sons over daughters. In Sudan, girls' genitals are mutilated to ensure virginity until marriage. In India, young brides are murdered by their husbands when parents fail to provide enough dowry. This is not random violence. The risk factor is being female. I never set out to investigate violence; I was researching maternal and child health issues with scores of village women throughout the world. I would commonly begin my interviews with a simple question: What is your biggest problem? With unnerving frequency, the answer came back: My husband beats me.

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168 More than simply a "women's issue," this violence could thwart widely held goals for human progress in the Third World, such as controlling fertility and improving child survival. Study after study has shown that maternal education is the single most effective way to reduce child mortality, because it erodes fatalism, improves self-confidence and changes the power balance within the family. In effect, these studies say that a woman's sense of self is critical to reducing infant mortality. Yet acts of violence and society's tacit acceptance of them stand as constant reminders to women of their low worth. The Indian subcontinent is home to one of the most pernicious forms of wife abuse, "dowry deaths." Increasingly, dowry is being seen as a "get rich quick" scheme by prospective husbands, with young brides suffering severe abuse as promised money or goods do not materialize. In its most severe form, dowry harassment ends in suicide or murder. Elsewhere in the world, the marriage transaction is reversed, with prospective husbands paying "bridewealth" to secure a woman's hand in marriage. In many culturesespecially in Africa-the exchange has become so commercialized that inflated bridewealth leaves the man with the distinct impression that he has "purchased" his wife. It is this unequal power balance-institutionalized in the structure of the patriarchal family-that is at the root of wife beating. While stress and alcohol may increase the likelihood of violence, they do not "cause" it. Rather, it is the belief that violence is an acceptable way to resolve conflict, and that women are appropriate and safe targets for abuse, that leads to battering. Violence against women cuts across all cultures and all socioeconomic groups. In the United States, a woman is beaten every 15 seconds, and each day four women are killed by their as saulters.

169 Today's cultures have strong historical, religious and legal legacies that reinforce the legitimacy of wife beating. Under English common law, for example, a husband had the legal right to discipline his wife-subject to a "rule of thumb" that barred him from using a stick broader than his thumb. Judicial decisions in England and the United States upheld this right until well into the 19th century. ANew York judge recently let off with only five years' probation a Chinese immigrant who admitted bludgeoning his wife to death. The judge justified the light sentence partly by reference to traditional Chinese attitudes toward female adultery. The preference for male offspring in many cultures, while less overt, can be as damaging and potentially fatal to females as rape or assault. The same sentiment that once motivated infanticide is now expressed in the systematic neglect of daughters. In some countries girls aged 2 to 4 die at nearly twice the rate of boys. "Let it be late, but let it be a son," goes a saying in Nepal, a country that shares its strong preference for male children with the rest of the Indian subcontinent, as well as China, South Korea and Taiwan. In these cultures, sons are highly valued because only they can perpetuate the family line and perform certain religious rituals. Even more important, sons represent an economic asset to the family and a source of security for parents in their old age. Studies confirm that where the preference for sons is strong, girls receive inferior medical care and education, and less food. In Punjab, India, for example, parents spend more than twice as much on medical care for boy infants as for girls. In parts of Africa and the Middle East, young girls suffer another form of violence, euphemistically known as female circumcision. More accurately, this operation-which removes all or part of the external female genitalia, including the clitoris-is a life -threatening form of mutilation. According to the World Health Organization, more than 80 million women have undergone sexual surgery in Africa alone.

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Women have not sat idle in the face of such abuse. Around the world they are organizing shelters, lobbying for legal reform and fighting the sexism that underlies violence. In San Juan de Miraflores, a shantytown of Lima, Peru, women carry whistles that they use to summon other women in case of attack. Most industrial countries and at least a dozen developing nations now have shelter movements to provide refuge for abused women and their children. Brazil has established almost 30 all-female police stations for victims of rape , battering, and incest. And in Africa, women are organizing education campaigns to combat sexual surgery. Violence persists in part because it is hidden. If governments and women's groups can expose violence through surveys and better documentation, then ignorance will no longer be an excuse for inaction. Also critical is challenging the legal framework that undergirds male violence , such as unequal inheritance, discriminatory family laws and a husband's right to chastise. E specially important are the social inequities and cultural beliefs that leave women economically dependent on men. As long as women must marry to survive, they will do whatever they must to secure a husband-including tolerating abuse and submitting themselves and their daughters to sexual surgery.

