How to Fight Terrorism

I am republishing this due to anxiety felt as we witness a change of politics in the country to our south. The refusal to concede defeat from the Trump Administration and to plan to disrupt with violence from  various supporters (white supremacist groups), is, in my opinion, terrorism.

How can we fight that instinct to keep blowing up the blown apart?  Invest in peaceful, healing initiatives that make violence redundant.

1. Invest in mental health services to give those at risk the help they need before their illness isolates them from society.

2. Re-establish the primary needs of people - shelter, nutritious food, education, living wages and time for family.

3. Support families by providing health services, family planning, women's reproductive education.

4. Sex education that covers the real experiences of young men and women on top of the scientific knowledge about human sexuality.

5. Encourage children to develop a social conscience by listening to what they think, to honour their ideas and to talk about the world of economics and politics in a way that helps them grow into engaged citizens. This can be done at dinner times or other regular times that the family is together.

6. Value life before profit and power. Look people in the eye, take time to listen, take time to care no matter how small the offering may be.

7. Welcome refugees - they are in crisis and people in crisis can recover if others help them find peace. The earth is more than just real estate - it is home.

8. Give up the notion that competition is the only way we become better people. Competition might help us improve at sports, and certain skills but a life dedicated to "winning" is limited to egocentric obsession and narrows the world view.

Terrorism begins with  the idea that power is a zero sum game. That the intrinsic value of our lives depends on proving ourselves. Proving to be capable is worthy but when society is written out of our experience we learn to see our worth in comparison to others, in how much we earn and what we own. If being great depends on oppressing others who have less power, or making more money or up-selling products, we have disposed of our human values such as art, music, analysis, care, nurture, problem-solving and the building of sustainable futures.

Happiness Reconfigured

Once upon a time, not so long ago

happiness was a product of something else

—to be free of pain, to be warm and fed,

then it became a by-product of profit,

six figures to nine figures, the numerology

of ego and greed, the politics dividing us into

a sixty-forty handicap where a minority

of the certain out-vote the majority

who suspect that low taxes and the economy

have written us, happy or not, out of the future,

who refuse to die in a car crash or overdose,

who question the mathematics of chaos.

Have we become homeless puritans again?

Casting our bodies on the ocean in search

of a new world and finding instead

an old one that was here long before us?

How radical would it be to find happiness

in thoughts moving like fingers scaling

an imaginary piano, or a feeling,

a brief sensory perception of hope?

Suppose these small things moved us away

from the dark resources underground

to the centrifugal forces of our mind

terminally wondering what we can do?

Not as an exclamation of despair or apathy

but a quest, an inquiry into nature, a timeless

question on waking each morning—where did

happiness begin? The big bang?

(published in Infinite Power, Ekstasis 2016)

This is our future

We are at risk of suffering from plans that others make without our knowing. Our future is our past and we begin at the beginning of the patriarchal system.

Anthropologists point to the rise of male dominance with large and populous agricultural states organized in terms of classes.

Survival depended on ownership and position. Maintaining good relationships with others, relying on cooperation might have been important for those on the bottom rung of the social ladder, but the higher your position and the more wealth you had separated you from the need to be considerate, to care about others beneath your position.

Marriage was not about eros, it was about joining two wealthy families together for status. Daughters were a bargaining chip in the wedding of two families. Children were chattels. Wives were forced to keep themselves, their children, their husbands, away from anything that might threaten their reputation, even though they couldn’t control the mouths of gossips.

Daughters could not marry into "good" families if their reputation was stained in any way regardless of whether it was their fault. Proving the truth would be difficult against the words of those who had influence. Intellectual exploration was harnessed, imprisoned. Answering the call of love with your body led to social isolation. Every thought act and utterance becomes a political outcome while the feelings that guide and give us joy become a potential threat.

Just how much control do we have over fate, desire and happiness, in a society obsessed with appearances, where gossips are brutal in the city of class and fashion.

War, structural violence, wealth, money and education are all weapons in the struggle for supremacy. The president of the most powerful country on the planet can behave like an idiot because those who challenge his position will be punished by all who aspire to climb the ladder. There is no shortage of those willing to torture the challenger of group think.

Eventually we all learn how to grovel at the feet of a despicable system. The winners become more shallow, more heinous, more ridiculous, because the system cannot see how it protects itself, the system casts out the original thinkers and the people who look and sound different.

Although we think we live in a democracy and feel responsible to vote for a healthy planet, there are other influences that keep us tucked inside self interest.

The professional classes may not vote for equality and fairness because their interests are linked to their own group.

Then there is the group given privilege but who have been forgotten, dismissed, marginalized. They are angry, bitter and potentially violent as their rage bubbles out. These are young men who have learned how society expects to be "a man".

Patriarchy is not about men, says an article in Psychology Today. It is about the ownership and domestication of women and their sexuality. To keep women out of the public domain they must deny and ridicule everything they like, they say, they believe and achieve. Communities which women mostly build through volunteering and their work must be ignored. Real politics must be lampooned and any "progress" in human society must be destroyed, including compassion and love.

