The Psychology of a culture is revealed and perpetuated in how they relate to and treat their children and in how they relate to and treat the most vulnerable people within their society. Heal that and we can heal everything.
"Religion has never mattered more to the world than it does now, says the former prime minister, launching our new occasional column on faith"
Blair rambles on about 'faith' and 'poverty' and his foundation and all the good work he is doing and ends on this warning note :
"The 21st century will be poorer in spirit and ambition, less focused on social justice, less sensitive to conscience and the common good, without a full and proper recognition of the role that the great faiths can and do play. I hope my foundation, in its own way, can work with others in those faiths to help harness their full power to transform our world for the better."
Less sensitive to conscience? This from Blair? The mind boggles at how a) he could utter such tripe, and expect anyone to take it at face value and b) how The New Statesman could publish it...... pour another glass of hubris champagne please....
I left a comment which is pretty much as follows : Italics are edits made for this blog....
The fundamental that all religions are based upon is the imposition of their world view upon defenceless children. That is an abuse. To tell a child WHAT to think undermines that child's own innate ability to think for themselves.
Why is there no organised religion that opts out of such a process, that waits until a child decides out of their own heart to follow a spiritual path? Because natural children sense the hypocrisy of adults no matter how the adults attempt to mask it. And natural children will tend to avoid such hypocrisy unless of course they are terrorised into internalising the values of those who terrorise/indoctrinate them, with tales of hell, lists of sins etc which are core to all organised religions.... more or less. In the secular consumer world, children are terrorised by the prospect of poverty if they do not comform - study to get a job or you will be poor... it amounts to the same thing. Being ones true self is dangerous.
He knows that enough people are religious and will buy it. He also knows there's lots of others who also buy the ' I did what I believed to te the best' - they to believe they are doing the best (and ignore the consequences of their behaviour).
To me it's clear that Blair uses religion as a cover for his criminality
He works for UBS and JP Morgan Chase who are currently buying banks left right and centre at discount. JP Morgan Chase pretty much owns the Iraqi Central Bank. Thus Blairs reward for supporting the invasion and his willingness to see many, many dead and maimed by HIS LIES is a £1 million per annum part time job as an 'advisor'.
Those who chose NOT TO SEE reality and then publish the words of people like Blair, with out any hint of a critical analysis are as guilty as Blair is.
Bet ya the comment doesn't stay long, or even get published...
An open letter to all officers of the STOP THE WAR COALITION
Chair: Andrew Murray (Unite – T&G section) Convenor: Lindsey German Treasurer (acting): Robin Beste Steve Bell (Communication Workers Union) Andrew Burgin Jeremy Corbyn MP Noreen Fatima (StWC Muslim Network) Kate Hudson (CND) Sabah Jawad (Iraqi Democrats Against Occupation) Chris Nineham Trevor Phillips (University and Colleges Union) John Rees (SWP) Jane Shallice Carol Turner
As a officer of the Stop The War Coalition you have borne and continue to bear a heavy responsibility. You are charged with the leadership and co-ordination of the efforts of all those who seek peace, who abhor war as an instrument of Government Policy. You have taken this role upon yourself.
That places an even heavier burden upon yourself.
I am writing to you to enquire as to why neither you, nor the Stop The War Coalition leadership, did not call for a general strike in the UK to block the UK Governments role in the Iraq War? To bring this Government to it’s knees, as they so utterly deserved, for such a heinous crime?
History tells of the power of a general strike, and of the feebleness of ‘permitted’ protest.
Is it not the case that an all out general strike, by well informed and committed people might well have dislodged all those who conspired against humanity to pursue this Illegal War of Aggression, that was obviously, from the start, going to harm many, many innocent civilians? WMD were used by coalition forces. These are the facts. Those in power KNEW that this would be the case.
Yes such a strike may well have been tumultuous, and would have been opposed by Government and Media alike, with all the forces they could have brought to bear, forces that are not inconsiderable, yet pale into significance when confronted by a united people..
Yes it would have divided the country, though not in equal measure. Those who sought war were and remain in the minority in terms of the whole population of the UK. It would have served peace for that divide to be forced to reveal itself. It still would serve peace for that divide to be forced.
Yes such a strike might have meant hardship and sacrifice for many people in the UK. Yet at the same time, it would have been so much less a sacrifice than that imposed upon innocent people in Iraq.
Would that you and your colleagues had had the courage of your convictions to suggest such a small sacrifice on our part, on behalf of those we sought to protect!
I write because I want to understand what happened, back in 2003, when so many people took to the streets, not just in London, but world-wide, in order to prepare for what is to come. These are dangerous times, with the media and politicians hyping the prospect of a summer of rage.
Someone must give voice to the powerful urge and intent of the various movements for peace, for the environment, for justice, to lead towards effective and peaceful action - one with out the other is futile and at best abdication of responsibility. At worst cowardice and deluded folly.
I write because I assume that you share my same love and compassion for all human life, for all life, and that you share my commitment and determination to radically alter the way Power is exercised in our democracy.
I have less access to and far fewer of the facts or resources that you have. I admit that my perception is limited. I write to enquire, to learn. I write because my children will reap the benefits of bear the consequences of my actions. I write because I care.
Naomi Klein talks about protest and what actually works. As I have written many times, if the UK population had gone on strike in March 2003, stayed on the streets for just a week or two, the UK involvement in the Iraq War of Aggression would have been impossible without a direct confrontation between the UK Government and the people, the tax payers who fund that Government.
We have to look at what stops people from taking to the streets to express dissent, to demostrate our power as a collective of diverse and humane people.
There are the various Laws and regulations that Government puts in place to inhibit protest or dissent on the streets. Those Laws must be broken, by large numbers of people, so as to render them useless. This is alegally viable option, in that it is permissable to commit a lessor, non-violent crime to prevent the comission of a far greater violent crime.
There are the perceptions of protest that the media present. Those who work for the Media and promote such precpetions must be confornted with their actions, by letter, email, by phone and by written criticism.
There are the various psychological inhibitions, imbued primarily through schooling, that are the basis for obedience. This must be addressed by parents, to protect their children and protect their childrens autonomy and intelligence.
And there are the divide and rule tactics that pit us against each other, that comparmentalise people by religion, status, class, sex and stereotypes. This must be addressed by all those subject to such labelling and by the leadership of any such groups of people.
Each has to be addressed and understood by all those who dissent and where they rear their ugly heads, let them be identified, named and revealed for what they are, for that will disempower these inhibitions.
"So next time you see a 2 year old running round, singing and dancing, bear in mind that it is not necessarily the case that the child should sit down and shut up. Unless there is a rational and explicable basis for him not to do so, then, quite simply, there is no rational or explicable basis for him not to do so- so let him do so. Or else, explain it to him. Blind obedience to authority is one thing we don’t need any more of."
