Rape, Power and Activism

Rape is one of many abuses that are effectively cultural markers, made so by their prevalence in certain societies and the absence in others...

Industrial Society rapes the soil (pharming), the ground (mining), the sea (over fishing) abuses workers (low wages), other cultures (Aboriginals, Indigenous peoples) and the rapist rapes the victim, the child rapist rapes the child and it is NEVER just about the action of  mining, digging, fishing, the sexual assault.

In many ways these are the medium through which that kind of Power is expressed. And whilst the experience of each kind of assault is horrific, and for those who suffer it, a serious and debilitating trauma from which the action and the motivation are extremely difficult to distingish, those who seek to help the suffering in the long term, those who are concerned with activism in these areas must always keep in mind that the issue is very much about Power.

It is also about the POWER to avoid the truth of the outcomes for what is acted upon, what is abused, who is victimised that is the real issue.... that avoidance allows the abuser to retain Power, and is in essence the immaturity of a consciousness that refuses to address the outcomes of it's behaviour, which always leads to more abuse and creates lots of traumatised organisms in it's wake, which is NOT a biological mandate.

And it's a behavioural issue, so it is tractable which is to say it is a matter of choice,  there is this element of volition and thus the behaviour open to being resolved, changed.

However it requires a clear and unprejudiced observation of the behaviour and outcomes, a kind of fearlessness and determination textured with a degree of empathy and psycho-cultural understanding applied as behaviour, processes, policies and ethics for those changes to occur. This is critical.

This is about data, evidence and the insights of Survivors of rape, and other abuses, an insight that is all to often ignored or masked by the rage of the bystander community.

1. Abusive Behaviour emerges when populations or individuals (animal or human) are stressed, traumatised and exposed in particular to chronic stress and are unable to resolve it, resolve the situation within which they find themselves, and this occurs most often in hierarchical systems:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4UMyTnlaMY

2. Studies of older cultures reveal that there IS a spectrum of behaviour from abusive to empathic, and that the primary predictor of abuse emerging in any given culture is the degree to which the natural child mother bonding processes are disrupted, stressed...

http://www.violence.de/prescott/bulletin/article.html

http://www.violence.de/.../Profiles_Peaceful_v_Violent.pdf

3. These studies of pre-conquest peoples reveal part of the reason for that empathic state is partly sensory experience : towhit the existence of a sensory acuity or liminal awareness / liminal consciousness as a key element of an operational experiential reality in interactions between people within a healthy optimally functioning societal social system.

http://rewild.info/anthropik/vault/sorenson-preconquest/

4. Recent studies on the consciousness of babies reveals a similar potential, and recognises that it requires appropriate nurturing behaviour from it’s caring community to fully deveop,

http://www.eheart.com/cesarean/babies.html

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23401-emerging-consciousness-glimpsed-in-babies.html#.UpTQ4ydoJAk



5. Recent research over the past 40 years into child development, including brain development, bio-chemistry of hormones, how the immune system works or no, all point to a biological mandate towards empathy, connection, intelligent co-operation as expressions of optimum biological health.

www.birthpsychology.com - resource center for these kinds of studies...

I urge you to review these materials, and it WILL take some time, it is time well spent....

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Abuse and Resolution: an Urgent Question of Maturity

"The abused abuser is no defence - just a devious way of getting a lighter sentence. It is no excuse. "

I hear this often, and feel that more needs to be said or written on this.... as a Survivor,  I am absolutely focussed on prevention...

If we want to prevent abuse, we have to understand how and why it emerges. Otherwise we end up dealing with abuse AFTER a child has been abused, which is way too late....

There are writers, researchers and scientist/pratictioners who have outlined the dynamics of abuse and trauma (PTSD patterns) and the context of natural child development being disrupted very well, such as Alice Miller, James Prescott, John Bowlby, Gabor Maté , Marshal Rosenberg, Vincent Feletti, David Chamberlain, and others.

The basic theme is this : certain biologically mandated experiences and processes are necessary for the development of caring self empathy (sense of self) and caring empathy for others. these biological processes start with the child-mother bonding process, in the womb, at birth, infancy and toddlership... if these mandates are disrupted across a society, then statistically we see a massive increase in abuse, distress, psychological dysfunction.

In the research there is observed a direct relationship between the degree of disruption of the child-mother bonding processes and the degree of violence, hierarchy, religiosity, territorialism and abuse.

All of theses are further complicated by Trauma Events, such as war, poverty, racism, sexism, religion, climactic events esp. where there is no healing/recovery mechanisms and people are forced to cope with the situation.... the coping mechanism is appropriate in the midst of a trauma event, yet it becomes toxic if maintained after the event, if the trauma response becomes chronic... as we see in intergenerational trauma patterning, where the adverse affects of the trauma are passed down through the generations and are expressed even in a situation where the original trauma is but a dim memory, a story of legend or history..

The chronic stress associated with Hierarchically Violent Societies is profoundly damaging, even if the people within it become adjusted to it....

In order to prevent future abuse, it is necessary to support parents in ways that enable the child-mother bonding to be recognised and responded to with support.

It's also necessary to challenge all Government support for War (Trauma),

It follows that it's also necessary to challenge the status of Religious and State Indoctrination,

It becomes obvious that we need to alter State Education so that it becomes a forum for nurturing self empathy, autonomy and response ability (at core, Education needs to be democratised so the children take responsibility and are supported in developing that sense of responsibility, not through sanctions and bullying, but through respect and example...) and that it helps prepare children for becoming effective, nurturing parents as well as preparing them for a life of work...

It's also necessary to LISTEN to Survivors, for their insights are amongst the deepest in this area... as is their motivation to challenge abuse wherever it occurs.

