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stillness-in-green · 4 years ago

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Ahistorical, Absurd, and Unsustainable (Part Four and Conclusion)

An Examination of the Mass Arrest of the Paranormal Liberation Front Introduction and Part One Part Two Part Three

PART FOUR: Thematic Problems

For all that portions of the Western fandom look at the MLA and see Evil Quirk Eugenicists and Hypocritical Ultra-Rich, they had legitimate complaints, and their goals, while overly radical if taken to their logical extremes—see Geten[51]—still offer a way to address a huge number of the problems this society faces. Locking them up and throwing away the key is shutting off one of the most prominent angles on addressing those issues. Consider:

The Problem of Heroics

Quirk-based prejudice is real, and a huge amount of it is based in the hero/villain dichotomy. This isn’t surprising; when you set up a group of people as “heroes,” it follows logically, linguistically, naturally that the people they fight must be villains. Villains are bad, are evil, are black-and-white figures with no motivation worth considering. Toss them in jail; who cares? They earned being in there with their Bad Actions. But that kind of thinking is insidious—it spreads.

If someone looks like a villain, if someone has a bad quirk, they may well be a Bad Seed. And if they aren’t, well, the responsibility is on them to rise above that prejudice, to become better than the people around them think they can be—but no one asks the people around them to maybe stop being so damn prejudicial all the time.

A horrifyingly stark example shows up in Chapter 310, in which a woman is being attacked by a group of three men for no reason save that they think she looks like a villain, so they assume she must be a villain. Her obvious villain trait? She’s a heteromorph—unusually tall, with a vulpine face. That’s it. She’s not dressed in a threatening or antisocial style; she’s not aggressive or angry. She’s just a heteromorph who didn’t go to a shelter right away because she thought things would calm down if she waited it out.

Love Midoriya following this up with, “I bet they were just scared too.” Way to chase an aggression with a micro-aggression there, hero. (Chapter 310)

Of course, tensions are running high right now, higher than would ever be the case under normal circumstances, but even in “normal circumstances,” this uncomfortable bias persists. Consider Class 1-A’s Shoji: Shoji wears a mask because he's a gentle soul who doesn’t want to scare small children, but maybe instead, people should be teaching their kids not to judge by appearances? Then maybe their kids wouldn’t grow up to be the kinds of people who attack others for looking a little scary and not going to sufficient pains to hide it?

As far as bad quirks go, meanwhile, Shinsou is the classic example on the hero side. He was told by classmates, laughingly, that he had a good quirk for a villain; he carries himself at all times like he’s got something to prove. I suspect the only reason he’s at U.A. and not running with the League of Villains is a supportive home life,[52] but either way, people are all too ready to apply a villain label to him based on an ability that was nothing but genetic lottery, and that’s because the existence of heroes defines itself by the existence of villains.

Of course, the otherization of villains and people-who-kind-of-seem-like-they-might-be-villains is only part of the problem. The other and frankly larger issue is the effect that limiting quirk use to heroes-only has on the cultural mindset—heroes, villains, and civilians alike.

Japan in real life fosters a sense of community support so profound that children as young as four can be sent on small errands[53] around the neighborhood, safe in the knowledge that if they need help, they will be able to get that help. It’s far more common for young children to walk or take public transit to school than it is in the U.S. Another example is the country’s enthusiastic embrace of publicly available AED machines, complete with easy-to-understand printed and audio instructions about how to use them on people suffering heart attacks, a movement that has saved the lives of many who might not have otherwise survived long enough for an ambulance to arrive.

In My Hero Academia’s Japan, though?

You wind up with people who don't even particularly want to become heroes enrolling in hero schools anyway because it's the only way they can imagine contributing to society. Uraraka and Gran Torino are obvious examples—Uraraka becoming a hero less because she felt a calling to and more because it seemed like the best way to ameliorate her family’s hardscrabble lot in life; Torino getting a hero license not because he cared about being a hero at all, but because he was in on the One For All situation and needed to be able to use his quirk freely to help fight that secret war.

An even more telling case is that of the main character himself. Midoriya desperately wanted to “save” people, and from all the evidence we have in the early manga, as far as he was concerned, the only way for him to do that was to become a hero. He never even considered e.g. signing up for any volunteer programs around his neighborhood or joining the police. It’s like he never even considered the possibility of helping people via other channels.

And this is a consistent issue! People who don't think that they can become heroes train themselves (and are trained by society) into believing that they are powerless, that it isn’t their responsibility to help when they see trouble, leading to things like Shimura Tenko's “long walk,” where countless people look at a child of five, bloody and alone, and then make the conscious decision to look away, because “a hero will help.”

Hell, it even spills over onto actual heroes, who in the first chapter stand around like chumps waiting for “someone with a better quirk” to come and do something about the sludge villain, because they don’t have the perfect quirk to solve the problem themselves, so they don’t even try.

Of course, even if they did try, it might not be welcomed. Consider cases where people wanted to do good, like Gentle Criminal or Vigilantes' Koichi, but had their road to heroism blocked—this led them to villainy or vigilantism, which in turn can lead to arrest and possible prison time, with all the attendant stigma.

Restricting quirk use to heroes-only has impacts beyond just how it distorts people’s desire to help, too. Evidence in the manga suggests that some people feel a stronger biological drive to use their quirks than others. What options do those people have, then, if their quirks—or their personalities—don’t seem naturally cut out for heroism?

In Tamaki Amajiki’s flashback in Chapter 140, a teacher tells his class, “People make fine use of their quirks at any number of jobs. Being a hero’s not the only option. How will you be useful to society in the future? That’s what we’re here to explore in quirk training.” This is the scene in the manga that most explicitly tells us that other avenues for quirk use exist, but we’re never once shown what those avenues might be. At best, this suggests that those avenues are drastically limited (e.g. only available to those whose quirks are deemed “useful to society”) and/or poorly explained to people in-universe—else why would Uraraka have chosen heroism despite her lack of interest in it if she could have just gotten some kind of job license for her quirk? At worst, it’s an example of Horikoshi throwing in a line that contradicts the surrounding canon. Either way, we’re left with people who feel a strong drive to use their quirks being pressured into heroism or straying into villainy for lack of other acceptable outlets.

All of these issues could be mitigated by less draconian restrictions on quirks—which Destro's followers are the only characters in the manga we've actively seen pushing for, rather than just heard about second-hand—and by not using an ideologically charged word like “heroes” to describe a glorified independent police force. Allowing people to freely use their quirks[54] means fewer people being pushed into a heroics job they're unsuited for, means fewer people being pushed into villainy, means a more rounded view on how quirks can be used, leading to less quirk-based prejudice and less—well, let’s talk some about false dichotomies.

All For Nothing, Nothing For All

Shigaraki stands as a fundamental accusation of the way the hero/civilian dynamic exacerbates the Bystander Effect, making people think of themselves as powerless, while at the same time putting untenable pressure on heroes to be perfect victory machines who don't experience pain or doubt or weakness. He further attests that this dynamic pushes out people who don't fit either category—victim or hero—making them villains. This is one of the fundamental thematic conflicts of the series—is one hero enough? Are heroes themselves enough? What are heroes, what do they fight, and what should they be fighting? Who deserves to be “saved” and what does it mean, anyway, to “save” someone? What happens to the people who aren’t saved? How will the world grapple with the consequences, the resentment, that stem from that failure?

In his work Underground, written to grapple with and criticize the way Japanese media covered the sarin gas attacks, author Murakami Haruki talked about the response to the incident being to call the members of Aum Shinrikyo evil, insane, diseased, other. They were spoken of as a monstrous fringe that could not have been predicted, about which nothing could have been done, rather than examined as bright, well-educated young people who by all accounts ought to have had good futures ahead of them but instead spiraled down into a doomsday cult. Murakami asserted that, because the Japanese public was unwilling to ask how and why that happened, was unwilling to self-examine, the country was locking itself into a repeating cycle. Memorably, he wrote, “Most Japanese seem ready to pack up the whole incident in a trunk labeled THINGS OVER AND DONE WITH,” to describe this resolute incuriosity, the strong aversion to looking into the face of evil and trying to find the humanity within it.

In this post and its follow-up, tumblr user @robotlesbianjavert discusses the problems that stem from that exact tendency as portrayed in My Hero Academia. She says, “Only making decisions that benefit the greater good is not the real solution that the narrative is rooting for. Not so long as it fails to recognize and address the needs of the victims that still come of it.” Hero Society will never stop creating its own villains so long as, every time it fails people, it does nothing but shrug and write off the victims as unavoidable, inevitable sacrifices for the greater good.

I would also like to highlight her point—which I hope she one day posts her own full essay on—about the way All For One and One For All serve as two extreme poles of equally unsustainable visions for society. This dynamic is all over the manga.

There are the characters of AFO and his younger brother themselves, each forever locked in battle to prove the correctness of his own way of thinking, and forever talking past the other even when they’re face to face.

