Natural Child, Natural Society

Environment, social power and biological influence.

Every living organism on Earth that we know about is influenced by, and e influences, the environment from which they emerge.

"One cannot hope to understand the phenomena of psychological distress, nor begin to think what can be done about them, without an analysis of how power is distributed and exercised within society." David Smail

The degrees of influence vary… and all participation matters.

There are networks of living influencers all across biology, in webs, networks, layers, currents, flows and interfaces. From bacteria to fungi, from ants to elephants, with wolves and beavers, flowers and trees.

All of life..

They all are active participants in life, rather than passive. We are too.

We are born both as influences of that environment, and as influencers of that environment.

There is a feed back loop built in that feeds into balance, that enables recovery after occasional trauma, solves problems.

A healing mechanism.

Every child on Earth will be influenced by, and will influence, the social environment.

Natural Child, Natural Society

I see both as cause and effect at the same time.

A natural society observes the nature of the child and responds to the child as a person, with dignity and respect, interest and support and a deep trust in the child’s abilities to cope with life, to develop the natural skills required for thriving in the environment, social and biological, in which they all live.

It’s should not come as a surprise to learn that the more that balance is disrupted, the more likely adverse behaviour and disease states will emerge in significant numbers.

Mad States make for maddened people.

Sick States make for a sickened people.

Happy States make for a happy people.

Bully States make for a bullied people.

“Given the kind of society you were born into, and all that you have experienced and lived through, it’s no wonder you feel the way you do.”

No man is an island.

David Smail puts it eloquently:

“Hardly any of the 'symptoms' of psychological distress may correctly be seen as medical matters. The so-called psychiatric 'disorders' are nothing to do with faulty biology, nor indeed are they the outcome of individual moral weakness or other personal failing. They are the creation of the social world in which we live, and that world is structured by power.

Social power may be defined as the means of obtaining security or advantage, and it will be exercised within any given society in a variety of forms: coercive (force), economic (money power) and ideological (the control of meaning). Power is the dynamic which keeps the social world in motion. It may be used for good or for ill.

One cannot hope to understand the phenomena of psychological distress, nor begin to think what can be done about them, without an analysis of how power is distributed and exercised within society.”

I think that’s pretty clear.

"One cannot hope to understand the phenomena of psychological distress, nor begin to think what can be done about them, without an analysis of how power is distributed and exercised within society."
read that again. reflect on it. it will deliver much useful insight, and provide a guide through the current power establishment.

Biology, being the source of intelligence, has crafted a basic functional element, which I call optimal biological health, to ensure the relatively smooth functioning of living systems within a dynamically changing environment.

Hierarchies of power and violence undermine that balance.

Hierarchies of power and violence tend to impose chronic stress.

Balance is, in human terms, a question of how we respond to the evidence, rather than rely upon a reaction to get us out of trouble. The evidence is this.

We humans have embodied within us, within every cell and organ, a state of optimal biological health.

It does not include mass violence, abuse of power, loss of empathy, bullying, stealing or hoarding, self alienation, the generation gap, religious or ideological shame and guilt, addictions, obsessions, compulsions.

These are all symptoms of a state of dis-ease, a state of chronic stress.

These are also interwoven with symptoms of unresolved trauma that remain unresolved over many, many generations, and emerge as chronic stress related disease and socially accepted prejudice, nationalist hatreds, othering in general.

The emergence of so many adverse symptoms across all populations is a clear sign that the social and institutional environment is not a healing space, and is in fact creating a blockage to reaching a state of optimal human biological health, individually and as a species.

Sustainability is impossible if the current power culture persists in this psychological dysfunction.

It’s not about left/right, it’s about health and the people, now, today, and it must also encompass our long term responsibilities to future generations of humanity. Optimal human biological health.

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.

Political Power Health and Safety Check required, immediately.

Milosovic

Blair

The Vatican

These three images are just a hint at the dynamic of how insitutional power is reflexively defensive of it's position and manages harms that are exposed in ways that ensure they remain in power. The individuals at the top have usually internalised that power, and identify with that rather than the people over whom they have that power.

Loss of empathy is inherent. Hubris is common. Arrogance is the norm.

Established Power needs to be submitted to a full health and safety check, by the people.

That is pure common sense logic. However, there is a problem….. we have a problem.

Institutions, power and honesty.

“School tends to be a dishonest as well as a nervous place. We adults are not often honest with children, least of all in school. We tell them, not what we think, but what we feel they ought to think; or what other people feel or tell us they ought to think.

The fact is that we (the adult world) do not feel an obligation to be truthful to children.

We are like managers and manipulators of news in Washington, Moscow, London, Peking and Paris and all the other capitals of the world.

We think it is our right and our duty, not to tell the truth but to say whatever will best serve our cause – in this case, the cause of making children grow up into the kind of people we want them to be, thinking whatever we want them to think.

