I CAN’T BREATHE for George Floyd

The knee of endless war on your neck

the pecking order applauding spite

as if Make America Great Again

is all about the power to cause pain

to the unarmed black lives

stolen from their home to endure

generations of cruelty

white people robbing themselves 

of dignity and integrity

in this green wet world now bleached 

of nuance.

Requiem for a miracle planet

"Who are those who would sacrifice us on the altar of global capitalism? How did they amass the power to deny us a voice, to insist that the earth is an inert commodity they have a right to exploit until the ecosystem that sustains life collapses and the human species, along with most other species, becomes extinct?" Chris Hedges, The Age of Radical Evil, Truthdig

By some miracle this planet is made of more than rock. We have oceans, soil, trees, sun and rain. We take this for granted but without this climate our ancestors would not have survived. However, we did. It was never without pain or conflict—now we are ruled by values that seem to have transcended life altogether. Money and inequality is about to make us all redundant.

White men and women have been complicit in the colonization of this planet from the beginning of radicalized evil:  to conquer other nations for the purpose of capturing resources, including slaves, then building a global structure of rape. Raping humanity, raping the oceans, raping the land, the air — of all dignity while creating a new god.

The very least we can do is to admit the full purpose of racism is to dehumanize us all so we can dismiss the violence and carry on playing.

Unfortunately racism is not enough to keep the oligarchs unfettered by social justice and common decency, so hate groups must be whipped up by fake news paid for by "anonymous" sources.

The earth is pretty much a dump for the system drunk on greed. Factories of ideology from farms to cities, economics to education, philosophy to politics, progress as technology and weapons, presenting "the real world" of healing as naive.

Radical evil has turned our species into zombies ready to lap up the latest novelty to keep us from getting depressed by the state of our world.

The question is — will you keep investing in, "isolated units competing for the most of what each of us wants?" Are you ready to see society as a means to support the dignity of your life?

The Cheap and Easy Way to Power

This was originally posted November 12, 2016.


"So what you have is a voting base consisting of evangelical Christians, ultranationalists, racists, disaffected, angry, white working-class sectors that have been hit very hard....[and] an increase in mortality among these sectors, that just doesn’t happen in developed societies." Noam Chomsky, Today's GOP Candidate for "most dangerous organization in human history"

The easiest way to power is to pump the masses with false hope and fantasized superiority. Tell them they deserve to be angry because they are worth more than the "others" who are lower down on the scale of privilege.

Begin with very powerful interests like big corporations. Tell them over and over again they alone are saving the world from poverty by creating money; that money is pure power which rises above the complexities of human nature. Tell them your party will be on their side as long as you get the funding you need to carry the campaign to the end.

Then simply use the same method, with different instructions to the masses.  Even though they are not included in decision making policy, and not in the room where policies are created, they need to call on an "inherent superiority" such as class or skin colour. Then change the teachings of your prophets to match your agenda.

Don't bring facts or intellect into the campaign. It emphasizes reason, knowledge and leads to social justice. Once ideas are debated there are no winners. Intelligence is a private muscle which will stay true to the party line as long as there is a salary, otherwise it will wander off. Raise children to be suspicious of their own experience and interpretation of the world, replace their self worth with doubt and self contempt. The earlier the mind is intercepted with doctrine the easier it is to influence and control. "Give me a child until he is seven and he will be mine for life", said a priest.

Set one group against another. This builds a multi-generational division where parents will do most of the indoctrination. Catholic versus protestant. Christians versus Moslems, Jews, Hindu's and all other faiths. Liberal versus Conservative, Wealthy versus Poor, Men versus Women, Man versus Nature. This ensures the ongoing war in the minds and hearts of every living creature.  This also ensures that good ideas will never replace fear.

Once these systems are established, they will prevail and be generated by the poorest and weakest of the world. The oppressed become oppressors (Freire). For thousands of years this is how humanity has been governed. As long as they are in denial about their own needs and worth, they will fall in line and do your bidding.