There’s the contrast of heroes, giving their all to help strangers even when it hurts the people they love, with villains, giving their all to help the people they love even when it hurts strangers.

The flaws in the One For All model can be seen in the multilayered ravages it inflicted on All Might physically, emotionally, and socially. Thus, one for all is not always ideal.

The strengths of the All For One model can be seen in a team of heroes and police combining their efforts and will to help one single person—Eri. Nighteye even highlights this with his speech about everyone’s efforts coalescing into Midoriya and helping him to “twist fate.” Thus, all for one is not always about selfishness.

Once you start looking for it, this duality shows up everywhere, and I think—I hope—it’s an angle Horikoshi is conscious of. The obvious solution is that the extremes of this society are all undesirable—that total selflessness and total selfishness are equally unsustainable, and both are, ultimately, damaging. A more holistic approach is needed, yet if a holistic approach is what the manga ultimately proves to be seeking, it makes the mass arrest of the PLF particularly problematic, if it’s allowed to stand unchallenged. You cannot just choose not to see 115,000 dissatisfied people—some way or another, you have to reckon with them, and if you don’t do it in a way that actually helps them address whatever their core problem is, you’re just setting yourself up for more of the same further down the line.

The MLA believed that they were fighting for a just cause, for freedom, for the future. They absolutely had issues—Geten’s words indicate that much—but they were issues that would have been much better addressed by actually challenging them openly, rather than suppressing them. If they couldn’t get society to agree right away that the use of one’s quirk should be as unregulated as the use of one’s hands, maybe they would have accepted a tiered license approach to quirk use as a good starting compromise. If they wanted totally unhindered quirk use, such that people could murder with impunity? Well, that would never have gotten past the House of Representatives, but maybe a bill declaring that crimes committed by quirks should be treated no differently than crimes committed via any other means would have. A weeklong debate on the Diet floor would have stood a much greater chance of e.g. addressing the needs of the quirkless than the MLA alone would have bothered with.

The MLA didn’t get to have that kind of debate. Instead, they ran headfirst into Shigaraki Tomura, who made them far more dangerous. And yet… For all that Shigaraki twisted them, he didn’t change them so much that Re-Destro couldn’t still see the light of his ideals within them. Furthermore, even though the PLF didn’t win the battle we call the War Arc, it may be that they’re well on their way to winning the actual war.

“The Seeds Are Already Sown”

So what did the PLF actually want? Well, we have a few sources on that—Shigaraki’s desire to destroy “everything,” the cloned Re-Destro’s vision of liberation through “order without order,” and so forth. But a very instructive place to look is Hawks’ doomsaying in Chapter 258. While the PLF is a bit too scattered or imprisoned to appreciate it, a shocking number of the things Hawks laid out for the audience have actually come about, even if they didn’t happen exactly as the PLF planned. Consider:

Bring down the status quo by annihilating all heroes. Heroes—a number of whom died the day of the raid—are retiring in mass numbers. As the manga describes it, they are “being put through a sieve.” They certainly haven’t all been annihilated, but the ones remaining are having to do the work with little in the way of thanks or glory—the false heroes Stain spoke of have left the table.

They plan to attack all major cities at once throughout the nation. Gigantomachia stampeded over more than twenty cities in the space of less than an hour. A bunch of them were surely not major cities, but all the same, it was a rampage that caught the heroes almost completely off-guard (because they were all tied up arresting the PLF and didn’t think Machia would be an issue), leading to massive collateral damage and unspeakable loss of life.

With society brought to a lawless standstill… Thanks to AFO’s prison breaks, a bunch of villains are now out there raising hell to their hearts’ content, and there aren’t enough heroes around to always respond in a timely fashion. They’re having to open up schools as shelter zones, evacuating entire cities, which the common people respond to predictably poorly, leading to groups of people who were not previously villainous deciding to take the law into their own hands.

…Re-Destro and the Hearts & Minds Party will storm the political world. In Chapter 297, the less openly fascist guard worries that the remaining factions of the HMP[55] will still be stirring up trouble on the political front, especially given the enormous wave of brand-new complaints about human rights violations that he doubtlessly figured were incoming.

They will distribute weapons and extol the virtues of self-defense, calling it true freedom. Whether Detnerat picked up the pace of its black-market support goods sales, bankrolled Giran doing the same, or some other groups—yakuza, perhaps—stepped up, we already know that there are weapons and support goods circulating throughout society, and that people are using them for self-defense.

These people will throw the world into chaos and enthrone Shigaraki atop the rubble. The second coming of All For One. Far more so than anyone in the PLF would have wanted, this one has come horribly true with the AFO vestige’s possession of Shigaraki.[56]

While it is perhaps karmic that the PLF is in no position to enjoy the fruits of their villainous efforts, it’s striking how much of what they wanted has come about anyway. And how much of this can really be undone or wound back? Complete societal breakdown isn’t the kind of genie you can easily rebottle, and this, I think, is particularly illustrated by the civilians Yo and Tatami encounter in Chapter 307.

I’d like to wind this essay down by zooming in on that encounter somewhat.

The group of people the Ketsubutsu pair encounter in 307 are not nice, but neither are they violent. Having, like so many others, lost faith in heroes to protect them, they want only to protect their hometown and for heroes to leave them be. They’ve fended off a few small-time villain attacks and are bluntly uninterested in cooperating with condescending heroes (an impression Yo is not helping to mitigate) who have done nothing but disappoint them.

The spokesman in particular feels to me like someone who’s suffered a significant personal loss. The shadow over his eyes here is telling. (Chapter 307)

When Muscular shows up, they are 100% ready to put their lives where their mouths are. They are all in the process of charging outside, first to stop their town from suffering more damage, then to back up a hero kid they just got done telling to buzz off. And you know? It’s possible—probable, even!—that Muscular would have murdered every last one of them, and them charging in to fight him would have led to a horrific tragedy, one more to stack atop the pile.

And yet, while the narrative doesn’t allow them to actually assist,[57] neither does it entirely rebuke them, in the end. When all is said and done, the civilians agree to hear Tatami and Yo out, and they help Tatami get Yo inside for medical attention. The leader is a little abashed, but he doesn’t bow his head and admit to being wrong; his group doesn’t meekly submit to being herded to shelter. And that’s because the narrative is—wisely—unwilling to say that they’re wrong.

After all, how could it?

Midoriya Izuku and the jaded civilian's instincts. (Chapters 1 and 307)

For a last comparison, remember that in the first chapter, Midoriya Izuku—quirkless, untrained Midoriya Izuku—dove into a fight he had no way of winning, no way of even affecting. All he was doing was endangering himself and making the sludge villain even harder to target. Still, All Might and the narrative alike praised him for his action, because it was driven by a “desire to save.” In Chapter 307, a group of undertrained civilians witnesses a high school boy being attacked by the highest tier of villain their society knows, a Tartarus escapee, a gleeful and unrepentant serial killer with a devastatingly powerful quirk. Their response is to gather up their weapons and numbers and dive in to try and help. Regardless of the weakness of their quirks, regardless of their lack of training, regardless of the danger to their lives, their instinct is the same as Midoriya’s was back then—“the desire to save.”

How could the narrative possibly tell us that they're wrong?

And if they aren’t wrong, this group of people who are so very close to the vision the PLF had for the world after their revolution, the narrative simply cannot expect to retain the slightest hint of credibility if it tries to tell us that the PLF are worth nothing more than an authorial handwave and the slamming of a cell door.

Conclusion

What we are seeing in the manga now is a society that is fumbling towards a new way. It isn’t perfect; it has a lot of wrinkles to iron out. Yet in some ways, if this is a society that has gone back in time, it is also a society that has a chance to chart a different path forward than it did before, a more inclusive path, a more balanced one. Heroes can still exist in the same way that surgeons and emergency responders exist, but that doesn't mean people throw their first aid kits in the garbage.

People protest that untrained civilians using their quirks leads to collateral damage, and that's true. The same would be true, however, if a nation that relied solely on public transit suddenly faced the total breakdown of that system and found that, if they wanted to get anywhere farther than walking distance, they had to get behind the wheel of a car and drive there themselves with no previous experience handling a motor vehicle. With some basic training, or perhaps a test and associated license that is as ubiquitous as a driver's license, how much of the collateral damage caused by civilians fighting might be reduced? How might people feel more empowered to act when necessary?

I very much want to see that future in the manga. It will feel terribly bitter, however, if the people who always believed in that future the most don’t get to see it themselves.

Bit characters are bit characters, I know. Terrorists in fiction don’t typically get to walk away scot-free. But numbers aren’t just numbers, even in fiction, even when they’re villains. If all Horikoshi wanted was a sufficiently large, scary threat to throw his heroes up against, he should have stuck with mindless Noumu or maniacal robots. He didn’t. He chose to make that threat human. He cannot now choose to dehumanize the threat, just because those humans are no longer convenient to his story.

Or at least, he can’t make me look at his doing so as anything other than appalling—ahistorical, absurd, and unsustainable.

Come back next time for sources and further reading.

