Gaza, and the truth about the world-wide culture of Power.

Empathy is a strength. It requires a unique human strength  to maintain empathy. It's also an expression of optimal human health.

It is true that in this Society, if one is not fairly robust, if one is in any way vulnerable, marginalised or discriminated against, for what ever reason one is exposed to being manipulated, exploited mistreated and abused. 

That has more to do with the kind of Society we live in, the kind of society we were born into than it has to do with human nature. This is a Bully Cult. The  outcomes of chronic stress induced by this cult lead to adverse behaviour patterns.

Our society is predicated on Power, and Power maintains itself by stressing each lower ranking, in effect trickle down of  structured abuse that alters peoples endocrine, autonomous, emotional, neurological, psychological and behavioural systems over time leading to chronic adverse behaviours - all 'adjustments' to fit in, to survive.

It's a trauma survival technique, very well understood. They call it the stress position. Childhood resilience often masks the painful reality.



Children playing in the ruins of their homes is Gaza 2014


And as to strength, moral strength, that comes in the first instance from a sense of self empathy, coupled with empathy for others, and is reflected in a sense of autonomy and responsive connection,  in a holistic expression, with one's community, family, land and language. Solidarity. Clean food. Loving, vibrant extended families. Libertarian Education. Trusting children and giving them space.

 "Our children do not need us to shape them; they need us to respond to who they are." Naomi Aldort

Question :

"What about the actions of Israeli Politicians who are now famous, who once engaged in 'terrorism' and are known to have murdered 'enemies' in overt and covert combat?"

or

"Is the cost, 500,000 children have died, of the embargo and no fly zone over Iraq, worth it?!"  to Madelaine Albright,who replies "Yes, I think the cost, the cost is worth it." and proceeds to rationalise that sentence. A professional denial. All our leading Politcians are trained in the art. They all, the front men, receive this training as a critical component of their work. Staying on message. Keep it Professional.

The Israeli State's answer is typical of an abusers rationalisation of the abuse within an abuse family dynamic. In fact this probably applies to the majority, if not all, of those who take to violence in pursuit of ideological or political power objectives - so include the UK, USA, China, Russia, France, etc etc etc in this world wide culture.

Here's the News!


A Palestinian family amidst the destruction wrought by Israeli War Planes, 2014

The 51-day offensive in 2014 left more than 2,000 Palestinians dead, including at least 1,462 civilians, a third of whom were children, according to the United Nations. Human rights groups reported that numerous Palestinians went missing during the war. Some were later found, either alive or dead, although the fate of 19 others has remained unknown.

Spokesperson for the ICRC in Gaza Suhair Zakkout said in a statement that the ICRC had made efforts since 2014 to try and find the location of the missing Palestinians; however, the organization has not received any responses from Israel.

from : 
https://palestineupdates.com/icrc-still-no-news-on-palestinians-missing-since-2014-gaza-war/

Here's the Prime Minister....!

The Foreign Minister.....!

Here's  Bob, with The Weather!

Here are the techniques :

Explain it away with false arguments. Outright Denial. Switching the goal posts.

Avoiding answering direct questions, by redefining the context, asking another question.

Manipulate peoples conditioning with populisms.

Blame the victimised. They made me do it!

Assert that what we see is nit what we see but merely what we perceive due to bias - gaslighting.

False claims to a moral higher ground based on ideology, ignoring the actual behaviour and outcomes.

Religion vs Democracy right?

Dehumanising dissenters.

Attacking whistle-blowers.

Creating favourites who support the abuser because they get 'benefits'.

Benefits and Sanctions.

The similarity between the abuse family dynamic (which is well known, understood and defined) and the Abusive Hierarchical Power system and behaviour set we call 'politics' is obvious.

In Israel, all children - teens are children - are coerced to enlist for a minimum of 3 year. Then there are various social rewards for serving as reservists. On call. Those who reject that call due to moral or conscience are chastised for dissent. Refusal to participate in the violence of the State practically ruins each Israeli child's future life in Israel.

The Israeli State teaches that military service is a good thing, refusal is treason. The British state celebrates the 'sacrifice' of 'our brave boys', mourns the loss of 'blood and treasure'.

The Abuse family dynamic. Coercion to conform. Manipulation and indoctrination.

These dynamics feed into each other. A vicious cycle is created, that runs from generation to generation - who will break the cycle that is funded by the State?

Yet, in spite of this, the fundamental human spirit of decency is the norm between people at the grass roots

Human Kind.

When we are not under chronic stressors, in a situation of relative powerlessness, we get along, across cultural and religious differences because, at the end of the day, we are families like each other. Babies, infants, nappies, disrupted sleep patterns, dirty dishes, birthday celebrations, marriages and funerals..

The Israeli childhood, leading inevitably to combat 'duty' disrupts this perception - it has to. The 'enemy' must be identified and made into a bogey man.

The Gaza childhood, leading to mere survival in a war zone at best. No jobs. No University. No prospects.

And yet people in both communities, a majority in all Societies many, many people emerge from this with their basic kindness and empathy intact, qualities that are crucial elements of optimal human health.

Essential for Gross National Happiness.

And it must be recognised that we at the grass roots of Society have relatively little power by comparison, as individuals, when it comes to confronting Political Power that is enforced by arms.

Some people mistake this for weakness. They side with the abusers when they they blame these  ordinary people by claiming their individual inaction is equivalent to complicity with what the State does. This is more bullying, and does little to foster freedom or liberty. Gaslighting afflicts all of us, on all sides, It becomes a normal behaviour pattern.

The reason  the abuser objectifies (dehumanises) the people he or she targets, is because that isolates the abuser from any connection, empathy, concern or constraint when faced with another person. One can do anything to an object. It has no value other than it's use.

Sheeple

Palestinian lives have no intrinsic value to the Institution of the Israeli Military other than as objects to be abused.  Iraqi lives had no  intrinsic value to the Institution of the Invading USUK Military or the Occupation Government, other than as objects to be subdued and controlled.

Israeli lives have no intrinsic value to the Israeli State Apparatus, other than as tools to be utilised - there is a massive bureaucracy the State funds and maintains in the operation of it's civil oppression of Palestinians, and that's a good earner for a bureaucracy of Israeli officials and clerks.  Many mortgages depend on that work.

That kind of side effect is rarely mentioned in 'the news'.

State or Public or Civil Service Employment programs enrols many, many people in the day to day banality of oppression.

An object can be bought and sold. It can be 'secured'. An object can be discarded. The State objectifies it's own officials. Kissinger's 'dumb animals', the front line police and troops who are often traumatized, and discarded.

And for the front men (Politicians, pundits, etc) a carefully crafted persona, an act, a script, a mask... a toxic mime of character, a toxic mime of intimacy (it LOOKS like......) is a professional requirement. Mark Negev.

