Action Alert: Transphobia at the New York Post

This comes care of Jack at Angry Brown Butch (link in sidebar). Jack’s blog has the articles linked if you want to read them.

ACTION ALERT: Tell the NY Post to quit its transphobic “reporting”

NOTE TO OTHER BLOGGERS: Please link to or repost this!

An important victory was recently won in the struggle for trans rights, specifically around health care. Judge Sheldon Rand of the Manhattan Family Court found, for the second time, that the City of New York is obligated to pay for the sexual reassignment surgery of Mariah Lopez, a young trans woman of color who was denied this important and necessary medical care while in the care of the NYC foster system. The City is constitutionally required to provide adequate medical coverage for all children in its care, and SRS is a medically approved procedure, one that is often necessary for trans people. In the decision, Judge Rand wrote: “Mariah L. should be treated in order that she may go on with her life and be in a body which blends with the gender with which she identifies.”*

Fortunately, Judge Rand was far more understanding and respectful than most of the media coverage, which has ranged from iffy to downright disgusting. (This article from PinkNews.co.uk is the most respectful one I’ve found thus far.)

Worst of all has been the coverage from the New York Post. Now, anyone who’s familiar with this sorry excuse for a newspaper should know that it’s usually chock full of shoddy, sensationalist, decidedly conservative-leaning rubbish that they attempt to pass off as journalism, so racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia are all par for the course. But the two pieces that they’ve run on this story – an “article” entitled “Free To Be He-She” and the even worse editorial, “Justice Isn’t That Blind” – are really just awful and enraging.

The New York Post needs to be sent a strong message: quit the transphobic “reporting”! Show some respect, some decency, and some attention to journalistic standards.

I ask all of you to join me in writing to the Post and giving them a piece of your mind. Below is a letter to the Post. You can copy and paste it as is, or you can add your own touches to it or write something completely new. Whichever one you choose, send it to letters@nypost.com and janon.fisher@nypost.com (the writer of the first article.) (It would be great if you also commented here, so I can get a gauge of how many emails they’re getting.)

***START OF EMAIL – START COPYING HERE***

SUBJECT: NY Post: Quit the Transphobic Reporting!

I was angered by the Post’s coverage of the recent Manhattan Family Court decision in favor of Mariah Lopez (”Free to be he-she,” February 25, and “Justice isn’t that blind,” February 27). Both articles were deeply disrespectful of Ms. Lopez’s gender identity. By referring to her as a “he-she,” a “wannabe woman,” and, in the editorial, using her old name and incorrect pronouns in direct violation of AP style guidelines, the Post has clearly demonstrated that it is more interested in playing to societal prejudice towards transgender people than in following good journalistic practices and treating trans people with the respect that they deserve.

Additionally, the articles’ sensational treatment of this story ignored the fact that the ACS is required by law to provide medically-approved treatment to children under its care, and that Ms. Lopez was indeed a child under the care of the ACS when she initially sought transgender health care, including sexual reassignment surgery. Ms. Lopez was denied access to a necessary treatment that is widely approved by the medical community. Judge Rand’s decision will hopefully ensure that no other child, trans or not, will be denied treatment in the future simply due to prejudice.

YOUR NAME HERE
YOUR CITY HERE

***END OF EMAIL – STOP COPYING HERE***

* Partly in anticipation of certain questions, I’d like to clarify that I don’t believe that SRS is always a necessary part of a trans person’s transition. Transition can mean all sorts of things, many of which are not medical or surgical; it’s all about what one feels is right for them. I think it’s important, actually, to get away from a medicalization of trans-ness, because that often leads to people passing judgment on who’s “really” or “fully” trans or not based on their medical history. Which is, of course, complete bullshit, given that not everyone chooses – or can afford or access – the same treatment.

Capital L Love

I’ve had really shitty luck with romantic relationships. I’m not really going to parse my lacklustre lovelife here though. I have known two women who I could happily spend the rest of my life with, but I don’t think either of them believed me. Oh well.