There have been different labels and descriptors for ruling systems but they operate on the same principle - it is the worship of power over life. The holding up of violence over compassion. The celebration of ignorance over self-knowledge.

When life is not held as sacred it's easy to make abortion illegal while planning to starve the offspring.

However, the essential and everlasting way to power is that of a society built on the free and enduring inquiry of who we are and what we can do to solve the problems that face us.

Human Rights and Authoritarian Governments

"Human rights activists are very inconvenient to authoritarian governments. Discrediting them as terrorists or terrorist sympathisers is right out of the tyrant's playbook." 
Sandy Garossino, National Observer.

This article written by Sandy Garossino and published in the National Observer is a well articulated opinion on how "terrorists" and "terrorism" is as useful to authoritarian leaders as war.

It's another trope to divide the world into us and them, good guys and bad guys, without the conversation about what makes a nation safe. So it removes the pressure for ruling elites to make their country a better place.

Of course we need to arrest those who plan to bomb, to kill, to torture for their "cause". But there are always opportunists in government who blow up the conversation to find their opposing parties to blame. It's so easy to stir up big sensational claims in corporate sponsored media and political jades.

When citizens fall into blaming whole groups such as immigrants, Sikhs, Moslems for the violence of a minority we fail on the tasks that move us toward social justice, and lose sight of the ways we can protect the innocent.

Every nation that we talk about or know of has been guilty of destroying civil society through fear and hate.

To support good journalism with your membership go here https://www.nationalobserver.com/support

Racism

O'Halloran, Thomas J., photographer

In this progressive and diverse community there have been incidents of public racism and homophobia. There is neo-Nazi support from people in powerful positions. Once, not long ago, these incidents were met with jaw dropping shock because, well, we knew better didn’t we? But those who are targeted are attacked on a very deep level.

What can we do? We can’t muzzle homophobic white supremacists but we can call out against their rhetoric.  We can examine the source of the phenomenon. 

Racism is not about the colour of your skin; anti-Semitism is not about where you pray;  and homophobia is not about who you love.  All of these are about our fundamental homelessness in a world that measures our worth by the things we own.

If we are valued by our degrees, positions, homes and cars – then the blood running through our veins, the ideas in our minds, or our desire to survive have no worth. There is nothing like marketing to bring home this point, and nothing like consumerism to confirm it. It’s the impenetrable matter of our existence that keeps us falling towards fear and prejudice, and if left unchecked, to violence.

In a rabble column Amy Goodman points out that while (in the US), “law-abiding Muslims are forced to hide in their homes, and animal-rights activists are labelled as terrorists for undercover filming of abusive treatment at factory farms, right-wing hate groups are free to organize, parade, arm themselves to the hilt and murder with chilling regularity”.

Is this our fatal flaw? That we prefer to target those with less power rather than challenge our oppressors?  Even if we manage, through revolution, chaos and bloodshed, to remove them, they are soon replaced with new oppressors.

The cyclical rise and fall of empires is built on the labour of the masses.  First it exalts  then steals it through deceit and propaganda. Bigotry, racism, homophobia – are  the devices that keep us enslaved to systems of oppression because we have lost our capacity to imagine a way out.

In our families, communities, and congregations, we have learned how to care for one another, but there isn’t a military strategy, political party or an economic system that will bring this about globally. Every election, parliamentary act or corporate decision moves us closer to humanity or away from it, and every word and deed sits somewhere on the continuum of revering or exploiting life.

Social justice, that thankless, never finished, housekeeping task whose priorities change from minute to minute, IS the price of our freedom.

When an individual is attacked, ridiculed, bullied or demeaned because of who they are, it’s an attack against the dignity of life, against you and I, our children and grand-children, and we can’t afford to ignore it.

Confronting Evil

by Russell McNeil

"Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me." ~ Martin Niemöller


While I appreciate that a few of my friends are supportive of the US President, I have reached the end of my own psychological rope on this. My own personal daily reaction to the outrages of this imbalanced man is visceral. I have tried to understand your points-of-view. But I can no longer tolerate your positions. For me this man is my daily nightmare. I wake every morning and go to the news feeds to see what new desecrations Donald Trump has committed. I am never disappointed.