"For example, the 'solution' to what is probably the world's number one industrial disease, cancer, is to call on industrial medicine to create more industrial chemicals that are marketed as drugs to mask the symptoms of the underlying cause -- instead of doing anything to stop the underlying cause.
Of course this is how a dominator paradigm, which is the dominant paradigm in Western industrial civilization, wants things to be. If they can keep people focused on, or distracted from, the symptoms, they don't have to worry about them demanding change to the underlying cause.
As Thomas Pynchon wrote, "If they can get you asking the wrong question, they don't have to worry about the answers."
These two pieces serve to tie in together the related issues of psychological conditioning and the damage the current status quo of Industrial Society is inflicting upon all life on Earth. And they show the way forward.
End the conditioning. Engage the natural wisdom and common-sense inherent in the people who form the grass roots of industrial society to make the changes necessary to halt the damage and to heal the wounds. Work with nature.
It really is that simple. Honor the innate expectations of the natural child and all will be well for those that do so.
Warriors prevent violence, firstly by their firm presence, secondly by their focused applied might… should the genuine need arise.
Thugs act as a threat, and carry out violence as a form of ‘insurance’ for their employers and because they enjoy the power. Some like the blood.
Do our soldiers stand AROUND communities to protect them, or do they STAND AWAY, threatening violence subject to conformity with their leaders wishes?
I assume that a large percentage believe themselves to be warriors. How could it be otherwise? I know that those who send soldiers into war, especially the political leaders, understand that 'their' troops are employed as thugs. One has only to look at the results of such leadership and the ‘reasonings’ that they proffer for knowingly sending troops into harms way. And worse, those leaders know full well that it will be civilians, women and children who will bear the brunt of any fighting.
Stupid?
While so many people get worked up about 'climate change' and GET VAST MAINSTREAM MEDIA ATTENTION : (The Age Of Stupid, An Inconvenient Truth) and concurrenlty the war crimes being committed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Congo etal are pretty much unexplored by that mainstream media, are 'reported' without any real depth or analysis, I am left wondering WHY?
Who benefits from this?
How can anyone honestly expect success in the realm of 'climate change' without also addressing directly the huge investment in War that is at the core of our societies?
The fact is that we cannot change the weather, we must live with it - and that is an adaptive process. We know that climate variations are the norm for Earth - and we know that the processes we are engaged in do not, as nature does, return nutrients to the system, so that they are then ready for use by other life forms, the ones we co-habit with, the ones we are dependent upon for everything from oxygen to clean water, once we have utilised the 'strategic raw materials' and that this is the biggest single identifiable causative factor in environmental degradation. The robbery of materials from those that need them.
This and War are not being addressed by the mainstream. The solutions proposed tend towards regulation and the monetising of pollution, so that the rich can afford to pollute, the poor pay with their lives. And The War Against Terror is also seen by those in power as a ‘solution’? And large numbers of intelligent media types buy this?
The 'stupidity' is deep indeed!
It’s roots are to be found in suppressed trauma.
Suppressed trauma.
Unless one has been through the process of working ones issues when one has been harmed or abused or humiliated as a child, it's very difficult to understand why so many people seem to appear to not take responsibility for themselves ..... to explore one's pain, and identify it's source takes courage and requires great honesty and energy. With all the pressures of living in a dysfunctional society that normalises dysfunction, it is hardly surprising that few take that hard road.
One must not be too harsh on people ... and at the same time we must seek to awaken the awareness of the effects of suppressed trauma ... though that is not to say to treat lightly those who abuse, especially when the abuse is obviously causing distress....and is visible, even if ignored or justified, by the abuser.
Those who as children experience abuse tend to suppress the memories (sometimes) and feelings (nearly always) associated with that abuse in order to survive psychically ...they most often have no-one to turn to after the events....supression is a survival tactic.... thus the pain, fear and anger remain within, buried deep within. Science now supports the concept that memories are stored not just in the brain, they are stored all over our bodies and that those stored and suppressed negative memories have severe consequences for those whose bodies hold such secrets.
There are so many societal sanctions against those who open up these wounds and who seek honest resolution, (which is less about punishment than it is about healing and remorse) not to mention the dynamics within families that 'cover up' and carry on...... a facade that is endemic in our society - the mainstream media being a concrete example of this being institutionalised and normalised.... state scerets indeed!
And to open up old wounds is often terrifying for the wounded, for there's a strong sense that the opening will cause serious trouble, break families apart etc etc.... so much resistance to the most painful truths of our lives.
This is 'struggling with your demons'.....
Thus most people have to suppress the feelings associated with trauma and just get on with it..... for who will listen to their stories, who will hold them while they cry, who will hear their anger and be there for them as they work through what they must if they are to live full, open and joyous lives, not to mention bringing about fundamental changes to our society in favour of healthy living for all life.
These wounds exist, the pain exists, they do not vanish, and these hidden wounds and pains are oftentriggered by current non-threatening yet irritable events in peoples live eliciting often extreme over-reactions and adversecontrol behaviours that cause further problems for all concerned.
Suppressed Trauma as a Policy Tool.
And worst of all, Governments and Religious Hierarchies understand this and use it in a quite calculated way to divide people, to create ’demons’ for people to dump their anger onto, to hire armies and deploy them and to distract people from the abusive nature of our society. .... eg : the near constant hysteria about paedophiles in the media, whilst almost complete silence about the deaths of over 340,000 children in Iraq ... and of course elsewhere... can you now see who benefits? Do not the weapons manufacturers, the jet makers and all the suppliers of war benefit? Do not the elite wealthy families and communities benefit? In their understanding they do indeed benefit.
While I of course undertsand peoples justifiable anger, I find it horrifying to hear people say 'paedo’s should hung, castrated etc etc' and at the same time those people will happily ignore The War in raq, where over 360,000 children have been murdered, and many more maimed for life (not to mention the 500,000 childrens lives lost during the 1990s as a result of the embargo and bombing campaign carried out by UK and US Air Forces, lives which Madelaine Allbright claimed were worth the price'..) - those people must be deeply conditioned to NOT REALLY THINK, to not really feel, to take emotional blindness as normal and that is very dangerous for us all, for our society. The unthinking cruelty of such statements is standard fare in the Mainstream Media.
The cruelty of those who cannot or will not think, who were the descendants of traumatised people themselves, was all too apparent in Rwanda, Germany in the 1930s and 40s, and indeed is blatantly obvious and can be read every day in 'newspapers' such as The Sun (UK) and others like it, and somewhat more modulated in the more 'intelligent' (?) press, yet present nonetheless.
Until we face the trauma, and release the pain, as individuals and as a collective, our society will create more and more thugs to thwart and crush the few remaining warriors amongst us. Those who ignore their inner pain are often those who cause the most pain.
That history repeats itself is a well worn and threadbare trusim, one that slips off the tongue far too easily, and mostly, unexamined. That is a serious flaw that must be addressed by all those who seek to help.
We hear so much in the media these days about how teenagers are apathetic, selfish, rude, arrogant.
