Did We Know This?

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/03/30/the-problem-isnt-human-nature-the-problem-is-a-few-manipulative-sociopaths/

"The problem is not “human nature”, the problem is that some humans fail to develop functioning empathy centers in their brains, often as a result of early childhood trauma. Those humans then use the competitive edge their lack of empathy gives them in a system which rewards competitiveness and a willingness to do anything to get ahead to ascend to positions of power. That is why we are in the mess we’re in." Caitlin Johnstone. The Problem isn't Human Nature, The Problem is a Few Manipulative Sociopaths.

And the problem is, we who are not sociopaths need to engage our empathy and compassion for all who suffer under a violent and sick system. To listen to those who suffer and to acknowledge we are all part of this beautiful and scary universe - including trees and honey bees.

Bring Your Love and Peace Wherever it's Needed

 

Where did we humans, soft flesh beings that we are, artists, musicians, dancers and lovers that we are ... go wrong? It begins with the love of power for power's sake. We take notice of bullies and guns and tanks and money, we love big homes with lush adornments. But then we forgot about love, forgot about the soft flesh, and worshipped the hard lifeless things - speed, war, guns and tanks and developed our futures on those things. Not necessarily all of us because most of us who were still in touch with life, were taken out of the conversation. There are millions of people who have tried to rescue this planet. Brave people, beautiful people, loving people. However the ruling system has built around it a castle without windows, an island without compassion. The inhabitants are hungry ghosts traumatized by the roundabout and swings of wealth and status. They have evolved into artificial intelligence and desperately keep themselves appraised of where they are on the pecking order. But cannot save the world from their appetites.

When Social Violence Rules the Headline

 

Who is the enemy? Today it might be drug gangs, thugs, homeless and isolated predators, or sly spiteful alienated neighbours. It's also, thanks to right wing media, and the words of people in leadership positions who have abdicated responsibility to a cheap popularity. 

Now I feel drained by all the violence being reported, all the racist, misogynist attitudes that I couldn't pin down, that hurt me regardless of whether it's directed towards me or the other.

I shall try to stay positive, be kind and loving.  I know that hating people because they are not like you, is dangerous to us all. Mostly because this excludes hope for the future. It destroys the kind of trust we need to build a future.

It seems that the voice of hatred is the voice of insecurity, not feeling heard or seen as the real person, the child seeking love and belonging, the parent seeking truth and shelter for the child, the adult seeking community.

Label and File

 

Label and File

Ridiculous headlines

recycled lies are being published

not because a few

have found comfort in them

but because outrageous claims

have been paid for.

Hate is a commodity

truth does not create money

it’s available to anyone

who is interested.

Could you subvert your breath

into a business plan 

if you translated it into a jingle

in this sanitarium of populism

this planet, colonized by cardboard cutouts?

Save your breath for inspiration

say what you love not what you hate

be the comfort that you seek

and file the work of idiots

in the cabinets of dark rejection.

Whatever you do

don’t write poems about them.

Inhale and exhale.

Relax and beware.

(from Sleep With Me: Lullaby for an Anxious Planet. Ekstasis 2020)

Humanity is Weaponized by Generalizations

On Facebook today I came across some really affirmative conversations. My friends there are wise and intelligent and I am moved by their posts.

One is by Fred Guerin who writes fluently articulated comments that cause me to think deeply about the human condition.

He questions the labels of gender identification "Is this not a plea for personhood rather than for the multiplication of gender identities? Unfortunately, by naming a gender and wholly identifying someone with it we, delimit, sediment and circumscribe persons who may not really fit into any given identity category. We then turn them into celebrities, martyrs or simulacrum rather than simply honouring their freedom to be whoever they wish to be." Fred Guerin, Facebook March 13, 2021.

There has long been a tendency to weaponize humanity with terms like normal, different, friends or enemy's and to make our relationships focus on conflict.

While conflict is important it seems to have been taken to 'possession' colonizing the land and all that is in it. Us and them. We are okay but once a difference has been established, 'they' become the problem.  It's not us it's them. Lo and behold enemies are established.

One response to a previous article I wrote was 'we should get rid of religion'. My guess is that identity begets fear which then begets abusive practices on its members and outright hate towards those who are not members.

Take billionaires for example. There may not be a religion named for them but neoliberal capitalist teachings create an upper caste and the disposable masses.

Have you noticed how poverty creates blacks, 'indians', feminists, gays and disabled. I am using words that have been assigned to those  not often chosen for CEO positions and who rarely appear in the clubs promoted for the "upper class" while pubs are for the "working class".

How did inequality happen? By the 'haves' creating walls to keep out the 'others'.

Adolf Hitler and the Nazi's used these weapons to the most brutal extent while the British dehumanized the 'natives' of 'discovered' lands in the most cunning and devastating way.

Labels are weapons applied consistently.  Once an identification is successfully broadcast, soon after comes the propaganda. Welfare Queens, Fags, Witches, Hags, Monsters, Natives, Commoners, Tarts. 