We have only to convince ourselves (and we are very easily convinced) that a lie will be ‘better’ for the children than the truth, and we will lie. We don’t always need even that excuse; we often lie only for our own convenience.”

Written in 1964, by John Holt who had thousands of hours of observation of children in schools across America. He wrote a few superb books on children and learning, and energised the homeschooling/unschooling movement in the USA.

How much does this insight resonate today, in 2017, in the UK?

Institutions are power centres.

Schools are also power centres.

It’s where we learn how to behave within an institutionalised power hierarchy.

‘No child left behind.’

Power Centres will always reflexively seek to defend that Power. Those who hold high office will often internalise that value completely. To the exclusion of healthy common sense and empathy, to a psychologically unstable degree.

There are examples in every area of society – Religion: the Vatican and Pedophilia – Politics, War and indoctrination : HiIlsborough, Chilcott, Levenson I – Health and Safety : Amoco Cadiz, Bhopal, Flint Water Supply, Fracking. Can you begin to see the pattern of behaviours?

There are plenty of examples in schools where matters of abuse or negligence or bias have been hushed up.

There are plenty of schools where teachers have been ‘convinced’ to support the diagnosis of ADHD and the subsequent drugging of children as a class room management strategy, etc etc - (more than my job/income, food, shelter, family is worth to challenge this is understandable, the teacher is being bullied institutionally and knows not to irk the masters).

And, in all of this activity, in so many areas of civic and commercial insitutional culture we see minor officials, lower ranks coerced to comply with the instructions of the powerful, to defend the institution rather than acknowledge the harms and be exposed. Iraq.

This is an easily identified pattern, with a massive evidence base that is quite reliable.

Established Power will use its power to protect itself.

The People are not to challenge that.

We see the powerful hire the best and most expensive legal teams to oppose ordinary people with relatively little comparative power, where the battle is one of financial resources, with one side far wealthier than the other….

We see out of court settlements. “It could take years, take the offer!”

We do not see the full evidence.

We do not see justice.

Fines.

No criminal indictments.

The powerful will defend their position of power at all costs.

That is why Public Inquiries have failed to deliver Justice.

Power Hierarchies impose pressure to perform downwards, upon all subordinates, and failure to follow instructions by higher ranking personnel leading to loss of job for the lower ranking personnel is one of those intentional pressures.

Even when an order or instruction is illegal, amoral, destructive, negligent or corrupt, that pressure remains a potent leverage in today’s public and private Institutions. Who wants to be a whistle blower? Who would brave that storm?

Cover ups and mitigations do happen, and never by accident.

Political, economic, ideological and religious power demands that the holder be a bully, and bullies are more attracted to power than those who are not bullies.

The bully who is driven by the institutional environment to be more effective becomes professionalised. Fully committed.

That degree of committment to gaining and holding power is a social problem, a root dysfunction, a foundational malady.

Only when power is taken up as a shared responsibility of the grass roots tax payers, the people who both fund and who work in Civil Society will we have a safe, honest social political system.

Those who hold too much power will not yield it willingly.

Teresa May is demonstrating that right now. She is for the bullies. She backs Trumps call for Air Strikes against Syria, whilst the nation reels from a horror the Government (New Labour, Tory and Lib-Dem) created in Grenfell Towers. Air Strikes against urban areas with social housing..........

What does that really mean?

I am also talking about the culture at the lowest ranks in the hierarchies of power.. how debilitating and threatening the presence of poverty and disdain is, how corrosive it is.

There are many people who will seek to defend their bias, internalise their opinion as fact, deny the evidence, mitigate the responsibility at all levels.

I am interested in the psychological experiential root, rather than then violence itself, and I want to understand how that afflicts us all, and how do we recover from that, to what degree is recovery possible in the current environment?

We here at the grass roots must work for our own recovery as part of the resolution.

We also have to organise and protect our civil society, administer our shared resources with wisdom and enhance the environment of our community.

We cannot wait for the Established Power to awaken, to come to it’s senses, to re-humanise, to recover.

We must get on with it.

If we do, and I think many of us are, and more are joining in every day, then perhaps it is more likely that Established Power can be submitted to a full health and safety check by the people.

Our Lives Matter. I need a Government.

Our Lives Matter.

My life matters.

Your life matters.

I need a Government composed of psychologically and emotionally healthy adults who refuse to participate adversarial opinion based or ideological based power struggles, which is a key strategy in the prevention of all the ills that such power struggles generate.

I need a Government composed of psychologically whole, emotionally healthy and kind adults who energetically and passionately discuss the evidence, work through it, and then work together on delivering civil policies that resolve problems, that nurture social happiness.

I need a Government whose policy is based, I repeat it again and again, on all available evidence pertinenet to the policy, none omitted, and with an eye to new evidence emerging, requiring a healthy response, a certain plasticity for freedom to grow.

