The Ubiquitous Nature of Power

Why would previously elected governments cut services that would ultimately harm the economy when they build their campaigns on the economy?

Why are essential services, that intervene in crises before they reach their ultimate social cost, being underfunded or shut down?

Why does the corporate media in its news and entertainment programs promote an image of our world as greed-driven, macho, and violent while all the serious discussions around how to effectively deal with the problems are slotted in the back pages or late night shows?

Why has so much hatred been directed towards those who love or pray differently and why has so much contempt for the poor and marginalized been inflamed and so little done to alleviate the misery?

Why have our governments failed to care for the environment upon which our future health and wealth depend?

At first these may seem like separate issues but to me, they are all connected in one very important way – they lead towards social breakdown and ultimately destroy civil society.

So it appears that some in government and media, actively support and work towards the destruction of the entity they are supposed to be governing. It also appears as though people in Western democracies are voting for the parties that are destroying their futures.

Is this intentional? Are there powerful interests conspiring to bring about a slow and painful end to the human project, or has something gone terribly wrong in the way we identify with the collective future?

David Suzuki points out that we have “developed a way to estimate economic activity by measuring the value of all transactions for goods and services” called the Gross Domestic Product. However it doesn’t seem to include the services that come from government – that is disdainfully called taxes.

Corporations measure their success not by the quality of their products or how it helps people, but by how much their stock sells for. Politicians measure their success, not by what they have done for their constituents, but by how many votes they get.

In essence, what this means is that the health and well-being of humanity and the environment, is “overburden” to use a mining term. What this means for us and our children is less health care, lower education in terms of learning rather than superficial tests, less public transportation, more pollution environmentally and culturally, the silencing of real debate, the end of science, a global distancing from the reality we live, and a greater focus on invasive corporate measures.

Prisons will be filled with environmentalists and activists for social justice. People will be afraid to talk to their neighbours. City centres will become territorial battle grounds for drug lords. The sensitive and educated will die quietly from drug overdose. Families will break up under stress. Suicide will overtake obesity as the major epidemic. Bigotry, prejudice and balkanized wars will make the commons uninhabitable.

If we want to know what this looks like, think of all the failed nation states constantly in turmoil while transnational companies extract huge profits. Think of pipelines covering the earth, the sky filled with industrial chimneys and dark satanic mills powered by slave labour getting crushed or burned in hazardous warehouses. To use a quote attributed to George Orwell “If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.”

The enemy is not one particular country, the enemy is that dissociated power universally accepted as force, rather than something that flows from our relationship to the environment in which we live. When we cease to look inside ourselves for the capacity to care and organize a humane world, we become victims or sociopathic egos punishing all that we can’t control.

We have come to this stage not because of progress but because of a ubiquitous disorder which we must examine to begin the work of healing. Our power lies in many things but mostly in accepting we are vulnerable, fallible and mortal.

This post was first published in The Flying Shingle then online at Episyllogism.

Don't work for the demagogue

George Monbiot wrote in The Guardian  about how to respond to the fascist divide and rule tactics then offers suggestions of how we might deflect that.

"Use humour to deflect aggression, distribute leaflets explaining the action and apologizing for the disruption, train activists to resist provocation, run de-escalation workshops, teach people to translate potential confrontations into reasoned conversation, respect actively all people including police"

People's assemblies like the recent Gabriola Talks on Climate Crisis, bring people of different positions together and focus on the issue. Part of that is the reality that we have different interests and different histories. Civic spaces allow for other voices to be heard.

Stephen Porges points out -- compassion for others is difficult to see if we don't feel safe. Calm spaces are essential to rebuilding democratic life.

Monbiot writes "All this might sound like common sense. It is. But understanding how our minds function helps us to see when they are unconsciously working for the demagogues. Breaking the spiral means restoring the mental state that allows us to think."

Activate your compassion on days that don't require too much energy in rehearsal for the days where it might become your default.

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Prediction 2019 Onward

I predict the Conservatives will get back in power in the October elections, not because of their policies but because the world is controlled economically by the monied class. Not the people with nice clothes and houses, not those with titles, but those we call the ruling elite.

It could be said that human's are ruled by ideas — not ideas that are too complex but complex enough to keep us under the control of rulers. There is a varying degree to our acceptance of authoritarian rule. Right now we seem to feel okay with the rule of money as though it's natural, human and comes out of our own desire for posterity.  Or the rule of power. We think it's natural that whoever is in charge will control us and it's not in our best interests to challenge them.

We are so enamoured by power we created an all-powerful god whom we cannot see but who can  read our thoughts as well as control the weather.

The greatest power, besides wealth and guns, is charisma. Something that can't be explained but has influence over us. However if we have not cast the media in our own spells there is no leadership by charisma.

Most of us struggle to get through the day with our work, our chores, our responsibilities to loved ones. We come up with little wars that we must survive, and to do that we must have beliefs that support us.

One integral belief is that we see ourselves as good. Bruised but not broken. Smart but not intellectual. Tolerant to a degree. Informed but not expert. Most importantly we don't have the kind of power that billionaires or corporations do.

Our lack of power tells us we are weak, ordinary not special, willing but not always able. In short — we are vulnerable.  We don't have a corporation of staff or servants who will provide the human wall between ourselves and the outside world. When individuals without agents stand up they are easily gunned down.

When it comes to justice and social standards, we are on the front of the battle.  As we know now — the ones who organize the wars are not on the front. They are protected by the blood and limbs of the soldiers employed to be at the front whose names they don't even care to know.

There is enough despair without scraping the system down to its naked function.  We need pretty words, sweet smiles, mythologies and promises. We need to believe that all is well and all will be well.

So most of us don't want to know the truth. We don't examine the policies too rigorously. We won't argue with friends and neighbours and we need something to believe in. Like benevolent dictators — greatness, charisma, like being better off than others, like the promise of a better life.

Many will eagerly forget the damage done by the Harper government if the promises are sweet. And whatever else, we will not tolerate the universal "mea culpa" required for social change.  All it takes is 40% of the votes to incubate a leadership that will send us back to sleep as the world burns, and a suitable scapegoat is found.

But the reality is — once a scapegoat is found, we (being the masses) have signed our own death certificates.

The Limitations of Thuggery

Many ordinary folks say what the world needs now are smart leaders with conscience and intelligence. However the recent elections point to an irrational hatred of women who are good leaders.

Is this a natural phenomenon or are there well funded campaigns helping to promote hate, eager to disparage women and encourage idiotic slander that has no bearing in the reality of world economic pressures.

An article in The Walrus written by Ira Wells, listed right wing leaders opinions which are nothing more than ad hominem hate without references. Here is a sample of attacks on Kathryn Wynne. "Our devouring mother" and "the most dangerous woman in Canada". Wynne "despises our Western Judeo-Christian culture ... she's an obedient little girl" when it comes to Islam. And "she ought to be in a jail cell for alleged party corruption."

These are not anonymous trolls. They are quotes attributed to known representatives of media and political groups.

Serious discourse in things that matter to the people of a nation should argue the facts, not slander the people.

How would a premiere of Ontario "devour" a nation and what did she do that would make her dangerous? What did she say that proves she despises Western Judeo-Christian culture? How did she corrupt the party? And more importantly what are the intentions of those who are called on to make political comments but choose slander instead.

BBC.com reported on the election of the UCP in Alberta that thousands of jobs were lost following the global oil price crash in 2014-15. Yet in spite of the crash in oil prices, the mantra for politicians has been build oil pipelines. Mr Kenney, (the UCP leader) campaigned as a champion of the oil sector, promising to fund a "war room" to defend Canada's energy resources at home and abroad.