I do not believe that people are inherently evil. I do believe that the actions that Donald Trump have taken are having evil consequences. I was raised in a religious environment. I was taught the differences between right and wrong. I was taught that bullying defenseless people is wrong. I was taught that words have consequences. I was taught that preying on the weak, the young, the voiceless and the powerless is wrong. These are things Donald Trump and his sycophants do daily. This is the definition of raw cowardice.

I am speechless that a few of you still support this man. I can only conclude that you - my friends - are living in a state of permanent delusion. This is the 21st century - not the 2nd when the Roman Emperor Commodus (a man with a frighteningly similar temperament to Trump) succeeded Marcus Aurelius and began a reign of terror that ended with the disintegration of Rome.

Donald Trump is a cancer on the human family (a cancer that is now metastasizing as seen clearly in Trump's immoral speech to 40,000 cheering boy scouts this week). If you are unable or unwilling to see this I can only feel sorry for you. But I will no longer tolerate your myopia. My friends also include many who are the daily targets of Donald Trump. I can no longer remain silent while my other friends - women, minorities, LGBTQ, scientists and academics (I am one of those), and journalists (I am proud to have been one too) - are assaulted daily by this Presidential demon. Enough! #TheResistence

Units of Power and Other Social Currencies

"Power does not necessarily imply the wish to destroy... (t)he question is why some people use power to destroy." Richard Koenigsberg

The question for me - is why I see everything in the political/economic world as a contest for more and more power?  Who can argue that our obsession with money is not about power?  If you have money you can hire people to do your work for you. You have banks eager to gain more business from you. You can pressure politicians with your lobbies. You can change the mandates of higher learning. You can bring other wealthy people together for global conferences. You can influence the UN and the EU, and since November 2016, you can even destroy America.

So I wish to defend my obsession with how power is destroying our civil societies. I come from a place where family ruled my world. They interpreted reality for me. They measured my worth with their judgemental comments. They told me what my intentions were, what I was thinking, and what I hoped to gain.  At the time I did not see this as power, but concern and care.

From here I learned about morality, civilization and history from the classroom where I was a vacuous sponge.  I learned how to stay in a job. How to negotiate my needs with the needs of the company. I learned from older men and women about how to succeed in the job and in my life. I wedded the ideas of my partner to my own. But I also made mistakes by false beliefs.

I started out as a child needing to win, to prove I was worthy of the pain my mother suffered. I needed to win because I was afraid of my father who gave me instructions and who spent his life working to feed and house me. I needed to be aware of fashion - not be consumed by it, but to appear normal  to my peers and superiors.

What was the prize? What did I want to win ultimately? I wanted to belong, to have dignity and respect.  So here was I in this capitalist structure that told me I was a consumer who had to appear successful.

Success - this carrot on a stick - is rarely one you can control. Who will like you, employ you, who will hate you, who will care for you when you have a breakdown because you haven't learned that you are not in control no matter what you do or how much you learn. But that was the myth I internalized. Like Willy Loman I believed I had to play all the right roles to be 'well liked'.

There were many times I failed, in ways I told myself I would never fail. I was staunch in my  rejection of failure, and yet I failed and failed again in my own self-esteem. I remember times when I felt like throwing all our china on the floor, slamming the door until it broke. I got really scared when I felt an urgent need to go out to beat up somebody or something. Earlier in my life I was the target but never the fighter, and could never imagine raising my hand to hit anyone.

There a glimpse of insight came when I told a friend that I felt like an old Volkswagen Beetle hauling a caravan up the hill. She asked what was causing this stress?

It took many years before I could see what was happening.  My own internal drive to prove that I was worthy in a world run on money, glamour and celebrity. I was shaking the tree of life for all the nuts in the world to make up for the lack of self-love that one needs in order to dwell within community.