The reality is that most teens are well aware of whats going on around them, and pretty angry with the adults for the mess they are creating. Teens are generally intelligent people, they care deeply about their own future, and you will find that lots of them are working in many many ways to deal with the issues.
Alice Millers work, "The roots of violence in child-rearing practices : for your own good" looked at this, and in particular, the Nazi Ideology and access to power, and came to the conclusion that most people are bullied by parents, by school, by religion, by commerce, by government ... and it ranges from subtle to intense and lethal.
It is the conditioned acceptance of such a psychologically dysfunctional status quo as 'normality', that each individual must take on, that is the source of such mass emotional blindness, as emerged in Nazi Germany, and which can be manipulated by those in power, by way of propaganda, schooling, laws and force.
a show concept promo
What pins it all together is the phrase "I am doing this for your own good!" uttered frequently by those who punish others .... and for the child who is frequently punished, by living through it and surviving, and then shutting down what is unresolved of it, this a survival tactic of the child. The child adopts that same justification/values as ‘good’ and internalises those values as their own. That process is essentially how the system is set in place.
And it will remain so until the child/adult recognises it, and works through it, for themselves, in their own way..
Bush invaded Iraq and killed Iraqi civilians for 'their own good' - Blair bombed Kosovo’s for 'their own good' ... all of them say this, and then murder civilians (these days, 90% of war casualties are civilians..) ... and we let them get away with it. What has changed since Nazi Germany? Not much, really when I analyse it.
We comply. And that compliance is why the banks are getting away with robbing us blind. Now we each of us can sort ourselves out, by being ruthlessly honest, and at the same time we can work together to spread the word, to learn and to build grass roots resilience. WE CANNOT influence the fundamentals of Governance as they won't listen and will not voluntarily change... Sop we must change, we must break the cycle, because we can : and so we must build grass roots resilience, health and food and a sense of community being of vital importance.
This mission, should one chose to accept it will be lifelong. It may involve laughter and tears, joy and horror. It may be short or it might seem at times eternal. Luckily, nature has ensured that all one needs for one’s mission (essentially just being your true self) is either within you, or just within reach. Apart from those moments when you can’t see or grasp them…. that’s what ones senses are for… as well as for bliss, to which human senses, amongst others, are exquisitely attuned. Naturally!
Comparing Government and people to dysfunctional violent families works really well as a model that helps me, at any rate, to understand why people play power games, and how and why the system is being perpetuated by conditioning..... abusers, justifiers, abused, scapegoats, children who parent the parents, favourites, outcasts, power pyramids, suppression of the truth by all , even the victims, projections .... these are all political power characters as much family dynamics. They all have a tale to tell about their experience, and they all feel their place in the structure, identifying with it. That it is strong structure is obvious.
However the good news is that when the bulk of the family/society refuses to continue to play the abusers game, the abuser has to stop ….and this is true for all power relationships ….and power must then face the truth, or endure a breakdown, a collapse of the shielding justifications, if healing is ever to be a possibility …..
I see no logical reason, no incontrovertible data as to why this is not possible, and certainly none that would question the innate and natural desirability of such. This is how natural humans tick. This is no utopian an ideal.
Utopias usually arise out of Autopias. That is to say, an imperfect condition is ‘improved’ and the imperfect ‘instructed’ by those wise enough. Utopias arise out of mechanical applications of concepts, which is yet again, an exercise of POWER over others ……. Hence my word Autopias. Utopias tend to be perfected authoritarian human lawns.
The best hope for the abuser/power user is in their own hands, and responsibility for that must be left with them, and them alone.
That is why imprisonment has to be seen to be realistic and understood to be applied as a viable restraint, and not as a punishment, until such time as the potential for harm is reduced, by virtue of strong healthy communities, grass roots power and natural balance in the society as reflected in good relationships throughout society. In other words, that POWER to punish is never exercised, or even seen as a last resort.
By taking responsibility for what we allow in our communities, we ensure the safety of each other, and we can then safely absolve the power users of all but the crimes they have committed and the adult responsibility for facing their own dysfunction. And dealing with it. Or not.
Marina Hyde, writing in the Guardian 'comment is free' web pages outlines a fantastic new philantrophic concept designed by elites themselves, the super-duper rich.
"Give to the rich to help the poor? An idea worthy of Bono
Satire? No - a genius really has concocted a tax proposal to put our aid budget in the hands of the super-rich"
"On Tuesday night, 100 billionaires will gather at London's sumptuous Dorchester hotel, to watch Mr Ted Turner in conversation with Ms Carol Vorderman. Ms Joss Stone will sing, and some model or other will be in attendance. Can you guess the aim of this evening, which I trust you would cross continents to avoid in the infinitely unlikely event that you had been invited? No? Then allow me to assist. The aim is to make the government give tax breaks to the super-rich, in order to tempt them to give the same percentage of income to charity as the poorest 20% of people in this country already do.
Feel free to be taken unwell.
Initially I assumed the Fortune Forum, for so it is named, was an elaborate living satire, designed to highlight practically everything that is wrong with contemporary life. Alas, The Fortune Forum is all too real. It was dreamt up by an heiress called RenuMehta, as a kind of vaguely benevolent mini-Davos."
Marina continues to explore this fantastic world ... She doesn't go far enough. Like George Monbiot, she holds back the full fury of common-sense.
Nonetheless, 'It' has to be said. And both are saying it with some subtlety.
The hubris of these immensely rich people, often from long lines of generations of wealth, has become, for the majority of people, an almost pathological issue, in that it is an attitude that informs many of the practices which we know are harming rather than assisting life, geared towards gathering and hoarding 'resources' and wealth, and often with great violence, and these super rich people know this, and they continue nonetheless, sitting on charitable boards, with all that is going on around the world, driven by their pride in their immense wealth and paranoia about their 'strategic interests'.
I have re-written the song 'streets with no name' as 'thieves with no shame', as a parody. I don't sing the song, as I find the melody irksome. I do sing 'I don't like geldof' and parody of 'I don't like Mondays'..... Goldloaf at least wrote some catchy tunes...
There's also background info on Geldof and Bono business dealings and investments, and an analysis of Label Red, sponsored by Bono, American Express and the large pharmaceutical companies who control aids medicine patents.
I have sent this out before, it's not my own research, so blessings to all the various people and ways that info flows.
And it's worth repeating, it's worth all the effort to expose these fools to their own folly, and show them how they can help, if they seriously want to help, if it is to do with their experience of their common humanity, common soul, common nature and common sense!
We'll show them how by doing it ourselves, as many are already doing. Ask Jane Goddall....
Ask the lovley people, voluteers all, who facilitatedThe Spike community centre evicted by Southwark Council from their home in Peckham! A home the Council are selling to property developers, handing it over to the private sector for profit.... wealth is transferred, from poor to rich yet again, another drop in the constant flow.
One the one hand the rich have charidees, and on the other hand their ideology keeps shutting these grass roots initiatives down.....!
