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.
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