The Operating System and Beloved Community

The operating system is the thing that controls. It is the hierarchy in the clouds, the invisible tribe, the pantheon of gods and goddesses. The father of humilities like “mine is not to reason why, mine is just to do or die” or blind obedience to whatever is “trending”. It has many devices at its finger tips to persuade us that events are governed by public opinion, and that we are to blame for the state of the world even if we are powerless to change it.     

Through the ages there have been recognizable power elites, such as kings, emperors and empires who came, who saw, who conquered. But they are not the operating system – merely the interests that learned how to use the system to their advantage.

The operating system is invisible, nameless and exploitative. It has no reflective capacity, no feeling or sentiment. It is not interested in culture or science, because it has no interest in life. 

The operating system is not to blame for the violence of the ages,  it simply enabled it. Humanity is not to blame for the violence either – it simply fears the system and creates devices (such as the bank, the church, the corporation) in an attempt to control it.

In the end, when all life has been devoured by the insatiable appetite of the operating system, it will die unconscious of its life and its death.  The operating system is the universal will to power, from volcanic eruptions to social revolutions. If our species continues to glorify power above life itself we shall ultimately be silenced by it.  As long as we worship tools of power such as money, weapons, and technology, we become one of the system’s devices.

But if we can collectively use our power to nurture a community that nurtures the health of life within nature we create a beloved community.

The term “Beloved Community” was one that guided Martin Luther King Jr., in the struggle for civil rights. According to Religion Online, he wrote that the purpose of the Montgomery bus boycott “is reconciliation, . . . redemption, the creation of the beloved community.” 

Beloved community to me means being conscious of and working towards the greater good of all by paying attention to the quality of our relationships. Relationship between ferry workers and passengers, teachers and students, voters and politicians, homeowners and the homeless, corporations and consumers.

Beloved community uses power to support life by welcoming a new neighbour or by heroic rescue missions when a hiker gets lost on a snowy mountain.  Beloved community is the parental care and guidance of children, care for aging parents or troubled siblings.  Many of us have experienced the give and take of beloved community and know of its power. If we want this beautiful world to survive we must do what we can to re-program the operating system to nurture a healthy planet. 

May the coming year be filled with beloved community.

Bill Moyers on The Spectacle of Illiteracy

We are not short of wisdom, leadership and prophets in this age. But to watch mainstream media you would think we have become a species of abundant stupidity and despotic ignorance.  Who would benefit by this portrayal?

Bill Moyers by Yoichi Akamoto 1965

Increasingly, as witnessed in the utter disrespect and not-so-latent racism expressed by Joe Wilson, the Republican congressman from South Carolina, who shouted “you lie!” during President Obama’s address on health care, the obligation to listen, respect the views of others and engage in a literate exchange is increasingly reduced to the highly spectacular wed embrace of an infantile emotionalism. This is an emotionalism that is made for television. It is perfectly suited for emptying the language of public life of all substantive content, reduced in the end to a playground for hawking commodities, promoting celebrity culture and enacting the spectacle of right-wing fantasies fueled by the fear that the public sphere as an exclusive club for white male Christians is in danger of collapsing. For some critics, those who carry guns to rallies or claim Obama is a Muslim and not a bona fide citizen of the United States are simply representative of an extremist fringe, that gets far more publicity from the mainstream media than they deserve. Of course this is understandable, given that the media’s desire for balance and objective news is not just disingenuous but relinquishes any sense of ethical responsibility by failing to make a distinction between an informed argument and an unsubstantiated opinion. Witness the racist hysteria unleashed by so many Americans and the media over the building of an Islamic cultural center near ground zero. Bill Moyers

I can't add anything to this that would be more insightful or present a more indepth observation. I believe Moyers is one of those people who possesses a rare ability to converge a lot of disparate information into a concise diagnostic. Read the whole article here.

Wealth Inequality in America

Published on Nov 20, 2012

Infographics on the distribution of wealth in America, highlighting both the inequality and the difference between our perception of inequality and the actual numbers. The reality is often not what we think it is.

References:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2...
http://danariely.com/2010/09/30/wealt...
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011...
http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/19/news/...

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An article worth reading: Sorry 'Catching Fire,' Kids Hunger for Real Rebellion

"The dichotomous world in which we live is becoming more dramatic everyday, so naturally it gets dramatized in the form of film and television. The subterranean pressure that moves culture and people isn't all that easy to see, except for when it comes popping up in movies and TV shows. Like some malignant and massive mycelium that stretches around the globe, it makes both toadstools and movies. It might seem like it just magically sprouted overnight, but there is a vast network of lines of control just beneath the surface of things."

Dorothy Woodend, Today, The Tyee.

Dark Politics: the effect of power on living systems

The best article I have read which explains to me that general feeling of dread I have about the future, is written by Heather Morgan on rabble.

Morgan says that Dark Politics is an ideology "which seeks to obfuscate, misinform, change the rules of conduct and flourishes most when no light of truth is shone upon it."

While Rob Ford appears to be pathetic, Morgan questions his actual role as a political clown.

Reasonable people may think our political representatives should have a code of behavior that inspires us, or a sense of responsibility towards the people he or she serves. But the mainstream media says he still has supporters, which suggests that there is a block of citizens who are willing to trade in honesty, sobriety and service for low taxes.

