Republiku

Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry. The word comes from haiku no ku meaning comic verse. The English haiku is usually three lines about a brief observation. For fun I call these verses Republiku - the first part refers to the Republic (nation or politics) and the last syllable refers to a poetic form.

NY Times report

facts don’t matter

anymore

🌳

Truth is truth

but we are 

above that

🌳

Americans held hostage

by their president

and money

🌳

American veterans

salute president

for protecting them

🌳

A poet wrote

when the world doesn’t make sense

rewrite from scratch

🌳

The Post-Trump World

Roger Cohen's piece "The Trump Possibility" in The New York Times articulated a list of why it is possible for the world's most powerful nation to elect

a fascist. These included fear, anxiety-multipliers, the crash of 2008 which rigged the global system and granted impunity to an elite, growing inequality, abandonment of the working class, and the perennial folly of blaming those who have the least power.

But is it because we are so impressed with media we cannot see how we are being manipulated into believing that we have elected this man rather than the system presenting the "winner" before the elections?

"We are on the wrong track if we imagine that ideas put forth by political leaders contain, or are intended to contain, some form of “truth”; that ideas correspond to some aspect of “external reality.” The coin of the realm in politics is fantasy: the leader’s ability to express his own fantasies, and to induce or seduce others to share those fantasies. The leader presents ideas that resonate with his audience. His utterances allow followers to externalize inner states of being." writes Richard Koenigsberg in his post Ideology as Shared Fantasy.

I do not know enough about how this works but those in communications and advertising may be familiar with it.  I have mostly felt we are being manipulated by institutions and business who have learned how to work on the most cynical levels of human nature. 

George Orwell's 1984 is an allegory that takes place in the future but based on the horror of fascist societies in Europe, while its victims believed they were willingly driving the fight for freedom.  

Then the fifties and sixties flourished with consumer fashions and we thought we could express who we were with clothes, make-up and cars - the fantasy was about endless stuff.

Now that the economy is rigged to benefit only a few, most of us don't have that opportunity to spend our lives away. 

My current fantasy is that we shall find a way to preserve our water, the environment, and justice - so we won't need to carry placards on the streets forever. How to convince others? Many are already doing it.

The idea that our fantasy is wanting to find its way out is both intriguing and terrifying.

Delusions and Fantasies

 "And it's not a secret: Les Moonves, the Executive Chairman and CEO of CBS, said, as reported by the Hollywood Reporter about Trump's candidacy: "It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS." He added: “Donald's place in this election is a good thing. … Man, who would have expected the ride we're all having right now? ... The money's rolling in and this is fun... I've never seen anything like this, and this going to be a very good year for us. Sorry. It's a terrible thing to say. But, bring it on, Donald. Keep going.” Thom Hartmann, AlterNet.

The trust in our civilization to represent truth and justice, to find balances, to protect us against the abuse of power, is a delusion.

A society is based on what individuals and groups contribute to it.

1. It depends on our level of education - a recycle of greatness propaganda, or the facts plus a humility to engage with them? 
2. It depends on the kind of vigilance we bring to raising a family, watching children grow and making sure we intervene with guidance and integrity when they appear to be heading down  a destructive path. We will have to care for the family of humankind as we have cared for our own family. 
3. We will need to apply the skills we have learned to build community to the rebuilding of our nation. This is not the nationalism of bragging violence, but a nationalism of concern.
4. We need to listen to others who express ideas we don't agree with and respond with respect to explain why we don't agree.
5. We will need to give up the demand that others see the world as we do.
6. To stretch our awareness and interrogation of our own interests as part of the dialogue. Give up the simplistic divisions and generalizations such as LEFT and RIGHT, MALE and FEMALE, WHITE and BLACK, to include all in our circle.
7. To accept that we are part of the animal kingdom who have evolved in amazing ways - creating music, art, stories, and ideologies. And while our exploration and behaviours have been far from perfect, we can learn from our errors.
8. To see that errors are not failures but signals to redirect our goals.
9. Particularly that economics is not just about profit and wealth for a few. Greed is not an inspiration to create more, it is a collapse of values that diminishes the organic journey to a forced and shallow end.
10. And finally, that the ultimate goal of our existence is not to kill, subdue, and conquer others for our egocentric interests, but to celebrate the mystery and reality of it with a level gaze.

Greatest Mental Disease of Our Time

The primary mental disease of our time exhibits many habits and symptoms, but two come to mind here: 

Entitlement. The idea that we have more because we earned it.

Power. The worship of force, power-over, that is dislocated from the life force it seeks to control.

Entitlement and Power are instruments of oppression developed over centuries. Each of these create systemic violence within constructs of established and new fantasies.

Village folk, having learned through generations of civilization, understand we would not survive beyond infancy without love and cooperation. Language, literature, and knowledge are the trinity of civilization. Now with imagination and technology we have created higher standards of living. But these are soon lost if we adhere to a propaganda that promotes selfishness exclusively. Our wealth and intelligence becomes more powerful when its shared with the whole Universe to sustain and protect our ecosystems.

Taxes are investments in the human future. Roads, hospitals and schools are vehicles to richer lives.  We take these vehicles of infrastructure for granted if we succumb to adolescent ideologies that worship the winners and express contempt for everyone else.

Entitlement blinds us to the centuries of socialization that has invested in our well being.  Who will benefit by this ideology? The arms industry?

Power that continues to rape and pillage - physically, spiritually and emotionally is a power that eats life - through forced labour, racism, misogyny, poverty and pollution of the planet. This leaves the conscience and consciousness feeling powerless.

Driven in this way, we destroy nature, the planet, our families and friends, and our own future. We destroy our nation just as the Nazi's destroyed the country they claimed to love. The routine torture and murder of unarmed imprisoned people is the result of this madness. Power is as stupid as it is brutal.

Because we allow ourselves to be oppressed by the devices we created to prove we are entitled to have power over others,  we have made our own lives contemptible.