Women Only Carriages, Sexual Harassment, You and I and Us/Them.

1. The MP, Chris Williamson, who brought up the subject of women only carriages,  as a potential response to an alarming increase in sexual assaults and harassment of women on public transport, made it perfectly clear that it was merely a discussion point.

He did not indicate any suggestions of enforcement, he did not say talk about regulations, he did not produce a white paper in preparation of legislation.

All he wanted was a public discussion on the issue.

Because it had been brought up two years ago, and the idea was dropped, and yet the behaviour has increased, the situation has worsened and that cannot happen. It is happening, and it cannot be allowed to continue.

The issue is not separate carriages for women.

The issue is safety from harassment for women. And not just on Public Transport.

Every where.

I see his effort as an institutional cry for help.

An attempt, a tactic, to bring the subject to light.

Let us talk about this, honestly.

Deal with it.

Fair enough.

The subject is sexual assault and harassment. Not Carriages.

2. The first I heard of it Mr Williamson's cry for help was when Majiid Nawaz on LBC during his sit-in for the lovely and logical, evidence based yet (sometimes infuriatingly in denial) James O' Brien, a seat 
he does not fill well, on the mid morning show.

Nawaz used this topic to attack the Labour Party and lefties in general.

Two women challenged him on this and he dismissed those challenges by asking them what would it be like if a woman did not use the carriage and was harassed, she'd be asked why she did not use the carriage set aside - with the implication that is was in some way as if it were her own fault, and a defence could be made on that grounds, and he said that would be crazy if separate carriages led to that. 

He implied that separate carriages would lead down that path. Gaslighting. On public air waves. How 
arrogant, how repugnant.

He also likened the idea to Saudi Arabian segregation of women.

He did not address the harassment of women in any detail, or with much sensitivity to the subject, or for the women who disagreed with his tactic of using this subject to attack the Labour Party. 

Those who agreed with him were praised.

He used this issue to score political points, and the media have been doing that all day.

You have no idea how angry I am at this. I have no idea how angry I am with all this.

What he was doing was gaslighting. Bullying.

He was deliberately missing the point and he was using women's distress (and many men's distress at this) to score political points.

3. In the past 8 months I have intervened on public transport to stop men harassing women, groping them, sneering at them, in obviously sexualised harassment. Thrice. Twice on the Bus, once on a late night tube. Going north..

On the last occasion, I got into a busy late night train, full of people emptying out fo the pubs, and I witnessed three drunken men, one sitting beside a woman, the other across from her, and the third in the aisle. The man in the aisle was groping the women, pawing at her, jeering at her in an obvioulsy lewd manner; the others were laughing, egging him on. She was clearly distressed.

It looked like it hand been going on for a few minutes.

I stepped up and stood up to him and told him to back off, that what he was doing was sexual harassment. Which is an offence.

He backed off, and then started to insult me.

I checked in with the lady, nd looked around behind me and saw everyone was watching, witnessing.

Fine. I did not rise to his bait, and I continued saying that what he was doing was an offence.

"The way you were behaving was the issue."

His friends got just a little bit angrier. I stood my ground. I kept repeating that, hold their gazes... looking at each one in turn

I stared and he stared and then I turned to look back down the carriage, and everyone was still watching.
One or Two stops later she got off the train, muttering thank you to me; she had to walk past all three, including the harasser whom she had to pass really close by. She was intimidated. Scared. She moved rapidly. I watched the drunk trio.

They then started to have a go at me, and the harasser called me a faggot, and then, out of nowhere one of them said.

"Well maybe your daughter was raped..."  he smirked, his friends laughed. Their little joke.

These three guys were Asian. But more importantly, they were men.

It was a trolling  dig, a trigger statement, a deliberate  knock me off guard,  and it probably had some connection to the coverage around the Rotherham case, and he was implying my opposition to his action was racist.

It was not.

I made it clear that his skin tone, his ethnicity were not the issue, and not an issue here.

** Note : In my view, the ethnicity of people who harass and assault women or children, their background, their justifications or rationalisations, their explanations is all irrelevant. All the is relevant is the behaviour. That's the issue. If the behaviour was not there, there'd be no issue. In cases like this, ethnicity is a distraction, a side issue. It always is.

"The way you were behaving was the issue. The behaviour, That's it."

Then he stepped towards me, in an intimidating drunken way... muttered another insult. I do not recall what he said.


I was about to respond to that, when some men behind me motioned to me, and asked me to  'move back here, m8!" Nobody said anything, they just slowly filled the  space between me and the three harassers,

For me,  skin tone, ethnicity, language, belief system, religion, club memberships, favourite egg dish, bath or shower? It is all wholly irrelevant.

It was the behaviour that I was addressing. I made no negative comments about them at any stage of this interaction. I did not use insult at any time. I remained polite. We can do it.

- moral of the story - if we healthy men see such harassment in public, then we all need to say it - ZERO TOLERANCE - TOGETHER and then act to impede the abuser. And if needs be, if a serious offence occurs, then it's a police matter, and then a court and sentencing matter.

We need to film the harassment as we move in. We need to stand together.

Because it is a problem of some men, that becomes a problem for many, many women. Too many women endure this behaviour.

As men we cannot stand by simply because we would never behave in that manner. And we cannot rest on the laurels of  "It's not all men!"

It is, as it happens, a problem all men need to confront.

Sexual abuse and bullying does happen either way, that is true. The bulk of sexual abuse is perpetrated by men, against women and children and other men. There is also a wider cultural context of bullying. 

Sexual harassment is not banter, it is is bullying. 

It  is unacceptable anywhere, on this Earth. really.  

Nonetheless that cannot be used as a way to deflect from the issue of men harassing women in a lewd and intimidating manner.

4. Often many of us men are scared of getting involved, for lots of different reasons, personal and social, we can become timid, feel deeply un-nerved when threatened by intimidation, aware of an inability to fight, and that is a genuine fear, a real risk and I get that.

But it is not good enough. We got to get together, stop the harassment and talk the harassers down. It can be done if we work together. It did this time, and other times.

We have to acknowledge we do not have this issue where it needs to be, now!

5. Zero Tolerance. Every time. It is an offence, and offensive, and not in the way of ‘taking offence’ which is another matter altogether.

This quote is pure wisdom, based on common sense and available scientific evidence. It has something to say on this issue.

"Because of the physiological unity of mind/body, because of the physiological unity of the brain's emotional centers, the immune system, the hormonal and nervous systems, when you suppress something in one area you are risking suppressing it in another area, so when you suppress your anger and boundaries emotionally, you are also suppressing your immune responses. And therefore your body is not as able to fight back against malignancy or, just as anger can turn against the self, so can the immune system

Anger is a necessary boundary protection. If something or somebody transgresses your boundaries, you express anger, not necessarily to hurt them, but simply to keep them out of your space. That's a healthy response. More generally, the role of emotion is to keep out that which is dangerous or threatening, and to permit that which is nurturing and helpful. So we have anger, we have love, we have attraction, we have revulsion, the whole thing. But that's exactly the role of the immune system. It's to keep out that which is noxious and unhealthy, and to attack it if necessary, and to allow in that which is nurturing and supportive.”

-Dr Gabor Maté

That means, to me, that sentencing is focussed on the community's health and safety, rather than punishment.

Health and Safety of the community, and ultimately the Society, rather than punishment, where everyone loses out.

Health and Safety says a person who cannot be trusted, cannot be trusted. 

Keep them safe. Not in Society. And. Importantly, education and honesty, as in listening to the people who have been hurt, harmed, on all sides of this issue. This is abut childhood and men and women.

This is about looking at how people learn to be bullies.... looking at the neuroscience, psychology, biology and environment to see that is happening at the physiology. How all these elements orchestrate in to influencing behaviour, Good or bad. The research understanding at present has much to offer by way of insight, Survivors have even more wisdom to offer, if anyone was to really listen to hear it No more assumptions about people in distress.

Why some bullies choose racism, another will choose misogyny, others attempt objectification of some 'othered' group, yet others strut as neo-nazi's, or parade and throw bricks as antifa... who cares? I think that is part of what happens when lots of people who want to be offensive, and I mean genuinely offensive, harmful find each other and bond. Football Hooligans.  A culture of violence.

Their justification's or rationale are invalid. Reason is a nothing. An empty space, with a narrative wrapped around it that is meaningless. The behaviour and the outcomes, that is the issue.

6. We healthy men have to be the immune system that ejects the virus of sexual harassment. Of both men and women, by whomever.

Leaving it to Government, or guards, is neglect of our shared response ability.

7. When media personalities use this story to undermine Labour's standing, they are avoiding the first point, and using the trauma of women as a political device, to make a secondary point. Labour bad!

8. There is a need for an education led approach to prevention - not talking at children, not a curriculum to be tested on, but talking with children, parents and anyone else, and most of all, children in schools listening to the survivors. They were there. First hand accounts of what it feels like.
you know that joke :

"How many Vietnam Vets does it take to change a light bulb?"

- I don't know, man

"You don't know, maaan! 'Cuz you weren't there, maaan, you were not THERE!"

