#69 Men, agents of and pathway to cultural metanoia (A global response?)

Easter Monday, 2020, the air is swirling with tiny droplets of coronavirus while the airwaves are overflowing with talk of ‘opening the economy’ in an attempt to ‘return to normal’.

The range of issues facing a global population, now intrinsically and permanently linked to the people living in small towns, cities, farms, hamlets and on the mountains and in the valleys….all of us “governed” by various layers of governance is so wide, so publicly acknowledged, so ubiquitously discussed, researched, debated and perhaps even competed over that one has to wonder if we will not trip over ourselves, literally and metaphorically, on our way out of this dark tunnel.

Testing, both for those who are infected, (as well as those asymptomatic, given that those people can also spread the virus), and for the antibodies of those who have suffered and endured the disease, is high on the agenda of most jurisdictions. The provision of protective medical equipment, as well as the capacity to pinch-hit for the hundreds of thousands of already exhausted, emotionally depleted and trauma-saturated doctors, nurses, respirologists, paramedics, morticians, and even law enforcement and fire fighters continues to linger as a pressing issue for many. Researchers are busily testing for therapeutics, as well as vaccines, while corporations and even entrepreneurs are turning their systems and their hands, respectively, to production of needed products.

Whether the ‘opening’ of the economy of nations will generate an economic upturn or boom, depending on the depth of “rose-coloured” glasses a leader is wearing, remains an open question. Some, like Niall Ferguson in the Globe and Mail, wonder who might be the next John Maynard Keyes, authoring the insightful, prophetic and eminently deployable treatise on how to bring the economy back, if at all, similar to Keyes’ contribution after the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. Ferguson, himself, is not betting on a quick ‘resurrection’ of the global economy.

The question of the transparency of the information flow in organizations, and more importantly at government levels and the authenticity of that information, continues to haunt the radars of individuals and media outlets around the world. And whether one considers it as top of the iceberg, or the underground currents, the question of whether and how the world will come together, or split apart, in reaction/response to the current pandemic remains open, if critical for all of us.

Gordon Brown former Labour Prime Minister of Great Britain has come forward with an articulated plea for “world leaders to create a temporary form of global government to tackle the twin medical and economic crises caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The former Labour Prime Minister, who was at the centre of the international efforts  to tackle the impact of the near meltdown of the banks in 2008, said there was a need for a taskforce involving world leaders, health experts and the heads of the international organizations that would have executive powers to coordinate the response….Brown said his proposed global task force would fight the crisis on two fronts. There would need to be a coordinated effort to find a vaccine, and to organizes production purchasing and prevent profiteering.”(By Larry Elliott, The Guardian, March 26, 2020)

And lest we each become buried in the details of suffering and death in our own countries, Simon Tisdall, writing also in the Guardian, April 11, 2020,  writes this:

Oxfam says more than half a billion people may be pushed into poverty by the economic fallout. Global poverty reduction could be set back 30 years. Food companies, farmers and civil society groups are pointing to a rising tide of hunger unless food supply chains are maintained and borders kept open to trade. Coordinated action by government is necessary ‘to prevent the COVID-19 pandemic turning into a global food and humanitarian crisis,’ they say. Already creaking health systems in countries across sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia face collapse. “COVID-19 is poised to tear through poor, displaced and conflict-affected communities around the world,” Samantha Power, a former US ambassador  who helped build a coalition to combat the Ebola epidemic in 2014, warned last week. ‘Three billion people are unable to wash their hands at home, making it impossible to follow sanitation protocols,’ she wrote. ‘Because clinics in these communities have few or no gloves, masks, coronavirus tests, ventilators or ability to isolate patients, the contagion will be exponentially more lethal than in developed countries.’

Tisdall continues:

David Millband’s International Rescue Committee says it is a double emergency. First there is the direct impact ‘on unprepared health systems and populations with pre-existing vulnerabilities. Then there is the secondary havoc that will be caused to fragile states’ economies and political systems….

As the pandemic rages, the absence or failure of international leadership, waxes both chronic and scandalous. Obstructed by self-serving disagreements between the U.S> and China, the UN Security Council -meeting in virtual session- discussed the pandemic for the first time last week, more than three months after it erupted. ‘The pandemic poses a significant threat to the maintenance of  international peace and security, potentially leading to an increase in social unrest and violence,’(UN Secretary General Antonio) Guterres declared. Yet despite his pleas, and notwithstanding 103,500 deaths and 1.7 million infections worldwide as of Saturday, no action was taken.”

And then, if these utterances are not enough to bring indigestion to your most recent meal, let’s hear again from Sarah Kendzior, writing in the Globe and Mail, today about the link between the biological virus and the political virus in the U.S.:

“The coronavirus pandemic is not only a public health crisis, but a political one. Its origin might be natural, but its spread and exploitation are not. The virus emerged in a world of rapidly consolidation autocracies: The Unite States, Britain, Russia, Israel, Hungary, Brazil—and that is not a comprehensive list. The leaders of these countries seem apathetic as to whether their citizens die. In Russia, oligarchs are hoarding ventilators. In Israel and Hungary, corrupt leaders use th virus as an opportunity to consolidate power. In Brazil, the President proclaimed, ‘We’ll all die one day,’ and let the virus spread. In Britain, the Prime Minister encouraged ‘herd immunity’—and then found himself in the ICU with coronavirus. Now the country is shut down. ..

Has there ever been a time in world history where so many people are this vulnerable and are ruled by so many sadistic elites? Perhaps, but the toll of their malice was never so well-documented. Separated by social distancing, our sense of community comes through our cellphones-the deep grief of a mounting death toll, livestreamed minute by minute. It’s hard to look at, but it’s harder to look away.

In this era where few officials express the most basic empathy, you feel a desire to bear witness: to acknowledge every life, every loss, as profound. You do not want anyone to feel abandoned, because abandonment is how we got here. Those ins charge abandoned accountability, and then they abandoned the truth.” (Sarah Kendzior is co-host of the podcast, Gaslit Nation, and is the author of a new book, Hiding in Plain Sight.)