Three documentaries and an article have inspired me to write this explanation of my song “The Government Hates” …… in which I compare the freely available life enhancing realities of nature and the terrorising of civilians, indigenous and peasants freely wrought by various Governments...... The deaths of millions upon millions of children have all but been written out of 'history'......ever asked yourself why?
Here's why.
I'll tell you why!
The first two documentaries, Rick Steves' Iran Documentary, And Rageh Omar’s Inside Iran, took a peek inside Iran.
Rick Steve’s clearly goes for the feel-good factor as he visits various parts of Iran.. He states clearly that his interest is to meet Iranians as people and to see their culture first hand. And he does. And it is clear that the people he met have no interest in war, be it military or economic. He explores the history of Iran, and reveals the longstanding series of ‘interventions’ by British and US Military, and mercenaries to ‘protect valued resources’ …. to keep the oil flowing…. He acknowledges the strong anti-American sentiment visible in Iran. His subjects tell him it is government-government, not people-people. They are of course correct, and Rick stays schtum… interesting.
Rageh Omar opts for less of a tourist brochure, and does more interviews, delving deeper into Iranian perceptions and realities, at least for those in Tehran… he carefully avoids too much detail on the historical stuff that involves the west, and ignores the ancient roots … however he is sympathetic towards the Iranian people.. (well he’d never get anyone to say anything to camera except “FUCK “OFF in Farsi, would he?)
Both portray well the people of Iran as people. Different, with their own problems, their own joys … Do they need another war? Did the Iraqis? And is it Government-Government? Well the next documentary reveals something about this.
In Yer Face
The third documentary is Vietnam : American Holocaust, a shocking and deeply disturbing account of the Vietnam War, from well before it was official….. Back to before WWII, the French and Americans were involved in ‘exploiting the natural resources’ of Vietnam. Long story, Old Story. Same old Story.
In the documentary we hear various US presidents lie, publicly, whilst their ‘private’ conversations reveal their planning and execution of the entire project. Their obvious callousness is shocking. Cold, venomous and conceited. As ever those who ‘rule’ “and cry; let loose the dogs of war!” for to do so is the most callous act, the supreme crime, a war of aggression.
And for what?
For profits. A Corporation that makes weapons, must make more and more, and develop new weapons, in order the guarantee that the investment made by the shareholders of that corporation will increase in value and deliver an annual or quarterly dividend. A cut of the profits.
Who owns these Corporations? How many of their ex-employees are in Government? How many Former Government Officials are now working for those Corporations?
And of course there’s the protecting of‘ natural resources’ and that vague euphemism, a kind self-important fig leaf of a word, “strategic interest” as well, as a cover-up. A distraction.
Ad in a bit of dehumanisation, the media will comply ….
The documentary says none of this. It doesn’t need to. It’s fucking obvious. Amazing. At last.
Truly Great article. Not a word wasted. Sometimes George writes something I really, really get and also am delighted that he’s writing about that particular subject.
His book ‘Captive State’ isone such piece ... it is essential reading for UK citizens, if not all citizens of Industrialised States - and it set me on fire. The combination of info and explanation, narrative and anger, poetry and prose George Monbiot crafts when he's on fire is liberating at it’s best. Captive State is all that. You will read how the UK Government became a business ‘merge and acquisition’ project by business, at the grass roots as much as at National Government level. Great book. I digress. Praise George!
Anyways, his subject for this essay I dig so much is the lands held in trust for the nation by the National Trust ….in particular the lands and Stately house "Stowe Landscape Gardens. I know them well, for I enjoyed the astonishing unearned privilege of attending the school that’s housed there. The gardens (really a landscaped deerpark) were a vast playground of crumbling follies and overgrown lakes, of coverts and laurel brakes in which ruined monuments could, like Mayan temples, be discovered by adventurous boys. Licensed by tolerant teachers, I played swallows and amazons here for five years."
hw writes, and he also reveals the history, which is not the official history (the official history is the National trusts sanitised version, redolent of school tetx books) of their ‘transfer’ from commons to estates. A protracted history. A very violent history. Relatively recent history.
And Monbiot reveals that the writers of that history portrayed themselves as civilised, as the winners. They were the 'winners'. If they consider having all the gold, all the land to themselves, then yes. These self-styled winners forced the peasant people off the land that was commons by ancient right, and by fact of occupation, land upon which they had long subsisted, mostly healthily enough.
Evicted Violently.
And when people resisted, the military was called in, and those not murdered were press ganged, or sent to colonies as slaves and prisoners. Those who did not resist were forced into factories, the Industrial Revolution was underway and needed man, woman, and child power. EP Thompson’s, ‘The Making Of The English Working Class’ documents what happened when the weavers and some factory workers resisted.
State espionage, murder, assassinations, smears, agent provocateurs, kangaroo courts ….. All to protect the evolution of the Factory System and the profits and immense wealth and power that accrued.
Only an institutionalised and bred or nurtured hatred can sustain this kind of behaviour, this kind of constant brutality, sheer depravity over such long periods of time. A psychotic hatred, a cold hatred, and controlled hatred. Only that could possibly engage generation after generation after generation of mass-murder most foul. And it is merely bullying. No more banal than that. Not Empire building ... that's a PR job. Merely bullying, with extreme violence...
And that is what the song “The Government Hates” is all about. It’s about those people who take the side of the Institutions that carry out such ‘policies’ as much as the Institutions themselves. Far too many of us succumb to that conditioning..
And only a cold, cold reading of History, or a severely edited one, or one presented as a ‘boys own’ annual special, a ‘costume drama’ … could ever manage to justify these horrors as part and parcel of ‘what makes us(?) Great Britain’ …. as part of human progress!
Since WWII the death rate for civilians/soldiers in ’wars’ is over 90% ‘in favour’ of civilians, ie: more and more civilians and fewer soldiers die. More in favour of soldiers, actually. And this is progress?
I cannot ‘adjust’ to this! I will not adjust to this!
I hold those who made the rules for the teachers who taught me such lies responsible for my own lack of knowledge, and for the lack of understanding that pervades this society, that is the product of 'state education' and well, it’s time it was said.
Such lies amount to a crime against all children they are told to. To demand a child treat the victors history as the truth, and to coerce it via schooling and testing, is a psychological crime. It makes all those children accesories after the fact. Legally this is the case, though it has yet to be tested in a court. This must be faced. This must be said. Share these thoughts, my friends, add to them. Be a transmitter. I will not be not afraid of these cold, callous monsters and their bullying. They are just men. Insecure men. Damaged goods.
I will not be afraid of to unveil those sacred cows such as History, Commemorations, Heroism in service of country. I am freeing my mind and my and heart and I will object, I will disobey in a civil way, whatever way I can.