The threat to our healthcare system, our education, our justice and search for peace, acknowledgement of LGBTQ rights, may look like separate issues but they are all connected.

As social organization becomes more aware and effective it becomes a threat to the hierarchy. Wars are organized to crush the exuberance of young men and women who are re-thinking a new kind of society. White Supremacy movement is set up to make young men feel oppressed by the changing narrative of inclusion and to cut the interrogation of capitalist exploitation of masculinity - which does oppress men and women. Right wing parties seek to undo the emancipation of men and women to keep them working for the factory that crushes the human spirit. Women who have achieved status by their writing and work are met with death threats.

Environmentalism takes authority away from the market and into the conscience of the people. The human conscience that cares for all sentient life on this planet is the only thing that can save us.

Your Hate Does Not Benefit You

"We saw in the North American free-trade agreement renegotiation and the imposition of steel and aluminum tariffs that the U.S. leader had no patience for facts and enjoyed bullying his allies more than confronting his country’s adversaries, while his acolytes sought to replace the postwar order with a Washington-centred hub-and-spokes system." Paul Heinbecker, Globe and Mail.

I'm not convinced that free trade was good for me or for the workers in factories, but the US President is not on our side either.  He doesn't even seem to be on the American people's side. As for our Prime Minister he seems to be more onside with business than with the citizens even though he made promises and was elected on a campaign to honour the land and sea on which we depend.

What has been lost is a respectable conversation between interests for the sake of the greater good of all.  From somewhere there is the financing of hateful threats to those who have been marginalized, including those who are concerned about climate change.

Meaningful dialogue has been taken out of our domaine and funnelled into the boots and trucks of angry people who have chosen hate as a way out.

A way out of what? A level gaze at all the competing interests who want to take more and give less? 

A way out of owning how our ancestors and nations were complicit in the exploitation of smaller nations, how they colluded in barbaric practices for the sake of dominion over the most land. Not to civilize it but to enslave the people and pollute the land for profit.

In this way, we too have been polluted -- not just broken hearted but corrupted. Ideologies we submit to are often evil because of how they effectively confuse and alienate us from our own mental health.

The best example of this is white supremacy -- and no I am not talking about all the people  who are not brown skinned. I am talking about the movement itself, funded by interests who wish to remain anonymous.  What exactly does white supremacy stand for?

Reading between the lines it stands for hegemony over those who have moved away from the masculine ideology that demands sacrifice on battle fields, absolute obedience in the corporate board room and support for enslavement. I am also talking about the feminine ideology that props up the command that their men must always be strong and never vulnerable, promotes the feminine body as a host for the next generation but not a complete being. The corruption of Christianity for the sake of power-over the people through unexamined obedience.

Some may claim that Christianity was corrupt from the beginning when the teachings of a young rabbi became the foundation of a new religion. Some may claim that religion by its very nature is corrupt as it indoctrinates the innocent for the sake of controlling the masses.

I am saying that corruption is so embedded in our civilization and collective memory, that we need to examine our lives and beliefs enough to figure out the thoughts and values we hold and the way we support the idea of control. Controlling nature, our children, our seniors, our selves.

What is the best use of my power? To hear the voices of others, to support community, to heal my own injuries and to love life. Once I feel compelled to dominate or conquer something I must interrogate that need and ask who benefits?

The Issue is Structural Violence

"The constitution outlines Canada's system of government, as well as the civil rights of all Canadian citizens and those in Canada" Wikipedia.

The law of the land is like a tapestry where new items are added and some old ones deleted.

Values like fashions change. People change. Countries change. Change brings fear and tension. The greater good for all, as boring as that sounds, moves up and down the chart of priorities like the stock market.

Countries, religious institutions, and parts of our civil society may dismiss what is good for all for the sake of their own interests.  Workers are expected to be loyal to the corporation they work for, to be team players, to show willing regardless of how comfortable they are with changes.

It is expected that we do not bring shame to our family, religious congregation, club or profession.

We are to achieve standards recognized as high by the tribe. But there is always the threat of failure: being homeless, alone, hated, cast out - even though you cannot control all circumstances no matter how much education or diligence you possess.

Competing demands take us beyond the law of verifiable existence, beyond what we have learned through our own experience or character. However we are caught in the doctrine of a capitalist system which emphasizes profit as the proof of success. Jobs and the economy are needed to buy food, clothing, and transport. And all this demands a proscribed appearance of "normal'.

Life looks like a series of battles to win, the need to be "seen" as powerful in a system invested in making you feel powerless.  The greater good gets lost in the details.

We are trapped. How can we survive when all we depend on comes under the jurisdiction of other forces? How can we work for sixty hours a week and admit just how fragile we are? Even the unemployed and the poor are working hard to survive, to appear "normal".