I need a Government and civil service that understands I pay it's wages, that pays all dues respect to me as an individual, and as part of the social collective.

Me and the millions of other tax payers.

We pay their wages.

We must be the ones to tell them what is working well and what is not working, or is unsafe, and that information ought tell them what to do.

Our money.

Our lives.

Our Lives Matter.

The Grenfell residents who were burned alive needed that. They asked for it. They were ignored. Individually, collectively and institutionally.

And so they died.

There is a line of responsibility here, a social influence that has corrupted sound Governance.

A breach of trust, of duty of care, a failure and a catasprophe that is only worsened by any attempts to deflect responsibility and manage perceptions of a 'crisis', in order to remain in Government or get away with statuary negligence.

Public Inquiry?

I need a Government of honest folk, who, when accidents occur and bad things happen that were avoidable, when harms are caused, they will be the kind who with all intgrity, put their hands up and take due responsibility, where it lies, in such an event.

Better still I want a Government of honest folk who will prevent the avoidable, rather than merely insure against it.

I want an honest Government, a Transparent Government and I want civil and social infrastructure to be a publicly owned and managed common wealth, I want homes not investiment vehicles and I want peace abroad rather than War.

The current set up is not inevitable, it has no natural entitlement to our lives, our hearts or, for that matter, our wallets and our children.

Let's make it plain, it's not about Labour, it's not about parties - it is about a ruling class that have disabled a geneuine democracy from emerging.

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.

Evidence and opinion, again.

Getting a grip on articulating the difference I sense between evidence and opinion.

Spotting the danger signs.

One cannot get angry AT evidence, unless of course, the evidence incriminates that person, and they wish to avoid it. That is another matter altogether.

Evidence, simply put , is what it is. 

Nothing one can say about it alters that. 

The evidence is neutral. It can inform, that is all.

No opinion about it alters it's basic state. 

Opinion does not change the evidence.

What is different in opinion is that the perception r bias of the 'observer' has interjected, and thrown up a projection, an internalisation, a denial.

Opinions tend to be held as personal opinions. 

They form part of self-identification and include shared internalisations, drawn from cultural, institutional, experiential, educational influencers. 

The Flag, Football Team, Big Tits are Good, Religion, Ideology, Vast Wealth, Aspiration, Alpha Male, Women are ..., Republican or Democrat?  all opinion.

For someone who holds a personal opinion, when it is challenged, they feel that the challenge is to them, to their very self, and react accordingly to the threat. 

That's why it goes skewiff  - the other party is taking things personally, and is probably unaware that they are so doing. Put two opinion holders together and watch what happens. 

People who hold opinions carry a tendency to be extremist, if only because they lack accurate information, and tend to rely upon a flow of triggers(media) and their own imagination for political insight. 

There is a spectrum over which we find many subtle extremisms, built into neurotypical or socially conditioned culture. 

These subtle extremists are on all sides, because they like to take a side, wrong or right, but always, in their own eyes, right.  They also like to know what's happening inside the other side. It's a game.

Trident. Some people believe it is right.

Brexit. Some people believe it is right.

Grenfell Towers, one week on, and survivors are still not fully covered for all their very pressing needs. 

The evidence is that the survivors deserve the full power of the state, and all material and psycho-social support to be given over to caring for these tragic people, without question, even as the search for the missing, and the investigation into how many were burned alive, are under way.  So many people afflicted.

Is it right that these people are fixated on Brexit, and that is a distraction from the real need the must be met, now, of our own people, who they claim to 'serve'?

Is that right?

These people in Government are behaving as they have been groomed and trained. Quite a lot, the Civil servants, clerical staff, back bench MPs, Coppers are decent enough people, are not violent in any way; most are doing their best to live as decent healthy humane beings who live, love and pass on. 

Their executive branch are a different matter. The political masters, local and national, must be held to account. They have committed crimes, and must be held to account.

The evidence suggests compassion, and direct action.

Violence Labelling. An avoidance tactic.

I wrote this for a friend, who was articulating her sadness, her 'sombre mood' and I realise I wrote it for me, and for you too.
"Your feeling this way is part of your for humanity, and your feeling is healthy......

Stand as that health where ever you are.

Vulnerability is part of who we are at our very best, sensitive, aware. honest.... from these all kindnesses come.
And when these human qualities are trampled by insensitive government, by media and by any others dedicated to diminishing awareness and veiling blatant corruption, it is such a bigness of it that we can feel a little lost. However, that comparison, for me at least, is inaccurate, because I know we are all backed up by biology, the logic of life, the bio-logic.

Life stands with us, as we stand with Life. The system is tiny by comparison,and we are even tinier that the system. The system is a disease state that has become institutionalised, and this is a healing planet.