The obvious canyon of hope that clearly exists between Gordon Brown and Sarah Kendzior will have to be bridged by someone or some agency like the United Nations. And while each of us, wherever we live, are witnessing this epic “Greek” tragedy, we will have to wrestle with our own expectations, as well as how hard we are prepared to work, engage, collaborate, and even agitate, for a global, co-ordinated, collaborative approach, not only to the pandemic but also to the ensuring and ensnared existential threat of global warming and climate change. If Gordon Brown and his colleagues are able to persuade enough world leaders to join in his proposed coalition, and demonstrate the efficacy and indeed the necessity of successful co-operation, through a common vaccine, for example, and for assured trade pathways, (regulations, seaways, air-ways, tariffs, and fair pricing) then, and only then, might it be possible for some of us minor sceptics to open our nervous minds, eyes and hearts to a potential for enhanced global co-operation.

Optimists, however, seem not to be in the ascendancy, at least on the macro-perspectives. While in the micro-management or daily/hourly needs, we are witnessing enhanced collaboration among Canadian provinces, and U.S. states, for example Alberta has just offered to fly sizeable contributions of protective gear to Ontario, Quebec and to British Columbia. Their economic plight, given the price of oil and the hold on production, will offer gaping and grievous opportunities for reciprocity, and in the not-so-distant future.

As a Canadian, growing more confident and even somewhat proud of the performance of our federal government, given its apparent capacity to engage with opposition parties, in pursuit of common goals of support of both individuals and businesses, in this stay-at-home/shut-down time, would it be too much to envision a place and a time when, for example, Prime Minister Trudeau and his Deputy  Chrystia Freeland, renowned for having negotiated a new trade deal with the trump administration, could convene a convention of world powers including the Security Council of the United Nations, the G-20 and G-7, with Gordon Brown’s agenda, and his leadership, as a potential pathway to bringing some healing to the health, the economic, the environmental and the political threats we all face.

“Oh, but of course, that is far too much to dream for. You are far too intense for me! You expect far too much for anyone to be able or willing to offer or even consider! And there are far too many reasons why your “personality” is and always will be a serious impediment to such a utopian vision.”….I already hear the voices of those, with faces and names in my own life, and clearly exemplified by the narcissistic and opportunistic cynics and the oligarchs who trampled over the figures of dead people hourly in pursuit of their personal aggrandizement. Saying, “No!” and isolating those whose personalities, and whose politically refined behaviours are so off-putting to the establishments, has been and continues to be permanent mind-and political roadblocks whenever and wherever serious and worthy projects are necessary.

And one of the prime pathways of arguing for their modesty and their secretive exclusion and rejection and abandonment, both of specific individuals as well as of too ambitious proposals, is to argue “We can’t do that much, because it is too costly, or too difficult, or too complex or too new and different!”

Stability, long considered the sine qua non of Christianity, as well as of the political establishment, (translated into preservation of private personal agendas to power) is now no longer available to anyone. The very ground of the planet has shaken, and that includes the political establishment, the economic elite’s hold on power, the oligarchs’ tightly-clenched fist on both their portfolios and their acolytes, and the duly elected representatives in so-called developed democracies….every one of our leaders faces a new kind of world. And the degree to which each of them is open to acknowledging both the new threats and the new opportunities, and faces them in a collaborative manner, will determine which of them survives, as well as which of their populations will have a better chance of emerging into the new day we have all helped to generate.

Our future is literally and metaphorically, in our own hands, not only by complying with staying home, and by significant acts of generosity, kindness, compassion and care for those most threatened immediately, but also by agitating for a very different kind of world to replace the one we are watching sink into the ocean of our hopes and dreams.

#68 Men, agents of and pathway to cultural metanoia ( New Life in Spring, 2020)

This is the time of year for religious holy days, celebrations, renewals, and new life.

In the Hindu calendar this year April 8, Hanuman Jayanti celebrates the birth of Lord Hanuman, the symbol of energy, and strength and people worship him to ward off all evils.

Yesterday was the first day of the Jewish Passover (Pesach in Hebrew), the spring festival which commemorates the liberation of the Israelites form Egyptian slavery, lasting seven or eight days.

In Buddhism, Theravada New Year, this year also occurred yesterday, April 8. This is a three-day celebration surrounding a full moon during which many Buddhists use rituals that involve water and sand. Some communities have colourful processions or build sand sculptures on the banks of rivers. Each grain of sand represents a wrongdoing. And when the sand is washed away by the river, the bad karma caused by the wrongdoing is erased as well. (from belief.net)

In Sikhism, Vaisakhi, a historical and religious festival that celebrates the Solar new year, marking the birth of the Sikh order. It is also a spring harvest festival for Hinduism and Sikhs. This year, its celebration takes place on April 13 and 14.

In the Christian tradition, today is Maundy Thursday, commemorating the Washing of the Feet and the Last Supper of Jesus Christ with the Apostles. “Maundy” a shortened form of the Latin mandatum, meaning command. The scripture verse that denotes the specific command: A new commandment I give you, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. (John 13; 34) (from Christianity.com)

Coming as they do in this most dark time in human history, given the thousands of deaths, and even more thousands of infections from the coronavirus pandemic, the world risks an ever greater threat of not merely legal self-isolation, but spiritual withdrawal, and the concomitant resentment, finger-pointing, blaming, and outright bigotry leading to  hatred, violence and not only another impending pandemic of a different virus, but perhaps a planetary crisis of the environment.

“Working together by staying alone” has become a cliché in many communities, in  a shared commitment to restrain, if not completely contain, the spread of this toxic microbe. And while valid, there is a hint of the “alone” part of the epithet lingering long into the aftermath. Just as in this crisis, “we are all in this together” applies directly, so too, in the over-riding threat of global warming and climate change, we certainly all face a common if more visible existential threat.

In differential calculus, an inflection point is a point on a continuous plane curve at which the curve changes from being concave (downward) to convex (upward) or vice versa. (Wikipedia) Depending on one’s point of view, whether or not the global community was, prior to this pandemic, on an upward or downward trajectory, this historical moment has to be considered an inflection point. Simply put, for most living humans, everything has changed.

Naomi Klein’s book “This Changes Everything” focused like a laser on the impending threat of existential global warming and climate change. Many thought leaders, including globally celebrated children, have developed a following that, at the grass roots, champions collaborative, and sustained initiatives of various kinds, to both generate enhanced consciousness and public programs to reduce the risks of climate change. At the same time, others have pooh-poohed the dangers of global warming and climate change just as they have this pandemic.

If ever there were an inflexion point in human history, this seems to meet the criteria.