Blame is applicable whenever money can buy the promotion. The blood libel used against Jews was also used against Witches: innocent men, women and children were burnt at the stake or in gas chambers.

But who does all this work? Clerics? Religions? Fascists? Psychopaths? Billionaires? Nations? Or just people who have been raised to hate and organize hate?

A minority with money and power manages to create fear and get most, if not all of us, to see people as protestants or catholics, rather than people we don't know. Which  convinces us we know a lot when we don't.

Meanwhile great wealth is built on how we use our hate. We are not great.

If No-one Cares - Who's Looking?

Reading some of today's newspaper articles and the comments that follow reveals a world suspicious of intelligence and kindness. It left me feeling as if violence is more valued than reason.

As a young student I was taught I had responsibilities toward the larger society. Being rude, conceited and offensive was punishable by detentions or notices to my parents who would scold me for bad behaviour.

But social and corporate media has many headlines that indicate, black lives, first nations, women, muslims and jews are open territory for being abused. Add to that, other-gendered besides hard masculine.

I attempt to be engaged in public discourse via letters and comments but my offerings never get printed. Possibly because there are too many submissions. But now reading the quality of posts that do get printed are often infantile, openly racist and sexist. Abusive comments dominate while a few thoughtful posts are there between the abuse if you can stomach wading through the swamp.

You could be forgiven for thinking humanity has lost its soul today, but I wonder who benefits from the deluge of hate and intolerance. Is it a means like the economy to erase humanity, art and emotion from history books just as blacks and women have been written out of history?

Is our society merely a list of winners, losers, and their battles?

If so, what do you think about this? Are you confident you will never be harmed by what's happening 'out there' because you are focused on what you can do. Are you confident that white men run the world and all will be well, so we don't need to think about the marginalized?

Do you believe that events known and unknown balance out good and bad?

Is caring out of fashion or worse, not even a thing?

How can I ask my relatives and friends to be kind and considerate if the world mirrors back indifference to their lives?

I need to remember the media sphere is a corporate task. The CEO has to make money for shareholders. The bottom line is the hungry ghost.

It doesn't represent a future or beauty or morality, it represents manipulation for profit.

As long as I believe in the kind of commerce where the powerful have singular goals, there is no true diversity and very little insight along with an exploited humanity.

Black Hole

 

Black Hole

“If you really want truth, you need to escape the black hole of power, and allow yourself to waste a lot of time wandering here and there on the periphery.”  Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

Destruction begins when ego claims I am in charge 

or when a child watches another die 

for a laugh

this is where energy is pulled into the centre

and the mind looks for the authority

of the past

where I seek compensation for pain suffered 

by giving it a cloak of sovereignty, fed by emotion 

set for revenge, in the memory

that curio cabinet of anger

where a plural pronoun

becomes the new bible

the Book of Us and Them, written as we speak

finding words that stick to the target, not the bully

naming the skin by colour or a person by gender

as though there is no such thing

as our own pain, or sub-conscious

neural substrate

Doctrine is not so much a weapon as armour

remodelled and reshaped to fit the body

to protect the heart from the world

and the world from the heart

the second guess and the tears

a fluid emerging.

(from Sleep With Me: Lullaby for an Anxious Planet, Ekstasis 2020)

Quotes to Remind You Are Human

 “And I’m saying that to all the people with money and who think they have huge status. I think it is a wrecking system for humanity to hold yourself above everyone else and think you are better than anybody else.” Diana Beresford Kroeger  https://thetyee.ca/News/2020/02/24/Talking-With-Botanist-Talks-To-Trees/?

A lack of awareness is the source of all our major problems, whether we’re talking about war, poverty, ecocide, corruption, exploitation, authoritarianism, prejudice, or even much smaller-scale problems like abusive family dynamics or the psychological suffering of the individual. Caitlin Johnstone https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/03/05/all-of-humanitys-problems-are-caused-by-a-lack-of-awareness/

"Dark times always threaten the human spirit.  People forget they can be generous, kind and creative.  They forget that humans get through dark times by staying together.  Whatever forces have created physical suffering—pandemics, wars, tyrannies, natural disasters—the true threat is when fear turns into hatred and hatred turns into violence.  These barbaric behaviors camouflage who we humans truly are–caring, aware, vibrant human spirits who want to be together, to do good for those we love, to do good for what we care about." Margaret J. Wheatley. https://margaretwheatley.com/the-warriors-songline/ 

The Next Poem

 The Next Poem

Looking for a fabulous aphorism

to shock and awe

every wave of energy

all sentient beings

who walk or are rooted

urging us all to think

and fill in the blanks here.

When human conscience

is reduced to how to win

as though staying alive

is not enough—what will we

create?

What songs will we sing

who will we love

and how can we protect them?

Where is the over-riding metaphor

when the gods we worship

don’t live here?

Breaking Us In

 “The only goal of the oil companies is to extend their business model another decade or two — and if they succeed they will break the planet.” Bill McKibben. National Observer.