The biological mandate for healthy human beings does not include making war, bullying, domination..... these are all disease states emerging from hierarchical institutional violence. On a healing planet.

You are healthy.

We are healers.

That's another reason to write and speak and sing into the world we share.".

That said, I'd like to share some thoughts arising from the media led 'debate' about whether or not the van attack at the Finsbury Mosque was terrorism, and what place, ranking has White Nationalist Islamophobic Terrorism has, and so on... roll on the 24/7 word fest, a pompous parade of people who they believe they are thinking, but are not.

Here's my thinking, laid out.

Violence Labelling.

Islamic Terrorism.

Islamophobia.

British Nationalist Terrorism (IDA, UVF etc..)

Counter-Insurgency.

Domestic Abuse.

Pedophilia.

Kings.

God.

War.

Remove the adjectives.

Take away the labels.

What is in the can?

Violence.

War is violence.

Terrorism is violence.

Armed Rebellion is violence.

Insurgency is violence.

Counter-Insurgency is violence.

Rape is violence.

Bullying is violence.

Indoctrination is violence.

Usury is violence.

Debt is violence.

Psychological manipulation is violence.

Withholding shared resources is violence.

Hoarding wealth is violence.

Telling children WHAT to think, using a reward punishment dynamic is violence.

Cladding a high rise social housing building in flammable material for the aesthetic of the rich is violence.

The issue is violence.

Not merely whose violence.

“Our wars are good wars, their war is terrorism, and therefore it is bad.”

No. Not having that.

All violence.

Violence. Power. Bullying. Manipulation.

All that violence that is fully staffed, professionalised and industrialised.

One cannot talk sensibly about terrorism without examining all the evidence in detail.

Looking at all the evidence, we can say that making policy based on opinions in this area is either intentional or unintentional and therefore nastily dangerous or psychologically unstable, or both.

When States commit to war – the intent is real, emerges from a source and has a plan and it’s run by people whose unconscious motivations are driven by disease, rather than a healthy intelligence.

To maintain the delusion of ‘Freedom and Democracy’ they avoid aspects of the available evidence, most of which exists in the lived domain of ordinary people’s lives at the bottom of the heap and talk about abstracts such as ‘Freedom and Democracy’.

It’s all drivel.

So how to tackle it?

Refuse to participate.

Look at the problem, dig into the detail.

Learn from ones own experience as part of that examination.

Were you ever bullied? What was that? What were the outcomes?

On a scientific, evidential basis we can look at what generates and maintains the cycles of violence at each level: for example (any substantial or diagnostic list or network charting of actors and influences would be much more detailed than the outlines I give here).

- Individual : Damage in Utero, disrupted development, stress induced by not being understood, adult controlling reactions to that stress

- Family : Addiction, bullying, child abuse, domestic abuse, Hierarchy of Power

- Community : Fear of the other, maintenance of a hierarchy, disruption by conquest,

- Language group : Fear of the other, disruption by conquest

- Religion : Fear of the other, fear of self, shame, guilt, sin.

- Historical Trauma : Patterns of wounded behaviour become normalised

- Criminals : Can only operate within a property owning culture. For example, by decriminalising weed, and granting folk the right to grow their own, and to consume it, but not to sell it removes the criminal income stream. Why would a Government not do that?

- Institutions : Holding power, they defend themselves, even as they are hurting innocents.

- States : War Capability, Corrupted Justice and Police Systems, Wealth control

- Ideology : Belief, omitting evidence, indoctrination,

- Environment : Lack of a healthy environment, chronic stress, unresolved trauma, street violence, neglect, divide between rich and poor,

- Genetics : no evidence that violence is a genetic predisposition

- Biology : no evidence that we, as a species, are naturally violent,

- Internalisation : all evidence points towards internalisation of external values and beliefs, via indoctrination, manipulation and spin, has a huge association with the permission for violence.

… and we can try to see how they interact, what the dynamic flows are, how do these levels of action and interaction synergise and materialise.

Of course, this is just a short list, and the web is far more complex – yet the basic core is simple, and when it is disrupted, violence emerges.

What are the common themes?

Every outcome related to an event has meaning, is evidence.

All hidden outcomes are part of the product, from sourcing material to final product, use and it’s discarding.

Opinion might be a useful guide, at times, as to what might need some examination; the opinion itself, it is not evidence, and cannot take the place of evidence.

As the British public are slowly discovering with regards to Brexit, and Fire Safety for Social Housing.

Violence is the issue.

Power, psychological and economic distress, recovery.

David Smail has written some of the most scientifically honest and insightful writings on the psychologies of power in the UK, and how they afflict ordinary people's lives ..... how the effects of distal power percolate down into the lives of ordinary people who have little power by comparision to change the behaviour of that distal power. The lived experience of people subjected to political and economic adversities. and their relations within a society that maintains the disparity inherent in that distal power relationship.