Where do we get to actually live, to consult our heart and soul, when such concerns have already been dismissed as sentimental and our appetites unrealistic. When do we get to invest in building character rather than the self-improvement doctrines from other "experts".

Turning to the wisdom of ages through religion, science and history does not offer absolutes as they change with the centuries. The bible is a big book and covers all the contradictions imaginable:  racism or agape, obedience or compassion, acceptance of  poverty and suffering yet disdain for the poor and feeble, working for peace yet glorifying violence.

Returning to the Law of Verifiable Existence (LOVE) brings the law down to my level, to my emotional intelligence with the skills I possess and knowledge I have. I put myself on the table, in the street, at the hall and the voting polls. I take responsibility for what I consume. Cynicism and despair, criticism and sarcasm, are not the ultimate responses to this world in which I must dwell. The world is not out there - it is the hope for my grand-children, the support for theirs. The world is the ultimate theatre of my time and resources.

Winning and losing is a shallow measure of who I am and what my life is about. The GDP is simply the measure of a capitalist system. If the law does not have compassion or courage or morality, it is a living hell. The law and our constitution is the written agreement on how to love life.

LOVE is not just a personal and private relationship, it is the primary condition of our lives.

Rituals of Pleasure

As I sit in my living room and work in my kitchen my thoughts are on how to bring pleasure to the ones I love.

Pleasure can remind me of who I am - a member of the human family whose health has been built on the discipline of others who cared about the quality of life. Those who studied to heal and educate, who were guided by love of life. Those who patiently cared for their children so they would be in touch with their humanity.

The desire for pleasure asks for my vigilance so that I don't create a life of conflict. I learned that conflict is not something you win because no matter what I do, it never makes me happy. Being an "expert" on who is to blame, who is wrong and who is right has never fixed anything for me, never brought satisfaction.

Pleasure is not smug, not a sense of superiority. I know pleasure is fleeting, so I look for whatever enables us all to find pleasure. What are the conditions that allow us to bring pleasure into the world? These make up a socially responsible community.

I seek good health, to be free of lingering pain, warmth, and to be free of hunger. Even though millions do not have any of these, I seek these to remind me that pleasure can be a blessing for us all and this guides my behaviour and my desires.

Humanity, Wealth and Social Justice

In 2017, 112 were killed and 531 wounded in mass shootings in America, according to a chart published by Mother Jones and Times Magazine. (Deadliest Mass Shooting US History). The chart covers 35 years and in 1982 only 8 were killed and 3 wounded. 

Why is it important to record this? Probably because the NRA and US Government refuse to ban guns no matter how many news headlines make us feel unsafe. And the proliferation of social media where anyone with a connection to internet can broadcast their favourite theories - like this one, needs some facts for the balance.

Also because numbers seem to have authority over general perceptions.

But what does it mean for the future of our species? 

We are not about to become extinct - there are 7.6 billion of us on this planet. I can imagine (unkindly) some folks in their well funded think tanks congratulating the murderers for killing off some of the population without them having to pay for it. The victims of mass killing are usually poor and unknown. Not that war killed off rich white men - the front lines were filled with working men and boys. Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Japan, Europe - the dead were mostly from the unknown mass.

And I haven't even mentioned the deaths from drug addiction, alcohol, cancer victims, diabetics, and those killed on the job.

Looking at it this way you can see why there might be a resistance to medicare for everyone, or safe work site legislation, or welfare, or investigations into food safety, or affordable homes.  You can see how effective capitalism has become in convincing the masses that we get what we deserve, and how easy it is to justify anyone's worth through economics.

Our political and social habits that value some for what they own or what they do has fallen to discredit humanity by broadcasting articles that show us in madness and despair, along with entertainment glorifying infantile rage, cruelty and violence. It's all a steady diet of blood and guts on screens and a mindless quest for getting to the top and shaming those that fail.

This is not a meritocracy or a democracy, and although many of us in the West have it much better than our ancestors did - every one  must ask what we are winning and losing and who is responsible for making the world better, if not all of us.

Wall of Silent Screams

There are times when there is so much bad news it creates a wall of silent screams. Headline after headline supports the ambition of centralized power that holds humanity in a prison of dread and fear. This is more than just a feeling, it is the body's sense that everything created is about to crash. A tsunami coming in slow motion and you know there is nothing you can do to stop it.

More than the threat of fascism it's as though life itself is atomizing into drunken parts. My own body losing muscle, my head unable to think, my fundamental ability to survive lost. Something much larger than politics is invading my universe in a way that I cannot walk through. This can't be explained by the economy. It is an organic response. Should it be ignored or should I try to understand it?

To admit to my own vulnerability is not weak, it's a maturation of my ego, a willingness to move beyond my self interested fantasy to see what is happening outside the bubble. I look for the skills in others I do not possess and call on the skills I have to build a community.

