Natural Child, Natural Society

Benefits and Assistance

On benefits.

There's a difference between assistance or help and benefits.

When people are in need they deserve assistance and help.

When people are doing extremely well financially because they have lobbied government, they are deriving a benefit.

"You do not need a BENEFIT, you deserve assistance."

A shareholders derives a benefit.

Someone who buys a house cheap, decorates it, and and sells it a year later at a profit, not related to the decorating work done, but to 'market prices' derives a benefit.

That is the difference.

If the State called 'benefits' 'assistance' instead, then the bullying of 'people on benefits' would become much clearer because it would be 'the bullying of people deserving assistance'..... so we must call 'benefits' 'assistance' and insist on the clarity of meaning, intention and outcome.

The system uses words to beat our minds into compliance. We have to counter that.

Tax breaks are benefits.

Subsidies to large scale commercial activities that are immensely profitable are benefits.

Corrupt weapons deals yield benefits.

Cui Bono?

Income support is assistance.

Housing Benefit is Assistance.

Rent controls and social housing are forms of assistance.

Personal Independence Payments and the Independent Living Fund and other ways to support disabled people etc were and are all assistance. Not benefits.

"We are going to reduce the benefits bill" and compare it to "we are going to reduce assistance to those who need it."

"We will support industry with tax breaks" and compare it to "We will ensure shareholders and executives get a financial benefit from our policies".

Critical analysis is a beautiful tool.

Opinion is the subversion of evidence by prejudice.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

*If you like this post, if you found the themes resonant, if you agree in part, would you be kind enough to let others know about it? I would really appreciate that. You could drop a comment too, if you felt the urge. Or not. I will moderate contributions, and block any that are abusive. For obvious reasons. Thank you for reading.

Opinion, Evidence and the Youth Vote

The Youth Vote:

Represents a shift from opinion to evidence as the basis for voting and political policy deliberation.

A reckoning is coming.

A day of reckoning too for all those older people who look down with condescension on young people, claiming that the youth fell for the 'bribe of Free Tuition at University' by Jeremy Corbyn - when in fact the youth voted on many issues in a holistic manner.... and objected to being saddled with debt as a normative - debt to get further education, debt to get housing, debt to pay for bankers fraud and wars of aggression, debt due to low wages and insecure working arrangements that suit employers.

The youth also responded to the bullying by media of Jeremy Corbyn, of low income families, of the disabled and of those who seek peace and negotiation over wars of aggression. Children KNOW when they are being bullied, and we do have an older population who do not know when they are being bullied because they have adjusted to the psychology of bullying, goading, gaming and manipulation ...... that they still buy the media bias is proof enough of this statement.

Wrecked Economies!

And it occurred to me today that in terms of wrecking economies, the British, French and United States of America Establishments (New Labour, Tories, Lib Dems, Democrats, Republicans) wrecked the economies of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria whilst claiming that people like Jeremy Corbyn would do the same to the UK economy.

"Make the economy scream!"

Richard Nixon on Chile before the coup that led to General Pinochet, friend of Thatcher, assuming power.

Who really wrecks economies, and for what purpose?

Governance is different to politics.

Politics is the struggle for power, the power to Rule.

Governance is the administration of a community's shared resource base for the equity of all members of that community.

We need to disable politics and enable healthy governance.

Civil War

To prepare for a civil war a division of opinion over the evidence must be in place and then triggered.

Opinions are personally held views that always omit aspects of the available evidence.

Thus when those views are challenged, the holder tends to react as if it was a personal attack on who that person is.

That is a psychological death threat to such a person.

Only then will a civil war take root.

The War in Northern Ireland is a prime example.

The Civil Rights protests were never about Unionism vs Republicanism.

Who benefited from the shift from civil rights (evidence based) to national identity (opinion based)?

Was the man who assassinated Jo Cox operating on opinion or evidence?

How easy is it to trigger someone who holds a personal opinion?

Are groups of people who hold opinion over the evidence more easily manipulated?

These are critically important questions.

Healthy Governance is not a gambling den, it is not a cash cow and it is not a tool of hierarchical control.

It is a matter of duty of care to the people.

All of the people, rich and poor alike.

Young or old, or middle aged.

Employed or not.

Duty of care to all. Everybody deserves this.

Duty of care cannot be a question of meritocracy (I detest that word and ideology).

Healthy Governance is the administration of a community's shared resources (taxation) for the equity of ALL members on that community. Our money,our communities.

Whose bombs are being dropped from British War Planes? Do they belong to Basildon, or Bexlyheath, or Glasgow? How many weapons does your post code sell to the Saudi Regime?

This is the 21st Century - the information age - and the old politics of the 19th Century of International Empires based on military capability backing commercial activity is out of date, out of touch, out of steam, out of ideas, out of inspiration, lacking in humanity and humility and doomed to the dust bin of human history.

A reckoning and healing is underway.

Opinion is being trumped not Trumped (excuse the pun) by evidence.
Corbyn is evidence over opinion.

