COP26 is dead! Long Live Cop27? What we need is simple, the task is complex, power agenda's make it all more complicated than it needs to be

The show is not over, yet the show is over already. 

~

All the political parties are failing us. The System is failing us all. The religions are all failing us. The industrial militarised 'economic' system of competing powers extracting wealth is failing us. The adults are failing the children.  COP26 is already failing us. It is blatantly not a fair COP.

I think we urgently need a non-partisan, non ideological grass roots Political and Cultural Union of Students, Parents and Teachers - people most concerned with the medium term future - to study, understand and spread the concept that the honest appraisal and accurate understanding of the evidence is critical to healthy democratic governance.

We need a movement to advocate for evidence led policy that seeks to avoid avoidable harms at every level, from abolishing poverty to the cessation of war fare, from reducing use of fossil fuels to eliminating corruption in Government, from promoting RegenAg and Cradle to Cradle production, use and consumption to withdrawing from all undeveloped lands and their peoples, in order to meet the climate challenge. Put it like this - Poverty is avoidable, an erupting volcano is not. Invading indigenous lands to 'develop sustainably' is avoidable, and if it is not avoided the destruction of the indigenous culture is likewise not avoidable. What culture has the right to destroy those cultures who in a myriad of forms have lived sustainably in those lands for centuries?

~

COP26 is dead! Long Live Cop27?

Simple
What we need is simple. Stop causing harm. Is that so much to ask? 

Simply put we need to stop harming our shared environment, we need to stop harming the bio-diversity of living creatures with whom we share this environment, and we need to stop harming each other. Stop causing avoidable harms,  at the level of Government and Corporation, at the very least. Simple.

I am not calling for utopic behaviour. Stop causing so much harm. Is that so much to ask?

The task is complex, but competing power agendas are making it all much, much more complicated than it needs to be.
Complex

The task is complex because it demands we meet a variety of primary needs that are not being met, and it demands we find ways to balance 'competing needs'. 
For example abolishing poverty is a necessity because it is an affliction that undermines every society where it is allowed to persist. Poverty harms the entire society where it exists. Poverty is being deliberately maintained.
Abolishing poverty will dig into the wealth extraction process of the leading oligarchies, because they depend on low wages for efficiency of wealth extraction.

However, when we abolish poverty, it will reduce rather than remove their profit take. The corporations and small businesses can still make profits, without imposing poverty. Win-win. 

They do not need such immense profits, they can do with less.
Balancing real needs.

It's not rocket science. Seeking win-win outcomes is a human trait older than hierarchies of violence.

Maintaining poverty to drive people into low paid work in order to maximise profit efficiency is a serious problem, it is a harm causation.

Deforestation is low paid work, often carried out by people close to destitution, as an act of desperation, a last resort. If those people were not so impoverished, would they bother to sweat in a forest, destroying it, risking disease and nasty accidents, just so that others can make immense profits?
How do we balance the needs of people, as workers and as communities with the needs of Corporations and Shareholders for a decent return on their investments of time, energy and money?

Balancing those needs requires effort, attention to detail, it demands empathy, humane concern and technical focus to change those methods that are causing harm so that they no longer do so. This is complex, it is not complicated.

Complicated.

All of the above is made much more complicated than it needs to be because the power plays of Extracted Accumulated Wealth as a political, economic and cultural master, which I consider is a psychological illness, presenting as an hegemonic attitude, is impeding progress on every level, from refusing to abolish poverty to undermining democracy, from engaging in warfare to  Billionaires and Corporations buying political representation that disfavours the electorate - none of this activity is helping.

This hegemonic dynamic is a fabric woven with the ideological threads of 'let's conquer the world' to attain market dominance, similar in method and action as Old Empires. 

Am I repeating myself?
The abhorrent US/UK Military 'Full Spectrum Dominance' dynamic, the behaviour of Facebook, Amazon, Google -The  Surveillance Capitalists - and the intransigence of the fossil fuel industry and others seeking dominant 'market share' nationally and globally is a dynamic order that continues to refuse to address the harms they are causing, in order to continue to expand and dominate their respective domains. They also wish to avoid paying their externalised costs.
Harms are not being honestly addressed. More power is sought.

Who pays the price?
Again we can see that the same pattern of maintaining position and seeking profits is happening during this pandemic (rather than asserting unity in the purpose of protecting the global population), where wealthy global North countries are blatantly not sharing wealth and technical ability be it fair taxation or the rights to manufacture and deliver vaccines and other vital logistical elements of suppressing the virus, or resources to deploy dealing with climate change in order to protect populations exposed to risk of avoidable harm. The UN called for a cessation of warfare in early 2020. The leading powers rejected that call.

If harm is avoidable, why not make that effort? 

The tobacco smoker is addicted, and we recognise that addicts need and deserve help to break the addition, to prevent greater harm at a later date. But the big business of that addiction, and it's tax take for Governments stand as enablers of the tobacco addiction. Fossil fuel industry learned the tricks of denial from the tobacco industry.

It is the addiction to Power that is the problem that drives so many other problems. Johnson et all demonstrate that every day they sit in high office.

Global Disunity

The Global Disunity, the refusal of warring states to cease all war engagements amidst a pandemic, the refusal to waive IP rights to allow wider manufacture and distribution of Vaccines and other tools, the rejection of elimination of community transmission by USUK, Brazil, India in contrast to East Asian states and others who have better protected their populations and economies, are all down to one concern - preserving the power of the ruling class, of Accumulated Wealth to extract even more wealth, irrespective of the costs to the people or the environment.

Evil?

"The Science has been crystal clear, How dare you continue to look away, and come here and say you are doing enough when the politics and solutions needed are nowhere in sight. You say you hear us and you understand the urgency, and no  matter how sad and angry I am I do not want to believe that. Because if you understand the situation and you kept on failing to act then you would be evil and that I refuse to believe." Greta Thunberg in 2019


The Telegraph hosts this video excerpt, and it's telling that they chose this frame of Greta Thunberg as the thumbnail. They had to acknowledge her statement, yet they also needed to disparage her image, her person, wordlessly.
Making the choice to allow or enable an avoidable harm to any one who has less power, in order to maintain and enhance that power differential is evil. It is very much a matter of human behaviour, rather than some external force of 'evil', Choosing to exploiting another's vulnerability in order to gain more advantage is evil.

We are all vulnerable, and if anything the SARSCOV2 Virus is telling us it is this - "You are all in this together." 

Lying about this, gaslighting the vulnerable is evil.

What is the link?

What is it that links COP26, COVID, Warfare, Poverty and many other issues where healthy governance is most urgently needed,  (governance that acts in a timely manner to avoid avoidable harms)?
What is the impediment to appropriate action required to avoid avoidable harms?

The Underlying Problem.
The extraction of wealth, wealth which is then accumulated and deployed as political influence, to preserve the systems of wealth extraction that further enables the extractors in the exercise of the power to influence and corrupt democratic legislatures.  A vicious cycle, indeed. Venal. Economic groundhog day.
That cultural vehicle is being driven by the Wealth Extraction Party; it is a vehicle that pollutes as it rolls, because it's much more 'efficient' in generating wealth for power than it is at preventing pollution, and that cheapskate approach enhances more efficient wealth extraction. 

Who pays the price?
The masters of wealth are clearly willing to let others - the working class, the impoverished poor, the destitute - to pay the price of their wilful negligence, so that they can continue to extract wealth from the environment and the population and maintain their power to do so, against all reform.
The passengers - us ordinary citizens - are urged to play at recycling, to limit our consumption behaviours, and we are often scapegoated. We are more or less rendered impotent to make meaningful changes in the direction and speed of the cultural vehicle, and we are told to put on their safety belts and stay quiet and not distract the driver.
The 'will of the people' aka the passengers ability to choose a safer destination is not being given due attention or support. 

Wealth, Government and Democracy Undermined.
Wealth Extraction dominates the thinking of Governments where the Wealth Extraction Party prevails - their primary objective is how to maintain wealth extraction through the various crises that wealth extraction generates.

Yesterdays session, on the matter of Owen Patterson's 30 day suspension, in the House of Commons proves the point.

A corrupt Government using it's majority to derail the censure of an elected MP who was taking more than his MPs salary for part time work lobbying for Companies to be awarded commercially lucrative contracts, (which is a breach of Parliamentary Rules). To avoid a by election, which would have followed as a recall was likely. To avoid the possibility of the loss of a seat, the loss of a by election which would be a public humiliation for Johnson and the Conservative Party.

Crony Capitalism Thrives

All of this is happening within a culture of no bidding process, VIP contract lanes, crony contracts and woefully inadequate provision that exacerbates the situation it is contracted to deal with. From PPE to Test and Trace

#COP26 is not much different than COP1, 10 or 20 in this regard. In spite of lots of genuinely decent, serious and well informed people working on these problems, globally, COP26 delivers promises and inadequate action amid much talk about private finance chucking $150 trillion at the problem, with an eye towards the profits to be made from the proposed 'green revolution' above all else. 

For me, the profit we need is a cleaner environment, a population protected from harm caused by climate change, war fare, SARSCOV2 and imposed poverty.

That is a profit that has deep human value.
How can we as ordinary people get the driver to change course?
1. Refuse to vote for or support any politician who backs Wealth Extraction over public and societal health, the health of the people and our shared environment - feasible.  Recall them all! 
2. Vote instead for politicians informed and advised by grounded evidence led science and applicable practice who will preserve public health, cease the harm causation by helping to develop and enable practices that do not cause such damage. - feasible.

3. Giving the people well paid work to prevent further harms, to carry out the repair of and clean up of our shared environment would be really useful. Oddly enough, if we have enough resources to live well,  and are happier, then we have less 'need' or desire to engage in comfort shopping and more desire to do work that helps the whole community.

Universal basic income is one way to support that shift. Why not pay 8 billion people to do the work of 'going green'?
4. Reduce private car use in cities by funding green public transit systems, taxing fossil fuel cars in cities - the drivers must understand they are driving on externalised costs, and they must pay, now - make more work local and promote working from home, provide goods that can be proven to not cause harm, reduce eating meat, stabilise property values and rents - these are not immediately feasible until we find ways to abolish baseline and real value poverty.

The poor and low paid worker depend upon public transit, the wealthy use private transit. Private transit clogs the roads, making public transit less efficient. The poor suffer the most spread of this virus, the wealthy have better health outcomes. 
Abolishing poverty is a core component of how we move from harm to nurture as human culture.

5. Change to low electricity use light bulbs, use less plastic, use cloth shopping bags, conserve water by flushing the loo less frequently and thousands of other small measure - all these are reduced to symbolic gestures as long as the Wealth Extraction business and it's externalised costs are allowed to prevail. 
When the PR of the Neoliberal Ideologues claim the buyer determines the market, that if we reject a product it will not be made, they are gaslighting. It is not true. The shopper does not control the market. 

Legislate and Regulate.

Civilisation depends on the constraints imposed by legislatures to protect the vulnerable, to define and assert standards, to frustrate criminals and to wage peace, honestly. Government could be fine utility in the right hands. 
I think that what we need to do is to regulate industry and wealth extraction, and to do that we need to remove their ability to influence and corrupt Government.  

This can be done.

It requires an immense rebalancing of power: the power to act as an informed, evidence led collective, entire populations working for each other's best interests must take priority over the competing powers dynamic working to achieve hegemonic status.