"Hardly any of the 'symptoms' of psychological distress may correctly be seen as medical matters. The so-called psychiatric 'disorders' are nothing to do with faulty biology, nor indeed are they the outcome of individual moral weakness or other personal failing. They are the creation of the social world in which we live, and that world is structured by power.

One cannot hope to understand the phenomena of psychological distress, nor begin to think what can be done about them, without an analysis of how power is distributed and exercised within society. Such an understanding is the focus of the work of David Smail."

He observe that many influential elements within the medical and political establishments look at the symptoms, the distress that people present with, and refuse to look at the whole social context, and thus they limit their examination, diagnosis and prognosis to the individual. And therefore they cannot resolve nor can they heal the situation.

He says that is a faulty approach. I agree.

We must include the social setting and context as part of the examination, diagnosis and prognosis of the individual. The evidence matters, all of it.

In this short video, he goes over the general thesis, in clear easy english, and so gently, yet firmly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5ByF_0HV5w

A must view, and I urge readers to follow up his writings, they are easy to read, simple straight language and spot on, evidence based.

www.davidsmail.info - his writings.... if you disliked Thatcher, you're gonna love Smail, and still be challenged.

Help those who are truly in need, now, and confront the problem as we go.... honestly.

Help those who are truly in need, now, and confront the problem as we go.... honestly. I will repeat in this piece. Sorry!

On Numbers.... I'm not so sure.

At least the council could say how many people they are currently caring for, and get them to collate any others being helped outside the council's operations, by the police, red cross, other charities, NHS etc... that way we know who is alive, and we will find out the rest when the investigation is complete….

Do we need to know before the survivors, and the families of the deceased and missing?

Need to know.

Privacy and respect is not secrecy.

The fire investigators do need to collect evidence and examine that building in detail, and they will. The Fire Fighters investigation will do to the best of their ability and expertise, and they have solid backing.

We know that a criminal investigation is under way, with much of the evidence in the public domain already, That is proceeding. The survivors will need time,space, privacy, support in every way, ensuring that the helpers are always listening, and hearing the survivors.

For this, the Survivors immediate need is for us, The State and The People, to hold them first in our deliberations - they would probably suggest we hold all those living in high-rise or high density social housing, by protecting their peers in high rises elsewhere, taking immediate action, use the army if need be, they can be excellent builders....

I don't give a hoot what Government does it,minority, dodgy majority, unity, cross party whatever. Just do it.

This would remove the fear many survivors will be experiencing for the hundreds of thousands in high rise high density social housing, easing their burden somewhat in a tangible way.....

A National Infrastructure Project, carried out by the people, on fixed fee transparent social contracts... fully funded. We make this happen. Peacefully. Firmly. It is our money. Focus.

They also need appropriate accommodation, close to each other, clear lines of communication, privacy, technical assistance on all material issues, income, access to professional quality counseling, access to medical and nutritional support, access to health gyms, saunas, all healing and body work resources; they will also need to resume life living as families, as neighbors, as schools, as clubs and associations as soon as they are ready.

The entire population around the towers, those who live in the area will be traumatised too, many struggling, each to a different degree, in different ways...

The need is huge, and they don't need energy diverted from that... by rage, or violence or blame game, venting etc (it's ok to to express that anger, and it's meaning, it is felt and real - smashing things probably won't help the Survivors and others afflicted by this horrific man made disaster.) before all the evidence is up, and they are ready for the next step. They matter.

The investigations will feed into an inquest, which can be had once the full toll is known, and all the survivors are ready to participate in the inquest. That could be a few months from now.

Then, wherever criminal actions are clear, prosecutions must follow. And be severe. The police have cautioned that they will make arrests if the see evidence that warrants any arrests. I think they will want to do this and do the job well, and bring justice.

Then, and only then should a Public Inquiry start.

And we will be ready for that.

And it will not be a Chilcott, or a Hillsborough.

We will go beyond party politics, and get to the heart of the matter.

Our intent must be, among other things, Government by the people (who pay the wages and costs) instructing a national team of elected deliberaters and officials to host the public good, and engage in an adult,rational, emotionally intelligent discourse on Governance and the needs of a people, as a learning rather than adversarial team league politics. We can make that happen.

Kick political football right out of the field!

To be honest, I don't think that's too much to ask, do you?

That's the hope.

The rage that so many died such horrific deaths, burned alive even as they tried to escape, or save their own children or brother... or granny..over human action or inaction. is understandable, and meaningful.

It cannot go away.

It is here.

It's real.

It's how it is.

For the survivors It's indescribably harsh.