New Labour was opinion over evidence.

The Conservatives are all opinion over evidence.

Brexit was all opinion over evidence.

Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria - opinion over evidence!

Governance by opinion? Or evidence?

Governance is the administration of a community's shared resource..... and that has certain implications, in terms of duty of care and health and safety of the community, the entire community.

Governance by opinion?

Who would vote on that basis, and why?

A VERY important question, one that demands evidence for an accurate answer.

The Brexit campaign was an example of opinion over evidence, as was the invasion of Iraq, the bombing of Libya, the support of violent militia in Syria, and not least, the policies pertaining to how our State assists and help the most vulnerable in our Society.

I find it utterly appalling that political decision making, policy is based on opinion (ideology, etc) rather than a full appraisal of all the available evidence.

The media provide opinion and present it as fact. The Politicians react to the media and discuss opinion, rather than the evidence. I see this as a matter of health and safety.

So as to why the Election, now?

Europe will not negotiate on the basis of opinion, and an opinionated Government will find it difficult to engage in an honest negotiation, and that will be come apparent to one and all, and their grip on power will be severely diminished for some time.

So they want out...... before it all goes badly.

They know a Corbyn led Government or progressive alliance Government will be evidence based, and they will attempt to disrupt, derail that Government (from within and without) rather than be mature enough to negotiate in good faith, for all of us.

So they are handing the chalice over, and it remains to be seen what they will do after that - I think they will be disruptive.

Please bear in mind that this is really just an opinion - about the motives behind the snap election, and that I need evidence to support this conclusion and to determine the appropriate response.

My most urgent concern is the primacy of opinion in the electorate, dominated by media output, (and to a degree the way the State curriculum in history disables evidence led analysis) which enables any Government to get support for policies by touting/triggering opinion.In a similar vein, I detest the word 'benefits' when applied to Social Care.

It really ought to be called 'assistance' or 'help' so that when people who do not look at all the evidence suggest that we should not help or assist those who need it, it becomes very clear what the issue is.

Evidence, David Smail and the facts before us.

I have just completed my first reading of 'The Origins of Unhappiness : A New Understanding of Personal Unhappiness' written by David Smail. It is an astounding work, and I must say, I now believe that it is essential reading for anyone interested in psychological distress, justice and economic equity.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27133657-the-origins-of-unhappiness

"It is the main argument of this book that emotional and psychological distress is often brought about through the operation of social-environmental powers which have their origin at a considerable distance from those ultimately subjected to them.

On the whole, psychology has concerned itself very little with the field of power which stretches beyond our immediate relations with each other, and this has led to serious limitations on the explanatory power of the theories it has produced.

To illustrate this, typical cases of patient distress in the 1980s are examined. The decade when the right-wing of politics proclaimed there was no such thing as society gave rise to psychological distress across social classes, as long-standing societal institutions were dismantled.

This is as much a work of sociology, politics, and philosophy, as it is of psychology. Fundamentals of an environmental understanding of distress are outlined. A person is the interaction of a body with the environment."

What I got from this book : realism and honesty.

I live in England where poverty is deliberately maintained and the poor are dehumanised in media representations, where the symptoms of that distress are used as signs of a flawed nature in order to blame the impoverished for their impoverished state, which protects the Wealth Extraction systems, externalising the cost of low wages and inadequate social care provision.

"We need to realise that, rather than the patient being a problem for the world, the world is a problem for the patient. We are embodied products of environment space-time. To make a difference in our lives we need to be able to exert what little influence we have on the environment, to make it, from our perspective, a little more benign. It is not we who need to change, but the world around us.Or, to put it another way, the extent to which we are able to change will always depend upon some material change in the environmental structures of power which envelope us (and insofar as these cannot be changed, for example because they are in the past, neither can we be wiped clean of their effects).

The difficulty with this is immediately apparent: how do we, relatively powerless creatures, bring effective influence to bear on the environment?"

David Smail (goes to wiki page on David Smail) wrote this :

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

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

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

Such an understanding is the focus of this web-site. "

You can go to David Smail's Website here via wayback web archive.

I respectfully suggest this as a genuinely useful resource base, to find tools and insights that relate to how power operates and behaves in this culture.

The psychology of power hierarchies. The psychology of people adjusting to this unhealthy social institutional structure and culture. Some home truths. Radicalisation. Grooming. Social meaning. Our lives in all of this.

Evidence based.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

*If you like this post, if you found the themes resonant, if you agree in part, would you be kind enough to let others know about it? I would really appreciate that. You could drop a comment too, if you felt the urge. Or not. I will moderate contributions, and block any that are abusive. For obvious reasons. Thank you for reading.

Dave and Alice, TWAT or Peace? Through the looking glass.

It matters that this conversation is happening. ~

It's not an easy conversation.

It has to be evidence based, or it will go badly.

This is the core discipline required.

Opinion now, in this conversation, is truly dangerous.

Look it as a genuine health and safety issue, along with belief, faith, hope or ideology - none of these can be allowed to trump the evidence (no topical pun intended...) in seeking to resolve this situation.

