Showing posts with label Putin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Putin. Show all posts

Vlad. The Invader. Putin in the ICCS? Such sorrow for the Ukrainian people, all lovely decent folk, innocent and now being victimised by bullies.

Putin in the ICCs!?

There's more room at the Inn. 'Ternational Criminal Court, Vlad.

There's no doubt on this, the Military Invasion by Russia into Ukraine is a criminal venture. It is the Crime of Aggression, the supreme War Crime. It is known as the supreme war crime, in that it generates the basis of all the subsequent criminal events associated with that act of aggression. The entire command structure prosecuting this war are war criminals. Putin is not the only one.

What must we citizens do? How do we support Russian citizens who, understanding this, wish to stop this war from within Russia and indict Mr. Putin and his colleagues? 

Russia state television employee Marina Ovsyannikova, who ran on to the set of a live broadcast shouting: ‘Stop the war. No to war’, which millions of Russians will have seen. Such incredible courage in the work place. No one in the BBC, ITV, C4, CNN, FOX NEWS, etc has ever dared to do such a thing.

But to do it in Russia? This video is the recorded statement of Marina to her fellow Russians and to the world.


Some polish workers are blockading freight routes from Poland into Belarus and Russia.

A an article circulating on line :  Polish Protest Blocks traffic into Belarus and Russia.

Polish demonstrators have blocked the path of lorries with Russian and Belarusian number plates trying to cross into Belarus, according to a report by broadcaster TVN24.

The action led to a traffic jam stretching 10km at the Koroszczyn border crossing.

Many of the protesters waved Ukrainian flags, indicating their support for that country which came under Russian attack on February 24.

Some of the attacking troops started the assault from Belarusian territory.

The truckers caught in the action protested that the war had nothing to do with them.

Meanwhile, on the way out, opposite direction, and under extreme duress, a flow of refugees:



Refugees, seeking refuge from extreme violence:  people driving away, fleeing in buses, walking on their feet, carrying whatever they had time to grab, frightened, in shock, sad, grieving, exhausted, and holding it together, with courage and grace and strength and kindness, and so much pain, such vast harm, unbelievable and real.

It's so sad, such sorrow, for any individual being put through all of this, and in this situation, today, multiplied by tens of millions. So many people, 40 million, so profoundly harmed.

Entire families, streets, villages, towns, farms in shattered, shocked, grief stricken, angered, outraged, in pain, confused, bereft, made penniless by a useless war, broken and still, even still holding it together, caring for children and elders.

War is a beast, most decent humans are beauty and they ought never meet. Ever. Better they be strangers, than acquaintances. But this culture makes frequent such associations. 

Invasion is a horrible act.

Putin, and the entire government co-operating to prosecute this war are War Criminals, no question. 

There is a chain of command, there is a bureaucracy, a wide network of individuals and agencies all doing their bit to make it work. They have names, titles, official responsibilities, areas of culpable liability-all answerable to the people they harm, and to their own, of course.

Ordinary citizens unjustly trapped by accident of birth in the line of a military advance, totally innocent, people who would never dream of causing harm to anyone, ordinary citizens…harmed by leaders, lies and a hierarchy ugly enough to do this to ordinary people.

It’s disgusting, and Mr. Putin and the Russian state must be held accountable as War Criminals, before the Ukrainians, the people they have harmed so gruesome, as they trampled over such tender communities as people ever lived, and laid waste the life of a people.

For any readers looking to learn more about the Laws prohibiting War, here's a blog piece I wrote in 2008


And a song to go with this:

To the tune of 'Sitting on the dock of the bay"

Sitting in the dock at The Hague,
Putin should be siting there in dread,
Watching the judges walk in.
Watching them walk back out again.
He sent the orders from Moscow,
That’s when he should have stopped,
His order was evil and sour,
Cruelty at pace, unlocked

Sitting in the dock at The Hague,
Putin should be siting there in shame,
Hearing the judgement clear,
Looking at his cell wall for years.