Whether we are truly, authentically, sustainably, and demonstrably about to “love one another” as most world religions and most sentient humans would argue is a worthy, if aspirational goal, remains etherized, like a spider, in a botanist’s lab, waiting for dissection. Unfortunately, such a connecting, potentially liberating, and ultimately determinative aspiration can no longer await the inevitable dissection, after its euthanasia. Like a museum piece of religious hope, a commandment to love one another cannot be restricted to laudable sings posted on the windows of dining rooms in nursing homes. Nor can it be restricted to the even more laudable global connecting concert sponsored by Lady Gaga, and many corporate sponsors, on Saturday evening April 18.

Loving one another,

·        while generously incarnated in the millions of beaten pots, and blown trumpets of thanks for frontline health care workers, and

·        epitomized in the billions of rescue cheques erupting from capitals like Washington and Ottawa, as well as some European capitals, and

·        symbolized in transport jetliners filled with tonnes of medical supplies flying out of Moscow to Beijing, and then out of Bejing to Washington and Ottawa

·        negotiated by 3M when threatened by the White House to withhold N95 masks from Canada

·        contained in reduced interest rates on credit cards, mortgages and car loans

does not, and cannot stop there.

This is a time for reflection on the full imaginative spectrum of how the people of the world can and must accept the liberating and also threatening perspective that we are not enemies vying for the same limited piece of the economic pie. If this Spring’s Easter/Passover/Hanuman/Thervada/Vaisakhi celebrations are to have the degree of impact on all of our respective communities, including those who celebrate the renewal of growth without a religious component, then the most broad definition of love, in the most innovative, unconventional and unsuspected surprising transformations will have to be incubated in the cafes, the bistro’s, the pubs, and the living rooms of the nearly 200 nations on t

he planet.

Releasing ourselves from the imprisonment of belief in:

Ø the false security of walls,

Ø the false security of nationalist isolation,  

Ø zero-sum competitions,

Ø the false security of bulging bank accounts and investment portfolios,  

Ø the false superiority of “developed” as opposed to “underdeveloped” nations,

Ø false security of incarcerations, and scape-goating especially those at the bottom of the social/economic/political caste system which infects every nation on earth, with or without the official name

Ø the persistent pursuit of greed through the virtual rape of landscapes native to wild animals and birds

Ø the resistance to global collaboration, co-operation, collegiality and surrender of national sovereignty, as if to cling to national sovereignty will ‘safe’ anyone from the all-too-predictable futures

Ø a blatant sycophancy to capitalist ‘sacred cows’ as idols that paradoxically imprison and destroy millions of human dreams and lives

Ø our compulsive genuflection to incipient tyrants, oligarchs, and wannabees

will be a challenge of the kind of proportions circumscribed by the “pan” prefix in this pandemic.

In Greek religion and mythology, Pan (Roman: Faunus) is the god of the wild, shepherds, and flocks nature or mountain wilds, rustic music and impromptus, a companion of nymphs…(H)e is also recognized as the god of fields, groves, wooded glens and fertility and sexuality and the season of Spring. (Wikipedia)

Perhaps we, from all religions, ethnicities, geographies, ideologies and cultures, would consider a return to a very distant past, in this Spring of 2020 We could (even must?) focus on the potential of what is essentially a beautiful gift of the totality of nature, and begin to question some of the implicitly and explicitly sabotaging ‘totems’ of our ‘sophisticated’ (exclusive, isolated, patronizing, demonizing, and threatening) way of “doing business.”

And “business” in this context cannot be restricted to the transactional exchanges of politician/voter, or entrepreneur/customer, or professor/student. It must include all of the many and varied, purposeful and casual, even schlepping encounters, that bend the curve of our individual lives from those of acquisition, accomplishment, achievement, extrinsic awards and rewards towards the far more sustainable model of moderated altruism. Philanthropics, incentivized as they are by tax laws, shine light in the direction of this “bending” without offering a total answer to our shared, sustainable future. Marketing “good-deeds” like the Pepsico sponsorship of the Lady Gaga Concert, while worthy, honourable, and commendable, are tokens in the effort to level the playing field between the have’s and the have-not’s of our towns, cities, provinces and states, and certainly between the “developed” world and the “undeveloped” millions.

Samantha Power, Obama’s Ambassador to the United Nations, on MSNBC, last night with Chris Hayes, pointed out that in America there are 26 medical doctors for every 10,000 people, whereas in Africa, for every 10,000 people there are 3 medical doctors. In Africa where the COVIC-19 pandemic is just starting to be discernible on the public radar, there are far fewer safety-net provisions, foreshadowing even less access to treatment, by far, than the access available in cities like New York. In North America, we are pleading for PPE, those protective pieces of medical gear that could save frontline workers from becoming infected. In places like Africa, those same workers will face their own deaths, in far greater proportions that health care workers face in North America.

Disparity, whether conscious or unconscious, of such a degree, sounds many alarms in places like the World Health Organization, from where we are hearing clarion calls for co-operation, collaboration, and a restraint from politicizing this pandemic. Threats to withhold financial support from the WHO, coming from the Oval Office, sound precisely the most sinister, and least Easter-like, bell one could imagine.

In the Christian tradition, in order for there even to be an Easter morning of Resurrection, there has to be a preceding Good Friday of death, internment and mourning.

There are clearly many attributes of our conventional, western, capitalist, increasingly nationalist, “class” culture that need to be ‘nailed to the cross’ of history, in order that a rebirth of a new kind of life can begin even to be envisioned. Instead of the Pontius Pilate’s of our time, meting out the kind of apocryphal decisions based on personal, private, narcissistic neurosis, resulting in the loss of human life in proportions for which Roman Emperors would have been dethroned, we need the most neglected, the most forgotten, the most disparaged and the most needy people in our towns, cities, and all nations to be not merely the subject of research commissioned by the Governor of New York, but the guiding beacons of light, discernment and new life to which we can all contribute.

Only by truly recognizing our insouciance, our blatant ignorance, and our false superiority (masked too often as false humility and token altruism) over the millions of starving, diseased, under-or-un-educated, and by accepting that we have not only the opportunity, but more importantly the obligation, for their sake as well as for our own, to design a new structure of international aid, international monitoring and international bank-rolling legitimate, if minimal, needs and aspirations everywhere.