This is a world wide culture and Gaza is revealing in real-time on Social Media, the real human cost at the darker edge of the spectrum is being captured in moving image and sound like never before. It's right outside your door, it's seeping in through the official media and is made more obvious by the denials of scores of insane officials. 

To turn away now, or to maintain the illusion of 'sides' and 'justifications' is to betray oneself, to betray one's family, one's children, one's ancestors, the future.

We must look, we must be honest, vulnerable and we must understand what we are faced with and we must act on that.

I trust this more than anything else, that the natural biological drive towards optimal human health cannot be extinguished. Once that is stimulated, once that plant receives enough light, space, nutrient, IT WILL GROW. And if the situation is conducive, it WILL THRIVE.

I feel a little uncomfortable to be articulating these hopes at a time when others are enduring horrors in real time, whilst we witness from a distance, powerless to STOP IT NOW, which our hearts cry out, all day, every minute....

It's the very least we expect 

Grass roots people to Power :

JUST STOP IT!

It is that easy? One order. Job done.

I hold this dread, this fear and disgust and and I the hope, the trust  in my heart. Together.

The beautiful people living in Gaza, in Israel, Ukraine, Congo who are there by accident of birth and are being so brutalised by Political Power struggles they have no part in - all those lives, birthdays, births, marriages, joys, sadnesses, laughter, warmth - I hold you in my heart, I stand with you, I tell myself. At a safe distance. My standing with you is not much use, is it?

The damaged, the hurt and the abusers - these are my family too, and my response ability is to stop the abuse, by stopping the abusers. That is why our votes in lands distant to the happening now trauma and abuse matter. The abusers are getting support from our Government, they are buying weapons from our firms. 

We all share a responsibility to help nurture back to health the hurt, the damaged and to see, if we truly understand the roots of it, how such behaviour can be prevented or reduced across our entire Society. 

Those without remorse, who are a constant danger, must be isolated, made safe, humanely but without question placed where they cannot cause more harm This is an essential. A necessity. I must participate in this as well as all the rest. We all must. 

There will be practical material elements, and psycho-cultural elements to the prevention.

In the long term, this is where we are headed. We have to.

And it hurts, to acknowledge this. There is no freedom from this wound. No anaesthetic. 

I must bear that pain, and do the work. To get there. To make peace inevitable.




Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Democracy and the Abuse Family Dynamic - Gaza, the innocents and you!

1. It's a fact that in War, 'restraint' is a myth. Winning means destroying the 'other'. It's a mirror of that odious word ' debate' - One side must win! One side must beat the other! We see this infantile approach every day in the UK Parliament, the House of Commons.

We see it in the media. We see it in comment sections, in blogs. Unrestrained, abusive, willfully inaccurate, biased 'reporting' or 're-tellings'. It is ubiquitous.

Many people are unable to see this as part of an abuse dynamic, largely due to the careful conditioning of State Education, Religious and Ideological Indoctrination and Consumerism Marketing.

2. In the psychology of abuse relationships and dynamics, dysfunctional families, trauma studies etc a common theme is one of the abuser blaming those they are abusing...

"look at what you made me do!" and "this is for your own good!"  The abuser has to do this, has to be able to manage, manipulate or condition those around him or her, to maintain the position of Power.

Both Hamas and IDF do this.

They do it to their own, and to each other. And innocent people get caught up in the cross fire.

The rest of the family gets caught up in the cross fire.

Other common themes of the abuse family dynamic are that some family members become allied with the abuser, some create and maintain an external myth that says the family is really a good one, some who resist become scapegoats, then there are those who cannot escape and just keep their heads down and pretend it is not happening. And there are those who flee.

These are all survival techniques or modalities.

People who are genuinely thriving do NOT behave in this manner.

Political Power, as we know it. is a mirror of the abuse family dynamic.

Power over others is a key abuse dynamic, and the majority of our great Institutions are mirrors of the unresolved trauma of their creators, and their psychologies, their need to exercise control over people, over society at large.

The current power disparity between the citizen and the state is a mirror of the power disparity between an infant and an adult, with the adult using his or her power to control the infant and to enhance the adults power, rather than using that power to nurture and empower the child.

3. The support that the Israeli State receives from the UK State reveals that the UK is not a functioning Democracy, in terms of have a Representative Government. There are many other examples of UK State action that has no mandate amongst the majority of the people. This is a similar pattern across ALL modern 'State Democracies'.

4. In fact , we in the UK live in a situation of permanent oppression, and most of us refuse to see it for what it is. We do not resist. We 'adapt' or 'adjust', we 'fit in'. Or we 'rebel', reflexively, most often in ways that in the end, serve the abuser - because the abuser understands the limitations of 'rebellion'. Rebellion is not the same as resistance, and liberation is a much deeper dynamic than mere rebellion.

This 'adjusting' includes taking sides on issues - left/right, religious/atheist etc etc rather than being willing to think beyond such narrow definitions, being able to examine the world and one's own experience and subjecting both to a critical analysis. This is a key outcome in all indoctrination systems. It's a key outcome of the UK's State Education System. We learn to love our oppression. We learn to not see it. We learn to participate, we learn to debate, to win or to lose.

We do not learn how to craft win-win resolutions.

This learned refusal to see, this learned inability/unwillingness to look at and to understand what is happening all around us, supports the abuse dynamic, the conflict dynamic, which is largely exported by the UK State and her 'allies' - the banks, the military-industrials - to other places. For profit.

The raging arguments about Gaza and Israel that take sides, that do not see the entire human family picture, will only serve to continue the conflict. The appeals to our own Government are for the most part wasted energy. They will not heed us. Nonetheless, it is valid to register our concerns, our sadness and our outrage and to keep these alive. However, this leads to a serious question.

The Question :

If we are to resist, if we are to seek a dynamic of Liberation, what would that have to look like to be successful, both in the short and long term?


Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

WHY we hear so few Survivors voices in the Public Domain.

There is a term for this coercive behaviour  towards children, which is typical within 'traditional education systems' : Poisonous Pedagogy:

"Poisonous pedagogy", is described by these theorists as what happens when a parent (or teacher, nurse, or other caregiver) believes that a young child's behavior demonstrates that the child is infected with the "seeds of evil", and therefore attempts to weed out the evil, either by emotional manipulation or by brute force. Simple examples include the beating of children as punishment for lying, or mothers who refuse to feed their newborn until a set time, in order to "teach him patience, which will be useful for him in later life".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisonous_pedagogy

And on top of that is a Hierachically Violent social power system, which requires pathologically dysfunctional people to maintain, defend and expand that power system. Hence the coercive education. 

