Beyond Voting: the central issue of Power laid bare.




"To vote or not to vote, that is  a good question to start a conversation, an exploration, to express a desire to understand how democracy functions and how it ought to function."

The Power Inquiry of 2006 looked at this is a lot of detail.

By asking people why they don't vote.

Seems like a good approach.

If done well, and if people are being honest, the it would produce useful information, evidence... it would test current public domain assumptions on the matter.

They did it very well.

It's amazing what listening to people, what hearing and understanding with feedback can create, in terms of expressing and identifying needs, and then helping people to meet those needs, if they need help, if they request help...

What they found was that people's perception of professional politicians was accurate.

Liars, cheats and crooks who represent those who lobby them with cash incentives, who protect entrenched Power to Rule the People through the control of social and political institutions and exonomics, whilst pretending otherwise.

What they found was that a growing constituency of people were ACTIVE in their local communities, providing short and long-term support services to the poor and vulnerable, and the community at large, which had .historic roots in victorian local philanthropy mixed with a tradition of peasant self-reliance, how communities of peasants and later workers have long organised to help each other...

What they found was that for many people political activism was action on the ground to deal with issues in their area. Voting does not convey the same degree of social committment, and could be said to be inferior in many ways, if a citizens political action was limited to voting.

The Power Inquiry found that the Community Voluntary Sector was larger than membership of political parties by a massive margin, that as a diverse commjunity, it was politically and ethically aware and was taking active responsibility in their local areas.

They found that the Community Voluntary Sector was well versed in delivering services those they helped really needed, fund raising, consciousness raising, treasury management, listening and learning from those the served, in essence the skills of self-Governance.

What they found was that the Community Voluntary Sector crossed all age and income groups.

What they found was that the Community Voluntary Sector was also versed in real democracy, in real decision making and policy creation and implementation.

What came out of The Power Inquiry was a series of recommendations for meaningful changes which would devolve power as a SHARED RESPONSIBILITY to the grass roots.

One of which was removal of the official post of Party Whip. 100% anti-democratic post.

One of which was no private funding of parties for Elections. A fund based on the number of the electorate registered, to be split equally between all candidates.

One of which was a re-call at every level of Public Office. A form of oversight.

One of which was lowering the voting age to 16. Inclusion of the young because they are not represented, and quite often are very well aware of the issues of the day, and yet excluded.

One of which was introducing Democratic Power to students in secondary Schools, to give them a responsibility and voice on matters that affect their lives. You cannot exercise or share Power unless you have some MEANINGFUL practice.

A NOTA segment on the ballot box. We ought to be able to register non-confidence in those offering themselves up for election.

And much else besides....

The Three 'leading parties' Lab/Tor/LibDem attended the conference in 2006, and praised the initiative and content of The Power Inquiry report, before an audience of more than 500 people.

Two days later, they dismissed the Power Inquiry as 'impractical.'

'Impractical'!

And then the assault on the Community Voluntary Sector was initiated, by people who KNEW the crash of 2008 was coming, and who knew they could use that to justify the cuts to the Community Voluntary Sector, and the privatisation of much of the work being done by the Community Voluntary Sector.

In other words, a clear manipulation and assault on pro-Democracy activism at the local level, designed to stress the Community Voluntary Sector, which they KNEW would also harm many of those whose lives were being supported by the Community Voluntary Sector.

And this has been carefully ignored by mainstream media, because it was and still is intentional professional cruelty designed to undermine REAL democratic intelligence within the UK.

The Greens, SNP and Plaid are gaining ground BECAUSE their policies are HUMANE, above all else.

The issue of voting/not voting is being manipulated to mask this cruelty and intentionality.

That The State and Established Power are willing to be cruel to protect, enhance and expand their power is OBVIOUS - Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and our own bloody history (when read accurately, away from school texts and media history programs).

Few people ever fought and died for freedom, the majority fought and died because they were enlisted, or because they were socially conditioned to support the State. None of the political leadership fought, other than the likes of Churchill who fought the Boers and treated their civilian population with horrific abuse.

The treatment of Greek Resistance fighters post liberation of Greece, by UK Military and State, ought to be standard subject in school Histories. The UK Military and UK State enlisted those within Greece who had collaborated with the Nazis to slaughter those who had resisted on the basis that the resistance was largely populated by 'communists'.

The response to African Democratic Nationalists post WWII discloses the nature of Power in the UK. The response to Iraqi Democratic Nationalists in late 2003 disclose the nature of Power in the UK.

They plunged Greece, Africa and Iraq into a nightmare of Authoritarian Government proclaiming LIBERTY! They KNEW exactly what they were doing, and remain unapologetic about it.

Russel Brand said WHY he doesn't vote, rather than urging people not to vote per se.

And his intention was misrepresented. Willfully misunderstood.

I will vote Green, not because I think the Green candidate can win, but because the Green Candidate represents a humanist approach that is humane, that is kind, that is more empathic and that is practical, and I'd rather lose standing for that, than win a Pyrrhic victory claimed by excluding the Tories from Government, when in fact Government is the entirety of Parliament and Local Councils, and our acceptance of them as our Rulers, with the grass roots excluded from real decision making.

I vote for the entire community, not for my special interest,or traditional alliance.

I vote because I think on these matters, deeply and I care about all the people in this country, non excluded.