And those political and economic oligarchs and plutocrats who appear to be standing in “our” way to the inevitable unfolding of history in the direction of equality, respect for every human being, tolerance of differences through enhanced engagement, education and socialization, will have to surrender what they believe to be their inherent right to power. And their disappearance from the public stage, based on their own usurpation of their legitimate power, once conveyed by whatever process, will be a signal, like the early morning sunrise that ushered in that first Easter Sunday morning.

From the demise of the Pontius Pilate’s and the power-driven oligarchs, we might envision a world in which the voices, the pleas and the dreams and aspirations of ordinary, authentic and highly resilient individuals, previously forgotten and ignored, currently living in the shadows of our towns, cities, and foreign lands, will resound as a cry of new life, in a manner evocative of the Hallelujah Chorus of Handel’s Oratorio, The Messiah, in the Christian tradition.

#67 Men, agents of and pathway to cultural metanoia (Unscrupulous MALE 'plutoligarchs')

In physics, there are ‘laws’ that describe predictable functions. Gravity posits a drop of an object from one level to a lower level, for example. Warm air rises, another example. In magnetism, opposite poles attract, while common poles repel.

In human relations, while we are not privy to specific laws, we do have both anecdotal and empirical research that points to some tendencies, if not predictables.

In our previous piece, we noted the impunity which usually attaches to decisions made by individuals high up, or even on top, of what are called ‘chains of command’. There will be those who argue that CEOs’ decisions, however, are always open to examination and even challenge by a board of directors. And while there is truth to that observation, the expenditures and investment values involved in many corporate searches, as well as the frequent loyalties that attach board members to specific executive choices make the dismissal of a CEO much less likely than the dismissal of an underling, from the bottom of the organization chart even up to the top tier of middle and upper management. There is a much higher political price, for any organization to pay, if, for example, they should have to fire a CEO. Their investors would begin to question the stability and security of their investments; their various publics would likely begin to question their confidence in the corporation’s value, integrity, stability and predictability.

And predictability, the ability to seem confident in the stability of the foreseeable future of this “watch” (to borrow a naval term) is considered the sine qua non of corporate trustworthiness. So, both investments in time and resources, as well as corporate stability, and public perceptions of trustworthiness bear heavily on the decisions of corporate boards of directors in their critical review of the decisions of their chief executives.

On the other hand, when a Captain Crozier, for example, or Michael Atkinson, Inspector General of the intelligence community, is fired, (as the latter was late Friday night last week), both of them by a cabinet acting secretary and a president respectively, there is only partisan political fallout. The decisions of the acting secretary of the Navy and the President will not be subject to any review other than that of the electorate in November providing elections are even held then (given the current speculations by the president about their validity). Just this morning, Modly is casting aspersions on Crozier as ‘stupid’ or ‘naïve’ in an attempt to ridicule the career naval officer, now stricken with COVID-19. ‘Disgraceful’ is one of the epithets used by trump to describe Atkinson, whose reading of the original whistleblower complaint led to the Impeachment trial.

The last twenty or so years have witnessed two opposite and equally dangerous political/corporate/business developments. Given the increased even anal focus on budgets as one of the principal arbiters of a leader’s worth, and the public’s appetite for both balanced budgets and enhanced profits, in the private sector, leaders, not being either the sharpest knives in the drawer, nor “uncognizant” of the role of public opinion in their longevity, have done two things, seemingly simultaneously: they have invoked enhanced political/supervisory/executive powers, and they have also shoved many of the previously national or provincial costs down onto the lower levels of government.

Street repairs, for example, once a shared cost between provincial and municipal governments, now increasingly depend on municipalities, and potholes abound. Any political fallout resulting from such off-loading, attaches to municipal politicians, leaving the provincial leaders Teflon-free of that baggage. The magnetizing of political power in the offices of the political/corporate leaders’ offices, at the same time as the rights of workers generally have eroded, partly by the hidden influence of the corporate/political twinning of motivation and agenda, has seen a significant growth in executive/corporate/political power in the hands of fewer and fewer people.

While these two dynamics were proceeding apace, the demise of the local press, through both fiscal failure, corporate merger, and advertising revenue shift from analog to digital information organs, left national and provincial politicians, as well as municipal politicians free of the more intense scrutiny of the investigative reporters whose presence was much more visible in the 1980’s.

Mostly men, in positions of leadership, interested in power, the exercise of power for its own sake, for the sake of their own personal ego needs, much more than for the common good, have not only participated in these development; they have inspired, and coached, nurtured and even implemented many of them. A single and obvious example, in Canada, is the growth of political power and influence in the office of the Prime Minister. However provincial premiers have also “benefited” from these changes, as have world leaders given increasingly to the process of amassing political power in a single office.

Plutocrats and oligarchs, feeding on each other, depending on the reservoir of cash and the political levers to generate laws favourable to the plutocrats who bankroll the oligarchs, have been given far more ‘star’ coverage, as if they had become the new Hollywood stars, the NBA, or NFL stars. Big money, after all, like iron filings, rushes to the magnets of the plutocracy/oligarchy, who themselves, relish basking in the glow of the kleg lights that come with the presence of the stars. And big money, no matter whether in the political or the corporate sphere, offers a gilded neon beacon of hope to a younger generation whose careers are still resting like morning mist over the nearest river or lake.

The affinity of money and power for their “like” magnets, regardless of the source, has so depleted the influence of the ordinary voter, the ordinary hourly worker, once unionized, and once respected as the most important resource in any organization, that the divide between the have’s and the have-not’s seems unbridgeable.

And it is not merely a question of the kind of house, car, health or investment plan, nor the access to healthy food, quality education, quality health care, that matter. It is also a question of the  way in which ordinary people, with extraordinary common sense, vision, creativity and courage are perceived, envisioned, and valued by the “plutoligarchy” that is in the ascendency in too many places.

Ordinary people, if they have the time and inclination to look, see the demotion of Crozier, and the firing of Atkinson, similar to the firing of Sally Yates, James Comey, and literally dozens of others, as proof positive of the absolute control trump has over the American political landscape, at least in his own mind. And, many argue that the trump phenomenon is a mere symptom of a much deeper malaise.

We saw an earlier iteration of this “power-grab” in premiers Mike Harris (Ontario) and Alberta’s Ralph Klein back in the 90’s. Today, the rise of right-wing populism has taken root in Europe, and threatens to metastasize around the world, under the ‘cover’ of the latest pandemic, COVID-19.