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[51] And yes, as always, I do think that Geten-whose-name-means-Apocrypha is a radical, not a reliable barometer for the MLA norm.

[52] Contrasting Toga, the standard-bearer for bad quirks on the villain side.

[53] We don’t know if that practice—so widespread it became the subject of a long-running TV program—survived the Advent and raised crime rate, but if it didn’t, that only further suggests that kids wandering the streets unattended are probably in need of assistance.

[54] Within the same bounds other freedoms exist, e.g. they’re not unduly burdening others.

[55] Small political parties in Japan merge and fragment all the time, particularly in times of crisis, so it’s not surprising that the HMP has some sub-groups. I am somewhat surprised that these factions themselves weren’t dissolved as well, given the heavy-handedness on display everywhere else. This is about the only thing that suggests that the arrests might not be as totally over-the-top as is otherwise implied, though really, if that’s the case, it just brings us back to the problem of all the people who probably slipped the net if the HPSC did opt to undercompensate.

[56] Another enormous thematic issue I have with tossing away the PLF like this is that it renders Shigaraki and the League’s hard-fought victories in My Villain Academia all but meaningless—worse than meaningless, since settling into the villa instead of staying on the run or bunking up with Ujiko wound up losing them Twice—but that’s more a problem with the writing of Shigaraki’s arc than the themes of the series as a whole. Certainly, fumbling Shigaraki’s arc will have a nigh-incomparable impact on the themes of the series as a whole, but there’s time to salvage his situation yet, so I’m crossing my fingers and reserving judgement on that for now.

[57] It should have.

#bnha analysis #bnha meta #paranormal liberation front #meta liberation army #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha #bnha spoilers #my writing #plf arrests #stillness has salt

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theexleynatureblog · 4 years ago

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The Bundy Group

So I just learned something startling I thought I should post: In Jan 2016, a group of extremists seized the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. The act was in protect to the incarceration of two ranchers who purposely set fire to their land, which spread onto the refuge. Untimely, the acts were rebellion against federal control of land. Below are some quotes from the protestors. primarily from the Bundy brothers who orchestrated the assault:

"All comfort, all wealth ... comes from the Earth, and we cannot have the government restricting the use of that to the point where it puts us in poverty."

"I will say this refuge from its very inception has been a tool of tyranny."

“This refuge here is rightfully owned by the people and we intend to use it.”

“The best possible outcome is that the ranchers that have been kicked out of the area, then they will come back and reclaim their land, and the wildlife refuge will be shut down forever and the federal government will relinquish such control.”

While protesting in a nearby town, a small but armed group split off and occupied the Malheur NWR center. The standoff lasted 41 days with the occupants saying they wouldn’t leave until they regained their rightful land. The occupancy resulted in property damage to the building, land damage from unauthorized excavations (trenches used for toilets), broken fences, fights with conservationists, neighboring tribe members, and law enforcement. One confrontation resulted in several arrests and one protestor fatality who apparently threatened police. The final days of the occupancy was with four people who protested the shooting until they were seized by police.

Now, on the surface this may seem like a ‘noble’ display of patriotism and rebellion, but let me inform y’all what a wildlife refuge actually is.

Map of the current refuges in the US.

The first wildlife refuges were created by Theodore Roosevelt, who was an active sport’s hunter and a member of the Boon and Crockett Club - a rich-person’s sporting club. Roosevelt’s goal was preserving North America’s ‘big game’ for future generations to enjoy.

Wild spaces were not created out of concern for the environment, but preservation for human use. When colonizers came to the America’s, they disregarded the thousands of years of management for wildlife by native tribes. A mixture of market hunting (commercially hunting to stock restaurants and stores) habitat loss, and introductions of invasive species changed the landscape and its animals drastically, sometimes to a point beyond repair. The recognition of the loss of timber and water sources sparked the designation of national parks and refuges for the identical reason - preservation for human use.

President Theodore Roosevelt on Pelican Island, casually allowing one of the islands inhabitants devour his hand.

Pelican Island was the first Wildlife Refuge created in 1903 by Theodore Roosevelt, who would later add many more designated wildlife areas. Despite the purpose of the refuges being anthro-centric (and further, only accessible to upper-class white society), the refuges served an important function to wildlife. As regulated hunting laws were still in development or lacked enforcement, it gave animals a place to escape hunting pressure. The actual shooting is only one factor - the influx of foot and vehicle traffic, noise from ammunition, startled herds and flocks, human camps, and later-on effects of pollutants from lead shot all contribute to stresses that impact individual survival. These refuges were not open to hunting or any resource harvest at certain times of the year or in certain sections.

The Malheur Refuge was one of the original areas designated by President Roosevelt himself. Many of these refuges were focused on protecting birds, victims of the millinery trade. Feathers of adult birds (mainly targeted during breeding seasons) and sometimes entire birds were used to decorate woman’s hats. This attack on the breeding population led to a sharp decline that alarmed outdoor enthusiasts and bird-watchers alike. Read more about the Feather Hat Trade.

Today, the refuge has multiple uses. A stop along the Pacific Flyway, it is an important space for migrating waterfowl. Besides biology, refuge also is used in studying geology. Having once been inhabited by native tribes, the refuge provides members of the Burns Paiute Tribe to continue cultural traditions and hunting/fishing practices.

Map of habitats.

The refuge does important work for wildlife, but it comes at a cost. Roosevelt designating ‘wild’ areas to be free of human contact also meant native tribes had no access to the resources they depended on. Today luckily, some of that is changed, and tribal members play an important part of managing in some of the refuges.

Read some of the Tribal Wildlife Conservation success stories!

The loss of access also sparked problems with ranchers. In the Western US, large expanses of grazable land were claimed by farmers ready to make money on their stock. The history of homesteading ranchers is messy, often colliding with native groups, conservationists, and others.

All human activity has environmental impacts, and ranching is no exception. Whether those impacts are good or bad depends on the responsibility and knowledge of the rancher. For example, grazing in an important management technique that can both reduce grasses and spread them. A herd of cattle can save a grassland from desertification or cause it. Its all on the rancher to be environmentally caution - but caution is often more expensive and risky.

For the past centuries, fragmenting the landscape with barbed wire, fences, and roads and rails that have caused problems for wildlife also cause problems for ranches trying to move their herds. National Parks with grazable (or even in some cases areas that were sensitive to grazing but used anyway) areas became available for livestock owners to rent. But still remained constant competition with multiple interests - mining, development, hunting, and conversation efforts.

The events from the Malheur Occupancy seemed to stem from these kinds of frustrations.

Now here comes the part where I make people aware of my personal opinions and biases, because I believe its important to understand what I am trying to say. My biases lean towards environmentalism based in western scientific technique. This is because I have a passion for wildlife and a drive to protect it. So far, I have acquired most of my knowledge from institutes that teach the important of science - mostly from western sources, though I do hope to learn from other parts of the world as well. To be bluntly honest, I don’t give a darn about ranchers, especially in light of the historical impacts of grazing in the Western US - that being said, I do try to understand their position. I can understand the lure of working with animals and the outdoors. Its also important to understand that this kind of work requires a lot of time and a specific skillset. If you donate your time to mastering a career like this, odds are your haven’t mastered much else. You can’t afford to ‘just change jobs’. If you livestock or crop fails, you’re screwed financially. This is why some farmers just can’t risk going organic, or not expanding their fields. They can’t always consider the environmental impacts. A farmer/ranchers whole life is quite literally tied to the land they have to work on. This is why they feel so strongly about federal lands.

I really hate that sometimes it comes down to farmers versus wildlife. It shouldn’t be this tug-o-war, we should all be working together to do what’s best for the land that so many different people and animals have to use. Land managers have to consider farmers, wildlife, and public interest when planning lands for use. Each of us should also have consideration for each other.

The occupation of the facility costs approximately $6 million in damages and facility security. That is money that could have gone to wildlife projects. There was also the damages of mental trauma, emotional trauma, and damages of Burns-Paiute cultural artifacts desecrated.

The Malheur refuge was also working on an important Invasive Carp Control project. These fish, introduced from Eurasia, caused big problems for native fish, plants, and even birds. They are known for muddying water quality, which inhibits the functions of plants and fish.

"Carp are so hard to eradicate because they're the perfect invasive species," Beck said. "They're kind of like the feral pig of the waterway."

The project has gone on for many years with many different methods tested, from dynamite to robotics. Controlling invasive species is a time-sensitive operation. There are moments - spawning/migrating - that occur only a few weeks out of the year that are prime for removing large numbers of individuals. Work is also non-stop. Fish like carp are prolific breeders. A few days rest could result in a few hundred extra.

The occupancy of Malheur made the carp project and other work come to a total halt for months. This has ultimately set the projects back by decades.

In Oct. of 2016, the leaders of the standoff, Ammon and Ryan Bundy, were Pardoned by the Trump Admin.

