Angela made birthday dinner for me and took me to see Death and the Maiden, a play the movie of which I’ve already seen and loved because of the story, of course, but also because Sigourney Weaver kicks ass in it.

But the play was riveting and thought provoking and infuriating. I love to watch the woman’s character represent herself, and also stand as a symbol of all women and as metaphor for the nation, against her husband the good man, her torturer the bad man, and both of them as the men in society and the regimes that control it.

Of course they use crazymaking to deny her voice, grieving, and legitimacy. How many times have I observed this tactic used against me, friends, clients, women, oppressed people in general....

It's the tool of choice for the privileged and the sociopathic.

For me, the most powerful statement in the play is when she says to her torturer (as he pleads with her for his life, telling her she’s crazy and mistaken) why it is that people like her are always being asked to make concessions whenever there is something to concede. She asks him what, then, do people like her have to lose by killing people like himself?

Every time we concede we lose a little of ourselves, lose a little more power when we are already at the mercy of more powerful people. The consequences of rising up and complaceny are equal. So why not seek personal justice?

A short discussion followed. Two guys from the local chapter of Amnesty International were there and I was so glad to hear them frankly criticize the U.S. government’s role in world human rights abuses that I suddenly wanted to join the organization to alleviate the powerlessness I feel in stopping the overextending reach of the executive branch.

During the discussion something clicked into place between the message of the play and recent U.S. history.

During World War II, New Deal politics reigned over U.S. policymaking domestically and abroad. It was New Deal ideas that gave Japan the most liberal constitution in the world and provided a healthy social service ethic in the U.S. But with the rise of the Cold War, the U.S. government used the threat of apocalypse to keep the nation paranoid and docile. For almost two decades, people lived rigidly and social roles were narrow. Women in particular were more restricted than they had been in decades. They had to go crazy in a Freudian axis and write confessional poetry like Anne Sexton or commit suicide to find relief.

I told Angela that after the election I was certain that the next election would result democratic by a landslide. But after 9/11 I’m not so sure. People fall prey to the abusive use of paranoia. We are also lobotomized by corporate propoganda—it’s essentially crazymaking, bombarding us with the message that who we are, what we look like, and what we think are all wrong. How can we pay attention to what our government does abroad and the freedoms it removes from us when our brains are saturated with meaningless and unfulfillable concerns?

Today I read that the senate approved a proposal to allow U.S. servicewomen stationed overseas to obtain abortions at military hospitals. You mean they can’t already? Jesus christ that’s awful. What they have to do is ask their commanding officer for permission to return to the States for an abortion. Or, they take their chances in the clinics of the host country. Talk about the disempowered having to make concessions: imagine asking your superior for permission to seek an abortion. My god.