The Psychology of a culture is revealed and perpetuated in how they relate to and treat their children and in how they relate to and treat the most vulnerable people within their society. Heal that and we can heal everything.
We live within a Hierarchy of Wealth, Power and Violence Dominator Culture. Reactionary : Institutional defence against transparency and justice
The last 40 years of Survivor testimony emerging world wide and how religious and state institutions have reacted to that testimony tells us something and has established the following observations as scientific evidence.
Every institution built up within this culture - the industrialised militarised competing powers culture -that has degrees of power over people and resources will contain within it people who will enter into that institution with the express purpose of using any available leveraged power to exploit any emergent vulnerability in targeted populations subject to the existing power disparity.
Institutions are extensions of human behavioural dynamics around power, control and management of resources. They tend to reflect that values and behavioural biases of the people who created them in the first instance.
Many of the institutions themselves were originally set up to exploit the population in one way or another. Those that were created to nurture the population tend to become corrupted over time, at best co-opted by the ruling class to dilute their potential to challenge the hierarchy and at worst active participants in exploitative behaviour.
Churches, Mosques, Synagogues, Media Organisations, Corporate Organisations, Trade Organisations, Police Forces, Military, Sports Clubs, all Care Settings, Academia, Think Tanks, every profession with public facing entertainment for profit, Schools, Families and Cults.
Every institution that has degrees of power will seek to protect it's power, image, wealth and status above the welfare or the needs of any of the people targeted by abusers within it's ranks, above the welfare of survivors who come forward, and those survivors who do not come forward will be ignored until they do come forward. All survivors that do come forward will face intense challenges seeking justice and open accountability, derived largely from the defensive tactical stance of the institution protecting it's image and status.
This means the executive branches of these institutions will actively, intentionally mask the presence of abusers, they will often through that masking enable abusers to continue to operate by neglecting to hold them to account, they will deal with abuses that become known to them privately, internally and they will be more tolerant of abuse of power than they should be, given that that is precisely how many people progress up the ladder of power, the greasy pole.
The only way to counter this is to demand 100% transparency and 100% democratic accountability as a legal, statuary precondition of continued public funding and standing of any of these institutions that operate as part of Government.
When it comes to Policing, a three year training period, with psychological profiling and counselling designed to identify potential behavioural threats and help defuse them or reject resistant applicants, would be really wise.
With regard to private and other non-governmental institutions, legislation that requires or mandates 100% transparency and access to all files, information and data held by the institution for study, analysis and review related to any incidence of abuse of power is necessary.
Privacy is one thing, secrecy another.
The only way to resolve the harms of the past is total honesty, for entities to put their hands up, admit and tell the truths that have been masked, make appropriate reparations, expedite justice and provide for full accountability for al harms caused.
It is reasonable to expect institutions to build in transparency as a core element of the institutional ethic - then, and only then will we be able to be assured that serious, materially effective efforts are being made to prevent the harms that have been previously caused.
This needs all of the electorate to be aware of this dynamic and on board with the steps and vigilance to correct it.
A useful blog on the subject of bullying as a political strategic behavioural dynamic.
"Very few people, when put to the test, have the integrity and moral courage to stand up against bullying, harassment, abuse, threats and corruption. The targets of adult bullying are selected often because they DO have the moral courage to challenge; many people will pass by on the other side.
A target of adult bullying is most often chosen because of their strength, not their weakness. Research showsthat targets of bullying tend to have highly developed empathy, and sensitivity for others, a high degree of perceptiveness, high moral values, a well-developed integrity, a strong sense of fair play and reasonableness, a low propensity to violence,a reluctance to pursue grievance, disciplinary or legal action, a strong forgiving streak and a mature understanding of the need to resolve conflict with dialogue.
I recommend my readers to read this blog article, and bookmark it. Use it as a reference piece. We as citizens need to understand with more clarity the strategies and tactics being used to undermine democratic governance.
Here is a well written article from BylineTimes, laying out what the writers call deception management, a political utility that is utterly, intentionally, brutally abusive.
"Much is made of how politicians curate their image to appeal to the instincts of voters through the use of perception management. Yet, for the current political class, perception management has become deception management: a way to manipulate opinion in order to mask their own failures.
Britain has entered a state of permanent crisis caused by deeply flawed and incompetent leaders. Politics in Britain is now defined by mutually-reinforcing disasters, followed by scapegoating and the manipulation of reality."
This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.
For Sarah Everard, Sabina Nessa and 77 women in England who have been murdered since Sarah's case, and for the millions of women who endure a culture of sexualised oppression. For my mother, my sisters, their sons and daughters, for my daughter and for all her contemporaries. For every boy and girl growing up in this culture. For our present, and all our futures.
The problem is a cultural problem, and denying this is putting off the inevitable, it is exposing more women, children and men to more harm and is yet another infuriatingly banal evil. We must come to our senses.
Ever since I first heard the phrase "The Democracy of Fear", a phrase coined by Robin Morgan, it has has rung around my head and psyche. That ever present fear is debilitating, energy sapping and all the more so because the behaviour of cultural maleness is antagonistic, it carries an expectation of entitlement to women's bodies. The fear that so many women carry, that at any point she may be targeted by a man, for sexualised innuendo, banter, harassment, assault or murder.
"Safety is more than a word. It can’t simply be stated and then, like magic, the fears evaporate. For women, safety starts with having equal access to public space as their male peers. It is not being told to stay home, walk in groups, avoid the dark, take out your headphones, don’t wear this colour clothing, or this length of skirt, don’t get drunk, just leave him. It’s knowing that when the worst happens, you’ll be believed and not blamed.
Safety also means that, when the worst happens, the people who are in charge of supporting women to find justice are not, in fact, perpetrators themselves.
How can women feel safe in London, and across the UK, when those charged with keeping us safe are guilty themselves – both of the crimes they are investigating, and of failing to care? "
I think that there are four threads to this problem - the personality of the abuser, the culture out of which the abuser emerges, the vulnerability of the victimised and the attitudes of the bystander.
Vulnerability is not weakness. Vulnerability is a situation. Vulnerability is a situation that abusers exploit. The urge to dominate exploits vulnerability. The urge to dominate leverages power to be able to exploit any vulnerability and then get away with it.