Naturally, the flow of information, the heart-beat of any government’s political survivability, is one of the first targets of any incipient or entrenched oligarch. And in the pattern of ‘high society’ where only the insiders are permitted, and only their version of events, the world and the future hold sway, decisions, both strategic and tactical, are incubated, oligarchs depend on a degree of loyalty so stringent that nothing resembling responsible counter-vailing facts and opinions to that of the ‘great leader’ is or will be tolerated. Atkinson and Crozier, like Comey, and Yates, will find their place in the footnotes of the doctoral theses that are written about this trump-fiasco. Their collective value, however, under future presidents, will depend to a large degree on the historical curiosity and scholarship of future Oval Office occupants.

Nevertheless, it is the decisions, exemplified by Modly and trump (many times!) that pave the way for despots everywhere to take power, just as Putin and his oligarchs have in Russia.

Viktor Orban, too, in Hungary, is posing a threat, as well as foreshadowing a future whose political health is as potentially dangerous as this pandemic is to humans everywhere.

Writing in the Globe and Mail, Bessma Momani, professor at the University of Waterloo and Senior Fellow at both the  Centre for International Governance Innovation and the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, writes these words, in an essay entitled, Hungary’s Viktor Orban is using the coronovirus to push his populist-nationalist agenda, April 2, 2020:

“Undoubtedly the coronavirus will bring transformational change to all aspects o four lives, but the impact on global politics will be dire. This week we got a glimpse into how populist-nationalist governments, which continue to be on the rise, will respond to the pandemic. The policy responses from leaders such as Hungary’s Viktor Orban are on script and foretell a dark future. More prescient perhaps, is the coming clash of ideologies in many liberal democracies.

Populist-nationalists have a disdain for representative politics, courts, media, international bureaucracies and scientific experts that all make up “the elite.” According to their narrative, these elites have slowly tried to move hard-working people away from traditional conservative values, industrial self-sufficiency and loyalty to a unified ethnocultural state. “Elites”, according to  populist-0nationalists, promote divisive cultural and identity ware, dependency on cheap offshore production under international  pressure to free trade and porous borders that undermine national unity.

This global pandemic has been perceived by populist-nationalists as a validation of their views and as justification for their latest draconian policies. The coronavirus, an outside force that is propelled by open borders, hyper0-globalization, and carried by “others” such as immigrants or cosmopolitan world-travelling urban elites, is vindication to populist-nationalist calls for sturdier borders to prevent people from bringing the virus into their country. It also validates their notions that national production of goods and services should not be dependent on global supply chains and that liberal media give too much credit to international scientific experts and global officials.

No wonder then, that Mr. Orban has responded to the global pandemic by introducing an indefinite state of emergency, which effectively suspended parliament, put future elections on hold, and gave the Prime Minister wide national powers. Not only is Hungary closing its borders, blaming refugees and students from the Middle East fort bringing the virus to Hungary, it is using the virus to implement wide surveillance of individuals’ mobile phones to track their movements and jail terms of up to three years for those who defy lockdown orders.”

Names like Modi (India) Erdogan (Turkey) and Orban are linked in the minds  of many scholarly observers with trump, another populist-nationalist. Xi of China already has life-long tenure in his country. Putin has already proposed a vote on the legislation that would see him hold onto power indefinitely. The public vote could be held on April 22, the birthday of Vladimir Lenin, and would give the president vast powers and reset the clock on his term limits. It has already been signed into law and approved by the Constitutional Court. Ekaterina Schulmann, a political scientist, quoted in The Economist, March 21, 2020, says, “rarely has the spirit of slavery and intellectual cowardice revealed itself so fully in a written text.”

As we watch the vacuous, self-aggrandizing press briefings each day from the White House, and the disparagement of legitimate reporters’ questions, not to mention the dismissal of the gravitas and integrity of Dr. Fauci, and the self-cleansing of all responsibility by the president, who cannot be prompted to wonder out loud, if this pandemic is just the second act of a Greek tragedy, the first act of which has been developing for at least three decades, in too many quarters and capitols. The third act is the one for which our children will be responsible, and their grandparents are praying that their sycophancy, and their idolatry of the “plutoligarchy” will pale in comparison with the sycophancy of the American electorate, and the evisceration of the public voice in places like Hungary, Turkey and India.

And, at the front of this malignant political, cultural, and spiritual cancer, for all to see are men, the most venal examples of masculinity to appear on the world stage since the end of WWII. And not only the leaders, but also the sycophant acolytes whose souls went on auction in the gun shows of the NRA.

P.S. Anyone who thinks that the reported 25+% rise in domestic violence in the United States, during this pandemic is not connected, if not directly but certainly indirectly, to this "macho-male explosion of cowardice," is still living in the cave of his own mind!

#66 Men, agents of and pathway to cultural metanoia (exposing the "chain of command's" impunity)

Let’s take another, or a first time, look at the concept of “chain of command.”

‘Your dictionary’ defines chain of command this way: an official hierarchy of authority that dictates who is in charge of whom and of whom permission must be asked. An example of chain of command is when an employee reports to a manager who reports to a senior manager who reports to the vice president who reports to the CEO.

The website Chron says this on the importance of chain of command in business:

Companies institute a chain of command to provide workers at all levels with a supervisor to provide workers at all levels with a supervisor to whom they may ask questions or report problems. When this hierarchy is not supported and respected,  the company, and its workers may suffer.

Leadership literature denotes an organizational chart, formal line of authority,  different from the informal organization….those people and departments whose opinions, recommendations, and vision seem to have a significant impact on the organization.

Yesterday, as one of the more visible and tragic reports of the current global pandemic.

“U.S. Navy Captain Brett Crozier, the commanding officer  of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, was relieved of commend at the direction of acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly. The Navy removed Crozier after becoming increasingly convinced that he was involved in leaking the letter to the media to force3 the service to address his concerns, a defence official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.”  (Dan Lamothe and Missy Ryan, Washington Post, quoted in Philadelphia Inquirer, April 2, 2020)

Other reports, specially from MSNBC, indicate that Captain Crozier had previously been in contact with the Secretary’s office about his deep concern about the rampaging spread of COVID-19 among the nearly 5000 crewmen and women aboard his aircraft carrier off Guam.