Competition to become dominant is war fare. Competing to improve outcomes for each other is another level of civilised humanity, and it is where we must go.
We need to use the resources to hand 
a) - the creation of currency - to abolish poverty, impoverished peoples cannot work to address the issues we face. We need to redeploy our working in order to repair and protect the environment - 
b)  the democratic legislatures - we need the power of Government to legislate to regulate industry to shift gear and drive towards systems of raw materials extraction, production and consumption that prevent externalised costs from being generated, so that they generate nutrient cycles that nurture environment and people alike.

This can be done. It is not impossible.




Kindest regards

Corneilius

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Sexual Abuse, Power and Men - young girls, women, grandmothers: generations of affliction and endurance, the time for change is always in the present, already.

Sexual Abuse, Power and Men - young girls, women, grandmothers: generations of affliction and endurance, the time for change is always in the present, already.

I have been writing about abuse behaviour dynamics for two decades, from the perspective of a Survivor, a child, a young boy and a teen routinely abused by adults in boarding schools, as an adult suffering from and enduring cPTSD, understanding that my story is one of millions upon millions of cases, and looking carefully and honestly at the culture within which all that happened. Let me start by making it really clear where I am coming from. I am appalled to my core that there is so much abuse, violence, corruption on-going in within this culture. That so much of it is for profit and to maintain Power over others makes matters ever worse - it is deliberate abuse, choices to cause harm. Honesty is the only way to work through all of this. A violent culture.

As a man, a male, as a person and as a parent I am appalled at the willingness of governments, corporations and others to extract power and profit at the expense of so many others. War, Air Pollution, Environmental Degradations, Externalised Costs, Imposed Poverty and concentration of wealth as Power, competing to dominate all others, are all costs we all are forced to bear - and they are all wholly avoidable. There is nothing inevitable about these problems. Together they speak to a culture that is a problem in and of itself, and to me that calls for the need for an holistic and honest analysis that addresses the problems at their very root. I have written about that elsewhere in a number of postings. I make it very clear that whilst the culture is abusive, our human nature is not. Most of us are decent people, doing our best with what this culture throws in our way. For now let's talk about Misogyny. When it comes to sexuality and power, I am horrified by the status quo. I am an adult human being with an acute sense of healthy, happy, sharing sexuality - to introduce or inject power into such an intimate space, to taint shared pleasure and vulnerability with power in any way is to my mind an abomination.

Any abuse of power to sexually harass another - irrespective of gender- is both a dehumanised and dehumanising behaviour.

Power and sex as a commodity has a long history. Misogyny is a historical thread woven into every known hierarchy of power system.

So it is more, so much more than a matter of personal flawed bad attitude.

Establishment 'Feminism': if you are willing operate power as we do, then join in, be our equal. This is the meaning of 'equality'. Bullying is a protected species.

Genuine Feminists : we will dismantle the Hierarchies of Violence and Power, together. This is the meaning of Equity. Liberation. 

Two opposing movements. 

Anyone who says that there's no problem at the cultural level regarding sexual abuse is in denial. Every woman I know has multiple stories to tell of personal experience of sexual harassment, misogyny. There are more survivors dealing with the aftermath of sexual abuse than there are abusers facing the consequences in terms of confronting them with their behaviour, justice and incarceration and, by a vast margin.

The majority of abusers walk free. Society is failing the survivors, and is failing in prevention. The abusers thrive as a result.

The Guardian headline and report is inadequate. 'Finally'? School girls and young women have been voicing their concerns for decades and decades. When one submits "sexual harassment in schools" as a google scholar search term, it brings up 204,000 plus articles and papers in half a second. It's not like the subject is an unknown area. It is remarkably well studied. From a 1994 paper 'Walking Through Walls' J Larkin - Gender and Education, 1994 - Taylor & Francis "For most females, crude language and other forms of sexually harassing behaviour are part of the fabric of our daily lives. To date, however, our focus on sexual harassment has been limited primarily to the experiences of adult women in academic and work place settings. What has not been explored is the prevalence of sexual harassment in schools and the way it interferes with young women's education.

Equal opportunity programmes are of limited use if, for example, we urge female students into traditional male courses but we neglect to consider the hostile climate they encounter there. In this study I explored young women's experiences of sexual harassment in the setting lauded as their gateway to opportunity: school. 

Based on their testimonies I make recommendations for educators who are committed to making high school a more equitable place for female students." 

A search on JSTOR using the term ""sexual harassment" brings up 29,085 results. Papers on this subject date from the 1970s. Women and their advocates have been speaking out for many decades. A lot of study has been carried out on this. 

The first American Rape Crisis Centers were formed in several states throughout the USA in the early 1970s, largely by women associated with the second-wave feminist movement. Central to second-wave feminism was the practice of consciousness raising, which allowed groups of women to speak openly about their experiences with sexual violence and the shortcomings of law enforcement, health care providers, and the criminal justice system to effectively and constructively respond to survivors.

In every country that has efficient data gathering and statistics, we see many, many sexual crimes perpetrated against women, men and children. The majority of the perpetrators are men. The majority of those victimised are women and children, and we know too that some women also abuse men and children, that there are some women who participate in the abuse with men, and on their own. This is a culture wide issue.  A culture that harbours so much abuse.

#metoo

The phrase "Me Too" was initially used in this context on social media in 2006, on Myspace, by sexual harassment survivor and activist Tarana Burke. Since then there have been successive waves of #metoo attention. The waves pass, the behaviour does not change. The systems of Education, health, policing and justice do not change substantively. Why? Here's the thing - I know that the culture I was born into is rooted, historically, psychologically and materially in hierarchies of violence and power, patriarchy and property. Women as property.  I did not create this culture, and I do not wish to perpetuate it. At all. The idea of perpetuating this pre-existing culture of hierarchy, power and violence appals me to my very core.

The 'stronger' prey upon the vulnerable. 

I use the parentheses because as I see things, to leverage power over another human being for personal gain is not a marker of strength of character - to abuse leveraged power of any kind is in fact a weakness of character. It is a dehumanised thing to dehumanise another.

