It's always worth studying leaders childhoods to see what patterns emerge.


artwork by Nikolai Kozin, London


It's fairly obvious to anyone who studies behavioural bullying the psychological projection and disassociation in David Cameron's public speeches about war, DAESH, Libya, and terrorism in general.

For example, on the kidnap and murder of three Israeli teens which became the pretext for the most recent Military assault on Gaza.
'This was an appalling and inexcusable act of terror perpetrated against young teenagers. Britain will stand with Israel as it seeks to bring to justice those responsible.'
But when have Obama or Cameron ever condemned the killing of Palestinian youths or children by Israelis in this vehement way? (from medialens.org)

There are parts of his psyche, formed from the experiences of his early infancy and Eton etc, that he has shut away within himself - the wounds accrued from fagging, the violence, the bullying, the hatred, the submission and affiliation with the more powerful 'inmates' and the cultured arrogance that he dare not admit to himself, let alone to the public, yet these experiences live within him, unresolved, unhealed and he projects them onto others so that he can 'manage' his own wounded feelings, his wounded sense of self.

He will say today that that experience was 'formative'. Many of his ilk do likewise. "It made me the man I am!"

To survive in this environment, the psyche of the child has to become deeply manipulative, and his behaviour, along with the behaviour of the established press, which is governed largely by ex-public school alumni, in the recent Scots referendum on Independence shows this quite clearly. When this psychology emerges in a Political leader with real material power to inflict harm, it becomes incredibly dangerous.

Likewise with regard to Obama and his early childhood. Adolf Hitler. Take your pick.

It's always worth studying leaders childhoods to see what patterns emerge.

This is not to offer any of those who exercise power and wage war an excuse - it is rather to attempt to gain an understanding of why they behave as they do, to outline a reliable grounded evidence based description of the cultural social psychological backdrop within which such a dysfunctional psychology emerges in statistically significant numbers.

It is to inform and to help parents at the grass roots of society and elsewhere to regain empathy for children, and not least for themselves as children growing up in such a culture, as a social movement that leads to the emergence of empathic power as a shared and caring sense of responsibility towards each other. As a basic marker of biological human biological health.

European culture has been on this trajectory of slowly recovering from this trauma cycle for some centuries, and it will take some more time to complete the process. This is scant comfort for those who are at the receiving end of powers brutalities, it does little to diminish the reality of the concrete experience of oppression perpetuated by Power.

It does however speak to the deepest nature of the human spirit, the reality of optimal human biological health as a fundamental and the need for action that is threaded into a long term perspective as well as dealing with the immediate concerns - these two go together.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Scotland Votes, political maturity

Local political activism based on empathy for the concrete reality of the lived experience rather than ideological positions - as suggested in The Power Inquiry - wherein Democratic participation in the discourse and decision making process on all matters that affect our lives....

Effective Participation requires that centralised power positions are devolved away from central to the local, away from hierarchical party structures which mirror the Power play of Authority, and as it happens the power play of monotheistic religions.

It also requires a maturation of one's understanding of shared responsibility of power and of democracy way beyond mere voting for choices 'offered' by those touting for power.

A difficulty I have with Trades Unions, one form of centralised hierarchical power structure,  is articulated by the NUT - the national Union of Teachers, who have NEVER gone on strike to protect the best interests of the children, who side with the Authoritarianism of State Education and act only to preserve their wages and power.

I see that as incredibly selfish and narrow minded and it makes them much easier to be co-opted by Power - Power can impose curricula and other policies (ADHD and drugging children who are basically bored in School settings) that cause harm to children as long as the teachers get enough money!

That's just one example. When has a Nursing Union gone on strike to ensure Hospital patients are served organic locally grown foods? Never...

I suggest, to everyone who is exercised on this issue that you download the Power Inquiry booklet and examine the detail within it - I think you will be inspired by it.

Your passion and concern is obvious. Do not waste it on voting for who rules you - get invovled and share the responsibility of power.

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

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Optimal Human Health and Power's disruption of same.

In biology, in the ‘natural world’, all organisms are mandated towards optimal health for the individual as part of optimal health for the species, in the habitat that they inhabit.

This mandate is fundamental to all biology, and has both intrinsic and extrinsic qualities.

This applies to human beings as individuals, as localised communities and as a species.

This mandate towards optimal human health has persisted throughout the entire existence of the species.

The long term existence and thriving of human beings as a species is founded on this mandate towards optimal human health being met.

In terms of that long term existence, that long term thrivival of human societies, certain qualities are associated with optimal human health.

Self empathy as part of a healthy sense of self, empathy for others, robust physical health and well being, responsive intelligence, autonomy and the desire and ability to effectively co-operate with others to meet both individual and collective needs.

These are all markers of optimal human health, in as much as collectively and individually they lend themselves to long term sustained living cultures capable of meeting the challenges and the constant changes in habitat and environment, through learning and growing by experience and by reflection.

Sense of self is an emergent quality. It is based on inner experience meeting external recognition.

The externalisations of the baby, the infant, the child that is to say the inner experience which is articulated by movement, facial expression and sound, when recognised and understood by caring adults, and therefore responded to accurately, helps the infant or child to develop a healthy sense of self - the recognition by the caring adult allows the infant to become more secure that his or her inner experience and articulation of same as being valid.

“I am in discomfort, I need winding” articulated by cries and face squirming is met by “You are in discomfort and need winding.” followed by action by the caring adult to adjust the babies position, rub his or her back etc… leading to ease for the child…  this tells the child that his or her self perception is accurate. There is a mutual feedback loop between baby and carer, which both inform each other, and verify each other...

This experience leads towards healthy self empathy, self understanding, which is the basis for empathy for others.  This process can also be disrupted. If it is disrupted over lengthy periods, then the emergence of healthy self empathy will likewise be disrupted, and may lead towards a pathology, a dysfunctional 'persona'.

Infants will also internalise aspects of the external world as part of their healthy growth – so they will  internalise the love and care with which they are treated, they internalise aspects of the habitat they grow into which allows them to navigate it’s complexities, they internalise aspects of the various age groups they experience within their community so that they have an accurate life time picture from cradle to grave so to speak, and these deepen their capabilities in terms of sustained health, as parents to be and as members of a diverse community.

This internalisation is biologically as well as socially mandated, the child needs to internalise aspects of the world into which she or he is growing as well as develop a healthy sense of self through experience… so that he or she is capable of operating in a concrete reality with accuracy and healthy affect, and all these are essential qualities in terms of long term survival and thriving.

All of these are markers of optimal human health.

There is a problem, though.

All of these markers are now under chronic stress in the modern Dominant Society, and in the UK, where I live..

The State, an artifice of Power,  demands that children internalise and thus identify with the externals of Nationalism, The Flag, The Motherland, "British Values".

Organised and centralised religions demand a similar internalisation of their values.

Football clubs set up players as role models.

Media portrays men and women in an idealised fashion and most often the dysfunctional is portrayed as normal. No one I know could live with the ‘heroic’ people in movies as their roles are played, or actors, footballers, models, politicians … let alone the ‘ordinary’ people, the b-listers, as portrayed in movies…

Thus healthy self empathy is undermined, because it is constantly being challenged, put under pressure and ultimately replaced corrosively with another external identity, which serves Power rather than the individual or the community, and from that much else flows that is damaging to optimal human health.

One can also speak of massive trauma such as occasional natural events or disasters, and the more frequent trauma of intentional war prosecuted by States and other actors, the ubiquity of inter-generational trauma as a result of unresolved inter state conflict, commercially driven social conditioning, social dysfunction etc all of which remaining unresolved will affect the development of optimal human health in individuals and communities, for successive generations, across diverse populations.

For most people it is relatively easy to understand some few aspects of these dynamics in terms of an abusive family dynamic – we all know of families whose lives are blighted by addiction, bullying, child abuse, domestic violence and so on.

However there is a distinct lack of initiative to resolve these dynamics that is all too common, and yet it need not be that way.

And when it comes to the culture as a whole, and to power and politics in particular, there is in most people's perspective a dreamscape, an illusion, is what persists in the 'mainstream' rather than a well articulated and accurate description of concrete reality as it is and as it affects peoples lives.

It is absolutely critical to the future generations that we, in this information age, do all that we can to address this disruption of self empathy that leads to such inaccurate and dysfunctional perceptions upon which Power now sits enthroned.

Reading yourself

Read yourself with self empathy and you will discover more of value..

The 'ego' theory in psychology is derived from Freud's drive theories (which were his way of avoiding certain truths about how adults behaved towards children in his day)... It is also a copy or repetition of the Christian concept of the 'devil within'. Both are massive errors and very damaging, because they lead adults to over control children, often by threats, intimidation and withdrawal of love. They perpetuate chronic stress on children.

We are biologically mandated towards optimal human health, and that includes a healthy sense of self, and if that mandate is disrupted, with regard to how we develop our healthy sense of self, and there is no way to address the situation while we are growing up, then we may develop a wounded sense of self, or an unrealistic sense of self, or a damaged sense of self.

Healing that is a matter of developing self empathy, and empathy for the child we were in the situation we were in, and not a matter of controlling the 'ego' or regarding the wounded ego in a negative light.

Religion?
All Religions are equal in this analysis, yet not all parents are - there ARE parents within those traditions who do not bully, intimidate etc or indoctrinate their children. Just as there are parents who are 'secular' and at the same time cruel towards their children. One has to bear this in mind at all times. One has to be careful with generalisations and be prepared to always drill into each particular case, as required.

That said, the statistical significance and social outcomes of institutionally approved controlling behaviours, be they stimulated, permitted or inspired by Ideology, Religiosity, or as a result of trauma and other disruptions are such that we cannot afford to ignore them, and the Religions and States that permit them must be challenged on all indoctrination processes, and on all threat/intimidation based pedagogies.

I refuse to allow my work to be bent to one agenda or another

It's vital for my work to remain clear, unambiguous and focused -the issue is how we adults relate to THE NATURAL CHILD and how we adults NURTURE the natural child within the context of a Nurturant Society.,as an expression of optimal human biological health.

Meeting the mandate of optimal biological health.

This means for me, at least, the ending of war and of all hierarchical violence, and being in the best possible position to deal with the impacts of poverty, climate changes,  habitat changes etc etc.

This unites all issues without becoming an ideology - it is designed to resist being co-opted, and as such it ought to stand as a direct challenge and alternative pathway to all Hierarchically Violent Power Structures and dysfunctional Social Systems.





Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Internalised Values or Externalised Experience, and Resistance.

"Resistance is not a question of intellect, it is a matter of access to the true self." Alice Miller ..

Understand the culture you were born into.

Understand the biology and the nature of the natural baby, infant, child, and the natural adult.

The baby, being natural, externalises his or her internal world, he or she communicates how they feel, what they want, what they fear, which are all internal experientials, and if this is met with empathy, if the mother and father and other carers, and siblings understand and respond appropriately, then the child grows in confidence that his or her inner world is understood, validated... it is this experience that writes in the neurology and physiology of self empathy, from which empathy for others emerges. Neuro-plasticity is the term that describes this quality of an alterable brain, a developing structure dependent not on programmed genetic but on experience for it's natural formation and development.

If, on the other hand, for whatever reason, the baby is met not with empathy but confusion, fear or anger or excessive control or projection, then this crucial learning cannot happen, and the baby learns to adapt to the external world and internalises the values of that world in experience, thus replacing her or his inner world with these externals, leading to self alienation. This is the basis of all neuroses.

ALL indoctrination processes, be they Religious or State Education, or Military Training etc deepen this process of internalisation of the external world, which leads to a state of fundamental neurosis as a normative.


Poisonous Pedagogy is the term applied to this entire phenomenon.

Power based social systems demand that all who are born into them undergo this process, because that is the deepest undermining of resistance... that it is not a perfected process speaks to the innate resilience and self healing of the human being as a natural organism. Power systems are continually refining their indoctrination processes to meet this emergent resistance. This is what 'reform' usually means in effect.

That said, the effects of such processes are statistically significant, and are enough to perpetuate such systems of power relationships as complete cultures...

Power systems can handle the few rebels, the few insightful writers and teachers, the few who are able to pierce the bubble. They can be portrayed as 'heroes' or as 'demons' depending upon the circumstances, yet hat portrayal will always separate them from the 'norm', which is it's intention - to turn such people into super humans, people one cannot hope or should not hope to emulate...

People are not to be blamed for being falling into the conditioned state - we are all of us vulnerable, and those who seek to help Society into recovery must bend their efforts to supporting that recovery by nurturing others, by developing humanising behaviours and processes which lead to that sense of self, of autonomy and connection that emerges from self empathy.

This explains the all too common phenomenon of people 'trying to find themselves.'

And of course, many cults and religions prey on this by providing an erstatz identity within a communal setting..... so too with nationalism, etc etc etc

"Resistance is not a question of intellect, it is a matter of access to the true self." Alice Miller ..


Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Palestine and Israel : a glib psycho analysis.

Gaza : a psycho analysis.


Please bear in mind this is a sketch, and lacks in detail and nuance.

1. The situation is akin to an abusive family dynamic.

2. The Powerful and Wrathful Parent (Israel) dominates the lives of 2 children (Palestinians in Gaza and West Bank).

3. One child (Gaza) resists and complains more than the other, and the complaints are ignored. When the children complains too loudly, the parent beats the child. With a stick. And sometimes sends the more resistant child to bed without any food.

4. When the Gaza child gets really, really frustrated, and somehow gets an opportunity, the Gaza slaps the parent on the knee. (Militants launching rockets)

5. The parent then hits the child full force with a fist to the face. (IDF Militarized Air, Sea and Land Attack on Gaza, Jets dropping massive precision strike munitions from unassailable positions)

The Gazan Child flies across the room. Bloody nose. Broken wrist.

  "Look at what YOU made me do!" The Dad screams at the child, as the mother (USA/UK) enters the room.

6. Mother (USA/UK) shouts at child "Stop annoying your Dad! it' s your own fault he beats you! Obey him! He means well! Let's try at least to be a happier family, OK? (Israel is a 'Democracy'). Mother tends to child's wounds (Charity) whilst cooking meals for the Dad (Military Aid).

7. This situation is also a mirror of what is we call Western Democracy, ie; the Power Relationships of Governance, and the relative position of Rulers to the ruled, and to be fair, it is a mirror of most State Power Dynamics. It is at it's very core, the basis of all Empire logic. The current system is still rooted in Hierarchies of Power and Violence.

8. The other children (West Bank) in the family try their best to adapt to the situation, sometimes they need to scapegoat the abused child to continue to get favours, they try to pretend their family is healthy, and they keep their heads down, trying to run the family business.

One or two of the other children or cousins, living next door (Refugees living in the neighbouring Arab nations) accuse the Dad of brutality, behind his back, when talking to the abused children but do not confront the Israeli Dad. That would be too scary.

9. In other families the children have learned how to placate the abusive parent. They conform. (the western electorate) They send sweets and cards to the abused child. (Charity) to ease their conscience.

This is what is happening, at an Institutional level. Sort of.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Birth, Love and Gaza - A SONG FOR THE CHILDREN OF PALESTINE AND ISRAEL




A SONG FOR THE CHILDREN OF PALESTINE AND ISRAEL

The push, the release
the squeeze, the belief
in letting go - we both
surrender to the next life
as in the new world
I arrive to the softness of
the strange dry air,
something unknown to me,
the pulse of my mothers heart
the thumping with which I have
for nine months lived
- all of my life thus far -
oh the relief of hearing that sound again
having been briefly, yet intensely
separated from that
fundamental pulse.

I gaze with all my body,
all my soul
and we catch each other,
before I reach to feed.
and oxytocin mediates the adrenaline
I am born, and we are clean, together...

My fathers deep voice rumbling in peace and joy,
amazement and bliss.

Being born is the art of the eternal welcome.
 Mind and body
one ingenuous zone of love,
head to toe I know
that my love of life,
this desire to nurture,
the qualities
we see
and feel in each other,
and we are recognised,
for these are the echoes,
these are the dreams
that are essential
above all else.

Nurture love,
tend the garden

Blessings are
these tears of love,
these peals of laughter
like a silken glove
held and yet unrestricted.

And then the flags, the tanks, and the shelling?

This tragedy is pathology,
the loving is all gone,
the culture says no breast-feeding in public,
it's more important
that you learn your Nations song!

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

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

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

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

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

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



Children playing in the ruins of their homes is Gaza 2014


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

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

Question :

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

or

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

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

Here's the News!


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

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

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

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

Here's the Prime Minister....!

The Foreign Minister.....!

Here's  Bob, with The Weather!

Here are the techniques :

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

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

Manipulate peoples conditioning with populisms.

Blame the victimised. They made me do it!

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

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

Religion vs Democracy right?

Dehumanising dissenters.

Attacking whistle-blowers.

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

Benefits and Sanctions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Human Kind.

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

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

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

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

Essential for Gross National Happiness.

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

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

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

Sheeple

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's the very least we expect 

Grass roots people to Power :

JUST STOP IT!

It is that easy? One order. Job done.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Both Hamas and IDF do this.

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

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

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

These are all survival techniques or modalities.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Question :

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


Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Inside the Mind of Jimmy Savile : a response

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To put it in simple terms:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is unconscionable.

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

______________

A note of clarification:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

The question of Power is also a question of biological immaturity

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

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


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

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

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

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

Because.

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

And.

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

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

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

Work it.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Some thoughts on War as a policy of State Power

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

and

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

Judith Herman : Trauma and Recovery

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


------

SONG FOR 1914 : THE CHILDREN WHO GO TO WAR

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

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

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

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

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

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

______________

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


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

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




Kindest regards
Corneilius

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

Tony Blair: Accountabilty cannot stop with him alone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thus the  indigenous movement for a Social Democracy is thwarted.

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

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

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

4. History is also about patterns.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and

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

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

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

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



Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Kindest regards

Corneilius

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