It will not be resolved overnight.

It can be resolved.

It is not the Sun.

It is us.

David Smail.

David Smails take on ‘reality’ is closest to what I feel :

“Hardly any of the ‘symptoms’ of psychological distress may correctly be seen as medical matters.

The so-called psychiatric ‘disorders’ are nothing to do with faulty biology, nor indeed are they the outcome of individual moral weakness or other personal failing.

They are the creation of the social world in which we live, and that world is structured by power.
Social power may be defined as the means of obtaining security or advantage, and it will be exercised within any given society in a variety of forms: coercive (force), economic (money power) and ideological (the control of meaning).

Power is the dynamic which keeps the social world in motion.

It may be used for good or for ill.

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

Such an understanding is the focus of this web-site.”

His website…

http://www.davidsmail.info/introfra.htm

Alice Miller.

Alice Miller wrote about how the institutional violence of the adult world afflicts all our children.

She traced the psychology of power through society, into human relationships, and how the influence of violent political power permeates society. Miller looked at the history of education in Europe, leading up to World War II, and examines the industrial powers influence on it to prepare each generation of children for participation in that violence, as workers or as fighters, as if it were something normal.

Something Patriotic.

Heroic.

Fighting for a Cause.

See where this is going?

FOR YOU OWN GOOD : The Roots of Violence in Child-Rearing.

Dip in.

https://www.alice-miller.com/…/the-roots-of-violence-are-n…/

She is not talking about individual parenting, (a common misconception of her intent) she looks at cultural parenting, which is often subject to belief, faith, religion, ideology or mere opinion rather than the evidence about, and of children themselves.

She explores how repeated war trauma fosters socialised violence when entire populations are subjected to violence, over time, to the extent that that history is seen as glorious.

Internalisation. Very much part of radicalisation.

A very strong book, a disciplined read required.

That said....

Some Steps Towards an End to TWAT And a Start to Peace. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*This is of course an incomplete list, with only the briefest of pitches, and very little supporting, referenced documentation to substantiate the points raised.

It’s more to a thought smorgsabord on the issue of TWAT And Peace.

Here goes :

Actions that Western and all Governments can take that might lend towards a long term peace.

-caveat : there's more that I don't know than I do about all of this. A lot more. This analysis is not to be relied upon. In any way, shape or form. It is a list to things I think could alter the situation in useful ways......

1. Acknowledge the War Crime of Iraq and Afghanistan which is the responsibility of the US /UK Coalition of States that invaded and occupied both countries.

2. Arrest the War Criminals.

3. Full public accounting. Convictions.

4. Formal economic, political and cultural sanctions regime against Saudi Arabia, and it’s Wahhabist intervention in Government.

5. Cease all support for Saudi military, including ban on weapons sales. A total ban.

6. Cease all military operations against the Syrian Government. Immediately.

6.a Destroy all DAESH supply lines. No exception. Ensure no funding, arms, munitions, food, oil, petrol, diesel, medicine gets through to their fighting units. If States are involved, then they must be dealt with. International effort in good faith and honour.

7. Allow the Syrian State and people to confront DAESH in Syria, and with respect to language groups and ethnicities, enable autonomy for those as part of the political resolution of other matters. Allow the Syrian State to invite chosen allies to assist with this operation.

8. Abandon the US-UK-Russia-China competing powers behaviour which is the active dynamic in international relations. That behaviour is toxic, irrational and utterly cruel.

9. Excise all incitements to violence from all recognised Religious Texts. These are in breach of Human Rights, and cannot be countenanced.

10. Total separation of Religion and Government, and Legislation. World wide. Governance MUST be evidence based, rather than belief, faith, sectional interest or mere opinion

11. Close down Saudi funded Wahhabist Maddrassa systems, total removal. World wide. Such systems are institutionalised child abuse. No negotiation. Full records of all students to be provided.

12. Demand Saudi excise all incitement to or justification of violence from Wahhabist Texts and Teachings, and remove corporal punishment from the Saudi penal code, as an olive branch, or a carrot, a way to avoid actions 4., 5,

13. Ban Saudi Oil. Last resort.

14. Stand down all international military alliances in favour of a United Nations based resource, resourced from those competing military alliances. The UN treaties provide for a military force that maintains peace, enforces sanctions as a policing action, supporting a diplomatic, political, economic and cultural conflict resolution drive, which must, of course, be equally well resourced.

15. Detain all known participants in militia in their home countries. Process these the weed out those who are reliably dangerous, prosecute those for crimes committed and incarcerate them for Health and Safety reasons.

16. Tear apart the media cabal, and liberate the press, to articulate solid critical analysis of matters of Governance, based on evidence rather than alignments with belief, faith, ideology, bias, opinion.

17. Arrest Murdoch. Close down all media that spin, that present opinion as information, that are aligned with any political party, that are lobby tools for power interests.