And I vote Green because I despise the political culture, in power and on the streets, that enables the protection of serial pedophiles in Church and State Institutions, the cover-ups, the wars, the profiteering, the lies.

I am not hopeful of an outcome based on one election.

I am hopeful because there is a growing awareness of all that I have indicated above, and it will continue to grow, year on year, generation on generation.

I vote thinking of long term outcomes, thinking of my grandchildren and their contemporaries.

I totally get why so many people do not vote, and I would not dare suggest to them that they are incorrect, given all that I have indicated above.

This election is 100% illegitmate BECAUSE of the cover-ups of the War Crimes, the cover-ups of priofteering and cover-ups of the sexual abuse of children by members of the Power structure (it also happens in families, the cover-ups..) has not been tackled head-on., Not by Power and not by the people at large.

The only reason we know what has been going on is because brave SURVIVORS broke the stories, again and again and again, in the face of opposition within the Police, within Councils, Schools, Churches and the great offices of State.

We all need to think and think again on this. Not least because we are adults with a core responsibility towards each others welfare that defines our very humanity. Whether we like it or not.

We need to act as mature responsible adults. Way beyond mere voting.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

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The UK General Election : A Survivors view.

The central issue of the most importance in this election is the elephant in the room. Cyril Smith, Jimmy Savile, Kincora House, Dolphin Square et al.

We are being asked to vote for parties and civil servants that have participated in protracted cover-ups of criminally abusive, predatory sexual exploitation perpetrated by members of Tory, Labour and Liberal Parties, in association with people in positions of trust within State 'care' facilities and have yet to reveal the full details of what transpired, in spite of years of campaigning by Survivors..
.
This matter goes to the very heart of the UK's 'Democracy'.

It reveals, amongst other things a core corruption that must be challenged and confronted, and excised from our systems of Governance. Everything else ought to wait until this task is complete, or else we are voting for more of the same.

Here's a well thought out piece, examining the meaning of State Secrets in the light of the known cover-ups of criminally abusive behaviour and activity of powerful people, cover-ups designed to protect the State... 

"The UK regime faces a critical time as a number of public inquiries into its past behavior unfold. The undeveloped issue within these inquiries is the nature of the change they will require in the regime. There is an added urgency to these inquiries and the need for change from the news reports associated with the recent revelations concerning historical child sexual abuse (CSA) cases. The concern was of a pedophile network that operated at the heart of the UK establishment.[1] The revelations associated with that case have been stunning. Yet, what is most disturbing is the Crown’s apparent collusion in covering up the incidents."
and

"If the regime is using CSA to control the state and politicians, then the public need to know why and what justifies it. What regime behaves in this way? Is this the way politics and policing are conducted in the UK? If it is, then is it time for a change, not only of government, but also of a regime that tolerates it, employs, and benefits from it? If change is required, we return to an implicit question of whether such change would be sudden or gradual. If the change is occurring gradually, then it might be that the public has to wait for the change. When we consider these questions, we realize that the issue becomes a secondary one, the debate over the nature, speed, and sustainability of the change and not the originating problem."

I would strongly urge anyone concerned with UK Politcis of Power and the welfare of Children to read this piece in full.

I and the author speak not only of the children who are survivors of assaults by predatory men and women in positions of power, but also of all those children whose lives have been blighted by UK Weapons, by Foreign Policy decisions made by UK Politicians, and by much else besides.

Who will speak up for all those children?

To vote for more of the same,  whatever one's beliefs, is unconscionable.

Worse than that, it enables the predators.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

What are we voting for: Police, Official Secrets, Protecting the most heinous of people because they ARE power?

Musing on Saint Patrick's Day. And what Christianity brought to our Island.

"Why the police won’t talk about Cyril Smith, child sex abuse and corruption"



Watch as the British Establishment 'manages' the Institutional 'response' to the 'allegations' of sexual exploitation and worse, of vulnerable children. By active members of Government and other high office. Covered up by the State to protect .... the State?

Are the children not of the State, then? Are they not citizens?

To protect Power, and to protect the facility of projecting that Power.


------

The Irish are my Family, the English are my Family, the Welsh, they are my Family, the Scots they are my Family...

The comments section is interesting. People are aware.

The article is a start....

----- Dreaming of Eire, the female godess, the mother warrior. St. Patrick, Rome and Christianity. All three ruined the dream.
"First we came for The Vatican, then we came for The Dioceses, then we came for State, and then we came for The Establishment, - The Institutions, and individual actors active in those Institutions, who clearly committed the most heinous of criminal acts, and we must meet this with our own action, to make abuse history within the grass roots, and when we are done, and we will see this through, the healing will be complete.

Speak truth, always. Listen well.

Long journey. Keep walking.
"

In the meantime, right about ... now!

There are no excuses. None. WE, the people cannot accept that Institutional logic. Ever.

We understand the philosophy, the psychology, the behaviour and actions of those officials who covered up. for those higher up the power chain. who had committed unspeakable crimes against vulnerable children ...... these are facts, rather than excuses. The rational is obvious - protect the image and status of the State, of Government above all other considerations.


Setting aside for a moment the principle of the fundamental and intrinsic adult responsibility to protect and nurture children, the urge to 'protect', as an institutional reaction is understandable, as pointed out above, and yet when it relates to such matters and when the truth is suppressed at such cost, this urge becomes an irrational behaviour through and through.
Because it undermines the Institutions concerned at their foundations. They have no standing whilst this is happening. And it abandons the victimised to  more trauma, more pain, more abuse.