Ideas such as the notion that the role of government should be increasingly inched towards the ultimate goal of doing little more than reducing taxes while begrudgingly still paying for things like the military and a few other "essential" services. That government should largely divorce itself from civic engagement or from acting as an equalizing mechanism. From fulfilling the collective will of the people.

Dark politics is not interested in the way life endures, supports or celebrates beauty, or hope for a better future.  Dark politics does not understand nuance and diversity.  It is the task of humanity to uphold justice for civil society to survive.  It is up to us to vote for social justice and to use our power to nurture a society built on a reverence for life.

Desire, Design and the Operating System

It appears to me that human history and all its inventions dwell within a circle of power.  The glorification, the use and abuse of power interacts with our human endeavours mostly beyond our control. There are nations and people who possess power but not forever.  Anyone who has had power over others or things fears they cannot hold their control forever.  As individuals and institutions we create laws, culture (media) and ideology in order to maintain an illusion of control, to protect ourselves from chaos.  If I were to say this is the truth - it would be my attempt to wield power over this instant.  If I were to study philosophy, science, law and culture to the breadth and depth of my capacity it would be in order to influence the world.  It's too late in my life to attempt this even if I could, and even if I achieved it (500 years after William Shakespeare), it would be for a brief moment in time and place, and it would be a call for the next player to deconstruct this theory.

As news stories appear daily about our prime minister, the mayor of Toronto, or the president of the United States as they play out the extent of their given powers while they can, some may believe they possess powers beyond their position and that all they have to do is manage it well. But all political leaders must negotiate with the ever changing directions of power in their lives - the interests that support them and attack them are like tennis balls on a court which they must hit and send back to their opponents.

All that we desire and design is negotiated with other desires and designs which we cannot see or even plan for. There is always the pressure of the operating system projecting and sabotaging our strategies.

Our human history has led us to believe that we possess the power to control the world and we give those willing to stand up as leaders our loyalty, as long as they convince us they can protect us from the chaos of invading interests. But when our leaders break or reveal cracks in this promise we sack them with derision and ridicule.

This is a very violent game - to the senses of all who are involved.  It seeks scapegoats and sacrifices.  It allows millions to suffer starvation, genocide, indignity and madness, mostly because we cannot see power as something beyond our will, that no matter how much we worship and strategize, we can never control.

Because we are addicted to our own sense of entitlement we believe our leaders hold the key to our security through some kind of magic.  The esoteric rites are for high priests only, who are trained to keep the secrets of their submission to powers we cannot name or see.

So how can we live free of oppression? First by understanding that the oppressor is not a person or party or nation or corporation - it is a co-dependent game of denial.   They play their part sometimes well, sometimes appallingly, but the news reveals they are exhausted.  Even the largest corporation treating civil society like an obstruction to their goals, installing  puppet governments to do their bidding, can only maintain their illusion if we keep believing in it.

If power is within and beyond us then we must learn how to negotiate with power as we would with nature - that it belongs to history and the future, to our ancestors and our great-grandchildren.  This requires a sense of shared ownership and responsibility.

The Inescapable Network of Mutuality - by Martin Luther King Jr.

We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

There are some things in our social system to which all of us ought to be maladjusted.

Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear, only love can do that.

We must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation.

The foundation of such a method is love.

Before it is too late, we must narrow the gaping chasm between our proclamations of peace and our lowly deeds which precipitate and perpetuate war.

One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek but a means by which we arrive at that goal.

We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.

We shall hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.

(Singing the Living Tradition. Beacon Press, Boston. 1993)

Civil Society Dying Slowly and Painfully

Listening to CBC radio this morning I heard someone say that the federal government would not openly challenge Rob Ford in a call to dislodge or demand he resign as Mayor of Toronto because his supporters commonly termed "Ford Nation" are the same base as the "Harper Nation." 

Chantal Hébert writes in the Toronto Star "There is a jarring disconnect between the Conservatives’ punitive judicial agenda, their much proclaimed law-and-order principles and their efforts to look away from the public transgressions of the man who runs Canada’s biggest city and the disruptions to Toronto’s municipal life that result from them."  

What kind of people support political representatives who appear to have a contempt for their responsibility to uphold the laws of Canada? 

What qualities do those in the Ford or Harper nation possess?  What is their world view besides repeating the mantra "low taxes" and "the economy"?

Are they addicted to a drug-like notion, that our society is a shopping mall, where you choose the world you want to live in just as you choose commodities from a shelf? That virtues such as hard work, intelligence and self-preservation will keep them safe, no matter how many others suffer?  

Or are these "nations" invented/manufactured by corporate sponsored media?

Institutions and national identities have largely been built on the addictions of the privileged, and sooner or later, we shall see clearly that we have spent and wasted our achievements in an inebriated stupor of self-congratulation. Our governments and institutions uphold our delusions and cannot afford to save us from them. We must re-invent ourselves within a just society if we want our species to survive.

Extracting the Poetry from Power and Politics

There are some writers and journalists who have the ability to extract the essential character of events and express it in one paragraph.  Chris Hedges is one such writer:

The final days of empire give ample employment and power to the feckless, the insane and the idiotic. These politicians and court propagandists, hired to be the public faces on the sinking ship, mask the real work of the crew, which is systematically robbing the passengers as the vessel goes down.