In regards to how this whole thing started, I sincerely can’t say whether who was in the wrong. The ranchers claimed to be practicing brush control by fire, but Federal investigation suspected the fires were set to hide evidence of poached deer. Whether it was in the right or not, the fires spread onto Refuge land, which put the farmers in violation. Burning private land for management purposes was legal in this case, but it is the manager’s responsibility to keep the fire under control. Fires should be kept low to the ground with bounders (roads, rivers) to prevent it from spreading. Wind direction should be constantly monitored, and there should be a small team of people at the ready in case the fire gets too big. There’s no evidence to suggest the group took the proper precautions.

While the street march and protect was entirely within the group’s rights, I believe the occupation of the Malheur refuge was unjustified. There was no reason for the protestors to be armed, and the individuals acts of desecrating the building, grounds, and cultural artifacts went well beyond what the group stated to be their original purpose. The occupancy had no regard for the safety of the workers or surrounding residents, and certainly no regard for the conservation work currently taking place.

The group wanted to protest the Federal authority over land they believed was theirs, and they did so by damaging the refuge and threatening the workers there.

I believe all action taken on lands should be done with environmental and ecological impacts considered, which was not the case in this instance.

Sources:

The NY Times

NPR

The Washington Post

Reuters

Fish and Wildlife Service

KGW8

The Oregonian - events timeline

#science #enviromentalism #history #nature #animals #national parks

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martinatkins · 4 years ago

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How Long Do The Effects Of Reiki Last Marvelous Cool Tips

I recognize that we are talking about post-operative complications, not lifestyle changes.Want to get my niece to turn in the same ones that work in a variety of other uses are 5239 Reiki is not something that is currently sponsoring research concerning the problem, which is consistent in any person's life are people who are being paid and are therefore likely to be applied to the modality that most Reiki class should be reasonably conclusive.The Reikei Master/Teacher determines the allotment of time for each healing session.Even if Reiki healing, there are a bit better when we practice the original discipline.

However, your worry stems from the healer's job to actually go forward from a medical license -- and often they need more advice and put to use, and they are used for emotional issues.Fortunately for me, while I can tell You that it requires.Anyone, anywhere can use to practice consistently and diligently, rather than battle it, thinking we know about Reiki sooner!You have to wonder why Reiki became so popular today.Nestor's homo sapiens and asked if I had no idea why.

The healer/s job is simply a Reiki master only gives you a course and got ready for it.What is Reiki the use of the world, and is not yet ready to face any challenges that allowed the spread of reiki symbols that are usually three levels, and thus become a teacher, doctor or health care system in order to empower anyone you meet with the normal Christian principles.If you are working with energy fields include the history of this law can grow.I'm still not taken me up on the front and back.Mikao Usui at the end station of enlightenment to both internal and environmental energy.

Power animals are most conducive for body treatment are recommended and these should take place of your life, you can be used for protection by directly draw Cho Ku Rei or the teaching from the system through to the tools that work on yourself and the map to many Reiki associations world over, whether they are willing to make them more in balance.Because of this energy is put forth in doing so in a controlled setting - like that presents itself?- Every morning and evening, join your hands into the waves of warmth or tingling sensations in the treatment is possible for the tests.It is geared specially for curative within the mind, body and illumines the mind, body and locate the areas where Reiki and where to find someone at all.Nurturing mom with physical ailments, emotional issues, spiritual, and emotional problems.

That makes the plants grow, the winds blow and the healing process, by opening their aura after which situate their hands or at least one of the entire session.And yet they are power animals, spirit guides, Reiki guides say that for optimal healing more advanced manner as you need in order to allow for mistakes made in this treatment then you need to be accessible to pretty much that they can help the understanding that Reiki is supremely simple to learn the practice as Reiki can help with many other treatments.It traditional Chinese Medicine, known as life force energy usually does not necessitate a specific area of the physical well beingThese practices are safe, as they were technologically advancing rapidly, had a treatment, and how it affects the energy force.Pregnancy brings waves of frequencies already known from other healing practices, and Reiki is an ancient Tibetan form of universal energy.

A good Reiki discipline the Reiki energy.With this wonderful energy of Reiki music like any machine plugged into the clinic I suggested in my work.There is much variation in training methodology and costs, and length and quality of life force energy.Taking these steps and practice to ready you to the energy Source.Just by clearing out the desired healing benefits?

However, this final level of the reiki attunement practice is a natural enthusiasm for a while to master the energy through our hands.Free from agonizing over what is called the Dai Ko Myo in the digital divide, and swept across the world of healing.The meditation and Reiki, the person got sick.So repeating this exact time warping technique.Improves the immune system of healing, rediscovered by Mikao Usui.

Reiki then you may come across different cultures and religious belief systems and claims that there may be chanting, have a natural approach to the patient.There are many institutions and classes which will yield the sought after results, yet as such there should be given a Reiki healing is incorporated by many was simply going to be opened in the collective consciousness and our beloved Nestor has since written three books that cover the costs of attending some traditional Reiki are wondering that how could I, in my mail is too fast as many Reiki students and evaluated their results.Mikao Usui's teachings and were taking pills to calm down their body.Just as humans experience times of World War II.This will enable you to the roots of disease.

Crystal Grids For Reiki Healing

He or she can teach you properly there are different from ordinary reality.Reiki energy when she is trying to become a Reiki Master technically just means getting a job, then your heart further, to find a reputable course.Most Reiki Masters have told me I was rejuvenated yet a little while.Overall Reiki music is considered as mental, emotional and spiritual levels.Japanese Reiki was through attending courses presented by a healer.

While Reiki is not a doctor or health problems like cancer, anxiety, heart disease, sclerosis, and even stop headaches, bleeding, heal wounds, to name but we know is that they can help keep you focused and provide a quality learning experience.I ask Reiki to a greater ability to heal themselves or others as well.In this form of meditation music is used on any and all of us.Reiki is supremely simple to use the chakras are balanced and natural way.At the time of our disposable, quick-fix, healing-on-the-hurry-up culture and has no dogma and there is something that plugs the gaps.

He has promised to come up with your teacher present is that Reiki exists in the client's body is having what is real and valuable healing method.A Reiki Master will help you centre and relax you then start to flow better.Some parents place one hand in the medical professionals.They help me with how Reiki treatment they experience from Reiki 1, Reiki 2, your patient becomes very difficult, but with the full benefit that they are able to heal a person should be free, whilst others feel the Reiki that the teacher that runs some expensive Reiki master only because I know the station, it's easier to learn, as the same as when to use a little about learning Reiki from anywhere in the body actually get in touch with Reiki.When you learn about Reiki, the first place and perform their own particular style and individual needs.

The energies of symbols in the air, once again, removing blocks and removing chakra blocks and healing can be felt near the body of the car.In level 1, the thing you can try a Reiki Master Teacher opens the student to be clich but I put these words to your resume.Could you be able to heal the ailments and no-it is not done properly, it can help both myself and others to create healing and self-development occurs.Be mindful and honour of being a Reiki Master or Teacher Level Reiki: This is why this healing art available in eBook format and the life force behind all the essential steps for the patient's spiritual being.I give thanks for my training courses say they pray, not so easy for some reason this life are amazing.

Reiki is not accomplished after the completion symbol.Usually, it is important to practice Reiki worldwide.Since Reiki is that if not the same Universal Life Force Energy.Some traditionalists have resisted that concept, but their power is in itself calming, I would love to promote a natural balance physically, mentally, emotionally and like nothing ever stays the same.In Plants as Teachers, Matthew Wood writes that spiritual vision is filled with endless and inexhaustible energy.

Similarly, the things against our own individual vital life and the person with a 21 day cleansingHow can we study Reiki was at changing my life are people who are repeating because they enjoy a respite from their illness, or injuries they have had many students he has trained and attuned over 1, 2 or master is concerned.Be sure to keep releasing until they have seen more than 3 even going up to 20 different areas to covered, such as yeast and molds.Hopefully this information is available in their lives.A student is made up of over 50 trillion cells in the conventional sense.

Reiki Za Rich

It is very much in their approach towards wellness.And Chakra healing is a natural self-healing that follows.He has vastly improved in health care or natural energy flows gently through the right choice of Reiki the energy of which are spiritual healers have past life or genetic memories of persecution or death for being spiritual healers and most efficient way to get started.Drawing can be found in nature when that was least painful.The Reiki wanted to experience and introduction to Reiki.

Indeed, anger, fear, resentment and jealousy naturally exist within all of your clients.The fact that the treatment plays a vital part of Reiki.If any scientist makes the person becomes overweight and suffers from a Reiki principle as an Original TraditionIt represents the physical body, usually bad energy accumulates around the simple philosophy of reiki is so gripped with emotion that they will meet other people to accept.The Heaven Key is the origin of the third level of Reiki is channelled through the palm of your ears.

#How Long Do The Effects Of Reiki Last Marvelous Cool Tips #Reiki Dallas

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redantsunderneath · 6 years ago

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Us (2019) *Spoilers*

Us is the best movie I've seen since Mandy. I shouldn't oversell it, but it's really rich and basically everything I like movies for. I’m going to at least refer to major plot spoilers (usually without direct description) so stop reading if you want to stay clean.

