Invasion of the Anthro-Hyena

The narrative around civilization and how we ought to behave and live has many outlets.

There's the historical story - looking back at the different ages, the conquerors, the ruling family, the industrial revolution, the economy, the influence of inventions, the study of science, the development of education and social organization.

There's religion, its power over the people, and our values. There's literature, music and art. There is politics. There is media.

For most of us these influences are embedded in our own development. They influence our fathers and mothers, our teachers and neighbours. The way we see our worth is often an echo of our class and the way we are valued as part of our society.

Each family carries the values they have consciously or sub-consciously assumed is the truth. Whether we are liberal or conservative depends on how our parents saw the world and whether we were nurtured or suffered from those views, and how comfortable we are within the physical, social and economic system we live in.

Our society requires our cooperation, sustainability and ability to communicate. A healthy society requires empathy although it's rarely mentioned. The emphasis has been on control and punishment using the rule of law, physical threats and influence.

Influence is the largest part of social coherence - to make us believe that it's in our best interests to cooperate with leaders and the system.

Classrooms inadvertently teach children that being popular is what we all want and if we can't be top of the class then we must strive to be normal. Yes schools teach math, english, history, geography and sports. Schools also teach us how to get along, to be kind and considerate too but these measures don't show up on grading charts.

For all of this to work there must be other foundations too. For example we are emotional and spiritual beings as well as intellectual and physical.

You have probably heard of Maslow's hierarchy of needs created in 1943. First are the physiological needs, then above that safety, then social belonging, self-esteem, self actualization and ultimately transcendence - but each one of these depends on the one before being met. If you don't have food and shelter then you can't have safety, and if you don't feel safe you don't feel you belong, and so on.

Our health and well being require wisdom from humans who are civilized and functional. However the current obsessions have ignored these. Our governments and economy have dismissed the physiological needs of the homeless and the hungry, and so they are shunned, trashed, outlawed.

How did we give up the wisdom, love and esteem earned from centuries where we accept that the things we create are worth as much but not more than the life we live?

The transitions were minor but led to the next stage ready for the next ideology, and we can look at certain people who had power and wealth who manipulated nations then continents.

The most powerful nations have governments that glorify rulers, but show little concern or even outright contempt for the marginalized and the poor.

Colonialism destroyed the first nations and indigenous peoples along with their language, rituals and wisdom. In place of the reverence for life were oppressive doctrines from those who had learned how to divide and conquer.

"We must answer their call. Our Mother Earth, militarized, fenced-in, poisoned, a place where basic rights are systematically violated, demands that we take action. Let us build societies that are able to coexist in a dignified way, in a way that protects life. Let us come together and remain hopeful as we defend and care for the blood of the Earth and of its spirits.”

– Berta Caceres, Indigenous rights and environmental activist of the Lenca people, murdered in Honduras in 2016. (CounterPunch, Kenn Orphan)

But what is lost - is not just culture, it is gratitude for life on this planet which has been replaced with the worship of power over everything, rituals of everlasting war, misanthropy and misogyny. A cynical cruel sneer of anything that is beautiful for beauty's sake.

The Anthro-Hyena is the god of the psychopath, the teacher of greed, the prince of spite, and the worship of death. The Anthro-Hyena can't see the world, it only sees the charts of how to rule, the next strategy, the stock of weapons, the size of the boots, the walls of the prisons. The Anthro-Hyena will not accept any conversation that nurtures, helps, heals or loves.

The Anthro-Hyena rules the largest and richest institutions, big business, government, the market - and the Anthro-hyena exists only in ideology, not in the sentient womb.

Song of the Lizard - a poem

Song of the Lizard

Stand on the highest rock

circle 360 degrees

to see what might be coming

is it food or an enemy?

