tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60163638276166603912024-03-13T23:15:00.583-07:00Integral ReflectionsIntegral Reflections offers an extension of the ideas presented in "Holism and Complementary Medicine." These include the will to healing at personal, social, spiritual and environmental levels, the discussion of textual sources from which intellectual and spiritual nourishment can be drawn, the maintenance of a watching brief on the turbulent currents that course through the present times, and the exploration of poetic consciousness as a transmitter of the deeper dimensions of human experience.Vincent Di Stefanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559307846832090756noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6016363827616660391.post-70312711816392156372021-09-09T02:11:00.001-07:002021-09-09T02:13:02.106-07:00FALLEN LEAVES. An Autumn Chronicle (Issue VI)<p> <br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNxq_DLfs9WtdmlsfolaR2-akk38W4cQ2Ex8Fb4z3jsQB_657egQslbfA-gAaPJwtSzgu-HlKCTNnSm9t4ha-kfi7TgevsI5JfpEv7d4hSoGkdQnxiVGRjDVjBTzOMMxbqC4zsPm1ar4Ri/s554/Padre+Pio+Sorridente+I.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="554" data-original-width="456" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNxq_DLfs9WtdmlsfolaR2-akk38W4cQ2Ex8Fb4z3jsQB_657egQslbfA-gAaPJwtSzgu-HlKCTNnSm9t4ha-kfi7TgevsI5JfpEv7d4hSoGkdQnxiVGRjDVjBTzOMMxbqC4zsPm1ar4Ri/w329-h400/Padre+Pio+Sorridente+I.jpg" width="329" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">The full PDF of <i>Fallen Leaves. An Autumn Chronicle VI</i> can be accessed <a href="https://archive.org/details/fallen-leaves-vi" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></b> <br /></p><p>Padre Pio of Pietrelcina is one of the most remarkable men of the 20th century. As discomforting as it may be to many, the life of Padre Pio profoundly reflects the essential truth carried in the Christian understanding of human embodiment. As one who bore the wounds of the crucified Christ, he shares this witness with others such as St. Francis of Assisi and Therese Neumann, each of whose lives challenged the certainty of what had been considered to be the limits of the possible.</p><p>This edition of <i>Fallen Leaves</i> carries a short reflection on the life and work of Padre Pio, including an English-language translation of his "Prayer for Healers."</p><p>Fallen Leaves VI also offers a substantive essay detailing the lesser-known consequences of the US nuclear tests carried out in the Marshall Islands during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Particular attention is given to the experience of the inhabitants of Rongelap Island who endured massive radiation exposure after the "Castle Bravo" thermonuclear test in 1954.</p><p>This edition also carries a review of "Operation Protective Edge", the 7-week long assault on the people of Gaza by the Israeli Defense Force in 2014 along with some reflections by Israeli journalist Gideon Levy.</p><p>Fallen Leaves VI also includes a wide-ranging personal reflection on contemporary biomedicine prompted by a visit to a large Melbourne hospital, and two short poetic pieces.<br /><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTwlgzP3p7n0rcakbWsLksS2eVkWr6ZtG1-iRwkd5811uBU94AeRR6H8jPec0yZc-c88SYj4s2ZcG-_OKI7_n7F6W8VrQgzQpYLXUOAG95kSU00CahvaiUvW-fAAcHN3xcQkSnGSSBF7oQ/s554/Padre+Pio+Sorridente+I.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="554" data-original-width="456" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTwlgzP3p7n0rcakbWsLksS2eVkWr6ZtG1-iRwkd5811uBU94AeRR6H8jPec0yZc-c88SYj4s2ZcG-_OKI7_n7F6W8VrQgzQpYLXUOAG95kSU00CahvaiUvW-fAAcHN3xcQkSnGSSBF7oQ/w164-h200/Padre+Pio+Sorridente+I.jpg" width="164" /></a></div><br />Below is a listing of the contents of <i>Fallen Leaves VI</i>:<p></p><p>1. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina. Healer for a Broken Time<br />2. In Search of Deeper Healing<br />3. When Protectors Become Destroyers. On the Ruining of Rongelap<br />4. Of Early Departures. Querying Padmasambhava<br />5. Wasting Gaza Further<br />6. Haiku Trilogy </p><p><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">The full text of Fallen Leaves V can be viewed or downloaded as a PDF from: <a href="https://archive.org/details/fallen-leaves-vi">https://archive.org/details/fallen-leaves-vi</a></span></b></p>Vincent Di Stefanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559307846832090756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6016363827616660391.post-63526061206864140232021-08-03T01:13:00.000-07:002021-08-03T01:13:13.763-07:00FALLEN LEAVES. An Autumn Chronicle (Issue V)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9eR8IRmR_PpL3zgdN2xqxwf_W7uk6snCrFzPdBnkKBh4QSYNPsuZ4mpNhqYkkv-LzXcVlKrvpaZRK93JDKR3fP3tISVTuje4WhR0e89bSDIAIvpOF2DXO5wZZSN7sdVGhiAzdtERTH_BQ/s345/manjusri.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="345" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9eR8IRmR_PpL3zgdN2xqxwf_W7uk6snCrFzPdBnkKBh4QSYNPsuZ4mpNhqYkkv-LzXcVlKrvpaZRK93JDKR3fP3tISVTuje4WhR0e89bSDIAIvpOF2DXO5wZZSN7sdVGhiAzdtERTH_BQ/s320/manjusri.jpg" width="278" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"> <b><span style="color: #0b5394;">The full PDF of <i>Fallen Leaves. An Autumn Chronicle V</i> can be accessed <span style="color: #990000;"><a href="https://archive.org/details/fallen-leaves-v" target="_blank">here</a></span>.</span></b></p><p>The muses are presently poised between a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mccKiZ9AfE" target="_blank"><i>Requiem for the Species</i></a> and a <a href="http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/55185" target="_blank"><i>Symphony for the Great Turning</i></a>. The song that our children hear will be determined by decisions made and decisions avoided during the first two decades of the new millennium.</p><p>This fifth edition of <i>Fallen Leaves</i> carries substantive reflections on the life and work of two American teachers and activists, Wendell Berry and Sr. Miriam MacGillis. Both are committed to the work of recovering ways of living on the earth that are more attuned to the needs, the sensitivities, and the limits of a planet whose biosphere has been seriously damaged. This edition also carries commentary on the abortive and largely inconsequential UN Climate Conference held in Durban ten years ago.</p><p>Fallen Leaves V also carries three poetic pieces that address several of the core themes that infuse the <i>Fallen Leaves</i> project.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCQ7rmTNtlMdc9g1PQv7cjcObTnWlv2OhyDp-Q05VGH-hMQAJa2qVXN82QCTXDetzpvD-2qjElr8JWEY25iTYEYl2Ie7E5vpJ5Yk5HLgs1OJtPz2-A1k71DeXoN8NXyDl4s9apzbLvv9LQ/s345/manjusri.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="345" data-original-width="300" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCQ7rmTNtlMdc9g1PQv7cjcObTnWlv2OhyDp-Q05VGH-hMQAJa2qVXN82QCTXDetzpvD-2qjElr8JWEY25iTYEYl2Ie7E5vpJ5Yk5HLgs1OJtPz2-A1k71DeXoN8NXyDl4s9apzbLvv9LQ/w174-h200/manjusri.jpg" width="174" /></a></div><p> Below is a listing of the contents of <i>Fallen Leaves V</i></p><p>1. Wendell Berry. Gaining our Souls before we Lose the World<br />2. Terra Calda. A Lament for Darkening Times<br />3. Durban. The Supplication of a Dead Man's Hand<br />4. Glowing Cores<br />5. Sister Miriam MacGillis. Sister of Earth<br />6. Manjusri</p><p><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">The full text of Fallen Leaves V can be viewed or downloaded as a PDF from: <a href="https://archive.org/details/fallen-leaves-v">https://archive.org/details/fallen-leaves-v</a> </span></b><br /></p>Vincent Di Stefanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559307846832090756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6016363827616660391.post-31275569246628014212021-06-27T21:14:00.001-07:002021-06-27T21:15:08.250-07:00FALLEN LEAVES. An Autumn Chronicle (Issue IV)<div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd_1e_Bt4OtoCCP3tQY_4PmoSBm-xKrUs_Uz8DSnpi1lzLc5CbPKHxB8rcfaL5P-xTByZYAvWFHvxRxKjJ-asNqg95L5zNLRmzsqIz_7CnUho6LoGGa_ZvCgDxeSREZGyAn5fsgzPL-M_L/s900/Urban+Homelessness.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="900" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd_1e_Bt4OtoCCP3tQY_4PmoSBm-xKrUs_Uz8DSnpi1lzLc5CbPKHxB8rcfaL5P-xTByZYAvWFHvxRxKjJ-asNqg95L5zNLRmzsqIz_7CnUho6LoGGa_ZvCgDxeSREZGyAn5fsgzPL-M_L/s320/Urban+Homelessness.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>The full PDF of <i>Fallen Leaves. An Autumn Chronicle (Issue IV)</i> can be accessed <span style="color: #a64d79;"><a href="https://archive.org/details/fallen-leaves-iv" target="_blank">here</a></span>.</b> </span><br /></div><div><p></p><p>We tend as a society to remove from sight those realities that may disturb our sense of order, of control, of comfort, of civilised pleasantness. It is very tempting to arrange things so that one lives a predictable and well-cushioned life shielded from the human wreckage that lies just beneath the surface. Yet something as simple as spending an hour or two in a railway carriage outside of peak hour in any major city can reveal how wafer-thin the veneer of social order and civility can be. The surprising number of young people begging for food and money in and around the streets of central Melbourne reveals further what lies behind the façade of affluence and self-satisfaction that is everywhere projected. One does not need to walk the streets of Calcutta to know the faces of the dispossessed and the privation and deep need that everywhere burdens the life of so many. </p><p>This fourth edition of <i>Fallen Leaves</i> begins with substantive reflections on two women who understood well the hidden pain below the surface of many lives: the founder of the <i>Sisters of Charity</i>, Mother Teresa of Calcutta; and the philosopher/activist-turned mystic, Simone Weil. <i> </i></p><p><i>Fallen Leaves IV</i> also carries a substantive review of the work and ideas of eco-theologian Thomas Berry, and a personal reflection on the role of the herbal medicine traditions during this time when biomedicine has effectively claimed all cultural authority in matters of health and disease. <i>Fallen Leaves IV</i> concludes with some thoughts triggered by the remembrance of a night spent some years ago in the ruins of the <i>Temple of Zeus</i> in Agrigento, Sicily. </p><p>Below is a listing of the contents of <i>Fallen Leaves IV</i>:</p><p>1. Where Do We Take Our Instructions?<br />2. Of Poverty and Potency. The Reluctant Mysticism of Simone Weil<br />3. Forgetting Jung's Tree<br />4. Thomas Berry and the Tragic Climax<br />5. The Herbal Medicine Tradition. A Long-burning Torch for Darkening Times<br />6. Learning to Shine Through the Ruins</p><p><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">The full text of <i>Fallen Leaves IV</i> can be viewed or downloaded as a PDF from: <a href="https://archive.org/details/fallen-leaves-iv">https://archive.org/details/fallen-leaves-iv</a></span></b><br /></p></div>Vincent Di Stefanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559307846832090756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6016363827616660391.post-20114385324784734082021-05-25T20:56:00.001-07:002021-06-27T20:15:05.712-07:00FALLEN LEAVES. An Autumn Chronicle (Issue III)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR1Hj1fNJEeDQ_PkltRo2xhyphenhyphenwXiNayg9UHIEB-7vmW7x1nPsOYKvoT1T9UcPM-y7w17jfuJFiQWkfzEd8shEmqge8JZCJpPFPPidmk_Chfr_bnPXqYU5yj2xawAu-d9C2gaoOCOH4yvOZP/s894/Anahata.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="894" data-original-width="894" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR1Hj1fNJEeDQ_PkltRo2xhyphenhyphenwXiNayg9UHIEB-7vmW7x1nPsOYKvoT1T9UcPM-y7w17jfuJFiQWkfzEd8shEmqge8JZCJpPFPPidmk_Chfr_bnPXqYU5yj2xawAu-d9C2gaoOCOH4yvOZP/s320/Anahata.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #3d85c6;">The full PDF of <i>Fallen Leaves. An Autumn Chronicle (Issue III)</i> can be accessed <a href="https://archive.org/details/fallen-leaves-iii" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></b> <br /></p><p>This third edition of <i>Fallen Leaves</i> offers commentary on a range of both contemporary and perennial issues that invite reflection on where we are and where we are going. </p><p>A significant part of this edition is given over to a consideration of the different ways that the arts of healing can be exercised. These include a reflection on the remarkable diagnostic style and capabilities available to practitioners of Tibetan medicine, a revisitation of a number of critiques of biomedicine that were voiced during the time when the various modalities of natural medicine were gaining traction in the Western world both in terms of community support and institutional presence, and a phenomenological reflection on the experience of being admitted to the Emergency Department of a regional Victorian hospital.</p><p><i>Fallen Leaves III</i> also carries reflective commentary on aspects of both the Copenhagen and Cancun climate conferences, a short review of the US style of political/economic/military engagement during the mid-term of Barack Obama's presidency, and musings on a number of other issues.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0jxy7xCxG1z26kMAT47Mta1Kp4M7z7ClCGIwRkBuyWf2Hzh6U2jKjCVBr-SBbFZ64G_pz2Sbio8Z33M7b2HxfnZFDV4HPg4dIcm68-ePzOx-q987BK6EWC0pIN8ykUheTgy79EyYvmnrW/s894/Anahata.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="894" data-original-width="894" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0jxy7xCxG1z26kMAT47Mta1Kp4M7z7ClCGIwRkBuyWf2Hzh6U2jKjCVBr-SBbFZ64G_pz2Sbio8Z33M7b2HxfnZFDV4HPg4dIcm68-ePzOx-q987BK6EWC0pIN8ykUheTgy79EyYvmnrW/w200-h200/Anahata.jpg" width="200" /></a></div> <p></p><p>Below is a listing of the contents of <i>Fallen Leaves III</i>:</p><p>1. The Poetics of Medicine<br />2. On technology and Medicine in a Time of Troubles<br />3. On the Eve of Cancun<br />4. While the Hegemon Caves from Within<br />5. Of Love and Medicine<br />6. On the Cultivation of Discernment</p><p><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">The full text of <i>Fallen Leaves III</i> can be viewed and/or downloaded as a PDF from: <a href="https://archive.org/details/fallen-leaves-iii" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/fallen-leaves-iii </a></span></b><br /></p>Vincent Di Stefanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559307846832090756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6016363827616660391.post-23599544580458852192021-04-14T23:34:00.005-07:002021-06-27T20:17:40.731-07:00FALLEN LEAVES. An Autumn Chronicle (Issue II)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI5khT34WQ004dT9SUzagV8qIVTGPY9Ongj4oQ9w0UMxwTdVJglj-ocGj5kEYZ5E7rmKSa7qNzFvscJXSm1w9v1K7poW3z6M40dD23uuQUXAUc8mJi6U7yji0UIpqVQZgbXAglwU1iXOwJ/s515/Pier+meditation.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="292" data-original-width="515" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI5khT34WQ004dT9SUzagV8qIVTGPY9Ongj4oQ9w0UMxwTdVJglj-ocGj5kEYZ5E7rmKSa7qNzFvscJXSm1w9v1K7poW3z6M40dD23uuQUXAUc8mJi6U7yji0UIpqVQZgbXAglwU1iXOwJ/w400-h226/Pier+meditation.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><b>The full PDF of <i>Fallen Leaves. An Autumn Chronicle (Issue II)</i> can be accessed <a href="https://archive.org/details/fallen-leaves-ii" target="_blank">here</a>.</b></span> <br /></p><p>We have been here long enough now to know that civilisations rise and civilisations fall. Yet it would seem that we have failed to understand the past sufficiently if our perceptions of the present are any indication. We were not here to experience the massive volcanic eruptions that caused the Permian mass extinction event on the earth some 250 million years ago, or the meteoric impact 65 million years ago that brought about a further mass extinction. But poised as we are on the edge of yet another massive extinction of species - this time humanly-caused - we would do well to recover the insights of every developed culture in recorded history regarding the nature of cyclical time, of flux and flow, of waxing and waning, of birthing and burying.