If we take only a step back from this story, we can easily visualize this vessel, a highly compact structure, housing thousands of men and women, obviously in what in civilian terms have to be cramped quarters, where social distancing is almost literally impossible, and where this pandemic has already struck some 100 crew members. Uttering a public statement after attempting to get the attention of the ‘brass’ of the Navy, in an act of urgent support for his crew, and in an obviously professional, disciplined and even somewhat restrained act of ethically charged duty, nevertheless, has left Captain Crozier relieved of his duties.

Nevertheless, we all know, without doubt, that inside a military campaign, any war effort in history, (and this is certainly a war effort of epic proportions!) while there may be a degree of adherence to the “military code” including the chain of command, there are zillions of decisions taken by lower rank officers, sometimes vetted by superiors and sometimes not, that demonstrate a different level of both commitment and loyalty to the “service” on which that service depends, even if it turns a blind eye to such instances.

This decision is not retaliatory, according to the acting Navy Secretary, but as Joe Biden puts it, “he shot the messenger—a commanding officer who was  faithful to both his national security mission and his duty to care for his sailors, and who rightly focused attention on a broader concern about how to maintain military readiness during this pandemic.” (NBC News, Courtney Kube and Mosheh Gains, April 2, 2020)

This is not only an ethical, professional deportment issue in the United States Navy. It is a far broader question about how authority operates, both in and out of crisis. And how authority operates, not only in a given situation, but generally, culturally, and imaginatively, and even mythically, is of concern to many, including this scribe.

The medical model of professional ethics, including ‘do no harm,’ involves at least a theoretical diagnosis of the immediate crisis, and when time permits a far deeper analysis of the root causes of that crisis. The diagnostic process, however, is one that flows from the mind/mouth of the supervising physician, to be questioned and itself diagnosed later by a panel of peers. And the question of where the “authority” of the frontline professional intersects with the “authority” of the supervising professional is, in many cases, including this one, ambiguous. The degree of urgency, for example, simply cannot be judged accurately from an office in Washington, on an aircraft carrier in the South Pacific. This is not an apology for Modly’s decision; it is rather a clarifying contention that in such cases, Modly, and all other in his “chair” need to have far more respect and honour for the decisions of the officers in their command.

There are two different and somewhat competing fears contending in this case. The fear of Crozier is that his crews’ lives are, (not will be!) in serious danger; the fear of Modly is that the reputation of the Navy, including the ‘protection’ of the families of the crew are unprepared for such a drastic and devastating piece of news. Not incidentally, the Navy itself is not prepared for such an tragic dynamic as the one reported by Crozier. Given the concept of “chain of command,” the military, especially in times of crisis, simply cannot and will not tolerate ambiguity. And here is the rub.

Ambiguity, that gauze lens that would be well attached to each and every personal camera lens, and every iris, witnessing any situation, is quite literally and metaphorically anathema to the “military chain of command.” In fact, training in hierarchical organizations, (that really means all organizations) involves “breaking” the recruit down, into such a level of obedience, even subservience, and sycophancy, that, for the most part, there is little if any likelihood that the new recruit will “colour outside the lines” of the strict adherence to the expected behaviour protocol. In that way, anticipating rebellion in advance, the military weeds out those it suspects of tilting toward insubordination.

And what is the risk/reward of such strict authority, discipline, and the requisite sanctions?

Well, for starters, those eventually in command know that their “battalion” will follow orders, and will “cover” for each other, in the case of friction. Maintaining a merely modest degree of tolerance of aberrant behaviour, by turning a blind eye, and invoking the “rules” and the sanctions precludes becoming entangled in too many “due process” discoveries, and legal cases. Efficiency, especially in the pursuit of national security, is a highly valued objective. And its achievement requires considerable discipline, restraint and obedience.

Another ‘price’ is that the men and women in such an hierarchy, know that if and when they are in actual combat, their peers will “have their back”….protecting, warning and even rescuing them from danger, if and when they can.

One risk is that a commander, in pursuit of personal glory, can and will order missions beyond the capability of the human, or materiel resources. Another is that alliances between commanders at a peer level, can and will plan and execute missions, strategic plans, orders of equipment and even ‘hollywood’ missions to burnish their own, and their political masters’ reputations. In such cases, what ‘private’ is going to ‘go public’ with his or her “whistleblowing”? Few if any!

In fact, the issue of whistleblowing is at the core of how effective, ethical, honourable and trustworthy organizations must operate. Simply, it seems clear that weak men (mostly men!) are more frightened by the prospect of whistleblowers than are more confident, secure and self-possessed men. The former too often discourage or dismiss whistleblowers while the latter foster and encourage their protestations.

Yet, there is no magic pill to engender confident, secure, self-possessed men. And while all mothers and fathers would and do argue that such a picture is an envisaged “goal” of their parenting of their sons, very different approaches lead to widely divergent results. (This issue of chain of command is not restricted to “parenting;” and yet, parenting is where the process begins.)

Families have implicit “heads” the adult to “wears the pants” and every child quickly learns which parent that is, even if it differs depending on the issue. However, within families, at least modestly functioning families, a single parent’s decision can and will be appealed to the other parent. No parent is free of the immunity of absolute control, thankfully!

In the classroom, the teacher is “in charge” and when the classroom door closes, responsibility for whatever takes place inside, rests on his/her shoulders. However, there is little doubt that whatever happens will “leak” into the outside world, including the principal’s office, the rest of the school population and eventually the parents of every child in that room on that day. There is a kind of implicit circle of influence around each and every classroom, about which no teacher is unconscious. And that circle serves a highly constructive purpose. While putting every teacher in a “fish-bowl,” it also offers a generally (at least in past decades) supportive section of parents who appreciate the work the teacher is doing. And providing nothing too esoteric happens, confidence in the teacher is secure.

An anecdote, from street talk after decades of a teaching career: “We only wish he had not gone so far in the conversations he had with students,” presumably, based on stories that whatever topics lept from the pages of the novels and poems and plays, and prompted students’ vocalizings in class. Their participation was not only permitted by actually fostered and nurtured. Mine were, after all, English classes, and communication, including the growth of the confidence and the courage to say whatever one felt or believed, was an intimate component of the process. An equal opportunity was always there for those who did not agree. And the dialogue that ensued were among the most memorable in my career.

It will come as not surprise to read that, not only in those classes from another life, but today, in reference to the Crozier relieving of office, there lies a deeply embedded conviction that a healthy culture needs more Croziers. We also need more officers in top positions, on pyramids that are leaning away from the social structure based on integrity, openness and transparency words mouthed from too many platforms followed by hollow and empty slogans that eviscerate the meaning of openness and transparency (and accountability), and thereby erode whatever trust the public (and there are many for each and every hierarchy) may have had.

Self-absorbed men, however, seem to be the inverse of self-possessed men. And there must be a “factory” either birthing or brain-washing thousands of them, in such socially insufferable traits as:

·        sycophancy, boot-licking,

·        fitting in with the establishment (even when the establishment has demonstrated the rust of its hollow convictions and practice),

·        climbing the ladder of extrinsic success (as a single, compulsive goal), selling out (on both morality and ethics) to get that promotion

·        selling out the sick and injured patient/worker to protect the corporation/employer and the security of the revenue stream, as well as the upper-class social reputation

·        generating decisions based on self-interest and not the broader public interest

·        failing to face and confront the fullness of responsibility, by reductionistic thinking and practice that narrows the “motivation” and cause of a reprehensible and demeaning human decision.

·        covering-up one’s own inadequacy

·        blaming others for failures of transparency and accountability

·        name-dropping as a method of attempting to climb in the eyes of another

·        practising a hollow, yet reverential and ritualistic religion, as a path to social acceptance and corporate respect

·        donating lavishly and dramatically to worthy causes, without believing in or even investigating their value, in order to burnish one’s, or one’s corporate reputation

And yet, all of these ‘under the radar’ kinds of behaviour, conducted by both men and women, yet engineered primarily by men, as an integral component of an agenda of transaction, engagement without authenticity and integrity, in service of a personal, as opposed to a public, common, shared agenda.

A recent real estate transaction, whose history is only very partially in the public square, finds a high-rise concrete condo development on a town’s waterfront, following the closing of a former marina. The land, allegedly, was offered to the municipality, which turned down the offer, and the current justification for the highly lucrative business operation is, “that company bought and owned the land, so they can do whatever they like with it.” Whatever public discussion, debate, and dialogue was held before the erection, is now ‘water under the bridge’ yet the demise of the local newspaper, having been bought and sold to an large urban media company with no interest in the municipality, is just another of the indices that lead to a diagnosis of the elimination of both whistleblower and due process, to which both Crozier and this town are, or have been, entitled.

After the face, however, even in a legitimate review of public decisions, most of the damage has already been done. The people in Crozier’s situation never really recover their former public trust, and the people like Modly, never have either to account for, or to experience public sanctions for their impetuous neurosis.

Hierarchical, pyramidal organizations, however, ought not to be operating without a legitimate, thorough, investigative appeal process, similar to that surrounding every classroom in the country. Parents care deeply for their kids and how their teachers treat them, as well as how well they are learning their “lessons”. Similarly, the public, although a much wider segment, and much more loosely connected and therefore less easily ‘coalesced’ into a relevant voice, still care very deeply for the cultural norms that hold our civilization together in trust, and the obedience that can only come from implicit and unreserved trust.

Where is the factory that is generating such trust? Is that the missing PPE for which we all cry?

#65 Men, agents of and pathway to cultural metanoia (searching for a new global myth)

Let’s examine the perspective humans have of nature, from different points of view. First, The Buddhist view, then the Shinto perspective, the Hindu, and finally, Chief Seattle’s view. While there is striking similarity among the three, they all diverge significantly from the ‘Christian’ view. And it is our relationship to nature, and whether or not we conceptualize nature as evil that could spell or at least draw a picture of whether or not we are willing to accept responsibility for continuing to turn nature against humanity.

All are borrowed from The Power of Myth, by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers (Doubleday, 1988).

Here are Campbell’s words, from the interview with Moyers:

 The mind has to do with meaning. What is the meaning of a flower? There’s a Zen story about a sermon of the Buddha in which he simply lifted a flower. There was only one man who gave him a sign with his eyes that he understood what was said. Now, the Buddha himself is called ‘the one thus come.’ There is no meaning. What’s the meaning of the universe? What’s the meaning of a flea? It’s just there. That’s it. And your own meaning is that you’re there. We’re so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget that the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it’s all about. (p. 5)

And a little later, Campbell’s words again:

The closest thing I know to a planetary mythology is Buddhism, which sees all beings as Buddha beings. The only problem is to come to the recognition of that. There is nothing to do. The task is only so know what is, and then to act in relation to the brotherhood of all of these beings. ….The biblical tradition is a socially oriented mythology. Nature is condemned. In the nineteenth century, scholars thought of mythology and ritual as an attempt to control nature. But that is magic, not, mythology or religion. Nature religions are not attempts to control nature but to help you put yourself in accord with it. But when nature is thought of as evil, you don’t put yourself in accord with it, you control it, or try to, and hence the tensions, the anxiety, the cutting down of forests, the annhiliation of native people. And the accent here separates us from nature….I will never forget the experience I had when  I was in Japan, a place that never heard of the Fall and the Garden of Eden. One of the Shinto texts says that the processes of nature cannot be evil. Every natural impulse is not to be corrected but to be sublimated, to be beautified. There is a glorious interest in the beauty of nature and cooperation with nature, so that in some of those gardens you don’t know where nature begins and art ends—this was a tremendous experience. (p.28 and 29)

The Hindus, for example, don’t believe in special revelation. They speak of a state .in which the ears have opened to the song of the universe….Once you reject the idea of the Fall in the Garden, man is not cut off from his source. (p.32)

In 1852, when the United States “inquired about buying tribal lands for the arriving people of the United States, the Chief Seattle wrote a marvelous letter in reply.

‘The president in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? The land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? Every part of the earth if sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people. We know the sap which courses through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The Bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man, all belong to the same family….We love the earth as a newborn loves its mother’s heartbeat. So if we sell you or land, love it as we have loved it. Care for it as we have cared for it…As we are part of the land, you too are part of the land. This earth is precious to us. It is also precious to you. One thing we know: there is only one God. No man, be he Red Man of White Man, can be apart. We are brothers after all. (p.42-43)

While these passages are part of the introduction to mythology and its relevance to human life, with Campbell as tutor and Moyers as surrogate student, they offer a significant glimpse into the differences in culture, including mythology, that warrant being re-considered in the light of our current pandemic crisis.

