Child Abuse is a cultural marker across all known hierarchy or dominator cultures- Qanon is a political cultural weapon, and does nothing to protect children.

There are abusers - people who intentionally and deliberately exploit, abuse and cause harm to other people - in every political party, in every office, in every military unit, in every school, every temple.

Bullying is a standard behavioural dynamic in hierarchical situations.

Bullies in the office, predators in the Church or the Swim Club, manipulators among the family, domestic violence, abuse of power disparity, corruption and warfare are all part of the same behavioural dynamic.

And so, if we are honest then when it comes to child abuse we all know that there are abusers in many, many family homes, just as there are abusers in many institutional settings, be they left, right, centrist, secular, religious or apolitical.

So here's the honest evidence - The vast majority of child abuse is perpetrated against children by people they know, often trusted people within their family network or their community. 

Stranger attack is relatively rare by comparison, and, yes it is still a genuine threat, something to be aware of  - it does happen. Child Sexual Abuse most often involves the infiltration of a circle of trust, the grooming of target and bystanders alike a standard behaviour. That uncle you all trusted, the political conman who was trusted....

Using the issue of child abuse as a partisan political weapon does not help confront the truth of abuse in general and child abuse in particular as it stands within this culture.  That is problematic.

So I choose to name the culture - Hierarchical Industrialised Militarised Competing Powers  (HIMCOP) - and I see it as a series of behaviour patterns, behavioural dynamics that become institutionalised around the need to gain and maintain power over others. I do not see it as 'natural healthy human behaviour'.

I think using CSA as a political weapon inhibits a full confrontation with the social material situation.

I have found this to be the case, from decades of confronting the abuse I endured, turning abuse in to a partisan political weapon does nothing to reduce abuse, nothing to mitigate the harm or resolve the pain.

The system of power understands that when people stop arguing, and begin to listen to one another, in order to build bridges, to deepen understanding, to learn from each others experience, then the system of power is in trouble. So they do their level best to see that we ordinary folk are set o  arguing against each other.

“If we accept that there will always be sides, it’s a nontrivial to-do list item to always be on the side of angels. Distrust essentialism. 

Keep in mind that what seems like rationality is often just rationalization, playing catch-up with subterranean forces that we never suspect.

Focus on the larger, shared goals. Practice perspective taking. Individuate, individuate, individuate. Recall the historical lessons of how often the truly malignant Thems keep themselves hidden and make third parties the fall guy.

And in the meantime, give the right-of-way to people driving cars with the “Mean people suck” bumper sticker, and remind everyone that we’re all in it together against Lord Voldemort and the House Slytherin.”

― Robert M. Sapolsky, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

So lets look at some of the data, the evidence to discern some of the truth here.

An Epidemiological Overview of Child Sexual Abuse - 2014

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4311357/ 

 "The WHO in 2002 estimated that 73 million boys and 150 million girls under the age of 18 years had experienced various forms of sexual violence.[1] 

The Center's for Disease Control and the US Department of Justice conducted a study in the US and reported prevalence of being forced to have sex at some point of time in their lives as 11% and 4% of the high-school girls and boys, respectively.[7] 

 A meta-analysis conducted in the year 2009 analyzed 65 studies in 22 countries and estimated an “overall international figure.” 

 The main findings of the study were:[7] An estimated 7.9% of males and 19.7% of females universally faced sexual abuse before the age of 18 years[7] 

The highest prevalence rate of CSA was seen in Africa (34.4%)[7,8] 

Europe, America, and Asia had prevalence rate of 9.2%, 10.1%, and 23.9%, respectively[7] 

With regards to females, seven countries reported prevalence rates as being more than one fifth i.e., 37.8% in Australia, 32.2% in Costa Rica, 31% in Tanzania, 30.7% in Israel, 28.1% in Sweden, 25.3% in the US, and 24.2% in Switzerland[7] 

The lowest rate observed for males may be imprecise to some extent because of under reporting.[7] 

The study concluded that CSA is an extensive problem and even the lowest prevalence includes a huge number of victims who still need to be considered.[7]" 

The reader can read the paper, and check each of the references for him or herself.

Egalitarian cultures do not abuse children. 

Hierarchy cultures do. 

Dominator cultures do.

Traumatised cultures do.

source : www.violence.de

It is that simple.

