War of Any Kind

 "Are the very rich deliberately trying to harm our country? In some cases, perhaps. There is a strand of capitalism that wants to generate crises, then seize national assets at fire sale prices. But no such intention is required to explain the general damage inflicted by oligarchic capital. It is simply that the interests of the very rich are not the same as the interests of the nation. We should never forget what the billionaire stockbroker Peter Hargreaves, who donated £3.2m to one of the leave campaigns, said about Brexit: “We will get out there and we will become incredibly successful because we will be insecure again. And insecurity is fantastic.”" Monbiot. 

War always destroys social cohesion by dividing people into servile parts: enemy, friend, rich, poor, Christian, other, Capitalist, Socialist, Left, Right. 

The purpose of war is to dehumanize a population, to spread fear, destroy community assets, bomb homes, cities, villages.

So the main weapon in the world of authoritarian cruelty and violence, is the attitude of politics that preaches we are selfish and violent animals by nature.

The weapon that is most effective is whatever teaches us to be selfish, uncaring, hateful and indifferent to the suffering of others.

It encourages us to treat males as unthinking, uncaring, muscular fighting machines, trained to be a certain kind of "rational" actors who honour without question the power of the pecking order. To turn complex beings into automatons marching in time with the brass band, seeking self worth from the rulers.

When men and women have been brainwashed into the "class" of their particular group of the pecking order, they will react to tension with their fists, seek the muscle in all things and eschew any tenderness within their minds and hearts.

They are lonely in an essential way that ultimately makes them non-human.

Russian Forces Attacked Ukraine

" Russian forces attacked Ukraine early Thursday with some of their movements caught on video. A convoy of armoured vehicles drove into Ukraine from Belarus, Russian forces moved to take control of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and military helicopters flew near a major airport north of Kyiv."

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-russia-launches-attacks-on-ukrainian-cities-as-putin-declares-military/

And the problem is .... people

“To prepare for war, to give millions of men and women the opportunity to practice killing day and night in their hearts, is to plant millions of seeds of violence, anger, frustration, and fear that will be passed on for generations to come.” Thich Nhat Hanh. found in TomDispatch By Kelly Denton-Borhaug / 

People who feel free to dismiss the needs of those who are trying to stay alive, dominate the media with their learned arguments of the economy, business and politics, are dismissing the first consideration. How do we remain civil? How do we care for the well being of women, men and children to the extent that we do not fear going  outside the house.

Vladimir Putin is playing chess with the lives of all on this planet by using his anger to punish all of us. Or the ruling minds of US politics is pushing the world to the brink by threatening Putin.

Right or wrong the alpha males think along the lines of a chess board while maintaining there is not enough money to build affordable housing, health care, or feed the hungry people in their own land.

So many species becoming extinct and our own future threatened because people let their minds get caught up in political power. We are allowing the few to play chess with our future.

We are not always able to challenge the alpha egos and so our survival remains a game of chance.

The reason for power is to create safe and happy cities. We are able to articulate the power we have but as a society we must do better. We must convince those we employ to lead responsibly, not for their ego or bank account, but to make our shared interests work for all.

Let's not get tangled up in self interest, games of manipulation, political cunning or positional competition the reason for our being here.

Playing games with the lives of the most vulnerable is evil. Stop it!

Signs of Breakdown - Personal and Public

 Just listened to White Coat Black Art on the radio. About a physician who was punched in the face just for saying hello to  a patient who came in on a stretcher. 

When people who help to heal us when we really need it, such as in the ER, get punched, when incoherent protests shut down roads and borders, when people refuse to act responsibly when mandates are given, when political parties make the most of a conflict in blaming the ruling the party, when comments are full of hate - it feels like we are living in a failed state.

The poison has hit the fan. The fascists are salivating on how they can further dismiss and disrupt democracy. People are no longer people but points or targets. Power is no longer real or lasting - it is a display. We are no longer human. We are simply volcanos waiting to erupt and spew our rage.

How has this happened? After WWII there were a few planners who thought of a way to hold onto their power. Of course they had influence. It was money.

But instead of using their influence to support a just society they focused on how to protect their interests by preaching alienation and hate. A revival of intolerance towards the unknown through fear and hate. Also a focus on material wealth as a sign of success.

Clearly we feel uncomfortable, not at home in paradise. Perhaps uncertain that our world is going sideways.