It's a form of deep conditioning to ensure a constant supply of willing participants, though they do understand that it's not the perfect system, and some children escape, some breakthrough and others are utterly broken, whilst the majority just conform and internalise the values of the system.

And then there's the few that will become the one's most suited for power. With the least empathy, a thread of intentional brutality and the greatest ability to manipulate others. They are 'spotted' and groomed for power.

Distal Power has a great influence on ALL our lives, and the further removed from it one is, the greater the vulnerability. the greater the adverse affect, with little ability to protect oneself.

ALL Institutions of Power will seek to protect themselves from 'scandal' - the problem for them being the exposure of the truth, rather than the outcomes for those who have been victimised : The Vatican (Ireland, America Sexual predation of children within Catholic Institutions), The Canadian Protestant Churches,(Indian Residential Schools) The Australian State and the Australian Churches (Stealing Aboriginal Children by force and placing them in Boarding Schools).

This list must also include the people's of Iraq, Afghanistan, South America, South Africa : all the 'inquiries' that have been National Political events controlled the voices of the Survivors, filtering them so only those approved spoke in the public domain, and these Inquiries focussed on reconciliation and settlement over prosecution. They carried out massive, expensive, well advertised campaigns to say 'Sorry'. In order to protect their power. They paid out billions in civil damages. In order to protect their Power.

It is a common pattern, a constant thread through the entire historical record covering the past 5000 years in Hierarchically Violent Societies that grew through conquest. Through violence. Extreme violence.

Here's a psycho-dynamic theoretical outline of how such cultures emerge from the human story. What I wrote.

http://dwylcorneilius.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/two-poles-of-society-everything-in.html

The REAL story is the Survivors story - they were there, they have the most pertinent insights in all of this. And they are still not being heard, not being listened to, not being understood.

Be they Survivors of child abuse, war, police brutality, bullying in schools, offices etc etc etc... be they aboriginal peoples, the environment, the elderly in 'care homes', teens in 'secure care homes', people who have been sectioned...

They all know more about this than anyone one else.
Which WHY we hear so few Survivors voices...... in the public domain, in the 'News' etc etc ..

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Inside the Mind of Jimmy Savile : a response

In an article in the Guardian, Oliver James asks that we try to see into the mind of Jimmy Savile as part of our effort to prevent more predatroy behaviour emerging across Society as a whole.

There is of course the usual range of comments, including those that treat the emergence of someone like Jimmy Savile as a genetic disorder, as an inhumane  monster or another reason to 'lock them up' or execute them.... as well as a few well reasoned comments, and stories from survivors of childhood mistreatment, abuse about their minds and experiences.

I quote from one reasoned commentator, rogergdavidson as the starting point for this article:

"If all the people at the BBC who saw what Savile was doing had been able to discern that he was a sociopath and compulsive sex abuser - that he clearly had serious personality problems - they might have realized the potential scale of what he was doing, and also the harm it would cause, and someone would hopefully have been more likely to take action."

What this means in reality is that in a societal culture that tends to avoid examining and understanding the nature of emergent and predatory pathologies, such as Savile, Blair, Bush, Henry the 8th, Nillsen, Bundy, the banksters, gansters, terrorists, et al, demonstrate, is in part because these people are part of a wider pathology of Power (and the issue of childhood trauma, abuse and deprivation or mistreatment is fundamentally linked to the issue of WHY some people seek power over others, both in terms of it's genesis and outcomes) and in part because there is a cultural revulsion and an emotional response (both anger and fear) which avoids looking atrocities in the face.

"THE ORDINARY RESPONSE TO ATROCITIES is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable."
Quoted from : The opening lines of Trauma and Recovery : the aftermath of violence - from domestic abuse to political terror, by Judith Herman

1. The BBC is an hierarchical power structure in itself, and it is part of a larger hierarchical power structure - the establishment.

People within the BBC are subject to two distinct and connected threads of Power.

The immediate thread is observed when employees expose adverse behaviour in someone higher up, in that it will often have an impact on their careers, and their lives, that the higher up has allies and power he or she can bring to bear on the whistleblowers.

The wider thread is the BBC's place in the UK Power structure, which it has occupied since it's inception, as an arm of State propaganda.

This can be seen, for example, in the manner that the BBC refused to present the case against Pope Benedict in any substantial detail, in spite of massive evidence, and calls from thousands of Survivors, and from Geoffery Robinson no less, during his State Visit in 2010. It enables Tony Blair to articulate his insane perspective without any decent challenge. These are but two examples, and there are many, many more...

2. This speaks of a societal culture of Power that has a profound impact on the lives of all those who live within it's influence. The emergence of such hierarchically violent societies is directly related to childhood mistreatment (which is often seen as 'normal' ), and to post traumatic inter-generational patterns
In the anthropological research there is a constant and reliable predictor of hierarchical violence in any Society : the degree to which the biologically mandated child-mother bonding process is disrupted , The two are profoundly connected. They feed into each other.

Over the past 40 years, this initial research has been consistently corroborated and confirmed by newer research and understandings about child development and trauma (we now consider trauma to be any event or sequence of events that have an affect on a child's development from 'in utero' through birth, infancy, toddlership, childhood)... some of this understanding comes from Survivors, some form the detailed research into endocrinology, neuro-biology, neuro-chemistry, pre-natal and ante-natal studies, how children learn, indergenerational trauma patterning and much else besides.

To put it in simple terms:

When a person is traumatised, and cannot resolve the issues related to the trauma, they adapt a 'coping mechanism' to survive: the coping mechanism is often a necessary attempt to maintain some form of control over events and people in order to feel safe.

When a community, a family or indeed a Society, is traumatised, and cannot resolve the issues related to the trauma, they may each in turn adapt a 'coping mechanism' to survive: the coping mechanism is often a necessary attempt to maintain some form of control over events and people in order to feel safe. It may be driven by the unconscious, and it may well have conscious elements.

In either case, if that group of people, or Society build Institutions, or social structures, those entities will have within them the psychology of the unresolved trauma issues. And in their attempt to create safety, they may well cause harm to those the perceive as a threat.

None of this is to suggest an 'excuse' for any adult who perpetrates, predates, causes harm, abuses or manipulates other people to meet perceived needs.

Adults are volitional, we do choose our actions, and we are ALL accountable for those actions....
However, in order to PREVENT more repeating cycles of trauma and abuse we have to understand them, and we have to be 100% honest about what has happened, Survivors must be listened to and understood, and perpetrators must be put in positions where they cannot cause any more harm.

Punishment as 'revenge' is futile: it has NEVER prevented further abuse in meaningful and societal terms.
Nuremberg was an utter failure. Bullying is rife in our schools. Ridding Iraq of Saddam has blatantly made life for most Iraqis worse. The war or Drugs has increased the trafficking, and the incarceration rates of recreational and addict 'users' is growing year on year.