Too often, 'normal' folk shy away from Survivors insights, from the darkness of their experiences at the hands of abusers, and this tends to lend weight to those who HYPE the issue, who contort the issue in ways that make it less likely to be resolved as part of a political ploy.

'Normal' folk also tend to have such a strong reaction and with it a desire to harm abusers, to punish them, which has nothing to do with the Survivors needs, nor the work needed to ensure prevention - it's usually an unconscious reaction of avoidance... it's easier to think of the abuser as someone to abuse (punish, kill, etc etc) than it is to face the pain, terror, harm and shame a Survivor has lived through and walk with the Survivor as a companion in their recovery.... and to then seek to understand how the abuser became the abuser and seek ways to prevent further emergences as best as possible.

If we are not focussed on prevention, then abuse will continue. Punishment is applied only to those few, and it is a minority, who get caught or are exposed.

Punishment satisfies a public's immature demand for justice and abandons all future children to potential predation as a hidden cost. This is unacceptable, morally and intellectually.

It's long past time for the discourse on abuse to mature, for those concerned with this issue to step up to the plate and confront it with clarity, commitment, maturity and grace.

I also think that abusers neurological 'wiring' and behaviour emerges out of their experience - they were not conceived with this in place. There is some evidence that certain kinds of trauma in utero and birth and infancy can alter a persons neurology in ways that if not recognised, and therefore modulated or attended to, can become the basis for the developing psychopathy.

In all cases of abuse perpetrated by an adult, we have to face the fact that the adult abuser has CHOSEN to abuse, that there is an element of volition and that this brings with it accountability, before those they have victimised and the community at large and that this accountability and consequences cannot be softened by our awareness.

Our awareness is about PREVENTION, about spotting the signs early on and modulating those children who show signs of psychopathy, of instituting a deeper society wide awareness of the need and basis for empathic parenting and empathic governance - they go together... this awarness is not to be taken to soften the consequences of those who have abused others, to excuse them.




Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Survivors Insights ignored by The Church and The State

Again and again we see that Survivors insights and experience, and thus their real needs, are to a large degree sidelined as both Government and The Church craft 'responses' to the situation.

We are invited to make representations, we are to a degree consulted, yet in the finalised outcomes the decisions made are from the point of view of Government and The Church and how they wish to frame their liabilities, and the consultation appears to be a matter of form, rather than substance.

In recent days we have had the completion of the review by the United Nations Committee for the Rights of the Child in Geneva of The Vatican's response to the world wide child abuse issue within it's own institutions, and the announcement of  the Irish Catholic Church's 'Towards Peace' support service.

The United Nations Committee for the Rights of the Child has criticised the Vatican for it's actions to the present date, and as yet has to issue further comments and determine further action.

Eyewitness accounts and the transcripts will show that The Vatican has not altered it's course and is maintaining a strategic approach to the 'problem', rather than being open, honest, vulnerable and seeking a just resolution for all concerned.

The 'Towards Peace' support service has been launched without the detailed input of survivors, which had been promised. However what is true of the Vatican is also true of The Irish Catholic Church. Their approach is strategic, rather than open and honest.

In Australia, there is The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse which has been working since early April 2013, and is continuing as I write. In this inquiry over 5000 survivors gave evidence, as did the Church and other bodies... One of the targets of this Inquiry is the "Towards Healing" process crafted under the aegis of Archbishop Pell in Melbourne, for whom Tony Abbot has recently issued statements of support.

And yet again, at this level of Inquiry, we see the same 'strategic' approach from the Australian Catholic Church, although with the evidence of 5000 people to counter it, it will take some assistance from the Abbot Government to 'help' the Church 'manage' this situation.

"To date evidence showed the process failed some abuse victims who found it as traumatic as the original abuse because of the legalistic approach taken by the church.

Towards Healing will be the subject of several case studies by the commission which will hold public hearings in Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia as well as in NSW before June this year"
source: http://www.ntnews.com.au/news/national/child-abuse-inquiry-reopens-in-sydney/story-fnjbnvyj-1226805484854


This same approach, that of acknowledging abuse only when Survviors come forward into the public domain, and then 'managing' the response to protect the status and image of both Church and State has been seen in every case where Survivors have come forward.

Across the world, both The State and it's institutions and The Church and it's institutions  are obviously concerned about their roles in the abuse, the cover-ups and mismanagement of investigations, and understand that they have a liability that can be expanded if they are 100% honest and they seek to reduce or minimise that liability.

Whilst this is to be expected and is indeed standard corporate practice, it remains the fact that it is moral cowardice, and that Survivors lives are impacted by this management approach. It is also true that this impacts not only the Survivor, but their families and the wider society, as well as doing little to protect children, and other vulnerable people, from future abuses.

It also is a misunderstanding of the intent of the vast majority of Survivors, whose aim is to a) have the truth told and understood b) prevent further abuses (and the 'management' of exposure of abuse) c) regain some degree of healing in our own lives, and in the life of the community, the State and The Church.

We Survivors are gifting the world with our concern, our stories. The changes we represent can only increase nurturing in our Society. That's the fullest truth here.

It's long past the time that all this was recognised and responded to accordingly, not only by Government and The Church, but by society at large, by the people who sit in pews and pray and by all parents and caring people.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

MIchael Gove, Blackadder and our childrens futures.

Michael Gove "thinks it is important not to denigrate the patriotism, honour and courage demonstrated by ordinary British soldiers in the First World War."

He believes that "Blackadder" denigrates these.