Which would be getting off *Lightly, we'd say
Getting off *Lightly, his lucky day
Getting off *Lightly, judged clear
Clearly guilty of War Crimes.

Sitting in the dock at The Hague,
They should be siting there in chains,
Hearing the judgement clear,
Looking at clean cell wall,
For their remaining years.

*To be allowed to live at all is 'getting off lightly'.

By comparison to the harm caused. 

There is no punishment that meets that criminality.

Incarceration is part of prevention. A warning that civilian populations will incarcerate any political leaders who initiate war, who commit war crimes.

People must hold warlords to account. There is no alternative resolution to this problem.




Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

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Trump, May, Climate Change and Sex.

Good questions

1. Whether warfare and violence are a necessary condition for humankind to progress - even if we don't like the idea - is the "authoritarian tendency" an evolutionary adaptation inherited from our primate ancestors?

2. Or is it a culturally defined mode of action which we can choose to reject?

3. What evolutionary advantage can be held by societies that reject warfare if their neighbours who don't accept it wipe them out?




My answers:

1. The evidence, biological, archaeological and psychological is clear that the bulk of human existence we have lived as egalitarian societies, ranging from small bands of nomads to large concentrations in villages, towns and small 'cities', built with natural materials and no monumental structures of any kind. Our evidence is that that healthy human behaviour is pro-social, nurturant, connected, sensitive and yet robust, We also know that most behaviours are learned.

2, http://www.violence.de/prescott/letters/Social-Behavioral_Characteristics.pdf - the research by Textor and others such as Sorensen, Ward, Prescott, Murdock and Demeo and many others since then suggests that hierarchy is a cultural dynamic, rather than a biological mandate.(more on this below)

3. Evolutionary advantage - what are the assumptions behind the phrase, would such a phrase emerge from within an egalitarian mindset, or is it a projection of the hierarchical mindset? Does the culture seek advantage over the habitat or do they 'co-operate' with the habitat and all that lives in it.

We, as individual human bodies, are comprised of a myriad of organisms which we cannot see, and without which we would not survive.

If one looks at it carefully, one can see that seeking advantage (over nature and other humans) is the core dynamic of the bully, or the parasite, whereas working together (with nature and other humans) is the core dynamic of a healthy individual within a healthy group.

Evolution is driven by health rather than dysfunction.

Violent Hierarchy inhibits natural evolutionary processes.

The damage caused by Violent Hierarchies runs directly against healthy evolution, and it is not logical to describe a dysfunctional behaviour as evolutionary - evolved to be diseased - as the terms are mutually exclusive..
An article that explores this in more detail, with references.



Cultural Social Behavioural Variables.

As mentioned above,  anthropologists in the 1920s - 70s were very busy indeed : Robert Textor surveyed 400 cultures, George Murdock looked at 117 cultures , and these were then meta-analysed by Demeo in the 80s, looking at  a number of social-behavioural variables and measuring their incidence, with geographical mapping as an output, to see the world wide distribution of data.

There is another vast written record of first contact with many, many more pre-conquest cultures, contained in the accounts of Christian missionaries during the initial expansions into un-conquered lands...

Patri- and Matri-lineal Cultures.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Histograms-of-Regional-Behaviors-Textor-Data-400-Cultures-63-Variables_fig1_233954702

DeMeo’s work supports the assertion that there is a profound correlation between the way children are related to and the behaviour of a given society. It mirrors what is known about trauma when it afflicts entire communities, not least when his patterns of trans-generational post trauma behaviours can emerge as social behavioural characteristics...

" It is highly significant that strong positive correlations, with only a small minority of exceptions (related to confounding data codings, as mentioned above), exist between infant and childhood trauma, adolescent sex-repression, male dominance, social hierarchy, destructive aggression and warfare."
 
That said this narrative has it's critics.. 