In the quiet hours of brokenness - which is the best word for that state where you realize  you will not get what you want - ever, it occurred to me  that "success" was not a thing that provided happiness or peace.  The consumer kool-aid I had drunk so thirstily was just an addiction. Part of the fantasy industrial complex.

There are those who climb to the top of their field through study, inquiry, good habits and humility. This uses a different kind of power. Immersion into the relationships and power of community through compassion, cooperation and self reflection. Rather than a top down control it is the commitment to serve. To observe beauty in nature and to feel gratitude for what one has.

So had I won my quest for personal glory, had I not broken down and wept, I would have carried on the ego fantasy and probably hurt many more people than I had. I might have burned the bridges to that two way learning, caused trauma to my beloved family without awareness.  This is called narcissism. And had I persisted to win at any cost my drive would have destroyed the life systems around me. This is called psychopathy.

This is what destroyed the first nations after European contact. Narcissistic, megalomaniac, psychopaths sailing into the sunset on their ships of discovery, out to conquer the world. And the way to do it is to refuse acknowledgement of the harm you are causing for the sake of your own self-agrandizement. To replace the voice of conscience with propaganda and new ideologies. To hasten the demise of aboriginal communities with germs, guns and alcohol.

This is  happening with neoliberal economics - the belief that free markets are really free while civil society and it's social institutions are being dismantled back to feudalist warring. When those who have so much power  can choose to listen to whomever they wish, they can purchase think tanks designed to back up their world view and sense of entitlement.

Power leads to destruction when the ego that has achieved some success keeps building on their status and position rather than the greater good for all. Even those in positions of power need to be surrounded by people they can trust to tell the truth, and to know that for as long as they live they belong in the family of humans.

Why Hate is Not a Way Out

Antony Gormley was quoted in an article (by Hannah Ellis-Petersen, printed in the Guardian July 6 ) with a warning - we live in dangerous times. “Yet we are all sleepwalking through it...aware the centre cannot hold, that 250 years of industrial activity has undermined and fundamentally disturbed our world – yet we feel somehow not responsible.” 

Worse is the seeming efficiency with which movements are able to destroy civil society all across the globe with very little analysis among comrades or from the mainstream media.

So while hatred has been whipped up towards immigrants, or more likely people who are not white, and while hatred has done so much damage to struggling countries everywhere - we seem to have learned nothing.

But there are recurring elements we must remember before we slip into civil wars, terrorism or xenophobic attacks.

1. The white race has for centuries invaded all continents and brutally destroyed the social systems of aboriginal people they encountered.

2. Outrage at the "problems" caused by immigrants usually comes from the white race who felt entitled to invade, rape and pillage wherever they landed without question. The harm done by colonialism has yet to be fully examined by Europeans who now feel threatened by mass migrations. 

3. The military-industrial complex has been very effective in flaming hatred where they stand to profit from the wars that result from it. However we don't remember the interests who help to fund campaigns such as the Nazis in WWII, military coups in Central America, or the Middle East.

4. We don't pay attention to the really powerful lobbies and their ideologies. It's as though we accept their reptilian appetites as business-as-usual without blame.

5. We forget that the front line hooligans, thugs and suicide bombers are often the poorest most desperate groups who have very little choice, and who are hungry for a future that includes dignity and meaning.  We readily turn away from their condition and their despair when it is obvious they are in need, and then are shocked when they become radicalized.

6. We forget that the masses are dismissed until they are exploited and manipulated to cause the conditions for a profitable invasion from a foreign elite so powerful, their presence is rarely reported in the mainstream.

7. We forget that every generation experiences the disregard for humanity, until their suffering becomes a useful means for profit for the very few. 

In spite of all this, we quickly blame without reflection, those who have the least power to change things. There seems to be an inability to see our part in this recurring drama which ultimately harms us all. 

But also we need to realize that it is the system that breeds contempt for life with its surgical strategies that further divide us and make life miserable.

If we don't wake up soon, our beloved will suffer the torture and violence that spreads like a deadly virus as though it is the only solution, when in reality, it simply breeds the trauma that keep us fearful and afraid of one another. And therefore powerless cannon fodder for the strategists planning their next windfall.