When in fact "Blackadder", as satire, tries to show the futility of patriotism, honour and courage in a situation largely brought about by Political Power peopled by individuals who lack any or all of these qualities. (the 'patriotism' of General Staff had more to do with position, influence, career prospects, income and power than anything else: it was selfish rather than selfless)

In other words, the narcissistic self interest of the ruling classes of Europe, and their concerns about Empire dominated their deliberations and behaviour, and they used dedicated, professional and sophisticated propaganda to suggest otherwise to the people they Rule, and forced them to engage in a brutal war to meet those narcissistic perceived needs.

A bit like the way the BBC, Government (all sides) and the Mainstream Media are using dedicated, professional and sophisticated propaganda to suggest that the poor are work-shy, the disabled are blaggers, the elite rich are to be praised, the banks are to be supported and the country will be over run by Romanians .... and that the problems in Iraq today have nothing to do with the illegal and cruel invasion of Iraq in 2003 by US/UK Power, with allies....

To associate the qualities of 'honour and courage' with the realities of trench warfare in 1914-1918 is ideological posturing and wilful ignorance.

Rather Michael Gove, as Education Minister, who by his office,which he has chosen to inhabit, has a fiduciary, corporate and personal responsibility to all the children who go through the State Education system ought to consider the sheer horror so many, on all sides, were forced - conscription is coercion - to endure whilst those who sent them into harms way sought to gain from the situation a crucial lesson to be learned from, in order to prevent such outcomes in the future.

But of course, he and his colleagues are supportive of, for example, the contracted ATOS assessments of disabled folk's ability to work, as a mechanism to reduce public expenditure on services for vulnerable people. In other words, they hold their ideology above the welfare of some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

Gove and his colleagues across Parliament and elsewhere were also supportive of Tony Blair's war for 'Iraqi Freedom' which is today being played out in Fallujah with horrific results, years after the US and UK Government proclaimed end of that war.
What he will not do, of course, is confront the realities of that War. Of any war for that matter. He is not unique in this. Far from it, the standard Institutional denial of the full realities of war is a central theme in Governance, in State Education, in the mainstream media and elsewhere. We see this in the comments sections across various media all the time..... "They fought to preserve our freedom!"

A few points regarding World War I, and the British Government:

1.The Liberal Government of the time were blackmailed by their own desire to remain in Power above all else - key members of their own cabinet and party who refused the Party Whip, and threatened to resign if the Liberal Party stuck by it's own memberships wish* and policy to avoid being drawn into a war which did not directly involve Britain or protect Britain's strategic interests. Those resignations would have led immediately to a General Election which the Liberals would have lost. The Governments urge to go to war had less to do with European politics and honour than it had to do with their individual desire to remain in Power. Of course, they could not be honest about this in public, and thus the propaganda campaign was launched to sell the war to the British people. Nothing much has changed in the last 100 years in this regard.

*"On August 1^st and 2^nd, Liberal Associations across the UK met and voted that the government should pass a resolution of neutrality. "

source : http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/decline_liberal_party.htm
2. Conscription was introduced because Britain was not prepared or ready to mobilise for a war in Europe, and it worked primarily because so many young males were unemployed, and without benefits as we know them, and it was the combination of effective propaganda and poverty which acted as the key incentives.

3. The General Staff of the Army were gung-ho, ideologically driven, professionally clueless, unwilling to admit it, and their ineptitude and dysfunction led directly to the huge degree of attrition which was the result of trench war fare with industrial weaponry.
“In print, Haig attacked a skeptic who dared question the usefulness of a cavalry charge in the age of the machine gun and the repeating rifle. It was as strong a tactic as ever, Haig was certain, since the “moral factor of an apparently irresistible force, coming on at highest speed … affects the nerves and aim of the … rifleman.”

source : Hochschild, Adam (2011-05-03). To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 (Kindle Locations 819-821). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.

4. The troops in the trenches very quickly lost their patriotism, given the ineptitude and amorality of the General Staff and the suffering they endured following insane orders. Patriotism was replaced with a desire for revenge, which drove the fighting on all sides, which is understandable in the circumstances where thousands upon thousands of troops were mown down in pointless attacks directed by General Staff, and where the soldiers had no possibility of confronting the General Staff with their ineptitude, and had the 'enemy' troops, mostly poor conscripts like themselves, to project their fury and anger onto.

And yet, that fabled moment of  a football match on no-mans land during Christmas between both sides shows that many did indeed understand they were in the same situation, poor human beings being directed by rich human beings to exercise outrageous violence against each other, just on different sides. The human side of war, the vulnerability of people caught up in it, is rarely the concern of Politicians.

5. The standard school texts on World War I do not pose a critical analysis from which students could learn about the realities, the context and the lived experience and meaning of war, and appear to focus on glorifying and justifying the slaughter as a noble and necessary sacrifice for freedom against a determined and evil foe.

6. World War I was none of these. If anything it was a a combination of Empire Logic and dreadful error, made by leaders whose own psychology was so dysfunctional that they were unwilling or incapable of acting rationally or humanely. It was a war of Empire, with various Empires seeking to thwart the aims of each other,and to come out on top. The way in which territory was 'carved up' after the Armistice proves this to be the case.



Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

THRIVIVAL: Context and Definition

1. Nature works. Impeccably. That impeccability implies, to my mind, the existence of a Natural Logic.

2. Nature does that which works, and generally does that which works in the long-term. There are exceptions, and these are situational rather than endemic.

3. Everything in Nature receives pretty much whatever is required to thrive, and returns any excess or surplus back to the environment in ways that return nutrients to the nutrient cycles of life. All life is food for more life.

4. Everything that lives has the innate ability to learn for itself those behaviours needed to  live successfully and to master it's own being in the environment.

