As some of you know I was sexually abused as an eight-year-old altar-boy for a number of years by a Catholic priest.
Last week – my life froze for two days, as I sat glued watching the US Supreme Court nomination hearings and their aftermath, where Christine Blasey-Ford outlined her accusations of attempted rape against the nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh.
I found her testimony moving, gripping, credible and I was frequently in tears.
And I found his angry, bitter, bullying, no-holds barred response traumatising as someone who had experienced sexual abuse.
I think this happened to 1000s if not millions of abused women and men across the world, who watched the proceedings.
He repeatedly refused to answer questions.
He repeatedly bullied and attacked the Democrat Senators questioning him politely.
He repeatedly resorted to partisan attacks and mockery of his interviewers.
I confess emotionally I could not watch all of his testimony – his raw brutal bullying aggression was too traumatising, after the Ford testimony opened up my childhood abuse wounds.
I am not a judge and am unable to say what happened in that room where the alleged attempted rape took place.
I do not have the results of a thorough investigation to make that judgement, as the men in charge of the process, President Trump and his White House lawyer Don McGann refused to allow even the accuser and accused to be interviewed.
And I recognise the importance of the presumption of innocence for those accused of sexual assault, until proven guilty.
But it was outrageous to then see the Republican President mock the alleged victim in front of his rally crowds and for them to cheer him on, proved that oligarchic populism can attack even the weakest victims in our society, in order to manipulate the population, in order to distract from the billions they are stealing from us and get away with it!
This whole traumatic political episode in US politics, reminded me that for almost all of human history, countries have been run by male, authoritarian, patriarchal, oligarchies, corruptly & often violently hijacking the wealth of the population for their gold-strewn palaces.
These patriarchal oligarchies have raped women, murdered their opponents, slaughtered gay men and women, beaten and abused children, launched devastating war after war, bulldozed nature, demonised immigrants, tortured prisoners and frequently manipulated patriarchal religious cults to divide and rule and to justify their cruel domination.
In other words, these male oligarchies are a threat to all of humanity and nature – men, women and children.
Here in the UK, Brexit is just another manifestation of this oligarchic power, led by Murdoch and Dacre, pulling the strings of their Farrage, Johnson, May puppets.
And the climate destroying climate crisis, inflicted by the male dominated fossil-fuel “industry” is the most devastating act of destruction and rape of our actual planet by this fearsome oligarchy in human history.
And as the UN General Secretary said in September, they are now literally threatening us with imminent potential human extinction, on top of unprecedented extinctions in nature.
As I gradually unfroze from the trauma of watching the Supreme Court hearings, I went back to organising next Saturday’s National Funeral for the Unknown Cyclist-Pedal on UK Parliament in London, which is taking on the genocidal motor industry manifestation of this oligarchic power.
After that I will be throwing my energy again into maximising the work of The Climate Media Coalition (CMC) , which works to get the corporate media to step up to its urgent responsibility to lead the demands for the radical action necessary for eliminating carbon emissions immediately.
Let’s all of us face up to this current reassertion of destructive patriarchal power in our own ways and ensure we love and heal ourselves as we do so.
Let’s ensure that this global eruption of fearsome dictatorial patriarchy is just a temporary reversal, a last desperate disgusting hurrah, before we move forward rapidly again, building on all the amazing advances of recent decades in women’s rights, gay rights, children’s rights, workers rights and most importantly nature’s rights.
And as we do so, let’s do so lovingly, remembering that the oppressors, so often have been oppressed themselves in some ways.
Without nature and a stable climate, there will be no humanity.
The time for action is now.
Yes You Can.
Yes We Can.
love
Donnachadh McCarthy x
PS if anybody would like a free ebook version of my book The Prostitute State – How Britain’s Democracy Has Been Bought, please email me on [email protected] and I will email it to you.
www.theprostitutestate.co.uk
