Now is the most important time to talk seriously about achieving Peace.

We adults have a first duty of care to all our children, even before our countries.

Not just our own children, but to all children, everywhere.

There are 6.5 million children under the age of 15 living in Ukraine, 15% of the population. In Iraq 2003-2006 1/3rd of all violent deaths were of children under the age of 15.

We adults, every last one of us, no exception, have a first duty of care to all the children, all of them, everywhere. This is a collective, species level responsibility.

I think that any adult who fails to see this is perhaps a little immature. There, I've said it. Do you get me? There's a significant sector of the adult world that is failing all our children. The War Makers and Wealth Extractors and their operatives.

Now is even more important a time to talk about what it will take to achieve peace, rather than escalating a war. 

Which is what the Ukrainian and the Russian Governments, the EU and the News Media all appear to be doing right now. Talking up escalation. Send in more weapons, send in more fighters. No-fly zones and Nuclear Options. War, war, war! More war! Viaggro?
Insanity Reigns.
I am really, really upset. I am angry, sad, disgusted and pissed off, I detest the war makers. I know the Laws that prohibit war, I familiarised myself with them after the invasion of Iraq, in 2003, and the Russian invasion is clearly a War Crime, and therefore Russia must be opposed, no question. Russia has no case. It's a dreadful thing, that the Russians continue to advance into Ukraine. I do not know what can be do to impede that advance, and of course Ukraine has the right to defend herself, under the same legal domain that prohibits wars of aggression.

What appals me is that there are no serious level headed discussions on how to achieve Peace outside Ukraine. The talk of more war seems to me to be adding fuel to the fire. 

No discussions on calling for Peace can be heard on on our News Channels, I do not hear them in our Legislatures, nor are there prayers for Peace in our Churches and Temples, or if there are such discussions and prayers then I am not aware of them.

If there are such calls, they are not getting the air time they deserve, they are not being heard on an equal footing, for 'balance'.

I know they should be happening, I wish to contribute to them. That is why I write this blog and perform my music. I want a world living without warfare, living in peace and living in a humane mutually nurturant dynamic.

However, this past week I mostly hear breathless, excited discussions about how to win wars, be it civilians with Molotov Cocktails, the numbers and types of weapons to be supplied to defend Ukraine, or the sanctions necessary to cripple the Russian aggressors economy, or the aspirations of budding foreign fighters rushing to the so called International Brigade.

What about the children?

I understand those discussions about more war, self defence, defending a smaller country, defending democracy - I get it all. And whilst I support the sanctions, of course, I know that probably the majority of Russian civilians do not support the war, and that sanctions may well have an adverse impact upon their welfare, as the sanctions are aimed at those people, to nudge them to do something about their ruling class, and so I try to keep that in mind too. 

When the warmakers reduce the thing to leaders, Assad, Putin, Blair, Mao, Stalin it obscures the reality of ordinary people trapped by circumstance of birth.

Ordinary people, on all sides, always pay the price. Dresden and Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Fallujah, Homs, Allepo, Gaza.

How can we avoid or prevent that dynamic?

For that reason I oppose escalating the war, I do not want to see thousands upon thousands of civilians murdered in war, I do not want to see cities and towns destroyed and left empty save for fighters and soldiers, tanks and artillery and rotting corpses.

We adults have a first duty of care to all our children, even before our countries.

An Irishman recites a poem 'The Box' by Abercrombie Lascalles, an English Poet.  Stop for a moment, and listen to this and feel the need for peace. Then read on.

My perspective, where my heart lives.

Even as war is underway, it is more important than ever to look to how we can achieve peace. Nobody 'wins' in war, some people survive, that's all that really happens, especially when we have a culture where warfare is accepted as a tool of foreign policy of 'great powers', and is also a business model.

Scilla Esleworthy is someone who understands this need, having worked in conflict zones for many decades, helping to de-escalate conflict, helping people to find routes towards achievable peace. This is a Ted Talk that Scilla presented that is absolutely on point and entirely pertinent right now. 


The propaganda for more war.

During WWI, before conscription, English women were groomed to hand out White Feathers to those who openly objected to fighting in the Oligarchs war. Those objectors were the among the most honest, courageous citizens of all. Also the most sensible. Refugees who flee before the bombs destroy their homes and villages are being wise, and often it is those who can afford to flee who do. The poor tend to wait until they have no other choice. Another layer of inequity, one that is rarely discussed.

True civilian courage
The most brave thing I have seen yet is villagers out in front of a Russian Military Convoy, blocking the road, talking to the troops, urging them to turn around, to go home.

Chernihiv region, citizens are blocking the roads with their own bodies, they have stopped a Russian advance.#RussiaUkraineWar#Ukraine#StopWarInUkraine
#Kyiv pic.twitter.com/CUgB13labg

— PrayForUkraine.live | Donate Now In Crypto (@PrayforukraineC) March 1, 2022

That right there is true humane courage, a community united and at peace even in the face of an immense threat, and that is part of the start, on the ground, of working for peace, human to human. I hope they are successful, and that the convoy turns around, and leaves. I wish Levenskyy had the same grit and determination. He appears to be urging a fight without making the effort to sue for peace. Did he speak to the children of Ukraine, and is he speaking for them?

Workers on strike?

The Russian soldiers ought to go on strike, knowing their leaders have forced them into committing a war crime, and their legal duty is to resist that, to object and refuse to follow the order to commit that crime. They should be given that option.
The refusal of our political class to discuss how to achieve Peace, especially at a time of war, is venal avarice and cowardice. The apparent rejection by our news media to float a serious discussion on how to achieve Peace is cowardice. 

Because they are not willing to challenge the Military Industrial Complex, the war profiteering Oligarchy, and they are not willing to confront the Fossil Fuel Industry and they are not willing to blow open the world of Epstein and sex trafficking for the Powerful. Cowards.

Obviously, the Russian invasion is a War Crime.

Invasion is An act of Aggression, which is the supreme war crime, in that it contains all other war crimes. All war crimes flow from that act of aggression.

There are a number of laws prohibiting war fare, international treaties and national legislation. The existence of these Laws is not routinely a matter of concern in out Schools and news media.

Applying the Law, equitably to achieve and sustain Peace.
Putting Putin, Blair, Bush, Cameron, Assad, the Saudi King, the Myanmar Leaders and all War Profiteers and others in the dock at The Hague is the only way to prevent further war mongering. We must hold those who initiate and prosecute war to account.

We must understand that even those defending their country will inevitably commit war crimes.  Indeed, in this instance War Crimes have been committed in and around the Donbas region for the past 8 years by Ukrainians on both 'sides' of that war, as well as by Russian forces.
Are we, the working people, seriously for Peace, or are we for allowing more War?
We are all of us in this together and everything is connected. That is the nature of living on a finite planet, sharing a common biosphere.
Watching young English men react to the dominant News narrative, and seeing videos of breathless packing and viral tiktoks of their journeys to rush off to fight for Ukraine, without the skills or training, when Ukraine has a standing army of 240k, trained reserves of 220k, the 4th largest weapons export industry in Europe, and I see the impact of propaganda on all sides.  
Those boys will be getting in the way of Ukrainians trying to defend their country in war fare, and they will be undermining those in Ukraine who are seeking to stop the war making, because it's quite clear they want to go to war.
No Peace. Just more grooming.
Russian invasion IS a War Crime - no question.
Ukraine has the right of self defence under current international Law - no question.

Hypocrisy undermines Peace.
That right, of self defence, is not afforded equally to everyone, is it?
Libya, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Vietnam, Korea, Congo, All Egalitarian Cultures.

That hypocrisy is part of the problem, and the hypocrisy blocks progress towards peace everywhere.

Toxic Bully Cult
The competing industrialised militarised powers dynamic is an anti-worker, anti-family, anti-children, anti-social anti-egalitarian bully cult. 

The entire competing militarised industrialised powers dynamic is cruelty and psychopathy institutionalised, and it is workers taxes that fund war, and it is workers who die fighting and it is workers and their families who are obliterated as 'collateral damage'. 
It is cowardice, avarice, stupidity and myopia that enrols people, pundits and writers in our News Media services, social online platforms and in our legislatures into supporting warfare - it is not bravery, it is not honour, it is most certainly not humane decency. 
The weak dare not confront the Bully Culture. 
It is too frightening a proposition for them, it is more comfortable to go along with the Bully Cult, take the war mongers silver, keep one's head down or take the war mongers gold and promote the war mongers vile propaganda.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

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You Probably did not f&^k it up! Do not be deterred, become an unf&*ker!

What if millions Ukrainians had flower power, on camera, on tiktok,  youtube,  facebook, live streaming, 24/7..

Would it be more effective than Molotov Cocktails?

Who had the first nukes? The Yankee Oligarchy.

HMS Vigilant - Trident Delivery System - Submissive Great Britain

Who used them on civilians? The Yankee Oligarchy.
Was that a demonstration? yes.
Of what? Yankee Oligarchy Militarised power and brutality, and their willingness to flex it.

The shadow of her former self : Hiroshima
Aimed at whom? The World. "We're the new bosses. Nice country you've got there, be a shame if anything were to happen to it!"
Which Allies in WWII were declared enemies within 6 months of Japan's surrender? China and USSR, Dirty communists!
Who needed a deterrent? China and USSR? Dirty, dirty communists!
So much for deterrents.
It is the one who picks up a weapon after the other has brandished it first who picks up a deterrent.
Who spread the nukes the most?
Africa and South America have no nukes.
The Arab world has no nukes.
Persians have no nukes.
Nukes and White Supremacy are a thing.
The entire industrialised militarised competing powers dynamic is psychopathy institutionalised and there are no good guys in that game.

None. JFK was not a good guy,
And only when the vast majority of us decent loving, hard working family loving folk - the 99% - understand and acknowledge the salient fact that militarism is psychopathy institutionalised, that it is run as a business model, and that it places us all at risk, all the time it persists will there be the beginnings of a real peace.

Just look at the wat the wars of Ukraine, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea have afflicted us ordinary people - and ask is it now time that we decide to unite in solidarity to dismantle this toxic, lethal war lord system, via legislatures we fund, which we must occupy through effective political and economic engagement where we pursue the demands of a peace robust enough to support our adaptation for climate change, environmental repair, the cleaning up of pollution and the abolition of poverty,  and all other problems that are coming our way.
We have 50 years.
We have a lot of work to do.
A lot of us will not see the completion, but that ought not stop us from getting on with it.
Fatalism will not move our work forwards.
Taking on the Bully Cult is profoundly challenging:

It is really scary for anyone to look hard at Putin, Biden, Murdoch, Johnson et al and see them as they really are, without blinkers. That's pretty scary on a number of levels. They have weapons and a budget.

We have :

- the horror (full realisation)- the grief (loss of innocence)- the fear (personally at risk)- the impact of knowing meaning one must take action (response ability)- loneliness (because we are so atomised culturally)- the rage (why me?)- the despair (this is hopeless)

,,, and our willingness to go through all of that, and work with a determination and organisation that matches and exceeds that of the bullies.

Because it is really, really badly fucked up and will need that level of organised commitment.



Do you want to be an unfucker?

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.

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Fight Club? Militarism is a pox upon the Earth.

Mairead Corrigan did more for freedom from oppression in 25 years than the IRA did in it's entire history.

Taking on the Bully Cult is profoundly challenging:

it’s really scary for anyone to look and see what is there, without blinkers, on a number of levels:

- the horror (full realisation)

- the grief (loss of innocence)

- the fear (personally at risk)

- the impact of knowing means one must take action (response ability)

- loneliness (because we are so atomised culturally)

- the selfish rage (why me?)

- the despair (this is hopeless)

Russian military action in Ukraine is a war crime. Blatantly. Set aside the history, the many dynamics that lead up to this shituation.  The Act of Aggression is the supreme war crime, in that it includes all other possible crimes of war, for they are derived from that one act.

At the same time, as I sit here, in total safety, in London watching news reports of Western Media as reporters breathlessly, excitedly chatting shit, broadcasting 'live' from the scene, not from the battle field itself, but at a safe distance, viewing those reports gives me the chills. 

‘Glory to Ukraine’: Civilians take up weapons in the battle for Kyiv screams the Daily Telegraph in England
Guns handed out from the back of rubbish lorries as grassroots resistance to the war started by Russia's Vladimir Putin begins.

18,000 rifles and magazines, for a city of 2,962,180 souls.

How long will those magazines last, how many of those men and women will survive their first encounter with a professional army trained in city fighting? Who thought this a good idea?

It's not glory, it is gore.

Russian forces should not be in Ukraine, they are illegal, amoral and wrong on every level. No question. 

Reporters from a wide range of international News Services, wearing helmets and flak jackets, talking to Ukrainians, sticking microphones into their faces, asking them if they will pick up weapons and fight gives me the chills.

When the war arrives to that city, those reporters will quickly leave. When the long fight, the attrition continues, they will be long gone.

Reading that Ukrainian border guards are stopping all fighting age men from leaving, pulling them out of cars and groups fleeing west, towards Europe, as refugees and thinking what of their partners, their children, their grandparents, their freedom, their human rights? I think they have every right to flee, to not get involved in violence they did nothing to instigate, other than be born there. I am appalled. 

Ukraine and Russia both have large contingents of conscripts already. That is a most fundamental breach of Human Rights. Israel has a similar mandatory service policy. Conscription is inhumane, and a pox upon the people.

A question?

I ask myself - would this breathless reporting and questioning, this encouragement of citizens to take up arms in news reports have been happening in Afghanistan, in 2002, or in Iraq, 2003, or in Yemen, 2011, or in  Libya, 2019 or in Syria, 2012 where sovereign states were being attacked by foreign militia, foreign mechanised military and foreign air forces? Would the worlds media have been so excitedly egging those citizens on?

Imagine a BBC reporter asking an Iraqi citizen in March 2003 - "Hamed, habibi, will you and your sons be taking up weapons to defend your country?"
And what is the result of untrained citizens taking up weapons?
How much more bloodshed is caused?
Who pours money and weapons and logistics into wars to extend them?

Who profiteers?
We are going to war, pay your taxes!

Since 1900, there has only been a single year without a British operational military casualty. This is a chronology of Britain's military interventions since 1945. Know your enemy. They may be closer than you think.
Source material: http://www.britains-smallwars.com

Who loses, and what do they lose?
Nobody wins a war, people survive, mostly due to luck.

And what is life like for the survivors?
And why is militarism still a thing in the 21st Century?
And is it so amongst ordinary citizens who really ought to know better partly because war movies are carefully presented as entertaining, beguiling lies that glorify 'good' violence, that mix extreme violence with sex and love and patriotism, and manipulative emotional hook lines, but leave out the stench of death, the smells of piss, shit, puke, blood, decaying gore, gunpowder and old burned out buildings?

My first rule of 'Fight Club' is everyone in Fight Club is stupid - that's why they don't want to talk about it, honestly. They do like to brag about it, amongst themselves.

Militarism is a pox, a blight, an inhumane machine, a  gross psychopathy institutionalised. Funded by our taxes. The very origin of income tax was to fund a war.
What do we all lose, in every war?
What have we ever gained?
Russia is not Putin, and Putin is not working on his own. Neither is England Blair, and Blair was not working on his own. Neither is Assad Syria, nor was he working on his own. America is not George Bush and Dick Cheny, and they were not working on their own.
From the safety of these islands, the British Empire wrought war, harm and vengeance across this beautiful Earth in pursuit of Wealth Extraction.
Are we not sick of this?
I am. I am appalled. 
Russian warfare against Ukraine must be stopped. 
All warfare must be stopped.
Otherwise it's going to continue. 

And of course there's the ever present threat of Nuclear War. 

Ira Helfand, MD is co-President of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, recipient of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize. As co-Founder and Past President of Physicians for Social Responsibility, IPPNW’s US affiliate, he knows terrible truths about nuclear war. 

Ira uncovers the threat to human survival posed by nuclear weapons and what we can do to eliminate this threat. Dangers of nuclear war exist as an existential threat to humanity. There's circa 15,000 Nuclear Nuclear War Heads owned by nine States.





Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.

https://patreon.com/corneilius - donations gratefully received

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#folkmusic
#singersongwriter
#blogger
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Putin is wrong, he's not the only one - the entire industrial militarised competing powers dynamic is psychopathy institutionalised. Give Peace a Chance!

I may be poor, I may be traumatised, suffering from cPTSD from life long trauma, I may be depressed and at times profoundly distressed, and fearful. I may be worried, and I may  be obsessed with politics, power, community and permaculture.

I am not insane, and I am not a psychopath. I have had enough of the bully cult. Enough! What about you?

The entire industrial militarised competing powers dynamic is psychopathy institutionalised.

That’s got to be the first call in any discussion on these matters.

These wars are all abusive, psychopathy.

Russian invasion of Ukraine is amoral, illegal and blatantly wrong on every level. 
That said, so too has been every war ever fought - and just as much so, in spite of the cant and propaganda we have been exposed to since 1945, when the victors of that horror claimed 'victory' and declared, falsely, that 'Peace had broken out' and the wars never ceased, as Adam Curtis lays out in his documentary series "The Mayfair Set'. 

When one takes sides, any sides, among the bullies,  it shows one does not understand the problem. Militarism for profit, for market dominance, for resource access, for ego, for dick swinging, for whatever is the problem. 
The only way to stop war is to stop all militarism. There is no other way.

It's not an easy ask. It is the only way to achieve peace, globally. We seriously need to do this, not least to be in a position to be able to adapt safely to climate change (we cannot fight it, that's stupid language), to clean up pollution and to abolish poverty. All are possible. We have work to do.

If our political, economic and religious leaders and organisations will not do this, then we must select and empower new leaders and organisations who will.

We must reject all those who refuse this task.

Are you too busy?
Today, the Johnson Government sells state subsidised weapons to Israel, an Apartheid Crime Against Humanity State and to Saudi Arabia, a Religious Cult Misogyny State and a War Crime State.

Lots of countries have well developed weapons manufacturing industries, and the trade is booming, if you'll excuse the pun. Militarism defines this 'civilisation'. I call it a bully cult. 

Am I wrong?

What would you call it?
Today Blair and G W Bush still walk free having murdered between 600,000 and 2 million people in Afghanistan and Iraq, having displaced more than 12 million people and destroyed civil infrastructure, again and again and again.
Assad, Putin, Cameron, May and the leaders of Qatar and Saudi Arabia all walk free having destroyed Syria and murdered circa 250,000 Syrians between them, aided by a host of violent militia whom they funded, armed and supported as 'Freedom Fighters'. None of those who have blood on their hands are innocent of war crimes.

This is all insanity, dangerous, lethal craziness. It's entirely irrational and inhumane bullshit.
The second call is how do we de-escalate towards peace?
The answer is rather obvious: remove oligarchy - the wealth extractor class - from all civil and legal governance systems and put workers and parents in charge instead.

War is a business model, as Andrew Cockburn describes in his book.

The Spoils of War : Power, Profit and the American War Machine

https://www.versobooks.com/books/3855-the-spoils-of-war
The Global war machine can only be understood in terms of the private passions and interests of those who control it—principally a passionate interest in money.

If you really want peace, this is the work you will have to engage in. Make it more important than your mortgage, or your yearly vacations, or your pension. Make all our children's children's lives more important than any other consideration. Stop being so damn selfish and submissive.
Is that too much to ask?
Does that make you squirm? Are you uncomfortable with that thought, never mind the action it would require to make it happen?

Why?

Wars are a business model, they are 100% avoidable. They are chosen by evil people and good decent people get harmed by them.
No-one in NATO has a genuine interest in peace or detente.
It is a war alliance. It’s always been a warring states alliance. It’s been aimed at Russia since it’s formation.
It has been involved in numerous combat operations, wars since it's inception. Blood and guts, destruction.
The USUK are not peaceful states run by peace loving oligarchies. Neither is Russia, nor is India, Pakistan is not a peaceful State and neither is Myanmar. Saudi Arabia is not a peaceful state, and neither is Israel.

The entire industrialised militarised competing powers dynamic is psychopathy institutionalised.
That’s the bit everyone ignores, the truth that no one dares to mention : because it is the most honest assessment it is the least popular.
Why?
Because it confronts everyone.
Because it seems too big to resolve?
Well no. As soon as a population accepts the truth of that assessment of institutionalised psychopathy, the next steps are obvious.

Back in 2020, United Nations General Assembly demanded a global ceasefire.
www.un.org/en/globalceasefire
It was proposed by the GA and supported in the Security Council by China and Russia, in the context of dealing with a global pandemic (not as a general future trending strategic policy).

That call was was rejected by USUK.
Then the call rang out again, in 2021.
https://www.un.org/en/globalceasefire/un-security-council-demands-covid-19-vaccine-ceasefires

USUK rejected that call tool. Both continued to support the Saudi war on Yemen.
And at the same time USUK refused to waive Vaccine Intellectual Property Rights as both encouraged spread of the virus in their respective countries 'to protect civil liberties' and 'the economy' - result 1.2 million fatalities, 3 million cases of long Covid, economic damage to small businesses and self employed, increased poverty for unemployed.

All war is wrong, and all war makers are wrong.

When we pick a side in war, we become part of the wrongness. 

War is a culture and a business model - no war has ever been fought for justice, peace, freedom or kindness towards vulnerable people. Wars are fought for booty, political dominance, access to treasure, population control.
Violence wrapped in Flags is populist patriotic poison.
All wars are wars of the Wealth Extraction Class and they are always wars against the interests of working people, parents and children alike.
Why have we, the workers of the world, failed completely to stop our oligarchs from waging wars?
Are we ready yet to answer that question honestly enough to be able to drive a change in our psychological, political and economic behaviour, a change that would prevent further war making?
Because unless we do that, climate adaptation is not going to happen.

That’s a fact.
In each country, we must remove the military industrial complex and the wealth extraction oligarchy placemen and women  from all positions of power. 

That’s the task. Refuse to elect them, then regulate them out of existence. It's called healthy politics. No need for violence, and there is a great need for clarity, evidence based political organisation, demonstrable honesty, verified integrity and a robust determination to leave a nurturant and peaceful society for our children and their children in perpetuity. We can gift this to the future if we so choose.

Obviously, we need to break the spells of indoctrination, grooming, propaganda and manipulative bullshit in general.

Healthy Government will only come from a healthy population.

I wrote a metric for a healthy governance some time ago.

https://dwylcorneilius.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-metric-for-governance-uk-election-2017.html

Healthy Governance - A Metric

I think of Healthy Governance as being focused on the practical realities of administering a communities shared resources for the equal benefit of all members of that community. 

Healthy governance sets the context of governance as operating within as a shared responsibility of duty of care for one another.  In that regards healthy governance has to be evidence led at all times. Opinion and belief are insufficient to meet the responsibility of duty of care.

Healthy governance sets the global context of governance as nurturing, caring for and stewarding of the habitat within which the community lives and from which that community draws living materials and other resources. 

In the case of States, and in relation to healthy Governance we can apply this metric of care to taxation, which is collected from all, in one way or another, by the State, and is therefore a primary community shared resource. Healthy governance will determine that that resource is deployed with wisdom and equity to nurture the whole population.

Taxation is a resource which does not belong to the Government, as a possession, but is rather a resource held in trust, to be dutifully and carefully deployed on behalf of the whole of society, and the population the Government governs for.

Part of what stops us is our fear of honesty.
Stop it. Acknowledge that the Oligarchy and the War Makers are engaged in evil behaviour. They don't have to be evil bogie men, with horns and red eyes raging with cruelty. Their behaviour, their actions and their willingness to ignore or evade the meaning of the harms caused - that's where the evil lives.

Get over it and get on with it. Be honest. Live honestly, die honestly. Speak as honestly as you can. Free Speech is a responsibility to be really truthful.


"You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And that I refuse to believe!" 
Greta Thunberg September 2019
All the industrial militarised competing powers dynamic is psychopathy institutionalised.
There are no good guys. Believe it, because it is true.
WWII was not a war for workers freedom from oppression: it was a competing empires war.
At that time none of the so-called democratic states were anywhere near genuine grass roots democracy or healthy governance. If WWII was about freedom, then why did US and UK and others destabilise so many African and South American states seeking non aligned independence and a fair price for their resources, fair wages for their workers?

Exactly. Psychopathy and Wealth Extraction.

Why did USUK declare Russia and China as enemies within a year of the end of WWII, when both Russia and China took massive casualties and deaths in fighting Nazi Germany invasion and Imperial Japanese invasion?
Why did they declare these war time allies as enemies, having dropped two atomic bombs on civilian cities?
Why then did Russia and China seek to gain Nuclear Weapons? Why did they reject the work of Peace?

Here's a clue: they were all profoundly traumatised due to the wars they had been waging since turn of the century. They were ruled by militarised Governments.
World War 2 was another Imperial War, flowing effortlessly from World War I, which itself flowed from the Scramble for Africa.

And so it goes, has gone, is still going.
All Wars are Imperial Wars.
No war is an isolated event.
These wars are part of a culture of States run by Wealth Extraction (pretending to be democratic, or socialist, or communist) competing for dominance, and in every war, the working people are the ones who pay the price.
Taking sides, especially when we, as workers, live in a Warring State, take sides is falling into the trap of participating in, and becoming complicit, whilst thinking we too are 'struggling for freedom'. That's insanity.
These wars are all part of the oppression culture. The Bully Cult.
As long as we workers take sides we are embroiled and entrapped.

If we don't call it out, we perpetuate it.
The militarised industrial competing powers thing is psychopathy institutionalised.
Trying to see with sides 'point of view' obscures that acknowledgement.
Taking either side of two bullies is co-dependent insanity. Trying to see both sides of view has, in some case some merit, yet ultimately, with regards to USUK/Russia it's missing the truth of the shituation we are faced with. The two powers are part of a bully cult. The bully cult is the problem we need to address in order to get to where we can prevent the powers from causing so much harm.
Without that acknowledgement up front, we are trapped within a malign co-dependency.
I've been getting ever more irritated with centrist, leftist and rightist cant on radio, in the press, on TV etc about Putin, NATO, this side, that side etc for a few weeks now... and it's this nugget that is the key to my frustration - no one in the media is saying it's all psychopathic insanity.

That point of view is completely blotted out. 
That frustrates me hugely.
I've had enough. What about you?

Here's my baseline...

I know I am fully evolved to be a caring, loving, creative, intelligent, warm, empathic, capable and robust humane being ready and willing to co-operate to nurture my community and be nurtured in turn. I know I do not need to evolve to resolve the problems we face.

Humanity does not need to evolve.

What we need is to resolve the problem of the Dominator Culture, the bully cult as I like to call it.

A problem fully understood is half way towards resolution - a problem incompletely understood is insoluble.

I hope this article in some small way adds to the work of many, many superb, creative, thoughtful, studious, warm hearted and intelligent people developing the clarity and understanding that leads to a resolution - a resolution is much better than a revolution, revolutions tend to be rotations on a fixed point, thus far they have merely replaced on set of bullies with another.

We need to move on. 

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

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We need to talk about grooming. Again.

We need to talk about grooming.

Grooming is an active component, a strategic operation that runs though the core of every hierarchy of wealth, distal power and violence that has ever existed. 

Update: 2024 February 24th

Update: Paper on Cognitive Warfare 2023

"This article characterises the nature of cognitive warfare and its use of disinformation and computational propaganda and its political and military purposes in war and in conflict short of war. It discusses both defensive and offensive measures to counter cognitive warfare and, in particular, measures that comply with relevant moral principles."

Cognitive warfare has been defined in various ways.

Here are a couple of influential definitions to give the flavour of what is meant by this term: “Cognitive Warfare is a strategy that focuses on altering how a target population thinks and through that how it acts” (Backes & Swab, 2019)

“the weaponization of public opinion, by an external entity, for the purpose of (1) influencing public and governmental policy and (2) destabilizing public institutions” (Bernal et al., 2020, p. 10)

example : encouraging a cohort of voters to not vote, convincing them not voting is cool, in order to give another group an advantage ; behavioural modification driven by online and real world grooming operations informed by harvested behavioural surplus data.

example : running a decades long mis and dis-information news media campaign slandering the EU

example : encouraging a cohort of voters that their lives are at risk unless the vote for a certain candidate

example : Brexit!

example : Covid masks are Muzzles!

end of update.

I suggest reading that article before continuing.

Let's face it, the structure of the dominant Industrial Militarised Culture is a hierarchy structure of wealth, distal power and of violence, and it is inherently adversarial in that it suppresses the voices of those most harmed by it's operations in order to maintain it's status. This is what is happening all around us, all the time. The oppressed are being silenced, especially when they speak out and organise to confront and end the oppression they face.

To ensure the case for the oppressed is not heard by most ordinary citizens, grooming is deployed to divert the minds of the more comfortable 'well adjusted' citizens, to exploit key vulnerabilities such as insecurities, biases, knowledge gaps and fears in ways that can drive behaviour that the grooming entity can then exploit.

Thus negative stereotypes about Gypsies, for example, published in mainstream News papers, can lead to enough people thinking 'Gypsies are a problem' to enable Governments to seek to pass legislation criminalising the nomadic way of life of the Gypsy culture..
What is grooming?
Grooming is studying a person or a group of people, identifying their fears, biases, insecurities, blind spots, knowledge gaps and other dysfunctional behavioural patterns in order to exacerbate those, and thus drive predictable behavioural change that can be exploited for sexual, economic, religious, ideological or political advantage.
Grooming is fundamentally an act of psychological abuse in that rather than help the target resolve the issue, the issue is exacerbated - offence number one. 
Then the target is manipulated into behavioural changes that can be exploited  - offence number two.
Grooming is a double crime.
We need to be able to define such activity as a criminal offence as part of preventing grooming as an activity.
We also need to be able to define grooming in a way that helps those targeted for grooming to recover from such targeting, and to be able to address their fears, biases, insecurities, blind spots, knowledge gaps and other dysfunctional behavioural patterns with an eye to resolution of those, a healing outcome.

A letter I wrote to UK News Papers, defining grooming as an act of psychological abuse and suggesting it be made a criminal offence,  which was published in Ireland and Scotland. The letter looks at grooming in the context of the revelations of Facebook whistle-blower Frances Haugen. Ms. Haugen was a senior executive within Facebook, she was a product manager in the Facebook civic integrity department. 

In this video Ms. Haugen presents her evidence concerning Facebooks activities that exacerbated known conditions of users in order to generate traffic, through which they sold advertising, to a British Parliamentary Select Committee on Digital Media.  When challenged on this Facebook doubled down on the practice. This led Ms. Haugen to go public.



It is clear that Facebook/Meta is not taking independent action to confront this kind of abuse, and is continuing to generate vast revenues from such activity, and is lying to the public about it's actions and intent. Here Ms. Haugen explains how and why Facebook is lying to the public.

It gets worse.

Facebook is just one operational platform among many. Political Grooming operates online and in the real world of print and broadcast television, and is infecting legislatures.

We saw operatives from Cambridge Analytica move on to COVID misinformation activities early in 2020.

This is just one of many examples of this activity being very well funded, linked to right wing lobbying groups with access to legislators, and influencing COVID policy away from the Scientific advice and consensus.

https://bylinetimes.com/2021/02/02/cambridge-analytica-psychologist-advising-global-covid-19-disinformation-network-linked-to-nigel-farage-and-conservative-party/

The former lead psychologist of Cambridge Analytica – the notorious digital analytics firm which disseminated fake news on behalf of the Brexit and Donald Trump election campaigns – is advising some of the leading pandemic disinformation platforms in Britain and is connected to COVID-19 conspiracy theory groups in the US, South Africa and elsewhere, Byline Times can reveal.
Many of these platforms and groups have direct ties to hard-right politicians in the Conservative Party and Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party.
Patrick Fagan, a behavioural and consumer psychologist, was head of psychology at Cambridge Analytica from October 2017 to May 2018. He worked on “local and presidential political campaigns in Europe, Africa and North America”, according to his own website. 
He is currently the chief scientific officer for Capuchin Behavioural Science, which claims to “apply a range of scientific behavioural methods including psychometrics, implicit testing, eye-tracking, facial coding, EEG, and more to deliver measurable commercial results”.
Byline Times writer Karam Bales has investigated, researched and written a series of articles exploring this nexus of deliberate Covid disinformation. The evidence is damning. 
A threat to democracy, a threat to healthy Governance.

"https://blog.f-secure.com/the-psychology-of-election-hacking/

An article from Finland on election hacking.

Election hacking is perhaps the most topical example of what the combination of hostile information-technological and information-psychological activities can mean in the modern information environment. It has government officials asking whether malicious information activities targeting elections could be the new normal.

When the news about the French election hacking broke, many recognized the timing was due to French legislation. The leaks happened just moments before the legally enforceable election silence started, making it impossible for the media to report on, and for the campaign staff to correct any falsehoods and disinformation.

But last-minute election hackings and strategically timed document leaks are more than just a media game. In fact, the leaks during the election campaigns both in the U.S and in France are textbook examples of how psychological operations can be applied to serve not only warfare, but whatever we call those illegal, malicious and democracy-threatening information influence activities. 

This includes not just hacking and leaks, but how this information is used in addition to fake news and other forms of illegitimate manipulation."

From an article about election hacking, written by  Saara Jantunen, a researcher at the Finnish research Agency of the Finnish Defence Forces, entitled 'The Psychology of Election Hacking.'
This describes in brief the activities behind the Brexit Campaign, and indeed the grooming activity can be traced back to Boris Johnson's writing career in Brussels, in the mid 1980s, where he was paid £250,000 annually to write lies about the EU for the English Conservative audience.
To the present, then.
NATO, Ukraine and Russia

NATO, topically enough, is up to it's eyeballs in this kind of psychological grooming. 

It issued a report in 2020, entitled Cognitive Warfare. There are more documents available here : NATO's officials are quite brazen about this.

NATO is quite clear, as this text taken from the report, demonstrates.

"While actions taken in the five domains are executed in order to have an effect on the human domain, cognitive warfare’s objective is to make everyone a weapon".
"The brain will be the battlefield of the 21st century,” the report stressed. “Humans are the contested domain,” and “future conflicts will likely occur amongst the people digitally first and physically thereafter in proximity to hubs of political and economic power.”

"Cognitive Warfare is therefore the way of using knowledge for a conflicting purpose. In its broadest sense, cognitive warfare is not limited to the military or institutional world. Since the early 1990s, this capability has tended to be applied to the political, economic, cultural and societal fields. "
In other words, none of this is new. What is new is the enhanced capability offered via social media and online microtargeting. The ability to influence individuals in private which enables a layer of ersatz secrecy. A sibling might share a home, but not a content feed. In that context civil war becomes easier to foment in the minds of targets within any given community. An advertising budget is now a utility of the battlefield.
 We can see the real world effects of this on our screens and news papers right now, today, as USUK media ramp up war speech, even as Ukrainians on all sides say nothing much is happening and that they don't want much to happen, either.

Attack people's minds through cognitive biases and ramp it up towards real world violence against political and economic hubs.
Weaponising the minds of any vulnerable part of the population. The NATO report says this:

"As defined by Clint Watts, cognitive Warfare opposes the capacities to know and to produce, it actively thwarts knowledge. 

Cognitive sciences cover all the sciences that concern knowledge and its processes (psychology, linguistics, neurobiology, logic and more).3 

Cognitive Warfare degrades the capacity to know, produce or thwart knowledge. Cognitive sciences cover all the sciences that concern knowledge and its processes (psychology, linguistics, neurobiology, logic and more). 

Cognitive Warfare is therefore the way of using knowledge for a conflicting purpose. In its broadest sense, cognitive warfare is not limited to the military or institutional world. Since the early 1990s, this capability has tended to be applied to the political, economic, cultural and societal fields. 

Any user of modern information technologies is a potential target. It targets the whole of a nation’s human capital."

Cognitive Warfare - Political Grooming Gangsterism -  targets the whole of a nation’s human capital - Brexit, Trump, anti-masking, anti-lockdown, anti-vax, climate denialism, online and real world misogyny, the denial of Racism as a problem within Britain's institutions - Police, Military, Government, Civil Service and NHS, in spite of ample evidence of racism causing harm in all these institutions.

Corbyn and the Sabotage

Without any shadow of doubt this is intentional psychological abuse, and it has been the a core component method of mind games and sectarian warfare within the Labour Party, waged to sabotage the Socialist membership and ensure that neither Corbyn nor any Socialists would gain high office by Labour winning a majority in Parliament. This amounts to am amoral and disgusting betrayal of the right of the British electorate to fair elections and a healthy governance system.
We really need to get on top of this, rapidly.
Why is this important in terms of democratic deliberation?
Because effective policy must be based on reliable, real world evidence, rather than belief or opinion.
And, with climate change ahead of us, the need for reliable evidence based policy on almost every area of our way of life is essential. Pollution in the air, on land, in all our waterways, environmental destruction, misogyny, bigotry, homophobia, transphobia, racism and poverty are all areas that demand an evidence led response to resolve those problems, and the need is urgent.
There can be no room for error driven by belief or opinion - if we are to make errors, let it be based on the best available evidence and aware of the limitations inherent in such a position being that as new information becomes available, changes to policy can be made addressing that new situation.
Grooming as an activity is all about entrenching beliefs that deny evidence, in order to render the target exploitable. It is a direct threat to solving real world problems.
"A problem fully understood is half way towards resolution. A problem incompletely understood is insoluble."

We need to define grooming activity as an intentional act of psychological abuse, and we need to pass legislation that criminalises such behaviour, and the criminal law should impose severe penalties, financial and custodial, for such criminal activity especially so when it is aimed at a population, because it is a fundamental abuse of Human Rights.



Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.

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https://www.soundcloud.com/coreluminous - .wav Songs

https://www.corneilius.net - Archive

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