'Twould have been better to expose the lot, at the time, and deal with the issues robustly, service justice and legislating for prevention, by education, therapy and other supports, and that would have strengthened that Institution big time, in real human terms ..... but that did not happen. Not in the UK, not at The Vatican, not in the many hundreds of Catholic and other congregations .... that is what it is. We see what they have each in turn done. 'Managed' the 'story'.

It has never happened for the many Aboriginal Societies that fell to the sword and anvil of 'progress'. There's a lot of baggage, and it must be unpacked and dealt with.

Speaking of which this article takes the behaviour of the Tony Abbott Government into the most surreal of realities.

A piece of legislation exempting certain large giant private Companies  from issuing public accounts on the basis that such details being in the public domain would expose the board members, Executives and management to kidnap threat. The law has been passed.

For certain members of the Governing Institutions, across Society, the law is a tool , it is their tool to do with as they wish. This cannot stand, not when what we know is all of what has happened on this story of abusers within Institutions that protect the abusers to protect themselves!?
------

What needs to happen is that the UN ought to investigate, and all whistle blowers be given the safety to reveal what they knew that was suppressed, that action be directed to identify those culpable, and where possible detain same where there is evidence based or proven allegations, investigate, report and then, in addition, all the way through the process, let the Survivors lead the story for a while....  all these adults clamouring and the children's voices remain as if mute.

What is that all about?

Possibly Stockholm Syndrome-ish at the mass level, or at least within the mainstream thought police, voters, people who still believe in the benign nature of our System and culture of Power, people just keeping it together to live a 'decent life' who can't handle the threat of the truth... it's too much for some people, for sure.


Just my way of looking at things.



Let the People hear The Survivors,let the people supports the survivors and protect the children ..... those what want to articulate in public aspects of their experience, and insight, they deserve to be heard and understood. We might learn much.

Within the mainstream, this story is of course going to be submerged by the election soap opera, sports and other news.

So my question to my readers, to all adults who vote, to those who do not: What are we all voting for?

More of the above?

Healing?

Justice?

Kindness?


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

Valentines day, Power as an aphrodisiac, Sexual exploitation.

A key element of  Western 'civilised' or 'progressive' psychology is the mixture of sex(uality) with power, a toxic mime of empathic connection and authentic sense of self,  that is deliberately inculcated because it is so disempowering.

And the disempowered are unaware of how deeply disempowered they are.

'50 Shades of Grey' sells 100  million copies.  A small slice of the 7 billion alive to day. 

Sex sells, so it is said. The allure is strong in those whose sense of self is damaged.

And caring empathy as a practical? Lacking in Governance, in Education, in Corporate operations, in war (obviously), in economics...  leaders pay lip service to the idea, yet their actions tell a different story.

Fifty shades of child mistreatment, abuse and sexual exploitation.

British media reports on 50 shades and a growing BDSM movement, and surges practitioners to use 'safe words' ..... where were the 'safe words' for the children abused by Jimmy Savile within publicly funded Institutions?

The Iraqi people shouted 'stop!', the Libyan people shouted 'Ceasefire' and the British Government and US Government ignored their pleas,and repressed them yet again, destroying their country in the process.

David Cameron wants to impose sanctions on people who have a variety of illnesses, which he suggests are 'treatable', if they refuse the treatment offered.

Caring empathy? Far from it, he wants to push as many poor people as possible into low paid, zero contract working conditions, paying mortgage level rents to enrich the lenders..  Because that disempowers people, creates extra degrees of stress and vulnerability. Which makes resistance and dissent amongst the poor and the vulnerable less likely to be effective or widespread.

He'd and his class would rather focus on that than examine just exactly who in Politics is KNOWN to sexually exploit children, and others and he'd rather not bring the spotlight of justice and transparency to bear on that situation within his own Institutional party,   

Sex and Power.  Some people claim that knowledge of the sexual predilections of ministers and others is used by political power players to control those people, to ensure they comply. Sex and Power.

Some say The West has liberalised sexuality. They base their claim on the last 2000 years of Christian influence, and the repeal of it's odious attitudes towards humane sexuality and ignore the empathic sexuality and liberated empowered mothering found in many egalitarian cultures.

Liberated? Progressive?  The Western Powers? 


Do the people of Iraq feel liberated? Do the Survivors of clerical child sexual exploitation feel liberated?

Fifty shades, millions upon millions of victimised people.

Review - 'Fifty Shades Of Grey' Is Abusive Gender Roles Disguised As Faux-Feminism


Christian Grey gets off on the power dynamic, the disparity his great wealth bestows, the disparity his age difference between himself and a young vulnerable woman bestows, rather than the sensual connection and pure love of life, of living people nurturing each other.


Valentines Day. What a load of abject twaddle.

50 Shades of Grey: a film about male power, idealising emotional abuse as sexy when it isn't

"All healthy relationships are built on respect, trust and consent - and the one at the centre of this film contains none of that."

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

What would Jesus Draw?


I would never have thought that being stranded in the centre of London, late in hours, by a Bus Strike, could be such a potent opportunity for reflection on matters topical.

As I traveled in the bus, I was thinking about ordinary folk in France, Iraq, Gaza, New York, Woolwich, in villages towns and cities around this Earth, when war comes knocking in the door.I meant knocking in. It is like that.