As bystanders we all understand that we too are vulnerable. Even if we do not consciously acknowledge it. There is an element of fatalism in the bystander setting. We won't get involved because we cannot change things or fear it might be dangerous.
I am think that resolving the problem has to involve all of these threads, woven into a congruent material that permeates out entire culture.
Our culture is a dominator system, with co-operation trying to emerge all the time, stymied by those who hold power and are addicted to it.
As to the personality, the matter confronts us with the need for a much more honest, humane and evidence led approach to education, with a focus on supporting healthy parenting, providing safe and well informed child care as ways to prevent the development of psychologies of bullying.
All institutions of the State must be better informed by behavioural and developmental science, not least by being intentionally aware of trauma informed approaches.
All of these elements must be supported by economic security. All of this because we are aware of the dynamics of traumatised behaviour patterns without being sentimental or judgemental about these issues.
In short, adverse abusive behaviours in adults are most often rooted in childhood trauma, they are learned behaviours and they start early, and there are plenty signals that are missed, opportunities to intervene and help the individual to re-set. Prevention is always a sound option. Bullying is rife in our culture.
Punishment is already too late.
Punishment is too late, yet justice can build safety. There is no 'punishment' that fixes the behaviour of the psychopathic abuser, who acts without remorse - the only safe approach is to set the abuser aside from society, indefinitely, as a matter of health and safety of the community.
It it best done as humanely as possible. Punishment does not help the people victimised as much as knowing that the abuser can never harm anyone again, or ever step into society, free to abuse more people. The safety of the survivor is the key element that underpins the safety of the community. If the survivor does not feel safe, then the community is not safe. Prevention is critical.
Stopping an abuser from being able to abuse is one part, generating a cultural social material environment where all abuse is rendered immediately visible and accountable is another part. Act on the earliest signs. Thwart the development of bullying as a behavioural dynamic as early as possible. Wherever it emerges. As soon as it emerges.
Why is bullying still common in schools?
Why are school girls subjected to sexualised harassment in schools?
Why is this allowed to happen? Why is this not at the very centre of the curriculum, at the very core of what is taught? It is more important than maths, more necessary than geography, more critical than literature, more vital to health than PE.
What is going on here?
Why are so many responsible adults in Education reduced to impotent bystanders?
Culture
The cultural problem is linked into the prevailing systems of hierarchy of wealth, power and violence. Wealth assumes power, and protects that power with many forms of violence. This is undeniable.
Misogyny is rooted in that power system. The urge to dominate and exploit is rooted in, inculcated and exploited within that social power system. Domination is the core driving ideology of the prevailing power system, and it absolutely impacts all our lives, all our interactions, all our social settings.
Institutions protect their power, their status and their image rather than adopt material changes that protect the vulnerable. They prefer that those who are abusive within their ranks are dealt with privately. They typically fail to act on the earliest signs, they allow abusers to get away with 'minor infractions' and when serious abuses occur, the institutions prefer to keep the matter private, for internal investigation and action.
"Sarah Everard's killer exchanged misogynistic, racist and homophobic material with colleagues who are now under criminal investigation. Five serving police officers, including three from the Metropolitan Police, allegedly shared grossly offensive material with Wayne Couzens."
Given the social power structural dynamics, the silo effect of 'the team', 'us against the mob', us and 'civilians', the separation between officials and citizens at large, there is plenty room for abusers to wriggle out of full accountability. They can operate within the institution as little groups of similarly minded individuals, invisible among the crowd.
We have plenty evidence that this - closing ranks, internal inquiry - is the prevailing pattern or response to survivors who speak out. Ranks are closed. The Institutions seek to insulate themselves by claiming the abuser is a bad apple.
Most people are decent.
Most people are bystanders. Most people are ruled by a minority. That minority are jealous of their power, and they protect it, and most people pay the price, bear the cost, endure the oppressive burden of that jealousy. That must cease to be the case. Everything that is problematic about this culture is coming to the surface. Sexual Assault and Harassment of Women by Men is one of these problems.
Most women experience sexualised and genderised oppressions to some degree. Why do we know this?
We know this mostly because the victimised, the harassed, the assaulted are speaking out, courageously, congruently, persistently. Survivors voices and those of their advocates speak out, and they speak for for the dead who no longer can speak.
Four threads, one weave, a congruent garment. There is much more to this than this writer can articulate.
#enoughisenough
Kindest regards
Corneilius
"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."
This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.
The would-be Wolf of Threadneedle Walk is a Muppet at the UN. A Buffoon at #COP26.
Today is November 1st, #COP26 and I am still reeling from Johnsons profoundly arrogant speech at the UN. Accusing the representatives of the world's Countries, their Governments and their peoples, of being adolescent, of needing to grow up.
Even if we might agree on the concept, the very first person on the list would be Johnson himself. Growing up also means being honest. Honesty is a life changer. Dishonesty is a life wrecker. Johnson's dishonesty is wrecking many, many lives.
He was a muppet at the UN.
He is a buffoon at #COP26.
Both Muppet and Buffoon are theatre, this was understood back in 2008, and before. Johnson's public image is a deliberate distraction, intentional camouflage, a veil. Johnson knows all to well what he is doing, and what the Westminster Government and Parliament are allowing to be done. Hoard Immunity through Herd Immunity. The Hoard - accumulated extracted wealth as a political hegemon, top dog. He who owns the gold makes the rules. The Hoard must be protected at all costs.. Johnson and this Government do not govern, they Rule.
What is needed at COP26 is ruthless honesty. That honesty was needed when the first scientific confirmation of the effect of excess CO2 and other particulates was confirmed, peer reviewed and established as scientific theory. Honesty was needed when Bhopal Chemical Plant was being built.
There is a pattern of externalising costs by pretending the issue does not exist.
Democracy cannot, and Government cannot function healthfully if dishonesty is allowed to stand as 'opinion' to be given equal weight to the available evidence.
Johnson is not honest.