There is one love in my life that has remained almost constant. Film. I just love it so much, my god. I love every part of it, I love the process, I love the research, the writing, the thinking, the production, editing and editing and editing. I love being confronted with a problem or something that isn’t working and I’ll just struggle with it and suddenly a huge thought orgasm happens and I practically run around the block screaming with joy. I love working with people to realize a vision of mine, and I love when they start having visions about it too, and it just starts coming together and everyone gets excited.

During the Oscars I noticed the people winning awards for Pan’s Labyrinth had such reverence for Guillermo Del Toro, they were so moved to be a part of his vision, and to further it and make it grow. I was so touched, that is the mark of a good director. To make something so beautiful that the people working on it feel it as a passion more than a job.

I love the obsession that happens with film, it is such an intense process. When I’m in the thick of it EVERY thought is devoted to that film. I wake up puzzling over it and I go to sleep puzzling over it and I dream about it. Some of my most profound editing moments have happened while I’ve been asleep. I have almost died at least once trying to make a film come to life, I think it was worth it but people still don’t know how to feel about that particular work. Maybe it’s before it’s time.

I’ve had the worst time with this screenplay I’ve been working on. It’s been three and a half years of slogging through it. I’ve learned a lot about writing feature length work, but there was something missing, I could not put my finger on it. I had never had such a hard time working through an idea. And now that I’ve been getting off of my medication I figured it out. It’s THE MEDICATION that was hindering the process. One shot which I have agonized over for at least two years suddenly came into such clear focus. I was writing it in a literal way with a voice over to explain it, but suddenly I saw this vision of what the feeling was in that moment. And it is such a horrifying vision but so dazzling in it’s clarity and perfection. I practically creamed my jeans when I saw it. Not that it’s sexy per se, but if you love thought and ideas as much as me that kind of breakthrough is climactic. Wow. I was so speechless just imagining it, down to each grain of 35mm depth. And I saw more things, I saw where I was crippling it because of what I felt I OUGHT to say, rather than the truth. Because the truth is so complex, and in a certain way so special and sacred, I didn’t want it trampled.

But making a film about what I thought I should say rather than what needed to be said, I can’t do that. It feels tawdry, like I’m being superficial with this one thing I adore and which adores me back in it’s own idiosyncratic, demanding, intense way. When it works, when my process really works, it feels more like I am channeling from some higher more divine source. I can’t explain it, except that it’s like accessing higher consciousness. Like being a conduit. And the medication shut off that conduit. Stuff leaked through sometimes, but the total all encompassing power of pure thought never tore through my body the way it normally did. I think when that kind of divine inspiration and obsession hits, people can get kind of uncomfortable. I’ve been known to bathe less frequently, have uncombed hair, and sometimes even forget to eat when I’m in that state. I don’t think that’s bad really, but it does show you where all my energy goes.

I have missed that feeling, I have missed love. Without my extremes, I also lose my passions. And when I lose my passions I feel I have lost everything. Being medicated felt like the bleakest period of brokenheartedness I have ever felt. Not even losing my first true love hurt that much. And I felt scared to tell the truth to people. I never felt that the bipolar diagnosis fit me exactly, but I was told I HAD to accept it, I had no choice but to accept it, and if I disagreed it meant I was sick again. And I remember when I was in the hospital when I started losing who I was. I don’t mean the psychosis, that was me, completely, just amped up to a huge degree. No, I remember I was on 20mg of Zyprexa and lithium and ativan and I was reading a book and suddenly the words started changing, they started to disappear and fade away. And I remember trying to collect them again, I would read the sentence over and over and each time I would get two words in and the rest of the words would vanish from my memory. It was like watching my brain get sliced and parsed and diced into miniscule fragments. And I wasn’t ever really the same after. I adapted in certain ways, but that brilliance, that access to knowledge and understanding was gone. In a lot of ways it felt like my very soul had been ripped out of me. And then I was supposed to be grateful.

I’m surprised I didn’t kill myself. I was really close for at least a year, and then somewhat close for the rest of the time until now. I think people just assumed it was the psychosis that smashed up my brain, but it wasn’t, it was the chemicals.