5. All life, from the tiniest one-celled being to the largest is to some degree capable of some sensory functioning and has the ability to communicate with others and to adapt to subtle changes in the environment. by responding to those changes in precise ways. This capability is the basis of biological organisms maintaining dynamic equilibrium in an ever changing environment.

6. I am nature.

7. You are nature.

8. Any human designed process that does not return nutrients to nature, that deprives others of access to nutrients in nature is irrational in terms of bio-logic. The argument, that because we (industrialised society) are in nature, and we (industrialised society) make pesticides, then pesticides must be nature, is false.

9. Nature cannot be understood by Anthropomorphism or by projection. Just because we do not speak Elephant does not mean that Elephants are less intelligent than we are. The same goes for all organisms.

10. That assumption of innate human superiority over everything else in nature is a quasi religious faith or belief, it is a cultural artefact, one which lies at very the core of Industrialised Society, which means that those who hold it are, biologically speaking irrational.

12. They were not born irrational. That irrationality is learned, it is the outcome of what they have been indoctrinated to think, and having little choice in the matter, they learned to 'think' by adopting other peoples justifications as their own. Internalisation. Which only compounds the problem. However as all children of Industrial Society are essentially bullied, it's understandable. We are not to blame for being misled by our culture.

13. Natures fundamental logic is exceedingly simple, and the benefits of nature's simple logic are immense diversity, outstanding beauty and continued prosperity of all life. "Everything eats, everything gets eaten, all poop is food for more life." Materials are metabolised in living organisms, and then deposited for other living processes to build on.

14. The state of being and the collective noun to describe all processes that lead to nurturing the habitat so that more life flourishes is to be called THRIVIVAL.

15. THRIVIVAL; Noun : the state or fact of living such that the habitat is nurtured by one's behaviour. It is the antithesis of Survival, which implies struggle, insecurity, doubt, threat of imminent death.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

What Nelson Mandela's media death-fest means to me.

Nelson Mandela is being used as mortar to point the cracks between the bricks of Empire. As toilet paper to wash the stained, putrid behinds of Power players. As a soporific to drown out the cries of the oppressed. He cannot speak in his own defence, for he has passed away. He is being abused again.

Nelson Mandela

image source : By Francisco Anzola from United States - Rivonia treason trial, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=83684810

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Prepared_to_Die

The Marikana Massacre in 2012 stands as a testament to the reality of Power in South Africa. Striking African miners brutally shot to death by Police operating under the direction of the ANC. 

In much the same manner that the BBC fawned over Pope Benedict on 16-19 September 2010, during his 'State Visit' to the UK, the mainstream media fawns over the English Establishment, over the very people who have in the past expressed hatred for Mandela, yet who are now riding the bandwagon whilst pursuing policies Mandela himself described :

"If there is a State that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don't care for human beings."

What State does? Show me it. Prove it with outcomes, not with reference to slick slogans or empty aphorisms. 

Bush, Obama, Clinton and Bono, Cameron and Geldof and so many others, let alone the local lads, Jacob Zuma, Cyril Ramaphosa: these are all people whose political lies have led to the violent death of others with less power, people unable to defend themselves; these are all people who have enriched themselves at others expense and who defend their positions and proclaim their own innocence.

I find the lack of critical analysis in the mainstream media to be a horror.

All the more horrific given that Nelson Mandela went down the road of reconciliation with those who had abused him, because he understood that the urge for revenge amongst people who have been dreadfully, lethally abused is natural enough and yet, for peace to have a chance, that urge must be transformed, by personal and determined daily effort, into practical pathways towards understanding, honesty and material changes.

He also knew well that those who hold Power are capable of utter horrors, such as the US infiltration of South America with trained mercenaries, special ops and armed militia sent in to undermine democratically elected governments who failed to toe the line, who dared to claim the resources on their lands as their own 'strategic resources'. Such is the nature of the powerful abuser.

That those who were the abusers - the owners of the 'strategic resources', gold, coal, oil, silver, diamonds, platinum etc - manipulated that insight, that gift of Nelson Mandela to his country and to ALL the people of South Africa, that example of empathy and kindness, to preserve their economic power knowing it would mean that many, many millions of innocent people's lives would be adversely impacted, reveals a lot about those people and the institutions they utilise to preserve their grandiose and narcissistic 'civilisation'.

I find the mainstream media to be implicated in the abject failure of representative democracy as a tool to mitigate the effects of free-market economic ideologies (wealth hoarding at the expense of the vulnerable) and religious fundamentalisms (indoctrination of defenceless children and aboriginal peoples) and it's stealthy lack of genuine, meaningful support for those whose vulnerability is being abused by these two Institutional threads of greed - the greed for power and money and the greed for power and souls.

Not least because few journalists are capable or willing to look at the psychology of the Society they are a part of. They dare not go there. They dare not even look into their own internalisations, and so they project onto the world their own opinion and describe that as reality and attack with 'ad hominem' those who would try to reveal it for what it is. 

Snowden, Dr. Kelly, Manning, King, Nigella Lawson - that odious video is an attempt to distract from nature of the throat holder she co-habited with, and what that whole scenario really means.

None appear able to engage with history as a psychological study of intergenerational behaviour patterns that emerge out of trauma. So the past becomes irrelevant other than as a foot note, an aside, a curiosity or a justification for more abuse, based on the idea that that the historical abuse was so much worse and what is happening now is mild in comparison, and represents an improvement.

History as it is taught in schools is being utilised as toilet paper... to wipe clean that which has stuck, stinks and is deemed unpalatable for inspection.