Lori Heise wrote this expose while working as a senior researcher at World watch Institute. This article is adapted from one appearing in World Watch magazine. Currently, Lori Heise is the co-director of the Health and Development Policy Project in Takoma Park, Maryland. This World magazine, San Fra ncisco Chronicle, July 2, 1989

Appendix A

THE HIGH PRICE OF MARRIAGE IN INDIA-BURNING BRIDES By Nikki Lastreto with William Winans Police Constable Raman, the father of five daughters in the hamlet of Neyyarathode in Southwest India, had just finished paying 35,000 rupees ($2,400) to arrange for a husband for his eldest. Though dowry represented a fortune for a man of his profession, the young man demanded still more. The bride's four sisters, realizing that no family funds would remain to "buy" their husbands and worried by the burden their marriages would place on their parents, decided to hang themselves. Santha was 24, Sumathi 21, Kanakalatha 19 and Sasikala 17. The suicide note they left on November 4 of last year read: "Our parents are yet to pay fully the dowry for our sister, who was married some time ago. Having sold our land and gold for this marriage, we are not sure whether they will be able to provide anything for our marriages. Hence the decision to end our lives." When the parents of Rani, an 18-year-old woman from a resettlement colony near New Delhi, failed to deliver a suf-

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172 ficient dowry for her marriage, her husband's family tried to kill her by setting her afire. After suffering burns on 60 percent of her body, she barely survived. She is now horribly disfigured and faces the life of an outcast. Rani's misery continues, for she is tormented by constant threats from her husband and his parents, who live across the road from her family home. Dowry deaths-murders, and suicides provoked by physical and mental torture-are on the rise in India. In a country that remains a curious melange of the medieval and modern, certain ancient customs refuse to die. Child marriage, female infanticide and even sati, or suttee- in which a Hindu widow throws herself on her husband's funeral pyreall continue clandestinely. But the prevalent injustice, which can destroy entire families, is the increasingly common abuse of the dowry system. The term "dowry death" has only recently been included in the Indian Penal Code.Itis defined as the death of a woman caused by burns or other-than-normal circumstances within seven years of marriage, and in which the death has been preceded by dowry-related harassment. The offense is punishable by a prison term of at least seven years and a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Gruesome reports of such murders appear almost daily in local newspapers, but convictions are infrequent. Police records in the southern state of Tamil Nadu indicate an annual increase in dowry deaths by as much as 50 percent. Reported figures from North India are even higher. According to Gobinda Mukhoty, president of the People's Union of Democratic Rights, 72,000 brides in the 15-to-20-yearold age group have been burned in India over the last 41 years. But even this figure seems low. Statistics made available by two hospitals in the modern city of Bangalore show that young, newly married and often pregnant women constitute a shocking 40 to 80 percent of all burn cases treated. The

173 city's Government Victoria Hospital alone handled 1,200 cases in 1988. Celine Suguna, a member of Vimochana, a women's liberation group centered in Bangalore, recently accompanied an angry mother to the hospital to see her burned daughter firsthand. The mother hoped Suguna could get her daughter to tell her before she died whether she had been a suicide or a murder victim. The charred daughter refused to blame anyone but herself. "The girls won't call it murder in fear of disgracing the families involved. They figure they will die anyway," said Suguna. "Whether she killed herself or was burned by her husband and his family, it's still murder. She's killing herself to escape them." At the hospital that day were nine young women between the ages of 16 and 25 suffering from burns, labeled victims of "attempted suicide." The lucky ones died quickly. All nine eventually succumbed, one lasting an excruciating 19 days. Victims are interviewed when possible, but few will reveal what really happened. "Most of us prefer to be quiet about domestic violence," said Geeta Ramaseshan, an attorney who has dealt extensively with dowry and harassment cases. "Most Indians feel the pain should be tolerated and that it is the women who should change and adjust." A Vimochana study documenting the recent increase of dowry deaths showed that burning was the method of choice. Since most women cook over open flames on kerosene stoves, the crime is easiest disguised as a cooking accident. Women are also strangled, thrown down wells or even tied to train tracks. "When police do conduct interrogations, they ask how it happened, not why," said Suguna. "The how is obvious, but the why is the real answer to their question." Mohandas K. Gandhi, the saintly founding father of modern India who preached nonviolence, condemned the dowry system vehemently. "Any young man who makes

174 dowry a condition for marriage discredits his education and his country and dishonors womanhood. Young men who gild their fingers with such ill-gotten gold should be excommunicated from society," he proclaimed. But the strong patriarchal tradition of India-where a woman is still basically viewed as a liability, or at best a domestic child-bearing work unit-and a growing lust for material possessions account for exorbitant dowry demands. Young men, fueled by the greed of their families, ask for more and more in exchange for taking a bride into their homes. Though this feudal practice is officially illegal, the Central Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961 remains an inadequate measure. The minimum penalty for accepting dowry or for abetting the offense was increased in 1986 from a sixmonth term to a five-year sentence plus a fine of 15,000 rupees ($1,000). But the act is rarely enforced. Since dowry transactions are done in private, generally between the respective fathers, and either party's reporting the offense would terminate the marriage alliance, detection is virtually impossible. While few dowry deals are admitted, the majority of middle-class Hindu and Christian households are the result of arranged marriages involving a dowry. In fact, middle-class families are the worst offenders of the dowry system. The very poorest citizens, the "untouchables," scrape together only enough money to survive from day to day. At the end of the scale, the very rich claim to be above this old-fashioned custom, though some admit that extravagant gifts presented to the couple and ostentatious marriage celebrations costing hundreds of thousands of dollars are forms of dowry. Whatever the family's class, having a daughter in India is going to cost it a great deal of money. In Indian households, joyous celebrations are held to mark the birth of a son. A son is more than an heir to the family name. He ensures increased wealth and growth in the family, because his wife and children will one day live with his parents and provide for them in their old age.

175 A daughter, on the other hand, represents another mouth to feed, a dowry to pay and no security, since she will eventually leave her parents for her husband's home. To avoid the burden, families occasionally kill a female baby. But increasingly popular among those who can afford it is the use of amniocentesis to determine the sex of the fetus. In a recent survey of 8,000 women who had aborted after undergoing amniocentesis, 7,999 were carrying female fetuses. The only exception was a Jewish mother who wanted a daughter. The childhood of an Indian girl is short-lived. Many girls are pulled out of school and sent to earn a wage instead, in part to save for their impending dowries. The number of girls who finish primary school is dropping-down to 33.98 percent in 1981 from 38.22 percent in 1971. Studies show that adolescent Indian girls would prefer to continue their schooling and marry after 18, but many have no chance to do so. According to 1980 census figures, 44 percent of all Indian marriages are of young women between 15 and 18. In poorest classes, the average age is even lower. Generally, the marital match is arranged by the two fathers involved. Sometimes a father hires a matchmaker; sometimes the father chooses the son or daughter of an acquaintance. Next, the astrological horoscopes are compared to determine a favorable match. If the stars are in agreement, the rest of the family is consulted and the bargaining begins. In modern middle -class Indian families it is common for the couple to meet, briefly, before the ceremony. Suhrita Paul, a bright and attractive 20-year-old medical student from Calcutta, explained how she will be married. "My father will arrange a suitable match for me, a boy who is of our caste and hopefully will also be involved in medicine. Of course I'll get to meet him first, at least once," she stated proudly. "The first marriage ceremony will last for three or four days. During this time a natural love develops