It is also a matter of self regulating one's behaviour, or not. There is interesting research that indicates that stressy cultures undermine healthy self regulation at the earliest ages - the terrible twos is not a biological episode, it is a chronic stress or trauma episode.

If in any given culture the situation of motherhood is subjected to multiple external stressors, then what flows from that is disruption and distortion of key experiential and learning dynamics. Across a population that can lead to a variation in self regulation capabilities.

The kind of people who engage in leveraging power over others clearly lack that ability - healthy self regulation of affective states -  or it may be that they choose to neglect it. Either way they are damaged, dysfunctional, distorted. Men who claim the 'urge' overtook them are saying they lack self regulation skills. They are damaged. They need help. Where any person, many or woman, has caused harm, he or she has chosen to act and for that, and the outcome, must be held accountable. At the same time, we now that patterns of reaction, of trigger and reaction operate faster than the mind can think. Some people are out of control.

Out of Control controlling behavioural characteristics.

Those who dominate and operate institutional power systems for personal gain lack the moral strength of mature healthy adults. To exploit others is both immature and inhumane. To rationalise abuse of power as if it were a 'natural' evolutionary alpha male behaviour is projection. It's an example of non-thinking. 

This society, this culture, this power system and its institutions are clearly not listening. The News Media is reporting, but it is not really listening. Survivors voices and insights are rarely given the space they deserve. Governments and Education Authorities are not listening carefully enough. Religions are not mute, they are not listening for or hearing the cries of women.

Men (I am a man) are not listening, are we? We are not hearing and we are not understanding the fullness of this story. We are downplaying the pain all around us by allowing 'not all men' to gain traction in ways that distract from the hearing that is necessary. My response to 'not all men' is "we know this! So shhssssh, listen, try to hear and understand what the women are trying to communicate!" Distraction Some people will point at women whose behaviour plays into or enables misogynistic behaviour and say 'it's not only men' - look at those women!' They will also point out that women are abusers too. Which is deliberately missing the point. The point is that no girl or woman should ever need to learn that set of behaviours as a way of coping with or surviving life long misogyny and sexism. At least not within a healthy culture. This is not a healthy culture, is it?

The point is that no boy or man should ever need to learn that set of behaviours as a way of being, or of coping with or surviving within a healthy culture. For these reasons, this is a problem of men, and the behaviour that we (I write as a man) allow our peers to get away with inevitably becomes a problem for women, children and all vulnerable people. Misogyny is political. Men as activists I get that this is challenging, and I am not seeking to scapegoat or blame. It is confronting to confront anyone who is bullying another person. It is confronting to challenge 'alpha male behaviour' that men are led to adopt and internalise as 'normal red blooded', competitive, hierarchic archetypes. It's scary.

It is a different kind of scary to that of a woman who feels she must be on guard amongst most men. Throughout her life. The 'democracy of fear'. Men, healthy, decent, morally clear men need to become the drivers of confronting sexual assault of women. Men, healthy, decent, morally clear men need to become the drivers of confronting alpha male violence in general. Speaking truthfully. In June 2020, Soma Sara the founder of Everyone's Invited, began sharing her personal experience of rape culture via Instagram. She wanted to speak the truth, and to create a space for truth to be spoken. Immediately, she received a number of messages from not only those who felt that her experiences strongly resonated with their own, but also those who detailed their own stories of misogyny, harassment, abuse and assault. Within a week she received and shared over 300 anonymous responses, reaching over 10,000 people. She was intent on creating a space where women felt safe enough to speak, where they were assured they would be heard and understood - they shared the same experience, after all. 2021

The disappearance, abduction and murder of Sarah Everard, in early March 2021 in London followed by the discovery that her murderer was a serving police officer who had committed a sexual offence just days before he assaulted and kill Sarah Everard, became a major news story. It led to a surge of expressions of grief, rage and anger shared by many, many women. It led to a public campaign to hold Vigils for Sarah, organised by women's group, Reclaim These Streets, as a collective mark of respect and a dedication to confronting the issue of women's safety. Since then Everyone's Invited has received thousands of testimonies from women and young girls.

It was as if yet another flood gate was opened. By the time this too became a news story, (see the image at the top of this article) more than 11,000 people had submitted testimonies to EI. No individuals were identified, and some schools were. Some News media reports focused on a few fee paying schools identified in these testimonies, although EI says that totality of testimonies received covers all kinds of schools and universities, private and state funded. This behaviour - sexual harassment, assault and a culture of misogyny - is happening in every setting where boys and girls, men and women share a common space. Soma Sara points out that some of the testimonies are from women writing as grand parents who themselves were subjected to such behaviour, who saw their daughters and then their grand daughters endure it too. The problem is multi-generational. My position is this is a cultural problem larger than a subculture called 'rape culture': it is a problem of the larger culture and it is for the larger culture to confront, honestly. EI is seeking to encourage a non-judgemental open and honest discussion and bring to public awareness the scope and nature of misogynistic sexual harassment in order to generate positive moves across the main culture - their approach is not about crime and punishment, naming and shaming as much as it is about achieving behavioural change. Prevention is key here. Punishment is always too late for those who have been harmed punishment of offenders does not undo that harm caused.

Can we get to a place where no more women are being harassed and sexually assaulted? - That is the question they are posing. Meaningful and lasting change can only be achieved through honesty, through recognising the problem of sexual violence, through understanding the many ways in which misogyny manifests, through understanding it's roots in wider culture and through direct action amongst men and women of all ages, in schools and universities, at home and elsewhere to confront, challenge, reduce and in due course eliminate this behavioural dynamic of sexualised abuse of power from all our lives. It is not healthy, it is not 'natural' and it must cease. Education EI believes this is a matter for education, education, education. A good education opens both mind and heart, and develops the focused mind informed by a strengthened heart. A good education is a process of discovery and learning. A good education is not indoctrination.