Read the rest here: The Folly of Empire.

And another poetic observer, George Monbiot, alerts us to the threat of an empire poised to take it all for free through the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership:

They want it; they’re getting it. New intellectual property laws that they have long demanded, but which sovereign governments have so far resisted – not least because of the mass mobilisation against the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act in the US(11) – are back on the table, but this time largely inaccessible to public protest.

Read Elite Insurgency here.

But the question that comes to me, time and time again, is what can be done, and more importantly what will I do about it?  The most eloquent answer comes from âpihtawikosisân and you will find her wisdom in what a revolution looks like:- here.

Ten Tips on How to Save the World

photo from NASA/Wikimedia

I’ve used popular jargon for the title, because, as you’ll notice below, this is not political science, or any science at all. This is a riposte against the endless hours of brutal entertainment that suggests only might makes right. To save the world might be a heroic endeavour but I don’t believe it requires a Napoleonic campaign. It does, however, require the engagement of an alert mind and open heart. 

The instructions are simple. Learn from the bees, use your caring mind to gaze at the world, reclaim your power, reclaim your nature, hold onto curiosity, celebrate your creativity, give up blaming, live from a place of love, acknowledge your political self, and honour your spirit.

1. Learn from the bees.

Marilyn Hamilton, CEO of Integral City, told a children’s story not long ago, that is easy to remember.  Three key strategies enable bee hives to survive, which can teach us how to sustain the human hive  – take care of you, take care of others, take care of this place. Our ancestors learned how to do this but sophisticated social systems have alienated us from our own capacity to manage the hive. However, world crises shows we must re-engage in the process now.  

2. Use your caring mind to gaze at the world.

Look closely at the operating system, or the ‘apparatus’ as Simone Weil put it. Read ideas and opinions wherever you can find them. Ask yourself who benefits? Expand your gaze beyond your own immediate interests. Prepare to be disturbed but not defeated.

2. Reclaim power.

Power and all its parts: politics, wealth, language, science, economics, institutional religion, is not evil. What is evil is the way institutions have been corrupted from their original purpose – to serve civil society – into clubs of privilege. Good leadership is the conduit of responsible power which demonstrates humility, vulnerability, and serves the greater good.  Good leaders spend their powers to affirm and highlight the power in all. Infinite power is not a zero sum game, it is natural, inclusive and intelligent.

3. Reclaim our nature.

We are resourceful workers and stakeholders in our society. We are not a resource or a job description. We are not left, right, conservative or liberal – we are organic, politically mobile beings.  Labels are assigned to influence and control masses. We have courage, fear, anger, love and wisdom but they are not commodities, they are strengths that emerge and hide. The deadliest weapon of oppression is that which turns humanity and all of nature into a thing, a resource.

 

4. Hold onto Curiosity.

This is what keeps us exploring, examining, interrogating the conditions we live under or in. As long as curiosity is alive we shall never be content with serving an oppressive and corrupt social order.  

5. Celebrate your Creativity.

Music, theatre, farmers’ markets, poetry, gardens, maps, new political parties, conversations –  are the means of expressing and sharing our humanity.  Art is the what, where, how and who of our species as it yearns and evolves.

6. Give up blaming.

Blaming is not problem solving and the problem is not what other people do.  To solve problems we need to re-engage our power to care creatively, with curiosity and love.

8. Live from a place of Love

Love breaks apart the structures of false hierarchies. It demands attention to suffering and violence, and calls for healing. It insists on life as the source of knowledge.  Love is what drives great minds to take courageous stands outside of their particular disciplines for the greater good. Love is the openness to pain that makes injustice, corruption, cynicism and oppression unbearable.

9. Life is political.

You are an integral, intelligent, reflective part of a larger organism. Whether we survive as a species depends on protecting our earthly home from a system that enables a few egos to hold this planet ransom for the sake of temporary profit. There is no escape from politics. Its apparatus has been built on a grandiose delusion that refuses to see the natural world as sacred, and ourselves dependent upon its health. To be apolitical is to be a doctor standing at the bed of a dying patient, refusing to be involved because the disease is dirty. To dismiss the world stage and our part in it is to lobotomize the future.

10. Honour the spirit

The spirit is our energy. It imparts our intentions before we see them. It allows us to dream and care for the world beyond our own life span.  Imagination and love is the immortal  legacy we leave for our great-grandchildren.

These are just my thoughts.  What are yours?  What would you list as the top ten tips on saving the world?

As of Today

Yesterday I attended a memorial service for a man who was, and still is, loved among family, friends, and members of the congregation he helped to build.

From the time he knew his death was approaching to the planning of the memorial and the actual celebration of his life, the lives of about thirty people were consumed into creating this event.  People who held off sleep, housekeeping and other rituals of their life to think about, write, communicate, select, travel, arrange chairs and tables, cater, and clean up afterwards.  For the closest members of the family, including the man whose life was celebrated, the effort was extraordinary.  In a way it took whole life times across generations to come to this. Learning, striving, struggle, fear and joy, and ultimately the conclusion of this celebration was proof of the abundance of love.