</p><p>The convulsions that have wounded and displaced so many in so many ways in recent memory are both qualitatively and quantitatively different to the periodic upheavals that have historically been our human lot. Our expectations regarding future steadiness and the predictability of seasonal cycles are now challenged by the changes brought about by technological-industrial civilisation. We can no longer look to our children's future with the certainty that our parents looked to our own. <br /></p><p><i>Fallen Leaves. An Autumn Chronicle</i> serves to provide considered and reflective commentary on both the practical and the philosophical dimensions of our present circumstances. These explorations may help to clarify the nature of the inner attributes and the outer forces that shape our experiences during this time of growing troubles. </p><p>This second edition of <i>Fallen Leaves</i> includes a substantive critical review of <i>Operation Cast Lead</i>, the three-week long assault on the inhabitants of Gaza by the Israeli military during December 2008/January 2009, a review of the work of Leopold Kohr whose ideas were to have a strong influence on E.F. Schumacher, some reflections on the crooked corporate dealings associated with 2008 global financial crisis, and musings on a number of other issues.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFtFe2mnGessZqs88zkfAEuyFLho6pMPcc8Qa9l2DV6uoiT-mI7WIIetQqfL6YUuJOa36B6H0GiR-_Q5U3g4E2E0HkhuyDgXxOjTdAb9Fha2gZON4c6aPzkcbTDEEmD5_3GAZsXtxoH1Yt/s515/Pier+meditation.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="292" data-original-width="515" height="113" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFtFe2mnGessZqs88zkfAEuyFLho6pMPcc8Qa9l2DV6uoiT-mI7WIIetQqfL6YUuJOa36B6H0GiR-_Q5U3g4E2E0HkhuyDgXxOjTdAb9Fha2gZON4c6aPzkcbTDEEmD5_3GAZsXtxoH1Yt/w200-h113/Pier+meditation.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br /><p>Below is a listing of the contents of <i>Fallen Leaves II</i>:</p><p>1. Must We Do This Every Time?<br />2. Slouching Towards Gaza: Operation Cast Lead and the Dismembering of a People<br />3. On the Folly of Transience<br />4. Dressing Mammon's Wounds II. Feast of the Giants<br />5. On Reconnecting<br />6. Leopold Kohr. Gentle Messenger of Community, Fellowship and Celebration<br />7. On the Need for Another Way</p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>The full text of <i>Fallen Leaves II</i> can be viewed and/or downloaded as a PDF from: <a href="https://archive.org/details/fallen-leaves-ii">https://archive.org/details/fallen-leaves-ii</a><br /></b></span></p>Vincent Di Stefanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559307846832090756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6016363827616660391.post-78296228060751364322021-03-02T01:00:00.002-08:002021-04-14T16:47:18.270-07:00FALLEN LEAVES. An Autumn Chronicle (Issue I)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjopF2ibRGKelDMdYsST1vOeCstSShao_bJhGkcJZAWolevHqv2de1kZJHKKR5HNvhZW3iszZuE5MlrmPBYnV6quxuoha1BYLXpnD9_HkgcnUaIoBYeEAd2k7d6T1HwuGjwofhfRCvq0B1X/s600/Hourglass.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjopF2ibRGKelDMdYsST1vOeCstSShao_bJhGkcJZAWolevHqv2de1kZJHKKR5HNvhZW3iszZuE5MlrmPBYnV6quxuoha1BYLXpnD9_HkgcnUaIoBYeEAd2k7d6T1HwuGjwofhfRCvq0B1X/s320/Hourglass.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;"><b>The full PDF of <i>Autumn Leaves. An Autumn Chronicle (Issue I)</i> can be accessed <a href="https://archive.org/details/fallen-leaves-i" target="_blank">here</a>.</b></span><br /></p><p>Each of us carries particular gifts. Times of high civilisation offer a rare opportunity for us to develop and express those gifts. We take freedom of belief, freedom of choice, freedom of action and freedom of thought for granted. Yet historically, such freedoms are not givens, but have been available only to the few. The fruitful exercise of these freedoms turns on the degree to which we are informed in those areas from which we draw our sense of identity. True freedom presupposes a deep and intimate knowledge of the issues that are central to our lives, and the forces and influences to which they are subject.</p><p></p><p>Each edition of <i>Fallen Leaves. An Autumn Chronicle</i> will hopefully serve to provide a considered and reflective commentary on both the practical and the philosophical dimensions of our present circumstances. This and subsequent editions of <i>Fallen Leaves</i> will explore the idealisms, the cynicisms and the pragmatisms inherent in this time as our sense of certainty begins to fail. These explorations may help to clarify the nature of the inner attributes and the outer forces that shape our experience during this time of growing troubles. Between the lines, these explorations may help to broaden our perception of the nature of the influences that contribute to the creation of both harmony and of strife. </p><p><i>Fallen Leaves</i> offers an ongoing extension of one of the primary principles underlying <i>Holism and Complementary Medicine</i> published in 2006. That principle was clearly stated by eco-theologian Thomas Berry in his <a href="http://thegreatstory.org/ecozoic-era.pdf" target="_blank">Schumacher Society Lecture</a> of 1991:</p><p></p><blockquote><i>It should be especially clear in medicine that we cannot have well humans on a sick planet. Medicine must first turn its attention to protecting the health and well-being of the Earth before there can be any effective human health.</i></blockquote><p></p><p>Contrary to the progressivist fantasy held by so many, it becomes increasingly obvious that we are not on the cusp of a bright and equitable age of universal peace, freedom and abundance for all. It is equally clear that we can no longer depend on a continuation of those rhythms and patterns that perennially sustained earlier civilisations. <br /></p><p>This first edition of <i>Fallen Leaves</i> includes critical and interpretive reflections on the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the phenomenon of <i>Colony Collapse Disorder</i> that caused the death of hundreds of billions of bees in the US and Europe between 2006 and 2008, the hidden human consequences of US and NATO air strikes in Afghanistan, and a number of other issues.</p><p><i>Fallen Leaves I</i> concludes with a substantive review of the ideas presented by environmental historian Colin Duncan in his seminal 2007 essay, <a href="http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/GreenGovernance/papers/Rapid%20Climate%20Change.pdf" target="_blank"><i>The Practical Equivalence of War?</i></a> which addresses the approaching curtailment of taken-for-granted freedoms that we are collectively facing as climate change and its effects begin to gather momentum.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw0MxvSBfHJX-8UW1G5Cp4-EJqy-_By3WWR7I7U3QXuDP1bIiMi8A0GsYSmsisJNL446tcbDRRKXL3jF-iTkghdyH956OreDamzzVh_b4e48N7VD5uRHazvL-2Gg6PXvH4pyUGqMtllev4/s600/Hourglass.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="600" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw0MxvSBfHJX-8UW1G5Cp4-EJqy-_By3WWR7I7U3QXuDP1bIiMi8A0GsYSmsisJNL446tcbDRRKXL3jF-iTkghdyH956OreDamzzVh_b4e48N7VD5uRHazvL-2Gg6PXvH4pyUGqMtllev4/w200-h133/Hourglass.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><p> <br />Below is a listing of the Contents of <i>Fallen Leaves I</i>:</p><p>1. A Minor Manifesto<br />2. Remembering Hiroshima<br />3. The Slow Awakening<br />4. The Rising Dragon<br />5. By Hook or by Crook<br />6. From Silent Spring to Seedless Summer<br />7. Dressing Mammon's Wounds<br />8. There Are No Good Wars<br />9. The Great Bear Awakens<br />10. Wounding Further the Already Wounded<br />11. The Inevitable Fall<br />12. This Peculiar Moment</p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>The full text of <i>Fallen Leaves I</i> can be viewed and/or downloaded as a PDF from: <a href="https://archive.org/details/fallen-leaves-i">https://archive.org/details/fallen-leaves-i</a></b></span><br /></p>Vincent Di Stefanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559307846832090756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6016363827616660391.post-32421623253161972752020-06-03T02:41:00.016-07:002020-07-24T18:28:16.018-07:00HARD RAIN I<br />
<h3 class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="font-size: large;">REMEMBERING TIANANMEN SQUARE AND THE
PRO-DEMOCRACY PROTESTS</span></span></h3>
<span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="font-size: large;">
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">In any given life, there are certain events
that remain firmly imprinted in our memories. I carry an indelible memory of an
evening in late May 1989. I had just returned home from a meeting and my wife
excitedly called me into the television room. On the screen were images of tens
of thousands of young people gathered at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The
English-language commentator was talking about the pro-democracy movement that had
been steadily growing in many Chinese provinces and that was finding its most
dramatic expression among the students and their supporters gathered in
Tiananmen Square. We understood that this was truly an historic moment and
expressed to each other the hope that the Chinese Communist autocracy might
actually be on the point of yielding to the great call for freedom of thought and
action that was so clearly expressed among those gathered at the Square.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Everything changed in the late hours of June 3<sup>rd</sup>.
Deng Xiaoping had commanded that his troops crush the movement using whatever
force was necessary. And crushed it was. The event and its consequences have
been detailed extensively since. The massacre at Tiananmen Square definitively
demonstrated that the methods of State violence instituted by Mao Zedong
remained firmly in place as Communist Party policy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Soon after the events of June 3<sup>rd</sup>
and 4<sup>th</sup>, Australian sociologist Jonathan Unger compiled <a href="https://archive.org/details/remembering-tiananmen-square-and-the-pro-democracy-protests-of-1989" target="_blank">a series of essays</a> written by colleagues and friends detailing the movements throughout
China that had led up to the Tiananmen Square protests and what followed. [1]
Though published in 1991, these essays remain an ongoing testament to a time
when the aspiration for human freedom throughout China took living form, only
to be overturned by powerful forces controlled by the State and then erased as
far as possible from the collective memory of the Chinese people. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">One of the more important understandings to
emerge from this collection of essays is that the young and idealistic students
who gathered in the name of democratic reform were united in their calls for an
end to corruption in government. They also called for the establishment of an
independent press capable of reporting impartially on all aspects of Chinese
life, the creation of an independent judiciary able to reign in government
excesses, and the universal protection of both academic freedoms and the right
to exercise critical thought.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Another of the central messages delivered by
the essays is that the protests were not confined to Beijing, but were part of
a broad-based awakening. They represented a collective reaction to perceived
corruption and incompetence in government, and were a response to the disregard
of the Chinese Communist Party to the aspirations of Chinese citizens for both economic
and political reform. The demonstrations at Tiananmen Square were a living
manifestation of the will of the people of China, emboldened by the courage of
university students and community leaders, to bring an end to the nepotism that
permeated all levels of government and the tight control of individual freedoms
exercised by the Communist Party.</span></div>
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<br />
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">The immediate trigger for the 1989 protests at
Tiananmen Square was the unexpected death of Hu Yaobang, Party General
Secretary and former revolutionary leader. Hu Yaobang had long supported an
easing of the tight controls that constricted many freedoms in China, and supported
the free expression of political, philosophical, and intellectual thought. He
was also a strong advocate of the right of students to gather and to demonstrate peacefully in public spaces. His death on April 15<sup>th</sup>
1989 generated protests throughout China against the regime of Deng Xiaoping.
These protests were actively supported by both officials and by workers – often
in the tens of thousands – in many provinces. But they did not all prove to be
peaceful. One of the essays describes how the student protests in the city of
Xi’an in Shaanxi Province soon after Hu Yaobang’s death in April resulted in
clashes with police in which a number of student protesters were killed. [2]
The violence exercised by the police in the Xi’an protests was but a prelude to
what was soon after to erupt at the hands of the Chinese military in Tiananmen
Square.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Unger’s collection reveals that, contrary to
appearances, China at the time of the pro-democracy demonstrations was not a
unified entity under the Central State. The essays make it clear that local
leaders and many within the general population throughout China were in full
sympathy with the spirit of the protesters. But the support and goodwill of
Chinese citizens was no match for the power of armoured tanks and the ruthless
compliance of heavily armed soldiers. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">The spirit of hope and freedom expressed in
the pro-democracy protests in China in 1989 was brutally stilled before it had
the opportunity to do its work.</span></div>
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<br />
<b><span style="font-size: 11pt;">A CALL TO REMEMBER</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">One of the more powerful retrospective analyses
of the massacre at Tiananmen Square and its consequences is that produced by
the ABC’s <i>Foreign Correspondent</i> for
the 25<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the event in 2014. [3] <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/foreign/tiananmen-australias-witnesses/5498258" target="_blank">In this superbly produced documentary</a>, members of the Australian Embassy in Beijing at the time
were brought back together 25 years later to reflect on their experiences in
May and June 1989. Their individual accounts help provide a detailed mosaic of
what went down at that time. Those interviewed included the Ambassador David
Sadleir, the Defence Attaché Peter Everett, the Economic Counsellor Geoff Raby,
and the Embassy Media Officer Gregson Edwards among others. Their accounts
leave no doubt about the ferocity of the Chinese response to the protests, a
response that has been completely stripped from the historical records in
China. Mention of the event remains absolutely forbidden in all Chinese media. Any
reference to it on the internet is immediately taken down, while harsh punitive
measures are meted out to any in China who would dare to raise the issue. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Those interviewed describe how hundreds of
thousands of PLA members were trucked into Beijing from other provinces in the
days leading up to the massacre. According to Greg Edwards, the soldiers
started shooting indiscriminately into the crowd at around 11 pm on June 3<sup>rd</sup>.