I understand the reactive responses of people, and institutions, who refuse to engage with this most important subject matter. Power and trauma. For some it's a matter of their own conditioning, for Institutions it's a question of their desire to maintain and expand their power, for others the sheer horror of what we are seeing across the world is beyond words, and terrifying.

However, that said, unless we - the adults - get to grips with what Savile is telling us, with that trauma and power is telling us, then we are in for a bumpy ride, and worse than that, far worse, we are committing all our children, and their children to come, to even more turbulence.

That is unconscionable.

That, in my opinion, would be the most egregious failure of responsibility of all.

______________

A note of clarification:

"In a child's life (as in any other) there are things that ought to happen, that don't, and things that ought not happen, that do"  Gabor Mate

These can range from, for example, a pregnancy where the mother is under chronic stress from external or personal effectors (where the mothers endocrine flows impact the development of the foetus) to a birth trauma (where damage to healthy tissue goes unresolved), to emotional coldness and to a sense of abandonment (leaving the child to cry it out..), to the loss of one or both parents or living an inadequate caring environment, to outright abuse by parents, siblings, in school, amongst peers.... to intense religious or ideological indoctrination....

Some predispositions emerge from stress in the in utero situation. Some may well be genetic. yet the child is not born to be the monster.

All of these, and more, can happen in a child's life, and the signs of distress can be missed, or diagnosed as 'problems' : and not all children will react or respond in the same way.

Statistically, we can say with some degree of certainty, that there will emerge from a population of children who are mistreated, abused, traumatised those who become part of the continuing pattern of predation, and that if their distress symptoms are missed, or the children are treated as 'problems' : bad, shamed, loathed, and punished, then more damaged and predatory adults will emerge, It doesn't take many to cause havoc in a community.

We can also say with a degree of certainty that many who do not become predators will show signs of that stress in terms of health outcomes in later life. The Adverse Childhood Study by the CDC in the USA, amongst many others, shows this to be the case for addiction, obesity, heart disease, diabetes etc.
If the signs, the symptoms of distress, are understood and the adult worlds response is empathic, concerned, caring and well informed, that the patterns can be broken before they become too ingrained.

We can prevent much of the repeated abuse cycles, and we can prevent the emergence of serious health issuers if we understand their roots, and act responsibly and responsively ....

This is a cultural response ability we desperately need to create.



Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

The question of Power is also a question of biological immaturity

It's a question of biological maturity, biological in the sense of expressing optimal health of an organism.

Those who are attracted to Power over others are biologically immature. They are insecure, they have not 'grown up' or matured into wholesome nurturant adults and tend to exert Power over others to assuage their insecurities. The more they use that Power to assuage their insecurities, the more pathologically addicted to Power they become.


Those who are unwilling to move beyond religion, ideology, this side, that side, those who turn away from the natural responsibilities of being an adult human being which lay fundamentally with nurturing the future for all who will follow, and I mean ALL, no exceptions, are functionally and biologically immature.

I am concerned with Tony Blair and all of those people who are 'in Power'. because their immaturity has been part of massive trauma causation, not because I hate them, or despise them (which I don't - I detest what they have done, and what they are doing, and I am appalled at the harm he and others like him have been allowed to inflict on so many innocent, beautiful men, women and children)  and I do loathe what they stand for - the use of Power over other people to meet their narcissistic needs, because it is SO immature and harmful. It is totally unnecessary.

I am concerned with world cup football and any other form of 'mass' entertainment only because they are SO blatantly infantile in biological terms. They are not about nurturing the world, they are about competition, winning and taking sides. The corruption in the world cup, the Olympics and other mass entertainment sports now obvious to everyone. It is a mirror of Power Politics.

I am not bothered if this annoys anyone or if people feel it is a dig or some form of superiority ego complex that I have. Other than if you refuse to face your own maturity, then you are part of the problem. And at the very least you might as well deal with that little part BECAUSE you can.

Because.

It IS a question of maturity. Bio-logical maturity.

And.

Because we live in an Power society that infantilises all of us through the processes of Power, indoctrination, bullying, war, economics and entertainment, I do UNDERSTAND that feeling of powerlessness that goes with a certain kind of immaturity and the desire to avoid that feeling.

I do understand the difficulties inherent in breaking free, in true liberation, the fear and the confusion, the insecurity.

So talk about it, explore it through your own mind, your social media, your friendships, your families.

Work it.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Some thoughts on War as a policy of State Power

"True forgiveness cannot be granted until the perpetrator has sought and earned it through confession, repentance, and restitution."

and

"restoring a sense of social community requires a public forum where victims can speak their truth and their suffering can be formally acknowledged. In addition, establishing any lasting peace requires an organized effort to hold individual perpetrators accountable for their crimes. … If there is no hope of justice, the helpless rage of the of victimized groups can fester, impervious to the passage of time. Demagogic political leaders well understand the power of this rage, and are only too willing to exploit it by offering to an aggrieved people the promise of collective revenge. Like traumatized individuals, traumatized countries need to remember, grieve, and atone for their wrongs in order to avoid reliving them."

Judith Herman : Trauma and Recovery

http://www.amazon.com/Trauma-Recovery-Aftermath-Violence-Political/dp/0465087302


------

SONG FOR 1914 : THE CHILDREN WHO GO TO WAR

THE DEADLY GAMES OF POWER, THE PRIZE THE WINNER SEEKS
THE DUTY BOUND ARE MADE TO MURDER, THEY LOSE THIS GAME FOR KEEPS
THIS SLAUGHTER IS PURE CRUELTY, ALL WAR IS CHILD ABUSE
TO PREPARE THE CHILD HE MUST BE BROKEN, IT’S BEST WE FACE THE TRUTH.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO, OUR FATHERS WERE TALKED TO WAR WITH PRIDE
LED BY POWER AND DUTY, FOR THEIR COUNTRY AND THEIR GOD THEY DIED
AND SO THEY BELIEVED, THEY HAD TO, OR THEY’D NEVER HAVE LEFT THEIR HOMES,
TO BE BILLETED IN WET TRENCHES, SOME BURIED BY BOMBS, SO MANY LEFT TO DIE ALONE

TO SERVE THE IMAGINED GLORY OF KAISERS, KINGS AND GENERAL STAFF
THEY RODE IN LINE, SANG IN LINE, THEY DIED IN LINE AND STILL THEY LAUGHED
THAT UPPER LIP, THAT STOIC SMILE, THAT SENSE OF DUTY HELD, AND LOST SO MANY LIVES
WHERE MEN WERE MURDERED IN THEIR THOUSANDS, AND DESERTERS WERE REVILED

YET THE DESERTERS WERE THE HONEST ONES, THEY SHOWED THEIR FEAR FOR REAL
NO MAN OUGHT GO TO WAR, WHERE THERE IS NO BEAUTY THERE TO BE REVEALED
ONLY THE BLINDED WILL GO THERE, ONLY THE BROKEN CHILD
ONLY THE MAN TRAINED TO KILL, ONLY THE BROKEN MIND

GRACE IN DANGER IS A LIE, IT’S A BLOODY, DIRTY CONFIDENCE TRICK
GRACE IN PEACE IS RESISTANCE TO THAT DREADFUL YET STILL CONSTANT MYTH
THAT WAR BRINGS A BETTER PEACE, A BETTER WAY OF LIFE,
THAT WAR IS SOMETIMES A NECESSITY, A NECESSARY SACRIFICE.