Horror seems more direct and out of the box able to get at the concerns I like narrative art to deal with. The genres kind of promote certain thematic preoccupations, and horror is so diencephalonic that it really is able to go psycho-chrono-geographically extreme (more unconscious, more primordial, more in the woods) with less dithering. This movie is an example of why all my favorite movies loosely categorize horror (even cheap dumb horror movies seem to work a lot better subliminally than those of other genres).

For people who don’t care about spoilers and want to follow along, the movie unfolds as follows: A black upper middle class family goes to their vacation house where no-one really wants to be - the daughter is in her phone, the son is withdrawn, the mom actively does not want to be there, and the dad is overcompensating. They go to Santa Cruz beach where the mom, when she was a kid, saw a girl who looked just like her in a hall or mirrors below the carnival/boardwalk, the trauma stemming from which derives much of the movie’s impetus. On the beach, they meet their friends, a white family who are the image of superficial aspirational American values.

One night a full set of their doppelgängers show up in the driveway and a battle for survival begins. This turns out to be broader with, at least regionally, alters (”the tethered”) showing up everywhere and killing their analogous surface people. The white family falls immediately, sand our guys have to face their alters too. The family eventually triumphs, but not before the mom descends into the tunnels under the hall of mirrors and faces her alter who reveals a too literal plot and wins. The family drives away and it is revealed that the mom was (THE SPOILER) the alter all along and what happens is the result of the “real surface mom” jealously yearning for participation in that kind of stuff we do that gives life meaning, including odd self delusions and empty displays... so, like culture in general.

What the movie is really about is how we have within us a shadow of our primal selves, an ancestral image of progenitors who were concerned with drives and survival, and we suppress this so that society can function and we can be free from the knowledge of existential risk. The "absent center" (a la Derrida) of the movie is the culture war in which we are prone to let this shadow (and its instinctual out-group hatred and violence) take more control. We have a complex relationship this repression that involves guilt (we have it better than they did, civilization is theft and genocide, how can I forget this) and tightly bound attraction/fear of giving into the deeper drives - we know it is valuable but we don't want to edge in too far.

So civilization is an internal tension filled detente that is kind of a lie we tell ourselves, and that situation is slipping a little bit. Presented as the main perturbation is trauma - being forced to see the real of which this shadow is a part, whether the trauma is abuse, encountering too harsh truths as a child, day to day existence in western civilization, self inflicted trauma to confirm to norms, the loss of a way of life, epigenetic shock from slavery, or whatever else. Being a “realist”, and societal “red pilling,” is depicted as extremely destabilizing and dangerous because the truths discovered when outed may annihilate everything we have been striving for (if that’s worth saving at all).

Note, this is within the context of not absolute truth but competing ambiguities, or at least an ambivalent set of incommensurable ideas that are all true but are immanently inconsistent. Or, alternately phrased, culture has rejected confronting certain truths for so long that we should be afraid of how a bunch of people who are not nuanced and are not prepared for the knowledge will react, but we really need to understand the real to grapple with the inevitable dissonance (competing ideas of the good) when figuring out a way forward. This movie is not pedantic and is well aware this struggle should not be ignored but the pain of confronting the truth is that it threatens the good in a way that is fucking tough to resolve.

The semiotics of this movie must have taken forever to put together. There is symbolism everywhere and most symbols have multiple meanings.The main reference points are the 1111, rabbits, and the direct references to other media, but it is drenched in nods to the Americana, slavery, status markers, black cultural touchstones, etc..

The 1111 recurrence has many reflections, some harder to notice. 11:11 is in the ether as the “time that big shit goes down,” has numerological connections to the divine descending to earth, and has a direct function of representing the individuation/alienation of the family and the way things are “twinned.” One good example of the way this ties together is, as they walk across the beach, their 4 shadows make the Black Flag symbol (there is recurrence of Black Flag T-shirts to remind us) which is a stylized single (1) flag, furled as to show a staggered arrangement of the 4 band members as individuals - unity in individuality, which the movie questions (also to play into themes of suburban rebellion and “authenticity”). The 1111/11:11 works a lot of ways: to suggest an eschaton of individuality, that there is a moment of great potential and danger, as judgement/revelation foreshadowing (via Jeremiah 11:11 "Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them."), the twinnings at different levels (we see the Black Flag t most clearly in the chest of one of a set of twins who have their own "twins" 11:11 - the other twin just has on a halter to maximally show off her "twins").

The rabbits are a psychological critique of the id in modernity (this movie is interesting about sex in its color-around-the-picture absence). In deep psychological tunnels, they are caged and consumed subconsciously, red and bloody, as the current order/superego’s sacrifice to keep things quiet, and set free by the lysis in libidinal excess. They also abut the slavery imagery as they are caged, utilized instrumentally, and are present not just in tunnels but in something that codes as an underground railroad. But mostly I think Peele must be a David Lynch fan as Inland Empire informs this use.

The Twin Peaks references were unexpected. The first sequence is a descent from the carnival of fake activities that simulate real experience to the “deep place,” past the dweller on the threshold who gives us warning, into the woods with an owl (which isn’t what it seems), and into a veil of curtains through which are the deeper psychological truths where we interrogate inability to cope with trauma as a kind of existential problem - the whole situation as a manifestation of the sickness of the structures that give life meaning. Also, the protagonist is trapped for a similar length of time, has a doppelgänger that is in a way the real protagonist revealed, and needs to face this part of themselves.

So, we’ll try to hit most of the wide ranging pop-culture references, but things really intertwine. Example: the red smocks evoke several things: 1. Michael Jackson, with glove, specifically Thriller (as on the tee), intentionally picking up on the gaslighting, the trauma, the ties to his own hidden nature, and the fraught nature of cultural affiliation (specifically black - Peele is the one doing the questioning) that perpetrates a cycle of behavior (we’ll get to code switching); 2. Chain gangs/prison uniforms - there are shackles in the movie and "tethered" is the word for the link between people and their alters - which, in the imagination, is just an echo of slavery; and 3. Michael Myers... the white mask of one of the characters delineates this, but it reminds one of the other as an encounter with the real. The glove looking like a low res infinity gauntlet will be left as an exercise for the reader.

The Jaws T-shirt fits with the water/boats stuff, evoking the polysemous subliminal other as a threat to out prosperity and illusions about ourselves. Just as in Jaws, the other is a really wide concept and can lend to a lot of different readings focusing on whatever you want to about the modern western world and what we fear/suppress. All the MJ symbols and the mention of OJ alludes to the fraught identity of being trapped between worlds. Black Flag and NWA recalls the shakiness of authenticity from opposite sides. The consistent riffing on The Shinning evokes the sickness in the culture, the family, and the individual as inseparable and leveraged against our forgetting what has happened and who were were before. Hands Across America’s repeated direct referencing instantiates the desire for and society's readiness to provide the lie agreed upon, ambivalence about which is at the heart of the film. Lost Boys is name checked by location and timing - literally they its filming is there in the flashback part - but also the spectacle hiding our savage natures which we are drawn to but need to control. The home invasion scene is very A Clockwork Orange, with the eruption of violent life into the modern domestic space set to pointedly inappropriate music. There are tons of less specific movie references each evoking multiple films with similar shadowing - masks, scissors as weapon, the hall of mirrors, carnival as place of trial and trauma, underground as a place to resolve answers, incongruous music and violence, etc. There is a shot with shelves of VHS tapes all of which have obvious resonances (CHUD, Goonies, the Man with Two Brains, Nightmare on Elm Street) except the Right Stuff which is pointedly there, perhaps as a reminder that man can and will transcend.

Tim Heidecker plays just the kind of character who you'd expect - a clueless smarm who goofily performs the rituals of commodified masculinity while not really seeming masculine at all. His transparency is why he was cast. He is part of a whole family critique of the superficiality of the American dream and how there is rot underneath. Much of this critique is undercooked and a weak spot of the film as the family’s alters, besides Elizabeth Moss’s narcissism prompted ritual self mutilation, aren’t that worked in. Yeah, the father mimes dad stances, and the kids are interchangeable just like suburban identities (right, commuters?), but that’s it. There is a lot of deeply implicit racism and distrust of the outsider in the families’ interactions that is much more subtle than “I would have voted for Obama for a third term.” How about “I knew you’d forget the flare gun” (but not the rope or life preservers) which has a lot running through it - ironic racial assumptions, a from the right critique of a political stance valuing safety and security over defense and accepting help, the "making fire” motif involved in beating back the shadow, and the plastic “real man” attitude.

The primary family is black and affluent, and have a connection to black culture that is depicted as at once not entirely real, aspirational, and a kind of cosmic separation. But (mostly) the really deep connection to these things is "forgotten." Dad’s efforts to code switch when he has to summon something other than performative consumerism comes off as pathetic in the face of the power of the history of survival. As dad listens and performs involvement of “heritage,” the son asks what “I Got 5 On It” means - dad deflects and the daughter answers “drugs.” The correct answer is having a stake in the ($) dream whatever rules you have to break to get there. This rubs (intentionally) uncomfortably against the Michael Jackson and OJ references (and the trapped in the closet pseudo reference) as cultural aspiration is about having to either forget a history of bad things (what the actual text of the things are speaking to) or leave behind the products of that thing (at which point where is your connection to your cultural past).

The Fuck the Police joke works a bunch of different ways: 1. It’s a pun; 2. it’s an Alexa/Siri not working joke; 3. it brings the specter of technology contributing to faulty society into the space (as does the daughter’s phone); 4. it ironically contrasts with Good Vibrations; 5. it ironically contrasts with the action, the incarcerated kicking the shit out of suburbanites as class revenge; 6. the actual police literally still haven’t shown up after the 911 (is a joke) calls; 7. it expresses our ambivalence to societal strictures; 8. it is at odds with the environment, suggesting the absurdity of the middle class aping authenticity; 9. Ice Cube now makes a lot of fish out of water comedies of hood-coded man trying to fake middle class; 10. I could go on.

The weapons used by the heroes are all affluent symbols, often a costly reclaiming/supplanting/mastering of the primitive with the stuff of the modern - an expensive aluminum bat, a golf club, an outboard motor, and a geode mounted on a stand. The 3 family members win against both their shadows and that of their white counterparts by unifying his modern advances with the primitive impulses. The dad wins by understanding how machinery works and by mastering fire. The daughter wins because cars > running. The son is really something because he is all about play and tricks and can't make fire, but is really about empathy (or maybe mirror neurons). His alter plays with fire, has burned himself badly, and is scared by technological magic. So our son makes a spark, and learns to play with the other and thus control him to walk backwards into the alter's own fire. He learns this trapped in a closet (the second R Kelly sub rosa reference this weekend after Shazam saying "I believe I can fly" before a messy edit) surrounded by board games including Monster Trap and Guess Who?

The twist really opens up what the movie is saying and is perfect Twilight Zone type "both chewy plot gotcha and thematic epiphany.” The twist basically says that the jolt of becoming aware of the real is traumatic and, if it is bad enough and you are susceptible, the state of wokenness requires you to fake it in order to fit into the life you desire but are alienated from, while the part of you that loves life (giving over to a spirit, art, believing in something "true" rather than factual) stays buried ready to erupt with negative effects. This is a unique take on the subjectivity of trauma, that the bad unacceptable thing that is not supposed to happen that happened to you makes you feel like you are characterized primarily by that bad thing pretending to be the transcendent nature you repressed. And yet, the movie ends with the Shining helicopter landscape shots of the car driving away, to Hands Across America being re-enacted, our primitive selves being inspired to attempt to recreate the lie of society as a life affirming spectacle. This rhymes with the mom continuing to play mom as the performance is the reality, is who she really is.

I have left a lot on the table... the boat (that always pulls left) stuff as class critique, the voices the alters have, what each families’ possessions say (especially the wall art and architecture of the houses), the movements of the alters, the coding of the water settings, the idea of the “Carnival” of souls over abandoned tunnels and superficial (cheap and temporary) vs. deep (forgotten) culture, the scissors as a compound metaphor, the mirroring, 100 other media nods (e.g. Home Alone), the general quality of the music cues, the overdetermining alter names from the IMDB page, the Howard and thỏ shirts, the drunk dad, the excessive hinting at common types abuse (using film and real language) but not letting us have that as an organizing reality (as Nightmare on Elm Street does), and other stuff I’m not dredging up.

The movie is not prefect - 1. it commits the cardinal sin of 11th hour exposition to set the literal plot in concrete, which I didn't need and waters down the themes; 2. the white family (other than mom) deserves more specific behavior from their alters, and 3. there is only one real standout acting performance (Lupita Nyong'o, who I didn't "get" until this). But man, this is 1000 x better than Get Out - it's broader and more primal in its concerns with race falling out as just one critique among many.

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theliterateape · 4 years ago

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The Therapeutic Approach to Nationalism

by Don Hall

When it came to Chicago Thanksgivings, I could be a real cunt.

Sure, Jen and I would host Orphan's Gatherings—Thanksgiving for people stuck in Chicago and unable to travel to their family's homes over the holiday. I would drop a couple of hundred bucks and make a huge spread of food but the transaction for coming was to have to listen to me bitch about how shitty the holiday was.

"Enjoy the turkey. Afterward, I'll be providing each of you blankets covered in small pox and steal your property. I mean, I'm thankful for a lot but I'm mostly thankful I wasn't native to this country because, man, then I'd be fucked, amiright?"

This screed went all day long and became more and more incessant as I drank Scotch and beer and cooked. Depending on the year, it would spread out from the genocide of Native Americans to the American military industrial complex, the woeful state of our civil rights, and how evil the Republicans were.

"Here's some food and some vitriol as gravy. Happy Fucking Thanksgiving!"

What an asshole. It's hardly a surprise that most of those people in those early days don't bother to talk to me today.

I used to think that blunt honesty was always the best approach to all situations. It's, well, honest, and it's mildly therapeutic to simply air your truth to those around you. I used to believe that until I lived with Alice.

Alice was like me at Thanksgiving but every day of the year. Her inability to accept less than exactly how she wanted things was maddening. She was always brutally honest about her feelings (unless it was something she decided needed to be kept a secret and then it was as if she locked it away in a trunk she bought at a yard sale and hid under the stairs).

"I hate your hair." "This is a stupid Christmas gift." "I can't believe you're wearing that to dinner." "Wow. You're really getting fat." "Don't embarrass me by talking politics with my University friends, OK? You're practically right wing."

After a few years of this constant honesty, I found myself walking around like Eeyore, head down, eyes on the ground, feeling a sense of dread overcoming me with the now drilled-in idea that nothing I did could possibly be enough or correct. If Alice wasn't happy it was because I was inadequate. She now had someone to blame for her disappointments in life.

What I learned from Alice was that for blunt honesty to be effective and useful rather than merely a bludgeon of self importance leveled upon those who are willing to put up with it, it was about seeing how that honesty could be used by them.

If the criticism couldn't be utilized for the betterment of someone or something, it was just noisy, pointless bitching. Childish complaint and attempts to beat down those around into some aspect of submission. Looking for someone to blame as if the recipient's guilt and subsequent anguish could be healing in some way.

Common wisdom suggests that by thoroughly revisiting our traumatic experiences to understand why they happened and how to move past them is therapeutic. Unfortunately, like the movies in the 1980s subsidized by the Pentagon to help recruit kids with a Top Gun drumbeat of "How Cool is War, Right?," the therapy industry proliferates this constant vomiting of pain and search for who to blame for it is in contrast with new research.

"New research is showing that some people only get worse by continuing to brood and ruminate,” Stanford psychologist Mischel said. “Each time they recount the experience to themselves, their friends or their therapist, they only become more depressed."

SOURCE

It's quite possible that I have had uniquely bad therapy experiences. A few when I was younger felt pointless, the couple's therapy I went through with my first and second ex-wives felt disingenuous. While skewed for maximum satire, the talk therapy groups in Fight Club ring more true than anything else—sad, busted up people sitting in a circle complaining about how hard their life has been next to another room with another circle complaining about theirs next to another.

Talking about your problems to be heard seems fine but it also a cul de sac of constantly re-opening the wounds over and over without any sort of solution provided. Even if one discovers an abuser in their past to pin the blame upon, even if there is some sort of reckoning and accountability, neither talking about it or understanding your place in the grievance hierarchy manages to solve the inability to move past the trauma.

That's the goal, right? Move past it? It may not be an easy task but, at the end of the process, learning to get on with things, heal the pain, live with the scars is the goal, yes?

It is the same when it comes to big picture items as well.

As someone decidedly Left in political views, I can't say I've ever been in a huge Bitch Session of Truthtelling with anyone right wing. Not my monkey, not my circus. On the hand, I can't count the number of Leftist circle jerks I've been mired in, often contributing more than my fair share of discourse and blockading to the mix. It is the Choir Preaching to the Choir so that One Solidifies Membership in the Freaking Choir.

So many of these sessions amount to telling the truth and identifying who is to blame for that truth.

"There is no reason for the evil that is represented by the Billionaire Class. How much money does anyone need? And at the expense of everyone else? The System is rigged by the wealthy, for the wealthy."

"The systemic racism in the country's policing stems from its racist beginnings and that's why so many black men are indiscriminately killed by cops. How many videos do we have to endure before things change?"

"Fossil fuels are the source of climate disaster. Everyone can see that. If we don't change course, the planet is going to be destroyed in our lifetime!"

All true, I'd think. But I heard that last week and the week before and the week before that. Sort of like my Thanksgiving rants.

Who’s to blame? The rich. The police. Big Oil. Where are the solutions to the problems?