Many were killed and injured in that first volley. Soon after, armoured
personnel carriers “came tearing into the square.” One of them stalled at a
barrier and the crowd descended on it. It was “stopped by a crow-bar in the
spokes, and then set alight.” The soldiers inside were incinerated.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Soldiers in huge numbers then descended into Tiananmen
Square. Their trucks and tanks simply ran over protestors and the crowd was
subjected to indiscriminate machine-gun fire. Edwards recalled: “It’s not known
how many protesters were shot or crushed that night.” The bullets used at
Tiananmen Square were not ordinary bullets, but were designed to shred flesh
when they entered the body. Many who fell were not fatally wounded, but bled to
death within a short time. </span></div>
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<br />
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">By the morning of June 5<sup>th</sup>, the
army had complete control of Beijing. Troops used bulldozers to push bodies
into heaps, doused them in petrol, and then burned them up. According to Peter
Everett, most of the students killed did not die in the actual assault on
Tiananmen Square, but were systematically rounded up by the military and killed
in the weeks following June 4<sup>th</sup>. Many were forcibly removed from
their parents’ houses, taken elsewhere, and executed. The parents received
notices that their children had been “shot while trying to escape” or that they
“fell down the stairs.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">The precise number of those killed as a result
of the Tiananmen Square massacre will never be known with certainty. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-42465516" target="_blank">Recently released documents in the UK</a> reveal that the British ambassador to China at the
time estimated that over 10,000 people - mostly students - were killed in
consequence of the Tiananmen Square action.<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"> </span>[4]</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">The terror unleashed at Tiananmen Square is
not a singular aberration or strategic error on the part of the Chinese
Communist State. Violence has been explicitly built into its structure from the
outset. This sanctioned violence reached extraordinary levels during Mao’s <i>Great Leap Forward</i> and the <i>Cultural Revolution</i> during which
millions of people died. Nor did it end with Tiananmen Square. In the decade
that followed, two groups within China – the Uyghurs of Xinjiang and members of
Falun Gong throughout China - were designated <i>Internal Enemies</i> and thereafter systematically subjected to State
violence. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Chinese history has been re-written for the
Chinese. The events of Tiananmen Square in 1989 appear nowhere on Chinese internet
search engines. History textbooks used by schools in China make no mention of
the massacre. On those few occasions when 1989 is referred to by politicians,
the event is passingly portrayed as a necessary minor intervention to deal with
a small group of agitators whose thought and actions threatened the peace and
prosperity of the Chinese people.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">The suppression of acts that are clearly
unjust but knowingly undertaken at the highest levels of government appears to
be part of the political machinery in China. What has been done with the
history of Tiananmen Square has, in the two decades since, been repeated in the
matter of <a href="https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/china0918_web.pdf" target="_blank">“re-educating” over one million Uyghurs detainees in Xinjiang </a>[5] and
the reported <a href="https://www.victimsofcommunism.org/china-organ-procurement-report-2020" target="_blank">“harvesting” of organs from Falun Gong prisoners of conscience</a> for
use by transplant surgeons throughout China. [6] These activities show the
degree to which Chinese leaders have disregarded their more noble traditions in
the pursuit of control, of power, and of wealth. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">The roots from which the Chinese soul draws
nourishment have lain dormant during the moral winter that China has endured
over the past century, but the perennial turning of seasons is ultimately
unstoppable. The chilling inhumanity exercised in the present age must subside
in its turn. The <i>Wen Yen</i> Commentary
was believed to have been elaborated by the Confucian school over two thousand
years ago. In it, we find the following commentary on the first Hexagram of the
I Ching, <i>Ch’ien/ The Creative</i>:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
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<i><span style="font-size: 11pt;">“The four fundamental attributes of the
Creative are likewise the attributes necessary to a leader and ruler of men. In
order to rule and lead men, the first essential is to have humane feeling
toward them. Without humaneness, nothing lasting can be accomplished in the
sphere of authority. Power that influences through fear works only for the
moment and necessarily arouses resistance as a counter-effect.</span></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 11pt;">On the basis of this conception, it follows
that the mores are the instrument by which men can be brought into union. For
nothing binds people more firmly together than deeply rooted social usages that
are observed because they appear to each member of society as something
beautiful and worth striving for. . . </span></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><i>Furthermore, as the foundation of social life
there must be the greatest possible freedom and the greatest possible advantage
for all. These are guaranteed by justice, which curtails individual freedom no
more than is absolutely necessary for the general welfare. Finally, to reach
the desired goals, there is the fourth requisite of wisdom, manifesting itself
by pointing out the established and enduring paths that, according to immutable
cosmic laws, must lead to success.”</i> [7]</span></div>
</blockquote>
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<br />
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">The principles of just government were
recognised in China even before the birth of Jesus and will hopefully be
meaningfully recovered in the uncertain future that awaits us all. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">However, it would appear that we either learn very
slowly or that the very nature of power and its exercise has an irremediably
corrosive effect on human nature. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">There is a consistent political ethos underlying
the events at Tiananmen Square in 1989, the enforced “re-education” of Uyghurs
and the colonisation of Xinjiang (and Tibet beforehand), and the “disappearing”
of tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners throughout China since 1999.
Elements of this ethos with its undercurrents of secrecy, suppression, and “control
of the narrative” remain active and visible in the present day even in regard
to the Covid-19 pandemic. This is reflected in the refusal of Beijing to permit
outside observers from entering China to investigate the origins of the
outbreak that has brought unspeakable grief to so many families around the
world and upended the economies of so many countries.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">As the power and the confidence of the Chinese
State continues to grow, one can only hope that the expressions of good will
and the yearning for freedom expressed so strongly and, in the end, so
poignantly by those who paid the ultimate price at Tiananmen Square, will find their
fruition in the fullness of time.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPCtF0PWv9l91YEKtkkvUSXQbTJwygIRwjNw54R3tHRIF-MHWIpRy1OiLOYEoYBNHlQ7OMozfMjlCwtX6q6aX9P8GR1INJR2QBXqhLg8dfthP6j52srVrHzqpZgPCneo8iWEqOZ4K6qBLf/s500/Lao+Tze.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="345" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPCtF0PWv9l91YEKtkkvUSXQbTJwygIRwjNw54R3tHRIF-MHWIpRy1OiLOYEoYBNHlQ7OMozfMjlCwtX6q6aX9P8GR1INJR2QBXqhLg8dfthP6j52srVrHzqpZgPCneo8iWEqOZ4K6qBLf/s320/Lao+Tze.jpg" width="190" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 11pt;">NOTES</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">1. Jonathan Unger: <i>The Pro-Democracy Protests
in China. Reports from the Provinces</i>, M.E. Sharpe, London, 1991</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">2. Joseph W. Esherick, <i>Xi’an Spring</i>, in
Jonathan Unger (1991), pp. 81-86</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">3. <i>Tiananmen: Australia’s Witnesses.</i> ABC
Foreign Correspondent (3<sup>rd</sup> June 2014). Viewed at: </span><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/foreign/tiananmen-australias-witnesses/5498258"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">https://www.abc.net.au/foreign/tiananmen-australias-witnesses/5498258</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">4. <i>Tiananmen Square protest death ‘was
10,000’</i>. BBC News (23<sup>rd</sup> December 2017). Viewed at: <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-42465516">https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-42465516</a> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">5. Human Rights Watch: <i>Eradicating Ideological
Viruses. China’s Campaign of Repression Against Xinjiang’s Muslims</i>. September
2018. Viewed at: </span><a href="https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/china0918_web.pdf"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/china0918_web.pdf</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">6. The problematic issue of reconciling the
immense number of organ transplants that occurred in China after 1999 with
official accounts of the sources of donor organs was substantively documented
by David Kilgour and David Matas in 2006. Ten years later, they extensively
updated their findings. (See: </span><a href="https://endtransplantabuse.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Bloody_Harvest-The_Slaughter-2016-Update-V3-and-Addendum-20170430.pdf"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">https://endtransplantabuse.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Bloody_Harvest-The_Slaughter-2016-Update-V3-and-Addendum-20170430.pdf</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt;">)
More recently, this issue has been picked up by Australian researcher Matthew
Robertson in his March 2020 report: <i>Organ Procurement and Extrajudicial
Execution in China: A Review of the Evidence</i>. (See: </span><a href="https://www.victimsofcommunism.org/china-organ-procurement-report-2020"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">https://www.victimsofcommunism.org/china-organ-procurement-report-2020</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: windowtext; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none;">)</span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">7. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Richard
Wilhelm and Cary F. Baynes. <i>The I Ching: Or, Book of Changes</i>, Routledge &
Kegan Paul, London, 1968 (Third Edition), pp. 376-377</span></div><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Vincent Di Stefano M.H.Sc., D.O., N.D.</span></div><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><b>A PDF copy of the above essay along with selected excerpts from <i>The Pro-Democracy Protests in China. Reports from the Provinces</i> can be accessed at: <a href="https://archive.org/details/remembering-tiananmen-square-and-the-pro-democracy-protests-of-1989/mode/2up" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/remembering-tiananmen-square-and-the-pro-democracy-protests-of-1989/mode/2up</a></b><br /></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">
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{page:WordSection1;}</style>Vincent Di Stefanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559307846832090756noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6016363827616660391.post-23256800402667468132019-11-09T18:56:00.002-08:002019-11-10T13:53:19.422-08:00E.F. Schumacher. On Small is Beautiful<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
When Francis Fukuyama triumphally proclaimed <a href="https://www.embl.de/aboutus/science_society/discussion/discussion_2006/ref1-22june06.pdf" target="_blank"><i>The End of History</i></a> in 1989, he projected the widely-held view that Western liberal democracy, firmly rooted in corporate capitalism and the free market economy, had brought humanity to its historical culmination. From Fukuyama's particular vantage point at the end of the twentieth century, it was plain sailing ahead. He wrote:<i> "What we are witnessing is . . . the endpoint of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government</i>." [1] There appeared to be absolutely no disquiet in his mind regarding the less tangible consequences of the liberal democratic project with its implicate <i>laissez faire</i> commercialism, monstrous energy consumption and consumerism, and widespread dislocation of traditional societies.<br />
<br />
As the precarious state of technological civilisation becomes ever more apparent, it can only be helpful to reconsider the reflections of those less sanguine commentators who, even decades before Fukuyama issued his pronouncement, perceived the strains within both institutional structures and ecological systems that heralded hard times ahead.<br />
<br />
E.F. Schumacher was such a one.<br />
<br />
Copies of Schumacher's <i>Small is Beautiful</i>, first published in 1973, can still be found in many libraries. And it occasionally chances as an unexpected treasure on the shelves of second-hand bookshops. Although most copies of the book were printed in paperback form, it remains one of the pivotal works of the twentieth century and carries within it the fruits of decades of considered reflection on the nature of human flourishing.<br />
<br />
As an economist, E.F. Schumacher focussed his attention on how economics could be made to serve human needs rather than those of corporations and megalithic financial institutions. His work has had a significant influence on many who continue to remain active behind the scenes in their mission to restore the natural rhythms and capacities of the earth and her peoples, an earth that has been severely lacerated by industrial civilisation and its destructive technologies. In his own words:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>We must thoroughly understand the problem and begin to see the possibility of evolving a new life-style, with new methods of production and new patterns of consumption: a life-style designed for permanence. </i>[2]</blockquote>
It is clear that half a century later, we have<i><b> </b></i>barely begun to <i>understand the problem</i>, and have - especially in the so-called developed world - cultivated a life-style designed more for transience rather than permanence. Although Schumacher's ideas were not picked up by those who move the world the way it goes, they remain fertile ground for those who would contemplate any futurity in a post-apocalyptic context.<br />
<br />
Schumacher identified Keynesian economics as the primary driver of an economics - and politics - of greed that continues to devour the world. In 1930, on the cusp of the decade-long Great Depression, Keynes wrote:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight.</i> [3] </blockquote>
Keynes' <i>hundred years</i> has nearly passed, and the gods of avarice and usury and precaution have shown no sign of fatigue but, rather, seem more intent on claiming what they can of the next hundred years as well. Powerful states, corporations, and individuals continue to tenaciously claim the freedom to increase their wealth and privilege regardless of the cost to peoples or planet. A recent <a href="https://oi-files-d8-prod.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/file_attachments/bp-economy-for-99-percent-160117-en.pdf" target="_blank">Oxfam Report</a> notes that "<i>just eight men own the same wealth as the poorest half of the world.</i>" [4] In more direct terms, this means that eight single individuals own more than what is owned by three and a half billion of the world's poorest people.<br />
<br />
Pity, says Schumacher, that we listened to Keynes and not to Gandhi.<br />
<br />
Regarding the ravenous consumption of energy by technological civilisation and the near-universal promotion of nuclear power as a means of providing that energy, Schumacher presciently noted that nuclear reactors have a finite life beyond which they become unusable and unserviceable. Each of the over 400 nuclear reactors in use today will become an incandescent monument that will continue to emit radioactivity for centuries. Dismantling them may remove the eyesore, but the core and its irradiated surrounding structures will continue to emit radiation for countless generations to come.<br />
<br />
The current push for new fleets of small modular reactors (SMRs) as sources of low-carbon energy and as a "solution" to the problem of humanly-induced climate change similarly disregards that fact that we still don't know what to do with <a href="https://cdn.greenpeace.fr/site/uploads/2019/01/REPORT_NUCLEAR_WASTE_CRISIS_ENG_BD-2.pdf" target="_blank">over 220,000 tons of high-level waste</a>, most of which is crowded into the overflowing cooling ponds of the world's existing reactors. In the meantime, the molten reactor cores of Fukushima <a href="https://www.yournec.org/updateeight-years-after-fukushima/" target="_blank">continue to pour radionuclides</a> into the Pacific Ocean while, at the time of writing, the Japanese government <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-11/fukushima-japan-may-have-to-dump-radioactive-water-into-the-sea/11498450" target="_blank">is poised to release the contents</a> of 1000 massive tanks holding over a million tons of contaminated water into the sea, justifying this act of ecocide by citing the old and over-worked adage, <i>dilution is the solution to pollution</i>. Biology works differently. Even a single radioactive atom embedded in the tissues of any living organism causes havoc in the cells surrounding it.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY983ARooARrYaYp-_xSdj7uTi1buP-YqAsf45bH2lm2XI1YWQpWsBGiLfuNY5HwjJvwb_nTgdvI7SgyKlFDNgzIcR2g02U6Ai_UR4NWXi-sEeeU43QH_FY9P2qc386Xjsny6MvN3AT_Ct/s1600/Contaminated+Water+Storage+Tanks%252C+Fukushima.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="467" data-original-width="700" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY983ARooARrYaYp-_xSdj7uTi1buP-YqAsf45bH2lm2XI1YWQpWsBGiLfuNY5HwjJvwb_nTgdvI7SgyKlFDNgzIcR2g02U6Ai_UR4NWXi-sEeeU43QH_FY9P2qc386Xjsny6MvN3AT_Ct/s400/Contaminated+Water+Storage+Tanks%252C+Fukushima.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hard energy. The contaminated water tanks of Fukushima</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Nearly 50 years ago, Schumacher wrote about nuclear energy in his signatory style:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>No degree of prosperity could justify the accumulation of large amounts of highly toxic substances which nobody knows how to make 'safe' and which remain an incalculable danger to the whole of creation for historical or even geological ages. To do such a thing is a transgression against life itself, a transgression infinitely more serious than any crime ever perpetrated by man. The idea that a civilisation could sustain itself on the basis of such a transgression is an ethical, spiritual, and metaphysical monstrosity. It means conducting the economic affairs of man as if people really did not matter at all. </i>[5] </blockquote>
E.F. Schumacher has also identified a curious inversion within the industrial-technological project whereby in the guise of easing life's burdens, <i>progress</i> and <i>development</i> have brought a massive and ubiquitous poisoning of the earth and her creatures in their train. <i>Small is Beautiful</i> draws attention to the excesses and the disparities of an economic and industrial system that has trashed cultural traditions that have served the needs of human communities for centuries. Schumacher cautioned against the gigantism and the obsession with globalisation that were beginning to overtake governments of all colour during the 1960s and 1970s. Schumacher offered both clarity and direction but his suggestions found no resonance with the dominant political and economic powers. These powers have systematically herded the world into an insistent consumerist ethos, while such terms as <i>restraint</i> and <i>self-reliance</i> have been effectively removed from their lexicons. <br />
<br />
Yet through it all, Schumacher remains optimistic that creative individuals and visionary groups will continue to develop simpler technologies and ways of living that are more in keeping with the needs of the earth and her people than with those of superannuated shareholders and their corporate minders.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQLQnMZjb3yqIvw-Yj4_5L2zHcTaB5as8WhKd_-S1SLCh5Mh0Mn9CBkvNoflgyoYve1VKM6RgotPfd1zjIqME8WY5q0L3ZvcqMsU3Qq8K_7x3vEYTwpYFloENXce_X6gPpq6poZoWzaNyf/s1600/Wind+Turbines.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="279" data-original-width="420" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQLQnMZjb3yqIvw-Yj4_5L2zHcTaB5as8WhKd_-S1SLCh5Mh0Mn9CBkvNoflgyoYve1VKM6RgotPfd1zjIqME8WY5q0L3ZvcqMsU3Qq8K_7x3vEYTwpYFloENXce_X6gPpq6poZoWzaNyf/s400/Wind+Turbines.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Soft energy. Harvesting the invisible </td></tr>
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<br />
E.F. Schumacher calls for the creation of educational programs in both the developed and developing world that are more attuned to the perennial rhythms of the earth, systems of education that are directed more to the cultivation of wisdom, discernment, compassion and usefulness, than to satisfying industry-driven demands to create new cadres of "efficient" and compliant technocrats. One of Schumacher's major contributions during his latter years was the development of what came to be known as "intermediate technology" programs in both developed and developing countries. These serve to empower local communities and to promote autonomy and decentralisation.<br />
<br />
Such individuals as <a href="https://theecologist.org/2016/aug/22/schumacher-college-celebrates-25-years-ecological-teaching" target="_blank">Satish Kumar</a> and Vandana Siva have become powerful advocates of Schumacher's ideas. They, along with many others have taken up the work of awakening and informing all who would hear that the present entrancement and the pursuit of the goals of technological-industrial civilisation do not bode well for humanity and its earthly home.<br />
<br />
Strong Gandhian sentiments permeate Schumacher's work. He bluntly demolishes the myth of limitless growth as the natural destiny of economies and nations. Yet the common sense spoken by Schumacher is still nowhere to be seen in the economic and political style of the present day. It is, however, increasingly being taken up at the margins by individuals and communities who have consciously stepped off the wheel and chosen to simplify their lives in whatever ways are given to them.<br />
<br />
After teaching English at New York University from 1962 to 1964, American writer, poet, and political activist Wendell Berry saw the writing on the wall. He resigned his post and purchased a farm in Kentucky which he proceeded to cultivate using ploughs and heavy horses rather than agricultural chemicals and heavy machinery. In 1981, four years after Schumacher's death, Wendell Berry presented the inaugural Schumacher Society lecture entitled <a href="https://archive.org/details/w_berry_1981" target="_blank"><i>People, Land and Community</i></a> in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. These yearly lectures inspired by the work of E.F. Schumacher <a href="https://centerforneweconomics.org/share/past-events/" target="_blank">continue to be hosted</a> by the Schumacher Center for a New Economics with the 39th annual lecture entitled <i>Actionable Responses to Climate Change</i> being held in October 2019.<br />
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<br />
A profound aesthetic sense is expressed in Schumacher's thought. He continually returns to the criteria of beauty, of elegance, of non-violence, and of human scale in his pursuit of a workable future for humanity during a time of troubles and of growing uncertainty.<br />
<br />
E.F. Schumacher remains an enduring source of wisdom in an age of madness and folly.<br />
<br />
<b>References</b><br />
<br />
1. Francis Fukuyama: <a href="https://www.embl.de/aboutus/science_society/discussion/discussion_2006/ref1-22june06.pdf" target="_blank"><i>The End of History</i>,</a> The National Interest, Summer 1989<br />
2. E.F. Schumacher (1974): <i>Small is Beautiful. A Study of Economics as if People Mattered</i>, Abacus Edition, London, p. 19<br />
3. <i>Ibid</i>., p. 22<br />
4. Oxfam Briefing Paper: <a href="https://oi-files-d8-prod.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/file_attachments/bp-economy-for-99-percent-160117-en.pdf" target="_blank"><i>An Economy for the 99%</i></a>, January 2017, p. 2 <br />
5. Schumacher (1974) <i>op. cit</i>., p. 141<br />
<br />
Vincent Di Stefano M.H.Sc., D.O., N.D.<br />
Inverloch, November 2019<br />
<br />
<b><i>A PDF copy of the above essay along with selected excerpts from "Small is Beautiful" can be downloaded from</i>: <a href="https://archive.org/details/one.f.schumacherandsmallisbeautiful">https://archive.org/details/one.f.schumacherandsmallisbeautiful</a></b><br />
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<a href="https://thehealingprojectweblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/ef-schumacher-voice-for-wisdom-in-age.html" target="_blank">1. E.F. Schumacher. A Voice for Wisdom in an Age of Folly</a><br />
<br />
The economist E.F. Schumacher has served as a source of inspiration for
many over the past half-century. His essential message is carried in two
books published in the five years before he died, <i>Small is Beautiful. A Study of Economics as if People Mattered</i> (1973) and <i>A Guide for the Perplexed</i> (1977).<br />
<br />
His ideas continue to be explored, developed and disseminated by such groups as the <a href="http://www.schumacher.org.uk/about/">Schumacher Society</a> in the UK and the<a href="http://neweconomicsinstitute.org/about_us"> New Economics Institute</a> in the US as well as numerous individuals and groups in both the developed and developing world.<br />
<br />
This post offers a downloadable audio presentation drawn from two lectures given by Schumacher in the 1970s.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://thehealingprojectweblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/wendell-berry-finding-our-souls-before.html" target="_blank">2. Wendell Berry. Finding Our Souls before we Lose the World</a><br />
<br />
Wendell Berry has written
over twenty books of poetry, sixteen volumes of essays, and ten novels.
