Who can we tell?

[archytas]

BBC's 'Panorama' produced a documentary last night on 'Baby P' - Peter Connelly killed at 17 months after much abuse 7 years ago.  The perpetrators were jailed, scum of little interest.  There was a serious case review, generally a hapless procedure of whitewash here.  It now seems this and other reports were a fix to pin blame on social services - in fact all agencies involved were useless, social services perhaps less so than the politicians and others.  Obviously, no reasonable society would want this kind of vicious cover-up at all or not to know what really went on for 7 years, given we should want to put things right (the 'learning lessons' rhetoric).

Britain is an intensely secretive society.  I don't even know why we got involved in the two world wars, let alone Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria.  When I think of Gabby or Germans I have actually met, I have even less idea on the world wars.  I doubt ignorance is my problem in this - it's just clear the general stuff we are given is bunk.  When one researches social issues from war to child abuse, the reality shifts a long way from the history of Empire I was taught and the idea our politicians and bureaucracy operate in any competent way.

In another case, in Rotherham, more than 1400 victims of child sexual exploitation were further abused by all the services they encountered.  In this case, a young, female Home Office researcher had her work destroyed and was threatened by two police officers who said they were going to give her name and address to the abusers.  There are so many other cases I doubt I could finish writing their outline within a couple of days.  This is before one thinks about our banks and business practices, and revolting breaches of trust by priests, teachers and cops.

Who can we even tell when it is almost impossible to think of any speedy and fair investigations and resolutions - or even admissions of wrong-doing by our establishments?  This before you realise cops and other agencies quickly brief against victims and other complainants.

 

[Allan]

i understand,
I really don't think people want a better world, there are a few place. Unfortunately most the leadership want it that way. You can hear them warming up for the great world opera.
The main player are warming up. "Me, me, me, me..."
Well rehearsed ik would say,,

Solutions are difficult to come by,

All an
~~
do not murder, rape, enslave or harm others

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[Molly]

All very sticky stuff here in the US too and I have come to think that abuse is so embedded in the culture that everyone prefers to look the other way than speak up and follow through.  I've done it and seen people do it, but it always brings a long series of difficulties that must be toughed out and results are mixed but I must say I have seen it work out to the benefit of the abused, though only in the long run.  In the short run, people are so upset, in denial etc., that it is much more difficult. If it gets to court you can count on multiple dates and a slim chance of justice.  Pressing charges of domestic violence over here usually increases the violence because the police and courts are much to slow or reluctant to make decisions, and the abusers have a personality disorder that compels them to continue.

I've been in a crowd where an adult is slapping and screaming at a child and no one is doing anything.  Always nerve wracking for me to be the one to walk over and interrupt, fumbling for someones card to pass along to suggest the family find a better way or my phone to dial 911.  When the cops arrive, accusations on both sides fly because the abuser always blames someone else and I've been called into question on occasion.  Never easy.

I have often wondered why we can't handle obvious abuse better as a group. I just reported a case of sexual harassment at work after watching for too long it happen to a beautiful young girl who was too afraid to report herself. The culture was such that a mountain of retribution came back on me, but I would do it again because it minimized the behavior. I say minimized because the guy is still with us and has a personality that keeps it going. We overlook so much subtle inequity, bullying, ridicule, passive aggression that the outright aggression becomes a matter of course we can't be bothered unraveling it seems.

[Allan]

I woke up last night thing about the men's coop. It came from his and a couple friends. It was built during the depression, the idea was to provide a low cost community housing single male students so the could have low cost rent and the maintenance and other services were done by students as part of their rent bringing the cost down.
I knew about it as a kid saw the outside many times and knew that is where my dad lived when he attended the university. What I didn't know and found out long after dad retired was that the university was offered an very large amount money for the property was that they actually didn't own it. (That came as a shock to the regents.
Legally the "Men's Coop" was owned by the "Men's Coop" The problem really arose when it was found out that no one legally owned the the Coop ,, the university over saw it occupancy and repairs. But they did not own it and could not sell it.
My dad was contacted because he was the person that created the coop. 
The university did sell the property, but the money went into a perpetual scholarship trust where only 80% of the income it created could be used for educational grants .. Amy left over funds went toward increasing the principal of the funds.  The university has control of the funds,, their contribution is they supply the management at no cost.. Actually the university likes the arrangement as it keeps future management from raiding the trust to pay salaries or other expenses. From what i understand the fund has more than doubled since its creation..

My dad was always a rebel looking at solving problems rather just complaining.

All an
~~
do not murder, rape, enslave or harm others

-----Original Message-----
From: archytas <nwt...@gmail.com>
To: mind...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 2:40 AM
Subject: Mind's Eye Who can we tell?

--

[Allan]

Been there done that too.

Anyone for creating a Off shore barge community?;

All an
~~
do not murder, rape, enslave or harm others

-----Original Message-----
From: Molly <moll...@gmail.com>
To: mind...@googlegroups.com

--

[Molly]

No matter what community we create, as long as people hate, judge, look away and act out, there will be problems of violence and how to manage it it groups.

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[Allan]

I know you you do not display those characteristics , I hope I don't, Neil is a good guy also..  That translates to there are others that want a better world.

I do think a few people want to turn away and guidance can be good giving a different point of view or economic paths to follow. To me that is a noble objective.

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[facilitator]

As the cost goes down for committing heinous acts the magnitude and volume of heinous act rises.  We need a savior.  Historically, that might be the worst solution.

[archytas]

There is a huge problem with crackpot complainers in all this - but this then turns into 'all complainers being crackpot'.  I keep hearing 'we must listen to and believe the victims' - a total nonsense a what is needed is full, frank and competent investigation and a legal system that works.  I've seen innovations like domestic violence courts - some good things there - yet even as we do such, nearly always as under-funded pilots, the problems grow.

I know what I should be able to do (if I was still a cop) if I attended the home of parents complaining there 13 year old daughter had just been raped or was subject to other forms of sexual exploitation.  There should be immediate concern for the protection of the girl and the family, a highly considerate forensic examination system available 24/7 (we have SAFEs and SARCs - but you can bet your call will be after midnight and these services working 9 - 5 Mon - Fri, on call social services (ho, ho, ho) with social workers not already running at double work-load and detectives to get on with an immediate investigation and early arrests of perpetrators with monitoring (of likely threats) of the family and a decent direct alarm system.  What happens instead is so dire you'd think Steven King made it up.

Many kids involved in such are not "reliable".  This should make various agencies involved realise the situation calls for hard evidence.  This is the actual case in nearly all crime.  Who is more likely to be "unreliable" than a sleazy perpetrator, whether banker, politician or paedophile?  Do we ever expect them to come clean when allegations are put to them?  Yet we have social workers saying young kids 'choose a prostitute lifestyle', 'give consent' and worse.  The agencies even ignored 100 cases in Rotherham where the victims were pregnant - you'd think DNA tests here utterly conclusive.

The Hillsborough (96 deaths at a soccer game) case is a quarter of a century old and not resolved.  We now have a police officer on trial for the killing of Azelle Rodney in 2005, after being 'cleared' by utterly dud "investigations" that missed very obvious hard evidence.  I don't think this officer should be on trial - I might well have opened fire in his circumstances - the point, across child sexual exploitation to such as "inquiries" into Iraq, Parliamentary expenses, the financial crisis and nearly all misconduct and incompetence, is that we are never getting the truth in a reasonable time scale that could prevent the problems continuing and the 're-beating' of victims.

The extent of all this suggests endemic problems.  Forgetting statistics, my big sister worked in a Lake District hotel.  Jimmy Saville, the dead DJ perhaps our most notorious paedophile and sex molester, was the talk of the hotel because of his antics in a nearby TT guest house.  My big brother went on Saville's show 'Jim'll Fix It' thanks to a letter from kids he taught.  One of the kids who went with him was assaulted by Saville.  My brother rang his brother the cop to ask what could be done.  Meanwhile, as a cop, I was investigating a Saville hanger-on, who sometimes did the DJ spot at a Friday night disco at the school my dad was headmaster of.  This scumbag was known to have young girls (12 - 14) in his RV.  This was all 1970s.  Both Saville and his scumbag mate are notorious abusers now.  I had to tell my brother that trying to do anything over these matters was more or less impossible - I was only able to get the scumbag in jail by discovering his other criminal activities.  What's the score across society if my family had these degrees of association?  There were more, because I was a cop.  Even the guy I replaced in an academic job got five years as part of a paedophile ring.