9. Another point regarding placing more officials on the trains and stations - the profit lost, or the extra labour cost, which ever way you look at it, is not worth more than the feeling for women of the harassment that women are subjected to, the risk they feel, the lack of ease...

That said, someone passed me this comment from facebook:

"One gentleman said if we were all train guards and made sure people didn't feel vulnerable and step up when needed we would not need these carriages/ seats.”

Absolutely spot on, and so few words, not one wasted, makes me sound like a verbose ranter. But I know that of myself, anyways. I am a writer of polemics.

There's a lot more to be said on this... it ties in bullying and abusive behaviour in general.

10. So here’s another way of putting it.

An issue is raised. For discussion.

Sexual Harassment of Women on Public transport.

Are separate women only carriages a solution?

The media set the narrative.

Pundits  scream "going back to segregation!"

Gaslighting and deflection.

Then they use it to attack the Labour Party and J. Corbyn. They use it to attack 'woke'. They use it to attack Feminists. They use it to attack.

“Labour are utterly bonkers!”

Utterly repugnant, manipulative and puerile/immature. Bullying.

11. Healthy people must declare as a collective that there is no tolerance, for this kind of behaviour, none, and we must make it so.

Both the sexual harassment, and the punditry gaslighting. And quite a lot other obviously dysfunctional behaviour, such as the DWP Work Capability Assessment regime, which kills vulnerable people via unyielding bureaucracy.

That’s another posting.

And remember, sexual harassment of women : it is a problem of some men, that becomes a problem for way too many women. To the extent that it is a cultural problem.

Let us end it, together.

Kindest regards
Corneilius
Thank you for reading this blog. 

Ambition, Indoctrination, Racism and History

My only ambition is to nurture healing and recovery and to become healthy compost for the future. The future beckons, the grand children of all of us are calling out.



That is it. All of it. For me.

Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding a deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

He was correct. That is why they killed him. He saw through it all. Accurately. Dangerous knowledge in a public figure willing to share that knowledge.

Systems of indoctrination are one of the dynamics that run counter to this ambition.

Language - "Mixed Race Marriages" or 'Mixed Race Children' implicitly affirms Racism. It is a term the system approves of.

We are instructed to use these words, as a mark of respect. Very clever, very manipulative.

There are no races, only language groups and environment adapted groups... think the people of the Andes and the Sherpa's who's blood systems are more efficient at holding oxygen. Inuits who's faces and body fat layers are better adapted to the deep cold of their environment. And so forth... all of us human. With slight differences. No difference in intelligence, ability, desire for love and empathy, no difference in our vulnerability to abuse.

Race is a social construct.


Race, as a biologically mandated reality, is disproved by the evidence, not least that which emerged from the study of the Human Genome. Race is a cultural construct, not a biological reality.

Racist Violence and it's counter part, Anti-Racist Violence, are examples of Lateral Violence, where a population that  is over powered by a potent political, religious or economic system of power, where the power disparity is immense between the powerful and everyone else, where people lash out at each other, rather than address the oppressive system, as a way to vent their anger and rage.
Topically, and typically, the violence prone within Antifa and NeoNazi's alike are fundamentally weak in their analysis, which is partly why they stoop to violence. 

This feeds into the oppressive system, as a distraction that can be mobilised and publicised, and this helps to perpetuate the lateral violence. It prevents a just resolution to the problem.

People talk about the violence, and not the real issue, which is how people learn to become racists.

People who are prone to violence tend to get a high from engaging in violence -  it is a self administered drug, Adrenaline...

Antifa's violence is carried out knowing that they can manipulate observers by claiming they are confronting unjustness and bigotry - and yet nothing they have ever done by violence has reduced racism.

The Racists violence is carried out in the belief that they form an erstatz family or community and are protecting it.

Here’s one man who has chosen his own direct way to confront racism.

58-year-old Blues musician Daryl Davis. An African American. Daryl goes right to the heart of the person, a humanistic process which gradually undermines indoctrination on a person to person basis. The oppressed seeks to liberate the oppressor from their dehumanised state.

Something violence can never achieve. Beautiful, robust, logical. Evidence based.

“It’s a wonderful thing when you see a light bulb pop on in their heads or they call you and tell you they are quitting. I never set out to convert anyone in the Klan. I just set out to get an answer to my question: “How can you hate me when you don’t even know me?” I simply gave them a chance to get to know me and treat them the way I want to be treated.


They come to their own conclusion that this ideology is no longer for them.

I am often the impetus for coming to that conclusion and I’m very happy that some positivity has come out of my meetings and friendships with them.“

This is true freedom of speech, with a sense of social responsibility, in action.