There have been other people I admire for the skills and abilities they bring. I look for strength in diversity. I look for those who can do the things I can't do and feel gratitude for all that they give. I go to them for advice and give advice when I am asked for it.

The hub of community where people have learned how to be contributing stakeholders brings me a sense of peace and comfort. However, as much as I respect them I don't always agree with what they say and do, and so we must learn how to communicate without injuring. My community is not my possession but part of the wealth that I enjoy.

Life is easier when the place we live in is not threatened by authoritarian institutions. Part of my humanity is to keep learning how to engage with my neighbours so they are safe - because when they feel safe it makes my world safer to explore.

There is so much more I need to learn about being human, about how to endure discomfort, uncertainty, or pain. How to find relief from anxiety.

Karen Armstrong writes that compassion is the way we find relief from fear of the unknown. A society that honours equality is more confident in searching for ways to solve community problems such as alienation and loneliness. We feel safer to help those who need help. We learn how to be experienced stakeholders. We can develop the insight that our wealth is the quality of our relationship to one another, and that collecting stuff does not satisfy forever.

But now, in the democratic world, we are threatened by a hatred for the other. The blaming is isolating us into fierce camps. Will we be investing in weapons so that communities protect themselves from the outside while living in denial inside?

Hunger, homelessness, domestic violence, road rage, intolerance are not separate issues - they all arise from decades of structural abuse. We cannot trust the police, the courts, the teachers, the policy makers and our doctors when civil society dissolves into a cauldron of competing egos filled with disappointment, dreading what the future may bring.

Resisting trends that we do not agree with is one way to maintain sanity. When Bertrand Russell responded to an invitation from Sir Oswald Mosley to debate  fascist ideas, he did it in a way that clearly defined his values without insulting the values of his friend.

"Thank you for your letter and for your enclosures. I have given some thought to our recent correspondence. It is always difficult to decide on how to respond to people whose ethos is so alien and, in fact, repellent to one’s own. It is not that I take exception to the general points made by you but that every ounce of my energy has been devoted to an active opposition to cruel bigotry, compulsive violence, and the sadistic persecution which has characterised the philosophy and practice of fascism.
I feel obliged to say that the emotional universes we inhabit are so distinct, and in deepest ways opposed, that nothing fruitful or sincere could ever emerge from association between us." Bertrand Russell

We must call on our own humanity to protect what we hold dear, and cannot expect to be protected by abusive power if we disown our civic estates.

Some Wise Advice Circulating

Amended Post (especially related to #1 below) found on Be a King's FB page,  However I did find most of this on  Bernice King calls Shadow Banning President Trump.

Some Wise Advice Circulating: 

1. Use his name sparingly so as not to detract from the issues. I believe that everyone, regardless of their beliefs, deserves the dignity of being called by their name. However, this is a strategic tactic. While we are so focused on him we are prone to neglect the questionable policies that threaten freedom, justice and fairness advanced by the administration.
2. Remember this is a regime and he's not acting alone;
3. Do not argue with those who support him and his policies--it doesn't work;
4. Focus on his policies, not his appearance and mental state;
5. Keep your message positive; those who oppose peace and justice want the country to be angry and fearful because this is the soil from which their darkest policies will grow;
6. No more helpless/hopeless talk;
7. Support artists and the arts;
8. Be careful not to spread fake news. Check it;
9. Take care of yourselves; and
10. Resist!

Keep demonstrations peaceful. In the words of John Lennon, "When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system’s game. The establishment will irritate you - pull your beard, flick your face - to make you fight! Because once they’ve got you violent, then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don’t know how to handle is non-violence and humor."

When you post or talk about him, don't assign his actions to him, assign them to "The Republican Administration," or "The Republicans." This will have several effects: the Republican legislators will either have to take responsibility for their association with him or stand up for what some of them don't like; he will not get the focus of attention he craves; Republican representatives will become very concerned about their re-elections.

The Unconscious Bias

Walking around the Farmer's Market on a summer morning I passed two craftswomen engaged in conversation.  What word describes the opposite of misogyny? In passing I chimed misanthropy. The second woman said that is the general term for the hatred of humanity. And the question was, what is the term used to express the hatred of men, males. I moved on because I didn't want to get ensnared in this conversation I had heard from others in different times and places.

I anticipated after the two women concluded there was no opposite to misogyny in our language, they felt that a hatred of men coming from women, was not recognized.  The second woman said it's not fair.

There is no opposite of misogyny because a hatred of males has not been a systemic tool. Women became the possession of men, chattels, and the institutions governed by men created a fear and hatred towards the feminine to justify the power men were given over women.

Less than a century ago, women who spoke out in public, who were engaged in challenging the status quo were often beaten, imprisoned and raped. It was mostly women targeted during the witch hunts. It was women who were trained to be submissive and obedient to men. It is women whose character is whacked in courts where rape is the charge. In domestic abuse cases, up to now, women were blamed for violence inflicted upon them. Our society claimed they must have asked for it. A man who beats his partner claims "she pressed my buttons".  Sexuality for a man is conquest, for a woman it is slut shaming. Doesn't every woman know this? How many more examples of men's contempt for women do we need to know? Southern states that try women who have miscarried for murder? The misogynist attacks on Hilary Clinton?

