Harsh Truth and The BIg Question

I survived 5 Elite Irish Boarding Schools, 12 years in all.

It destroyed me. To the extent that it wasn't until I was 28 that I realised that there was something really wrong with what had happened - I thought it was because there was something 'wrong' and 'evil' and 'dirty' in me.....

I have studied the history of child-rearing in many, many cultures.

For 25 years. I have also studied the subject of Power Relationships and Politics.

I am a parent.

Christianity's concept of Original Sin lies at the roots of the abuse I and so many others endured.

To promote and enforce such a doctrine is an expression of an  adverse and deadly Authoritarianism.

It's a doctrine that is an expression of a profound hatred and fear of The Natural Child.

It is a psychological device that sets the parent against the child, and the child against herself or himself. It is devoid of empathy.

It is also a lie.

The concept of Hell ties in with the concept of Original Sin, as it creates a fear for what occurs AFTER death, a FEAR that permeates life for those who are taught it.

That fearof Hell and and stain of Original Sin conditions the child to such ad eep sense of a basic unworthyness, and is resolutely kept in place by the RULES the Church invented, or lifted from The Old Testament, rules which The Christ never, ever  spoke of..

"suffer the little children..........."

The vast majority of indigenous native societies were, and are,  empathic, non-hierarchical and had no  use for Power Relationships, only mutual relationships. This is the natural state. Most people in the West have no idea as to the nature of those Societies. We have been sold lies and romance, and not the reality.

The vast bulk of first contact data going back to the 1400s reveals the truth.

There are 350 million Indigenous Native people alive to day.

The current Anthropological data gathered from extant indigneous Societies confirms the first contact observations, and runs counter to how those observations were interperted by the colonial masters. We all know how the Brehon system protected women and children in the main.

And we all know how that culture was interpreted by the Christian and Norman Invaders, and later the British Empire.

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

Rape, Child Abuse, Hierachy, Rigid Gender Roles are rare in these communities until they come into contact with Western cultures, and then they emerge out of the dynmaic of intergenerational trauma  that afflicts those communities as the Western Culture drives them off their lands, and forces them to 'assimilate'.

Where they do show up in Indigenous Native Societies, we also see a disruption to the natural child-mother bonding process. This natural process builds the neurology of empathy at the earliest stages, and if those stages are missed (as they are in ALL hierarchical violent societies, none excluded) then a lack of empathy emerges as a trait that permeates the hierachical societies.

Even to this day. There are Christian Missionaries running Residential Schools in Africa, South America, Asia to 'assimilate' and 'save souls'. Some are connected to the Catholic Church. Others to other Churches.

The Vatican is and always has been an Institution of  Temporal Power as much as it claims Spiritual Authority..

These are the hard truths. It was only by facing the harsh truth of my own experience, and my own dysfunctional behaviour which was the result of that trauma, which was the symptom of the trauma, that I was able to overcome it and survive, and now thrive as a natural, loving human being, one who limps. Some wounds do not heal.

The is NO LOVE, NOR EMPATHY in The Vatican. None.

There is NO LOVE, NOR EMPATHY in the Irish State Istitutions and Government.

Without Love or Empathy there is no understanding.

Without understanding there is no effective accounting, no effective justice ... and for the hundreds of thousands of children who were abused, or witnessed abuse (which can be just as traumatic if the witness is sensitive) who did not survive, who have already died, there is nothing. No justice for them. No accounting for the lives they lived in agony and fear and shame and confusion and insanity.

And even today, for most survivors there is neither justice nor understanding, nor support for their recovery.

This is the harsh truth.

If survivors had not spoken out, in spite of strong resistance even from their own families, this crime would still be totally covered up.

The Irish Government and The Vatican made a back-room deal to 'manage' this crime, to dojust enough to make it look like something was being done, so that neither would be broght to the courts, by Civil Litigation or by Criminal Prosecution.

The 'pressure' on either side is merely a publicity tactic. A cover.

This is the cute hoor-ism we all know and love : Charlie Haughy typified it. Aherne, Cowen and Lenihan typify it. And many, many others in Power in Ireland.

Power Relationships poison Society.

I am not going to tell you what you ought to be doing about this.

Ask yourself that question.

From  Henry Porter in the Guardian commenting upon the WIKI LEAKS situation.

 "It is all about power and who has access to information. Nothing more. When those who want society to operate on the basis of the parent-child relationship because it is obviously easier to manage, shut the door and say "not in front of the children", they are usually looking after their interests, not ours."

He is correct.

The greatest Power disparity in a healthy society is between the adult parent and the infant child. It is never used, for nurturance is their way, their norm...

In an unhealthy Society that Power is used adversely. The State takes the role of parent, the vulnerable and the people are it's children.

Ireland, The Vatican and The Residential Schools system. 80 years.

