"Dear Sir/Madam, Dear Editors.
Repeatedly we see decisions that are made by the UK Government that exacerbate the situation - whether it is inadequate income support for workers or lack of PPE stockpiles for frontline Staff, cancellation of orders for essential kit then transferred to other companies closer to the Conservative Party's donor group, repeated off the cuff lies - all stemming from a crazy 'take it on the chin' policy.
As an Irish citizen trapped in the UK I am reminded of Sir Charles Trevelyan during the mid Victorian era.
Who took what on whose chin?
Repeatedly means deliberately, just as DWP policy on sanctions as a motivator of behavioural change is clearly a deliberate policy that goes ahead in spite of the harms it causes.
Why the other leaders of political parties, why editors and pundits and international leaders are not screaming for a cross party government led by all leaders, informed by epidemiological science and best practice is beyond me...
We are all enabling a terrible catastrophe by our deference and silence.
Yours sincerely,
Corneilius Crowley...
Kindest regards
Corneilius
"Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe"
Thank you for reading this blog. All we need to do is be really honest, responsive to the evidence we find,and ready to reassess when new evidence emerges. The rest is easy.
The work to deal with climate change can wait, just a few months, even a year. That can wait.
The work to deal with who is liable for bad advice during the run up to this crisis, that can wait.
The Rapture can wait.
The fear of a global dictatorship being introduced can wait.
The run-to-the-hills and get away delusion is just another vector of transmission.
Evidence based medical and clinical and epidemiological really matter.
This video, one of many by Doctor John Campbell, is crucial.
Doctor John is a Nursing Trainer. He knows his onions.
Let us learn from those who have the experience.
It ought to be on all TV Networks.
It concerns what all the people ought to know, in order to make good decisions...
Let us learn from the experience of others.
Why re-invent the wheel?
Watch this video.
John Campbell is a Nursing Trainer, with decades of experience,
He presents the information the Government is not presenting, in a timely manner, so that we can integrate that information and understand why we must isolate, shut down, identify all infected people, treatment, quarantine etc, in order to see how far the infection has spread - to make the disease path visible in order to slow and stop that spread.
He suggests we (The UK, where I live) learn from those who have already been through the experience.
Knowledge is far more efficient than belief, assumption, prejudice or ideology in resolving problems.
In my own past experience, in roles where I held responsibility for large teams of workers, whenever I was in a situation where I did not have enough accurate information which I could absorb in a timely fashion, I noticed a tendency to imagine, to make assumptions, to guess, to fall back on belief and opinion, rather than the evidence, This created numerous problems, for me and for others. I learned very quickly to stop, seek evidence, and work with the evidence, Belief is a very dangerous thing, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Opinion is generally useless, and tends to be a reflection of the opinion holders internalised beliefs... It is an understandable dynamic. If you don't have accurate info, and you are worried or frightened, what do you do? Most people fall back on beliefs and prejudices. I know because I have done this myself.
The job of those who Govern is to provide that accurate information, in a timely fashion, so that the population, understanding the situation, can act in congruent manner to face the situation.
Good quality information, delivered on time. The British Government have failed in this, and the Media has failed in this with regards to COVID-19. This is not a 'flu. I know because I am in day 7, or possibly day 13 of the illness.
I know because I know others going through this, and I see the statistics... of those who recover, many recover with lung damage that will afflict their lives. There is a wide range of symptoms, and variations are because each human body is different, there is no average.
That means that each of us going through this must pay attention, close attention to our symptoms, we must understand them and then take action based on our understanding. Belief will not suffice, except as matter of sheer luck.
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Then there is the trauma of such an experience, individual and collective.
How do you quantify that qualitative lived experience?
How do you prepare for that?
Honesty is the only way through.
So I repeat, do not be complacent because you have had flu's and colds before and gotten over them.
This COVID-19 disease symptom progress is way more variable than we are being told, the media and politicians throw the word 'mild' around as if it had value - as evidence it is void because we have no immunity to this particular virus, and bad management will kill many, many hundreds of thousands of people in the UK, millions world wide. Mild is deeply misleading. The Government and Media have failed to inform the population in ways that would support our home treatments, in ways that would engage with is to follow the epidemiological protocols.