And now my love has returned. I don’t want to ever lose it again.

SLEEPY!

In case you didn’t notice, I’ve been off medication totally for almost a week. I was a bit worried I would flip out, and watching my thinking process start up again, and my emotions return, was a little freaky. I haven’t known myself for four years, and so I really don’t even remember what it’s like to be me. Not to mention a lot of my existential depression has been resolved and I’m slowly but surely creeping into Secondary Integration, which is such a relief because I don’t feel so tortured.

I think I also found a lovely seed of an idea to explain “sane” and “insane” dichotomies, and it’s a lovely thought to chew on. It’s using the principles of wave-particle duality in quantum mechanics. Things change when they are observed, a photon is a wave, but when observed it is a particle. So let’s say everyone is mainly seeing particles, but for whatever reason when YOU see it, it is a wave. And then you say “That is a wave” and people get upset and say “Absolutely not! It is a particle, that is as clear as the nose on my face!” Then there’s a big argument of course, and the people who see particles try to reform the person who sees waves, but in reality BOTH of those things can be true at the same time. I’m really liking this idea, because it means no one is wrong, except they don’t understand each other. I’m going to have to go in this direction somewhat more.

I’m also expanding on this Oneness/God idea. Someone on a board said they didn’t think we were all the same person but we are part of a whole, and I just got it. Let’s say you are a finger and you are part of the same person as a toe, that doesn’t mean you are a toe and that doesn’t mean the toe is a finger. But it does mean that if the fingers decide to attack the toes for not being fingers then something really goofy is going on. But if you can’t see in that holistic view, then you will always think those two things are completely seperate entities.

But mostly, I’m kind of glad to be over playing with ideas to such a high degree, I think because I solved some problems that were bothering me. I will expand on them more later, but now the fact that I was awake more than asleep is catching up, and so I am sleepy. But not crashing, just a content sleepiness, like my brain did a job well done and can now have a playful and light weekend. Whew!

Creativity

I think sometimes people get scared by the creative process, or maybe sometimes it looks scary from the outside. Or sometimes someone’s process is terribly different. Here’s a bunch of Youtube videos about creativity in various fields.

Tori Amos’ song Crazy made a lot of sense to me at one time. I think especially because she talks about looking mad until things get put into an order at the very end. This is a link to her singing Crazy and talking about her relationship to pianos.

What you waiting for? This music video by Gwen Stefani reminds me of what my internal world looks like when I’m creating something.

David Lynch talks about creativity, filmmaking, and higher consciousness.

Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison get into a spat about direct vs. alternating current. Kind of a tortured re-enactment, but fascinating nonetheless in describing Tesla’s creative process.

An animator shows us the Creative Process.

Angelina Jolie talks on Inside the Actor’s Studio about her experience working on Gia, a biography of lesbian supermodel Gia Carangi. Part 2 of 5.

Mozart accidentally pisses Salieri off in Amadeus.

The Q and I

I guess I should talk a little bit more about this thang called Giftedness, because I knew people get pissed off by the concept. It’s seen as being “better” or “superior,” but if you experienced it I don’t think you would really like it. It takes a long time to accept. I find it funny that suddenly, instead of being disabled I am considered Very Abled, because I don’t really feel like that at all. I have pretty much every Overexcitability that one can have, and among various things it means I get sensory overload pretty easy, which is why I’m fairly introverted. Giftedness is more than a high I.Q. score. It’s a different way of experiencing the world, things are heightened, to varying degrees. There’s some thought that Gifted people actually have different physiological structures to the norm. Not everyone who has a high I.Q. score is empathetic or has entelechy. There are various combos of qualities in the gifted population, all resulting in very different ways of thinking, but marked by a strong desire to understand.

I should also mention that I.Q. testing is not an accurate assessment of someone’s intelligence. For one thing, if you communicate in a very different way, or think in visual terms instead of verbal/mathematic terms, you probably won’t score as well as someone else. They’ve been designed for specific types of people with specific thinking patterns and communication abilities, and they are only “accurate” within a particular range. There are now people trying to identify Gifted people under different standards, or a constellation of attributes noted in the population. One thing I’ve noticed is that we know who each other is generally. What I know is that when I was picked out of the general school system, I wasn’t told my I.Q., I don’t think anyone was, because then it would mean we would tailor our expectations of ourselves to a test score.

