How to Fight Terrorism

I am republishing this due to anxiety felt as we witness a change of politics in the country to our south. The refusal to concede defeat from the Trump Administration and to plan to disrupt with violence from  various supporters (white supremacist groups), is, in my opinion, terrorism.

How can we fight that instinct to keep blowing up the blown apart?  Invest in peaceful, healing initiatives that make violence redundant.

1. Invest in mental health services to give those at risk the help they need before their illness isolates them from society.

2. Re-establish the primary needs of people - shelter, nutritious food, education, living wages and time for family.

3. Support families by providing health services, family planning, women's reproductive education.

4. Sex education that covers the real experiences of young men and women on top of the scientific knowledge about human sexuality.

5. Encourage children to develop a social conscience by listening to what they think, to honour their ideas and to talk about the world of economics and politics in a way that helps them grow into engaged citizens. This can be done at dinner times or other regular times that the family is together.

6. Value life before profit and power. Look people in the eye, take time to listen, take time to care no matter how small the offering may be.

7. Welcome refugees - they are in crisis and people in crisis can recover if others help them find peace. The earth is more than just real estate - it is home.

8. Give up the notion that competition is the only way we become better people. Competition might help us improve at sports, and certain skills but a life dedicated to "winning" is limited to egocentric obsession and narrows the world view.

Terrorism begins with  the idea that power is a zero sum game. That the intrinsic value of our lives depends on proving ourselves. Proving to be capable is worthy but when society is written out of our experience we learn to see our worth in comparison to others, in how much we earn and what we own. If being great depends on oppressing others who have less power, or making more money or up-selling products, we have disposed of our human values such as art, music, analysis, care, nurture, problem-solving and the building of sustainable futures.

Deepening our Knowledge

“[T]he great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do. It could scarcely be otherwise, since it is to history that we owe our frames of reference, our identities, and our aspirations.” —James Baldwin, quoted in History Holds the Antidote to Trump's Fascist Politics by Henry Giroux, Truthdig.

Giroux lists the many symptoms of this "state of crisis that touches every aspect of public life" --  economics, massive inequality,  crisis of ideas, agency, memory and politics. 

"Within this new nexus of power, anti-democratic principles have become normalized, weakening society’s democratic defenses" Giroux warns.  Exploitation, unchecked militarism, matched by a politics of disposability and terminal exclusion.   

How this was achieved was mostly vast wealth within the hands of an organized oligarchy.  For many centuries innocent working people have been corrupted, raped and pillaged, then brainwashed, above and beyond their own capacities to see or understand what is happening to them.

People like Arendt, Klein, Angelou, Atwood, Solnit, Giroux, Orwell, Hedges and Chomsky -- have managed to send warnings to us who are struggling to survive and who are vulnerable to a rage we are not supposed to express.  Now democracy is a bat for blaming whoever is at the bottom. 

The love of conquering, killing and controlling others, is the drive, not the economic benefit or civilizing claims.  If capitalism and technology is about making life easier -- it has to accompany a method of social justice, otherwise its just another device to clear the commons for the hidden bank accounts where money sits, achieving nothing. 

Giroux's article is long and his premise is disturbing, but if our survival is worth anything, its worth the "eternal vigilance" of society. 

Even the Prophets Are Human

O blessed Lovelock, son of Gaia

even with all your science and vocabulary

you failed to wake us up until it was too late.

Global warming is irreversible and all we can do

is wait for the terrible thing to happen

the desertification of Europe, the sinking of London

the famine, the epidemic and the mass migration

of hope.

What can we do if there is nothing we can do

if earth’s reflective organ is too vain

if our power turned too much to outward aggression

punishes the inward nurture of the most delicate

new green shoots emerging above the soil?

Now we shall weep and weep as those great

sky penetrating towers fall

and we perish under their mute walls.

Such a prophecy is not new

there have been others who knew

by the way the warriors went to battle

thrusting their swords into Gaia’s children

that we would not last long

yet we believed linear logic was our sword

of immortality.