Meanwhile, Tony Blair struts the world stage as  a "statesman".  Sharon Shoesmith, with a £680,000 tribunal pay-off because of the bungling of her dismissal, claims she is a victim of the 'death of Baby P' - not noticing actual victims can't even get into court, let alone get any finance to help them recover. 

[archytas]

We have already seen that on a small scale Facil - in satanic abuse cases various "experts" have arisen, only to turn out to be abusers.  Cops, who could only cuff real abuse cases, followed satanic cases at great expense, on the basis of wild stories - even invading the Orkneys (off Scotland) to arrest a vicar (shades of the Wicker Man) actually medically incapable of the acts claimed.  That our agencies could engage in this rot and deny thousands of real cases says a great deal.

Good point, of course.  One might say the 'saviour' arises every time we have a 'Public Inquiry' - these always receive the evidence we actually need in secret and give rise for the need for another - er - Public Inquiry - three here on Iraq, the first two whitewash, the third unable to let us have its conclusions because they might upset Americans.  We have something called the Victims' Code here - careful reading demonstrates this 'saviour' ensures you can't be a victim unless bereaved, thus excluding most victims.

There is much outrage here on the Pakistani-Islamic abuse of white girls here.  Anyone saying this is subject to the 'racist card'.  The Inquisition gave us the Witch-Finder General.  When we think about the boundaries of thought and expression what rough beasts may be raised from deep prejudice?  And what stops 100 arrests when one finds 100 under-age girls pregnant?

[Allan]

The problems are well known, how does one go about changing this boxed society?

[archytas]

Latest 'research' in the UK reckons 10% of the CSE problem is stranger- gangs and 90% in the home - maybe 600,000 victims in the country.  Something very similar to this was in the textbooks when I taught social admin in the mid-80s.  I still don't actually know whether it is true or not.

I suspect a much wider problem in a wider, abusive and disabling society.  Answers, like Soviet Paradise, were never answers at all.  What I suspect is massive confusion on data - not in the piffling way we might consider calling it capta.  In a way, scientific and material progress (which I regard as real, if with problems) and its run-up against questions on what life is and should be about (religion?) seem set against each other to prevent argument leading to sensible praxis.  It's very difficult to make the argument about this - it would be far too long for most to listen and contribute.

We have a case here in which Surrey Police gave shotguns back to a man who then killed two women with them - the last woman was killed despite making a 999 call.  The cops commissioned two 'independent' reports from - er - other cops - and have apologised.  It seems Surrey did not follow proper procedures.  Even at this level, argument is extremely difficult - one only has to imagine what the former ME gun lobby would say.  What we lack is public argument that gets sensible things done and recognises we can't expect perfect outcomes.  At what point do we recognise bad outcomes are not just inevitable mistakes but concern corruption, incompetence and widespread system failure - and that 'enquiries' aren't fixing much, if anything, decade on decade?

As a cop who did 'find' victims of CSE, I know that 35 years ago "finance" was a major issue in our failure to investigate and prosecute and not much has changed.  The public has little idea of the cuffing, nodding, skewing and fitting that goes on.  Police statistics are no better than Enron or Tesco accounting, but cops are also a small part of the overall problems in a dire criminal justice system.  All families let down could technically have used Judicial Review to force the proper actions needed - but almost no one can afford Judicial Review, a standard legal Catch 22.  We are now seeing a rush by cops to CSE prosecutions - this really only proves they could have done it before.  Much the same could be said on throwing bankers in jail or the politicians who lied to us or stood by doing nothing on Iraq etc.  Much of what is going on concerns extremely poor work by professionals paid massive sums of money - and the extent to which thieves now run so much and our  disenfranchisement from resourcing decisions.  Chief constables are heard saying we can have either action on burglaries or child abuse prevention.

All this rot takes place in the mad ideology of jawbs-groaf-burn-the-planet financing in which we delay people's retirement just as we have massive youth unemployment and require a degree for shelf-stacking.  We might have to start looking at these matters in terms of how the mad might cure themselves.  I often think of it all as operating under the pheromones of a giant slaver-ant matriarch or set of vampires.  

[Molly]

What abuse we tolerate in groups large and small has much to do with our inability to face the issues and take action to solve them.  Fear prevents people from involvement in these truly terrifying human transgressions and ironically, fear creates the personality disorders in the abusers.  I took a pregnant teen parent to the hospital because the father of her kids beat her badly.  He showed up at the hospital and began screaming and coming at her.  The hospital security would have nothing to do with it unless they witnessed him causing her physical injury again, at which point they would not stop him but call the police.  After placing myself between them several times and heated negotiations with the hospital, she and I were given an examining room and he was not allowed to enter.  He did pace the waiting room and gave us a hard time all the way to my car.  I dropped her at her mothers, but don't think things got much better for her after.  She would not file a police report because she had several times and it came to naught, which only escalated the abuse. 

It seems to me that the majority of us have a fear of involvement because it means taking some abuse ourselves from the abuser and his people but from the system too sometimes.  It is easier to walk away, but not more honorable.

On the other hand, I have spoken up at times, put myself in harms way, only to have it work out so that the people I advocate for can flourish.  Buy the ticket, take the ride. Don't expect a thrill every time.

[archytas]

Sounds only too much like a standard domestic abuse situation Molly.  What I'm really wondering about is how we might get small changes to work big.  I can barely credit much of the behaviour I've seen as human.  Even when we have legislation we can work with the system tends to pervert it from an innocent lad joking he would burn down Robin Hood Airport if they delayed his flight to see his girlfriend to however international money and the military-industrial complex forcing many to live in squalor and war.

I go with the personal advice and used to remind myself of what you say a lot.  It isn't enough and nor was self-medicated drinking.  What I can't get past is the way it all repeats, often with no improvement.  A further CSE scandal is breaking in Manchester, revealing such nonsense from prosecutors as a girl being unreliable because of background and wearing such clothes as cropped tops - only one in ten cases have led to conviction.  Unusually, an MP has got involved (Anne Coffey) and done some leg work herself.  My own MP is part of the problem.

No one ever seems to be able to step in and say 'this is wrong, get on with a proper investigation'.  We don't seem to be able to get public scrutiny on either the bad or good sides.  Everyone seems to become part of the problem, discrediting complainants instead of providing sensible investigation and support.  In other areas, forensic scientists routinely give false evidence, generally favouring the prosecution (where most of the fees can be earned).  I'm pretty sure small moves could make these situations much more positive, but we have to admit the reality.

[Richard Blay]

I am much shock!
I thought these were only  happening on our side of the world ( Africa especially Ghana ). I used to blame journalists or the media for that matter, for not taking these kind of social issues up till I watched from the news that people prefer settling matters concerning rape at home than courts, reasons given were many:
families of victims are too poor to hire lawyer(s),
they had no time to follow such cases as the courts keep postponing the ruling  from one date to another,
they cannot make the case public because the family cannot stand the stigmatization...

Woe to you if you do not have a relative in higher authority of the nation because only the rich can make the system or law works. A police man is willing to assist you if only you have something to offer. 'the poor doesn't go to court' as my late grandma would put it

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[Molly]

The rich have a much better time of it here, too, Mando.

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[archytas]

One of the issues Mando is we don't understand much about making things better.

[archytas]

This from Huffpo back in June 

The total number of rape test kits that have never been sent to laboratories for testing exceeds 100,000. In some cases, the kits have been sitting in storage for decades. From the Washington Post:

"In 2009, authorities found more than 11,000 unprocessed kits at the Detroit crime lab after it was closed for improperly handling weapons evidence. After testing the first 2,000 kits, authorities identified 127 serial rapists and made 473 matches overall to known convicts or arrestees, or to unknown people whose genetic material was found at crime scenes."

Cops get a very good press because of film and television series.  In fact, bungling is the name of the game across our justice system.  Britain and the USA score very badly in the developed nations' access to justice league.  