None are willing to do more than repeat official lines or adhere to their editors instructions (the media version of the party whip) and offer their opinion (most opinions are useless when facts are the issue, because they reflect personal prejudices and are not journalism in the sense that democratic journalism is functional when it investigates power, and reveals what has been found, in such manner that the reader can grasp the basics of any given subject and then make informed decisions on how to act).

The entire thing is disgusting.

For me, the new age movement is dead, it is all deadly and incredibly boring. Dull as. False Hope has been beautifully packaged, wrapped in finery and sold as a way forwards, when it is backwards, insular and ineffective in bringing forward healthy activism.

It is as dull and unimaginative as is the concept of civilisation progressing, in some linear fashion towards an ideal, which is so often the claim of Power and those who are comfortable because they occupy a position of relative ease within the Power dynamic.

Taking up an aboriginal culture's philosophy as something to facilitate healing, or drive change with, is meaningless. Pacha Mama is not my word. The Vedas are not of my time. Ubuntu is drivel, when it is spoken by Europeans who refuse to acknowledge the truth of their own culture.

The dysfunctional myths of other cultures are irrelevant to my life.

Aliens are pointless distractions. Ceremonies are futile. Conspiracies are real and the theorists are un-realistic and unwilling to do the work that needs doing, not least on or within themselves, let alone in following the path that Nelson Mandela took. He had to dig deep to go where he went.

Eco-tourism is extravagance wading through the oppressed. High Culture is propaganda.

Unless it is with all the children, all the innocents, all the wounded, every single last one of them, not least the child within each adult, that personal place of vulnerable innocence, taking sides leads to sterile debates and furious that are a debasement of discourse and learning. Someone wins, someone loses: that is not a balanced situation.

If you think Facebook or your favourite bulletin board and the trolls are bad, try your media, your papers, your pubs, your pop music, your scriptures. It's all an abhorrent falsified performance of avoidance. Real addictions are painfully meaningful.

For me the dominant culture of power is boring and deadly, it is incredibly dull, severely and intentionally limiting, it is putrid, utterly rank, it stinks and is probably beyond being compostable. Useless.

That's what I get from the media reporting on the death of Nelson Mandela.

Of course we all have no choice but to live in this sewer that calls itself a high culture : we were born into it, we had no choice. I am so fortunate that my place in the sewer is relatively comfortable. I am so lucky I was not born in Iraq, Gaza, Palestine or Soweto or a council sink estate in the UK or a run down area in Detroit, where the neglect of power and wealth is real and the people who are suffering are blamed and pilloried for their suffering as though it was entirely their fault.

And so I praise the life in myself, the beauty in you, and in all people, the generosity of spirit I see all around, which thrives in spite of, not because of, that culture of Power.


Here are two songs that celebrate you and I.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCfHe5PfVxo

Occupy Common Sense

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXAHHT3w-DM


Expectations of Every Child....





Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Violence, Women, Mothers and a decent wage....

Two items crossed my desk today, as they do...

The first was that yesterday was UN International Elimination of Violence against Women Day. Which includes mothers.

The Guardian ran an article on the World Health Organisations data on this.

"A new report from the World Health Organisation has drawn together data from dozens of studies and found that worldwide, 35% of women have experienced violence - and that the consequences for their health can be devastating"

The health consequences of violence are always devastating. One follows the other, like night and day.

We do live in a hierarchically violent culture - the strong beat on the weak, in politics, in economics,religion and in many other ways, some so subtle that they are accepted as 'normal', and even justified by so called 'innocent' bystanders, who lose their innocence with that acceptance.

Ignorance is bliss. Ihe innocence of the conditioned mind.

There is no such thing. That often unwitting unknowingness is far from innocent, it is the bedrock upon which violent hierarchies thrive. And getting angry with that sector, the innocent 'ignorant' does not help them escape.... only empathy can do that.

Just as only empathy can drive through the changes required to fulfil the United Nations aim, which all decent people share, of course. How could we not?

Yes some men will scream out about 'violence against men' ... missing the point altogether, though there is violence against men - war, for want of  a better word, yet they keep going to those war movies, and they keep on enlisting and they keep on learning how to kill. And wanting to do the job they were trained for? Ouch! C'mon!

OK. I AM being facetious here, and the issue of violence against women is clouded for some men who feel that 'feminism' (a term so general that it can only be defined as it is used,it must be qualified to have any real sense,meaning or context) is anti-men.

It's not. Some feminists are anti-men, and probably so 'cos they are angry, they are hurting somewhere deeply, and they feel things so intensely because some things are if we face them honestly extremely painful, and actually that's ok, it's nothing to be frightened by, it's healthy to feel that pain to some degree, it's an expression of a valid feeling - just don't give them guns! The boys or the girls..

Jokes aside, the thrust of a given concept is not defined by an individuals actions, other than in relation to that specific individual.

Women are exposed to a lot of hostility just because they are women, and that's plain nuts. It really is. And it's dangerous... and so something needs to change, and it's different things in different places, because the hostility towards women takes many forms, some of them cultural.

The next thing that came across my desk is part of the resolution of violence against women, and will lead to a a massive reduction in hostility towards women, and in the long term hostility in general, benefiting society massively.

It's the petition by the Global Women's Strike to the UK Government for a living wage for mothers and carers. The background document to this petition is well prepared, detailed and easy to digest. And it's accurate.

The petition was published on the 1st of May 2013. it has only clocked up 557 names since then! What? Only 557 names? In 6 months?

"Houston, we have a problem here..!"

You see what I mean about the hostility towards women? towards Mothers! Think the Unions have a hard time bargaining for better wages? Nothing on what the Mothers are faced with!