Now we are reading and hearing about the poverty in other societies who have been traumatized by social violence.  Violent attacks on girls and women, right wing extremism which coheres around blaming the victim (society has usually blamed the poor, the needy and the marginalized) so those who are higher on the pecking order are free of any guilt in the outcomes their values and policies have helped to create.

Who would dare to believe that patriarchy has not played a role violence against women? Who would dare to believe that colonialism has not caused the decline in indigenous societies? Who cannot see how class structure and neoliberal capitalism has not caused poverty, homelessness and drug addictions?

Corporate media is built on bad news. Leading with bleeding, the inevitability of war, the drama of violence,  torture of the innocent, naïveté of hope. Anyone who holds themselves to integrity in behaviour is sneered at while cunning sadistic characters are applauded. That's life! We may say; defeated and alienated.

This is a dictators dream. And we can't blame them for creating these social systems expecting they will not be blamed as history has already provided them with scapegoats. 

The destruction of human society is not a quick bombed out city or nation. It begins with the people we rely on to save it. It begins with our own mental health. It begins with a life supporting society so that Stalins and Hitlers are not given an opportunity to destroy whatever is left.

No matter what name we give an age or what is blamed - we are creative and able to engage one another by listening and speaking with respect and curiosity. This is social responsibility. To claim our portion of the world just as we routinely put clothes over our naked bodies before we leave the house.

Universal Virus

Incoherent protest movements tend to be infested with racism and white supremacy. Some of the key organisers of the Ottawa action are reported tohave a grisly history of racist statements, and some of the protesters have flown swastikas and Confederate flags. When black and brown people assume positions of power and authority, and appear more alpha than those who expected tribute from them, this is perceived as an intolerable reversal. The current wave of incoherent protest began in the US with the reaction against Barack Obama’s government, and soon evolved, with the encouragement of Donald Trump and others, into undisguised white supremacism. George Monbiot 

Monbiot is not the universal virus - he is the narrator of human progress and foibles. He is dedicated to justice and allergic to injustice. His writing is for people not profit. He appears to have integrity.

White supremacy is a mental illness, an unthinking truck, a rock of huge density and those engaged in movements mostly financed by rich men who are afraid of human intelligence.

The universal virus is life, threatening to reveal how meaning is deeper than any bank account. Any game that expresses contempt for life. An intelligent mind realizes that vulnerability is what informs us on how to survive, how to govern with integrity.

Shame

 

I came here smothered

in feelings the stomach clenched

what we share in this history

this nation, this heritage

religion and compassion

a jumbled game

where a 70 year old

flashes back to all she did

wrong wrong wrong

like a bell ringing

from the high tower

atop the temple

beliefs inherited

seeing just how broken I am

we are

traditions built on pain

tortured to death

where our most toxic habits

lead to tsunamis

who is it that is to blame

the primary question

the snake still in its tree

whispers to me

whose fault is this?

 No answer.

Janet Vickers

Back to 1947?

"Secretary of State Dean Acheson explained in his memoirs that in order to ram through the huge planned military expansion, it was necessary to “bludgeon the mass mind of ‘top government’” in ways that were “clearer than truth.” The highly influential Sen. Arthur Vandenberg surely understood this as well when advising [in 1947] that the government must “scare the hell out of the American people” to rouse them from their pacifist backwardness." Noam Chomsky 

https://truthout.org/articles/chomsky-us-push-to-reign-supreme-stokes-the-ukraine-conflict/?

The World of Elias Wakan

Elias Wakan makes wooden sculptures based on shapes. How do the shapes come together? How does he get them to fit? What is the philosophy of art, shapes and design? The Arts On Gabriola.

This sculpture is called The Meeting of Infinity

"The sculptures I make develop a common theme in nature: structure (particularly geometric structure) evolving out of repetition. We see it all around us, from flower petals and the leaves of a tree to the cells that make up our fingernails and the molecular structure of absolutely everything, repeating elements that come together to make form. The phenomena is even more evident in the work of man, particularly in architecture and engineering, but really in almost everything."

https://theartsongabriola.ca/artists?store-page=Elias-Wakan-c127733008

www.eliaswakan.com

Imagine if we saw the world as patterns rather than a competition to the top? 