Canada, The Vatican, The Anglican Churches and The Indian Residential Schools System. 110 years.

America, The Vatican and The Indian Residential Schools System. 110 years

Australia and The Aboriginal Residential Schools System. 100 years.

America, the coalition of the 'willing'  and Iraq. 20 years

America, the coalition of the 'willing'  and Afghanistan. 9 years

Thailand, Christian Church groups Residential Schools and The Akha People

China and the Peasants.

The UK and privatised Elderly Care.

The UK and Social Services care-homes.

The UK Coalition Government, the Banking System and the Vulnerable.

The Irish Government, the Banking System and the Vulnerable.

The Metropolitian Police Force TSG, The Coaltion Government, The Banking System and Students.

Industry and the habitat.

You get the drift.

This cannot stand. It has to be addressed, and with some speed.

Power relationships as they are practiced poison life.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Open Letter to The Irish People from a Survivor, regarding the IMF deal.

 

Just as the Irish Government indemnified The Vatican against ruinous litigation that threatens it as a result of it’s officers endemic abuse and betrayal of children for over 80 years, a crime so large and so lengthy that it defies comprehension, so to they are indemnifying the Irish Banking Sector, the European Central Bank and it’s investors (who hold assets worth 20 trillion euro, which is 5000 times the Irish DGP) for what is reckless behaviour, and as we see, abusive in character.

The victims are being punished for the crimes of their abusers.

Ireland’s people, you must awaken to the facts; there is pattern here, you have been abused in one way or another for many hundreds of years. Abusers always justify their abuse, and always post facto rationalise their decisions.

They have their apologists, of course. Those whose livelihoods are entwined with the abusers will resist being made to face the reality of their relationship with power. Media, Banking, Civil Service Mandarins and others who ‘lobby’ for their own personal gain – Unions who limit their protest to the issue of wages are an example, as are the mainstream charities who refuse to confront the abuses of Government face on.

People of Ireland, You cannot avoid facing this truth. You MUST not. To do so is to place your own children in jeopardy.

You must confront the abuser and stop any further abuses from taking place.

This means that you must also inform yourselves as to the means, methods and manipulations of the abuser, you must understand in detail how you have been abused, and how you have ‘adapted’ to that abusive status quo – for they who represent Power and The Status Quo will not let go voluntarily, and will not hand themselves in for indictment. Remorse is rare in their circles. And those who simply push them aside will repeat the same patterns, for such is the nature of centralised Power.

Evidence for this is everywhere, not least in The Vatican or the HQ of AIB.

To do all this will entail effort on your part, and perhaps some discomfort, and it will be an effort that will be necessary to sustain for some time. Such is the role of any parent.

You must separate yourselves completely from the abuser, and render the abuser to the Criminal Justice System for indictment, trial and conviction where the evidence supports it.

And by doing this you will re-assert your right to DECIDE at the grass roots the future path of Ireland as a PEOPLE. You cannot leave it to merely voting for people over whom you have no Power once they are in Office as in days of old.

Participative Democracy is perhaps the best way forward, and is technically easy to achieve with a well educated and diverse population. It means that Power resides at the grass roots, and that the National and local Government and Civil Service sectors obey the grass roots and facilitate the needs of the grass roots. It means that lobby ends, that the party whip, which is fundamentally anti-democratic is abolished. It means that every adult gets involved, and that the voices and lived of the most vulnerable, be they child or adult is also taken into consideration and informs decision making.

I wish for Governance by the most vulnerable, to set the tone of a future Ireland, where children are not abused by priests, where people are not abused by deprivation, where greed is treated as the ugliness that it is, where Society and Community and Environment are truly peaceful, empathic and sustainable.

It can be done; it doesn’t have to be the way it has been.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Ireland needs the IMF .................

By way of introduction, here's a really simple over view.  Irish banks were given 'easy credit' during the 90as and into the 21st Century by the European Central Bank (this is quite different from the funds given to the Irish Government by the EEC as grants etc etc). Interest rates were low, and there was an almost endless supply of credit. The Irish Banks then lent that money to property developers, corporations, mortgage holders. Many of these loans were suspect from the start. They also bought Derivatives as an 'investment'. In fact the vast bulk of the money the Irish Banks borrowed was gambled on derviatives.

This 'new' lending business made the shares of these Irish banks rise to such an extent that they were overvalued, that is to say the banks did not have the REALISABLE assets to back those share prices.

When this became apparant, the share prices tumbled, and then the 'economic crisis' hit.... and now they are technically insolvent. If they were any other business, they'd be placed into administration and creditors would be paid of with what ever resources available. Being that these banks are High Street Banks the first to get paid off HAVE TO BE THE HIGH STREET CUSTOMERS., the desposit accounts, the cash that is realisable.... the rest get what's left....