Herd Immunity and Take it on the Chin... If you don't have accurate information, what do you do?
You make it up, you make decisions without all the necessary information.
Which is why so many people have been 'behaving' in ways others regard as insanitary, or even insane, and it is notable that much more voice is given in media to targeting those people, than the people who mislead them. The media repeated the Government line, they did not challenge it, in the way it needed to be challenged. The media is not baying for the head of Boris Johnson.
Why?
They are not calling for his resignation or his arrest, nor or they calling for a Government of national unity, non-partisan, committed to the task, void of party politics, power grabbing and profit gouging.
Lateral Violence.
It is glorious of course, to rail about the stupidity of the masses.
It's a buzz. People get off on that.
It allows one to vent, to feel superior.
It is a form of lateral violence.
"Look at all those people who are so selfish -The loo roll hoarders, the caravans and RVs fleeing west, the frightened, the confused, the mislead, the hopeful. How stupid they are, how uncouth!"
Easy targets. Wrong targets, this does not help the situation...
Social conditioning is real and it afflicts many peoples lives. Powerful groups publish through their networks lots of dodgy 'information', gossip deliberately to mislead, mask, trigger, bully. Where do we find accurate information delivered in a timely fashion?
Be VERY cautious of material that sets one group of ordinary folk against another.
Be alert to materials that might trigger lateral violence. I wrote previously about this misleading, manipulative dynamic.
I called it grooming.
Political grooming that exploits ordinary folk's varied perceptions and beliefs, assumptions and blind spots..
"The Chinese Virus".....
Kindest regards Corneilius "Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe" Thank you for reading this blog. All we need to do is be really honest, responsive to the evidence we find,and ready to reassess when new evidence emerges. The rest is easy.
Kindness is the key strategic dynamic when faced with vulnerability.
People spontaneously making public music for pleasure and solidarity.
Bella Chao!
#kindnessispolitical
We do not need ever to be cruel to be kind, when faced with vulnerability.
These two pages of the same corporations news narrative speak volumes, dated Friday 13th March.
I breath in and I exhales gently. I am letting that go for now.
Monday 16th of March - British Newspaper Front Pages focus on protecting the elderly, the economy, police powers to arrest suspected covid-19 patients (with no testing available?) and a front page portrayal of people of colour as loo roll panic buyers. Crime and punishment as grooming devices.
This portrayal reminds me, again, of everything repulsive that has gone on in British Corporate News Media in the past decades, and in Irish History we know this pattern well - the dehumanisation of demographic groups, and the caricature of situations as emotive trigger material, and the dearth of honest analysis leading to confusion across our population.
That said, I think there is a way to tie this together, logically.
-----
Travel with me to zone in on kindness as a praxis, as a way of learning and growing in the real material world, through experience, reflection, deliberation and honesty and as a social organisational strategic modulation or behaviour, in and of itself. Especially in a time of great difficulty.
Kindness is looking at the whole situation, taking the detail as well as the larger field of view. Making that extra effort.
I realise I will probably write errors into this piece - there's so much more detail than I have access to.
I invite comment, correction, verification and attenuation, nuance and depth.
Kindness is responsive, rather than reactive.
Kindness is receptive : "I hear you and I have made sure that you know that I do and that I am responding to your need."
Kindness is focused.
Kindness is political, in that the lack of kindness in managing a power disparity is inverse exponential scale to the well being of the governed, who have less power by an expotential of magnitude.
A small policy adjustment of the powerful leader or official or office can alter the lives of millions of people, one way or the other, in ways none can counter.
That is not safe.
Kindness is political.
Kindness is what is missing from the concerns of budgets, population models, behavioural modification, reward/sanction dynamics, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning .
Kindness cannot be found in an algorithm or in coding.
And this kindness is what is missing from the interactions between the powerful and the vulnerable.
This translates into a consistent incremental escalation of chronic stress in vulnerable people, whose immune systems, living conditions or will to deal with that lack of kindness breaks down under the combined pressures.
This is what is playing out at home, on TV and on the international political stages.
T-Cells and The Virus
To the biology of the virus, and to the body and T-cells of the human being it does not matter what kind of political or economic model China operates .
