Why Propaganda Works. Caitlin Johnstone

 https://consortiumnews.com/2023/06/28/caitlin-johnstone-why-propaganda-works/?fbc

I recommend you read the whole article. It's worth remembering.

Capitalism Doesn't Want Real People Who Struggle With Different Identities

"The report makes clear it isn’t their gender identity that makes young trans and Two-Spirit people more susceptible to self-harm and thoughts of suicide, but rather a lack of gender-affirming care, which includes using a young person’s stated names and pronouns, facilitating access to peer groups and culturally appropriate and gender-affirming mental health supports and mentors, parental support and appropriate medical care."  https://thetyee.ca/News/2023/06/27/How-Support-Trans-Youth-BC/?utm 

Corporate media doesn't always publish what the story is about. It looks for neat and tidy explanations. Reporting on the details of individuals takes time and tolerance but news outlets require advertising dollars. Will advertisers see their promotions represented by an independent point of view illustrating the details of an issue with compassion and sensitivity.

I had thought truth required compassion, an  in depth close look at the problem.  I have learned a lot from the painstaking articles of those who found themselves marginalized. 

Minorities can find themselves in torturous corners because we don't understand the pain and difficulty another soul is going through. It's so much easier to judge and more satisfying to believe we are successful because we don't suffer that problem.

How do we know someone is normal and not just hiding their pain from the public for fear of being ridiculed?

How many billionaires or famous people do we know who are comfortable with themselves?

Marilyn Monroe was a celebrated sex symbol and a troubled soul trying to please people. Strongmen who spend their lives organizing violence toward others to fulfill their sense of success are saying by their actions - the value of my life is equal to how much power I have over others.

Our society  applauds the narcissist who seeks to disrupt their world for personal wealth and fame. Today people are homeless in a market that encourages greed, poverty and homelessness. "It's just the pecking order" is how we defend injustice.

It matters that there is so much suffering around us, even if we personally do not benefit from it.  Our planet has succumbed to our appetites. 

The universe weeps through the fear and dread of those who are hated because they are different. When hate is used for political points we burn our future instead of nurturing it.

Do We Need Victims?

" The girl’s parents say Tesar and his wife shouted insults. And teachers at the event say he was belligerent, accosted the family, questioned the girl’s gender and created such an uproar that the girl began crying. He wouldn’t stop when teachers asked, and the event had to be moved to a different part of the field. " https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2023/06/20/Conservatives-Ugly-Approach-Democracy/?utm

Tesar (a man) ran onto the field to accuse a girl with short hair of being a boy and then interrupted the game by insisting the girl not play.

Now how can such a bullying tactic be considered good or fair?

How can "conservative" be interpreted as defending a principle by accusing a 9 year old girl who has very short hair of being a boy. Even if she had been does not justify the bullying tactic used by the man who accused the girl (on the field in front of all spectators).

This issue only emboldens those who feel their world is beyond comprehension, who feel small and angry and need to abuse power by threatening those who cannot fight back. Politics seems to encourage this rage among right wing political parties who get their support from those who have been left behind, maybe can't afford a home, and who live with other embittered souls. It makes me wonder if bullying is an asset to the conservatives.

Is this why right wing political parties  need traumatized voters? Is this part of the capitalism that helps those who have some power own and run the world?

Cross Country Check Up June 25

 

CBC Radio: the topic for today -  is Canada becoming more or less supportive of LGTBQ people and their issues. I came to it late in the conversation. The quest was for callers to respond to this subject - were they sympathetic to the fear that students who identify as LGBTQ are or may be bullied if they come out.

In our world those who identify as anything different are inclined to be bullied. 

What I would like to hear is why do some people bully and harm others. Bullies generally pick on those who are not likely to match their attacker in size or power - in fact wherever the story of violence arises it's usually against those who are smaller, poorer, different, sensitive, gentle, and vulnerable. 

Bullying fits with the major vices in our world, those who "rise to the top" usually have found ways to maintain their power often disguised as "leadership". Masculinity in terms of toughness then it seems social or corporate media promotes their "talent" to make people laugh, to sing, perform on the stage, act, look stunningly beautiful or desirable. 

Our society promotes a mythology of success - which we are all to subscribe to. Parents hoping their children will get top marks at school, be the best player at their sports team, somehow shine in some way. This is what has been known as a parent's reward.

We learn at a very early age who is a success, most likely to succeed in their class - or at least we are supposed to since Horatio Alger was presented as the American Dream which travelled over the ocean to Europe and influenced UK in the modern times beyond the celebrity of Royals and Upperclass mythologies - you know, getting up there.

What all this boils down to is status, a mark you have succeeded. But the reality is this quest, this striving, can lead to low self esteem, insecurity, self-loathing and mean behaviour. Also climate breakdown, pollution, crime and ignorance.

Labels, new trends and expectations from our loved ones to the extent that we are paying oil companies to promise more oil wells while we are promising our children to take care of our planet so they can survive.