18. Public Parenting information must be based on evidence rather than alignments with belief, faith, ideology, bias, opinion. Parents must be legally made to comply with the child’s Human Rights in full. Parents do not have any right to tell their child what to think. Ever.

19. Rebuilding, reparations. We must devote the resources we have to help rebuild what has been destroyed, and restore people and society to a healthy sustainable state.

20. We must also build Systems of Deliberative Democracy, rather than representative Democracy, which is obviously a failed experiment. Power as a shared responsibility.

21. Rekindle old language groups and environmental ethnicity’s, the thriving variation of healthy human culture.

22. In all, evidence based action must be the standard. All evidence must be appraised, no piece omitted, neglected, dismissed, mitigated or denied.

23. End Competing States/Warring States as an accepted political dynamic.

24, Decriminalise mind altering plants and their usage as sacred tools, and medicine.

25. Pay close attention to the Australian Aboriginals people, for they have a well of lived experience for which there is no other comparable population, listen to them and hear their message.

They are the polar opposites of the Jidhadist/Competing Industrial Powers insanity.

They truly know how to live on Earth as fully human beings in sustainable cultures. : TWAT = The War Against Terror.

They have survived an attempted Genocide, and are here today, offering wisdom, love, nurture and peace to the culture that tried to wipe them out.

It doesn't get any tougher, in terms of diplomacy and negotiation than that. If they can, anyone can.

Yes, it's not going to be easy.

Just a reminder, Alice Miller, The Roots of Violence in Child-Rearing.

Get hold of a copy..

A Peace activists must-read.

Again and again.

A Metric for Governance - A People's Metric - Making Governance Safe for People.

Healthy Governance - A Metric

I think of Healthy Governance as being focused on the practical realities of administering a communities shared resources for the equal benefit of all members of that community.

Healthy governance sets the context of governance as operating within as a shared responsibility of duty of care for one another. In that regards healthy governance has to be evidence led at all times. Opinion and belief are insufficient to meet the responsibility of duty of care.

Healthy governance sets the global context of governance as nurturing, caring for and stewarding of the habitat within which the community lives and from which that community draws living materials and other resources.

In the case of States, and in relation to healthy Governance we can apply this metric of care to taxation, which is collected from all, in one way or another, by the State, and is therefore a primary community shared resource. Healthy governance will determine that that resource is deployed with wisdom and equity to nurture the whole population.

Taxation is a resource which does not belong to the Government, as a possession, but is rather a resource held in trust, to be dutifully and carefully deployed on behalf of the whole of society, and the population the Government governs for.

State borrowings are borrowed on the collateral of the States ability to pay the debt with taxation, which is gathered from the population. The population underwrite Government borrowings on behalf of the population.

State currency, issued by State owned banks, must also be understood as a utility. Money as a medium of exchange that is deployed to nurture the whole population.

Against that back drop, we can look at those who extract wealth from economies, and who sequester wealth away from the people, and who deploy that wealth as a political utility to preserve their political power, in order to impede regulation of their extraction of wealth. Who do they serve? Who do they harm?

Governing for is not the same as ruling over.

Apply that metric to all areas of policy.

Update on metrics: "Ignore death and disease, look at wages!"

Metrics for Healthy Governance: https://t.co/RNz1bTNxcI
Not Johnson.#SchoolStrike2021 #JohnsonLiedPeopleDied #JohnsonOut #Starmermustgo #unitygovernment #ZeroCovid pic.twitter.com/y9mDl5gZim
— Egalitarian Corneilius (@coreluminous) October 3, 2021

What are the implications of administering a community shared resource?

- Policy must be evidence based, as a fundamental duty of care - opinion and belief cannot supplant evidence. All available evidence must be brought to bear on any issue.

- Governance must not be submissive or beholden to special interests of any kind. It can and must be aware of all interests, and seek to balance those without causing harm to the people or the shared commons. No costs can be externalised.

- Adversarial dynamics must be rejected. Labour vs Tories is toxic. Christian vs Muslim is toxic. Atheism vs Religionism is toxic. Difference ought to generate richness and complexity rather than conflict.

- Avoidable adverse outcomes must be avoided, and where they occur, by accident or lack of foresight, or due to changes beyond human agency, or by deliberate action by the State, or any others, they must be remedied immediately. Allowing avoidable harm to persist once it has been identified is unacceptable.

- Long term health and safety is as much a priority as short term health and safety

- The policies must be proven to nurture the whole community, in a balanced and healthy manner.

This metric applies also to the seas, waterways, lands we inhabit. These too are shared community resources, and not just for us humans of developed societies.

We share this Earth. Fact. That has social and psychological implications.

Healthy Governance acknowledges this.

This is a discussion to be had across the grass roots, at parish council level, in schools and in places of religious faith worship, in pubs, in clubs, on buses, in all settings. It is an understanding that must begin from the ground, must come from the people for whom Government governs.

For me, the old politic of competing powers is, in humane terms, immature and dysfunctional - it is a diseased way of conducting matters, and utterly toxic. War is a mental health issue, and a health and safety issue, as well as a matter of morality.