176 between the boy and the girl so that the first night together is not so frightening," she said with a blush. Yet Suhrita shares the common fear of many young Indian women: Will the groom and his family accept me? "Boys look for girls who are slim and fair," she said, sighing and glancing at her chocolate skin, still a bit pudgy with baby fat. "If a girl's complexion is too dark, he'll not marry her. Some girls are never chosen, and this hurts very much, but Indian women are used to being hurt." When the common methods of matchmaking fail, some families resort to classified advertisements in the newspapers. They do not specifically mention the banned dowry, but promise a "decent marriage" or request a bride from "a family of high status," giving a clue that costs will be involved. Matrimonial advertisements are otherwise blatant, requesting specific castes, employment, height, weight and, of course, religion. An example: "Hindu forward caste, 34, 172cmc, professional postgraduate service lecturer, invites girl below 25, fair, employment and of like caste. Apply with horoscope." Once the proper spouse is found, the families begin to haggle over price. The father of the groom will expound on his son's many qualifications while specifying acceptable gifts. Besides cash, demands are generally for gold jewelry, household appliances, new saris for women, a motor scooter for the groom-and, of course, a lavish wedding. In a country where the average lower-middle-class annual income is 18,000 rupees (1,200),itcan take a family many years to acquire such a dowry. Insurance companies now offer marriage policies, and many banks now encourage investment schemes to save for dowry. A recent bank advertisement read: "Save for your son's education and your daughter's dowry." But the average Indian is unable to take advantage of investment packages. In the words of one young woman, "In a poor family a man may have to quit his job to collect his

177 pension early and sell his insurance policies to pay for his daughter's dowry. Then once she is married he is left with no money, no job and no daughter. A father wants the best for his daughter, but the standards are too high." Yet the tradition sets the standards. In the Ramayana, a great epic of Hindu culture, Sita, the idealized wife of Lord Rama, is delivered to her husband with a dowry of "a hundred thousand cows, woolen cloths, countless silk robes and richly decorated elephants, horses and chariots ... male and female attendants, numberless gold coins with quanities of pearls and coral." Of course, not all marriage prices are this steep, but to an average man they may as well be. The cost of the dowry is based on the estimated lifetime earning potential of the groom, which is dependent upon his education and family's socioeconomic status. In a film on dowry recently shown on the staterun television network, Nalini Singh interviewed young men in a Haryana college. They talked proudly about the price they will demand when they marry. Commensurate with the jobs they get upon graduation, they each hope for at least 60,000. Singh also visited the bridegroom's auction in the state of Bihar, where fathers come to purchase husbands for their daughters. A government officer from the Ministry of Women's Mfairs candidly admitted that an officer in the Indian Army is worth a steep 75lakhs ($500,000). At the other end of the price scale, Govinda Lal, a lowerclass bicycle rickshaw driver in the seaside town of Puri, expects only 1,000 rupees ($66) from his bride. "I have no education, no good job." Before Lal may marry, however, he must help his father raise the funds for his sister's marriage: 7,000 rupees ($465), plus a new sari for the bride, a bicycle rickshaw for her new husband, gold jewelry and a wedding feast. By buying her a pricier husband, Lal and his father hope to ensure her a comfortable future. The Skandapurana, a sacred text of Hinduism, teaches that "a wife should take her meals after her husband ... sleep