'TIS TIME TO END THESE FALSE APPRAISALS, 'TIS TIME TO TELL THE TRUTH
THAT THE POWER THAT WILL MURDER IS FOUNDED ON ACCEPTED CHILD ABUSE
THAT THE TRAUMA UNRESOLVED WILL CONTINUE TO CAUSE HARM
UNTIL THAT WOUND HAS HEALED WE WILL CONTINUE TO GO TO WAR.

______________

Two items that my readers might wish to explore, to investigate for yourselves, the truth of this piece.


1. Stefan Molyneux: a Radio Chat with a Veteran... moving, honest, revealing, worth hearing...

2. The Cycle of (Legal) Violence?
Child Abuse and Military Aspirations
MA Research Paper by Christopher Khawand
Florida International University 2009 - On the linkage between adverse childhoods and Voluntary Enlistment in Military...




Kindest regards
Corneilius

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

Tony Blair: Accountabilty cannot stop with him alone.

Tony Blair's 'essay' on Iraq, Syria etc ::

http://www.tonyblairoffice.org/news/entry/iraq-syria-and-the-middle-east-an-essay-by-tony-blair/

I would like to suggest that he is not alone in accountability for the war crimes of Iraq and Afghanistan, and that meaningful accountability must include all culpable officials and other actors involved. He cannot be set up as a fall guy on his own. To do that would be a failure of equal proportions to the wars themselves.

Here's some pertinent points concerning his recent essay .... some background the mainstream media has avoided like the plague...

1. Blair claims that the underlying problem is "Islamic Fundamentalism". Some of the most extreme Islamic Fundamentalists are the Wahhabist Saudi Regime, Quatar, Bahrain etc - all 'allies' of the West. These States have are Religious Autocracies, and are extreme puritans amongst other things, and been funding attacks on progressive Islamic Social Democracy movements across the Middle East and further afield, since the 1940s, in order to protect their Power, supported by the Western Powers, who also helped to established these States as their local proxies.

2. The popular uprisings in North Africa, and Ukraine have a common thread. A progressive grass roots protest undermined by 'imported' violence from 'foreign fighters' who escalate violence.

This pattern is old, well used and well documented and we know that Power often has a hidden hand in terms of planting paid agent provocateurs within protests and activist communities. It's a standard tactic.

Once that cycle of violence starts things get out of hand quickly and the progressive grass roots movements are sidelined. Until the violence cycle ends. Which is not possible when Western 'military funding and training' is supplied to one side or the other.

This is true in Syria. A state that was/is a Militarized Government : The primary reason the State in Syria is militarized is because an official state of war exists between the Syrian State and the Israeli State.

It also happened in Venezuela, during the failed coup to oust Hugo Chavez in 2002. There were direct links to US support in these events.

The Syrian Government faced a progressive movement, was willing to make concessions (albeit slowly), then that movement was infiltrated by foreign fighters who escalated the violence, even to the extent of invading urban areas, causing locals to flee, which forced the State to defend itself.... then Western allied funding for those foreign fighters increased dramatically whilst laying ALL the blame for the violence on the Syrian State Government.

Thus the  indigenous movement for a Social Democracy is thwarted.

Indigenous Arab Social Democracy is seen as a threat, because it would necessarily involve projects such as Nationalising Resources, stepping away from Western/Eastern power alliances, etc, etc.... this happened also in Ireland in 1916, 1922 and in Northern Ireland in the 60s.

The escalation of violence is a deliberate tactic, and has been deployed many, many times. It's a pattern, and it's intentional.

3. The history of these areas cannot be avoided : the issue goes back to Colonial state line drawing which split communities and installed 'Power' that would work with 'Western Interests' (Corporations, Resource 'Management' etc.) and undermined any local grass roots Social Democracy which sought to develop 'resources' for the grass roots benefits.

4. History is also about patterns.

Look to what has happened in South America and understand that the Western Powers knew what would happen in Iraq because they had practiced it in South America - wars cannot be sustained for much longer than a decade, chaos will follow all wars, a traumatised people will take two or three generations to get back on an even keel, if they have a chance.

In South America the exposure of the US Governments and Corporations direct involvement in horrific practices known as 'counter-insurgency' in the 70s and 80s led to a partial withdrawal from such direct intervention, (the War On Drugs was a cover story to allow the continuation of this direct intervention) which allowed grass roots movements to gain traction and slowly alter the power dynamic. Bolivia, Agrentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Honduras, Equador, Nicaragua, Panama etc etc...

The internet in the late 90s and early 2000s helped the grass roots movements gain support across the world as information became widely more available, and the action of Western Power was exposed.

5. The proliferation of violence in the Middle East and Persia is a direct result of Western support for one side over another...

The Militia that emerged post invasion in Iraq were two fold : The US funded Militarised Police and local shia and sunni, kurdish and secular resistance to them. In other words the US created the civil war. All these groups lived side by side at the grass roots without tension (as they had done for many centuries) and in Saddam's Government were members of each grouping who participated in Power - the divide in Iraq was always along power lines rather than sectarian lines. The US support for one sect and the violence that followed created the sectarianism the now dominates the situation.

--------------

The details of all these patterns are laid out in some detail, very well referenced and evidenced in Naomi Klein's opus: Shock Doctrine. And in that book she warned that the Economic Policies we are subject to in the UK today were on their way. She was correct because she has studied the matter in some depth, and sought out the evidence.

--------------

Blair knows EXACTLY what he is doing - he is lying through his teeth, protecting himself and his allies. His words make sense only if you ignore the wider historical realities and his personal responsibility in causing so much trauma.

Lastly two quotes to illustrate the central problem of Power and the dynamic of integenerational trauma..

Reaching back in time, a quote from Keith Joseph, Conservative Education Minister under Thatcher...1984

"We are in a period of considerable social change. There may be social unrest, but we can cope with the Toxteths. But if we have a highly educated and idle population we may possibly anticipate more serious social conflict. People must be educated to know their place."