Education through conversation between young boys as peers and young men as peers talking to each other. Education by parents, by schools, by universities, news media and all other relevant layers of society participating in shifting the cultural behavioural values away from leveraging power and control towards participation and co-operation.

The children of the 21st Century cry out for a humanising ethic, for real social material change to end this dynamic behaviour of abuse.

It is not a pleasant state to be an abusive person. Everyone involved in the sexual abuse dynamic suffers. Everyone is dehumanised by this behaviour. To be the kind of person that sexually harasses another is a dehumanised state of being. It's not good. This is not being judgemental. It is being factual.

There is a profound compassion in the ethical stance of Everyone's Invited.

Here Soma Sara speaks on the issue with a reporter from the London Standard.

Power

In order to understand the role of power in sexual harassment, we do need to consider the level of power, the sources of power, the context of the harassing situation, and the reactions of those subjected to sexual harassment and to what extent their relative power position in society determines what outcomes are deemed possible, what actions are deemed viable, what outcomes are delivered.

Does lack of power influence a persons choices to report and prosecute cases of bullying, sexual harassment or rape?

When some media claimed that the Rotherham Grooming Gang was able to escape investigation due to fears that such an investigation might appear racist, was that the case? Or was it that in general, the witness testimony of the groomed and the vulnerable, the distressed and the broken is treated with less respect and consideration than it should be, across under resourced, under trained, under staffed police forces nationally?  

The victimised young girls are way down the power ladder, at the very bottom. Those young girls were, and are, in practical terms totally powerless. It was not concerns about Race that dismissed their their need. They were deemed not important enough to warrant the kind of attention they needed. They were considered unworthy. 

Narrative, Optics, Stories

Who turned what should have been a story about criminal organised child abuse as a cultural problem of England, into a story about Race, Immigration and Nativism?

Who did not immediately rebut that false narrative of distraction with available evidence that shows the the vast majority of 'grooming gangs' exploiting minors for sexual abuse are Caucasian, that indeed the prevalence of such abuse reflects the demographic realities?  How could such an obvious misrepresentation have stood in the news media for so long, unchallenged?

What did that do for the girls who were victimised? Who was thinking of those young people in all of this? How much more powerless were these young women rendered by this misrepresentation? Media was talking about Race and not about the lives of these young girls. 

The truth is that criminal grooming is common, far too common, across this society. It other words it is a cultural or societal behavioural problem at every level of this culture, such that it is almost characteristic. we cannot afford to look away from this.

Who has the power to exercise such systemic reluctance to address this problem honestly, and why would they do that? 

Power, Protest and Abuse

Power and the right to protest were yet again highlighted in the statements, directions and interactions of Priti Patel, Cressida Dick, The London Metropolitan Police and the Reclaim These Streets women's group who wanted to host a vigil on Clapham Common for Sarah Everard - as I already mentioned - a young woman abducted and murdered by a serving police officer in March, in London.  

In truth the fact that the man was a police officer is besides the point - sexual predators and murderers abide in every profession. That said, the tragic and catastrophic irony of a women's safety put at risk by a man paid to 'protect the peace' is inescapable. It certainly led to more concern and focus among women aware already that the justice system is not very good at delivering justice in regards to sexual harassment and rape cases.

Therefore a public vigil, an act of mourning, grief and respect, made a lot of sense and that is what RTS called for, as representatives of women's voice, as a public ritual and a demand for justice.

This includes the voice of men too, all those men who are listening to and hearing the women, who understand the cultural dynamic, who also demand we approach this matter with justice and prevention in mind.

Official Stance is defensive

"Reclaim These Streets is organised by a group of women who wanted to channel the collective grief, outrage and sadness in our community over the events of the past week. Our plan was to hold a short gathering on Clapham Common, centred around a minute of silence to remember Sarah Everard and all women lost to violence. In light of the lack of constructive engagement from the Metropolitan Police, we were forced to cancel this event."

That the official police response to the desire of the RTS women to hold a vigil was oppositional is a measure of an institutional inability to hear, and an unwillingness to listen to and empathise with women's sense of this that speaks to their insecurity as being understandable. The police have done nothing to secure women's concerns. Quite the opposite.

The High Court Judges asserted that COVID19 legislation could not be used to ban protest, even as the Police tried to misuse the legislation. The police withdrew from the court case to avoid a ruling forcing them to accept the right of RTS to protest thus legally placing the Police in a position where they had to facilitate the vigil. 

Following on from the court case, the Police denied support for the vigil, because they could not ban it. 

They chose to not facilitate a covid secure vigil, out of spite, and following the orders of the Home Secretary.

The Police asked RTS to use all their publicity channels to call off the vigil. RTS did so.

RTS informed the police that they could not prevent people from gathering informally. The police clearly understood this. 

Priti Patel as Home Secretary,  a coward and a bully.

Priti Patel ordered the Police to break up the informal vigil, partly on the basis that she promised the Police she would deliver a public briefing instructing the public not to attend an informal vigil, to give the police the cover to take action to break-up the vigil. She did not do that, and left the order in place. People gathered, in much larger numbers than would have had the police worked with RTS.

I call Priti Patel a coward because she did not follow through with her promise, and because  she refused to acknowledge her own bad behaviour,  an act of personal cowardice which led to a £340,000 out of court settlement. She used tax payers funds to save face, in a very dehumanised manner. Not being able to put your hand up, when you have done wrong, is moral cowardice, it is the triumph of a damaged, abusive ego. It is a sign of weakness, not of strength.

A Respectful Vigil

The vigil was very well self organised, respectful, disciplined. The women gathered expresses their grief, their anger and sorrow, their outrage. The women spoke of the need for justice, the need for change. Candles, flowers, prayers, songs, silences. Women holding space for public emotion, public feeling, public solidarity when in the middle of an epidemic we are all more isolated, de-publicised than ever. A precious moment in time.