And since you are our most recent prophet

why don’t we blame you for not doing

what never worked anyway

—shaking us out of our delusions.

(from Infinite Power, Ekstasis 2016)

Hate Never Makes Us Great

When men and women support movements of hate, such as white supremacists, anti-immigrant groups, the Nazi's of the 1930's, the Spanish Inquisition of the 15th Century, and witch-hunts all over the world - is that because we are desperately trying to shake off the feeling that we are redundant?

Is the absolute focus on the economy a sign that humanity has been replaced by a mathematical construct?

Is the invention of endless enemies really about culling a species that has over-populated the earth and the reason we can't deal with our own part in climate change because we cannot face the notion we are culpable for the problems we created?

What I'm talking about here is that mass of  a privileged humanity who have not had to prove themselves in any public way but who understand that "we" are included in the narrative.   The ones who spend a lot of time thinking about right and wrong but whose survival is not dependant on making the moral choice. The ones who are outraged at abortion but who will never get pregnant. The ones who watch endless hours of TV dramas happily as long as the victims are not in any way like them. The ones who believe its hypocritical to protest pipelines when we all need power, but who don't live near the proposed sites. The ones for whom history has no personal meaning in the immediate present because we do not identify with a demographic other than tax payer or consumer.

Why do we protest the symptoms of our system without looking at the whole picture? What are we afraid of seeing? What is the horror behind all the violence and cruelty listed in news headlines? What is the purpose of such contempt for life?

Underneath our rage and violence, is it ourselves that we hate and fear? We who are unable to live in peace creatively. We who invented guns, bombs, and tanks because our bows and arrows didn't bring us the success we planned.

When we are willing to believe that greed is good and climate change is a hoax surely we are creating the conditions for our demise. When we dismiss anything life-affirming as naive then aren't we announcing that WE ARE REDUNDANT?

Well we are NOT redundant even though the operating system (propaganda, ideology) keeps telling  us we are. So who or what is holding up that structure if not humanity?

Our task is to be human.  Money, the economy, the nation, security, or power is not greater than life. They are all things invented to support the community where we live.

Yes nihilism has purchased our institutions, and people who are employed are often asked to do that which is repugnant to the conscience of sane minds, but how far are we willing to cooperate with that in order to never ask ourselves what it really means? How long will we rally behind the structures that celebrate death because we are too frightened to question the meaning of it?

What is Power?

Years ago we visited a cottage resort, same time and same cottage each summer, reuniting with the same families in other cottages.

As was my habit I brought note books and papers to write and read. One day I asked each of the adults "what is power?".  Their  answers were varied:

• power is energy
• E=mc2 
• power is what turns men into monsters
• love is power

So I pondered these answers, as throughout the years, the subject fascinated and troubled me.

My answer to the question would be - power is the ability to create, to influence the outcome of events. Humans certainly have wielded power throughout our time on this planet.  We have created culture - opera is one example of cultural power. Language, story and education is another. People working together to create something memorable and inspiring. Cell phone technology is another magical example of technological power. Raising our children responsibly so they are able to find their way through the unknown future. Think of all the years of study and discipline that goes into building a beautiful temple. Think of the labour, the energy, the beauty of the design. Think of all the writers who have written books that sit in the library of most towns in North America and Europe.  All the cars that jam our roadways, the drivers who learned how to drive, the planners who put up traffic light and signs to guide them. The sum of our power is so great that we have created terrible problems for the environment, and yet it has become too common for us to notice.

Dismissing the power we have has bred a different kind of power. The circus, clowns exploiting vulnerable people and animals.  It clamours for attention in a way that makes humanity seem like a bunch of suckers.  Consumer commercials, magical thinking, snake oil salesmen, political bloviators, astronomical greed, Punch and Judy shows, and celebrity gossip.

I call this fake power.

The only thing this power creates is alienation from society - it doesn't even try to represent anything of worth. It arises out of our failure to appreciate the life bestowed on this planet. It's a cynical  race to see how quickly we can destroy decency, civility replaced with thuggery. Corporate media obsessed with evil,  as though we are powerless to save it.

