Education and The Israeli War Against Palestinian Children, CTD.

The Israeli War Against Palestinian Children, CTD
Interview between Owen Jones in London and Unicef representative James Elder live in Gaza.

James Elder: "The world should be terrified of the long-term consequences. Because we know that the longer a war goes on, the more damage it does psychologically to children. UNICEF knows that from a Yemen or Afghanistan. We are in uncharted territory when it comes to the mental health of children here"
Please watch this interview, give 20 minutes of your time to this.
And share it, pass it on. I wonder if it could happen that billions of people watch this, in the next week or so, and we, the ordinary majority of Humanity watch and hear and understand what is being said, what it really means. And what it means for every war zone that is currently in motion. So many childandren, every single precious one of them is 100% innocent.
In the way I see feel life I think that every adult alive owes a responsibility to all the children, I think that this is non negotiable biological and empathic and moral and egalitarian humane evolutionary mandate, and it is not a burden, it is a gift.  The gift is love, integrity and nurture. To be intentionally engaged  in the way is a gift.
The technical catch all word for this Alloparenting, in every day language we would say it is shared parenting. In practice this was, for most of our evolution, the norm across any given  population. Is is our oldest evolved behavioural characteristic that makes us behaviourally distinct from Primates, and every biologically healthy person would be happy to meet that duty, and succeed. It is how we thrived for most of our existence. 
'All is born of woman, no harm shall come to the children.'


"if they are so hungry in the North, well they can just walk 20 minutes to the South and get the food aid." Israeli official comment a few days ago.

Education

Continuous Traumatic Distress - 24/7, minute by minute, second by agonising second.

In Gaza, there are no schools functioning, none left standing, there are no universities left standing. All intentionally and systematically targeted, bombed, destroyed. Erased. And all those students who would have been attending these schools and universities had younger brothers and sisters not yet in education.

The adverse changes that that unspeakable lived experience of constant state of warfare, imposed by a State bent on a genocidal campaign, the trauma it will inflict upon the babies, infants, toddlers, children, teens their mothers and fathers (who have no means to protect them) on their bodies and minds, on their endocrinology, lungs, heart, digestive system, lymph systems, sleeping patterns, eating patterns, resting patterns and their very essence is a grievous , grievous wound, invisible to the eye, until the symptoms present.

"some are hoping it will cease, and that somehow they will survive, some wish to be killed by war now, every second they are still alive, to end their suffering."  from conversations with children in Gaza, this week, last week, six months ago, during Operation Cast Lead, every time the 'Gras was mowed'

The world's Psychology and Child Development research clinical practice Community and everyone in Education and Pediatric Health Care must speak up, in public, to Power. 

We and they must form up a political lobby on behalf of all our children, a put a stop to this.

Continuous Traumatic Distress.

This short documentary from Al Jazeera, on the impacts of living with continuous traumatic distress 24/7, minute by minute, all the time... living with constant imminent threat, over decades. What it does to children, parents and families, what it does to their communities.

"proportionality, anyone?'

Education.

The university of witnessing a Genocidal war in real time is not part of the University of Life. It is the university of desolation, the college of death, maiming and survival. Nobody thrives in this place. Survivors are the only ones who graduate. The makers of the bombs, the designers, the testers, the production line managers graduated from American, British and Israeli Universities.

Part of what happening is that we the people, the civilian tax paying, voting populations of the allies of Israel, the citizens of USUK EU and others are being educated by witness testimony and reliable empirical evidence. And we are asking questions, learning more. What is this? Why is this? We are learning every day.

The object of such an unwilled for education must lead to the emergence of a motivation to confront the truth about our Ruling Class and to act on what we find to make it the harm causation is ceased. 

Peace

'Peace is more than the absence of War' as Arundhuti Roy puts it. 

She was and will always be correct in that axiom. We cry out on the face of injustice - "no justice, no peace!' and it is not a threat, it is not a call to riot - it is a statement for fact. Where injustice is done, peace is absent.

"There can be no real peace without justice. And without resistance, there will be no justice," writes Arundhati Roy. We have a duty to respond to the unmet needs of all our children, to meet those needs, to prevent those needs from harm.

'All is born of woman, no harm shall come to the children.' 

This is the oldest 'law' of the human species. Our basic biological mandate. Remember that? I mentioned it earlier.  Alloparenting -  it bears repeating. This Law is not a burden, this law the art of is living designed to set us free.

A blogger writes :

"Peace, in a world bent on war and intent on drawing the rest of us into it, is a precious commodity. 

But not an easy one to achieve.