He has also been prominent in political actions against the Vietnam War,
nuclear energy, US Department of Agriculture policy, George W. Bush's
post 9/11 National Security policy and more recently, the mining of coal
by the methods of Mountaintop Removal in Kentucky. All the while, he
has continuously worked his 125 acre farm using traditional and organic methods.<br />
<br />
Throughout his life, Wendell Berry has sought to artfully uncover the rhetoric that presents our time as one of utopian
possibilities and universal fulfilment. While acknowledging the
transformations wrought by industrial and technological civilisation, he
calls our attention to the perennial values and unchanging realities
that condition our being. Vincent Di Stefanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559307846832090756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6016363827616660391.post-53516655349293191952017-11-18T01:20:00.001-08:002021-01-26T19:30:17.158-08:00Simone Weil and The Poem of Force. From the Fields of Ilion to the Charnel Grounds of Europe<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="background-color: white;"></span></span><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><b>Whoever endures a moment of the void either receives the supernatural bread or falls.</b></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><b>It is a terrible risk, but one that must be run.</b></i> </div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> Simone Weil, <i>Gravity and Grace</i> </span></div>
<br />
Even as a child, Simone Weil had an understanding of both the deprivations and the depredations of war. At an age when most children can barely see beyond their own
shifting desires, Simone Weil had fully grasped the reality and the meaning of
sacrifice. She was six years old in 1915 when the immolation of Europe by military force and blind violence had already crossed unspeakable thresholds. In May and June of that year, over one hundred thousand French soldiers lost their lives in the Artois offensive. Three months later, a further one hundred and ninety thousand French soldiers were killed in the three-weeks-long Champagne offensive. In that year alone, nearly two million French soldiers, over a million British soldiers, and over six hundred thousand German soldiers had been killed in an insane mutual slaughter that saw little if any change in the battle lines of the Western Front. <br />
<br />
Simone Weil's father, a doctor, had been conscripted for medical service soon after the outbreak of the war. Travelling with her family from base to base, Simone came to know at close range the tragic reverberations of war. At the age of six, she quietly announced at the family table that she would no longer eat
sugar but would send her portions to the French soldiers on the Front. This small act was to be the first of many such gestures of identification with the oppressed and the afflicted throughout her life. <br />
<br />
The will for solidarity and identification with human suffering in all its forms continued to grow in Simone Weil long after her small gesture in 1915. Diagnosed with tuberculosis while in England in 1943, she steadfastly refused to eat any more food than her French compatriots who had been reduced to survival rations because of the widespread destruction of agricultural lands, production facilities, and food distribution networks throughout Europe. Despite the efforts of her doctors and even frustrated attempts to tube-feed her, Simone Weil breathed her last on August 24th 1943. She was thirty four years old. E. Jane Doering offers the following account of the circumstances leading to her death:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"She was torn by the thought that she had abandoned her native land in its time of need. Her fragile health and extreme disappointment at not getting permission from the free French Forces to re-enter France led to a physical breakdown with tubercular complications. A cure was rendered impossible by her refusal to eat more than what she believed was available to the most deprived of her compatriots in occupied France, or to accept rich foods - considered the remedy for tuberculosis - while the British were short on rations. The rigor of her thought imposed a harsh consistency on her lifestyle." [1]</blockquote>
<b>Awakenings</b><br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie97fGQFaDTZNg6-Q4Md3O-6L_4PrU2b1s5NTZEj0Ly9KJbuX76OOGEE529kxsMo0JjohX3I3prkkLiD4jetwOvIuCq_BsWbjZu66uQ-FYOL2M9Ybcomxt88g-h7HFrSDEBKaCqDzezSVt/s1600/Hitler+in+Saarbrucken%252C+Germany%252C+1932.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="549" data-original-width="750" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie97fGQFaDTZNg6-Q4Md3O-6L_4PrU2b1s5NTZEj0Ly9KJbuX76OOGEE529kxsMo0JjohX3I3prkkLiD4jetwOvIuCq_BsWbjZu66uQ-FYOL2M9Ybcomxt88g-h7HFrSDEBKaCqDzezSVt/s320/Hitler+in+Saarbrucken%252C+Germany%252C+1932.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hitler in Saarbrucken, Germany, 1932</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
From an early age, Simone Weil had attended closely to the political currents of the time. She identified with revolutionary Marxism even before her adolescence and had become active within workers movements by the time she had reached her twenties. She visited Germany for ten weeks in the summer of 1932 staying mostly in Berlin. While she was there, she came into contact with Leon Trotsky - who in 1928 had been
expelled from the Soviet Union by Stalin - and with his inner circle. On her return to France, she published a number of articles on the disarray of German trade unions and on the passivity of the German Communist Party in the face of Hitler's ascendency. <br />
<br />
While visiting Paris the following year, Trotsky and his son stayed briefly in the house of Simone Weil's family. He and Weil vigorously locked horns and, in the words of Sylvie Courtine-Denamy, "engaged in heated discussions of the revolution." [2] Her youthful ideological fixations were rapidly disintegrating as she came to realise the growing violence and oppression exercised by the communists in Stalin's Soviet Union and by the national socialists in Hitler's Germany. Her commitments began to shift from engagement with revolutionary thought to understanding more deeply the lived realities of the poor and the oppressed.<br />
<br />
In 1934, she published her reflections as "Oppression and Liberty" (<i>Réflexions sur les causes de la liberté et de l'oppression sociale</i>) - the only book she was ever to write. During the same year, she took leave from her role as teacher in order to take up employment in a number of factories. While working on the assembly line of the Renault plant near Paris, she came face-to-face with the brutality and the violence of factory supervisors, and came to witness directly the impotence and vulnerability of workers ensnared in the industrial system. These experiences quelled even further the revolutionary ardour that had fuelled her earlier years. David Pollard reflects:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The experience of factory work changed her revolutionary views. Weil moved on from the Marxian notion of workers as the carriers of revolutionary consciousness to a view that factory work killed what was important in the person, leaving little consciousness for personal development or liberation. Weil's factory experience of humiliation, exhaustion and helplessness gave her a powerful metaphor - the slave." [3]</blockquote>
In a letter to a confidant some years later, Simone Weil recalled her factory experiences with both poignancy and eloquence:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I knew quite well that there was a great deal of affliction in the world, I was obsessed with the idea, but I had not had prolonged and first-hand experience of it. As I worked in the factory, indistinguishable to all eyes, including my own, from the anonymous mass, the affliction of others entered into my flesh and my soul. Nothing separated me from it, for I had really forgotten my past and I looked forward to no future, finding it difficult to imagine the possibility of surviving all the fatigue. What I went through there marked me in so lasting a manner that still today when any human being speaks to me without brutality, I cannot help having the impression that there must be a mistake and that unfortunately the mistake will in all probability disappear. There I received forever the mark of a slave, like the branding of the red-hot iron which the Romans put on the foreheads of their most despised slaves. Since then I have always regarded myself as a slave." [4]</blockquote>
The metaphor of the slave was to become a recurring trope in her writings thereafter.<br />
<br />
She left the factories in August 1935 as her already-frail health had broken down under the pressure. She began to experience severe migraines that prevented her from reading and writing for days at a time. Although her physical capacities would never fully recover, Simone Weil's daemonic drivenness remained undiminished, reigniting and burning furiously at every opportunity.<br />
<br />
<b>On War and Rumours of War </b><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYfkQbGGOSK88-0FCI__2GktJTSs34bAj1QPYWKuClZl9Xm7GHimaQ4LUNaHdk0ChxSo321E5qWHirM3MbCuIo2rzbMZNQOmtGaxlW-4EDa2Mro_AMxa7vG35iFZauN4PwjMQchp0CWOsH/s1600/Simone+Weil+in+Spain%252C+1936.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="825" data-original-width="660" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYfkQbGGOSK88-0FCI__2GktJTSs34bAj1QPYWKuClZl9Xm7GHimaQ4LUNaHdk0ChxSo321E5qWHirM3MbCuIo2rzbMZNQOmtGaxlW-4EDa2Mro_AMxa7vG35iFZauN4PwjMQchp0CWOsH/s320/Simone+Weil+in+Spain%252C+1936.jpg" width="256" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Simone Weil, Spain, 1936</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The Spanish Civil War broke out on July 17th, 1936. Despite her frailties, she signed up with an anarchist militia together with fellow anarchists from other European countries. Within a month, Weil was in Spain, sporting a carbine on the front-line. In yet another example of the thwarted intention that seemed to be her constant companion, within a few days of arriving, she stumbled into a pot of boiling oil and severely scalded one of her legs. She was forced to return to France soon after because of the injury.<br />
<br />
Yet the experience was not an entire debacle. Being thrown into the horrors of actual warfare, she was soon disabused of any notion of the inherent nobility of war. She came to learn of the fate of a 16 year-old Spanish boy soldier who had been captured by her group. Refusing to join her companions and to renounce his allegiance to Franco, he was summarily executed. This was her first direct encounter with the impersonal brutality that infects all who come under the thrall of force in the fields of war.<br />
<br />
On her return to France, she began searching out earlier historic sources in an attempt to understand the nature of the forces that drove individuals and nations to engage in war. Her visit to Germany had made her aware of an increasing militarism that was growing into a machine that threatened to engulf Europe in a holocaust of unrestrained violence. She had even then predicted that Hitler would gain victory in 1933, and that Europe-wide war would inevitably follow.<br />
<br />
Long-attuned to the classic Greek spirit, her incisive intelligence turned to Homer's<i> Iliad</i> in the hope of deepening her understanding of the realities unfolding around her. She gave voice to her early thoughts in an essay published in 1937, <i>Let Us Not Begin Again The Trojan War</i>. She had by that time declared herself a committed pacifist, favouring negotiations with Hitler and endorsing Chamberlain's policy of appeasement. As events inexorably intensified, she came to realise the brutality and the viciousness of Hitler's intention. She was later to reflect on the crucial moment when she finally abandoned her pacifism:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Ever since the day when I decided, after a very painful inner struggle, that in spite of my pacifist inclinations it had become an over-riding obligation in my eyes to work for Hitler's destruction . . . my resolve has not altered; and that day was the one in which Hitler entered Prague in May 1939, if I remember right. My decision was tardy, perhaps . . . and I bitterly reproach myself for it." [5]</blockquote>
<i><b>L'Iliade, ou le poème de la force</b></i><br />
<br />
Weil and her family succeeded in escaping Paris in the days immediately before Hitler's troops occupied the city. They relocated to Vichy and then Marseilles in the south of France. It was here that she once again turned to Homer's <i>Iliad</i>, but this time in the full light of Germany's crushing assaults on its European neighbours. Within a short time, she had produced an astonishingly original interpretation of the poem unlike any that had ever preceded it. Her <i>L’Iliade, ou le poème de la force</i>, was translated into English in 1945 as <i>The Poem of Force</i>. It was no fine and detailed literary analysis of the poem. For Simone Weil, the <i>Iliad</i> was not about the gods, the strategies, the treaties, the entreaties, and the negotiations of warring parties. The <i>Iliad</i> was, in its essence, a poetic study of the subjection of men to the determinations of force, and an account of the consequence of its exercise both on those who would wield it and those who are crushed by it. The essay was first published in 1940 in <i>Les Cahiers du Sud</i>, a literary journal based in Marseilles. It begins with the following extraordinary paragraph:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The true hero, the true subject, the centre of the <i>Iliad</i> is force. Force employed by man, force that enslaves man, force before which man's flesh shrinks away. In this work, at all times, the human spirit is shown as modified by its relations to force, as swept away, blinded, by the very force it imagined it could handle, as deformed by the weight of the force it submits to. For those dreamers who considered that force, thanks to progress, would soon be a thing of the past, the <i>Iliad </i>could appear as an historical document; for others, whose powers of recognition are more acute and who perceive force, today as yesterday, at the very centre of history, the <i>Iliad</i> is the purest and loveliest of mirrors." [6]</blockquote>
Nowhere in the essay was there any explicit mention of the situation that confronted Europe at the time. Like the poem itself, Weil drew from the timeless elements fashioned by Homer to provide an account of the slow descent of the human spirit into a destructive and dehumanising mania under the thrall of force.<br />
<br />
Weil's essay is beyond paraphrasing or summarising. It's density and its balance need to be directly experienced. In a dual study of Weil's <i>Poem of Force</i> and a parallel essay, <i>On the Iliad</i> written by her contemporary and compatriot Rachel Bespaloff<i>,</i> Cicero Bruce articulates the impossibility of adequately re-presenting either of these works satisfactorily. He writes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"One can fully appreciate the essays revisited here only by experiencing them for himself. For they are neither reducible to any terms short of those which translate the originals into English nor satisfactorily expressible in any summary or paraphrase. What impels their description here is the hope that they will find readers in our day." [7]</blockquote>
I can do no better than to re-echo Bruce's sentiments - particularly in regard to Simone Weil's <i>L’Iliade, ou le poème de la force.</i><br />
<br />
The final pages of Weil's essay provide privileged entry into her deeper quest to reconcile the Greek genius with her own unique Christian revelation. Her highly developed scholarly and experiential perspectives were precipitously challenged soon after she returned from Spain as a result of three intensely mystical experiences. These culminated when, in her own words, "Christ himself came down and took possession of me." [8]<br />
<br />