As I think about the interdependent web in which I live, I see the same elements, the many celebrations of life, the art of living.  These include the skills of planning a dinner with love, cleaning the house and washing the dishes – all to celebrate the joy of food with company. I see the theatre festival built on thousands of hours of learning how to  write, stage, advertise, to garner an army of volunteers with lifetime training in their craft.  I see generations of scientific study and the institutions of learning that have endured centuries of change to produce the best doctors, lawyers, engineers and teachers, to sustain a functional civil society.

Our own children who have branched out to develop their own lives, struggle to nurture their own families which include their closest friends.  I think about their constant focus on researching and caring which all began with two egos who fell in love and decided to invest in life itself. I look on all these things and think – what a wonderful world! What wonderful surprising creatures we are. 

From the blessings of my life I have learned that building community requires me to listen to others whether I agree with them or not, to share my honest thoughts with them, to help others by working with their needs instead of giving advice, to co-operate, to do no harm, to find common ground and to celebrate their successes.  The energy I have learned to use in community is shared leadership.  

Then I turn on the radio and learn about another politicianwho won an election, not on nurturing the values most of us use every day, but on a campaign of fear and intolerance.  If I am to believe he was fairly elected how is it the voters give themselves wholeheartedly to life yet vote against the energies that nurture it?

How is it that we see power working in our lives when we work together, and yet we select the voices of intolerance, cruelty and bigotry as if the only power we have is to vote against those who are different.   How is it that we don’t get it when we are oppressed by transnational corporations, the 1%, the power elite – yet   we are outraged that those with less than us, may need help?

This is the gap in our understanding of how our power works.  It’s easy to gain more influence by funding movements built on fear and hate if power is already centralized in a system of values that keeps the masses unaware of their own value, their capacity to organize and to create the communities they want.

How do we teach people who celebrate life that the power they have can be good, as long as they don’t abuse it?  I guess that first we have to learn we are part of one family -  the whole interdependent web of existence.

Who Will Stand With the Innocents?

By Sam Hamill

"Fifty years ago, I found myself in the war-ravaged former nation of Okinawa, where some of the fiercest battles of the Pacific War had taken place, and where I began to learn of the true atrocities of the atomic bombing of Japan. I also heard there from fellow Marines first-hand accounts of the race wars in my own country, about lynchings, about Bull Conner’s dogs set on nonviolent civil rights marchers, stories I had known only from brief news accounts. I learned about how the impoverished people of Vietnam had driven out the imperialist French and now faced a growing American presence as they struggled toward their own democratic self-rule. President Eisenhower had spoken of our need “to protect our investments in tin and tungsten.”"

Read more ...

Writing for Peace - a message from Sam Hamill

Syria

Syria - orthographic by L'Americain

Last night I watched the news.  Images of children burned in what was reported as a chemical weapon attack.  The image of Bashar Al-Assad speaking in his own language, apparently claiming he did not use these weapons. A report from British Prime Minister David Cameron saying that the House of Commons does not support military action in Syria. Representatives of the UN unable to find out conclusively that the Al-Assad regime used these weapons. The White House threatening to take action but unwilling to say how much.

After all the news coverage on this issue I cannot decide what is true and what is propaganda.  There are two things I can perceive however. One, is that the turmoil in the Middle East is overwhelming and families of all faiths are suffering unimaginably and will continue to suffer even after the violence stops. Two, is that no-one is winning except the military industrial complex.

As I think about this I am reminded of all the wars that have happened over the centuries and conclude ordinary citizens never benefit.  War never grants or promises freedom to the people.  The ruling elite may win or lose but those who are beneath them always lose.  They lose a sense of peace, loved ones and limbs. Whenever rulers decide we must go to war, it is for their gain, their purse, their territory, while it is the soldiers, the wives, the husbands and the children who are asked to sacrifice their lives.

How can we know any military intervention is a just intervention when the truth is only available after the conflict is over and the facts become the subject of history? How can we respond thoughtfully and ethically?

Mulcair's Reply to Proroguing Parliament Letter in which NDP was cc'd

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Mulcair

Thank you for your past email. I really appreciate hearing your feedback and comments - please know that I do take your input seriously as it helps to inform my work.

First, regarding prorogation, Parliament is the one place where the federal government has to respond to questions - and now Mr. Harper has even shut that down. Since the Duffy-Wallin senate expense scandal exploded in May, the prime minister showed up to Question Period only 5 times. It is quite clear that Stephen Harper and his Conservatives are again doing whatever they can to run away from accountability.

Canadians deserve better.

I am proud of all that the NDP team has accomplished this Parliamentary session - we worked really hard right up to the end to ensure that we got some meaningful results for Canadians. I'd like to take this opportunity to share some of this work with you.

One of our most significant victories was the House of Commons' adoption of our landmark motion on transparency - a very detailed plan that would open up MP expenses and create an independent body to replace the secretive Board of Internal Economy. New Democrats know that MP spending should be open and transparent and MPs should be accountable to the taxpayers who pay their salaries! You can read the full text of the NDP motion here:
http://www.ndp.ca/news/ndp-proposes-independent-oversight-mp-expenses.

We held the Conservatives to account with our solid work in Question Period - day after day we grilled them on the Senate scandals and the missing 90 thousand dollar cheque. We launched a campaign to abolish the Senate - I invite you to join the over 20,000 Canadians who signed our petition:
http://rolluptheredcarpet.ca. This summer we will take our campaign to communities across the country to gather more support for putting an end to the unelected, unaccountable, scandal-ridden Senate.