Instead what is happening is this : the Irish Government is borrowing more money (at interest) to give to the Irish banks (as loans, or by buying shares, thus nationalising the banks) to strat to pay off the European Central Bank debts of the Banks (close to 500 billion in total!).

The first 100 Billion Euros will cost an extra 6.5 Billion Euros annually in interest alone...

And so the Irish people are being FORCED to underwrite these transactions. And pay yet more interest. They are being FORCED to pay for debts they did not incur.

Letting the banks collapse would cost about 3-4 billion if the Irish Goivernment guaranteed all the Oridnary Irish Account holders....


1. This article reveals who the Irish Government are borrowing money for to pay - and it has nothing to do with Irish peoples pension funds, nor any real threat to the banking sector...

"on one side we have Ireland whose bond holders, its people, have between them a total GDP wealth of 0.207 trillion euros.  Who are being FORCED, against their will, to pay Anglo Irish bank's debts to its bond holders, who between them hold 20.8 Trillion euros."

2. READ 'THE SHOCK DOCTRINE' a book BY NAOMI KLIEN.. 

"With a bold and brilliantly conceived thesis, skillfully and cogently threaded through more than 500 pages of trenchant writing, Klein may well have revealed the master narrative of our time. And because the pattern she exposes could govern our future as well, The Shock Doctrine could turn out to be among the most important books of the decade."

- William S. Kowinski, San Francisco Chronicle"

"In THE SHOCK DOCTRINE, Naomi Klein explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically. Exposing the thinking, the money trail and the puppet strings behind the world-changing crises and wars of the last four decades, The Shock Doctrine is the gripping story of how America’s “free market” policies have come to dominate the world-- through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries.

At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq’s civil war, a new law is unveiled that would allow Shell and BP to claim the country’s vast oil reserves…. Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly out-sources the running of the “War on Terror” to Halliburton and Blackwater…. After a tsunami wipes out the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts.... New Orleans’s residents, scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals and schools will never be reopened…. These events are examples of “the shock doctrine”:"

Here's a documentary on her book. The book itself  is way better, 'thoroughly well researched and referenced (so ya can check the facts for yerself!) .... cos ya gotta know the detail and the scope to REALLY get it... 

3. And here's my song : Ireland needs the IMF like Anne Frank needed a Drumkit, like the Children need The Vatican, Like Ghandi needed a haircut!

..... and here's hoping that Anne frank would take this in pretty much the same way, were she alive to day. Her spirit is.

Sing along and ENJOY it! The Chorus is built for harmonies!

Resist. Learn. Grow strong!

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

The environment in which a child grows has a huge impact on their developing physiology.

A baby in utero who is exposed to stress develops his or her hind brain/amygdala more than his or her fore-brain. The fore-brain is the neo-cortex which appears to be active with regard to intelligence, perception and creativity, whereas the hind brain deals with physicality, defence and stress situations. Thus the stressed baby emerges prepared for a stressed (violent) environment and the relaxed baby emerges ready for a relaxed (empathetic) environment.

These factors are compounded by life learning; thus adverse conditioning or adverse childhood experience(s) can increase the tendency towards violent and controlling behaviours, which are often the symptoms of brain damage caused by those experiences; and empathetic nurturing increases the tendency towards peaceful egalitarian non-controlling behaviours, as the child’s brain is nurtured according to it’s nature.

Babies in utero develop touch and volitional movement by 7 weeks, light sensitivity at 10 weeks, (even though the eyes are not fully developed until 26 weeks), sensitivity to pain at 12 weeks, taste at 14 weeks, hearing at 16 weeks (even though the ear is not fully developed until 24 weeks), and spend more time in dream state at 30 weeks than in awake state, awareness and response to the language of the mother is evident at 25 weeks.

* Consciousness at birth: The range of empirical evidence (1983/1987). In Thomas Verny (Ed.), Pre- & perinatal psychology: An introduction (pp. 69-90). New York: Human Sciences Press.

Evidence of birth memories indicate full cognitive abilities at birth, equivalent to an adults abilities...

What is also known and well understood is that the environmental conditions act so as to switch gene expression on or off and indeed 'writes' new genetics, which may then be passed on….another way to say this is that genes are responsive, though it's the RNA which initiates the 'writing' of or 'alteration' new genes. There is an interplay between the structural instruction sets and the environment, and they affect each other.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene%E2%80%93environment_interaction

The tendency towards obesity evident in the current epidemic of obesity arose first out of a generation of people who ate fast foods, processed foods, were exposed to toxic chemicals and who have experienced various societal stressors such as trans-generational trauma which is directly correlated to symptoms of distress (“it’s my wall of protection” or “life is shorter” given as felt explanations of their obesity by obese people) and we now see obesity emerging in very young children. 