Wherever violence has been inflicted upon innocent civilians by warring parties, all sides irrespective of their ‘legitimacy’ will equally seek to justify that violence. At the beginning, throughout and at the end, and in their relative hagiographies/ History’s, and constantly re-enforced by their mainstream narratives, their myths. Our violence is 'good'. Theirs is 'bad'.

That act of violence from the perspective of the ordinary folk victimised in such atrocious manner. In the immediacy of that horror. Is always bad, very, very bad. and of course it is ignored. If it is mentioned, it is glossed over and an apology is issued. Sometimes compensation - shut your mouth money - is offered. Justice, never.

I considered the bus I was traveling in. What would we all feel if an explosive went off, or the bus was raked with bullets, attacking random innocents? I tried imagining the cascades of feelings, the terror, the fear, the confusion, the loss of hope, the panic, the shock that each and every person would in different ways be going through. And the pain. Utter horror. I shuddered as the bus rode on.

For each person, for every civilian harmed by violence the act is more than terrifying, it is physically horrifying, burning deep, deep into their very souls, their sense of self. To be so tortured and to see others in the same state, is for many, understandably an experience of utter helplessness. Hopelessness.

My thoughts were interrupted. The lights flicker,

The bus stops. We are at Oxford circus. The driver calls out “Last Stop! Last Stop” and flickers the lights. They go off. It’s 2.45am. I had left the event at 2.30am.

I thought “Great the journey is going well.”

“though it is late and I really need to get back home to get some sleep to be up, ready for some work at 10am…”

I walked around the corner to catch my second bus, for a 40 minute ride to where my home is.

I checked the time table and TFL on my phone. The timetable says the bus route is running. Bus in 18 minutes. Cool.

I fell back to my previous explorations of the meanings of that lived experience for those who go through it, and the consequences for their lives, and their relationships, and how it’s just not a part of the mainstream narrative on war and peace.

A huge part of the reality of both the Charlie Hebdo shootings and Falluja, of Nigeria and Boko Haram, of Chile in 1979, WWI and WWII and ….  and so on… the official history is littered with ‘great victories’, our broken lives are only of sentimental value, as ‘sacrifices’ for this cause, that flag, ‘our’ faith…

That my readers is a lot of trauma…..

Haven’t we had enough. already?

This is the appalling truth : the mainstream narrative reflexively, intentionally dilutes, sentimentalises, and compartmentalises the meaning of the lived experience of those who go through war-like violence inflicted upon them intentionally, arbitrarily simply because the violence was introduced as part of some politically driven  power struggle and that is the permitted narrative. People can side with one or the other – the meaning of the lived experience is taboo.

I noticed that my thinking was eating up the time… There was three of us at the bus stop, a few people walking in the street, frequent buses yet never the one I needed. I checked the time. It was 4pm.

“Oh dear!...”

Looks like this route is a strike route… I began to think on other options. Tube at 5.45am?  Walk to Trafalgar Square, Bus to Heathrow, Bus to home - two, possibly more hours?

I was looking at the street, imagining what it might be like to have a bomb go off or a shooting, seeing the debris, the damaged bodies, bits of bodies, people moving in shock. I shuddered. Horrible feeling.

Yuk!

How could anyone, anyone at all think on that and FEEL it’s meanings and not shudder, not wish to withdraw , not wish to prevent it, and how could anyone inflict THAT on innocent people?

The mainstream narrative, what some call ‘straight psycho-social reality’, ensures that what is understood by an ‘informed’ public, rather than the reality, populates and dominates all public discourse. Government routinely signals that it is un-moved by either protest or reasoned dissent. The violence continues on all sides.

The official Charlie Hebdo narrative ignores the meaning of the lived experience of one set of abused people, those who just happen to be born in  and live under the rule or ‘governance’ of their official enemies, and ignores the meaning of the lived experience those who just happen to be born in and live under the rule of oppressive regimes who are their allies. Gaza and Saudi Arabia.

This is 100% unacceptable. It is professional amoral brutal hypocrisy at every degree.

Under Rome, Reconciliation was process to 're consilo' - to bring back into the home, to return to the family of Rome (the abuser).
Vanquished Rebel Leaders would go through a ritual, where they would be publicly forgiven, welcomed back with a ritual embrace, and then ritually strangled. By the leaders suffering this, and new roman aligned leaders appointed from within the rebel community, no further reprisals would be taken against that community and the taxes would of course increase. An Heroic Sacrifice. Victor and Victim. These are the vernacular of Power. The Roman Empire was a business.

Same words, different meaning in the lived experience.

The hypocrisy of the language of power. Of ignoring the meaning of the lived experience of those upon whom such extremes of violence are inflicted. Of manipulating the lives of the dead, maimed, wound as part of a mainstream narrative,which is sectarian - "our power is good, theirs is obviously bad." when all power exercised in this way is equally amoral.

Our dead, maimed and wounded are ‘victims’, ‘sacrificed’, ‘heroes’, they are identified, given a back story. Their dead, maimed and wounded are ‘collateral damage’; they remain largely without identity. If their identity is used, it most often by Charities, seeking funding to apply expensive though most often useful sticking plasters to a sea of life threatening injuries and situations, caused largely by power psychology.


The only thing that’s true in the narrative is that there are dead, maimed and wounded everywhere. What that actually means, in each and every case, is besides the point.

The cruelty of this dominate narrative is horrific. Truly inhumane. Not healthy, at all.