if it’s food then eat it

otherwise kill it

everything else

is political correctness.
~~~ 

Sometimes I wonder how much trends affect our institutions through the people who are employed by them? Do ministers, politicians, CEO's find a way to hang on to integrity in spite of pressures they must deal with or avoid, to survive? Is it easier to be the lizard?

What is your narrative and how can you move forward

George Monbiot has written a longish article which includes the success, failures, and the machiavellian underhanded responses from the fossil fuel support lobbies. He mentions the need for a short narrative to explain where we are - here is his:

“The world has been thrown into climate chaos, caused by fossil fuel companies, the billionaires who profit from them, and the politicians they have bought. But we, the young heroes, will confront these oligarchs, using our moral authority to create a movement so big and politically dangerous that our governments are forced to shut down the fossil economy and restore the benign conditions in which humans and other species can thrive.” Monbiot, First Strike.

Here is mine: The world has been organized by the need for humans to create societies for support. It is the nurturing society that honours life. But the need for sustenance has been corrupted by egos that seek to control and dominate and they are capable of great cruelty in order to maintain power over the masses. We must interrogate and observe how they do this in order to rise above the structural violence inflicted upon the sentient beings we share this planet with. We need the power of our best selves to guide our selves and our beloved community.

What is yours?

Your Hate Does Not Benefit You

"We saw in the North American free-trade agreement renegotiation and the imposition of steel and aluminum tariffs that the U.S. leader had no patience for facts and enjoyed bullying his allies more than confronting his country’s adversaries, while his acolytes sought to replace the postwar order with a Washington-centred hub-and-spokes system." Paul Heinbecker, Globe and Mail.

I'm not convinced that free trade was good for me or for the workers in factories, but the US President is not on our side either.  He doesn't even seem to be on the American people's side. As for our Prime Minister he seems to be more onside with business than with the citizens even though he made promises and was elected on a campaign to honour the land and sea on which we depend.

What has been lost is a respectable conversation between interests for the sake of the greater good of all.  From somewhere there is the financing of hateful threats to those who have been marginalized, including those who are concerned about climate change.

Meaningful dialogue has been taken out of our domaine and funnelled into the boots and trucks of angry people who have chosen hate as a way out.

A way out of what? A level gaze at all the competing interests who want to take more and give less? 

A way out of owning how our ancestors and nations were complicit in the exploitation of smaller nations, how they colluded in barbaric practices for the sake of dominion over the most land. Not to civilize it but to enslave the people and pollute the land for profit.

In this way, we too have been polluted -- not just broken hearted but corrupted. Ideologies we submit to are often evil because of how they effectively confuse and alienate us from our own mental health.

The best example of this is white supremacy -- and no I am not talking about all the people  who are not brown skinned. I am talking about the movement itself, funded by interests who wish to remain anonymous.  What exactly does white supremacy stand for?

Reading between the lines it stands for hegemony over those who have moved away from the masculine ideology that demands sacrifice on battle fields, absolute obedience in the corporate board room and support for enslavement. I am also talking about the feminine ideology that props up the command that their men must always be strong and never vulnerable, promotes the feminine body as a host for the next generation but not a complete being. The corruption of Christianity for the sake of power-over the people through unexamined obedience.

Some may claim that Christianity was corrupt from the beginning when the teachings of a young rabbi became the foundation of a new religion. Some may claim that religion by its very nature is corrupt as it indoctrinates the innocent for the sake of controlling the masses.

I am saying that corruption is so embedded in our civilization and collective memory, that we need to examine our lives and beliefs enough to figure out the thoughts and values we hold and the way we support the idea of control. Controlling nature, our children, our seniors, our selves.

What is the best use of my power? To hear the voices of others, to support community, to heal my own injuries and to love life. Once I feel compelled to dominate or conquer something I must interrogate that need and ask who benefits?

Who Funds Right Wing Movements?

"In Britain, for example, we now know that the EU referendum was won with the help of widespread cheating. We still don’t know the origins of much of the money spent by the leave campaigns. For example, we have no idea who provided the £435,000 channelled through Scotland, into Northern Ireland, through the coffers of the Democratic Unionist Party and back into Scotland and England, to pay for pro-Brexit ads."Crisis? What crisis?. George Monbiot.

We need to remember that the ordinary voter is not to blame for the way things are. We are encouraged to see things the way multi-million dollar ads suggest and cannot see what information has been deleted. We are subjected to intentional editing all the time.

Democracy can't survive if power is abused and the elected governments seek only to win elections not save their countries. Big business, politicians and media must take responsibility for doing there part to sustain just societies.

A view of Economics which explains a lot - by Fred Guerin

An 'insider' view of why economics programs at the university level nurture sociopathological tendencies in students.

A study published in 1987 by Arjo Klamer and David Colander and then repeated by Colander in 2005 demonstrates that graduate students in economics are far removed from learning or being interested in the real world:

"They compete among each other for ‘technical excellence’ in mathematics so they can solve tricky technical problems but do not think it is important to know anything much about the real world economy nor about the economics literature and history of the discipline that has gone before them. They adopt classic Groupthink characteristics as they are moulded (socialised, brainwashed, choose your own word) by their professors (who then feed them into their own networks for employment etc)."

As the author says, "there is little wonder the profession has very little to say that makes any sense about the real world. It is largely a disgrace."

Economics students tend to be middle class, highly competitive white males who come from relatively well-to-do families.

That pretty much says it all.

If you want more details, read this piece on 'The Brainwashing of Economics Graduate Students' http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=41542.

Fred Guerin on Facebook.

League of Canadian Poets - Poetry Pause Feb. 11