I rely on the power of truth, through democracy (as in all things) to make a good world.

I rely on this to protect people and environments - which cannot of course be separated.

.SOCIAL JUSTICE IS ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

I rely on democracy to eventually produce organisations that do not try to impose democracy on others

largely as a cover for the fact that they are trying to subjugate them and get control their resources.

I rely on democracy to produce organisations that help and support all good work around the world

including efforts to establish democratic processes and international law, applied equally to all.

 ONLY THE REAL JUSTICE OF EQUALITY BRINGS PEACE.

The desire to harm does not do anything to change the past, heal lives, solve conflict or prevent harm in the future.

By desiring to harm we become what we hate, or what we fear.

Where self defence becomes attack

where self protection becomes oppression

where self interest becomes greed

where retaliation is revenge, perhaps pretending that it's a deterrent

- not only is conflict is perpetuated -

but we lose all the goodness of humanity and everything of real value

Then the only way for us to regain peace and the joy of life

is to admit, apologise and atone

Because people are extremely rarely, if ever, all good or all bad

peace comes when together, we sort out and transform the bad

- not when we harm and annihilate each other

which also destroys the good

www.szura.org – Pandora – psyche of politics

Why do certain newspapers try to get us to hate each other? Is that really what people want? These papers appeal to all those things in our animal nature that humanity needs to overcome.

To what extent do they intentionally establish and forward the momentum of a majority in support of the capitalist system because they honestly believe it is what is best for everyone?

To what extent do they want this majority because, regardless of what is good, it supports the system in which they make their profits?

And to what extent do they not think about the system in the future - but just about making the biggest profit that they can right now? [I believe that those capitalists who theorise slightly more believe that this is the best way to establish and maintain the system anyway – although to believe this they have to ignore all the signs that it is a system which is inherently self destructive.]

I have not explicitly cited actually presenting the truth as a motivation because although some truth is presented – to give a much more accurate picture of the truth generally and of certain subjects in particular would require some quite easy investigation and unbiased reporting, which is clearly lacking.

Capitalism oppresses and destroys life on this planet. These newspapers revere capitalist ownership and business practices rather than life. They pretend to revere life – but we may notice that reverential admiration - and sympathy - is reserved for those who comply with and do not threaten or challenge the capitalist system. Only some of the victims are recognised as victims. Outrage, horror, empathy and grief is expressed not according to the truth about life but selectively for those for whom support is also support for capitalism. – And although they will nastily pick on anyone if they think it will sell papers - including certain celebrities – their most concentrated vitriol is reserved for those who dare to point out that the capitalist system is rubbish – and that in a socialist system all people could be provided for, thus helping to eradicate all victimisation.

The mainstream of public opinion however seems to be mostly won and maintained by attacking those who need to be provided for. I suppose that the thought/feeling process (necessarily only partially conscious) is that since the deprivation in the world cannot be the fault of the system - that it must therefore be the fault of the deprived people themselves. There is also an element of cowardly bullying in this since it concentrates on the groups least able to defend themselves. And so there are daily attacks on the most vulnerable – particularly minority groups, those seeking refuge, and children, especially deprived children. That is - children deprived of a healthy surroundings and opportunities and adequate caring attention.

Hitler did this kind of exclusive uniting of the majority by attacking Jewish people, Gypsies and homosexuals for example.

Apple

Just because I am healthy and happy now –

it is not a vindication of your methods

It is because I have learned with my friends

how to love and accept love in return

and I am still learning

Do not think that it was your harshness that made it so

It was not you hating and berating me

It wasn't your stupid rage wrapped in a pretence of wisdom

It wasn't when you tried to blame and to punish me

for your feelings of inadequacy and dissatisfaction

It was not then that that you healed me

- when you lied

without seeking to hear the truth

using facts selectively

with exaggerations and additions

to satisfy your own desire to believe

that I am bad and therefore worthless

It was not when you sneaked and plotted

shaking your head with others who could not love

nodding together in righteous satisfaction

with your ignorance and prejudice

Nor when you were spitting cliché's at me;     

'Get over it!'

from American T.V. comedies

'Get a life!'

But without humor

'Get out more!'

without love

sneering 'You're always the victim aren't you?'

with a false and vicious triumph 'You've messed up - face it!'