This culture is saying to young impressionable minds you are powerless to change anything. We laugh at the naiveté of the desire to care. By example we are offering them victims to bully with the glorification of brute force. Gang rape, racist slurs, intolerance to diversity, contempt for the fragile.

Bad enough that the young might display this behaviour, but even worse are the men who hold positions that would normally demand intelligence and leadership but who brag about making it a game, as though our universe is merely a casino and man's task is simply to take home the most chips.

This is not power.  This is just capitalism. Turning the diversity of  the web of life into a lottery where there is only one winner and billions of losers.

What dominates this culture is not power at all but a soul destroying pretence of power based on the universal contempt for all life as we know it.

If we want to have a future we need to build it on the real power we have to sustain the healthy community. Peace and a reverence for life is the ultimate profit from our efforts. 

Zombification of Humanity

The ways in which a society moves from a free democratic one and becomes a mindless military for the ruling elite happens in stages, often when we can't observe or remember these stages. Corporate media no longer holds our "rulers" to account. We forget how it came to be that our democracy has become flimsy.

Even letters in a Canadian newspaper suggest "Progressive" is  a handicap akin to a brain disorder as if social justice, decency and empathy cripple our ability to make trade deals.

Also religious teachings are tweaked to clear the conscience to feel free in a business climate that has no morals. 

A study reported in WHO WHAT WHY revealed the group least likely to support their nation to allow refugees from the Middle East, are white evangelical protestants. "It’s ironic that the same people who claim to embrace the teachings of a Middle Eastern refugee from 2,000 years ago are now most eager to slam the door shut in his face."(https://whowhatwhy.org/2018/06/03/evangelicals-putting-the-ass-in-compassion.)

Is religion simply a tool for the ruling ideology rather than a spiritual discipline for humanity? With scriptures from more than two thousand years ago, you might think there is plenty of soul searching to call on. How can those who pride themselves on quoting the bible from memory have missed the stuff about love, justice and compassion?

Politics in Canada seems to be fraught with hate instead of debate about policy. How has that happened when more people are getting post secondary education? An article in The Walrus (https://thewalrus.ca/the-unpopularity-of-female-politicians-has-everything-to-do-with-sexism) writes "Canadians are more likely to believe in the existence of ghosts than to agree that Wynne is an effective leader." One psychologist named her "our devouring mother" and other ad hominem quotes reveal a blatant misogyny and homophobia.

So now Ontario has Ford Nation - an indication of a solid return to patriarchal glorification under the standard alpha male rule. Calling back to a time when we were apes and the winner was always the biggest bully.

Recently the G7 Summit was trashed by Trump, again with ad hominem attacks and no detail.  Is that all it takes for us to submit to the force of those with the biggest access to media coverage?

Is anyone questioning why the air waves are so impressed with slogans and bullies? Are we really ready to throw away critical thinking, analysis, rule of law, education, and compassion? If so we are throwing away civil society. 

Capitalism has certainly trashed any sentiment that cannot be turned into profit. But have we not seen through that? Are we ready to walk into that dark cave of a brave new world where we must believe  "Mine is not to reason why, mine is just to do or die"?

Here is how we might avoid the zombification of humanity:


1. Take responsibility for the way our society has become dysfunctional and do whatever you can to fix it. A society without the voice of conscience creates homelessness in the mind and heart.

2. Do not tolerate values that promote myths around masculinity or femininity. Do not try and inculcate in your child's notions of behaviour for princesses as distinct from behaviour for princes. Your children are human - that is a scientific fact.

3. Do not teach your sons, nephews and cousins, that men do not cry. Mass murder is a cry for help when it is too late. Humans cry.

4. Do not preach that men should be strong 100% of the time. Children learn how to dissociate from their feelings if they fear they will not be loved by those they depend on, and humans without feelings become hollow.