To write off a CSE case as 'unreliable witness, no further action' costs £500.  Deal with the case properly and this may shoot to £100,000.  And deal with one case properly and you set a precedent for hundreds more.  Not popular with the bean counters and those interested in keeping reported crime low.

[archytas]

We have a thing here called the troubled family programme.  Councils get £4000 to identify a troubled family and turn it round.  Costs for this on previous programmes ran between £60K and £250K - yet the Government claims half of 120,000 families are 'turned round'.  The thing is run by Louise Casey - she has run failed programmes for 15 years claiming successes.  Her results never stand up to scrutiny, but she survives.  Academic criticism is led by Ruth Levitas and we can't even get much of the alleged data, even on the supposed £9 billion these families cost in criminal justice and welfare.

The number of people like Casey around in our public sector and their lack of ethics is a major problem.  All one would have to do to discredit this programme would be to visit a sample of 50 families and their neighbours.  We don't.

[Molly]

I've run into agencies that grab the cash and fudge the numbers. I've also seen some do great work. Lake County IL has a council against sexual assault funded by state and federal money that is called to the scene with the cops to advocate for the victim, interview and follow through.  They also have a fantastic prevention program that I helped get into the school systems there. Counselors go to each class and talk to kids as a group and individually after.  Their rates of disclosure and successful intervention is very high, and knowing the families in the district and the school administrators, I knew enough of the case facts to see the difference was legitimate and good overall.

I just think we can't let let the overwhelming number of problems stop us, we have to keep doing what we can as individuals, and working on our own sense of decency and justice because we each need to exercise our own honor in everything we do, whatever we are called to do.  That said, I did leave social services for corporate work having burned out.  To prevent my staff from burning out, I took on the Friday task of telling teen parents that their welfare was cut off because they were not meeting the requirements of the program, like attending school or getting their babies health care services. These girls were often drunk, beat up, belligerent or had the gang tats that signify having killed someone on their face (and not afraid to let you know it.) What I learned in the transition to the private sector is that every work culture has its ratio of honor/corruption that we make our way through.  There are also states of consciousness that we hold as individuals that create more or less harmony in our experience no matter what our vocation.  We are resilient and spiral up and down in our ability to sustain those higher states throughout life given our ability to love and relate.

There is no end to the dismal stories. The change begins first within ourselves, and then with what we can influence in the course of the day.  Whatever we are called to do, it matters. A retirement of reclusive prayer sounds mighty nice sometimes. Mighty nice.

[facilitator]

Iran has seem to have solved the problem by being able to hang the victim.

On Tuesday, October 28, 2014 9:40:49 PM UTC-4, archytas wrote:

[Allan]

Tnx for the insite

All an
~~
do not murder, rape, enslave or harm others

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Blay <rich...@gmail.com>
To: mind...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 11:46 PM
Subject: Re: Mind's Eye Re: Who can we tell?

[Allan]

Agreed..

All an
~~
do not murder, rape, enslave or harm others

-----Original Message-----
From: archytas <nwt...@gmail.com>
To: mind...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 1:21 AM
Subject: Re: Mind's Eye Re: Who can we tell?

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[Allan]

Good idea Tony, hope you are never the victim. (Hmmm)

You have a job i would not envy, times are hard and will be getting harder.. It seems to me there is an ever increasing desire for war from all sides. 

Been thinking about my dad and the men's coop.  Considering the down slide in morality, the coop idea might have possibilities especially when coupled  with a gated community.
My idea is the community would be owned by the coop .. ( say a block of apartments) To become a member of the gated or coop you have to live to a set of moral commitments. (Including spousal abuse , drug use (guidelines would need to be developed. (lol right after we hang Tony for something he might do or could have done..  (",)

All an
~~
do not murder, rape, enslave or harm others

-----Original Message-----
From: "'facilitator' via \"Minds Eye\"" <mind...@googlegroups.com>
To: mind...@googlegroups.com

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[archytas]

Hanging might be less cruel than suffering some of the cop, social worker and other town hall incompetence.   A lot of the kids lied to me Molly - quite common in abuse cases - over stuff I could check up on.  Some even tried to chat me up etc.  Given we have known forever that many abuse cases are not independently witnessed and victims are incredibly easy to discredit, I'm amazed we don't routinely bug to get independent evidence - I even hid in a wardrobe to get one perp.  Given people catch their nannies doing things wrong on CCTV, you'd think we could work a system out for abuse.

I've often thought we could go back to something more like village life by gating off in our existing towns.

Tony is probably the only one of us who gets hung regularly.

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[Allan]

There is a lot of major problems world wide. I don't think realistically you can gate an entire town. But an apartment complex can be ..  I think the keys lay within a common moral standards agreement and non ownership.  Lack of ownership would allow for removal of those that do not follow the guidelines ... (Unfortunately i do not think a regular hanging of Me or Tony would solve any problems).

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[Molly]

developing those common standards might be a sticky wicket.  I always cringe when asked to be on a committee to review by-laws, and have managed to dodge owners associations without exception. Oh the horror.

[Allan]

Need to start some where.

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[facilitator]

I wish !  Not all artists are well hung.  Some of the work ends up in garage sales.

In regards to the woman who was hung recently in Iran,  there is an underlying premiss that any evil men do are simply the result of a woman causing that to occur.  This is partly the problem within the system is the premiss that somehow people are inherently good…we are not.   Our morality fights the evolutionary urge to be the fittest and to kill off the competitor, or the weaker.  

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[Allan]

What owners association?
The idea behind a coop is there are no owners.  And no one can own part of it. (Church of Common Cooperation) guidelines set up. Either you follow the guidelines or move else where.
You pay your rent, do your community responsibilities, participate in community affairs and activities..  It can not be a place to pay your rent then hide away.

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[archytas]

"Gates" don't have ti be physical Allan.  Must stop playing straight man to Facil nob gags.  The principle of re-hanging sounds Promethean.  Leadership - in the block captain kind of way - is always problematic.  Makes me cringe - I used to get very bossy in suffering fools situations - though a few people benefited from me in kick-arse mode.

This report into child sexual exploitation in Greater Manchester is peculiar - it's an expose and whitewash at the same time - a kind of anti-matter version of Molly's 'embrace the paradox'.  'It doesn't matter we made mistakes, allowed rapes and denigration, because we're doing  better now' sort of stuff.  'Trust us, we're the people who failed you in the past'!

Size doesn't matter Tony, unless you're hanging wallpaper.

[archytas]

The Coop means the 7/11 down the road here Allan, though it opens as 6 and shuts at 10.  I would like to give one a try in the living sense.  Did in Spain years back but couldn't afford to stay.

On Thursday, October 30, 2014 3:52:09 PM UTC, Allan Heretic wrote:

[Molly]

cynical 

[archytas]

Tony's humour and art contain angel-devil issues - think of those optical illusion things.

If I say 'look at the white for the angels, the black for demons' am I a helpful angel or a patronising old devil?  And does that question itself skew us and cue us in the wrong direction? You'll have something better than this Escher Tony.  I've walked up those stairs of his that can't lead anywhere several times when drunk.  Easy!  Would the mitochondria now living in us and now powering our lives rather be free?

People do very different things in different material contexts.  I broke rules as a cop in what I hope was noble cause - though I never lied to fit anyone up.  What was the woman who claimed I whipped out my penis in class (she had the grace to faint) doing - fortunately there were two dozen other witnesses - and what was she doing coming into my office three days later insisting I continued teaching her?  Didn't have the heart to sue.  Kids from a children's home in Wales claimed they had been abused in the cellars of an old house - on inspection the house had no cellars.  

Some of us follow where the evidence leads, others resort to clown stereotyping.  Our politics is now full blown Emperor's New Clothes, our politicians as thick as thieves and mud.  Our literature is now self-replicating kitsch (UK Channel 4's Babylon is worth a watch, pilot a few months back, series coming in November - beautiful phrases like 'transparent PR' may be an odd man out - plus the brilliant 'Four Lions').

It's possible to think of Allan's dad's  cooperative in modern terms of positive money, block-chain technology to control the accounting and the removal of debt from much of the economy.  But we can also imagine cops turning up and actually doing their job!