And we who are less directly affected, and are together, so to speak, we gotta be strong enough to hold the survivors, and the families of those who have died, and their communities, these people who are alive and who are now before us, and our entire community most move to enfold and hold it all together, to make it so that those people can feel safe, that we are here to nurture, to counsel, to listen and hear, until they feel they can continue, that they need not worry about material needs, and that they will remain as a community, as long as they so wish, in the same locale..... in sound accommodation, rather than high rise hotels, and all else that they need. Make their material worries vanish, and hold them.

They will want to cook for themselves, do their own laundry, use the cash to buy what they need, and much else besides. They will want to establish routines, and to live on.

And each of those things that they do that restores their sense of autonomy, of continuing, will help them deal with this, as long as we are walking with them, always listening, checking what we have heard so they know they are being heard.

They will want to tell their stories, to piece it together, to understand it and share that process with those around them, being strong in it together.

They are all vulnerable, yet powerfully human...

And we gotta make healthy social change the coolest thing on the planet.

How cool is Healthy Governance? The ultimate cool, baby!

Where the elected employees of the people hear the peoples instructions, and carry them out, funded by the people via taxation, with a mutual feedback process between people and People's Service so everyone knows what's happening, and it works. A social economy. For people.

Kick the political footballs into the ditch! That is our job now.

And the pain is still here. The horror, the fear,the shame. The confusion. The rage. The despair. I

t doesn't go away when I am happy, well just chilling, grooving... it's still there. I have to carry my bit, and share my part of the community's.... we must be strong for all the survivors. Everywhere. Let us not burden them.

Each so small, yet the love of the grass roots is so big that vast herds of buffalo can run over it, eat it, and shit on it, all over it and it still grows!

Makes The State look really small indeed.

Not what they were thinking when they wrote their small state bullshit economic theories. Small Minded State. Not what we wanted, not what we want.

It's really good to know you.

That you're out there, recycling, and cycling onwards. Musicing onwards. Living onwards. You, All the good, decent, stressed or happy, ordinary folk who make this world work, who are this society, and the majority pattern is that we present the best of our behaviour, and we are kinder than any Government.

All praise to the ancestors. All praise to our descendants.

I want to hear the people, not the media.

I want to hear the people, not the media.

I am listening to the people.

I want to hear from the media - how the survivors are being cared for, in detail, to know that they are being cared for with the best, most professional, most loving care possible.

In detail. What institutions and who are doing what.... and how it is working out.

I don't really need to hear a death toll score board being slowly updated in the public domain.

I can wait for the final death toll.

The Survivors and their families and the families of those who died do not need a public theatre, whilst the fire recovery and investigation is under way.

They will likely need to go through this in privacy, in safety, according to their own needs and wishes. Their situation must guide this above all else.

We can wait.

Meanwhile.

I do not want to hear about Inquiries governed by those who bear responsibility for the policies and the way those were implemented that led to this disaster.

I want that Government to stand down, immediately, and allow a national unity alliance to take the helm, and those other parties must put down the party split, there must be no opposition to the will of the people.

They cannot be allowed to investigate themselves, or have a hand in the investigations or access to confidential investigation materials or information or personnel.

The media must cease the drip drip theatre of horror.

Show some respect.

Show due respect.

We have social media, each other and open lines of communication across the grass roots, and we know enough to not need that theatre slammed in our faces day in, day out, as they sell advertising space.

We want facts, we want reliable information, we do not want opinion.

We want fullest expression of duty of care, we want a free hands to be the ones who carry out the investigations, 100% transparently.

That is our legal right. Our moral right.

Put it another way, the current Government, being the Government in power during which the conditions preceding this disaster were altered, cannot be allowed to Govern the investigations 'at arms length' either....

The rest of Parliament has to stand up, and with all due care and attention, do it's duty to the people, who are their paymasters, above and beyond any party political assignations, and pursue the evidence, place responsibility, and be just. Be Just and Robust in carrying out their duty to us all.

No excuses. This is an adult conversation.

The lived experience, before the fire. Evidence.

People are still in the building, people raised safety issues for two years prior.

Grenfell Towers.

Immediate necessities, a starting point, and a timeline of action.

I think - and bear in mind my lack of expertise, or access to any resource, or experience in any of this, and my lack of knowledge on so much of the detail of this dreadful trauma, this unforgiving event, this horror and it's implications, I think that without delay – the nation, we the people and the state must meet the needs of the people who are affected, bearing in mind that each and everyone of them will be an individual case, with individual dynamics and will need precisely attenuated support to meet their needs. No one size fits all protocols. Meet those needs in full, without any reservation. Attention to detail essential as these people process and deal with what has just happened, and is happening to them.

Appropriate support without question. Just a thought.

Provided with love, and shared grief, and all due care and intention.

Here's something else I thought about.

I'd like to share this perspective. I have not seen it anywhere else, though I have not looked so hard to see. I want to have it checked.

My question is am I making sense?

The answer is not about me.

Here goes.