 

Canada Must Investigate Convoy Money - David Climenhaga Today | Alberta Politics

 “If you think there’s something extremely fishy about the GoFundMe ‘Freedom’ campaign, you’re onto something,” Sandy Garrosino  wrote in the National Observer.

...

GoFundMe did not attempt to verify the identities of donors and admitted accepting foreign donations for a campaign to dissolve Parliament less than five months after a free and fair election in which a clear majority of voters supported parties in favour of vaccine mandates.

...

According to the Ottawa Police, as reported by the Washington Post, “a ‘significant element’ from the United States has been involved in the participation, funding and organization of a self-described ‘Freedom Convoy’ that has for several days jammed streets in the capital.” The revelation of U.S. interference in Canadian affairs seems to have been greeted with little concern in the United States.

https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2022/02/08/Canada-Must-Investigate-Convoy-Money/? 

The Eighth Principle

 

We are climates weathering this moment

thinking and feeling the minutes

as they pass unnoticed

or stabbed by past errors

our eyes witness longing

in another’s eyes

read words that conspire

to marginalize colour and shape

as if a blackboard is wiped clean

words written by tears 

history or herstory

their story and ours

looks for a road to walk down

up and around like the number 8

its infinite circling over the same old

arguments guzzling gas

we cannot move forward

on that street while a truck

hogs the road silencing our minds

into submission we leave the city

its modelling of rationality

its spread sheets of plus

or minus as though

white supremacy is a truck

that sits on top of the moon

and sun guiding our spirits—

no! Turn off that engine now.

Breathe again and return the world

to stargazers and fruit flies

flowers and trees—love these 

more than metallic toys built to be used

not worshipped.

Fred Guerin: Anti-Vaxxers, Anti-Maskers and Trucker Freedom-Convoy

Fred's blog post is the most coherent article I have read on this issue and I think its worth the time to read it:  https://www.fredguerin.com/post/anti-vaxxers-anti-maskers-and-the-trucker-freedom-convoy?

"Finally, I am not a huge fan of government paternalism, of vaccine passports and mandates. I don’t really like the idea of government tracking and surveilling me any more than I like it when corporations or social media does this. However, I have yet to hear any compelling social or ethical argument that persuades me that there is never a time when individual privacy concerns should absolutely prevail over public good. I think a lethal pandemic qualifies here for very obvious reasons. 

The choice to remain unvaccinated poses a real risk of harm to others unless those who refuse vaccinations are willing to self-quarantine—which most refuse to do. It turns out that the majority of those who remain unvaccinated also resist social distancing and mask-wearing. As I have said before, if this pandemic has taught us anything it is that we are all a fact of each other’s reality, and we, therefore, share some responsibility towards one another."

Daily Life in Modern Chelm by Sima Elizabeth Shefrin

 

Comic-a-day February 3 2022 aka Daily Life in Modern Chelm

Go here: Elizabeth Shefrin <simaelizabeth@gmail.com> 

to sign up for daily comics - the effect of humour on these stressful times is bigger than the biggest honking truck. 

Using Force for Protection or Protest

There is a fine line between demanding people get vaccinated and protesting it.

Big trucks honking horns and blocking roads, destroying statues, in a city where you don't live is an invasion not a protest.

Kneeling on a protester so he can't breathe is murder not policing.

TV media that glorifies violence for entertainment over and over again, is emotional propaganda. Replacing civil society with greed and violence is war.

Taking children from their parents and sending them to residential school where they have no contact with relatives or parents and where they are punished for speaking their language is genocide.

Allowing an established elite to decide what is broadcast,  is propaganda.

A society that presents violence as normal human behaviour is corruption. 

We are living in a time where we have very little say in how our nation is run while being told we live in a democracy and our leadership is directed by vote. 

Integrity, compassion, love and connection are very important, in a just and democratic society. 

I am sympathetic to those whose beliefs are different from mine.

This pandemic is not just the virus, it is about the structural violence of patriarchy, capitalism, nationalism and the glorification of power-over. Playing one group of victims against another is how nations have been ruled since the Roman empire.

We can't stop "them" from using their power to control us but we can educate ourselves and future generations by building just societies. We are all poor when some of us are poor. We are all bullies when some of us are bullies. We all grieve when some of us are hurting.

What Can One Woman Do?

Thanks to String Band and all Folk Singers whose primary goal is not personal wealth and profit but messaging for freedom and survival. You are part of our salvation.