Along with the hatred expressed towards women regardless of what they achieve, it appears that many will rally around the loudest mouth that promises to bully the nation into shape. The details are not important, intelligence and civil society are dismissed for the sake of a brief expression of mythological power.

How can voters fall for such vacuous displays?

How can we teach our daughters to save their mental health when our society continually chooses thuggery over reason and responsible leadership? How can we prepare them for the onslaught of abuse that has nothing to do their personal abilities or achievement and everything to do with hate?

Whenever societies begin to progress for the greater good, violence and hatred are weapons designed to appear as grassroots trends that destroy the progress and civil society.

I can hear the designers laughing at us.

Beauty is not always pretty

There are two dominating narratives that want to explain the development of human history.

One is the narrative of empires, how they have conquered, maintained their control, and how the masses benefitted or suffered from their rule, and how their power came to an end.


The other is the history by literature, science, art and freedom of expression -  which amount to the quality of life as it is lived by the common people.

This second narrative reveals that whenever the rule is centralized and the conversation is about making a society "great again", the quality of life for most of the people goes down. The ruling party uses violence, cruelty and fear to dominate the masses while claiming this is what the masses want. However the voice of the commoner has been taken away and replaced with an ideology that demands obedience, and the "greatness" is a  rehearsed display of power over the masses - like marching armies, missiles displayed on wheels, displacement of aboriginal peoples, refugees, concentration camps and wars.

"Greatness" demands sacrifice and the health and happiness of people is seen as unaffordable. Bit by bit, day by day, the masses lose their freedom to a cause, and the chaos of democracy is sacked for the sake of fascism. Life is a resource to be used not celebrated, not lived for pleasure. Resources are taken from the masses and warehoused in the castle of the ruler.

Any political policy can be identified as moving towards centralized power by taking power away from people, or governing from the roots up, moving towards shared power and responsibility.

The less engaged the masses are the easier it is to lie about where the power is coming from.  When people vote for authoritarian rule we need to look more closely at why or how oppression can be internalized as self-interest.

When people get involved in democracy by engaging with the problems and organizing change, it's not as easy to misinform the public. For example when people say they are against social services such as birth control, sex education, health plans, libraries, anti-poverty, affordable housing and community development - you will find massively funded campaigns from a ruling elite.

No matter how well meaning we are as members of a diverse society we are addicted to the promise of solutions, that mostly involve a power-over initiative taking power away from the people and giving it to an "authority".  In that way we lose some of our agency, our compassion and the hope for progress.

Beauty is that unwelcome moment when I realize that I was wrong,  the truth is available if I look for it, and my friends don't abandon me.  It's okay to have opinions as long as I am not more attached to them than the truth. Beauty shines through those moments when I see that none are right all the time and it's more than okay.

Political Cleverness

Be careful of political cleverness.  The big trick with high stakes. The "gotcha" that's irreversible. I'm talking about political expediency. Creating division between peoples who have become friends. About shaming someone for the sake of maneuver. 

Ultimately what it creates is the disruption of a whole society because the operating principles have changed while the minority of the people are still using the culture they were born and raised in.

Now I know that empires have risen and crumbled on political cleverness and the losers are the ones who often have the most integrity. Political progress has, for the most part been corruption, disruption and violence.

It is no wonder that young people believe they have to give up integrity in order to win in politics and business. Cleverness has become underhanded, fraudulent, sophistry. The most vulnerable are thrown under the bus while psychopaths are rewarded with high positions.

This is not simple naivete. It is the underground train that logs old forests, pollutes the air and the ocean, turns populations into criminals, parents into agents and children into pawns. It turns all relationships into corporations, and leaves a void where the village used to be.

We are rightfully disturbed when we witness our democracy crumbling under authoritarian rule, when the news is a list of violent events, and the town hall becomes a supermarket.

The trickle down currency of inequality is exploitation but even that word is too polite. Citizens become consumers then the consumed (cell phones, social media, then data).