Do anything you can to avoid war–personal or public. Do everything you can to make peace real. But remember that peace can never come from either fear or threat. Both of those must be dispelled before the trust that is of the essence of peace can possibly break out.

Peace is not the acceptance of evil. On the contrary, real peace requires resistance to evil. But not in evil ways. This kind of peacemaking requires courage, not power, a kind of strength that uses love rather than force to change the world."

source : https://joanchittister.org/articles/peaceful-heart

That will take all of us ordinary people becoming politically active. Not as an ideology based lobby. As a humane evidence based lobby, the biggest, strongest political lobby on Earth. Love in action.

It is what we need.

The revolution is dependent upon an educational liberation, and some counselling along the way, and I think this is absolutely essential and that we must make it happen at pace.

Emotional Blindness.

I think the evidence is there to suggest that following is likely true

If a person as a witness to these two documentaries and their meanings cannot hold all of that evidence in place, and admit it, then there has to be some profound  emotional blindness that is disrupting their capacity for analytical thinking, empathy, kindness - they have to be internalising a belief system that has changed the way their brains function, they way their minds behave, robbing them of the most important aspect of being a healthy human. Belief can do that. Blind ideology can do that. Unresolved trauma can do that. Indoctrination can do that.

Beyond that simple analysis, it is abundantly clear that the major crimes of State and non State militia must cease, and then they must be accounted for, all of them , and in full - no matter where that leads. 

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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Mass Psychosis Hashtag Trend - where the psychosis originates, who it afflicts, whom it harms and what steps might be taken to prevent it.

#Masspsychosis is trending on Twitter.

Back in February, the English Libertarian 'think tank' The Academy of Ideas produced a video exploring this idea.  
The Academy of Ideas is an offshoot of The Institute of Ideas, led by Claire Fox, which itself was an off shoot of Living Marxism the magazine of the Revolutionary Communist Party, which folded in 1981. The staff of Living Marxism created Spiked Magazine, which is funded by The Adam Smith Institute, a creation of  Right Wing Billionaires the Koch brothers. Academy of Ideas is funded by a number of global Corporations notably Pfizer and Novartis, and others similarly inclined.

source: https://www.theguardian.cm/commentisfree/2018/dec/07/us-billionaires-hard-right-britain-spiked-magazine-charles-david-koch-foundation

In a rare public statement, in an essay published in 1978, Charles Koch explained his objective. 
“Our movement must destroy the prevalent statist paradigm. Our goal is not to reallocate the burden of government; our goal is to roll back government. We should consistently work to reduce all taxes, our own and those of others.

Defund the State and all social care programs under the guise of creating freedom for the Free Market. Pre-empt regulation of the Wealth Extractor class. Survival of the fittest, economic eugenics for billionaires who believe they are superior to all others. The weak and vulnerable must be allowed to fall.

Mass Psychosis.

The Academy of Ideas produced this video on the question of mass psychosis in the context of The Pandemic, and I think they were seeking to undermine the obvious need for collective action, supported by populations and their Governments, working as a co-operative to take preventative public health measures to protect everyone's health.
They do so by claiming that various governments existing strategies are driving an irrational tide of mass fear which is leading to an insanity that threatens 'our freedoms'. They accuse people of action driven by fear, when it is driven by concern, care and empathy.

Anti-masking is based on the idea of freedom, not the evidence of efficacy.

The NeoLiberal Anti-Statist

The - the Kochs, Rineharts, Rees-Moggs, Murdochs, Sunaks, Trumps et al liken support for preventative public health measures, (which the English and American Government cast as 'restrictions' - a deliberate trigger) to tyranny, while carefully ignoring the obvious insanity, cruelty and adverse outcomes of the English and US Governments repetitively failing strategies on limiting the harms of the spread of the SARSCOV2 virus.

1.3 million horrific Covid deaths across USUK/EU compared to China, with a similar population and 5k Covid deaths. China stopped the spread, USUK/EU enabled more spread.

Just the same as they ignore the obvious cruelty of allowing climate change to run, maintaining poverty and warfare, and doing little to prevent pollution. None of their wealth is invested into fixing the problems - it is directed to profit from the problems. COP26 was a failure. COP has always been a failure because it is adversarial - the people who show concern and empathy in an uneven struggle with the people who wish to retain power, and continue to extract wealth from the population.

One of their tactics is citing the harms of bad policy to argue for even worse policy options - an old trick.

The Academy of ideas video opens with the following :

“All one’s neighbours are in the grip of some uncontrolled and uncontrollable fear. . . In lunatic asylums it is a well-known fact that patients are far more dangerous when suffering from fear than when moved by rage or hatred.”

Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion

Similar to the old accusation of Hysteria as a uniquely female disorder, rather than understandable symptoms of trauma. When it comes to the Pandemic the vast majority of people in every country are showing more genuine concern than fear, we are demonstrating a desire to care for one another.

That is what wearing a good mask is about - preventing oneself becoming a vector of transmission.

Anti-masking is selfish and stupid but it must be noted it's only happening where well funded misinformation is allowed to circulate. And it's only occurring in people who have been mislead, persuaded , groomed through their biases, fears, insecurities - the groomed are being victimised. The people who organise the grooming are the real problem.

Equating people's genuine concern to Fear is gaslighting.

The narrator continues...

"According to the psychologist Carl Jung the greatest threat to civilization lies not with the forces of nature, nor with any physical disease, but with our inability to deal with the forces of our own psyche. We are our own worst enemies or as the Latin proverb puts it “Man is wolf to man”. 
In Civilization in Transition Jung states that this proverb “is a sad yet eternal truism” and our wolf-like tendencies come most prominently into play at those times of history when mental illness becomes the norm, rather than the exception in a society, a situation which Jung termed a psychic epidemic. "

They cited the following as part of their hypothesis:

"When it is understood that a flood of negative emotions, in conjunction with a weak and insecure sense of self, can trigger a descent into madness it becomes clear how a mass psychosis can occur. A population first needs to be induced into a state of intense fear or anxiety by threats real, imagined, or fabricated and once in a state of panic the door is open for either the positive or negative reaction to unfold. If a society is composed of self-reliant, resilient and inwardly strong individuals a positive reaction can take place, but if it is composed of mainly weak, insecure and helpless individuals a descent into the delusions of a mass psychosis becomes a real possibility. Great stress, in other words, can bring out the best in an individual or society at large, but it can also bring out the worst, or as the psychologist Anthony Storr writes about the potential for a mass psychosis: 
“. . .it is only if we accept the existence of a latent paranoid potential lurking in the recesses of the normal mind that we can explain the mass delusions which led to the persecution of witches and the Nazi slaughter of Jews. Vast numbers of ordinary men and women held beliefs about witches and Jews which, if they had been expressed by one or two individuals instead of by whole communities, would have been dismissed as paranoid delusions. There are extremely primitive, irrational mental forces at work in the minds of all of us which are usually overlaid and controlled by reason, but which find overt expression in the behaviour of those whom we call mentally ill, and which also manifest themselves in the behaviour of normal people when under threat or other forms of stress.”

Storr's book is about the need for solitude as a resource for creatives... the tone is one of individualism rather than one of creatives as part of a healthy community. That said Storr's view of humanity at large is rather negative. 

"it is only if we accept the existence of a latent paranoid potential lurking in the recesses of the normal mind that we can explain the mass delusions which led to the persecution of witches and the Nazi slaughter of Jews,"

This is a deeply negative view of our species in general. And it is utterly incorrect. Behaviour, good or bad, is learned. Very little is innate. Which is why the diversity of culture exists..

Culture and Behaviour

Alice Miller wrote in "The Roots of Violence" that the culture of parenting handed down by 'authorities' can, if it is adult centered, punitive and set to meet adult needs above children's needs, afflict a population, generation after generation.

She shows in her book, and in interviews, how a culture of authoritarian parenting promoted by State and Church, and tinged with intergenerational trauma, leads to varying degrees of harmful behaviour as a normal across a community.  Misogyny, Racism, Class and Caste ideologies are fed by this unhappiness.
She described some of the psycho-dynamics of Nazi Germany and the cult of Hitler (and others) as outcomes of a culture of child abuse. 
At that time corporal punishment of children was the norm across Europe, and was supported by the various authorities, state, educational and religious. 
A nation that bullies most children can indeed lead to the emergence of widespread bullying among adults, layered into the social hierarchy. Hurt children can become adults who hurt others. Authoritarian parenting can also lead to leaders emerging who have deep issues, presenting as irrational hatreds rationalised, veiled by claims to be seeking freedom and justice.

It's not everyone.

However it is not the case that all Germans bought the lies of anti-Semitism and Nazism. There was a resistance to that. Those who resisted were persecuted, publicly. Others who disagreed remained more or less quiet, in order to survive and protect their families and communities.

Storr and many others lay the blame on the ordinary people who are ruled over, citing their 'weakness' without making the effort to understand the nuances and variations to be found in a population being ruled over in such an oppressive manner. Blaming the victim.

It is a world view held by Ruling Classes who assume they are superior to the ordinary folk, and thus entitled to Rule.