These unanticipated experiences did not alter the intensity, but redirected the style of her philosophic quest as she more determinedly sought out the perennial sources of insight into the numinous, transcendental and supernatural dimensions of human experience. These sources included the Gospels, the Bhagavad Gita, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Koran, and Taoist and Buddhist literatures. Although Simone Weil continued to engage deeply with Catholicism in her latter years, she maintained complete independence from all institutional forms and, according to all accounts, chose not to formalise her relationship with the Church through the sacrament of baptism.<br />
<br />
<b><i>The Poem of Force</i> as Performance</b><br />
<br />
For those with the staying power, Romanian dramatist and Professor of Theatre, Simona Giurgea brings her full European presence and sensitivity to a stark and at times electrifying performance of Weil's <i>The Poem of Force</i> in the video embedded below. Trained in Romania, and serving as lecturer at a number of universities in the U.S. since 1995, Simona Giurgea offers a masterful on-stage re-creation of Weil's essay. In it, she resuscitates the nearly-lost art of the <i>rhapsodei</i>, the ancient Greek poets and interpreters of Homer who carried his work in their very being having committed the epic poem to memory and reviving it with each new performance.<br />
<br />
In her dramatic interpretation, Simona Giurgea seamlessly interweaves Weil's text and selected excerpts from the <i>Iliad</i> into a performance that both elicits and reflects the timeless nature of Homer's poem. <br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dMlweTL9000?rel=0" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
<b>SOURCES</b><br />
<br />
1. E. Jane Doering, (2010): <i>Simone Weil and the Specter of Self-Perpetuating Force</i>, University of Notre Dame Press, Indiana, p. 7<br />
<br />
2. Sylvie Courtine-Denamy, (2001): <i>Three Women in Dark Times. Edith Stein, Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil</i>, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, p. 59<br />
<br />
3. David Pollard, (2015): <i>The Continuing Legacy of Simone Weil</i>, Hamilton Books, Maryland, p. 15<br />
<br />
4. Simone Weil, Letter IV, <i>Spiritual Autobiography</i>. [In: Simone Weil, <i>Waiting on God</i>, Fontana Books (Collins), U.K., 1959, p. 33]<br />
<br />
5. Quoted by Christopher Benfey, <i>A Tale of Two Iliads</i> (pp. 207-219) in Christopher E. G. Benfey and Karen Remmier, eds. (2006): <i>Artists, Intellectuals and World War II</i>, University of Massachusetts Press, Amhurst, p. 216 <br />
<br />
6. Simone Weil, "The Iliad or, The Poem of Force", <a href="https://libcom.org/files/politics%20(November%201945).pdf" target="_blank"><i>Politics</i>, 1945, vol. 2, no. 11</a>, (pp. 321-331) [Translated by Mary McCarthy], p. 321<br />
<br />
7. Cicero Bruce, "Reading the <i>Iliad</i> in the Light of Eternity", <a href="https://isistatic.org/journal-archive/ma/48_01/bruce.pdf" target="_blank"><i>Modern Age</i>, 2006, vol. 48, no. 1, (pp. 48-58)</a>, p. 55<br />
<br />
8. Letter IV, <i>Spiritual Autobiography</i>, p. 35<br />
<br />
<b><i>Vincent Di Stefano M.H.Sc., D.O., N.D</i></b><br />
<b><i>Inverloch, November, 2017</i></b><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><b>A PDF copy of the above essay - and also of Mary McCarthy's translation of Simone Weil's <i>The Poem of Force</i> - can be downloaded from:</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><b><a href="https://archive.org/details/SimoneWeilAndThePoemOfForce" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/SimoneWeilAndThePoemOfForce </a></b></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">RELATED POSTS</span></b><br />
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<a href="http://thehealingprojectweblog.blogspot.com.au/2011/01/of-poverty-and-potency-reluctant.html" target="_blank">1. Of Poverty and Potency. The Reluctant Mysticism of Simone Weil</a><br />
<br />
For most of her short life, Simone Weil felt intensely the
unsatisfactory nature of earthly life. Even as a child, she had
identified with the pain and privation of young French soldiers mired in
the battle fields of Europe. Despite her own relatively comfortable
circumstances - her father was a doctor - as soon as she had won her
first freedoms, she actively took on the cause of the poor and of
unemployed workers. She had directed her incandescent intelligence to
writers who offered an analysis of the causes of poverty and oppression
and the means of overcoming it, but found their suggested solutions
served only to replace one form of oppression with another.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIWFdotlqz-9zM5O0mw4fhrPmsb0G7YKGnlgxubNRMO0ouuWqIPe8QwnxSPHcu7AwxZSCGQuTVDRf9GvepJhkDF8U6gbkMUjsueoS96FJpkxM_S9LHBM2c_6kyoYCO7C_NOJyCvOlEV1UU/s1600/Peace+Cranes.+Hiroshima+Memorial.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIWFdotlqz-9zM5O0mw4fhrPmsb0G7YKGnlgxubNRMO0ouuWqIPe8QwnxSPHcu7AwxZSCGQuTVDRf9GvepJhkDF8U6gbkMUjsueoS96FJpkxM_S9LHBM2c_6kyoYCO7C_NOJyCvOlEV1UU/s320/Peace+Cranes.+Hiroshima+Memorial.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<a href="http://thehealingprojectweblog.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/there-are-no-good-wars.html" target="_blank">2. There Are No Good Wars</a><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt;">The booming of artillery and the
crackling of bullets have pierced and sundered the past twenty decades. The
slow dance of aerial engagement that once tested the reflexes and determination
of young pilots during the so-called <i>Great War</i> has been replaced by infernal
powers that thunderously impel silicon-guided missiles to their well-mapped
targets. And this is all done at a safe distance by those with the hardware and
the know-how.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt;">But who truly knows the consequences of such acts apart from
those unfortunates in the line of fire, and those heroic individuals who
witness and document the human reality of what is otherwise counted in the
ledger of contemporary history as anonymous <i>casualties</i> and <i>collateral damage</i>?</span></div>
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<br />Vincent Di Stefanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559307846832090756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6016363827616660391.post-58350925545126825122017-09-21T23:00:00.001-07:002021-01-26T19:29:32.475-08:00On Ivan Illich and the Limits to Medicine<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: large;">Reflections on the man and his <i>Medical Nemesis: the Expropriation of Health</i></span></h2>
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuYP9aiZgLuWJln02Y9USoJNOcfbpkotHC2CHNVv9pg12m0BQgSFZUoWGz1GQcO8-FChnBlZElBKiHcm8CXpWp_z4Wx-ZyiGVhw2QkeWwaVYq-S2AzVjCRVQGVWA_zRm_Qwa65i95m279n/s1600/Ivan+Illich.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="500" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuYP9aiZgLuWJln02Y9USoJNOcfbpkotHC2CHNVv9pg12m0BQgSFZUoWGz1GQcO8-FChnBlZElBKiHcm8CXpWp_z4Wx-ZyiGVhw2QkeWwaVYq-S2AzVjCRVQGVWA_zRm_Qwa65i95m279n/s400/Ivan+Illich.jpg" width="302" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">Reading Ivan Illich is not easy, though in a different way to reading
Continental philosophers or quantum physicists. Illich’s language is demanding
and requires a certain suspension of judgement if one is to penetrate the
systemic meaning behind his often challenging – if not vehement - rhetoric. But
it is worth the effort. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">It is difficult to appreciate the nature of Ivan Illich’s critique of
Western society and of modernity in general without having some familiarity
with his early experiences. He was born in 1926 to a Dalmatian father of landed
aristocratic birth and a German mother of Sephardic ancestry whose family had
converted to Catholicism. He knew privilege from an early age. Rainer Maria
Rilke, Jacques Maritain and Rudolf Steiner were all visitors to his family
household.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">Illich moved to Vienna in the early 1930s with his mother and his
younger twin brothers. They soon came to experience the heaviness of the Nazi regime
at close range, particularly after the annexation of Austria in 1938. In order
to avoid Nazi persecution, they moved once again in 1941, re-settling in Florence.
Those early years taught Illich how suddenly one’s life and cultural
circumstance can change. As a child, he had known the steadiness and stability
of his father’s ancestral culture, yet within a few short years, he had come to
experience the fragility of many of life’s “certainties” </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">When he was 12 years old, Illich had a foreboding about what was soon
to erupt throughout Europe. While walking on the outskirts of Vienna just
before the Nazi invasion, he decided that he would never marry because,
“certain things will happen which will make it impossible for me to give
children to those towers down on the island in Dalmatia where my grandfathers
and great-grandfathers made children.” [1]</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">By the age of 17 years, he had resolved to enter the priesthood. He
studied philosophy and theology at the Jesuit-run Gregorian Institute in Rome
and concurrently undertook a doctoral thesis at the University of Salzburg based
on a study of the ideas of Arnold Toynbee. While in Rome, Illich was drawn into
a number of influential circles and developed a personal friendship with his
old family friend, Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain. Through Maritain,
he<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>was introduced to Cardinal
Giovanni Montini, who was later to become Pope Paul VI. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">Illich completed his studies and was ordained a priest in 1951. His
intellectual power had been noted by Montini who wanted him to join the Vatican
inner circle. The Cardinal urged him to enrol at the </span><i><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">Accademia
dei Nobili Ecclesiastici</span></i><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;"><i> </i>in
Rome. Illich, however was more interested in history and planned for a second
doctoral degree at Princeton University. [2] He crossed the Atlantic soon after
and was appointed parish priest of an impoverished Puerto Rican community in
New York. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0xkQ4xkXNM4MPWiT3BLT1c-VrCuU_ka6EgwUajkSvNv-AmbsXWvEZwz3BHQnT-CWz68EZF6Lq7mEuUG2CxAUmSvJZU3bSaPo_g4MtMzIC_25X7Tss0rffOUUe9GRXBQTSEKhpqbFI45df/s1600/New+York+City+ca.1955.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="977" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0xkQ4xkXNM4MPWiT3BLT1c-VrCuU_ka6EgwUajkSvNv-AmbsXWvEZwz3BHQnT-CWz68EZF6Lq7mEuUG2CxAUmSvJZU3bSaPo_g4MtMzIC_25X7Tss0rffOUUe9GRXBQTSEKhpqbFI45df/s320/New+York+City+ca.1955.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">New York City, ca. 1955</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">For the next 5 years, Illich was fully immersed in Puerto Rican life
and culture. Apart from serving the needs of his own parishioners, he visited
Puerto Rico at every opportunity, often travelling on horseback. It was there that
he began to regain a sense of the stability and resilience of traditional
communities, something that had been shaken by his experiences in Austria.
Illich’s time with Puerto Ricans also reinforced a growing distaste for
modernity with its wanton destruction of traditional cultures. The themes of
cultural integrity and resilience were to be interwoven into his wide-ranging
intellectual explorations thereafter. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">Illich’s unique qualities were soon recognised. By 1956, he had been
appointed Vice-Rector of the Catholic University of Puerto Rico where he
established a facility that introduced American priests and religious to the
language and the cultural life of Latino communities. He also became deeply
interested in the schooling of the local children. It was in Puerto Rico that
the ideas for what would eventually find expression in </span><i><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">Deschooling
Society</span></i><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;"> a decade later began to
take form. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">In his role as Vice-Rector at the University, Illich managed to cross
swords with both of the Catholic bishops of Puerto Rico. His situation had become
so untenable that he eventually resigned from his post. On returning to New
York in 1960, he was enthusiastically welcomed by the </span><i><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">Centre of
Intercultural Formation</span></i><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;"> at
the Jesuit Fordham University, which was at that time looking to establish a
training program for missionaries in Latin America. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">Illich was appointed executive director of the new program for a
five-year period and given generous funding to set it into motion. He took to
the road in search of a suitable base. For the next four months, he ranged
throughout Latin America, often travelling by bus or hitch-hiking in order to
more fully participate in the life-worlds of local communities. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">On arriving in Cuernavaca near Mexico City, he met with Mendez Arceo, a
courageous and progressive bishop, “who had a transformative and renewed vision
of the Church quite different from official church positions.” [3] They hit it
off immediately and Illich there and then decided to establish the </span><i><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">Centro de
Investigaciones Culturales</span></i><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">
(CIC) at Cuernavaca. The first missionaries began to arrive in 1961.
Bruno-Jofre offers the following reflection: </span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">“Cuernavaca was the right place for Illich. It had been a field of
Catholic experimentation before Vatican II, under the leadership of Bishop
Mendez Arceo. . . . It was a special place in which the local Church as an
institution had attempted to engage with the spirit of the times and with the
people themselves, even before Vatican II.” [4]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">Illich soon gathered a group of influential teachers around himself.
Under his stewardship, the CIC in Cuernavaca rapidly established itself as a
centre of far-ranging intellectual engagement.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUP_9LJRWQRPfYZhgQbhBZh4Yr6T9STtxEQQ7_H_8kOcbHtAZhB0spXZgIyX9LZVKiMl7UndY2f_sVPfmpbnhxhGH-XSYsW2IbZOFLKiPgkuGiGJ3ld-bHqe2wgrljCsQamNpA4Jy7_QTM/s1600/Cuernavaca+ca.+1960.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="352" data-original-width="499" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUP_9LJRWQRPfYZhgQbhBZh4Yr6T9STtxEQQ7_H_8kOcbHtAZhB0spXZgIyX9LZVKiMl7UndY2f_sVPfmpbnhxhGH-XSYsW2IbZOFLKiPgkuGiGJ3ld-bHqe2wgrljCsQamNpA4Jy7_QTM/s320/Cuernavaca+ca.+1960.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cuernavaca, ca. 1960</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">Three years later, Illich established a parallel centre in the same
premises, the </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">Centro Intercultural de Documentacion</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;"> (CIDOC), an entity that was
completely independent of Church funding. By 1965, CIDOC had virtually subsumed
CIC’s role. Through CIDOC, Ivan Illich and his collaborators began to project
powerful, independent and controversial ideas that challenged conventional
thought in many disciplines. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">The establishment of the CIC had been a response to calls from
conservative Catholic elements in the U.S. and from Pope John XXIII for the
“modernisation” of Latin America through missionary activity. The clerics,
religious and volunteers who arrived at the CIC in Cuernavaca found, however,
that “something very different was being offered. Instead of teaching words of
a new language they learned to be quiet; and instead of basic notions about Latin
American culture they [CIC] dissuaded missioners from achieving their goal.”