In this environment we lose our leaders to gamesmanship, we ignore facts, dismiss science and swallow fake news because it resembles the familiar soap opera.

Now I'm not saying we all take the easy way out. I'm saying the playing field is full of snakes and pot holes so even competing in the game can leave us with permanent injuries. I'm saying that our earthly home has become a site of domestic violence as the corruption penetrates the spirit and the heart and our kin become prison guards.

I'm saying that good mental and physical health includes a healthy community. Yup that's social conscience  I guess.

The Ever Growing Global Tapeworm

"The corporate elites, which have seized control of ruling institutions including the government and destroyed labor unions, are re-establishing the inhumane  conditions that characterized the 19th and early 20th centuries." Chris Hedges, The Gig Economy is the New Term for Serfdom.

At first we celebrated social media thinking it was a means to express the views and values of the people, but now we know how this too has been corrupted by money. Confronting our own complicity we wonder if we should exit Facebook. Rebecca Solnit advises "Use them. Try not to let them use you. Remember to disable Platform, which is how they pimp your data, use Adblock and Ghostery, don't click on the ads, and say as many bad things about FB as you can on their platform (and cheer their stock crashing). The time may come when we can say goodbye to a destructive and amoral corporation without saying goodbye to each other."

"Many users are waking up to the fact that what they don’t know can hurt both them and the democracy they take for granted, and now want to limit the exposure of their data to Facebook." writes Irwin Oostindie in the Tyee. "People are increasingly recognizing that data gathered by third party apps was used to help prepare targeted fake news to help elect Donald Trump and promote Brexit."

I am reminded here that the cheapest "deal" is often something we shall pay for down the road, as the ever growing global tapeworm of capitalism grows bigger, crushing the life it exploits.

Where is all this heading? It depends on what we are willing to stand up for. If conversations on social justice bore us, then we shall soon be the new refugees.

Ultimately it will not be how much money we have to bolster our positions, it will be the values we honour and build.

Quebec’s niqab ban: just how small can we be?

"As a Muslim woman who chooses to cover her h​air​ but not her face, I am not personally affected by Quebec's new law banning face coverings while receiving public services such as taking a city bus. It would be easy for me to ignore the law's broader meaning. ... (but) it has stirred and jolted me out of complacency. We must speak out against this so-called religious neutrality, and see Bill 62 for what it really is: politicizing and fear mongering toward an easy target." Idil Issa, Globe and Mail

The question is - what is happening among the halls of power that some Canadians become so small?

What are we mindful of when talk about what other people should do, wear, believe or belong to?

Where is our power to form the natural government of what is acceptable, what is decent when it's not about 'us' but always about 'them'. Are we allowing the right people to dictate what we should tolerate?

Are we really willing to tolerate oppression of the poorest minority to allow the richest minority to alienate us from democracy?

Recalibrating the System

System is the word I use to describe that collection of values and habits that form our society. We could call it - the world, truth, reality, democracy or capitalism - but whatever we call it we must engage with it. 

It isn’t always fair. The system seems to be indifferent towards our needs and wishes but we are not free of it until we die. Anger, love, hate, indifference, are some of the emotions we feel but we learn to adjust our responses for the least pain possible. 

BUT NOW OUR WORLD IS IN CRISIS. IT'S NOT ENOUGH TO JUST BE REFLECTIVE OR REACTIVE - WE NEED BOTH. 

Sometimes we will not submit and we find ways to change the system by talking, listening and planning to recalibrate. This is the politics that rarely gets covered publicly, although there are voices quick to claim failure or success at the end of all our work.

This post reflects on some of the initial stages of making changes. 

1. Examine Anger

Anger is a natural response to feeling threatened. Injustice, racism, phobia toward any gender or sexual orientation, religious intolerance, war, crime, all make me feel threatened. The retreat from civility to targeting (blaming) means I am not protected by principles of law or compassion. Any cruelty towards living entities and nature, means our system is moving towards brutality and away from civil society. Any fundamentalism or ideological authority means we are all at risk of being pushed through a mincing machine to produce a brand.

