Dispossessed

In an episode of "Rafferty's Rules" first aired in 1989, the female public defender says,
"Yes, but the feminist movement has degenerated into simply man-hating."
(That's not a perfect quote, but very close. I was passing the television when I heard it, and the words stopped me in my tracks.)

Sitting with some friends at the beach, a Serbian-Australian woman wanted to emphasize a point. She was organizing a community support group for serbian women new to Australia. She looked at me meaningfully, and said, "Have you ever been dispossessed?"
And I answered, "Yes. Right here in Australia. About two miles from here."

I could see the question was intended as a show-stopper in her conversation, and she was dumbfounded. She knew the story behind my words.
But for the first time, she realized that Australia dispossesses its citizens and residents, too.

She didn't need to describe the inequities and injustice in Serbia. We both knew those stories.
But what is happening to people like me in Australia is equally Stalinist.
An institutionalized disregard for principles of law, combined with a constant stream of propaganda, has produced the same effect.