It was my assumption that the women at the market were feeling sympathy for men who were being attacked by the feminist movement. This made my blood boil. But perhaps they were saying its not fair how women are viewed. Perhaps it was the opposite of what I thought.

Yes there are women who hate men but it's not supported and justified by our social system.  Hate hurts us all on a personal community level, but when hate is used to support the violence towards a whole group of people it becomes a weapon, and weapons we can't see are devastating.

Had I inquired I might have pounced in judgement based on my assumptions.  Emotions operate first. Also I was not invited to participate in the conversation. Had they been shouting then their opinions would be open for comment, the volume entering and changing the environment.

But it's times like this when I feel there is a need for conversations about civil society and social justice, and a movement for adult education. Questions such as when do expressions of hate become a crime? When should the public intervene? In what ways are we implicated when misogyny, racism and homophobia are expressed?

Dear Trump Supporters

I love you. I do. I'm not joking. I get your pain. I feel it. You're trapped by corruption. That's it. No way out. Every day talking heads tell you. Every day you're told you're nothing. You don't count.

You worked fingers to the bone. You did everything you were told. But they took your job. Took your house. Split your family.

You're a loser. Everything tells you this. No-one looks in your eyes, calls you sir or ma'am. You've been trashed. Except in the bar. Running up a tab on the credit card you can't pay. Every month you need more booze, more drugs to numb the pain. You have no choice. By next year you'll either be dead or deeper in debt.

At school they told you, study, work hard, and you'll be rich. On the way up, take the punches, you'll win in the end. Keep fighting. Men will fear you, and babes will line up to get into your bed.

They lied. They all lied. They made a fool of you. You can't win. They can't lose. You're blood boils and somebody's gotta pay.

Who is gonna pay? Not the ones who set this up, right? You don't even know their names. I don't know their names.

This much I know.  There's more inside you that no-one sees, no-one knows. But I gotta say this.   I don't love your hate.

Hate won't get you to the top. Won't put it right.  We have to work together to put it right. We have no choice. We have to go back to when things were alright. You had a job, a home, a community.  You had respect.

You have to build a community. Minute by minute, word by word. You have no choice.

 I'm talking about basic civil society, services that allow you to live without fear. Education, health and living wages. Hope for your kids future. Justice. I'm talking about walking down the street with confidence.

Respect can't be bought. Belonging can't be bought. Security can't be bought. You have to give respect. You have it to give and you deserve it to get it back. That's why I love you. Respect. My life, your life depends on it.

The only thing hate will bring is death. Tormented souls with nothing left but clenched fists and high blood pressure.

We have to keep trying to build together. They are not in control. You are not in control. We are not in control. It's tense. It's tiring. Sometimes it seems hopeless. But we have to keep listening. Keep talking.

It's not what they should do or what  I should do? It's what CAN I do?

All we got is the rest of our lives. We have no choice.

Four Lessons on how to Change the World

Ilona Szabó de Carvalho left her career in banking to lead the Igarapé Institute in Rio de Janeiro, which focuses on security and development policy. In her TED talk she gives us four lessons she learned while tackling the violence around issues of drugs and guns in Brazil.  Carvalho's experience contains an important message for us all – we can challenge big issues and achieve change.

The four lessons she learned in the process are: 1. change the narrative, 2. never underestimate your opponents, 3. use data to drive your arguments, 4. bring together odd bedfellows

What would this look like for those of us who want to change the current political narrative? Below are the thoughts I have wrestled with.

1. change the narrative

We are not nations or religions competing for the most of what each of us want. We are sentient beings trying to survive the cumulative effects of a global hierarchy that enables mass starvation and violence to sustain the power of a few.

The conflict is not between right-wing and left-wing, capitalism and socialism, Christianity and Islam, the conflict is between power and life.

The Operating System has moved beyond tribal competition for territory and is now in the stage where power is valued only as a wholly separate construct from human nature. This requires a structure that upholds, defends and worships the non-human measures of  our culture such as money, technology, numbers, formulas, ideologies, celebrity (not the person but the image), and ideas.  Which also requires a consistent doctrine.

The doctrine tells us that life is not valued because the world is over-populated. Life is a threat to order and must be managed, categorized, brainwashed, dehumanized and reduced through organized war, disease, starvation and addiction. Authorities create fear, insecurity and misery, and make it appear that we ourselves have chosen the conditions we live under.