If a society is composed of self-reliant, resilient and inwardly strong individuals a positive reaction can take place, but if it is composed of mainly weak, insecure and helpless individuals a descent into the delusions of a mass psychosis becomes a real possibility. "

This text suggests that there is an innate quality of us human beings that reflects the validity of a classification of superior and inferior,  that the inferior are weak and prone to stupidity, ignorance, delusion, insanity and mass hysteria.  
The poor are blamed for their impoverishment. 
The subtext, given the date of publication, is that support for preventative public health measures such as suppressing community transmission, to better manage the Pandemic, are a form of tyranny. A mass psychosis.
Scapegoating?

I would say the psychosis is in fact resident in the Hierarchies of Wealth Extraction and Violence that intentionally dominate entire countries, afflicting their populations. 

The Academy of Ideas rejects this, and harnesses the Jungian view of people as possessed by 'demons' to pull the cart of the Libertarian ideology that the Sovereign Individual should take precedence over collective good governance.

By claiming that existing (all) Governments are inherently oppressive and that ordinary people are generally weak, and prone to psychosis, therefore 'tyrannical' Governments must be restrained so as to protect the people (cover story).

The actual objective is to enhance the Liberty of the Free Marketeers to engage in wealth 'creation', by which they mean wealth extraction which relies upon externalised costs, a process that causes so much harm because externalising refuses to pay to prevent the harms and refuses to make good what has been harmed.

The Neo-Libertarians making the case that small weakened State government is needed in order for Civilisation to progress.

What they really mean is democratic regulation of Wealth Extraction must be pre-empted as we all face the challenges of Climate Change, Pollution, Poverty and War Fare. Obviously they cannot say that openly. That is a psychopathic stance. 

Too close to the bone.

In Nuremberg the Allies brought to trial a small number of active Nazi's and did not  put the German population on trial. They did impose forms of collective punishment during the war and in the aftermath.

The pursuit of Nazi's who fled Germany did not include those adopted by the US for their 'research' under Operation Paperclip.

The Allies also rejected putting Japan's Ruling Class on trial, in the same manner as they did at Nuremburg, because to do so would have exposed the realities of colonialism as a crime given that the practice followed by Japan had indeed been followed by Britain for centuries.

"Justice Radhabinod Pal argued that the exclusion of Western colonialism and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the exclusion of the fire bombings of German cities from the list of crimes and the lack of judges from the vanquished nations on the bench signified the "failure of the Tribunal to provide anything other than the opportunity for the victors to retaliate".  

In this he was not alone among Indian jurists, with one prominent Calcutta barrister writing that the Tribunal was little more than "a sword in a [judge's] wig."

Justice Röling stated, "[o]f course, in Japan we were all aware of the bombings and the burnings of Tokyo and Yokohama and other big cities. It was horrible that we went there for the purpose of vindicating the laws of war, and yet saw every day how the Allies had violated them dreadfully."

Source : Wikipedia

So we see that a significant difference between Japan and Germany in WWII was that whilst the Nazi project was not an overtly Colonial project, and the prosecutions of German war leaders were for War Crimes, the Japanese project was definitively a colonial project and given that the British Empire project was still extant, active and globally powerful as an economic hierarchy of wealth extraction that was oppressing and exploiting hundreds of millions of people the focus on Japan's War as a Colonial War would have drawn attention to the British and their crimes, not least from those countries still under the thumb of Britain.

Lesson to learn - the Ruling Class will always defend their interests, and bend every tool to that task.

#MassPsychosis - has been trending on Twitter and I saw this post, and responded to it. That response initiated this blog article.

"Twitter Thread : As #MassPsychosis trends. It seems timely to highlight the following: that most, if not all, governments suffer a recurring problem. That power & the quest for it, attracts pathological personalities. It’s not simply that power corrupts, but that it’s magnetic to the corruptible."
-- source: https://twitter.com/OxfordDiplomat/status/1477659141388832769?s=20 
my response: 
https://twitter.com/coreluminous/status/1477711001005006849?s=20
For this piece I have expanded from the thread I wrote on twitter, to add some more detail and a few relevant references (not exhaustive...).

I think that the hash tag #masspsychosis' is in part a distraction, a scapegoating trend that could be used to scapegoat the people most afflicted by the malign behaviour of powerful institutions that influence Governments.

I think we have to be very careful with this.

I also think that there is a form of psychosis that is inherent to Ruling Class behavioural dynamics within a Hierarchy of Wealth and Violence system. Monarchy is the original knife crime syndicate, and  as far from the claims of 'nobility' as any other claim ruling class entitlement makes.