What makes you angry, what caused the source of your anger? To examine this question is to own your anger.

2. Choosing Hate is Not a Way Out

When does anger turn to hate? What thoughts lead us to find blame and to invest in violent “solutions”? What feelings enable us to feel sympathy for those who have chosen hate?

I have felt hate towards others when I fear, but hate for me has never led to a resolution. Hate makes me feel powerless, unable to move forward. It just makes me feel bitter and cynical.

If hell, as the saying goes, is other people, if all the problems I face are the fault of others, the biggest problem is that I have no agency. It's all the doing of the other who is entirely separate from me.  Hate doesn’t have a way out, an exit.

What hate does achieve is centralized power for those who seek to gain by violence. Hate enables the war strategist to blame the people for the conflict.

3. Invite People into the Conversation

Recalibrating the system is not about what any one person thinks the problems are. Rather it’s a conversation where friends and neighbours have a space to express their thoughts and to hear what others have to say. Some rules are necessary for participants to feel safe: (a) we agree not to share what is said in the circle outside the circle; (b) allow everyone the opportunity to speak, (c) be clear in establishing all participants are equal and valid members - there are no experts, (d) no personal insults or attacks, (e) don’t define others by their opinions, i.e. sexist, racist, bigot, snob. 

4. Plan 30 Years Ahead.

It took centuries to be where we are today. Each decade came out of the decade before. It took the current system thirty years to move from a general acceptance of social justice as a basic level of protection, to the market driven neoliberal focus that says the arbiter of all things is dependant upon “jobs and the economy”. 

Self interest is in our human nature. What are we willing to give up for our own interest? If we see a continuum where at one end there is security and peace, and at the other, we are free to do whatever we please as long as we keep a gun in the night table, we need to ask ourselves where we sit on that bench and where we would like to sit. 

To draw that bench and ask people to label the different stations from left to right can elicit a conversation about where their preferred place would be, and how can we move towards that?

5. How Will Anger Lead Us to Truth and Beauty?

O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede

 Of marble men and maidens overwrought,

 With forest branches and the trodden weed;

 Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought

 As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!

  When old age shall this generation waste,

 Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

 Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,

 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

 Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

 ( Ode on a Grecian Urn - John Keats.)

How have we personally endured the last three decades? What gave us hope and courage to choose integrity over despair when faced with personal crises? What have we learned about our own strengths? How have our views of beauty changed?

These are timeless questions for those of us who shall not live as long as Keat’s  Grecian Urn.

Defending Democracy: by Russell McNeil

Why I am fighting for the survival of democracy, and why you must too: The Greek idea of democracy and the Roman idea of civitas are not just clever governing principles. They are concepts deeply embedded in - and part of - the natural law of the universe. Defending democracy isn't an option. You and I are required to defend democracy with every fiber of our intellect - even to the death. We have no option here. Read on:

The only stoic commandment (more a direction than a “commandment”) is to “live according to nature.” This means we are directed by nature to exercise virtue-based critical thinking in all that we do. Nature, meaning nature’s law, is the model we follow, because nature’s law is perfect; it is beautiful as all perfect things must be; and, we are drawn to beauty, through an attraction called love; and love brings us to the place where beauty and truth converge. We are drawn to the Law by our love of its beauty. When we get close we behold its truth. As a physicist/scientist, I get this. You must too:

Beauty is truth,

truth beauty,

that is all you know on earth,

and all you need to know. 

~ John Keats

This is more than a quaint ancient idea. This view of nature as a divine cosmic dance, animated by universal law, survives unscathed after nearly 2,500 years. If you or I were magically transported back to the steps of the Agora in the Athens of 350 BC and introduced to Xeno or Chrysippus – the two founders of Stoicism – the news we would share with them about what we know now about nature in the 21st century - would be met with rapt attention, but not disbelief.