Hierarchical power requires a rationality that is free of sentiment,  compassion or reverence for life. Any progress that has been made in the last two hundred years is that sophistication and application of purified power and its increasing contempt for anything that breathes. Entertainments must be pornographic to uphold this regime. Food must be genetically modified to its meanest elements. Civil society, art, community must be destroyed for these are the elements of power from within and are difficult to manage. Community is reduced to a shopping mall restricting human interaction to the impersonal , where all other human emotions such as compassion and empathy become a  means to the end of a business transaction. Here we become willing consumers of our own self-hate.

Corporations are the controllers, government are the police and media are the instructors who must continually promote the notion that life in itself has no value, and the more things we possess the more contempt we feel for earth's unpredictable and uncontrollable forces. Social intercourse celebrates and promotes consumerism through the adoration of new gadgets, rare and expensive foods, new trends and sophisticated technology. The household that possesses the most up to date fashionable stuff can congratulate itself as the winner.

Our darkest nights understand that once a weapon of mass destruction is invented that will kill most of the people without destroying the elite playgrounds on earth, it will be used. But it won't solve the problems humanity faces because all, including the elite, are oppressed by the doctrine that power must eat life.

This is the narrative of post-modern literature - Wells' Time Machine, Orwell's 1984, Monty Python, Atwood's Oryx and Crake, and other classics that have warned us.

This is a narrative that makes sense of all that has happened socially and politically. It's not the only narrative but it is one that puts us in the centre of the problem.

2. never underestimate your opponents

First we need to identify who our opponents are. Are they the one-percent, the corporations, the governments, the media, the ideologies? Are they the sum of our apathy, greed and ignorance? Is it our reluctance to examine life?

Many empires have come and gone throughout history so we can’t pin the blame on a singular tribe or a political system. It has been an endless return of revolution and corruption.  That's the force of power-over.

Is the opponent our own ego which separates us from the cause and effects of our habits? Is it the way we try to hide from our inherent malevolence, or inability to see ourselves as the earth sees us? Is it the ruling elite who manipulate us? Is it always the other who is incapable of self governance?

What if we were able to reclaim our human family, to embrace and acknowledge our power from within, through dialogue and reflection. What if we listed all the tricks we use to deny our involvement and responsibility in the evolution and care of this planet? What if we nurtured our world and loved nature? What if the imagination could bridge the small things we can do with the large movements for change?

Our opponent is really our own ignorance on how power is used against us, and how easily we slip into the narrative provided by our oppressors. As we have learned to write, read, decipher symbols, understand metaphors, we can also learn how to recognize power in all its forms.

3. use data to drive your arguments

You can find data in many places. Mainstream media sometimes includes it but other news sources and websites developed by concerned citizens are available.

The Gun Violence Archive; Amnesty International; Humanist and Liberal Religion that celebrates the human experience through diversity; news sites that defend social justice; those who acknowledge the complexity of society and its problems at the cost of making their message less slogan-ready; thought leaders who seek wisdom and do not rely on power-over to influence others; poetry; statistics.  And our own level gaze.

4. bring together odd bedfellows

What and where are the odd bedfellows of this issue? Members of the Gun Club, members of Tax Payers Federation, workers within community services, managers of the CBC, the homeless, the working poor, MP's within all political parties, police chiefs, scientists, environmentalists, artists, writers, philosophers and deans of the academy – all who are willing to talk and listen.

Bring together different narratives of how the world works, different personalities from different faith groups (including atheists and nihilists). Make it clear that their views are important and that everyone has a voice, but the point of the voice is not to be right, but to open doors. 

The future, if there is to be one, must embrace and hold up the reverence and dignity of all.

Track Changes

Legal Strategy Coalition on Violence Against Aboriginal Women: "reviewed 58 reports dealing with aspects of violence and discrimination against Indigenous women and girls, including government studies, reports by international human rights bodies, and published research of Indigenous women's organizations. The reports cover a period of two decades. (They) found only a few of more than 700 recommendations in these reports have ever been fully implemented." 

Harper's record of refusal: An Act of violence against Indigenous Women. Muskrat Magazine, rabble: "Since 1996...over 40 reports have been delivered to the federal government calling for a national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women.  In August 2014, the premiers of Canada also called for an inquiry stating there are two possible routes to getting a national public inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women: Prime Minister changes his mind and calls one -- or he is defeated in the 2015 federal election." 

Globe and Mail Editorial February 1, 2015; "Prime Minister Stephen Harper never tires of telling Canadians that we are at war with the Islamic State. Under the cloud of fear produced by his repeated hyperbole about the scope and nature of the threat, he now wants to turn our domestic spy agency into something that looks disturbingly like a secret police force." 

Letter to PM Harper from Ralph Nader, Rabble: "Particularly noticeable in your announcement were your exaggerated expressions that exceed the paranoia of Washington's chief attack dog, former vice-president Dick Cheney. Mr. Cheney periodically surfaces to update his pathological war mongering oblivious to facts -- past and present -- including his criminal war of aggression which devastated Iraq -- a country that never threatened the U.S." 

