Showing posts with label Institutions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Institutions. Show all posts

When Institutions seek to protect themselves, rather than protect the most vulnerable - the pattern we must confront.

A letter I wrote and sent to various media and political representatives.

"I write as a Survivor. 




In recent articles covering The Catholic Church, the careful host of innumerable predatory clerics, and the case of Ms. Lethby, the serial killer of babies within an NHS setting, the same pattern emerges - an institution seeks to protect it's reputation and status when atrocious abuse is disclosed, the abusers continue to gain access to the most vulnerable and cause more intolerable harm.  When they are eventually stopped, it is already too late.

Avoidable harms to the most vulnerable are not avoided in order to avoid perceived harms to one's public reputation. This is a pattern, a behavioural characteristic, a cultural dynamic.

"The psychology of any given culture or society is both revealed and perpetuated in how they relate to and treat the most vulnerable among them."

The primary task of healthy social management is to prevent harm and to increase safety in any organisation.

From Austerity to Catholic Institutions, from NHS management to the managers of the London Met, from the way Fossil Fuel Industry has masked awareness of what continued use of fossil fuels was long proven to cause, and then how each of these devoted vast PR resources to campaigns of denial and propaganda to deflect responsibility and evade accountability in order to enable continuation of their operations, we see this pattern and the vast harm it causes.

This goes well beyond the 'few bad apples' trope, another careful and often used line of defence. This is clearly a question of unhealthy social management.

Is it not time we turned and faced this problem, this pattern of behaviour, as a cultural and institutional matter of the utmost importance?  

How do we change the psychology of a culture where those who occupy positions of distal power seek to protect their power and in so doing the evade their duty of care to the most vulnerable, leading to more harm rather than more safety? 

Well, the first step is to publicly recognise the pattern, to be open and honest about how wide and deep it penetrates our Society, with a view to breaking that pattern. 


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

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

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

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

https://www.reverbnation.com/corneilius - .mp3 songs

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

https://www.corneilius.net - Archive

#folkmusic
#singersongwriter
#blogger
#music

Letter : The Catholic Church, Transparency, Humility and Justice

Letter : The Catholic Church, Transparency, Humility and Justice



To the Editor

The independent Inquiry into Catholic Cleric Abuse behaviour in France has shocked that nation, with estimates of between 241,000 and 330,000 children attacked between 1950 and 2020. 

Most Survivors in those other countries where similar inquiries have taken place could see this coming a mile off. With each inquiry more is revealed.  With each, there is still more to be revealed.

30 years of exposure and even still, the Catholic Church, and others - and there are many other settings where sexual attacks upon children have been and still are being perpetrated - have not come clean. 

These powerful institutions have not offered total transparency, and they continue to defend and litigate against Survivors - what would Jesus do?  

Would He urge fullest possible transparency and humble honesty as a key element in both accountability and prevention? 

Such a move need not be humiliating for The Catholic Church - rather it would be a liberation from its own internal tyranny to do justice for all the Survivors, the living and the deceased.

What would be a truly just accounting, and what would a truly wise and healthy outcome look like?

How would Jesus approach the Survivors? How would Jesus end this story? 

Yours sincerely



Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

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

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

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

https://www.reverbnation.com/corneilius - .mp3 songs

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

https://www.corneilius.net - Archive

#folkmusic
#singersongwriter
#blogger
#music

Political Power Health and Safety Check required, immediately.



Milosovic

Blair

The Vatican

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

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


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

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


Institutions, power and honesty.


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

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

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

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

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


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


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

Institutions are power centres.

Schools are also power centres.

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

‘No child left behind.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

Established Power will use its power to protect itself.

The People are not to challenge that.

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

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

We do not see the full evidence.

We do not see justice.

Fines.

No criminal indictments.

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

That is why Public Inquiries have failed to deliver Justice.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What does that really mean?

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

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


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

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

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

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

We must get on with it.

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





Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

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

What are we voting for: Police, Official Secrets, Protecting the most heinous of people because they ARE power?

Musing on Saint Patrick's Day. And what Christianity brought to our Island.

"Why the police won’t talk about Cyril Smith, child sex abuse and corruption"



Watch as the British Establishment 'manages' the Institutional 'response' to the 'allegations' of sexual exploitation and worse, of vulnerable children. By active members of Government and other high office. Covered up by the State to protect .... the State?

Are the children not of the State, then? Are they not citizens?

To protect Power, and to protect the facility of projecting that Power.