Our stoic ancestors would be impressed with our new wisdom about the mechanics of nature with its four or five basic laws – a mechanics now in search of a Grand Unified Theory of Everything. But interestingly enough – as philosophers - they would ask themselves what new insights our modern laws brought in their pursuit of self knowledge, to know oneself? Might quantum mechanics – for example – be read in ways that would allow me to know myself better?

But the stoics had already read a great deal into the law of nature, long before we moderns uncovered its recent secrets: the Greeks understood - at least qualitatively – four ancient laws: 1. Gravity (they called it affinity); 2. Constancy - in essence the idea of energy conservation; 3. Entropy – the necessity and normality of change; and 4., that cosmic cycles lay at the heart of the rubric of nature. These four ideas are still in play – although many others have been added in the past few thousand years.

These four older “laws” - were read by ancient stoics allegorically - as parables - with deep portent for human purpose. Lest you think that the ancient stoic idea expired with the birth of Christianity - think again. The Christian world view borrowed heavily from stoicism and included this idea too. The four Christian gospels were to be read allegorically as parables that were to guide our actions in life. Nature - according to the Christian view - was to be seen as a fifth gospel which also was intended to be read in this way.

These readings of nature’s law (shared by ancient theists and non-theists alike) taught generally that actions and attitudes that alienate us from nature are not rational. Specifically, anger and dishonesty have no meaning in nature, and hence have no purpose in life. Nor does nature ever act in a thoughtless way – nature follows its internal law with unerring perfection. Humans are also social – nature teaches us that through its various affinities. This implied harmony in nature requires humans – who are also in nature - to work in concert and cooperation with one another. And so in stoicism, the Greek idea of democracy and the Roman idea of civitas – were Stoic influenced reason derived attempts to mirror nature’s law in civil law – human law - and these designs became the templates for our modern civil contracts: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the constitutions and charters of most modern liberal democracies, including our own Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 

I must defend democracy - and you must too. My survival, your survival and the planet's survival depend on this. We have no other options. #TheResistence

Other post from Russell McNeil CONFRONTING EVIL 

The Mycelium Party

I think it might be time to create another new political party called the Mycelium Movement. 

The emphasis of governing principles being about control has turned the best of human nature into a reductionist cruelty. 

Those at the 'top' find ways to restrict freedom, contain life, rather than encourage it. Political leaders must fall into the machinery of external control and use whatever powers they have to win from it. This is like negotiating with a tape worm growing inside you.

Of course the language is prettied up and sanitized by phrases such as "jobs and economy", or even "social justice". These notions imply we must fit into a thing instead of building on an idea. Originally the terms had positive meanings but have been corrupted so much they mean something else entirely.

Hegemony has spread in and over our imaginations. Being well adjusted has meant our own creative ideas take the back seat in a dark corner.

Many great thinkers know that we thrive on love. Great religions have focused on love as a binding  covenant. But love has been ridiculed, reduced and dismissed where all the operative functions of civil society somehow are sinking beneath some form of violence - war, weapons, threats, misogyny, machismo, and the marketing of a proscribed rationality.

How will our spirits grow and branch out to conversations so that we can accept compassion and non-violence as a measure of our "economy".

Some Wise Advice Circulating

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

Some Wise Advice Circulating: 

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

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

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

We the Citizens of Canada - hear this

Canadian Flag - Vancouver Observer

But if we, the citizens of Canada, win the next election, then there can be big, gloriously positive changes in the way this country runs – which will lead to an outpouring of optimism, a flowering of creativity, an expansion of community-centred energy and a hell of a lot of real fun.

Warren Bell, Vancouver Observer

Murray Dobbins - a prophet for our times

I really appreciate the way Murray Dobbins observes and analyses what is happening in Canada.

He reveals how the neo-liberal market ideologies have diminished our democracy through corporate funded think tanks.  We have had " four decades of systematic assaults on the liberal/social democratic state". This began with a series of complaints of an “excess of democracy”.