The lived experience, before the fire.

Bear in mind for a moment the time 2 - 3 year period, planning, installation, emergence of problems, emergence of evidence, emergence of detailed complaints brought to the management ‘organisation’ based on available evidence, and not being heard when raising these matters again, and again, and living all that time with a sense of the risk…. of a fire.

If I and my family were living on upper floors.

How nervous would I be?

Day in, day out.

Morning, noon and night, 24/7?

Over a period of two years or so.

Inadequate response and minimal action taken, grudgingly.

Issues avoided.

Threats.

There is evidence of all this in the public domain.

Evidence.

Terror.

Evidence.

A constant state of being aware of an unbearable risk, and not being heard by those responsible for that risk? Your children? My mother?

Leaving those families, imagine leaving your family in that potentially lethal uncertainty for an extended period?

How that that happen? How is that possible? Where is this possible?

Cui Bono?

This egregious incident, this dreadful trauma is set in a context of a political and economic ideology that is re-directing taxation revenue, (a shared community resource, with all that that should imply), and turning it towards commercial profit based contracted out work, as a cultural practice, placing the taxpayers funds into an arena where the ideology of business is to make something and do something, and then cut costs – usually labour costs, material costs, externalised costs – to increase profit yield well beyond the cost of the civil infrastructure and a fair fee, which ought to be the correct approach for a civil project of any kind.

Taxes are not for shareholders, or bond holders.

Taxes are for people.

Civic infrastructure cannot be a profit center.

Civic is not business., it is not commerce.

It is about us, as a people. Our home. Land.

Our money. Our lives. Our children.

The State can afford to bail out the Banks, whose behaviour was the root cause of the problem, yet it cannot afford to implement the recommendations of the Lakanal House Coroners Inquest … immediately?

That said, Eric Pickles first public response to the Coroner’s recommendation’s is interesting. He avoids more than he embraces. Have a read. Read it again. Break it down.

So from here, today I suggest a timeline:

1. Complete fire investigation, and while that is underway collect ALL evidence from residents related to the incident, and all material, hard copy or digital, related to the entire process from planning to delivery to emergence of issues to the incident, from all sources. Assign adequate, sustainable resources to complete the task rapidly, thoroughly.

PROTECT THE 650,00 people living in High Rise buildings. Now.

2. Initiate a police inquiry. Let that roll.

3. At the same time, as I outline above, which is now, should have been immediate, without delay – the nation, we the people and the state must meet the needs of the people who are affected, bearing in mind that each and everyone of them will be an individual case, with individual dynamics and will need precisely attenuated support to meet their needs. No one size fits all protocols. Meet those needs in full, without any reservation. Attention to detail essential as these people process and deal with what has just happened, and is happening to them. Appropriate support without question.

4. Immediate implementation of the Lakanal House Fire Investigation and Coroners recommendations, by legislation, then immediate action, starting with checks.

5. Surely this is worth more to the tax payer, the ordinary citizen, and all our children than the 100 billion ear marked for Trident, another destructive nasty lethal mass accident waiting to happen.

6. Inquest on completion of the Fire Investigation.

7. If any form of criminal responsibility emerges, indictments, criminal investigations, sanctions, prosecutions.

8. Inquiry. Must examine the culture, the behaviour, the outcomes based on all the available evidence.

8.a There must be robust legislative response to the Inquiry, immediately after the Inquiry has published its findings.
9. Material action must follow on its heels.

And we must maintain oversight at the grass roots level, and have executive rights in terms of decision making during progress. Government instructed by the people.

Civic Infrastructure must be set aside from the corporate profit culture. It is wholly inappropriate and it creates a series of well known and well documented conflicts of interest. It’s a shit storm.

Hillsborough, et al.

The fact that folks think the emergence of the Hillsborough Inquiry is the exception that proves the rule, when it is the rule. The exception meme is a veil.

Denial, mitigation, preserving power, status, rank, organisation is the rule.

The History of Public Inquiries and Government or State response in the UK is appalling, and it is frequently toxic mime of Justice that is acted out, time and time again, against a relatively disempower people.

And some people have the temerity to complain about British Sovereignty? Give me a break!

This behaviour is not rational at the human level.

It is rationalised at the institutional level.

That cannot stand.

Start today.

Hold our brothers ad sisters, our mothers and fathers close. Be strong enough to bear it and act on what we know, with what we have - our Human Rights.

Meet the needs of the people who are affected, afflicted with this horrific trauma - each and everyone of them will be an individual case, with individual dynamics and will need precisely attenuated support to meet their needs.

Call in the UN?

The UN issued a damning Human Rights Report on the UK in 2018, following on after a previous report in 2009 that was not exactly glowing, on Human Rights Breaches committed by the British Government, across the UK.

have a read : it's quite clear.

