This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.

- Plato

I am just as much concerned with the poor victims on the rubber plantations of Putumayo, the Blacks in Africa with whose corpses the Europeans play catch...so many cries of anguish have faded away unheard, they resound within me so strongly that I have no special place in my heart for the [Jewish] ghetto. I feel at home in the entire world, wherever there are clouds and birds and human tears.

- Rosa Luxemburg, Letter to Mathilde Wurm, February 16, 1917, The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg

Were would the world be it had missed experiencing the “power” of the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, or the “mushroom cloud” warnings of Condi Rice or the “necessary measures”-in-Lybia and pro-sanctions advocacy of Susan Rice, and President Obama’s newly appointed National Security Advisor (NSA)?

It has been said by many historians and commentators that of all the political movements of the 1960s and early 1970s the women’s movement has had the longest-lasting impact on American society, on the world. More are in positions, as they say, of power.

Those with “power” are in power because the of most admired category on their “qualifying papers.” For a good number of women in the upper echelons of government, their “status” is that of “married,” whether not they have a partner in the household, because these women are married to power. Their status is in relation to their partnership with government. A Susan Rice, President Obama’s National Security Adviser (NSA), or a Samantha Power, Obama’s pick for UN Ambassadorship, are held as examples of the success of the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 60s and 70s.

It is no wonder that few commentators, including feminists, reflect not just on these individuals as women joined at the hip with a patriarchal and a tyrannical partner, but few have analyzed the contributions of women to the proliferation of tyranny.

And that may be the reason we are not seeing a general outrage from the American public, specifically from women as a collective, after the reports on US military abuses in Iraq or at Guantanamo, or after the recent revelations on the NSA spy program.

You do not have outrage from a nation of “free” women!

Protest in the streets is good for “poor” women in Iraq or Afghanistan, women whose faces are often concealed behind a veil. Protest is good for women in Africa or Haiti surrounded by ashen and big-bellied children. It is good for women confronting the brutality of brutish men in some “Third-world” nation. In the US, women are “free,” and as members of “the free world”, in this “democratic” society, women will continue to watch their collective fortunes rise on the backs of those “Third-world” women and their children.

There are lots of Lady Macbeths in the West - all married to the government’s patriarchal domestic and foreign policies - for the sake of the future - that is, specifically, the future of their children.
And these women are not only the Phyllis Schlaflys of the world, former opponent of the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s, now advocating a return to the tyranny of McCarthism, because, according to her, Senator Joe McCarthy “was a hero” (RightWingWatch.org, 2012).

No, there are plenty of American women for whom patriarchy is God’s order, the government is might and right. They help fatten their family’s bank accounts while other women, sisters, mothers, grandmothers, in their communities, other women in places where US drones fall, where US soldiers patrol, where big oil corporations control the puppet government, are forced to endure hardships for the sake of the safety and future of American children.

For God and country, women demand the right to go to war, to fight “the terrorism,” to destroy “the enemy” - and this is called progress!

The dehumanization of other human beings is becoming women’s specialty too. The suffering and daily deaths of other women’s children cannot warrant concern when the acquisition of a new car, a new lawn, a new wardrobe, and, above all else, an education at private institutions and eastern colleges and universities for the offspring. There is a need to stay ahead. Protect the future.
There are plenty of the liberal-minded women - sad about the poor, the drones, the US/corporate policies, sad about the tyranny - but would they dare speak of any other “power” but that of Master. Mostly “wrong,” certainly violent, Master is still Master, and for the sake of the children, these women follow the rules. They facilitate the bidding of the Master and pretend to be victims. Only as victims, reluctant participants, can these women justify themselves and young women remaining in such an abusive, tyrannical relationship.

For the future of the US Empire, contradictions among women are quite beneficial.

Women concede defeat. What other result could be expected once the Women’s Liberation Movement in the US capitulated to the ideology of US Empire? Women have accepted the Master’s dictates as to what consist of a “successful” life, and, at the same time, they talk hauntingly of what they have labeled the “Black Tradition,” for it seems more about submission and looking the other way rather than resistance and confrontation.

Jesus, the figure who gave up a life in submission to the Roman Empire, gave up family life, gave up the potential to pursue a trade in carpentry in order to work toward freedom for all, worries over women reaching the next rung on the ladder within the US Empire so that only children of the elite and leadership class are surrounded by the material resources produced in China, India or Bangladesh?

These are women willing to sacrifice nothing - but expect everything for their children and their children along.

This is “liberation”: enslavement to power. It is the good old American ideology: “democracy” for all, that is, freedom for none!

For the most part, the women bureaucrats, the academics, the experts and elites of patriarchal institutions, of corporate ranks, of the higher echelons of government, keep tally on the statistics, their numbers, their ranks - their movement toward the Master while those statistics, the tally of women and their children among the Master’s “the enemies” is ignored. Look, there’s Susan Rice and Samantha Power! Hope for our girl children!

You wonder what these women must think of a Medea Benjamin of Code Pink? They certainly do not rise from their seats of “power” to join her - against Master, against her children, against the continuation of the US as Empire.

At the feel-good women’s fundraisers for the “poor” children of Iraq or Palestine, you will hear little talk of work to end the source of misery and deprivation those poor children experience because that source is capitalism. How many fund-raising events will free these children?

You cannot be in two places at once! You cannot be against patriarchal wars and the continuing expansion of capitalism while also standing on the right hand side of Empire - except as a co-protector of a murderous regime.

What would become of your children and their future if the capitalist/corporate in control of the US government continue finalizing a police state - in the name of your children?

Because Master has been keeping secrets!

A young son (Edward Snowden) has exposed a trove of secrets.

“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it” (Dr. Martin L. King, Jr.).

What will the “liberated” woman in the US do now? An army of women. Unwilling. If there is a crisis of conscience, of morals, then it remains hidden behind well made up faces, dressed in “professional” suits, with the all-important insignia, and those clicking heels so crucial to effect the “power” walk.
Sieg Heil - now, we know what comes next!