I cannot participate in current political discourse as a loyal citizen, loyal to the people, my, family, my neighbours, and all who live within the State, loyal to the common good, the shared commons, without being a dissenting voice, precisely because this fundamental truth is being ignored, denied, avoided across all mainstreams, and beyond.

The system is in reality characterised largely by a behavioural dynamic of habitual bullying that has become institutionalised, and I cannot vote for it to continue.

Who to vote for in a Warring State?

The Power Inquiry 2006

The Power inquiry, an independent investigation into the condition of democracy in Britain, was set up in 2004. The members of its commission (chaired by Helena Kennedy) hosted meetings around Britain and heard submissions from a wide variety of interest groups, professionals, and concerned citizens. The commission published its report on 27 February 2006.

The Power Inquiry of 2004, which is now 20 years ago, was curated by Joseph Rowntree and many across the community voluntary sector, the civil service, social care, education, healthcare and others relevant to the discussion.

A stellar team mapped the potential of devolved, decentralised legislative power out in some detail.

It was and remains a very well reasoned, evidence led, peer reviewed masterful thesis on how to make Government responsive, accountable and responsible to a democratically engaged population. More integrity, more engagement, more trust.

You can read an executive summary and recommendations here and the full report here.

I felt at the time that The Power Inquiry was in part an acknowledgement that the democratic voice of the electorate, which was ignored in March 2003, must prevail. Or the Law remains unheld. One funder told me that there was a concern that if populations did not have strong local political and legislative engagement and infrastructure in place which is the material outcome of human solidarity, things might be very difficult if disruptive agencies enter into the political legislative domain.

What is envisaged in The Power Inquiry, is a political action engagement shared responsibility framework that devolves decision making responsibility to the electorate through local assemblies, where local people sit at the policy formulation table as equals sharing the responsibility for proceeding with any given measure and where required, striving to resolving problems as they emerge. They propose 47 changes to the existing traditional system, a system which all agree is inherently unfair and anti-democratic.

An article about The Power Inquiry on OpenDemocracy.

"After eighteen months of investigation, the final report of Power is a devastating critique of the state of formal democracy in Britain. Many of us actively support campaigns such as Greenpeace or the Countryside Alliance. And millions more take part in charity or community work. But political parties and elections have been a growing turn-off for years.

The cause is not apathy. The problem is that we don't feel we have real influence over the decisions made in our name. The need for a solution is urgent. And that solution is radical. Nothing less than a major programme of reform to give power back to the people of Britain..."

There have been many, many attempts through recorded history made at scoping out healthier metrics for Government. from Ancient Chinese and Sumerian, Greek, Roman, from Magna Carta to The US Constitution, from The Chartists to the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

The Power Inquiry of 2004-2006 fits comfortably into that tradition.

I have written a more detailed blog on the many recommendations of The Power Inquiry.

Power Disparity

The asymmetry of leverage Power Disparity infantalises those exposed to it who in all honesty hold little power. By infantilsiation I mean the relative capability of exercising power between the two is similar to a adult and and infant.

For Democracy to be genuine and effective it must involve and engage the citizen in much more than voting. Voting on it's own confers little power to the electorate. In fact it reduces the electorate to an audience. It voids the electorate as a participant in policy deliberation, decision making and over sight, it removes all responsibility from the electorate. Indeed voting infantalises the electorate, precisely because the State system pretends otherwise.

Other 'better' people, entitled to rule, better suited educated to stand as 'superiors' who will make the 'tough decisions' and we, the people vote as supplicants.

That was the careful political power set-up determined in the 19th and 20th Centuries, by the Establishment, to preserve their order, their dominance and to protect their Wealth Extraction indefinitely. Wealth infiltrated every political and social movement that emerged from the abject social conditions that ordinary folk were forced to endure, during the start of the Industrial Revolution and beyond. That is still the case.

That experience of slowly learning to organise politically as a class, within a rigid class system, is where Socialism in England was birthed. Watt Tyler and the peasants gaining rights after the Black Death Plague was a step in that direction.

The Power Inquiry continues in that tradition, bringing it up to the 21st Century.

We need a metric for Governance that is truly 2s1st Century best practice, wisdom and skill oriented,

That 19th Century set-up has led directly to Climate Change, Air Pollution, Poverty, War Fare, Plastic Pollution Environment Degradation and more corruption. It succeeded in it's aim, but is putting the entire human species at risk and therefore it is inadequate to the task of confronting the problems it has created.

Denial of this is a comfort on the death march to hell and I just can't do that. Can you?

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

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*If you like this post, if you found the themes resonant, if you agree in part, would you be kind enough to let others know about it? I would really appreciate that. You could drop a comment too, if you felt the urge. Or not. I will moderate contributions, and block any that are abusive. For obvious reasons. Thank you for reading.

The costs of war and the externalised costs we do not see.

"Who to vote for in a warring State?" was my previous thought on how to place this election in it's most honest context. Here I briefly explore more of what that means for me. Based on the available evidence.