Getting your sense of worth

only from this

and from condoning each others pollution

No, it was not then

You poor creatures who think that love should stop

when someone makes a mistake

and then avidly, greedily watch for the mistake

- but always have excuses for yourselves

You who live with the threat of anger in your eyes

to make people comply

with your sham love

- Who threaten that this will be taken away

if I dare to suggest

for example, that it is so

and that real love is not like that

- You who think that any one who challenges you to see

may be with impunity ostracized

abandoned, tortured, maimed or killed

You who equate the more unfortunate legacies of evolution

- things we are still learning about, and learning how to control

with 'evil'; meaning 'a fully informed choice to harm'

and are victims of the superstition

that not only is this evil resident in people

such that it is all that they are

- but that it hovers with malignant independence of form

from reality

this later, strangely, a metaphor for your hate

Forgive me if I am so full of rage

about the suffering

that I add to it

Forgive me if I am not full of love

if this is not the rage of love

My prayer

young and aware of what we are

we will be

from the good earth

grown

again like the flowers

and full of the sun

our blood pulsing with the sea

our minds open as the sky

clear as the cries of birds

To forgive you I cannot pretend that there is nothing to forgive

To be free enough to forgive you, I have to tell the truth

And so you refuse the love that has helped and healed me

But I still suffer too, like you, although you do not know

about either, why

By the way i don't believe that story about losing innocence and eden because of knowledge. We lose because we do not yet have enough knowledge (love)

Grail Stone

Let us again see

the sacred in nature
and in our own nature
Let the gold flood the green again

the silver sheen the pink
and the blue vibrate the red

Edges of mauve and apricot skies
shine gold and silver brilliance to us

And let us be clear crystal
to carry this promise that truth
not fear, is the master and mistress
- in faith and growing knowledge
that it is the only hope for peace
Then let us focus this eternal light
on to everything in our life -
so that we will burn with love
for the gentle browns of earth
and the purity of air
rain and river streams
and the flowers

of the sea

Grail stone with alternate ending

For a good life we need business to be content with a reasonable living and to have good ethical standards - and we need to have less stuff, to enable those ethical standards – which will generally also mean that we get what we really need – and better quality.

This is not happening sufficiently in the present capitalist system because the private ownership tends to increase the profit incentive which in capitalist ideology is anyway held up like a spiritual ideal as a priority. Real justice for people and the environment can never happen under capitalism – because the way that we conduct ourselves would have to change to the point that the system could no longer be defined as capitalism.

To have financial possession conferring undemocratic power, and to have financial profit as a priority is inherently corrupt and corrupting. By definition, we will not have a good system until what is good is the priority.

Hence discover and investigate the alternative socialist systems.

What is wisdom? Not just 'knowledge' – but sufficient knowledge – that gives us the ability to do what we really want to do, which, by definition, [unless we are insane(in a bad way)], is also what we have to do to make a good life. Sufficient knowledge enables us care for and enjoy things and to make things better - rather than getting distracted by all sorts of trivia. Sufficient knowledge saves us from being spurred and goaded into viciously blaming some of those who are already amongst the most wounded by the problems of society; who are afflicted by the most unfortunate conditions - for all our problems. All of us are victims of some injustice and all of us have perpetrated or been complicit in some injustice and we all seek to bring justice into the world. We bring justice into the world by caring for and enjoying the beauty of nature - that has been so ravaged by us but still is born here and there, perfect, and giving us another chance.

To free ourselves from the delusions of the capitalist system (which are the only things that sustain it) is a 'quantum leap' to free ourselves from being the victims and the perpetrators of injustice.

It is to be expected that all moral standards will be broken and that nature will be abused in a system that does not prioritise the greatest good for all – but rather private acquisition and possession. – A system that prioritises financial ownership and financial profit .

Capitalism is based on the lie that financial ownership should confer any extra rights beyond what is good for all. In capitalism financial ownership is allowed to be used as a weapon to attack and cut up utilitarianism.

I would rather do without it - but I'm still wondering if it is possible for money to be useful in a utilitarian way in some other system.

However - in truth undistorted by erroneous laws, we have rights to our home, for example, because of our human rights – which are real – which express real needs - not because we have paid for it.

The whole capitalist system is born out of and sustains abuse. The principles on which it is based are not about doing the greatest good or the good for all – so necessarily, the quest to find out what that is, and the passion to practice it are usurped. It persists by having the majority of minds enthralled by it – assuming it to be good and safe when it is actually the opposite. In some form, in every way, capitalism produces unhealthy and dysfunctional people who increasingly struggle as the goodness of nature – indeed the entire living biosphere - is getting inexorably and  systematically destroyed by it.