I think a number of people in my inner circle are Gifties, but they haven’t identified themselves as such to me. It’s too bad, because a lot of people in my inner circle are also struggling with psych diagnoses, and I’m not sure if they know that they’re Gifted and if they know that there are specific reasons they’ve been reacting to stimuli a certain way their whole lives. I’m pretty modest about my intelligence, or at least I try to be, or at least I was made to be, and the only reason I really brought it up here is because it means the dominant psychiatric thought concerning the reasons for my life were blatantly wrong. This does not mean I think there are Real mental patients who deserve psych wards, no. Not at all. Psychiatric survivors are my friends, they are the people who have nurtured me when I was having a really hard time. I will not put myself above them just because they didn’t get a high I.Q. score, or because they did and don’t know it, or whatever. If it wasn’t for the C/S/X movement, I would still be on medication, still feeling dumb and sad and trapped, still losing my hair and getting diabetes or what have you. I still consider myself a psych survivor. I still want to be in that movement.

But I am trying to talk about Giftedness because we have been getting diagnosed with all kinds of pathologies based on our difference. There are concerns particular to Gifted people, and I wish someone had told me about it when I was younger. I know sometimes people in the “helping” professions are taught about our population, but quite often they are not. Sometimes people don’t even BOTHER to teach about us just because we are seen as so rare as to not matter, or to be considered so Very Abled that we can survive on our own with no outside assistance. That’s not true. I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t gotten specialized education, or if I hadn’t been taken out of a general population which resented me. But too often education is the only specific need that people are concerned about with Gifted people, when so much of who we are pervades every aspect of our identity.

I think I’ll just end with a few interesting articles if you do want to know more, so you don’t think I’m bullshitting you.

Gifted Adults

Can you hear the flowers sing? Issues for Gifted Adults

Positive Disintegration

Overexcitabilities Used to Predict Giftedness

Misdiagnosis of the Gifted

And just for fun, here’s a profile of an INFP personality according to the Myers-Briggs system, I’m one. We’re only 1% of the general population, but are highly over represented in the Gifted population for whatever reason.

Grey Goo and You: Cultivating Difference

I’m being more honest about what I think in my blog, but in real life I am hiding from the people around me. Fear is a powerful tool, but in a negative way. Once we start stepping out of the acceptable bounds and into who we really are, everything becomes shaky. There is the internal crisis, trying to accept yourself when all the good sheep want you to go back to the way you were, even if that is a really unhealthy position. In my family of origin I was often picked on because I had emotional overexcitabilities that could be ridiculed. If I cried for being teased (which is a form of abuse) then they could also tell me I was wrong to cry, that I was overreacting, and that in fact they were trying to improve me by breaking me down. Emotionally breaking someone down does not make them stronger, and I know because I once planned a school shooting while I was in junior high in a redneck town being severely bullied. I can tell you about that another time, suffice it to say the only reasons I wasn’t the first Dylan Klebold was because a .22 didn’t hold enough rounds and because we moved right away. But I was an eerily accurate marksman.

People appreciate violence as a response more than tears. I don’t know why, it’s kind of sick. I did get internal abusers in my head, kind of like the internal psychiatrist I mentioned several posts ago. Getting them out is really hard, and when people see that you are starting to transcend the role you’ve been given they get really insecure. It may sound awful to say that people have investments in my psych diagnosis, but it is true. I even invested in my diagnosis, even though it told me nothing about myself when seen from the contemporary biochemical medical model. I don’t like this idea that people are so powerful they can just decide to stop being “mentally ill.” That’s wrongheaded. On the other hand, I don’t like the ideas that come along with the concept of mental illness, ones which are founded mainly on stigma and assumption than understanding. I think we favour victims over people who actually recover. But this is getting into some serious territory I am still chewing on, basically what I mean is that powerlessness is encouraged in certain individuals, usually those who are different in quantifiable ways.