[5] </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">Catholic support for the Fordham project had been largely motivated by
concern over the perceived growth of both Marxism and Protestantism in Latin
America. Castro’s success in Cuba prompted John F. Kennedy to launch the
“Alliance for Progress”, a ten-year multi-billion dollar aid program on August
17<sup>th</sup> 1961. Curiously, that same day, Pope John XXIII formally
instructed the North American Catholic hierarchy to send missionaries and lay
volunteers in large numbers to Latin America. [6]</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">Illich was aware that the priests and lay missionaries attending
Cuernavaca could, without their knowing it, inadvertently find themselves in
the service of imperial power. He strove to sensitise them above all to the
culture of the communities within which they would be working. His concerns
were later to be made explicit in one of Illich’s more controversial papers, </span><i><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">The Seamy
Side of Charity</span></i><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;"> published
by the Jesuit weekly </span><i><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">America Magazine</span></i><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;"><i> </i>in January 1967. In it, he wrote: </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">“The men who go to Latin America must humbly accept the possibility
that they are useless or even harmful, although they give all they have. They
must accept the fact that a limping ecclesiastical assistance program uses them
as palliatives to ease the pain of a cancerous structure. . . . </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">We must acknowledge that missioners can be pawns in<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a world ideological struggle and that
it is blasphemous to use the gospel to prop up any social or political system.”
[7]</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">Illich was deeply conscious of the movements that were arising
spontaneously among the people of Latin American. By the time that Cuernavaca
was established, he had spent close to a decade living close to Latinos,
firstly in New York, then at the Catholic University in Puerto Rico, and more
recently, on the streets and in the barrios of Central and South America. His
contact with Bishop Mendez Arceo had affirmed the existence of a strong and
engaged Catholicism in Latin America that was beginning to find its own unique
expression. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
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</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG6DUjXWdDSJ2zedv1c5raYRzLAO0a7wxLFYUmR6kfehAhpBh_tjWTGZzPBaHydj9w9fbT1oJ5UBh9ZQm-gbMcP5l2zGa0AnQ08LNzvu8mpZyP-9XbVgzxAM3by-w725Ryv_sA-_dls8Uu/s1600/Galileo+before+the+Holy+Office+2.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="340" data-original-width="533" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG6DUjXWdDSJ2zedv1c5raYRzLAO0a7wxLFYUmR6kfehAhpBh_tjWTGZzPBaHydj9w9fbT1oJ5UBh9ZQm-gbMcP5l2zGa0AnQ08LNzvu8mpZyP-9XbVgzxAM3by-w725Ryv_sA-_dls8Uu/s320/Galileo+before+the+Holy+Office+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Robert-Fleury, <i>Galileo before the Holy Office</i>, ca. 1847</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">Not surprisingly, word of Illich’s activities at Cuernavaca began to
reach the ears of more conservative members of the Catholic hierarchy, both
locally and in the U.S. One of the local bishops even accused him of sorcery.
[8] Despite the support of Bishop Arceo in Mexico and Cardinal Spellman in New
York, Illich was ordered to present himself before the Vatican’s </span><i><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith</span></i><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">
in 1967. He arrived in Rome in June 1968 and maintained a dignified reserve in
the face of accusatory questions regarding his own activities and those of his
religious and academic colleagues in Mexico. In January 1969, the Vatican
instructed the Bishop of Cuernavaca that priests and religious were thenceforth
to be prohibited from participating in any of the programs or activities at
CIDOC. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">Illich resigned from his priestly ministry two months later in March
1969. He never, however, lost his connection with the deeper spirit of
Catholicism and what he referred to thereafter as </span><i><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">Mother
Church</span></i><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">. He remained celibate and
continued to recite the divine office daily for the rest of his life. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">Having formally put aside his monsignorial role, Illich immediately
embarked upon a highly energised and productive phase of his life, publishing
four books – each of which was widely read – between 1970 and 1975. Though
thematically different, each of these publications offered radical critiques of
the cultural developments that Illich and his colleagues had examined at
Cuernavaca. The last of these works was entitled </span><i><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">Medical Nemesis. The
Expropriation of Health</span></i><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It offered a highly individuated and
revolutionary critique of the personal, social and cultural influence of
Western technological medicine.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;"><i>Medical Nemesis</i> was a work of deep scholarship, fluid erudition, and fearless rhetoric. It unapologetically laid bare the excesses and the deficiencies of a profession that had over the previous century claimed immense cultural authority for itself. Illich's earlier published books were largely collections of essays. <i>Medical Nemesis</i> however, was a tightly integrated, wide-ranging review of the expropriation of individual and cultural autonomy by the profession of medicine.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">Illich clearly understood the magnitude of what he was taking on. Unlike his earlier works, <i>Medical Nemesis</i> was extensively footnoted with sources ranging from <i>The Lancet</i> to <i>The New England Journal of Medicine</i> to the works of Montesquieu and Wittgenstein. By the end of the second chapter of this eight-chapter book, Illich had already referred to the writings of such medical commentators as Rene Dubos, Thomas Szasz, Michael Balint and Maurice Pappworth, sociologists including Eliot Friedson and Howard Becker, and philosophers and cultural historians including Simone de Bouvoir, Michel Foucault, Eric Voegelin and Lewis Mumford.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">By documenting the sources of his ideas and
insights with such thoroughness, Illich hoped that his non-medical readers
would begin to look at what was already out there for themselves. He also
wanted to leave a well-signposted audit trail for those within the medical
profession who he knew would be incensed by his revelations. Predictably, <i>Medical
Nemesis</i> was not welcomed by most within the medical fold. But Illich was no
stranger to the consequences of truth-speaking. He had been forced out of his
own church by criticising the policies of the Roman curia and of North American
prelates in the management of Central and South American “problems”. Ivan
Illich had a penchant for rocking the boat. Not surprisingly, he found himself
cast adrift.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">In <i>Medical Nemesis</i> Ivan Illich identifies
and deconstructs many of the unconscious elements that drive the biomedical
enterprise. He addresses the complicity of biomedicine in “enabling” people to
adapt to inherently sickening social, industrial, environmental and political
realities:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">“The physician, himself a member of the dominating
class, judges that the individual does not fit into an environment that has
been engineered and is administered by other professionals, instead of accusing
his colleagues of creating environments into which the human organism cannot
fit.” (p. 169)</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">At a more immediate level, Illich brings to light
the limitations of biomedicine’s mechanistic and reductionistic view of life
and urges a reconsideration of vitalistic and holistic perspectives that
encompass more fully the nexus within which both health and sickness arise. He
draws strongly from historical and cultural frames of reference that place the
individual within meaningful contexts from which the slings and arrows of
adverse fates, of human debility and limitation, and the inevitability of
suffering and death can be negotiated. Much of his ferocity is directed against
the medicalisation of all stages of life, and especially of death:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">“For rich and poor, life is turned into a
pilgrimage through check-ups and clinics back to the ward where it started.
Life is thus reduced to a “span,” to a statistical phenomenon which, for better
or for worse, must be institutionally planned and shaped. This life-span is
brought into existence with the pre-natal check-up, when the doctor decides if
and how the foetus shall be born, and will end with a mark on a chart ordering
resuscitation suspended.” (p. 79)</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">Illich writes at length of iatrogenesis – of the illness
or injury caused by medical interventions – but extends the field of inquiry
far beyond the domain of personal incidents into the broader theatres of social
and cultural influence. Social iatrogenesis is made manifest in the medicalisation
of all aspects of life and the consequent loss of individual autonomy and
capacity for self-care by citizens who are transformed into “patients.” Of
greater concern to Illich is the cultural iatrogenesis reflected in a
near-total abandonment in Western societies of the traditional resources,
understandings and philosophies that have perennially enabled people to
cultivate the art of suffering, and to accept - if not embrace - this
inevitable and inescapable dimension of human experience. Philosopher Charles
Taylor was moved to reflect further on this aspect of Illich’s thesis:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">“So medicalisation alters our phenomenology of
lived experience. . . . We don’t see that we are being led to see/feel
ourselves in different ways, we just believe naively that this is experience
itself; we imagine that people have always imagined themselves this way. And we
are baffled by accounts of earlier ages.” [8]</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">Medical
Nemesis</span></i><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;"> is too dense and
too difficult a work to be circumscribed by any short review. Yet a few months
before Illich’s death in December 2002, Richard Smith, editor of the <i>British
Medical Journal</i> reflected on his own re-reading of Illich’s <i>Medical
Nemesis</i>, a work that had profoundly influenced him as an undergraduate in
the 1970s. He concluded his review with the following remark:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">“It’s the ultimate book reviewer’s cliché to say
that every doctor and medical student should read this book, but those who
haven’t have missed something really important. When sick I want to be cared
for by doctors who every day doubt the value and wisdom of what they do – and
this book will help make such doctors.” [9]</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">Illich is to be admired for his principled courage
and fearless confrontation of forces he perceived as being inherently noxious
and damaging to the individual and the collective psyche. Illich lived as he
spoke. Even in the end, he eschewed the ministrations of oncologists in the
treatment of a disfiguring facial tumour that seared his latter years,
preferring to wear both the pain and the tumour with fortitude and dignity. He
remained active until the end and found occasional ease in his latter days by
lighting a small piece of opium in the pipe that he carried about with him.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal;">There is more that could be said, but this is sufficient to give some
sense of the systemic nature of Illich’s critique. He was not interested in
patchwork solutions, but along with his contemporary brothers-in-arms Fritz
Schumacher and Leopold Kohr, Ivan Illich sought to alert all who would hear
that Western civilisation had entered very dangerous and destructive times.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">Endnotes</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cited
in James Arraj: “In Search of Ivan Illich.” Viewed at: http://www.innerexplorations.com/chtheomortext/illich.htm</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hartch,
Todd (2015): “The Prophet of Cuernavaca. Ivan Illich and the Crisis of the
West”, Oxford University Press, p. 6</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">3.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bruno-Jofre,
Rosa and Zaldiva, Jon Igelmo, (2016), “Monsignor Ivan Illich’s Critique of the
Institutional Church, 1960-1966, J. of Ecclesiastical History, vol. 67, No. 3,
568-586</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">4.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ibid.,
p. 577</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">5.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Zaldivar,
Jon Igelmo and Uceda, Patricia Quiroga, (2011), “Ivan Illich and the Conflict
with The Vatican (1966-1969”, The International Journal of Illich Studies, Vol.
2, No. 1, 3-12</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">6.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bruno-Jofre
and Zaldiva, op. cit., p. 574</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">7.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Illich,
Ivan (1967): “The Seamy Side of Charity”, America. The Jesuit Review, Jan.21,
1967. Viewed at: https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/100/seamy-side-charity</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">8.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Taylor,
Charles (2007): “A Secular Age”, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, Mass., p. 740<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">8.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Smith,
Richard (2002)” Book Review, “Limits to Medicine. Medical Nemesis: The
Expropriation of Health”, BMJ, 324, 13<sup>th</sup> April. Viewed at:
http://www.bmj.com/content/324/7342/923.1 </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">Vincent Di Stefano M.H.Sc., D.O., N.D. </span></i></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -2.85pt;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">Inverloch, September 2017</span></i></b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><b><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">A PDF copy of the above essay, together with a collation of selected excerpts from his <i>Limits to Medicine. Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health</i> can be downloaded from:</span></b></span><br />
<a href="https://archive.org/details/OnIvanIllichAndTheLimitsOfMedicine"><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><b><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">https://archive.org/details/OnIvanIllichAndTheLimitsOfMedicine</span></b></span></a><br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: large;">Babette Babich on Ivan Illich:</span></h2>
<h2>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: large;">Life is a Test: Ivan Illich's <i>Medical Nemesis</i> and the "Age of the Show" </span></h2>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">A fascinating perspective on the ideas presented by Illich in his <i>Medical Nemesis</i> is offered in the video clip below by Babette Babich, professor of philosophy at Fordham University. This presentation is adapted from a lecture she gave to the <i>International Philosophy of Nursing Society</i> in Quebec, Canada in August 2016. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">Forty years after the publication of <i>Medical Nemesis</i>, Babette Babich wryly reflects on the present state of medicine and its contemporary "cutting edge" aspects.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YY7OV6hxfy0?rel=0" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><b>"And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.</b></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><b>There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,</b></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><b>Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."</b></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5 </span></div>
<br />
<br />
I have in recent months become increasingly aware of a growing hostility expressed towards Pope Francis by <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/four-cardinals-openly-challenge-francis-over-amoris-laetitia" target="_blank">a number of individuals</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS1GC2kX9HY" target="_blank">fundamentalist Catholic groups</a> who remain <a href="https://www.firstthings.com/article/2017/04/return-to-form" target="_blank">ideologically opposed to the reforms</a> carried out after Vatican II during the 1960s. I have found this perplexing, particularly in view of the fact that Pope Francis is a man who is deeply aware both of human reality with all its strengths and weaknesses, and of the tenebrous future that confronts our planet and her peoples.<br />
<br />
Before becoming vicar of Rome, Pope Francis had an intimate knowledge of life as it is lived by many at street level. Even during the early days of his priesthood, he lived in the midst of his communities. And in true Jesuitical spirit, Fr Jorge Bergoglio went native - to use the language of sociologists - by choosing to work with those on the margins of society. He would often turn up in the slum districts of Buenos Aires unannounced and mingle freely with local people and local priests. When elected to the post of vicar-general of the Flores district in Buenos Aires in the early 1990s, he would often spend time on the back streets rather than in comfortable ecclesial bureaus. After becoming archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998, Bergoglio dramatically increased the number of priests living and working in such communities. Journalist Nick Miller <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/the-francis-effect-20140302-33ul4.html" target="_blank">offers the following portrait</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"He was a frequent visitor to the villas miserias, the shanty towns, a place of dangling electricity cables and open sewers, and he sent his priests to work there in unprecedented numbers. One of them, <a href="http://www.lastampa.it/2013/08/29/vaticaninsider/eng/world-news/bergoglios-words-to-fr-pepe-i-would-rather-they-kill-me-than-any-of-you-BipmzxH8Qn4YDODp6wtOmK/pagina.html" target="_blank">Padre Pepe</a>, told [his biographer] that they spoke every week. 'He would show up by surprise . . . he felt comfortable here,' he said. 'He was trying to show that the slums were not just important for the people who live there, but for the whole Church.'"</i></blockquote>
Pope Francis has also been an energetic reformer in his dealings with corruption in the Church. During his time as vicar-general in Flores, he asked that church authorities reveal the extent of their property holdings. Jose Luis Mollaghan, a senior priest in charge of finances, tried to block his investigations. Soon after his investiture as archbishop of Buenos Aires, Bergoglio summarily removed Mollaghan - together with another cleric who had opposed him - from their posts.<br />
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The matter did not end there. In 2005, Mollaghan was himself appointed archbishop of Rosario in central Argentina, but in 2013 came under investigation for mismanaging church funds. In May 2014, Pope Francis stripped his old adversary of his role as archbishop and moved him to Rome, appointing him to a commission tasked with investigating priests involved in the sexual abuse of children. It would seem that in the spirit of his new homeland, Pope Francis made a point of keeping his friends close, but his enemies closer. <br />
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<b>A Particular Style</b><br />
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The preferred style of the pontificate of Pope Francis was evident from the start. On his election to the papacy in March 2013, he did not take his seat on the papal throne but chose rather to talk and mingle with his cardinals. When it was time for them all to return to their lodgings, he travelled with them in a bus rather than in the appointed limousine. He chose not to wear the traditional red papal slippers that were presented to him but remained in his street-scuffed and road-worn black leather shoes. When he was ushered into the papal apartments for the first time, he exclaimed, <i>"There's enough room for 300 people here! I don't need all this space"</i>, and returned to his small apartment. Three days later, he confided to a group of journalists, "<i>How I wish for a church of the poor, and that the church were poor.</i>"<br />
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When Pope Francis celebrated his first public mass in the Vatican at St Anna's church a few days later, he wore the same simple surplice as that worn by parish priests throughout the world. At the end of the mass, he met with members of his congregation outside the church as priests do everywhere. <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/homilies/2013/documents/papa-francesco_20130317_omelia-santa-anna.html" target="_blank">His message</a> during that first mass confirmed the soft radicalism that has become his signatory style:<br />
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<i>"We . . . are the people who, on the one hand want to listen to Jesus, but on the other hand, at times, like to find a stick to beat others with, to condemn others. And Jesus has this message for us: Mercy. I think, and I say it with humility, that this is the Lord's most powerful message: Mercy. It was he himself who said: 'I did not come for the righteous.' The righteous justify themselves. Go on, then, even if you can do it, I cannot! But they believe they can."</i></blockquote>
His broader mission to extend the church's social doctrine was made more explicit soon after. A month after assuming the papal mantle, Pope Francis met with Rafael Correa, the president of Ecuador. Invoking his namesake, he said, <i>"Take good care of creation. St Francis wanted that. People occasionally forgive, but nature never does. If we don't take care of the environment, there's no way of getting around it."</i><br />
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Two years later, Pope Francis published his encyclical letter, <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/dam/francesco/pdf/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si_en.pdf" target="_blank"><i>Laudato Si. On Care for our Common Home</i></a>.<i> </i>This timely document offers a detailed reflection on the escalating crises facing present and future generations due to climate change and humanly mediated ecosystem destruction. Unlike papal encyclicals generally, <i>Laudato Si</i> is directed to all peoples and not just the church hierarchy and lay faithful:<br />
