Victims of Climate Breakdown

"The victims of climate breakdown have so far been mostly voiceless and invisible to us. But we know that, even with just 1°C of global heating, climate chaos is already a bigger cause of forced migration than either poverty or political oppression. Large numbers of people in Somalia, Mozambique, Bangladesh, the Caribbean, Central Americaand many other parts of the world are already losing their homes and livelihoods." George Monbiot, Arresting Destruction.

After the Election

Us Versus Them

Every year 

new enemies are trotted out 

like livestock at an auction

while the auctioneer

spits out bids so fast 

buyers must lift their hands

at the right millisecond to win the deal.

No empathy for sheep or cow

harnessed to display

the buttock, hind leg and neck

—terror sedated with hay.

Well trained salesmen

smell fear from east to west 

predicting mood

finding the right words

to steer the captured away 

from an exit that leads to freedom

and back to the holding pen.

If we must stay in this battered barn

let’s identify the one who really is to blame

the designer of our game

who lays awake at night

designing the ultimate holding pen

to trap, cook and eat our children.

When Cruelty is the Point

The Atlantic published an essay by Adam Serwer October 3, 2018, which is most disturbing yet salient.  "The Cruelty Is the Point: President Trump and his supporters find community by rejoicing in the suffering of those they hate and fear."

This essay lists incidents that I find very difficult to read. In the 30's black men chained to poles—whipped to death while white men grin proudly as though this was an accomplishment. "Their cruelty made them feel good, it made them feel proud, it made them feel happy. And it made them feel closer to one another."

A Mississippi crowd of Trump supporters cheered as the president mocked Christine Blasey Ford for reporting the attempted rape by Kavanaugh when she was a teenager. "Lock her up!" they shouted. The trial or at least a part of it was taped for mainstream viewing.

Ford, a psychology professor, reported the laughter of Kavanaugh and his friend Mark judge as "Indelible in the hippocampus ... that part of the brain that processes emotion and memory".

Adolescent male cruelty "is a bonding mechanism, a vehicle for intimacy through contempt." White men in lynching photos bonding through cruelty. These examples say—the white man has evolved to be part of the global family of cruelty and torture.  

You may be thinking that white women and black men are as capable of cruelty as white men. But what I find so chilling in the history of World War I and II is the branding of men's psyche in the camaraderie of violence and cruelty.  That something in the healthy brain has been erased so that men can serve the ruling elite through bonding by traumatizing rituals to "toughen him up" rendering him unable to interrogate his feelings without falling back into the trauma.

When we question this behaviour men may get defensive or applaud it by further abuse. Should women learn how to do this? I have seen women who are willing to display cruelty and violence for the sake of maintaining power over a group.

I have even felt that hardening in my own heart when it appeared it was required "to do the job." To lose that intelligence of empathy and sensitivity which informs my place in the group. 

What makes me most fearful for the future is how easily we can become monsters through unidentified trauma and fear. This is like a setting in the mind which makes me do something I thought I was incapable of doing.

This is why election day is not the only opportunity I have to protest against injustice, cruelty and stupidity. I am a member of the human family and have an obligation to take care of us by caring what happens to them. This is my political task between elections.

Requiem for a miracle planet

"Who are those who would sacrifice us on the altar of global capitalism? How did they amass the power to deny us a voice, to insist that the earth is an inert commodity they have a right to exploit until the ecosystem that sustains life collapses and the human species, along with most other species, becomes extinct?" Chris Hedges, The Age of Radical Evil, Truthdig

By some miracle this planet is made of more than rock. We have oceans, soil, trees, sun and rain. We take this for granted but without this climate our ancestors would not have survived. However, we did. It was never without pain or conflict—now we are ruled by values that seem to have transcended life altogether. Money and inequality is about to make us all redundant.

White men and women have been complicit in the colonization of this planet from the beginning of radicalized evil:  to conquer other nations for the purpose of capturing resources, including slaves, then building a global structure of rape. Raping humanity, raping the oceans, raping the land, the air — of all dignity while creating a new god.

The very least we can do is to admit the full purpose of racism is to dehumanize us all so we can dismiss the violence and carry on playing.

Unfortunately racism is not enough to keep the oligarchs unfettered by social justice and common decency, so hate groups must be whipped up by fake news paid for by "anonymous" sources.

The earth is pretty much a dump for the system drunk on greed. Factories of ideology from farms to cities, economics to education, philosophy to politics, progress as technology and weapons, presenting "the real world" of healing as naive.

Radical evil has turned our species into zombies ready to lap up the latest novelty to keep us from getting depressed by the state of our world.

The question is — will you keep investing in, "isolated units competing for the most of what each of us wants?" Are you ready to see society as a means to support the dignity of your life?

Rich in stuff yet homeless

"We are guided by an ideology so familiar and pervasive that we do not even recognise it as an ideology. It is called consumerism. " George Monbiot, Oil Strike.

The ideology is so effective because the poor believe the rich are happier and the rich believe their happiness depends on what they can buy next.

I know this because I have been poor and now I am rich. It is a generalization of course and generalizations are essential in consumer societies.  First we consume ideas and then generalize them for convenience.

Convenience is another ideology built on and for capitalism. I am surrounded by stuff to the extent it oppresses me. My cupboards and closets and garage are crammed with so much stuff that needs to be sorted, thrown out but can't be given away.  We live in a convenient consumer society where this stuff is everywhere.

We can't give it to the poor because they have nowhere to live. Nine years ago we downsized our house so our stuff was squeezed into any available space. 

Homes could be built and it would cost less in the long run to house the homeless, but we are addicted to consumerism and we would rather see people starving, cold and addicted on the street than see our "property values" go down. (That's another generalization of course).

We are also addicted to blaming the powerless. Rather than see the humanity in inequality we make them an enemy. In fact in our consumer society, every living thing is a threat to our imaginations if we build our worth on stuff.

A hundred years ago would your ancestors be okay with prices based on slave labour overseas while many are without jobs? Would they have slept well knowing that human rights have been replaced with a new religion called neo-liberal capitalism? Would they also feel so oppressed that destroying the planet and the future of our offspring is the only option?

We have become homeless in our own imaginations.

Don't work for the demagogue

George Monbiot wrote in The Guardian  about how to respond to the fascist divide and rule tactics then offers suggestions of how we might deflect that.

"Use humour to deflect aggression, distribute leaflets explaining the action and apologizing for the disruption, train activists to resist provocation, run de-escalation workshops, teach people to translate potential confrontations into reasoned conversation, respect actively all people including police"

People's assemblies like the recent Gabriola Talks on Climate Crisis, bring people of different positions together and focus on the issue. Part of that is the reality that we have different interests and different histories. Civic spaces allow for other voices to be heard.

Stephen Porges points out -- compassion for others is difficult to see if we don't feel safe. Calm spaces are essential to rebuilding democratic life.

Monbiot writes "All this might sound like common sense. It is. But understanding how our minds function helps us to see when they are unconsciously working for the demagogues. Breaking the spiral means restoring the mental state that allows us to think."

Activate your compassion on days that don't require too much energy in rehearsal for the days where it might become your default.

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