YMCA
Hot Tub
Talking
with the Raytheon worker
yesterday at the YMCA
women’s hot tub
was a trip. She really
believed what the media
says. She asked to me
at one point in our conversation,
"You mean that the
media doesn't tell us
the truth?" She thought
we needed bombs to protect
ourselves from the Islamic
forces and thought that
we should killed all of
them. I explained to her
that she was talking about
millions of people who
believe in the Islamic
faith. She felt we needed
to be top dog. To that
I replied that the military
is planning to develop
nuclear weapons in Outer
Space so that they can
be top dogs of the world.
I asked her if she felt
that was morally right.
She didn't reply, but
said that she thought
that the bomb-making game
was about making money.
I asked her how much the
Raytheon Corporation paid
her. She said 10 dollars
an hour. I asked her how
much other workers got.
She said the café
workers get minimum wage.
Bomb makers get more,
17 to 25 dollars an hour.
She said that they had
two rooms of 50 people
in each room who construct
the weapons. I asked her
if they were making depleted
uranium weapons. She said
she thought they were
making them. They had
radiation badges they
had to wear to work. I
asked her who she thought
was making the big bucks.
She didn't know, but after
talking to me, she realized
that she was a peasant
within the organization.
I asked her if she ever
felt guilty working for
a bomb-making corporation.
She said that she didn't
because after Sept. 11th,
we needed the weapons
to fight evil. Saddam
Hussein to her was evil.
She thought it was necessary
to drop bombs on Afghanistan
to kill the terrorists.
At that point, I thought
that maybe I should walk
away from the conversation
because she had been so
brainwashed by American
propaganda that it was
a hopeless cause to try
to converse with her in
any meaningful way. But
I continued and replied
that hundreds of innocent
people were killed indiscriminately
in Afghanistan by the
bombing. US bombs murdered
children and whole families.
Now many Afghans were
in refugee camps because
their cities had been
destroyed. I told to her
a bumper sticker I saw
on a friend's car, "Jesus
was a refugee." I
asked, "Do you think
if Jesus was alive now
would he be working in
a refugee camp helping
people recover from the
war, or would he be one
of the bombers firing
weapons of destruction
at their homes?"
Then she asked me if I
believed in the Devil.
I answered that to me
bombs, made to kill people,
were evil. She asked me
if I believed in God.
"Yes, I believe in
a Great Spirit within
myself. If the Kingdom
of God is within us, then
we can't look for a deity
outside ourselves."
I asked her if she was
a woman. She laughed at
me because she was a big
breasted, fat woman and
said, "Of course,
I am a woman! "Well,
then," I retorted,
"if you are a woman
and God is within you,
then God is a woman. In
fact, she is a Goddess."
She answered, "I
thought God was a man.
Didn't God, the man in
heaven with the long,
white beard, make Adam
and Eve?"
To that I responded, "If
God is love, then wouldn't
it make sense that God
is the love that brings
Adam and Eve together
in union? I told her a
little bit about the philosophy
of tantra as a way for
her to imagine herself
breaking free of the patriarchal,
militaristic mindset.
Still trapped in Christian
mythology, she took me
back to the Garden of
Eden and said that it
was the snake that was
evil. I informed her that
in Goddess thealogy, the
snake was a symbol of
life on Earth. It was
the symbol for DNA. I
could tell at that point
she was beginning to question
the belief system she
had been indoctrinated
into. She said that she
was confused.
Finally she asked me why
the Moslems, Christians
and the Jews couldn’t
live in peace. Was it
just human nature, and
war will always be with
us? I answered, "There
were deeper ways to connect
with the self and nature
than through patriarchal
religions like the ones
you’ve mentioned."
Trying to think of a way
she could get alternative
news, I asked her if she
ever listened to Amy Goodman's
radio show, “Democracy
Now”, that aired
on the Tucson community
radio station at 9:00
am. She said she had a
radio, but that she went
to work at 8:00 am and
couldn't listen to it
while she was doing her
job, shredding blue prints
of the bombs they were
making at the Raytheon
plant.
I gave her my phone number.
She didn't have email.
I told her that if she
contacted me when I got
back from the East Coast,
I would met her at the
library to help her set
up a yahoo email account.
Then I would teach her
how to serf the net. Such
tools would give her the
skills to do her own research
into war and peace. There
were places on the Net
that she could find that
would show her what the
bombs, made at Raytheon,
were doing to people in
other parts of the world.
Then she could decide,
in an educated way, if
bombs were good or evil.
12/10/2002
After Yoga,
I talked with a woman
named Betty who works
for Raytheon. She is part
of middle management.
What she does is purchase
the materials in which
are needed to build missiles.
She has 140 people working
under her. She said they
build missiles, not warheads.
Warheads are built in
rural locations in other
parts of the country since
they use explosive materials.
I think she said one of
those places is in Kansas.
She said that at Raytheon
in Tucson they do not
deal with radioactive
active materials, but
they do deal with chemicals
that are very toxic. Some
cleaning materials that
are used they tell pregnant
women not go work around.
She said that they have
tanks on site which recycles
the water.
She started
to work for Raytheon in
Southern California twenty
years ago when her husband,
who worked there, had
a job with the company
and got her the job. The
company moved to Tucson
because the EPA laws were
stricter in California
so they could get away
with more in Arizona.
They couldn’t keep
down their cost in California
because of the EPA laws.
She was
at some banquet the other
week and was pleased to
see that they had recruited
a number of young female
engineers into the project,
which before had been
mostly males. However,
the main leader of Raytheon
is a woman and most all
of the people who work
under her are males. She
does financing and is
a businesswoman and was
recently written up on
Fortune 500 magazine as
being one of the most
power women in business.
She said
that if she were more
consciously aware, she
would quit her job. She
thought there are enough
weapons in the world.
She isn’t a republican,
even though most of the
people she worked with
are. She couldn’t
get into the mentality
of many of the workers
there who cheer on missiles
launches and cheer when
the missiles explode the
way they are designed
to do. She fears a war
with Iraq and President
Bush. She said she wouldn’t
want people at your employment
to know these things about
her. Then she said that
I shouldn’t get
her wrong; she believed
we need a strong national
defense.
She asked
me if I came regularly
to Yoga. I said yes, and
it seemed that she had
more to tell me.