Protect People - Charter for Compassion

How Cities Can Protect People 

From Marilyn Turkovich, Director

Charter for Compassion International

"We should start organizing to make cities powerful bastions of noncooperation, resistance, and protection. Activists and organizations can start demanding in every city that city councils and mayors issue resolutions and statements saying

• Our city will not assist or cooperate with any raids or detentions or deportations of any immigrants. This includes assistance of local law enforcement or providing data to the federal government.
• Our city will not cooperate or assist with registration and surveillance programs of Muslims, or any attempts to make our friends, neighbors, and loved ones the enemy.
• Our city is a safe zone for all immigrants, Muslims, LGBTQ people, women, and anyone fearing persecution from the Trump regime.
• Our cities reject any effort to criminalize or attack Black Lives Matter or other organizing for social justice, as Trump has suggested he might do.

This is a time to move to create compassionate communities in our world.  We’ve been hearing from many of our members who are thinking seriously about starting an initiative in their city, town or village
  Let us step forward to bind up what appears to be a very sorry world with our heart, hands and mind.  Register your community and we will be in touch to help you take the first steps"

Please stop racist attacks!

I implore you to stop not because I am African or Asian or Ojibway. But because I am white, I look white, I talk white. When I witness  or hear about racism, the hair on my back stands up, I begin to shake, my stomach aches, my heart sinks down into my bowels. It keeps me awake at night, and if this hatred hurts me it must be far worse for those who are targeted. and perhaps this is the idea – that the masses self destruct in opposition to the other.

I am not saying  YOU are racist. I don’t think we set out on our life’s journey to hate. Just as all Moslems are not responsible for 9/11, YOU  are not responsible for the woman who was pushed in front of a train because she was wearing a headscarf, the murdered and missing women, the holocaust, or the tone of the US elections. YOU are not responsible for the refugees whose cities have been blown apart, the unarmed teenager who was shot by a policeman, the overworked underpaid workers in Mexico, or increasing inequality that threatens what little democratic opportunity remains.

But you and I are responsible for the words that come out of our mouths, and for how we respond when we witness attacks. We are also responsible for knowing the cost of what we choose to purchase, where it comes from and who is oppressed by its manufacture.

We are responsible for understanding what happens when racism stalks the commons. The first casualty is dialogue. (There is too much pain both sides.) The second is observation. (We prefer not to look too closely at the deep penetrating destruction of hate and the entitlement given to those who assume superiority.) The third is acknowledgement of our own opportunity to heal the small moments.

Racism makes us powerless echoes of our ancestors' fear and pain. Problem solving is shut down like an iron gate when the narrative announces “it’s all their fault”. Racism cripples democracy. Racism alienates us from our human capacity to inquire, to feel empathy and to be compassionate. Racism locks our children into binaries of fear. Racism chooses violence first and smears all privilege with blame and spilled blood.

When we feel entitled to judge those we have never met, based on generalizations spread in media and on the street, racism is the first weapon of mass destruction. It begins as a tiny virus in the reptilian brain and spreads all over the world. It is the greatest servant of the arms industry and the psychopathic ruler. It is the door to war that keeps on spilling blood, making life unbearable and the future into something to dread.

So please remember the images of Aleppo and Auschwitz before you shout racial slurs on a bus or laugh at a friend’s jokes or click “like” in the comments field.

Racism is the most destructive and disabling fantasy of white supremacy.

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.

Why Are We So Angry?

Here are some answers to that question.

The breakdown in civil society means we must make personal decisions in public when we are not sure what is right, or what seems right is more dangerous than is apparent at the moment.

Driving on a two lane country road that is narrow and curved, a driver ahead of me had stopped for a few seconds. I just waited. After a few seconds the driver moved forward and stopped again. Because of the curve I couldn't safely overtake them so I waited, congratulating myself on being patient. Then the driver started backing up quite fast, so I backed up, then they made a left turn down a narrow road.

