Living With Trauma: he Healers, 32

If you happened to read yesterday's post, Gentle Reader, you might sense that I am wrestling at times with despair: that there are people around like that unfortunate woman whom I quoted; that there are so many greedy and selfish people; that so many people hate the poor and marginalized and would rather see us dead than have to spend one precious nickel of their hard-earned wealth for our wellbeing. Neither do these people seem interested in owning up that they partly owe their wealth and success to all the people in the world , like us, they have been able to step on in order to get ahead. Without losers, there are no winners. Neo-Darwinism 101. Even harder to convince people like that that there is a better way of living, that it is actually a good thing to include everyone, that we are not simply disparate individuals but a community of interdependent beings, that none of us could even think of surviving without the others. Marxist revolutionaries of old-Lenin, Mao, Fidel and Che-had the simplistic belief that all you had to do was round them up and shoot them; take them out in the middle of the night, disappear them, exile them to gulags and re-education camps, throw them in prison, torture and shoot them. Fascist despots did the same thing: Hitler, Franco, Mussolini, Pinochet, etcetera. Want an omelette? Just break a few eggs. Oh, that it was so easy! When I heard famous folk legend, Joan Baez, here in Vancouver doing a benefit concert for Amnesty International (I was but a tender eighteen) and I heard her say that there is no difference between left wing violence and right wing violence, she helped me set my political beliefs in stone. As I have bored you elsewhere on these pages, Gentle Reader, about my opinions of Che Guevara and his murderous conduct, it doesn't really bear repeating here, but suffice to say that bumping off people you dislike or disagree with is no way to conduct a revolution. You have simply turned yourself into the enemy, since when you kill one human being, you have already killed us all. There has to be a better way, but we are going to have to lower our expectations of creating a perfect world, or at least creating a world made in our own perfect image. It will result in a lot of bloodshed, death, misery, oppression and tyranny, then along comes someone else to overthrow the barbarous nonsense that you instituted to replace the old barbarous nonsense with another barbarous nonsense that will in time be laid to rest by yet a future barbarous nonsense. It doesn't really have to work this way. People like the nasty poor-bashing immigrant I wrote about yesterday are going to always be an unfortunate fact of life. Even if they are not going to go away, or shut up, or change, we still have to work around them, with them, through them or in spite of them. They will always be testing our patience much as we will be testing their patience, because we aren't about to go away either, whether homeless people finding housing in their precious neighbourhood or baristas making their latte for minimum wage. Those of us who claim to have ethics have to make the first move, because the ones whose lives are based on fear, hate, greed and selfishness will only further retreat into their bunkers or lash out viciously when we insult them. They need to be continually exposed for the vindictive nonsense they are spouting off, if only to educate the undecided and unlettered. But, as human beings, they must also be handled gently, tenderly and with respect. Yes, Gentle Reader, you read me right. Each one of us has a story, each one of us is a story, and people who hate and fear and marginalize others also are themselves tales that need to be told. We have to find ways to reach across the ideological divide. This doesn't mean that we will be welcomed, neither should we waste too much time when we really ought to be reserving our pearls for worthier swine. A lot of it is about education. If we can continue to successfully reach the young, and future generations, to help them grow into a healthy and full ethical sense, a moral compass, to engender a generation that is kind, compassionate and well-versed in social justice, then I think we will have a head start, despite the nay-saying Neanderthals and right wing morons whose only philosophy and whose only ethic is based on fear of the unknown, fear of change, and the kneejerk instinct of wanting to live through the barrel of a gun.