[archytas]

Even the coops that are now just shops and a failed bank run by a drug addict Methodist minister were once a rebellion against 'trucking' - over-priced factory shops Moll.  

[Molly]

I don't know that we are doing better.  Not much vetting of issues of sexual abuse by the press, probably for the same reasons that the cops and courts shy away. It is everywhere, and if we wonder why the world is filled with psychos, try to imagine what happens to the psychology of the child abused. Not much chance of living disorder free...

Here in Detroit, the President of the City Council was charged in a civil suit for sexual abuse of a minor boy after efforts by the mother to have criminal charges brought failed.  The guy (city council president) just disappeared without a word, and left the council with that vacancy for several months in the midst of bankruptcy proceedings.  the guy was actually a TV reporter before becoming a politician.  Last seen waiting tables in New York City.  Everywhere.

[archytas]

Here we have a long-running paedophile politician and celebrity abuser saga, amongst a wider problem with failing young kids on CSE.  The first appointment to our "Inquiry" was an 81 tear old judge who was the mother of a possible cover-up perp and also married to a dead judge 'who liked prostitutes in Africa'.  Next up a solicitor living next door but 4 to another likely perp who shared dinner parties with him and was economic with the truth on her relationship with his wife.  Now the excuse is that it is impossible to find an member of the Establishment to run the thing who won't know likely actual or cover up perps - something I both neither believe and which attempts to elide the Establishment problem.  We need non-Establishment investigations.

We have select committee enquiries - in this area it is the home office select committee chair by one Keith Vaz MP.  Vaz has been up to his ears in expenses and undue influence problems, once barred from Parliament for a month (he was previously a Blair flunky).  Sue was an IPCC investigator - she was put on lengthy, tedious enquiries into unimportant matters, including a complaint into an endless thing involving a rugby league paedophile (everywhere!).  In the suicide of a female firearms' officer she found the poor woman had been taking a prescription drug no one near a gun should be allowed - missed by the cops.  The IPCC started with human rights and transparency concerns and is now just another cover up.  To get almost any enquiry, we have to rely on the press whipping matters up - they are best thought of as presstitutes and are severely hampered by libel law.  Jimmy Saville and MP Cyril Smith had to die before we 'heard' of their hundreds of crimes - others like Rolf Harris are being prosecuted as old men.  On television we have CSI - on reality we leave rape kits untested (127 serial rapists in the first 2000 belatedly tested).

I asked who we can tell - promised anonymity, witnesses in a violent drug case start to give evidence from behind a screen only to have their names read out by the court usher - cops regularly start to smear people complaining against them - and all the agencies leak like sieves.  Ann Coffey MP has just produced a report on victims in Greater Manchester, yet there is nothing in it she could not have learned at a conference my team produced at university in 2005 - though I wouldn't knock her for trying and unusually for an MP she has some relevant qualifications and experience.  We have undercover cops sleeping with activist groups they should not be penetrating (argh!) - and teachers who dare not put a plaster on a grazed knee.

Sadly, I have more sense the Paedofinder General will ride ('Monkeydust') than sensible solutions.  Abusers are still released to live in the same street as previous victims.  Africa has seen WW3.  We were months late responding to Ebola - but decades really. I saw two lovely women explaining their plight as survivors, squalor all round two people speaking a foreign language (English) making me wonder how education is supposed to help.

There is potential in new technologies to change all this (or obviously blow ourselves to bits) - yet only one in ten of our politicians even knows how money is created.  We have enquiries made of Vantablack from which no light escapes.  What life are we offering poor young kids who "prefer" to get themselves involved with vile sexual groomers?  Or jihadis who go to Syria?  Or Nigeria with vast oil wealth and boko harem?

How can we offer peace?

[facilitator]

Unfortunately, for mankind, the most peaceful times came under strict rule.  Even the Israelites when things were going well shouted to God, "Give us a King to rule over us!"  They got some good and some vile.

The middle east was a bit calmer when dictators ruled.

[archytas]

This is a good point Tony - though I'm not sure it is true (I just don't know).  One can think of a lot of support - Tito in Yugoslavia, what happened to Cyprus after the Brits left, the break-up of the USSR, Singapore, the current vile dictator in Rwanda, Cyrus the Great in Persia - but Greece and Rome were more barbaric than the so-called Barbarians.

Authority is never as rational as it claims - courtrooms are true Oedipal dramas, economics is no science but rather a religious control fraud - yet women could once not give testimony because they had no testicles of hang onto and they are not so badly treated now.  Has what emancipation and freedom we have arisen under terror dictatorship?  Iraqis used to tell me Saddam at least kept the Mullahs off their backs - but also that before him they were developing a decent modern society, as Iran was before "we" disrupted their democracies with CIA coups.

The shift to new positive ground is very difficult.  One always seems to have to talk to ignorance - a hideous elitist demon arises - we turn Marxism into 'Soviet Paradise' and 'Year Zero', democracy into false promises for the majority vote or to elect the Muslim Brotherhood who will deny future voting - or bully our students with erudite credibility based on a vacuous belief in economics textbooks as pertinent as the Dead Sea Scrolls.  Whilst we call for perverts to be jailed we miss that a dozen released perverts a month commit further perversion - and the more important matter that economic policies make more kids vulnerable to exploitation.  We rail against child abuse, yet have a legal system allowing evidence of shaken baby syndrome that has no scientific basis and convicts the last person with a child.  We have ages of consent, but Polanski still makes films.

We need to be on the high moral ground, yet capable of laughing off the seriousness and zealot's mask.  I can wander into the world of Molly clinging to a tree branch as a young girl and share the wonder too.  Could you paint anything resembling the restrictions on our thought mate?

[Allan]

Iran was a republican coup, may sound strange, as it just dawned on me the republican party does not want a democracy rather a dictatorship which they control.
Power and control that is what a lot of few of the american politicians want and they are using fear (non influential out cast) to control other members of their political party..
Islam when you really look at it is not a religion but a dictatorship that uses fear and religion to control and expand its form of government, the Qur'an is a book book written by horny pedafile  dictators justifying their lustful ways controlling people using fear and terror.  They have done that by eliminating the possibility of spiritual growth, For over 1500 years under the dictatorship of islam,  islam is all about control.

Dictatorships are the way of the rich..

All an
~~
do not murder, rape, enslave or harm others

-----Original Message-----
From: archytas <nwt...@gmail.com>
To: mind...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 4:28 AM
Subject: Re: Mind's Eye Re: Who can we tell?

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[Molly]

Even Ghandi...the problem does seem to be everywhere, but I do agree that we can and should do better by our kids.  Peace, like the notion of empowerment, is not something that can be given.  It is found within and I do believe you have to learn to leave the thoughts behind first.  Sustaining a quiet mind is the first step. LaCasa, or the Lake County Council Against Sexual Assault was independent of the courts and savvy enough to be able to guide the clients through the system, which takes alot of cash to buy attorneys good enough to establish a network in the system (of guys like you Neil) willing to apply the law, leaving out the slime. A fast track, supported by all the non pedophiles willing to put their neck out a little to get it done.  Years if not decades in the making, but if this agency is the first step for a victim, chances are they will find their way out of harms way.Human cooperation at its finest. There was an incredibly talented woman at the head from the beginning, charismatic and bright enough to pull it together and keep it together. In her little corner of the world, it made a difference.  Globally, it is an enormous problem.  When Gruff posted his manifesto here in ME I about fell off my chair.  Like I said, everywhere. Who can we tell? It takes some digging to find agencies like LaCasa and if we are lucky enough, they are nearby to be found.

[archytas]

Good job Vam's not here - it's Gandhi - though I think he has been portrayed as falsely as imperialism.  Missed Gruff's manifesto - Zerohedge Plus I guess.  There is some academic work suggesting Islam was formed in Jerusalem by the invading Berber Jews, copying Rome's use of Xtianity as an imperial control fraud.  This theory places Medina in Syria.