And watching TV shows about bad guys raping and trapping young girls as trafficked commodities.

We are supposed to be jaded to believe the bad guys always win and their victims will always be victims - those who have the power will continue to make the rules and all we can do is hope we will survive their appetite.

In Times When Humanity appears To Be Evil

 

When news media reports denialism, hatred, misogyny and contempt for all life on this planet, we need to ask ourselves what we can bring to the world to make it better.

This doesn't mean "saving the world" - it means looking and listening. It means feeling the pain that's evident in the world.

Why is there so much anger and alienation? Where does the brutality begin when we assume it's normal.

We are not isolated units competing for the most of what each of us wants. I remember a time when I thought I must be a success in order to make my mother's life have meaning. She struggled with depression and feelings of alienation during much of her life after losing her first husband in WWII and with an infant to raise.

How could anyone take away the pain of someone whose life was cut in half by loss and who also had to feed and nurture a new human. The current belief was she had to get married again and give up her daughter so as to make her fit into the needs of her new husband.

Why was her first husband not valued because the family left was encouraged "to get on with life" - not complain about loss and depression and acclimating ones feelings toward a new husband who demanded attention to his needs so he could support them.

Sounds fair doesn't it? But it demands things from those who have had their lives broken by things beyond their control. It demands effort from those who are not valued and whose condition is not recognized beyond what they are support to do.

Patriarchy found a way to rule over society by conditioning the mind to value power over the events that are very difficult to control. Those with the highest incomes are expected to control everything including what is beyond their control, and if they can't they must present "truths" to keep the masses in line.

So success demands the pretence of lies as truth, if the one who is in the top seat is not in control; if control is not achievable.

So "leaders" may start a war with a group who has less power. When "witchcraft" was simply a religious ceremony to help people believe they had a way to effect outcomes, King James of Scotland embarked on witch trials making it illegal to practice witchcraft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Berwick_witch_trials. (1590) 

Now there are more sophisticated ways of "proving truth" or at least presenting conspiracy theories.

The depth and breadth of evil is evident enough to call it human behaviour. (What happens if we are led to believe by an authority that's hard to dismiss, that we are isolated humans competing for the most of what each of us wants - sorry I can't find the name of the author of this) and now we have AI and the internet.

Is there a better understanding of the difference between evil and competition or capitalism? Part of our living existence is uncertainty, so all I can do is listen to those who have something to say particularly when they have been or felt harmed and do not further harm by stating statistics or popular beliefs. This doesn't seem to be enough but it can begin a relationship to another human being.

What ammunition is pointing at your head?

We can force full term births then kill them when they reach kindergarten. We can watch fleeing immigrants drown while we take away their boats. We can use nuclear bombs everywhere. We can kill the needy with drugs. We can get the last word.

This is the shallow effect of power for power's sake. We could all live in misery and fear, wishing to die rather than being tortured to death. This is the world of our creation. Bully for the satisfaction of watching others die, if only in TV dramas.

This is not new. Other centuries have witnessed this nihilism where all life was made miserable and a few fought to save it by bringing back reason and by loving the broken tortured minds, throwing babies on the bonfire while mothers screamed.

Biblical times: Kill all the women who have slept with a male. Kill all the nonbelievers.

Sentiments of humanity where there is no respect or love of life: Kill the the people who are not the same as us. Kill all the people who say things different from us. Kill all those who speak different languages. Kill all the humans and let the jungle go back to the apes.

This is the frustration of hate in a time when we looked to gadgets to press. Disappointment when our team keeps losing. Rage when our politicians do and say things we personally don't benefit from.

All this information is from centuries of different rulers and different values.

But we do have knowledge and argument vying for our attention, leading us to fear one another, to learn different habits and philosophies in between entertainment and expectations.

As long as we care for one another we don't have to make them see the world the way we see it. We don't have to think the same or arrive at the same solutions.

Do no harm. Listen. Care. Think then think again. We don't have to make others do what we want. 

Celebrate and love, worry and nurture, not control.

 

Diamonds and Rust by Joan Baez

The lyrics to Joan Baez love song is so beautiful, so deep and reverent to the mysteries of romantic love.

It begins with a sense of interruption,  a kind of annoyance, then the ghost. Love as a haunting, something that is beyond the singer, love as a third party - the singer, the love object and the rising of the ghost. "And you happened to call" which brings the ghost back into the earthly world. 

Romantic love, falling in love, hardly seems like a choice. I have never said to myself - "ah I think I'll fall in love with this person" and then it happens. Not that kind of love that captures and haunts you.

I do know that whenever I have fallen in love I find it more painful to try to stop loving them. It's more comfortable to tuck it away gently and know that once I fall I cannot stop it. I can choose how to react to it but the effort to stop the feeling either makes my emotions hard or drains me.

The first verse refers to a full moon. The singer is moved by the world around and above her. She is part of the universe because music is extraterrestrial. We make music but we don't build it as much as it builds us.