To grow up to be caring and thoughtful, children do not only need good food and clothing and shelter – they need to be shown how to respect the earth and all its abundance. All these things are best provided – and ultimately can only be provided together. Children need to be involved in growing and making things so that they appreciate nature and the work that has to be done to produce things. And they need to be involved in choosing which foods and which clothes, for example, to have - based on their benefits and where they come from and how they have been produced. Presently children are told to be respectful; but their experience is that most of their parents and educators are abusing the earth and other people at many turns – because 'it is convenient' and 'it is cheap' - they say - but actually because they are trapped in capitalism.

More notes on this tommorrow

I've taken out the diagram because i think it was making the blog go of the page - my end anyway. A very similar diagram is in www.szura.org - Astarte

Note1: Really, it is a criminal justice system based on sentencing people to punishment intended to inflict suffering that causes a lot of the problems with crime. It clearly does not work as a sufficient deterrent, and in many cases and in various ways actually instils and re-enforces criminal behaviour. It takes away the emphasis from appropriate medical/psychological treatment and rehabilitation - which provides the best result for everyone - and it allows the release into communities of individuals who are seriously mentally and emotionally ill and a danger to others. The mentality of punishment to humiliate and to harm produces inappropriate treatment and inappropriate periods of time in detention. A murderer may immediately regret what they have done and begin to make amends, but be retained in jail for many years at a cost to the tax payer when he/she could be a good and productive member of society…..or a murderer may not change after many years and be let out to murder again. A judge cannot be expected to know how long it will take for a child molester or a psychopath for example, to change so that they are no longer likely to re-offend - unless they are appropriately advised by people who are qualified to asses the individual. A judge could say that they are a danger and that they should be kept in secure conditions until they are judged by specialists to be recovered – and there can be regular reassessments of this. Clearly in the cases of dangerous individuals - if there is no recovery there should not be release into the community.  We need a mentality of truth – then penalties and treatments are more likely to be appropriate and successful in solving problems and reducing dangers.

NOTE2: When a child is murdered, for example; the family usually feel at least at some stage that they want retribution. They are enraged at what has happened and that their suffering is so great and they aim that rage at the obvious culprit. And much of society, via newspapers and T.V. etc. feel that with them. However, when it comes down to it, what most people – if not all – say they want most of all – apart from it not to have happened - is that it will not happen again – that it will not happen to any other child - to any other family. Hence no real relief comes from hurting someone else, from continuing the urge to inflict pain - but we must put the energy into understanding causes and working on prevention and cure.

NOTE 4: All convicts should have frequent counselling, to help them to understand themselves and their situations better. For the most fortunate human beings, a process of self discovery and of psychological (mental and emotional) healing has excruciatingly painful periods. How much more is this likely to be so for someone accused of and/or convicted of a crime? Many people in such situations are already in an almost constant state of anguish. During counselling the main suffering comes through from the harmful circumstances that have taken part in causing the situation (harmful aspects of relationships for example, that have affected the person), and the person facing their own errors and feeling remorse. This is added to by the persons errors having been so public. What we may call spiritual or moral development is, at times, the most psychologically painful experience that there can possibly be – so those who want there to be suffering need not worry on that score. As human beings we do not have to cause each other extra suffering, but help each other to get through the suffering so that we can be stronger and wiser – and more able to help each other. 

NOTE 5: All convicts should be enabled to improve themselves and, as appropriate, within a secure environment, or based in a secure environment but going out to work, or based at home – to work in the service of the community. –

For example; as appropriate, and according to choice:

As a student

As an apprentice to a craft or skill

Helping carers

On community projects such as composting, organic farming, recycling, renewable energy, e.g. making water wheels.

or some combination

The chance to study and to receive training should be provided with a view to the participant taking on more responsible roles and being able to sustain this at the end of their sentence. Similar schemes can be preventative by being available for anyone to take part, and by being especially for those who might otherwise become involved in crime. They should also be coordinated with counselling and with alcohol and drug treatment and rehabilitation. If there are such schemes already; I'm guessing that we need more and that they need more resources (mostly good teachers, helpers and councillors – many of whom can be sourced, as the projects go on, from ex-convicts etc.) - and that they need to be a lot more 'environmentally friendly'. There could be collaboration with ecological groups and other N.G.O.'s  who actually know what needs to be done for the conservation and creation of healthy environments and healthy communities, such as;  Friends of the earth, The Natural Trust, R.S. P. B., R.S.P.C.A., Green Peace, Oxfam and other organisations who need workers around the world.

www.szura.org

 After Tony Blair's speech about reducing the human rights of criminals. 2                                                                                           

Certainly any one who does harm should be confronted with the consequences, and certainly any one who is fairly judged to be a danger to the public should be detained. However, if the desire to punish and harm is given sway it is counter productive. Although the victim may need other forms of compensation, the perpetrator should be given all the help he/she needs so that he/she can recompense the victim / society, and can generally develop a good life. Atonement is a natural and essential part of developing more intelligence / empathy / kindness / respect - and isn't that what we want? Isn't that what actually makes further harm less likely - makes a safer world?

Perhaps people in prison have to be allowed to just sit in their cells - but they should be helped and encouraged to better themselves in every way; to use their abilities to do good - if not directly for their victims, which may not be possible - then for others - to do good for society. Some people are so vicious that they would deny people this chance of atonement and of making a good life. They believe (like Satan in stories) that there should be no end to the punishment. They want human beings to be hurt for no other purpose than that it gives them a feeling of satisfaction. But surely that is a criminal mind set. Some people cannot get better – and for the safety of others have to remain in secure units - but in most cases in which people have harmed others and need to change for the better; it is possible for them to do so. To refuse people this chance to get better (the better also to contribute beneficially to the world) is really ruining the face out of spite for the nose.

There is a resistance to the idea of healing for those who have been defined as criminal. There's the idea that they don't deserve anything that might make them feel better; even if that makes it safe to release them, and even if they can then make a valuable contribution to society – even if tax payers do not then have to pay to support them in jail……….But if you're interested in suffering as a form of punishment you should check out some case histories and psychological profiles. Most offenders, although it may not be obvious, have already been suffering in some way for a long time; and in most cases it is because they feel bad that they have committed a crime. I must underline, also  again, that that does not make it justified – it just makes it understandable.

For example, crime can work like a drug; people can be addicted to it – and they can subconsciously feel that by taking something or possessing something that they will feel better - or that by venting their frustration and rage about all their grief on something that they won't have to feel the fear for the while that someone else is afraid of them. That's why so many offenders also have drink and drug problems. It's often about anaesthetising themselves to mental/emotional pain. Most criminality can be traced to problems in family and society, some of which are horrific. England has more people in jails than any other European country. (This may be partly due to American influence - the modal there veers towards harsh retribution rather than help and social programmes).

This is not to suggest that problems are all cased by nurture – people are born with some different propensities and vulnerabilities – and have these to different degrees – and these then develop in the way they do because of the person's experiences.

I don't believe that English people are inherently more criminal than people in the rest of Europe; but I think that the fact that so many of their people are in jail – and indeed so many of their young people - should act as a reminder about how important it is to find out the causes of criminality and to work to improve ourselves and society instead of just carrying on with and accepting bad practices as the norm and condemning individuals who in many cases have fallen foul of such practices. Without caring about this - the situation is liable to get worse. This is particularly prescient at a time when prisons have never been so full - unyet there is no less criminality. - There is slightly less criminality according to some statistics – but one wonders how these have been manipulated – besides which, any improvement might well be due to some other factor/s such as where there has been improved care.

 Everyone deserves kindness and understanding and it benefits us all to give it. To be kind and understanding does not mean that someone who has done wrong is not challenged to take responsibility and to reform; to make amends and to lead a good life – it means that they have such opportunities. - It does not mean that dangerous people who cannot be rehabilitated are not removed from the rest of society – it actually makes these procedures more efficient – because it works to reduce criminality – and the system is not overloaded. More people are protected. More people are redeemed. There is more understanding of what causes harmful behaviour and so more ability to remove such causes before they do more damage. – And there is more understanding of what helps to develop good behaviour and so more ability to provide it. We do not become what we hate.

Victims should have help and support. If they are not getting enough then they should be given more rather than it being an opportunity to take human rights away from someone else. We cannot afford to let ourselves be conned into thinking that we will be safer and better off if criminals and suspected criminals are treated more harshly. Perhaps it seems more satisfying - and easier and cheaper – to just let anger take over and to brutalise people. But it is not - and this becomes obvious in the long run. We will actually be safer and better off if criminality is reduced and if the prisons are not so overcrowded that the really dangerous people are let out: So how is that actually achieved? The illnesses and cures of criminality are in our selves and in our life – we have to work to understand the illnesses and use those things that are cures.

It is of equal importance to discover 1) what mistakes have been made, 2) what is helpful, including studying successful modals that are working in other countries, and 3) to develop and try out innovations. - That is if our aim is to make a more just society.

www.szura.org                                                                                            

After Tony Blair's speech about reducing the human rights of criminals.

 3

After it was revealed that we were misled about weapons of mass destruction as a justification for war, T. B. (and G.B.) fell back on the fact that Sadam Hussein was a dictator who harmed his people. The case of Iraq is a perfect example of how a dictator can lead a functioning country by violently suppressing any criminality (apart from his own mafia), along with any opposition to his rule - and by favouring one group so they collude in the subjugation of another. [This later is the classic 'divide and rule' which Sadam Hussein may well have learned from the British government.] Looking back at the history of Iraq and the relations between religious groups I think it is fair to say that although Sadam's regime gave a semblance of a well ordered society; that relations between different ethnic and religious groups are now much worse than they were before Sadam and before the previous British interference which helped to put him into power. Now there are daily deaths and injuries from sectarian attacks, and the danger that Iraq will suffer an even worse civil war.

If resentment is suppressed it just hardens. When a group feels victimised; when a culture is threatened; less questioning is likely or is tolerated within the group or culture. It tends to hold on more firmly to its doctrines – the true and the false (the helpful and the non helpful) – and to become more fundamentalist and extreme. When social problems are not healed, 'though they may be hidden for a while by threats and force and a controlled media – they get worse. Although there are people in these situations who are wise and will work for peace, their voices may be drowned in blood; their sanity lost in the mayhem.

After Tony Blair's speech about reducing the human rights of criminals.4 i)

Towards the end of T.B.'s tenure not so much was heard about being 'tough on the causes of crime'. I suppose with all the wars, and billions to pay the U.S. arms manufacturers for new trident nuclear missiles - that there's not so much money available to provide healthy opportunities for young people like green spaces, football pitches, free swimming pools, free local libraries, youth clubs and guidance form trained youth workers. Also, perhaps he was afraid that looking at some of the real and main causes of crime wouldn't be popular – perhaps he thought that it's too challenging for people – or felt it was too challenging for him - because problems are not only caused by a lack of facilities or even lack of attention - but by a lot of things in our lifestyle that people are reluctant to change.

But to properly understand the causes of crime and to change things for the better does involve reassessing our entire lifestyle. In some ways it is complicated because what is bad is all mixed up with what is good - but in some ways it is quite simple – and easy: Children need to grow up in a healthy environment, locally and globally - we learn more and more that these cannot be separated.  Socially and environmentally – it is about taking care of the world and each other and passing this responsible attitude and this practice on to our children. This is necessarily done in the context of healthy, interacting communities.

So what is a healthy community? Surely one which prioritises peoples needs and cares for the environment that meets these needs.

Capitalism's been tried – it doesn't work! Capitalism thrives on blaming it's victims for being victims. It's always the faults of people that are blamed for poverty, violence, addiction and desperation – never the faults inherent in the capitalist system. And the people are to be punished – in the sense that they are to be hurt more for having those faults. – But capitalism corrupts and destroys people because capitalism corrupts and destroys communities – we only have to look at the direct and indirect causes of community break up all around the world. Capitalism is against communities – because healthy communities prioritise people and the environment – not profit – and not getting new stuff.

 Healthy communities are made of people who do not work at unethical jobs, or want unethical produce – because this is necessarily not healthy. It is self destructive, causing environmental and moral degradation and war. Healthy communities realise the truth, that although certain things are for a time in the care of a particular person or group (that they have particular responsibility for those things for that time) – that all we have is actually held in common. Healthy communities are those within which people cannot effectively buy control over land or water etc., or over other people, and therefore in which decisions about the organisation and development of the community can be taken fully democratically.

Systems of financial ownership prevent full democracy and so prevent us from having the optimum conditions for justice and for learning.

What we know about affects what policies we will vote for and what laws will be made and so how we will live. What we know affects everything in our lives. To know about what we are voting for we have to look further than news papers or other media that are owned and controlled by hugely financially wealthy and self serving business tycoons. Such mainstream media leaves out so many facts, out of stupidity and out of calumny (not wanting to disprove their own editorials), but will rehash the same bigoted and self-satisfied opinions over and over again as the situation gets worse. The overall effect, although there are facts involved, is to disguise and misrepresent the truth in a way that is tantamount to lying, with plenty of outright lies thrown in to make sure. Are people glad be told what to think and what to feel, because they are too lazy and/or prejudiced to find out the truth? Is it also because they think that they are safe with those thoughts and feelings amongst the masses who buy the same news paper?.........But there's nothing particularly safe about believing lies – especially when a lot of people believe lies. When we believe lies we are less well equipped to deal with reality. When we believe lies we elect people who make dangerous laws and support damaging practices like those that trap millions in poverty, cause wars and wreck the planet – in other words – a bunch of criminals.