Oafen Ready, Boris Johnson spoke from the podium at the United Nations General Assembly. He suggested it was time for the world to 'grow up'. Johnson was trolling every leader of every nation on Earth, Johnson was trolling every citizen on Earth. Johnson is a liar and a bully. He is quite clearly immature, and if ever a case of one finger pointing at others masks three pointing back. He works for the Accumulated Extracted Wealth Party.
"My friends, the adolescence of humanity is coming to an end."
He did not say it was time for him to grow up. It was time for the world to grow up.
Kermit is not real, Johnson is a Muppet. A Venal Muppet. A Nasty Muppet, A Prime Muppet.
A pertinent tweet on a few examples (8) of Boar Arse Johnson's 'Green Credentials' which suggests that yet again, the Venal Muppet's lying eyes hide behind the thin disguise of his smile.
8 handy points to note about our ‘green’ PM:
1) He has “almost always voted against measures to prevent climate change”
2) He supported shale gas fracking & told readers of his column to “ignore doom merchants” worried about emissions
Gleaned from this article in the English Guardian News Paper published 7th February 2020 four days after Johnson's lethal speech in Greenwich on February 3rd 2020. More about that speech later.
"We are approaching that critical turning point – in less than two months – when we must show that we are capable of learning, and maturing, and finally taking responsibility for the destruction we are inflicting, not just upon our planet but ourselves."
- 'We' - the Industrial Militarised Competing Power World at large aka Civilisation - have been at that turning point with regards to the risk of untoward climate change driving by 'greenhouse gases, for well over 50 years, if not for more than 100, since the first estimates of the potential impact of CO2 as a green house gas were scientifically verified.
As to adolescence, compared to Chinese civilisation, the English Industrial civilisation is an unruly, uncivilised aggressive teen with a violent bully streak as large as it's narcissistic ego. British Empire indeed!
Both of these civilisations, when compared to the Australian Aboriginals, a culture 66,000 years old that thrived through two intense climactic changes, are children, and the current competing industrialised militarised cult is an infant with a scatter gun, with no sense of direction nor any inclination to withhold it's deadly fire.
What 'turning point' is Johnson blathering on about?
Johnson wishes that the COP26 meeting in Glasgow will indeed be that important only because it's presence on 'British soil' is something he is seeking to take personal credit for. Johnsons Meme is Me Me. All the time.
Johnson is seeking to accrete greatness by imaginary osmosis yet again, and quite obviously, if not to himself, flailing in the attempt. He's a pathetic sight, really. Lethal, nonetheless. His fellow countrymen are dying and falling ill all around as collateral damage.
"It is time for humanity to grow up."
-Says a man who is proven to be immature, an inveterate serial liar, a philanderer and a dedicated avoider of responsibility. A man who runs away when honesty comes knocking in his door.
"It is time for us to listen to the warnings of the scientists – and look at Covid, if you want an example of gloomy scientists being proved right – and to understand who we are and what we are doing."
- Says man who has repeatedly dismissed the science and epidemiology around COVID, since his February 3rd 2020 speech where he accused China, New Zealand, Taiwan, South Korea and others of panicking and of engaging in 'medically irrational' behaviour that would cause vast 'economic damage' - which is precisely what he ordered his government to do, and exactly what the English Governments policies have wrought. Death, disease and economic disaster for a population.
The transcript of his entire speech, of which he was quite clearly unjustifiably proud, can be found here. We are told it was 'trashed out' on a train journey from Washington, DC to New York. Not quite the same as jetting from London to Cornwall.
Johnson's Covid policy as another example of his callous carelessness with the truth, and his willingness to troll entire populations.
The English Government policy on COVID has been medically irrational - ignoring the doctors advice - and has caused immense economic damage compared to the elimination of community transmission adopted by those he accused of panicking.
IndependentSAGE has produced a timeline laying out the Scientific Advice given to the Johnson government alongside the Governments policy choices - it shows quite clearly that the Johnson government was not following the science.
And it turned out, based on the evidence, that Elimination of Community Transmission strategy where it has been applied has prevented all the harms associated with Mitigation aka Living With The Virus, by very meaningful measure.
"The world – this precious blue sphere with its eggshell crust and wisp of an atmosphere – is not some indestructible toy, some bouncy plastic romper room against which we can hurl ourselves to our heart’s content."
Says a man whose career in politics began in the Bullingdon Club, a man who once claimed that Africa would be better off if the British Empire still ruled it, a man who is known to be a tacit racist and a bully.
"Daily, weekly, we are doing such irreversible damage that long before a million years are up, we will have made this beautiful planet effectively uninhabitable – not just for us but for many other species."
"I am not one of those environmentalists who takes a moral pleasure in excoriating humanity for its excess."
Of course not, he is, first if all, quite clearly not an environmentalist - other than taking delight in creating hostile environments for vulnerable people, which his party is so given to.
We observe the amoral pleasure Johnson takes in lying in public, in misleading people in order to gain power and prestige, and in bacchanalia and adultery - a man known to party with Russian billionaires, one of whom was once FSB spy, now an English Peer of the Realm, on a warm Italian hill top, whilst 'serving the Nation' as Foreign Secretary when he 'escaped' his security detail and went AWOL for a weekend after attending a NATO summit, where presumably discussions about Afghexit were taking place. Discussions that probably bored the Bore Arse, or simply went over his head, seeing as he did nothing to help that situation, in spite of 25 senior retired military officers writing to him with direct advice and offers of help, when he was Prime Minister, on the matter.
"I don’t see the green movement as a pretext for a wholesale assault on capitalism."
- Ah, So capitalism is not part of the problem! And the Green Movement is, because it is a pretext for an assault on Capitalism?
"Far from it.
The whole experience of the Covid pandemic is that the way to fix the problem is through science and innovation, the breakthroughs and the investment that are made possible by capitalism and by free markets, and it is through our Promethean faith in new green technology that we are cutting emissions in the UK."
- Says a man who has ordered the English government to ignore the science, set aside the epidemiology and corrupt public health best practice, in pursued with crony contracts, confusing and conflicting advice, no support for eliminating community transmission, and in the process causing 150,000 avoidable deaths, 350,000 cases of long covid and a range of other adverse effects.
And when it comes to the investment the Vaccine was developed with public funding and Universities in the lead, and Astra Zeneca committed to producing their Vaccine, the first to be widely available, at cost.