Only honesty and transparency can resolve this matter.

Honesty is evidence led, transparency is evidence available in the open, without bias. Everyone can see it all.

I think that using child abuse as a partisan political weapon is being dishonest - political weaponisation of CSA/CSE  is small minded and abusive - small minded in that it does not look to the whole society level situation, and abusive in that it is exploiting suffering to make a point. - Without really thinking it through, those who fall for that false gambit end up dumping all over the work of survivors and their advocates, the people who go to court, who pursue justice diligently.

Those who use CSE/CSA as a political weapon are also dumping all over the people who work with survivors to help them 'recover' and regain some semblance of safety and balance, and and dumping over the many health professionals and care workers, trainers, mid wives and others who work to prevent child abuse. 

Those who use CSA/CSE as a political weapon are exploiting the survivors, the harm caused becomes a weapon and they are inhibiting accurate and honest discourse on this subject.

Dealing with proven abusers.

Everyone who is proven be an abuser needs to be sentenced, and imprisoned, just as everyone who makes and spreads images of child abuse needs to be incarcerated, not as punishment, but as a fundamental societal  health and safety protocol.

Punishment does not prevent abuse. It's already too late by the stage of courts and convictions. It is true that incarcerated abusers are no longer able to abuse children freely. That is a  useful gain in the overall picture. But it is not grass roots prevention. It is important to consider what is needed to prevent child abuse.

 People who abuse children and exploit them are not safe for society. Period. 

 So too with War Criminals.  They are not safe for society.

Tony Blair and George Bush are personally responsible for the murder of at least 250,000 children in Iraq in 2003 -2006, and they are personally responsible for the orphaning of 4 million Iraqi children. 

How does that harm compare with the quantity of harms caused by Epstein or Savile, or any other case of celebrity abusers?   It is certain that in each case of abuse or harm, each harmed child sees little difference, the lived experience of that and it's impacts are utterly, utterly awful.

However at the societal level there is a vast difference. This is not to suggest the Saviles and Epsteins get a free pass by comparison. Comparison is needless when we remove punishment and install humane lonfg term incarceration for social safety.

If, as the allegations suggest, Epstein's operation was about entrapment and exploitation of powerful people as a political weapon, as a political whip, then it is ironic that Qanon et al use the abuse of small, defenceless children, as a political weapon. Both would be doing the same thing. 

Where is Child Sexual Abuse more common? How many more ordinary, non celebrity people rape children, most often their own, or their relatives or friends children, and are never exposed?

Neither of these questions are posed to afford celebrity abusers any excuse or mitigation. Again it's not a comparison. Those who are famous who are also proven abusers must always be exposed and safety restored by their removal and incarceration. Just as any one else.

Left/Right makes no difference: the abuse can and does happen in any political grouping or affiliation, any religious group or affiliation. 

Honesty and transparency do make a difference. 

 Accurate data and verifiable evidence do make a difference. 

Understanding the issues, the context and the evidence as a whole does make a difference.

Using the issue of abuse as a partisan political weapon does not help confront the truth of abuse as it stands within THIS culture. 

Here's a few resources on this subject.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3485398/ - The relationship between egalitarianism, dominance, and violence in intimate relationships

https://sweden.se/society/smacking-banned-since-1979/ - Sweden Bans smacking children

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/gender-egalitarianism-made-us-human-patriarchy-was-too-little-too-late/ - a study of  our egalitarian past

https://www.alice-miller.com/en/sexual-abuse-and-memory/- A letter to Alice Miller from a Survivor. Alice Miller studied child abuse from a cultural historical perspective.

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/connect/crypower/episode8/ - Colm O'Gorman — the Executive Director of Amnesty International Ireland — about his own experiences of sexual assault, the world-changing power of individual action, and the extraordinary story of how he sued the Pope.

https://www.oneinfour.org.uk/about-oneinfour/ - One in Four specializes in supporting survivors of sexual violence and abuse, and particularly survivors of child sexual abuse and trauma.

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/26542319-the-body-keeps-the-score-brain-mind-and-body-in-the-healing-of-trauma - The Body Keeps The Score - A pioneering researcher and one of the world’s foremost experts on traumatic stress offers a bold new paradigm for healing.

www.violence.de - The origins of peace and violence, this site looks at the work of James W Prescott, who with John Bowlby developed the first Attachment Theory back in teh 1960s.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/44171.Judith_Lewis_Herman - Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence-From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

https://www.d2l.org/the-issue/statistics/- The statistics and facts below can help you understand what child sexual abuse is, the risk factors and consequences for survivors, and how to identify and report suspected abuse

 Kindest regards 

 Corneilius 

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

Brian Cox, Celebrities, AGW and the basics of biology

I think we need a whole generation of people who do not know ANY celebrities. But who do understand the world they are dealing with and are energised to resolve and heal what needs to be resolved and healed.

 

Brian Cox.......?

Do I trust a personality celebrity whose sappy puerile music made his fortune by manipulating vulnerable young minds, and was readily used to usher in the wonders of Tony Blair et al?

No!

Is he a well respected, peer reviewed physicist within the Science community, who has published lots of papers?

Yes!

However, his area is esoteric, and probably of most use to the Military Industrial Complex, in areas of particle physics and weaponry. I have no idea who funds his research, or to what use it has been or can be put. So many known unknowns.

That said,  for me, and for my purposes, in the context related to the entire Climate Change discourse and all that accretes to that, he is a minor scientist, with a minor Phd. degree, and a slew of arcane papers in a specialist area that has little relevance to the very real problems we face, and is also a professional celebrity.

He is no Einstein, who was both scientist and philosopher and brutally, fearlessly honest. He is no Carl Rogers who altered the course of psychotherapy, for the better, way beyond the vision of either Freud or Jung. He is no Howard Zinn, he is not a Joseph Chilton Pearce. He is no Bill Mollison, nor is he a Masanobu Fukuoka.

And yet he feels he can use his rather large public profile, his celebrity status, to wade in to the 'climate change' discourse and bully those who challenge the mainstream narrative which he fully supports.

Celebrity.

We 'respect' certain celebrities because we have fallen for their promo campaigns.

We know nothing of their real positions, attitudes, motivations or behaviour.

Its PR.

Marketing.

Jimmy Savile. Richard Branson. Barak Obama. The Enron boys. Milton Friedman. Ronald Reagan. Kanye West.

"I used to respect ....." (insert any celebrity) always means 'I bought the lie because that was easier than critical thinking...."

And we buy those lies every day.

And again, and again, and again, again, and again, and again, ad nauseam.

Sickening. 

To rub salt into the wound, we constantly pay for the privilege of being bamboozled, groomed.

Where does their wealth come from?

It comes from us. We fund celebrity.

We have to admit that, and then forgive ourselves for being manipulated or bullied into submission through a deliberate and mediated faux peer pressure, engineered to make celebrity matter, as part of a psycho-social conditioning/indoctrination system..

Biology.

So, let's go back to basics. Biology.

Biology does not do celebrity. That's a given.

Brian Cox is adamant about a scientific consensus on Anthropogenic Global Climate Change.

What consensus?

Human activity is altering the entire planets climate systems!

Duh!

It would be more scientifically accurate to say certain kinds of human activity, (most of which are associated with Industrial Civilisation and are central to the maintenance of abusive Hierarchies of Power that rule vast swathes of Humanity) are causing massive damage to the habitat because those activities are not nurturing the habitat, and are in fact degrading biological systems and introducing a mountain of toxins that biology has yet to find a way to metabolise.

The dominant culture is thus imposing chronic stress on the biological  environment.

Chronic stress always leads towards degenerative disease states.

Which includes, as a possibility, climatic changes.....

That much is rather obvious.

That can be said to be a view that has consensus, even if it is not widely articulated.

Those that can see it, and the biological environment, both agree on it.

The CO2 story is one part of the whole.

Plastic bags and light bulbs are another part of the whole.

And certain centres of Power would rather we avoided a critical analysis of the whole.

They have too much to lose, apparently.

The IPCC has offered very little by way of a critical analysis of the behaviour, actions and outcomes of the mainstream social systems manufacturing processes, and the powers that depend upon the vast wealth those systems generate.

Some pertinent facts.

The most obvious appropriate response to climatic and environmental change is Permaculture.

Biology knows how to do this.

Biology knows how to do permaculture.

Biology is the master.

Biology uses 'the force'.

Biology has been doing this for a very, very long time indeed.

We humans have emerged from that work of Biology.