I think that the effects of that psychosis is institutionalised and that the institutionalised power of those who Rule (rather than Govern healthfully) generates further psychological distress as a symptom within the population afflicted by the dominance systems of any Wealth Extraction system that is protected by violence.
What follows is the expanded text, working from my response to the tweet.
1. I think that the issue is Power Disparity and lack of Accountability. Distal Power is a term that describes the greater the distance between those who have power and those who are disempowered, the greater the disempowerment, and the greater the distress endured by the disempowered due to actions of the powerful. It's one thing to be stressed, it's another thing to be chronically stressed with few social material means to alleviate the stress, let alone prevent it.
2. The first power disparity we all experience is as infants relating to parents. The bio-logical default is to nurture our children in ways that allow them to become high functioning adults by meeting all their needs, in a timely fashion.
3. The degree to which parents use their power to nurture the child or to use their power to get the child to meet the parents perceived needs determines much of adult behaviour. The roots of adult behaviour are often established in the first four years of their lives.
4. Self regulation of Affective State (the ability to regulate one's emotional content) is biologically mandated to complete by 18 months after birth.  External chronic stressors  undermine the ability of many parents to provide the kind of caring relationship that establishes healthy self regulation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY7XOu0yi-E - Allan Schore on the biology of affective state self regulation. I hour long, quite detailed and superbly laid out. It is a video I return to frequently, and his other work on this is, I think, essential study for anyone concerned with these matters.
5. In any culture predicated upon Rule or Domination by Extreme Wealth Extraction from a population and their shared environment,  or any system of dominance and extraction protected by violence, then we see that warfare and poverty are defining characteristics, they are maintained as active and intentional counterparts to the extraction and concentration of wealth.

Low wages, cheap labour costs, externalised environmental costs are the basis of Wealth Extraction and these impose intense chronic stress upon any population so afflicted. Inequity harms populations. Equity and Justice nurtures populations.
The book 'The Spirit Level' written in 2009, examines this in great detail, looking at the evidence from countries and their economic systems and prevalence of distress.
https://equalitytrust.org.uk/resources/the-spirit-level

"The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better was published in 2009. Written by Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson, the book highlights the "pernicious effects that inequality has on societies: eroding trust, increasing anxiety and illness, (and) encouraging excessive consumption". It shows that for each of eleven different health and social problems: physical health, mental health, drug abuse, education, imprisonment, obesity, social mobility, trust and community life, violence, teenage pregnancies, and child well-being, outcomes are significantly worse in more unequal rich countries."
6. Any human culture, where it breaks with well observed and understood biological mandates, must induce chronic stress - it cannot do otherwise. 

Climate Change is one of many examples of this. Many older cultures have understood this and have adopted stewardship behavioural dynamics. sustained over many thousands of years. Those cultures tended to be egalitarian, generating a diversity of organisational systems and ways of living attuned to their shared environment.

7. Rulers  - those who dominate a population - pay close attention to the behaviour of those they dominate, in the same way those who groom vulnerable people do.

Ruling systems have always studied carefully how people either react or respond, and have devised many strategies and tactics to maintain disunity (Left vs Right, promoting ideologies of Adversarial Politics to counter Co-operative Governance) by triggering the reactive, exacerbating and heightening fears and insecurities and knowledge gaps in order to 'nudge' the behaviour of the majority in favour of the Ruling Class. Ruling systems must groom the population they dominate to accept the status quo as natural. Deference must be inculcated, 'your Majesty'.
8. Thus we see clearly in the Cambridge Analytica 'scandal' that a core component of the exercise of Rule as opposed to healthy government is to be able to target insecurities within the population, heighten those insecurities,  and then use those to drive behavioural dynamics that can be exploited.

Destitution and Poverty are essential to maintenance of a cheap labour workforce, which is the basis of Wealth Extraction from 'human resources'.
9. Lack of self-reflection is not a barrier to this capability. If anything it enhances that capability due to the fact that a lack of conscience releases the actor from any sense of responsibility for harmful outcomes others are forced to endure, as long as power is retained over the population targeted.
10. Rulers cannot rest from their task to manipulate/habituate those they dominate because, in spite of all of the above, most people are decent, kind and loving and most people do the best they can do, in terms of genuine caring for family/community, in spite of the systemic barbarism of Rulers. 
Left to our own devices, most of us would veer towards egalitarian modes of behaviour, co-operative organisation, profit sharing.
11. This is good news. Our default setting as a social species is very robust. Rutger Bregman's "Human Kind" explores this in some detail looking at examples of massive trauma events and how people tend to look after each other more often than not.
https://www.waterstones.com/book/humankind/rutger-bregman/9781408898956
“This is a book about a radical idea. An idea that’s long been known to make rulers nervous. An idea denied by religions and ideologies, ignored by the news media and erased from the annals of world history. At the same time, it’s an idea that’s legitimised by virtually every branch of science. One that’s corroborated by evolution and confirmed by everyday life.”

and

"“In the very same years that Rousseau was writing his books, Franklin admitted that ‘No European who has tasted Savage Life can afterwards bear to live in our societies.’47 He described how ‘civilised’ white men and women who were captured and subsequently released by Indians invariably would ‘take the first good Opportunity of escaping again into the Woods’.