5. Do not glorify war. War is only good to pump up the alpha ego, who rather than learn how to lead responsibly looks for animal (including human) carcasses as trophies.  Otherwise it becomes complete destruction of any civil society and requires enormous efforts to rebuild, often leaving many broken and scarred people. But do support returning veterans with the health care they need to become part of their society again.

6. Read responsible news sources, science and fiction and learn how to distinguish the difference between them.

7. Give the people you love all your attention whenever you can. Care and attention does not spoil boys or girls. It teaches them they belong to the human family.

8. Give up racist ideas and stereotypes. Viking warriors are painters, singers and weavers, as well as ship builders. Identities have become constructs - designed to divide and control. If you believe in generalizations you are on the way to becoming useful to those who see humanity as a resource. 

Community and the Disposessed

“The gun culture permits a dispossessed public, sheared of economic and political power, to buy a firearm and revel in feelings of omnipotence. A gun reminds Americans that they are divine agents of purification, anointed by God and Western civilization to remake the world in their own image."  Chris Hedges, Truthdig.

Any time someone talks about the benefit of community there is a paid-for backlash that laughs at our attempts to do what is healthy for humanity and its environment.

How did this come to be?  Young children see the world through their own lives and observations, but somewhere along the way we dare not express our selves and feed back what we think is expected of us.

"Each culture tends to construct its worldview on a root metaphor of the universe, which in turn defines people’s relationship to nature and each other, ultimately leading to a set of values that directs how that culture behaves. It’s those culturally derived values that have shaped history." Jeremy Lent. Culture Shift.

But capitalist, fascist, or communist cultures are shaped to serve the prescribed ideology - a worship of kings and emperors and the power they wield, along with the court jester who represents the peasantry, the workers, the poor.

Most people do not want to gun down children in a school, nor do they want to stand up for their beliefs and risk being ridiculed as naive. Most people want to live in their private world known only by family and friends. But even this can leave them feeling lonely if they are unable to speak of who they are.

George Monbiot reports "A remarkable experiment (done in Fore, Somerset) suggests that emergency admissions to hospital can be reduced by tackling loneliness."  

There have been other studies that indicate we are healthier when we have community. The sad thing is that people who peddle the toxic machismo are drawn to a promise of omnipotence no matter how destructive that is.

How can we raise our children to deal with this? By encouraging them to honour their own talents rather than feel they must be at the top. By living as though kindness matters - because as I age I have seen that it does. That is the kind of vigilance asked of parents and citizens.

Your Voice

Your voice is the temperature gauge

using the mercury of all you have seen and heard

of those who have harmed and saved you

an alchemical mix including your history

back to the first walk across the land

the first hut built of dry grass

your eyes wide as the saucers

that hadn't yet been invented

and the memory of a deep voice

directing you out of despair

calming the scream in your bowel

just as you were ready to split yourself open

in rage for all the times we let you down

when you were counting on us

to reach in for your bloodied arm

pull you up out of the pit

that had no steps or rocks to climb

and when we stop to think about it

we know we keep listening for the monster's roar

shuddering across the valley from mountains

too far and too high to climb

while your voice is so small and so close

we could begin to learn by listening

what could be done by someone

someone, anyone who hears

who has a hand to lift you up

and an arm to put around you

whenever your voice is ready

to ask for help.

The End of Humanity?

Rick Salutin wrote a thoughtful piece in the Toronto Star about Americans who still support the NRA after the shooting in Florida which killed 17 students.

The title read "Gun Enthusiasts Would Rather Lose Their Kids Than Their Guns".

The title is, of course, overreach. Who would ever think this in a country that holds the richest, most political and economic power in the world?

I think the problem is addiction not reason. Those whose self interests are bound in the status quo cling to it like heroin.  

Think of how a mind might sober up to realize they prefer guns to children? Other children maybe but not ours.

Most power systems are based on the problems of the other. It's other people's children who have a different religion or different colour skin that we scrutinize and judge. Ours we will excuse and defend no matter what they do.