What mattered was that State and the people agreed to the strategy that limiting the spread by lockdown, identifying the unwell, treatment and quarantine, offering treatment all the way to ICU level support where necessary, covering everyone's living costs, resourcing transparent and on point, and the experience of working in it together because in this, everyone is in it together works.
We have known since 1918 that it does. It is established scientific and clinical practice.
This one chart demonstrates the efficiency of social distancing, treatment of infected, reduced transmission during the 1918 flu epidemic - two cites, two different policies, two different outcomes.
One city went into lockdown, the other did not.
Because cities varied in their responses, we also know that this pattern repeated itself across the Earths population affected..
The Chinese Government and people know that they will see future out breaks, and are devoting funds to prepare for that, right now.
The Chinese Government did not suppress information about the outbreak, There was a case of local Government having a go at a number of doctors, for sharing information in online social media.
The Chinese medical, clinical and epidemiological communities were totally open about what was happening, and were sharing there information with others in other countries across the Earths nation states, including the British Government who rule over me and my compatriots, and our visitors.
It was the National Chinese Government that initiated the lock down, and threw all available resources into limiting and stopping the spread of the infection, and ramping up hospital and treatment facilities.
Boris Johnson's plan is bogus.
Boris Johnson tells us that "many of your loved ones will die".
He says the strategy is to move 'from contain, to delay.'
Containment would mean social lock down, social distancing, testing to identify pockets of infection, quarantine and focus resources in order to delay the spread of infection...
Delay is to delay the correct action as indicated by best practice epidemiological protocol.
The UK Government, 'led' by Boris Johnson has carried out no such program, and has not acted according the best medical practice..
"Our policy is informed by data modelling and behavioural science" Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer, UK Government.
Behavioural Science - not epidemiology, not medical practice, not public health protocols.
Nudge, anyone?
Herd Immunity, or Hoard Immunity? People or the Economy?
It can be both. This is not an either or situation.
As of this date, there is no testing offered locally, no public information on symptoms, such that he had to say that this was not a flu, but something much, much different.
No testing, identifying infected patients as early as possible, offering correct protocol advice for self management and when to move to more intensive care, having the facilities to operate that care at sufficient strength to be kind all the way through. Nothing.
Social distancing, identification of people afflicted, quarantine and treatment support works if put together, any gap undermines the whole..
It worked in 1918, where it was applied, and where it was not applied, mortality rates went way up.
There are more examples, detailed in the history of 1918, and beyond.
They chose to deploy all available resources to ensuring as few people as possible become infected, and that as much resources as can be made available to treat the unwell, and the seriously ill... and to acknowledge the fatalities, and keep accurate up to date information at local level, so people know what is happening..
This method had form, has been used to contain epidemics for a long time, and was clearly successful where applied during the 1918 worldwide flu outbreak.
The worst misleading public narrative for me was the insistence in Mefia that the illness was similar to the 'flu. that impression of a 'bad flu' started from the beginning, even though the Chinese State Health System understood it was a lung infection, and made that quite clear sometime ago -
They knew that this virus entered the body in a two wave process, a fever, dry cough, which passes, to be followed by the second stage later on in which the lungs become infected and breathing becomes stressed.
This is a two stage mechanism to enter the lung environment where it replicates, and the rapidity of replication stresses lung capacity causing stress throughout the body.
This is not a 'flu.
That was deliberately misleading..
That was a dangerous lie.
In terms of prevention, and of treatment, the Chinese appeared to have developed practical protocols which we know to have been helpful, and there will have been many variations in dosage and reaction, that they can analyse the data, the evidence.
Field tested.
Saves time in helping other States draft responses within their own territories.
The understanding since the Spanish Flu of 1918 is based on real experience, the truest evidence set of all. It is recorded in detail that social distancing, self isolation, testing, treatment once infected or infectious until recovery, acknowledging the tragic fatalities... was the most effective action in limiting the transmission.
We can arrive at a reasonable and rationaL evidence based observation.
In amongst all of this, I watched some live Al Jazeera, today and a segment on refugees, in refugee camps, about the vulnerability of those 100 million displaced people.