Here is another man,Tony McAleer. taking a different approach, because he was once a racist. What he has to say is interesting.


"what draws young people into these (Neo-Nazi) groups? Research and my personal experience show that it is a sense of identity, belonging, acceptance and purpose. The lack of these factors in a young person's life creates vulnerabilities that extremist groups exploit. The culprit undermining these critical pieces of our human experience is a deep subconscious belief that we are unlovable, powerless and invisible – we call this the feeling of "less than." I am often asked how had I lost my humanity. 

How does one become a skinhead? My reply is this: I didn't lose my humanity. I traded it for acceptance and approval until there was nothing left. I am not a victim here; I was a perpetrator who victimized others. 

Life After Hate, the non-profit I co-founded with other former members of the white-supremacist movement, recently received a letter from a concerned parent. Her 18-year-old son with Asperger syndrome is up to his eyeballs in the white-nationalist scene. What frightened the parent was the community had embraced and accepted her son in a way he had never experienced in his entire life.

Those are very deep psychological strings being pulled and that seduction is wrapped in racist ideology. This child could probably rationalize believing any ideology in exchange for that acceptance and belonging coming from such isolation.

To help this child and so many like him, we need to address the loneliness and isolation before the ideology. If shame and loneliness are the drivers here, how can shaming, isolation and violence be the answer? The antidote to shame is compassion."

I get where he is coming from.


I was part of a cult in the late 80s, and it is precisely this dynamic that drew me in. The technique is known as love bombing. I was part of the Catholic cult before than. 

I felt very alone in my life, estranged from my family and the culture I was born into, I had very low self esteem and I was seeking to answer that loneliness, without really understanding it. I felt very alienated from family and culture. I was alienated from my true self, though I did not know it or understand it.

I was vulnerable. I was needy. I was insecure. I was charming and outgoing. I had front.

The Cult played on that. . I became a dedicated member, they loved me for that, and we saw ourselves as separate from everybody else.  I felt strong for the first time in my life. And therew as genuine affection and care within the cult. It wasn't all bad.

It took me a few years to work through this and it was quite frightening at times, not because the cult was abusive, but because I was choosing to go out into the world totally alone, I was confronting myself.


Self alienation can happen without any overt abuse of a child.


And let me add this, by way of an insight, there is pattern of interaction that happens frequently in our society, where  an infant's behaviour can be misunderstood or misconstrued and responded to inaccurately, and that too can be the basis of a deep seated loneliness, a sense of abandonment and alienation for that child.

Feeling misunderstood, unable to articulate what is happening, to adults who do not understand what is happening, and who resort to 'management' rather than love and knowledge as a way of dealing with the child.

No one is at fault in this, it's not another stick to beat parents with. It is a bio-social dynamic, common in traumatised and traumatising societies.

It's an understanding of what can happen when parents are stressed, and not supported to learn about child care... to learn about the natural child.


A child that underwent a shared stress in utero (in the womb). where the mother was chronically stressed, and where the flood of hormones then altered the child's neural and endocrine development, might well present 'problem behaviours' that lead the adults to exert controlling behaviours over the child. because no one told them that in utero stress can alter the childs brain development and endocrine system, and that too can lead to loneliness..

There is always a number of interacting factors in any situation. biologically or socially.


Another angle I like to look at is this.


The cultural background of a bully is less important in confronting the bullying than the actual bullying behaviour.

Many people readily fall into this trap. They assume that the bullying has it's roots in a specific culture, and that it applies to all in that culture.

The international political power system, (be it Western, Eastern, European, African, Occidental etc) is built on hierarchies of power and violence, and it is a bully system, and it serves the system to indoctrinate their populations to conform to the narratives they provide. Yet not all people born into that culture are bullies. Indeed the majority are not.



We talk about misogyny, we talk about racism, we talk about homophobia, we talk about Islamaphobia, without sensing that these separate 'categorys' are being used to avoid talking about the core behaviour, by treating them as somehow separate. A distraction.


They are not. They are the same thing.

Bullies will always seek to justify their behaviour, they will always attempt to mask or mitigate it with some almost rational justifications. We must learn to see through those mitigations.

Focus instead on the behaviour
- it's bullying. 


No need to glorify or mythologise it. Keep it simple.

"You are not a Nazi, you are behaving like a bully,and you are using Nazism as a cover story."


Freedom of speech in the public domain has to be set in a environment of total honesty, in a setting of taking responsibility, as a shared action.

This, for me, means that when a racist speaks, that we deal with the points raised by presenting the evidence. We tell the racist why their 'logic' is an error. Not merely that racism is 'bad'.

Snowden is an example to us all. He spoke truth.

The Survivors of clerical abuse within Institutional settings across America, Ireland, Australia and elsewhere are an example to us all.

They spoke and they speak the truth. They confront the issue with evidence, rather than violence.

Just as the Governments response to Snowden, and the Church's response to Survivors are an example we should not permit, let alone follow.

These Power Institutions have consistently lied, prevaricated, obfuscated, intimidated, bullied, denigrated Snowden and the Survivors to protect their own status, rather than come clean, put their hands up and be mature honest adults seeking to resolve and heal.

Allow the extremists to speak, and deal with the issues raised with EVIDENCE, knock the opinion based world view back with EVIDENCE, not with hatred, fear or dismissiveness.

Start with an honest history in schools.

Tell the truth, to undermine the lies.

I repeat myself : History must taught in our schools in complete honesty, especially from the perspective of all those harmed by the actions of Kings, Barons, Popes, Generals and other leaders. Then 99% or of Racism and Fascism as a grass roots phenomenon would vanish within two generations.

That is a relatively easy process to set up and establish.

For example, a class of 20 ten year old students: Ask them “What era are you interested in?”

Let them decide what era or subject issue is relevant to who they are, at that moment, and thus let their self motivation emerge. They will want to study what they want to study.
Then let them loose to do their own research individually, and in small groups, and ask them to present what they have discovered to each other and to you.

Provide support during that process.

Then host a series of discussions and explorations on what they have found, on the sources, the reliability, methods of verification, and talk about the merits of critical analysis, and objectivity, and then ask them to write a paper on the issue they have chosen, a collective paper, with all students as co-Authors.

It can include what ever they decide is pertinent. You might well learn something. They will for sure.

Teach History Honestly.

Again, I repeat myself - because it is really important for all of us to understand this. Tell the stories of people’s lived experience from the point of view of the people who have been harmed, not the point of view of kings, barons, nation states, religious power.

Do that, and all this racist bull will fade away.

Keep screaming at them, meet them with more violence, without the honesty, and they will remain, as long as our hypocrisy remains.

"The Kings were robbers, the Knights were crooks, I don't believe your history books."

This is a song I wrote some years ago, addressing this matter directly.

The US and UK and EU all have problems with acknowledging, accounting for and resolving the crimes of their Empires. Serious problems.

Talking of which…

Indoctrination. 

Why is this practice still permitted?

I know that indoctrination is an abuse of the rights of the child.

Faith based schools : Saudi Madrassa's, Catholic Convent Schools, Yeshiva - Indoctrination. Why are these still permitted?

What ‘right’ does anyone have to tell a child what to think and feel and do so using a sanction/reward system of psychological dominance to ensure compliance?

To ban indoctrination, to make the indoctrination of defenceless children illegal, to define it as a breach of Human Rights, would be to undermine the entire facade and primary purpose of Compulsory State Education.

And that would undermine the status quo of power like no other single revolutionary action. Which is why it is permitted. The roots of Compulsory State Education are found in the Hindu Rote Learning System which preserved their caste system for 5 thousand years, a caste system that still exists in ‘modern India’.

If I had absorbed all I learned at school, I would be a conformist, compliant servant of the state, and I would reflexively attack any challenge to the Authority of The State and The Church.

Because that is the true function of Compulsory Education.

It's not called compulsory for nothing.

“No child left behind!”

For me, the feeling to resist came easier than the logic, and I had to examine the evidence and engage in a serious study of our shared histories of violence and oppression and in particular, I had to look at all those aspects of the institutionalised values system which I had internalised.

It was not easy.

It could be made much easier.

Parents have a  role in this.

A duty of care, more fundamental and profound than any duty ascribed to Government.

If only they knew what was being done to their own beloved children, if only they understood what had been done to themselves as children.















Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Thank you for reading this blog. All we need to do is be really honest, responsive to the evidence we find,and ready to reassess when new evidence emerges. The rest is easy.

Racism, Inquiries, Grenfell, Historic Child Abuse, Iraq, and logic.

Race and Racism.
If we are serious about combating racism we should not be celebrating racial diversity.

Celebrating 'racial diversity' entrenches the concept of Race.
Cultural diversity is another matter. I have no problem with that at all. It improves everything about being humane.
There are no races, there are only different language/culture groups. We are all human. 

Instead, we should be concentrating our efforts at undermining the very idea of race.
Because it is merely an idea, a concept that was created to justify the enslavement of Black Skin Toned Africans.

It was also institutionalised in legislation, and re-enforced from the pulpit (Good Christians vs Heathens and Sinners, the heathens being below the sinners)  to be used to set the poor White Skin Toned European labour force against the Black Skin Toned African labour force and the Brown Skin Toned Native Peoples who refused to work for the plantation owners, all of whom outnumbered the total number of owners, their middle classes, artisan classes, clerks etc and the British Military Garrisons in the colonies.

Race it has scientific or bio-logical basis.
It is a political and economic concept.

Boil the Water, not the Kettle.

Confront the behaviour, and do not attack the person.


eg: "That is a racists thing to say." works better than "You are a racist."

Because with the former there is some chance you can initiate a conversation, the latter will be felt as a direct attack on the person.


Worried by World Events?
Are you WORRIED? Does the world look really crazy to you, right now?
Try this :
A friend of a friend was travelling in South America around 2000 ad, looking at Inca sites, doing the jungle trek and Ayahuasca trail, and was talking excitedly about the forth coming Apocalypse, like REALLY WORRIED about it.....
He was in a cafe, in a small village, drinking beer and coffee..... rabbiting on, and on... until a local came up to him, and said:
"Don't worry! It's already here. Our people have been going through the Apocalypse for more than 300 years... YOUR people brought it to us!."
True story.
He ended up getting riotously drunk with the locals and made some very good friends.... way to go, South America!

A quote from a friend, one Jason Hine, on his facebook page is pertinent.


"Perhaps an incarnation of spirituality appropriate for the modern age would be an attitude in which we learn to face the full of horror of human existence without being paralyzed by excessive fear and with a desire to minimize the perpetuation of this horror."

Venezuela and Western Media and Political Economy.

Power must always be economical with the truth, frugal even.

The reporting of Venezuela, and the harrying of leftist (humane) politicans to condemn Madura is a case in point.

Who is rioting on the streets?. The well to do middle classes. Who is murdering poor people?

Who controls commercial supply of foods? The well to do middle classes. They have food aplenty, and the cash to pay for it, and store it. Food for the poorer, native, mestizo and black population is getting more expensive...... rather it is being made more expensive. By the well to do middle classes. Who are largely of European descent.

Who is most concerned that Venezeulan Oil is 'liberated' - the US State Department, and it's cronies in the Oil Industry.

Why is this happening?

"What the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela inspired by Chavez represents to the establishment – as is the case with Jeremy Corbyn in Britain and Podemos in Spain – is the threat of a good example."

source : https://cultureandpolitics.org/2017/08/07/the-medias-depiction-of-venezuelas-president-maduro-as-a-dictator-follows-a-familiar-pattern/


Public Inquiries, a problem arises.

Listen to one panel member of the Child Abuse Inquiry 'underway' in the UK, under the auspices of The Home Office.

Looking at the fact that three people who were selected to head this Inquiry have been removed or have quit .... two were rejected by Survivor groups (who know a thing or two about public inquiries into such matters...), one resigned, and returned home, to Australia. The fourth is in place...

The Inquiry is proceeding. But there are serious issues.

In an extraordinary interview recorded 11th August, 2017, a child abuse survivor who served on the Government’s independent inquiry into historic child sexual abuse has claimed she was silenced by Theresa May’s advisors to ensure that Ms May became Prime Minister.

Source : 
http://evolvepolitics.com/listen-historic-child-abuse-panel-member-i-silenced-theresa-mays-advisors-ensure-became-pm/
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of Ms Sharon Evans’ startling claims about her time serving on the inquiry.
I have got a document, it’s 23 pages. When I appeared in front of the Home Affairs Select Committee – which should be where you openly and honestly answer the questions and challenges of MPs, and where it’s actually an offense not to tell the truth – they (the Home Office) provided me with a 23 page document telling me exactly what I may and may not say.
Ms Evans says that she was so alarmed by the nature of the Home Office gagging document that she went to the clerk of the Parliamentary Committee to tell him that she feared she may not be able to tell the truth because of it.

Bear in mind that a 
Parliamentary Committee is a privileged arena, where one has liberty to tell the truth, where lying is a criminal offence.
Sharon Evans also had an extremely depressing message for the victims of the Grenfell tragedy about what she has learned about Establishment collusion during supposedly ‘independent’ inquiries such as this:
When asked by interviewer John Nicholson about her advice to the Grenfell Inquiry panel members, Evans said:
I think from what I’ve been hearing that people are already being encouraged to come and give information informally – and this is where we started on the child abuse inquiry – but the thing is it seems like it’s exactly the same. I want to stop them going down the same road where their information is controlled and suppressed, because when there is an inquiry they can control information and decide what is released.
Hillsborough, anyone?