Colonists fled into the wilderness by the hundreds, whereas the reverse rarely happened.48 And who could blame them? Living as Indians, they enjoyed more freedoms than they did as farmers and taxpayers. For women, the appeal was even greater. ‘We could work as leisurely as we pleased,’ said a colonial woman who hid from countrymen sent to ‘rescue’ her.49 ‘Here, I have no master,’ another told a French diplomat. ‘I shall marry if I wish and be unmarried again when I wish. Is there a single woman as independent as I in your cities?”

'Do we have to be this screwed up?' written by Suki Price looks at this too, from an anthropological angle.

"Modern life is full of problems - in individuals and in society too. Increasingly we see damaged and disturbed children, mental health problems, addictions of many kinds, antisocial behavior, and crime, violence and war. So it seems sensible to ask: does life have to be this way? Was it always like this for human beings? We ve been around for maybe as much as two million years: surely we didn t evolve to live such difficult and dysfunctional lives? Do We Need To Be So Screwed-Up?! sets out to discover the answer to this question and finds plentiful evidence to show that, on the contrary, human beings evolved to be naturally egalitarian, cooperative, and peaceful. Indeed, for over 95% of our history until about 10,000 years ago - that is how we were: kind, cheerful and happy! This is a paradigm-busting re-evaluation of human nature and our potential for happiness."
source : https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17048084-do-we-need-to-be-so-screwed-up

I wrote two pertinent articles on this. (well, I think they are pertinent...)
a)  https://dwylcorneilius.blogspot.com/2010/10/two-poles-of-society-everything-in.html - on the emergence of hierarchically violent cultures and why the dynamic of domination rides roughshod over co-operative cultures.
b) https://dwylcorneilius.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-human-species-is-fine-its-culture.html - the species is not the problem, the culture is the problem. A message of hope and potential.
12. That said, chronic stress and unresolved trauma are trickle down behaviour changing dynamics of being Ruled over by  Wealth Extraction and Violence. It is clear that this is the case.
"Mental illness is now recognised as one of the biggest causes of individual distress and misery in our societies and cities, comparable to poverty and unemployment. One in four adults in the UK today has been diagnosed with a mental illness, and four million people take antidepressants every year. ‘What greater indictment of a system could there be,’ George Monbiot has asked, ‘than an epidemic of mental illness?’
The shocking extent of this ‘epidemic’ is made all the more disturbing by the knowledge that so much of it is preventable. This is due to the significant correlation between social and environmental conditions and the prevalence of mental disorders. Richard Bentall, professor of clinical psychology at the University of Liverpool, and Peter Kinderman, president of the British Psychological Society, have written compellingly about this connection in recent years, drawing powerful attention to ‘the social determinants of our psychological wellbeing’. ‘The evidence is overwhelming,’ notes Kinderman, ‘it’s not just that there exist social determinants, they are overwhelmingly important.’"
source : https://www.redpepper.org.uk/a-mad-world-capitalism-and-the-rise-of-mental-illness/
A sick society or a traumatised cult enduring a traumatising cult is not the same as a 'dysfunctional species'.  Indeed the concept of a dysfunctional species is nonsense, biologically inept and a negative, adversarial ideological stance.
13. There's a series of layered problems inherent to the current Hierarchically Violent Power and Wealth system. The matter is complex, because we are diverse but it is made complicated because the urge to power prevents resolution in order to avoid relinquishing Power.
- the System itself, it's behavioural dynamics as a cult. Admitting this with some degree of empathy and a desire to correct rather than extract retributive punishment is a big ask.
- the adverse effects of chronic stressors such as destitution, poverty, warfare, marginalisation, class/caste beliefs and other dynamic features of being dominated. The need for this understanding to be integrated into education in general is clear.
- the 'need' of The System to cow populations, and to habituate or condition the majority to acceptance of The System as the 'natural state of affairs'. Herbert Spencer's misappropriation of the work of Darwin and Wallace is a case in point. Racism is another example of a falsified claim of 'natural' state of affairs and the Human Condition.
- as long as the resistors remain a minority, Power retains it's grip. 
https://wagingnonviolence.org/2012/01/how-swedes-and-norwegians-broke-the-power-of-the-1-percent/

"it’s worthwhile to consider other countries where masses of people succeeded in nonviolently bringing about a high degree of democracy and economic justice. Sweden and Norway, for example, both experienced a major power shift in the 1930s after prolonged nonviolent struggle. They “fired” the top 1 percent of people who set the direction for society and created the basis for something different.