Demeo wrote a book on this in 1998, after many decades of research...

Most seem to wilfully misinterpret what the narrative is saying, and thus their critique is not of that, but of what they think it is.. 

It did not help that his book, produced in the late 90's, had a rather incendiary title, Saharasia, the 4000bc Origins of Child Abuse, Sex-repression, Warfare, in the Deserts of the old world.

Some people have assumed that this evidence neatly explains the 'nature' of the existing North African, Arab, Persian cultures. They fail to see the tragic irony of their own Anglo-Saxon legacy with regard to egalitarian cultures world wide.. They miss the meaning, and seek to enunciate their own values.

DeMeo stated the case, clearly. 

The institutionalisation of violent hierarchies, as a social behavioural pattern, is the issue, not the 'nature' of a given 'people'.  It is learned. It started somewhere. There is nothing natural about power hierarchies, other than as un-resolved post trauma response that has environmental and experiential dynamics.

The dynamic of violent hierarchies also emerged in South America, in areas where desertification occurred, which gave rise to the Inca and Aztec Empires.. 

It also emerged in lessor forms, locally across the globe.. 

Others then attempt to debunk DeMeo, in order to maintain public order, to undermine the previous critique, which is seen as incendiary. They want to prove that the Arab, Persian, North African, peoples are just ordinary folk, like us. They are, of course.

The see no need, there is nothing but nastiness there, and I agree with them, to impugn any group or individual people with 'scientific evidence' in that fashion, and because the second set of debunkers misunderstand the misunderstanding of the previous critique, they fire ahead, that complicates matters...  they are debunking the wrong thing.

Then there's the adherents of Monotheism in all it's glory.

They hate this book. The Abrahamic Religions in particular.

Too bad.,

Climate change and Sex!

We now understand that intense climate change occurred in the Saharasian regions around 4000 bc, which co-incides with the emergence of patriarchy as a force majeur in human culture.

Where previously a lush land existed, rainfall vanished,  deserts emerged, and living conditions became very harsh. 

Traumatisingly harsh?

We see too, in the archeo-historical record, areas of desertification in South America and China correlated with aspects of emergent patriarchy. The Inca, The Aztec, etc…

However, the Australian history is different..... 

That group of humans (nearly 1 billion live lived, in total, so hardly insignificant) went through two or three massive climate changes, which involved desertification of previously lush ecosystems, and this has happened within a period of 60,000 years of continuous human culture, and we see that in this experience, somehow patri-linealism, violent hierarchies etc did not emerge.

Instead that group remained largely co-operative, egalitarian, connected to the land base, responsive to it, and developed traditions of respect for and knowledge of food resources available, providing a hugely variable diet, and it might have been that alone that allowed them to survive and indeed thrive.  

They were more at peace with each other, than at war, is I think a fair assumption. I’d call that healthy..

There were, across Australia, at least 250 language groups, with huge genetic variations across the population, when the first Europeans arrived.... and there was no war, clans had minimal hierarchy, men and women had equal standing, children were treated with utmost respect and empathy, although there was degrees of conflict and some violence, they were adept at de-escalation and their connection to the land base and food resource base was peerlesss.

This consciousness can be called pre-conquest consciousness. Before violent expansionary hierarchies emerged...

Thus the history of our species contains the resolution of the current Climate Change issue - co-operation rather than competition enables human societies to thrive in almost any circumstance.

Violent Hierarchy - the competing powers dynamic of the dominant industrial system undermines that ability, and the issue is less a matter of evolution, or revolution - it is a matter of healing.

This is not a question of winning, rather it is a question of balance and healing, and any aspect of that dynamic - winning - will undermine the pursuit of balance and healing, which is the very definition of natural justice.

Sex-economic Theory, Trump and May

Economic power mediated through sex and gender, with men as buyers, and women as sellers.

Reich. And many others, have looked at this.g 

Fuck it, we're all looking at this every ef

The woman as property, the woman placed in a state of dependence, the religious consecration of that dynamic, the woman as breeding ground for expansion, the children as the expansion medium, the shock troops of future cultural hegemony. Children as objects..

These are all still deeply rooted in our culture, in spite of it’s self declared Christian-Secular vision of progress.

There is so much pain in sexual and gender relationships world wide..... so much harm, and that is a symptom of the dominant social power systems, as much as the wounds and flaws of individual human beings under socialised pressure. We are looking at The Vatican, Rugby, Swimming, Schooling, Care systems and seeing widespread sexual assault still being ‘managed rather than directly and robustly confronted. In the 21st Century…

Hello!?

A lot of people may well have moved on, as many claim, and good for them - however  it has not yet altered the fundamentals of the existing social behavioural dynamics of power, economic or otherwise.

Can we see the toxins in the water we are swimming in?

How to meet as true equals, albeit uniquely different, in a culture deeply and historically rooted in this dynamic, when all our social behavioural conditioning has been influenced sub-liminaly as much as consciously by growing up in that environmental experiential dynamic and we are taught to see each other as stereotypes, rather than precise individuals that we are, where value is unmeasured and the price is irrelevant, because it is freely given.

Isn’t this what Feminism, for both men and women alike?

No more bullying.

The pleasure in fully meeting life - that sense of connection is intimate, it is our sensory acuity heightens that intimacy, that sense of connection; insecurity and competitive-ness undermines that, and it is no place for the exercise of power over another.

That, for me at least, ranges from sexuality to cooking, from child care to elder care, it is an acute sensitivity, a natural sensitivity, a natural tool kit… a responsive modality of living.

Men, women and children - we are all are born into this acculturation, and yet we are not of it, and our liberation can only emerge as we decolonise our minds and our bodies, and allow our natural sensitivity towards optimal health to emerge.

Thus the positions taken on either side of the Men vs Feminist mainstream discourse (if one can call it that, it's more like a competition debate) cannot, by definition, resolve the issue. 

Obviously neither Donald Trump nor Teresa May are Feminists They are bullies.

Bullies cannot, by my definition, be Feminists.

Men and Women alike must understand what they have been born into, as observers and as participants, and be given the option to disengage, by their own choice.... to assert their own most genuine sense of self within a cooperative social dynamic.

As nature intended.

That is my expression of what true liberty means.






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.

Alan Alda, Mai Lai and Robert Sapolsky...

This lovely video of a walking chat between Alan Alda and Robert Zapolsky presents some very interesting insights, based on current proven research, that raise serious questions about behaviour, power, punishment and justice.. The Brain on Trial.

It's also about observing patterns across a population, and understanding that the patterns can never describe an individual with any degree of accuracy - that protocol must be capable of responding to each case, as it presents, and as the evidence provides.

One cannot say "all Americans...." or "all Russians'... or "all Muslims" .. or "all women".. or "all men" or "all psychopaths" etc etc with any degree of accuracy.

Such phrases always precede a caricature, which is a manipulative device...





I have read Robert Sapolksy's book "Behave : the biology of humans at our best and worst" which is a holistic review of all available evidence regarding the biological processes associated with behaviour, and in particular, with those where healthy self regulation is undeveloped, where sociality has few experiential neural networks to fire with, and instead the focus is on regulating others to meet one's perceived needs.
His assessment is that structure is largely genetic, and behaviour is lagely learned, and both are also affected by past generations experience, not least in epigenetic terms - our genetics are responsive to environment and experience.

Eskimos do not learn to carry fat, they learn to hunt and live, and heal and thrive...

That kind of core behavioural dynamic of hierarchies, using power over others, is learned.

As a behaviour, dominance over others is far from innate.

There are many bio-chemical and physiological dispositions that can underpin vulnerability to becoming more controlling, dispositions that start in pre birth conditions, or later on in any area where healthy development is undermined,  but invisible because it's a social norm, and that may well be partly a matter of how the inherited epigenetic changes  affected that particular child...  that and the  environment and the lives of long dead ancestors..