We relentlessly pushed the Harper government on jobs and growth - asking over 100 questions in Question Period about their job-killing economic agenda! We fought their harmful changes to EI and seniors' pensions, their reckless cuts to our food inspection, border and search and rescue services. We stood up for the safety and well-being of Canadians while the Conservatives chose different priorities - putting your safety at risk while allowing tax-payer dollars to fund their Senate cronies. When they moved to sell-off Canada's interests through secret trade deals we countered them at every turn. When they tried to push down wages for Canadians by allowing foreign workers to work for less, we forced them to reverse their plans.

And, I was so impressed with our NDP MPs on the Standing Committee of Citizenship and Immigration who held together a filibuster to stop the Conservatives and their destructive legislation that would deprive Canadians of their rights as citizens.

I fought hard to strengthen the Parliamentary Budget Officer and to help hold the government to account for their economic and budgetary decisions. This is especially important since the Conservatives can't account for $3.1 billion from their last budget! Unfortunately, Conservative MPs used their majority to kill my proposed legislation, Bill C-476.

New Democrats are pushing back on all of the Conservatives' damaging policies, gross mismanagement and irresponsible cuts to social services. You can count on us to continue to be the fiercest opposition the Harper Conservatives have ever seen! We're showing Canadians that we are a government in waiting with the experience and ability it takes to defeat the Conservatives in 2015. What's more, the vision of the NDP relies on the idea that economic growth must always be accompanied by an improvement in our quality of life for all. Collectively, we have the right to aspire to a better future for our children and grandchildren.

All the best for an enjoyable summer. I hope to see many of you as I visit communities across the country.

Sincerely,


Thomas Mulcair, M.P. (Outremont)
Leader of the Official Opposition
New Democratic Party of Canada

(posted with permission from Tom Mulcair)

Proroguing Parliament - open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper

Photo by Montrealais

Rt. Honourable Prime Minister Stephen Harper

Prime Minister of Canada

80 Wellington Street

Ottawa, ON

K1A 0A2

Dear Prime Minister

I write to you today because I am really concerned about what is happening in Canada. 

Since coming to Canada in 1965 I have learned a great deal about civil society. It is the spirit of caring that has enabled me to move beyond cynicism and apathy, and that spirit which also makes me really concerned about our future.

Every day I meet well informed Canadian citizens who love this country, who work hard to do their job to the best of their ability, who spend hours contributing to community, for the greater good. Among friends, colleagues and acquaintances I have observed an ethic of citizenship and social responsibility which has inspired me to think beyond my own self interest. Or better yet, to see that my self interest is located in the interest of all.

For people to be the best they can be, they need a society which inspires and acknowledges this spirit of care and concern for our fellow citizens. But many events of late indicate that Canada as a nation no longer exists. What we could so easily believe if we allow ourselves to be influenced by mainstream media news, is that this land is merely a petro state or an opportunity for foreign profit. When we as individuals and as a society believe the only thing that matters is the economy then we cease to care for life itself.

When you call for parliament to be prorogued for the third time, I wonder if you are acting as an employee of a large corporation rather than the prime protector of our nation. It allows cynicism to grow just as the events around Lac-Mégantic, the shooting of Sammy Yatim, the senate scandal and so many other news headlines, make us wonder what happened to the ethic of good government. Where are the standards we thought were realized through centuries of struggle towards human rights, and our responsibilities in a democratic society? Where are our philosophers, our healers, our teachers in parliament?

I believe they are there in Ottawa and in the Canadian conscience – but these voices must be allowed, must be heard. Please do NOT prorogue parliament in September.

yours sincerely

Janet Vickers

Interrogating the White Race

Trayvon Martin, Reza Aslan and Jesus are linked, not just because they have been in the news lately but because there seems to be, thanks to Fox News, a lot of noise around race, religion, good and evil. Most of it a disconnected framing of beliefs built on prejudice.

Rather than moving away from bigotry, right-wing media seems to want to inflame it. Is this a strategy to keep public fears and prejudices chained to hierarchy and oppression?

Christ with beard (Wikimedia commons)

In an article titled Who Owns Jesus? Tasbeeh Herwees interrogates the interview between Fox News' Lauren Green and Reza Aslan. Tasbeeh says "The insinuation underlying Green's questions was that a Muslim writing about Jesus was not just outlandish, but inconceivable without some kind of hidden agenda."

How dare Aslan write about Jesus when he is not white? That would be the question among many people who are informed only by popular propaganda.

Who knew, without having read Herwees article, that middle eastern people were found to be white in a 1915 court case when Syrian immigrant George Dow fought to overturn a ruling that proclaimed him ineligible for naturalization because he wasn't white. A federal appeals court ruled in his favour because of Jesus!

Aslan remained patient and rational throughout the interview as though he were explaining something to an eight year old.  Perhaps because "Aslan, like many Muslims, faces this kind of suspicion in his everyday life - by policemen, TSA officers and passers-by who find his dark skin and foreign name threatening" says Herwees.

Where did the term "white race" come from?  It entered the "European languages in the late 17th century beginning with the racialization of slavery at the time, in the context of the Atlantic slave trade and enslavement of native peoples in the Spanish Empire", says Wikipedia.