I free myself and I carve my own values, the ones that meet the needs of a person; values that meet the needs of a natural healthy community, out of the raw ingredients of this rotten culture, and my nature and maybe, just maybe, I’ll be fortunate enough to be one of those who will start the process of building a humane and balanced way of society. Whatever it may look like, it will feel centered, it will be a place for all children for all time. That is the destination. Nothing esle.
This may well be discussed here and there, with a little bit of action here and there and for sure millions upon millions do sincerely, billions I would say, want this is happen…. But it isn’t really started yet, not in the UK, not in Europe….. We’re behind the curve on this one, It’s almost as if we just don’t quite get it yet?
How long will those at the harsh end of the history that George W Bush and Anthony Blair wrote have to wait for justice and honesty, truth and reparation?
Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, the People of Tibet, the San People of the Kalahari, The villagers of the Congo, How long?
Who is next on the hit list?
The Government hates …people thinking these kinds of thoughts, and fears people with these thoughts might act upon them. The orchestrate, with business, the means to demonise the very possibility of these thoughts. That’s the function of the war on terror at home. Shut up!
The ‘Government’ shouldn’t be frightened. They should be proud we hold these thoughts and they should look to us for resolution. We mean them no harm. We want the wars and the greed driven stupidity to cease.
Of crucial importance to my sensing of life, and my work as a performer, writer and polemicist is the concept of the existence of innate sensory acuity (skills) in all living beings that enable the cognition of change in the immediate and extended environment and thus the generation of appropriate responses, from the micro-bacterial to the largest living entity, in a constant sensitive precise feed-back loop : natural karma, if you will.
Starting from there, realising that this is also the nature of the natural child, perhaps one can begin to sense the implications of POWER, regarding the way such power is exercised in our society, the consequences of which we are all too sadly familiar.
In that the omission of that natural feedback loop that permeates natures processes is one of the key dynamics of POWER, we can look at how we treat children, in cultural terms, and how that culture impacts upon the personal, in our homes, our streets, our communities, with each other.
The more we understand about nature’s details through the medium of science, the more we realise that there is much in our language, and in the tools we use to discern nature, that is inadequate to the task.
Indeed in a recent issue of New Scientist, January 24th, the editorial explicitly acknowledged this. “ It is now accepted that the tree of life is something we impose on nature in an attempt to make the task of understanding it more tractable.“
As was the fact that the model of Darwinian Evolution as a linear process is also inadequate : ‘evolution’ or unfolding of life is non-linear, and works sideways, backwards, upwards and downwards as much as forwards.
What runs concurrent with that realisation is that the interconnectedness of all life forms is incredibly deep, is profoundly detailed and precise and that that quality is indeed the basis of life’s regenerative powers. We can in various ways, sense or know that quality, yet our scientific understanding does not yet describe the fullness of that quality.
Both of these understandings, of the use of sensory acuity and the interconnectedness of all life, form a large part of indigenous land based peoples ways of living. And this begs the question : from whence did these peoples ‘gain’ this understanding?
Put it another way : is there a direct experience of life, of nature, of habitat, one which our enables such understandings to accrue as a body of knowledge and thus inform the behaviour of living beings? What is that process of direct experience?
These are questions of supreme importance, for if there is such, then it is in that direct experience that the resolution of our problems will be found.
Taking this basic premise, (as I do) one can begin to understand the psychosis of POWER and how that leads towards cultures that impose beliefs, that cut off children from their innate sensory acuity, that justify harm as long as it protects or projects POWER.
I draw from my own personal experience as a dysfunctional adult for personal prima facie evidence of this. I have in the past justified my bullying of people. Even to the extent of blaming the one I have harmed for being the cause of the harm. In that I was no different to the US Government, the local gangster, the abusive spouse, the bigot. The personal is also the transpersonal. The personal is also the cultural. The personal is also the political.
I also draw on personal experience for evidence of that sensory acuity, of the near amazing ability to ‘jam’, to flow, to find exactly what is needed for my own life.
I have never been comfortable with the idea that I hold a particular skill, a unique power, that is not available to all. I have never been comfortable with the concept of innate human superiority. Thus when I receive ‘praise’ for these ‘skills’ I share as a musician or performer or facillitator I am always uncomfortable … almost embarrassed…. For me that is not the point of the performance - for me the point of the performance is to share something deeper than skin or skill. To reach to the life force quality within, to say 'we recognise each other'.
Many of my friends who perform and inspire likewise feel this combination of embarrassment and awareness. All these people have, like I do, a great sense of loving self as part of nature, a natural comfort in ones skin, that is in conflict with the culture we are born into, and of course we are often confused by the cultural paradigms of stars and audiences……of hierarchy…. and power. POWER.....
And that is the subject of my song "The Heart Song", which is third track on the reverbnation player to your right! Enjoy!
Helen Caldicott, who I have great regard for, was interviewed for the English Independent Newspaper, as part of the credo series. What she has to say is instructive.
That she spearheaded the international movement against nuclear power and nuclear weapons, is because of her ability to speak deeply, intelligently, without jargon, to the facts and the figures, to the human cost. And that her thinking is very, very clear on the matter.
Students, about their recent and ongoing universityoccupations :
"We feel it’s important to emphasize that the student occupation should be understood not simply as a tactic or a bargaining chip in getting our demands... At it’s best, the occupation provided a space for a process far more democratic than what conventional university structures are able to achieve. The changes we want to see will be attained through our direct action but also by creating such spaces, and expanding them indefinitely."
The Great and The Good of The StraightWorld discuss the future of humanity in the light of so much poverty, climate change and over population. War is off the agenda for this discussion!
David Attenborough, Richard Dawkins, Jane Goodall and David Leaky discuss the parlous state of affairs as regards the issues of the day...... before a rapt audience in good old Bristol. They are all good people, definitely well-meaning. Some easier to like than others. They have worked hard on others behalf. And they are straight. I mean really straight. Excruciatingly so.
1. They don't mention war - a basil fawlty moment short of a laughing gnome ... well she did mention getting rid of the military... Jane Goodall.... smart girl!
2. Dawkins claims the idea of a species caring for the future, (were western civilisation to do the right thing) is a novel idea, an unique moment in time. Seems he missed out on all the indigenous peoples known proclivity in those very areas. As in "All is Born of Woman. No Harm Shall Come To The Children" doh!
3. Dawkins claimed we have ended slavery! oops! that's another 300 million people, alive today who missed a meeting!
4. Ok so Attenborough did say we need to look at nature as a unity, and there's agreement on this, yet he misses that the natural biodiversity is the best path during climate change, so give land back to nature to recover, put people to work repairing the land...
5. They miss that nature is a self-organising living paradigm ...... that the solution lies in tapping into that very self-organisational living paradigm. Nature KNOWS what to do! doh!
6. The men are boring, JaneGoodall is almost excluded....
7. They skirt around the issue of power, the minority who wield it and their naked willingness to harm anyone and anything so as to keep their power....
