When it's worse than you already think it is

This blog is going to begin a new project - The Mind-Heart Advent Calendar which will operate like the Christmas Advent Calendar but instead of chocolates or gifts, each day will be a gift of life-affirming community to recall our humanity. Rather than the oppressive messages of capitalism which have dominated corporate media.

Says Chris Hedges: "Our capitalist democracy ceased to function more than two decades ago. We underwent a corporate coup carried out by the Democratic and Republican parties. There are no institutions left that can authentically be called democratic."

Hedges points out the "long and ruthless corporate assault on the working class, the legal system, electoral politics, the mass media, social services, the ecosystem, education and civil liberties in the name of neo-liberalism has disemboweled the country."

Noam Chomsky compares this time to late Weimar Germany.  It has left the nation a decayed wreck. We celebrate ignorance. We have replaced political discourse, news, culture and intellectual inquiry with celebrity worship and spectacle.

Chomsky, in the article published in April 2010 predicted the sweep of right wing Republicans: "We will be told that white males are a persecuted minority. We will be told we have to defend ourselves and the honor of the nation. Military force will be exalted. People will be beaten up. This could become an overwhelming force. And if it happens it will be more dangerous than Germany."

Although I live in Canada - a different nation, we shall be impacted and we are threatened by this movement as much as Europe was threatened by the Nazi's.  The nature of our society with its deniers, thugs, and public activists is still the same.  Those who seek power know how to divide us and I am hoping that this blog might help inspire us to come together to respond.

Every day beginning December 1st this blog will post a new quote, image or aphorism or advice that will link us to our humanity to fight the darkness of hate and ignorance. Not by calling names to people but by calling out our vulnerability to defeat in spirit.  Please sign up to receive these posts as they become available every day. Also if you wish to contribute a piece please contact me via the comment section.

Protect People - Charter for Compassion

How Cities Can Protect People 

From Marilyn Turkovich, Director

Charter for Compassion International

"We should start organizing to make cities powerful bastions of noncooperation, resistance, and protection. Activists and organizations can start demanding in every city that city councils and mayors issue resolutions and statements saying

• Our city will not assist or cooperate with any raids or detentions or deportations of any immigrants. This includes assistance of local law enforcement or providing data to the federal government.
• Our city will not cooperate or assist with registration and surveillance programs of Muslims, or any attempts to make our friends, neighbors, and loved ones the enemy.
• Our city is a safe zone for all immigrants, Muslims, LGBTQ people, women, and anyone fearing persecution from the Trump regime.
• Our cities reject any effort to criminalize or attack Black Lives Matter or other organizing for social justice, as Trump has suggested he might do.

This is a time to move to create compassionate communities in our world.  We’ve been hearing from many of our members who are thinking seriously about starting an initiative in their city, town or village
  Let us step forward to bind up what appears to be a very sorry world with our heart, hands and mind.  Register your community and we will be in touch to help you take the first steps"

A poem by Maureen Killoran

Image found on BBC

Spirit of Life and Love, I come before you
black and brown and red and yellow and alabaster,
I come longing for the simpler days that truly never were our lot.
And I am an American.

Hear these voices, as in the complexity of our days,
I am Humanist and Christian, Muslim and Jew,
Pagan and Atheist and Buddhist and UU
And I am an American.

I am one who fought for my country
and I am at the same time one who protested war
And I am an American.

Amongst the divisions of our days,
I’ve struggled in poverty
and I’ve accepted the profits of wealth
And I am an American.

I am an owner of weapons, and
I am one who would control our nation’s guns,
by limiting the who’s and what’s and how’s
And I am an American.

As light is shone on our divisions,
I live with often-unacknowledged privilege
and I am moved to rage at
the complexity of intersecting oppressions
And I am an American.

In the challenge of our days
I am one who supports my country, right or wrong,
and I am one claims the traditions of dissent
And I am an American.

In this polarized season,
I am Democrat and I am Republican,
I am Libertarian and I am Independent,
I am Green and I am confused.
And I am an American.

Spirit of hope, sit with us in our diversities.
Help us hear one another in our divisions.
Grant that, beginning in this community,
we may honor one another’s Truths,
and know that a just and faithful tomorrow
begins here, in our hearts.
For with all our problems, with all our pain,
with all our limitations and mistakes,
We are Americans.

Maureen Killoran, Developmental Minister at Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Gainesville (UUFG) http://www.uufg.org/

Please stop racist attacks!

I implore you to stop not because I am African or Asian or Ojibway. But because I am white, I look white, I talk white. When I witness  or hear about racism, the hair on my back stands up, I begin to shake, my stomach aches, my heart sinks down into my bowels. It keeps me awake at night, and if this hatred hurts me it must be far worse for those who are targeted. and perhaps this is the idea – that the masses self destruct in opposition to the other.

I am not saying  YOU are racist. I don’t think we set out on our life’s journey to hate. Just as all Moslems are not responsible for 9/11, YOU  are not responsible for the woman who was pushed in front of a train because she was wearing a headscarf, the murdered and missing women, the holocaust, or the tone of the US elections. YOU are not responsible for the refugees whose cities have been blown apart, the unarmed teenager who was shot by a policeman, the overworked underpaid workers in Mexico, or increasing inequality that threatens what little democratic opportunity remains.

But you and I are responsible for the words that come out of our mouths, and for how we respond when we witness attacks. We are also responsible for knowing the cost of what we choose to purchase, where it comes from and who is oppressed by its manufacture.

We are responsible for understanding what happens when racism stalks the commons. The first casualty is dialogue. (There is too much pain both sides.) The second is observation. (We prefer not to look too closely at the deep penetrating destruction of hate and the entitlement given to those who assume superiority.) The third is acknowledgement of our own opportunity to heal the small moments.

Racism makes us powerless echoes of our ancestors' fear and pain. Problem solving is shut down like an iron gate when the narrative announces “it’s all their fault”. Racism cripples democracy. Racism alienates us from our human capacity to inquire, to feel empathy and to be compassionate. Racism locks our children into binaries of fear. Racism chooses violence first and smears all privilege with blame and spilled blood.

When we feel entitled to judge those we have never met, based on generalizations spread in media and on the street, racism is the first weapon of mass destruction. It begins as a tiny virus in the reptilian brain and spreads all over the world. It is the greatest servant of the arms industry and the psychopathic ruler. It is the door to war that keeps on spilling blood, making life unbearable and the future into something to dread.

So please remember the images of Aleppo and Auschwitz before you shout racial slurs on a bus or laugh at a friend’s jokes or click “like” in the comments field.

Racism is the most destructive and disabling fantasy of white supremacy.