Will We Survive?

" Imperial powers do not forgive those who expose their weaknesses or make public the sordid and immoral inner workings of empire. Empires are fragile constructions. Their power is as much one of perception as of military strength. The virtues they claim to uphold and defend, usually in the name of their superior civilization, are a mask for pillage, the exploitation of cheap labor, indiscriminate violence, and state terror."

Chris Hedges, https://scheerpost.com/2021/08/30/hedges-the-empire-does-not-forgive/. 

"Everyone is to blame for the catastrophe in Afghanistan, except the people who started it. Yes, Joe Biden screwed up by rushing out so chaotically. Yes, Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab failed to make adequate and timely provisions for the evacuation of vulnerable people." George Monbiot, Bloodhounds. https://www.monbiot.com/2021/08/27/bloodhounds/

Last week Germany’s foreign minister Heiko Maas told Der Spiegel that Germany anticipates an Afghan exodus of between 500,000 to 5 million refugees. Given what will surely emerge as yet another humanitarian disaster, perhaps our focus and attention should turn to the fate of the Afghan people as a whole.

Even the ones who never worked a day for us.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/08/28/analysis/what-you-need-know-about-canadas-kabul-airlift-mission 

By Sandy Garossino 

So many voices saying we shall not survive. Unless we change our ways. News reports about rage and violence and hatred indicate that many cannot see a way forward. They may be without a job, without a home, and certainly without dignity.

My view is probably oversimplified but this is the result of our contempt for life that can't be controlled through threats or politics. We have learned we are not in control no matter how many bombs we use or how much money we have.

Yes we might get into our private jet and fly to Mars as the earth dries up, the forests  burn and the rivers flood our farms. But we must imagine the misery we shall endure before we get on that rocket or stay here and die.

So I will list the assets we have now. 1. Imagination. 2. Language. 3. Insight into causes. 4. Love for family and friends. 5. Music. 6. Art. 7. Medicine and health care. 8. A bed to sleep in if we have a home. 9. Food. 

Neither you or I created all these by ourselves. We inherited them. The question is how many years did it take for these things to develop to our benefit and who gave up their lives to defend this inheritance? 

Who is to blame? And more importantly what can you and I do?

"Everyone is to blame for the catastrophe in Afghanistan, except the people who started it. Yes, Joe Biden screwed up by rushing out so chaotically. Yes, Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab failed to make adequate and timely provisions for the evacuation of vulnerable people. But there is a frantic determination in the media to ensure that none of the blame attaches to those who began this open-ended war, without realistic aims or an exit plan, then waged it with little concern for the lives and rights of the Afghan people: George Bush, Tony Blair, John Howard and their entourages." George Monbiot, Bloodhounds. https://www.monbiot.com/2021/08/27/bloodhounds/

If you want to know the reason we are so broken - read this article. Think about it. Ask yourself why the current media is so lame and why serious journalism is being punished and ridiculed.

Breaking Down the Addiction

 "The atmosphere does not respond to gestures. It is unmoved by promises, unimpressed by words. It has no factions that can be set against each other, no voters who can be fobbed off and distracted." George Monbiot. https://www.monbiot.com/2021/08/24/dead-line/

"Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship." George Orwell (brainy quote)

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any."  Alice Walker https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/

"The greatest power is not money power, but political power." Walter Annenberg. (brainy quote)

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

― Mahatma Gandhi (brainy quote)

“Be not the slave of your own past - plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with new self-respect, with new power, and with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.” 

― Ralph Waldo Emerson (brainy quote)

“Anger ... it's a paralyzing emotion ... you can't get anything done. People sort of think it's an interesting, passionate, and igniting feeling — I don't think it's any of that — it's helpless ... it's absence of control — and I need all of my skills, all of the control, all of my powers ... and anger doesn't provide any of that — I have no use for it whatsoever." 

― Toni Morrison

The greatest power is that interrogation between my broken self and my loving self to weed out actions that simply hurt others in order for me to justify my own hurt, then to move forward to do what the world needs of me as a sentient being. It transcends identity and politics. It's the power to take in the whole argument and reflect on how I can offer my help, knowing no matter how uncomfortable the moment ― I cannot control the day.

If we give the world time to express all its thoughts, we could find the way to peace ― Janet Vickers

Chris Hedges: Empires at the end are collective suicide machines.

 Like any empire in terminal decay, no one will be held accountable for the debacle or for the other debacles in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Yemen or anywhere else. Not the generals. Not the politicians. Not the CIA and intelligence agencies. Not the diplomats. Not the obsequious courtiers in the press who serve as cheerleaders for war. Not the compliant academics and area specialists. Not the defense industry. Empires at the end are collective suicide machines. https://scheerpost.com/2021/07/26/hedges-the-collective-suicide-machine/

This article breaks my heart open again. I have been feeling grief for the empires I was born and raised in. Grief for the ways workers, women, immigrants and young boys trained to wipe out their emotions. Grief for those who had to endure my bad behaviour when I was hooked onto the empire propaganda. Grief for all on this planet battered by humans who have been brainwashed by the cult of power worship.