Afterward I was impressed with the sense of entitlement shown by this driver for not indicating via lights or signals what they needed to do, or for doing the safe thing and driving forward until the next turn off where they could have turned back in the right lane to make the turn they missed. The driver appeared to expect or hope that I would accommodate their needs.

Later I realized I was complicit in this dangerous driving - it could have been a mess if another had driven up around the corner as I was backing up. Later still I realized I didn't know what to do at that moment. Should I have just remained in that spot refusing to move back, honked my horn, got out of the car? There is something about being in a vehicle which makes us isolated in our decisions. In a fraction of a second we can destroy lives even if we don't want to.

Later I felt angry - not so much at that particular driver, but because I didn't know what the right thing to do was. It's easy to dismiss any social or safety discomfort as being someone else's fault. Blaming is even encouraged in hierarchical societies as long as we blame those on the bottom of the power spectrum.

We see so many big problems and grave dangers to our future, that billions of isolated egos can't seem to fix. Nevertheless there is an undercurrent of outrage and disappointment when the mind becomes aware of the broad scope of injustice which is mostly felt when a child starts looking beyond the immediate family to the larger society.


Ann Jones, in her article "After I lived in Norway America Felt Backward Here's Why" relates her experience of being a journalist in Afghanistan then travelling to Norway and returning home to America. What she finds is this:

"I had, in fact, come back to the flip side of Afghanistan and Iraq: to what America’s wars have done to America. Where I live now, in the homeland, there are not enough shelters for the homeless. Most people are either overworked or hurting for jobs; the housing is overpriced, the hospitals crowded and understaffed, the schools largely segregated and not so good. Opioid or heroin overdose is a popular form of death, and men in the street threaten women wearing hijabs. Did the American soldiers I covered in Afghanistan know they were fighting for this?"

I include this here to compare the small experiences of learning how to live with one another peacefully, with the results of centralized power that destroy millions of lives through war and neglect. For centuries marauding tribes has destroyed the civil societies they conquer and proceed to replace what might be intelligent behaviour with trauma and chaos. Here we are either exploitable resources or refugees.

Now hate groups are flourishing with their malevolent prescriptions that deflect the real causes more fear and hatred.

The End of Wisdom? Not yet.

Senator Clemente Pinckney Atlanta Daily

A young white man went into a church in Charlston last week, sat in a prayer meeting then shot the pastor and eight other people because he wanted to start a civil war. How will he benefit from his hate now he is in custody? Of course he won't benefit - he is just another little puppet filled with propaganda, some drugs and sent out to kill.

We could say the white supremacists who filled his damaged mind with hate are to blame. Or the NRA whose members may be sufficiently ignorant to spout beliefs like one of their Board Members who blamed Clemente Pinckney, the murdered pastor, for the deaths of his eight congregants because he didn't carry a gun. Because he voted against a law allowing gun owners to carry concealed weapons without permits?

A childhood friend saw the murderer the morning before the shooting and confessed the pair had never discussed race growing up, but recently heard him spout such racist beliefs as blacks taking over the world. It's an old trope but you don't need new ideas to tear society apart - the old slogans will work for those who are disaffected and who can't do their own research. Puppets that are poor and angry are available in the millions from Budapest to America. What they do know is that life is not fair. They have the scars to prove it.

Rick Perry, a Republican presidential candidate, said the fatal shooting was a drug-induced accident, perhaps meaning to say "incident" but either way this seems to launder the dirt that is racism.

Jon Stewart confessed he could not bring himself to do jokes on his show the day the killing happened. Clearly sickened by the frequency of these incidents.“I’m confident, though, that by acknowledging it, by staring into that and seeing it for what it is, we still won’t do jacksh*t ... Yeah. That’s us.”

Who will call it terrorism when the killing is done by an American who is white - not brown or black or an immigrant from another nation, Stewart asks.

There was an interesting interview on CBC's The Current, where a fellow pastor talked about Clemente Pinckney and how his church had a long history of working for justice.  Doesn't that sound like another assassination - an enlightened soul working for social change, for equality and peace and all those things that make people difficult to manipulate because they are not living in a whirlwind of chaos, fear and powerlessness? 