The thread of violence is what weaves the Emperors clothes. You have to pretend that thread is something other than what it is, and that it shines, and exudes power and glory. That is the mainstream narrative.

By mainstream I include the news media, and I include as part of it all that core psychology of Power as a psycho-social narrative that has lived meaning.


The Naked Bully.


Not the naked ape.


The Bully. Learned behaviour.


And all the bully can think of is how to manipulate the lives of those who died, who were maimed, wounded and traumatised or who witnessed what took place in a small office in Paris, in ways that will enhance his or her power.


On all sides, they all do it.


The bully culture. 


There’s a man at the bus stopping acting strangely. He’s heaving these massive sighs, moving erratically, subdued shouts, dancing like a boxer.

“What time is it, and where is that bus?”

I gave up, and walked to the tube station. It was 5.15. The station doors open at 5.30, and at least I will be warm. 

The newspaper headlines are sickening. They miss the point. I read them only to understand how they are doing what they are doing, how people might be influenced by that and what is the best response to rebut all that?

I got home eventually for 7.55am. Yeah. Not a 40 minute ride. One line delayed as over night work over ran. Another held back for ages due to a ‘signal failure’.

Signal failure. That’s what the prevailing Official narrative on war, terror and reality is.

A massive signal failure.

An easy one to fix.

If one tells the truth without fear or favour. What would Jesus draw?



Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

Free Speech is a Social and personal Responsibility, it is not a propaganda truism.

Free speech is a responsibility, and the primary responsibility inherent in free speech is to speak truthfully.

A healthy family, community or Society treasures honesty and fairness in all matters.
We have a personal and collective responsibility be honest and fair because we do live together and our action or inaction affects each other,and feeds into the future to affect lives of people as yet unborn.

This responsibility is a constant. It is a fundamental standard. It's the very essence of adult maturity.

Free Speech is a social and personal responsibility, a response ability; we must not let it be sullied by those who are turning it into a propaganda truism, with an ideological agenda.

The men who took their guns into the offices of a French satirical magazine and murdered those people showed nothing other than their own deep and ugly dysfunction. Their actions cannot be defended or qualified or 'explained away'. They are utterly wrong. They are extreme bullies. It was not an attack on free speech. It was an attack on humanity, on humane values and on innocent people. It was and is terrorism.

Yet one has to challenge the manner in which the idea of free speech being undermined by these attacks is being used as a tool to drive deeper divisions amongst the grass roots of Society and to mask the realities of State terrorism. It's not that simple.
When the mainstream media and Government can prove to me that they are speaking truthfully, then the concept of free speech might have some real material meaning and value.

When mainstream media and Government actively support Survivors of many kinds of abuse in their desire for justice and resolution, by releasing all the files they have on various matters, ranging from colonisation to pedophile rings operating within Institutions, corporate lobbying that finances political parties and influences their decision making for commercial purposes, through to covert military operations, torture programs initiated and maintained by Governments and much else besides, then free speech might have some meaning.
As it is, people's emotions are being intentionally manipulated into supporting a false meme, into portraying free speech as an active process that defines this so called ' Western Democracy' as practiced by Power, which is, if we are honest enough to admit it, the deliberate propaganda of a power structure that is willing to exercise extreme violence to retain, enhance and expand it's power over people and land.

It is blatantly obvious that 'Free Speech' in this context is of the same calibre as 'Bringing Freedom and Democracy' on the backs of a Military invasion, when it comes to how Power actually operates.

Ask the Survivors of the Parliamentary pedophile ring, of Jimmy Savile where their free speech was, when they reported crimes committed upon their minds, bodies and souls, to UK Police forces, and were dismissed, ignored or intimidated.

Ask the young women of Rotherham where their free speech was when they reported crimes committed against them?

Ask the Iraqi relatives of the 350,000 children under the age of 15 who died extremely violently in Iraq between 2003 and 2006 how their free speech was nurtured by the 'bringers of Democracy' and the Western media.

350,000 Children who died in 'counter insurgency' initiated by the occupying powers, after they had annulled local elections held successfully all over Iraq in late 2003 and early 2004, once Saddam and his power structure was deposed, a counter insurgency which was aimed at destroying Indigenous multi-cultural Iraqi Nationalism, which produced the successful elections that undermined the occupying powers unspoken intent. A counter insurgency that traumatised an entire country, and from which the likes of IS have emerged.

Ask the aboriginal peoples around the world where their free speech or their cultures and land tenures that pre-date the creation of State systems are being respected.

It must also be said that deliberately goading someone, in order to stimulate their anger is not free speech, it is antagonism; just as the antagonised violently attacking someone who has goaded them is not free speech.

Both are equally irresponsible and avoidable actions. Neither is driven by a real need, in human terms.

Those who antagonise others with an ideological agenda behind it do not deserve violence served against them. They need help. They need to be confronted with the negativity of their behaviour through rational and honest discourse intended to nurture understanding.

The appropriate human response to any abuse of free speech must be honesty, clarity and fair mindedness, not violence.

Those who would stoop to violence to get their way, to serve their agenda need to be exposed and stopped from being bale to act out their violence. I doubt that there is much that can be done to help those who are truly predatory, mercenary or professionally violent.

Such violence is psychologically immature.

The intentional manipulation of peoples emotions is predatory.

Do not fall for it.

Think For Yourself, Question Authority.

