By Kevin Parkinson

Global Research, July 20, 2008

In the last 15 years or so, as a society we have had access to more information than ever before in modern history because of the Internet. There are approximately 1 billion Internet users in the world B and any one of these users can theoretically communicate in real time with any other on the planet. The Internet has been the greatest technological achievement of the 20th century by far, and has been recognized as such by the global community.

The free transfer of information, uncensored, unlimited and untainted, still seems to be a dream when you think about it. Whatever field that is mentioned- education, commerce, government, news, entertainment, politics and countless other areas- have been radically affected by the introduction of the Internet. And mostly, it’s good news, except when poor judgements are made and people are taken advantage of. Scrutiny and oversight are needed, especially where children are involved.

However, when there are potential profits open to a corporation, the needs of society don’t count.

….

Maintaining Internet (free) access is the only way we have a chance at combatting the global corporate takeover, the North American Union, and a long list of other deadly deeds that the elite in society have planned for us. Yesterday was too late in trying to protect our rights and freedoms. We must now redouble our efforts in order to give our children and grandchildren a fighting chance in the future.

Full article:

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9627

Clarence Darrow, your lawyer

I guess I was trying to say that DJ is justified in criticizing the kind of “soppy forgiveness,” as DeAnander put it, which demands nothing of the one who is “forgiven” and doesn’t change the relation of power between the two parties (whether that be between an abuser and victim, or between those communities of resistance and the “CEO’s” who are at the controls of the machines precipitating global catastrophe.)

However, I was worried that he seemed to be taking this notion of compassion as “soppy forgiveness” to be the only way that we could understand compassion. This was brought up specifically by his criticisms of Ghandi. DJ’s scenerio of someone preaching to a victim of abuse “You should show him some compassion even if her has done bad things. Don’t forget that he is a human, too.” is certainly inexcusable, but seems to me to be an oversimplified notion of compassion and the power of nonviolence and love.

This is why I was saying that there is such a thing as righteous anger, indignation and resistance (something that the person in DJ’s scenario with the abuse victim is denying them) and that these feelings and actions are not separate from love and in fact may be necessary for true compassion and true forgiveness. This is not the kind of love and compassion that simply lets the abuser or those in power off the hook, but demands a change in them and in their relationships, and it is the kind of transformational change that will occur outside of any conscious decision and their part. This is the power of nonviolence and love that Ghandi talked about. This kind of active compassion may have more power to make the necessary change in our world than blowing a dam, which may also be necessary, but we shouldn’t limit ourselves in our “moral imagination” as Stan says.

Helping to heal victims of abuse (whether it be a person or the earth) is what we are talking about here – the desired outcome. Healing is a dynamic process and one that is never over, certainly not in a lifetime. This is perhaps what Stan was talking about when he was saying that these situations are purposed as being static. There are times when anger is righteous, but there is also a thin line when anger also becomes hatred, when those we direct our anger at are no longer in the realm of our compassion, an objectified enemy, and this anger becomes an obstacle for healing.

In this way, I think we can come to understand our roles as “healers” in the mode of a “self-organizing paradigm” as DeAnander mention above which has also been a strain in this thread. I think permaculture has a lot to offer in this discussion and it hit me the other day while studying it. The role of a permaculture designer is to be a “guider of change” not to be an intervenor. When we intervene in our environments in an attempt to “fix” a perceived problem, our action of intervention, which often has limited, short term effect, causes other unforeseen consequences that then demand our further intervention. However, in designing permaculture systems one should observe and recognize that the ecological environment is always attempting to change and correct the imbalances we have caused and that the designer’s role is to put the necessary pieces into play to speed this recovery. The ultimate desired aim is to design oneself out of the system, and barring that to guide the change that is in play (irrespective of our actions) so that our needs as living beings are met.

So to bring this idea to the present discussion, and perhaps bring it a concrete personal example I was (and in many ways still am) very close to someone who grew up in an abusive family. When my advice was sought (which unfortunately I often gave when it wasn’t) I always struggled with how to help them see the difference between their justifiable anger and the anger that burned through every experience and was an obstacle to the healing process. Unfortunately in my own weakness I would project myself into the problem – I became and intervenor and lost credibility. However, someone more capable (perhaps someone with wisdom of experience and who was further down the path) would have guided them in the process of self-discovery of the difference in righteous anger and the anger of hate.

Now with a wider focus my uneasiness with the actions that DJ is purposing is not necessarily in the actions themselves, but in the mode that they might be done in – as intervention. I think to be the guiders of the kind of change that is necessary we must recognize that a force for change, for healing, and I’ll say it – love – occurs without our intervention, we must realize the need to stand aside when necessary and to carefully guide it when necessary – a very subtle art. With this recognition and, ahem… faith, in the force of change that is outside ourselves (and in whatever way we choose to explain it) – then we can get out of our own way and these self-organizing communities of action will take shape as they are already doing in their own way, even as we speak.

I hope this makes more sense, or that I didn’t say to much.. in some ways its easier to be ambiguous .

Having said that, the enemising meme is indeed dangerous stuff. We only have to recall the more grotesque moments of the Red Guard’s ascendancy in China, the persecutions under Stalin, etc. to understand the danger of zealous enemising in a revolutionary effort. Pursued with sufficient energy, it turns the vanguard — and their State — into a vicious bully (in the eyes of international opinion and of their own population). Which delegitimises the whole shebang.

Somewhere, it seems to me, there is a fine line between the soppy “forgiveness” meme that expressly suggests victims shut up and accept their lot or even learn to love their oppressors, and a demand for change (of systems, of behaviour) that doesn’t lose track of the humanity of the offender and the possibility of redemption/reparations. I’m not real verbal this morning and can’t wax eloquent on this topic, but it seems to me related to the broader principles of a more robust self-organising paradigm…

I don’t fully understand Jonathon’s 1st paragraph. What’s an “inactive principal”? Are you saying Jensen doesn’t think a person needs to take action in order to be compassionate? And that this is similar to the way abusers and CEO’s perceive compassion?

Nor his second paragraph (ok, maybe there was a lot I didn’t understand). What does it mean to be exclusive “of” something. Is that the same to being exclusive to something? Are you saying that justified anger, indignation and resistance (does that include violent resistance?) is not exclusive to compassion, nonviolence and love? I’m just asking as many questions as I can think to ask, so I can get my head around this.

So, given that I don’t know what “this” is, I don’t know about the fine line that separates it from “objectifying an enemy” is either, so some clarification on that may be in order. But I am curious as to whether “objectifying an enemy” is always an obstacle for healing. And specifically for healing what?

In regards to Stan’s post, I understood everything up until you said “the essence of power exists apart from the consequences of inevitable change.” I don’t understand what that means and so I also don’t fully understand what the second point either. Some elaboration on these points would be nice.

So that’s all the stuff that I don’t understand, but even with my very limited grasp I want to convey what I am feeling rather then what I understand. What I sense is that Stan has made some implications, that are broad and don’t apply to specific situations ie. explosives can’t be used with any predictability and that killing humans requires dehumanizing them which must be avoided at all costs.

Then when I’ve counter with similarly broad points (if not narrower), ie. the Weather Underground blew up a lot of stuff with a high amount of predictability and that despite the dehumanizing aspect some situations may call for certain people to be killed, all of a sudden the same openness which was acceptable for Stan’s initial claims are too broad for my counters. I have to come up with a specific plan for when and where and how, and it has to be real and it has to be now, or else I’m “borrowing trouble” or “what-if-ing.” This may not be what is happening, as is abundantly clear, I’m only grasping a limited part of the conversation. But that’s the gist I’m getting.

Circumstances are described in a very crystalized way, where the main antagonisms (primary contradictions) are highlighted. This is an explicit reduction, even though it is a very useful intellectual move, like cleaning out a lab before conducting experiments. I focuses the reader on the part of the problem that is ignored by most discourse. It also, however, implies that (1) the essence of power exists apart from the consequences of inevitable change, and (2) that this makes that power impermeable to anything except a bomb placed on a dam.

In the real world, the ability to seriously blow up a dam is limited to states and their destructive machinery, and the acquisition/employment of that ability by activists would set social change efforts back decades in one explosive moment; because the masses would rally to the state to go after the “terrorists.”

Pacifism and strategic non-violence are two entirely different things. Baiting actual pacifists as ineffectual sissies — as many lefty manly-men do (no one here yet) — is just schoolyard machismo. Pacifists are very fine political actors in my experience, deeply committed.

We have to leave the war metaphors for social revolution, and enemizing is a war metaphor.

I very much appreciate Jonathan bringing up compassion as “an active principle.” This is what is meant by “deeper moral imagination.” It’s sissified relational stuff…

There is such a thing as righteous anger, righteous indignation and righteous resistance – all of which are not exclusive of compassion, nonviolence and love. There is a fine line between this and when “objectifying an enemy” becomes an obstacle for healing.

I haven’t read the book that was quoted above, so perhaps I am misjudging from limited understanding and perhaps he says in a sense what I have already said, but from what I’ve picked up from various discussions here and elsewhere about the book it feels to me as if the ethical framework he is setting up given the unfolding global catastrophe, or the extreme situations many personally face, deserves some criticism. I think we should be careful not to let the magnitude of the problem(s) we face lead us into either/or reactions.

What is missing here is the twinned-need for both tactical agility and for a deeper moral imagination than identifying “enemies.”

Pacifism seems too simple and categorical a word.

Quotes from Derrick Jensen’s Endgame Vol. 2…

“I’ve also had this line crammed down my throat more times than I want to consider – often phrased as “You keep saying that in this struggle for the planet that you want to win, but if someone wins, doesn’t that mean someone has to lose, and isn’t that just perpetuating the same old dominator mind set?” – an I’ve always found it both intellectually dishonest and poorly thought-out.”

“(A man tries to rape a woman). She can’t get away. She tries to stop him non-violently. It doesn’t work. She pulls a gun and shoots him in the head. Obviously her freedom from being raped came at the expense of his life. Did she exploit him? Of course not. It all comes back to what I wrote earlier in the book: defensive rights always trump offensive rights. My right to freedom always trumps your right to exploit me, and if you do try to exploit me, I have the right to stop you, even at some expense to you.”

“The insanity continues. If you recall, Ghandi said, “Mankind has to get out of violence only through non-violence. Hatred can only be overcome by love….”

“Ghandi’s statement reveals an almost total lack of understanding of both abusive and pathological dynamics. His comment is one of the worst things you can say to anyone in an abusive situation, and one of the things abusers most want to hear. As I mentioned earlier, among the most powerful allies of abusers are those who say to the victims, “You should show him some compassion even if her has done bad things. Don’t forget that he is a human, too.” As Lundy Bancroft comment, “To suggest to her that his need for compassion should come before her right to live free from abuse is consistent with the abuser’s outlook. I have repeatedly seen the tendency among friends and acquaintances of an abused woman to feel that it is their responsibility to make sure that she realizes what a good person he really is inside – in other words, to stay focused on his needs rather than her own, which is a mistake. I want to underscore that Gahndi’s perspective is, following Bancroft, “consistent with the abuser’s outlook.”

Too often pacifists have said to me, “When you look at a CEO, you are looking at yourself. He’s a part of you, and you’re part of him. If you ever hope to reach him, you must recognize the CEO in your own heart, and you must reach out with compassion to this CEO in your heart, and to the CEO in the boardroom…”

“It’s remarkable that pacifists tell me to look at the killer and see myself, while never telling me to look at the victim and see myself: they are telling me to identify with the killer, not the victim.”

“Schiller’s line too, that “Peace is rarely denied to the peaceful,” is more magical thinking, and the people who spout it really should be ashamed of themselves. What about the Arawaks, Semay, Mbuti, Hopi? Peace has been denied to them. What about the peaceful women who are raped? What about the peaceful children who are abused? What about Salmon? What about rivers? What about redwood trees? What about bison? What about prairie dogs? What about passenger pigeons. I hate to steal a line from someone so odious as John Stossel, but give me a break.”

“Setting rhetoric aside, there is simply no factual support for the statement that ends don’t justify the means, because it’s a statement of values disguised as a statement of morals. A person who says ends do justify means is merely saying: I value outcome more then process. Looked at this way, it becomes absurd to make absolute statements about it. There are some ends that justify some means, and there are some ends that do not.”