Maintaining a Civil Society in Dark Times

It almost seems natural that a band of men will take over a plot of land or nation and then destroy it because we have learned, whether we admit it or not, that labouring to nurture life is not valued whereas destruction is seen as power. 

Patriarchy exalts the great man who appears to have power and follows him as he destroys the world around him. The glorification of destruction is choreographed and the peasants are urged to go and celebrate this created 'great leader' even when it's apparent he is neither great nor a leader. Mussolini, Mao, Hitler and Stalin have all helped to destroy the world and we may feel powerless to do anything about it. Those who protest have been tortured, battered, imprisoned and murdered, and our indentured corporate media likes to showcase the failure and weakness of ordinary people.

It has always been the workers that save the world with their labour while the ministries of the establishment rush to erase our achievements and replace the noise with manufactured celebrity. 

Recently we have woken to the breadth of cruelty and destruction of human dignity. When I say recently I mean since 1980's when programs that protected this relationship to the larger family were slashed, and indigenous species were destroyed by policies.

Afghanistan, America, Mexico, Peru, Australia, Russia, Canada, UK, Greece-- have all dismantled their arts for the sake of keeping the people ignorant, poor and angry.  More or less following the Nazi playbook of the thirties which destroyed our human self esteem and traumatized nations.

The cost of lives during WWII and the struggle to rebuild nations was the main focus of our labour and our dreams - except for those who only focused on their ability to control their society.

The narrative was rewritten by the oligarchs who purchased media. Now we worship the money, knowledge, philosophy of those who by their habits and interests present people as dumb, undisciplined, violent, addicted and stupid. 

Magic is created by those who are rich and beautiful. To believe in our creativity and intelligence is naive. Big is big is big and getting bigger.

It's a theme that keeps evil in the driving seat and contempt for life the main weapon against us.

Go out and care for others who have no power until they realize the power they have to make the world better.

If you fear the exhaustion of caring for one another, for our home and our planet - go to Afghanistan now it is killing their people. Watch how they are 'taking back their country' by punishing everything and everyone who is beautiful, who brings life into the world and celebrates it.

The mundane is what will bring us back to life, not the wizard and magician. Watch how your friends and neighbours deal with the day to day tasks using their power to bring relief, healing and friendship to the world.

Wisdom and Power

I am a woman who thinks it is dangerous to worship power more than life. Not that I can prove it but it's a feeling that comes back to me whenever there is a crisis.

When I learned about the unmarked graves of Indigenous children near residential schools and the reported high number of children who were lost it seemed like a horror story. How could it happen I asked myself?

Then as I read about it, just as I read about any atrocity, I am horrified that people who have achieved a position of power are willing to stoop to such cruelty and disregard for life.

Then as I hear the news on any given day the reason for such contempt is that power in the corporate world is merely a chess piece, a thing to manoeuvre on a board and the ones who can scheme without conscience wins.

Our species loses that part of our intelligence that understands compassion, duty to do no harm, an understanding of our place on this earth upon which we depend, as well as all the other relationships that require a responsibility to reciprocate in kindness and protection.

We call it a mental illness when a person cannot relate to others except in how it benefits him or herself.

People like Jack the Ripper, Adolf Hitler, along with those given a high position where we assume they have passed the mental health test and are capable of working for the greater good. Lately though the greater good is laughed at in decisions made by people such as billionaires who deposit their earnings in foreign accounts while paying wages their staff cannot survive on.

If social responsibility is a quaint value found only in fairy tales and history, how can we trust anyone?

Yet corporate managers, regional politicians, police officers and priests sometimes rule their empire by strategically creating division and any hope for the greater good is destroyed. 

Now our home, planet earth, is being destroyed so that the most powerful can gain more profit to store in their chosen vault. Climate change, pollution, crime, despair and confusion hides the battered human heart and it seems we must watch the world become uninhabitable  along with the cruelty and violence to the most vulnerable.

“The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.” ― Mahatma Gandhi 

However the spectre of our current system and history lead to a quote by Carl Sagan in The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle In the Dark (brainyquotes.com):  "Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”

The stories we love, purchase, watch and read have a formula: a singular person seeks a better life, and comes across another person who is determined to not allow her, so together they battle it out and one of them wins while the other loses. Narratives around power are much more understandable, the good guy vs. the bad guy, with the struggle being the main and central story.

So all our problems, all that is cruel, nasty and violent comes to this. The worship of power by all political endeavours.

We are broken and doomed. Except we are not if we value the gifts we bring into this world. Gifts of witness, language, compassion and even fear.

Human societies are a tapestry of our best efforts against our worst appetites; to have power over ourselves and to see how we need healing more than gold or titles. Big problems can only be solved by small acts of empathy as we imagine how painful it is even for the rulers grasping for power which is never guaranteed in the heart and dreams of psychopaths.

My friends and family are sick of my emphasis on power whenever I write but I have learned that those who love to abuse power over others don't want to talk about it and those who have been subjected to another's power over them find it too painful to think about.  So the stage is set for the powerful interests to continue to keep us in fear while we blame those who have the least power over us.

This cannot be ignored. To modify a quote by Mary Wollstonecraft in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - I do not wish for you to have power over another, but over yourself.