The British State is a warring State, with unaccounted for War Crimes on it's CV, crimes we tax payers have funded under duress.

War is a crime. And yet we taxpayers are still funding the British Wars.

21st Century awareness says this is a pathological behaviour modality and it has no place in any sphere of biologically optimal human society.

The costs of the war policy that the western voters do not take seriously enough are the costs born by those whose countries, economies and persons are blown apart so violently.

Those wounds and maimings, those murders and bombings, the civil destruction, the riven communities cannot cannot be undone; such harms cannot be mitigated, diminished or set against a balance sheet of ''good'..

The only people who can do anything to end this cycle of British State violence are the British taxpayers.

No one in Government or Industry or Banking appears genuinely willing to end this cycle of violence, the use of Military Force as a tool of International Relations aka Foreign Policy (which is always only seen from one side, when analysis is published via the media of each state or party involved in violence...)

Imagine what it might feel like if you and I were watching world news as a foreign state with a superior military was openly talking about bombing our Civil Government, destroying it's military and bringing in an exiled leadership with no support on the ground, knowing they were going to go ahead, being told what kinds of bombs they'd be using, understanding that our towns and villages would become battle grounds?

What is that really like?

Defence Policy - We NEED a Ministry of Peace just to satirise the current paradigms and behaviours. And beyond satire, we need peace.

Hows about a Department for Health and Safety Assessment For All Munitions, Guns and Deliver Systems?

And an Ecological FootPrinting Directorate to regulate pollution from munitions, at all stages, from manufacture to end use, and recycling or composting.

How much taxpayers cash is blown to bits when a British or Saudi Jet launches a missile?

And what are the costs of the outcome of the explosion - the costs of what the explosion caused as an immediate outcome, and all future costs of adverse experiences and health, mental, emotional and psychological, as far as we can predict them?

I want to see a Live War Audit, on the MOD site, with daily details of bullets used, bombs used, their costs and impacts (excuse the pun) so that we can see exactly what our money is being exploited for, and what is being ignored, denied, covered up to maintain the current paradigm of 'competing states'.

I'd like to see a live feed audit of this costing historically and as it happens, as a front page counter on the MOD Web page.

Wouldn't you?

Who to Vote for in a Warring State?

"The fact is that we (the adult world) do not feel an obligation to be truthful to children. We are like managers and manipulators of news in Washington, Moscow, London, Peking and Paris and all the other capitals of the world". ~ John Holt

Peace is more than the absence of War

Who to vote for?

John Holt, a world renowned educator and author, makes a pertinent observation of the power dynamic of Schools in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.

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

The fact is that we (the adult world) do not feel an obligation to be truthful to children. We are like managers and manipulators of news in Washington, Moscow, London, Peking and Paris and all the other capitals of the world.

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

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

- 1964, from a talk by John Holt who carried out thousands of hours of acute observation of children in schools across America.

How much does this still resonate, in 2017, in the UK?

I think the public and official discourse around War (and much else besides) as it exists in the UK 2017 General Election - or any national election, and even each bye-elections - for Parliament reminds me somewhat of this “dishonest and nervous place.”

Who to vote for in a warring State?

One way of placing the election in context, I would suggest. For any democratic election, any time, anywhere when States wage war as a 'last resort' tool of 'foreign policy'.

Rather focus’s the mind, don’t you think?

The fact that this is not a central question in this General Election, given that the powers of ‘defence/offence’ and ‘foreign policy' (keep the diamond mines British!) are being handed over to an elected person in this Election is troubling. It’s irrational, though those who would, for whatever reason, wish to avoid the issue, it might appear a rational avoidance.

How can you vote for that?

Indoctrination is the very dark 'art' of convincing someone that the external value presented is intrinsic, internal, part of the person.

It requires that the target loses touch with what ought to be emergent, the natural sense of self, and replaces that with an externally driven identity through which loyalty and submission to the indoctrinating system, are assured.

It's rude, and it is also a toxic mime of 'Education'.

In a healthy Society such abuse would be impossible, unthinkable.

Warring States. The unthinkable, the intolerable, the unacceptable.

The USA, UK, France, Russia and their allies The Saudi’s, the Qatari’s and the Israeli’s.

2017. The UK General Election.

War Policies?

What are the war policies of the active candidates?

More importantly, what are your (my readers) War Policies, and will anyone support those?

This democracy is a veil.

It looks good, and yet the wind of honesty passes right through it, does not fill it's sails, and the fantasy ship is but a barge of mechanised death, decorated like a General’s breast pocket with gaudy baubles and pomp, going nowhere, because it is aground.

The mist is strong, and the tide is out. And its return is inevitable.

The tide will come back in.

Nature cannot be dominated indefinitely by anything that emerges out of it’s mystery of Life.

Healthy Internalisation?

I think that the natural healthy version of internalisation is honesty and living practice, experience and learning gained by observing healthy adults and being respected and treated humanely at all times..