There have been attempts here to provide legal assistance to victims - something almost any victim of our public services needs.  Curate's egg, most results inedible.  Most people I've talked with say the response of the agencies eventually gets worse than the offences.  The victims' group is always denied voice by the agencies because they already know they aren't doing the job - it's not unlike the perverts being able to rely on complaints against them not being collated.  At the same time, I've seen innocent people denied the investigation needed to unearth rogue and repeat false complainers.

[Gabby]

"Peace, like the notion of empowerment, is not something that can be given. It is found within and I do believe you have to learn to leave the thoughts behind first. Sustaining a quiet mind is the first step."

My needle impuls tells me that this is the worst bubble concerning children and grown up children, and it is typically not seen by men who have to be concerned that their penis is showing. I'll get back on this after I've taken another look on how to avoid derailing responses.

[Gabby]

First step: do as the tree does.
( link to manual here: http://77m8.qr.ai )

[Gabby]

Second step: finish the process.

[Gabby]

You won't give a damn about "empowering" children from within.

[archytas]

Kids are kids until some fool empowers them by treating them as young adults in order to view them as choosing a prostitute life-style.  One might consider sending kids to school abuse (they face bullying and academic tortures) but so is keeping them at home away from other kids.  My dogs walk on leads where there is traffic.  The cat is smarter with cars and doesn't have a lead, though I once had a cat that insisted on one.  

[Molly]

There is no doubt that predators look for the people who can be controlled with fear and intimidation.  The root of the English word "empowerment" is power- the ability to do, to accomplish, to perform or enable. The prefix "em" comes from the Latin and Greek, meaning "in" or "within." Empowerment, therefore, can suggest the power within people, the enormous reservoir of creativity, activity and potential contribution that lies within. You can't give, bestow, grant, authorize, delegate or impose empowerment. You create conditions to develop it.

If my next door neighbor turned out to be a pedophile, was making advances toward young children in the neighborhood, and I could not find a means to stop this, I would move. But moving a child to a good neighborhood would not be enough to create the resilience in a child necessary to avert bullies, abusers and the like. You can teach a child life skills, but efficacy includes the ability to act, take initiative, understand the situation.  Self concept and self esteem flourish in an environment that supports them in the early years. Can we teach confidence? Or do we allow it to blossom by how we treat the child as he moves through developmental stages?

In the bigger picture, community organization is key to violence prevention, If the societal laws and how they are applied are not a deterrent to violence, we can, at best, teach our kids to survive it. 

[archytas]

Empowerment is also a management word meaning 'we are about to crap on you from a great height and tell you to be thankful for it'.

Some assumptions render all that follows irrational.  The first research I've found on CSE in French, dates from 1858 and states a massive problem.  If we look at the history we should note what initiatives have been tried, worked and failed - and the history is largely one of failure to stop the widespread problem.  Given we can quickly establish the problem from literature review - which is broadly that we won't pay to deal with the problem and so sweep it under the carpet - announcing an inquiry to "find out what the problem is" seems highly irrational.

[Gabby]

The big picture, that you draw, is very much a U.S. American Republican's view. I know quite a number of people whose aggressivenes gets triggerd by this deliberate choice of imagery. (I'm sure the relief barking will set in later)
Let's see if we can find a common ground for the word "empowerment". The root is English, that's correct, but the modern popularity and usage goes back to the American Julian Rappaport: In praise of paradox. A social policy of empowerment over prevention, in: American Journal of Community Psychology, 9/1981, 1-25 (13), saying: „Having rights but no resources and no services available is a cruel joke.“ I think we can all agree if we don't take a closer look at our rights, but assume we have them.
As for moving, if you cannot protect innocent children - this would still be a taboo in our German context, even if we wanted to do the same. We have left innocent Jews to the apparatus, we have no excuse left. It is the alledged pedophiles who have to be protected in our communities, or they have to move elsewhere, no laws and law enforcement could do something about that.
But you know what, I believe your call for a kid's survival training is more of an anti-Democrat, Republican demagogy than a real call! :) Am I right?

[Molly]

It is important to agree on terms when conversing.  This from the Free Dictionary:

em·power·ment n.

Usage Note: Although it is a contemporary buzzword, the word empower is not new, having arisen in the mid-17th century with thelegalistic meaning "to invest with authority, authorize." Shortly thereafter it began to be used with an infinitive in a more general waymeaning "to enable or permit." Both of these uses survive today but have been overpowered by the word's use in politics and poppsychology. Its modern use originated in the civil rights movement, which sought political empowerment for its followers. The wordwas then taken up by the women's movement, and its appeal has not flagged. Since people of all political persuasions have a need fora word that makes their constituents feel that they are or are about to become more in control of their destinies, empower has been adopted by conservatives as well as social reformers. It has even migrated out of the political arena into other fields. · The UsagePanel has some misgivings about this recent broadening of usage. For the Panelists, the acceptability of the verb empower depends on the context. Eighty percent approve of the example We want to empower ordinary citizens. But in contexts that are not political the Panel is markedly less enthusiastic. The sentence Hunger and greed and then sexual zeal are felt by some to be stages of experiencethat empower the individual garners approval from only 33 percent of the Panelists. The Panel may frown on this kind of psychological empowering because it resonates of the self-help movement, which is notorious for trendy coinages.

I've never been interested in talking politics, and although I've had occasion to work with some, never really affiliated with any party. I will leave any tendency to interpret what I say as an affiliation with a political party up to you.  I really don't have one. I will be excited to see Dave Bing next week when he comes to my place of employment. for a photo shoot, the Democrat who restored integrity to the office of Mayor of Detroit. He took a lot of heat and it took guts to devout the years of his life that he did to turning the city around like a freighter on the river. I really can't speak to your comment about republicans and democrats.

Nice to know pedophiles are prosecuted somewhere.  Congratulations! A system working!

[Allan H]

Conduct an inquiry? Why just listen to the gossip and you will soon know..  better yet ask Neil he knows,, give him all the funds wasted on inquiries and he can s... :-)  

-----Original Message-----
From: archytas <nwt...@gmail.com>
To: mind...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 7:04 PM
Subject: Re: Mind's Eye Re: Who can we tell?

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[Allan H]

Ah, pedophiles they have been in the news including one for soliciting an underage computer image. Personally I am glad to see the aggressive prosecution, I am very proud of the enforcement effort.
I wish I could say it would an honor to be part of the team thing on pedophile but truth is I think it would destroy me. I do give them my full support,

-----Original Message-----
From: Molly <moll...@gmail.com>
To: mind...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 8:26 PM
Subject: Re: Mind's Eye Re: Who can we tell?

It is important to agree on terms when conversing.  This from the Free Dictionary:

em·power·ment n.

Usage Note: Although it is a contemporary buzzword, the word empower is not new, having arisen in the mid-17th century with thelegalistic meaning "to invest with authority, authorize." Shortly thereafter it began to be used with an infinitive in a more general waymeaning "to enable or permit." Both of these uses survive today but have been overpowered by the word's use in politics and poppsychology. Its modern use originated in the civil rights movement, which sought political empowerment for its followers. The wordwas then taken up by the women's movement, and its appeal has not flagged. Since people of all political persuasions have a need fora word that makes their constituents feel that they are or are about to become more in control of their destinies, empower has been adopted by conservatives as well as social reformers. It has even migrated out of the political arena into other fields. · The UsagePanel has some misgivings about this recent broadening of usage. For the Panelists, the acceptability of the verb empower depends on the context. Eighty percent approve of the example We want to empower ordinary citizens. But in contexts that are not political the Panel is markedly less enthusiastic. The sentence Hunger and greed and then sexual zeal are felt by some to be stages of experiencethat empower the individual garners approval from only 33 percent of the Panelists. The Panel may frown on this kind of psychological empowering because it resonates of the self-help movement, which is notorious for trendy coinages.

I've never been interested in talking politics, and although I've had occasion to work with some, never really affiliated with any party. I will leave any tendency to interpret what I say as an affiliation with a political party up to you.  I really don't have one. I will be excited to see Dave Bing next week when he comes to my place of employment. for a photo shoot, the Democrat who restored integrity to the office of Mayor of Detroit. He took a lot of heat and it took guts to devout the years of his life that he did to turning the city around like a freighter on the river. Like skin color, religion or citizenship, I don't don't hold many preconceived notions to a persons political persuasion when relating to them, so really can't speak to your comment about republicans and democrats.