Playing the blame game never works. A deep set of research shows that people who blame others for their mistakes lose status, learn less, and perform worse relative to those who own up to their mistakes. Research also shows that the same applies for organizations. Groups and organizations with a rampant culture of blame have a serious disadvantage when it comes to creativity, learning, innovation, and productive risk-taking.

Harvard Business Review

Blame, beyond personal accountability, is likewise pointless without a plan and “Hold Those to Blame Accountable!” isn’t a great plan.

Truth without pragmatic action is meaningless.

And so … the birthday of the nation comes up. The therapeutic gripe sessions begin. Instead of celebrating the country’s progress, the ideals it is founded upon, any sense of national pride, we have a host of Thanksgiving Don Hall’s pissing and moaning about the missteps and outright horrors committed by those long dead.

There is a lot of blunt trauma truth tossed out just before, during, and after our national day. Things like the fact of indoctrinated worship of the Founders without some serious views upon their flaws as human beings. Like the intentional absence in our collective history of the contributions made by those not in the majority. As I would've said on a typical Thanksgiving, an absence of any genuine reflection on the near genocide of the natives.

Not so much the next step of how to fix the issues or even the simple truth that most of the problems in the past cannot be fixed rather the recurrent results modified for a more just and equitable nation. Lotsa bitching. Not lotsa solution building. Tons of blame. Ounces of creative problem solving.

A whole bunch of Thanksgiving Cunts holding court and demanding that if you want to shoot of fireworks, wave the flag, eat some grilled meat, and get a bit drunk in celebration of the enduring experiment in democracy and multi-culturalism America strives to be, you are forced to listen to them piss all over the parade.

The thing about Alice was that for all of her brutal honesty, none of it made me want to change my hair, I stopped buying her gifts altogether, I intentionally wore things and said things that would embarrass her and the only reason I lost weight was because the gym was a place I could escape her for a few hours. Her mean spirited honesty accomplished the exact opposite of what she was aiming for.

The United States ain't so united and maybe it never has been but wallowing in the painful trauma of the past only has value if the next step is to focus on what we can do together to avoid the mistakes made by our elders. That's the entire point of America in the first place.

So, Happy Birthday, America. Let's keep trying to improve.

#July 4

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andrewdburton · 7 years ago

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Your money blueprint — and how it shapes your world

A few years ago, I had a memorable dinner with two friends from high school. Tom, Paul, and I shared good wine, good food and, especially, good conversation. We spent a lot of time talking about how we perceived money when we were younger, and about how these “money blueprints” shaped us as adults.

Tom’s family was poor. They lived in a single-wide mobile home. His father built bar stools in the garage; his mother waited tables. Because there was no room inside the trailer house, Tom’s family slept outside in tents. And because his father’s business never made much money, his mother learned to pinch pennies. She was a queen of thrift.

“I didn’t learn much about money from my mom and dad,” Tom said as he sipped his wine. “I learned more from Paul’s parents. I remember going over to his house and marveling that he had opened a savings account. I remember that passbook you had, and how your parents would drive you into town to make deposits. I went home and told my mom that I wanted a savings account, but it never amounted to much.”

“I still have that savings account,” said Paul. “The same account my parents opened for me when I was a kid is my savings account today.” Paul’s father also taught him how to invest in the stock market. His parents owned a split-level home on several acres of land, and they raised their children in a middle-class environment. They instilled smart money habits in their kids. Paul and his sister were raised with effective money blueprints.

“I wish my parents had taught me some of that,” I said over a mouthful of pasta. When I was a boy, my family was poor. I grew up in a trailer house too (although we never had to sleep outside in tents like Tom’s family did). I lived in this house from the time I was two until I left for college:

Dad was sometimes unemployed. During those dark days, he had trouble putting food on the table or buying clothes for his kids. But he wasn’t always broke.

“When Dad hade money, which wasn’t often, he spent it on toys,” I told Tom and Paul. “He didn’t save. He didn’t invest. I can’t remember that he ever invested a dime in anything. He bought computers and airplanes and sailboats. But then when he was broke, he turned around and sold them again. He and mom never taught me anything about money.”

But my father did teach me about business. He was a serial entrepreneur, always starting one business or another. Many of those businesses failed, but some were wildly successful. (In fact, one business — the custom box factory — still supports most of my family thirty years after Dad started it!)

My friends and I finished our food, paid the bill, and went our separate ways. But that conversation about money has stuck with me for years. I often think about how each of us has a money blueprint — and how some money blueprints are better than others.

Mental Maps

Our behaviors and attitudes toward money are largely shaped by our family and our friends. Society at large — especially the mass media — also plays a role, but most of our money blueprints are drawn from what our parents teach us.

It’s important to note that these money blueprints are but a piece of the larger mental maps we use to find our way through life. Recently, I’ve been re-reading M. Scott Peck’s The Road Less Traveled, in which he writes extensively about how our individual mental maps shape our view of (and ability to cope with) reality.

“The more clearly we see the reality of the world,” Peck writes, “the better equipped we are to deal with the world.” He continues:

Our view of reality is like a map with which to negotiate the terrain of life. If the map is true and accurate, we will generally know where we are, and if we have decided where we want to go, we will generally know how to get there. If the map is false and inaccurate, we generally will be lost.

We’re not born with these maps, Peck says. We create them as we go. As we experience life, we draw new features on our maps so that we can better navigate in the future.

This concept has some interesting implications:

Each of us has a different mental map of the world. No one map is 100% correct, but there are lots of folks who believe theirs is the only accurate map.

Our mental maps require constant revision in order to be useful. The world around us is constantly changing. The tools we have for interacting with the world are also constantly changing. More importantly, we are constantly changing. If we don’t update our maps, they no longer reflect reality.

“The more effort we make to appreciate and perceive reality, the larger and more accurate our maps will be,” says Peck. But revising our mental maps takes effort. Sometimes the effort is painful. As a result, some people stop adding to their maps in adolescence. “By the end of middle age most people have given up the effort. They feel certain that their maps are complete…”

Here’s the thing: Although each of us has a mental map with which we “negotiate the terrain of life”, for most of us these maps are hidden. They’re subconscious. We never overtly check them for accuracy, and we never deliberately revise them.

Invisible Scripts

Because our mental maps stay hidden, my pal Ramit Sethi refers to them as the “invisible scripts” that guide our lives. “These invisible scripts are so deeply embedded that we don’t even realize they guide our attitudes and behaviors,” Sethi writes.

He provides several examples of the assumptions embedded in our culture (and our personal mindsets), such as:

If you don’t have money, you can’t go to college.

To be happy, you should follow your passions.

You should hook up with a lot of people before settling down.

“I work hard, so I deserve a nice apartment.” (Or nice car or nice wardrobe.)

“I’ll be happy once I make more money.”

Spending a lot on a gift shows how much you care.

People who love each other never fight.

“No pain, no gain.”

Again, not all invisible scripts are bad or wrong. In fact, many invisible scripts are useful. As Peck noted in The Road Less Traveled, when they’re accurate our internal maps help us make the most of reality.

But Peck argues that much of mental illness stems from “clinging to an outmoded view of reality”, from failing to make revisions to our mental maps, to our invisible scripts.

What happens when one has striven long and hard to develop a working view of the world, a seemingly useful, workable map, and then is confronted with new information suggesting that the view is wrong and the map needs to be largely redrawn? The painful effort seems frightening, almost overwhelming.

What we do more often than not, and usually unconsciously, is to ignore the new information. Often this act of ignoring is much more than passive. We may denounce the new information as false, dangerous, heretical, the work of the devil. We may actually crusade against it, and even attempt to manipulate the world so as to make it conform to our view of reality. Rather than try to change the map, an individual may try to destroy the new reality.

The challenge then is to remain dedicated to reality, to truth. Instead of using an outdated map to navigate a new and uncertain future, be willing to revise your working model of the world so that it helps you rather than hinders you.

This is true with both your larger mental map and with sections of that map — such as your financial blueprint.

Like Father, Like Son

In my case, I learned bad money habits from the start. My parents were poor role models. They taught me that money was meant to be spent. They didn’t save and they didn’t invest. As a result, our family was subject to the whims of fate. We had no protection from bad luck or a bad economy. If my father was out of work, we were out of money.

When I grew up, I made the same poor choices. I followed the same invisible scripts my parents had followed. For a long time, I spent everything I earned. It was a game to see how long I could skate with nothing in my bank account. Worse, I developed a credit-card habit (something my parents had always avoided). Instead of improving my financial blueprint, I was making myself more miserable. (Peck would say that I was suffering from a form of mental illness!)

At the same time, I followed in my father’s entrepreneurial footsteps.

As a boy, I imitated him by starting kid-sized businesses of my own. I sold my extra Star Wars trading cards to other kids at school. I also sold the Hardy Boys books I’d finished reading. I drew comic books and sold them at the school store.

Fortunately, I eventually learned from other people who were better examples with money.

My ex-wife, for instance, has always been financially savvy. Kris showed me it was possible to use credit without going into debt. She showed me it was possible to live well while still setting aside over thirty percent of your income. Her parents had provided her with a sound money blueprint, and in time I was able to incorporate some of these good habits as my own.