The Police waited until darkness had fallen, and then removed some of the vigil holders from the bandstand where some women were speaking from - using 'reasonable force' and thus providing a media story that did them no favours at all.

The response of the women at the vigil was disciplined. A riot did not break out. Police violence was not meet with escalation. The women maintained their dignity as indignity was laid upon them. The women showed true strength. They stood their ground, and stood as witnesses to the women who were being forcibly removed.

All of this, when one of their own, a serving officer, had abducted and murdered an innocent woman, having previously flashed at a female employee in late February. 

The insensitivity is breath taking.

Power and the right to protest were also at the heart of the Bristol sit-down protests against the Crime and Policing Bill that is going through Parliament, a proposed legislation that criminalises protests of single individuals, that uses vague noise and nuisance clauses to give police the discretion to arrest and charge protesters on whim, a piece of legislation that criminalises sleeping in a vehicle over night which is aimed at Traveller folk,  a bill that is acknowledged to be a direct attempt to pre-empt protest against the policies of a Climate and Environmentally reckless Government, and pushing this through in the midst of an epidemic that the same government is deliberately mismanaging with lethal consequences.

Power and honesty (the lack of it) were also highlighted by the release this week of the Sewel Report on Racism in England which claimed there is no evidence of institutional Racism in England, and that where there is Racism prevalent in the population. The report claimed that other factors, such as economic deprivation, family breakdown and geography were more important factors in discrimination as it occurs in England. This is gaslighting - this is trying to convince us that the evidence of our own experience, what we have seen with our own eyes, is not real.

Rape Culture is a dynamic within a larger culture of abuse of power, gross dishonesty, imposed hierarchy, state violence, patriarchy, misogyny, maintained through political grooming and manipulative persuasion. I think it is not possible to separate the two themes.

Power, Honesty, Justice

Everyone's Invited and #metoo, and the thousands of organisations of women globally are asking us all to do the right thing. The women who are speaking out, who are speaking truth to power, are asking us to be honest about this, to do the right thing. The school girls who are 'finally finding their voices' are asking us all to do the right thing. Stop it. It's not complicated. You do have the power to stop this behaviour. Just do it.

Honesty is speaking truth to power, justice is power changing as a result.

I think that unless the two meet, and are reconciled, then we will be caught in the crossfire of what I can only describe as a toxic cult. 

Just do it

I think that social change can be achieved when the majority of the population are united in understanding, action and solidarity to confront, challenge and dismantle these behavioural structures and dynamics, the systems and methods of maintaining power and control. Sexual harassment and abuse is all about power and control. It is not about sexuality.

I think that means we must understand those structures accurately.

I think that means we must understand what we have internalised as values given to us by those structures.

I think that means we must understand how the structures influence so many people and thus enable the behavioural dynamic of control to mitigate and ultimately ignore the voices of women who speak out.

I think that  means we must find ways to build bridges of human understanding across our different groups, identities, beliefs and positions so that  those internalised values no longer impede us. 

I think that at the very least just being consistently honest, decent, kind, loving humane beings is enough of a challenge under the current circumstances, and worthy in its own right. That's where we start with this.

From there, activism can flow.

That is what Everyone's Invited presents. An end to the war, a start to and continuation of the conversation that heals the behaviour. That is what #metoo really means.

That is what Soma Sara and many others represent.

We have had enough, already.

I think.

Kindest regards 

 

Corneilius 

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

Adulthood, Maturity, Traumatocracies and Power.

Here are some understandings and insights, supported by detailed scientific analysis and observed reality. about the world we live in that we all really do need to acknowledge.

The behaviour of Power is adverse and it is endangering all our lives, and the lives of our grandchildren and their children to come,  in a variety of ways - from war to wilful pollution, from enforced poverty to environmental degradation, the centralisation of power, the disenfranchisement of the grass roots population and much else besides. These are all outcomes of the way Power is mediated throughout the world. The behaviour of Power is a central issue, and in some ways it can be termed as the primary single issue, the one which binds them all. Power is being abused in both the personal and in the Societal. It is not acceptable in a mature relationship.

There is a reason why these adults are immature and engaged in Power Politics in ways that are adversely affecting so many, many adults and children across the world. The systems of Power we are living with are largely Traumatocracies. They are the outcomes of thousands of years of unresolved trauma, a form of PTSD behaviour patterning that has become solidified in Socialised Institutional Structures passed down from generation to generation.

There is a pathway towards resolving this trauma, and it starts with each and every parent, as each becomes aware of the situation and re-engineers their life with proven knowledge and experience based tools, to re-balance their lives, to come home to being more fully human, to seek to grow, to desire to mature and to become fully engaged with the situation in which one finds oneself. The biological reality is that all organisms tend towards optimal biological health, and this is a fundamental 'rule' of nature, and it is only when a pathology becomes chronic that this drive is thwarted 

"The "prenatal" in our title refers to the period of about nine months including conception and the whole of gestation, while "perinatal" refers to the very short but crucial period of hours involving labor, birth, and establishment of breastfeeding. We believe that both these prenatal and perinatal experiences are formative for both babies and parents, and tend to establish patterns of intimacy and sociality for life. At stake here is quality of life--the quality of personal relationships and the quality of society itself. Ultimately, we like to point out, "Womb ecology becomes world ecology."

from: http://www.birthpsychology.com

"Mission Statement: "Our vision is a world in which all children are treated with dignity, respect, understanding, and compassion. In such a world, every child can grow into adulthood with a generous capacity for love and trust. Our society has no more urgent task."                                      

from: http://www.naturalchild.org

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

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

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PTSD Culture and change or Recovery and Healing.