Both countries had a history of horrendous poverty. When the 1 percent was in charge, hundreds of thousands of people emigrated to avoid starvation. Under the leadership of the working class, however, both countries built robust and successful economies that nearly eliminated poverty, expanded free university education, abolished slums, provided excellent health care available to all as a matter of right and created a system of full employment. Unlike the Norwegians, the Swedes didn’t find oil, but that didn’t stop them from building what the latest CIA World Factbook calls “an enviable standard of living.”

When resistance is well informed, and is widely supported by the population, then the power dynamics can be altered towards less malignity.

- resisters that are reactive can be manipulated. Political, Ideological and Religious Grooming all operate on this basis. 
https://dwylcorneilius.blogspot.com/2021/06/grooming-how-it-operates-why-it-works.html
My article, an exploration of why grooming works, how it was engineered citing Brexit as a case study, how to disarm it with awareness and a suggestion on how to prevent it being deployed across media platforms by making defining grooming as serious intentional psychological abuse and as a criminal offence.
- responsive resistors are much more difficult to handle. Structures are built to offer hope, and thwart it. We see repeated efforts to undermine emerging movements, and their leaderships and to prevent them from accessing the legislative power necessary to regulate the Wealth Extractor dynamic. Corbyn, Sanders and others knocked back, time and time again.
- until the grass roots understands this psycho-dynamic, I think we are facing a steeper uphill struggle than we would if that understanding was common across the grass roots. Trade Unions in a very short time frame, between the 1840s and the 1960s demonstrated the utility of grass roots solidarity and political organisation grounded in well understood evidence.
- Political Grooming Operations are designed in part to prevent that understanding emerging, Establishment News Media have the same function.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/ourbeeb/general-strike-to-corbyn-90-years-of-bbc-establishment-bias/
A good article on how this works, using the BBC as a case study.
- Political Grooming Operations are also designed to obscure honest appraisal of problems, they are deployed to generate adversarial dynamics across the population (divide and conquer by diluting grass roots solidarity though triggering arguments and beefs) and they are also used to recruit un-witting operatives who can be exploited by the system.
14. Psychology, as a Science, and as a social health institution must confront this - Psychology must eschew its allegiance to the Establishment, align with the humanity of us humans, as an egalitarian social species.
15. Equity oriented political organisation must become trauma informed, understand the effects of unresolved trauma, chronic stress, poverty and other factors external to the individual that impact each persons living situation.
https://www.gov.scot/publications/trauma-informed-practice-toolkit-scotland/pages/3/
An example from the Scottish Government of how this might be implemented.
16. Without these concerns correctly addressed, it is very unlikely this culture will turn away from the current destructive trajectories.
17. Systemic Power without love or accountability is similar to the Abusive Parent or Partner or Sibling within a family, without love, who is causing harm, maintaining dominance. 
Institutionalised and at scale.
https://dwylcorneilius.blogspot.com/2020/07/this-is-abuse-relationship-dynamic.html
An article I wrote to suggest this model, using the English Ruling Class as a case study, in 2020.



Kindest regards

Corneilius

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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."

Trauma informed, trauma altered, and healing...

Here's a few thoughts on healing.

Primarily that healing and recovery is as much a collective response, as an individual response: the whole matters. There is much about trauma is relayed through the ways in which power is mediated across this culture. "I argued then that the study of psychological trauma is an inherently political enterprise because it calls attention to the experience of oppressed people. I predicted that our field would continue to be beset by controversy, no matter how solid its empirical foundation, because the same historical forces that in the past have consigned major discoveries to oblivion continue to operate in the world. I argued, finally, that only an ongoing connection with a global political movement for human rights could ultimately sustain our ability to speak about unspeakable things." ~ Judith Herman in Trauma and Recovery

