Diverted motherhood

This morning, I was awakened by a “eureka” moment about motherhood and diverted love.  As usual, this revelation was from a combination of things – someone’s blog about fear not owning her … a former colleague who lost his mother when he was only 17 … this current massive push towards “liberty” and all its attendant cruelty … the imminent death of Zionism … it all added up to a moment of clarity.

I think that a 16-17 year old guy still needs his mother. I don’t believe this out of “fear” – it’s out of love.  The blog post that I read yesterday, while it reminded me why I don’t bother reading blogs (too much inane nothingness), it did rejig my thinking a bit.  Her post can be summed up like this: “I was too afraid to leave my baby with other people, because fear owned me.  This is because I’d been abused as a child.  But I’m much better now.”

I instantly recognized another shot being fired from the anti-motherhood base.  Because here it was again – the framing of motherly love as a symptom, this time from a mother.  This really irks me!  If you love your baby so much that you don’t want to miss any little part of it and so you want your baby to be with you all the time, they say this means that you are “fearful” and perhaps you have “post-partum depression”.  Note: these opinions are extremely suspect.  See below for a more wholesome way of looking at this.

When I was a new young mother I found every aspect of my baby fascinating.  I wanted to indulge this – no, I needed to indulge that instinct.  But everybody around told me that I was wrong.  Everyone urged me to take more “time for myself” and “get some freedom” from my baby.  Somebody even told me that I was holding him too much and all the contact was bad for his skin.  Well I knew that one was ridiculous. Still can’t believe somebody thinks that’s true.

Yes I did become a bit depressed, but that was because everybody was telling me that my instincts were “wrong”.  If they’d only left me to do what I felt was right, then I would have felt much better.  People were trashing my self-confidence, with their judgments of how I wanted to do motherhood.  What I deeply needed to do was being held as a flaw or a symptom of some “chemical disease”.  What I felt towards my baby was great love, respect, longing for his comfort, and feeling energized by caring for him.  I refused to leave him with anybody but a blood relative, feeling that if he woke up confused and lonely for me, this would be wrong.

So according to this silly blog that I read yesterday, all of these intense feelings were really just fear, stemming from my own childhood. Yeah – I guess I’m not like her at all then.  Me, I would never confuse love for fear.  Personally I can tell the difference.

We’re getting to my eureka moment soon, but I needed that preamble so you could follow me.

For the past few months I’ve been paying attention to this war on motherhood.  It’s hard to miss and it’s being stepped up quite a bit lately.  The assault on womanhood and motherhood is oozing out everywhere.  But this morning, I suddenly realized why.  I sat up in bed and went, “Wow!  So THAT’S why!  That makes sense.  No wonder.”

We go now to my former colleague who lost his mother at age 17.  He knows, as an adult, that this was not his mother’s fault.  However any psychologist will tell you that he would have felt this as abandonment anyway.  The childlike irrationality still lurking in the 17 year old would have unreasonably blamed her for leaving him.  He would have hated and resented her for it – maybe he still does, deep down.  In order to function, he would have squashed those bad feeling deep down inside of him, where they could never be felt again, reasoning that since he’s  almost an adult anyway, just carry on.  He’ll be carrying this pain all his life.  It would be manifesting in several possible ways – perhaps in a strange misogynist/obsessive view of women, perhaps in exerting power over women in subtle ways, perhaps in unusual personal habits, perhaps in an inability to sustain a relationship.

Mulling this over, I started to wonder about all the families in which a boy of this age (16, 17) leaves home.  Sometimes they’re kicked out.  This fact completely breaks my heart.  I can barely stand to think of it – kicked out at that crucial age?  Right on the cusp of becoming an adult and rejected completely by one’s own parents?  It’s almost too painful to imagine, and yet it apparently happens all the time.  Having a teenage son myself, I understand that hormonal surges can cause difficulties and breaches of the peace.  But I see it as just that – hormones – make sure that everybody is OK when it’s all over and we just move on.  Maybe that’s because my son and I are well bonded, since I ignored all of that terrible advice when he was a baby.  But I know that in many households, there is no such forgiveness for teenage transgressions.  This is not to judge, just to state what so often happens between moms and teenage boys.  If there is already alienation between them, due to Mom having worked outside all his life, then the teenage years might prove fatal to their relationship.

If I seem to be concentrating only on boys here, it’s because the deepest flaws in our society stem from pathological masculinity.  The pathology is created because boys are separated in so many ways from their mothers, from birth.  The final separation often comes during teenage years, since it’s hard for a woman to connect to her son’s surging testosterone.  She gets fed up, they argue, they both fail to forgive, he leaves the house.  Then things go from bad to worse.  Pretty soon, the guy is saying that he “has no parents” and is “on his own”.  And this is how our collective social masculine pathology is created.

Maybe if families were more well bonded from the beginning, this type of thing wouldn’t happen.  Forgiveness is difficult when people aren’t well bonded emotionally together.

I believe that the pathology of our world directly stems from a diversion of the power of motherhood.  The connection between mothers and sons is always discouraged.  As a guy, connecting strongly to your mother is seen as a sign of “weakness”.  Often mothers are absent from the home for financial or so-called “self-esteem” reasons.  In fact, our current economy literally pushes mothers out the door to work. Socially there is also a lot of pressure to work, even when you have a baby or toddler.  In Canada we don’t support mothers beyond the first year after birth.  Single mothers in B.C. can expect no support once their kid’s turned age 3.  Mother is always being pushed out the door, away from her kid.  If she objects to this, that’s because she is “ruled by fear” according to useless pop psychology.

Men with “too much” respect for their mothers are called “mama’s boys”.  It’s strictly taboo for guys to have relationships with older women – that’s too close to the mother/son dynamic and so this alarms everybody.  Busy working moms leave their young sons to fix their own meals and snacks, thinking that this “liberates” her from serving him, which is seen as “lower” than working for someone else outside of the home.

Every culture has its methods of pulling boys away from their mothers as young as possible.  These methods are often cruel and extreme.  In less developed cultures, moms sleep alongside their babies and children – no cribs.  So they have to rip the bandage off quickly when the time comes.  They must fracture the maternal attachment with cruelty, in those cultures.  In our western culture, there are no cruel coming-of-age traditions – but we have cribs and separate rooms for babies. So the mother-child separation is started much earlier and firmly entrenched.

But why take mothers away from kids?  Why tell a woman that if she loves her baby “too much” this means she “is ruled by fear”?  Why discourage real emotional bonding?

Because maternal love is the most powerful force on earth.  That’s why.  It’s an energy source, which can be diverted.  When the mother/child is taken or when mother takes herself away, this creates a massive longing on both sides, a powerful vacuum to be filled.

Vacuums must be filled.  Something else needs to become as “mother” to the boy whose mother is gone, or who kept herself disconnected from him emotionally, or who nagged too much and stopped understanding him.  Something else needs to fill that longing.

Cue patriotism, or “love of country”.  This fills the void nicely.  So does love of a sports team, or even obsession over a gadget.  The military often fills this void as well.  Love of an ideology, to the point where it’s loved more than people (which is very common), is another unholy backfill for the missing mother.  Finally, the most insidious filler is the extreme love of oneself.  Pathological self-love lies beneath “liberty at all costs”, “don’t tread on me”, and “I got mine, Jack”.  Pathological self-love can also cause a mother to leave her young kids for “self-fulfillment” – and the cycle starts all over again.

Zionism can be best understood through this model of diverted motherhood.  Israel is seen as the mother.  Love of Israel the Mother blots out all other considerations, for zionists.  The fact that zionism is pathological in nature is noted by everybody else, but not by the zionists in their zeal and eagerness for their mother-substitute.

In order to repair our world, we need to repair motherhood and restore a basic love and respect towards females.  Then everything will begin to fall into place.  The good news is that the answer really IS love.  It’s not just a hippy song, it’s truth.  The purest form of love is that which we feel for vulnerable, innocent, dependent children.  You don’t need to be a parent to love and appreciate children – anybody can do it.  And there’s the beginning of our answers.  Always start with the children.  And the rest will follow.

Broken ownership

We have a neighbourhood community garden across the street. I ventured over there early this summer, as the plot owned by the elementary school is often overgrown during summer months with copious lavender and lemon balm there for the taking.

I filled my palm with lavender and noticed a woman a few plots over, watching me. “Hello!” she said. “Are you a gardener here?” She had a suspicious facial expression but her tone was friendly.

“No,” I admitted. “I’m just here for the overgrown lemon balm and lavender, the school plot isn’t normally tended to over the summer months. I haven’t been down here in a few years though.”

We had a friendly chat about the garden. I asked if any plots were available and got the same answer as always: “No, sorry, they’re all taken. Most of the plots have had the same owner for years, ever since the garden was created. Some of them don’t even live in town anymore. That plot over there, see that?” She gestured towards a badly overgrown, untended plot. “That person lives on Vancouver Island! But they come out once or twice a summer and they don’t want to give up their plot.”

I was reflecting on this situation yesterday, as I pondered the amusing concept of “corporate social responsibility”. And then I had an “Aha!” moment.

In large publicly held corprorations, the shareholders often have very little to do with the day-to-day business of the company they own. Ownership has nothing to do with work, in these cases. Ownership of these companies exists in a vacuum, an end unto itself. The ownership interest of these shareholders has been disconnected from the actual business of the company.

Something is wrong here.

Looked at from another point of view, the publicly held company (or even some very large privately held companies with many shareholders) has been severed, disconnected, from its people – the owners. The company functions as a headless body. The owners are bodiless heads.

Being disconnected, both in reality and in concept, owners and the business entities that they own can safely perform ethically questionable acts together. Neither entity is totally responsible for these corporate acts. Management is just fulfilling the orders of the Board of Directors. The Board is just serving on behalf of the owners. The owners are only owning – nothing else. And this is how it has come to be that nobody is responsible. This ownership disconnect is the reason that corporations are soulless, mindless, resource-gobbling, unethical destructive machines. Corporations have become monsters which have gone rogue on their owners – with permission and even encouragement.

As an owner of a large corporation, you can stand back and shrug. Whatever! I’m just the shareholder. I don’t run the place. I have no idea. I trust the courts, our lawmakers, the securities commission – if they’re quiet, then it’s all good. That’s all I know.

There is a qualitative difference between this type of nebulous, disconnected ownership (like those people who have permanently claimed those garden plots, whether they use them or not) and the type of ownership a small businessperson has over their proprietorship.

A small business owner is likely hands-on, involved in daily business, making purchasing decisions, in charge of overall performance. This type of ownership is more organic, more natural, than shareholders of large corporations.

Even more natural are co-operative businesses, run by staff who are also owners. There does not seem to be any downside to running a business this way. Taking pride in the business and participating in the bottom line always motivates people to do their best – no exceptions. These types of businesses thrive commercially and competitively. There is no reason not to have them.

How do we transform our economy from being comprised mostly of empty, hands-off shareholders, to having vibrant co-operative staff-owned enterprises?

Simple. Somebody just do it. There’s a highly successful American bakery run this way – every single employee is an owner, and they all share equally in the profits. They rotate around so that each person will perform all of the duties involved. Nobody gets stuck with the joe-jobs. Nobody takes the plum job for themselves. Decisions are made by consensus and/or super-majority. Do the research, find these businesses, and set one up for yourself.

If enough people just went ahead and set up alternative business models, the old model would gradually fade away. It’s hard to move away from something bad, something which doesnt work, into nothing at all. We need options.

I bet that consumers would be willing to support employee-owners, who are keenly interested in maximizing service and quality since they will share in the profits. People will flock to these businesses not only because they provide a superior product (due to having happier, healthier staff), but because this is an idea whose time has come.

NOTE:  none of the above is a suggestion that existing, thriving businesses should re-structure.  Many longstanding locally-owned businesses provide good solid jobs.  If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.  Rather, the Co-Op business model is a suggestion for people who are skilled, out of work, willing to forge new ground and work together towards common goals.  See Argentina.  Naomi Klein knows all about this of course & she made a doc that everybody should see.

On anger:

Rage is a big, scary thing that resides within many of us.  I discovered my own rage, which had been completely unexpressed for my entire life, in the sauna once.  I was in my late twenties.  I litigated during the day and worked out with weights in the evenings, punctuated by pub crawls & dancing in clubs.  I went to a week-long yoga ashram in Massachusetts a couple of times – intense yoga workouts and saunas were interspersed with brainwashed strangeness (and, as I was to discover later on, lots of very naughty stuff between “master” and many of “his” live-in female  “students”).  Strange, yes, but at the same time something within me was loosening up.

By the way, I’ve never said that yoga isn’t good exercise.  And some of those positions feel powerful – take for example the “warrior” pose.  (see my “favourites” on twitter for a sublime illustration of the warrior pose).  Really dislike brainwashing though.  But I digress.

The first sign that something was getting ready to come up and be dealt with, was that I had symptoms of an increased temper.  My anger occasionally exploded in a completely inappropriate direction, triggered by the wrong things and the wrong people (i.e. people on whom I depended for important things).  This concerned me.  It wasn’t anything with drastic consequences, but I had the sense to recognize that something needed to be handled, something was wrong.

I began to have the odd dream once in a while of being a baby in a cradle, trying to get my mother’s attention – screaming and screaming as hard as I could, but no sound coming out.  I would just WAIL with all my might, but to see her, it looked like it was falling on deaf ears.  The intense helplessness of being an infant ignored was, as I see it now, the beginnings of rage and it started early.  It’s not that my mother did anything whatsoever wrong – she is a fantastic mother, raised five highly functioning daughters with only one black sheep among them (*ahem*).  She was only following doctor’s orders, letting me “cry it out”.

Interesting isn’t it, how medical advice can  cause the seeds of rage?  Are they drumming up some future business in doing so?  But again I digress from our topic of anger.

So one day, in the sauna after a great workout, I felt it – the rage.  I was by some fortuitous coincidence alone in the high-end fitness club’s sauna.  So I went for it!  I dipped in and felt it.  It was frightening!  It was furious and I knew somehow, deep down, that it was healthy for me to feel this.  I also knew that I’d only touched the tip of the iceberg in there …. or should I say, the tip of the volcano.

Of course I had to calm down, get out of the sauna, take a shower and make my way home.  The entire event was stunning for me and I explored my options.  I had years before this tried “therapy”, even hypnosis.  Nothing had worked.  And I couldn’t be hypnotized, my resistance to it was extremely powerful.  So this time, years later, I elected to just do my own research and then do my own therapy. (*note: not recommended, do not try at home – at least do it with a friend)

And so went my journey which has continued to date.  The next thing to happen was how I kept stumbling upon very beneficial resources.  I soon learned to go on an adventure to the bookstore, just following my instincts, laying my hand upon the exactly correct book every time.  Women Who Run With the Wolves had been very helpful to me in the mid-90s.  Addicted to Perfection by Marion Woodward was also very moving and of great assistance (my very first personal epiphany came from that book).  And then, I heard a First Nations elder expressing something to somebody one day, in a very casual way, as if she was saying nothing particularly important, just a small bit of advice … and then I had all the right tools to dive back in, feel my rage, and clear it out.

What this First Nations elder said was this:  “Don’t be afraid of your bad feelings.  Wrap them around you, like a blanket.  Don’t worry, you won’t get lost, you’ll find your way back out.  Remember:  you can’t get rid of something, unless you OWN it.  And you can’t own your bad feelings, until you actually FEEL them.”

That was it!  It wasn’t enough to intellectually acknowledge my anger, which had grown from decades of failing to express myself adequately or effectively to anybody that really mattered to me in some way.  It wouldn’t be enough to just KNOW that I had rage.  No, I would have to feel it – it was going to be necessary for me to experience what I had never before allowed myself to experience.  And yes, it felt scary.  The enormity of the feelings down there which I touched briefly, in that sauna, seemed daunting.

But then I reminded myself:  these feelings are mine.  I must wear them like a blanket, dive right in, embrace them, really experience the feelings of unfairness, the injustices that I had endured, the enraged helplessness, the frustration – all of it.  I needed to own these natural reactions, so that I could express them, and then once expressed, release them.

Many therapists make a living taking people through this process of clearing rage.  But for myself, it had to be my own personal journey.  I am big on “self-help” and that’s because of how I grew up.  It has worked for me.  I needed a few more “anger-clearing” solo sessions, with more research in between them.  But it worked.  My underlying “wriggly” feelings of unrest have quietened, to the point where contentedness is my normal underlying mental state now, no matter what the circumstances.  Remaining calm in the face of trouble always seems to help.  My abilities to cope with stress have improved dramatically. Of course I am still far from perfect, but I feel much more healthy than ever before.

Nobody can tell anybody what their personal path is.  We each get to choose our own path.  Clearing anger and rage are very important, but this must not be done at the expense of other people.  That isn’t fair, that is just random.  When you clear your anger/rage, if you direct it at other people, you are just perpetuating your problems onto somebody else.  You are making somebody else angry, so you are just passing the buck, sending the problem on down the line.  It’s much better to cope with your deep “bad” feeings in effective ways that won’t impact yourself or others in any detrimental way.

Simply put:  anger needs to be dealt with.  It should be dealt with.  It needs to be felt in order to be cleared out.  But please do not do this at the expense of other people, or else the overall, ultimate net effect of what you do will be negative.

on leadership:

I think of a camp leader taking us on a hike … she would walk behind us, so that she could keep an eye on us.  We couldn’t see her, but we always knew that she was there keeping us safe and moving ahead.  Leading from behind – camp style.

I think of people going into a very dangerous place, maybe a cave.  The head spelunker (cave explorer) goes in first.  He knows caves well, he’s the expert.  He knows where to go, where not to go.  He leads the way but he can’t see anybody else.  They’re all behind him.  But he knows they are watching and following him.  He knows this, because otherwise, they’d have no clue where to go.

One big difference between the camp leader and the cave leader: when you are at camp, you have no choices – you must go on the hike.  There is no escape.  Your parents dropped you off, this is where you live for two weeks.  There is nowhere else for you to go.  Good thing it’s so much fun.  So when you go on a hike, one of the reasons the camp leader is behind everyone is to keep us all in line.  Anybody steps out of line off the trail, she’ll be there with a holler:  “Hey you!  Back in line!  There’s poison ivy around here.”

You can’t see the camp leader behind you on the hike.  But she can see you.  And that’s the whole point of her walking behind.  Nobody gets lost, nobody gets hurt, without her seeing it.  You can’t watch her without walking backwards, or by being the goody-two-shoes who wants to hang back and walk beside the leader.

The cave leader, on the other hand, doesn’t need to watch everyone.  Participation is voluntary.  You can leave at any time if you want to.  Nobody else cares if you come or go.  Your parents didn’t drop you off, you ARE a parent this time.  Rather than keeping a bunch of pre-teens in line, this leader is dealing with adults.  These adult cave explorers need to pay attention to the leader, or else they might die or get hurt.  Knowing how important it is that people are paying attention, the cave leader just relaxes and does his thing, knowing everyone’s right behind him.  And if they aren’t right behind him, well, that’s their problem, not his.

And now we come to the false pseudo-leader who never lasts very long.  This type of person isn’t leading from behind, quietly watching his flock and making sure that nobody steps out of line, letting them go their own way as long as they are safe.  He isn’t leading from the front, bravely going forth into dangerous territory, looking ahead and trusting that his followers are behind him.

No, the pseudo-leader doesn’t fall into either of these categories.  Here’s what he does – he leads by walking in the front, but looking behind him.  He’s walking backwards and that’s never a safe or wise thing to do.

Why does the pseudo-leader walk backwards?  There are many reasons for that.  Take a dictator hated by his people, for example – he can’t afford to just forge ahead, trusting his people are behind him.  They don’t want him!  They will never follow him willingly.  They’ll have to be forced.  They’ll have to be punished.  They must be watched very closely.  This type of leader is always worried about being stabbed in the back by those behind him.  He must keep a careful look-out.

Of course, it’s difficult to walk backwards, so often people are recruited to keep the backward lookout so that the “leader” can at least try to look forward.  But it’s no good, he doesn’t even trust those whom he’s recruited.  The dictator, in removing choice from people, has ensured that nobody can be trusted.  People hate having their choices removed.  They resent it.  This is across the board.  And the pseudo-leader knows all of this very well.  He didn’t rise to his position by being stupid!  He’s a very bright guy.  He knows that people are pissed off at him.  He knows that even his closest allies could turn against him at any moment.

So no matter how hard he tries, it’s impossible to do anything but walk backwards.  That’s dangerous.  You can’t look out for what’s ahead while looking behind you.  Always worried about a new recruit taking over his position of authority, the dictator constantly glaces over his shoulder.  That could make you stumble.  There might be rough terrain ahead and this type of leader isn’t equipped to handle that, busy as he is looking behind him all the time.

So, you ask, why doesn’t the pseudo-leader lead from behind then, like the camp counsellor?   This would make sense.  Keep an eye on the troops, make sure nobody gets out of line, keep everybody safe.  He’d “have their back”, literally, and they’d appreciate him for it.  And looking ahead at his troops as they roll by the countryside, he could also see what’s ahead of all of them.  He could look long and far ahead, if he wanted to, while bringing up the rear.

Trouble is, the dictator never wants to bring up the rear.  If he did that, nobody could see him.  Nobody could worship him.  If somebody else came upon the group, nobody would realize that it’s HIM, he’s the leader, if he’s way back there.  My God!  Great Scott!  Somebody near the front of the line could even be taken as leader, heaven forbid that.  Or should I say, hell forbid it.  No, he’s got to be the person most visible.  He must be the person seen as leading the pack.  Leading from the rear while facing forward?  Impossible!  This would be “misleading” everybody.  We can’t have that!  We must be true and we know who the “leader” is, and that person must be front and center!

While looking over his shoulder and gazing behind him, stumbling along, crashing into obstacles … he walks in the lead.  And because he’s always looking back, he almost leads his troops right into disaster.  He’s got some protections, some armour, stuff that he’s made which keeps his dick safe even though he can’t always see what’s ahead.  He built up a stronghouse for his dick, because that’s pretty vulnerable, hanging out there while he walks forwards with his head swivelled behind him.  But he doesn’t share this dick armor with anybody else.  If their dicks get hurt, that’s too bad for them – “leader’s” perogative.

Well after meditating on leadership today (my method of “meditation” is to just let my ideas flow forward and write them down, it’s a very active form of “mind emptying”, one that I prefer to all others), I have decided that the best type of real leader is one who combines the best qualities and actions of BOTH the camp counsellor and the spelunker.  When you’re traversing easy territory, take it easy and hang back.  Let everybody do their thing.  If somebody’s about to get into serious trouble, maybe step up and make gentle suggestions, but always leave it all up to them.  Always leave everybody with ALL of their choices intact.  Encourage them to choose but don’t dictate their choice.

And then sometimes, it might get tricky.  If you as leader are asked to take the lead, going into a dark cave of mystery where the path is inivisble to all – even you – then there’s nothing wrong with stepping up.  But don’t look behind you.  Trust your own leadership.  Trust yourself and trust people not to stab you in the back.  Don’t worry about it, and try to enjoy the trip.

As spelunker leading the way into a dark cave, what’s the worst that can happen?  They all paid their money to come along, they’re all making their choices.  They might go off on their own, and that’s their own risk.  Nobody is in chains, they are free to go.  They’ll probably follow you, since you are the expert on caves in this instance.  But if they don’t, what’s the harm?

The worst that can happen is that you end up having the cave all to yourself, everybody else gone.  Is that so bad?  Caves are cool.  Being solitary can be wonderful on occasion.   Too much solitude isn’t any good either, but once in a while won’t hurt.  Enjoy the alone-time.  And, they’ll come back.  They’ll probably get lost and they’ll come on back, rejoin you, having exercised all of their choices themselves.  If the people come back to you as spelunker then you know you’re a kick-ass spelunker, one of the best – people seek you out.  That’s an honourable place to be.

No need to look behind you, no need to glance over your shoulder, causing you to stumble and fall.  Forge ahead, sometimes hang back and let others lead, always step up when you are asked, never force yourself on others.

And most of all, as a leader, never, ever remove choice from another person.  This is not your right.  Everybody has free will.  Always remember that.

and in response:

I’m reading Haaretz of Israel and there’s an article “Strenger than Fiction” where he talks about two-state vs one-state “solutions” (mind you, none of them sound like solutions) and I want to make a comment about another commenter’s comment.  But Haaretz never, ever publishes my comments – ever.  This feels frustrating so I decided to publish my comment here.  I guess I should provide a little bit of background first.

The article itself is interesting.  This guy Strenger always is spot-on from my point of view.  I rarely, if ever, have disagreed with anything he writes.  But here, while he takes apart the proposed solutions he doesn’t provide anything new for consideration.  I notice a trend among some Israeli writers – they are tearing things down without building anything else back up.  They pick and pick at their own people, to illustrate how progressive they are (attracting labels of “betrayer” and worse) however nothing is being built in the process.  When you tear things down without building anything back up, you are left with nothing but a gaping hole.  Somehow I don’t think that was the objective …. I know that self-criticial Jewish/Israeli writers mean very well, but they have a unique way of bringing people down.

These days I don’t believe there is much point in bringing people down, unless there is a very specific reason for it.  Things in our world are very delicate at the moment and we should all have respect for one another if we can.

But Strenger made some good points.  The PA is losing authority among Palestinians, the UN statehood bid likely won’t change reality on the ground.  If so, then Palestinians will likely request full Israeli citizenship – but then Israel won’t be “Jewish” anymore since Pals are 40% of the population.  Yikes, sounds like there is no viable solution to this. (That means that one would have to be made up, an entirely new arrangement never before conceived … but that’s for another time)

Here’s “Gili”‘s published comment:

When Palestinians realize that negotiations imply not getting 100% of what you’re asking for. Simple example: they demand all of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem and unlimited population transfer into Israel. Any time Israel has proposed anything less than that they cry bloody murder and say “Israel is being unreasonable. This is non-negotiable. Israel is holding up peace.” Excuse me, but no. Negotiations are about compromise. Israel pulled out of major areas of the West Bank and all of Gaza permanently. What did Palestinians give permanently? Words are meaningless.

Here’s my drafted comment in response:

Gili – I think it is you who doesn’t know how to negotiate.  Of course each party starts off with a strong position but you criticize Palestinians for doing so.  And no, they’ve never walked away from the table for any reason other than settlement expansion.  Interesting how you fail to mention settlements as the single most vexing issue which keeps ruining the peace talks.  Why don’t you mention the settlements, Gili?

Nobody has ever heard of a party negotiating boundaries while at the same time continuously expanding their boundaries into the territory of the other party they’re negotiating with.  That is plainly ridiculous.  The only reason Israel doesn’t see how ridiculous it is, is because of all the religious rhetoric, the Rabbis, the “definitions” – and the massive cultural insecurity being fought off constantly by Israelis.

Slightly off topic, but Ahmadinejad always plays directly into these Israeli cultural insecurities with his inflammatory statements about Israel.  He might be stupid but he’s smart about that, he knows just where to poke you to get the most extreme reaction which he no doubt finds amusing.

The point is that Israelis need to work on somehow getting rid of this feeling that the world doesn’t like you or respect you.  This is leftover from all those centuries of persecution but that’s over now.  You do have respect everywhere (certainly everybody respects the IDF for sure).  Yes, people do like you. Nobody in their right mind thinks that Israel should be destroyed.  Nobody is delegitimizing you, you only do that to yourselves once in a while but people just move on and forgive you.  You are a wounded people and you need to heal.  You’ve taken quite enough throughout history.  You deserve your homeland.

Everything I just said above about Israelis would apply equally to Palestinians.  (end of comment)

Oh boy.  This is not looking good at all I guess.  Israel is bracing for a violent month.  Here’s the thing I don’t understand – why doesn’t anybody call them on this assumption that Palestinians are going to get violent?  I just read a settler stating “If they start marching towards our settlements, we’ll start marching towards them, and then the police will step in to protect them, because those are the only people police are willing to protect these days.”  Of course, he says this because the settlers just had 3 homes demolished and they are insanely angry about it.

Again – this anger, this rage, stems from massive cultural hurts against Jews which have accumulated.  It is far too easy to hurt a wounded soul.  Reactions are not proportional when a person has unhealed emotional wounds.  We have to treat many of these settlers as just this – a wounded, sensitive soul who is tensed against further being hurt.  When viewed in this sense, confused & violent prounouncements can be forgiven.  Maybe we shouldn’t pay so much attention, in the media, to the various things that angry settlers are saying.  Maybe give them a chance to change by allowing them to spout off without forever enshrining it in a news publication.

right, well that’s all I had to say this morning on this topic (I think).  I will rack my brains and put on my thinking cap and activate my imagination, to see if there isn’t some way to resolve these issues without anybody having to give up a whole lot of what they feel they must have.  If I come up with anything, I’ll be sure to tweet about it.  And then somebody else can come in & see my tweet, and then go away and write a long, complicated dissertation for the other academics to read based on what I tweeted.  Then, I’ll go in and read their long, tedious piece and translate it for the masses into another tweet.  This is how we are all working together these days, isnt’ it.  Fine.

Quotable Quotes

I have here in my hands a wonderful book called “A Miscellany of Women’s Wisdom” compiled by Jane Lyle (Running Press, Philadelphia copyright 1993 by Inklink).  I’d like to just quote a couple of things from it, and if the publishers ever want me to take this down then by all means just let me know.

This book is filled with many gems – some I approve of heartily, some I really disagree with, but it’s a very entertaining read in any case.

“I’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they’ve gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind.” (Emily Bronte 1818-1848)

Here’s a stirring song sung by the women chain-makers of Cradley Heath, England, when they went on strike in 1910 to win a better life for themselves:

Rouse, ye women, long enduring / Beat no iron, blow no bellows / Till ye win the fight, ensuring / Pay that is your due.

Chorus:  Through years uncomplaining, / Hope and strength are waning, / Your industry / A begar’s fee, / And meagre fare was gaining. / Now a Trade Board is created, / See your pain and dearth abated, / And the Sweater’s wiles checkmated / Parliament’s decree!

Rouse, ye women, rouse, around you / Towns and cities cry, “God speed you,” / Rouse, shake off the fears that bound you / Women, rouse. Be true.

At length the light is breaking, / the Sweater’s throne is shaking, / Oh, do your part, / With all your heart, / A sweeter world in making! / Stand together, strong and splendid, / In your Union till you’ve ended / Tyranny, and with toll blended / Beauty, Joy and Art.

“It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.” (Dolores Ibarruri, known as La Pasionara 1895-1989)

………

 

Libya is a man!

It’s so fascinating to watch Libya right now, with Gaddafi on the run in his own country.

“Libya IS my father.  He is Libya,” states his son Saif al-Islam.

Well then, if Gaddafi IS Libya, then we know several things about this north African country.

Let’s see, what can we say about “Libya”?  Well, Libya used to be quite good-looking.  It used to look very natty in its military uniform, way back in the days when the country charmed itself into being subjected to its own brutal dictatorship.  But as Libya aged it began to look crazier and crazier.  These days, Libya is very strange-looking and it’s definitely a crappy dresser.  It always favours gold in its look – gold, rich brocades, and more gold.  Gold-braided cap, heavy gold chains.  Libya has been literally draping itself in riches in order to broadcast its prosperity.  Meanwhile, the majority of real Libya has been struggling to survive.  The two Libyas have certainly existed in a dire state of disconnect, side by side.

For decades, Libya papered itself with photographs of its own slack-jawed face.  People who openly loved it were favoured with plum jobs and nice houses.  People who openly criticized it were simply killed, often in public as a disincentive to other disgruntled people, often having been tortured.

Libya’s kids sure are interesting.  They are a mish-mash of education, militarism, belligerence, civility, and rage underneath some very good-looking faces.  Meanwhile, the real Libya’s youth would dearly love to smash those fake Libya faces underfoot, once and for all.

Libya is a strange place of vivid contradictions:  sea shore and sand dunes, oil wealth and poverty, propaganda and rebellion, ancient tribes and modern cities, a formerly handsome, dashing ruler but with a sadly broken mind, a country of both peaceful and violent tendencies.

In a perfect imitation of the see-saw effect of such contradictions, Gaddafi alternately makes gestures of peace, and then threatens to turn Libya into a living hell.  Two of his sons recently made conflicting phonecalls to the NTC, one right after the other.  “I would surrender if it would save more bloodshed,” suggests one. “Nobody is giving up, we’ll fight right to the death,” insists the other.  These two vastly different phonecalls coming close together on the same day from the same family group provides a perfect summary of the historically fractured Libya.

Right now, Libya is on the run.  And Libya had to run without its precious cap.  Upon recently seeing the said cap on the head of a freedom-fighting youth, Libya had an apoplectic fit of rage.  Efforts of family members to prevent him from seeing that eventually came to naught – he saw it.  Finally.  And this explains the sudden change of heart from his peaceful gesture of a few days ago.  Not the cap!  No!

So, Libya has a bare head now.  It’s had to run using only the bumpy back roads.  Libya’s been having a very rough ride; Libya is hiding out.  Libya is starting to realize that it will need to hide out for the rest of its days, unless some of those days are spent in jail.

“We aren’t women, we are not giving up!” Libya spits today in a sudden, unexplained insult to half the world’s population.  No – one thing’s for sure:  Libya is no woman.  Libya is a man!  Running away, skulking on back roads, keeping its head low, refusing to face its enemies, instructing phantom fighters safely from its hiding place.  No woman indeed.

Libya needs to calm down now.  Libya is saying some very unfortunate things and this will only get worse.  Libya needs some meds!!  And soon!  Libya can’t get that image out of its mind, of that kid wearing its cap and gold chain.  Can’t get that cap off his head!  Can’t tear that chain off his neck!  Must get a grip!  Libya’s kids are getting pretty worried about their dad by this point.

Among all these contradictions, one thing’s for sure:  for “Libya” the man, this will definitely NOT end well.

But for the rest of Libya however, for the real people of Libya sans the babbling maniac who thinks that he’s Libya, for the actual citizens and their current government, getting rid of the fake Libya was the best thing they have ever done in their entire lives.

Long live Libya.  No, not THAT Libya.  The real one.

No integrity!

What is lack of integrity?  It is making these types of things part of your daily routine:  Trying to get out of paying your fair share; trying to take something without asking or paying for it (that’s called stealing); having a vendetta against another person whose done nothing to you, and expressing this vendetta at every opportunity; listening to somebody whom you know is giving you ill advice because you think there’ll be some advantage in that for you; hoarding all that you can, avoiding generosity in the process; adhering to bare principles even if it causes visible, obvious harm to people; trying to make yourself seem more important than others; pushing ahead of other people every chance you get; bumping into line ahead of people who were there first; making  a deliberate effort to screw somebody up, just for the fun of it (this includes a lot of hackers without ethics); vandalizing property, just for the fun of it; deliberately aggravating another person or people, just to enjoy and absorb their negative reaction; starting conflicts for the sake of conflict; prolonging conflict when solutions present themselves, i.e. ignoring sensible solutions to end conflict; acting aggressively towards others; TAKING CREDIT for the work of others, trying to shut out other people in the process; lying or deliberately “bending the truth” to suit yourself;  keeping information to yourself which would help another or others, for selfish reasons; causing damage to your surroundings or to faraway environments, just to make money; causing damage to other people for your own pleasure; using cocaine or other chemical drugs, or else helping others to use those drugs; deliberately making the life of another person more difficult; blaming other people for your failings and shortcomings and failures and bad luck …

I’m sure that if you are one of the people I’m talking to, you can certainly add to this list – just draw from your own daily life.

What happens to people who have no integrity?  Well eventually they always come undone.  The more that other people develop and cultivate integrity in their lives, the harder that those without integrity will fall.  It’s only a matter of time.  The process is speeded up when more people take up integrity around you.

If you are dishonest, a cheat, a liar, or just all round a horrible person (and you know who you are), then other people recoil from you.  If you come near other people physically, they automatically stand back from you, taking as much distance as they can.  It’s like you stink – you smell bad.  People can tell that you’re rotten, there’s a certain aroma about you.  Of course, when people recoil from your stench, you are very quick to blame others for this.  You pick fights with strangers, both online and offline.  You yell at strangers on the street for getting in your way.  You are always worried about money, finances, resources, no matter how much you have.  You always worry about losing everything you have (with very good reason – because eventually, YOU WILL).  You don’t know what “peace” feels like.  You are living an inner war, which manifests itself in the war-like way you live your life and interact with others.

You sign a contract and then do the opposite of what you promised, because you don’t know any better.  You tend not to see the good in people – instead you see the bad.  If you hear negative gossip about somebody, you instantly believe that it’s true, because you wrongly believe that everybody except you, sucks.  You are running your life according to some secret plan which was given to you by another person.  You are therefore constantly scared of giving up too much information.  You smile at other people when you are really thinking, “what assholes”.   You rarely say “thank you” or “I’m sorry”, if ever at all.  You assume that other people are in your service, whether they know it/ like it or not.

You wake up each day feeling worried, stressed out, and nervous – or else just completely numb, feeling nothing.  You see things like African child brides, or refugees, and you just shrug and feel nothing for them, thinking “What a bunch of losers”.  You own guns.  You are willing to fuck up another person’s life, for money.  Anything for some money.

What a terrible life you lead, and that’s all at your hands.  Because of your complete lack of integrity, you are living in misery and everybody around you is infected by your misery.  Children cry in your presence.  Animals run away from you.  Babies scream when they look at you.

Get it, do you recognize yourselves now?

A little bit of poetry

A little bit of poetry to soothe the tired soul

You can take my money

Obliterate my career

Destroy my reputation

 

But you still can’t take ME

 

You can downsize my job

Foreclose on my house

Shut down my food stamps

 

But you still can’t have ME

 

You can give me drugs

Let me drink my life away

Encourage me to gamble

 

But I still have ME

 

You can mesmerize my mind

And that of my child, too

Fill my head with bad ideas

 

But I still have ME

 

You can turn me against my neighbor

Blind me to suffering

Make me fear for my existence

 

But that still leaves ME

 

You can titillate my senses

Show me blood and gore

Let me hear about the horror

 

But down deep, is still ME

 

If I can find me,

Then I can find the world.

The world is full of “me”s

 

Just waiting to find eachother.

Lessons from Cairo – Mubarak ignores the law

Sometimes, nobody wants a solution except for outsiders.  Picture the Roman Coliseum in the middle of a gladiator spectacle.  Would anybody have listened to the human rights crusader at that point?  “Stop it!  Stop that right now!  Somebody is going to get hurt.”

No, the participants and the spectators would have silenced the crusader right on the spot.  They have different reasons for wanting silence however.  The Emperor wants the show to go on – good show!  The gladiators want to concentrate on their fight without distraction.  Nobody’s interested in what the human rights crusader has to say, during a gladiator battle.

Same goes for Cairo, Egypt right now.

A representative of the Muslim Brotherhood (sorry brother, I did not catch your name) went on to CNN by telephone last week saying this:  “The Egyptian Constitution says that in case of government failure, power gets handed over to the chief of the Egyptian Supreme Court.”  Wow, I thought – what a great solution!  It’s all written down.  It’s right there in their constitution.  What is a constitution, but a contract between a government and its people?  Well, according to this contract the government has failed and so Mubarak now needs to step down and hand over the keys to the top lawmaker in the land.

This makes sense – hand over control to the law, in times of lawlessness.  Makes a hell of a lot of sense doesn’t it.  Let the law handle it.  Let the law step in.  But wouldn’t you know it, CNN proceeded to studiously ignore this legal solution proposed on their show.  They had Arab, and western and Israeli guests on … politicians and educators and pundits galore weighed in.  And it seemed that none of them would touch this “constitutional solution” with a ten foot pole.

The cynic in me likes to think that this is because they recognized a good solution when they heard it, but no way was this solution going to be coming from the Muslim Brotherhood.  No way!  Not those guys.  So, on and on it went.  The cynic in me thought, well, the media want this conflict to continue, don’t they – great story!  So why should they help to resolve it?  That’s why they ignore the solution when it’s right in their face, I figured.

But there was also another part to the solution which nobody seemed to get – except for the remaining 95% of Egyptians.  “Be nice!  Be polite!  Don’t be so rude!  He isn’t leaving unless you stop being so rude first.”  Yes, the average cabbie on the street got it – but the reporters on the ground didn’t.    “Mubarak is a good man, but we need our comforts – we need food, and a job,”  said the wise Cairo cabbie on CNN.  That was the primary sentiment among most Egyptians, while the young folk were  getting their yayas out at the square.

So obviously, this is a very hard thing to ask people who are misbehaving to do – stop!  It doesn’t normally have the desired effect, does it.  If teenagers are busy at trashing their hotel room, what happens if the manager approaches their room and asks them to quit it?  Does that work?  Has that ever worked in the history of mankind?  No, it hasn’t.  So just try telling the Egyptian protesters to quit it and be nicer.

Yes, we would be asking the young Egyptians to do something HARD.  Stop it and go home, the matter is in the hands of the law now.  Yes, they are pissed off, so politeness is a lot to ask.  But – think about what they are asking their leader to do.  They are asking him to quit in a haze of humiliation.  His effigy has been hung, rude and clever signs drawn up in English for the reporters to consume.  Newsflash:  you can’t humiliate an Arab into doing what you want.  Oh sure, you can scare him off like they did in Tunisia.  But if he can’t be scared off, due to a strong army and U.S. backing, then you’re stuck.  Different strategies are called for.  Sticking out your tongue and saying “I hate you!” isn’t going to do it.

So, after two whole days of everybody ignoring the solution proposed by the Muslim Brotherhood rep on CNN, I tweeted my proposed solution:  Mubarak, step down graciously and put the matter into the hands of the law, and protesters, stop being so rude and hateful towards him.  For all I know, I was just tweeting into the wind, twittering into the abyss.  I have no idea.  But the fact that matters are still not resolved over there means that nobody heard me.  Oh well.

Now, back to our original scenario of a gladiator fight and the human rights crusader hilariously trying to stop it.  Who plays the part of the Emperor, you ask?  Why, that would be the people in media who want this protest to continue to its ugly conclusion.  I’ll call them, um, Media Ghouls … half-dead, sinister, dried-up old men whose job is to ensure a supply of gruesome violent stories for the public to consume.   These are the “spectators” of Cairo.  Every television network, every cable company, every daily newspaper has at least one Media Ghoul. Even Al-Jazeera English has one of them on board.  The rest of the staffers are none the wiser.  These Ghouls are the folks who do NOT want a solution to this stand-off in Egypt.

Well, if the Ghouls win and have their way, here’s what is going to happen in Cairo.  The government will continue to make concessions except for the KEY step of Mubarak stepping down.  Given these various concessions, the rest of the country would then turn upon the protesters:  “We want our country back!”  The citizens are thus effectively divided.  Then, out would come the water cannons and some nifty new American technology – the cluster taser, tossed into a crowd tasing dozens at a time; the ear-splitting sound cannons; and various other cool non-lethal “crowd dispersant tools”.  This would, of course, predictably cause mayhem, chaos, and violence, which would in turn allow the army to come in with their guns.

That is how the Ghouls want this thing to end.  This is why the Ghouls did not pick up on the solution discussed during the interview with the Muslim  Brotherhood.  This is why Mubarak continues and does not resign – he is being told by the  Ghouls to stay right where he is, so that the bloodiest outcome imaginable will come to pass.

By the way – the Media Ghouls have friends in politics.  One particular former US president is among them.  They have friends in banking – one of them helps to run the IMF.  They have friends in multinational chemical and pharmaceutical companies.  Their friends run the weapons manufacturing companies.  This group of people think that they control the world.  They will stop at nothing to maintain control.   They don’t care who dies – just like the ancient Roman Emperor didn’t care which gladiators died either.  They don’t care who suffers and they do some ridiculous logistic, ethical back-flips to justify their damaging policies all over the world.

The Ghouls are the same ones who didn’t want Aristede to return to Haiti.  The Ghouls are the people who sit on and squash every uplifting news story that comes along which might lead to ACTUAL CHANGE.  The Ghouls are the ones who make sure that any pure original voices are silenced as quickly as possible.

These Ghouls do NOT want you growing your own food.  They do NOT want you to be healthy – they want you to keep taking medications and drugs and alcohol.  They do NOT want people to band together.  They divide people up every chance they get.  They decide what information you hear, and they decide what opinions you get to have.  They have charted a future course for our world involving TONS of conflicts and wars.  They envision scenarios where many people are slaughtered.  These Ghouls are the face of evil in our world.  What can stop them?

Well, it’s up to the people to take a stand.  Sometimes, taking a stand means thanking your leader for years of service, asking them politely to bow out in a dignified manner, and going home when he says “OK, I am quitting right now, here I am handing over the keys in a ceremony”.

Here’s the best part of what’s happening in Egypt right now.  Provided that we do not have mass chaos, violence, and slaughter in Tahrir Square, provided that the sensible solution proposed is actually taken up by all parties, then we may be looking at a new phase in human society unfolding.  And believe you me, the Ghouls don’t want this!

The way that governments are run in the western world is funny.  Nothing really ever gets done.  People are fooled into voting for the puppets of the Ghouls, because the media shoves fake polls down their throats for months ahead of time.  Every second year is an election year, in some places, rendering the government tantamount to useless.  In most western governments, representatives yell at one another and do stupid tricks rather than govern the country.  They spend millions of dollars on “attack ads” which tell the people nothing important.  Acrimony and bitterness always rule the day.  The whole thing is just a huge charade and that’s the way the Ghouls like it.

But hey – maybe there’s a better way?  Maybe competition has no place in politics.  Maybe elections should simply be the people deciding who are best qualified to do the job, and nothing else – not a gladiator battle.  Can you picture a government run under the principles of COOPERATION rather than conflict?  Can you picture a functioning government consisting of a coalition, rather than warring parties at eachother’s throats?

Well, if you can’t, then maybe Arab nations can.  They did complex works of art before the rest of the world was drawing in pencil. And maybe, once again, they are going to invent something new – a new way of doing democracy.  Maybe the Arabs are going to show us how it should actually be done, rather than the way that we westerners are currently doing it.  Maybe a new day of “cooperative democracy” is being born in Egypt.

At this point, all we can do is sit and watch them do it, and hope that the well-meaning Egyptian protesters get to live, to see their grandchildren flourish in the new world that they have created.

P.S. the latest: the media have now released some more inflammatory material designed to keep things rolling in Cairo towards a bloody conclusion. It seems some “leaked cables” have linked Suleiman to Israel, which is designed of course to ensure that the protesters will not accept him. Mubarak (oops spelled it wrong up there) is apparently still refusing to step down. Each concession made by the Egyptian government will further divide the people. The protesters are just pawns being played in a bigger game, but they don’t realize it yet. The people who think they run the world would NEVER allow the common people to displace one of their puppet leaders – that would set a very bad precedent. So we are on a shaky road down to an unknown conclusion. If the law was employed as it should be, if Mubarak would only hand over power to the Supreme Court Chief as the constitution dictates, then all would be resolved peacefully. But for some reason he refuses to do as the law demands he do. This must be because he is listening to the wrong advisors. Mubarak must ask himself, should he keep listening to these Ghouls, or should he do what’s best for his people? Everything will come down to that decision.