“This was the Committee’s first review of the UK since 2009 and thus its first verdict on the Austerity policies pursued by successive governments since the financial crash. Over eight months the Committee conducted a dialogue with government officials, the UK human rights commissions and civil society groups.

In a wide ranging assessment, expressed in unusually strong terms, the Committee sets out the following findings:

Tax policies, including VAT increases and reductions in inheritance and corporation tax, have diminished the UK’s ability “to address persistent social inequality and to collect sufficient resources to achieve the full realization of economic, social and cultural rights”. The Committee recommends the UK adopt a “socially equitable” tax policy and the adoption of strict measures to tackle tax abuse, in particular by corporations and high-net-worth individuals.
Austerity measures introduced since 2010 are having a disproportionate adverse impact on the most marginalised and disadvantaged citizens including women, children, persons with disabilities, low-income families and those with two or more children. The Committee recommends that the UK reverse the cuts in social security benefits and reviews the use of sanctions.
The new ‘National Living Wage’ is not sufficient to ensure a decent standard of living and should be extended to under-25s. The UK should also take steps to reduce use of “zero hour contracts”, which disproportionately affect women.
Despite rising employment levels the Committee is concerned about the high number of low-paid jobs, especially in sectors such as cleaning and homecare.
The Committee urges the UK to take immediate measures to reduce the exceptionally high levels of homelessness, particularly in England and Northern Ireland, and highlights the high cost and poor quality of homes in the private rented sector and the lack of sufficient social housing.
The UK is not doing enough to reduce reliance on food banks.

Jamie Burton, Chair of Just Fair, said:

“The UN’s verdict is clear and indisputable. It considered extensive evidence and gave the Government every opportunity to show why its tax and policy reforms were necessary and fair. In many important respects the Government proved unable to do this. It is clear that since 2010, ministers were fully aware that their policies would hit lower income groups hardest and deepen the suffering of many already facing disadvantage without offering any long term gain for the pain they inflicted. We urge the Government to take heed of the Committee’s recommendations and commit to ensuring that it does not diminish human rights further in the UK.”

Simon Duffy, Director of the Centre for Welfare Reform, a member of the Just Fair Consortium said:

"The past six years of Austerity have seen the UK Government intentionally diminish the rights of its own citizens.

The Centre for Welfare Reform welcomes the news that the United Nations has strongly criticised the UK Government for these policies - policies that have harmed immigrants, asylum seekers, disabled people and those living in poverty. There is no good reason for these ongoing attacks; instead it seems likely that these groups have been targeted simply because they are convenient scapegoats for problems they did not cause.

"The UK Government's policy has been shameful, and so is the ongoing failure of most of the media to attend to the impact of Austerity. So, we are all the more grateful to Just Fair for coordinating the efforts of civil society organisations like ourselves, and for helping to draw attention to these injustices.

"The Government of the UK is now in chaos and its future leadership is uncertain. Sadly it is unlikely that any immediate change in leadership will lead to the recognition of the UK's human rights obligations. Given recent events, it is even to be feared that the Government might try to blame international bodies for holding them to account for the obligations they freely entered into.

"The Centre adds its voice to all those who seek an end to Austerity and to the mounting injustice we've seen over the past six years. We will continue to work with groups or organisations who seek to advance justice, human rights and respect for all human beings - in all our diversity."

The Just Fair Consortium includes 76 national and local organisations and has published a series of reports that have highlighted the impact of austerity measures .

Full report here: http://www.centreforwelfarereform.org/news/uk-in-breachhuman-rights/00287.html

Business as usual.

This dreadful, lethal fire, this horror must therefore be assessed within the wider context of an ideological political and social setting.

It is so much more, such that one can say that it is an institutional power culture.

An institutional culture that assumes the risk is, more often than not, worth it, when the poor pay the price.

And think too of the many, many others, innocents all, who die in wars our taxes are spent on. Risk Assessed.

A culture where one will assess the cheapest manner in which to appear to meet the risk, and deal with any consequences, no matter how grave, with resistance to the evidence, followed by Public Inquiries, and much later on related some legislative change.. and as we see, repeatedly, responsibilities are not assigned for the harms caused, even if a settlement is made. The status quo is preserved.

Justice as a business model.

Pay the fee, no body is jailed. It is just another business expense.

Now then, what’s next?

Is it not quite appalling that we taxpayers are forced to accept this as good Governance?

“Strong and Stable?”

“Things can only get better?”

“All in it together?”

“Big Society?”

Empty slogans.

Bullying.

Resolvable.

Surely, in 2017?

Twenty First Century….

This is where we are.

And it's shit.

Which is why we really must deal with it, and clean it up.

Like healthy adults would.

The dead are now our ancestors.

We must listen to our ancestors.

We too will become ancestors.

What will we leave for our descendants?

We are alive now.

Start today.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

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