178 after he sleeps. If he assaults her, she should not lose her temper. If she has to offer a suggestion, she should say, 'Sir, this looks advisable but do what you think is right.' She should never sit in an elevated place and never look angrily at her husband. She should wash his feet, shampoo him, fan · " h1m. Many Indian men take this quite literally. Narayana Swamy, 44, the chief prosecutor in the county seat of Hassan on the dry and rural Deccan plateau, recently displayed a modern Indian male's view. While Swamy's wife unobtrusively prepared dinner over a kerosene stove on the kitchen floor, her husband alone shared the evening meal with guests. "The women are the first to rise, before daybreak, to tend the cows and start the fire s," said S wamy. "They work all day, feed their families, eat the leftovers and are the last to go to sleep. Yet Indian women are at peace," he stated matterof-factly. "They find their happiness through serving their husband and family." For some women, however, this servitude becomes a nightmare. A new wife, brought to her husband's home, is plunged into the constant company of his mother and sisters, who often submit her to a difficult hazing period. She will need to prove her unwavering loyalty to her new family by uncomplaining hard work and devotion. The husband's mother is often the cause of the ensuing familial friction. Having been subjected to similar harassment as a young bride, she seeks a sort of revenge on her new daughter-in-law by imposing heavy chores and verbal abuse on the young woman. It is often the mother-in-law who instigates further dowry demands, sometimes several years after the wedding. If suddenly the mother decides she must have a new refrigerator just like her neighbor's, or her unemployed son wants a motor scooter so he can look cool and Western, the wife and her parents may be expected to pay the price. No matter how high a dowry was paid at the time of the marriage,

179 the pressure oflater demands can drive the bride's family into even deeper debt. If they fail to raise the funds, they risk a loss of face as well as a life of terrible harassment for their daughter. Very few women in India actually protest this inhumane treatment, and divorce is not a viable option. A divorcee has no social status, and her chances of remarrying are very slim. A daughter who has left her husband brings shame upon both families and often will not be accepted back into her parents' home, leaving her penniless and with few marketable skills. Even a working wife will find it almost impossible to save funds for a divorce, since her in-laws make her turn her income over to them -precisely to prevent her from seeking a divorce. Nirmala Lakshman, assistant editor of The Hindu, South India's largest-circulation newspaper, has great concern for the working wives of India. "They are often farmed out to work," she said, "and their earnings are seized by husbands and in-laws who unhesitatingly take charge of the household finances. These women remain hopeless prisoners of an overbearing social tradition that views women as less than human." The Corps of Detectives of the Bangalore Police Department had taken up only 187 cases of dowry death in the last four years, according to the newspaper Indian Express. Of these, 81 are under investigation, 83 are on trial and 15 have been dismissed. Six were acquitted and a mere two cases have ended in conviction. The lack of in-depth investigation by the police and the underutilization of forensic specialists in death cases combine to cover up crucial evidence that could lead to prosecutions. There are numerous reasons the police are often remiss in their investigations of dowry deaths. The difficulty of assembling enough evidence for conviction of an ancient social custom and common bribery are the most prevalent. In the ancient Hindu city of Madurai, police last autumn arrested three members of a family in connection with the

180 suicide of a married woman who had thrown her 8-month-old child into a well and then jumped in herself. It was later revealed, after thorough investigation, that Amala Selvarani, 20, had been repeatedly harassed for further dowry and in desperation had committed suicide. (Often a mother would rather kill her baby than leave it to be tormented by her in-laws and husband, whose next wife may be jealous of the child.) Police arrested Selvarani's father-inlaw, brother-in-law and uncle and are still searching for the guilty husband. Amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code have made it technically possible to convict men or relatives for abetment to suicide and/or harassment. If a woman commits suicide within seven months of her marriage, and if it is proven she has been subjected to cruelty, the court may assume abetment to suicide. But legal action remains rare. Nonetheless, a few champions of women's rights are attempting to make a difference. In response to a recent bride burning in the old section of Delhi, angry wives paraded through the streets chanting "Women Are Not For Burning." Their neighbor, a young wife of 24, had been set on fire by her mother-in-law as she watched television in her family's home. The bride's only crime against her husband was failing to provide more money to help his spare parts business; she had already paid a large dowry when they married. Many societies subjugate women, but in very few would families murder young wives over a few thousand rupees. The subservient role women have played throughout Indian history has led them to lack the self-esteem to defend their rights. Other than a small number of women's liberationists and a few movie stars, there are virtually no alternative female role models among the women of India. A woman is simply expected to marry, bear sons and serve her husband, as her mother did before her. Independence is not an option in a country where equal pay for women is not recognized and job opportunities are

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minimal. Spinsters , divorcees and even widows are socially unacceptable, there is virtually no place for a single woman in Indian society. Amrita Pritam, a radical poet from the Punjab, summed up the state of marriage in India this way: "Today a man and a woman sleep on a bed of bondage rather than freedom. Man and woman have both failed each other, become slaves to a nature which is not their own but groomed by decadent rituals."