Don't make it up. Be honest and fair, above all else.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

Pedophlia, Hierarchically Violent Societies and Political Attack memes.

Pedophilia is a part of a set of behaviours associated with dysfunctional Power Relationships within Hierarchically Violent Societies.


20th Century Indian Residential School in Canada - hierarchical, and violent 'child care'

 Child Abuse cannot be examined in isolation from the culture within which it takes place, or on it's own as some separate human flaw, with any degree of accuracy.

Paedophilia  should never, ever be used  as a meme or leverage point to attack the current status quo of power, as a political lever.

Instead we must work to understand it as a dynamic trait, as expressing the essence of intentional abuse of a power disparity, expressed through sexualised violence.

To use CSA as a political attack meme targeting one group among many, as we see deployed with online conspiracy narratives. undermines the work of Survivors, their advocates and their communities  everywhere.

Demand accountability, everywhere, equally. Demand prevention, at it's very roots.

Pedophilia cannot be understood without examining the psycho-social context within which it happens.

The problem of abuse of Power pollutes human relationships across all sectors and levels of any and every Hierarchically Violent Society.

From the organised rape of children to local extortion, from War as a tool of State Policy to Pimping, from FGM and MGM to Guantanamo Bay Detention, from Bhopal to Fracking, from Domestic Abuse to Ad Hominem attacks within discourse, the central issue is the same..

A psychology of Power that ignores the costs born by those who are most adversely affected by the exercise of Power over others. A psychology of Power that uses distraction to avoid the truth. A psychology of Power that claims an exclusive right to use violence. A psychology of Power that determines that indoctrination is an essential component of maintaining that power.

The issue is coming forwards in part because there is a growing understanding of this situation, not least as an outcome of Survivors testimony, brought before the public domain with great courage and determination from Survivors of organised sexual exploitation of children, to Survivors of State torture, from Survivors of colonisation and invasion to survivors of domestic abuse,  and many more besides.

And also because the best research in Anthropology, Neuro-biology, Neuro-Chemistry, Child Development, Optimal Human Biological Health, Permaculture, Psychology, Endocrinology, Honest History and Survivors insights all point in this direction.

When the natural bio-logically mandated processes of nurture are disrupted, pathology ensues.

This applies equally to the individual and to the society within which the individual lives.

It cannot be used to excuse or mitigate abusive behaviour, rather it must be integrated into the understanding of the situation as part of the process of an accurate recognition and description of the problem and in time, the resolution of that problem.

This is, in effect, the unspoken central plank of all single issue activism. The one understanding that must underpin all activism that seeks to be both effective and meaningful. Without this, healthy activism is lost in the rough and stormy seas of ideology and 'debate' with people taking sides and 'arguing' for their side rather than attempting to openly and honestly get to the truth of the matter in order to plan approaches that prevent further abuses, that mediate the harms caused, and that lead directly to much more healthy, functional and nurturing social organisation.

___________

A chart of social behavioural characteristics of different kinds of aboriginal cultures...

https://www.violence.de/prescott/letters/Profiles_Peaceful_v_Violent.pdf

This chart outlines some of the results of a survey of 49 different societies carried out by James Prescott, Phd in the 1970s and notes a correlation between Hierarchical Violence as a social 'norm' and incidents of abuse and the degrees to which child-mother bonding and other empathy learning experientials mandated by our biology are disrupted. The greater the disruption, the more violence and abuse is seen in any given society.

Further research in Anthropology and in a number of other scientific disciplines as mentioned above, and referenced throughout this blog (and there is so much more than the limited amount that I have referenced) corroborates Prescott's insights.

The way in which Power Institutions have sought to 'manage' the revelations of Survivors of child abuse within areas under direct control of those Institutions demonstrates both a lack of caring empathy and a wilful mendaciousness that most people at the grass roots of Society, and many activists, find difficult to grasp or truly understand.


In very simple terms, if one grows up in an environment where low level bullying is seen as being within normal ranges of behaviour, it's that much more difficult to see the behaviour for what it really is - a dysfunctional pathology that has a root cause that, even as it is socially masked, is tractable, that is to say it is an problem that can be resolved.

There is a lot of anger as a reaction and response to inequity, to abuse and violence, of course there is, and most of it is understandable and justifiable, yet we need much more than anger to address the issues we are faced with; we need an accurate understanding of how such behaviour emerges, what kinds of social conditions underpin such behaviour, how it can be stopped where it is discovered and what kinds of social relations will serve to break the cycles of this kind of behaviour, which has to be the ultimate aim of all activism : prevention of further abuses, nurturing healthy human relations in all areas of concern.
 

We also need to understand how Power, by triggering anger and rage in the grass roots, through media reporting, conspiracy theories, the 'blame game' and suppression of Survivors who come forwards to testify as to their experience,  is deliberately influencing what we are attempting to do as activists in order to co-opt and undermine the emergence of solidarity across the grass roots of Society.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe



Activism : keeping it human and humane.

Keeping it Human and humane.

The questions before us all as we move into 2015, unexplored time as yet, a future we have some plans for, a future that is certain to contain challenges, set-backs, discoveries, new experiential learning’s, insight and much else besides that is the stuff of life, will remain questions that are largely concerned with optimal human biological health.

Be it ‘the Economy’, ‘The War Against Terror’, ‘Austerity’, The Environment, or any number of other serious problems current in today’s world, there are two generalised approaches open as we seek the answers to the problems facing ‘ordinary’ human well being.