*  http://xnet.kp.org/permanentejournal/winter02/goldtolead.html

Whilst there are genes that are 'related' to the incidence of obesity, it is the environmental experiential conditions that cause their expression in the first place. And those environmental conditions are man-made pure and simple. 

Not by humanity as whole, but by the decisions of those in Power and  within Hierarchical Power Structures  and Institutions which have a massive impact on the lived experience of peoples lives, and for which those people affected have, as yet, no means to counter effectively..

Seeking or promoting a ‘cure’ with first dealing with the environmental issues is a way of protecting the creators of those environmental conditions and of blaming those who become obese, addicted, distressed as a result of those conditions. The 'cure' is aimed at the symptoms of the person distress, not at the conditions that give rise to that person’s distress in the first place.

And it is the lack of prevention, implicit in the marketing of those toxic processed sweets and 'foods' precisely directed at those communities that experience most deprivation, and thus distress, that brings that tendency or genetic environmental response into material reality.

Essentially, a massive act of control-freakery. Industrial civilisation tends towards the more violent controlling behaviours common to, if not essential to, Power Relationships.

To change the trajectory of the dominant civilisation, we have to treat ourselves and our children with far more empathy, detailed empathy, from conception onwards... to create the conditions that will support an emerging Empathic Society we have to examine Power Relationships carefully and make changes. And then we must continue, day by day, to build in the genetics of that natural empathy, in the path towards natural sustainability for all life on Earth.

Here's a classic example of the environmental factors being downgraded in importance, compared to genetic factors. They barely mention the fact that economic deprivation, cultural deprivation are often INTENSE as environmental operators, or signals capable of affecting the genes themselves, as much as the day to day behaviour - and they omit the knowledge that brain damage caused by trauma, adverse childhood experiences, toxic chemicals; thus slanting the focus on the genes.

http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/08/06/antisocial-behavior-linked-to-genes-and-environment/16513.html

Much of the info regarding a babies consciousness comes from the research of David Chamberlain :

http://rivershrink.com/cvchamberlain.html

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Millbank, Students, the call of the future, our childrens future

"This is scary but not as scary as what's happening to our future." Student outside Millbank..... says it all, really. (the quote refers not only to his immediate future, as a student, but to a feeling emerging from ALL youth, that that adults are unwilling to act as needed).

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/laurie-penny/2010/11/young-scary-future-riot-crowd

This article/blog for the New Statesman Laurie Penny investigates what happened in the foyer of Millbank, the Conservative Headquarters, in London. She was there.

She describes, with great sensitivity, the feelings of the college and university students, mothers, fathers, school children, unemployed, teachers, lecturers and many others who come from a diverse range of backgrounds that went on that march. It's well worth the read.

 They KNOW that their Government is failing them. They are well informed, better than most previous generations, partly because of the way the internet enables people to share their experience and reflect on it and gain insight.

Self organised learning.

http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education.html

They ARE angry at the hypocrisy and more importantly the sense that, as things are done, they are rendered powerless to affect change, and that those in Governance have no intention of making the changes the children and youth know must be made. 

Laurie places the much publicised 'fire extinguisher' incident into context. 99.99% of the people there thought the thrower was an idiot.... (there was about 2000 people at the event) ... which is about right. Everyone has a 'mate'. Even idiots. Tony Blair.

And there is also the well worn methodology of Agent Provocateurs and as we know, that cannot

The frustration of dealing with the intractable manner of that rendering of power is part of the source of the anger. The other source is at the blatant injustice, the actual bodily harm done to so many people - by the wars, the poverty, the damage to the habitat, the children on Ritalin, the widespread Institutionalised abuse.

And they have started to break free from the chains of behaviour that bound them; deference to power, politeness, hope and ultimately conditioning, They are thinking and feeling for themselves.

The youth do not see violence as a mechanism of change - expect to see a lot more activity to generate the power to make those changes emerging from the grass roots, and equally a reaction from Power.

My bets are on the youth and the adults with them.

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I left this comment:

The empathy if the author is the essence of this piece.

Power exists to reinforce itself, irrespective of the costs to those upon whom Power is exercised.

Children and young people understand this, and understand that it is their futures and the futures of those who follow them are at stake.

The moral imperative of life is to live a life that detracts not at all from the lives available to those who will follow us into this world.

The current modes of Governance, without exception, fail in this regard.

These kids KNOW THIS. Their sense of injustice is deeper than Laws which protect War Criminals (Tony Blair) - they WILL break what is called 'the peace' in order to prevent a far greater crime. We, the adults, ought to support them in EVERY way we can.

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Ted Talk by Sugata Mitra  SELF ORGANISED LEARNING This video is well worth the time 17 minutes spent viewing it, to get an insight into the efficacy of self organised learning... and to begin to get a sense of what our children and youth are truly capable of.

Enjoy!