In this context it could be argued that economics required this category so that the "white man" could, with a free conscience colonise America, India and Africa.  But it seems it was not enough.  Scientific studies had to be pursued to support the white man's entitlement to exploit and abuse other people for profit.

Samuel George Morton (1799-1851) created Crania Americana (1839), An Inquiry into the Distinctive Characteristics of the Aboriginal Race of America and Crania Aegyptiaca (1844), and concluded that "the ancient Egyptians were not African but white and that Caucasians and Negroes were already distinct three thousand years ago." (Wikipedia)

After centuries of the white man's savage treatment towards aboriginal peoples it seems like some are desperate to hold onto the notions of white supremacy, long after the survey of human mitochondrial DNA (Cann, Stonekind, and Wilson. Nature. 1987), points out that "all mitochondrial DNAs stem from one woman" who lived 200,000 years ago in Africa.

Or more to the point, it seems like capitalism requires a global state of injustice and structural violence in order to maintain its hegemony. But this can only be maintained while we, the majority of people, remain in a state of preferred ignorance and apathy.

Prison Industrial Complex

The murder of a teenage boy by an armed vigilante, George Zimmerman, is only one crime set within a legal and penal system that has criminalized poverty. Poor people, especially those of color, are worth nothing to corporations and private contractors if they are on the street. In jails and prisons, however, they each can generate corporate revenues of $30,000 to$40,000 a year. This use of the bodies of the poor to make money for corporations fuels the system of neoslavery that defines our prison system.

                                                                                         Chris Hedges

The Economics of Blood

If we look back at the development in the twentieth century, the most devastating cause of human suffering, of deprivation of human dignity, freedom, and peace has been the culture of violence in resolving differences and conflicts. the challenge before us is to make our new century of dialogue and of peaceful co-existence.
- Dalai Lama

Found on the Charter for Compassion email newsletter.

With Zimmerman, the Scandal Is What’s Legal (Andrew Rosenthal - The New York Times Taking Note)

...  because  in Florida you can carry a gun in public, follow an innocent stranger and then stand your ground.

Can this happen in Canada? Is it possible that some time in the future the laws here will be the same as in Florida? What will make it easy for gun laws such as this to be entrenched in law? What can we do to avoid it?

A reply from Bob Lane ...

1. Yes,
2. Possible.
3. Vote conservative.
4. Vote Green. Pay attention. Be diligent.

Elizabeth May: this is what a leader looks like

May taken National Day of Action, Electoral Reform

The leader of the Green Party is an example of what a leader is. She focuses on the issues. She informs Canadians about what she is doing, what needs to be done, and why. Visit her website for well written and easy to read articles.

There is so much trivial noise created from various interests that the really important issues don't get the coverage they deserve.  But if you want to find out more about why things happen, their causes and what we can do about them visit the sites that inform.

A good leader knows that our collective survival is built on social justice not popularity.

Other leaders include, David Suzuki, Council of Canadians, staff at Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives , Karen Armstrong, and Thomas Mulcair.

The New Bourgeoisie

Is the new bourgeoisie a rising middle class who will bring about creative destruction - turning the world away from capitalism toward environmentalism?

The shocking images of rail cars full of petroleum blowing up and burning down the town of Lac-Megantic in Quebec, as tragic, and scary as it is, is only a fraction of how unregulated capitalism has wiped out the common wisdom of social responsibility for the extreme wealth of a few.  

In other words, work safety, living wages, health, social costs, justice, and standard of living, are all irrelevant arguments because life (nature) is irrelevant in the current pursuit of profit.  To care about humanity is naive and sentimental.  The mainstream media daily provides us with an inventory of examples. 

Weather, once the topic of polite society, has become political, with every extreme event being an indicator that we are not in control. Heat waves, cyclones, droughts and floods threaten to end the Anthropocene.  Yet the anthro-hyenas refuse to pay attention.

After centuries of class restrictions, the brave entrepreneurs of nineteenth century America were not going to let tradition get in the way of a new world dream.  The economy and the market place became the opiate of the people, and although the rest of the world applauded its inventions and has benefited from unbridled enthusiasm - now when this nation is the only remaining super-power, the American people are not the recipients of this wealth. (But neither were the British people when Britain "ruled the waves".) 

Chris Hedges has identified "sacrifice zones" where "Americans are trapped in endless cycles of poverty, powerlessness, and despair as a direct result of capitalistic greed".

Humanity is the sacrifice to this current fundamentalist 'religion', because wherever nature is not taken care of, where people are not allowed hope, dignity and worth, life ends in violence. Perhaps suddenly or slowly and painfully. 

Witnessing the destruction of eco systems is a mental health issue.  How can we be reasonable, nurturing and creative people when all the signs point to pollution?

Power-worship is the most devastating, debilitating mental illness of all when it threatens our survival, and prevents us from seeing what is in front of our noses.

Our governments are deluded. Britain's "former energy minister John Hayes described concerns about the rainforests of Malaysia and Indonesia – which, with their tigers, orangutans and thousands of unique species, are being destroyed to grow biofuels – as “bourgeois views” writes George Monbiot.  

This is the Orwellian new-speak we were warned about in 1984 - that something as essential as stewardship of the earth should be trivialized with words that mean the opposite. 

So those of us whose love of the natural world is a source of constant joy and constant despair, who wish to immerse ourselves in nature as others immerse themselves in art, who try to defend the marvels which enthrall us, find ourselves labelled – from the Mail to the Guardian – as romantics, escapists and fascists. That, I suppose, is the price of confronting the power of money. (Monbiot)

So let us be the new bourgeoisie. Let us agonize over how we, as individuals and collectives, can creatively redesign the operating system so that diversity and abundant nature is given the dignity it deserves.  Let capitalism represent our creativity as it did among the shop keepers of old. Let socialism represent the well-being and health of all. Let fundamentalism be the domain of roots so that vegetables, fruit, trees and families can thrive. Let the salons begin.

How to Win the War

Foyle's War is a TV drama written by Anthony Horowitz that takes place during and shortly after WWII.

So far I have only seen up to 1944 but I am impressed with the high quality of this production because of several reasons.  First the characters are not simply foils to the plot - they are written and acted as real people living in difficult conditions. Second the program does not stray from the context of that time. Third what is revealed is the many ways in which war oppresses people, even those who are rational, ethical, well educated, living in highly developed societies.  Each episode reveals the destruction by showing us how the characters deal with the difficult situations.

The most heart breaking episode is "Broken Souls" which tells the story of the mental health of soldiers and civilians.  It focuses on a psychiatrist who is operating at a very compassionate level even though he has lost his home and family.  Coming from Poland to England he works with ex-military men whose lives have been interrupted by mental illness. Like the character of Foyle he is an example of a deep commitment to life and the moral standards that demands.  We watch the souls breaking and being broken by the conversations and conflicts between each character, and each character deserves compassion.

(This compares to blockbuster movies - where the good are magical and the evil mechanical robots who struggle for power with high tech weapons.  Watching a fine production such as Foyle's War really contrasts with the modern propaganda for the arms industry.)

In the "Broken Souls" episode the good doctor discovers that his wife was killed in a death camp, and filled with remorse for surviving his family he attempts to kill himself.  His suicide is interrupted and he is rescued.  But later he discovers through a Pathe News Reel the conditions of the prison camp his family were taken to.  Distraught he leaves the movie theatre and walks by the river where he is knocked down by a young German prisoner of war trying to escape.  It is while he is down in the mud that his reason is overtaken with rage just for a few moments and he picks up a rock, throws it at the German, killing him.

It is the doctor's retelling of this event that is the poetry, the illustration of how a soul is broken.  It is the narrative of every fine soldier, healer and human who survives the break down of the world around them.  It is the door to our understanding how no-one wins the war in the end. There are always broken souls who seek to mend them by causing the next war, and the next, and the next - and so it goes.

The only way to win the war is to value life more than power. This too is not an end to war forever, not a lasting solution, because once we attempt to control the lives of others, we step back into the devil's deal of power and move away from life. This is a principle of our evolution not a strategy or an ideology.

Things I cannot prove

Lotta Hitschmanova - photo by USC Canada

While I agree it's good to have facts back up our beliefs there are some that cannot be proven no matter how much research I do.  It is part of my experience to be perceptive, to sense what is happening around me, and after many years of dismissing many of these perceptions because of a lack of proof, I believe they have some element of value. 

For example I cannot prove that Jesus, who, according to scriptures, was nailed to a cross – died for our sins, not to save us from our sins as the Christian doctrine says.  Certainly these doctrines have been studied by scholars and priests for many centuries, and for whom I would never doubt their intelligence, but there is a theme in these teachings that reach me in a very deep and disturbing way.

The meaning of this story, comes from my first impression as a child. It is a warning of what happens to those who challenge authority. The imagery is so powerful it hardly needs thinking about.  The son of man (and woman) nailed to a cross, naked, and left to die a long and excruciating death, for advocating a spiritual life – what child wouldn't get that message deep under their soft skin?

After two thousand years of evolving doctrines, the most fanatic adherents have been willing to mutilate, torture, burn and murder for their Christ without feeling any apparent conflict to their Savior's message in life – although I have no way of knowing the conscience of crusaders.

What is that sin we are guilty of, that allowed him to be crucified? Is it the original sin – being born of woman, of sexual desire, of being imperfect? Or is it that we (mortals) failed to climb on the cross, remove the nails and set the Christ free?

This question is, of course, naïve, and all the arguments, interpretations, are irrelevant no matter how eloquent or learned they may be – except the meaning that most impacts the followers. 

Some dismiss religion entirely.  After all history reveals our vainglory.  The teachings of Christianity have been selected and altered to fit the politics of the day.  First it was used to make the people suspicious of their own intellects and judgement, and to fear their own desires and needs.  Then it taught misogyny, a hatred of feminine wisdom. It  forced men to doubt their own feelings and fears, to become soldiers and cannon fodder. Then it taught followers to hate those who did not share their religion and race. Instead of teaching the love of Christ it taught religious intolerance.  It taught that suffering was good for you and at the same time, taught that those who suffered ill-health, poverty, injustice – must have angered God and so their suffering came with shame and guilt.

Now that a new tool of propaganda has been invented, religion is not essential.   Now voice-overs, images, TV shows, movies, consumerism, and the internet, can broadcast the doctrines that keep us serving – what exactly? Ideology? Technology? The corporate elite? Racial supremacy? Patriarchy?