The Vaccination program was delivered by NHS staff and others, a majority of them ordinary citizens who volunteered their time, a demonstration of mutual aid.
"When I was a kid we produced almost 80 per cent of our electricity from coal; that is now down to two per cent or less and will be gone altogether by 2024."
- Germany did the same, but did not push millions of people into poverty - they retrained the vast majority of those workers who now enjoy good jobs, decent incomes and who are even now being retrained for future sustainability.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23747831 - Life after Mining: Hidden Unemployment and Changing Patterns of Economic Activity Amongst Miners in England and Walers, 1981—1991
In fact, the UK Government is tacitly supporting a new deep coal mine in England's northwest. West Cumbria Mining has been developing plans for an underground metallurgical coal mine off the coast of Whitehaven since 2014. Woodhouse Colliery, as it is known, was given the go ahead in October 2020 by Cumbria County Council. There are also plans to open new Oil fields.
"We have put in great forests of beautiful wind turbines on the drowned prairies of Doggerland beneath the North Sea.
In fact we produce so much offshore wind that I am thinking of changing my name to Boreas Johnson in honour of the North Wind."
What kind of wind is he the god of - hot air or fetid farts? I make an immature joke. Oh dear.
It's always about him, the immature, lying, philandering, blustering bully boy! He's a bore and an arse! Bore Arse Johnson. He is trying to grab the kudos for effort made and work done by others long before his ascent to power.
When he uses the word 'we' he is fibbing - the UK Government did nothing other than grant licences to the companies that are operating the wind farm. The Norwegian State Energy Company Statoil being one of them, The other is SSE, a Scottish energy company. The first licence was issued in 2008. The only claim Johnson can make is that he has not messed this project up, but it's early days. That said, the Dogger Bank Wind Farm project is in the hands of professionals with long term vision and deep experience in energy supply, and it's unlikely they will let Johnson anywhere near the project.
Noticeably the applause from the assembled UN international officials was short, and pointedly so. Johnson's thumbs up from the podium was forlorn, the applause fading as shuffled off the stage, finished before he had exited the stage.
Meanwhile, back home the Johnson government is pushing ahead with plans to impoverish millions of families with children by removing a £20 uplift to Universal Credit, which is the system of financial supports for unemployed and very low income workers.
And the Johnson Government are forcing all school children and students to become vectors in the next great spread event, towards mythical 'Herd Immunity' where bodies pile high at the 'acceptable rate of up to 1000 avoidable horrific deaths per week' as the disease continues to spread with it's adverse impacts reduced to 'acceptable levels', and many more people succumb to Long Covid.
All of which is entirely avoidable.
What is not avoidable is that Bore Arse Johnson is a mendacious, venal character carrying out others agenda, for his own egoic gratification and he has neither the ability or the inclination to do anything healthy and useful for the people of England, the UK and the wider world. He is not a fit and proper person to be a Prime Minister.
"It's not easy being green, when you're a Liar"
Johnson is a buffoon on the World Stage to mask his avarice, and that of the English Ruling Class. Who still hark back after the days of Empire, the nostalgia on a 1000 year reign.
Sovereignty! Taking back control!
#JohnsonOut #johnsonout #johnsonliedpeopledied
#SchoolStrike2021
Kindest regards
Corneilius
"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."
Thank you for reading this blog.
This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.
Make Education Safe Again - where we really are right now.
🧵This is a very important video about the pandemic.
Dr. Richard Horton is Editor-in-Chief of The Lancet , a United Kingdom–based medical journal. He's an honorary professor at the London School of Tropical Med, Univ. College London & University of Oslo pic.twitter.com/AClabFsAeP
The best leverage we have is collective solidarity.
Acting together, we have each others back.
Because the Government do not have our backs.
They are exposing us, and our children, to avoidable harm.
~
Proposal : UK and Global School Strike every Friday to confront this insanity of deliberately, recklessly exposing our children to a known pathogen when we know it does have adverse impacts, including fatalities, long term disease and associated psychological trauma for bystanders and afflicted alike.
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#MakeSchoolsSafeAgain #MESA
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Update : 26/10/21
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Lots of talk of new modelling showing cases falling in November onwards
This largely relies on allowing children to become infected with Covid, a dangerous and unpredictable route to take
IndependentSAGE have issued detailed guidelines on how to make schools safe for children, teachers and parents and ultimately for the wider community, to reduce to a minimum the spread of the COVID virus within schools, if not to stop transmission entirely. Prepared by a collective of experts in epidemiology, virology, public health, education, data modelling, social care, human behaviour and other areas pertinent to handing an epidemic/pandemic. It is not rocket science.
IndependentSAGE issued similar guidelines at the end of Summer 2020, guidelines which the English Government dismissed. We saw what happened as a result. Then we did not have vaccines, now we do. Then we did not have Delta, now we do. Everything has changed, and yet the English Government's policy is, if anything, more reckless than before. Schools are still unsafe for everyone involved, and for the wider community.
The effects on some children of SARS-COV2 infection leading to COVID19 disease and long Covid include toxic shock syndrome and other unpredictable adverse outcomes which are related to 'super-antigens' found within the virus. There is still so much that is unknown, and in American and Israel where they 'opened up' after vaccination programs for adults were rolled out, outcomes for children exposed to Delta appear to be more intense than with previous variants.
More children were presenting with adverse health outcomes than previously.
While the overall or global percentage rates appear to be small, it is when the are applied to populations of millions of children meeting limited available space in health care systems, the numbers become a serious problem, logistically, and threaten the Governments status.
But for the children and parents involved no amount of minimising the population level impact as a small percentage offers any comfort.
Not least when uncontrolled spread of the virus in the community is avoidable.
Independent SAGE
In recent months IndependentSAGE has issued detailed advice on making schools as safe as they can be to prevent uncontrolled spread of the virus, and the harms to children that will entail, all avoidable harms.
Urging extreme caution, requesting mitigations be re-established in nationally to prevent surge of infections, and the harms associated with all of that.