When I say we are all essentially the same person in a spiritual sense, I am not saying it so that we can all have a nice calm bovine approach to life. This is a very difficult concept to grapple with. And being from the same source does not mean that difference should be denied. There are very real and important reasons that we have such diversity on this planet. I do not want to live on a planet full of all Thirza’s, I would get bored. I need all kinds of people who are seeing things in different ways from different positions so that they can bring up ideas I would not think about on my own.

Homogenity is a dangerous thing, it’s not growthful to keep differences from evolving. And for this I will go to a theory I’ve always loved, because of it’s apocalyptic nature and because of the image it evokes. This is called The Grey Goo Theory.

The Grey Goo theory begins with self replicating nanobots. These nanobots are designed to take any kind of organic matter and break it down and build it up into an identical model of itself, which also goes on to self replicate using organic matter, and on and on. Once this process starts, there is no way to stop it. Scientists have estimated that self replicating nanobots run amok can convert the entire PLANET into grey goo within seventeen hours. And that’s not just plants and houses and televisions and blenders being transformed into goo, that’s also people and dogs and monkeys and every living thing.

Now, you can just look at this from a literal perspective and say “well geez, don’t make self replicating nanobots then.” Yes, but consider it in a different way, how could this Grey Goo theory be applied to contemporary practices of colonialism, religion, or psychiatry? A vast majority of people are self replicating nanobots on this planet. Just because you make someone think or feel in a way which is more similar to the way you think or feel doesn’t mean you have improved them. Same with all differences, I have a fondness for red heads, but if ALL the women in the world were red heads I’d wouldn’t be so enamoured with the uniqueness of it, and probably a lot of people would be upset because they like brunettes or blondes or people with titian hair.

Don’t grey goo the grey matter!

I’m trying to learn how to trust the people around me though, I know at a certain point I just have to hope they “get it,” ya know? People can do crappy things to each other but still end up evolving into amazing people. If I didn’t believe that I don’t think I would still be here.

And now I’d like to post Amanda Bagg’s amazing video “In My Language,” because I think it elucidates the importance of difference the best. This is my favorite video that I’ve seen recently, and was made in response to the Ashley Treatment. I’ve wanted to post it here for a while, but I never found the right post to accompany it.

Reaching out and reaching in
Holding out holding in
I believe
This is heaven to no one else but me
And I’ll defend it as long as I can be
Left here to linger in silence
If I choose to
Would you try to understand
– Elsewhere by Sarah McLachlan

The Authoritarians

I was pointed in the direction of this link to an online book from the University of Manitoba on Authoritarianism. I highly suggest reading at least Chapter 1 to understand how we got to this point. It’s easy for us to demonize bad leaders, but this makes one look at the fact that it is the followers who are giving these people power. Have a look.

Tetragrammaton

If you have seen Life of Brian you might remember my favorite scene, where the women have all dressed up as men so they can attend the stoning of a man convicted to death for saying Jehovah. The man is trying to explain himself “All I did was say that fish was fit for Jehovah himself!” To which the guard says “Stop saying Jehovah, it will only get you into more trouble!” “How much more trouble can I be in? Jehovah Jehovah Jehovah!” In the end of course the guard gets stoned for saying Jehovah.

Why was there a prohibition on using the word Jehovah? It’s somewhat complex, but very simple really. We have to look at the Tetragrammaton, which is God’s real name and which we’ve been told over and over not to use. Many say that his real name is Yahweh. To understand this name we have to look at translations from the original Hebrew. In Hebrew, this is accepted as a form of “To be.” Or, another commonly accepted translation, and the one which I will use, is “I Am What I Am.” Yes, Popeye uses the Tetragrammaton all the time. It’s just one of life’s ironies.