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<i>"I urgently appeal then, for a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. We need a conversation that includes everyone, since the environment challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all."</i> (# 14)</blockquote>
In contrast to his predecessors, Pope Francis has a coherent understanding of the centrality of global capitalism in creating the conditions that have brought the planet to such a perilous edge. This may be one of the fruits of witnessing at close range the struggles of many Central and South America countries against corporate and political interference from imperial powers during the 1970s and 1980s. <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-beatification-of-oscar-romero" target="_blank">The recent beatification of Archbishop Oscar Romero</a>, who was murdered by a death squad affiliated with big money and the El Salvador military while he was celebrating mass, further attests to the determination of Pope Francis to reposition the church into the midst of its poorest and least powerful members.<br />
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By its very nature,<i> Laudato Si</i> is not a political manifesto addressing the changes needed to minimise environmental destruction or of mitigating the effects of climate change. Rather, it expresses a deeply holistic view of the fields of influence that have overtaken the past century with such devastating consequence. According to ethicist and theologian <a href="https://soundcloud.com/thomisticinstitute/prof-russell-hittinger-the-social-vision-of-leo-xiii-in-the-21st-century-4916?in=alan-david-mostrom/sets/lectures" target="_blank">Russell Hittinger</a>, Pope Francis understands deeply that global capitalism and corporate power have become a world system and that, <i>"the familiar institutions of our life [have become] empty shells of technocracy in the service of money."</i> Pope Francis reflects in <i>Laudato Si</i>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"We have to accept that technological products are not neutral, for they create a framework which ends up conditioning lifestyles and shaping social possibilities along the lines dictated by the interests of certain powerful groups."</i> (# 107)</blockquote>
It is not simply a matter of creating new technologies or replacing energy sources. The crisis that confronts us all is yet another manifestation of a derailment and a derangement of our sense of ourselves and each other and a reflection of our collective abandonment of such simple virtues as benevolence, solidarity, fairness, and sensitivity to the hidden consequences of our actions. Before there can be any healing of the earth and of her people, we need to be awakened to the love that has given birth to all things, seen and unseen. Again, Pope Francis in <i>Laudato Si</i>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"It is we human beings above all who need to change. We lack an awareness of our common origin, of our mutual belonging, and of a future to be shared with everyone. This basic awareness would enable the development of new convictions, attitudes and forms of life."</i> (# 202)</blockquote>
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<b>The Softer Side </b><br />
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Pope Francis has carried the seemingly contradictory dimensions of realism and transcendence, reason and revelation, and empiricism and faith into his papacy. While dealing with the "real" world and all its corruptions, abuses, and institutionalised rigidities, he has maintained deep fidelity both to the sources from which his own Catholicism has sprung, and to the ongoing historic manifestations whereby it is perennially sustained. Contrary to the suggestions of certain observers, Pope Francis is no quasi-secular hero come to sort out all the silly superstitions and anachronisms in which Roman Catholicism is steeped. Over and above all else, he is a Jesuit, a member of the Society of Jesus, one irrevocably formed by Ignatian training in memory, hope and discernment. And he bears the full history of the church with all its wounds and all its powers in his person. This is evidenced in his acknowledgement of and participation in realities that the modernist temper prefers to ignore, if not deny outright.<br />
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A short four months after he was elected, Pope Francis <a href="http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2013/07/10/pope-francis-has-consecrated-vatican-city-state-to-st-michael-the-archangel-and-asked-him-to-drive-out-the-evil-one-the-battle-against-corruption-begins/" target="_blank">consecrated the Vatican to St Michael</a> in a garden ceremony held on July 5th 2013. St Michael had figured prominently in the life of the church until the reforms of Vatican II. This was due largely to the influence of Pope Leo XIII who in 1884 <a href="http://satanscauldrons.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/the-devils-century.html" target="_blank">experienced a visionary encounter</a> between Satan and Jesus in which he heard Satan boasting that he could destroy the church within a century if given enough power and freedom. A softly spoken voice replied: <i>"You have the time. You will have the power. Do with them what you will."</i> Pope Leo immediately retreated into his study and emerged soon after with a newly composed hand-written prayer to St Michael. He passed it on to his secretary with instructions that it was to be universally distributed and read thereafter in every Catholic Church after the celebration of each mass. The prayer fell out of favour after Vatican II though it continues to be part of the private devotions of many Catholics.<br />
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The act of consecrating the Vatican to St Michael by Pope Francis represents an act of invocation of the great prince of angels in order to protect the Vatican City state and all who live and work in it from corrupted and corrupting influences. In earlier informal discussions with Latin American clerics, Francis had spoken forthrightly about a <i>"<a href="http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2013/07/10/pope-francis-has-consecrated-vatican-city-state-to-st-michael-the-archangel-and-asked-him-to-drive-out-the-evil-one-the-battle-against-corruption-begins/" target="_blank">stream of corruption</a>"</i> within the Vatican Curia. During the consecration ceremony itself, he said: <i>"In consecrating the Vatican City State to St Michael the Archangel, I ask him to defend us from the evil one and banish him."</i> Though many may consider this to have been a quaint, archaic and largely symbolic ritual, it reflects the complete acceptance by Pope Francis that there are powers at work in the world that defy rational comprehension.<br />
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St Michael himself has a long history of manifestation within the Catholic tradition. <a href="http://padrepioandchiesaviva.com/St_Q55C.html" target="_blank">The Cave of St Michael </a>at Monte Gargano was often visited by <a href="http://thehealingprojectweblog.blogspot.com.au/2014/03/padre-pio-of-pietrelcina-healer-for.html" target="_blank">Padre Pio of Pietrelcina</a> who - together with St Francis several centuries before him - viewed it as a place of transformative spiritual power. In October 2013, a few months after the consecration ceremony in the Vatican, a painting of St Michael situated in a funerary chapel on the island of Rhodes began to secrete tears from its eyes. <a href="http://www.visionsofjesuschrist.com/weeping1832.html" target="_blank">All the usual tests were conducted</a> and it was concluded that the painting had not been interfered with in any way and that it did, in fact, mysteriously exude a tear-like fluid. Even after the painting of St Michael had been transferred from the funerary chapel to the main church in Ialyssos nearby, it continued to weep.<br />
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<b>Re-invoking the Presences </b><br />
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Canadian philosopher and author of <i>A Secular Age</i>, Charles Taylor <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aoKDF4vpa4" target="_blank">has declared that</a>, <i>"We are no longer dealing with a real presence. We can now only speak of an act as symbolic."</i> As with most overarching generalisations, this simply does not hold true in all circumstances or for all individuals. There are some whose experience is otherwise. This is certainly the case with Pope Francis and his invocation of St Michael to protect the Vatican. And it is equally the case in the curious enigma of the Portuguese Catholic mystic <a href="http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_20040425_da-costa_en.html" target="_blank">Alexandrina da Costa</a> who lived ecstatically for a period of over 13 years solely on a single daily consecrated Eucharistic wafer. Throughout that time, she neither drank a drop of water nor consumed a morsel of food.<br />
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Such phenomena have occurred throughout history and will doubtless continue to occur despite the protestations of militant rationalists. They are a verifiable part of human experience and are integral to the deeper human story. They cannot be simply swept aside because they do not conform to a certain view of how the world must be. European Christianity carries numerous such stories in its long and often contradictory history. These manifestations bespeak the uncomfortable-for-some but nonetheless fully evidenced reality that the world is infused with energies and graced by phenomena that lie well outside the prescriptive domains of scientific naturalism. And this understanding is integral to the world inhabited by Pope Francis.<br />
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One of the great treasures held within the heart of Italian Catholic spirituality is the mystery of the regular and repeated liquefaction of the blood of San Gennaro (St Januarius) three times each year at the Cathedral of Naples. According to tradition, the blood was collected after the martyrdom by beheading of San Gennaro during the reign of Diocletian. Since the late 14th century, several times each year, the blood which is stored in a vial mysteriously transforms from a dark, coagulated mass into a labile and liquid state. <br />
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On March 21st 2015, Pope Francis visited the Cathedral of Naples to address a large gathering which included many priests and nuns. The reliquary containing the solidified blood of San Gennaro was brought to the altar for the occasion. After putting aside his prepared notes and delivering an extemporised address, Pope Francis kissed and later blessed the crowd with the reliquary. Much to the surprise of everyone present, <a href="http://www.lastampa.it/2015/03/21/vaticaninsider/eng/the-vatican/the-blood-of-st-gennaro-liquefies-in-francis-presence-RwgmeN7TxifcMiKu4UcOUO/pagina.html" target="_blank">the blood began to liquefy</a>. Pope Francis was not at all perturbed by what had happened, even though it had been more than 150 years since the blood of San Gennaro had actually liquefied in the presence of any pope. With gentle humour, he used the occasion to urge those present to strive more fully in the exercise of their faith and the honouring of their church.<br />
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It is clear that Pope Francis has his feet planted equally firmly in
both the physical world with all its difficulties and contentions, and
in the world of divine presences that are capable of irrupting gently
- and sometimes not-so-gently - into human experience. <br />
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Three months after he had consecrated the Vatican to the protection of St Michael, Pope Francis welcomed a small statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. At his specific request, the statuette had been transported to the Vatican from Fatima in Portugal, where it usually resides. A dedication ceremony was performed in the presence of the statue on October 13th 2013, the anniversary of the final apparition of Mary to three children in a field near Fatima in 1917. This was in fact part of a conscious sequence initiated by the pope in the days immediately following his election to the papacy.<br />
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<a href="http://insidethevatican.com/news/pope-francis-and-his-devotion-to-mary" target="_blank">It is common knowledge</a> that Pope Francis has for many decades been intensely devoted to Mary, the mother of Jesus. He prays the rosary three times each day and has encouraged Marian devotion among his congregations. Within hours of his election as pope in March 2013, he approached Cardinal Jose da Cruz Policarpo of Lisbon and made a special request that his pontificate be consecrated to Our Lady of Fatima. This was accomplished two months later after a mass at the Fatima Shrine on May 13th, the 96th anniversary of the day on which the Blessed Virgin first appeared to the three children at <i>Cova da Iria</i> in Fatima.<br />
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It is no surprise that Pope Francis brought this process to deeper fulfilment exactly five months later by bringing the most celebrated Marian icon in Catholicism to the Vatican and using the occasion to consecrate the world to her care. October 13th 1917 was the day on which, true to her promise, the Blessed Virgin gave a sign of her living presence at Fatima by manifesting <a href="http://www.mysticsofthechurch.com/2010/03/fatima-miracle-of-sun.html" target="_blank">the Miracle of the Sun</a>, which was witnessed by over 70,000 people who had gathered at the cove and by many others who lived nearby or were travelling through the area at the time. There are many aspects regarding the manifestations at Fatima - all of which are on the public record - that give pause to the notion that the possibilities within human experience can be fully circumscribed by the laws that govern physics and the material universe or by genetic determinism.<br />
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The phenomenon of Fatima is central to Pope Francis's vision of both the future of the Church and the future of the world. In his role as pope, he has no doubt been fully briefed on the nature and the content of <a href="http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000626_message-fatima_en.html#top" target="_blank">the prophecies of Fatima</a> that have been serially delivered and variously interpreted over the decades. It is clear that Pope Francis has fully accepted the veracity of the events that occurred at Fatima in 1917. It is also clear that he accords power and agency to manifestations of the divine as they have been expressed from the healings performed by Jesus 2,000 years ago to such contemporary irruptions of presence as occur at Lourdes, Fatima, Rhodes and the Cathedral of Naples among other places. Such phenomena all point to the fact that the story is far too complex to be fully encompassed by reductionist scientism, materialist philosophy, a dehumanised and dehumanising economics, and the cynical opportunism that defines contemporary politics. <br />
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The declaration by Pope Francis of 2016 as the <i>Year of Mercy</i>, was an act of great hope and affirmation. Despite the seeming hopelessness of the times with its many wars, mass migrations of refugees, social and spiritual desolation, widespread inequality, and relentless environmental destruction, Pope Francis has called for an opening of the human heart to powers that reach deeper than anything we are ourselves capable of construing, and an awakening of the human will to ways of peace and mercy that begin within oneself and thereafter emanate through all our fields of influence.<br />
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<b><i>And if it be our fate</i></b></div>
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<b><i>To feel the shudder and shake of crashing dreams</i></b></div>
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<b><i>Let it be wrought of heaven and earth</i></b></div>
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<b><i>And not of those who would call the close of day</i></b></div>
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<b><i>Mother, awake</i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Vincent Di Stefano M.H.Sc., D.O., N.D</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Inverloch, March 2017</span><i></i></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i><b>Copies of this essay in both PDF and Word Doc formats can be downloaded <a href="https://archive.org/details/AHouseDividedAHouseRestored" target="_blank">here</a></b></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">1. <a href="http://thehealingprojectweblog.blogspot.com.au/2014/03/padre-pio-of-pietrelcina-healer-for.html" target="_blank">Padre Pio of Pietrelcina. Healer for a Broken Time</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">This post offers a review of the life and work of Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, a Capuchin priest who carried the wounds of the crucified Christ. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">It includes an English translation of his <i>Prayer for Healers</i>, and carries an embedded documentary that examines his life and influence. </span><br />
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<i>"The healing intention has taken many forms throughout history. It
has been voiced in the prayers and invocations of countless generations
of priests and shamans. It has been carried by the men and women who
sought out the substances present in nature and those produced by human
ingenuity that help to ease the pain of sickness and hasten the return
of health. It continues to find expression in the skill and precision of
those dedicated surgeons who daily exercise their art."</i><br />
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This post reflects on a range of experiences while accompanying our daughter to a large Melbourne public hospital. It offers some personal reflections on the nature of healing in all of its manifestations. Vincent Di Stefanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559307846832090756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6016363827616660391.post-30999626977979719432016-09-08T23:56:00.001-07:002021-01-26T19:28:54.486-08:00Guarding the Flame. Reflecting on the Herbal Medicine Traditions<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The Western herbal medicine tradition represents a neglected and devalued repository of much of the knowledge developed over many thousands of years of medical experience in Europe, the Mediterranean and the Americas. Practitioners of herbal medicine throughout the world continue to make use of several hundred medicinally-active plants many of which have a long and established history. A few among these plant medicines have found popular use in recent decades - even to the point of reaching the hallowed shelves of Western supermarkets. Such plants include echinacea which stimulates activity in the immune system, ginkgo which enhances cerebral circulation, saw palmetto which is useful in the treatment of prostatic enlargement, and St. Mary's thistle which stimulates liver detoxification. Yet the Western herbal medicine tradition represents far more than a source of agents that can serve as alternatives to more commonly available pharmaceuticals.<br />
<br />
The audio below offers an in-depth discussion between two experienced educators and practitioners in the Western herbal medicine tradition. Mary Allan has taught herbal medicine in New Zealand and is currently editor of Avena, the Journal of the New Zealand Association of Medical Herbalists. Vincent Di Stefano has taught herbal medicine in a number of theatres in Australia and is author of <i>Holism and Complementary Medicine. History and Principles</i> (Allen and Unwin, 2006).<br />
<br />
The discussion explores not only many aspects of herbal medicine, but examines the nature of healing in its broader sense, ranging from personal and interpersonal healing to planetary healing. This post also carries an essay that examines the nature of contemporary medicine and technology, the role of practitioners of herbal medicine in the broader work of healing, and the longer-term role of medicinally active plants as agents of healing.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="40" mozallowfullscreen="true" src="https://archive.org/embed/MaryAndVinceInterview.FinalMix" webkitallowfullscreen="true" width="500"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
<i>Guarding the Flame</i> can be streamed using the media player above. A CD quality mp3 file is available for download <a href="https://archive.org/details/MaryAndVinceInterview.FinalMix" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>Production Notes</b><br />
<br />
Voices:<br />
Mary Allan<br />
Vincent Di Stefano<br />
<br />
Music:<br />
Dice, <i>Midnight in Lismore</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Herbal Medicine Tradition. A Long-burning Torch for Darkening Times</h3>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOSXkYR2J6ZC5tZ3GqNZBnqr7dS8kD6dZYuBs9BJ-q_Nlsmg1hVDiDFS8TfTBhcEF3GweU5GBXnayLNIVqpF7IMoHdODLT4TI7_0o2e3aEGMiTYVej0uR3IneqzpDwBmHWieMD_BbOwy0w/s1600/Joseph+Wright.+The+Alchemist.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOSXkYR2J6ZC5tZ3GqNZBnqr7dS8kD6dZYuBs9BJ-q_Nlsmg1hVDiDFS8TfTBhcEF3GweU5GBXnayLNIVqpF7IMoHdODLT4TI7_0o2e3aEGMiTYVej0uR3IneqzpDwBmHWieMD_BbOwy0w/s320/Joseph+Wright.+The+Alchemist.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Joseph Wright. <i>The Alchymist</i>, 1771</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Practitioners of herbal medicine hold the curious privilege of being
carriers of a tradition whose origins can be barely traced through the mists of history during a time
when traditional knowledge has been demeaned and devalued by a civilisation
that celebrates transience and power. <br />
<br />
Contemporary
biomedicine continuously skirts the edge of ever-imminent "breakthroughs"
that promise the conquest of refractory diseases through
the discovery of new drugs and the development of new procedures. There are regular calls for increased
funding from all available sources, from government, from industry and from the
donations of a generous public in order that such salvific developments
can proceed unhindered.<br />
<br />
The biomedical establishment
draws upon the energy of numerous dedicated individuals and also draws
from the immense reserves of both national governments and multinational
corporations in the knowledge that any successful "breakthrough" will
bring immense financial returns.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the whole apparatus
hangs on the assumption that there will be uninterrupted freedom and
continuity in the various institutions and infrastructures through which
such activities are initiated, pursued, marketed and delivered to
established "health care" networks. We are just beginning to understand
that business may not necessarily continue as usual in what is becoming
an increasingly uncertain future.<br />
<br />
The resources
deployed within the biomedical enterprise are huge. They begin with the
medical schools throughout the world that induct elite cadres of young
aspirants through rigorous initiations which include a not-so-subtle
professional socialisation and a detailed and extensive
training in anatomy, physiology, histology, embryology and pathology.
