Category: Uncategorized

Are you tired of being taken for a fool?

The stark reality is that the front persons of the ultra-immoral elite know exactly how to push human buttons—either building up those predisposed to their depravity, or making life especially miserable for those whose hearts and minds, and often relationships, are ravaged by their lies. Whatever that was in Washington, D.C. yesterday, April 25, it brings out key elements of what the crap Americans have been going through is about, in my humble view.

Consider your own setting

I’m no sociologist, psychologist, or expert on anything, but I presume to think an element or two of my own experience suggests how this manipulation works, and how it can be countered.

If you have a master manipulator in your life, say, at work, one of their key tools (among many) is coddling of the impressionable, together with character assassination for others—those who might put blocks up against their self-elevating and ego-stroking designs.

Their strategy against rivals:

Step 1: Identify a character flaw that can be hung around your neck. At some time we all have acted defensively or taken something personaly. That gets generalized and elevated into being a defining component of who you are.

Step 2:—and here’s the key, and transition to the larger political picture—They know the buttons to push to elicit the characteristic/s they have chosen to highlight in you—to destroy your credibility and clear their way, whatever that might be, in your group/org/project.

Your plan: Have the self-awareness to identify what your “buttons” might be and don’t let anyone push them.

Some things are clear

Re what happened at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner:

1. Trump, as President, has always boycotted this event, castigating the media. The event is intended to be fun and light-hearted.

2. This year he announced his plans to come, and brought a significant entourage from his Administration.

3. Very shortly after the incident, a composed Trump, surrounded by a weirdly cheerful entourage, helpfully pointed out that what had just happened underlined the need for a White House ballroom.

Something is seriously off here. Worst case: This was a sick ploy to push a lot of buttons.

Summary

There is one key element on which the designs and actions of oppressors and tyrants depends. That’s the buttons in us that can be pushed. We all must have the humility to identify the buttons on our personhood, buttons that have to do with our fears, our flaws and delusions—whatever—and refuse to let them be used. Let’s just acknowledge them and, probably with help and support, deal with them. That, I believe, is the real key to shutting down all the crap.

Bottom line: Don’t let anybody push your buttons.

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Musical Addendum: For Emerging

Apple Music
https://music.apple.com/ca/album/for-emerging/1824860872?i=1824860873

Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/album/7i1XTzIf0LE1msbIFMQ7Rq?si=9XxpitJrThOhqbRWjVN72Q

YouTube
https://youtu.be/QZDkpQVyC2c?si=zH8V_9LuBeeAvqtg

To those who say, “Move on”: Whenever what is dark and ugly is suppressed, it does not go away. The forces involved go deep, further under cover, and gather strength. Moving on invites even greater disaster. The magma of that ugliness and destruction will break through, worse than ever.

There must be justice. And by justice I mean punishment. No matter who it is.

The survivors? My mind seizes up on knowing what can be done for them. Apologies? For sure. From the abusers. From the system. From a people—all of us, beyond borders.

Other than that? 

Electoral change of course is essential, but insufficient. Transformation is needed at the cellular level, and this isn’t just on you, America. People are damaged, all over. Whatever else, let’s look to simple things. Sing in the kitchen. Paint. Write silly poems. Read a book with someone.

Listen.

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Recent music, For Emerging (possibly for reflection):

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/7i1XTzIf0LE1msbIFMQ7Rq?si=CgACAvB_QFCnZ-jXpC_6Uw

Apple Music:
https://music.apple.com/ca/album/for-emerging-single/1824860872

YouTube:
https://youtu.be/QZDkpQVyC2c?si=Oy_QqwSI5CxDKWtW

I am having distinctly medieval vibes around the Epstein revelations, and much that we have already known about the crowd involved. Raping, pillaging the people. Ludicrous wealth. People feeling powerless. How can we move beyond incoherent bewilderment-becoming-rage? And not just ‘move on’—which would make us complicit with the evil.

It makes sense if we find something of feudal order here, and deep rot. In medieval times, people lived with a reality that those with power were without any such thing as accountability. The elite could act with impunity. All the rest were just to endure. What’s different now? We’re having the curtain pulled back to see the reality, and sense there can be a difference.

We’re not stuck with incoherent rage; we are capable of moral clarity. We can overcome the narrative of inevitability. We can can support those working to pry open the doors that powerful people are desperate to keep shut.

It is appropriate here to speak of apocalypse—not the B movie kind—but in the sense of ‘unveiling.’ What has been hidden becomes visible. The powerful are revealed as fallible, even monstrous. The king is seen as a fraud. The order of things is revealed as an elaborate stage set for the elite.

The current apocalypse isn’t the end. Just an end to the lie.

I’ll have more on this.

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Some let’s-get-moving music: It’s Thirds Day

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/2XERrGMvOz8ZkftMOu8l1W?si=TQp3M-3qSMGBH-aAQuEKrw

Apple Music:
https://music.apple.com/ca/album/its-thirds-day-single/1876665297

YouTube:
https://youtu.be/7xZ4YSgAtrg?si=rNzD0gpy8m8AU5rz

I have seen some reaction to Bad Bunny’s expression of America as a hemispheric entity. The reaction has concern for the history and character of America the nation, America being a short form of United States of America. I get that concern (It would be hypocritical of me, as a Canadian, with some of our recent elevated concerns, not to get that concern for national identity).

But let’s look at it this way, from say, lower Earth orbit. We see, as we always hear, no borders. But we know that, in reality, there are definitely individual countries. But zoom in and you see that those individual countries have distinct jurisdictions, regions, with their own identities and character. They are not dissolved by being part of the country. Zoom in further to individual communities. I’m in Toronto. Toronto, like any city, has individual neighbourhoods, rich in character. But that character is not threatened by being part of the larger community.

Can we not agree that, born out of history, there is an entity referred to as America that is both an individual country and a larger hemispheric reality? We have had, it seems, no trouble referring to that larger grouping as The Americas: a bi-continental reality that is distinct from, but part of and (hopefully) integrated with a larger reality called Earth.

Someday, we may have the further opportunity, and challenge, of seeing our Terran life and character as part of larger cosmic neighbourhood.

In short, along with Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, let’s broaden our perspective, not shrink it.

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Latest music release, In the Fullness of Timing:

Spotify:

Apple Music:
https://music.apple.com/ca/album/in-the-fullness-of-timing-single/1872571704

YouTube:

 

Making Boxing Day Chilli. It’s the chilli I usually make, but it’s Boxing Day, so … Actually, it’s Boxing Day 2021, so it’s BD21 Chilli. After all, we really only ever do anything once, just once. Everything is once-for-all. Even chilli.

There was chaos enough. I mean in Nova Scotia, like everywhere in these strange times. But it has descended there into something few of us can truly apprehend. 

Even at the best of times, I suspect you are not unusual if you have, not all that far beneath the surface, and even when things seem to be bumping along ok, a sense that it wouldn’t take much for everything to just fall apart. I suspect, further, that that beneath-the-surface thing is one reason routine is important for us. 

A very common pairing of words in the Bible would seem significant in how we can help one another with these under-the-surface things. I just used it: one another. Love one another, for instance. Our decisions, for good or for ill, even when they seem to concern only ourselves, have an impact on others. There are incalculable factors that lead up to the decisions we make, but there comes that moment when it is our decision to make, to say or do this or that.

We may never know what led to the Nova Scotian shooter’s decision to do what he did–though that is a necessary investigation– but it was, in the end, a decision (let’s not ask what drove him). It erupted in devastating chaos and darkness for many. 

I, for one, am reminded, especially given the fears and insecurities that may already be just beneath the surface of those I may affect, to take care regarding the decisions I make. Not, actually, a bad thing to pray at the start of each day.

Remarks recorded for the online funeral service, April 5, 2020, for my nephew, Geoff Kitson.