How can that not be front page news here?
What about the 320,000 people in the UK who are living in temporary accommodation, in B&Bs, Hotels, Hostels.... most are families, living in very close quarters...
Are they left to play a loaded dice of life and death with Boris Johnson's pseudoscience and behavioural nudges?
"Take it on the chin."
Why is war still happening?
This is unacceptable, pathologically insane behaviour.
"Take it on the chin." The civilians of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Mexico and Colombia, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, the bullied, the victimised and the vulnerable must 'take it on the chin'.
Floods.
"Take it on the chin"
Back to the issue with Covid-19, and Cytokine Storms., and other complications, the risk factors, the real risks to real people
... breathe,,,, calm, relax, for now I am ok.
Some reality checks.
The T-cells do not care about our political consciousness, they care about us supporting the living beings, our brothers and sister, our mothers and fathers and grandparents immune system with every tool available.
That kindness of quality care at all stages - that people care enough to engage with and carry out shutdown social distance for a temporary situation, that the care the state and agencies take in carrying out action - all ,of that care is our immune systems ally, and is a counter to the survival of the virus within the population in this outbreak.
Boris Johnson decided the UK would not follow the Chinese experience of slowing down transmission, isolating the virus by supporting people to stay at home, by testing every person who showed any signs of symptoms, by intensifying care for the infected once identified.. thus limiting the spread until the virus has no more hosts and is rendered inactive.
What happened - real material evidence - was the transmission from person to person was reduced, those who were infected were treated until they were clear, no longer infectious, had proven immunity, so they could then not be a transmission or infection agent or submit to the disease state again, because their immune systems now know the virus, and have anti-bodies. And there are variations in peoples immune systems which led to variations in outcomes. Including, tragically many fatalities.
Boris Johnson would not follow this practical, proven advice for all the T-cells in China!
Excuse the pun and alliteration, kindness has a sense of humour.
Kindness has to be robust, firm, gentle, determined, and given an unquestioned budget for cost only delivery - the profit is the health of the population, our welfare and well-being.
Jeremy Corbyn is the kind of public figure who could hold that together.
If the competing bullies just stood aside, within Labour as much as anywhere else, and if the rest of us organised, as the grass roots turned to mutual aid, in conjunction with NHS, social services, councils and military logistics support, to self organise around resources placed at our disposal and need, so that we can all live within infecting millions to watch millions die?
Would that be so bad?
Genuine Social Kindness is demanding all of this, and more, and if those who dominate the reality of the lived experience of others for power and status, the ruling oligarchies, do not agree, what they will tell you, is that Genuine Social Kindness is a threat.
Corbyn is a threat.
Sanders is a threat.
The Chinese are a threat.
Grass roots request for the human right to regulate and eliminate industrial pollution is a threat.
The virus is just a virus, doing it's thing.
There is no WAaV, no 'war against a virus', there is living with it, having strong immune systems supported by nurturant social behaviour.
There is knowledge based proven efficacy care.
The Virus has no political or religious affiliations or concerns.
The threat comes from whether or not the state and the oligarchy, the organisations that hold vast material power over all our lives cares for us, as recognising as real meaningful autonomous people in real materially evident and functional terms, observed beneficial outcomes, reduced harms improved long term prognosis, prevention.
That is where this all needs to go, kinda.
Kindly.
Kindest regards
Corneilius
"Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe"
Thank you for reading this blog. All we need to do is be really honest, responsive to the evidence we find,and ready to reassess when new evidence emerges. The rest is easy.
I think Australian folk must now look at the situation, and understand that those areas that are damaged, the homes, businesses, the families and communities that suffered so greatly during the recent forest fire season (extended) need to be very much involved in and directing their recovery.
Government, The Australian State must provide total support, but not direction.
Bill Mollison, a man with a plan.
The Colonised, and a man with a plan, backed by a gun, he having being assimilated into the colonial system such that he guards his chained brothers, that they might not escape.
It is the lives of those people, in that land that must, given the context, set out future policy that will affect them directly - their autonomy and their love for the land has never been more important.
