The issue is no longer one of individual abusers. It is about a
‘culture of abuse’. And that includes, of course, how that ‘culture’
protects itself.
The Jimmy Saville story is all the more revealing because of the
commentary on the story. The ‘comments’ sections, where attitudes are
nakedly expressed, reveal that many of the arguments offered tend to be a
mixture of considered opinion, knowledge, data, unexamined assumptions,
bile, wilful ignorance and bigotry.
A cross section of our Society?
Including the trolls, of course...
What is clear is that there is a large constituency who are unable to
look at the facts, the objective realities of Survivor testimony, of
documentation of incidents and of cover-ups, across a vast range of
settings where adults have power and access to children and a cover
story. Very much akin to settings where politicians and corporate
executives have power, access to cash and a cover story. There is a
pattern here.Links to some of what we know....
http://www.express.co.uk/features/view/349976/The-disgusted-captain-who-threw-Jimmy-Savile-off-a-cruise-ship - anecdotal evidence from 45 years ago ....
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2213636/Uncle-Jimmy-took-sick-parties-Nephew-tells-childhood-stolen-13.html#ixzz28V6p6JTy
- nephew alleges Jimmy Saville took him to 'parties' where
other children, men but no women "participated" until 3 or 4 am. Well
past the watershed so beloved of the BBC!
http://timesopinion.tumblr.com/post/32804536645/jimmy-saviles-affections-laid-bare-by-jimmy-savile - Jimmy
Saville describes an incident that suggests officials were turning a
blind eye or that there may have been collusion by way of permitting the
assaults, which continued.
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/349975/BBC-aware-of-Jimmy-Saville-rumours-and-fears-in-1973 - BBC Top Management were aware of the 'rumours'.. well aware.
Catholic Jimmy Saville page removed from Christian site! - OOOOS! http://offerimustibidomine.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/sir-jimmy-savile-and-his-catholic-faith.html
It is on the record, part of our collective history. Standard practice.
Keep what ever it is, not matter how nasty, anything that might
damage our image , keep it tightly under wraps, irrespective the gravity
of the crime or the depth of consequence for those adversely affected
or the number of people affected. KEEP A LID ON IT!
This I know also from my own experience .... many people have
experienced that moment when I refused to accept what I knew about
myself that I must change to be more fully human,only because I clung to
an image of who I believed myself to be over knowing me. So Society at
large clings to it's self image.Well folks, it's time to let go. Relax,
make it easy. We can grow through this, collectively.Or is it this?
Don’t rock the boat, or threaten your income/job. This is partly how
some of us, as employees who see some of the evidence,are ‘managed’.
Jobsworths. Fear.Whistle blowers are hounded. Bradley Manning. Julian
Assange. Within any bureaucracy, within the party structures associated
with Power and the exercise of Power, there is a threat implicit in what
is called ‘team playing’: “he’s on our team, so we must protect him to
protect the team.” That and job security. Workers have families. Mouths
to feed. Old age to fear. More masked threats. Don't risk your job.
That unwillingness, that fear, that dependency helps the abuser
culture survive. And thrive. By abuser culture I mean ALL abuse. It's a
spectrum of behaviour from what some might 'mild' to extreme and lethal.
It IS connected at the sociological psyche level. This quietness, this
unwillingness,this sense of POWERLESSNESS? does not inspire confidence
in Survivors, and I think it is a symptom of the disease with which we
have been afflicted : the result of being coerced by situational
circumstance into fitting into a diseased, pathological Institutional
Power Structure, one that dominates our lives, and has proven that it
will protect itself with violence even if in the legal and moral wrong.
That twists us all, one way or another.
Power is not easily dislodged by power, as new power most often
replaces the old power, and refines its messages so as to mask itself
anew. Power can be dislodged when it is ignored, when it’s instructions
no longer have any effect. When it’s wisdoms are seen as merely the
controlling thoughts that are permitted for a position of relative
comfort within the framework of the system, for those who are the
‘ruled’, as long as one is in passive participation with the
pathological instructions. For the most part, those who are ruled over
in Democracies are passive participants in Power.
When Survivors come forward to tell their stories, and we find that
the evidence supports them, those Survivors are first and foremost
refusing to participate with the pathological instructions. This takes
immense courage. All Survivors experience a deep fear, an existential
dread, for the earlier experience of powerlessness they lived through
will have scarred them deeply, so deep it is oft written into their
bodies at the neurological and cellular level. This is no easy wound to
heal. It is one of the most debilitating wounds of all. Thus their
recovery to the extent they report the crimes is already a massive
achievement .... and it is only the beginning....
We all know that resignation/acceptance is the moment when one says
“well, that’s the way it is, and always will be. I can do nothing to
alter the situation.” That can be a relief for a survivor or a
dysfunctional survival mechanism for anyone born into a pathological
Institutional Power System (IPS).
The attitudes expounded in the public commentary reveal that
dysfunctional survival is widely spread. This is part of the problem
too.
An advocate for Survivors who were in care at Casa Pisa, in Lisbon,
Portugal, whose abusers finally went to trial after many years, and the
abuser was convicted, said this:
“I hope this day will allow us to show
the country that the boys have told the truth from the start.”
That he felt the boys were doubted by so many is clear. That does not
make reporting and pursuing justice easy at all. If anything it weights
in favour of abusers, whose abuse is often made quite easy by others
fearful or wilful ignorance.
Almost 1,000 witnesses were called during the trial, which critics
say has exposed the sluggishness and inefficiency of the Portuguese
justice system and shaken public trust in the country’s institutions.
The Survivors were not lying nor were they fabricating their stories.
This pattern of witnesses being disbelieved, obstructed, intimidated, ignored, turned away from
and otherwise suppressed is being repeated in almost every State on the
planet. This is a Societal matter to be reflected upon.Let MORE evidence
emerge, and let those who protect and those who abuse and destroy
children, condemn adults be revealed. Let's deal with them and at the
same time, we can deal deal with our own issues about POWERLESSNESS and
human empathy, about children as who they really, naturally are, as
individuals, families, communities, regions, states. I know this can be
done, it is so much in the realm of practical material reality.
Kindest regards
Corneilius
Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe