In his most recent hauntingly gorgeous article, journalist Chris Hedges describes the kind of trauma that afflicts the perpetrators of violence as they bury, deny, rationalize, and eventually face the truth of what they have done.
Thank you for saying that brother. A big hug. I was born and grew up in israel (left long ago), and if that's ok with you I'd like to share my perspective on this conflict, in the spirit of how to prevent such tragedies (that you and i and many others went through) from continuing to happen.
It seems to me that the way out of this horror lies in the heart of people, in the ability/capacity to see the humanity and divinity of another before viewing them as a label (palestinian, israeli, muslim, jew). As well as in coming to terms with and acknowledging the IMMENSE AND PROFOUND TRAUMA that each "side" has caused the other and in finding ways to heal together.
(and before I proceed I'd just like to say that unlike most israelis, I'm fully aware that the trauma that the newly arrived jewish migrants caused the local people over the last century - in the brutal ruthless cruel supremacist exclucivist tribalist zionist project to disposses, throw out, take over, dehumanize and erase of the local people in Palestine - is many many orders of magnitude greater than the other way around (than the trauma caused to some of the newly-arrived jewish migrants by the resistence of the local people to being dispossesed, massacred, abused and driven out of their home). Some of it is detailed in this shocking documentary https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3psMGQE0iW4 which i can confirm is 100% true to reality based on my own personal experience in the Israeli military. And after watching that docu I also highly recommend this short video https://youtu.be/CSff-Ip1kZs?si=udYd0XxYz6kbcDMb that details the horrific TRUTH of what is being done, everything that the nationalist one-sided billionaire-owned media never tells you.
This capacity mentioned above, to step out of one's bubble and hear/see the humanity and divinity of another before seeing a label (and the stories attached to the label), requires having CONTACT between the "sides" so that we may hear each other's stories and each other's pain, but this contact is prevented and denied becasue of the incredible dominance of the tribaliat sectarian nationalist divisive ideology in both sides (extremely dominant among israelis, in my experiemce)
As someone who was given at birth the label 'Jewish' and 'Israeli' (but have already long ago seen through their inaccurate, distorting, corrupting, limiting, imprisoning, divisive, sectarian and God-denying nature) I notice that what allows this ongoing horror to happen (not only today but for more than a century now) is that there is such a total SEPARATION AND DISCONNECTION between the "sides" (this is one of the greatest successes of nationalism driven by the ultra-wealthy ruling class, to divide and tribalistically pit against each other those who for centuries lived together, before the introduction of the divisive nationalist mind virus to the region) SEPARATION AND DISCONNECTION so that people from both "sides" have no full understanding of the life experience & trauma experience of those on the "other side".
From what I see, this total DISCONNECTION is exactly what allows people to cheer when "our hero fighters" (whom the other side calls foriegn invaders/dispossesors/colonizers or terrorists) murder, torture, oppress, abuse, slaughter and bomb "them", because each side says "they are evil people who only want to harm us, take our land and kill us/kick us out", and each side has countless examples of actions by the other side that are supposed to "prove" the supposed rightness of their claim.
Each "side" is enclosed and contained within its own SECTARIAN BUBBLE and tells itself its own story, about its trauma and difficulties, and is completely unaware of the life experience and trauma of the "other side".
And so, when the other side reacts (in what it calls self-defense) then the first side interprets it as an attack (becasue of its DISCONNECTION from the stories and sense-making of the other side) and tells a story that "those people on the other side" are evil monsters who only want to harm us for no reason.
It's quite amazing how similar the story that each side tells itself to the story that the other side tells itself, it is practically the SAME STORY - we are the victims here who are only protecting ourselves from the aggression of those evil people over there who only want to harm us and hate us for no reason. We have no one to talk to and negotiate with, they are not human beings, they are sons of Satan who hate us from birth, who only want to destroy us and take our land and kick us out - each side speaks the exact same stories!!
And all this lack of understanding happens simply because there is NO CONTACT between the "sides". This is the tremendous success of nationalism/tribalism, there is a complete disconnection, so that I don't hear the story that the other side tells itself and how they make sense of things, I don't experience their life experience, I don't know anything about their pain, I don't realize how much the story they tell themselves is the same as the story I tell myself, and therefore there is no possibility of experiencing the HUMANITY (the fear, the search for security) that motivates the other, just as it motivates me, and therefore also indifference to the trauma that the other goes through at the hands of "our heroic fighters"
It seems to me that the main engine that drives all of this is that people in the region (and especially Israelis) undergo a very deep conditioning/indoctrination from a very young age into a separative and SECTARIAN RELIGIOUS-NATIONALIST IDENTITY and learn to believe (contrary to what reality shows) that this separate and divisive identity is what will provide them with protection and security, even though it does THE EXACT OPPOSITE!!
This indoctrination into the separative exclucivist religious-nationalist identity is much more than just mental brainwashing, but it is mainly the conditioning the of the nervous system and emotional system into IDENTIFICATION with a nationalist-religious label which causes the emotions and the body to react very strongly to anything that they teach me is at odds with this identity.
Strong reaction that comes from the fact that the body/brain/nervous system has been conditioned to learn - through constant repetition in the first years of life (when the personality is formed), again and again and again, and without questioning - this is who I am, that I am this national-religious identity.
It seems to me that those who have fallen into the abyss of sectarianism/tribalism/nationalism (and especially those whose tribalism also involves divisive, excluding, supremacist and God-denying sectarian religious beliefs) have been conditioned to believe that their saftey & security will be found through group separation and exclusion, a sense of separation from the rest of humanity (a feeling that is so deeply imprinted in those who believe that the label 'Jew' is who they actually are), that security will be found through an attempt to ensure the safety of ONLY one group of people, only those who were born into the "correct" religious-national label (and anyone who was not born into the correct religious label can go to hell. She matters a little but not nearly as much as the Chosen People, the most valuable and important people in the universe). It sounds ridiculous, but this is a VERY common & mainstream worldview in the extremely tribalist, ethnocentric, & fascistic Israeli society, and it plays a huge part in what brought about this conflict in the first place, since the very early days of sectarian exclucivist zionist nationalism, and its arrival in the middle east from (mostly) eastern Europe.
To me, this is precisely the blindness of the sectarian nationalist-religious identity: trying to create security ONLY for one group, ONLY for a part of the whole (while ignoring and dismiss8ng what this does to the whole) , such an attempt can NEVER ever lead to real security but exactly the opposite - this is the number one factor that creates constant conflict and INSECURITY!!!
TRYING TO CREATE SECTARIAN SECURITY (SECURITY ONLY FOR THE PART AND NOT THE WHOLE, ONLY FOR ME AND MY GROUP) IS THE VERY CAUSE OF INSECURITY!!!
In my understanding, tribalism/nationalism and sectarian divisive exoteric religion (which is the POLAR OPPOSITE of what God/Consciousness actually is) is the great disease and blindness of humanity. Is the most destructive and deadly invention that humans have ever invented (not because we are bad, but because we have not psychologically matured yet, and are still blind, and in our inocent blindness we believed that this is how we will find safety & security, without understanding what we are doing, without realizing that we are actually creating constant INSECURITY when we search for security through the sectarian divisive nationalist-religious identity, when we seek security only for the part and not for the whole).
To me it is absolutely clear that it is the number one cause of human division, separation, antagonism, hatred, conflict, violence, murder and war..
IMHO, the bloodshed can never stop and there will never be security for anyone unless we have the courage to step out of our sectarian bubble and actually listen and truly understand the profound trauma we inflict (this is true for both sides but especially so for Israelis who are incredibly brainwashed and ignorant of the UNSPEAKABLE HORROR CRUELTY INHUMANITY AND TRAUMA that supremacist right-wing zionist ruling class inflicted and inflict on the local people.
Without feeling the pain endured and understanding what local palestinians are actually reacting to, indoctrinated supremacist zionists will just continue with the murder, abuse, dispossession, cruelty, throwing-out, massacre and erasure of the local people, and keep telling themselves the story that 'they are hostile to us for no reason, simply becasue they are evil antisemite monsters by nature..'
That's quite a profound insight you reached there. And it's also one of the most balanced comments I've read about this issue. I believe that this is an important piece, you might want to consider publishing it as a stand alone post. This seems to me like the way forward
On a comment of yours in a different article, I asked you what it was like to be you. You chose not to respond. Here, you have given people who care to read your comment an insight. Thank you for giving people this insight. Not everyone will share your views, but I hope you're okay with that. They speak of connection rather than division. I believe this to be the key to progress.
Thank you. I didn’t respond to your previous comment because there is A LOT on my plate in many areas of life, it is full to the brim and overflowing and I apologize but I am not able to give my (not-endless) time and energy to every single person who pulls on my sleeve and wants my attention, especially when this is a complete stranger who asks me personal intimate questions (what is it like to be you) that require me (if i am to genuinely and seriously answer that question) to completely open myself up and be vulnerable to someone I don’t know (and furthermore, do so publicly, on a public forum, in front of numerous complete strangers). I’m sorry but that would be the kind of vulnerable interaction that i would only engage in with the people closest to me whom i trust unreservedly and feel completely safe with. I do fully understand where you’re comingn from but to me it feels premature and unsustainable to interact at such an intimate and vulnerable level with a complete stranger and to do so on a public forum.
As for connection/division, my comments ALWSYS point to connection and the inherebt unity of humanity. When i criticize the God-ignorant abusive ruling class (such as the Nazi Zionist billionaires, their humanity-dividing supremacist triblalist exclucivist ideology, their terrorist apartheid colony in west asia and the gullible conservatives and liberals who believe their paid propagandists slogans’ that say that their abuse, massacres, torture dehumanization and attack on the native people is for the purpose of protecting jews) when i criticise, that is NOT divisive. To point put the most divisive supremacist exclucivist ideology on tne planet and its terrorist murderous abusive implementation in a supremacist apartheid colony, is NOT divisive, but exactly to the contrary.
You see, that is precisely the danger of blindly adopting Charles’ call for unity (which i fully endorse) without any discernment or wisdom. It leads to what i pointed out to charles in one of my other comments, it leads to these slogans being used by the most cunning manipulative ANTI-UNITY tribalist sectarian people on the planet (such as the zionist billionaires that fund both trump and the right-wing liberlas) using Charles’ slogans of unity to completely NEUTER, dismantle, mislabel, censor and shut down any criticism of their profoundly tribalist sectatian ANTI-UNITY neo-nazi supremacist ideology, and its implementation in their terrorist murderous abusosive colony in west asia (and by the way, i was born and grew up in israel, and had the idiotic childish God-denying sectarian labels ‘jew’ and ‘israeli’ placed on me at birth by indoctrinated God-ignorant tribalists, so i am speaking from experience when i am speaking about the zionist billilnaires’ terrorist colony in west asia and the very deep tribalist indoctrination that israelis go through from birth. I was a devout zionist for the firat half of my life and swallowed the poisonous zionist mythology and propaganda hook line and sinker in my youth. I know exactly how these infoctrinated supremacist Nazis think) You can see more details about this on my profile page if interested).
If we lived during south african aparteheid times or during te german third reich and if we were to so blindly adopt Charles’ call for unity without any discernment and wisdom during those times as well, then we would condemn any criticism of the south african apartheid regime or of the German third reich as being “divisive” and “hateful” towards the righteous believers in tne south african apartheid regime and thd german third reich.. that is PRECISELY what the supremacist zionist propagandists are doing (either liberal or conservative, both right wing capitalist liberals and conservative propagandists are united in their protection of the billionaire empire's colony in west asia). They label as “divisive” and “hateful/antisemite” any pointing out of the terrorist murderous abusive criminality of the empire’s zionist colony in west asia or its supremaciat nazi guiding ideology…
I have to stop now, but again, see more details on that on my profile’s page.. thank you for the time and attention..
PS. and in tne future, if i don’t reply quickly, or at all, please know that it is becasue i have A LOT on my plate and my time and energy resources are limited. Thank you and blessings🙏
Hypocrite and self hating Jew. You don’t deserve to be called a Jew, why don’t you convert to some other a-hole religion. Fortunately I didn’t waste my time reading your excruciatingly long & boring treatise, and presumably millions of others didn’t either .. so basically you wasted your time writing it didn’t you?
And here you have it ladies and gentlemen. Hear it directly from the horse's mouth. Everything I pointed out in the comment above about what tribalism does to human beings is perfectly illustrated here by this deeply hate-filled childish reaction from our friend Murphy (which is almost certainly a fake name as he's actually an Israeli, one of the thousands of hateful zionist opeartives that the israeli gov't floods social media with). Everything I pointed out about the profound life-destroying heart-corrupting PSYCHOSIS of tribalism and its sectarian war mentality of "Its either US or THEM" that Charles writes so much about (and how the tribalist psychosis takes hold of one's brain and nervous system and corrupts one's heart) all of it is exemplified by our Israeli friend "Murphy'" here.
I just couldn't have found a more prefect example to illustrate what's pointed out in my comment than this deeply-hateful immature unconscious response from our israeli friend "Murphy". So thank you "Murphy" for illustrating so emphatically all the different points I have made in my comment above (based on my own life experience within the tribalist and supremacist hateful cult of zionism).
I'm now more convinced than ever that tribalist indoctrination, division, supremacy and hatred will likely be the thing that destroys life on earth and will end humanity. We're quite close to this now with the complete separation and division into religious-nationalist groups (each with its own story of victimhood and rightness), with the tribalist hatred and religious supremcy dominating some people so strongly.. You can see in the deep tribalist hate (and feeling of self-righteousness) of the israeli "Murphy"'s response exactly how the delusional and supremacist zionist cult and its victimhood story will take down the entire planet bring an end to life on earth.
Like Charles beautifully said 'there is no one more hated in a tribalist worldview than the peacemakers who don't identify with either "side" but show the prodound INSANITY, heart-disconnection and life-destruction of tribalism and religious supremacy, that show the profound psychosis and life-destruction of the whole "it's either us or them" tribalist-fascist psychosis (and tribalism's inevitable extreme hatred and dehumanization of anyone who isn't on "our side", the "right side", the side of the light against the evil darkness of 'the other side').
I showed in my comment exactly what are the stories that each unconscious and indoctrinated "side" tells itself from within its own SECTARIAN BUBBLE, where it is hermatically closed, and where it tells itself its stories about its own pain and trauma and victimhood, never for a moment have any awareness of the pain and trauma outside its own tribalist bubble. You can see a living example of this here in Murphy's childish unaware hate-filled knee-jerk reaction, which is an extremely common reaction among zionists and others who fell into the abyss of God-denying tribalism/nationalism/religious supremacy
Just like Hermann Goering, the nazi leader, was forced to admit during the nuremberg trials regarding how nationalist propaganda and indoctrination works and how it grabs people "its very easy to make the people hate whoever you want them to hate and even easier to make them hate the peacemakers. All you need to do is constantly repeat over and over again and again and again that "the enemy" irrationally hates them for no reason at all but simply because the enemy is an evil monster beyond redemption and then you tell the people that the peacemakers are traitors to the glorious nation who are helping the evil enemy. It works like a charm every time and it works the same way IN EVERY NATION". From my own personal life experience (as someone who was a devout zionist and who fell for the intense religious-nationaliat brainwashing that everyone in israrl goes through from birth) i can say that the tricks that Goering described certainly works perfectly on zionists.