SARS-CoV-2 suppression, rather than attempting to live with the virus, creates best outcomes for health, the economy, and civil liberties. By every measure living with the virus causes more harms. Three studies confirm this.
1, Elimination aka suppression of community transmission reduces incidence, prevents uncontrolled spread, avoids the need for lockdowns, protects people's health, civil liberties and economies.
This is an Italian academic study of the way Government and Science were set within the ongoing epidemic. The Government failed on multiple counts to accept proven epidemiological scientific and public health advice, and this, combined with a News Media that allowed, and continues to allow that neglect free passage, created an environment of zero accountability.
What kind of culture allows this to happen?
What is going on here? Whose needs are being met, and whose needs being neglected?
What are schools for, and why should they be safe for children, teachers, parents and the wider community?
What is Education for?
We all accept that Education is a necessary institution, We are a learning species. It's something we do really, really well, often independent of formal instruction.
John Taylor Gatto, a teacher who won many, many awards for his work with children, educating in urban and rural areas of deprivation in New York. He won those awards for the results of his advocacy as a teacher, in deprived areas, beyond delivering the curriculum, teaching and advocating for better support, as an activist teacher, by being a superb, kind, empathic friend and advocate for all the children - being real, congruent, honest and creative in terms of helping the children resolving social educational problems in real time. His efforts changed many, many lives for the better, and he influenced the Education system in New York, and beyond, to good effect.
Mr. Gatto, upon being awarded Best Teacher in New York for a third time, decided to use the opportunity of the award ceremony to quit, publicly. Here are the first few lines of his award speech, where he accepted the award and rejected the system that gave it to him. A very brave thing to do.
"I’ve taught public school for 26 years but I just can’t do it anymore. For years I asked the local school board and superintendent to let me teach a curriculum that doesn’t hurt kids, but they had other fish to fry. So I’m going to quit, I think."
The Westminster Government are forcing parents of the nation to send their children into unsafe schools.
Mr. Gatto quit close to the end of a long and distinguished career, because he did not want to harm any children. His quitting was symbolic, piece of public theatre, on behalf of all children, everywhere. An appeal to the power, into their faces, so that there could be no confusing it with a roast.
I'd not ask working teachers to do that, go that far. I know teaching is a complex activity, with many demands and needs to be met, equally well. Being responsible for a class or a year or a school is intense.
I would say instead, "give his words some thought".
How do we stand and advocate for the children, beyond the teaching role itself?
How do we and how do students explore and learn together, to meet this situation?
Another great educator, Paolo Friere had this to say about teaching:
"Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world."
What we are witnessing today in England is a massive failure by Government, by the Department of Education and to a lessor degree head teachers, teachers and parents to do the latter - to deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world for the best possible outcomes for all concerned. Collectively England's adults are failing to avoid avoidable harms to their own and each others children.
England's primary and secondary schools are not COVID safe, and neither are it's universities and yet Government has ordered that all students return to full time study without the necessary protections in place, without the non pharmaceutical interventions that ought to be mandated and supported by Government that would make schools safe for all involved. Does it have to be this way?.
This failure is not the fault of the parents or of the teachers of the children those parents have entrusted into their care.
The English Government's communications, advice and regulation on COVID have been an unmitigated disaster by every available measure. COVID is not over. Blatantly. Gavin Williamson has been more whip than carrot.
Given the political grooming inherent in England's public discourse, where a news media industry that is mostly owned by Oligarchs jealous of their power and wealth is deployed not to inform, but to protect the interests of Power and Wealth above all others, including in this instance the best interests of all our children, and a Government that lies as it breathes, it is no wonder that many, many people are confused, disoriented, mislead and misinformed.
To mask or not, to take up the vaccine or not, to isolate or not, to travel or to shelter, HEPA air filters or open windows, class sizes reduced or maintained at pre COVID levels, LFT or PCR testing, is it a flu or a cold or something more serious, does it afflict children, are CEV children safe, are they truants, will their parents be prosecuted, what is 'herd immunity', what do variants imply for future behaviour, what is the precautionary principle - where is the clarity and logistical support that clarifies these and many other questions? £
37 billion budget for two years of an inadequate test, trace system without funded isolation against £68 billion on furlough and even still community transmission is now at higher levels than it was this time last year. This is what lack of clarity, lack of due diligence in Government applying itself to the science delivers.
That much needed clarity is not coming from the English Government, that much is clear. This timeline of scientific advice compared to Government policy choices, which I mentioned above, prepared by IndependentSAGE, a collective of experts in the full range of issues related to COVID, illustrates that with absolute accuracy. The English government's claim to be 'following the science' is untrue. It is a lie.
England's Government is not providing the support England's teaching staff and students need to be able to teach and learn safely. How many times must it be said before the people demand the most basic of tenets of a democratic state be upheld?
Education must never harm the learner, nor enrol the teacher in any harmful practice.
And here we are. Education is now a place of harm causation. This difficult situation does however present an opportunity.
Making Education Safe Again!
The current situation of un-safe schools and orders to send children into them is a challenge parents and teaching staff must meet - they must confront this recklessness in order to best serve the children's needs. They do not need to do this on their own. They need all of us to work with them, and to that end they must become educators of the nation, the whole population.
I think there is no other option worthy of our collective duty of care to the children.
As Paolo Friere wrote : "Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world."
Solidarity in protecting our children's best interests in this situation is the pathway to work the changes we need to bring about to make education safe again. And when the pandemic is over, can we do something about bullying in our schools where 1 in 5 students report being bullied whilst on school premises? Actually, no - we need to deal with that at the same time. We cannot let bullying slide, in any sphere of our lives. We can chew gum and walk.
I wrote a blog a few weeks back about solidarity, the need for a union of students, parents and teachers working from an evidence base. The best practice covid principles are outlined in the IndependentSAGE report on schools listed above. This blog on solidarity lists the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, a study on Right to Health in terms of the English Government's response to COVID and other pertinent pieces of Law and legislation.
I'm just a shouty auld git with a guitar and a laptop. This matter needs the majority of citizens on the case. Please get on the case.
Then this on October 1st. Johnson's most important metric. And he's lying, of course.
Boris Johnson tonight on the BBC "I've given you the most important metric which is, never mind life expectancy, never mind cancer outcomes, look at wage growth."