 

We are in a crisis where societies tend to break down - which scenario would you prefer

 

1. we struggle more and call on ourselves to have more patience as we find better ways for all.

2. we get so angry with others who see the world differently we put all our energies into finding a scapegoat to punish until we feel better.

3. we watch as the planet dies continent by continent and hope that we ourselves will not suffer too much.

4. we wait until a billionaire finds a solution in technology.

5. we wait until a political leader finds a solution through the power of law.

6. we arm ourselves with guns and bombs to use when the situation becomes critical and we are at the threshold of violence.

7. we stock up on our needs and lock ourselves away until the problem has been solved.

8. we pray to God and hope we shall be taken up into heaven.

9. we study the problem and learn from experts how to move forward.

10. we spend every day finding something we can do to support leaders and organizations who have been studying this issue.

11. we learn to love life and all its beings offering compassion wherever it is needed as we promote the ideas of environmental healing for all.

12. read all the science we can and reorganize our options to clean up this mess as much as possible and when we feel hopeless we join groups of people who support climate health measures.

Southern Gulf Islands Waters Should be Home to Orcas, not Anchored Freighters - National Observer

 

Since the 1970s, the freighter anchorages have been designated as free spots for ships waiting for room to open at the Port of Vancouver. In a letter to Transport Minister Omar Alghabra, Green Party MP Paul Manly asked for an overhaul of the system, saying the way freighters now anchor is a “failure,” and a vessel arrival system (VAS) should be put in place to help." Cloe Logan, National Observer.

I'm Rich. Tax me!

 I am rich. I live in a community where people talk to each other. I learn from them. I have: 

1. access to opportunity to learn from all the arts groups.
2. choirs to sing with and be sung to.
3. a roof over my head, rooms for sleeping, eating and bathing.
4. cupboards to put away clutter.
5. a partner who cares for me and protects me from injury.
6. grown children who teach me with their wisdom and insight.
7. grandchildren who bring joy with their enthusiasm.
8. connection to the web, far away and local news and ideas.
9. enough food to eat and water to drink.
10. clean air and rain.
11. first responders trained to protect under dangerous conditions.
12. nurses, doctors, health care.
13. trees to protect the earth.
14. weeds and the bees for germination.
15. friends who care, entertain and educate me.
16. language to encourage me to read and write.
17. music for vibrational belonging.
18. books to open other worlds to me.
19. politicians willing to do the constant battle for greater good.
20. media that publishes the complete story.
21. neighbours who hold on to integrity and social responsibility.
22. birds who keep the planet alive by feeding on the fruit and flowers.
23. farmers who keep their farms healthy to grow nutritious food.
24. others who correct my hasty judgements.
25. scientists who delve into the cellular levels of life.
26. animals who balance this earth with their disinterest in me.
27. ministers, rabbi's, priests and prophets, who share the history of religions without claiming supremacy over others.
28. all tireless souls engaged in the maintenance of livable community for all. 
    
    
    
    All these things make my life easier and are worth investing in.
    
    

Poverty is a Crisis in Morality

 

There is poverty in wages,  poverty in community, poverty in spirit and poverty in rationality.

Poverty in wages: Full Time Workers who are paid less than they can live on are ritually abused. Fearing they could lose a job where they are put down, demeaned, exhausted and seen as failures. Hate is a product of people who cannot climb out of their misery. People who are raging inside but unable to blame the cause of their suffering, because they are told it's their fault.

Hate groups are funded by wealthy interests who are afraid that rage will turn on them. Groups who are eager to blame the victims of violence because of how they appear or dress.

Poverty in community is where people judge and are judged by what they wear, or their education level or their address. Today we are suffering from this poverty. Where innocent people begin to look for status in what they purchase or their dream job or winning the lottery. The other side of this is people who make generalizations about what others are worth hoping to feel that judgement alone will elevate them.

Poverty in spirit is when we have no sense of who we are because we have neglected ourselves in the most fundamental aspect of life. The opportunities presented that are overlooked because we fail to see them and because the values of our current system which hold up and celebrate the superficial-- the way we look, the personality, the car and house, but cannot reveal our greatest achievements such as compassion.

Poverty in rationality means we are unable to find a way out because we don't value our ability to find healing in our grief and anxiety. If we can stop beating ourselves up for the mistakes we have made, we can stop beating up the human species, stop trying to win through competing in superficial ways.

You are here to live and learn who you are, not how you compare with others. Morality is the function of choosing to heal your world in whatever way you can and whatever way you have.

Truth - What Is It?

 

I see comments on FB about truth. Mostly to do with political beliefs. The last I saw said "Science is the search for truth" not the immutable truth.

I once said to a young man - there are no Universal truths - he was offended and replied there is. We didn't get into a conversation about what that truth was but I supposed for him it was his church and God.

Which means that was my bias.

I also learned that arguing about truth can be a shattering experience. Unexplainable. Almost like asking someone how often they change their underwear.

Along the way I have become attached to certain "truths" and then changed them when I learned better. 

All living things change and grow or die. You don't have to prove that to me or anyone. However if I say all women think this way because I do, or all White European settlers have been trained to think this way, it's more than fallacy, it's harmful to those who are not included. And besides it's not true.

Truth could be thought of as your underwear - you are happy to wear them but no-one else needs to see them. However if you don't examine them regularly you could suffer.