In the eulogy given by President Obama he said this: Reverend Pinckney embodied a politics that was neither mean, nor small. He conducted himself quietly, and kindly, and diligently. He encouraged progress not by pushing his ideas alone, but by seeking out your ideas, partnering with you to make things happen. He was full of empathy and fellow feeling, able to walk in somebody else’s shoes and see through their eyes. No wonder one of his senate colleagues remembered Senator Pinckney as “the most gentle of the 46 of us – the best of the 46 of us.”

When will we learn the pattern of oppression that is powered by hate? When will we stop rewarding the system that oppresses century after century? 

Bill Moyers on The Spectacle of Illiteracy

We are not short of wisdom, leadership and prophets in this age. But to watch mainstream media you would think we have become a species of abundant stupidity and despotic ignorance.  Who would benefit by this portrayal?

Bill Moyers by Yoichi Akamoto 1965

Increasingly, as witnessed in the utter disrespect and not-so-latent racism expressed by Joe Wilson, the Republican congressman from South Carolina, who shouted “you lie!” during President Obama’s address on health care, the obligation to listen, respect the views of others and engage in a literate exchange is increasingly reduced to the highly spectacular wed embrace of an infantile emotionalism. This is an emotionalism that is made for television. It is perfectly suited for emptying the language of public life of all substantive content, reduced in the end to a playground for hawking commodities, promoting celebrity culture and enacting the spectacle of right-wing fantasies fueled by the fear that the public sphere as an exclusive club for white male Christians is in danger of collapsing. For some critics, those who carry guns to rallies or claim Obama is a Muslim and not a bona fide citizen of the United States are simply representative of an extremist fringe, that gets far more publicity from the mainstream media than they deserve. Of course this is understandable, given that the media’s desire for balance and objective news is not just disingenuous but relinquishes any sense of ethical responsibility by failing to make a distinction between an informed argument and an unsubstantiated opinion. Witness the racist hysteria unleashed by so many Americans and the media over the building of an Islamic cultural center near ground zero. Bill Moyers

I can't add anything to this that would be more insightful or present a more indepth observation. I believe Moyers is one of those people who possesses a rare ability to converge a lot of disparate information into a concise diagnostic. Read the whole article here.

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.

Hey Romale!

Tambura Rasa

Lulu Performing Arts and Doris Gallas present

Hey Romale!

A mini-festival of Roma Culture

Saturday, April 13

Phoenix Auditorium, Gabriola

at 5pm 'Never Come Back' ~ 
a 2011 documentary that follows two Roma individuals, one from the Czech Republic, one from Hungary, through their difficulties with Canadian immigration process. To give an overview of the contemporary European racism motivating the immigration of Roma to Canada, and the life threatening risks they now face if deported back to European countries where right-wing extremists are becoming politically powerful, the film-makers traveled to these countries to interview Roma still living there. Their advice: "Never come back."

Followed by a discussion with two former Gabriola residents about their own experiences. 

at 7:30 pm ~ Tambura Rasa
an exhilarating and eclectic world fusion band with influences that span Indian Classical, Turkish, Balkan, Flamenco, and Classical Music. 

Tickets
are $20 in advance at Village Liquor Store, $25 at the door and $5 for youth (18 and under). Tickets include concert, film and a 10% Haven dinner discount; please call 250-247-9211 to reserve.

Film event only: by donation. 

For more information please email info@luluperformingarts.ca 

If Hate Should Win Over Love in America

The narrative coming out of media has inflamed rage, alienation and despair among the American people, and so the land is ripe for draconian measures. This will ensure absolute power for the tribe who have funded xenophobic movements, government lobbies and media, in countries all over the world.  If the haters win it means a large enough portion of American society is ready for bloodletting and the scapegoats have already been identified.  If the haters win based on their promises it means America has given up on social justice - which is not socialism but shared responsibility through civil society.