ICBC may withhold licence for outstanding court fines, student loans in default. CBC: "The provincial government has proposed legislation to expand ICBC's ability to refuse driver's licences to those in debt.The insurance company is already able to withhold licences from people who owe money, such as toll fees, but the new bill — if passed — would be a "last-resort measure" to collect on outstanding court fines or student loans in default." 

There are many voices of reason from individuals and groups doing all they can, with very small budgets, to influence their governments.  What must be really clear to any concerned and thinking person is that those who hold the highest seats of power  like presidents, prime ministers, and CEO's of large corporations, do not appear to be providing leadership at all.  It's as if holding power is not compatible with social responsibility. Or the media feels its not in their best interest to report when these officers do consider the greater good. That, in fact to do real leadership for their constituents, to do what is wise and responsible, to do what we expect of adults, is likely to cause their downfall. That once they have won their seats they must be obsessed with holding onto their power by any means available.

Social responsibility is not seen to be the concern of prime ministers, presidents and CEO's. Somehow the building and maintenance of order and justice must fall on the citizens, sometimes sacrificing their own lives, to defend society, or to re-build their own structures of governance.

Power without social responsibility and justice is not leadership, and therefore not legitimate power.

Interrogating the White Race

Trayvon Martin, Reza Aslan and Jesus are linked, not just because they have been in the news lately but because there seems to be, thanks to Fox News, a lot of noise around race, religion, good and evil. Most of it a disconnected framing of beliefs built on prejudice.

Rather than moving away from bigotry, right-wing media seems to want to inflame it. Is this a strategy to keep public fears and prejudices chained to hierarchy and oppression?

Christ with beard (Wikimedia commons)

In an article titled Who Owns Jesus? Tasbeeh Herwees interrogates the interview between Fox News' Lauren Green and Reza Aslan. Tasbeeh says "The insinuation underlying Green's questions was that a Muslim writing about Jesus was not just outlandish, but inconceivable without some kind of hidden agenda."

How dare Aslan write about Jesus when he is not white? That would be the question among many people who are informed only by popular propaganda.

Who knew, without having read Herwees article, that middle eastern people were found to be white in a 1915 court case when Syrian immigrant George Dow fought to overturn a ruling that proclaimed him ineligible for naturalization because he wasn't white. A federal appeals court ruled in his favour because of Jesus!

Aslan remained patient and rational throughout the interview as though he were explaining something to an eight year old.  Perhaps because "Aslan, like many Muslims, faces this kind of suspicion in his everyday life - by policemen, TSA officers and passers-by who find his dark skin and foreign name threatening" says Herwees.

Where did the term "white race" come from?  It entered the "European languages in the late 17th century beginning with the racialization of slavery at the time, in the context of the Atlantic slave trade and enslavement of native peoples in the Spanish Empire", says Wikipedia.

In this context it could be argued that economics required this category so that the "white man" could, with a free conscience colonise America, India and Africa.  But it seems it was not enough.  Scientific studies had to be pursued to support the white man's entitlement to exploit and abuse other people for profit.

Samuel George Morton (1799-1851) created Crania Americana (1839), An Inquiry into the Distinctive Characteristics of the Aboriginal Race of America and Crania Aegyptiaca (1844), and concluded that "the ancient Egyptians were not African but white and that Caucasians and Negroes were already distinct three thousand years ago." (Wikipedia)

After centuries of the white man's savage treatment towards aboriginal peoples it seems like some are desperate to hold onto the notions of white supremacy, long after the survey of human mitochondrial DNA (Cann, Stonekind, and Wilson. Nature. 1987), points out that "all mitochondrial DNAs stem from one woman" who lived 200,000 years ago in Africa.

Or more to the point, it seems like capitalism requires a global state of injustice and structural violence in order to maintain its hegemony. But this can only be maintained while we, the majority of people, remain in a state of preferred ignorance and apathy.

Let Them Eat Guns: a glimpse of the future

How many people have been killed in the US by guns since Newtown? At the point of writing this post: 2, 519.  What does this mean in terms of years or decades into the future?

The proliferation of guns is only one part of the main story here. Really it tells of social despair and nihilism.

When "let them eat cake" was attributed to Marie Antoinette  it remained as an example of contempt for the public, the majority of whom were poor. Although there is no proof that Marie said those words, it reveals the power of words, of what they represent to the people. It reveals an attitude among the  ruling elite that sees commoners as a nuisance, like mice, rats or rabbits.  Something to trap and get rid of or turn into a resource, like factory workers or rabbit stew.

Since the 1700's we have survived cultures who taught that everyone who was not white, not male, not protestant, not rich - as the other, the enemy, the stranger.  Perhaps at one time violence was just violence but somewhere along the way we attempted to idealize our own and demonize the other to maintain a choreographed and predictable future. But instead of creating peace we find ourselves in chaos.