If we, humans, led primarily by males, continue to perceive, conceive and practice a view that nature is either or both evil and a resource for our unbridled plundering, for our unbridled greed and profit, rather than embracing the universe’s song, and accepting our fundamental unity with its bounty (including the cycles of death and rebirth), we risk our own survival.

Of course, that sounds apocalyptic and melodramatic to all those corporate business tycoons to whom trump listens in his daily phone calls, looking for counsel about how to manage this crisis. Nevertheless, if mythology is, as it has for the long lineage of centuries, and ethnicities, and religions and ideologies, a teacher for how humans might live, then, at the vortex of time when the pandemic of COVID-19 and global warming and climate change converge on every city and hamlet, in every corner of the planet, it seems that we not only need a new mythology but a new vision of how humans and nature are to be “seen” and “heard” and “related with”….

Traditionally, myths have emerged from the fire-pit in a tribe, a family, a community, and then merged with other myths from other communities, indicating the things of value, the culmination of the human imagination and spirit, the potential of experiencing the fullness of life, as conceived by the originators of the single myth. Today, in mythological terms, we have lost much of the essence of those fire-pits, those tribes, and those unifying and inspiring myths that held various cultures together. In geopolitical terms, we have both dived into the deep waters of globalization, while at the same time, recoiled from its worst threats like mass movements of millions of  displaced immigrants, refugees and essentially homeless people. In the short term, we are likely to withdraw from a total immersion in globalization, leaving the production of special needed goods and processes to our own national, provincial countrymen and women.

However, from a wider perspective, we know cognitively, based on a tidal wave of data, the cliché that we really are all ‘in this together’ while we continue to compete, to the death, for every inch of space, every last dollar, every last vote, every last headline, and every last morsel of food. We have not only democratized communication and commerce, putting a digital business machine in hands on every continent. 

Transactions, in real time, take place every second, from continent to continent. Unless and until there is a dispute when we sometimes refer to the World Trade Organization, for resolution, between signatory nations. However, in trade agreements, the rights of the corporations tend to take precedence over the rights of the nations with whom those corporations trade, in the event of a dispute. So, consequently, national sovereignty has been supplanted by corporate tyranny. Not only are we facing, today, dysfunctional competitions for profoundly needed medical supplies, for health care professionals, for health care accommodations and for research professionals and laboratories in pursuit of vaccines, and remedies, including antibodies to ward off this pandemic.

On the face of it, we are at war on several fronts: management of the virus, procuring the professionals and the equipment for the war, sustaining those displaced and unpaid by the pandemic and the regulations to control its spread and prevent additional viruses, as well as the over-riding complexities of cultures that feed on wild animals, and the incursion of capitalism into the previously untouched habitats of those wild animals and birds as well as attempting to sustain displaced and fiscally threatened workers and corporations.

 Given the resistance of individual political leaders even to engage in minimal “control measures” to limit the spread of the virus in their own jurisdictions, and the spotty evidence of sharing between nations, and the political/legal resistance to the full disclosure of the facts of this virus, and the millions in the “pipeline” to come, there are merely glimmers of hope and light from the single exemplary health care professionals, whose expertise includes, in fact depends upon, sharing of information with their global partners.

Could it be that a new myth that shines some light into the current coal mine, farther into the mine than the canary of New York, and Italy and South Korea, could emerge from the mergers of the scientific scholarship with the poetic imagination that has fed previous myths.

Bill Moyers utters these words, to Campbell at one point in the conversation in The Power of Myth:

…(W)e moderns are stripping the world of its natural revelations, of nature itself. I thing of that pygmy legend of the little boy who find the bird with the beautiful song in the forest and brings it home.

Campbell replies: He asks his father to bring food for the bird, and the father doesn’t want to feed a mere bird, so he kills it. And the legend says the man killed the bird, and with the bird he killed the song, and with the song, himself. He dropped dead, completely dead, and was dead forever. (op. cit. p. 27)

Are we in danger of living out that legend?

Are we in danger of not even wanting to spend the time reading and ruminating on the legend?

Are we in danger of simply rendering such utterly simplistic and child-like stories disposable like so much we have shoved into the trash bin of avoidance/denial because it does not ‘fit’ with our compulsive need for domination, control and effective rape and pillage of our planet, at our own peril?

I heard a local mechanic this week utter these words about the pandemic, “I sure hope the right people are paying attention to how we are treating the planet!

On reflection, I believe that the “right people” are no longer the experts, and certainly not the politicians, or the economists, the bankers, or the corporations. The RIGHT PEOPLE now are comprised by every single human being on the planet.

We all breath the same air, risk the same air particles from the same virus, drink the same water, plant seeds and harvest from the same land, and to varying degrees  have assimilated many of the same myths, that speak to the depth and the endurance and the invincibility of the human spirit. Each in our own way, in our own village, we can begin to tell the stories of how we are dependent on that air, water, land preserved and protected by both rules and habits.

Our personal habits are expressions of our capacity and willingness, even our sense of responsibility to ourselves, our families and each other. However, lectures, homilies, and political harangues are never going to generate the new mythologies that inject the pure oxygen of the human imagination and spirit into the lungs, minds and hearts of people of every ethnicity, nationality, language and faith.

And while the digital concerts of the musicians, and the street art of the painters, and the digital dance recitals of the ballerinas and modern dancers can and will lift our spirits this day and in the days to come, we need a poetic imagination akin to that of Stephen Hawking to tell a new story of how humans can re-birth a relationship with nature that wraps our arms around its shoulders, and embraces its smile, and feeds its appetites, and listens to its song.

The cacophony of our self-imposed alienation and separation from and our deaf-and-blind disdain for nature’s universal bounty not only denigrates nature, but foretells our own potential silence.

Recalling the prophetic voice of Paul Simon in Sounds of Silence:

And the people bowed and prayed

To the neon god they made

And the sign flashed out its warning

In the words that it was forming

And the sign said, “The words of the prophets

Are written on the subway walls

And the tenement halls”

And whispered in the sounds of silence.

Those people in the tenements “get it” as do the people riding the subways, (when they are permitted)….are the rest of us prepared to open our ears to the song of the universe crying out for our care, compassion, empathy and respect?