------

The Irish are my Family, the English are my Family, the Welsh, they are my Family, the Scots they are my Family...

The comments section is interesting. People are aware.

The article is a start....

----- Dreaming of Eire, the female godess, the mother warrior. St. Patrick, Rome and Christianity. All three ruined the dream.
"First we came for The Vatican, then we came for The Dioceses, then we came for State, and then we came for The Establishment, - The Institutions, and individual actors active in those Institutions, who clearly committed the most heinous of criminal acts, and we must meet this with our own action, to make abuse history within the grass roots, and when we are done, and we will see this through, the healing will be complete.

Speak truth, always. Listen well.

Long journey. Keep walking.
"

In the meantime, right about ... now!

There are no excuses. None. WE, the people cannot accept that Institutional logic. Ever.

We understand the philosophy, the psychology, the behaviour and actions of those officials who covered up. for those higher up the power chain. who had committed unspeakable crimes against vulnerable children ...... these are facts, rather than excuses. The rational is obvious - protect the image and status of the State, of Government above all other considerations.


Setting aside for a moment the principle of the fundamental and intrinsic adult responsibility to protect and nurture children, the urge to 'protect', as an institutional reaction is understandable, as pointed out above, and yet when it relates to such matters and when the truth is suppressed at such cost, this urge becomes an irrational behaviour through and through.
Because it undermines the Institutions concerned at their foundations. They have no standing whilst this is happening. And it abandons the victimised to  more trauma, more pain, more abuse.

'Twould have been better to expose the lot, at the time, and deal with the issues robustly, service justice and legislating for prevention, by education, therapy and other supports, and that would have strengthened that Institution big time, in real human terms ..... but that did not happen. Not in the UK, not at The Vatican, not in the many hundreds of Catholic and other congregations .... that is what it is. We see what they have each in turn done. 'Managed' the 'story'.

It has never happened for the many Aboriginal Societies that fell to the sword and anvil of 'progress'. There's a lot of baggage, and it must be unpacked and dealt with.

Speaking of which this article takes the behaviour of the Tony Abbott Government into the most surreal of realities.

A piece of legislation exempting certain large giant private Companies  from issuing public accounts on the basis that such details being in the public domain would expose the board members, Executives and management to kidnap threat. The law has been passed.

For certain members of the Governing Institutions, across Society, the law is a tool , it is their tool to do with as they wish. This cannot stand, not when what we know is all of what has happened on this story of abusers within Institutions that protect the abusers to protect themselves!?
------

What needs to happen is that the UN ought to investigate, and all whistle blowers be given the safety to reveal what they knew that was suppressed, that action be directed to identify those culpable, and where possible detain same where there is evidence based or proven allegations, investigate, report and then, in addition, all the way through the process, let the Survivors lead the story for a while....  all these adults clamouring and the children's voices remain as if mute.

What is that all about?

Possibly Stockholm Syndrome-ish at the mass level, or at least within the mainstream thought police, voters, people who still believe in the benign nature of our System and culture of Power, people just keeping it together to live a 'decent life' who can't handle the threat of the truth... it's too much for some people, for sure.


Just my way of looking at things.



Let the People hear The Survivors,let the people supports the survivors and protect the children ..... those what want to articulate in public aspects of their experience, and insight, they deserve to be heard and understood. We might learn much.

Within the mainstream, this story is of course going to be submerged by the election soap opera, sports and other news.

So my question to my readers, to all adults who vote, to those who do not: What are we all voting for?

More of the above?

Healing?

Justice?

Kindness?


Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

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

Adverse Childhood Experiences present in both immediate behaviur, and long term illness later in life. Punishment does not work.;

Rather a long title, I know.

It's just that this has been rattling 'round my heart recently when I saw a brief article suggesting it's time to make emotional abuse a criminal offence, and the article avoided the subject of how to help parents break cycles of behaviour that are effectively institutionalised in our Society. Including coercive schooling.

And at the same time, I have to look at my own health, and observe the changing health of those older than I, as well as my peers, as it is emerging now I am in my 50s. For sure some of my behaviour - I smoke - is causing me some damage. There are also a number of visible behavioural issues, such as unreasonable anger I might find difficult to control at times, intense political rants at in appropriate moments,  shyness, telling dreadful jokes. 

There's a damaged knee from a fall long, long ago that was never diagnosed, my changing eyesight. 
These and other symptoms are all visible. My friends probably see them clearer than I do.

Q. Are there processes within my body that have been disrupted as a consequence of my earliest experiences such as caesarian birth, incubator baby etc etc.... events that I cannot recall?