1. Planned parenthood and women's rights will be shut down along with women's voices, as promised by candidates. 
2. Same sex marriage will be banned and the LGBT community will be forced underground or targeted with violence. 
3. Abortion will be made illegal even in cases where a woman's life is at risk.
4. Medicare and social assistance will be stopped.
5. Environmental pollution will rise exponentially wiping out many species through toxic poisoning. 
6. Education funding will run out, public schools shut down and communities will be required to build and pay for their own education.
7. Libraries will be closed.
8. Psychiatry and counselling will be outlawed and mental illness viewed as a lack of morality and self-discipline. 
9. Family breakdown will be blamed on the work of feminists and liberals.
10. Worker's unions will be outlawed.
11. Civic leaders, journalists and liberal religious leaders will be arrested and placed in prisons without trial.
12. All government departments will be merged and the only services funded by taxpayers will be the police force and the military, which will eventually be contracted out to private security companies. 
13. Extreme poverty will erupt in more gang activity, and municipalities will be sponsored by corporations and run by drug cartels.
14. A war will be started with Iran, Russia and China, to employ the frustrated young men who have lost hope of making a living. 
15. Civil war will divide the country.
16. Citizens who build local economies in their workshops and gardens will have their property confiscated. 
17. The one percent will become the .5 percent and they will be much richer than they are now.
18. Current party leaders will not see this coming.

Most Americans would deny this is possible mainly because there are so many community activities built and run by good, hard working, people.  But the tribe who have employed the CEO's, the military personnel  the politicians and the experts, have already managed to erode civil society by alienating humanity from their natural power and re-creating reality through the media they sponsor.  This tribe are so powerful we will know them not by name but by their fruits - totalitarian regimes in South America and Europe since the beginning of the Twentieth Century.

The only way we can take back the power we have is to nurture what sustains us. There is no solution, no ideology, and no guaranteed strategy to fight back against the absolute rape of our psyche through the worship of power. Our hope, if there is any to be had, lies in our practice of compassion and mindfulness.

How Oppressive Power Needs Its Own Mythology

Gary Younge, in his recent Guardian article, titled  The world as seen by Republicans, in a land of myth and amnesia lists the mythologies that drive the Republican political movement in the US.


Younge points out many conservatives believe the problems of America are caused by foreigners or foreign influences. "For a core group of Republicans "foreign" has become an epithet – a slur willfully blurring the distinction between non-American, un-American, liberal, non-Christian and non-white."


Onlookers, including Gary Younge, understand this is part of an election strategy to beat the Democrats by targeting Obama's right to be president.

"This is of course a proxy for race made popular by the birthers, who, despite all the evidence, insist Obama was born in Kenya. In a world where direct racial attacks are out of bounds, "foreign" becomes a useful metaphor. This man, it says, is essentially not like us or even from us. 

Branding him Muslim, as though this too were in itself an insult, has the same function. A recent poll revealed the proportion of Republicans who believe Obama is Muslim has doubled since 2008 and now stands at almost a third. The trouble with these dog whistles is now that everyone can hear them they are scarcely worthy of the name."

But the end result has a much more ominous outcome from a nation whose Foreign Policies have dominated the rest of the world since World War II, when another party almost dominated Europe by creating mythologies and branding scapegoats.  The whole structure of European societies were destroyed almost beyond repair.


Just as the Nazi's segregated the Jews, who had been part of European societies for centuries, the Republicans are segregating African Americans as being un-American.


After the defeat of the Nazi's, tremendous energy was put into rebuilding civil society, which then helped to bring about freedom and a better standard of living. Which then tragically funneled into  consumerism.


Centralized power controls global business, media and government, and is in the process of destroying civil society absolutely, because it is the enlightenment and education of global citizens that hold the greatest threat to their absolute domination. 


It is at this point where power no longer needs to pretend it takes care of, or protects the people, because life itself becomes redundant.  But once we deconstruct the mythologies of leadership and power, we can construct new mythologies that revere the power of diversity and the means to our survival.