You can listen to Ms Evans’ extraordinary interview with talkRADIO below:



So yeah, it's all going on.... as it has been for quite some time.

The institutions of political power, and those who occupy executive positions in corporate power are allied in their determination to retain, enhance and project their alliance of interests over the best interests of the people they claim to 'serve' - you and I, and your family, community and local and national collective.... the taxpayer and his or her children.

So here's one way to look at all of this: Taxation is a shared contribution, the cash is held in trust by Government, to be utilised on our behalf, and it is not the property of The Government.

It is our cash. That implies a duty of care to spend that cash wisely, based on evidence and need, to nurture equity across our populations, be any of us rich or poor, strong or vulnerable.

That is not happening , blatantly. And anyone who dares to suggest it should happen is attacked, denigrated, undermined and dismissed.

We Pay Their Wages. (and coroprate power pays their benefits)

I think we need a cross ideology-multicultural non-sectarian party called "The We Pay Your Wages Party" and we need to be willing to engage and directly instruct Government to meet the duty of care articulated above, in order to better nurture our society and to prevent the abuses I have briefly indicated above, and the many, many others we are all well aware of.


Kindest regards


Corneilius


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


Thank you for reading this blog. All we need to do is be really honest, responsive to the evidence we find,and ready to reassess when new evidence emerges. The rest is easy.

Environment, social power and biological influence.




Every living organism on Earth that we know about is influenced by, and e influences, the environment from which they emerge.

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


The degrees of influence vary… and all participation matters.

There are networks of living influencers all across biology, in webs, networks, layers, currents, flows and interfaces. From bacteria to fungi, from ants to elephants, with wolves and beavers, flowers and trees.

All of life..

They all are active participants in life, rather than passive. We are too.

We are born both as influences of that environment, and as influencers of that environment.

There is a feed back loop built in that feeds into balance, that enables recovery after occasional trauma, solves problems.

A healing mechanism.

Every child on Earth will be influenced by, and will influence, the social environment.

Natural Child, Natural Society
   
I see both as cause and effect at the same time.

A natural society observes the nature of the child and responds to the child as a person, with dignity and respect, interest and support and a deep trust in the child’s abilities to cope with life, to develop the natural skills required for thriving in the environment, social and biological, in which they all live.

It’s should not come as a surprise to learn that the more that balance is disrupted, the more likely adverse behaviour and disease states will emerge in significant numbers.

Mad States make for maddened people.

Sick States make for a sickened people.

Happy States make for a happy people.

Bully States make for a bullied people.

“Given the kind of society you were born into, and all that you have experienced and lived through, it’s no wonder you feel the way you do.”

No man is an island.

David Smail puts it eloquently:

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

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

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

I think that’s pretty clear.

"One cannot hope to understand the phenomena of psychological distress, nor begin to think what can be done about them, without an analysis of how power is distributed and exercised within society."
read that again. reflect on it. it will deliver much useful insight, and provide a guide through the current power establishment.


Biology, being the source of intelligence, has crafted a basic functional element, which I call optimal biological health, to ensure the relatively smooth functioning of living systems within a dynamically changing environment.

Hierarchies of power and violence undermine that balance.

 Hierarchies of power and violence tend to impose chronic stress.

Balance is, in human terms, a question of how we respond to the evidence, rather than rely upon a reaction to get us out of trouble. The evidence is this.

We humans have embodied within us, within every cell and organ, a state of optimal biological health.

It does not include mass violence, abuse of power, loss of empathy, bullying, stealing or hoarding, self alienation, the generation gap, religious or ideological shame and guilt, addictions, obsessions, compulsions.

These are all symptoms of a state of dis-ease, a state of chronic stress.

These are also interwoven with symptoms of unresolved trauma that remain unresolved over many, many generations, and emerge as chronic stress related disease and socially accepted prejudice, nationalist hatreds, othering in general.

The emergence of so many adverse symptoms across all populations is a clear sign that the social and institutional environment is not a healing space, and is in fact creating a blockage to reaching a state of optimal human biological health, individually and as a species.

Sustainability is impossible if the current power culture persists in this psychological dysfunction.

It’s not about left/right, it’s about health and the people, now, today, and it must also encompass our long term responsibilities to future generations of humanity. Optimal human biological health.  



Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Thank you for reading this blog. All we need to do is be really honest, responsive to the evidence we find,and ready to reassess when new evidence emerges. The rest is easy.

Political Power Health and Safety Check required, immediately.



Milosovic

Blair

The Vatican

These three images are just a hint at the dynamic of how insitutional power is reflexively defensive of it's position and manages harms that are exposed in ways that ensure they remain in power. The individuals at the top have usually internalised that power, and identify with that rather than the people over whom they have that power.