The first approach, which currently dominates the way Governments and other power Institutions behave, which is associated with adversarial political alliances and far right/religious based political action and mainstream media is largely ideological – that is to say it is coming at the problems with a sense of ‘destiny’ that seeks to impose a certain value system upon the people, irrespective of the adverse outcomes for many people, and as such is void of the concept of optimal human biological health, which is quite willful.  

It is the systems ‘health’ that dominates this discourse. And by this I mean to say that it is the status, power and ability of the system of power to project itself into every area of our lives that is considered the ‘health’ of the system. If a majority appear to do ok, and a minority are oppressed, that’s the ‘price’ that power deems acceptable.

In as much as this approach reflects systemic thinking and tends to ignore, deny, dismiss, misinterpret or obfuscate on any area that exposes the ideological values as being hypocritical whereas the lived experience tells the truth, this approach tends to compound pre-existing problems, thus making matters worse. Lacking empathy it tends to make things worse as it shores up the failings of Power as a modality for human relationships and a caring community.

The second approach, which is emergent from peoples lived experience and it’s meanings, is empathic – in that we seek to understand a problem at it’s true roots, from inside the lived experience, taking into consideration what it is like to be that person or community going through that experience and clearly identify that which is truly unacceptable and to confront Society with that as the basis of it’s challenge.

“Enough! This (whatever experience is being described) must cease because the pain in the lived experience is unacceptable. It cannot be called a ‘price’ for some which then assumes a ‘gain’ that has value for others.

When the peoples trauma, pain and distress is so intense,  that in and of itself ought to be enough reason to cease whatever it is that is causing that trauma and pain, immediately. No ifs or buts.

The second approach takes optimal biological human health as its base, because that speaks to the lived experience, the ‘real’ real world.

The second approach allows that resolution of that confrontation will be a matter that develops, once the abuse of power has been stopped in it’s tracks, that cannot be imposed or predicated by ideology, because it is a response to an immediate situation that will also clear a learning ground that comes from each of us, as individuals and as communities as we tell our stories in all honesty and gain insight.

The material answers will emerge from honesty, and nothing else, because it is through acknowledging the truth we will set ourselves free to act as humane beings in a difficult situation, and this process will be all the more creative in the sense that the drivers of the solutions will be the people ourselves, and our own emergent sense of who we are, what we share, as we acknowledge an awakened sense of each other as people.

Whilst recognising who we are as people in experience will be a commonality, I expect to see a natural diversity that fine tunes solutions to local conditions.

That way the differences of Religion, language, currency, typography become irrelevant because they are not the problem.

The problem is abuse of Power: within that the co-opting of natural differences, natural cultural variations and so on by power in order to generate oppositional, adversarial behaviours at the grass roots, and the horrific outcomes for those people who are most adversely affected by such division and other abuses of power that are amongst the symptoms.

Charity aimed at symptoms is no longer a valid response on its own.

This must be articulated, again and again, in clear terms.

Irrespective of creed, ideology, skin colour, language we all bleed red. We all hurt in pretty much the same manner. And the solutions to the problems we face must reflect that understanding above all else. That must be at the very core of our activism.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

Herod, Christ and the Evolution of Empathy.

Jingle Bells, and all that - 'tis Christmas, a time of good cheer to all men.


Logos of the companies exploiting parents and children to make profits whilst polluting our Earth home.

So here's a thought I present as a present to all readers.


Survival is not the same as Thrivival

These are two images I have crafted express the difference I sense that lies between thriving as a human community and merely surviving. Modern consumer culture is clearly not thriving, and it is close to not even surviving. Egalitarian cultures have thrived for many, many tens of thousands of years across this Earth. I know which state I would prefer we were living in. It is possible to live well, to be comfortable and truly happy as a community, to thrive without causing intense damage to our shared habitat. It is not thriving to live comfortably, worried, stressed out, dimly or acutely aware that we are causing irreversible long term harm and irredeemable short term harm.

"Survival of The Fittest" is in reality a meme created by the philosopher, economist, sociologist, writer and  academic, Herbert Spencer, in a book he wrote, Principles of Biology,  after having read Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection: Or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life  which Herbert, and the majority of his class took to reflect their cultural assumptions in regard to their comparison between African, South American, Asian and Indian cultures and the White European Imperial culture from which the Industrial Revolution and their wealth and status emerged. Spencer was a white supremacist seeking to justify his stance.

It became a common re-interpretation (misinterpretation)  or re-positioning of Darwin's central thesis, and was never used by Darwin in the manner most commonly attributed today, aka that the strong (the most favoured races) naturally prevail over the weak in 'The struggle for Survival' - a phrase so beloved of Malthusian enthusiast David Attenborough and others less savoury, whose sense of the phrase is probably better articulated in the term 'might is right': people such as George Bush, Dick Cheny, Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Jimmy Savile and others.

Darwin first used Spencer's new phrase "survival of the fittest" alongside "natural selection" in the fifth edition of On the Origin of Species, published in 1869, intending it to mean "better designed for an immediate, local environment"

Darwin was referring to the evolution of life enhancing traits in response to environmental changes, which he observed in some detail.

It turns out that empathy is one of those traits or capabilities that has emerged in the human organism, as well as many others, as a life enhancing trait that facilitates and sustains long term existence really, really well.