Now we live in a time of  "democratic deficit" and "a decline and erosion of democracy that should be the most important focus of critics and citizens alike".

A major study sponsored by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre reports that this erosion of democracy "has put western civilization on a track to irreversible collapse. The study focused on population, climate, water, agriculture and energy as the interrelated factors that determine the collapse or survival of civilizations going back 5000 years."

You can find many more on Dobbins blog here: Murray Dobbins' Blog

Sheila Malcolmson running for nomination for the NDP Nanaimo-Ladysmith riding

May 2005 photo by David Borrowman

“After 12 years in local government where I’ve been really happy and honoured to serve Islanders, I’m seeing more and more where a lot of the barriers to implementing the kind of protections and society that we want to hang on to is being thwarted at the federal level – whether that’s pipeline approvals and gutting environmental protection regulations, killing public input opportunities, gutting affordable housing and co-op funding – so much flows from the federal side, and that’s where I’m called to serve right now.”

Sheila Malcolmson in The Flying Shingle, March 24, 2014, in answer to the question why she is running for the nomination of NDP in the Nanaimo-Ladysmith riding.

Why you can't win an argument with a bully

Bullies appear to be single minded in their determination to win. Their intimidation tactics make it difficult to believe they are concerned about facts other than how to make them serve their own interests. Bullies appear to operate as though they are the centre of the universe who can't be touched or challenged by marginal forces.

Arguments are conversations directed towards an outcome: persuasion, defending a point of view, making a case.  A good argument is one that contains two sides where  willing listeners and intellectually present minds engage in the topic. An argument is not what you see on Coronation Street or reality shows.  It's not a p!$$ing contest of verbal abuse. An argument is not a diatribe or a rant where only one voice is present.

An argument requires honesty and sincerity among equals. Proving the point requires logic, insight, enlightenment, and some humility. However this is not easy as we have been raised in societies where 'right' and 'wrong' have been co-opted by self interest, and the ego feels a need to believe it is inherently right.  It takes strength of character to understand we are not always right and that our interests are not always the best interests for all.

Bullies establish their place early in life.  Perhaps in the crib when their demands were never negotiated, or in the school playground first victimized by bullies, or the narrative played out in television and movie plots where the winner takes all.  Mostly the bully's personality has been arrested by simplistic constructs of relationship where there is only one winner.

The values of a civil society, such as justice, fairness, empathy, nurture, stewardship, love and reason are beyond the bully's comprehension.  So the bully will interrupt, shout louder, use put downs, shore up racist, sexist prejudices, make false claims, use devices to confuse, use foul language and even weapons in order to win.  This is because all things are a threat to the bully.

The point then is not to win an argument with the bully but to state your truth, to bring to the arena the option of a reality that is different from the bully's world view which serves no-one but the bully. Whatever the bully says he/she has already lost credibility in civil society, dismissed or tolerated by intelligent, questioning souls. Raising the point reaches those who are hungry for justice and beauty, for a better example of human nature.

Issues of justice puts everyone in an uncomfortable pew, not because you brought it up, but because they are about to witness the very thing that caused them to acquiesce to the status quo. The thundering denial of diverse views.

Let the example stand and let the witnesses choose for themselves, in the private place of their conscience, what is right. Striving to get the last word removes the focus from the issue onto the egos.  Better to let the truth echo.

We are all capable of being bullies and most of us have at some point been victims of bullying.  What has been lost to our current society is the representation of civil discourse in government institutions and corporations. A reverence for life has been sacrificed when we allow bullies to silence the future of the human imagination.

Mental Health of a Species

Having been conditioned to believe that great empires are measured by the number of other nations it has conquered, and great leaders are equal to the destruction they leave in their wake, we witness the many victims of those values today.  They come in the form of six rapists mutilating a young woman on a bus in Delhi, a young man entering an elementary school in Newtown with an assault weapon and killing twenty unarmed children along with six adults, and the NRA proposing that all schools should have armed guards rather than gun controls.