I recommend reading the background paper and then consider signing the petition, or not, as the case may be. The read is a good read. If if one does not at first support the proposition. You WILL learn something.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

George Monbiot, Pope Francis the 'reformer' and Junipero Serra

George Monbiot, in an article in the Guardian, explores the myth of Pope Francis, the Liberal, the Reformer.

I quote from his article. It's worth reading.

For Pope Francis the liberal, this promises to be a very bloody Sunday

Francis is the poster pope for progressives. But the canonisation of Junípero Serra epitomises the Catholic history problem

"Nowhere is the church's denial better exemplified than in its drive to canonise the Franciscan missionary Junípero Serra, whose 300th anniversary falls on Sunday. Serra's cult epitomises the Catholic problem with history – as well as the lies that underpin the founding myths of the United States.

You can find his statue on Capitol Hill, his face on postage stamps, and his name plastered across schools and streets and trails all over California. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II, after a nun was apparently cured of lupus, and now awaits a second miracle to become a saint. So what's the problem? Oh, just that he founded the system of labour camps that expedited California's cultural genocide.

Serra personified the glitter-eyed fanaticism that blinded Catholic missionaries to the horrors they inflicted on the native peoples of the Americas. Working first in Mexico, then in Baja California (which is now part of Mexico), and then Alta California (now the US state of California), he presided over a system of astonishing brutality. Through various bribes and ruses Native Americans were enticed to join the missions he founded. Once they had joined, they were forbidden to leave. If they tried to escape, they were rounded up by soldiers then whipped by the missionaries. Any disobedience was punished by the stocks or the lash.

They were, according to a written complaint, forced to work in the fields from sunrise until after dark, and fed just a fraction of what was required to sustain them. Weakened by overwork and hunger, packed together with little more space than slave ships provided, they died, mostly of European diseases, in their tens of thousands.

Serra's missions were an essential instrument of Spanish and then American colonisation. This is why so many Californian cities have saints' names: they were founded as missions. But in his treatment of the indigenous people, he went beyond even the grim demands of the crown. Felipe de Neve, a governor of the Californias, expressed his horror at Serra's methods, complaining that the fate of the missionised people was "worse than that of slaves". 

As Steven Hackel documents in his new biography, Serra sabotaged Neve's attempts to permit Native Americans a measure of self-governance, which threatened Serra's dominion over their lives.

The diverse, sophisticated and self-reliant people of California were reduced by the missions to desperate peonage. Between 1769, when Serra arrived in Alta California, and 1821 – when Spanish rule ended – its Native American population fell by one third, to 200,000.

Serra's claim to sainthood can be sustained only by erasing the native peoples of California a second time, and there is a noisy lobby with this purpose. Serra's hagiographies explain how he mortified his own flesh; they tell us nothing about how he mortified the flesh of other people."

How will Pope Francis deal with this matter? The prognosis is not good.

Why? Well here's a little Irish and Australian History and current affairs for my readers and other interested parties.

When the English King Henry II invaded Ireland, in 1169, he did so with the approval and 'Authority' of the then Pope, Pope Adrian IV.

The authorising document, Laudabilter, issued in 1155, by Pope Adrian IV, noted that the Irish Christians were heretical, and that Henry's invasion was being actioned and authorised by the Pope to save their souls.

The unspoken deal worked like this : "you can take the land as long as you promise attempt to convert the heretics, bringing them back into the 'fold' and thus saving their souls; those who refuse are condemned by their refusal, and therefore annihilating them is of no consequence, as their refusal condemns them to hell."

This became a 'standard' by which colonisation and extirpation of Aboriginal 'heathen' Peoples was supported by the Holy Roman Empire for centuries. It was and remains a commercial venture, more than a spiritual one.

The Magdalene Laundries.


The Industrial Schools in Ireland.

The Indian Residential Boarding Schools in Canada and North America.

Institutions that were extant into the 1990s and that were the subject of intense Church and Government activity in terms of 'damage limitation' exercises across the globe. The story of Kevin Annets 'trial' by which he was removed not just from his ministry as a United Church Pastor in Port Alberni, but his entire career destroyed, his family disrupted and his name slandered, over a simple yet illegal land deal that if exposed threatened commercial interests, and their friends in Government as well as the Church.


There are living Survivors of these Institutions, seeking some kind of resolution and justice.


In July this year, the 4 orders of Nuns involved in the Magdalene Laundries refused to hand over ANY compensation to the remaining Survivors of those hellish prisons. The Irish Government is still indemnifying the Vatican with regard to it's liabilities, and it is still falling short in meeting the needs of Survivors in terms of services, transparency and accountability.

The same applies to the Aboriginal peoples of Canada and North America, and the living Survivors of those horrid 'boarding schools'. All the so-called Truth and reconciliation processes have been reduced to management processes, rather than genuine healing processes. Spin more than substance.

And this affects the next generation, the next, in as much as intergenerational trauma is a scientific and experiential reality. What is unresolved gets passed on. Pain is transmitted. Children get hurt.

In all these stories, there were and are commercial interests at stake, as well as a culture's very existence and peoples lives.

What would Jesus have the Vatican and other Churches involved do? What would he have the Governments do?

One can see this in some more detail in the way the Aboriginal People of North Western Australia are being 'served' by the Australian Government today.

Tony Abbot, who replaced Julia Gillard, is a good friend of Archbishop Pell, who has been 'managing' the 'scandal' of Church cover-ups of serial pedophiles who had free rein within Church orphanages and Aboriginal Residential Schools.

Julia Gillard instigated the current Judicial Inquiry underway  in Australia into these matters, her removal has suited the Church more than it has suited the Australian electorate.

 Such is the Power of the Vatican.