Making Sense, Looking at what happens: The War Against Democratic Regulation of Toxic Industrial Practices by Extractive Industrial Political Power. The Power Wealth vs Healthy Societies.
Ordinary people, especially the low income workers, make most of the real wealth through daily toil, and the largest proportion of the wealth they generate is extracted and accumulated. The poor are a permanent externalised cost.
“How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in power? Here lies the whole art of Conservative politics in the 20th century."― Aneurin Bevan
Freedom is not the absence of limits. What I have sought always is to live the tension, the contradiction, between authority and freedom so as to maintain respect for both. ~ Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom
Everyone knows we're in serious, serious trouble. And there's no need to panic. Really. We've got this.
Let me take you through my world view, in which the future is always unfinished, not least because I, as a human being living with this culture which conditions me, becoming aware of that situation I come to the realisation that I have options to undo that conditioning. In other words I become aware that I am unfinished, I can change and grow. It doesn't have to be this way.
Fatalism is a lie the ruling class, the neoliberals and the bullies inculcate in those they hold power over. Because fatalism blocks growth, inhibits hope, limits one's perception of the future.
Destiny is an illusion. Nothing is over. The future is open to possibility.
Our world is on edge, yet not at a precipice.
The Scene
The Extractive Industries : Oil, Gas, Meat, Plastics, Mining, Lumber, Fishing and all those other organised extractive activities - extracting raw materials from the natural domain - that cause pollution, environmental degradation, climate change and poverty (industries that rely on cheap labour are a leading cause of poverty, and low wages is all about maximising wealth extraction).
These industries, their owners and activist operators extract wealth from natural resources, and from human resources. They accumulate their wealth, and hoard it away from the rest of the population. They use that wealth as a political weapon.
These industrial groups, they engage in political corruption as part of their day to day operations.
Oligarchs and companies funding a think tank that lobbies politicians who are given funds - donations and sinecure jobs - by oligarchs and companies is inherently corrupt because it is buying influence, and intervenes unfairly in democratic deliberation. Politicians implementing policy papers designed by the oligarchs, for the oligarchs interests, beyond democratic examination and oversight is corrupt. If those policy papers were set for examination by the electorate, and the electorate given equal weight and power over the decision to adopt the policy, plus the ability to over see implementation and correct any errors or harms, then that would be democratic. That does not happen.
Then there's the producers, those who make things, and whose industries also cause pollution, environmental degradation, climate change and poverty and who engage in political corruption as they accumulate their wealth, and hoard it away from the rest of the population, and use it as a political weapon.
Then there's us the consumers, who use the products, who work in their industries and in our use and in our work, which we must do or we die from starvation, lack of shelter - we too cause pollution, environmental degradation, climate change, we accept poverty as long as it is other people, and we are profoundly influenced by political corruption and conditioning.
Then there's the end of use disposal. We fill our trash bins every week, we throw away old electric goods as new ones arrive, we cast aside so much material. We flush our excrement away.
Where does all the 'waste' go?
I like to be human because in my unfinishedness I know that I am conditioned. Yet conscious of such conditioning, I know that I can go beyond it, which is the essential difference between conditioned and determined existence. ~ Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom
The Accumulated Extracted Wealth Party
The Oligarchy, who are politically, economically, culturally and socially organised as The Accumulated Extracted Wealth Party, have all waged social, economic, political and cultural wars against those who point out the harms caused in the processes that generate that accumulated wealth, and who ask that the harms be reduced, or better still prevented, who dare suggest that reparations must be made for all the harms knowingly caused. How dare they?
The Accumulated Extracted Wealth, that pile of cash that is extracted via these industries and their sales, is accumulated and concentrated away from the rest of humanity and it sits as the treasury of a sleepless political hegemon, a political force that infiltrates and influences every political party of note. It is used to build institutions and networks, it is used to fund workers and activists, it is used to promote, propagandise, manipulate, persuade and influence the populations from which that wealth is also extracted. War is an expensive business.
The reach of Accumulated Extracted Wealth as a political agency is immense and beyond the capability of the average electorate to counter. The asymmetry of power is real.
Therefore taxing Accumulated Extracted Wealth - a slogan that has gained some traction in recent times - is already too late in that it faces the Sisyphean difficulty that by the time that much Wealth is accumulated it has become a political hegemon, a political party within and without all other political parties, groups, think tanks and movements that can and does counter any and every move to rein that power in, to address the harms caused and make just adjustments to the situation.
I repeat myself.
The point needs to be made, repeatedly. Unlike a lie, this does not become more true by repetition. Even if it was never expressed, it remains true. Repeating this is one way to shake off the dust of the prevailing fatalism. Accumulated Wealth is a Political Party.
Accumulated Extracted Wealth is a political force that is now in a position that it is stronger than many democratic States and it is currently stronger than electorates who do not understand that Accumulated Wealth is a political force.
It has to be said that there are some among the wealthy whose accumulated wealth is not party to the power struggle who make some efforts to rebalance the situation, and that in confronting this we must be careful to pay due attention to the detail and avoid generics. Slogans cannot take the place of detailed and fair analysis.
Hope is not just a question of grit or courage. It's an ontological dimension of our human condition. ~ Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom
Taxing the Rich is too late.
We need to get in before that Wealth is extracted and accumulated as a political force. AOC and her dress have a point, of course. There is something deeply unfair in the way taxation operates, and there is something profoundly ugly in the maintenance of poverty, in such a wealthy country, where close to 10% of US population cannot meet their most basic needs because they simply do not have the money to pay for those most basic needs. She's not 'wrong', she's just too late.
Taxing the really rich, the Accumulated Extracted Hoard of Wealth. does not deal with the externalised costs, and therefore it lets them off the hook, and for very little in return, in social material terms.
Externalised Costs
I don't know if you know this : the top 20 Industries would all be unprofitable if they paid all their externalised costs. You might want to pause and just let that sink in. Where does the profitability come from?
Who, then, pays the price of all the externalised costs?
What are all those externalised costs?
Climate Change, Environmental Damage, Air Pollution, Poverty, Low Wages. Warfare, Racism and Misogyny are all part of the externalised costs domain, in one way or another.