8. Leaky is hoping to convince the 100 people running industrialised humanity to change course? Really?
9. That's going to solve poverty? Oh yes, that and the Canadian steel charcoal burning stoves for African 'peasants'. The stoves I understand. The mind boggles.
really short review :
Man talks ... blah blah blah ... more men talk..... blah blah JaneGoodall - passion and common sense -men talk blah blah blah. man talks. man laughs. man sighs. blah blah blah. Jane Goodall says get rid of the military....men talk blah blah blah....blah blah, Jane Goodall says that it's unacceptable that we leave this planet worse than we found it, think about the children...... men talk blah blah blah.... men sigh, ponder weighty questions, pretty much offer no detail of any possible shift we need to make .... ..... very, very frustrating.
I know at least 200 people who would have given these people some answers and insight into the interconnectedness of all these issues - and there are millions of people like that.
Just have to get on with it, 'cos these fools are LOST!
And I'm not. No-one needs to be. Though many are. Thankfully it's not as bleak as that, we know we have nature within us.... that's some force to be reckoning with.... many millions of humans....
It will open a page with a player and song list. Press play....
The Israeli Election is done. Now the formation of a majority block Government begins. Two weeks they say. And who has been talking of peace or justice? What have they said? And who amongst them will talk of peace, And who has been talking of more war? And who amongst these elected Israelis, now with the responsibility of Governance as an occupying military power in their hands, will speak of seeking peace and abandoning violence, physical or economic. As a first step. Unclench the fist, and remove the glove. Who?
And absent from anything i have read, is comment upon the reality that after a trauma, any threats the assailant makes publicly is by Law, and offence, classified as an assault. It also hurts....
Imagine what it’s like for a child who has seen his family die in the most bloody way, to hear the persons responsible for that horror making threats to launch another war, or to speak of unending war?
What is that like?
That child could be Israeli or Palestinian or American or Congolese, take a pick at any ‘conflict’, there are many.
Seen from this perspective, birth into this way of life, on Earth, is a grotesque lottery, devised by the hands of power, uncaring of the harm. Sure there are risk inherent in nature. But this?
THIS!?
So many children!
How is THIS in any way acceptable?
These are the questions we must ask as people and demand that answers, both our own conclusions and those of established ‘experts’ be openly sought, facts faced and appropriate decisions made.
With the disgusting and ignoble rhetoric of war ringing around the world, with foreseeable disasters looming as possibility's, ones we could better turn our energies so as to prepare, and mitigate the foreseeable, as derived from climate variation, mass poverty as capitalism falters, as war continues and other factors I won't go into here,(the reader will collate their own list) it behoves us all to stop the war as a priority.
One way or another, the subject must become THE SUBJECT that politicians, makers of weapons and war supplies, soldiers, citizens and children focus on.
protest. strike. blockade. write. inform. talk to the children. no-one has to become part of the system. it cannot be imposed. alternatives will emerge.
i write about this because of what I know to be true. It is deeper than any belief.
Because of the children.
All real children have prior rights in that they did not ask to join this culture, and cannot be subject to it's imposed ideologies without undermining their human rights, this in both a legal and a more general sense.
Those rights are the responsibility of the adult world in it’s entirety.
That responsibility is not so heavy that mankind has been struggling with it eternally. That would not be a great survival strategy in the long run, as we are beginning to understand. Ahem! (cough, cough!)
Until quite recently, about 16,000 years ago as far as we can tell. Not long in the long line of ancestry really. And always, always organised war directed by hierarchical societies has been at the heart of it all. The motive : Profit by brute force.
‘Progress’ was and remains a metaphor for more land, and more land implied controlling other lands, others bodies, be they whatever species……as resources to exploit.
Happiness in a consumer culture?
Truthfully, the ‘happiness’ quotient of those closest to the land, where pressures from the consumer based industrial world are non-existent, minimal or ignored, is the highest and broadest of all living human societies. That matters! That really, really matters. Think about this. Pause.
This way of living as a natural humane being has real meaning, value, content and depth. It is neither a fashion statement nor is it a currency. It’s no utopia. Shit happens.
Nonetheless.
Two streams of behaviour. Different consequences.
One cares for children. The other ‘rears’ children.
One turns anger into ritual.
The other drops missiles on them from seven thousand miles away. Or thirty. Or shells the child from one hundred yards away. Bulldozes house with dead people inside, your dead brothers, your dead parents and grandparents.
One would never make that threat.
The other repeats both threat and trauma.
A cyclic pattern.
This happens. This is war, carried out by ‘states’, stimulated by ‘empires’.
Does it really have to be this way?
Of course not! Feel that pulse of nature, and the child at play, the family laughing. That’s real.
Doubt not that for once thousandth of a second.
Imagine again, sense this, feel what it would be like for that child at the harsh end of a missile.
Wherever that child is.
Imagine now, slowly, taking time to sense again how you felt gazing upon the most beautiful natural sight you have ever seen. The most moving. Then imagine playing as a child in nature, in that vision, or as it comes, as you might have as a child. Learning by exploring. By experience. By joy!
BANG!
A missile, the components of which may well have been made in 25 different countries, assembled in one country, shipped to the battle front, used once, lands in a child’s bedroom.
So when the politician said read my lips, no more taxes and did the opposite, when they say they want peace and make war and work to increase the possibility of more ‘efficient’ war, when they say they care for our health and refuse to regulate tens of thousands of synthetic toxic chemicals that are currently in common use, which are absolutely a leading cause of much distress, common and evolving, in or civilisation and outside it, as the toxicity takes hold, when this and more, with so many lies, there comes a point. There has to. Enough!
“It’s the children stupid!”
It’s (certainly not) the (military consumer products services industry) economy (interests and natural market) stupid!
What do you think? What are your thoughts on this?
“How many environmentalists does it take to change a lightbulb?”
"Ten. One to write the lightbulb a letter requesting that it change. Four to circulate online petitions. One to file a lawsuit demanding it change. One to send the lightbulb lovingkindness™, knowing that this is the only way real change occurs. One to accept the lightbulb precisely the way it is, clear in the knowledge that to not accept another is to do great harm to oneself. One to write a book about how and why the lightbulb needs to change. And finally, one to smash the fucking lightbulb, because we all know it’s never going to change."
from Derrick Jensen, Endgame ....
http://www.endgamethebook.org/index.html
Excerpts are available, online, of this inciteful and uncompromising book on the nature of our culture or 'civilisation' and it's relationship with earth and her inhabitants, as an abuser in a dusfunctional family. Jensen has a genius with word, phrase, fact and insight and his way of correlating the microcosm of a dysfunctional family with the macrocsom of our 'civilisation' strikes afr too many chords to be dismissed. Similar in vein to David Smail and Alice Miller, he traces the issues we are faced with today from their roots 16,000 years ago in Babylon through today, and comes to some uncomfortable conclusions regarding change and that system of control.
Beliefs and Behaviour Patterns are Neural Pathways that have Become Hardened.