There is nothing innate about it. We are evolved to be social, connected, co-operative, creative... to thrive by living and working together..

We are not that well evolvoed for violence, because it undermines our health, even for the 'victors'.

The argument that  the Alpha Male is biologically mandated is a cultural construct, rather than a biological fact.


That kind of competitive predatory behaviour is learned largely through the sensory and the environmental experiential afforded the child, and as we know, that varys from family to family , as much as culture to culture...

If control and punishment are habitual, the child's body and mind can become automatic, unconscious, with a layer of justification and rationalisation crafted in the external world, as part of the controlling behavioiur set.

When a few people with these habituations gather and organise, and gain more power they will build an institution, a family, a hierarchy...  and seek to protect it, for the power, t

Experientially loving becomes automatic,  defenciveness and insecurity becomes automatic for the child exposed to love or insecurity.... that child will act out, and if that is misinterpreted, and the child is 'regulated' that deepens the child's alienation, anger and frustration.... if that child does not receive support to heal, then more regulation will deepen the wounds... add to that additional trauma potentials created by the systems of hierarchical violence and authority..

On a societal scale, this has huge implications, and it is by neccessity an exercise of compassion, informed by science, evidence, good health and common sense to deconstruct these processes, and disentangle our institutions from replicating or propogasting those patterns... as adults gifting the next generation of children, I see no finer work.

If the child does not learn loving self regulation, his or her brain will not create a neurology of loving self regulation - if then that child as an adult behaves in ways that cause harm we have to look at the past, to look at all the evidence, to then be able to decide how best to proceed, in terms of society and health and safety...

These are generalised outlines, and I would urge readers to go to Sapolksy's book, and his videos...

We dearly need some calm, evidence based assessments of behavioural issues, not least because the political ruling class are presenting that they are a behavioural problem, on all sides.... that fact that trolling is a standard politcial tactic in mainstream public discourse rather proves the point, elegantly. 
Understand this : Politics is the struggle for power, Healthy Civil Governance is the careful and diligent administration of a community's shared resource(s) for the equity of the entire community.....

The accepted norm, the fundamental concept of international relations as materially the struggle for primacy among militarised states, who utilise war fare in pursuit of policy objectives absolutely afflicts a nations domestic governance, with bills, costs and losses that are all wholly avoidable.

That is psychopathy. 

Institutionalised. Given a lick of paint, some gold plate and a few fancy bits of cloth and bling.

The obvious lies and caricatures of material reality that abound in various Governments justifications for wars, the talk of punishment, sanctions, 'humanitarian intervention' all speak to people whose ability to self regulate thjeir urge for power is undermined, aand whose goal is ever more power over a majority of people, at whatever cost, borne usually by the ordinary folk ..

It's nuts.

It must be diagnosed before there is any possibility of dealing with it..
. and the best way to deal with it is tio de-legitimise it wholly, and defund it within each social cultural institutional organisation unit at home - we in the UK deal with ours, those in Russia and anywhere else deal with theirs.

We have to stop allowing the justifications and accepted norms of international war fare be taken at face value, and let the victimised, the survivors lead our concerns and let prevention be our concern, as citizens and humane patriots/matriots/fraternities/sisterhoods... it is our money they are using to fund these wars.

It is a behavioural issue.
And that means that it is ultimately a resolveable situation.

---

Mai Lai - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre
Mai Lai's happen in all wars. It's what happens when a military in theatre moves across a landscape.

People's homes become battle grounds.... Mai Lai's happen when artillery and missiles are launched at built up areas, no matter who is launching them.

For the majority of people, these wars are none of their business, they have no say, no power, no claim within these wars, they are wholly innocent.

The one's who make war must be made accountable by the innocent.

There is no other way.




.



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.