Some of our species, we might call a ruling elite, such as the heads of church, state and business, are attempting to maintain the status quo by keeping the masses economically powerless. However this is the messiest, most violent and chaotic way.  The countries that most eagerly embraced communism, the troubles or the Arab Spring, were those where the gap between the haves and have-nots were the greatest. The populations where there is no equality between genders and races, where marginalization is ritualized throughout the land and narrative, find they have no choice but to rebel, to seek revolution.

When power is centralized to a few, then power-over or hegemony is the way the unreflective choose to feel safe. They demand guns for the institutions in place to serve them; weapons of mass destruction against other nations; ideologies that create more, not less fear; gated communities; inhumane immigration policies; private health and private schools; larger more brutalized prisons; and routine torture.  Centralized power creates war as a means to keep the focus on the other-other  so the masses will not have time to see how they are being robbed.

Right now the planet has been purchased, if not legally, then by propaganda. The governments, the leaders, the laws, and the fifth estate have abandoned the future in favour of a false sense of power, because all over the world civil society with its freedom and responsibility is being systematically destroyed.

What we have to look forward to, if we don't engage with this theft, is one of incremental suicide.  Society is not status, not communism, not a shopping mall, and not celebrity.  Society is the way our species survives by caring for one another and by creating systems that celebrate the creative community. Society is about the love of humanity and the opportunity for our evolution.

This is not idealism. It is a re-direction from the glorification of violence (which is the first gate of terrorism) to the masses estranged from their own capacities through uncertainty and fear.

When ordinary people believe that they must carry a personal weapons to protect themselves, it is because they have not experienced the protection of justice and freedom, no matter how many times the words are trotted out.  Without justice and freedom life is not worth living.

"It's about common goals, not colonial guilt"

Eight Ways to Take Part in Idle No More

By Jess Housty, 19 Jan 2013, TheTyee.ca

Hope and Optimism

Hope and optimism requires our attention to the current state of affairs. The dark side of power.  That is, we need to look at the events that normally disturb the comfortable and lead the disturbed to despair and pessimism.  We need to address this relationship to our world, our place within it and find a way of being that challenges injustice.

Ish Teilheimer of Straight Goods,  reporting on a study that reveals a psychological difference between rich and poor (indicating that the rich don't see a need to help others, whereas the poor understand that they depend on mutual support) goes on to say "It's good to be loving, hopeful, and optimistic, but it's also important to point out that many of the bad things happening to people today are happening because some very wealthy people wanted things that way."

Wealth is power, and those who have power-over sometimes feel more secure by creating systems that make it very difficult or impossible for the masses to gain a healthy standard of living.

"The export of good jobs to sweatshop countries, for instance, was their idea. It's not unfair or overly negative to ask about new ideas in politics and government "Does this help everyone or just the rich?" and to consistently expose the shameless voices of wealthy self-interest."

History is full of examples of how brutal some are willing to be in order to maintain power in their zero-sum game. It was wealthy interests who supported the Nazi's murder of millions of Jews, gypsies and others, causing a war across Europe that destroyed hope and optimism for most. It was wealthy interests that plummeted the lives of Africans into despair and alienation during apartheid.  It is wealthy interests that prop up despotic military governments in the Middle East and Asia.

It is wealthy interests that have destroyed the most powerful nation in the world by creating a dysfunctional hysteria among its citizens. Michael Moore in his 2003 Academy Award acceptance speech said "We like non-fiction, yet we live in fictitious times. We live in a time where we have fictitious election results that elect a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons." 

For expressing his opinion he received incredible harrassment and publicly televised death threats.

America, the self-promoted defender of democracy and human rights is currently being crippled by an old strategy - divide and conquer and divide, divide, divide.

So it's apparent that the atrocities that have become familiar in our collective sub-conscious are not caused by the masses as much as they are designed and organized by a powerful few for their own benefit, not ours. However, they have been enabled by a majority who have kept silent for fear of being punished, or have given up on their own perceptions for fear of gazing into the monster.

The trouble with this 'analysis' is that it leaves us feeling powerless, in despair, pessimistic, putting us into the blaming camp of us and them. The observation itself removes any inspiration to respond by anything more than apathy.

While facing up to the fact that most of the globe's economic interests have been gathered into a very small gated community, leaving the masses without much to hope for, we need to invest in something else and rebuild the world by the natures we possess, that have not been corporatized: to witness change as it unfolds, wherever it unfolds, and ask ourselves how we can influence that change.

Hope and optimism without effort may be naive, but getting our selves engaged in the process of evolution is hard work. Hope and optimism ask us to invest in them, they don't promise us happy endings. Hope and optimism need us to be honest with ourselves and one another. Hope and optimism rely on our search for truth and not just the many generalizations trotted out by institutions and heresay.  When it comes to the truth of our lives and our future, even statistics and science need not stop our questioning.

The future we are destined to endure depends upon what we feel, and how we interrogate our feeling with thinking, and how that guides what we say and what we do, and the societies we build from character and vision.