Our children grow into adults who learn to be increasingly aggressive in business and politics.

On a different but related issue the CBC news reported that Rachel Notley won the war against BC by banning BC wines.  Further scrutiny will tell you the oil companies that already rule global economic policies won and small local business lost. Rachel Notley like so many politicians can win by promoting the interests of the biggest bullies, while leaders who defend justice are attacked, ridiculed and tossed out.

CBC has been under tremendous criticism by broadcasting the stories of the underdogs - those who are threatened simply because of who they are - women, gay, Muslim, first nations.  Now the hourly news broadcasts the values of big lobbies by ridiculing people for things that don't matter - such as the clothes Justin Trudeau wore in India with headlines that say his visit was a fiasco.  That's a judgement call.  That sounds more like Fox News than CBC. But its a testament to our eroding social values just like the charge that Americans love their guns more than their children.

Lobbies funded by big corporations say small businesses cannot afford $15 an hour minimum wage, cannot afford to provide affordable housing. What you see in these charges really is throwing humanity under the bus.  Oil pipelines and bitumen will destroy the local economies of fishing, tourism and entertainment while making Kinder Morgan even more powerful than it is.

Democracy cannot survive while fake news and contempt for life pollutes the fragile society. Justice for all cannot survive when oligarchs rule like demi gods and kings. When power is centralized we all become prisoners who must suck it up or be prepared to die.

Why is my example so extreme? Because our values slip away while we are not looking. How many people have found themselves giving up their values for the sake of keeping their jobs? How many who rise to the top become psychopaths because the pain of weighing their interests against the greater good cripples them. How many gang members learn that in order to survive you must serve the alpha male no matter how cruel his demands.

The best soldiers are fine people who were trained to kill and who came home broken because their nature was destroyed. Nations that rise to the top train their people to be brutal by brutalizing the most vulnerable in their society. They look strong and fearless but their GDP rises at the cost of their people.

What is called great is really that power to intimidate, to demand absolute obedience from their citizens. Now huge wealth is created by making workers slaves, but punishing those who think and who stand up to the bosses. At all costs, even our children, we are ordered to bow down to power.

We are becoming a world in which literature, culture, health and happiness are swallowed into slogans. Nestle is run by a CEO who believes water is not a human right. Large corporate interests believe human sensibilities get in the way of their control. They secretly fund think tanks and movements to shut down civil society. Hitler's fascism was a religion of killing and nihilism. The NRA is the department of everlasting fear.

What will happen to literature, music, philosophy, family and love, if this planet becomes a fascist corporation? What will happen to humanity if there is no other example of how to be in this world? 

The Depth and Breadth of White Supremacy

Because the media keeps reporting on the events, utterances and activities of broken men, I think concerned citizens must jump in to offer a different view.

We are vulnerable to fashions and movements that cause tremendous suffering, such as the Thirties in Europe.

Using Hitler's playbook we know that human nature can be misrepresented and conditioned into robotic bodies to serve a political fantasy such as racial superiority. Using different words I might say the men of Europe were asked to give up their reality, their health, their livelihood, their intelligence, for an imagined glory, which meant death.

Nations of people starved so that money could be invested in global killing machines. The mental health of these "Aryan" people was battered by trauma. We lost limbs and lives, husbands and sons, fathers and mothers, wives and daughters, for the glory of war.

It meant that arguments, doubts, conversations and worry about the future were temporarily wiped out for the beat of the goose step. It meant that people no longer had to solve human problems because they could hollow out their minds and replace them with propaganda. There were only two choices to make - obey the rules and die, or be tortured to death.

Does that look like highest attainment for humanity? Does that feel like a celebration of life?

This either/or scenario didn't begin with Hitler or the Nazi's and the social conditions that were causing men to give up hope and turn to hate, began through other men who had power over the people.  Those who dictated the rules of austerity were not the ones who would go hungry.

You don't have to be a scholar to know that glory is about sacrificing life for power. Life is presented as a burden, and the only true achievement is the ability to control the lives of others.