I feel that it is innate, that it is a default setting of the natural child. It is a sensitivity to be able to learn, and it is also a vulnerability.

The art of learning through time and experience, sense and environment... the natural child who is secure will recognise aspects of self in all areas of life and living things, which can then meet the externals, the content of the child’s habitat and make sense of them, and then model them and internalise them so they are in RAM mode available, so to speak.... once internalised they do not have to think using the intellect to grasp the meaning of what is being observed or interacted with in their world.

This is also useful for anyone living closely with plants and animals, in a dynamic environment, as part of a co-operative collective.

It is a evolved mode of information gathering, data acquisition and storage as part of optimal human biological health.

Mirror Neurons existence and operation supports this view: what we see we can also sense, we can imagine within our minds, we can learn from the actions of others, we can practice in our minds.

We feel into the world, we model it and we move it within ourselves.

This is learning.... responding to what is changing, availing of new information to meet those dynamics and remain sustainable, nurturant.

Healthy Governance - An Alternative Metric

I think of Healthy Governance as being the practical realities of administering a communities shared resources for the equal benefit of all members of that community and the habitat within which or from which that community emerges.

In the case of developed States, and Governance this relates to taxation, which is collected from all, in one way or another, and is the community shared resource – it does not BELONG to the Government, they hold it in trust.

Apply that metric to policy.

What are the implications of administering a community shared resource?

- it must be evidence based, as a duty of care

- adverse outcomes must be avoided, and where they occur, by accident or lack of foresight, or due to changes beyond human agency, they must be remedied immediately.

- long term health and safety is as much a priority as short term health and safety

- The policies must be proven to nurture the whole community, in a balanced and healthy manner.

This metric applies also to the seas, waterways, lands we inhabit. These too are shared community resources, and not just for us humans of developed societies.

We share this Earth. Fact.

Healthy Governance.

For me, this old politic of competing powers is immature, it is a diseased way of conducting matters, and utterly toxic.

I cannot participate in current political discourse because this fundamental truth is being ignored, denied, avoided across all mainstreams, and beyond.

The system is bullying that has become institutionalised, and I cannot vote for it to continue.

Who to vote for in a Warring State?

Interview with Inger Skjelsbæk who works with PRIO. The Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) conducts research on the conditions for peaceful relations between states, groups and people.

Researchers at PRIO seek to understand the processes that bring societies together or split them apart. We explore how conflicts erupt and how they can be resolved; we investigate how different kinds of violence affect people; and we examine how societies tackle crises – and the threat of crisis. We document general trends, seek to understand processes, and inform concrete responses.

"We focus a lot more on conflict than we do on what peace actually is. What is it that creates well-being? What is it that makes you feel at ease in your own skin, in your own life, in your own sociopolitical context? What does it take? All narratives about who you are and what your prospects are, and how that impacts your well-being, depend on how these stories are reinforced or challenged by the communities you live in. If peace is just the absence of war, then you have peace lots of places. But if peace is also well-being and resilience to conflicts, then it is more challenging."

Healthy Governance is an immense challenge facing us, and we had best do what we can to ensure our children's children do not have to do what we did not do, when we could have.

Who to vote for in a warring State?

Bio-Logic and Illogorithmic deciet. A new Word is born!

Some Thoughts on Biology, on Life as it emerges.

Bio-logic. The logic of living processes as they are observed at every level of our capability. It works. There is a logic. It was there before we humans emerged, and it will thrive after we are long gone.

Biology does not do 'good and evil'.

Biology does what works, and what works nurtures the entire habitat and maintains optimal living conditions in a dynamically changing environment.

"Either it works, or it doesn't and either way, it's all compost."

Biology is balance in movement.

We are born biological.

What we experience, what we are taught, what we endure, how we are treated is what we learn from. We call that learning from experience within culture and environment.

And there are biological mandates for all of that.

Mandates that if maintained, maintain that nurturant stance throughout life.

Permaculture,

Gardening

The Web of Life......

Because it works, beyond any moralistic judgemental labeling of toxic action and outcome as 'wrong' or 'evil' or 'bad'.

It could be put this way.

“I work for life, rather than merely agitate against toxicity.”

Biology is not concerned with such self limiting perceptions as judgementalism.

"Either it works, or it doesn't and either way, it's all compost. Food for more life!"

I find that thought really perfectly beautiful.

A New Word!

A pun on algorithm, the ghost in the machine, the sleight of hand, the deceit of a predator - a spectrum of behaviour.