Nice to know pedophiles are prosecuted somewhere.  Congratulations! A system working!

On Sunday, November 2, 2014 1:28:13 PM UTC-5, Gabby wrote:

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[Molly]

I befriended one of the LaCasa employees that worked with children in groups and took disclosures.  She eventually became a police officer, hoping it would be less stressful. I think it probably was.If the network is large enough, no one burns out.  Trouble is, it is rarely large enough.  I think people have the need to look away from this problem more than any other.

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[archytas]

Gabby makes some important points - seem to remember the 81 paper but there were many,  Dictionaries don't really help here - nor the hermeneutics of 'finding the original copy' - German sin is exemplified in the Jewish Numbers 31 and so on across genocides and the concentration camp as a business tactic in such as 'red rubber'.  Primitive societies tell us their wars are based on revenge - though they always involve resource grabs (land, hunting, women, children).  We seem to have merely managerialised this.

The demand for social services and welfare is much greater than we admit, extending into such issues as why we have been so stupid to expand the human population in tripling it in my lifetime, global warming, pollution and the crass failures of "education".  One might think one could at least focus on 'the abuse next door' - but I have to say when this came along in my life Sue and I failed and found the agencies and politicians much worse than useless.  The ultimate standard of morality would have been to shoot the parents and do the time - had one been able to rely on the agencies looking after the kids rather than doing a worse job.

The resource issues are not insurmountable though they are within our stupid economic system.  Even to talk of this is more or less heresy - and look what we prefer to do - speak of young kids preferring a 'prostitute lifestyle' and hear politicians talking about the few cases in which abused children hit the care jackpot.  The ages of consent across the West were often created in response to child prostitution.  The first law of innocents I know of comes from Dark Age Scotland and I am by no means sure what the improvements since have been.

The specific social services resource issue was discussed in the 1950's in terms of concentric circles - one could only focus on a small number of the worst cases in a much wider circle of need.  Only 10% of kids killed by parents in the UK are actually known to social services in the sense of being subject to a care order.  The costs of admitting a problem soon spiral and following the money one soon realises little actually gets spent on the kids.  Gabby raises the issue that it is cruel to promise solution when we have no intent of funding what's needed.  In terms of sufficient numbers of people to do most of what is needed there is no problem - we just create a system which prevents money-resourcing.

We have, of course, pumped trillions into subsidy of manufacturing and banks over the years - these areas supposedly thrusting self-reliant genius competitors - and very little into what we call welfare - we 'police' Afghanistan and Iraq making things much worse but do almost nothing for our own victims.  There are answers.

[gabbydott]

Again your interpretation. I meant to have politely replied: What is your context?

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[archytas]

Needless  to say.

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[gabbydott]

Ah ja? I'm not so sure.

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[archytas]

Context is difficult with you Gabby, partly on enigmatic grounds (I mean the term nicely) on your expression.    I'm broadly probing the legitimation crisis.  We have reached a point when politicians promising change need to be greeted with shouts of 'apple juice'.  We lack public context on economic matters even though technology could give us an economics we could use as we use washing machines or drive cars.  Instead of this we have perverse resource allocation and devolved budgets to ration services that revictimise victims through the false promise of help, which is really going to be the denial of the complaint and exposure of complainants to more harm.  Meanwhile the problems grow under the pretence we are dealing with them.  We might learn about data and evidence in an examination of this.  We don't seem prepared to do so.

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[archytas]

Enigmatic can mean any of  mysterious, puzzling, hard to understand, mystifying, inexplicable, baffling, perplexing, bewildering, confusing, impenetrable, inscrutable, incomprehensible, unexplainable, unfathomable, indecipherable, Delphic, oracular; ambiguous, equivocal, paradoxical, sibylline, unaccountable, insoluble, obscure, elliptical, oblique; arcane, abstruse, recondite, secret, esoteric, occult, cryptic; informal - as clear as mud

The enigmatic is seen by some as rude,  None of this is how I think of Gabby, though she can touch a few bases.  Mutual understanding is not a bad context - though a long way from nodding donkey consensus.

[Molly]

You mentioned previously, Neil that there are answers.  I took it to mean alternate economies for the globe. I would love to be able to do things differently and don't see a place to invest or even put money where it isn't grabbed (negative interest coming soon to a theater near you.) What are the alternatives available to an average schmo like me?

[archytas]

There is practical stuff about.  Everything I've looked at has the same problems we might find in an IPO prospectus' positive spin.  Microfinance is the classic - looks good, seems practical and yet probably has overall negative effects and alarming corruption - http://wer.worldeconomicsassociation.org/papers/microfinance-and-the-illusion-of-development-from-hubris-to-nemesis-in-thirty-years/

Andrew has just emailed me to say 'bickering' has prevented him posting something on Bitcoin.  Combinations of virtual currencies (I know of more than 80) and crowd sourcing have their temptations - though the recent South Park episode 'Go Fund Yourself' should not be ignored.  We've had timebanks and local economic transfer schemes (LETS) - some quite big like the Swiss Wir - and communes of one kind or another.

The main issue is our ignorance on money - perhaps even our idea of investment and interest.  Nothing seems safe - my Cooperative Bank being "ethically run" by a drug-crazed, prostitute-using Methodist with no relevant qualifications.  I'll try to explain, but it's chocolate biscuit comfort time here.

[Molly]

I don't see any practical means of doing things differently and am open, although have seen what folks have to say about Bitcoin and have no interest in rehashing.  Like the workplace, if we are hell bent on pushing our own agendas over the continuation of the group or examination of ideas then it all falls apart.

Something practical is needed and until then I don't see the world turning to something new.  I've taken my share of risks and had my share of wins and failure. Not really looking to risk anymore.  Would just like a viable path to invest in my own (ever limited) future on the planet. Beyond that, the giving decisions are much easier for me.

[archytas]

More or less complete agreement on all that Molly.  A few quid over can go to Medecins Sans Frontieres or whatever - I used to try and do what I could on the ground when travelling.

The focus on Bitcoin though has largely been on the wrong issues - and I'd say much the same is true on Modern Monetary Theory and Positive Money.  Most people enter such debate in ignorance of its long history - I can find quotes 100 years old that we would be better off with a couple of honest adding machines than the banking system (Fred Soddy the Nobel chemist and a governor of the BoE in 1920).  Bitcoin just replaces the term 'honest adding machine' - and it must be obvious the problem is more 'honesty' than 'adding machine'.  The hundred year old term was 'lytric system' - maybe fortunately forgotten.

You'd think a couple of hundred quid in a micro-finance scheme in by the Coop Bank (with fine origins) would be 'safe'.  Losing the money is hardly the issue (this didn't happen) - what got to me was lack of any sensible reporting on whether the scheme was working for real people.

The answers are to do with some kind of 'honest electronic currency' - the essential problems being we have to shed a lot of ideology and ignorance and produce a currency we can drive democratically and spiritually.  This is explicable - but I have no doubt anyone trying is going to be subject to the Inquisition of the dominant control fraud religion - words not much use to us when we try to get some local action going.  The answers (at least signposts) come out in consideration of 'deep money' - tough to discuss when people have almost no understanding how money is created as interest-bearing loans by banks.  Money some of us think we have worked to store is another problem - almost none of it has been produced by the hard work of those with the positive accounts - accounts we don't actually need to have money as we can create this 'out of thin air'.

Even this preamble is too shocking for most - though I doubt most here can easily see why, despite this introduction to money being accurate and 'bleeding obvious' once told about it.  Nietzsche told us bourgeois morality was essentially based on being able to send the boys round to recover debts - the shock potential of enquiry into what money is is even more shocking.

In terms of the theme 'who can we tell' one might look at this Rolling Stone article and think of the whistle-blower as a victim of child sexual exploitation - http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-9-billion-witness-20141106

It may be our 'personal' money-stores have already been stolen and the need for positive money is closer than we think.  Hardly anyone knows enough to discuss the positive, let alone know the answers are very old indeed.  