The profound corruption and disconnection from God that tribalism did to Murphy's heart is precisely what I was pointing to in the last paragraphs of my comment. So again, thank you Murphy for illustrating so emphatically everything I pointed out in the comment regarding the one-sidedness, blindness and psychosis of tribalism and what it does to human beings. Much love my friend ❤️
I'll finish with a reminder of one very important thing I pointed out on the comment above, in the hopes that sanity has the power to break through the thick walls of tribalist indoctrination -
TRYING TO CREATE SECTARIAN SECURITY (SECURITY ONLY FOR TNE PART AND NOT THE WHOLE, SECURITY ONLY FOR THOSE WHO HAD A SPECIFIC RELIGIOUS LABEL PLACED ON THEM AT BIRTH) IS THE VERY CAUSE OF INSECURITY!!!
The very thing that immature tribalists have been taught will bring them safety & security (identifying one's being with a separative religious-nationalist label and separating from humanity on the basis of this label and believing that those who had this label placed on them at birth are more valuable than others and more deserving of safety than others) is the very thing that brings INSECURITY to the tribalists and to everyone else!!!
Is it clear why it must bring insecurity? If it is not clear then let me know and I'll happily explain it.
PS. And by the way, if you had read my comment (which the deep tribalist hatred won't allow you to do) then you would have known that I do not subscribe to any tribalist conservative divisive religion (including judaism) after clearly seeing the divisive, life-destroying and God-denying nature of sectarian exoteric religions. So, my friend, there's no sense in calling me a 'self hating jew' hjen i'm not a jew nor self-hating. Not a jew becasue i have already shed that childish, life-destroying and God-denying label a long time ago.
And not "self-hating" because unlike you Murphy, I don't hate anyone. Not myself and not anyone else (including not hating the lost souls who fell into the destructive abyss of tribalism/nationalism/sectarianism)
To the contrary, it's critical we share. This is an open forum, and I welcome the frankness an willingness to share that TH=RCA posted. That soapbox belongs to everyone. Your fear won't shut down truth.
How is a reaction like this helpful in the grand scheme of things? Given what Charles, or the original commentor Uroj were trying to get across; the idea that we need to try to see and understand people better, and not be so reactionary. Believe me, I've been down this same road many times, and I understand the impulse quite well, but it never results in anything good. I've had to learn the hard way to take a deep breathe and take my finger off the mouse button before I fire off something I'll regret later. This is not a personal attack on you. I don't know you at all, just as you don't know the person who made that comment, but to call them a toxically narcissistic (prick or pig?) judging by one comment is pretty harsh, and in no way helpful.
What the original commentor said resonated with this person and inspired them to make a comment of their own. This person also acknowledges the original comment and asks if its ok to share their story. This isn't a real life conversation, the original commentor is not being interrupted, and anyone who doesn't like what is written can easily just stop reading and move on.
Again, I get the impulse, I've been there, and I'm still there in a lot of ways in life. I'm autistic, and I've been known to be blunt and not think about how I might hurt someone with my words. Seeing a comment like this just reminds me to try to put more thought into my reactions, and to try to be kind. I also know it sucks to be called out by someone for your actions, but you open yourself up to that with comments like the one you made. I'm sure you are a good person, and a bad person, just like every one of us. If we can't practice what people like Charles are preaching on the comment section of his own essays then there isn't much hope for the rest is there?
Huh, I just looked up the word "prig". Didn't even realize it was a word with a meaning. Sorry for putting words in your mouth, still a little harsh though.
You served honorably for what seemed to you good reasons at the time, and you are not to blame. Reserve your contempt for the creeps in Washington who risked your life and millions of others to serve their bottom line and further the agenda of their corporate masters.
It is possible to hold oneself accountable for their own transgressions, that they hold to be a violation of their own estimation of what is right, without degrading themselves further. One has to accept the truth of what has been done (sans justifications and excuses) and then realize that it is possible to find one's own honor once again for the future. Finding acts of helpfulness and kindness one can engage in, and not giving up, eases the path. Thank you for getting on that path. You will hold your head again high. Higher than you did before you violated your dividing line between right and wrong. It is your dividing line, no one elses. Find out how to keep it strong and secure.
Not Ho’oponopono - Faux’ponopono - Not that it is not a beautiful sentiment - However - please do not misappropriate Hawaiian culture. Please look at this: https://www.facebook.com/AboutHuna and seek videos on YouTube with Kumu Ramsey Taum.
I believe it was Thomas Keating who offered me the thought that forgiveness is the divine technology for all forward movement. Nothing meaningful happens without it. It is the starting place for all shifts in thinking. I have a long ago memory of a certain day in time when the front page news on all our newspapers in Toronto screamed of human atrocities. And I looked around and wondered how it was all of us were still standing, why we had not fallen to our knees in collective repentance, crippled under the weight of our disregard for the miraculous.
I follow Chris's work, as I do yours - both writers of intelligence and compassion. And these voices need hearing.
I don't know why, but Simone Weil wailing away in the thirties, comes to my mind. Perhaps because the image of a beautiful young girl's face seen through a snipper's instrument of viewing stays with me. I keep this little quote close to my own work always. It is from Waiting for God. "In the legend of the Grail, the keeper of this miraculous vessel is a king paralyzed by a most painful wound. And there is said that the Grail shall belong to the first who asks this king the question, "What are you going through?" The love of our neighbour, in all its fullness, simply means being able to say to him, "What are you going through?" It is a recognition that the sufferer exists, not only as a unit in a collection or a specimen from the social category labeled "unfortunate" but also as a man, exactly like us, who was one day stamped with a special mark of affliction. For this recognition to occur, it is enough, but it is indispensable, to know how to look at him in a certain way. This way of looking is, first of all, attentive. The soul empties itself of all its own contents in order to receive into itself the being it is looking at, just as he is, in all his truth."
Emmanuel Levinas' work too, speaks of the sacred in the face of the other. When we look into the face of the other, really look, we cannot kill. We have stopped looking, I think, both collectively and individually and this allows the killing to go on, government sanctioned, church sanctioned, culturally sanctioned. Even on this beautiful day, surrounded by the purple gold glory of the Canadian autumn countryside where I live, there is a malaise of sorrow filtering through the sunlight. In a world with pileated woodpeckers and polar bears, how can our contribution to the astonishments be to find new ways to kill? And worse, think ourselves clever in their inventions?
Thank you, as always, Charles, for your thoughtful renderings. Every blessing. Candice
Thank you for sharing your thoughts in this comment, to know what someone else is going through is an intimacy that seems of less importance these days and a question rarely asked. Thank you for bringing it up because of it’s life necessity and the core of humanity at least it should be ❤️🙏🏻
Thank you Charles. Your return to these matters in the last 4 essays have been deeply important to me. What you are saying is not being said. I know you know that I just want to reinforce its vitality.
Thank you for this dear Charles. I was born and grew up in Israel and was a devout zionist for the first half of my life, before waking up. I later left that insane country and that severely-ill perpetrator society (that does not recognise itself as such).. A few important things i wanted to point out regarding your post, if I may. First, before even starting, if you truly want to understand the profound illness and trance-like psycopathy that inflicts israeli society, i highly recommend this incredibly important and insightful essay from another israeli who left (which Joy shared with me below). Please don't miss it. It is truly a must read.
Secondly, if i may respectfully point this out Charles, it seems to me that you as well as Chris Hedges might be missing the ROOT CAUSE of what drives the neo-Nazi supremacist Israeli billionaire ruling class (who not only butcher, torture, abuse, disposses, steal lands, brutalize, traumatize, DEHUMANIZE and genocide the local people of the land, but also economically oppress ordinary israelis), it seems like you're missing the root cause that drives them to constantly commit their vicious genocidal atrocities nonstop (for many decades now) against the local people and implement their supremacist nationalist-religious ideology on a monstrous scale (like i said, i was born and grew up in israel and was a devout zionist for the first half of my life, so i am intimately familiar with how these Zionist Nazis think, their PROFOUNDLY SUPREMACIST, INTOLERANT, VIOLENT AND EXCLUCIVIST religious ideology, and with the "we're the victims" mythology that israelis are fed nonstop from birth to provide an excuse for the murderous criminality of the zionist billionaires' project in west Asia). The ROOT CAUSE that makes them commit these crimes is described in this profound essay https://www.pdrboston.org/israel-s-government-attacks-jews-to, which IMHO is a must read for anyone who wishes to understand what is actually happening in this piece of land. I can confirm that the very insightful researcher who wrote this is spot on in his description of life in israel and of the treatment of ordinary israelis by the zionist billionaire ruling class (who are the driving force behind the century-long nonstop zionist mass-butchering abuse dispossesion and dehumanization of the local people which is ongoing and relentless (and of which you gave just one small tiny example in this post. By the time you posted this, many others have already been murdered). The supremacist israeli billionaire ruling class who thrive on nationalist-religious division, intolerance, fear and hatred, and do EVERYTHING in their power to make sure it never stops.
And by the way, that's also why these nazi zionist billionaires are so heavily backing and financing trump. Trump is an integral part of their strategy to ensure never ending religious-nationalist hatred, division and war, the very thing that the supremacist zionist billionaires thrive on and that keeps them in power and allows them to oppress and get rich off of ordinary israelis. Not that the right-wing zionist DNC are much better, but trump is clearly the preferred choice of the neo-nazi billionaire mass murderers because it's absolutely guaranteed thst he'll fully support, arm and fund (use american taxpayers money to fund) their mass-butchering and l dispossesion of the local people, in order to generate as much religious-nationalist hatred and violence as possible, which is the key to trump's and the supremacist israeli billionaires' division of the have-nots along nationalist-religious lines, and their pitting of the have-nots against each other, to cement their domination over the people.
And by the way, in order to understsnd EXACTLY how this process works, exactly why the billionaire ruling class must always keep us in a state of division and hostility along religious-nationalist lines, must constantly keep us in a state of tribalist war and insecurity (or threat of such war), in order to understand EXACTLY how this religuous-nationalist division, war and insecurity ensures that the billionaire ruling class stay in power over us and get richer and richer off of us, to understand this at depth, I highly recommend this profoundly important essay which in my view is absolute essential reading for every human on the planet, to understand what is actually going on and how the billionaire ruling class oppressors are playing us https://www.pdrboston.org/oppressors-need-bogeyman-enemies
And if i may continue, the same brilliant researcher also writes very insightfully on why there is no chance in the world to ever stop the century-long neo-nazi zionist project to disposses, dehumanize, brutalize, abuse, traumatize and annihilate the local people, if the TRUE NATURE of what drives the ruling class' violence against the local people (as well as their oppression of ordinary israelis) isn't exposed, the true CLASS DOMINATION nature of the billionaire's zionist project. Here https://johnspritzler.substack.com/p/pro-palestine-activists-make-themselves is one example of his wise criticism of the anti-genocide movement for its failure to bring to the public's attention the ROOT CAUSE of why the supremacist israeli billionaires are committing the ongoing atrocities. And the failure to point this out leaves the field right open for zionist propagandist to deceptively claim that they regretably must use violence in order to ensure the safety and security of jews, which is a BLATANT LIE, if one understands the class nature of the zionist billionaires' project in west Asia and how they actually opress ordinary jews and don't give a damn about jews. For example, besides their ongoing economic oppression against ordinary israelis (see details in the link shared above), right-wing zionists have also severely attacked and starved jewish holocaust survivors in the refugee camps after the second world war who didn't wish to come to their colonial project in palestine. Zionists also actively prevented the rescue of jews from nazi occupied areas in europe in order to use their death as bargaining chips to ensure world sympathy and support for their colonial project in palestine (the fact that most jews in germany were socialist and communist made it all the more easier for right-wing zionists to sacrifice them by giving them away to be slaughtered by right-wing german nazis who shared the supremacist essence of the zionists' nationalist-religious supremacist ideology (the nazi zionists and german nazis disagree on who is the superior group, but they fully agree on the principle that one group is superior over others and of higher value than others); In addition, zionist also routinely sacrifice jews (as well as others) in their global terror attacks that they conduct across the globe under the false flag of 'islamic terrorism' (they use these false flag operations for two reasons. One is in order to dehumanize muslims and present them as violent savages so that you'll cheer for the zionists' stealing of their land and dispossesing them. And the second reason for the zionists' global terror network under the false flag of 'islamic terrorism' is to again, ensure eternal religious division, hatred and violence, the key that keeps them in power. This is also the reason, by the way, why the zionist billionaires have been funding hamas (and ISIS) for decades now. To ensure that there's a always a scary boogeyman to maximally frighten ordinary israelis into keeping the right-wing billionaores in power (becasue it is the billionaores' representitives who cynically paint themselves as the ones who will protect "the people" from "that evil monstrous scary enemy who is coming to get you") AND in order to ensure that they can point to the scary boogyman as an existential threat and say that that's the reason they cannot stop attacking and dispossesing the local people.
The space for a comment is finished here, but if anyone wants sources for the claims in the last paragraph, I'll happily give them in a separate reply.
If you are not familiar with Avigail Abarbanel's substack, then you might find a kindred soul whose last post is deeply personal and moving, about her growing up and leaving Israel, which brought her not just travel but truth. https://avigail.substack.com
Joy, I just read this article and found it quite informative. Thank you for posting the link. I experienced many aha's and easily recognized the cult behavior she described in Israel. After all, I grew up in my father's WASP upperclass, antisemitic, anti anything but WASP cult. Once you've been in one, you recognize others. I was aware of the victim culture among Jews for sure, but I missed the sickness of the big picture she drew. We live in one big victim culture here in the US and victimhood goes part and parcel with cult life. So while I can see through her words that the Cult/Victim/Perpetrator culture is quite intense and blatantly violent in Israel, I also see it everywhere these days, in every country, every town, every neighborhood. What is truly unbelievable to me is how ubiquitous this picture is. But I guess when I think about how long humans have been "doing their thing in the world" (what a lame euphemism) then really the earth is pretty small. Perhaps it is not just a handful of evil puppeteers pulling our strings, but rather it is all of our creation..... every single one of us from the beginning. Which is kinda what Charles was saying. I love reading stories about courageous people who left the cult, who blew the whistle, who stood up and told their truth. It gives me courage.❤️
I read some on Avigail's substack in the spirit of broadening my perspective. I have no doubt what she says is a part of the truth (not meaning as in "partially true" but as "incomplete truth"). But it is also extremely black and white. I am certainly not above that sort of thinking but trying to learn. It certainly misses the very core of Charles' message. The last thing the world needs is another voice that paints a conflict as 100% perpetrator on one side / 100% victim on the other side. The issue is that many have written an equally devastating analysis of the Palestinian / Arab side of the conflict (I guess that is where I might lose many of you but bear with me please**). I hope to read more articles that speak to the shared responsibility and pain and hope on both sides. It may not be her role, or maybe she has written such things elsewhere. I guess you post such things because you feel this perspective is not heard enough. And it definitely is, given the Western media bias. But unless both sides feel heard there will be no peace. So I humbly submit that it may be entirely useless to write or share any more one sided pieces. Those that need it most will not be able to read, due to psychological defense mechanisms but also more profoundly due to a lack of incentive - there is no upside for them. They are convinced to be the good guys on the right side of history now, all you are offering them is the dry valley of pain for having been wrong so long, only to finally arrive again at being convinced to be the good guys on the right side of history (this time on the other side).
** I won't reiterate all the problems with the Palestinians / Arab attitude towards Jews. Suffice to say it is actually very very similar to what she says about Israel. Victimhood, hatred of jews, muslim superiority indoctrination from a young age, lack of willingness to compromise etc.
I hear you and fully agree, i wrote a piece about exactly this which i will share below, but before i get to that, i just want to say two things. First is regarding the cynical LIE that the local people's resistence to being massacred and dispossesed is driven by antisemitism. I'm sorry but as a jew who levrd with local palestinian family in tne west bank (see details in my reply to Jerry below), that's total BS. resisting your oppresors has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with what religion the oppressors are. If someone comes fully weaponized to throw me out of my home and abuses my children then i don't care what religion they are, i will fight their oppression and dispossesion. The religion of the oppressors has NOTHING to do with anything. The locals' resistance to being massacred and driven out of their home would have been exactly the same if it were mormons or buddhists or baptists doing the massacring and dispossesing. THE RELIGION OF THE OPPRESOR HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. This is a common lie pushed by the highly manipulative billionaires' propaganda machine. To depict the local resistence to the nazi zionist abuse and dispossesion as if it is driven by religious hatred. BS!!!!
That is precisely the propaganda that vile abusers spread in order to de-legitimize resistence to their extreme abuse, torture, mass-murder, rape, dispossesion, theft and erasure.
I just have no words for how monstrous this zionist billionaires' propaganda is. Not only do they horrifyingly abuse, steal and dehumanize, but they then also try to criminalize and de-legitemize any normal human resistence and hostility to their abuse (which is a normal human reaction to any invading abuser and dispossesor) by lying and presenting it as if the resistence to their abuse is driven by antisemitism. MONSTROUS BEYOND WORDS!!
And you know what the funny part is? That the reality is precisely the opposite. The ones who are ACTUALLY driven by very intense religious hatred and supremacy are not the ones being dispossesed massacred and thrown out of their home, but the supremacist religious fundamentalist nazi zionists who are doing the dispossesing and who see the local people as less than human, definitely inferior in value to the superior chosen people, the most important people in the universe. I know this becasue i was a devout zionist and i know exactly how these nazis think and what drives them. And i experienced first hand their burning religious hatred to non-jews. See my reply to Jerry below for more details.
And the second thing i wanted to point out is that even though i fully agree with you, at the same i think it's important to take into account that we're NOT dealing with equally weighted positions, but rather the IMBALANCE is so extreme (with the entire weight of the western financial-militarized empire - the largest and most powerful empire in the history of mankind - 100% backing and standing in support of lunatic neo-nazi ideology of the jewish religious supremacists in ANY POSSIBLE WAY, not just in UNLIMITED financial and weapon support but also in a VAST censorship industrial complex that criminalizes and punishes anything that deviates from the jewish cult's officially allowed narrative, which is thst we're the victims who are only defending ourselves from those evil monsters over there who want to hurt us for no reason whatsoever, simply because they are evil antisemites), the IMBALANCE is so extreme so that the very rare voice of the few (very few) dissident ex-israelis, such as me and her, who have intimate familiarity with how the insanity of religious-nationalist supremacy, cultish exclucivity and sense of eternal victimhood and righteousness, how it actually takes shape in the spirit of a culture and is seen as "normality" from inside the cult (very very similar to what happened in nazi germany), i think such voices are extremely rare and important today, especially given how profoundly controlled and biased western media is and how uninformed and misinformed most westerners are regarding the nature of the jewish supremacist cult (powered by its globally-imposed victimhood storyline).
There is actually even a lot more than that going on here, because the violent supremacist intolerant psychopathy of the jewish religious ideology (and its three most fundamental religious texts -the torah, talmud and mishnah - which are PROFOUNDLY RACIST, INTOLERANT, VIOLENT, EXCLUCIVIST AND SUPREMACIST TOWARDS NON-JEWS, and the cult's invented hebrew "god" who is a violent nationalist bloodthirsty psychopath) this psychotic religious supremacist ideology does not just happen in a vacuum, but is intimately tied to the entire power structure of the global billionaire's empire. The global financial-militarized empire depends on and needs the eternal strife, hatred, division and war provided by such lunatic religious supremacist ideologies, in order to pit the 99% of humanity (the non-ruling class) against each other and in order to maintain their control over us
I described this (too briefly) in my comment above, but you can read about it in much more depth in these two profoundly important essays which describe in detail exactly how this works, exactly how the dividing tribalist ideology of nationalist-religious supremcy (and the ethno-fascist jewish supremacist ideology is one of the most extreme of these ideologies, certainly the most violent & rabid today in its manifestation through the abusive terrorist state of israel) how these divisive supremacist ideologies are used by the billionaire ruling class to ensure their domination over us. See here https://www.pdrboston.org/oppressors-need-bogeyman-enemies which IMHO is a must read for every human on the planet.
Now, having said all that, i do fully agree with your basic premise and wrote an important piece about it and what can be done about this (important in my view, of course 😊). There is no space left to share it here so i will post it in the reply below this one. Please do look for it in a few minutes in the reply below
Here's the important piece i mentioned above (this might be even more important than the above message)
If I may share my perspective - as someome who had the labels 'Jewish' & 'Israeli' put on me at birth - it seems to me that the way out of this horror lies in the heart of people, in the ability/capacity to see the humanity and divinity of another before viewing them as a label (palestinian, israeli, muslim, jew). As well as in coming to terms with and acknowledging the IMMENSE AND PROFOUND TRAUMA that each "side" has caused the other and in finding ways to heal together.
(and before I proceed I'd just like to say that unlike most israelis, I'm fully aware that the trauma that the newly arrived jewish migrants caused the local people over the last century - in the brutal ruthless cruel supremacist exclucivist tribalist zionist project to disposses, throw out, take over, dehumanize and erase of the local people in Palestine - is many many orders of magnitude greater than the other way around (than the trauma caused to some of the newly-arrived jewish migrants by the resistence of the local people to being dispossesed, massacred, abused and driven out of their home). Some of it is detailed in this shocking documentary https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3psMGQE0iW4 which i can confirm is 100% true to reality based on my own personal experience in the Israeli military. And after watching that docu I also highly recommend this short video https://youtu.be/CSff-Ip1kZs?si=udYd0XxYz6kbcDMb that details the horrific TRUTH of what is being done, everything that the nationalist one-sided billionaire-owned media never tells you.
This capacity mentioned above, to step out of one's bubble and hear/see the humanity and divinity of another before seeing a label (and the stories attached to the label), requires having CONTACT between the "sides" so that we may hear each other's stories and each other's pain, but this contact is prevented and denied becasue of the incredible dominance of the tribaliat sectarian nationalist divisive ideology in both sides (extremely dominant among israelis, in my experiemce)
As someone who was given at birth the label 'Jewish' and 'Israeli' (but have already long ago seen through their inaccurate, distorting, corrupting, limiting, imprisoning, divisive, sectarian and God-denying nature) I notice that what allows this ongoing horror to happen (not only today but for more than a century now) is that there is such a total SEPARATION AND DISCONNECTION between the "sides" (this is one of the greatest successes of nationalism driven by the ultra-wealthy ruling class, to divide and tribalistically pit against each other those who for centuries lived together, before the introduction of the divisive nationalist mind virus to the region) SEPARATION AND DISCONNECTION so that people from both "sides" have no full understanding of the life experience & trauma experience of those on the "other side".
From what I see, this total DISCONNECTION is exactly what allows people to cheer when "our hero fighters" (whom the other side calls foriegn invaders/dispossesors/colonizers or terrorists) murder, torture, oppress, abuse, slaughter and bomb "them", because each side says "they are evil people who only want to harm us, take our land and kill us/kick us out", and each side has countless examples of actions by the other side that are supposed to "prove" the supposed rightness of their claim.
Each "side" is enclosed and contained within its own SECTARIAN BUBBLE and tells itself its own story, about its trauma and difficulties, and is completely unaware of the life experience and trauma of the "other side".
And so, when the other side reacts (in what it calls self-defense) then the first side interprets it as an attack (becasue of its DISCONNECTION from the stories and sense-making of the other side) and tells a story that "those people on the other side" are evil monsters who only want to harm us for no reason.
It's quite amazing how similar the story that each side tells itself to the story that the other side tells itself, it is practically the SAME STORY - we are the victims here who are only protecting ourselves from the aggression of those evil people over there who only want to harm us and hate us for no reason. We have no one to talk to and negotiate with, they are not human beings, they are sons of Satan who hate us from birth, who only want to destroy us and take our land and kick us out - each side speaks the exact same stories!!
And all this lack of understanding happens simply because there is NO CONTACT between the "sides". This is the tremendous success of nationalism/tribalism, there is a complete disconnection, so that I don't hear the story that the other side tells itself and how they make sense of things, I don't experience their life experience, I don't know anything about their pain, I don't realize how much the story they tell themselves is the same as the story I tell myself, and therefore there is no possibility of experiencing the HUMANITY (the fear, the search for security) that motivates the other, just as it motivates me, and therefore also indifference to the trauma that the other goes through at the hands of "our heroic fighters"
It seems to me that the main engine that drives all of this is that people in the region (and especially Israelis) undergo a very deep conditioning/indoctrination from a very young age into a separative and SECTARIAN RELIGIOUS-NATIONALIST IDENTITY and learn to believe (contrary to what reality shows) that this separate and divisive identity is what will provide them with protection and security, even though it does THE EXACT OPPOSITE!!
This indoctrination into the separative exclucivist religious-nationalist identity is much more than just mental brainwashing, but it is mainly the conditioning the of the nervous system and emotional system into IDENTIFICATION with a nationalist-religious label which causes the emotions and the body to react very strongly to anything that they teach me is at odds with this identity.
Strong reaction that comes from the fact that the body/brain/nervous system has been conditioned to learn - through constant repetition in the first years of life (when the personality is formed), again and again and again, and without questioning - this is who I am, that I am this national-religious identity.
It seems to me that those who have fallen into the abyss of sectarianism/tribalism/nationalism (and especially those whose tribalism also involves divisive, excluding, supremacist and God-denying sectarian religious beliefs) have been conditioned to believe that their saftey & security will be found through group separation and exclusion, a sense of separation from the rest of humanity (a feeling that is so deeply imprinted in those who believe that the label 'Jew' is who they actually are), that security will be found through an attempt to ensure the safety of ONLY one group of people, only those who were born into the "correct" religious-national label (and anyone who was not born into the correct religious label can go to hell. She matters a little but not nearly as much as the Chosen People, the most valuable and important people in the universe). It sounds ridiculous, but this is a VERY common & mainstream worldview in the extremely tribalist, ethnocentric, & fascistic Israeli society, and it plays a huge part in what brought about this conflict in the first place, since the very early days of sectarian exclucivist zionist nationalism, and its arrival in the middle east from (mostly) eastern Europe.
To me, this is precisely the blindness of the sectarian nationalist-religious identity: trying to create security ONLY for one group, ONLY for a part of the whole (while ignoring and dismiss8ng what this does to the whole) , such an attempt can NEVER ever lead to real security but exactly the opposite - this is the number one factor that creates constant conflict and INSECURITY!!!
TRYING TO CREATE SECTARIAN SECURITY (SECURITY ONLY FOR THE PART AND NOT THE WHOLE, ONLY FOR ME AND MY GROUP) IS THE VERY CAUSE OF INSECURITY!!!
In my understanding, tribalism/nationalism and sectarian divisive exoteric religion (which is the POLAR OPPOSITE of what God/Consciousness actually is) is the great disease and blindness of humanity. Is the most destructive and deadly invention that humans have ever invented (not because we are bad, but because we have not psychologically matured yet, and are still blind, and in our inocent blindness we believed that this is how we will find safety & security, without understanding what we are doing, without realizing that we are actually creating constant INSECURITY when we search for security through the sectarian divisive nationalist-religious identity, when we seek security only for the part and not for the whole).
To me it is absolutely clear that it is the number one cause of human division, separation, antagonism, hatred, conflict, violence, murder and war..
IMHO, the bloodshed can never stop and there will never be security for anyone unless we have the courage to step out of our sectarian bubble and actually listen and truly understand the profound trauma we inflict (this is true for both sides but especially so for Israelis who are incredibly brainwashed and ignorant of the UNSPEAKABLE HORROR CRUELTY INHUMANITY AND TRAUMA that supremacist right-wing zionist ruling class inflicted and inflict on the local people.
Without feeling the pain endured and understanding what local palestinians are actually reacting to, indoctrinated supremacist zionists will just continue with the murder, abuse, dispossession, cruelty, throwing-out, massacre and erasure of the local people, and keep telling themselves the story that 'they are hostile to us for no reason, simply becasue they are evil antisemite monsters by nature..'
Undo, such an important message you wrote. And while I fell right into Avigail's message due to my own Cult experiences and life experience in general, I am not blind to other side(s). But your point is well taken. We have so many black and white, right and wrong, victim perp messages these days that promote divides, that it is healthier to at least acknowledge there is another point of view even if it is not the object of one's particular message. I think we all need to do our own personal work to free ourselves from our cult thinking and from our trauma(s) and messages that are more balanced and humane seem they might make more headway. But maybe not. My Trump hatred was so deep and fierce in 2016 that NOTHING could have persuaded me toward balance. A rough 8 years later and much personal reflection and healing of my trauma, I have found the sweet spot and frankly it makes life so much easier (mostly inside me) but I imagine those around me are quite relieved to be out from under my continually leaking rage. 🙏
Suzanne, I wrote about exactly this in my SECOND reply to Udo above (the one that starts with the words "Here's the important piece i mentioned above. this might be even more important than the above message)". Immediately above your comment
I think you might value in what i wrote there as it speaks directly to the perspective you brought up here 🙏
Three things Jerry. First, i very very highly recommend this excellent essay from another israeli, who also left that supremacist nazi psychostate, about what life in israel is actually like. Plesse do me a favor Jerry and before anything else please read that very important essay. Perhaps you'll then get a glimpss into what a psychostate actually is, and how you've been conned and manipulated by the billionaires' propaganda. Please don't miss this Jerry. It is a very importsnt essay and perfectly describes israeli society https://avigail.substack.com/p/israel-the-legacy-of-a-perpetrator
Two, If you'll actually read my comment in full (though, as happened in our last interaction and as you did again now, you don't seem to actually read other people's comments in full but instead you seem to completely ignore what another writes and you seem to specialize in quick knee-jerk automatic reactions, you seem to specialize in spewing out thoughtless fact-free one-liner slogans that you've picked up somewhere and that you blindly repeat without having any personal experience in the matter, and that have no relation whatsoever to the comment that you're replying to) but if you'll please do something out of the ordinary this time and read my comment in full (slowly and attentively, with genuine curiosity and desire to understand) then you'll know that i actually lived half my life in a profoundly delusional psychostate, a perpetrator state, the most cruel MURDEROUS genocidal state on the face of this planet, which constantly and repeatedly hammers into the heads of its citizens from birth nonstop the story of our eternal victimhood, even as the neo-nazi billionaires (who run the ethno-fascist israeli psychostate) mercilessly butcher, abuse, torture and brutalize the local children, men and women that they disposses off their land and whose homes they steal. A supremacist psychostate that claims a "divine right" to brutalize, murder, throw people off their land and steal their home becasue a psychopathic violent bloodthirsty tribslist hebrew "god" in the sky likes to act as a real estate agent in his spare time and supposedly gave to the israeli cult the local people's homes because the cult is unique, don't you know, it is god's chosen people.
And in my comment i went in great detail into who runs this state and how they do it. Please do make an exception of your usual pattern and actually read my comment in full this time (including the links shared in it)
And by the way, I also lived for several months with the local people you are taught to hate and whose genocide you cheer on, I've lived with a palestinian family in the west bank for 5 months (to help them deal with the incessant attacks by neo-nazi religious fundamentalist jewish supremacists who try to terrorize them and kick them off their land). I've never met more kind, hospitable and generous people on my life. The only time i experienced burning tribalist hatred during those 5 months was when the Nazi religious-fundamentalist jewish supremacists came (accompanied with the military) to terrorize the local people in the village, to try to push them off their land in order to steal the land for the superior chosen people, the most important people in the universe..
Never before have i seen such burning hatred and sense of superiority as I've seen in the eyes of those nazi religious fundamentalist violent israeli thugs.
But the zionist billionaires' propaganda and disinformation machinemakes sure you hate the local people, see them as violent savages, see tye jewish supremacists as the victims, and cheer for the dispossesion and genocide of the local people because they are "evil".
If you want me to explain more in detail how their propaganda machine works, how their heavily-funded global network of orgs think-tanks and paid social media influencers works to pushes nonstop muslim hatred (so that you'll cheer for their nazi project to butcher and disposs the local people), if you want me to explain how they employ a global terror network under the guise of 'islamic terrorism' (again, in order to paint muslims as violent savages and to make you cheer for the zionist billionaires' nazi project) then I'll happily elaborate on these.
In addition to all the above, i'll also correct you that Israel was never an actual liberal democracy. You can't be a liberal democracy when you are an ethno-state whose entire existence is based on dispossesing the local people who live on the land that you take as your own, an ethno-state that operated from day one along nazi supremacist lines to ensure the domination of certain elevated chosen people over other (the domination of those who had a very specific religious label placed on us at birth over those who didn't have this label placed on them at birth).
So israel was never liberal nor democratic but only used to have partial fake "democracy" only for certain people (the elevated chosen ones who carry the "correct" religious label) and even that was quite limited in scope becasue even though jews are legally elevated over non-jews in aparthied israel, ordinary jews are still far below the abusive israeli billilnaire ruling class that oppresses also ordinary jews. The most accurate way to describe the israeli system is supremacist OLIGARCHY. A combination of ethno-fascism and ruling class domination.
But anyway, all of that partial libetal democracy was in the past. Today neo-nazi religious fundamentalism (which used to be the fringe of israeli society) is now wholly and completely the mainstream of israeli society and runs the gov't institutions. Today israel is not even a partially democratic liberal country but is now a religious fundamentalist and ethno-fascist perpetrator society (that of course does not recognize itself as such. No perpetrator society in history ever recognizes itself as such at the time it was happening. The sobering up happens only after a major catastrophic self-destruction. In the case of the ruthless supremacist israeli society, their catastrophic self-destruction will probably take down the whole planet with them).
3. Thirdly, what does where you want to live have anything to do with justifying the mass-murdering, dispossesion, abuse, torture, erasure and butchering of the local chidren, women and men en-masse? Please stop for one second and consider what you are actually saying and cheering for. Don't just react quickly automatically with the slogans they feed you but actually stop and inquire deeply.
You see Jerry, you're giving here the perfect example of how the billionaires' propaganda machine works on misinformed people who don't take the time to actually meet and know the people you're taught to hate.
The vast propaganda machine of the Nazi zionist billionaire child-abusers, torturers, butchers & thieves works through demonizing and de-humanizing the local human beings that they wish to disposses (throw out) from the land that they wish to steal, demonize them in the eyes of some gullible ignorant uninformed americans so that you'll cheer for their mass-murder, torture, abuse.
The entire nazi billionaires' glonal propaganda machine (with its narrative managers and numerous paid social media influencers) thrives on ignorance and hatred..thrives on demonizing the local people in the eyes of some gullible and quick-to-hate americans who don't know any better. In the last part of my comment above i explained how they do it. If you want sources then i can provide them later.
Plenty more to say, but i have to stop now.
Jerry, before your usual habit of quick knee-jerk misinformed one-liner slogans that completely ignores everything written in my comment, please do make an exception this time and actually read my comment in full (slowly and attentively, without tye filter of "I already know") including the profoundly important essays in the links that I shared. And most impotantly, read the essay from the other israeli (that I shared at the top). It will open your eyes to the REALITY of israeli society that you're never told in your echo-chambers. Okay, Jerry? Thank you 🙏
Thank you, always and again for your insightful words.
We live in a black/white; good/evil perceiving culture that seems to believe that the “victim” is always worse off than the “perpetrator.”
My daughter was on campus at Virginia Tech during the 2007 massacre where Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and himself. By the next day, the traumatized but deeply wise students had created thirty-three makeshift shrines on the grounds. Thirty-three.
They understood that Cho was also a victim, he had to be, in order to do what he did. Later it was revealed that Cho had been mercilessly bullied nonstop since kindergarten, and finally snapped. But no one person has to take the blame for that bullying, it is like a stoning. The blame is so desaturated that it becomes imperceptible. Nevertheless, all the tiny pieces of bullying violence, when added together, has a result.
When the parents of students finally got to Virginia Tech the next day, they dismantled the 33rd shrine. Shameful, imo.
I think it is the same for living in toxic patriarchy. Every day, the stones of toxic patriarchs are thrown at women and “others” by stone-throwers, many of whom don’t even realize they are toxic patriarchs throwing stones. It is like a fish who doesn’t have the consciousness that it lives in water, it is just the accepted state of affairs which surrounds it.
But the abuse continues, and the blame for the abuse is still dissipated enough to allow the abusers to remain incognito, even from themselves.
So the state of generalized abuse continues, and sets the stage for other more focused abuses, like the murder of Ayşenur Eygi.
Upon inspection, I think that we will find that the trail of abuse always ends at the foot of toxic patriarchy, so that’s probably a good place to start.
Yes, the Patriarchal Death Cult reigns supreme, for the moment. I fear we are in a place where either we learn how to rein it in, or it destroys us. What are the steps? Each of us has some part of the answer.
Yes, Joy, I think you are right on, that each one of us has a part of the answer. And I think it starts with the individual, being thoughtful about the invisible ways we give power to the patriarchy, and this is often in language. For example, history is “His-story”…but what about “HER story”? There is subtle but massive power in the words we choose, getting “woke” about that, and reflecting that understanding in daily language, is a start …
“For example, history is “His-story”…but what about “HER story”? There is subtle but massive power in the words we choose”
No sorry, this is just silly. The word “history” is etymologically unconnected with “his” and “hers,” it’s not a sex-based word. First of all, it’s pronounced HISS-tory, not HIZZ-story, which should indicate that you are seeing something that’s not there. If you have to mangle the pronunciation of a word to make a point, it’s probably not much of a point or a profundity.
You realize that Charles has some pretty backward ideas about women. Like that they basically exist as a receptical for his seed to bring forth his "love gifts". When they stop being fertile he tosses them aside. Wonder how long it will be before Stella gets the heave ho. Or maybe that's what NAAS is for: a steady supply of women to impregnate.
I think he’s on his third or fourth marriage, isn’t he? I think Stella will be fine, as long as she conducts herself the same way as Charles’ groupies: “THANK YOU Charles! You are so brilliant and wise. This latest piece of Genius from You needs to be read by everyone in the entire world! If everyone knew about you, we’d all be already living in The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible. My Heart Resonates with the Ecstatic Truth to be found in Your Healing Words.”
Yes, Meryl, you have described the cause of all the school shootings, such intensive bullying that finally releases the inner scream of pulling a trigger, often yes toward the violated one himself.
"Toxic patriarchy," indeed is bullying, and as I inspect, seemingly arising as left brain divisive thought became more important than
right brain and heart belonging. We all have two hemispheres and a heart, meant first to connect with others and the planet, thinking used then, not just to differentiate but to shape connective inspirations into solutions for the well-being of all. Think in part what tech has accelerated.
Indigenous people listened within to connective perceptions and guidance, heart and right brain, and shaped the gift of life into the stories told children and modeled behaviors that stabilized their sustainable cultures for thousands of years.
Paraphrased TS Elliot, you will explore and explore and find yourself back where you started, and know it for the first time.
This is the hero's journey, an archetype, and we need to find our way back to what worked, we brain-equipped to make it happen.
And, as the young people/students at Virginia Tech knew there were 33 victims, and their parents did not, the students were still is connection to heart and more clear, true perception of the plight of the shooter.
Many are saying, not only do we need to get rid of phones in school, they addictive tech, grabbing attention, and social media creating isolation and self-contempt, but we need to return childhood to children, children meant to stay only in experiential connection and explorative learning till age 7/8 (Montessori, Waldorf, and Piaget, all educational psychologists). Finland starts school at 7, allowing for connective intelligences to flourish, these meant to stay with us, later coupled with inspired thinking, for all of our lives, as indigenous lived, this brain partnership still meant to create good lives for ALL. Cultural support, informed parenting, and true education (to draw and build from within) I believe are musts for going forward.
Yes so true! I believe the pendulum is beginning its swing back...all that loud cacophony assailing our senses is indication of the death throes of patriarchy, it always gets loudest right before the end ;-). Many people say we are in the "End Times"...yeah, the "End Times" of patriarchy, and not a moment too soon!
Excellent writing, Charles. I personally believe the world is deeply enmeshed in violence. How could it be otherwise with continual war. That belief leaves me pessimistic much of the time. I know what it is to live in that web, struggling to heal my wounds from being victimized, struggling to heal my wounds of being the unconscious perpetrator. In many ways our own violence and guilt fuels more violence, just as does our victimhood. It's a vicious circle. But writings such as yours, and speaking the truth of our individual struggles, just might inspire others as we seek healing through witness of our own acts. That's one of the main premises of the 12 Step program. I would encourage you, Charles, to take the next step and share one of your own acts of violence and the personal pain it has caused. There is more healing in such vulnerable disclosures than all the ideas in the world.
❤️ Let me begin: I was an unconscious and deeply damaged mother. I criticized my children nearly nonstop. I also, was unable to show them physical love and affection. Criticism is violence. Lack of affection and nurturing is devastating deprivation. It is a lifelong journey for me to embrace the horror of my actions, see the consequences in my children and find forgiveness in my ❤️
So much understanding is needed to ease the collective shame---perhaps if our culture was less judgemental and so quick to condemn, fault, ridicule, neglect or ignore, fewer and fewer spikes of violence would occur in the first place. (I mean that is the question isn't it. Why?)
I recall the proverb:
A child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.
I came into adulthood in the 90’s, training and working for an organization focused on transformation and being in service to the collective.
In the model we taught, calling oneself out for making others ‘wrong’ and other transgressions was a cornerstone of the work.
‘Looking good’ was a function of how quickly one was willing to own their subversive beliefs and behaviors. The second piece was cleaning up the mess we made.
While I had plenty of issues with the organization itself, their working model of taking responsibility for one’s impact is still one I have yet to see taught elsewhere.
I’ve spent decades practicing owning my shit only to have my own vulnerability and willingness used against me.
I used to assume that my willingness to tell the truth and own my perpetrations would create a space for others to do the same.
That’s often not been the case. More often than not others have used my generosity to further hunker down in their righteousness.
There's a poem attributed to Mother Teresa called, Do It Anyway, which encourages us to live our truth regardless of how others may react or respond. I found it helpful and hope you do too. We don't always know how we may influence or affect the world at large either positively or negatively but certainly spending decades persevering in doing good is a positive contribution. Thank you.
I am personally sick of the cult of white guilt. Every goddamn Progressive organization opens a meeting with a so-called land acknowledgment now, in addition to your pronouns, disabilities and victim status. Like any of us had anything to do with anything.
It is a symptom of the times of course. But YOU know where your heart and soul lie and why are you doing and being what you do. It is so important for us to hold on to that in the face of disdain
No matter where you look in the world you can find tragedy, violence, despair and greed. The food we eat on our plates is at the cost of life, even if it was just by stealing an animals habitat for farming monocrops like soy, or by killing the insects eating the crops, that other species eat to survive. The shelter we use to keep our families safe at night could be shelter for refugees, but we choose our family’s safety instead. Even the trees choke out the plants vying for sunshine and water.
It is our job to try to make peace where we can, but sometimes there is no peace to be had. Some marriages are irretrievably broken, some family divisions will never heal, some cultures will never be able to reconcile the past, and some people can choose to heal, but some cannot. In those cases, we need to find the beauty, grace, and love even in the midst of the darkness.
Take a little heart - trees in nature’s biome do actually share nutrients and information with each other and other species of trees. Read The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wholleben, it speaks to a way of being here on earth that we don’t often get a sense of.
Why are the snipers lucky? Your points don't really hold together and I struggle to make concrete sense of the various stories you share here. There are a few gems here, but they don't hold together in a cohesive narrative. And I think it's really, really poor taste to Aysenur's murder in this context: using her tragic death (for which you are "sorry") for a paltry narrative. What is wrong with you, seriously? Your posts are one garbage dump after the next :/
May your pain heal in the presence of Love, which is everywhere, always available to you. The snipers face the fierce stab of pain in their conscience, their souls, right before their vivid sight — it is a sharper dose of pain that perhaps can be healed more swiftly too — often through their own death and/or their agonizing transition into the possibility of a pure and healed heart. That might make sense or it might not. Charles’ writing is preciously beautiful just like him. You are too, especially when you let yourself see it.
Though I haven't agreed with Charles' last 2-3 articles in his dismissing the horrors and deceit perpetuated by Trump and his ilk, I heartily agree here: "The nation must face the truth of what it has done. It must discard its justifications, rationalizations, and false histories. It must gaze with grief and horror at its works, and resolve to be as strong an agent of peace and healing as it had been of war and destruction. That last step follows inevitably from the first. That is the key—honesty. A nation must be honest with itself about its history and its present." The lies and coverups on all sides must end...so that we may grieve and forgive. https://medium.com/@lindajoystone/december-23-2019-by-lindajoy-7fafe56c45c9
So you want a leader that has the ability to ask for forgiveness and you support Trump. The man who famously waffled when he was asked if he ever asked God for forgiveness before ultimately saying that no, he has not. A man who is running on an explicit platform of vengeful retribution. Ok, good luck with that.
Charles supports Trump (?) who supports the depraved genocide in Gaza? Trump who said: "Vote for me now-I'm gonna fix and you won't have to vote ever again". Trump - who recently said he wants to open the National Forests to development and water down environmental protections in general? If this is true then this article I just read is hypocrisy and nothing more.
I attempt as each day unfolds, to ask forgiveness for my own despair as a USMC sniper during the Reagan secret wars.
Each day is a new attempt at forgiveness within my broken mind, left to compartalizing the finalization of destruction of human life.
Each day I say "I'm sorry".
I see you. Sending love for your peace.
Thank you for saying that brother. A big hug. I was born and grew up in israel (left long ago), and if that's ok with you I'd like to share my perspective on this conflict, in the spirit of how to prevent such tragedies (that you and i and many others went through) from continuing to happen.
It seems to me that the way out of this horror lies in the heart of people, in the ability/capacity to see the humanity and divinity of another before viewing them as a label (palestinian, israeli, muslim, jew). As well as in coming to terms with and acknowledging the IMMENSE AND PROFOUND TRAUMA that each "side" has caused the other and in finding ways to heal together.
(and before I proceed I'd just like to say that unlike most israelis, I'm fully aware that the trauma that the newly arrived jewish migrants caused the local people over the last century - in the brutal ruthless cruel supremacist exclucivist tribalist zionist project to disposses, throw out, take over, dehumanize and erase of the local people in Palestine - is many many orders of magnitude greater than the other way around (than the trauma caused to some of the newly-arrived jewish migrants by the resistence of the local people to being dispossesed, massacred, abused and driven out of their home). Some of it is detailed in this shocking documentary https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3psMGQE0iW4 which i can confirm is 100% true to reality based on my own personal experience in the Israeli military. And after watching that docu I also highly recommend this short video https://youtu.be/CSff-Ip1kZs?si=udYd0XxYz6kbcDMb that details the horrific TRUTH of what is being done, everything that the nationalist one-sided billionaire-owned media never tells you.
This capacity mentioned above, to step out of one's bubble and hear/see the humanity and divinity of another before seeing a label (and the stories attached to the label), requires having CONTACT between the "sides" so that we may hear each other's stories and each other's pain, but this contact is prevented and denied becasue of the incredible dominance of the tribaliat sectarian nationalist divisive ideology in both sides (extremely dominant among israelis, in my experiemce)
As someone who was given at birth the label 'Jewish' and 'Israeli' (but have already long ago seen through their inaccurate, distorting, corrupting, limiting, imprisoning, divisive, sectarian and God-denying nature) I notice that what allows this ongoing horror to happen (not only today but for more than a century now) is that there is such a total SEPARATION AND DISCONNECTION between the "sides" (this is one of the greatest successes of nationalism driven by the ultra-wealthy ruling class, to divide and tribalistically pit against each other those who for centuries lived together, before the introduction of the divisive nationalist mind virus to the region) SEPARATION AND DISCONNECTION so that people from both "sides" have no full understanding of the life experience & trauma experience of those on the "other side".
From what I see, this total DISCONNECTION is exactly what allows people to cheer when "our hero fighters" (whom the other side calls foriegn invaders/dispossesors/colonizers or terrorists) murder, torture, oppress, abuse, slaughter and bomb "them", because each side says "they are evil people who only want to harm us, take our land and kill us/kick us out", and each side has countless examples of actions by the other side that are supposed to "prove" the supposed rightness of their claim.
Each "side" is enclosed and contained within its own SECTARIAN BUBBLE and tells itself its own story, about its trauma and difficulties, and is completely unaware of the life experience and trauma of the "other side".
And so, when the other side reacts (in what it calls self-defense) then the first side interprets it as an attack (becasue of its DISCONNECTION from the stories and sense-making of the other side) and tells a story that "those people on the other side" are evil monsters who only want to harm us for no reason.
It's quite amazing how similar the story that each side tells itself to the story that the other side tells itself, it is practically the SAME STORY - we are the victims here who are only protecting ourselves from the aggression of those evil people over there who only want to harm us and hate us for no reason. We have no one to talk to and negotiate with, they are not human beings, they are sons of Satan who hate us from birth, who only want to destroy us and take our land and kick us out - each side speaks the exact same stories!!
And all this lack of understanding happens simply because there is NO CONTACT between the "sides". This is the tremendous success of nationalism/tribalism, there is a complete disconnection, so that I don't hear the story that the other side tells itself and how they make sense of things, I don't experience their life experience, I don't know anything about their pain, I don't realize how much the story they tell themselves is the same as the story I tell myself, and therefore there is no possibility of experiencing the HUMANITY (the fear, the search for security) that motivates the other, just as it motivates me, and therefore also indifference to the trauma that the other goes through at the hands of "our heroic fighters"
It seems to me that the main engine that drives all of this is that people in the region (and especially Israelis) undergo a very deep conditioning/indoctrination from a very young age into a separative and SECTARIAN RELIGIOUS-NATIONALIST IDENTITY and learn to believe (contrary to what reality shows) that this separate and divisive identity is what will provide them with protection and security, even though it does THE EXACT OPPOSITE!!
This indoctrination into the separative exclucivist religious-nationalist identity is much more than just mental brainwashing, but it is mainly the conditioning the of the nervous system and emotional system into IDENTIFICATION with a nationalist-religious label which causes the emotions and the body to react very strongly to anything that they teach me is at odds with this identity.
Strong reaction that comes from the fact that the body/brain/nervous system has been conditioned to learn - through constant repetition in the first years of life (when the personality is formed), again and again and again, and without questioning - this is who I am, that I am this national-religious identity.
It seems to me that those who have fallen into the abyss of sectarianism/tribalism/nationalism (and especially those whose tribalism also involves divisive, excluding, supremacist and God-denying sectarian religious beliefs) have been conditioned to believe that their saftey & security will be found through group separation and exclusion, a sense of separation from the rest of humanity (a feeling that is so deeply imprinted in those who believe that the label 'Jew' is who they actually are), that security will be found through an attempt to ensure the safety of ONLY one group of people, only those who were born into the "correct" religious-national label (and anyone who was not born into the correct religious label can go to hell. She matters a little but not nearly as much as the Chosen People, the most valuable and important people in the universe). It sounds ridiculous, but this is a VERY common & mainstream worldview in the extremely tribalist, ethnocentric, & fascistic Israeli society, and it plays a huge part in what brought about this conflict in the first place, since the very early days of sectarian exclucivist zionist nationalism, and its arrival in the middle east from (mostly) eastern Europe.
To me, this is precisely the blindness of the sectarian nationalist-religious identity: trying to create security ONLY for one group, ONLY for a part of the whole (while ignoring and dismiss8ng what this does to the whole) , such an attempt can NEVER ever lead to real security but exactly the opposite - this is the number one factor that creates constant conflict and INSECURITY!!!
TRYING TO CREATE SECTARIAN SECURITY (SECURITY ONLY FOR THE PART AND NOT THE WHOLE, ONLY FOR ME AND MY GROUP) IS THE VERY CAUSE OF INSECURITY!!!
In my understanding, tribalism/nationalism and sectarian divisive exoteric religion (which is the POLAR OPPOSITE of what God/Consciousness actually is) is the great disease and blindness of humanity. Is the most destructive and deadly invention that humans have ever invented (not because we are bad, but because we have not psychologically matured yet, and are still blind, and in our inocent blindness we believed that this is how we will find safety & security, without understanding what we are doing, without realizing that we are actually creating constant INSECURITY when we search for security through the sectarian divisive nationalist-religious identity, when we seek security only for the part and not for the whole).
To me it is absolutely clear that it is the number one cause of human division, separation, antagonism, hatred, conflict, violence, murder and war..
IMHO, the bloodshed can never stop and there will never be security for anyone unless we have the courage to step out of our sectarian bubble and actually listen and truly understand the profound trauma we inflict (this is true for both sides but especially so for Israelis who are incredibly brainwashed and ignorant of the UNSPEAKABLE HORROR CRUELTY INHUMANITY AND TRAUMA that supremacist right-wing zionist ruling class inflicted and inflict on the local people.
Without feeling the pain endured and understanding what local palestinians are actually reacting to, indoctrinated supremacist zionists will just continue with the murder, abuse, dispossession, cruelty, throwing-out, massacre and erasure of the local people, and keep telling themselves the story that 'they are hostile to us for no reason, simply becasue they are evil antisemite monsters by nature..'
That's quite a profound insight you reached there. And it's also one of the most balanced comments I've read about this issue. I believe that this is an important piece, you might want to consider publishing it as a stand alone post. This seems to me like the way forward
Thanks. Glad to hear it resonates 🙏
You need to publish this. Medium and Substack are excellent media choices with an emphasis on individuality.
I agree with James. Publish this widely. Such integrative wisdom from painful personal experience and deep reflection, matters.
Thank you. I do hear you.
I've published it as a post on my substack, and in a few other places as a comment. Everyone are of course free to share it.
I promise to do my best to keep attuned to the heart, observant of cultural movements, and to let Love speak through me.
May I be a vessel for Love
On a comment of yours in a different article, I asked you what it was like to be you. You chose not to respond. Here, you have given people who care to read your comment an insight. Thank you for giving people this insight. Not everyone will share your views, but I hope you're okay with that. They speak of connection rather than division. I believe this to be the key to progress.
Thank you. I didn’t respond to your previous comment because there is A LOT on my plate in many areas of life, it is full to the brim and overflowing and I apologize but I am not able to give my (not-endless) time and energy to every single person who pulls on my sleeve and wants my attention, especially when this is a complete stranger who asks me personal intimate questions (what is it like to be you) that require me (if i am to genuinely and seriously answer that question) to completely open myself up and be vulnerable to someone I don’t know (and furthermore, do so publicly, on a public forum, in front of numerous complete strangers). I’m sorry but that would be the kind of vulnerable interaction that i would only engage in with the people closest to me whom i trust unreservedly and feel completely safe with. I do fully understand where you’re comingn from but to me it feels premature and unsustainable to interact at such an intimate and vulnerable level with a complete stranger and to do so on a public forum.
As for connection/division, my comments ALWSYS point to connection and the inherebt unity of humanity. When i criticize the God-ignorant abusive ruling class (such as the Nazi Zionist billionaires, their humanity-dividing supremacist triblalist exclucivist ideology, their terrorist apartheid colony in west asia and the gullible conservatives and liberals who believe their paid propagandists slogans’ that say that their abuse, massacres, torture dehumanization and attack on the native people is for the purpose of protecting jews) when i criticise, that is NOT divisive. To point put the most divisive supremacist exclucivist ideology on tne planet and its terrorist murderous abusive implementation in a supremacist apartheid colony, is NOT divisive, but exactly to the contrary.
You see, that is precisely the danger of blindly adopting Charles’ call for unity (which i fully endorse) without any discernment or wisdom. It leads to what i pointed out to charles in one of my other comments, it leads to these slogans being used by the most cunning manipulative ANTI-UNITY tribalist sectarian people on the planet (such as the zionist billionaires that fund both trump and the right-wing liberlas) using Charles’ slogans of unity to completely NEUTER, dismantle, mislabel, censor and shut down any criticism of their profoundly tribalist sectatian ANTI-UNITY neo-nazi supremacist ideology, and its implementation in their terrorist murderous abusosive colony in west asia (and by the way, i was born and grew up in israel, and had the idiotic childish God-denying sectarian labels ‘jew’ and ‘israeli’ placed on me at birth by indoctrinated God-ignorant tribalists, so i am speaking from experience when i am speaking about the zionist billilnaires’ terrorist colony in west asia and the very deep tribalist indoctrination that israelis go through from birth. I was a devout zionist for the firat half of my life and swallowed the poisonous zionist mythology and propaganda hook line and sinker in my youth. I know exactly how these infoctrinated supremacist Nazis think) You can see more details about this on my profile page if interested).
If we lived during south african aparteheid times or during te german third reich and if we were to so blindly adopt Charles’ call for unity without any discernment and wisdom during those times as well, then we would condemn any criticism of the south african apartheid regime or of the German third reich as being “divisive” and “hateful” towards the righteous believers in tne south african apartheid regime and thd german third reich.. that is PRECISELY what the supremacist zionist propagandists are doing (either liberal or conservative, both right wing capitalist liberals and conservative propagandists are united in their protection of the billionaire empire's colony in west asia). They label as “divisive” and “hateful/antisemite” any pointing out of the terrorist murderous abusive criminality of the empire’s zionist colony in west asia or its supremaciat nazi guiding ideology…
I have to stop now, but again, see more details on that on my profile’s page.. thank you for the time and attention..
PS. and in tne future, if i don’t reply quickly, or at all, please know that it is becasue i have A LOT on my plate and my time and energy resources are limited. Thank you and blessings🙏
Hypocrite and self hating Jew. You don’t deserve to be called a Jew, why don’t you convert to some other a-hole religion. Fortunately I didn’t waste my time reading your excruciatingly long & boring treatise, and presumably millions of others didn’t either .. so basically you wasted your time writing it didn’t you?
And here you have it ladies and gentlemen. Hear it directly from the horse's mouth. Everything I pointed out in the comment above about what tribalism does to human beings is perfectly illustrated here by this deeply hate-filled childish reaction from our friend Murphy (which is almost certainly a fake name as he's actually an Israeli, one of the thousands of hateful zionist opeartives that the israeli gov't floods social media with). Everything I pointed out about the profound life-destroying heart-corrupting PSYCHOSIS of tribalism and its sectarian war mentality of "Its either US or THEM" that Charles writes so much about (and how the tribalist psychosis takes hold of one's brain and nervous system and corrupts one's heart) all of it is exemplified by our Israeli friend "Murphy'" here.
I just couldn't have found a more prefect example to illustrate what's pointed out in my comment than this deeply-hateful immature unconscious response from our israeli friend "Murphy". So thank you "Murphy" for illustrating so emphatically all the different points I have made in my comment above (based on my own life experience within the tribalist and supremacist hateful cult of zionism).
I'm now more convinced than ever that tribalist indoctrination, division, supremacy and hatred will likely be the thing that destroys life on earth and will end humanity. We're quite close to this now with the complete separation and division into religious-nationalist groups (each with its own story of victimhood and rightness), with the tribalist hatred and religious supremcy dominating some people so strongly.. You can see in the deep tribalist hate (and feeling of self-righteousness) of the israeli "Murphy"'s response exactly how the delusional and supremacist zionist cult and its victimhood story will take down the entire planet bring an end to life on earth.
Like Charles beautifully said 'there is no one more hated in a tribalist worldview than the peacemakers who don't identify with either "side" but show the prodound INSANITY, heart-disconnection and life-destruction of tribalism and religious supremacy, that show the profound psychosis and life-destruction of the whole "it's either us or them" tribalist-fascist psychosis (and tribalism's inevitable extreme hatred and dehumanization of anyone who isn't on "our side", the "right side", the side of the light against the evil darkness of 'the other side').
I showed in my comment exactly what are the stories that each unconscious and indoctrinated "side" tells itself from within its own SECTARIAN BUBBLE, where it is hermatically closed, and where it tells itself its stories about its own pain and trauma and victimhood, never for a moment have any awareness of the pain and trauma outside its own tribalist bubble. You can see a living example of this here in Murphy's childish unaware hate-filled knee-jerk reaction, which is an extremely common reaction among zionists and others who fell into the abyss of God-denying tribalism/nationalism/religious supremacy
Just like Hermann Goering, the nazi leader, was forced to admit during the nuremberg trials regarding how nationalist propaganda and indoctrination works and how it grabs people "its very easy to make the people hate whoever you want them to hate and even easier to make them hate the peacemakers. All you need to do is constantly repeat over and over again and again and again that "the enemy" irrationally hates them for no reason at all but simply because the enemy is an evil monster beyond redemption and then you tell the people that the peacemakers are traitors to the glorious nation who are helping the evil enemy. It works like a charm every time and it works the same way IN EVERY NATION". From my own personal life experience (as someone who was a devout zionist and who fell for the intense religious-nationaliat brainwashing that everyone in israrl goes through from birth) i can say that the tricks that Goering described certainly works perfectly on zionists.
The profound corruption and disconnection from God that tribalism did to Murphy's heart is precisely what I was pointing to in the last paragraphs of my comment. So again, thank you Murphy for illustrating so emphatically everything I pointed out in the comment regarding the one-sidedness, blindness and psychosis of tribalism and what it does to human beings. Much love my friend ❤️
I'll finish with a reminder of one very important thing I pointed out on the comment above, in the hopes that sanity has the power to break through the thick walls of tribalist indoctrination -
TRYING TO CREATE SECTARIAN SECURITY (SECURITY ONLY FOR TNE PART AND NOT THE WHOLE, SECURITY ONLY FOR THOSE WHO HAD A SPECIFIC RELIGIOUS LABEL PLACED ON THEM AT BIRTH) IS THE VERY CAUSE OF INSECURITY!!!
The very thing that immature tribalists have been taught will bring them safety & security (identifying one's being with a separative religious-nationalist label and separating from humanity on the basis of this label and believing that those who had this label placed on them at birth are more valuable than others and more deserving of safety than others) is the very thing that brings INSECURITY to the tribalists and to everyone else!!!
Is it clear why it must bring insecurity? If it is not clear then let me know and I'll happily explain it.
https://avigail.substack.com/p/israel-the-legacy-of-a-perpetrator
PS. And by the way, if you had read my comment (which the deep tribalist hatred won't allow you to do) then you would have known that I do not subscribe to any tribalist conservative divisive religion (including judaism) after clearly seeing the divisive, life-destroying and God-denying nature of sectarian exoteric religions. So, my friend, there's no sense in calling me a 'self hating jew' hjen i'm not a jew nor self-hating. Not a jew becasue i have already shed that childish, life-destroying and God-denying label a long time ago.
And not "self-hating" because unlike you Murphy, I don't hate anyone. Not myself and not anyone else (including not hating the lost souls who fell into the destructive abyss of tribalism/nationalism/sectarianism)
You toxically narcissistic prig. You take this person’s public confession and turn it into your own soapbox. How dare you.
To the contrary, it's critical we share. This is an open forum, and I welcome the frankness an willingness to share that TH=RCA posted. That soapbox belongs to everyone. Your fear won't shut down truth.
What would you consider an appropriate response to "this person's public confession?" Or do you just want to jerk your outrage?
How is a reaction like this helpful in the grand scheme of things? Given what Charles, or the original commentor Uroj were trying to get across; the idea that we need to try to see and understand people better, and not be so reactionary. Believe me, I've been down this same road many times, and I understand the impulse quite well, but it never results in anything good. I've had to learn the hard way to take a deep breathe and take my finger off the mouse button before I fire off something I'll regret later. This is not a personal attack on you. I don't know you at all, just as you don't know the person who made that comment, but to call them a toxically narcissistic (prick or pig?) judging by one comment is pretty harsh, and in no way helpful.
What the original commentor said resonated with this person and inspired them to make a comment of their own. This person also acknowledges the original comment and asks if its ok to share their story. This isn't a real life conversation, the original commentor is not being interrupted, and anyone who doesn't like what is written can easily just stop reading and move on.
Again, I get the impulse, I've been there, and I'm still there in a lot of ways in life. I'm autistic, and I've been known to be blunt and not think about how I might hurt someone with my words. Seeing a comment like this just reminds me to try to put more thought into my reactions, and to try to be kind. I also know it sucks to be called out by someone for your actions, but you open yourself up to that with comments like the one you made. I'm sure you are a good person, and a bad person, just like every one of us. If we can't practice what people like Charles are preaching on the comment section of his own essays then there isn't much hope for the rest is there?
Huh, I just looked up the word "prig". Didn't even realize it was a word with a meaning. Sorry for putting words in your mouth, still a little harsh though.
You served honorably for what seemed to you good reasons at the time, and you are not to blame. Reserve your contempt for the creeps in Washington who risked your life and millions of others to serve their bottom line and further the agenda of their corporate masters.
Absolutely! Well said
May God bless you brother with the assurance of your complete forgiveness and redemption.
Thank you for your service. You have nothing to apologize for.
It is possible to hold oneself accountable for their own transgressions, that they hold to be a violation of their own estimation of what is right, without degrading themselves further. One has to accept the truth of what has been done (sans justifications and excuses) and then realize that it is possible to find one's own honor once again for the future. Finding acts of helpfulness and kindness one can engage in, and not giving up, eases the path. Thank you for getting on that path. You will hold your head again high. Higher than you did before you violated your dividing line between right and wrong. It is your dividing line, no one elses. Find out how to keep it strong and secure.
You have a beautiful heart. A lotus will only grow in mud.
Holy shit - such a powerful share. A deep bow and thank you.
🥰
So brave. Thanks for that 🙏
The gorgeous Hawaiian ho’oponopono prayer to heal all wounds:
“I’m sorry, Please forgive me, Thank you, I love you.” 🙏💖🌷
Yes!! That is exactly what sprang to my mind as well. Thank you so much for posting this.
That’s also what sprang to my mind! Ho’oponopono: https://deephooponopono.com/hooponopono-a-deeper-dive-into-the-methods-of-spiritual-cleaning/
Not Ho’oponopono - Faux’ponopono - Not that it is not a beautiful sentiment - However - please do not misappropriate Hawaiian culture. Please look at this: https://www.facebook.com/AboutHuna and seek videos on YouTube with Kumu Ramsey Taum.
I believe it was Thomas Keating who offered me the thought that forgiveness is the divine technology for all forward movement. Nothing meaningful happens without it. It is the starting place for all shifts in thinking. I have a long ago memory of a certain day in time when the front page news on all our newspapers in Toronto screamed of human atrocities. And I looked around and wondered how it was all of us were still standing, why we had not fallen to our knees in collective repentance, crippled under the weight of our disregard for the miraculous.
I follow Chris's work, as I do yours - both writers of intelligence and compassion. And these voices need hearing.
I don't know why, but Simone Weil wailing away in the thirties, comes to my mind. Perhaps because the image of a beautiful young girl's face seen through a snipper's instrument of viewing stays with me. I keep this little quote close to my own work always. It is from Waiting for God. "In the legend of the Grail, the keeper of this miraculous vessel is a king paralyzed by a most painful wound. And there is said that the Grail shall belong to the first who asks this king the question, "What are you going through?" The love of our neighbour, in all its fullness, simply means being able to say to him, "What are you going through?" It is a recognition that the sufferer exists, not only as a unit in a collection or a specimen from the social category labeled "unfortunate" but also as a man, exactly like us, who was one day stamped with a special mark of affliction. For this recognition to occur, it is enough, but it is indispensable, to know how to look at him in a certain way. This way of looking is, first of all, attentive. The soul empties itself of all its own contents in order to receive into itself the being it is looking at, just as he is, in all his truth."
Emmanuel Levinas' work too, speaks of the sacred in the face of the other. When we look into the face of the other, really look, we cannot kill. We have stopped looking, I think, both collectively and individually and this allows the killing to go on, government sanctioned, church sanctioned, culturally sanctioned. Even on this beautiful day, surrounded by the purple gold glory of the Canadian autumn countryside where I live, there is a malaise of sorrow filtering through the sunlight. In a world with pileated woodpeckers and polar bears, how can our contribution to the astonishments be to find new ways to kill? And worse, think ourselves clever in their inventions?
Thank you, as always, Charles, for your thoughtful renderings. Every blessing. Candice
Thank you for sharing your thoughts in this comment, to know what someone else is going through is an intimacy that seems of less importance these days and a question rarely asked. Thank you for bringing it up because of it’s life necessity and the core of humanity at least it should be ❤️🙏🏻
Love Chris Hedges. Matt Taibbi, too.
🥰
A Chinese fortune cookie I recently got said that the ax soon forgets the damage it's done; the tree never forgets. Very timely.
A chicken is involved in your breakfast. The provider of the bacon is committed.
Thank you Charles. Your return to these matters in the last 4 essays have been deeply important to me. What you are saying is not being said. I know you know that I just want to reinforce its vitality.
Amen brotherman, I can feel, and I deeply appreciate the place that you're writing from and communicating your heart.
Wise, you are, and compassionate.
Thank you, Charles. I appreciate you continuing to show up. Blessings to you.
Thank you for this dear Charles. I was born and grew up in Israel and was a devout zionist for the first half of my life, before waking up. I later left that insane country and that severely-ill perpetrator society (that does not recognise itself as such).. A few important things i wanted to point out regarding your post, if I may. First, before even starting, if you truly want to understand the profound illness and trance-like psycopathy that inflicts israeli society, i highly recommend this incredibly important and insightful essay from another israeli who left (which Joy shared with me below). Please don't miss it. It is truly a must read.
https://avigail.substack.com/p/israel-the-legacy-of-a-perpetrator
Secondly, if i may respectfully point this out Charles, it seems to me that you as well as Chris Hedges might be missing the ROOT CAUSE of what drives the neo-Nazi supremacist Israeli billionaire ruling class (who not only butcher, torture, abuse, disposses, steal lands, brutalize, traumatize, DEHUMANIZE and genocide the local people of the land, but also economically oppress ordinary israelis), it seems like you're missing the root cause that drives them to constantly commit their vicious genocidal atrocities nonstop (for many decades now) against the local people and implement their supremacist nationalist-religious ideology on a monstrous scale (like i said, i was born and grew up in israel and was a devout zionist for the first half of my life, so i am intimately familiar with how these Zionist Nazis think, their PROFOUNDLY SUPREMACIST, INTOLERANT, VIOLENT AND EXCLUCIVIST religious ideology, and with the "we're the victims" mythology that israelis are fed nonstop from birth to provide an excuse for the murderous criminality of the zionist billionaires' project in west Asia). The ROOT CAUSE that makes them commit these crimes is described in this profound essay https://www.pdrboston.org/israel-s-government-attacks-jews-to, which IMHO is a must read for anyone who wishes to understand what is actually happening in this piece of land. I can confirm that the very insightful researcher who wrote this is spot on in his description of life in israel and of the treatment of ordinary israelis by the zionist billionaire ruling class (who are the driving force behind the century-long nonstop zionist mass-butchering abuse dispossesion and dehumanization of the local people which is ongoing and relentless (and of which you gave just one small tiny example in this post. By the time you posted this, many others have already been murdered). The supremacist israeli billionaire ruling class who thrive on nationalist-religious division, intolerance, fear and hatred, and do EVERYTHING in their power to make sure it never stops.
And by the way, that's also why these nazi zionist billionaires are so heavily backing and financing trump. Trump is an integral part of their strategy to ensure never ending religious-nationalist hatred, division and war, the very thing that the supremacist zionist billionaires thrive on and that keeps them in power and allows them to oppress and get rich off of ordinary israelis. Not that the right-wing zionist DNC are much better, but trump is clearly the preferred choice of the neo-nazi billionaire mass murderers because it's absolutely guaranteed thst he'll fully support, arm and fund (use american taxpayers money to fund) their mass-butchering and l dispossesion of the local people, in order to generate as much religious-nationalist hatred and violence as possible, which is the key to trump's and the supremacist israeli billionaires' division of the have-nots along nationalist-religious lines, and their pitting of the have-nots against each other, to cement their domination over the people.
And by the way, in order to understsnd EXACTLY how this process works, exactly why the billionaire ruling class must always keep us in a state of division and hostility along religious-nationalist lines, must constantly keep us in a state of tribalist war and insecurity (or threat of such war), in order to understand EXACTLY how this religuous-nationalist division, war and insecurity ensures that the billionaire ruling class stay in power over us and get richer and richer off of us, to understand this at depth, I highly recommend this profoundly important essay which in my view is absolute essential reading for every human on the planet, to understand what is actually going on and how the billionaire ruling class oppressors are playing us https://www.pdrboston.org/oppressors-need-bogeyman-enemies
And if i may continue, the same brilliant researcher also writes very insightfully on why there is no chance in the world to ever stop the century-long neo-nazi zionist project to disposses, dehumanize, brutalize, abuse, traumatize and annihilate the local people, if the TRUE NATURE of what drives the ruling class' violence against the local people (as well as their oppression of ordinary israelis) isn't exposed, the true CLASS DOMINATION nature of the billionaire's zionist project. Here https://johnspritzler.substack.com/p/pro-palestine-activists-make-themselves is one example of his wise criticism of the anti-genocide movement for its failure to bring to the public's attention the ROOT CAUSE of why the supremacist israeli billionaires are committing the ongoing atrocities. And the failure to point this out leaves the field right open for zionist propagandist to deceptively claim that they regretably must use violence in order to ensure the safety and security of jews, which is a BLATANT LIE, if one understands the class nature of the zionist billionaires' project in west Asia and how they actually opress ordinary jews and don't give a damn about jews. For example, besides their ongoing economic oppression against ordinary israelis (see details in the link shared above), right-wing zionists have also severely attacked and starved jewish holocaust survivors in the refugee camps after the second world war who didn't wish to come to their colonial project in palestine. Zionists also actively prevented the rescue of jews from nazi occupied areas in europe in order to use their death as bargaining chips to ensure world sympathy and support for their colonial project in palestine (the fact that most jews in germany were socialist and communist made it all the more easier for right-wing zionists to sacrifice them by giving them away to be slaughtered by right-wing german nazis who shared the supremacist essence of the zionists' nationalist-religious supremacist ideology (the nazi zionists and german nazis disagree on who is the superior group, but they fully agree on the principle that one group is superior over others and of higher value than others); In addition, zionist also routinely sacrifice jews (as well as others) in their global terror attacks that they conduct across the globe under the false flag of 'islamic terrorism' (they use these false flag operations for two reasons. One is in order to dehumanize muslims and present them as violent savages so that you'll cheer for the zionists' stealing of their land and dispossesing them. And the second reason for the zionists' global terror network under the false flag of 'islamic terrorism' is to again, ensure eternal religious division, hatred and violence, the key that keeps them in power. This is also the reason, by the way, why the zionist billionaires have been funding hamas (and ISIS) for decades now. To ensure that there's a always a scary boogeyman to maximally frighten ordinary israelis into keeping the right-wing billionaores in power (becasue it is the billionaores' representitives who cynically paint themselves as the ones who will protect "the people" from "that evil monstrous scary enemy who is coming to get you") AND in order to ensure that they can point to the scary boogyman as an existential threat and say that that's the reason they cannot stop attacking and dispossesing the local people.
The space for a comment is finished here, but if anyone wants sources for the claims in the last paragraph, I'll happily give them in a separate reply.
If you are not familiar with Avigail Abarbanel's substack, then you might find a kindred soul whose last post is deeply personal and moving, about her growing up and leaving Israel, which brought her not just travel but truth. https://avigail.substack.com
Joy, I just read this article and found it quite informative. Thank you for posting the link. I experienced many aha's and easily recognized the cult behavior she described in Israel. After all, I grew up in my father's WASP upperclass, antisemitic, anti anything but WASP cult. Once you've been in one, you recognize others. I was aware of the victim culture among Jews for sure, but I missed the sickness of the big picture she drew. We live in one big victim culture here in the US and victimhood goes part and parcel with cult life. So while I can see through her words that the Cult/Victim/Perpetrator culture is quite intense and blatantly violent in Israel, I also see it everywhere these days, in every country, every town, every neighborhood. What is truly unbelievable to me is how ubiquitous this picture is. But I guess when I think about how long humans have been "doing their thing in the world" (what a lame euphemism) then really the earth is pretty small. Perhaps it is not just a handful of evil puppeteers pulling our strings, but rather it is all of our creation..... every single one of us from the beginning. Which is kinda what Charles was saying. I love reading stories about courageous people who left the cult, who blew the whistle, who stood up and told their truth. It gives me courage.❤️
I read some on Avigail's substack in the spirit of broadening my perspective. I have no doubt what she says is a part of the truth (not meaning as in "partially true" but as "incomplete truth"). But it is also extremely black and white. I am certainly not above that sort of thinking but trying to learn. It certainly misses the very core of Charles' message. The last thing the world needs is another voice that paints a conflict as 100% perpetrator on one side / 100% victim on the other side. The issue is that many have written an equally devastating analysis of the Palestinian / Arab side of the conflict (I guess that is where I might lose many of you but bear with me please**). I hope to read more articles that speak to the shared responsibility and pain and hope on both sides. It may not be her role, or maybe she has written such things elsewhere. I guess you post such things because you feel this perspective is not heard enough. And it definitely is, given the Western media bias. But unless both sides feel heard there will be no peace. So I humbly submit that it may be entirely useless to write or share any more one sided pieces. Those that need it most will not be able to read, due to psychological defense mechanisms but also more profoundly due to a lack of incentive - there is no upside for them. They are convinced to be the good guys on the right side of history now, all you are offering them is the dry valley of pain for having been wrong so long, only to finally arrive again at being convinced to be the good guys on the right side of history (this time on the other side).
** I won't reiterate all the problems with the Palestinians / Arab attitude towards Jews. Suffice to say it is actually very very similar to what she says about Israel. Victimhood, hatred of jews, muslim superiority indoctrination from a young age, lack of willingness to compromise etc.
I hear you and fully agree, i wrote a piece about exactly this which i will share below, but before i get to that, i just want to say two things. First is regarding the cynical LIE that the local people's resistence to being massacred and dispossesed is driven by antisemitism. I'm sorry but as a jew who levrd with local palestinian family in tne west bank (see details in my reply to Jerry below), that's total BS. resisting your oppresors has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with what religion the oppressors are. If someone comes fully weaponized to throw me out of my home and abuses my children then i don't care what religion they are, i will fight their oppression and dispossesion. The religion of the oppressors has NOTHING to do with anything. The locals' resistance to being massacred and driven out of their home would have been exactly the same if it were mormons or buddhists or baptists doing the massacring and dispossesing. THE RELIGION OF THE OPPRESOR HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. This is a common lie pushed by the highly manipulative billionaires' propaganda machine. To depict the local resistence to the nazi zionist abuse and dispossesion as if it is driven by religious hatred. BS!!!!
That is precisely the propaganda that vile abusers spread in order to de-legitimize resistence to their extreme abuse, torture, mass-murder, rape, dispossesion, theft and erasure.
I just have no words for how monstrous this zionist billionaires' propaganda is. Not only do they horrifyingly abuse, steal and dehumanize, but they then also try to criminalize and de-legitemize any normal human resistence and hostility to their abuse (which is a normal human reaction to any invading abuser and dispossesor) by lying and presenting it as if the resistence to their abuse is driven by antisemitism. MONSTROUS BEYOND WORDS!!
And you know what the funny part is? That the reality is precisely the opposite. The ones who are ACTUALLY driven by very intense religious hatred and supremacy are not the ones being dispossesed massacred and thrown out of their home, but the supremacist religious fundamentalist nazi zionists who are doing the dispossesing and who see the local people as less than human, definitely inferior in value to the superior chosen people, the most important people in the universe. I know this becasue i was a devout zionist and i know exactly how these nazis think and what drives them. And i experienced first hand their burning religious hatred to non-jews. See my reply to Jerry below for more details.
And the second thing i wanted to point out is that even though i fully agree with you, at the same i think it's important to take into account that we're NOT dealing with equally weighted positions, but rather the IMBALANCE is so extreme (with the entire weight of the western financial-militarized empire - the largest and most powerful empire in the history of mankind - 100% backing and standing in support of lunatic neo-nazi ideology of the jewish religious supremacists in ANY POSSIBLE WAY, not just in UNLIMITED financial and weapon support but also in a VAST censorship industrial complex that criminalizes and punishes anything that deviates from the jewish cult's officially allowed narrative, which is thst we're the victims who are only defending ourselves from those evil monsters over there who want to hurt us for no reason whatsoever, simply because they are evil antisemites), the IMBALANCE is so extreme so that the very rare voice of the few (very few) dissident ex-israelis, such as me and her, who have intimate familiarity with how the insanity of religious-nationalist supremacy, cultish exclucivity and sense of eternal victimhood and righteousness, how it actually takes shape in the spirit of a culture and is seen as "normality" from inside the cult (very very similar to what happened in nazi germany), i think such voices are extremely rare and important today, especially given how profoundly controlled and biased western media is and how uninformed and misinformed most westerners are regarding the nature of the jewish supremacist cult (powered by its globally-imposed victimhood storyline).
There is actually even a lot more than that going on here, because the violent supremacist intolerant psychopathy of the jewish religious ideology (and its three most fundamental religious texts -the torah, talmud and mishnah - which are PROFOUNDLY RACIST, INTOLERANT, VIOLENT, EXCLUCIVIST AND SUPREMACIST TOWARDS NON-JEWS, and the cult's invented hebrew "god" who is a violent nationalist bloodthirsty psychopath) this psychotic religious supremacist ideology does not just happen in a vacuum, but is intimately tied to the entire power structure of the global billionaire's empire. The global financial-militarized empire depends on and needs the eternal strife, hatred, division and war provided by such lunatic religious supremacist ideologies, in order to pit the 99% of humanity (the non-ruling class) against each other and in order to maintain their control over us
I described this (too briefly) in my comment above, but you can read about it in much more depth in these two profoundly important essays which describe in detail exactly how this works, exactly how the dividing tribalist ideology of nationalist-religious supremcy (and the ethno-fascist jewish supremacist ideology is one of the most extreme of these ideologies, certainly the most violent & rabid today in its manifestation through the abusive terrorist state of israel) how these divisive supremacist ideologies are used by the billionaire ruling class to ensure their domination over us. See here https://www.pdrboston.org/oppressors-need-bogeyman-enemies which IMHO is a must read for every human on the planet.
And to understand exactly how this principle is applied specifically in the case of israel-palestine see this really excellent insightful essay https://www.pdrboston.org/israel-s-government-attacks-jews-to
And this quick substack post summerizes it all very succinctly https://johnspritzler.substack.com/p/why-do-our-rulers-fear-monger-and
Now, having said all that, i do fully agree with your basic premise and wrote an important piece about it and what can be done about this (important in my view, of course 😊). There is no space left to share it here so i will post it in the reply below this one. Please do look for it in a few minutes in the reply below
Here's the important piece i mentioned above (this might be even more important than the above message)
If I may share my perspective - as someome who had the labels 'Jewish' & 'Israeli' put on me at birth - it seems to me that the way out of this horror lies in the heart of people, in the ability/capacity to see the humanity and divinity of another before viewing them as a label (palestinian, israeli, muslim, jew). As well as in coming to terms with and acknowledging the IMMENSE AND PROFOUND TRAUMA that each "side" has caused the other and in finding ways to heal together.
(and before I proceed I'd just like to say that unlike most israelis, I'm fully aware that the trauma that the newly arrived jewish migrants caused the local people over the last century - in the brutal ruthless cruel supremacist exclucivist tribalist zionist project to disposses, throw out, take over, dehumanize and erase of the local people in Palestine - is many many orders of magnitude greater than the other way around (than the trauma caused to some of the newly-arrived jewish migrants by the resistence of the local people to being dispossesed, massacred, abused and driven out of their home). Some of it is detailed in this shocking documentary https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3psMGQE0iW4 which i can confirm is 100% true to reality based on my own personal experience in the Israeli military. And after watching that docu I also highly recommend this short video https://youtu.be/CSff-Ip1kZs?si=udYd0XxYz6kbcDMb that details the horrific TRUTH of what is being done, everything that the nationalist one-sided billionaire-owned media never tells you.
This capacity mentioned above, to step out of one's bubble and hear/see the humanity and divinity of another before seeing a label (and the stories attached to the label), requires having CONTACT between the "sides" so that we may hear each other's stories and each other's pain, but this contact is prevented and denied becasue of the incredible dominance of the tribaliat sectarian nationalist divisive ideology in both sides (extremely dominant among israelis, in my experiemce)
As someone who was given at birth the label 'Jewish' and 'Israeli' (but have already long ago seen through their inaccurate, distorting, corrupting, limiting, imprisoning, divisive, sectarian and God-denying nature) I notice that what allows this ongoing horror to happen (not only today but for more than a century now) is that there is such a total SEPARATION AND DISCONNECTION between the "sides" (this is one of the greatest successes of nationalism driven by the ultra-wealthy ruling class, to divide and tribalistically pit against each other those who for centuries lived together, before the introduction of the divisive nationalist mind virus to the region) SEPARATION AND DISCONNECTION so that people from both "sides" have no full understanding of the life experience & trauma experience of those on the "other side".
From what I see, this total DISCONNECTION is exactly what allows people to cheer when "our hero fighters" (whom the other side calls foriegn invaders/dispossesors/colonizers or terrorists) murder, torture, oppress, abuse, slaughter and bomb "them", because each side says "they are evil people who only want to harm us, take our land and kill us/kick us out", and each side has countless examples of actions by the other side that are supposed to "prove" the supposed rightness of their claim.
Each "side" is enclosed and contained within its own SECTARIAN BUBBLE and tells itself its own story, about its trauma and difficulties, and is completely unaware of the life experience and trauma of the "other side".
And so, when the other side reacts (in what it calls self-defense) then the first side interprets it as an attack (becasue of its DISCONNECTION from the stories and sense-making of the other side) and tells a story that "those people on the other side" are evil monsters who only want to harm us for no reason.
It's quite amazing how similar the story that each side tells itself to the story that the other side tells itself, it is practically the SAME STORY - we are the victims here who are only protecting ourselves from the aggression of those evil people over there who only want to harm us and hate us for no reason. We have no one to talk to and negotiate with, they are not human beings, they are sons of Satan who hate us from birth, who only want to destroy us and take our land and kick us out - each side speaks the exact same stories!!
And all this lack of understanding happens simply because there is NO CONTACT between the "sides". This is the tremendous success of nationalism/tribalism, there is a complete disconnection, so that I don't hear the story that the other side tells itself and how they make sense of things, I don't experience their life experience, I don't know anything about their pain, I don't realize how much the story they tell themselves is the same as the story I tell myself, and therefore there is no possibility of experiencing the HUMANITY (the fear, the search for security) that motivates the other, just as it motivates me, and therefore also indifference to the trauma that the other goes through at the hands of "our heroic fighters"
It seems to me that the main engine that drives all of this is that people in the region (and especially Israelis) undergo a very deep conditioning/indoctrination from a very young age into a separative and SECTARIAN RELIGIOUS-NATIONALIST IDENTITY and learn to believe (contrary to what reality shows) that this separate and divisive identity is what will provide them with protection and security, even though it does THE EXACT OPPOSITE!!
This indoctrination into the separative exclucivist religious-nationalist identity is much more than just mental brainwashing, but it is mainly the conditioning the of the nervous system and emotional system into IDENTIFICATION with a nationalist-religious label which causes the emotions and the body to react very strongly to anything that they teach me is at odds with this identity.
Strong reaction that comes from the fact that the body/brain/nervous system has been conditioned to learn - through constant repetition in the first years of life (when the personality is formed), again and again and again, and without questioning - this is who I am, that I am this national-religious identity.
It seems to me that those who have fallen into the abyss of sectarianism/tribalism/nationalism (and especially those whose tribalism also involves divisive, excluding, supremacist and God-denying sectarian religious beliefs) have been conditioned to believe that their saftey & security will be found through group separation and exclusion, a sense of separation from the rest of humanity (a feeling that is so deeply imprinted in those who believe that the label 'Jew' is who they actually are), that security will be found through an attempt to ensure the safety of ONLY one group of people, only those who were born into the "correct" religious-national label (and anyone who was not born into the correct religious label can go to hell. She matters a little but not nearly as much as the Chosen People, the most valuable and important people in the universe). It sounds ridiculous, but this is a VERY common & mainstream worldview in the extremely tribalist, ethnocentric, & fascistic Israeli society, and it plays a huge part in what brought about this conflict in the first place, since the very early days of sectarian exclucivist zionist nationalism, and its arrival in the middle east from (mostly) eastern Europe.
To me, this is precisely the blindness of the sectarian nationalist-religious identity: trying to create security ONLY for one group, ONLY for a part of the whole (while ignoring and dismiss8ng what this does to the whole) , such an attempt can NEVER ever lead to real security but exactly the opposite - this is the number one factor that creates constant conflict and INSECURITY!!!
TRYING TO CREATE SECTARIAN SECURITY (SECURITY ONLY FOR THE PART AND NOT THE WHOLE, ONLY FOR ME AND MY GROUP) IS THE VERY CAUSE OF INSECURITY!!!
In my understanding, tribalism/nationalism and sectarian divisive exoteric religion (which is the POLAR OPPOSITE of what God/Consciousness actually is) is the great disease and blindness of humanity. Is the most destructive and deadly invention that humans have ever invented (not because we are bad, but because we have not psychologically matured yet, and are still blind, and in our inocent blindness we believed that this is how we will find safety & security, without understanding what we are doing, without realizing that we are actually creating constant INSECURITY when we search for security through the sectarian divisive nationalist-religious identity, when we seek security only for the part and not for the whole).
To me it is absolutely clear that it is the number one cause of human division, separation, antagonism, hatred, conflict, violence, murder and war..
IMHO, the bloodshed can never stop and there will never be security for anyone unless we have the courage to step out of our sectarian bubble and actually listen and truly understand the profound trauma we inflict (this is true for both sides but especially so for Israelis who are incredibly brainwashed and ignorant of the UNSPEAKABLE HORROR CRUELTY INHUMANITY AND TRAUMA that supremacist right-wing zionist ruling class inflicted and inflict on the local people.
Without feeling the pain endured and understanding what local palestinians are actually reacting to, indoctrinated supremacist zionists will just continue with the murder, abuse, dispossession, cruelty, throwing-out, massacre and erasure of the local people, and keep telling themselves the story that 'they are hostile to us for no reason, simply becasue they are evil antisemite monsters by nature..'
Undo, such an important message you wrote. And while I fell right into Avigail's message due to my own Cult experiences and life experience in general, I am not blind to other side(s). But your point is well taken. We have so many black and white, right and wrong, victim perp messages these days that promote divides, that it is healthier to at least acknowledge there is another point of view even if it is not the object of one's particular message. I think we all need to do our own personal work to free ourselves from our cult thinking and from our trauma(s) and messages that are more balanced and humane seem they might make more headway. But maybe not. My Trump hatred was so deep and fierce in 2016 that NOTHING could have persuaded me toward balance. A rough 8 years later and much personal reflection and healing of my trauma, I have found the sweet spot and frankly it makes life so much easier (mostly inside me) but I imagine those around me are quite relieved to be out from under my continually leaking rage. 🙏
Suzanne, I wrote about exactly this in my SECOND reply to Udo above (the one that starts with the words "Here's the important piece i mentioned above. this might be even more important than the above message)". Immediately above your comment
I think you might value in what i wrote there as it speaks directly to the perspective you brought up here 🙏
Thank you very much. I will look at her substack. Thank you 🙏
Thank you for your perspective, i will read those pieces recommended.
What I want to live under a broadly liberal democracy in Israel, or some Muslim psychostate?
Three things Jerry. First, i very very highly recommend this excellent essay from another israeli, who also left that supremacist nazi psychostate, about what life in israel is actually like. Plesse do me a favor Jerry and before anything else please read that very important essay. Perhaps you'll then get a glimpss into what a psychostate actually is, and how you've been conned and manipulated by the billionaires' propaganda. Please don't miss this Jerry. It is a very importsnt essay and perfectly describes israeli society https://avigail.substack.com/p/israel-the-legacy-of-a-perpetrator
Two, If you'll actually read my comment in full (though, as happened in our last interaction and as you did again now, you don't seem to actually read other people's comments in full but instead you seem to completely ignore what another writes and you seem to specialize in quick knee-jerk automatic reactions, you seem to specialize in spewing out thoughtless fact-free one-liner slogans that you've picked up somewhere and that you blindly repeat without having any personal experience in the matter, and that have no relation whatsoever to the comment that you're replying to) but if you'll please do something out of the ordinary this time and read my comment in full (slowly and attentively, with genuine curiosity and desire to understand) then you'll know that i actually lived half my life in a profoundly delusional psychostate, a perpetrator state, the most cruel MURDEROUS genocidal state on the face of this planet, which constantly and repeatedly hammers into the heads of its citizens from birth nonstop the story of our eternal victimhood, even as the neo-nazi billionaires (who run the ethno-fascist israeli psychostate) mercilessly butcher, abuse, torture and brutalize the local children, men and women that they disposses off their land and whose homes they steal. A supremacist psychostate that claims a "divine right" to brutalize, murder, throw people off their land and steal their home becasue a psychopathic violent bloodthirsty tribslist hebrew "god" in the sky likes to act as a real estate agent in his spare time and supposedly gave to the israeli cult the local people's homes because the cult is unique, don't you know, it is god's chosen people.
And in my comment i went in great detail into who runs this state and how they do it. Please do make an exception of your usual pattern and actually read my comment in full this time (including the links shared in it)
And by the way, I also lived for several months with the local people you are taught to hate and whose genocide you cheer on, I've lived with a palestinian family in the west bank for 5 months (to help them deal with the incessant attacks by neo-nazi religious fundamentalist jewish supremacists who try to terrorize them and kick them off their land). I've never met more kind, hospitable and generous people on my life. The only time i experienced burning tribalist hatred during those 5 months was when the Nazi religious-fundamentalist jewish supremacists came (accompanied with the military) to terrorize the local people in the village, to try to push them off their land in order to steal the land for the superior chosen people, the most important people in the universe..
Never before have i seen such burning hatred and sense of superiority as I've seen in the eyes of those nazi religious fundamentalist violent israeli thugs.
But the zionist billionaires' propaganda and disinformation machinemakes sure you hate the local people, see them as violent savages, see tye jewish supremacists as the victims, and cheer for the dispossesion and genocide of the local people because they are "evil".
If you want me to explain more in detail how their propaganda machine works, how their heavily-funded global network of orgs think-tanks and paid social media influencers works to pushes nonstop muslim hatred (so that you'll cheer for their nazi project to butcher and disposs the local people), if you want me to explain how they employ a global terror network under the guise of 'islamic terrorism' (again, in order to paint muslims as violent savages and to make you cheer for the zionist billionaires' nazi project) then I'll happily elaborate on these.
In addition to all the above, i'll also correct you that Israel was never an actual liberal democracy. You can't be a liberal democracy when you are an ethno-state whose entire existence is based on dispossesing the local people who live on the land that you take as your own, an ethno-state that operated from day one along nazi supremacist lines to ensure the domination of certain elevated chosen people over other (the domination of those who had a very specific religious label placed on us at birth over those who didn't have this label placed on them at birth).
So israel was never liberal nor democratic but only used to have partial fake "democracy" only for certain people (the elevated chosen ones who carry the "correct" religious label) and even that was quite limited in scope becasue even though jews are legally elevated over non-jews in aparthied israel, ordinary jews are still far below the abusive israeli billilnaire ruling class that oppresses also ordinary jews. The most accurate way to describe the israeli system is supremacist OLIGARCHY. A combination of ethno-fascism and ruling class domination.
But anyway, all of that partial libetal democracy was in the past. Today neo-nazi religious fundamentalism (which used to be the fringe of israeli society) is now wholly and completely the mainstream of israeli society and runs the gov't institutions. Today israel is not even a partially democratic liberal country but is now a religious fundamentalist and ethno-fascist perpetrator society (that of course does not recognize itself as such. No perpetrator society in history ever recognizes itself as such at the time it was happening. The sobering up happens only after a major catastrophic self-destruction. In the case of the ruthless supremacist israeli society, their catastrophic self-destruction will probably take down the whole planet with them).
3. Thirdly, what does where you want to live have anything to do with justifying the mass-murdering, dispossesion, abuse, torture, erasure and butchering of the local chidren, women and men en-masse? Please stop for one second and consider what you are actually saying and cheering for. Don't just react quickly automatically with the slogans they feed you but actually stop and inquire deeply.
You see Jerry, you're giving here the perfect example of how the billionaires' propaganda machine works on misinformed people who don't take the time to actually meet and know the people you're taught to hate.
The vast propaganda machine of the Nazi zionist billionaire child-abusers, torturers, butchers & thieves works through demonizing and de-humanizing the local human beings that they wish to disposses (throw out) from the land that they wish to steal, demonize them in the eyes of some gullible ignorant uninformed americans so that you'll cheer for their mass-murder, torture, abuse.
The entire nazi billionaires' glonal propaganda machine (with its narrative managers and numerous paid social media influencers) thrives on ignorance and hatred..thrives on demonizing the local people in the eyes of some gullible and quick-to-hate americans who don't know any better. In the last part of my comment above i explained how they do it. If you want sources then i can provide them later.
Plenty more to say, but i have to stop now.
Jerry, before your usual habit of quick knee-jerk misinformed one-liner slogans that completely ignores everything written in my comment, please do make an exception this time and actually read my comment in full (slowly and attentively, without tye filter of "I already know") including the profoundly important essays in the links that I shared. And most impotantly, read the essay from the other israeli (that I shared at the top). It will open your eyes to the REALITY of israeli society that you're never told in your echo-chambers. Okay, Jerry? Thank you 🙏
Thank you, always and again for your insightful words.
We live in a black/white; good/evil perceiving culture that seems to believe that the “victim” is always worse off than the “perpetrator.”
My daughter was on campus at Virginia Tech during the 2007 massacre where Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and himself. By the next day, the traumatized but deeply wise students had created thirty-three makeshift shrines on the grounds. Thirty-three.
They understood that Cho was also a victim, he had to be, in order to do what he did. Later it was revealed that Cho had been mercilessly bullied nonstop since kindergarten, and finally snapped. But no one person has to take the blame for that bullying, it is like a stoning. The blame is so desaturated that it becomes imperceptible. Nevertheless, all the tiny pieces of bullying violence, when added together, has a result.
When the parents of students finally got to Virginia Tech the next day, they dismantled the 33rd shrine. Shameful, imo.
I think it is the same for living in toxic patriarchy. Every day, the stones of toxic patriarchs are thrown at women and “others” by stone-throwers, many of whom don’t even realize they are toxic patriarchs throwing stones. It is like a fish who doesn’t have the consciousness that it lives in water, it is just the accepted state of affairs which surrounds it.
But the abuse continues, and the blame for the abuse is still dissipated enough to allow the abusers to remain incognito, even from themselves.
So the state of generalized abuse continues, and sets the stage for other more focused abuses, like the murder of Ayşenur Eygi.
Upon inspection, I think that we will find that the trail of abuse always ends at the foot of toxic patriarchy, so that’s probably a good place to start.
Yes, the Patriarchal Death Cult reigns supreme, for the moment. I fear we are in a place where either we learn how to rein it in, or it destroys us. What are the steps? Each of us has some part of the answer.
Sadly Charles is now part of the Patriarchal Death Cult. He's supporting Trump.
Yes, Joy, I think you are right on, that each one of us has a part of the answer. And I think it starts with the individual, being thoughtful about the invisible ways we give power to the patriarchy, and this is often in language. For example, history is “His-story”…but what about “HER story”? There is subtle but massive power in the words we choose, getting “woke” about that, and reflecting that understanding in daily language, is a start …
“For example, history is “His-story”…but what about “HER story”? There is subtle but massive power in the words we choose”
No sorry, this is just silly. The word “history” is etymologically unconnected with “his” and “hers,” it’s not a sex-based word. First of all, it’s pronounced HISS-tory, not HIZZ-story, which should indicate that you are seeing something that’s not there. If you have to mangle the pronunciation of a word to make a point, it’s probably not much of a point or a profundity.
A perfect example of patriarchy at work!
You mean elementary logic is patriarchal?
You realize that Charles has some pretty backward ideas about women. Like that they basically exist as a receptical for his seed to bring forth his "love gifts". When they stop being fertile he tosses them aside. Wonder how long it will be before Stella gets the heave ho. Or maybe that's what NAAS is for: a steady supply of women to impregnate.
I think he’s on his third or fourth marriage, isn’t he? I think Stella will be fine, as long as she conducts herself the same way as Charles’ groupies: “THANK YOU Charles! You are so brilliant and wise. This latest piece of Genius from You needs to be read by everyone in the entire world! If everyone knew about you, we’d all be already living in The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible. My Heart Resonates with the Ecstatic Truth to be found in Your Healing Words.”
Yes, Meryl, you have described the cause of all the school shootings, such intensive bullying that finally releases the inner scream of pulling a trigger, often yes toward the violated one himself.
"Toxic patriarchy," indeed is bullying, and as I inspect, seemingly arising as left brain divisive thought became more important than
right brain and heart belonging. We all have two hemispheres and a heart, meant first to connect with others and the planet, thinking used then, not just to differentiate but to shape connective inspirations into solutions for the well-being of all. Think in part what tech has accelerated.
Indigenous people listened within to connective perceptions and guidance, heart and right brain, and shaped the gift of life into the stories told children and modeled behaviors that stabilized their sustainable cultures for thousands of years.
Paraphrased TS Elliot, you will explore and explore and find yourself back where you started, and know it for the first time.
This is the hero's journey, an archetype, and we need to find our way back to what worked, we brain-equipped to make it happen.
And, as the young people/students at Virginia Tech knew there were 33 victims, and their parents did not, the students were still is connection to heart and more clear, true perception of the plight of the shooter.
Many are saying, not only do we need to get rid of phones in school, they addictive tech, grabbing attention, and social media creating isolation and self-contempt, but we need to return childhood to children, children meant to stay only in experiential connection and explorative learning till age 7/8 (Montessori, Waldorf, and Piaget, all educational psychologists). Finland starts school at 7, allowing for connective intelligences to flourish, these meant to stay with us, later coupled with inspired thinking, for all of our lives, as indigenous lived, this brain partnership still meant to create good lives for ALL. Cultural support, informed parenting, and true education (to draw and build from within) I believe are musts for going forward.
Totally agree, Peggy, I put my daughter in Montessori, it's a wonderful environment!
Yes so true! I believe the pendulum is beginning its swing back...all that loud cacophony assailing our senses is indication of the death throes of patriarchy, it always gets loudest right before the end ;-). Many people say we are in the "End Times"...yeah, the "End Times" of patriarchy, and not a moment too soon!
Wow. 33. 🙏🏽✨
Please publish this.
Well, thanks for the nudge, I will. ( I am Managing Editor of an online publication, so I don't even need anyone's approval but my own, LOL. )
Excellent writing, Charles. I personally believe the world is deeply enmeshed in violence. How could it be otherwise with continual war. That belief leaves me pessimistic much of the time. I know what it is to live in that web, struggling to heal my wounds from being victimized, struggling to heal my wounds of being the unconscious perpetrator. In many ways our own violence and guilt fuels more violence, just as does our victimhood. It's a vicious circle. But writings such as yours, and speaking the truth of our individual struggles, just might inspire others as we seek healing through witness of our own acts. That's one of the main premises of the 12 Step program. I would encourage you, Charles, to take the next step and share one of your own acts of violence and the personal pain it has caused. There is more healing in such vulnerable disclosures than all the ideas in the world.
❤️ Let me begin: I was an unconscious and deeply damaged mother. I criticized my children nearly nonstop. I also, was unable to show them physical love and affection. Criticism is violence. Lack of affection and nurturing is devastating deprivation. It is a lifelong journey for me to embrace the horror of my actions, see the consequences in my children and find forgiveness in my ❤️
So much understanding is needed to ease the collective shame---perhaps if our culture was less judgemental and so quick to condemn, fault, ridicule, neglect or ignore, fewer and fewer spikes of violence would occur in the first place. (I mean that is the question isn't it. Why?)
I recall the proverb:
A child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.
Thanks for shining a light on this.
Your words ring as True.
I came into adulthood in the 90’s, training and working for an organization focused on transformation and being in service to the collective.
In the model we taught, calling oneself out for making others ‘wrong’ and other transgressions was a cornerstone of the work.
‘Looking good’ was a function of how quickly one was willing to own their subversive beliefs and behaviors. The second piece was cleaning up the mess we made.
While I had plenty of issues with the organization itself, their working model of taking responsibility for one’s impact is still one I have yet to see taught elsewhere.
I’ve spent decades practicing owning my shit only to have my own vulnerability and willingness used against me.
I used to assume that my willingness to tell the truth and own my perpetrations would create a space for others to do the same.
That’s often not been the case. More often than not others have used my generosity to further hunker down in their righteousness.
There's a poem attributed to Mother Teresa called, Do It Anyway, which encourages us to live our truth regardless of how others may react or respond. I found it helpful and hope you do too. We don't always know how we may influence or affect the world at large either positively or negatively but certainly spending decades persevering in doing good is a positive contribution. Thank you.
I am personally sick of the cult of white guilt. Every goddamn Progressive organization opens a meeting with a so-called land acknowledgment now, in addition to your pronouns, disabilities and victim status. Like any of us had anything to do with anything.
It is a symptom of the times of course. But YOU know where your heart and soul lie and why are you doing and being what you do. It is so important for us to hold on to that in the face of disdain
No matter where you look in the world you can find tragedy, violence, despair and greed. The food we eat on our plates is at the cost of life, even if it was just by stealing an animals habitat for farming monocrops like soy, or by killing the insects eating the crops, that other species eat to survive. The shelter we use to keep our families safe at night could be shelter for refugees, but we choose our family’s safety instead. Even the trees choke out the plants vying for sunshine and water.
It is our job to try to make peace where we can, but sometimes there is no peace to be had. Some marriages are irretrievably broken, some family divisions will never heal, some cultures will never be able to reconcile the past, and some people can choose to heal, but some cannot. In those cases, we need to find the beauty, grace, and love even in the midst of the darkness.
Take a little heart - trees in nature’s biome do actually share nutrients and information with each other and other species of trees. Read The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wholleben, it speaks to a way of being here on earth that we don’t often get a sense of.
Why are the snipers lucky? Your points don't really hold together and I struggle to make concrete sense of the various stories you share here. There are a few gems here, but they don't hold together in a cohesive narrative. And I think it's really, really poor taste to Aysenur's murder in this context: using her tragic death (for which you are "sorry") for a paltry narrative. What is wrong with you, seriously? Your posts are one garbage dump after the next :/
May your pain heal in the presence of Love, which is everywhere, always available to you. The snipers face the fierce stab of pain in their conscience, their souls, right before their vivid sight — it is a sharper dose of pain that perhaps can be healed more swiftly too — often through their own death and/or their agonizing transition into the possibility of a pure and healed heart. That might make sense or it might not. Charles’ writing is preciously beautiful just like him. You are too, especially when you let yourself see it.
Aww. Did Charles give you a love gift?
Though I haven't agreed with Charles' last 2-3 articles in his dismissing the horrors and deceit perpetuated by Trump and his ilk, I heartily agree here: "The nation must face the truth of what it has done. It must discard its justifications, rationalizations, and false histories. It must gaze with grief and horror at its works, and resolve to be as strong an agent of peace and healing as it had been of war and destruction. That last step follows inevitably from the first. That is the key—honesty. A nation must be honest with itself about its history and its present." The lies and coverups on all sides must end...so that we may grieve and forgive. https://medium.com/@lindajoystone/december-23-2019-by-lindajoy-7fafe56c45c9
So you want a leader that has the ability to ask for forgiveness and you support Trump. The man who famously waffled when he was asked if he ever asked God for forgiveness before ultimately saying that no, he has not. A man who is running on an explicit platform of vengeful retribution. Ok, good luck with that.
Charles supports Trump (?) who supports the depraved genocide in Gaza? Trump who said: "Vote for me now-I'm gonna fix and you won't have to vote ever again". Trump - who recently said he wants to open the National Forests to development and water down environmental protections in general? If this is true then this article I just read is hypocrisy and nothing more.
☮️
Charles is a blatant hypocrite. Always has been. Which is unfortunate.