As the brain is growing and forming in the young child, with each new experience a new neural pathway is created, and as those experiences are repeated that pathway or sets of pathways get used repeatedly. Thus certain pathways will become ‘well-worn’ or ‘hardened’.
This is necessary, and is how, for example, learning to ride a bike gets to a point where one does not need to think about it. The thinking during repeated training has formed enough of a pathway series to carry out all the various task required to maintain balance, note direction, read the ground and so on. Without having to think about it, whilst retaining the ability to respond to subtle changes.
Learning
In this way the child learns and stores vital skills, such as control of her/his limbs, balance, co-ordination and so on.
We know that it takes about 10,000 hours of training to become competently fluent on say a given musical instrument so that one is a 'virtuoso', (indeed any particular skill/talent) that is then viewed, in our culture, as ‘pretty damn good’.
This applies to physical action as much as thought processes.
We know that children learn much quicker when their learning is self-directed, and that the enthusiasm of the child is a major factor in driving what they will learn.
We know that infants and very young children learn at rapid rate, way beyond what is learned in later life, at university and as ones ‘career’ develops.
It stands to reason that this learning ability is a biological imperative. The child in nature has much to learn, much that is essential for self-reliance and thus survival or as I like to say ‘thrivival’, and not a huge amount of time to do it in. Can it be that natures learning driver is pleasure, or ease or an aura of empathy?
What is obvious to me, and to many others, is this : this mode of learning cannot be improved in any way by any artifice!
Typically indigenous peoples children are fully competent by age 6.
That is to say they are no longer utterly dependent and are considered an asset to their community. It is common for older children to care for the younger children, and there is much learning that is passed from child to child, rather than from adult to child. That adult to child sharing comes later, as the child approaches young adulthood.
To give you an idea of just how much a typical indigenous person will learn, I have seen estimates of a comparison of the botanical knowledge of a rain forest dweller compared to that of a European university trained botanist. The estimate suggests that the indigenous forest dweller contains the equivalent of 35 botanists with 15 years experience each!
That goes way beyond anything we in the West now consider an ‘expert’ or’ virtuoso’. Who is learning what? What is being taught?
Given this amazing learning ability and the imaginal intentional capacity of the natural human being, what are the implications for the natural child in a typical industrial society school environment?
Immediately arises the question of how much time does a child spend in a school environment as opposed to the real world (which is where the natural child’s learning is logically based)?
What does the loss of that real-world learning mean for the natural child being westernised, industrialised?
Given the general tendency within indigenous peoples to respect the unique personal entity, to embrace diversity and independence along side interdependence, what does the current practice of the 'teaching' of ‘belief systems’ imply for the natural child? And what does that imply for society?
The Roots of Modern Compulsory State Education
To answer these questions, in the context of a western styled education, one has to go to the roots of that system and seek out the inspiration for it. John Taylor Gatto has done that in great detail in his phenomenal work, “The Underground History of American Education”. I will give a brief description here, culled from his book.
The initial inspiration for Western Mass Schooling, or Compulsory State Education, came from observations ,by the British Empire in India, of the Hindi Rote System of education devised for the lower classes within the Hindi system. It was an Anglican Military Chaplain who first observed and understood how this system worked. His name was Andrew Bell.
What he saw and understood was that by gathering the children into large groups, where they had to learn drills by rote, where corporal punishment was widely used, where there was a number of powerful external imperatives to show that one had learned, (could repeat the scriptures, perform the rituals, read the texts, understood one's place in Hindi Society, embodied the concepts of class and so on) the Hindi Caste system had created a psychologically solid state and class structure that had endured for thousands of years, and had resisted the British in spite of the British technological superiority in sea faring and in warfare.
Indeed there was meeting of minds in that the elites of both cultures recognised each other, and thus the British Raj, an accommodation of equals, both ruling their respective masses. The older was to refine the younger. And this was driven largely by commercial interests.
The Hindi Class System
An ancient civilisation, one which had propsered peacefully for millenia, The Political Structure of the Hindi Caste system, at the time of the English invasion of India, looked a bit like this :
Top 5% of three groups : in Order of Power : Brahmin's (priests and the professions), Warriors and Administrators, Merchants and Land Cultivators
Lower 95% of two groups : Menials, and Untouchables.
The Brahmin's ensured that the warriors, administrators and the bulk of the leaderships received a diluted insight into the drivers of this system, so that they alone retained overall control.
The lower 95% received the mass schooling, administered by teachers, who drilled student leaders, who then drilled hundreds of students, in groups of ten or so, all of this in large single rooms. The entire operation of each school was directed by a single Brahmin.
And all this because the belief systems were so entrenched by the time the child was 7 or so, ‘hardwired’ if you will, the overall system of the Hindi centralised power was secure.
“The entire purpose of the Hindu (Western Compulsion) Schooling was to preserve the class system.”
At the time there was no formalised education in the British Empire, apart from the few elite schools and colleges. The peasant yeomanry were to a large degree self educated. Home schooled. The recent move from peasant yeomanry to factory and mine worker had transformed the British Empire, though there was stiff resistance to this move, as the yeomanry/peasant came from a background of liberty and dignity. The Luddites were literate and clearly understood the what the coming factory system implied. The loss of their lands via The Enclosure Acts was a coercive move, designed to drive them into factories. Read E E Thompson's fine work "The Making of The English Working Class" for a detailed look at who, how and why this process developed. One of the most striking aspects of this was the way Methodism dove-tailed with the interests of the factory owners in conditioning compliant factory workers to acceptance of their lot as good!
The first expression of this kind of schooling arose from a complete mis-understanding , and can be found in the Lancaster Schools of England. Joseph Lancaster, a Quaker, was inspired by an account written by Bell in 1797 of the Hindi system. Bell had made it clear that such a system was an effective impediment to learning, and created in it’s subjects a docility perfectly suited to mass production labour. Lancaster missed this, and concluded that it would be cheap way to awaken intellect in the lower classes. A classic case of a genuine do-gooder who missed the point completely.
Sparta : The Legend of the 300
The rest as they say is History. The History of Compulsory State Education Systems, … Do not confuse the system with the people on the ground, and their varying motivations. Like all centrally managed industrial processes the Education System depends utterly upon predictability. Predictable processes, predictable results, predictable products. And management ignore the effluent, the waste, they hide it from view, they dump it or they recycle it. They get state subsidies to deal with the waste?
Business psychology. Bullying. Quite not the exciting feel of the 'illuminati' etc etc.... Banal truth.
I would add here that the inspiration for Western Military Training came from the legendary Spartan Culture, and within that the concept of the militarisation of an entire culture was perfected. This was what drove the tiny Prussian State from near collapse, to become one of Europe's most feared fighting machines and thus a mighty Empire. That was where the first 'kindergartens' were crafted. The logic was impeccable. And it was the Prussian system that refined Compulsory State Education as we know it. It was American, French, German and English Coal and Steel Barons, and their paid Educators who were most inspired by the Prussian Military success at Waterloo.