Nikki Lastreto is a freelance writer. She and her photographer husband, William Winans, are currently living in India and completing a book on Indian culture. This World magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, July 2, 1989

APPENDIXB

INTERPRETATION OF THE "BIRD WOMAN" DRAWING Before interpreting this drawing, we must first make note of what we see. We observe a small bird's head attached to an exceedingly shapely, nude, female body. The eyes are very large, half-opened, and blue. The beak is long, pointed, and dented. A protrusion is visible on the back of the head. The neck is muscular and tense. The breasts are exceptionally large and round with red, protruding nipples. The navel is missing. The genitalia, covered by a very small, black garment, is the only clothed area. The knees are together, so close that the legs are partially crossed. The arm appears short and muscular. The fingers have pointed nails painted yellow. The toes are not showing, itseems the artistranoutof space. The whole body is lightly shaded in black. An interpretation of this drawing could be as follows: by drawing an atrocious-looking bird head atop a voluptuous female body, the artist is expressing a paradox. Basically, he views women as attractive and potentially nourishing, while simultaneously finding them revolting and dangerous. Thus, this drawing suggests an overriding theme of conflict in this man's relationship with women. This conflict probably began developing in his relationship with the first woman he knew his mother. The large eyes represent his perception of woman's (probably his mother's) ability to see all of his behavior when he was a child. The eyes are one of only three colored areas on

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183 the drawing (the addition of color adds emphasis and thus importance to those areas.) The eyes are half-closed, representing a lack of interest or concern exhibited by his mother, and women in general, for the artist. The dark blue color makes the eyes appear emotionally cold and apathetic. The small cranium suggests he sees women as possessing a small brain, in other words, not very intelligent. The long, pointed beak may indicate the artist views woman as dangerous, perhaps verbally in the sense of "henpecking," or even physically because of the maternal rejection and/or abuse he probably suffered as a child. The long, sharp beak can also be interpreted to signify potential danger in the form of castration, not in the literal sense of the word, but in terms of woman's power to verbally denigrate the artist's self-respect. It is significant that the beak is dented. As a phallic symbol, it suggests feelings of sexual inadequacy or even impotence on the part ofthe artist. This man probably possesses little selfconfidence and self-respect and very likely feels inferior to others. He may encounter anxiety and frustration in his social interactions, especially with women. The emphasis on making the neck muscular symbolizes a constant and conscious effort to stifle and control certain powerful biological impulses. Impulses, such as the need and simultaneous hostility for women, are recognized as dangerous by the artist and may find a degree of expression in his fantasy life and artwork. The breasts in the drawing are exceptionally large with bright red, protruding nipples. Breasts can be interpreted to signify emotional nourishment. In suckling a mother's breast, an infant receives gentle touch, affection, and emotional security, as well as life-sustaining milk. The disproportionately large breasts on this drawing suggest the artist harbors an intense and unfulfilled need for emotional nourishment that has not been satisfied by a loving mother and women in general. The absence of the navel, likewise, suggests the lack of a loving relationship between the artist and his mother. With