This is not new and has been said more profoundly by Hannah Arendt, George Orwell, Noam Chomsky, Margaret Atwood, and millions of poets whose work is mostly ignored.

The culture of Europe was destroyed in politics, wealth, life and health while a few got rich. Now this hate has been ignited by North American opportunists to defend capitalism against the human conscience.

What did Hitler achieve for the world? A brutal example of how low humanity could sink and the proof of our capacity for cruelty. But also a warning to us all about what it is we need to fight against. Not the stranger but the shadow in ourselves.

White supremacy is about turning human souls into vacuous puppets in order to destabilize and destroy civil society and ultimately create a smooth path for megalomaniacs to do as they please without criticism or obstruction. Is this what we want?

Advent Calendar 2017

I am working on this year's advent calendar, starting December 1st, like last year's but with new readings and inspirations. Some posts from last year will be used again, but mostly I will be scouring the universe for new ideas and quotes.

Students of Machiavelli have had more air time than they deserve, and December is a good month to get re-acquainted with our hopes and support for humanity. 

It has been my experience that most people like to help others, love to give gifts and find it painful to witness others in distress. Thank you for being one of them.

Politics is about Humanity Not Just Economics

The previous post arose out of two articles, one by Chris Hedges "The Great Flood", and the other by George Monbiot "How do we get out of this mess".

From this, I isolated five "actions": 

1. transform our politics to include humanity and not just economics
2. appeal to as many people as possible, crossing traditional political lines
3. create the story to resonate with deep needs and desires
4. explain the mess we are in and means by which we might escape it
5. ground it firmly in reality.

This post is about the first one as you can see in the title. I plan to do the same for each of the five.

Instead of using grandiloquent language, Naomi Klein writes (in everyday words) from her latest book (No is Not Enough), and her "instructions" arise out of her commitment to facts. 

"Here is what we need to understand in a hurry: Climate change, especially at this late date, can only be dealt with through collective action that sharply curtails the behavior of corporations ..." 

Klein refers to the ever increasing tax cuts for the richest while the poorest pay with their health, their homes and their lives.

"Climate action demands investments in the public sphere". New energy sources - wind, sun, public transit, light rail. After defeating the fascists that were destroying Europe, after so many of our loved ones were lost in that hell, the "free" world understood what was at stake if governments did not focus on creating stability for their people. 

Investment means paying attention to the lives that matter, creating equality and hope for all, and of course higher taxes to pay for infrastructure. 

What makes us who we are? Are we merely the sum of the ideologies that govern or are we more? Are we the sum of our hatreds, our beliefs, or are we more? Does the Left Wing vs. Right Wing binary serve who we are? Are we physical bodies who seek the spiritual, or spiritual beings inside a body? Are we citizens or consumers? Are we good or evil?

When political arguments are solely about jobs and the economy it means that people have been written out of the narrative.

Politics is the shared construct of who we are, and politicians are the ones who serve the people, or the ones who betray humanity. None of us have a right to abdicate this relationship. To be a cynic is not just a turning away, it's giving a free ride to those who seek power in order to abuse it.

The Heart Will Not Be Managed

painting by Paul Grignon

That is what they told me as I strolled through

their territory. They said you can cut us all down

but our roots will find a way over or under

other roots. They say look at how we shield

the thinnest branches and the softest leaves

without telling how or where to grow.

We house birds of all kinds no matter

how they live or what they believe. 

We don’t ask for love from mice

or loyalty from snakes. We have not created

by-laws here, demanding that neighbours sign

before entering. We don’t judge. When something

invades our sky and we cannot reach the light

we grow in a different direction.

They ask me to look at my own ancestors

for the proof, put your gears in reverse and look 

at where you came from as you ventured slowly

out of the ocean with new found legs looking 

for something to eat. Then look at the first mother 

and the first father how they laughed and how they cried 

never questioning the authenticity of their tears. 