The State can and should maintain oversight, in it's role as a supporting agency - this recovery work will need to be studied as it rolls out and adjusted as results emerge, and the local people must therefore have all of that information and be the core decision making group on overall policy as it affects them, their lands, their children into the future, and they deserve free unfettered access to the best skills and information available to support their decision making and efforts.
Local deliberative democracy.
Take a billion from each of Australia's billionaires - and weight it so they more they have, the more the contribute, so someone with 4 billion could drop half a billion someone with 14 billion could drop 2 billion, and not really be put out.
The Australian Government has plenty of cash available, it's called Taxation and State borrowing..
So too does it's Oligarchy, if they paid all their taxes fairly.
Give each of them an award, a medal and some honourable title for helping out. Assuage their narcissism, and get that cash.
"Any profit taken where harms of any kind have been allowed, and the costs of resolving those harms has been deliberately or accidentally avoided, is a deceit."
The profit is happy people on happy land, developing a sustainable local economy.
They Australian folk really ought to be working with Aboriginal Culture and studying the dynamics of their cultural land sensitivity.
The Australian farmer, what ever is farmed must be supported to be re-skilled in perma-culture as one of many ways to engage proven tools of ecological rehabilitation.
The spirit of community that is already there, and move it into the 21st Century, to create a culture of healthy land and healthy peoples.
In essence, all this to arrive again, and to meet the already here, and integrate into this ancient culture that is a relationship, rather than a skin colour or a ceremony, a living relationship with an abundant land.
Reverse the damage of 1788.
The introduction of healthy land use will necessitate bringing more people to the land to hand tend, instead of machines and robots and bio-cides.
The Australian State needs to cede Aboriginal title where there are existing Aboriginal communities on traditional lands. Let them be, for they are totally a valid lane tenure polity.
I am saying this direct to you, the folk of burned Australia, your friends and families, your neighbours and compatriots and commatriots.
This could help build the bridge among rural Australia that brings you back to the people you did not heed, to meet again, this time as sharers, carers, nurturers, rather than the descendants of conquerors, colonisers and settlers.
Kindest regards
Corneilius
"Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe"
Thank you for reading this blog. All we need to do is be really honest, responsive to the evidence we find,and ready to reassess when new evidence emerges. The rest is easy.
I have been thinking, reading, writing about hierarchically violent social behavioural characteristics for 30 years, dipping into the best work being done by serious, hardworking scientists, clinicians, practitioners and trauma survivor populations.
What I have learned can be summed thus:
The default mode of healthy human species specific social behaviour is trust. Unhealthy behaviour is not a biological norm.
The default mode of healthy human species social behaviour is emotional trust, which is initiated in utero, through birth, infancy and toddler-hood, maintained into childhood, youth and adulthood through loving, bonded relationships where power disparity is never abused, where empathy, compassion and insight prevail.
Such cultures do not have any generation gap, they do not bully children, they do not go to war, they do not rape, they do not create power hierarchies, and our bodies are absolutely perfectly adapted to that healthy state as our normative state.
The Bully is not a bio-logical behavioural default.
The Alpha Male is a projection of a bullied mind. It was crafted in a prison, and blown apart as a theory in the wild.
'Struggle for Survival' biological competition is a dystopian fairy tale, the projection myth of an insecure bully culture. No such thing exists.
The way our endocrine system functions proves this beyond all reasonable doubt.
This is confirmed knowledge, tested profoundly. This is not belief.
You can stick to your beliefs about 'Humanity' or the 'Human Condition'- be warned, they are just beliefs, and they confer no accuracy of perception.
The Biology Never Lies.
Biology does information rather than belief.
Evidence matters.
I started out with the evidence of my own subjective experience. Learning to be less subjective required that I recover from the trauma of my childhood, which in turn gave me more empathy for the child I was in the situation I was in.
Part of my 'learning' is the lived experience, examined in hind sight, often less than 20/20, often appreciably so.
The lived experience of surviving long term abuse as a child, and dealing with the invisible affects as they emerged, whilst living in a bully society... I am not alone in this, not at all unique.
Part of my 'learning' has been muddling through, barely coping with depression, heartache, shame, self loathing, bullying, confusion, loss, despair.
Part of my 'learning' has been reading, studying and learning from what others had to present, by way of evidence and insight.