184 this omission he also seems to be saying, "My life is a mistake. I'm not wanted. I'm sorry I was ever born." Though the whole body is shaded, the genital area, shrouded with heavy black shading, is the only area covered on the body. Black indicates anxiety and depression,feelings in the artist which are intensified in the genital area. While he probably desires sexual interaction with a woman, this need seems to stimulate corresponding feelings of fear of rejection and despair within him. Similarly, the artist has lightly shaded the whole body. Again, this suggests anxiety and depression at the sight or even the thought of a woman. In short, this man's great need for woman is only surpassed by his fear of her. Drawing her knees overlapping one another suggests additional fear of female sexual rejection. A woman who loves and wants to "make love" with a man will spread her legs and arms in welcome. This man sees women as beautifully alluring while simultaneously rej ecting and totally disinterested in him and his needs. The relatively short arm represents a lack of ambition and social striving in the artist, probably because of his feelings of inferiority. The large muscles in the arm may represent his mother's power, and the power of women in general, to push him away. The yellow, sharp fingernails suggest hostility and potential danger. The artist sees hostility in women and believes that it is being directed towards him. In truth, however, this man is projecting his own hostility for women onto them, thus distorting his perception of them. When considering his hostility for women and the potential for him to act out his aggressive impulses, it is significant to note that if the protrusion at the back of the head is interpreted as a handle, then the beak becomes the long sharp blade of a knife. Since the toes are missing, it appears that the artist ran out of space. This is not an example of poor planning. Rather the oversized drawing indicates frustration caused by the artist's inability to resolve his emotional conflict.

REFERENCES 1. See appendix A for the newspaper article entitled, "The High Price of Marriage in India - Burning Brides," by Nikki Lastreto and William Winans, from the San Francisco Chronicle, This World magazine, July 2, 1989. 2. Time magazine special issue entitled, "Women: The Road Ahead." Fall 1990. 3. San Jose Mercury News, July 30, 1989. 4. Life magazine article entitled "The Woman Problem," by Richard Gilman, August 13, 1971. 5. The Heart of the Dragon, by Alasdair Clayre. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1984. 6. Living Biographies of Famous Women, by Henry and Dana Lee Thomas. New York: Garden City Publishing Co., 1942. 7. The Great Quotations, compiled by George Seldes. New York: Pocket Books, 1970. 8. Hitler Close-up, by Henry Picker. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co, 1969. 9. "The International Crime of Genital Mutilation" by Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan, from the book, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1983. 10. French Wit and Wisdom, Mt Vernon, New York: The Peter Pauper Press, 1950. 11. Book of Familiar Quotations. New York: Universal Publishing Corporation, 1970. 12. Papa - A Personal 'Memoir, by Gregory H. Hemingway. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1976. 13. The San Francisco Chronicle, by L.M. Boyd, April 24, 1994. 14. People magazine, April 3, 1989. Quoted from the London Daily Mail. 15 . National Geographic magazine, September, 1989. "Retracing the First Crusade" by Tim Severin. 16. Peter's Quotations, by Dr. Laurence Peter. New York: William Morrow and Co., 1977. 17 . Living Biographies of Famous Rulers, by Henry Thomas and Dana Lee Thomas. New York: Garden City Publishing Co., 1940. 18. "The Golden Age That Never Was ," by Jared Diamond. Discover magazine, December, 1988. 19. Beyond Power, by Marilyn French. New York: Ballantine Books , 1985. 20. 60 Minutes television show entitled, "Saint Peter's Banker," presented on June 10, 1990. CBS News, produced by Jeanne Solomon Langley. Executive Producer, Don Hewitt. 21. Common Cause Magazine, June, 1991. 22. Final Entries 1945, The Diaries of Joseph Goebbels, edited by Hugh TrevorRoper. New York: G.P. Putnam, 1978. 23. Rainforest Action Network newsletter, 1993.