This is a question that has been of interest to me for some time, and I have taken steps to explore and to a small degree deal with some of this. There's always more I could do.

As much as I might have expressed my pain, grief, anger and resolution at the time, I certainly have suppressed some of each in turn, buried it, stored it in my body somewhere.

We experience our lives, and if the earliest years are adverse, or there is trauma at any time, that experience is written into our bodies, our minds, our hearts and souls. So too the good stuff. Our response to those experiences can be external or internal. Resolution or just coping. Or enjoying.

It terms of 'just coping' here are two modes of presenting outcomes of a situation where the natural mandated experience are disrupted, over time.

Externalisation : the expression of distress outwards, presenting as anti-social behaviour, aggressiveness, non-compliant children, etc.... visually observable

Internalisation : the holding of that distress within the body, the distress goes inwards, as in one's boo-chemsitry is thrown out of balance as a result of adverse traumatising events, and coping means resolution does not happen, so the feelings of pain, fear, grief remain, stressing the body's systems, eventually presenting as as physical symptoms or a disease state that emerged over time ....usually invisible until the symptoms become noticeable, or cause pain, discomfort or organ failure.

Externalisation : punishment for 'bad behaviour, blame and sanctions.

Internalisation : medication, surgical intervention, suppression of symptoms, make the pain go away, complications and death due to some inherent weakness of patient not any inadequacy of treatment.

Object : to avoid discussing the source of the distress, which if carried out honestly, scientifically and logically would demand that certain Institutional Influences/Powers would have to abdicate, step aside, take the gold watch, retire or just go. Or accept the information and change accordingly, as a mature and psychologically healthy adult no doubt would do.
 1. In truth, ALL adults are parents, for parenting was never meant by biology to be a couple based process, let alone a working couple based process.

2. So we are where we are.....

3. I am looking at two sets of symptoms of distress or trauma, one's that emerge at the time and are visible, and as such, provide a useful starting point for a resolution of the distress or trauma.

3.a Others, less visible, emerge many years later, often as disease states, some of them life threatening, all life debilitating to some degree.


4. A little empathy towards children would go a long, long way to reducing the NHS annual budget on a wide range of conditions.

4.a The use of punishment to control the child, which Institutional Society accepts as necessary. and standard parenting jealously guards as a 'right'. Indeed as corporal punishment was outlawed in public schooling, it was replaced with psychological behavioural modification punishment through highly structured, target based educational processes which stress both teacher and child.

4.b The widespread practice of medication to suppress disease or ill-health symptoms are both qualified with 'it's for your own good'. They are linked.

4.c Psychology, dysfunctional or functional always seeks congruence throughout.


5. The science : The Adverse Childhood Experience Life Survey http://www.cdc.gov/ace/year.htm in brief... there is much, much more solid science on all this, and it all points towards a biological mandate towards empathy, and self empathy as an expression of optimal human health.

6. A good doctor is always trying to ensure he is not needed. Prevention ought be the primary concern of any public health system, the primary drive of any decent physician.

7. I have heard that there is some political movement towards criminalising emotional abuse expressed towards children by parents, and other primary carers. It sounds like punishment..... which we know does not work.

In this, prevention is surely the most important aspect to be concerned with, by a long margin.


Most parents follow the parenting 'style' that Institutional Society suggests, the ideal of the 'normal parent', and most parents will also, as a basic biological process repeat with their own children aspects of their earliest learnings and experiences, much of it unconsciously, because in the biology, the child grows into the psychological state of the parents, and of their world, which in our case is very largely defined by Institutional Power, through Governance, Wars, Economics, Ideology and Religion, and the defenceless child must adapt to that psychology as best he or she can, and some adaptations, or survival strategies the emerge in that situation become 'dysfunctional' psychological and behavioural patterns, many of which are damaging in the long term if they are maintained.


The child cannot be held responsible, and the adult must be held accountable; though within each adult is a child. wounded, fearful, surviving. So the psychology that determined that child's environmental habitat is also linked to the Institutional structure's psychology, and it's behaviours as much as it is linked to the individual parents.

Both share responsibility. Punishment is often a means to an end: one party can avoid it's responsibility in the matter.


That an adult CAN see the harm they could be or are causing, ought to be enough for that adult to choose to stop harming action. That choice is always there, no matter what the person might say.....  no matter who they are, whether they stride across the corridors of power or walk the streets.

So there's this element of choice or will, and of past psychological conditioning, stressful situations predicated by the way Power expresses itself throughout Society, resulting in presenting behaviour that is harmful, and both past and present must be understood and worked with, including incarceration as containment (not as punishment) where the danger to any other person or child is real, and with the clearest intent and mandate to resolve each case, and to prevent future occurrences, through honest education, and practical support, aiming to reduce the incidences across society over time.

Clearly, current punishment paradigms, current consumerist ideology, current understanding of what Governance means in practice, is all working against this potential pathway.

That does not diminish the value of this approach. It enhances it.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

An open letter to the media, the BBC and all others concerned with the issue of child abuse, and in particular concerning the reportage of the Jimmy Saville case….



An open letter to the media, the BBC and all others concerned with the issue of child abuse, and in particular concerning the reportage of the Jimmy Saville case….

To whom it may concern,

The most frequent word being used to describe those who have been abused, harmed or assaulted by Jimmy Saville is ‘victims’, rather than the term ‘Survivors’ which we Survivors ourselves prefer to use.

There is a qualitative difference between the two words – one implies weakness, the other strength.

The etymology of the word ‘victim’ and its link to the word ‘victor’ is interesting, and worth reflecting upon. The victor tends to justify any abuses they perpetrate, or harm they cause, and thus they minimise the meaning of the lived experience of those amongst the ‘defeated’.

Yes, Saddam was a monster – yet did the Iraqi people deserve what was visited upon them by the International Community in the name of removing this monster?

Madelaine Albright’s infamous comment on the sanctions that preceded the removal of Saddam, was that “the price was worth paying – we think the price was worth paying.”  A price paid not by her, not by the US Government, or any other, not even by Saddam, but by the Iraqi people and their children.

There is also the use of the phrase “victim consciousness” which is often used to denigrate those communities and cultures who have been subject to massive and long term trauma and who come forward and seek acknowledgement of their stories as human beings, (rather than the simple and cold historical facts and statistics), from the inheritors of the Powers that traumatised them.

They are asked to ‘get over it’ – ‘ old history, not our ‘fault’, ‘things are different now’, ‘can we please move on’ etc etc….

These phrases are used to deflect honest reflection upon what has happened, and what the long term and present adverse affects are in meaning, and in the lived experience.

Vulnerability is not the same as weakness. One cannot describe the boys and girls assaulted by Jummy Saville as being weak, and ascribe that value of weakness to them as a quality they expressed that led to their abuse. One cannot in all fairness ascribe the value of weakness to those who suffer from the adverse affects of intergenerational trauma. Vulnerability is closer to the truth.

To Survive trauma and abuse most often means to live past the events themselves, scarred and wounded, and to slowly and painfully try to re-assemble oneself so as to continue to live as best one can.

Often this has to be done without adequate support or understanding from those closest to the Survivor, let alone the wider community and Society. This takes a formidable  unacknowledged strength.

Not all Survivors make it, and it’s not through weakness that this happens. It’s through vulnerability, and through that heart breaking sense of abandonment that comes with denial, that comes with the all too common reflexive unwillingness of Society to accept that a pillar of Society could behave in such manner, a refusal to believe the Survivor because it threatens the projected image and self image of what are held to be central tenets or solid Institutions of Society.

”How could someone who did SO MUCH GOOD do so much evil?”

A Survivor would never ask that question in the way the media has framed the reporting of that question. A Survivor would never ask it in that tone of bewilderment.
 The Survivors of Jimmy Saville's abuses are not concerned with the reputation of the BBC, as much as they are concerned with truth, recovery and restorative justice and the protection of present and future children.

So I am calling on all media, and anyone else concerned with these matters, to cease using the word ‘victim’ to describe those who were abused, and to use instead the word Survivor.To attribute strength to those who come forwards, and to those who are unable to come forwards, just for their willingness to continue living and coping with what they have been through.

I would also add that using the word ‘victimisation’ to describe the abusers actions towards the vulnerable is more reliable and accurate. The victimiser alters the reality of the abused. The victimisers is the culprit.

Finally, I note that in all of the reporting, the stories and histories of Survivors appears to be being screened out. This is a grave omission. It cannot, and must not stand if truth, justice and genuine resolution is the intent of those who are writing and acting on this matter. Kindest regards

Corneilius Crowley



Kindest regards

Corneilius

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



Bookmark and Share

Simon Jenkins, Jimmy Saville, The BBC and The Pope

Simon Jenkins, in today's Guardian, writes an article that tries to typify the public's response, and that of some media, to the Jimmy Saville story as a 'witch-hunt' that feeds paranoia. To him there are other far more important issues that deserve the front page headlines...

"In our rush to apportion blame for the actions of an individual, we risk becoming blind to the real issues of the day" 

And he writes of how other 'issues' or stories have been sidelined due to this stories prominence...

"
Is Jimmy Savile and the BBC the biggest story on Earth? Apparently so. Today the British media placed it above Romney versus Obama, above the implosion of Lebanon and above the birth of the world's largest oil company. Savile was bigger than killer drones in Lincolnshire, bigger than Cameron's prison policy, bigger than the sensational Birmingham terrorism trial."

(though the fact remains that any reader or consumer of news might read the entirety of a newspaper, watch innumerable sources of on-line video news and still see all those other stories) and then Jenkins proceeds to say that nothing good will come of this, because a) Saville is dead and damned b) everyone in Institutions will be now driven to ensure no-one is allowed near a child without a chaperone :

"
Soon doctors, lawyers and priests will have to practise, like the police, in pairs. Responsibility for our behaviour apparently no longer rests on us as individuals but on anyone whom a lawyer can claim was "responsible" for our contact with others. We are no longer our own masters. This is the royal road to Orwellian hell."
 
Jenkins is using hyperbole to distract his readers from the fundamentals of what the Saville story really means.

FACT : The abuse of power is at the root of most of the really serious problems we face, be it at the personal level or beyond.....


Those who seek power - be it at the personal level, at the political level or in the office or school - are often psych
ologically damaged (and therefore dangerous) people - while not all will be as harmful as Tony Blair, George Bush or Jimmy Saville, the multitude of those who seek and attain some degree of power and who look the other way, who justify their silence when they have access to evidence that deserves to be revealed, who fear to speak out because they might lose a job or damage their careers are an essential component in the abuse of Power by those prepared to cause harm to others.

Sue Gerhardt's analysis of Tony Blair and George Bush in her book 'Selfish Society' r2010 e-iterates what Alice Miller's 'For Your Own Good: The roots of violence in childhood mistreatment' clearly demonstrated in 1986.

If we really want an empathic, healthily functioning Society in the long term, we, all of us, have to address the way our Society relates to children, to parenting and education, to 'care' and in particular address the fact that Power sees children/people as potential workers, economic units essential for 'growth' and that Power underplays and undermines what we all need for genuine happiness, as we race towards the illusion that wealth (consumerism) generates happiness.

Simon Jenkins unwillingness to admit or acknowledge this is typical of those who prefer to protect the status quo. The tone of his article is dismissive, angry, petulant.

"Those running big organisations, in the public and private sectors, face a lethal pincer movement. On the one side is a rising tide of risk aversion, seeping into every factory, office and profession, stifling enterprise, "reassessing" risk, clogging decision. On the other is a fear of what happens should this process fail. Just as the concept of an accident has slid from legal status, so has the "honest mistake". When Entwistle today admitted and regretted his mistake in not asking in more detail about the Savile programme, his tormenters hardly noticed. Honest mistakes do not exist, being replaced by only the most serious and probably criminal negligence, fit only for the pillory, the stocks or the gallows."


George Entwhistle's honest mistake? ignoring evidence that Jimmy Saville, far from deserving a 'celebratory special' was a nasty, nasty harmful man, and ignoring the fact that the many Survivors of his horrific abuse would be further traumatised by the transmission of that 'celebratory special', and that those who had come forward would once again suffer from being ignored, rejected, not believed.

That was not an honest mistake, that was an act of incredible irresponsibility, and act that demonstrates a profound lack of empathy for all those adversely affected by Jimmy Saville's abuse. The Survivors and their families.

Nothing he has done yet is sufficient to repair this. George Entwhistle has a choice to make. To honestly admit his error, and respond as required or do what so many people in power are prepared to do .... avoid empathy, attend to the status quo, to the agenda of Power.


Just as David Cameron's Coalition Government's actions in cutting funding to services that support vulnerable people, cuts that have caused yet more pain and suffering to thousands of disabled people all over the UK are evidence of a deep lack of empathy for the reality of the lives of other less powerful people.
(I  do not hold Cameron alone responsible - every member of the Government, and all  Parliamentarians are equally culpable unless they counter these particular cuts with all their might, as these particular cuts in funding are 100% un-neccessary.)

Just as the Pope, and many Bishops and Curates, and others around the world who ignored Survivors testimony, or hushed it up to protect their Institutions revealed a profound lack of empathy for those who suffered so much at the hands of predatory priests, at the hands of men and women willing to visit intolerable violence upon children.

(The BBC's sickeningly fawning coverage of the Pope's visit to the UK in 2010 which sidelined the world wide story of intolerable suffering inflicted upon hundreds of thousands, if not millions of children over the past centuries in favour of a celebration  of the Pope parallels the Saville story.... a pattern is repeated..)


We CAN live without Institutions which are populated and controlled by adults who refuse to tackle this behavioural dysfunction head-on. We must.

Any institution that permits this kind of dysfunction for whatever reason, or tries to 'manage a crisis' from the perspective of protecting itself, suggesting that the crisis is the revelation  of abuse, and not the abuse itself - is an inhumane, psycho-pathological entity that does far more harm than good.

If the BBC wants to regain trust, then it must be 100% honest, and man up to the realities, no matter how much it hurts or costs... no matter who amongst the powerful is exposed as an abuser, a facilitator of abuse or an apologist for abusers...

I am furious, yet not at all petulant, when I say:

"Grow up, Jenkins, grow up!"

Let me make something clear here : George Entwhistle is not responsible for Jimmy Saville's behaviour. That responsibility lies with Jimmy Saville - he made his choices. Thus, he removed choice from many young peoples lives.


Entwhistle IS responsible for the
BBC, and therefore for the BBC's response to these revelations, and is equally responsible to ALL the licence payers, and to all of those who have survived Saville's abuse. He is in the hot seat, and he elected to apply for that job.

He may well be on a very fast learning curve. So be it.
He will not be forgiven for failing in his duty as an adult human being. Nor should he be  given any slack. The same applies to Simon Jenkins.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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



Bookmark and Share

Reality check : abuse is systemic in Institutional Power.

This has to be said : the issue of abuse of power, especially the abuse of vulnerable people who have little voice or ability to counter the behaviour of Power is linked to the struggle for a decent, empathic society across a range of areas, from politics, to environment to psychological indoctrination to religion.

I see no critical difference between the abuse of children by pedophiles and the abuse of Iraqi and Afghan people as perpetrated by Tony Blair and George Bush et al. Or the abuse of disabled people, which as led to an extra 73 deaths per week, as perpetrated by George Osborne and David Cameron, and by extension, the Civil Service. Institutional Power is mediated by people and cannot abuse without the participation and direct compliance of those people.

In truth the 'system' we were born into is the same dynamic as an abuse family... the abuser, the abused, the scapegoat, the rebel, the cast outs, the appeasers and those who ignore what is going on, who keep their heads down, etc all appear in these situations..



Kindest regards

Corneilius

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



Bookmark and Share

I Don't Fit In!

I am working on a song entitled "I Don't Fit In!"

I don't fit in to a Society that accepts War as a tool of State Policy.

I don't fit into a Society that tells children what to think and applies sanctions against them for dissent against the prevailing ideology.

I don't fit in to a Society that segregates children and elders from the activities of Governance.

I don't fit in to a Society that accepts poverty as a necessary outcome of the concentration of wealth.

I don't fit in, and I am glad of it.

After many,  many years of self criticism because I felt that I did not fit in, and was therefore somehow inadequate because so many others seemed to 'fit in', and also because of the frequent criticism from many others, not least people in positions of Authority such as politicians, clergy, social workers, media pundits etc,  who use the term 'misfit' all too frequently,  which appeared to corroborate and support that self criticism, I can finally say with utter clarity that I know why I don't fit in, and that my knowledge is absolutely evidence based and accurate.

This is not to say that 'the world we live in is rotten or horrid' - it is to say that the Earth has at this time a Dominant human Culture that is abusive, and that the self criticism I and many others experience is an internalisation of the values of that Dominant Culture, and that that internalisation is part of the self policing that culture depends upon to maintain itself.

From my experience and perspective, I say that Earth is a biologically nurturant environment, where natural processes function to improve the conditions of life, for all life, in a manner that can best be described as responsive learning leading to precise adaptations to the variations in the environment.

Here is an essay by David Smail (short video of David Smail speaking about psychological distress and depression) entitled "The Experience of School: Empowerment or Oppression" that looks at this, and contains some valuable insights into the dynamics of 'not fitting in', the aggressive attitude directed towards those who 'don't fit in', by both friends and family, by co-workers, and by Institutions and how to counter it....

What kind of human being would even want to fit it to such a Society?


Kindest regards

Corneilius

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





Bookmark and Share