This graphic from LIVE LEAK shows the patterns and movement of kingdoms and nation states in Europe over 1000 years.... there is a subtext, one of PTSD affected Culture, which needs to be understood if it is to be changed.

1000 years of trauma, in the name of the 'nation state', the King or a Religion, mostly perpetrated upon the poor, the peasants, the workers, the children - though the rulers were not averse to slaughtering each other, they often collaborated in the slaughter of the poor, the peasants, the workers, the children.

It goes without saying that the preceding 14,000 years of Empire across the world is part of that same phenomenon.

This coping-with-trauma or PTSD has become Institutionalised, Nationalised as a myth of creation and has not yet been resolved, healed. The European Culture is a PTSD culture in almost every aspect. Christianity is absolutely a PTSD based religion, with it's focus on the dreadful torture of Christ on the cross, which is justified as a 'sacrifice' for all our 'sins'....

In the past 50 years, much scientific, clinical and anecdotal or informal work has been done on Trauma, on understanding the dynamics of PTSD and there ARE healing/recovery pathways that ARE known, that are being practiced and are very well understood.

However, that understanding has yet to penetrate Governance, mainstream 'economics', State Education systems or the Religions, (as well as grass roots activism, and the 'internetz' weird theories market) largely because the utility of the myth is essential to Power as we know it, and because Power dictates what children experience in schooling, as well as how parents treat their children amongst many other things.

Power determines conditioning. David Smail writes well on the matter of the day to day reality of distal Power - of the affects of decisions made by people who hold power, who are beyond the reach of those affected most by those decisions - the people of Iraq, the Metis/Indigenous peasants in South America with regard to US State Policy, ie the 'war on drugs' or the workings of social services and welfare in neo-liberal economies, where the poor, the disabled, the vulnerable are subject to Government dictats on 'austerity' and Media coverage void of empathy.

Until the grass roots understands this, how the culture into which we are born is a PTSD culture, and until activists deal with their own PTSD - be it direct trauma related or simple conditioning within a PTSD dominated environment, we will not see change. I believe that this process is underway, and that it will take a few generations to complete itself. The human/biological drive towards health is innate; this is a biological fact.

One of the reasons the Military Industrial Complex and Power pushes so much violence is that they KNOW what trauma does to people, and that enough people become so traumatised that they will continue the cycles of violence (Mujahadeen, 'rebels' etc etc etc) even when it is 100% irrational.... because it guarantees the continuation of their 'markets', and the politics and psychology of Power Relationships over Empathic Relationships and it undermines the potential healing of entire social structures, a healing which Power perceives as a threat. Indeed healing IS a threat to Power as we know it, yet the deeper truth is that that perception is a pathological one and the healing will, in the end, extend to include those with such a pathological view.

Given all that is known about PTSD, is it too much to seek, to demand, to work together so that Empathy is placed at the core of Culture, of Governance, with the welfare of the children (which is also directly linked to the health of the environment)  as the primary gauge of how well a society is, in physical, emotional and psychological terms, in both the short and long term?
If so, then why?

These are pertinent questions, and honesty is the only means by which they can be answered.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Common Sense

Ignore the ideologists, the dogmatists, the fear mongering divisive 'theorists' - stick to pure humane common sense.
ABUSE DOES NOT END ABUSE, IT NEVER HAS, IT ISN'T WORKING AND IT WILL NEVER WORK!

Are we a grown-up, responsible people .......... Letter to Irish Media.

Are we a grown-up, responsible people capable of managing ourselves with integrity and intelligence?” is the key.

(this piece was written as a response to some of the more divisive, angry and potentially abusive postings on the net with regard to the current situation in Ireland. I beleive it appplies across the Earth...)

If we are, then we don’t leave it to others – WE get involved, at the local level, and we reject the concept of being ruled, of Governance being in POWER.

We take our responsibilities towards OUR Society seriously.

We find ways to discuss, to... share information, we find ways to avoid squabbling and acting out our anger, wats to utilise that anger so it’s energy is directed towards creativity, we find time to create understanding, empathy and common ground that includes diversity, that finds ways to integrate the diverse as a pool of information and insight towards the goal of managing our country together.

Some might say it’s a lot to ask for. Well it’s not going to be easy, that’s for sure, Not as easy as voting, and sitting back, doing bugger all and handing over taxes as payment for services – we cannot afford to be mere consumers of political ideologies, of our favourite and most liked personal prejudices….

We need to mature.

We need to start and we need to be courageous enough to do this, knowing that while we don’t have all the answers, we can find them, test them and move forwards as a Society.

I am saying that we have to be aware of how our own anger and our vulnerability can be used against us; how we can be triggered by the abusers, who KNOW our vulnerabilities well.. and do exploit them - look at the Redress Board and how they took an adversarial approach to witnesses - that adversarial approach was designed to exploit known vulnerabilities of Survivors, to create hesitation in their statements and thus to sow doubt about their testimony.

Look at how unresolved anger is triggered by propaganda. These processes are known and understood by Power and used to great and unfortunately lethal effect - eg: Afghanistan and Iraq and anti-muslim propganda, or anti-imigrant propganda.

Forgiveness, if it is to occur, can only be on the basis of true remorse on the part of the perpetrators, with reparations and restorative justice actualised, in material terms, and can only be offered by those who suffered as individuals, and is more importantly to be seen as a way of enabling Survivors release themselves from the pain, shame, confusion and anger they feel.

A shorter version of this was also sent out to Irish Media, and was published in the Irish Independent on February 1st 2011.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Conditioning, the plastic brain and effective change.....

For many years I have watched, initially within myself, then with others, how the conditioning we experience blurs our abilities to co-operate, to seek truthfully and honestly for understanding; I have watched as we 'debate' and exclude rather than share and explore; I have watched as we repeat the basic thoughts we have been most deeply conditioned to think with - such as the man/woman divide based on difference, the misunderstanding of the very nature and depth of Power Relationships because we have adapted to those Power Relationships in early early childhood....

