I finally figured it out

I don't know how I thought of it. But it's not 2000 or 2001. I keep thinking, "Is it the 2000 election?" or "Is it 9/11?"

But it's neither.

It's 1999.

It's the pedophile crisis in the Catholic Church.

That's what started all this shit. And that's what has us locked in this seriously fucked up direction. We went crazy around 1999, when John Geoghan was first being discovered (later murdered that year, in prison) and the roof was coming off of the U.S. pedophile priest scandal.

And we've just been a little nuts since that time. So much so, that we can't just see what is right in front of our fuckin' faces.

Somehow people missed that the Catholic Church is one of the most rules-dominated, repressive, hierachical institutions in the world and we fell into this stupid belief that the problem was not enough rules. I know, I know. Mandatory reporting to police. But the underlying reality is still the same: either people follow their consciences or not. It has always been so and it will always be so. And all the repression just makes it more complicated and difficult, not less so. Because it shuts down the necessary conversations which help clarify consciences.

We're just too foolish to see it squarely. And we don't have enough courage to do both of the things that are needed, even in that situation: to face our failure on this one, honestly, and to forgive, ourselves and others, for our failures.

We're too scared. But that's what created all the repression that has fueled all this shit from the beginning of civilization, in the first place. We're just too scared and not honest enough, with ourselves and with each other, to face up on this one.

But the bottom line on this is, there really is only one direction forward. You can call any direction progress all you want, but if it doesn't take us forward - as this direction clearly has failed to do - then it's not progress, no matter how much we mouth the words. It's only progress if we make forward movement. And this tragically hubristic route of force as a means to progress in a liberal society - a complete and utter contradiction in terms, if we could only face ourselves squarely, on that one - is clearly not taking us forward.

We need to come clean on that. And face this honestly. Because the reality is that we make all of our problems, including this one, more pronounced, not less, generally, with greater repression.

And that can only happen with a more honest conversation.

That's what we have in front of us.