Loss of empathy is inherent. Hubris is common. Arrogance is the norm.


Established Power needs to be submitted to a full health and safety check, by the people.

That is pure common sense logic. However, there is a problem….. we have a problem.


Institutions, power and honesty.


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

The fact is that we (the adult world) do not feel an obligation to be truthful to children.

We are like managers and manipulators of news in Washington, Moscow, London, Peking and Paris and all the other capitals of the world.

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

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


Written in 1964, by John Holt who had thousands of hours of observation of children in schools across America. He wrote a few superb books on children and learning, and energised the homeschooling/unschooling movement in the USA.


How much does this insight resonate today, in 2017, in the UK?

Institutions are power centres.

Schools are also power centres.

It’s where we learn how to behave within an institutionalised power hierarchy.

‘No child left behind.’

Power Centres will always reflexively seek to defend that Power. Those who hold high office will often internalise that value completely. To the exclusion of healthy common sense and empathy, to a psychologically unstable degree.

There are examples in every area of society – Religion: the Vatican and Pedophilia – Politics, War and indoctrination : HiIlsborough, Chilcott, Levenson I – Health and Safety : Amoco Cadiz, Bhopal, Flint Water Supply, Fracking. Can you begin to see the pattern of behaviours?

There are plenty of examples in schools where matters of abuse or negligence or bias have been hushed up.

There are plenty of schools where teachers have been ‘convinced’ to support the diagnosis of ADHD and the subsequent drugging of children as a class room management strategy, etc etc - (more than my job/income, food, shelter, family is worth to challenge this is understandable, the teacher is being bullied institutionally and knows not to irk the masters).

And, in all of this activity, in so many areas of civic and commercial insitutional culture we see minor officials, lower ranks coerced to comply with the instructions of the powerful, to defend the institution rather than acknowledge the harms and be exposed. Iraq.

This is an easily identified pattern, with a massive evidence base that is quite reliable.

Established Power will use its power to protect itself.

The People are not to challenge that.

We see the powerful hire the best and most expensive legal teams to oppose ordinary people with relatively little comparative power, where the battle is one of financial resources, with one side far wealthier than the other….

We see out of court settlements.  “It could take years, take the offer!”

We do not see the full evidence.

We do not see justice.

Fines.

No criminal indictments.

The powerful will defend their position of power at all costs.

That is why Public Inquiries have failed to deliver Justice.

Power Hierarchies impose pressure to perform downwards, upon all subordinates, and failure to follow instructions by higher ranking personnel leading to loss of job for the lower ranking personnel is one of those intentional pressures.

Even when an order or instruction is illegal, amoral, destructive, negligent or corrupt, that pressure remains a potent leverage in today’s public and private Institutions. Who wants to be a whistle blower? Who would brave that storm?

Cover ups and mitigations do happen, and never by accident.

Political, economic, ideological and religious power demands that the holder be a bully, and bullies are more attracted to power than those who are not bullies.

The bully who is driven by the institutional environment to be more effective becomes professionalised. Fully committed.

That degree of committment to gaining and holding power is a social problem, a root dysfunction, a foundational malady.

Only when power is taken up as a shared responsibility of the grass roots tax payers, the people who both fund and who work in Civil Society will we have a safe, honest social political system.

Those who hold too much power will not yield it willingly.

Teresa May is demonstrating that right now. She is for the bullies. She backs Trumps call for Air Strikes against Syria, whilst the nation reels from a horror the Government (New Labour, Tory and Lib-Dem) created in Grenfell Towers. Air Strikes against urban areas with social housing..........

What does that really mean?

I am also talking about the culture at the lowest ranks in the hierarchies of power.. how debilitating and threatening the presence of poverty and disdain is, how corrosive it is.

There are many people who will seek to defend their bias, internalise their opinion as fact, deny the evidence, mitigate the responsibility at all levels.


I am interested in the psychological experiential root, rather than then violence itself, and I want to understand how that afflicts us all, and how do we recover from that, to what degree is recovery possible in the current environment?

We here at the grass roots must work for our own recovery as part of the resolution.

We also have to organise and protect our civil society, administer our shared resources with wisdom and enhance the environment of our community.

We cannot wait for the Established Power to awaken, to come to it’s senses, to re-humanise, to recover.

We must get on with it.

If we do, and I think many of us are, and more are joining in every day, then perhaps it is more likely that Established Power can be submitted to a full health and safety check by the people.





Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Thank you for reading this blog. All we need to do is be really honest, responsive to the evidence we find,and ready to reassess when new evidence emerges. The rest is easy.