This reveals a preoccupation with conditioning the children of each generation to accept the status quo of Power as 'right' and 'normal', even if it causes harm, or trauma to a large part of the population, and even if parts of that population are so hurt, so enraged by their mistreatment that the are reduced to rioting in order to be heard or felt. It shows that Power is happy to accept low level rioting as it is something they can handle, or 'manage' or even utilise.

and

“Like traumatized individuals, traumatized countries need to remember, grieve and atone for their wrongs in order to avoid reliving them.” Judith Herman

I would say the the the UK or 'Great Britain' has not yet gone through the process of honest remembrance, grief or atonement.... and THAT is a big part of this problem.

Certainly Blair has not done this, he as studiously avoided it as have the UK Government. Bear in mind that Blair is calling for more violence, not less violence.

Blair cannot be held meaningfully accountable without exposing the thousands of other officials and other actors who were directly involved in pushing for and prosecuting the illegal and amoral wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to the same degree of accountability.



Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

UK Local and European Elections, the reality of The Vote exposed.

The vast majority of people in the Western style democracies are unaware that they have been purposefully infantalised and that voting on it's own, as it is currently set up is an immature form of democracy.

I was unaware of this myself for many years. I don't 'blame' the people who have been conditioned, nor do I feel any anger or frustration towards those of us whose conditioning has been so intense, because it is so ubiquitous. It permeates education, it is promoted through media, left and right, it's part of marketing's purpose through 'aspirational marketing'. Infants, children, teens, young adults, young parents and elders are all targets of the conditioning processes.

I say this because I see that the power disparity between and infant and an adult, the child and a teacher, the bully and the bullied, the 'doctor and the patient', is mirrored by the current power disparity between any individual adult or grass roots collective and The State... all too often Government ministers insist on telling us what is good for us without meaningfully including us, our stated concerns and useful insight in the discourse on what is or is not 'good for us'. They rule, we obey. Thus we the people are maintained in an infantile state.

 
Mature Democracy requires that the individual citizen is directly involved in the decision making processes over all matters that affect his or her life, and that he or she works with the community, to participate in the implementation of any policies that emerge from such discourse.

This is a matter of maturity and of personal and collective responsibility. The fact that so few people even get to the level of acknowledging this simple point reveals the utility of State Education as it exists for the preservation of Political Power to Rule Over the People.

There is NO mature democracy anywhere on Earth at this time.

The power disparity between and infant and an adult is mirrored by the current power disparity between an adult and The political and economic State... a healthy adult will care for the child, allow the child to explore and discover and articulate who she or he is and will nurture the child for the child's outcomes rather than the parents desired outcomes. A healthy parent will foster empathy and autonomy in the child.

Classical and modern politics did, and does none of this, and most often does the opposite, with dreadful results for those who have to endure: be they people conned into taking on mortgages which turn homes into investments and profits for developers, be they people whose land and water is poisoned by fracking or mining or other 'resource development', or parents who are under stress and being regulated rather than supported by Social Services, be they elders divorced from the extended family, placed in 'care homes', cared for by poorly paid, badly trained workers, care homes which are run as profit centers for private enterprise, be they civilians caught in the cross fire of 'just wars' (Iraq, Afghanistan) and civil wars where proxies are trained, funded and let loose (Syria, Libya and Africa and South America in the second half of the 20th Century), be they children diagnosed with ADHD and coerced to take 'medications' to 'manage' their symptoms, be they Survivors of institutional abuse, ranging from asylums to Guantanamo Bay... So many people whose lives are blighted by the actions of the State.

There's more I could lay out here... the point is made.

It's a feeble argument to lay those adverse outcomes against the more positive outcomes of State action as a balance sheet, for that argument demeans those who suffer and minimise the meaning of their lived experience...

As far as I am aware, the only document coming anywhere near describing the practical steps towards a mature democracy, one in which all citizens participate as equals, where responsibility of power is vested in the grass roots, where active power - that is the power to act- is devolved to the community is The Power Inquiry 2006.

You won't have heard of it because all the political parties feel threatened by it's insight into how power operates and what is needed to devolve that power from those who currently hold it,and all too often abuse it, to the grass roots where transparency can function effectively as a restraint on power accumulation and deepen accountability.

http://www.jrrt.org.uk/publications/power-people-independent-inquiry-britains-democracy-full-report

It's a .pdf, and so worth reading and studying...

And yes, by all means, do vote for the greens, or independents or others if it means something, even as a protest vote.

But do not expect that your vote is an exercise in meaningful Participative Democracy. It's not.

I urge my readers to familiarize themselves with The Power Inquiry document as a starting point in their own explorations of how democracy in the UK might be deepened, strengthened and nurtured!


Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

The Vatican, The UN Torture Committee and Reward/Sanction Methods of behaviour modification.

On Friday 9th May, a report on the questioning of The Vatican before the United Nations Torture Committee was released into the public domain at the same time that calls from within other Christian denominations emerged, from within The Protestant Churches and Evangelical Churches, to address their known issues with reporting and prevention of pedophilia and other acts of mistreatment, cruelty and serious abuse of children occurring in all settings they were and are responsible for.

The call was to not do as the Vatican has done, and seek to attempt to manage or control the ‘crisis’ so as to protect their ‘image’ and ‘status’ which inevitably causes even more trauma for all survivors.


With regard to the torture matter, it is really crystal clear to me that every form of indoctrination to which children are subjected that comes with with sanction, punishment, chastisement and reward is a form of psychological torture.

"If you are driven by the threat of eternal torture to be a good person, you're a frightened person.
 
To instil, indoctrinate, inculcate or impose upon a small child's body, mind or psyche the feeling or sensation or thought frame associated with fear of existential punishment, as a psycho-social structure or some 'moral code', as coercive and violent as it is, is torture.”

This means that the person using such a coercive process upon a child is frightening the child and a frightened child, quite obviously,  will not see sense in the instruction and the matter will thus require coercion, to ensure compliance. All for 'the child’s own good', of course. And for the good of Society.

Of course.

This is based on a dreadful misperception of the child, which has been a foundational meme of Christian European culture and indeed Abrahamic cultures for a long, long time, (the fear of Satan/The Wild in the child that must be tamed at all costs) and it mirrors all sorts of adverse power relationships that are institutionalised into our mainstream Societal structures even to this day.

This dynamic mirrors the relationship between Power, Law, the State, and the Citizen. The power issue is the core of the problem, from the personal to the Institutional. It is because this Christian-post Christian social thought map strikes at the heart of one’s sense of self as a vulnerable child that it has so much power over the adult, especially if the adult has ‘adapted to fit in’ and is less than fully aware……  with generation after generation ‘adapting to fit in’ it is easy to see how over time those PTSD patterns become ‘normal behaviour’.