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186 24. Perestroika -New Thinking for Our Country and the World, by Mikhail Gorbachev. New York: Harper and Row, 1987. 25. National Geographic magazine, June, 1986. "Bikini-A Way of Life Lost" by William S. Ellis. 26 . Nature's Mysteries, New York: Arco Co., 1972. 27. The Pursuit of Liberty, Volume one, by R. Jackson Wilson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984. 28. Rolling Stone magazine, May 3,1990. "Hall of Shame," edited by Robert Vare. 29. Best Quotations, by Lewis C. Henry. Conn: Fawcett Publications, 1955. 30. Living Biographies of Famous Philosophers, by Henry Thomas and Dana Lee Thomas. New York: Garden City Publishing Co., 1941. 31. Union of Concerned Scientists newsletters, 1992. 32. Calypso Log, the magazine of the Cousteau Society, 1991. 33. National Abortion Rights Action League newsletter, 1992. 34. Mount Vernon, A Handbook, by Charles C. Wall. The Mount Vernon Ladies Association, 1985. 35. Nice Guys Finish Seventh: False Phrases, Spurious Sayings and Familiar Misquotations, by Ralph Keyes. New York: Harper Collins, 1993. 36. The Home Book of Quotations, by Burton Stevenson. New York: Greenwich House, 1984. 37. International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War newsletters, 1993. 38. Legends, Lies, and Cherished Myths of American History, by Richard Shenkman. New York: William Morrow & Co., 1988. 39. "The Ecological Basis For Aztec Sacrifice" a paper by Michael Harner, 1975. 40. "Temple of the Aztecs" by Alfred Meyer. Science magazine, 1980. 41. Beyond Oil: The Threat to Food and Fuel in the Coming Decades by John Gever of the University of New Hampshire. New York: Ballinger, 1986. 42. "Sexy Secrets That Daddy Told Jackie," by Doris Lilly. San Francisco Chronicle, June 13, 1978. 43. The San Francisco Chronicle, by L.M. Boyd, June 6, 1986. 44. Barnes & Noble, Book of Quotations. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1986. 45. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, by John Bartlett. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1992. 46. Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel, The Library of Christian Classics, Volume XVIII. Edited by Theodore Tappert, D.O. Penn: The Westminster Press, 1955. 47. New York Times, August 17, 1980. 48. The Mongol Conquests, Time-Life Books. Virginia: Time-Life Books, 1989. 49. WAR documentary presented on public television. Produced by The National Film Board of Canada, 1983. 50. The Civil War documentary presented on public television. Produced by Ken Burns , 1991. 51. Common Cause Magazine, July, 1989. 52. The World Almanac and Book of Facts 1995. New Jersey: Funk & Wagnall Corp., 1995. 53 . In God's Name. by David A. Yallop. New York: Bantam Books, 1984. 54. Women's Encyclopedia of Health & Emotional Healing, by Denise Foley & Eileen Nechas. Emmaus, PA: Rodale Press, 1993. 55 . Television documentary about football on ESPN, produced by NFL films, 1992. 56. The New Encyclopedia Britannica, 1993. 57. From the motion picture Patton, 1970. 58. Money Talks, edited by Robert W. Kent. New York: Facts on File Publications, 1985. 59. The Old West. The Indians. Time-Life Books. New York: Time-Life Books, 1974.

Man has voiced his hostility for woman for centuries. This hostility is fueled by a subconscious fear which compels him to dominate her. Why is man afraid of woman? A Spaniel, a woman, a walnut tree, the more they're beaten, the better they be. AN OLD ENGLISH PROVERB

Submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. THE APOSTLE PAUL

... a wife should take her meals after her husband. .. sleep after he sleeps. If he assaults her, she should not lose her temper. ff she has to offer a suggestion, she should say, "Sir, this looks advisable but do what you think is right." She should never sit in an elevated place and never look angrily at her husband. She should wash his feet, shampoo him, fan him. SKANDAPURANA, THE SACRED TEXT OF HINDUISM

There is a good principle which has created order, light and man; and a bad principle which has created chaos, darkness and woman. THE GREEK PHILOSOPHER , PYTHAGORAS (? - 497 B . C.)

Nature intended women to be our slaves ... They are our property, we are not theirs ... They belong to us, just as a tree which bears fruit belongs to the gardener. What a mad idea to demand equality for women! ... Women are nothing but machines for producing children. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE-FRENCH EMPEROR (1769-1821)

511 .00>

" 9 7.809

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People ask me how many children I have, and I say one boy and seven mistakes. BOXER MUHAMMAD ALI IN 1985

$11.00 COVER DESIGN Amparo del Rio Printed on recycled paper