Living within a Violent Hierarchy - Protest, action, change, healing and recovery amidst a pandemic.

Today I feel a bit poetic... so here goes..

Protest


I get that these protests are ways to
speak out,
to call a voice
to
say in public :

'stop! this is a harm you are causing!'

To spread awareness,
to gain support,
to start, yet again,
honest conversations
in public
that we must have.

Such harm cannot be allowed
to continue.

Racial profiling? Really?

I get that the people and institutions
who Rule do not Govern.
They seek therefore to control
public published narratives,
because they have to -

Stay Alert!
Control The Virus!
Control the Narrative!

- they cannot bear the truth
and we all know why.
They will try to co-opt whatever they can,
and what they cannot, they will bury.

They will not mention the warts
on the Emperors nose.

They do not listen to hear,
they already understand
what it is we are protesting about.

I am not against the protesters.
I am for seeking ever more efficient,
effective ways
to counter the system's silence,
we are all leading through example
as in:

Disabled people in the UK where
Thousands die before their time
confronting the Government
with support from the UN -
almost nothing from The Press,
and the general population
are mute on this?

The disabled are leading,
and who is following?

Really?

Today, in the midst of epidemic
and pandemic,
a protest where
we observe social distancing
which we need to do, in these times.

SARSCOV2 is real -
and it changes nothing about the abuse
of power.

COVID19 changes nothing
about the existing power disparities,
it accentuates aspects of that dynamic,
in that Governments in New Zealand
and Vietnam
appear to care more for the people
than do the Governments of the United Kingdom
or the United States of America.

Some people exploit
emergent vulnerability.

They know who they are.

We know who they are.

We all do.

Social Distancing
is Physical
Distancing,
it is
people taking care of each other,
looking out for each other.

Physical Distancing is extending generosity,
and is very, very social.


and for all these:

Black Lives Matter, 
Me Too, 
Disabled Rights,
War is Shit,
Nukes are Puke,
Misogyny is Medieval. 
Abolish Poverty,
Stop Polluting The Earth,
Just Stop Male and Female Genital Mutilation,
and
of course:

Stop The Spread of Infection, 
Spread The Love.

Go, New Zealand!
Go, Vietnnam!
Go, Finland!


and more.

Inequity is all around us -
we know this.

Every demonstration
turns out to be a demonstration
of our human vulnerability:
this is a discipline,
this is a human strength -
and I think that this is the only way to avoid
being co-opted by the system.

Remain vulnerable.
Never armour up.

Never be a cop, in armour.

Each 'protest' ought to have that same deep, deep discipline,
a determination to show how strong our mind really is,
how strong our heart.

Honesty.

That we are vulnerable
and still ready
to resist the ones who abuse,
to resist the ones who want to start a fight,
by refusing to fight,
refusing to shout at,
and always shouting about the subject,
the harm that must cease -
still refusing to be drawn in -
and there is silence, as a deliberate action,
that too can be potent in a public space.

The Emperor gets no applause.

Millions just standing there, silent, accusing,
presenting the knowledge, the evidence.

We all know.

Some things do not need to be said,
let alone shouted,
once they are fully understood.
And it is reaching for that understanding
that is a critical task,
to go beyond personal belief and opinion,
to find what is really true
and useful to know.

Justice is based on knowledge rather than belief.

We know injustice causes harm.
We know this.
We know.
You.
Know.

Only with that understanding
does the silence
of knowing
begin to present the
space for ways
take action
together
to stop
the harm.

Ghandi got it wrong.

Mandela was co-opted, he was threatened:
'the mines are ours!' the owners said
dangling war in front of his people.

Martin Luther King had to be murdered.

Because the bullies could not co-opt Martin Luther King.

He was that powerful. He was that vulnerable.

A quiet voice. Did he shout? His heart was louder.


For me the cycles of news worthy events
and the timing of protests,
the headlines and head lies,
the hashtags, the issues,
the stories behind the slogans
and the soundbites - are not cycles.

They do not come and go,
they are not tidal,
they are not seasonal.

They are all permanent flavours,
they are tastes I taste every day,
they are scents I pick up on the wind of thinking,
they are sounds and silences that tell stories,
that speak of the unspoken,
that cry the tears of frustration and despair,
they are the rebels wise laughter
in the midst of obvious deceit,
 - i see through you  and that sets me free -
no matter what the media,
be it public, social or secret
mainstream,
alternative,
alt-right,
underground
or open source
is promoting,
loving
or hating,
or ignoring
on any given day.

#metoo
#bulliesexploitthevulnerable
#eglaitarianhealthisabiologicalmandate
#kindnessispolitical
#blacklivesmatter
#all_lives_really_do_matter_more_deeply_than_you_could_possibly_imagine
#BLEAKLIVESMATTER

I was there before 'the media',
I will be here after they have gone.
We all were, we all will be.
They and the bullies they serve
are temporary, delusional,
ugly, ungainly, awkward,
lacking grace or style -
the Human Heart is ancient,
potent, beautiful, resilient,
an intelligence kinder that they can ever imagine,
braver than heroes,
stronger than their biggest bombs.

The Vietnamese stopped the spread,
because they spread the love.

Their love also broke the Yankee Impertinence of Imperialism.

They broke the bully who broke his own children.

They persisted. They remained.

58,000 murdered on one side,
3,200,000 murdered on the other.
And no American leader was prosecuted.
The Land of the who?

Ali did not participate:
so they threatened him with jail.
He protested, court by court.
He won without ever throwing a punch.

We all have issues,
they are big in our lives,
and
yet they are also small change,
because when we see the real devils in our midst
- the system itself,
the power system is the devil among us,
the bully is the anti-human in all of us -
we see that most human distress is
generated by bully social systems,
rather than by human or personal flaws

or predispositions
or genes
or sinfulness.

What is sinfulness other than
the vaguest label possible?

Self judgement is the bully within,
the cuckoo in the nest,
shame is the bully within,
guilt is the bully within,
pride is the bully within,
and yet, true remorse
and kindness
and compassion
and honesty
can throw that bully out!

Because we are vulnerable.

Trump was a born baby,
little Donald was vulnerable,
that baby boy was not a born bully - that he learned,
that he was taught.
This is not to excuse his behaviour,
it is to understand it,
to prevent it feeding back
into our lives.

And to any degree that it -
The Bully -
is within us,
in our unchecked assumptions,
in the values we have internalised,
in the forms the bully culture gives us
that we adopt,
in the  ways we bend to fit in,
in the ways we give up our honesty,
in the ways we seek escape,
the comfort
of numbness
and in our parades of self-righteousness,
to those degrees of infection,
we must turn our attention
and see them,
release them and then

stand free, alone and together,

without labels,

or even names.

Who am I?

Who, exactly?

Our love for nothing,
our love for being,
our love for each other
just because we are,
that love will quell those bullies
when we put it into action.

There is so much useful going on
away from the
Mefia-politico indoctrotainment
cycles

When the day comes
when nobody reads the newspapers,
when they get no clicks on their web pages,
when the trigger content is disarmed,
when theories give way to evidence,
when the only activity is their few
remaining
paid up hacks
liking their own content,
pretending they are more of them
than there really are. Bots.

Make that day happen.

Sooner rather than later.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

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