[archytas]

Meanwhile, in Gabbyland, the near-mainstream tells us some truth - http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/capitalism-in-crisis-amid-slow-growth-and-growing-inequality-a-998598.html -  though no answers, other than the implied one we might wake up and smell the financial reality.

[Molly]

Good article but short on practical solutions for the little guy. If comprehensive AND honest change does occur, my socks will be so knocked off my toes will rebel forevermore. 

[Allan]

I think your socks and toes are safe, for economic change to occur people would have to take responsibility,, i do not see that happening anytime soon if ever.

But i think small groups will  take responsibility. Most people are escapist by nature.


All an
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do not murder, rape, enslave or harm others

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[archytas]

The longer-term way forward is a shift from economics to something like science fiction prototyping.  We could start straight away on practical projects.  Economics is the big Catch 22 - we need to embrace positive money for this and recognise we can learn to control it as we go along.  The trick lies in recognising none of it is rocket science or particularly technical.

[Allan]

Do we get on the same page. What do you view as positive money,?

All an
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do not murder, rape, enslave or harm others

-----Original Message-----

From: archytas <nwt...@gmail.com>
To: mind...@googlegroups.com

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[archytas]

For me Allan, positive money goes back to Aristotle noticing money is a convention and that it could disappear tomorrow.  More recently, say the last 100 years, it has more to do with recognising banking evil in the issue and control of money - 97% of our money is created as interest-bearing loans by banks, still an amazing open secret as most people don't know. A cursory look also shows us taxes are not really what we think either.  In the UK the stuff is written up as 'Positive Money', in the States as Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) - what both mean is that we could create an economy without banks as we currently have them and issue our own debt free money.  I personally take leave of the monetary theorising at this point, as it all tends to stay wrapped up in establishment ideology that needs working out first.  What we have is a statement of the 'bleeding obvious' most people haven't even considered and have been educated not to know (only one in ten of our MPs knew banks create 97% of our money).

Positive Money is the way forward.  Technology could now help us make economics and money creation and control something we could 'drive like a car'.  There is no real need to 'go crypto' in this like Bitcoin, and there is a long history of local currencies, but there is technology to decide on.  What we need in mind in trying to discuss all this is that we are not trying to produce 'a new economics just like the old economics', and to remember the 'old economics' has never quite been 'as it says on the tin' and is very, very nasty, merely 'war by other means'.

Failing to realise positive money is political and not just science is currently the key ideological mistake - one made over and again in the history of positivisms.  Whilst I see plenty of theorists saying they pay attention to social science wider than economics it's obvious even to a journeyman like me they don't.  Just on one point, this is not about what a few of us might do with any spare money or investment - it challenges even the ideological ground the money is 'ours' through such as hard work, inheritance, speculation in gold or Bitcoin and so on - perhaps even money accumulation.  What we want is to create money of decent, worthwhile projects - not a system in which various rich turds utilise our best engineers to take celebrities to the edge of space or like Mugabe buy Mercedes for his entourage.  This latter stuff is not intended (by me) as a 'kill button', but to raise questions on how we will deal with corruption and theft.

[Molly]

Whatever works as a system will need to work for the individual.  It is possible to live debt free to the extent that credit (or debit) cards are used as tools and interest isn't ever necessary.  Possible to own tangibles as net worth that increase value over time without dedicating a portion to any other but the inevitable taxes. But unless we go back to stuffing our mattresses some of our money must reside in bank accounts where bwankers leverage it over and over. Saving for retirement or a rainy day or a boon for our family after we go presents myriad problems on how to keep the money clean and accessible. Any positive money system will need to offer this opportunity to those who don't wish to enter into the temple of the money changers.

[Allan]

Okay, the US was once on the gold standard years ago,  in theory US monetary system is government controlled. Politics and banking have devalued currency worldwide.

My question is how can control be regained? It seems an extremely difficult problem. I see the possibility in a self reliant community(s)

As for Bitcoin  years ago I wanted to use it for selling jewelry, it was just starting.. but I was not allowed to buy or have an buffoon account. I could make jewelry exchanging it for bit . It value was around $1 per coin ,, The problem as I see it the bitcoin bankers were afraid of loosing control. Or they had not mined (created) enough bitcoins yet. The real problem as I see it is bitcoins are still being created today, translated it is saying if you need buffoons just make counterfeit some because it is perfectly legal. Nough said.

Allan
Living Soul

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[archytas]

The bwankers are not necessary in positive money - though some kind of accounting and resource allocation is.  The way to do this could be embodied in machines.  Much of the thought experiment that we could do positive money demands reflection on current practices.  Many of us have been brought up in the ideologies of thrift, saving, jawbs-groaf and the efficacy of our economic system (which almost no one can explain) and self-reliance through individualism.  Much, maybe all of this, may not be true.

Imagine we create several billion to deal with child sexual exploitation and successfully eradicate it.  Mugabe creates similar billions and spends them on his entourage and mistresses.  Indonesia does the same to fund an expansion in its CSE 'industry'.  There is no cure for such lunacy in knowing we do not have to let banks issue money as debt.  There are indeed myriad problems - though we may be assuming the wrong ones in our ideological incompetence-indoctrination.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rK0De210TBQ - economics needs frequent diversion onto comedy

[archytas]

Bitcoin per se isn't more than a basic tutor on what money might be, reminding us we have little clue about banking dominance.

Current economics makes it almost impossible to think of taking on worthwhile projects like stopping child abuse, building affordable homes, going green and so on.  I see people making safe livings talking about it all - but very early on you can see the resourcing issues being fudged.  I might once have walked into a family home to take a rape complaint not knowing if the complaint was genuine or actually an attack on the alleged perpetrator with thoughts of providing a decent investigation and support.  One soon realises this is not the 'name of the rose'.  Resourcing is the real issue and more or less nothing you want to do will have been budgeted.  Worse than this, the spend needed is a money-pit designed to feed very expensive 'professionals'.

The real problem in providing social justice is our money system.  We have the technical means to create another one and plenty of people to do the work.  Yet it seems we prefer to maintain the existing establishment and talk of what we should do with no intention of ever funding it.  Let's talk virtue ethics - more wine slave and bring me one or two of those sex slaves - er - I mean flute girls.  Whilst we maltreat thousands of victims across our societies, police maintain an 86% satisfaction rate.  The ways forward are actually obvious, the problem being this makes them easy to block.

Meanwhile we have such important developments as 'Bitcoin cafes' - where you can pay a machine a fee to change dollars to Bitcoin to buy 'coffee'.

[archytas]

The first thing to consider on positive money or MMT won't be found through Google search - plenty will come up to tell you what they are.  The key thing is that we have had positive money for centuries, but we don't have democratic control of it.  We always manage positive money to fund wars and have recently spent a great deal of it bailing out banks.  What we really need is a system that funds what we should sensibly do.  

Clearly a world in which we all investigate and prevent CSE is going to die - as we forget to supply water, food and shelter.  Map making is a good thing until you have a society full of people with nothing to exchange except maps.  Current 'maps' include mobile phone toys, financial instruments and developments of the 1950's X15 so we can have episodes of celebrity uninteresting from near space.  In this society, we have to buy enough plastic crap to build a society strong enough economically to pay for social justice.  We are up against something like a religious inquisition in trying to say this publicly, other than as satire.

Imagine trying to do anything in this material world without paying towards the massive accumulation of private debt as "rent" - a term that really covers up slavery and indenture.  If you think this is theoretical, then put yourself in the place of the hundreds of cops, care workers, lawyers and politicians in Rotherham covering up 100 cases of child sexual exploitation every year and how two cops come to think of their job being to threaten a young female researcher with exposure to the perpetrators.  Positive money is a way round this, but remember sooner or later we want money that actually spends in wider society on our needs and foibles.  We need 'what goes around comes around' thinking - and if we start hoarding positive money through our fees and so on these accumulations become a new rent.

Positive money drawn from thin air for projects democratically decided (as locally, communally as possible) leaves the Rothschilds with what?  What if we could only spend money from positive projects, commercial and public, treating existing hoards to re-evaluation as social capital not economic rents?  We could do this through positive projects, though Soviet Paradise lurks as a severe warning.  The point is not Utopia - but rather understanding the existing economics of not being able to do the right things.  Most people think money cannot be created from thin air - yet it already is by banks.  