Optimal Human Well Being is an Evolved Default.

Empathy, and indeed love, lies at the base of both effective co-operation and accurate responses to environmental changes. It is a bio-logical mandate.

It is also true that this behavioural trait is vulnerable, and under chronic stress can be undermined. The architecture is genetic, yet the development of active empathy is experiential, it is cultural...

Some cultures are more empathic, egalitarian, others are hierarchically violent. James Prescott's research reveals this dynamic spectrum and shows a correlation  between egalitarian societies who demonstrate high nurture of babies, infants and children, and hierarchically violent societies where typically there is a disruption of biologically mandated child mother bonding processes.

Sarah Blaffer Hrdy is another diligent researcher who has looked deeply at the evolutionary biology of the egalitarian cultural human. 

Her work has been presented in books such as 
The Woman that Never Evolved, selected by the New York Times as one of its Notable Books of 1981, Mother Nature: A History of Mothers, Infants and Natural Selection, chosen by both Publisher's Weekly and Library Journal as one of the "Best Books of 1999" and, her latest, Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding.

Hrdy has challenged, and transcended, many of the flawed assumptions that biologists have held dating back to the Victorian era. It is a body of work that continues to provoke and inspire a new generation of scientists..

Her key insight is that alloparenting - where parenting was a task distributed throughout the group - was a key shift in pre-hominid primates, and in early hominids that drove the evolution of a larger brain, the brain that can manage the detail of layers of co-operative relationships, that can manage self regulation that is required for peaceful, effective conflict resolution and bond building over generations.

Disruption of the biological default for optimally healthy behaviour changes behaviour.

Which is the logic or reason why torture (topical subject these days) and politically and ideologically based economic pressure upon vulnerable communities and people remain consistently utilized  tools of Hierarchically Violent Power - the bullies understand the effect, and it's utility.

Herod and Christ, and the people they have been portrayed as.

I am not at all religious, nonetheless I find their stories instructive. The crucifier and the crucified.

What was Herod's childhood like? We can only guess!

But we do know something of Hitler's infancy and childhood, as we do of Pol Pot, George Bush, Tony Blair, Stalin and many other leaders who exercised power that deployed massive organised violence and caused untold harms to largely innocent people (Herodianesque) and none appeared to have had the kind of nurturing experience that would have laid the foundation for caring empathy.

Alice Miller's book 'For Your Own Good'  touches on this subject, with regard to Hitler, Stalin and 'traditional parenting' in European culture, and is a classic in this regard.

No excuses, yet understanding the roots is essential.

This is not to suggest they - Hitler, Stalin, Bush, Cheny and any other abuser - are thus excused from accountability and responsibility for their actions and the harms and consequences imposed on others by their actions. Far from it, as there are many examples of people who had dreadful childhood experiences who emerged to become kind and caring adults.

It is to suggest that there is a way to understand, and thus prevent the abuses of Power we see as a fundamental pattern of what is known as 'civilisation'. And that lies in how we parent, how we as a society related top and treat our children, and the most vulnerable people within our Society.

Abuse and bullying are, at heart,  cultural problems. Some cultures avoid those problems by the way in which they parent and relate, others do not. The choice is ours, as we have the information, and the responsibility.

The choice is yours. It is mine.

Let us all make that choice as our daily Christmas present to ourselves, our families, our communities and our culture.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

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Questions every social worker, every civil servant, every carer and every parent (to be or active) ought to wrestle with




There is a genuine need to protect society from some people whose behaviour is dangerous,  by incarceration, and  not as a 'punishment' or ‘revenge’ or 'paying the price' but as a safety of the community measure, and this must be done as humanely as possible.

There is also a need to see where rehabilitation can be efficacious, and what best facilitates this.

Abuse does not answer abuse, and violence tends to be cyclical......I have NEVER come across a Survivor who would urge violence against abusers.


It horrifies me the way Survivors voices and insights are brushed aside by people who claim to be supportive yet also declare they'd be happy to 'hang 'em'.... those people are making life for Survivors harder rather than easier because they are clouding the discourse with their rage and hatred.

I do understand that there are reasons why so many people react in this manner.

Social conditioning, inter-generational trauma behaviour patterns .....

How many people were flushed with stress hormones whilst in the womb?

How many mothers are subjected to stress by external events?

How many fathers have been trained to be 'tough'..?

How many men return from war, with wounds they mask, that their children are affected by?

How does chronic stress (12 years of schooling, relative poverty, religious indoctrination) alter the growing child, in schools, where bullying, peer pressure and submission to authority are constants?

These are not excuses for adverse behaviour, but an attempt to understand that dynamic that flows through time within Hierarchically Violent social systems where Power has a massive influence on peoples lives, and the emergent psychology of society, at the grass roots.

How many 'leaders' learned bullying as a power transaction in private boarding schools?

Is Social Services, as a State Institution, concerned with regulation over healing?

These are all questions EVERY social worker, every civil servant, every carer and every parent (to be or active) ought to wrestle with... as by taking that role on, they also take on a response-ability to those the intend to serve, and more so to the children yet to be born from those they serve....

Where is the nurture?

And importantly, the question of what best represents optimal human biological health must be tackled with a back ground in science, anthropology, history and personal growth..

These are the questions that Survivors have had to answer in their path towards resolution.

The State has yet to step up to the plate on this, as is the case for the mainstream media.



Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe