Strategic NVR In Action: The Colorado Trucker Boycott

As I mentioned in my last post, my blogging schedule for the next few months will usually be bi-weekly, so that every two weeks a post will be published.  The posts will usually be on Sundays.  However, should there be an event which merits commentary, I may write a short post in between the major biweekly posts.  Today's post is one of those short posts.

I want to call attention to the case of Rogel Aguilera-Mederos, a Cuban immigrant to the United States.  Mr. Aguilera-Mederos was employed as a semi truck driver (for those who use British English, "semi truck" means "lorry"), and was recently sentenced to a 110-year prison term for the deaths of four people in an accident in Colorado in which the brakes on the truck driven by Aguilera-Mederos failed, preventing him from safely stopping.  The sentencing was determined in large part by the prosecutor in his trial, a Ms. Kayla Wildeman, who "celebrated the harsh verdict" according to one source.  This same Ms. Wildeman reports to a chief deputy district attorney named Trevor Moritzky.  Moritzky gave Wildeman a trophy for the harsh sentence handed down, yet Moritzky managed to obtain only a misdemeanor conviction for a Colorado police officer who raped a woman in the back seat of his police car.  According to another source, Aguilera-Mederos' case also differs from that of a white motorist in Texas named Ethan Couch, who received only ten years probation at his initial sentencing after he killed four people while speeding and under the influence of alcohol and drugs.  His parents were wealthy.  (See this also.)

I must say now that while many posts on my blog have condemned white supremacy, I do not believe that all white Americans are evil.  There are examples of good men and women who do not believe that they and they alone should rule the earth and that they have the right to treat the rest of us as their slaves or punching bags.  However, the prosecution of Mr. Aguilera-Mederos is yet another example of how much of the American "justice" system is corrupted by right-wing white supremacists who seek to use the power of the state to vent their unresolved rage.  Not only do these supremacists want to dump that rage on people of color, but they even rage against those of their own people who do not share their monstrous sense of entitlement and their malignant narcissism, as is seen by the murder of two white people and the wounding of a third by Kyle Rittenhouse.  It seems that Mr. Rittenhouse took exception to the fact that his victims were standing in solidarity with people of color.  Mr. Rittenhouse is, in my book, a pile of human garbage, as is the jury which miscarried justice by acquitting him of murder. 

To repeat, the "justice" system in the United States at present is merely the tool of those who are rich and white and who wish to dominate.  Therefore, many of the verdicts rendered by that system are actually a miscarriage of justice.  Among the victims of that miscarriage of justice, the standard response to that miscarriage over the last several years has consisted of things like mass protests, listening sessions, bumper stickers proclaiming that our lives matter, petitions, and attempts to have conversations about "race".  In other words, our strategy has looked much like trying to convert our oppressors by trying to have conversations with them.  

But the case of Mr. Aguilera-Mederos has begun to show something different.  Aguilera-Mederos was not drunk or intoxicated, and did not willfully and deliberately kill people, but was involved in an accident.  (Note to Kayla Wildeman and Trevor Moritzky: go find a dictionary and look up the word "accident."  The job of a prosecutor is no place for doofuses.)  His sentencing was harsh and unfair.  And while there have been protests in response, there has also been something else - something with teeth that can bite.  Truckers have begun to boycott Colorado.  This boycott has begun to produce results FAST.  When you can't get things in a certain state because truckers refuse to make deliveries to your state, you tend to sit up and take notice.

And this is the power of strategic nonviolent resistance when it's done strategically.  Effective resistance is NOT protest (at least, not solely or even mainly protest), because protests by themselves do NOT impose coercive costs on an oppressor.  Effective resistance is the coordinated, unified withdrawal of economic and political support from an oppressive system.  If that withdrawal is done according to a wise strategy, the oppressed can cripple the system which is oppressing them.  For effective resistance to have long-term staying power, communities of the oppressed need to build their own self-sufficiency by means of what one writer calls "self-organization, self-attainment, and self-improvement."  This is how one can engage in long-term strikes and boycotts which inflict pain and which strike fear into the heart of anyone who wishes to be an oppressor!  For those of us in communities of color, it is this kind of power which we need to build.  

Let's see how Mr. Aguilera-Mederos' case goes.  If Colorado does not commute his sentence (and fast!), I may post a list of companies which are headquartered in Colorado, so that boycotts can be organized against them.

Link - All The Wiser Interview With Dawn Smith

For those readers who may still be involved in the toxic dump known as White American evangelicalism, I have a resource that may detoxify you.  Here is a link to an interview I just listened to.  The subject of the interview is a person I knew back in the day when I was involved in a toxic, abusive evangelical cult - a cult which made me for a while a toxic, abusive person until I learned to walk away.  The language in the interview is mostly family-friendly (except at the very end), and I agree with almost everything the interviewee says - especially her critique of White American evangelicalism.  As for me, as a person of color I will never join a White church again.

The Strong Weapons Come Out

A makeshift poster I made for a rally out of a white board and markers

I've been to two rallies against racism this week.  The first was held downtown yesterday evening and the second was held downtown this afternoon.  I wanted to attend yesterday's rally so that I could provide some guidance in a limited way to the protestors who have been demonstrating against the continued racism directed against Black Americans, so I used a large dry-erase white board and some erasable markers to make the "poster" which you see in the picture above.  I asked a number of people to take a picture of it and post it on social media.  The poster asks people to do some homework, namely to read books like Why Civil Resistance Works, How Nonviolent Struggle Works, and the CANVAS Core Curriculum.  The poster also asks people to watch community organizing videos from Marshall Ganz.

Yesterday afternoon I also received an invitation from a friend of mine to the rally that took place today under a mix of sunshine and rain.  I was given a blessed opportunity to stand at the mic for a few minutes, and here is what I told the people present.

First I gave then my name and I told them my profession.  (For the purposes of this blog I am a "degreed technical professional" although I used a much shorter title in front of the crowd).  Then I said the following:

I am an African-American!  I am also a Christian!  And the Bible says that every human being on earth has the right to the things they need so that they can fulfill their purpose in life!

But there are some people who don't agree with this - they want to take all the good things on earth and keep them for themselves while they deprive the rest of us of everything we need to live a decent life.  How can we overcome them?  How can we liberate ourselves?

It is through nonviolent resistance that we liberate ourselves!  Nonviolent resistance is a way of shifting the power balance between the powerful and the powerless, between the oppressor and the oppressed.  Nonviolent resistance is not just turning the other cheek and turning the other cheek and turning the other cheek until you have no cheeks left!  It is about shifting the power balance between the oppressor and the oppressed!

So I'm going to give you all some homework!  I want you to read: Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict.  You all want me to repeat that?! (The crowd answered, Yes! So I did.)  And I want you all to read How Nonviolent Struggle Works! (I repeated this title too.)  You all can download it for free from the Internet.  And I want you to watch some videos by a community organizer named Marshall Ganz. 

Who's going to do their homework?! (A bunch of hands went up.)  If we're gonna liberate ourselves, we've got to learn how!  Do your homework!

A number of cameras were recording me while I was talking.  While I normally don't like that sort of thing, today it was fun.  In fact, I had a lot of fun this weekend!

P.S. Trump's pillars of support keep crumbling.  Over 55 retired military leaders have denounced him, and many of them have endorsed Joe Biden for the Presidency.  Let me just say one thing about Biden.  A trick used by Russian trolls and Russia-influenced media outlets during the 2016 election was to try to paint Hillary Clinton as being just as evil as Donald Trump.  The conclusion these mouthpieces wanted us to make was that "hey, since there's no difference, why vote, it will do no good, blah, blah, blah..."  But to me, there is a clear difference between Trump and Biden.  So I'm going to vote.  (How that must kill you, Vladimir!)  And I'm going to vote for Biden!  (Volodya, that must kill you even more!)  If progress is almost always incremental, we start with what we have instead of refusing to start the journey of progress because it doesn't instantly lead to paradise.  The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.  To refuse to vote or to vote for Trump is a step in the wrong direction.

How Do You Say "Head Fake" In Mancunian?

I almost titled this post, "How do you say 'Head Fake' in Scouse?" Many may not know this, but British actor Bernard Hill, who played King Theoden in the Lord of the Rings movies, got one of the bigger breaks of his career playing a Scouser unemployed asphalt layer named Yosser Hughes in the British 1980's series The Boys From The Blackstuff.  I have never lived in Britain, so I cannot tell the difference between a Mancunian accent and a Scouse accent.  However, I did discover that Bernard Hill is actually from Manchester - thus not a Scouser at all.  Such is the power of good acting, that a skillful actor is able to so thoroughly disguise his origins and identity in pretending to be someone else.  (I remember seeing one other instance of this several years ago, when a coworker foisted a DVD of Secondhand Lions off on me, and insisted that I watch it, which I did.  I couldn't really stand the kid in the movie, nor did I particularly like the movie itself, but Michael Caine did a very creditable job of pretending to be Texan.  Could'a fooled me...)

Such cases of pretending can be quite entertaining when part of a well-done drama, although they can't save a cheesy plot from annoying the living daylights out of those who are forced to be its audience.  As I think of Manchester, and of the recent "terror" attack which took place there, I have to confess that I am annoyed.  The trouble to me is that it has all the markings of other attacks which were perpetrated in Europe and the United States over the last several years, characteristics such as the following:

• The attacks were supposedly perpetrated by some vague, shadowy "Islamic State" bent on imposing Muslim rule throughout the world;
• The attacks did not materially degrade the military capabilities of the nations where they took place;
• The attacks had an effect exactly opposite the supposed aims of the supposed perpetrators.  The actual effect of the attacks was to provide an excuse to inflame anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant (especially anti-dark-skinned-immigrant) sentiment in the nations where they took place, and to provide a justification for the nations of the Global North to attack Muslim and Arab nations where there were large concentrations of mineral resources.
• The alleged perpetrators of the attacks all wound up conveniently very dead, and thus unable to stand trial in pubic.
• After each attack, critical thinkers began to expose holes and inconsistencies in the official narrative put forward by government authorities.  One example of this includes the fact that after a supposed Islamic jihadist supposedly drove a truck into a crowd of people in France last year, French anti-terror police asked the city in which the attack occurred to destroy all video surveillance footage of the attack.  (See this also.  And, oh, by the way, did you know that remotely driven trucks have existed for years?)  If the police were really interested in getting to the bottom of this attack, why destroy video footage that could provide valuable evidence?  Another example is the presence of faked passports among the dead in the 2015 Paris terror attack.  Now in the wake of Manchester, an analyst and critical thinker is again raising questions.  And even some of his potential enemies have begun to listen. 

There is additional evidence of plans to carry out false flag attacks over the last few months, such as the case of the German army officer who tried to pose as a Syrian refugee in order to plan an attack that would have been blamed on Syrian asylum-seekers. I think the cases I have mentioned only scratch the surface of the false-flag phenomenon as it is now being practiced by powerful interests in the Global North.  The goal of these attacks is actually to prop up these powerful interests, who have succeeded in capturing the governments of the United States and Russia, and who have succeeded in the recent reversal of freedoms in many other countries such as the Philippines.  These false-flag operations prop up such regimes by validating the myth of redemptive violence which is devotedly taught by so many oppressive regimes because each autocratic leader of such a regime can cast himself as Marduk, the Babylonian autocrat deity who alone preserves the world from...chaos!!!  Those subjects who live under autocratic rule are thus taught again and again to fear...chaos!!!..., to fear disorder, to fear any deviation from the micromanaged script dictated to them by the Marduk who rules their society, and most of all, to fear those whom Marduk deems to be enemies of the state, for those enemies are the potential seeds of...Chaos!!!  And if those enemies don't care to act like enemies, Marduk must arrange incidents which portray these enemies as agents of...CHAOS!!!

In his book, The Powers That Be, theologian Walter Wink does a good job exposing the myth of redemptive violence and the uses which dictators and autocrats make of this myth in propping up their regimes.  If you follow his logic, you can see that George W. Bush was Marduk.  Dick Cheney was Marduk.  Ronald Reagan was Marduk.  Donald Trump is Marduk.  (Indeed, Trump is a spectacular Marduk, as he is only good for protecting us from "threats" that don't exist.  Other than that, he is worthless as an agent of the common good.)  Maybe Theresa May is about to become a Marduk.  (In that case, "he" will become "she" for a while.)  And Vladimir Putin is Marduk, as he showed in March of this year when he rallied his security forces against the outbreak of...CHAAAOOOOSSSS!!!!!!

The execrable part of this program is that too often, it actually brainwashes ordinary people who are susceptible to national narcissism, as in the case of Germany at present, where in 2016 there were about ten attacks a day against asylum-seekers, or in the case of Portland, Oregon, in the United States, where last Friday, a crazed white supremacist killed two passengers with a knife and seriously injured a third while they were riding a MAX train. 

What is the actual nature of the "chaos" of which the Marduks of the Global North are afraid?  If we're going to be honest, this "chaos" is nothing more than the loss of white supremacy and global domination, and the emergence of a world in which one nation cannot bully or unilaterally impose its will on other nations.  It is a world in which you can't get anywhere without taking your turn, saying "Please," or "Thank you."  It is also a world populated by many, many really neat, decent people - even though they are not of European descent!  It is a world in which nations that formerly dominated the world must acknowledge these non-European people as people, as fellow human beings.  It is a world in which national narcissism simply won't fly, but will instead lead to a moment in which the leaders of narcissistic nations are forced to look at each other and say, "You arrogant coyote, you've killed us!"  Britain is having such a moment just now.  For narcissists always miscalculate.  And the outworkings of damnation always find those who have made themselves damnable.  "Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap."

The Black Hole At The Imperial Center

Warning: This will be a blatantly spiritual post, so you can decide whether you are interested enough in that subject to keep reading.  I will begin with an analogy from astronomy.  Observations of stellar motion near galactic cores explain much about what holds galaxies together.  Scientists who have observed such cores have gleaned a great deal of information about a thing that can be observed only indirectly, namely, the super-massive black hole that lies at the heart of a typical galaxy.  Those observations have enabled them to estimate the probable mass of many black holes at galactic centers and the radius of their event horizons.

Here's a question: can observations of empire tell what lies at the center of earthly empires?

A clue came to me recently.  For the last several months I've been listening to audio recordings of the Bible that I downloaded from the LibriVox website.  For some reason, I found myself obsessively listening to various readings of the Book of Daniel for several days last month, and that led me to an effort to try to figure the book out.  I am not going to give you some grand exposition today, but I will comment on a couple of things that I noticed.

First, the main theme of Daniel seems to be summarized in Daniel 4:17 - that God Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever He will, and sets up over it the lowest of men - and that one day, all earthly kingdoms and their kings will be superseded by a King from Heaven whose reign will be over all, and will never end.

But before that everlasting Kingdom comes, there will be one last earthly empire.  That empire will rule the earth for a time, and will be evil.  One interesting observation is the power and motivation behind that last empire, whose ruler will "do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers' fathers."  (Daniel 11:24)  In other words, he will be an exceptional conqueror having an extraordinary degree of cunning.  What will be the secret of his success?  This: "He will not regard the gods of his fathers, or the desire of women, or regard any god, for he will magnify himself above all.  But in his place he will honor a god of fortresses, a god whom his fathers did not know; with gold, silver and with precious stones and pleasant things.  He will deal with the strongest fortresses by the help of a a foreign god; he will give great honor to those who acknowledge him and will cause them to rule over the many, and will parcel out land for a price."  (Daniel 11:37-39, various translations)

To put it plainly, behind the empire of the final earthly king will be the worship of a "god of fortresses..."  In other words, the power and foundation of this empire will be from an occult source.  This is also indicated in Daniel 8:23-24, "And in the latter period of their kingdom, when the transgressors have finished, a king will arise strong of face and skilled in ambiguous speech (or intrigue, or enigmas).  And his power will be mighty, but not by his power (emphasis added), and he will destroy (or corrupt) to an extraordinary degree and prosper and perform his will; he will destroy (or corrupt) mighty men and the people of the saints.  And through his shrewdness he will cause deceit to succeed by his influence..."

Thinking of these passages led me to formulate a hypothetical question: what if the power and foundation of every earthly empire throughout history has come from an occult source?  This seems especially likely if the empire was an extraordinarily violent and successful conqueror, and/or a severe and cruel oppressor.  What if, moreover, every conspiracy to create an earthly empire has an occult inspiration?  Where would one look for evidence to confirm or contradict such a hypothesis?  Over the last few weeks, I have been looking at the last five hundred years of the history of the Global North (Europe, the Five Eyes, and Russia), and I came up with some very interesting findings.  I will divide those findings into "historical imperial examples" and "present-day conspiratorial examples."

Under the heading of "historical imperial examples" were some obvious cases, such as Nazi Germany under the reign of Hitler.  (See this, this, this, and this for instance.  However, the author of the last source cited seems to hint that occult fascinations merely colored, and did not cause, certain aspects of National Socialism.)  There is also the case of Italy under Benito Mussolini, whose reign was influenced to some degree by occultist Julius Evola, who was also virulently racist,  According to one source, his writings have had a major impact on the development of the global far right.  But I am getting ahead of myself.

There is also at least one questionable example, namely that of Napoleon Bonaparte of France.  The limited investigation I have done has turned up no hard link to the occult in Napoleon's empire.  However, he is an ambiguous character who proclaimed his allegiance to several religions in order to facilitate his rule over the diverse peoples he conquered.

But there is also an unexpected example, namely that of Elizabethan England, where the Queen had a court astrologer and advisor named John Dee who was also the inspiration and architect of the formation of the British Empire.  Throughout his adult life he had a strong and increasing fascination with the occult (which is one thing actually that led to his eventual ruin).  There is also the example of Cecil Rhodes, who, according to Carroll Quigley, was the mastermind behind attempts by certain wealthy British interests to reconquer some of the possessions lost by the British Empire.  According to Quigley, one of the institutions arising from the activities of Mr. Rhodes is the Society for Psychical Research (The Anglo-American Establishment, p. 32).

There is also the example of the United States, if one cares to take the time to find reputable and scholarly articles concerning the faith of the Founding Fathers.  (Hint: most of them were not fundamentalist Christians.  See this also.)  Note also the significant role played by secret societies in American history. (See this and this for instance.)  Lastly, consider the hidden agenda and esotericism of certain examples of American-made religion, such as Mormonism and Dominionism.  And there is the example of Federal funding for research into the use of psychic phenomena for military purposes!

Under the heading of "present-day conspiratorial examples", the biggest and most obvious case I found was Russia and its involvement with the burgeoning far-right, white supremacist movements now at work in the Global North.  Those who are intimately familiar with Russian culture know of the prominent role of the occult in pre-revolutionary Russia, as well as the Soviet research in attempts to use psychic phenomena for Soviet governmental objectives.  (See this, for instance.)  But what is even more interesting is the place of the occult in the resurgence of post-collapse Russian society and of post-collapse Russian geopolitical strategy.  Consider, for instance, Aleksandr Dugin, the chief architect of modern Russian geopolitical strategy.  Consider the occult roots of his political philosophy, and of Dugin's fascism.  (See this and this also.)  Dugin, it seems, wants to build a global empire centered on and run by Russia.  Indeed, he believes that Russia without empire would cease to exist.

And part of his strategy (a strategy we have seen implemented quite effectively over the last two years) involves the financing and political support of far-right groups in Europe and the United States.  (For an example of involvement in Europe, see this.)

I would also say that the widespread evidence of occult involvement in the global far-right groups today transcends any individual country.  It is truly an international phenomenon.  (See this, this and this for instance.)  There is evidence, moreover, that these far-right groups are actively creating a white supremacist youth culture.  (See this, this and this also.)

So then, based on my initial findings, I think I can state that the answer to my initial hypothetical question is most likely "Yes, the foundation of earthly empires and imperialist conspiracies is occult."  Therefore I submit that thus we who are members of those people groups who have been oppressed and exploited by the Global North for the last five centuries or so can begin to understand the power and motives behind the cruelty dealt to us by our oppressors.  And we can begin to estimate the future trajectory of our oppressors, as well as understanding how we should respond to the oppression dealt to us.

As a Christian, I boldly state that our response must not be to attempt to wield the same power now wielded against us by our oppressors!  For those who wield that kind of power run the risk of losing their souls "on singularly unfavorable terms" (to quote C.S. Lewis), regardless of the earthly results they achieve.  Rather, for the Christian, it is much more relevant that, "...for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we for Him, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we through Him."  (1 Corinthians 8:6)  And, "A glorious throne on high from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary.  O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who forsake Thee will be put to shame..." (Jeremiah 17:12-13). 

My assessment also agrees with the words of Soong-Chan Rah in his book Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice In Troubled Times, where he says, "American Christians operate under the delusion that success and power provide the answer to the world's problems.  In Scripture, we see that powers and principalities are not necessarily a positive expression.  Moses stands against the powers and principalities of his time.  The prophets boldly speak against the powers, including their own king.  Jesus rejects the temptation of secular power.  Ephesians 6 portrays powers and principalities as demonic forces.  Should we seek the same type of power that the world seeks?"

Some readers may be curious as to the results which can be expected from the seeking of occult power by the far-right supremacist groups I have cited.  Some may also be curious as to the timing of the final end of the trajectory of these supremacists.  I will not comment on such matters today.  (I think I have spent quite enough time behind a keyboard this weekend!  And some of you who read today may be thinking, "He's really climbed far out onto the skinny branches with this post!")  However, I will end with a sociological question.

The quest for empire is essentially a quest for power, and the bigger the imperial dream, the greater is the underlying thirst for power.  The empires of the 19th and 20th centuries enjoyed exponentially greater power than any empires that preceded them, thanks to the Industrial Revolution and the resources - particularly, energy resources - that supplied that revolution.  Now those resources are coming to an end, and their end signals a mortal threat to the narcissistic quest for imperial power by those who have long enjoyed the fruits of that power.  Could it be that the surging interest in the occult in the Global North - especially among the supremacist elements - signifies a desperate search for another kind of (blatantly evil) power?  And will the quest for that power intensify in the months ahead?

Zombies of London

 Image taken from The Dreadful Story of Pauline and the Matches, Heinrich Hoffman, 1858.

(I offer my apologies in advance to Warren Zevon.)

One of the ways in which personality-disordered people sometimes garner lots of attention to themselves is by committing suicide in a slow, dramatic way.  Imagine, for instance, someone climbing in broad daylight to the very top of the arch of the Fremont Bridge in Portland, Oregon, while wearing a bright fluorescent lime-green clown suit.  Picture him swaying precariously over the Willamette River while screaming his intentions through a bullhorn to all and sundry for an hour or so.  Then, after traffic has shut down in both directions, while drivers are out of their cars staring raptly skyward, and news crews swarm like bugs in helicopters all around the bridge, watch him jump off and make the biggest (and last) splash of his entire life as he hits the water.

That's how Great Britain seems to me in the aftermath of the Brexit vote.  While I have been following the rise of far-right racist ultranationalism in Europe over the last few years, I hadn't been watching Britain very closely.  Much of what I know has been hastily gleaned from news over the last two weeks.  Many of you may know far more.  Yet things have played out pretty much as I might have expected, and the British are now getting their very own taste of the outworkings of damnation.

Here's what I know so far:

• The breeding ground of the Brexit campaign consisted of the frustrations of many Britons who were experiencing the loss of the standard of living that had been promised to them under a "free market", capitalist economy.  They felt that their country was at the mercy of a foreign bureaucracy over which they had no control.  In this, as an observer in the USA, I'd have to agree somewhat with them.
• That frustration was fed and amplified by the fomenting and encouragement of completely unrealistic racial and national pride, violent racism and dangerous xenophobia.  Immigrants - especially the dark-skinned, and especially the Muslim - were targeted and blamed for the unraveling of the British working class and middle class.  (But surprisingly, that blaming extended to the targeting and blaming of white Eastern Europeans as well.)
• The cheerleaders of the campaign to scapegoat immigrants - the same who championed the entire Brexit campaign - were a handful of doofus fly-by-nighters, among whom were Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, and Nigel Farage.  They played a classic scapegoating game of the type seen in textbook cases of dysfunctional families where the family member who is causing the greatest damage manages to deflect blame onto a family member who has no logical connection to the suffering which the family is experiencing.  Farage, Gove, and Johnson are members of Britain's wealthiest class, and it is the predatory policies which this class has championed, not only in Britain, but worldwide, which are causing the suffering now being experienced by ordinary Britons.  (For an example of predatory policies, try looking up the word "austerity" and the phrase "income inequality.")
• It is also coming out now that many of the claims made by these men during the Brexit campaign were in fact lies.  Indeed, Nigel Farage has admitted that some of his claims were false.  I think he feels free to admit this because he feels that his victory is now secure.  Also, the Brexit campaign led directly to the murder of a British member of Parliament in a killing that had a distinctively American style, as a gun was used by a disgruntled Angry White Male to do the killing.

Among the biggest lies told by the Brexit champions was that leaving the European Union was the guaranteed ticket to the revival of the British standard of living and the revival of British national strength.  Why is this a lie?  According to the World Factbook published and maintained by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Britain is a net importer of almost every commodity and resource which it needs.  For instance, British agriculture is able to supply only 60 percent of Britain's nutritional needs.  British manufacturing accounts for only 10 percent of British economic output.  Britain is running a net trade deficit.  Britain has been a net energy importer since 2005.  (Read what the Energy Watch Group of Germany had to say about British oil, gas and coal reserves in its 2013 report on fossil and nuclear fuels.  And note that the situation for Britain is worse now than in 2013.)  By far, the main sector of the British economy is the service sector, which accounts for 83.5 percent of British GDP.  Central to the British service sector is the financial "industry", comprised of banking, insurance and business services.  According to the Factbook, the United Kingdom has, until now, enjoyed a position as "the central location for European financial services."

And now that enjoyable position, and all that depends on it, has all gone up in smoke, set on fire by the architects of the Brexit.  Other nations are already re-thinking their reliance on British financial services.  The British pound has already suffered a drastic decline.  The Brexit architects have, in the space of two weeks, already shown themselves to be incapable of governing a country.  (Hey, man, if your feet can't reach the pedals, you shouldn't be behind the wheel.)  The Brexit is already threatening a serious increase in trouble for an economy that was already in trouble.  (See this, this and this, for instance.)  And the Brexit vote has fractured the British body politic - perhaps incurably.  Britain is about to find out in a hurry that it is no autarky, no self-sufficient paradise.

I know that Schadenfreude is a sin, yet there is something in me right now that feels more than a little satisfaction.  It is a dark satisfaction, the kind that a researcher or scientist might feel when reality validates a theoretical model, even though that model has predicted something horrible.  For the troubles that Britain has gotten itself into are a direct validation of Galatians 6:7 - "Don't be deceived. God is not mocked.  For whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.  For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption..."  It is also bitingly funny (more bite than a very strong and bitter cup of espresso!) to think of how the Brexit champions will cope with the damage they've done, now that they are running out of scapegoats.  Think of the doofus right here in the USA who is pulling similar scapegoating stunts in a bid to capture the White House this November.

Will The Real Invader Please Stand Up?

Conversations between some people can seem a lot like beating a dead horse over and over again until the horse has been turned into equine hamburger.  This is especially true when one party in the conversation is trying to communicate the truth, and the other party has made up his mind to refuse to understand that truth - presumably, because it's to the other party's advantage to not understand.  As Upton Sinclair once wrote, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it."  So it seems to be with many who are commenting on the influx of refugees from the Mideast and North Africa into Europe.

Most of these commenters have written at great length of the dangers of letting said refugees (dirty, uncouth and savage "invading hordes") into the pure, precious, civilized sanctuary that is supposed to be Europe.  Indeed, such charity has been characterized as "committing suicide" (culturally, I presume) by at least one highly placed Eurasian politician.  Granted, there are Europeans who - very, very grudgingly - acknowledge that maybe, just maybe it is a good and moral thing to give a little bit of sanctuary to the Arab and Mideastern refugees whose homelands Europe has recently helped to destroy.  Yet many of these same Europeans object fervently to letting black Africans into their special precious sanctuary.

Well, okay, if that's the way you want to be, fine (although I am of African descent, and I am black!)  But have you thought of asking why Black Africans might want to emigrate to Europe in the first place?  If so, I have some ready answers to such a question.  In an earlier post, I described how forced migrations of peoples result from the robbery and plunder of those peoples by a nation skilled at robbery which then concentrates the majority of the resources of nations within its own borders, leaving almost nothing for those nations which it has robbed.  When we look at what European nations have done to Africa, there are plenty of examples of this process.  I will name a few recent cases for you to chew on.

First, there is the case of Nigeria, where the peoples who inhabit the Niger delta have suffered for at least two decades from the petroleum extraction activities of rich multinational corporations such as Royal Dutch Shell.  The pollution, not only from routine oil extraction, but also from lax operations and oil spills, has severely degraded living conditions in the Delta, and has seriously disrupted indigenous ways of life that were far less destructive to the land than the changes which the Europeans have brought.  Not only this, but the leaders of the Nigerian government have been installed by European and American multinationals for the purpose of keeping oil extraction costs low and profits sky high, thus insuring that the ordinary people of Nigeria will not benefit from the exploitation of their nation's resources.  Many of these ordinary Nigerians have risen up in opposition to this exploitation, and are now being branded as "terrorists" and "insurgents."  (See this and this also.)  As their homelands are wrecked in order to satisfy the European and American thirst for petroleum products, where will these people go?

The Nigerian oil situation is but a very small subset of the issue of the way Europe and the United States look at the African continent and the peoples who reside there.  I am thinking particularly of recent articles I have read in the financial press, as well as press releases by various mining companies which all describe Africa as a "treasure trove" of various things wanted by Europe and the Anglo-American empire.  There are also a number of interesting "players" in the African resource-extraction market, such as African Minerals, a mining company based in Sierra Leone, which was sued by villagers in that country for violently evicting those villagers from land wanted by the company, along with violent treatment of its workers, including a fatal shooting of a worker by police.  The incidents took place from 2010 to 2012.  The head of African Minerals, a Mr. Frank Timis, led his company into bankruptcy in 2015, and is now embroiled in a bitter legal dispute with investors.  Mr. Timis, who possesses dual Romanian and Australian citizenship, was also convicted twice for dealing heroin.

Then there is the matter of coastal African nations and the peoples who make a living on those coasts by fishing.  They have a long-standing problem, namely, that European fishing operations have depleted their coastal fisheries to the extent that the locals can no longer easily make a living.  When the locals try to oppose the overfishing of their own resource because they can no longer make a living, they are branded as "pirates."  (See this also.)

Lastly, there is the issue of land grabs, either by foreign multinationals or by the local government proxies installed by these multinationals.  Take Ethiopia, for instance, whose government is taken from a minority of the population, yet which uses its power (financed in no small part by the United States) to expel members of the majority Oromo population from their lands in order to clear the way for "development."  (See this, this and this.)

The instances I have mentioned are but a small scratch of a very large surface, beneath which lies a very large reservoir of wrongdoing.  These things are the means by which life in Africa has become a painful burden for many Africans, and the motivation behind their desire to escape to places where they may live in peace and safety.  Peace and safety - two things for which almost every human being longs.  And yet, there are those in Europe, who after plundering and destroying other peoples' homelands for the sake of enriching their own, can't seem to understand why those other people would want to seek peace and safety in Europe.  Those who regularly read my blog know that I seek to promote mutual hospitality and Christian charity of all peoples one toward another.  I really mean that.  Sharing, mutual exchange, and learning from one another ought to be encouraged as much as possible.  However, if Europeans don't want to have to share their precious society with "invading hordes" whom they themselves have created, then let them get out of Africa (and other places!).  Stop looking at other people's homelands as a "treasure trove" to be exploited for the use of pure, special Europeans.  Stop stealing other peoples' stuff.  It is that simple.  (You can even stop looking at the deserts of North Africa as an untapped solar resource, as far as I'm concerned.  I am sure you'd try to find a way to exploit that resource without paying the inhabitants of the lands you used.)  Once you all start leaving other people alone, you'll be free to give up your Munchausen-false flag complaints about other people trying to overrun or "de-civilize" your pure society.  Fortunately, Europe and the U.S. are currently being helped (albeit involuntarily) to give up their thievery by the current collapse in commodities markets.  After a while, in most cases, crime really doesn't pay.  In the long run, it never pays.

For Those Who Want To Take Charge Of Their Own Growth

I am very busy with grad school just now, so I won't be able to write a new post this week.  However, grad school (and self education in general) line up nicely with a post I wrote a few months ago, a post which I have decided to share again with interested readers who are trying to improve themselves in the midst of a society that is trying to scapegoat and destroy them.  Here then, for your enjoyment and edification, is Not Someone Else's Bonsai.

Give Me Some Delicious Reasons...

So, lately I've been in dialogue with a retired clergyman of a mainstream American church.  He and I have had, shall we say, a more than moderate difference of opinion concerning the revival of overt oppression of people of color in this country, and the appropriateness of the mainstream American evangelical response so far.  Those of you who read this blog know that I believe that the mainstream evangelical response has been rather lame, amounting to a non-response - which is why I can't really take mainstream American evangelicalism very seriously anymore, since I now view it as a tool of oppression.  He tends to think that the problem of oppression in this country is much less severe than the facts now indicate, and he tends to talk vaguely of a "race" problem which he assumes to be a bi-lateral grievance between two belligerents who are equally at fault.  The retired clergyman would rather I saw things his way, and our last face-to-face discussion was slightly hot in places.  But amazingly, at the end, he offered to let me write an installment of the weekly prayer email sent to the prayer team at his church.

So here is what I wrote for that week:  

"'Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves are in the body.' - Hebrews 13:3

"I am reminded of this verse as I consider a recent study I conducted in order to prepare for a discussion of ongoing injustice being perpetrated in the United States. One of the elements of that study was the failure of the criminal justice system, which has been guilty of sending many innocent people to prison (and in several cases, to death row). Here are links to some of the sources I read:

• 'Three black men, convicted as teens, exonerated in Ohio after serving 20 years in prison',

• 'Three black men released after 18 years in prison on wrongful murder convictions' (this group is different from the three in the first article),

• 'Exonerations in the United States, 1989-2012' (especially starting at page 30),

• 'Race and Justice: Wrongful Convictions of African American Men',

• 'Wrongfully Convicted African-Americans Wait Longer To Be Exonerated Than Others: Study',

• 'How Often Do Wrongful Convictions Involve Black Defendants?' (The answer is between 71 and 73 percent.)

"Minorities (especially African-American) make up a disproportionate number of those incarcerated or sentenced to death in this country, yet the available data seems to indicate that the majority of prisoners of color in the United States are innocent. It is a real challenge for the innocent to prove their innocence and to obtain release from prison, because the criminal justice system purposely makes it hard for convicted prisoners to prove their innocence. Indeed, in 2009, the United States Supreme Court ruled that prisoners have no constitutional right to DNA testing that might prove their innocence.

"Therefore, please remember the prisoners, just as the Scripture has commanded us. Let us remember them in our prayers. Let us pray for their release from oppression and unjust imprisonment. Let us also pray about how we might physically, materially 'show compassion to those in prison' and to their families - Hebrews 10:34. And let us pray for the repentance of the United States."

As I said, it's amazing to me that I was able to send these exact words to the prayer team at that church.  Now I guess I should visit a Sunday service to see how those words were received.  And as for the hard words I have already written about mainstream American evangelicalism (and about present-day American society), I'm praying for some more delicious reasons to eat those words.  We'll see...

When National Narcissism Meets Unforgiving Nature

This week I have three things to share.  First, I'd like to introduce you to Walk On, a blog written by Jesse Curtis.  Mr. Curtis is currently a PhD student at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  His research focus is American history, and the roles which American exceptionalism and racism have played in that history.  He has particular insights into the role which American evangelicals have played in fostering and maintaining that exceptionalism and racism.

I am glad to have discovered his blog, because I believe that an accurate understanding of the present-day dysfunctional mainstream American mindset must of necessity include an accurate understanding of the ways in which white American evangelicalism and its leaders have contributed to the creation of that mindset.  I am a Christian - a Biblically orthodox Christian - and yet I hereby declare my belief that present-day white American evangelicalism is deeply dysfunctional, and that in many ways it amounts to no more than a patriotic cargo cult.  (One of these days, I will explain the ways in which the term "cargo cult" accurately describes American evangelicalism - unless someone wants to beat me to the punch.)

The nature of American evangelicalism and its impact on American society explains not only the dysfunctional ways in which the U.S. interacts with the non-white and the foreign-born.  It also explains why the U.S. is responding in such a dysfunctional way to the limits now being imposed on it by resource depletion and environmental degradation - the original subjects of my blog.  Along those lines, I present you with two reposts of articles describing the collision of national narcissism and unforgiving nature: "The Congress Created Dust Bowl," and "The Death of the Central Valley."  Enjoy.

What Are Police Made Of?

The ongoing unraveling of American society is like a play written by a criminally insane person.  As such, it can provoke strong emotions in those who are forced to suffer through it.  Yet one way of coping is to look at it as a play, and at yourself, the observer or unwilling participant, as an entertainment critic of sorts.  Then it becomes possible to cultivate the detachment necessary for a calm, objective critique of the play, the various actors, and the roles they fill.  Such a perspective can also guide you in exploring ways to escape the part that has been forced upon you.

This week's post will examine the role of the police in present-day American society, and will give you some idea of how likely you are to be cast as a bad guy by them, try as you might to fill another role.  Such information might be of interest to readers, since as of today, July 3, 2015, police in the United States have killed 558 people this year, not to mention those who have been non-fatally maimed or injured by police, among whom is Walter William DeLeon, a middle-aged construction worker who was shot and critically injured by officers of the Los Angeles Police Department last month when he waved a towel at a patrol car in order to flag it down.  This is, of course, in addition to the numerous well-publicized stories of police murders of unarmed citizens, especially citizens of color, in 2014 and earlier, and the ongoing police terrorizing of unarmed citizens in places like McKinney, Texas.

So what, exactly, are police made of these days?  What kind of person is it who gravitates toward police work?  What kind of job do policemen have?  What sort of person does the typical police job produce?  In his book, People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil, M. Scott Peck described the link between characteristics of individual humans and characteristics of groups formed by individual humans.  He wrote, "For many years it has seemed to me that human groups tend to behave in much the same ways as human individuals - except at a level that is more primitive and immature than one might expect.  Why this is so - why the behavior of groups is strikingly immature - why they are, from a psychological standpoint, less than the sum of their parts - is a question beyond my capacity to answer..."  My post today will not attempt to answer that question definitively, but will hopefully illuminate some key elements of police as a group, and of what is known as "police culture" here in the U.S.

What kind of person is the typical police recruit?  The answer to that question depends on whom you ask.  In Above the Law: Police and the Excessive Use of Force, authors Skolnick and Fyfe write, "However skeptically police may be viewed by outsiders, police often identify themselves as a moral force, protecting innocent and productive members of the public...The typical police recruit is white, physically fit and agile, of the lower-middle or working class, male, in his twenties, and with some college education..."  However, what attracts potential recruits are often advertisements and videos which increasingly glamorize legal opportunities to use lethal violence rather than serving as a "moral force" in one's community. (See this also, where a former cop says, "...if anyone says they didn't get into law enforcement to drive a police car fast, with the lights and sirens, and come screeching into a parking lot sideways and jump out and tackle a guy, they're lying to you...")

When a person becomes a cadet, what kind of training do they receive?  Again, the answer depends on whom you ask, but it seems clear that mediation and nonviolent conflict resolution isn't very high on the list of things taught.  In fact, Dallas Police Chief David Brown publicly admitted that "Sometimes it seems like our young officers want to get into an athletic event with people they want to arrest.  They have a 'don't retreat' mentality.  They feel like they're warriors and they can't back down when someone is running from them, no matter how minor the underlying crime is."  By contrast, Dale Brown, who is not a policeman, has founded the very successful Threat Management Center in Detroit, whose specialty is "...tactical psychology, tactical law and tactical skills, to teach communities and corporations how to properly manage human threats and create non-violent outcomes..." (Emphasis added).  The Threat Management Center has been in operation since 1995, and boasts an impressive string of accomplishments.

What kind of person does a typical cadet become once he or she is hired to a police force?  Here again, it depends on whom you ask.  However, there is a large number of independent studies of various issues among police officers, issues which would be called crimes or serious dysfunction if they were observed among the general population.  For instance, at least 25 percent of police officers are alcoholics.  (See this and this also.)  Of these, a substantial number drive while intoxicated and on duty.  Between 25 and 40 percent of police officers are guilty of at least one incident of domestic violence (OIDV) against their spouses or children.  (See this, this, this and this.)  In many cases, the domestic violence is ongoing.  Here is a link describing officer-perpetrated domestic violence from the point of view of the victims and their children.  Please read it carefully and note how difficult it is for women abused by police husbands to do anything about their situation.  Note also how right-wing politicians have recently made things more difficult for the victims.  Lastly, illicit drug use other than alcohol is a growing problem among law enforcement officers - especially the use of performance-enhancing athletic drugs like steroids.  (See this, this, this, and this.)  No comprehensive, liar-proof studies have yet been undertaken to quantify steroid use among cops, but there is a flood of anecdotal evidence.  And some authorities have proposed a link between the use of performance-enhancing drugs and aggression or unprovoked rage (AKA "'roid rage").  (Remember that the next time Officer Friendly pulls you over.)  Note also the widespread accounts of sexual assaults commited by police.  (See this, this and this.)

The police response to the exposure of such symptoms of dysfunction falls into one of two categories.  First, there's the attempt to excuse such behavior by protesting that police work is inherently very dangerous, and that police are just reacting to the stress that naturally comes with the job.  However, a look at actual statistics reveals a very different story.  According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund Preliminary 2014 Law Enforcement Officer Fatalities Report, there were 126 law enforcement fatalities in the United States in 2014.  Of these, 62 fatalities were the direct result of "felonious incidents," while traffic accidents claimed 49 officers.  27 officers died of other causes, including 24 heart attack deaths.  However, there are now more than 900,000 sworn police officers in the U.S.  You do the math, but when I did, I found that a police officer has less than one chance in 10,000 of being killed by a criminal in the U.S.  Indeed, the Bureau of Labor Statistics does not even list police work among the occupations with the highest fatal work injury rates in 2013.  So we can't blame dysfunctional policing on the "inherently dangerous and stressful" nature of police work, because there really isn't much danger - especially if a police officer is not a hothead or loose cannon.

The second response to dysfunction is to try to cover it up, to sweep things under a fraternal rug of police secrecy.  This is an inherent part of police culture.  Many of the links I have cited, including especially the links to scholarly PDF's, document the ways in which secretive, fraternal police culture is a huge impediment to dealing with problems like substance abuse and domestic violence among the police.  The very culture which is created to shield police from the repercussions of their actual mission prevent police from being held to account when they harm people outside of their actual mission.  The very mindset created to enable police to carry out their actual mission in American society is so powerful that it can't be easily turned off or toned down by police once they are off duty.

What is the actual mission of American police?  Again, I will cite M. Scott Peck and People of the Lie.  In the chapter titled, "My Lai: An Examination of Group Evil," Peck describes the American soldiers who carried out the 1968 My Lai massacre as a self-selected group of "specialists".  They were self-selected in that they were all in Vietnam during a time in which Americans who fought in the Vietnam war were all volunteers.  My Lai happened in 1968, over a year and a half before President Nixon instituted the draft in order to supply fresh American combatants to Vietnam.  They were specialized in their training and mission, which was to kill and destroy Vietnamese people who did not want America in Vietnam.  They were under stress, being in a foreign country many of whose citizens were at best ambivalent toward American involvement, and finding themselves part of a larger military machine which was beginning to suffer serious failures as a result of failing to grasp the realities of the situation on the ground in Vietnam in 1968.  Their specialization had been deliberately engineered by their superiors to make them cold-bloodedly destructive, to make them regress to childish reliance on the approval of those superiors, and to insulate them from seeing the larger picture of what they were doing to those human beings targeted as "the enemy" by their superiors.

In this, these soldiers were very much like the typical members of a police force, of whom Peck wrote, "One does not become a policeman by accident.  It is only because particular kinds of people want to become policemen that they apply for the job in the first place.  A young man of lower-middle-class origins who is both aggressive and conventional, for instance, would be quite likely to seek a position on the force..."  Of such specialized groups as volunteer soldiers and police officers, Peck writes, "From these examples, we can discern three general principles...First, the specialized group inevitably develops a group character that is self-reinforcing.  Second, specialized groups are...prone to narcissism...Finally, the society at large...employs specific types of people to perform its specialized roles..."    One of those specialized roles is to attack those who are different from the idealized image of society at large which is promoted by the leaders of society.  For those who differ from that idealized image pose an intolerable threat to that image by their mere existence.   Peck says, "Evil ...[is] the use of political power to destroy others for the purpose of defending or preserving one's sick self."  That is why police in McKinney, Texas threatened to use deadly force against a pool party of African-American pre-adolescent girls last month.  That is why one newly graduated police cadet said that he would have shot the girls had he been present.  But if you are reading this and you are not Black or Latino, do you think you're safe?  Consider the 70-year old White woman who was slammed face-first into the ground by a Florida policeman.  The police in America have turned into one of the outworkings of the damnation of this country.

A Replacement for the "War On Drugs"?

I found out this week that two Georgia women have recently been charged with violations of newly enacted state statutes restricting abortion.  One of the women was the woman who had the abortion; the other was a nurse who allegedly provided an abortifacient drug to the woman who had the abortion.  In addition, a woman in Indiana was recently sentenced to 40 years in prison (see this also) for allegedly taking an abortifacient drug which resulted in the termination of her pregnancy.  This happened in spite of the fact that the toxicologist for the state where she was tried testified that he could not find evidence of abortion drugs in the woman's system.

Neither of the women charged with aborting their pregnancies is white.

I must confess that upon reading their stories, I was struck by mixed emotions.  In describing those emotions, I think I may wind up writing a post that will offend just about everyone who reads it.  First, however, let me say that as a Christian, I am obliged to follow the orders of my Boss.  His Word says that the unjust taking of a life is murder.  Therefore, I am opposed to abortion.

However, I see another side of the story in the case of Purvi Patel.  Whether you believe abortion is evil or not, if you're a decent human being, you must admit that convicting women of crimes they didn't commit and throwing them in prison for decades afterward is also evil.  The fact that women in certain states are now being threatened with such a prospect is unsettling.  The fact that two women who recently became showcases for this threat are nonwhite is more unsettling.  I am thinking that in the Midwest and the South, the "war on drugs" - currently being de-fanged by the passage of laws in various states which decriminalize drug use - may be replaced by a war on miscarrying women of color - oops, I mean, abortion.  Women of color who miscarry may thus find themselves targets regardless of the circumstances of the miscarriages.

It all makes me think of the following quote from People of the Lie: "[The narcissism of the evil]...is a brand of narcissism so total that they seem to lack, in whole or in part, [the] capacity for empathy...We can see, then, that their narcissism makes the evil dangerous not only because it motivates them to scapegoat others but also because it deprives them of the restraint that results from empathy and respect for others.  In addition to the fact that the evil need victims to sacrifice to their narcissism, their narcissism permits them to ignore the humanity of their victims as well.  As it gives them the motive for murder, so it also renders them insensitive to the act of killing.  The blindness of the narcissist to others can extend even beyond a lack of empathy; narcissists may not "see" others at all."  In quoting M. Scott Peck, I realize that I may turn the stomachs of some of those who are familiar with the failings of his private life.  To such I apologetically offer the following suggestion: Regard Mr. Peck in the same way that you might regard the prophet Balaam, or the donkey on which Balaam rode - flawed instruments whom God used to deliver a message that perhaps the messengers had not conceived.  In this quote, Mr. Peck hits it out of the ballpark in describing the role which scapegoats serve for the narcissist.

The current leadership of the American right wing is accurately characterized as narcissistic.  Unable to face their own evil, they look constantly for scapegoats on whom they can project their own dysfunction.  This is seen in the punishments meted out to the scapegoats for their "transgressions" - a kind of justice not meant to restore or to heal, but to destroy.  So if a woman of color has a miscarriage, or even an abortion, the aim of white supremacist justice is not to heal or to restore, but to destroy with draconian punishments - even as the supremacist leaders give themselves a pass for their own evil behavior. 

As they used the "War on Drugs," so the narcissistic elite may use a "war on abortion" as a means of continuing to scapegoat the nonwhite, the non-English, the foreign-born.  And in many parts of the United States, those doing the scapegoating won't even be that sophisticated; they'll simply continue to send the police to storm homes where people of color live, in order to shoot unarmed people of color without cause.  In this year alone, the body count has reached 506 people. In this year alone, an impressive number of murderers in police uniforms have escaped becoming victims of the criminal justice system of which they are a part.  Among them is Joseph Weekley, a Detroit SWAT officer who shot a 7 year old African American girl to death as she was sleeping in bed when he sprayed her house with submachine-gun fire. 

Exodus As Survival

As I have watched the unfolding pattern of police violence, excessive force and murder against unarmed people of color in the United States, I have also been watching the protests which have arisen in response, and particularly the organized Black Lives Matter protest movement. I am encouraged in a small way by the protests; however, I am also deeply ambivalent toward them. It's not that I don't think that the murder of unarmed people of color should be quietly accepted. It's just that I don't think that the protests by themselves will accomplish anything.

The cause of my pessimism lies in the subject which has occupied this blog for almost a year, namely, the way in which an entire national culture has become personality-disordered. The particular personality disorder which I have discussed is malignant narcissism. One of the features of a malignant narcissist, whether that narcissist be a person or a narcissistic nation, is an overwhelming urge to abuse others. Another feature is that reasonable people cannot reason with the narcissist to restrain his abuse. The narcissist is unreasonable, and thus implacable. A reasonable nation would apply one standard of law enforcement to all of its residents, rather than playing “favorites.” The police forces of a reasonable nation would not murder unarmed Hispanic teens driving cars as the police in Denver, Colorado did to Jessica Hernandez in January.  (They allege that the car she was driving was stolen. I did a Google search and was unable to find any evidence to support this claim.) The justice system of a reasonable nation would not throw the book at people of color accused of petty crimes while being lenient toward rich white offenders guilty of much more serious offenses. But the United States is not reasonable. The United States is a narcissistic nation now indulging in narcissistic rage. Therefore it is violently projecting its own dysfunction onto people whom it has tried to groom to be scapegoats and receptacles for its rage, targets whom it blames for its own dysfunctional behavior.

I have previously listed examples of scapegoating behavior, but here is a new example of scapegoating and “white-on-white crime,” a story about the Midwestern and Western towns and small cities which became boom towns during the now-expiring shale oil craze.  As prices rose, a large number of Caucasian oilfield workers flooded these towns, bringing with them both lots of money and a sharp increase in crime. Now that shale revenues have fallen, oil patch towns and counties have fewer resources to fight the increase in crime that has resulted. But they haven't lost their ability to scapegoat, blaming, for instance, the sharp increase in drug use on “Mexican drug cartels.” There's only one problem with that accusation: the biggest drug problems in these towns are methamphetamine, prescription painkillers, and alcohol. You don't need to find a Mexican drug cartel to find these items. And meth is incredibly easy to make.  The corruption in this nation's heartland is not the fault of Mexicans.

The wealthy and powerful, and those who enjoy American “white privilege” in this country are facing an existential crisis internationally, as the United States loses its place in the world. In their desperation to find some safe place where they can nurture and revive their identity of dominance, they are increasingly looking inward, at those victims within the nation's borders on whom they can dump their hostility. 

One of the features of narcissistic abuse is that the protests of the victims actually fuel further narcissistic abuse. Why is this so? Because in the protests of their victims, narcissists see the reflection of their own power – so narcissists can say to themselves, “Look! I have power to inflict pain on other people. I have the power to make others say 'Ouch!'” If the only response of victims is to protest, the protest winds up feeding the abuser with "narcissistic supply."

Which leads to the second potential pitfall of protesting, namely, becoming entangled in the narcissist's response to your protests. Most of the time, that response can be summed up in one acronym: DARVO which stands for “Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.” The way it works is that the narcissist does something to injure a victim. When the victim protests the narcissist's action, the narcissist responds by Denying that he did any wrong, Attacking the victim's right to protest by attacking the victim's character or humanity, and Reversing the roles of Victim and Offender by casting himself as the victim of some imagined slight on the part of the real victim. In recent months, DARVO has played out thus: a crooked cop shoots an unarmed person of color under extremely questionable circumstances. When the victim's relatives protest, the cop Denies that he did anything wrong. Then the cop and his department, along with a bunch of right-wing talking heads, Asserts that the reason for his treatment of the unarmed (now deceased) person of color was that the cop was working in a high-crime area and the victim of his shooting – a member of a criminal race – somehow threatened the cop (even though a gaggle of witnesses denies this). Then the cop and friends Reverse Victim and Offender by protesting that “police lives matter” and that police work is very dangerous. "And besides, this entire ordeal has stressed out the poor 'widdle' cop, so let's support his feelings." For a sickeningly over-the-top example of an offender passing himself off as a victim, see this. For a more truthful look at the actual level of danger in police work, see this.

In interactions with a narcissist, DARVO too often leads to a response from the actual victims called JADE, which stands for Justify, Argue, Defend and Explain. The victims, still believing that the narcissist can be reasoned with, attempt to Justify the reasons why they deserve fair treatment. Then they Argue and try to verbally Defend themselves against the narcissist's ad hominem attacks. They waste their remaining breath on trying to Explain their point of view to the narcissist. While all this might work in dealing with a reasonable person, the narcissist will respond only by serving up a second helping of DARVO – along with a side dish of further abuse. Again, our recent societal troubles provide an illustrative example. After a crooked cop shoots an unarmed person of color, and after the ad hominem attacks from the cop and his allies attempting to justify his actions, there are usually protests. These protests provoke certain right-wing gasbags to get on television and loudly proclaim that aggressive policing is needed in minority communities because of the problem of “black-on-black crime,” yadda yadda. Then the victims of police brutality begin to speak up, citing historical examples and government statistics which prove beyond doubt that white people are at least as capable of serious criminal behavior as black people, that crime rates for certain stereotypical offenses are actually lower in Black and Latino communities than they are in white communities, and that White populations regularly engage in rioting and property destruction, usually for very, very stupid reasons.  The victims then heave a collective sigh of relief, believing that now that they have told their side of the story, things will change. Except that they don't. Nor do the oppressors give the slightest sign that they have heard the victims.

If the Black Lives Matter protests are just a form of JADE'ing, and the response of “the powers that be” will only be more DARVO, then what is an effective response on the part of victims to the erosion of civil rights and equal protection under the law by the rulers of a narcissistic country? The answer is simple, but it is rather painful to put into practice, because the answer is No Contact.  Why No Contact? First, because continuing to remain in contact with a society which wants to use you as its toilet bowl is not good for you. It can cause a great deal of psychological damage, not to mention damage of other kinds. (An unfortunate example: suicide rates among young Black American children rose sharply from 1993 to 2012.  God damn America!) Second, as long as you remain in contact with a predatory system, you continue to feed the predator. This point leads to a discussion of what going “No Contact” with an oppressive society looks like.

“No Contact” takes place within three spheres: the economic, the cultural, and where necessary, the physical. In the economic sphere, we have seen historically what can happen when an oppressed minority withdraws its support from economic organs that are used as instruments of oppression. The Montgomery Bus Boycott is an extremely effective case in point.  That boycott was characterized by people of color finding and devising alternatives to a system of transportation which was being used to oppress them. But the boycott was not without cost: in addition to suffering white violence, those who participated in the boycott had to endure the inconveniences of withdrawal from an oppressive system. And the boycott lasted 381 days before its goals were met. The Blackout Black Friday boycott was very little more than a symbolic action in comparison. We went back too soon to the system that is destroying us. (How many people of color shopped at Walmart after Black Friday 2014? Walmart is where the police in Beavercreek, Ohio shot an unarmed John Crawford to death last year as he was buying toys for his children.)   No Contact may have to last a long time. 

To see economic “No Contact” from another angle, here's a link to a 2013 podcast covering the urban adaptation strategy known as “Permaculture.” Permaculture is a strategy for building the household economy by smart agriculture and community building. The goal of permaculture is to make households and communities resilient in the face of the failure of large-scale commercial enterprises due to resource depletion. Many permaculturists are also activists with strongly leftward economic leanings, who oppose the destruction now being wrought by the present economic order. In this particular podcast, David Holmgren, a co-founder of permaculture, stated his belief that the task for permaculture activists is not to try to start a huge movement to reshape the dominant society, but rather to develop working models for resilience and self-sufficiency. His reasoning was that economic contraction would provide all the motivation required to get people to seek alternatives to a dominant and destructive system, and that they would naturally seek out people who had successfully created those alternatives. Once a critical mass of such people formed, their withdrawal from the dominant system would succeed in bringing down the system – or at least slowing down its destructiveness. This would be far more effective than shouting loudly in mass protests. The economic contraction of which Holmgren spoke is happening now. Can you teach yourself to get your needs met without giving your money to people who are trying to destroy you?

Cultural “No Contact” begins with throwing your TV into the trash. It begins with cutting yourself off from organs of mass media which are trying to poison your mind. It proceeds to home education of your children, thus saving themselves from an educational system which has been turned into a weapon of mass destruction. It also spreads to the people of your neighborhood, where you all get to know each other and learn to work with each other and celebrate each other without some intermediary trying to tell you all what you can and cannot do.  In essence, you create a culture within a culture - a culture of health and support within and separate from a dominant destructive culture.

But sometimes economic “No Contact” and cultural “No Contact” are not enough. If a locality is physically threatening – if, for instance, it is like Ferguson, Missouri which has a large minority population, yet the local political system has been so screwed up by wealthy interests that there is no minority representation in the local government and almost no minority presence in the police force – and if the local government has become well-known for throwing many of its citizens in jail or slapping them with exorbitant fines for increasingly trivial offenses – then maybe it's time to move. Moving is traumatic, especially when you're poor, but it can be done. And it's better than remaining in place and losing your life.