How can we address this problem set?
A brief outline.
Here I present a very brief, simplistic line out of I think what needs to be done. I am, of course, well aware that achieving these is both complex (there are many needs to be met, and balances to be crafted between different needs, to do all of this safely for everyone involved) and it will be complicated (the addiction to power and status will get in the way of every possible action taken to solve the problems we face, and that addiction to power and status and wealth will be a point of friction, a force of resistance, a source of recalcitrance, presenting as sulky passive aggressive reactionary behaviours by the addicts and their supporters).
The Environment. - we must clean up how industry operates, repair damage done, prevent further damage. This is all eminently possible, it will mean less profits for shareholders, etc as more investment is put into the clean up and prevention dynamics.
The Low Wage Workers. - make lowest possible wage well above any measurable poverty line, globally. Again absolutely feasible. And again, reduced profits to shareholders as we invest in happy workers who are no longer struggling, stressed out because they lack money.
The Vulnerable Poor - Abolish poverty and destitution, look after the vulnerable. That's a factor of State and currency, and can be done irrespective of day to day taxation. By investing in care systems where care professionals are well trained, well paid and well resourced, Governments will be injecting currency into the economy and increasing happiness, decreasing chronic stress.
If after that, wealth is accumulated, then tax it fairly.
Bearing in mind that taxation no longer funds day to day business of any Government that operates within a State that has a central bank that issues that States currency. So there's no pressure, right?
Some Democratic governments are taking steps to confront the Extractive Industries and the Accumulated Wealth Party to regulate them so as to stop further harm and setting up processes to ensure that they pay something for the harms already caused.
Everyone knows we're in serious, serious trouble.
To recap : The Extractive Industry owners are a political party called Wealth. Their vast Wealth is what gives them political power - they can fund think tanks, news papers, TV stations and online misinformation with which they can and do influence voters; they can 'donate' money to politicians and they can hire psychologists and other mercenaries, and they do. They do this to protect their ability to amass wealth which they need to be able to maintain and exercise the political power to protect their interests.
For the Accumulated Extracted Wealth Party, this is indeed a vicious cycle. They are addicted, and only a united electorate, a grass roots grounded in evidence and solidarity, has the capability to help them end their addiction, by regulating their behaviour through the agency of Democratic Legislatures taking due responsibility.
The Accumulated Extracted Wealth Party get their wealth by externalising costs, by paying low wages, by thrashing the environment, by refusing to devote the resources needed to prevent the harms associated with their industries, from acquisition of raw material to end of life disposal, and everything in between. This is causing immense avoidable harm. That is not acceptable on any level.
If they are forced, or helped, nurtured and regulated by democratic Governments directed by evidence led caring adult electorates to pay the costs, their industry's would under current measures barely break even, and they would lose their political power. It is the loss of power that keeps them awake a night. That is their biggest fear - without their power they would become ordinary citizens. People just like you and I.
Beautiful People no more - oh dear.
But actually, they could and would become far more beautiful in depth and humanity than their current imaginations could possible envision. Yes I know someone like Trump or Johnson has no interest in that at all.
To be truly humane is to eschew the leverage of power over others for it's own sake, for egoic satisfaction or for personal gain, to fully share the power to nurture one another, as a conscious choice, knowing one could choose otherwise. Being ethical is as much as possibility as being unethical is. It is that choice, to be ethical, knowing you could just as easily not, that makes for profound humane beauty.
Empathic Civilisation.
Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand, : "It takes strength to be an empathetic leader."
Jose Mujica, President of Uruguay : "If we lived within our means - by being prudent - the 7 billion people in the world could have everything they needed. Global politics should be moving in that direction. But we think as people and countries, not as a species.."
Jeremy Corbyn : “Life is life. Some of the wisest people you meet are sweeping our streets" and "We are one of the richest countries in the world, and there is absolutely no reason why anyone should have to live in poverty.”
Ghandi : "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."
Martin Luther King: "I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice."
The hierarchy of power and violence cult prefers to inculcate a fatalistic world view in the population it presides over. But that is a lie. We are naturally a learning species. These leaders chose to learn and grow, and lead as student and teacher.
I recognise that being born into where I was born, I was exposed to a certain social and experiential conditioning that implanted values which I then internalised. Yet those values are not who I am. They do not define me. Who I am is up to me to define and decide, and I have found that being an ethical humane being, I instinctively choose the path of growth, the way of learning, the life of ethical behaviour, the behaviour of nurture. That is who I am, imperfect as I know myself to be, aspiring towards an unknowable future that is grounded in ethical behaviour in the present, ethical action and the ever present intention for a nurturant outcome
If I am a pure product of genetic, cultural, or class determination, I have no responsibility for my action in the world and, therefore, it is not possible for me to speak of ethics. Of course, this assumption of responsibility does not mean that we are not conditioned genetically, culturally, and socially. It means that we know ourselves to be conditioned but not determined. ~ Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom
This is a war
And yes, they - whoever they are - the Accumulated Extracted Wealth Party are waging a war. They see this as a struggle, a fight, a war to protect their entitlement and dominance.
Each of us must face this, as disturbing as it might seem, None of this will be easy. The effort required is immense. The cost of not making that effort and of not obstinately pushing through with it until we succeed to build a nurturing culture and economy, within a healthy polity will be much, much more than immense, it is likely to bring more trauma, more pain, more distress for billions of lovely human beings, and it might possibly be terminal at the species level.
What to do?
Here's an interesting video that tries to take a bigger picture look at systemic change given the problems outlined above. It goes through the various elements and suggests we need, as citizens, to elect legislators who will regulate the accumulated wealth structures so we can reduce harms, repair damages, build in nurturing processes going forwards.
If this work to make our culture a genuinely nurturing industrial economic culture was done and done really well, the owners would likely break even, they could remain in their exalted positions of relative luxury, and they would probably generate three profits - the larger profit would be a healthier system that does minimal damage which it repairs; the day to profit would be a small return to reward their efforts, justly shared across the population and the lasting social and historical profit would the the kudos they'd receive for being eminently reasonable and sensible about the whole thing.