I am hungry for the kind of power that heals, loves and nurtures, that is not contorted into narcissism, celebrity, or racism. All who fall into that dance are traumatized whether victim or perpetrator.

Let's encourage humility, let's learn how we can throw off the empire and embrace the universe.

Message from Jack Layton

  

My FRIENDS,

Love is better than anger.

Hope is better than fear.

Optimism is better than despair.

So let us be loving,

hopeful and optimistic.

And we'll change the world.

https://www.laytonlegacy.ca/

What is Happening Here?

"What's happening here? I turned on CBC radio soon after 10:00 pm and it went straight into the Current late edition where the host announced the topics beginning with Haiti where things are getting worse then the sound of a very young child screaming. I turned it off. I used to enjoy listening to the CBC programs for the information and not the sensation."

I posted this on Facebook last night. Appreciating the hosted news programs where there is more than headlines of violence happening all over the world.

The news is terrible and yet it supports the power of patriarchal values by revealing how dangerous some male dominated systems are. It seems to glorify the power of destruction as if climate change can be attributed to capitalism, communism, or some other manufactured system.

Of course I am applying my own biases here and my isolated ego-self which is very useful to the systems that use them to their advantage.

Who is to blame? You see how adjusted I am to the way societies support the greed and lies of our hierarchical system?

Agreed. I have to deal with my own $hit! How much of my emotional energy will I give to the trends that diminish life?

Each day that I have breath I can offer support for others who breath. There are beautiful words and songs comforting people in each generation. So I will make my world beautiful by acknowledging the beauty in it. Friends and relatives who love and know the right things to say and do.

In fact beauty for me is no longer lipstick and hairspray, perfect bodies and white teeth. Beauty is in the faces and eyes of people who have enriched life with the habits of love, because they were raised by people who gave unconditional love and acknowledged the gifts within the young vulnerable child.

We live in the climate of power. What can we do? What can we fight? What shall we celebrate? What actual weapons do good people have against the systems that dominate the air waves? 

I cannot help the child screaming in pain in Haiti. I cannot erase the past and replace the future with compassion. My very thinking in terms of the whole, the nation, the religion, the habits and the fears, take away my agency.

There are souls who have learned, written about and filmed documentaries on the power of the sun, moon, planets, weather and soil. Souls who see patterns in social relationships for health and well-being for the planet, suggesting ways we can survive together. In education, medicine and politics - we have agency but we need patience to see it, and strength to keep sweating. That is true power.

Two Worlds

 

The world we are taught we live in, our history, our songs, our stories, is one world. And the other is the world of power. Where there is no honour, no civilizing, no love for life and nature. The world of Taliban, Nazi's, Military Industrial Complex, the silencing of voices that offer duality, reverence for life, the heart and mind of living creatures.

The world of power only knows what it has won, how to keep the masses living in fear, how to spread hate and fear, how to starve populations, how to get the last word. The world of power does not have anything to teach us other than how to fear.

Drug dealers are the true of our system. Only profit counts and any one who says otherwise must be eliminated. Large and powerful nations are corporate drug dealer, offering brief escape. They keep teaching us with propaganda and threats to go shopping, buy whatever they are selling; we are only worth what we own.

Love, wisdom, compassion, healing - don't exist. Charles Dickens knew this, people who have survived trauma know this. A long painful journey from where the politics preaches and promises, to where your own body has reconciled itself to the larger truth of your painful day.

The primary goal of war is to keep us from knowing our potential as sentient, emotional beings. The right wing authoritarians want us to be vacant bodies willing to kill on the battlefield.

People who have fought in war believe they are doing their duty for love of country and home, then are cruelly stripped of this ideal. Rulers laugh at idealism and integrity. The soft flesh, nervous system, tears and pain - are being erased from consciousness.

The Taliban was not created by Afghans - it was created by cruelty, the Devil and misogyny; it invaded the hearts of men with dire warnings if not obeyed. 

Misogyny is not just the fear and hatred of women. It is the matrix of contempt. It enables armies of people to vacate their own nature, to pretend they are not vulnerable, to silence their conscience which is erased with every generation of systematic exploitation. 

A planet with no life on it, just rocks and fires, is not an accident. Whether we admit it or not, it is the end game of contempt.

The real war is fought with respect for all life, loving kindness, courage, and the truth which we must forever look for and examine.

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.