Is it enough to say that those who seek power, whether it be in business, government or media, are psychopaths who have wrought this dystopia upon the land where the unnamed must duck and sweat in the hope of surviving? Or have we all been made sick and sorry creatures? Is there anything healthy that can come of us if our minds have been invaded by this power imperative?

As long as 40 percent of those who live in "democratic" nations believe they shall be spared by siding with the biggest bullies, they will never know who they are and who they can be through their own potential. As long as they feel part of the club through race, gender or religious identity, the sickness will become more severe and difficult to treat.

How can we say that killing is caused by the dissociated ego when the popularity of Presidents and Prime Ministers supposedly increases (as revealed through dubious polls) when they send their nations to war and organize the killing of millions? How can we be afraid of someone diagnosed with bipolar disorder when we blindly follow ideologies that come from the planning departments of arms industries? How can we expect our children to grow up healthy, when we think we build our economy by purchasing stuff that will be thrown out within a few years, yet dare not invest in the future of people?

Fortunately, many of our young minds have diagnosed the sickness, as have the marginalized who have been abused by it.  This is most tragically illustrated by the protest of Chief Theresa Spence.  She is saying to Canadians and Canada ~ here is your system: here is how life means so little to the structures of power, that your prime minister cannot spare a few minutes to stop the dying of a woman. See how quickly the media and its professional trolls, will dismiss her as manipulative. See how many people will blindly deny this has anything to do with them.

See.  Look.  Hear.  Feel.  This is your home.  This is your planet with its rivers and mountains. This is your family. It calls to you again and again, day after day, with its brave attempt to heal itself by reclaiming the power of life as its own.

Hope and Optimism

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bullocracy

Recent conversations with thoughtful caring people about the state of modern democracy has caused me to think about how we are represented in the commons, and whether we have much influence in what happens in our country, our city, our planet.  There is an implication that we are held responsible.

For example, the question of Vancouver since the post Stanley Cup riots. The people of this city, through main stream media, express feelings of shame as though they are somehow associated with the people who burned cars and smashed windows.

It must be obvious to anyone above the age of ten that a hundred goons do not represent the majority of anyone anywhere, so why are the masses tarred with that brush? Sure there were many who stood and watched, but there were many who came out after the riots to clean up the mess in whatever way they could. We know that some put their own safety at risk to try and and stop the destruction.

Since then the air waves have been flooded with interviews and expert opinion on who is responsible and who is to blame. It's this part of any crisis that seems to be the meat of it all.

In a separate issue, a federal party gained a majority with only forty per cent of the vote. Online social media was incandescent with the issues, analysis, protest, to inform themselves and others.  We were engaged. We watched the televised debates. Yet the party leader whose eyes seemed glazed over for the entire debate, who said little about policy offering a mantra of platitudes - got in.

Dialogue has been replaced with sponsored media. Life and all its complexities are reduced to slogans, implications and associations. The more you care, the more it will be apparent that you have no influence, no voice, no face, and yet we are represented by images and words that bear no connection to who we know ourselves to be. We might as well stand on the corner of Main street and blow bubbles.

Democracy has become bullocracy, a reality show designed to feed us a simple plot of winners and losers, villains and heroes. The players want to feel good with the least amount of effort, and if you accept the spin, you can get on with your shopping as though nothing is happening and tomorrow will be like today, forever and ever. And as crises fall on top of other crises, managing the world will become more of a nightmare, our blaming more virrulent, our ways of coping more dysfunctional, and our saviours more ballistic.

But this does not mean there is nothing we can do. The first thing is to observe how power works in our world, how it defines and manipulates. Then we must re-build community from the nuclear family outward to the global family, on a system of reverence for life, sustained in our hearts and minds. Here is where the work to reinstate democracy begins and ends.