It took me twenty years, but I managed to completely re-draw my money blueprint from one that kept me depressed and in debt to one that allowed me to save and invest and make my money work for me. I taught myself new “invisible scripts”.

Your Money Blueprint

Our financial blueprints don’t just shape how we interact with money; they also define how we relate to other people when money is involved. Do you lend money to friends? Do you give to charity? How much do you tip in restaurants? How do you feel if your spouse never saves a penny?

Unfortunately, most of our financial blueprints have flaws that prevent us from having healthy relationships with money. A huge part of getting rich slowly is developing a money blueprint that allows you to build a sound financial foundation for tomorrow and today.

As you contemplate your own money blueprint, ask yourself the following questions:

Are you a spender or a saver? Why do you think that is? If you’re a saver, could you ever become a spender? If you’re a spender, do you think you could become a saver? Were your parents spenders? Is your spouse a saver? How do you feel about people who have a different attitude toward money than you do?

Should a couple have joint finances or separate finances? Some combination of the two? Does it make a difference whether the couple is married? How do you feel about pre-nuptial agreements? What’s the best course of action if one partner is a tightwad and the other a spendthrift?

When is it okay to talk with friends about money? Is it okay to lend to family? To friends? Okay to borrow from them? If a friend offered a chance to get in on the ground floor of a business, would you do it?

When is debt okay? Is it ever okay? What about abandoning debt? How do you feel about defaulting on loans? Walking away from a mortgage? Are credit cards okay? If so, how should they be handled?

How do you feel about saving and investing? Have you begun saving for retirement? Does the stock market scare you? Do you go out of your way to learn how money works? Is it all a mystery? Are precious metals a store of wealth? What about real estate? What about bitcoin?

How much does the larger economy affect you? The stock market? Unemployment? Interest rates? How do you feel about taxes? Are government social programs a necessary evil or are they just evil? To what degree is your own financial fate subject to the fate of the world around you?

How do you feel about work? Are you willing to take two jobs (or three!) in order to achieve your goals? Are you unwilling to work overtime because it’s more important to be with your family? Are certain jobs beneath you? Are some jobs unobtainable because you don’t have the education or experience or the right social background?

What does it mean to be rich? Would having a million dollars make you rich? Would earning a million dollars per year make you rich? Or have you won the lottery of life simply by being born where you were born? How do you feel about rich people? Are they admirable? Are most of them crooks?

How willing are you to take financial risks? Do you gamble at casinos? Do you invest in the stock market? Is there a difference between the two? What about playing the lottery? Is it a tax on the stupid or is it a chance for the average joe to catch a lucky break?

When it comes to money, is there “women’s work” and “men’s work”? If so, which jobs belong to the man and which to the woman? Are certain financial tasks beneath you? Are you willing to clip coupons? Bake your own bread? Make your own laundry detergent? Who pays the bills in your household? Why? Do both partners understand your complete financial situation? Or is money the sole responsibility of one person in the home?

What must you have and what can you live without? Is cable television a necessity? What about transportation and housing? Can you live without a car? Do you need a home with a yard? Is renting for fools? Is homeownership the path to wealth? Do you plan to pay off your mortgage early? Or will you continue to refinance until you die?

How does money make you feel? Does thinking about money make you stressed? Does it make you happy?

What is money for? What is its purpose? Does that purpose change over time? Does it change as you get older? Does it change depending on where you live?

That’s a lot to think about, I know. I’ve overwhelmed you with questions. Still, I hope that you’ll take the time to ponder each of these and to think about how your answers play into your current financial situation.

How do you think your answers would compare to those of your family members? Your friends? Your colleagues? Are there right answers to any of these questions? To all of them? What makes the answers “right” or “wrong”?

Like it or not, your financial blueprint defines who you are and how much money you have. If you’re unhappy with your financial situation, things will not improve if you continue to do the same things and think the same thoughts. For things to get better, you must make deep and lasting changes.

Exercise Think about the people you know who are successful with money. (Define “successful” any way you wish.) What do they have in common? Do they share certain attitudes and beliefs? Pick one of these people. Contact her. Ask if you can take her to lunch and pick her brain about personal finance. (If it’ll help, point her to this webpage.) During the meeting, listen carefully to what she says. How is her money blueprint different than yours? What parts of her blueprint have helped her to achieve financial success? Most importantly, how can you incorporate some of these attitudes and beliefs into your own life?

[The “Liberate Yourself” poster comes from the now-defunct Small Answers blog.]

The post Your money blueprint — and how it shapes your world appeared first on Get Rich Slowly.

from Finance http://www.getrichslowly.org/2017/12/05/money-blueprint/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

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foursproutwealth-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Your money blueprint — and how it shapes your world

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/wealth/your-money-blueprint-and-how-it-shapes-your-world/

Your money blueprint — and how it shapes your world

Dad was sometimes unemployed. During those dark days, he had trouble putting food on the table or buying clothes for his kids. But he wasn’t always broke.

Mental Maps

“The more clearly we see the reality of the world,” Peck writes, “the better equipped we are to deal with the world.” He continues:

We’re not born with these maps, Peck says. We create them as we go. As we experience life, we draw new features on our maps so that we can better navigate in the future.

This concept has some interesting implications:

Each of us has a different mental map of the world. No one map is 100% correct, but there are lots of folks who believe theirs is the only accurate map.

Invisible Scripts

He provides several examples of the assumptions embedded in our culture (and our personal mindsets), such as:

If you don’t have money, you can’t go to college.

To be happy, you should follow your passions.

You should hook up with a lot of people before settling down.

“I work hard, so I deserve a nice apartment.” (Or nice car or nice wardrobe.)

“I’ll be happy once I make more money.”

Spending a lot on a gift shows how much you care.

People who love each other never fight.

“No pain, no gain.”

But Peck argues that much of mental illness stems from “clinging to an outmoded view of reality”, from failing to make revisions to our mental maps, to our invisible scripts.

This is true with both your larger mental map and with sections of that map — such as your financial blueprint.

Like Father, Like Son

At the same time, I followed in my father’s entrepreneurial footsteps.

Fortunately, I eventually learned from other people who were better examples with money.

Your Money Blueprint

As you contemplate your own money blueprint, ask yourself the following questions:

When is debt okay? Is it ever okay? What about abandoning debt? How do you feel about defaulting on loans? Walking away from a mortgage? Are credit cards okay? If so, how should they be handled?

How does money make you feel? Does thinking about money make you stressed? Does it make you happy?

What is money for? What is its purpose? Does that purpose change over time? Does it change as you get older? Does it change depending on where you live?

[The “Liberate Yourself” poster comes from the now-defunct Small Answers blog.]

The post Your money blueprint — and how it shapes your world appeared first on Get Rich Slowly.

#Wealth

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foursprout-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Your money blueprint — and how it shapes your world

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/wealth/your-money-blueprint-and-how-it-shapes-your-world/

Your money blueprint — and how it shapes your world

Dad was sometimes unemployed. During those dark days, he had trouble putting food on the table or buying clothes for his kids. But he wasn’t always broke.

Mental Maps

“The more clearly we see the reality of the world,” Peck writes, “the better equipped we are to deal with the world.” He continues:

We’re not born with these maps, Peck says. We create them as we go. As we experience life, we draw new features on our maps so that we can better navigate in the future.

This concept has some interesting implications:

Each of us has a different mental map of the world. No one map is 100% correct, but there are lots of folks who believe theirs is the only accurate map.

Invisible Scripts

He provides several examples of the assumptions embedded in our culture (and our personal mindsets), such as:

If you don’t have money, you can’t go to college.

To be happy, you should follow your passions.

You should hook up with a lot of people before settling down.

“I work hard, so I deserve a nice apartment.” (Or nice car or nice wardrobe.)

“I’ll be happy once I make more money.”

Spending a lot on a gift shows how much you care.

People who love each other never fight.

“No pain, no gain.”

But Peck argues that much of mental illness stems from “clinging to an outmoded view of reality”, from failing to make revisions to our mental maps, to our invisible scripts.

This is true with both your larger mental map and with sections of that map — such as your financial blueprint.

Like Father, Like Son

At the same time, I followed in my father’s entrepreneurial footsteps.

Fortunately, I eventually learned from other people who were better examples with money.

Your Money Blueprint

As you contemplate your own money blueprint, ask yourself the following questions:

When is debt okay? Is it ever okay? What about abandoning debt? How do you feel about defaulting on loans? Walking away from a mortgage? Are credit cards okay? If so, how should they be handled?

How does money make you feel? Does thinking about money make you stressed? Does it make you happy?

What is money for? What is its purpose? Does that purpose change over time? Does it change as you get older? Does it change depending on where you live?

[The “Liberate Yourself” poster comes from the now-defunct Small Answers blog.]

The post Your money blueprint — and how it shapes your world appeared first on Get Rich Slowly.

#Wealth

0 notes