I highly recommend J T Gatto’s work. He unveils much about the history of the project for a world wide state sponsored system of compulsory education for the masses, and it has ever since defined the nature of our society and it’s ills. Gatto's work will both shock and reward the reader many, many times.
Implications
So now that we have looked to the core inspiration, we can ask what are the implications for a natural child in a typical western school environment? Lets take a look at what happens to that child.
1. They are cut off from the real world experience, from the wider community and segregated from their parents.
2. They are forced into un-natural groupings, according to age and ‘ability’ to conform.
3. They are required to ‘learn’ what they are told to learn, which really means to memorise texts provided by the teachers, who have been given these texts by other unseen administrators of the system.
4. Failure to learn leads to punishment.
Early schooling is about learning to respond appropriately to authority. Obedience is inculcated, and becomes hard-wired in the first three years of primary school, as a direct result of' schooling'. Irrespective of how kind theteacher, how colourful the class room, the responses to authority are learned and internalised, and remain throughout the child's 'education' and into adult life. (These days the State wants your children even earlier!)
Thus the child learns that his or her own interests do not matter unless they get approval from the teachers. Their parents, having been through the same process, continue the training at home, unaware of what they are doing, innocently drawn into this process, because they are for the most part unaware of these processes.
Under these circumstances, the child will therefore of course choose an interest to follow within the scope of what is offered, this in order for the psyche to survive, and will become ever more dependent upon external approvals.
The child will have to become devious, self-limiting and reactive to external cue driven stimuli because they are expected to NOT MAKE MISTAKES, (such is the nature of rote learning) and what we know from nature is that making a mistake, observing it and correcting it, (an internal feedback loop) is an essential part of the natural learning process. Once that is disabled, then self motivated learning is all but impossible.
Conditioningand Control
All of this conditions the child in ways that make them ‘ideal’ for working in factories and bureaucracy's. Both are situations that demand a certain 'inhumanity' of the worker or clerk. Boxes must be ticked, time cards stamped, targets met. The stick is the possible loss of one's job... the carrot is 'security'. An ability to shut down key feeling centres is the core ability sought by corporations, military and police forces and bureaucracies.
The childs teachers and the childs parents have all been through and accepted this system, and this further isolates the child, for there is no-one to talk to who understands what is happening.
Those that ‘do not fit in’ or give up are then channelled towards unskilled labour or roles such as the rank and file of the military and the police. The system has a use for all.
And then finally there’s those who rebel, or those who become severely damaged by this system and thus become ‘drop-outs’ , whose chances of getting a ‘good job’ are diminished … they are demonised, and held up as a frightening example to the others.
Of course this process has varying rates of success....
Not everyone is equally effected. Some escape. Officers and Political Leaders, those who do not escape, are most often drawn from the better schools and colleges, or from a carefully screened few who work their way up the ranks, each move up being dependent upon a demonstrable willingness to comply with the directives of the system.
Meaning
In essence this is all about the control of meaning, of replacing inner meaning with received meaning, thus shutting the gate on the possibility of inner meaning arising as a threat to the established meaning. What this means is that the children develop belief systems about their abilities, about their place in society and indeed about their society itself (these beliefs are embedded in the texts of the subjects they are taught/forced to learn in school) by constant repetition. These beliefs become hard wired, neural pathways, and become a sort of ersatz identity, one that is defensive and quite resistant to alteration - held in place by fear.
And that is the nature of belief systems, state and commercial control, in a nut shell. Protest as A Safety Valve
That is why 20 million taxpaying adults will allow a Government to rip them off, time and time again, to send their sons and daughters to war, to manufacture and then drop bombs on other peoples who have been demonised in media and statements by politicians who know the depth of the conditioning, given their role in that conditioning process, all this in spite of a nagging sense that somehow it’s not right!
This is why some people will read one newspaper and others another, and they will sit in a pub, or on a TV panel, or in a Legislative Assembly and debate the issues, repeating what they have read, thinking all the time that their debates are genuinely based upon their own unique understandings and particular viewpoints, rather than share experienced knowledge culled from the wider world and information they have gleaned for themselves so as to enlighten each other. In debates, the winner takes all!
This is why people with strong beliefs are often impervious to anything that counters the basis for or adherence to those beliefs. This is why so many people fail to engage their hearts and minds with the increasingly urgent issues we are all faced with.
This is why the ‘new age’ leads to ideologues, fantasists and sectarian divides, because of this mode of reading and repeating what one has read. Original thinking is all but obliterated, and where it exists, it is limited to ‘invention’, ‘fashion’, ‘art’ and literature and corralled into a world that is carefully structured by this whole process. Thus the majority of people become mere repositories of belief.
TV and Advertising work because of this very fact.
Processed and less than optimum foods don’t help matters either.
A Violent System
What has to be understood is that this system was imposed, is still imposing itself and is inherently violent - as is the nature of the city state and industrialism as we know them. The natural child is robbed of his or her innate sensory acuity, and is practically blinded by this process, made emotionally blind because the child has to suppress his or her natural anger at this imposition in order to survive.
On top of this, parenting practices handed down over the years, from the elites, have made violence an acceptable mode of training. As Alice Miller points out a child who has been beaten or humiliated all the while being told by those they are dependent upon, those whose love they require for their own psychic development,’that this is for your own good’ must believe that admonishment, and will in turn do the same to their own children.
It was in 1998 that corporal punishment was outlawed in English Schools. At the same time, to counter that, increased testing was introduced - and we know that this increased testing has not led to an increased intellectual ability in our children. Schools were driven to meet targets in order to secure funding, and so the teachers role become that of a trainer for testing, rather than an educator. The system is designed so that tinkering with it appears to bring novel change, yet the core underlying dynamics remain in place and the power structures retain their over arching power.
This is what the various mainstream movements for peace, for liberty, for ecologically sound cultures have failed to grasp - that this conditioning permeates our society, creates a mass emotional blindness, and is the basis for all the violence of states, corporations, warlords, wifebeaters, thugs and bullies. and the tacit compliance of ordinary people. And unless unravelling this conditioning process is included in the work of these movements, up front and in yer face, it is unlikely that they will be successful.
The issues are all encapsulated in this : that the adult world manipulates the minds and hearts of children for their desires and wants, irrespective of the inherent, natural and essential psychic needs of the child.
End that condtioning, and much of the violence of states etc will vanish, as people grow up with their empathy intact, as people refuse to comply, refuse to accept the justifications and adverse behaviour of Governments, of the Military Industrial Complex, of the Establishment. End that conditioning, let the children learn as naturally as they can, and they will find the solutions - as Einstein noted "“We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”" and "Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death”
Yes we can, and only we can do it!
If all this seems a bit too much or unlikely, than don't take my word for it. Explore the issues I have highlighted, do your own research, check in with your own experiences and inner sensing, and decide for yourself.
A spontaneous perfomance that attempts to frame some of these ideas for an audience