I have watched and seen within myself how fear based rigid thinking undermines my accurate sensing of the world.

I am watching that now in others. I see how it is used in marketing, propaganda and I say this - it works, and it works because those who have not been able to see the fullness of conditioning, of their own conditioning, react in predictible ways that are written deep into their neurology, their physiology by that conditioning.

Informing each other is crucial...

1. Genetics is proven to have very little to do with psychology or character - it's all about how the child is treated - unless we know this and understand it we will repeat it, again and again, and again.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bi6x-4aNmM

2. There are no genetic female/male psychologies - it's all down to conditioning, and how we learn to relate... the brains of baby boys and baby girls are more or less identical...

http://www.thestar.com/atkinsonseries/atkinson2009/article/720004--part-4-newborn-brains-are-similar-so-nurture-makes-the-difference

3. Adverse childhood experiences are absolutely linked to emergent health issues in later life, linked to the emergence of addiction (from shopping to self-medicating), linked to obesity across all Society - most illnesses are pathologies that are the symptoms of abuse, trauma and adverse conditioning and are the results of the imposition of the systems or conditions we are taught or forced to accept and live within...

http://www.cdc.gov/ace/outcomes.htm

5. Neurology is NOT SET IN STONE - our brains, indeed our very nature, is responsive, plastic - but we are conditioned by fear to become reactive, rigid....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FugrcVhi2tg

http://www.eheart.com/cesarean/babies.html - the facts as to the awareness of babies, in utero and at birth and early infancy... and how they are affected by the mothers environment.

-------------------------------------------

Collapse can to be seen in these terms - the collapse of the mind-set and psychology we have been infected with,not the collapse of Society or basic structures that support life.

As we free ourselves from our conditioning by Power (and that requires 100% ruthless self honesty, as much as honesty with others - we must know our own experience in some detail) Power has less access to our psyches....

As we refuse to replace one set of conditioning with another, we free ourelves - Jones, Icke, and all the other fear makers, those who  promote fear as the way of change or reason for change are part of that conditioning, whether they are aware of it or not.

Long term planning was the key to the success of the hunter gatherer societies...... daily action was taken with the long term in mind... remember that the hunter gatherer society was the most successful mode of human existence in terms of stability, health and psychological well being... what are the qualities of that way of life that made it so?

What are the keys for such effective long term planning? 

My take is that the key that matters most is empathy, biological empathy, that is to say the ability to 'read' the signals that come from the environment accurately and to be able to utilise that information appropriately.

I and many others are making the connections between conditioning and the kind of behaviour which is the outcome of conditioning which reveals the roots of evil and the with that the understanding that human nature is not evil, (live backwards) that in fact our ...biology tends towards empathy as the basis for long term sustainablity of a society living within the natural habitat.

It is the disruption of the natural child-mother bonding processes (which build the neorology of empathy) that is absolutely key ....... hierarchy, power relationships, rigid gender roles all emerge from that lack of empathy because that resultant lack of empathy cuts one off from the ability to FEEL the world, to 'read' the signals of the environment in ways that lead to appropriate life nurturant behaviour, and that is a form of isolation and of course generates fear, and that fear then conditions the next generation.

The fear generates the perceived need to control others..

One can observe this procees by tracing the child-rearing practices of Civilisation and comparing them to the child nurturing practices of the natural societies. 

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

THE NATURAL CHILD : what every child needs!

THE EXPECTATIONS OF EVERY CHILD



The expectations of the natural child are to be loved, to be recognised as a unique being, to be seen as a valid being with feelings and sensings that no one need fear or challenge.

The natural child expects to meet competent adults who know what they are doing, who are integrated in harmony with the environment, who have mastered their own being and who behave with a deep respect.

The natural child expects to explore freely and to learn about the world he/she is born into.

The natural child expects to be able to learn from his oe her own experiences, and from older children, as much as the adults.

To the extent that these inherent expectations are met or not, and to the extent that the natural child is coerced or not, these factors will determine the psychological balance of the child and of course the adult the child grows into.

And an adult world that does not meet those expectatitons is the result of those adults having not met with their inherent natural expectations. For most this process is unconscious, and thus the cycles are repeated and as the saying goes ' we do not learn from history'....

Well then, enough is already far too much. Start now.

You can explore the nature of adverse systemic conditioning with these resources :

Alice Miller
www. alice-miller.com
David Smail
www.davidsmail.freeuk.com
John Taylor Gatto
www.johntaylorgatto.com
John Holt
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Holt_(educator)
Paulo Freire
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Freire

You can explore these themes with your heart, with a ruthless self honesty and by talking to and really listening to very young children .... ideology is of no use here, and neither is religion.

Break the cycles, see through your conditioning, only you can do the work that must be done for fre your mind and your heart.

There is nothng you can buy, steal or take that will open the fullest bliss of a life lived as life intends.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's your gift to universe

Nature Works : Logical Conclusions

WE ARE OF NATURE AND NATURE WORKS!

There is within us all, an innate, cognitive intelligence that enables us to live in a direct and intelligent relationship with the biosphere. This intelligence is heart based, is the seat of all true learning and of love. Nature is unconditional love, and seeks no profit margin, for such is unconditionality - our future as much a sour present will depend upon our willingness to know ourselves from within as opposed to those definitions that we are subjected to by culture, by religion, by ideology or by abuse.

Nature uncorrupted provides all living creatures what is required for a life of vitality. We 'civilised' humans know nothing of the inner life of plants and animals - we do not speak their language and we have lost all empathy for those that share this life. Nonetheless the awareness is available, for it is innate in every cell.

Trust me, on this.

More importantly, Trust yourself!

Trust your cells, for they are your life.

Feel and sense the intelligence that is innate. Allow yourself to define yourself thus.




Peace and blessings of life to all.





Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's your gift to universe