So looking again at healing and recovery, we can start with the individual and look at mindful body work, that is to say working with the body, understanding the mind-body emotional biology, the workings in the relationship between experience, feeling, thought, understanding body chemistry and adaptive experience, with the intent to support healing through understanding what happened, what happens and through rebuilding healthy, stable neurology and endocrine balance through direct experience, exercise, dance, movement, massage, herbs etc.... Just accurate understanding, and caring support. If the choice to use pharmacological tools is made, then at least let it be honest, informed consented and evidence based rather than as a management tool - it is useful to use such medicines as short term management, and worth finding ways to avoid usage that tends to become long term, to move from management of presenting symptoms towards healing and recovery, as much as possible. Paying close attention to mindful body work processes so that they are more responsive to each unique case, and so that they can hand the power, share the responsibility to heal to he individual, building the trust that self healing, as much as professional expertise, can work together... Using thought and action, movement, breathing, diet and other modes to rewrite traumatised neural networks, to allow old hyper alert routes to fall into non-use: aware that this is best completed within a safe environment, and assuring that other material support is made available as a proven route towards recovery. Dealing with what's happened, and what is, and looking to the future, at the same time

It is critically important that as part of our shared future that we also deal with societal power dynamics that induce chronic stress - ordinary folk to not initiate war, poverty, famine, corruption, abuse of power. The power of institutions, and ruling networks are a source of much harm. This is what happens when nurture is removed from the centre of human affairs. Power and it's maintenance undermine nurturant psychologies.

A culture that listens to children, that hears and engages with the heart of the child, that affirms the child's experience of self as her or his own, distinct and yet bonded, in what we call healthy attachment.

That has to be at the centre of treatment and social policy...

The inter-generational situational epi-genetic thread of trauma altered behaviour across entire populations is real.

A child can relax into true self, when she or he feels understood, received and cared for.

A child who is 'acting out' is not being heard, nor understood.

If that becomes a pattern, if the child's experience with adults maintains that trajectory, if it is also part of a cultural trauma behaviour pattern that becomes institutionalised, then of course, in that social environment it is clear that some will become bullies, kings, and others will break, many will survive, some will thrive, some will try to hack the system to create personal and familial security, others to give bullies the finger, and then there's the artist.... most will do their very best to live as decently as possible within those constraints.

So I look again at populations, and patterns, and I see that compassion informed by science - close observation, honesty - is merely common sense...

Judith Herman wrote that there were two things about the study of trauma that struck her, because they are so infrequently mentioned in mainstream discourse.

The first was that more study must be done of the vast numbers of people who have lived through trauma, and who have recovered, independent of any professional or institutional assistance. A missing statisitc, and a really critical database.

Natural healing needs to be understood, forensically.

The second was that the study of trauma is necessarily a political enterprise, in that it brings one's attention to the experience of the oppressed.....

I think she was correct, and it may be some time before that insight informs the grass roots - the status quo will seek to co-opt both these areas with whatever tools it has.... Standard practice.

That said the process of healing through understanding the roots of a given problem is underway, has always been and always will - I remember every day that I am really an aboriginal human being, and that my ancestors lived peaceably, and thrived for hundreds of thousands of years... we were a healthy species, and we have been subjected to an unhealthy culture of bullying, and it will pass, and we will return to healthy social behaviour.

When I say 'we' I do not expect myself to see this materialise, and I am happy to work towards it in my own small way, as a participant in the work.

There has to be reliable ways to record and analyse mass anecdotal evidence of those who recover, even as it remains silent to the professional and institutional world.

The suggestion of the inaccuracy of self reporting is not enough on it's own to avoid the problem of how to 'measure' or assess that unspoken experience....

There are layers to how trauma 'informs' our biology, to how chronic stress alters our biochemistry and behaviour : the phrase 'trauma informed' reflects greater understanding in this area emerging into the clinical and practice level, and we need to see that understanding disseminated across the grass roots, at pace. Power.

The 19th Century Ruling class, the persistent descendants of the Normans, and their modern acolytes and rivals are also trauma mis-informed, in that they represent a mass retraumatising institutional pattern that is deliberate, mediated and intentional.

We are trying to heal within the environment dominated by that mass traumatisation, and that suggests to me that the issue of healing society is a valid exercise, a confrontation with the honest and most truthful history and I think that this is necessary to advocate for, the healing of the individual is not enough - we must heal the culture, we must end the culture of abuse.

It blows political struggles for power out of the water in terms of being a truly valid human exercise. Those who 'seek Power to do good' all too often become protectors of Power at the expense of people.

Only accurate information that can truly counter the ability of the mainstream to trigger reactions in known vulnerabilities as part of the manipulation of 'opinion' and 'public perception' - when across the grass roots we do understand the wound-trigger-reaction process, the conspiracy theorists, extremists, fundamentalists will all fade into obscurity....

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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