The 'intervention' in the North Western Territories was pushed forward after Aboriginal Leaders refused to give over their land rights in exchange for more Government help with their problems. The 'intervention' was mooted on the false charge that there was widespread sexual abuse of children within the Aboriginal Community and the Government had to step in. A cruel irony. such is the Power of the Mining conglomerates.

The reality is that anyone who expects meaningful reform in the Catholic Church does not understand the true character of this Institution. They are naive, which is understandable. Whilst it is true that it's history, and the details are well documented, they are not widely known,much less understood.

The same applies to corporate driven State Governance, wherever it exists....

Furthermore, the only way to counter this is widespread public information campaigns based on confirmed data, documented evidence and crucially, the voices of those who have been oppressed..

For example, I have rarely heard Survivors voices been given a fair hearing in the mainstream media, and this includes the Guardian, who misquoted my own words, my meaning and my intent, which was and remains wholly honourable, in this report in 2010.

My case is the rule, rather than the exception I know there are many, many voices more worthy than mine, many whose needs are far greater. I think I got away lightly compared to the horrors others have survived. Or not. So many did not survive.

I gave a full and detailed account of myself, outside Lambeth Palace, as I was waiting to see the Pope with other protesters, and activists, to Helen Pidd. Her editor 'edited' the piece and reduced my statement to farce. I have been writing on this issue for more than 5 years. I have been living with the realities on my own experience for all of my life.

The BBC gave sycophantic fawning coverage to Pope Benedict's 'tour' of the UK and it's bias did untold damage to Survivors efforts to bring their voices to the public.

It is  the media were made to account for themselves, in as much as their 'reportage' of these matters has exacerbated the problem, rather than helped to resolve it.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

The Power Inquiry recommendations : a brief review.

*Russell Brand talks about two areas of interest to us all in the Paxman interview.

These are

a) the cruelty of the way Political, economic and religious power as we know it behaves - war, poverty, misogyny, concentration of wealth.

and

b) the desire of ordinary folk who have empathy, intelligence and the energy to render Governance incapable of such cruelty, yet who feel totally excluded from so doing due to the current political systemic and institutionalised set-up.

We are excluded from policy decision making, we are excluded from adequate oversight, and our concerns raised, when harms are caused, are brushed aside. Brand's populism lacks the energy and insight that the Power Inquiry contains. 

a well known war criminal, free and at large, unindicted, 

simply because the people are excluded from policy decision making.

The Power Inquiry of 2006 looked at how political and legislative power could be devolved to the grass roots, to those people who are largely imbued with common sense, decency, empathy, intelligence and the energy and a natural desire to render Power incapable of such cruelty such as The Iraq War or the mistreatment of 'failed' asylum seekers, or the mistreatment of the elderly in privatised 'care' and so on, if they had the opportunity.

In essence this is about Power Relationships of old being superseded by shared power with empathy based relationships at it's core as a future and necessary social and cultural trajectory.

Here is a brief list of Power Inquiry Recommendations:

You can download the full POWER INQUIRY REPORT in .pdf format  from this web page. - it's a very inspiring document!

Rebalancing Power

There needs to be a re-balancing of power between the constituent elements of the political system: a shift of power away from the executive to Parliament, away from central government to local government. 

Much greater clarity, transparency and accountability should be introduced into the relationship between the Executive and supra-national bodies, quangos, business, and interest groups. 

Too much power goes unchecked. The aim here, in The Power Inquiry, is to allow the freedom for our elected representatives to be the mind, heart, eyes, ears and mouth of British citizens speaking at the vert heart of governance.

1. A concordat should be drawn up between executive and Parliament indicating where key powers lie and providing significant powers of scrutiny and initiation for Parliament.

2. Select committees should be given independence and enhanced powers including the power to scrutinise and veto key government appointments and to subpoena witnesses to appear and testify before them.

This should include proper resourcing so that committees can fulfil their remit effectively. The specialist committees in the Upper House should have the power to co-opt people from outside the legislature who have singular expertise, such as specialist scientists, or those who work directly in frontline services when considering complex areas of legislation or policy.

3. Limits should be placed on the power of the whips. Indeed the Party Whip is anti-democratic in nature and should be abolished.

4. Parliament should have greater powers to initiate legislation, to launch public inquiries and to act on public petitions.

5. 70% of the members of the House of Lords should be elected by a 'responsive electoral system' (see 12 below) - and not on a closed party list system - for a maximum of three parliamentary terms. To ensure that this part of the legislature is not comprised of career politicians with no experience outside politics, candidates should be at least 40 years of age.

6. There should be an unambiguous process of decentralisation of powers from central to local government.

7. A concordat should be drawn up between central and local government setting out their respective powers.

8. Local government should have enhanced powers to raise taxes and administer its own finances with oversight and consent by it's local population. Participatory budget decision deliberations by the people from whom that revenue is received.

9. The government should commission an independent mapping of quangos and other public bodies to clarify and renew lines of accountability between elected and unelected authority.

10. Ministerial meetings with representatives of business including lobbyists to be logged, transcripted and listed on a monthly basis.

11. A new overarching select committee should be established to scrutinise the executive's activities in supranational bodies and multilateral negotiations, particularly in relation to the European Union, and to ensure these activities are held to account and conducted in the best interests of the British people.

Real Parties and True Elections

The current way of doing politics is killing politics. Russell Brand is not lying. Paxman agrees but differs in that he claims that if you don't vote the you have no right to complain, which is an opinion position rather than the reality of Power Politics as we know them because it's a way of avoiding the central issue of powerlessness by being excluded from the key parts of decision making processes.

The fact that the voting system does not provide the ability to reject all the candidates -  None of The Above - is problematic, as is the First Past the Post system.

An electoral and party system which is responsive to the changing values and demands of today's population must be created.