The reason you cannot use it is because when you say “I am what I am” it means identifying yourself as God. This is forbidden for various reasons, most of which involve control and keeping us all asleep. There are pitfalls and perils in realizing your God nature, for one thing, you’re in a mortal situation right now for a reason. No, you do not have powers attributed to God as most understand him, but that’s because you’re not ready. For another thing, you might not realize that everyone else is also God. There are a lot of things that come with this realization in kind of a domino effect, it really does change how you live. For instance, if we are all God, that means we are all the same person in a spiritual sense. That also means that while we are people like Buddha and Jesus we are also people like Hitler and George W Bush, or myself, who is clearly crazy.

But is “I am what I am” really the meaning of the Tetragrammaton? I would have to say yes, and I will tell you why. I read about the meaning of it, kind of but not really understood it, and then I read the Book of John in the New Testament. This is where some of the really interesting things Jesus said show up. We have to remember that the Bible has been gutted for political reasons, so certain things are vague just because then they could get through 2000 years of censorship. Just before he ends up being crucified, he’s asked to explain himself and if he really does think he is God or the Messiah. He responds “It is you who say ‘I am what I am.'” This is not just some bizarre affirmation, he’s using the Tetragrammaton, and in a very wise way I would say. He also says in another passage (and I’m paraphrasing) “You have been told that you are all gods.”

However, being god does not preclude being a stupid mean motherfucker, and that’s one of the pitfalls. I could get into my Big Bang theory of spiritual evolution, but maybe I will do that in a different post.

The problem with what has happened with the things Jesus said is that he became the supreme being, the god. Like since he became aware, that is not available for anyone else. We can’t say “Crucifixion was bad for Jesus, because he really was the son of god, but it’s fine for everyone else.” No. Doing something like that is horrid to do to anybody, “son of god” or not. And this is where Buddha catches us up, because he was really insistent about the fact that he was a mortal, like all life forms on earth, he really wanted people to know that enlightenment was possible for everyone, not only a select few.

One of the things which has frustrated me in my lifetime thus far is not that people don’t understand, it’s that they don’t WANT to understand. Everything you need to know is right here. This is a prime place to grow as a spiritual being, and if humanity ends without us waking up, we’re going to have to do it in a different form. And I don’t know about you, but having to evolve while living as a gaseous entity in space would take me a really really long time.

Within You Without You

I hope people don’t conflate my extended Eleanor Rigby years with this idea that I am forever and eternally depressed! There are a lot of things that make me happy, things that are quite small to some. I like looking at where buildings and trees meet the sky. I don’t think I can explain why that makes me happy, but it does. Astronomy used to terrify me with it’s enormity, but I quite like looking at star systems now. I like deeply emotional music, I like pop music too, I spent days and days wandering around singing the first few bars of My Humps by the Black Eyed Peas, why I’m not sure. I just liked it. But also sometimes I understand things better through music. I still go back and read Lewis Carroll books, because the ridiculousness of them is so fun.

I liked this album by Tori Amos when I was going crazy, I think now looking back on it it’s because it’s about positive disintegration.

The Smiths, There Is A Light That Never Goes Out, video directed by the late great Derek Jarman.

The Littlest Birds by the Be Good Tanyas. Aw, so sweet!

The Importance of Bearing Witness to Suffering

I remember when I started out seeking to understand suffering. I think I was five or something. It was when I finally heard about the Holocaust in Germany, my mom told me that the Nazi’s would have killed my sister if we lived in that time. And I was so horrified, and upset, and I cried for about an hour thinking about it. Sometimes people think that profoundly gifted people regard persons with lower IQ scores as inferior, and I can tell you that is not true. People who think in that way, if they are intelligent, are usually only slightly more intelligent than the average population. Once you get into the high scores people actually have a very profound value for all life.

And so I valued my sister a lot. She was and is a beautiful human being, and I understood her, even though we crabbed like siblings do. I wasn’t ever ashamed of her, but sometimes I didn’t let people know much about her because I knew they would be judgmental as to her value and worth, and I didn’t want to have to explain something like her importance to someone so limited in their scope of thinking.