I will address this aspect a bit further down this piece.

Last week, Democracy Now reported on these issues, and there was a specific report on the Evangelical Churches in the USA which I found very interesting.


The news team interviewed Kathryn Joyce, a reported and researcher, who had some really interesting comments to make, one of which I wish to point out, whilst at the same time I recommend listening to the whole Democracy Now report on this link.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ (newsteam): We turn now to a new exposé that asks if the Protestant world is teetering on the edge of a sex-abuse scandal similar to the one that has rocked the Catholic Church. The person trying to address the problem may surprise you. As sex-abuse allegations multiply, it is Reverend Billy Graham’s grandson who is on a mission to persuade Protestant churches to come clean. Kathryn Joyce’s cover story in The American Prospect profiles Boz Tchividjian, a law professor at Liberty University, a school founded by Reverend Jerry Falwell, and former prosecutor who has worked on many sex-abuse cases. He used his experience to found an organization called GRACE: Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment.

AMY GOODMAN (newsteam): GRACE made headlines in February when the famous evangelical school, Bob Jones University, hired it to interview faculty and students about their experiences with sexual assault, then fired it before it had a chance to report the results, only to hire it back after a public outcry. Well, reporter Kathryn Joyce joins us now to discuss this major exposé, "By Grace Alone: As Sex-Abuse Allegations Multiply, Billy Graham’s Grandson is on a Mission to Persuade Protestant Churches to Come Clean." Kathryn Joyce is also the author of The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption and Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement.

and then the interview starts: 

Joyce outlines the Grace case with regard to the Bob Jones University and other details she has researched. This part is at 43 minutes on the play timer. She makes a very point about Authoritarian settings and predatory behaviour.

AMY GOODMAN: And the missionary kids?

KATHRYN JOYCE: And for the missionary kids, these were the subject of GRACE’s two first investigation, two different very large international missionary groups, where the children of the missionaries being stationed in foreign countries, known in Christian culture as MKs, missionary kids, they were enduring just kind of epidemic levels of sexual abuse in a number of different countries. GRACE’s reports focused on two in particular, on the New Tribes Mission and their boarding school in Fanda, Senegal, and also ABWE, another missionary organization, and what happened on the mission field they had in the 1980s in Bangladesh. And two different situations, but a lot of similarities, in some ways, in that these were both kind of very authoritarian atmospheres where children were expected to do what any adult kind of in their world was telling them to do, and this made them, sadly, kind of very vulnerable to abusers who came by.

AMY GOODMAN: And you’re talking about the missionary kids. What about the people in the communities they come to, for example, in Senegal or in Bangladesh? What happens to them?


KATHRYN JOYCE: I’m sure that there are stories there, as well. GRACE’s two reports in these situations focused on what happened to the children of missionaries, but I’m sure there are even more untold stories in terms of the children already living there who were, in many ways, much more vulnerable
.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: In some of your writings, you’ve dealt with the issue of patriarchy and its relationship to religious thinking. Any sense on your part whether there are structural or philosophical directions in the churches that allow this kind of stuff to be covered up?

KATHRYN JOYCE: Well, I think, absolutely. And obviously, not all very conservative Christians or all members of the self-described patriarchy movement are going to be abusive. But reading all of these reports and looking at all of this and speaking to dozens of people, it kind of does become clear—and GRACE’s assertion—that a main factor contributing to abuse and the silencing of abuse, of victims, is authoritarian structures that focus much more on rigid rule following, on hierarchies within a church or within a community, on the subordinate role of women and children. And when you have all of these things coming together alongside a culture that sees it as imperative to cover up mistakes so that you can still promote the cause of Christ, that you are being a good evangelical witness, a lot of these things conspire to make abuse not just more common, but much more invisible.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, what most surprised you, Kathryn Joyce, in your investigation?

KATHRYN JOYCE: Well, I think what surprised me the most was watching in real time this pattern happen of GRACE going and starting and doing this investigation, getting a year into it, having spoken to dozens, a hundred of people, and then having the institution back out. This had happened once before with the mission group ABWE, and then it happened again with Bob Jones. And it was very interesting to see that. And it raised this interesting question about whether or not there is a catch-22 at the heart of GRACE’s incredibly admirable mission, that they are being hired by the groups that they’re investigating. And I think that that’s a really interesting question to ponder, but I think we also have to look at their work and say that this is very well—very much needed.
----------------

“a main factor contributing to abuse and the silencing of abuse, of victims, is authoritarian structures that focus much more on rigid rule following, on hierarchies within a church or within a community, on the subordinate role of women and children.”

What she says speaks for itself. It also mirrors James Prescott's findings and insights from his 1975 Paper : Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence.

Here’s a two page outline showing his findings in a .pdf form. 

Comparison of Social Behavioural Characteristics of Low and High Nurturant Societies 

It provides a peer reviewed anthropological narrative that accurately describes a variety of emergent social or cultural structures over time and distance, ranging from Egalitarian Nurturing Communities to Hierarchically Violent Controlling Communities. 

And the same pattern persists as Kathryn Joyce describes :  that within this range of cultures the predictor of violence as an emerging trait, or sustained pattern of behaviour of any given culture was always the degree of disruption to the child mother bond, and or the degree of control or inhibition imposed on emergent adolescent sexuality and the presence and enforcement of rigid gender power roles. 

These are resonant with post trauma behavioural patterns, where the trauma remains unresolved, where the pain remains, coping with internal pressure or conflict drives much behaviour. From the individual to the collective, aspects of the coping mechanism or strategies are internalised as within the range of ‘normal’ or expected behaviour. 'Boys don't cry'. 'Women are more empathetic'. 'Boys will be boys'. 'Girls seek out powerful men'.

The reality is of course that everyone caught up in trauma related social structures is to some degree affected by the situation, and most will have internalised aspects of it, it’s negative values and prejudices as part of that affect, and this makes for some confusion when boundaries are broken what ought to remain explicit.  The roles played out in that dynamic are hardly markers of optimally healthy human behaviour.

Kathryn Joyce's last point, about what can happen when Survivors groups get too close to the Institutions whose intent to remain and retain their power, and is less than honourable, is also very interesting, because there is a fairly well documented history of Institutions who are liable for harms caused offering an apparent ‘olive branch’ to survivors, where it becomes clear that the intended primary beneficiaries of that ‘olive branch’ is those proffering it. 

That there is a pattern of powerful institutions manipulating Survivors groups, individual survivors and NGOs through offering forms of ‘support’ favoured by the Hierarchy of that Institution. 

I think that Survivors groups need and deserve more support - and respect!- from the wider Society in confronting this situation, a necessary confrontation which has been in full flow in the public domain for nearly 30 years of public reporting of allegations, on matters than have been harmfully adverse for many hundreds of  thousands of children …  it’s narrative of Power and abuse matters for all of us, and how we deal with it will be part of the estate we pass on through inheritance. We intend to give this the focus, energy and commitment it demands.