We are brought back to the world of things, props, connections. Her hand is on the telephone but she is "heading straight for a fall". Or he is. Love does have that emotional cost for people who are capable of loving. Able to fall in love.

I admire anyone who is able to fall in love. There is too much violence done in our world. Not just by weather or the wild. Baez doesn't make such a judgement. Her skill in creating music and writing lyrics places her well within the social world. She is affected by it but she does not stand back and judge it like a Freud or Jungian intellectual. Baez has not put her humanity into a category.

Humanity really needs to be fully present I think. There are gifts we can bring above the problems of our greedy egos. That's a judgment I know.

Our society for centuries has been built on material wealth and need. Yes we need plants, animals, dust and water, but lately we have forgotten we need to respond emotionally to some extent so we don't become a psychopath or alienated by narcissism. (Yes that's just a judgment from me).

Great musicians live deeply in their world. They are wedded to their feelings, not standing apart from it in a separate uninvolved discipline. That's something a human can create but doesn't have to become. A scientist is still engaged emotionally and morally if she invents weapons of mass destruction.

The lover remembers "your eyes bluer than robins' eggs". She didn't just say "blue" eyes. They are not aspects of white supremacy (and white supremacy has reduced us), they are the results of ancestors.  It's not the fault of eyes to be blue, it's the reference of privilege. Your blue eyes do not create poverty or wealth. It is the immoral habit of creating a hierarchy of wealth and preference.

All genders are engaged in love. This song is about love. The pain. The humbling need for another even in a world that praises independence, strength, control and power.

Diamonds are hard. They are for the rich who need something to buy. Rust is decay. Diamonds and rust are part of our world. The joys, the loss, love and heartbreak. Some humans live and die without suffering a heart break because they have steeled themselves against their vulnerability, and in doing so may have caused pain in another.

Falling in love with things like "the girl on the half shell" and in our current troubles we fear the unknown and uncertain. We fear being harmed. We look for security in things.

The meaning of this love song is something I must guess at.  Baez has provided the metaphors, the beautiful melody, the vulnerable honesty of a young woman falling in love with a vagabond "Already a legend". 

Choosing to influence his world yet staying remote, an image that cannot be devoured the way any business can devour our lives.

She loved him dearly - and she already paid for the diamonds and rust (with grief and tears I imagine).

Being in this world does demand something from us if we wish to live. Attempting to take and not give doesn't seem to work.

DR. Cornel West will run for President says Chris Hedges

 

"If this campaign becomes a movement, and it will need a lot of organizing to get Cornel on the ballot and build grassroots support, the array of forces that will seek to discredit and sabotage his candidacy will be formidable ..."

"The war industry, the courtiers in the media, the corporatists, the billionaire class and the Democratic Party leadership, will be as vicious to Cornel as these forces in Britain were to Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters. Entrenched power will fight us with every tool in its arsenal. And, as with Corbyn, these assaults — rooted in a mendacious campaign of character assassination — will be relentless." https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/dr-cornel-west-announces-he-is-running?utm

 

Life is Fragile

 

Now all you have to do to ban books that indicate abuse of power - is blame the LGBTQ movement. Rather than point out the creep of fascism, the challenge against the freedom of people to be who they are, to think, to question injustice and abusive power - just ban the conversation based on LGBTQ freedom to be.

We see destruction of land from climate change, violence against vulnerable women and children, shortage of available health care, threat of more pandemics, threat of misapplied justice, more bullying in public places, poverty and misery - and we must ask why? Why when we should know better than to let the bullies reign, is this happening?

Are you happy? Is worry interfering with your sleep? Are you beginning to feel moments of despair?

Do you dare to read history more thoroughly? Do you dare to read 1984 again or the Handmaid's Tale? Can you stomach crime dramas?

What can you do?

Maintain connection with your humanity. The only good reason for having power is to defend life, honour relationships with those you love, make choices based on the benefit it brings to life, respect life more than personal power. 

Control

😈 

Control

That thing shines like gold

24 kt gold

large almost hanging in heaven

and while fires and floods

creep closer as we slumber

we look for that closet

safe and dark

that door to keep out

all dangers all fears

so we can stand tall

chest out

arms straight by our side.

Control is the military

marching lock step

it sleeps in our bed

sits at our table

lifts weights at the gym

not like the careful precision

of the military

but the feeling sitting in our belly.

It’s more than a bomb

waiting to explode

it’s fireworks on the bus

pyrotechnics lit by a girl

bullied, shamed, raped

all the spit still in her hair

from centuries of public shame

the goat who will not be spanked

any more

sad but at least not a classroom

of killed kindergarten kids

products of a vagina

we just hate with venom.

There is no control

on the market

that’s worth talking about.

Alberta is now free to dig up

the rest of Turtle island

not controlled by explosive missiles.

This planet could be renamed

Done!

Onto the next.