Illogorithm :

: a procedure for triggering tension or escalating dehumanisation, a deliberate wind-up. executed in a finite number of steps that frequently involves repetition of an operation;

: a step-by-step procedure for denigrating a target, using any number of logical fallacies interwoven into a false narrative, and with the intent of setting that target up for abuse;

: an illogical behaviour, using false logic to incite yet more illogical behaviour and action, especially when viewed in the context of Optimal Human Biological Health, both for the species and for the individual;

: any statement that purports to be evidence based, and is presented as such, which is in fact a wild generalisation, and generally false;

: anything composed of a two dimensional, polarised thought process and contains a number of logical fallacies, and which then leads to illogical, irrational behaviour and actions, and is used by populists to trigger reactions in audiences;

: 'if a person xxxx, then yyyy and zzzz and therefore abcd’ is a common format, and is used often enough in typifications or attributions of a generalised and de-humanising nature by populists, pundits and prelates;

: is a self-contained sequence of illogical actions to be performed;

: an emotionally biased negative calculation, a presentation of subjective data processed as a truth;

: a linguistic tool, a motivational device ustilised by populists and bullies alike, to engineer or trigger automated thinking in the target audience, be it an individual or any group in terms of their understanding of their relationship to the denigrated or dehumanised objects;

Sillogorithm – an illogorithm that is just way too silly to be taken seriously;

A game people play, reciting traditional illogorithms, or creating new ones, object of the game is the use of intellect, wit, language and laughter.

Everybody wins.

Which is the opposite of illogorithmic deceit – everybody is hurt by it, even the deceivers, even if they are unaware of how it is dehumanising them, and which underpins the illogic of such behaviour.

Compared to the logic of Bio, Bio-Logic, from which we humans have emerged.

Thou Shalt not Commit Logical Fallacies. A website that examines the detail of logical fallacies. Worth a view.

Optimal Human Bioloigical Health over behaviourally modified organisms.

From a purely biological social observation, one would notice that an optimally biologically healthy human being will express the following attitudes or sensitivities, as evolved for living as an effective or competent and unique individual within a co-operative community that knows how to live in the habitat in which they find themselves, without harming it; and in so doing they permaculture the habitat like all other creatures do.

They will demonstrate these qualities in abundance, and in varying degrees, we are all unique, and it is also true that some days are bad hair days and others quite awful, as moods are a genuine flow of variations in sensitivity. In among all the lovely stuff!

1. Respectful self awareness, and a respectful awareness of others.

2. Self empathy and empathy for others.

3. Sense of self, sense of community.

4. Willing co-operation and sharing of skills and resources for the community,

5. Excellence in areas of adult responsibility, in skills and abilities that suit the individual's temperament.

6. Robust physical health.

7. Egalitarian approach to social organisation, no genderism or hierarchy of violence.

8 An ability to read the environment, accurately.

9. Life long ability to learn, through self motivation and mentoring.

10. Sense of gratitude towards ancestors, sense of duty of care to future generations.

11. Generally adept at conflict resolution, abides with a deep sense of justice

12. Cries when hurting, all emotions are felt and all feelings expressed.

13. Heals well.

14. Laughs and loves much, and is loved and respected by peers.

15. Would learn most of this without any hierarchically mandated instruction. by observing adult communities behaving as above, and working to that model, because it works and everyone loves each other, though some might not like each other so much. They can handle that. Shit happens.

NOTE : A chronically stressed individual will present a symptom set and behavioural picture as far removed from this optimal as the stressors he or she is enduring are distant to the natural biological background levels within which optimal biological health emerges as an evolutionary outcome.

All of the above is supported by a mass of evidence, going back 2 million years, at least.

Domesticated animals are behaviourally modified organisms. So too, in a different way, all wild creatures of all sizes, ever. The difference is that domestication of animals is done to control them as a food source. Wild behaviour is largely learned by observation and testing. A lot like Science.

Here is my base point.

Healthy human behaviour best adpated to the habitat from which we, as a species, emerged. Which just happens to be a complex and dynamic habitat that is constantly changing. Sometimes subtly, sometimes in acute events.

We are, of course, individual unique and complex eco-systems, with billion of companion species assisting us in every manner. Each of us. Populated by billions of organisms upon whose efforts, minute as each organism is, are at the very base of our body functioning.

Just like Trees. Just like everything else that is alive on Earth, of Earth.

So the health of any individual is webbed in all directions into the community and habitat.

Biologically we are all in this together.

Chronic stressors such as war, displacement, poverty, living under duress,

experiencing long term bullying, debt, lack of services, vulnerability, disease, psychological stress all tend to corrode the optimal biological health stasis for the human organism.

Those stressors alter the endocrine systems of the adults, the youth, the children, the unborn babies in utero. Everyone is afflicted to one degree or another. There is variety in the reaction/response just as we are all unique people, and within any group some patterns will readily emerged, or become visible.

Patterns are merely aggregates, and cannot be safely applied to the individual case, where exact data and evidence is needed, due to the unique person presenting a case that demands a personal evidence based diagnosis and from that then a plan to meet the patient/person as a whole can be created.

I think at core of my perception is the concept of a return to balance, rather than any utopian futurist ideal.

The balance is in our behaviour, our motivation, in seeing our vulnerability and sensitivity as a gift. Work on the behaviour, and the rest will follow, as we bring our minds less cluttered by chaff to the problems we face.

Healing is a recovery. Step by step.

Far better we engineer a genuine recovery than fall for that old seduction of The Revolution’.