We can work with that if we choose. We can learn.

We also need to see a deep, deep change in the way industry and manufacturing operate - rather than imposed taxes to 'nudge' behaviour, or energy saving light bulbs, or wars for oil and other 'resources'.

That too has been explored.

It even has a catchy name: Cradle to Cradle.

Does Brian Cox speak about the wars, the bullying that defines Governments and Corporations? No!

Do these have an impact on environment and climate? Yes.

Does Brian Cox speak about permaculture? No!

Does Brian Cox speak about Cradle to Cradle?

Nope.... not a word.

Zip.

And yet...

Biology has been responding to climatic change for billions of years.

It can respond really rapidly.

It KNOWS how to do this. It's worth repeating. I am repeating it.

Because it is so rarely mentioned. Biology KNOWS how to evolve within a dynamically changing environment, and knows how to do that whilst maintaining nurturant cyclical processes that feed more life.

The evidence is all around us, and some of us are eating that evidence, working with it.

Permaculture works with that knowledge base, by working with the plants, the animals, the bugs, the microbes, the CLIMATE, the soil.

However, it cannot be patented, nor can it be industrialised.

Permaculture requires intimate labour to be put into practice, it also requires autonomy, critical thinking, scientific observation and deliberate responsiveness in those who undertake it. It requires people who get to know their patch of land and the plants they are working with. Intimately. Locally. Specifically.

Massive employment opportunities. Huge. Really.

Cradle to Cradle design is a process approach that has the ability to ensure that every manufacturing process returns nutrients to the environment rather than 'waste' or toxins, and then builds fecundity into the habitat.

Does Brian Cox talk about these?

Do the IPCC talk about these?

No and no!

Why?

Well, I will leave that to your imagination and intuition to work out.


Let's call it getting back to basics.


And another thing...

Any system, any name. Capitalism, Fascism, Religionism, Patriarchy, Matriarchy, Democracy, whatever... 

The basic reality is that every large scale governing system devised over the past few thousand years has turned into psycho-social bullying that is fully institutionalized.

So I think we need sometimes to forget the name, look at the behaviour and outcomes, and call it what it is, if we are serious about dealing with things.

Putting it another way....

'Climate Change' as a direct result of human activity is not established fact, it is theoretical.

Yes, there is lots of data to suggest the theory, but it is nowhere near conclusive.

We know that the Sun, Moon, tectonics, etc are all massive influences and we do not know how much they contribute to the current situation.

The modelling capabilities of computers are nowhere near the reality of biology, tectonics, the Suns influence, etc...

Climate change is a constant. It has always changed.

What we DO KNOW is what I have laid out in more detail throughout my blog - the basic behaviour of this culture that is dominant is non-nurturant, it creates toxicity and degradation, and it is based on bullying.

What we need most of all is to deal with the bullying aspect of Power, political, corporate, criminal, ideological or religious - THAT is the core problem, the rest are all symptoms...

Treating the symptoms without addressing the root causes is futile. It maintains the problem.

It is the job of EVERYONE who is an adult to look after the Earth in the best interests of all future generations - compartmentalising aspects as the IPCC and the leading bully systems of power suggest is inept at best, callous disregard for the future at worst.

Putting it another way....

All the damage being done is symptomatic of a culture predicated on hierarchies of violence, coercion, concentration of power and a sense of entitlement amongst the powerful to mediate that degree of abuse to preserve their system, their position.

No matter what symptom we discuss, unless we honestly and fearlessly appraise the core issue - Power and abuse of Power - it will remain.

The psychological climate of the majority of human beings is dominated by the bully system.

That is nowhere near the biological optimal.

Our endocrine systems do not lie.

Clarity

Let me make it clear.

Every adult has an inherent biological responsibility or response ability to care for the habitat so that our children inherit a healthy habitat within which they will live lives of optimal human biological health in all areas, barring volcanoes, tidal waves, storms, asteroids etc...

I do not see that anywhere in the CC discourse, as it stands at the moment, or anywhere else within Governance, Politics, Commerce or Religion as we know it.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

*If you like this post, if you found the themes resonant, if you agree in part, would you be kind enough to let others know about it? I would really appreciate that. You could drop a comment too, if you felt the urge. Or not. I will moderate contributions, and block any that are abusive. For obvious reasons. Thank you for reading.