Meanwhile we have massive unemployment and under-employment whilst there is obviously much to do.  I seem to have waited a lifetime as a cog in the wheel of putting this right as it has got progressively worse.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/<w

...

[Allan H]

Actually the coop idea is positive money
Creating "the Church of Cooperation" would allow for legal entity that can have non ownership and be able own property for the benefit of coop membership and the community.

Creating a church is not that difficult, say possibly the belief in an Allfather a power greater  than ourselves . . A March for greater understanding of this being, learning to work with him/her, not the manipulation of this being for personal gain or benefit. With minimized guidelines, belief in the Allfather,  (freewill interpretation ). Do not murder, rape, enslave or harm others. Donation of funds and time.. (tax deductible)
Nothing difficult ..  it would allow the Coop to buy and rent property,,  all for the spiritual and physical benefit of membership and community.

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[archytas]

Positive money is really only the agreement to 'print some' and spend-share it in an agreed way Allan, so it would apply to most coops deciding on their own currency.  The idea though is a challenge to current monetary systems and reliance on banks.

We could, say, decide to print money to pay to eradicate the failures in child sexual exploitation in Rotherham.  There is no shortage of people to do this, only other resources.  We might go much further and provide an EU/USA-wide job guarantee scheme to work on many projects.  This raises many questions concerning what our existing money system really is, including what right the rich have to their money and what they are doing to the rest of us and the planet through their control of it.

Currently, people are more likely to buy a salacious bondage novel.  One could write one and retire.  Positive money asks us to think about getting better things done.

For more options, visit <a href="https://groups.google.com/d/optout" target="_blank" onmousedown="this.href='https://groups.google.c

...

[andrew vecsey]

Niel, you would also have to convert dollars to Swiss Francs if you wanted to buy coffee in a Swiss coffee shop. Money, in order to be "honest", needs to be trusted, adopted, difficult to forge, scarce, and easy to carry around and divide into small amounts. Decentralized crypto currencies like Bitcoin seems to me to be the best and only candidate at the present time.     
Molly, I think it would be much safer to store your "money" in your secret place than in vault of greedy criminal banksters. 

On Monday, November 10, 2014 3:03:55 AM UTC+1, archytas wrote:

Bitcoin per se isn't more than a basic tutor on what money might be, reminding us we have little clue about banking dominance.......Meanwhile we have such important developments as 'Bitcoin cafes' - where you can pay a machine a fee to change dollars to Bitcoin to buy 'coffee'.

[Allan H]

Bit coins are nothing but counterfeit money created with a mining program. Almost banksters looks mean bitcoinster. What you are talking about is legal counterfeiting with no controls..
I have an laptop. I will sell them to you for current Euro value I will even take Swiss francs anything but bucking..if they are so valuable it should be no problem for you..

Luv free money.

-----Original Message-----
From: andrew vecsey <andrew...@gmail.com>
To: mind...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 11:24 AM
Subject: Re: Mind's Eye Re: Who can we tell?

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[archytas]

I'm more with Andrew on this one Allan.  We have a debate on positive money in the UK Parliament this month.  The actual aim of PM is to establish democratic control on money printing instead of ceding it to the banks and rich.  In the MMT version we could even do away with taxes and the use of monetary policy through unemployment and austerity.

We have long been able to make fuel from thin air - the snag is one has to put a lot more energy in than what comes out as petrol, ammonia and so on - in this economic system it is cheaper to mine coal, drill oil, frack gas because we don't account for pollution and planet burning.  We let people amass money and buy politicians with it.  All this is clearly immoral but we don't seem to care.

PM and new tech controls could be a way round the current impasse - and it could start with some practical projects designed to get the proportionality of the system right and find that transparency that prevents corruption.  Just as in child sexual exploitation, a big question is who can we tell?  The current system is a dreadful mess, but we like to pretend it isn't.  If we dislike the Bitcoin of Silk Road we should also see the banks are admitting to gross money-laundering.

The essential control of positive money is that one commits to do work for it.

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[andrew vecsey]

Who do you tell when you witness child sexual exploitation? Tell everyone and act to stop the abuse by separation. If you know that there is an abuser, let everyone know and try to prevent the abuser from abusing. Bank exploitation and their consumer brainwashing is easier to uncover and easier to stop. It can be done with people`s wallets, especially when they are Bitcoin Wallets.  

On Monday, November 10, 2014 1:06:56 PM UTC+1, archytas wrote:

........... Just as in child sexual exploitation, a big question is who can we tell?  ...

[Molly]

Sure this is what we tell our kids, Andrew, but there is a real systems failure both in the US and UK (would like to know where there isn't besides Germany) about reporting, charging and successfully prosecuting the offenders. (discussed ad nauseam above.) But don't let that stop you from trying, certainly. Positive money went a long way in the US recovery from the most recent recession, and it will be interesting to see what happens when the next bubble bursts. But there are a great many critics of quantitative easing and if tied to a product or labor as Neil suggests, might get us back to the original trade or barter system. Selling and reselling assets, leveraging them for loans that create debt service communities cannot afford, raiding coffers were all part of the demise of Detroit recently, and widely accepted banking practice. Easy to uncover and stop? I'd say not. The feds spent almost a decade building their case in Detroit and I am not sure why, like in Neil's Rolling Stone article, they didn't just walk away unless there was an unrevealed vendetta (wouldn't be surprised.) None of this is going to get us ahead into a more honest system until, like Allan suggests, people take responsibility and refuse to accept the current BS models. Haven't seen that happen anywhere.

[Molly]

"The essential control of positive money is that one commits to do work for it."  Around here, we call that a paycheck.

[archytas]

Much sense there Molly - much as I wish Andrew's solution was real.  Australia has a Royal Commission into CSE - our supposedly most intense form of public inquiry.  Places like India, Pakistan, South Africa (one child raped every three minutes) and Zimbabwe top the list.  We estimate more than one in two hundred Britons are paedophiles and half a million babies born in the US this year will be subject to CSE before they are 18.  Germany had a wave of publicity some years back and had a 'round table plan' in 2011 thought to be little implemented.  $133 million was promised for victims' therapy, but Bavaria was the only one of 16 states that coughed up last time I looked.  Global incidence seems to be 8% for boys and 20% for girls.  So even when we speak up, little effective happens.

Paychecks are only part of the velocity of money - some of the spend leaves us with infrastructure and the social capital to do stuff - though we obviously need them in one form or another.  You'd think the paycheck thing would be really easy - yet here a lot of research and project money for universities comes in a form where you have to ask academics to work for nothing.  Strangely enough, they don't.  You wouldn't think anyone could be this stupid managerially, but they are.

The PM and MMT people are paranoid in reception of criticism by the way.  Molly's good sense fair criticism would get her on their hit list.  Think of a job guarantee come fair welfare for those disabled or too knackered.  Who would then want zero hours contracts and the sweat shop?  What would that mean for such as competitive advantage?  What would we do about countries keeping sweat shops and child abuse to keep the cost of their goods cheaper?

We need joined up knock on thinking of these matters and proper reception of criticism.  PM/MMT doesn't lead to mega-inflation - though here I would stress we don't really know what QE has done, let alone what a system of non-debt money might.  Our general ignorance on economics is almost total - but I'd include economics graduates in that sample.  We need a shift from common sense to good sense (a distinction drawn by Gramsci) - most of the technical language in the area is really just ideology, often delivered by laughable bimbos of all sexual identity in politics and newsrooms as though coverage is balanced and objective.

Who can we tell when even the Germans (now really the most modern economy and best educated populace) set up chattering shops where there is no attempt to provide the resources to do anything timely and over history nothing at all except to publish blandishments that we are 'doing the business'.  Here, Lancashire police (there are 43 forces in England) have the best reputation on CSE (I worked with them as a consultant) and yet were tonight disclosed to be up to the same cover up tricks (on Panorama) as everyone else.  Remember, that just as we fail to cough up $133 million for part of one country's problem, we have been loading trillions of "positive money" into the continuation of practices banks now get fined for and various wars.