Could a character like Koch or Johnson or Xi imagine being written about in future histories as one who helped the culture retreat from harm causation to engage in a nurturant culture?
I know that right now, given the current narrative of the Establishment, this looks seriously unlikely.
However we are all unfinished beings and the future is likewise unfinished. Hope springs eternal. The well of evolutionary mutual aid is deeper than civilisation, older than the human species. We can do this, and we must.
Ordinary people, people like you and I, and especially the low income workers, who make most of the real wealth in this world, through daily toil: every hour of our lives is equally precious. And yet the largest proportion of the wealth we generate is extracted and accumulated and used as a tool to dominate us. The poor are a permanent externalised cost of that extraction process. I think of that as a fundamental and abominable insult to the very gift of life itself.
“How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in power? Here lies the whole art of Conservative politics in the 20th century."― Aneurin Bevan
The story of how life moved from bacteria to plants, to animals, to forests and plains full of living creatures, all the way to people singing songs, laughing with children as we play and learn together, crying when we hurt, seeing, tasting, hearing, running and sleeping to awaken again, and everything else that emerges from being alive and human and loving and sensitive. How lovely it is to be a warm friendly, loving sensitive humane being! No machine, no invention can ever match that!
Humour me, and stop right now - gaze at your hand, close it as you take a gentle breath in and as you exhale feel your hand and fingers, breathe into your hand and fingers. Do this again, and close your eyes, and then move, move your fingers gently, and feel how utterly strangely wonderful this ability to use a hand really is. Then grip something tightly, with all your strength and relax to hold it ever so gently, finding your lightest touch possible. Such a range of capability, such potential for finesse.
Isn't it amazing?
I do this and I think of the millions of years of evolution that went it to making this possible and I am filled with awe and gratitude. I am excited by this thought, this feeling. I think I did nothing to make this possible. How did I, this consciousness, arrive with this incredible set of capabilities? How lucky am I to be so gifted? Are we not truly blessed?
I am more often than not quietly in awe and gratitude for being alive, even though some days I am deeply depressed, or insanely angry, or confused or frightened, or just meh! A toothache is horrible and there are many other pains that are harder to bear, that take the delight out of the moment.
Justice is rooted in sensitivity
Nonetheless, I know that this thing of being alive is oh so precious, for me and for you and for every baby born, for every person who lives, every being that lives - and this, this feeling is why I detest the bully cult so much - how dare they (whoever they are) intrude upon that feeling, impinge on that sensitive life in others, and disturb it, taint it, trample all over it for their power, wealth and pomp. How dare they! That is the seat of my feeling of injustice, at it's most visceral. Before words, the feeling. Babies know this. Infants and toddlers know this. All young children know this. Innate.
The symptoms of chronic trauma are not a disorder.
People who cause trauma, who deliberately expose others to avoidable harms, are a disorder. People who expose others to chronic stress in order to accumulate wealth and power are a disorder.
Social systems that deny these simple truths are disordered. The symptoms presenting in people who have been harmed are not a disorder. They are symptoms, understandable symptoms.
George Bush and Tony Blair are disordered. As leaders or presenters or spokespersons of the institutions of competing militarised powers, they are a disorder. They are a dysfunctional psychology in action.
If they were indicted and put on trial, that would probably go a long way to helping all those harmed by their actions come to better terms with their lived experience, especially if the outcome was to prevent future wars. Most survivors do not want what happened to them to happen to anyone else, ever.
And for me it's not about punishing Blair and Bush et al. although I understand that drive, to hit back, to see that the person who has harmed shares the pain in some way - for me it primarily is about preventing future harms by showing that we, the grass roots, are willing to intervene and forcibly impede those who would initiate and prosecute war or harm causation. Holding them to account and putting them in prison is a matter of health and safety more than it is a matter of punishment. A warning. Don't you dare even think about initiating such action!
It is also true that to indict Bush and Blair is, for so many people, already too late. The vast harm they and those institutions they were embedded has caused is already done, and cannot be undone. Millions are suffering, un-necessarily. Their precious lives have been trampled upon and desecrated. How do we face that? What do we need to do to ease all that suffering?
The past is finished, the future is always unfinished.
How we move in the present matters because here is where we determine the potential of the future. That we recognise what happened in the past and confront it matters in the present because it must be done in the present, it cannot be put off until tomorrow, or the day after, or next week, next month. It must be done in the present.
Part of the difficulty is a general sense of fatalism. Part of the difficulty is that few, if any, will acknowledge that we live within a violent hierarchy cult that has caused millennia of harm, that is causing immense harm today, that appears to be on a trajectory of more harm into the future, we are led to believe by it's size and ubiquity that it is indeed inevitable, there's a deterministic attitude associated with how this history is regarded, how it is understood. Understandable, from the individual perspective. How can I an impotent single human do anything about this?
In spite of all that it does not have to be this way, at all. It is this way, yet it does not have to be, into the future. The future is unfinished. There are more of the decent folk than there are bullies and barbarians. With solidarity the odds are in our favour.
Who pays the price?
1. Externalised costs means that ALL accumulated wealth from industrial culture is toxic, without exception. In war, who pays the price?
3. Governance of the shared commons implies duty of care which in turn demands an evidence based approach to all activity and policy that affects the shared commons.
Any activist that is not integrating these three elements is failing to address reality as it really is.
Poverty is a weapon system.
It’s an open secret that a lot of people in work mostly think poor people are poor because they are inferior. This is a core component of Industrial Social Conditioning.
"The Poor Will Always Be With Us."
That is a lie upon which concentrated wealth and power is founded.
It is also built into every hierarchy religion, it is a lie built into mainstream psychiatry, mainstream psychology and mainstream marketing. The only reason 'the poor will always be with us' is because the system mandates that poverty must be maintained as a whip that is used to keep workers working for industries that cause harm as they operate to accumulate wealth and power into the hands of a hegemonic class, the Ruling Class.
And for those of us who are poor we are made to feel a cloud of shame while the others are destroying the environment and looking down on us.
So the problem is clearly laid out.
Life is utterly amazing and precious, bullies undermine that at every turn, it doesn't have to be this way.
We understand it and thus the next question is how do we resolve the problem?