This will allow the development of new political alliances and value systems which will both regenerate existing parties and also stimulate the creation of others.

12. A responsive electoral system - which offers voters a greater choice and diversity of parties and candidates - should be introduced for elections to the House of Commons, House of Lords and local councils in England and Wales to replace the first-past-the-post system.

13. The closed party list system to have no place in modern elections.

14. The system whereby candidates have to pay a deposit which is lost if their votes fall below a certain threshold should be replaced with a system where the candidate has to collect the signatures of a set number of supporters in order to appear on the ballot paper.

15. The Electoral Commission should take a more active role in promoting candidacy so that more women, people from black and minority ethnic communities, people on lower incomes, young people, representatives from vulnerable groups and independents are encouraged to stand.

16. The voting and candidacy age should be reduced to sixteen (with the exception of candidacy for the House of Lords which ought to be come an Upper Chamber).

17. Automatic, individual voter registration at age sixteen should be introduced. This can be done in tandem with the allocation of National Insurance numbers.

18. The citizenship curriculum should be shorter, more practical and result in a qualification.

19. Donations from individuals to parties should be capped at £10,000, and organisational donations capped at £100 per member, subject to full democratic scrutiny within the organisation.

20. State funding to support local activity by political parties should be introduced based on the allocation of individual voter vouchers. 

This would mean that at a general election a voter will be able to tick a box allocating a £3 donation per year from public funds to a party of his or her choice to be used by that party for local activity. It would be open to the voter to make the donation to a party other than the one they have just voted for.

21. Text voting or email voting should only be considered following other reform of our democratic arrangements.

22. The realignment of constituency boundaries should be accelerated.

Downloading Power

The people want to nurture a culture of political engagement in which it becomes the norm for policy and decision-making to occur with direct input from citizens. This is the central plank of The Power Inquiry. This means reform which provides citizens with clear entitlements and procedures by which to exercise that input - from conception through to implementation of any policy or decision.

I repeat it's about the move from older Power Relationships to sharing power at the grass roots, where empathy and connection can inform the decision making processes. Empathy and connection are actually common sense qualities to nurture for there can be no meaningful community without these..

23. All public bodies should be required to meet a duty of public involvement in their decision and policy-making processes.

24. Citizens should be given the right to initiate legislative processes, public inquiries and hearings into public bodies and their senior management.

25. The rules on the plurality of media ownership should be reformed. This is always a controversial issue but there should be special consideration given to this issue in light of the developments in digital broadcast and the internet. Further legislation needs to be drafted to prevent exploitative and manipulative media content that misleads, misinforms or deliberately targets know biases and vulnerabilities of any person or group.

26. A requirement should be introduced that public service broadcasters develop strategies to involve viewers in deliberation on matters of public importance - this would be aided by the use of digital technology.

27. MPs should be required and resourced to produce annual reports, hold AGMs and make more use of innovative engagement techniques.

28. Ministerial meetings with campaign groups and their representatives should be logged, minuted and listed on a monthly basis.

29. A new independent National Statistical and Information Service needs to be created to provide the public with key information free of political spin.

30. 'Democracy hubs' should be established in each local authority area. These would be resource centres based in the community where people can access information and advice to navigate their way through the democratic system.

These ideas are a starting point in the solution to the problems, the frustration, the despondency most people feel when facing up to the problems of Politics and Power.

Russell Brand was being honest. *(Since that interview, Brand has veered off course, and turned towards monetising opinion, building a Populist Alt-right business model similar to that of Alex Jones, David Icke, Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson feeding off our desperation and distress, exploiting bias and outrage, promoting flawed approaches to the political dynamics of the extant system, without providing the kinds of substantive analysis of the situation we are facing that would lead to a better informed electorate.)

Russell Brand is not the 'answer'.

He was, in the Paxman interview, speaking out against the hypocrisy.

As most of us do in our living rooms. But we need more than those casual chats, we need a detailed understanding of wealth extraction economics, power disparity dynamics, our history and the basics of power sharing  that would enable us to engage with policy formulation and power sharing so that we can do this safely.

We are the answer. All of us adults. If we are prepared to do the work.

This is a choice we must make as mature adults, of we are to give meaning to our affirmations of love to our children, on behalf of their children and grand children.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

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Evolution, Revolution, Diversity and Healing.

I am up for a happier more empathic society.  A diverse range of happier, healthier and empathic cultures.

I wouldn't call it evolution, I'd call it a healing. We live in a wounded Political society that is in denial. This is painful.

Healing is very much a natural part of life, and nature tends to support healing rather than block it.

Using the word evolution sort of justifies the existence of this hierarchically violent system and all it's horrors over such a long time as part of the 'natural flow of things'. Yet we know that there have been many diverse cultures where empathy was at the heart of how they organised themselves. Is this not also part of the natural healthy expression of being human, biologically speaking?

Beating a child to terrorise and control the child can hardly be called 'the natural order of things' yet during the past 6 centuries in Europe it was the traditional approach, just as leaving infants to cry it out to go to sleep is not the 'natural order of things'.

Google the phrase 'poisonous pedagogy' and find out more.

Nor is a 'revolution' where the oppressed engage in organised violence to beat the oppressors to terrorise and control them, any better. Cuba has some merits, yet it also shows signs of unresolved trauma.

What we see in the middle east is that peaceful thoughtful movements have all been undermined by the introduction of violence on their 'side'.

It hasn't worked in terms of delivering better,healthier and more empathic political socialism systems.

Were the Middle Eastern Springs 'evolutions', revolutions or just the result of a more well informed empathy, being expressed by large numbers of people seeking a healing, a healthier society?

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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