Kathryn Joyce (And Democracy Now as ever) also bringing a much needed clarity and calm, a de-hyping of the story, a humanisation of the narrative, which is maturing the discourse and is therefore  incredibly valuable.

The main element I wish my readers to take up in why I wrote this piece, is to look at the Kathryn Joyce’s description of how an Authoritarian situation is that much more vulnerable because it has within it many of those compliance behaviour dynamics that suit predatory activity, where there is fear of The Hierarchy as much as there is respect. That fear permeates the entire issue. And it is all too often a fear and respect of distal power, a power one cannot touch or see or even influence, a power that holds life or death power over all.

That fear, that the power of life and death might be exercised upon The Vatican, drives the irrational behaviour of The Vatican, and for them that fear is so intense that it makes it rational in their mind-set to do what they are doing. 

That fear is the largest part of what really drives the ‘support’ The Vatican et al receive from their adherents, the Faithful. Who would want to lose that careful illusory safety net that blind faith, in any are of life, creates? Let alone walk right up to it and say “No! I will not stand for this!”

And it would be so easy to criticise those people for their compliance with the Institution, yet the Survivor in me has to go beyond that distaste and anger, and not to lose either sense, but to integrate them into a larger narrative, of my own life, and that of the Society into which I was born and into which I brought my own child, and it is for her and all her contemporaries and their children and grand children that I must address my actions.

The psychology, behaviour and outcomes of the activity of the Institutionalised Authoritarian Culture of Power and how these affect the majority of people alive to day have to be recognised, observed and understood. 

This psychology and behaviour needs to be observed where it occurs in all hierarchical behavioural structures, from the personal to the largest collectives. Transparency must exist in order to prevent such abuse occurring in the future, starting now. This is the ultimate precondition.

Transparency.

Authoritarianism breeds the fear that drives secrecy. 

Transparency removes it.

Privacy is not to be conflated with secrecy. 

Healthy boundaries are essential attributes in all living organisms. 

Transparency is not arrived at in an invasive environment of surveillance; it is a choice that permeates relationships, interactions and outcomes.



Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

We Are a Violent Species : I don't think so!

An article floated by, via the interwebs, when I searched on the phrase "we humans", and it carried the following headline : We are Not a Peaceful Species. It wasn't what I was looking for (as is so often the case) yet it offered me something useful.

The author points to the prevalence of violence in  human history to prove the assertion of the headline. This is such a regular argument it merits some attention because it is inaccurate. Her aim in this article is to counter arguments that say that watching Mixed Martial Arts sport makes people more violent, often made by those who watch Boxing (a gentleman's sport) and look down on MMA or cage fighting etc...

I understand the thinking behind this article. I see her point about the hypocrisy of those who enjoy boxing and deem MMA somehow worse or of less merit.

However the logic, of both, is flawed. Let me explain.

Current stats (CDC) suggest that the number of noninstitutionalized American adults   with diagnosed heart disease is 26.6 million... that cannot be used to imply that human beings are a species prone to heart disease. It can be used to say that the biological drive towards optimal health is being thwarted by any number of factors in the adult population of America. One would have to dig deeper into the data to identify what those factors are.

The CDC also states that 1 in 10 Americans are clinically depressed. That is not to say that Americans are a depressive sub-set of the species of humanity... It does suggest that there are factors which exist in American that contribute to the prevalence of depression in adulthood (which might be greater that which is diagnosed... it could be 20%...)

Likewise the propensity towards violence.

Violence is understandable, we all get angry from time to time, and for a multitude of 'reasons'. We are sensitive beings, and life is replete with challenges to that sensitivity.

Some of us get angry when our computer is too 'slow' or if we lose a piece of text we have been editing and we will swear at our screen. Very few of us will actually tear the screen off the wall or off desk and throw it out the window or assault it with a heavy, blunt instrument whilst screaming expletives... that would invalidate the warranty at the very least....

Some people get angry because others are different (eg: some Christians hatred of gay people), and some of those people will choose violence. We know that not ALL Christians harbour a hatred of gay people, and we know that not all who do harbour such a hatred will choose violence as their response. We cannot use the incidence of Christians beating up a gay person to say ALL Christians are violent or that ALL Christians hate gay people. Christianity is quite a wide brush, ranging from fuming fundamentalists to peace and love Jesus freaks. Humanity is likewise a wide brush.

We do know enough to say that those Christians who harbour that degree of hatred that they choose violence will have serious psychological and developmental issues, that they are expressing a pathology, a serious pathological issue which needs to be addressed. It would be better if it were addressed BEFORE they actualised the violence. Punishment is most often too late for the person who was assaulted.

We also know enough (developmental science, neuro-biology, neuro-chemistry, endocrinology, anthropology) to say that aspects of the societal and individual propensity towards violence have a strong pathological element, that is to say they represent an unhealthy state, a diseased state (colonisation, empire building, rule by coercion, bullying, wife beating, rape) and that our fundamental nature as a species is towards peace and empathy (these are markers of optimal human social health and well being) and that the tendency towards optimal health explains our long existence (2 million years) whilst at the same time it is obvious that a peaceful culture is more vulnerable to a violent culture.


www.violence.de/prescott/letters/Profiles_Peaceful_v_Violent.pdf - a one page chart outlining social behavioural characteristics of different cultures as outcomes of child care within those cultures.

www.violence.de/prescott/bulletin/article.html - a much more detailed paper on the origins of violence as an outcome of disrupted biologically mandated developmental processes.

It would be more correct for the author to write that she lives in a Society where violence is common, where violence is ritualised (made relatively safe) in sport (MMA, Boxing, Fencing), and where violence is deliberately chosen and actualised in Military adventures abroad, in the presence of Nuclear Weapons, in racial and other stereotyped hatreds and bigotry, in Organised Crime, Gang 'Culture' and that the State which claims a legal monopoly on Violence mirrors the pathological violence of the God of the Judeo-Christian-Abrahamic Religions, and that this is a pathological situation which causes more harm than good.

And that she enjoys watching men beat the living daylights out of each other.... especialy when they demonstrate respect for each other...
"And let’s look a little further into these professional fighters. Let’s look at how they high-five and touch gloves before they start swinging those fists. Let’s look at how, when the last round is over, they are shaking each other’s hands and giving hugs. Take a second to appreciate that pattern: respect, violence, admiration. Because that right there best encompasses the beautiful dynamic of what it means to be a human."

Oh dear!

This is a very useful article on how to counter commonly occurring falsehoods, deceptions, misinformation and outright lies...


Kindest regards

Corneilius

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