Violence is a many-layered thing

Let’s smash the patriarchy. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. Author: Quinn Dombrowski

by Kathie MM

“My partner never took responsibility for his own actions. He blamed me incessantly, even for his own abusive behavior. When confronted, he always had some excuse to justify himself. At his hands, I was subjected to insults, put-downs, shouting, threats and sarcasm….He typically ended his verbal assaults by accusing me of provoking his abuse or telling me that I deserved it. …” [i]

Every reader of this blog recognizes this type of guy—an entitled bully who considers himself right at all times and becomes enraged at any sign of “disrespect” or threat to his “authority.”  He’s the kind of guy whose behavior inspired the feminist movement–and more recently the “smash patriarchy” initiatives.  And he’s everywhere.

Clearly there are many men who have respect for others, and who feel compassion and empathy for all who struggle with life’s challenges, even those who differ in gender, sexuality, skin color, faith, and/or national origins.  But who is it that you see running, controlling, and bossing the “traditional families,” big corporations, military-industrial complexes, and governments? Who is it that wrote the laws, stacked the judiciaries, assumed control of the armies, and built the structures and shaped the cultures to ensure and strengthen their own power while enriching themselves? Not Sojourner Truth, not Harriet Tubman, not the Suffragettes, not Jane Addams, not Jeannette Rankin, not Rosa Parks, not Shirley Chisholm, not Medea Benjamin (and not Martin Luther King, Jr., or the many other male supporters of peace and justice, either).

So, if we want peace and justice, harmony and hope, to whom do we turn in these frightening times? The models for nonviolence and cooperation are everywhere too—it’s just harder for them to break through the Old Guard’s barriers without help from all of us who see the widespread injustices and looming catastrophes.

So, if you’re tired of seeing violence rewarded at every level of society while the rich get richer and just about everyone else gets poorer, don’t get in bed with the bad guys! Look for the people in your own community who recognize the threats to our environment and to humanity, and support their efforts.  Free yourself from the corporate media.

While you’re at it, take a good look at current members of Congress.  Identify, among both newer and established members of Congress, both female and male, Republican and Democrat, both those who are invested in the status quo, and those who will work to reform the corrupt structures endangering us all. Support the reformers, in and out of government.  Our freedoms, our rights, our very lives are at stake.

And, for further ideas and opportunities, investigate organizations like Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom   (and support engaging peace).

[i] Adapted from a case study published in Family Violence in the United States, by Hines, Malley-Morrison, & Dutton, 2nd ed.


CRAZY WISDOM

By Stefan Schindler

 Do you occasionally feel that you’re about to go crazy? Or think that perhaps you already have? Do you often feel like Don Quixote, vainly tilting at windmills? Yes, probably. But then you remember the meaning of the term Greater Fool. A Greater Fool is one who exhibits greatness in commitment to peace, no matter how foolish that commitment seems in a world intent on going mad.

You remember that you are not alone. You have comrades. Millions of brothers and sisters equally committed to kindness and compassion. They too are Greater Fools, like Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Romero, Tolstoy, Emerson, Tagore. Like Mother Jones, Emma Goldman, Dorothy Day, Helen Keller, Vandana Shiva, Amy Goodman, Naomi Klein. Like Martin Luther King and Muhammad Ali. Like Mark Twain, William James, Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, Michael Moore, Howard Zinn. Like Meister Eckhart, Thomas Merton, George Fox, Matthew Fox, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Dalai Lama. Like Rosa Parks, Maya Angelou, Jane Fonda, Joan Baez, Susan Sarandon, the Trung sisters of Vietnam. Like Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. John and Robert Kennedy, too. Greater Fools, one and all.

And, yes, The Beatles. “All you need is love,” they sang, and you hum it every day. War without end seems to be the world’s way, and yet you never cease to chant, “Give peace a chance.” The Statue of Liberty weeps. Mother Earth is crucified. Storm clouds darken the horizon. And yet you sing: “Here comes the sun.” Yes, I am you, you are me, and we are all the walrus. We have each other. We keep the faith. We persevere.

Chogyam Trungpa, combining Tibetan Buddhism and Zen, called it Crazy Wisdom. So, yes, it’s OK to be a little crazy, as long as your craziness is that of the Greater Fool. Humanity may elect lunatics for leaders, and go about their business sleepwalking through history. Yet you, at least, are awake. Indeed, you are part of The Great Awakening. You belong to The Global Peace Abbey. It welcomes all and has no walls. We are warriors for peace, on the cutting edge of evolution. There is no greater satisfaction, no greater joy, no greater service.

So rejoice, my friend. The angels sing your praises, and lend you unconditional support. The reward for service is increased opportunity to serve.

Resisting the Mind Games of Donald Trump and the One Percent, Part 3

Title page of The Golden Fleece by William Vaughan (1577-1641). 1626. In the public domain. Memorial University of Newfoundland website (and there is fleecing going on in the public domain today too). us-public-domain-tag

My last post shows how lies and manipulations have the country into a state of ever-growing fear and anger.  Unfortunately, without active resistance, the current crisis may go….

From Bad to Worse

To be clear, it certainly makes sense that our core concerns — about vulnerability, injustice, distrust, superiority, and helplessness — should be front-and-center when it comes to thoughtful deliberations about matters of public policy and the common good. Meaningful, far-reaching progressive change requires nothing less. But it’s profoundly destructive — and deeply immoral — when these concerns are instead exploited in a manipulative and disingenuous manner to advance narrow interests that bring harm and suffering to so many. That’s the legacy of Trump’s successful presidential campaign. It’s also a disturbing preview of what we should expect from him and his administration going forward.

At the same time, we shouldn’t mistake Trump’s targeting of these concerns as unique. Indeed, back when he was known as just an ethically impaired real estate mogul and entertainer, other plutocracy-enabling leaders in both major parties were relying on similar psychological mind games: to block climate change initiatives (Senator James Inhofe in 2003: “Could it be that manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people? It sure sounds like it.”); to justify voter suppression tactics (Texas Governor Greg Abbott in 2006: “In Texas, an epidemic of voter fraud is harming the electoral process.”); to defend discriminatory law enforcement practices (former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on stop-and-frisk in 2014: “Every American has a right to walk down the street without getting mugged or killed.”); to oppose wage hikes (New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in 2012: “Here’s what’s going to happen — they’re going to have to lay people off.”); to preserve healthcare as a profiteer’s paradise (Senator Rand Paul on healthcare as a right in 2011: “I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery.”); to protect tax breaks for the super-rich (U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means, on the estate tax in 2015: “The death tax is unfair and in conflict with the American Dream”); to turn public education over to greedy privatizers (former Obama Education Secretary Arne Duncan on the 2010 premiere of a pro-charter school, anti-teachers’ union film: a “Rosa Parks moment”); and to galvanize support for deadly wars of choice (President George W. Bush in 2002: “Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof — the smoking gun — that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”). Those are just a handful of examples.

In some ways, then, Trump’s move to Washington will simply reinvigorate a well-entrenched predatory agenda that already enriches the few at the expense of everyone else. But there’s also something that clearly makes him qualitatively worse than many other prevaricating one-percenters: he brings to the White House a toxic brew of bigotry, belligerence, and brutality. This has obvious and far-reaching significance. It means that those who are now disadvantaged — especially people of color and other marginalized groups — will face even tougher times ahead as scapegoating and misdirected hostility intensify.

But Resistance Isn’t Futile

There are avenues for withstanding and rebuffing the coming onslaught. The mind games used by Trump and others like him are primarily designed to mislead, to confuse, and, most importantly, to suppress broad opposition to extreme inequality and the withering of democracy. That’s why their worst nightmare is the formation of strong coalitions that bridge stubborn cultural, racial, religious, gender, and class divides. Building and nurturing these coalitions must therefore be a top priority. It’s an endeavor that will require unwavering support for those most immediately at risk and, simultaneously, a clear recognition of what we share in common: voices that have grown weaker, opportunities that have grown scarcer, and children whose futures have grown dimmer. In short, organized and unrelenting resistance will be a key element in obstructing the new administration’s calamitous ambitions.

It will be equally important to directly counter and debunk the President-Elect’s continuing barrage of duplicitous psychological appeals. During the election campaign, this effort proved inadequate. In part that’s because there was a widespread failure to fully appreciate the extent to which Trump’s false claims and assurances rang true for millions of disgruntled voters eager for change. Just as problematically, his final opponent was ill-suited to persuasively offer a compelling alternative narrative, one that would energize an electorate yearning for a candidate who’d take their fears, doubts, frustrations, and hopes seriously.

The 2016 election is over. Now it’s time to work together to make sure that Donald Trump’s hollow tales lose their luster and his self-aggrandizing motives are laid bare for all to see. In the weeks and months ahead, Americans of all stripes must come to realize that, through artifice and manipulation, super-sized hucksters have fleeced and betrayed the country and the people that made their staggering wealth and power possible.

Originally published in Counterpunch, December 22, 2016.  Reprinted with permission.

Roy Eidelson is a clinical psychologist and the president of Eidelson Consulting, where he studies, writes about, and consults on the role of psychological issues in political, organizational, and group conflict settings. He is a past president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, former executive director of the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at the University of Pennsylvania, and a member of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology. Roy can be reached by email at reidelson@eidelsonconsulting.com and on Twitter @royeidelson.

More articles by:Roy Eidelson

 

I still can’t breathe

It was a beautiful day in Massachusetts today—a day to get outside, breathe in fresh air, enjoy the sunshine, listen to the birds, and be grateful for being alive.  All of which I did.

But then a close friend brought me back to another reality, one that is never far from my consciousness or conscience, by sending me the link to the video at the beginning of this post.

Please watch and listen.

Watching and listening made me gnash my teeth, weep, rage. ask for the millionth time how people can bear to treat other people cruelly.  Such images always lead me, at least for awhile, close to despair.

But I had other reactions to the video.  The music is exalting; it raised me up and energized me. It reminded me forcefully of the courage of people who speak out, who sing out, who fight for social justice, and grateful that I personally know so many fine people of multiple hues who participate in that struggle.

What are your reactions when you tune in to the video?  what do you feel?  what do you want to do?

Personally I am sad to have retired from college teaching, to have lost the opportunity to encourage my students to be the real patriots–that is to work actively for peace and social justice in this country,  But I will continue to sign petitions, send letters, participate in demonstrations, and optimistically write this blog, grateful to any readers willing to approach my soapbox.

The story behind the making of the video and the lyrics to the song can be found at: http://www.swarthmore.edu/sites/default/files/assets/documents/chester-childrens-chorus/CCCSpringNewsletter.pdf. Please read. The poem/song is another great example of art on behalf of peace and social justice.

by Kathie Malley-Morrison