But it instilled in me a deep seated need to understand what had happened to all of these people in the Holocaust, not just the handicapped either, everyone, the Jews, the homosexuals, the Roma, the communists, all the fringe elements rounded up and ruthlessly murdered. Why would that happen? And so I began to study it, and I still do, and probably always will. It taught me a lot about the nature of evil, the nature of group think, and followers. And it extended from the actual camps to the political climate before the rise of Nazism, the seeds planted which could grow into such horrific shapes.

But more than that, it was about bearing witness to suffering. I hate the idea of someone suffering alone, because that was how I suffered. And so I needed to be there with people, even if I didn’t get there until decades later. It may seem strange to ruminate on such disturbing things. But I wanted to look at it inside and out, and make sure it would never happen again.

But it does, it did, and it is happening again. I used to be more vocal about the fact that the USA is a fascist state right now. I can tell you the history of the origins of fascism in America, because they funded Hitler, because they imported a lot of the war criminals from Germany after the war, because technically the war was won against Nazism, but in reality those people are continuing their work in the American government. I could give you all the links to find this out yourself, but google exists and you can use it on your own. A start would be to look up Operation Paperclip.

But people got really angry at me when I said it, because Nazism is considered the hallmark apex of evil, and to suggest that a country masquerading as a bastion of freedom is actually tainted by fascist thought pisses people off, like I am minimizing the original Holocaust.

But we do have to bear witness to suffering in order to grow. How many people turn off the news from Iraq when it involves a soldier deliberately murdering children? Probably a lot. Oh I don’t want to hear that, la la la. It’s this kind of deliberate ignorance which feeds evil. I’m shocked when I hear Americans still declare themselves the land of the free when it is so patently false. Canada also has malevolent forces in it’s government, and I look into that too.

But beyond the leaders who take people to this level, who create these intense sufferings, are the people being hurt. I know horrid things are happening at Guantanamo, in Iraq, at Abu Ghraib, in basically every section of this imperial march to world domination. But because people can’t or won’t bear witness to suffering, these terrible things are allowed to continue. It is the same here in Canada, if people knew what actually happened in those residential schools, the murders, the torture, the medical experimentation, they would have no other choice but to become aware of the damage of colonialism.

As a world which trusts the powerful, we have turned everything on it’s head. People glorify those who hurt, those who have guns, because those are the people who are seen as supreme. Supremacy is an irrelevant hallucinatory construct. People in positions of power have an alarming tendency towards psychopathy, marked by an inability to feel empathy or compassion, true empathy. And while you may do very well in society while being devoid of compassion, that doesn’t mean there isn’t something seriously lacking in your being.

Thousands of gifted people have died tragically trying to reform “powerful” psychopaths. But it is not them I am here to talk to. I want to talk to people who have a chance of thinking critically, who may really wake up in this lifetime. It’s been discovered that people can only emerge as leaders if they fall within a 30 IQ point difference between themselves and the average IQ of the masses. Beyond that, lower or higher, it completely falls apart. So too will most of my communications fall on deaf ears. But, I believe it is important that people start to show empathy, at least for the people around them. That is not such a bad place to start.

Suffering alone is difficult. It feels like no one cares, like you could be swallowed up by the earth and no one would give a damn. I know people did care about me after I got out of the psych ward, but no one seemed willing to hear what really happened to me in there. In fact, they would get defensive, because they did it “for my own good” and I am “expecting too much of them” and so on. Really, I think it’s because they didn’t know how to deal with guilt.

And when people start on a path towards spiritual understanding, guilt comes with the territory. It’s a difficult thing. Few ever said “I’m sorry that happened to you.” Or “I’m sorry I didn’t take the time to understand.” I have gone through periods of deep guilt over the state of the world, or over things I could have done to help people and didn’t. Some think that that indicates some kind of neurosis, but really it’s a nudge towards growth. I hope that some day I can be the person I expect of myself, someone who can instantly identify injustice or suffering and correct it in the gentlest way.

But the most powerful thing which could have happened to me, and did, actually, was being hugged after I got out of the ward. I wish I had more of those hugs, instead of rejection because people disliked being around suffering.

Love transcends death, but brute power can only exist on earth.