Are all these things evil or are they different versions of the same thing? Should we get rid of them all and return to community and nature?  Would we then be free of oppression?  

I don’t know.  All their messages point to some truths, but they don’t willingly tell the whole truth.  Religion has also given us Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Buber, Martin Luther King Jr., Lotta Hitschmanova, KarenArmstrong, the Dalai Lama and many others who have inspired great movements.

Although I can’t prove it I believe ideology is a way of ordering life without the agony of attempting to understand it.  It’s an operating system, under different names, we willingly give in to,  in the hopes we’ll rise to a position of power that will enable us to feel  superior.  We submit to doctrines, game plans, education, clubs – believing we can reach the top, change the rules, or change the system.

So the story of Jesus, like the story of the witch hunts, the French revolution, war, capitalism, communism, and The Wizard of Oz – are all about the worship of power over the use of responsible democratic power that comes from within. Their cautionary tales reveal our inability to transcend the operating systems that punish those who seek alternatives to structural violence.  Those who affirm life through love instead of hate.  Those who work for the greater good of all. I can’t prove it but I keep seeing it this way.

Fear Won. Civil Society Lost.

"In this election Adrian Dix and his campaign hit lots of precise if small notes that a political journalist like myself might keep track of and tally, but overall the New Democrats apparently neither summoned enough fear of their opponents nor struck the themes or meme-like policy ideas that summoned enough inspiration. Campaigns are not PowerPoint presentations. They are emotional narratives. You would think that journalists like me, who describe ourselves as story tellers, would have better sensed where this tale was taking people in the late chapters." David Beers, The Tyee.

The results are in.  The majority of voters do not care enough about their society to learn how power works against them.  They are happy to believe the slogans paid by wealthy transnational interests rather than think about how this affects the quality of life for them and their family.  They want to believe in their own superiority, their natural common sense, rather than find out how the operating system has kept the masses oppressed and ignorant. They want to believe that "Jobs" and "Economy" will be good for them without understanding how power sets the terms and conditions they must work under.

The majority of voters don't want to think about their relationship to social justice, or their role in community building, and so corporate funded media campaigns keep them mesmerized and oppressed. And don't think it will be status quo.  We have told the funding interests we don't care about our province, our neighbours, or our nation.  We only want to be entertained. So they can do as they like with us.

We are now Bangladesh. We are now, in narrative, a third world petro state and the operating system is designed so our elected leaders are powerless. The land will be destroyed by pipelines and tankers and we will pay the corporations to do it.

Our teachers and healers will burn out and our schools become warehouses for our kids while we earn twenty cents an hour in dangerous conditions. Our hospitals will be kept for those who can afford to pay for them while we die in toxic swamps. And if the poisons don't get us we will be too overcome with rage to organize and cooperate.

Over the last thirty years the wise and intelligent have warned us. Yes a minority have marched, protested and contributed to rescuing the human experiment. But the majority have dismissed these efforts for the fleeting giggles of the Dragon's Den.  Our communities will descend into soap opera dramas. Eventually we will pull out each other's hair, gouge out our neighbours' eyes and attach bombs to our own underwear.

All because we were afraid of the word socialism.  All because we became afraid of our own power believing that anything we do for humanity, community and society, is bad for us.

The fangs of capitalism have bled humanity of its worth and integrity. It has made us idiots in our own living rooms and we voted for its end game.

400 PPM and Beyond

fragile nature

"Last week the world's most important CO2 observatory recorded a daily average of above 400 PPM for the first time in history. The challenges are growing, and so our movement must keep growing as well."

350.org

Free CBC of political interference

taken from MP Profile

Dear Friends,

Thank you so much for your email about the Conservative government’s plans to take control of the CBC’s operating budget. I agree that the CBC must remain an impartial and independent body.

Bill C-60, the Budget Implementation Act. 1, tabled last week, states that the Conservatives may interfere in the bargaining process of the CBC, a Crown corporation that has been independent for 80 years. They will now be able to dictate the wage conditions of journalists whose job it is to monitor the government.

As well, Bill C-461, An Act to amend the Access to Information Act and Privacy Act (disclosure of information), currently before Parliament, is a direct attack on the independence of the CBC and journalistic sources.

In Reporters Without Borders’ (RWB) latest Press Freedom Index, Canada has sadly fallen from 10th to 20th place. This report states that Canada is now behind Costa Rica, Namibia, Andorra and Liechtenstein. The RWB has blamed the Conservative government’s actions and their incessant attacks on the journalistic principle of anonymous sources for this slip in the rankings.

For your information, the NDP has tabled a proposal for splitting the Budget Implementation Bill (C-60). Here is what we proposed:
e) clauses 228 to 232 related to the Financial Administration Act and collective bargaining between Crown corporations and their employees;
….that the clauses mentioned in section e) of this motion do compose Bill C-65; that Bill C-65 be deemed read a first time and be printed; that the order for second reading of the said bill provide for the referral to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates;
that Bill C-60 retain the status on the Order Paper that it had prior to the adoption of this Order; that Bill C-60 be reprinted as amended; and that the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel be authorized to make any technical changes or corrections as may be necessary to give effect to this motion.”

I want to assure you, my New Democratic colleagues and I will continue to defend the independence of the CBC. Thank you again for your email on this issue.

All the best,

Jean Crowder, MP

Nanaimo-Cowichan