Crucially when I began to see the Social Material realities of where I was born into for what they are I began to realise that I was, we all are, living in a bully social system,
I began to understand more of why I had been made to live through all of that, how everyone is living through all of that.
The awareness is slowly growing that the Hierarchy of Power culture is inherently toxic, and has no natural mandate.
It is a traumatising chronic stress dis-ease dynamic.
The Human Species is perfectly evolved for healthy attachment, bonding, co-operation, creative intelligence as part of 'natural' behavioural dynamics of a species living in and on Earths surface.
More is being understood about this by more and more people.
This work that is being followed to understand, contextualise and heal social violence, oppression, hierarchy and abuse of power is beyond any single life time; it was there before, and will be there after I or any of my readers have been long forgotten, because it is a historical process of recovery, it is not an evolution, and certainly not a revolutionary process, it is a process of recovery of healthy relationships.
Dominance is the language of the bully.
Coping is the language of the bullied, who cannot escape.
Revolution is the language of the status quo. Exchanging one Power for another.
Healing is the language of healthy human behaviour.
Reducing Power disparity abuse is a prerequisite for healing and recovery from trauma.
The defining indicator, a predictor if all other data is unavailable, of a bully culture is how the institutions, the social structures and the adults relate to and treat the children. Authoritarian control, punishment/reward dynamics to assure compliance, children as projections of parents desires and perceived needs.
The defining indicator of a egalitarian culture's character is how they relate to and treat the children. Autonomy and loving, shared responsibility.
It really is a matter of existing and imposed power disparity, and who uses or abuses it under what conditions.
It has nothing to do with 'species' and everything to do with culture.
Humanity is not the problem, it is the solution.
Healing is possible, to a large degree.
Healing and recovery are biological mandates.
We live in a traumatising and traumatised culture.
The Trauma transmission is layered - Violent Hierarchies study the effects of poverty and violence on a population, to know how to exploit people's pain to maintain loyalty to the system, and to be able to continue to wage war. That is deliberate. They cause trauma deliberately.
The lived experience - ordinary folk whose lives are afflicted by the actions and behaviour of Power, ordinary folk who are caught in the crossfire of war, economic sanctions, impoverishment, who have to flee on foot, who are offered no genuine support (veterans, refugees, the no income, low income poor for example)
People are mostly are just doing the best they can to keep a lid on that chronic stress burden, so that they can look after themselves and their children.
Nonetheless there will be varying degrees of trauma behavioural transmission, and epi-genetic changes that disrupt development and behaviour, that are NOT the fault of those people, there is no malice there, and it must be understood that dynamic will impact every person affected in profound and long term ways.
The malice emerges as powerful States refuse to acknowledge this, because they are engaged in a competitive power struggle dominated by the most powerful military states, who seek dominance, globally. Obama 'twisting arms'.
I know of Indigenous groups who protected their native lands by defending with spears and arrows, guile and forest skills, who faced down Loggers, Miners, Farmers, Oil drillers and others who had guns, and no problem with using them to kill.
Decades passed and people were murdered on both sides.
Then, eventually when the defence of their lands and cultures ceased being 'operational', when they had manage to slow down the intrusions and find external international and national support for legislation to protect their lands, they withdrew and they deliberately went through a slow multi-generational healing process, so that they do not carry the wounds forwards... they did not want to become like the invaders, numbed through their own wounds.
They chose, as a community of adults, to heal. That is a fine example of biological conscious awareness and courage. That is highly evolved healthy human behaviour.
Those same groups are still facing invasion, assimilation and violence : they are stressed to the limit, because their shared habitats are under still threat, and yet they offer insight, they offer wisdom rather than seeking revenge.
The Human Species is fine, it's the culture that is the problem.
You are NOT your culture.
I am not the culture.
Therefore I will not let it be a trap that robs me of my sensitivity and humanity.
I will not let it undermine my determination to nurture the world around me, to nurture all people, our shared habitat, the common environment. Determination goes where hope falters.
Kindest regards
Corneilius
"Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe"
Thank you for reading this blog. All we need to do is be really honest, responsive to the evidence we find,and ready to reassess when new evidence emerges. The rest is easy