Look at you they say. Look at how you survived 

your first breath, learned how to walk, how to speak,

how to hold the next generation inside

until they are ready to be born.

All we ask is that you remember these thoughts

when you are locked in a concrete cell

when you are tortured by your own confessions

or sent back to the sea in a coffin.

The heart knows who you are

and will be with you until you die.

(Infinite Power, Ekstasis 2016)

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.

It Isn't Your Fault

It isn't your fault that systems have learned 

how to manipulate you with false beliefs. 

It isn't your fault that patriarchy has learned how to kill 

your brothers by making you their robots. 

It isn't your fault you vote for parties who promise wealth 

but only for those at the top when you thought for all. 

It isn't your fault that rulers have philosophers, marketers, strategists 

and weapons while you have only one vote. 

It isn't your fault the oppressors have learned all the tricks 

to keep you coming back for more. 

It isn't your fault that those given the privilege to choose 

life, invested only in control of a woman's body, 

while showing contempt for the needs of the beings

born from that body. 

It isn't your fault your heart has been broken so many times

it severed the link to your brain. 

It isn't your fault the highest public endeavour 

has been turned into a 30 second commercial.

The White Man as Political Construct

An infection has come to that political construct known as The White Man. 

Let me be clear that I am not talking of men who are white, I am talking of the expectations and demands of a society that describes him as "White". 

He has been fed hate and violence in media from mainstream to social. The neoliberal economy has cast an invisible fence around him so that his humanity is reduced to whatever serves the bottom line. 

The first fence was constructed centuries ago when he was taught to be 'rational', not rational by questioning the beliefs of his time, but to eschew  his feelings, to be suspicious of love, and to be faithful to the role of defender and warrior. He has been the consistent target of propaganda.

The White Man is not a race or species but a construct that was useful when Europeans invaded other continents such as Africa, Asia Australia and America.  European nations who had a long history of war with each other found a new identity when they discovered aboriginal societies who had darker complexions whom they stole land, goods and women from, and began a new career in slavery. 

Designating the people as savage, uncivilized, meant that the rape of the land and the people were easier for the conscience of the invaders.  The White Man was born, grew rich, authoritarian, and powerful. The White Man scoffed at literature, poetry, music, dance and art, after he colonized other continents. Again let me say I am not talking about men who are white but the mythology of the man.

Self reflection was inconvenient to the soldiers, teachers, and governors who had to brutalize others in order to succeed. But unknown to many was the brutalization of his own spirit as he was ordered into 'being a man' who would never complain of weakness, exhaustion, boredom and inner rage.  

His senses had to be replaced with a hard doctrine of power, and a promise of wealth and success. Doubts had to be silenced while the land was mined for gems, metal, and free labour. He had to turn away from the suffering he was ordered to inflict on others to maintain an empire of huge bank accounts and gigantic lies.  Lies such as the idea of progress depended on beating up those who were lower on the pecking order. 

It's not that this was invented by The White Man, its that he was moved from a personal relationship to the world, albeit full of dangers and hardships, to a constructed doctrine. The notion of white supremacy was and is the most devastating indoctrination. It guaranteed the ongoing domination of all for the profit for a few. Each century has wielded new lies to keep the whip in the hands of the unquestioning White Man. It tied his senses to the bridle of a mythical progress. 

Misogyny took the love of life out of his world and castrated his sensuality.  The men who have not found the success they were told was theirs 'as long as they obeyed the rules', have been tossed into slums  of despair. They have been discarded, labelled as rubbish and they are the ones now attempting to raise the flag of white supremacy again, in the hope that fascism, force, degradation of the other will fall under the boot of his rage.

What The White Man needs is friendship, meaningful work, dignity and empathy, denied him through an indifferent cruel economy.  He needs time and place to find his humanity among women, LGBTQ realities, asians, africans and aboriginals who have managed  to hold onto their humanity.

Far from being oppressed by immigrants, he may with a little poetry, and responsible democratic government, find the salvation of the white man as he returns to nature and discards the straightjacket of exploited machismo.