The public hospitals in which their developing skills are exercised
consist of vast and finely coordinated structures in which ambulance
facilities, casualty departments, in-patient wards, operating theatres,
intensive care wards, pathology units and pharmacy departments are
serviced by large numbers of paramedics, nurses, nutritionists and
caterers. medical officers, specialists, cleaners and hospital
administrators.<br />
<br />
The hospital system itself both
supports and is supported by medical practitioners within the general
community, by manufacturers of medical hardware ranging from disposable
syringes, swabs and bandages to intravenous drips, cardiac monitors,
fibre optic devices, defibrillators and magnetic resonance imaging
scanners, and by a vast and powerful multinational pharmaceutical
industry that produces the drugs which are dispensed and sold in huge
quantities throughout the world.<br />
<br />
This vast and
interconnected network of activities both defines and supports the
institution of biomedicine. Most governments in the developed world
uphold this structure through political and legislative support, through
the bankrolling of medical schools and public hospitals, and through
subsidising the cost of diagnostic testing and pharmaceutical drugs.<br />
<br />
Practitioners
of herbal medicine are effectively outside of the loop. They have little if
any legislative support, receive their training in exceedingly modest
educational facilities, have no access to the public hospital system,
limited access to diagnostic services, and a questionable professional
status. Despite this, the practice of herbal medicine continues to
remain a vital and enduring source of satisfaction both for those who
would carry the tradition through mastery of its methods and for those
who seek out the services of knowledgeable practitioners.<br />
<br />
What
is going on here? Are practitioners of herbal medicine a quaint but
harmless anachronism determined to cleave to largely discarded ways
during a time where health care in most of the developed world has been
technologised, corporatised and universalised? Are those who practise
herbal medicine obstinately refusing to accept the reality of modernism
with its celebration of centralisation, globalisation and
standardisation? How is it that they do not covet the awesomely powerful
methods that have become the signatures of biomedicine? Just what does
the contemporary practice of herbal medicine represent?<br />
<br />
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
<h4>
The Promethean Entrancement</h4>
</div>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ9cFhaF5GDu_P_lj_uK_hMf7bpd74i2tM4IRCcPh3gIASYdIo_kUUT1ty2RVeesWJ_7gklbam1P3HM9fpb3mlumuEfpMS4uYPLLHmIHmIyep_Pxp4o_nKK8Lv3L0YtjvWhOHl3RypJyRI/s1600/Francis+Bacon.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ9cFhaF5GDu_P_lj_uK_hMf7bpd74i2tM4IRCcPh3gIASYdIo_kUUT1ty2RVeesWJ_7gklbam1P3HM9fpb3mlumuEfpMS4uYPLLHmIHmIyep_Pxp4o_nKK8Lv3L0YtjvWhOHl3RypJyRI/s1600/Francis+Bacon.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Francis Bacon</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Much of the driving force that has propelled
technological civilisation and its extraordinary manifestations - including
biomedicine - derives its influence from a philosophical position that
separates us from the natural world. Early in the seventeenth century, Francis Bacon exhorted all who
would build <a href="http://thehealingproject.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Francis-BACON.-Essays.pdf" target="_blank">the New Atlantis</a> to subject nature to their will in order to
forcibly extract those "secrets" that enable control and mastery of her
forces. By mid-century, Rene Descartes declared the world and all that
was in it to be a soulless machine that could be understood, controlled
and manipulated by the exercise of human reason. And by the end of the
century, Isaac Newton had confirmed that the physical universe operated
according to immutable laws that, once known and understood, conferred
immense powers of control and predictability to those who understood
them.<br />
<br />
The so-called European "Enlightenment" further
encouraged a philosophical clearing of the decks of all that was deemed
to be uncertain or "irrational" in order that a new era based on
development, progress and control could proceed without interference.<br />
<br />
The
fruits of such methods and understandings have, during the time since, completely transformed the world. Yet our fascination with
the productions of industry and technology and our participation in the
power they confer have blinded us to their effects on our view of
ourselves, on our relationship with powerful institutions, and on our
sensitivity to the natural world.<br />
<br />
At the most basic
level, we have become curiously alienated from those
potencies within our own natures and within the natural world by which
we are formed, sustained and regenerated. Though we may live by more
than bread alone, that bread has now been tainted and denatured by the
methods of industrial agriculture and food production. Top-soils have
been everywhere destroyed; fruits, often laced with low levels of
insecticide residues, are gathered long before they are ripe and
transported over long distances - even across the great oceans - before
they reach our tables; the genetic structure of many staple grains has
been knowingly altered with unknown consequences to future generations;
the bee populations in many countries <a href="http://thehealingprojectweblog.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/from-silent-spring-to-seddless-summer.html" target="_blank">have repeatedly caved</a> under the
onslaught of agricultural chemicals. And this is to say nothing of the plethora of heavily processed foods stacked on the overburdened
shelves of supermarkets everywhere.<br />
<br />
We seem to have
collectively lost sight of the fact that our physical bodies are
continuously reconstituted from the foods that we eat, the air that we
breathe, and the liquids that we drink. In the early 1950s, long before
chemical-heavy industrial agriculture had reached anything like its
present levels, Max Gerson showed through his <a href="http://gerson.org/GersonTherapy/gersontherapy.htm">nutritionally-based cancer therapy</a>
the vital importance of using fresh, unprocessed, chemical-free foods
if healing is to be activated after health has broken down. This understanding
has yet to reach the busy kitchens of public hospitals throughout the
Western world.<br />
<br />
The anatomising of the body into its
constituent tissues and organs is echoed in the anatomising of our
foodstuffs into their constituent fats, proteins, sugars and calories.
There is no measure that can accommodate the integrity, the totality and
the equilibrium of living matter.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSVxxWBihzVu2430End6EwzKj7NiaPCdvWivO6F4S0M5HShOD30YqbUiCwyt89gQTkJtyBcKnbgioOhRDNxUxXxfjW4FRFWI5udZBhbrGf9sgsiZ46UPbCM8BHlp_4O-smR_yOk2krf9ra/s1600/environmental+destruction.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSVxxWBihzVu2430End6EwzKj7NiaPCdvWivO6F4S0M5HShOD30YqbUiCwyt89gQTkJtyBcKnbgioOhRDNxUxXxfjW4FRFWI5udZBhbrGf9sgsiZ46UPbCM8BHlp_4O-smR_yOk2krf9ra/s1600/environmental+destruction.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dark Fruits </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
And so it is with the natural world. Our civilisation
has recklessly plundered every identifiable resource with little
thought to its relationship with the rest of the created order. Our
forests have been felled, our soils destroyed, our rivers and lakes
laden with the detritus of industry, our oceans robbed of their myriad
fish species, our air thickened by the burning of fossil fuels. And we
wonder why the cost of health care throughout the developed world
continues to steadily rise despite endless medical "breakthroughs" and
all the fancy hardware and clever medicines.<br />
<br />
Two decades ago, <a href="http://www.smallisbeautiful.org/publications/berry_91.html">Thomas Berry reflected</a>:<br />
<blockquote>
"We
cannot have well humans on a sick planet. Medicine must first turn its
attention to protecting the health and well being of the Earth before
there can be any effective human health."</blockquote>
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
<h4>
The Hidden Flame</h4>
</div>
<br />
Before we can seriously
direct our attention to protecting the health and well being of the
earth, we must address our sense of separation from the
phenomenal world. We must somehow awaken from the illusion that we
are masters of creation who are free to do what we will with both the
earth and with our bodies. We must somehow reconnect with the forces
that unite us with the natural world from which we can never truly be
separate without damaging ourselves and the world within which we live.<br />
<br />
The
force by which a grain of pollen unites with an ovule to produce a seed
that carries the full potency of the parent plant is no different to
that which enables every new human life to come into existence. The
power by which a plant draws water and nutrients from the earth, and
oxygen, carbon dioxide and sunlight from the air to produce its myriad
structures and chemical compounds is no different to that which enables
our physical bodies to grow and to repair themselves after injury and
illness.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfRiRO1AHWnGVOdlUO5gntZ_gG8lCiacoJdBF0IqZgdi8jThii3RjzQoDahmP_LDH1ZT80oQ3B8TdEWJz3_LYfmzejwWgFcn3Tyq0ryLXM74VciUbDrW7NkMZqU7nXCkI1m3IhJpEByup8/s1600/medicine_man_cheyene.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfRiRO1AHWnGVOdlUO5gntZ_gG8lCiacoJdBF0IqZgdi8jThii3RjzQoDahmP_LDH1ZT80oQ3B8TdEWJz3_LYfmzejwWgFcn3Tyq0ryLXM74VciUbDrW7NkMZqU7nXCkI1m3IhJpEByup8/s200/medicine_man_cheyene.jpg" width="167" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Howard Terpning. <i>Medicine Man</i>, 1983</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Generations of healers in all times and in all places
have identified plants that will serve as reliable allies so long as we
continue to take human form upon the earth. In the present time, the
biomedical profession has claimed the exclusive right to make use of
extracts and derivatives of such plants as <i>Papaver somniferum</i>, the opium poppy, <i>Claviceps purpurea</i>, ergot of rye, <i>Digitalis purpurea</i> and <i>D. lanata</i>, the purple and woolly foxgloves, <i>Ephedra sinensis</i>, ma huang, and <i>Atropa belladonna</i>,
the deadly nightshade. Yet these and other powerful plants were long
known and used skilfully and carefully by untold generations of healers,
herbalists, midwives and shamans. These and many other plants of softer
power will continue to spring forth from both wild and cultivated
spaces for as long as the earth remains hospitable and habitable.<br />
<br />
There
will always be a community of knowledgeable individuals who will
safeguard and transmit the knowledge of how these plants can enable us
to better pass through the pains and afflictions that are an inevitable
part of human life.<br />
<br />
The methods of phytochemistry and
pharmacology have recently confirmed the particular usefulness of many
plants which have long been used in the various herbal medicine
traditions. These include such plants as <i>Echinacea angustifolia</i>, which stimulates activity in the immune system, <i>Ginkgo biloba</i>, which enhances cerebral circulation, <i>Serenoa repens</i>, which is useful in the treatment of prostatic enlargement, <i>Hypericum perforatum</i>, used in the treatment of depression and other nervous system disorders, <i>Crataegus monogyna</i>, which can lower blood pressure and stimulate coronary circulation, <i>Valeriana officinalis</i>, useful in the treatment of insomnia, and <i>Silybum marianum</i> and <i>Cynara scolymus</i>,
both of which support liver function. Such plants and their extracts
are no longer used exclusively by herbalists and are now prescribed or
recommended to patients by a growing number of practitioners of
biomedicine. Yet there remain may other plants within
the herbal medicine traditions whose actions are perhaps too subtle to
be easily determined by the harsh methods of phytochemical fractionation
and pharmaceutical statistics.<br />
<br />
It is important to understand that
medicinal plants and their extracts are categorically different to the
pharmaceutical drugs used in biomedicine. A single medicinally active
plant or its extract typically contains small quantities of numerous
compounds and influences which can, both individually and
synergistically, interact with our own natures. Although any given plant
may contain a specific potency, as is the case with opium poppies and
their narcotic alkaloids, foxglove and its cardioactive glycosides, and
the buckthorns with their purgative anthracenosides, most plants used as
medicines carry a constellation of influences which may include
minerals, organic acids, essential oils, bitter compounds, flavonoids,
steroids and so forth. This is certainly the case with such gentle
treasures as lemon balm, golden rod, white horehound, cleavers,
agrimony, motherwort, chamomile, plantain, dandelion, yarrow and many
other plant medicines.<br />
<br />
During this time when the ways
of herbal medicine are often dismissed and demeaned as outmoded and
useless superstitions, we are well advised to deepen our familiarity
with the healing plants both in our gardens and in the wild. This will
ensure that regardless of whether the future holds a bang or a whimper,
this soft system of healing will remain available as a living force for
the benefit of future generations.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Vincent Di Stefano N.D., D.O., M.H.Sc. </span></b><br />
<br />
<i><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://ia801500.us.archive.org/16/items/MaryAndVinceInterview.FinalMix/TheHerbalMedicineTradition.AvenaWinter2011.pdf" target="_blank">An earlier version of this essay</a> was published in Avena, Journal of the New Zealand Association of Medical Herbalists, Winter 2011</span></b></i><br />
<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">RELATED POSTS</span></b><br />
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<h4>
</h4>
<h4>
<a href="http://thehealingprojectweblog.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/in-search-of-deeper-healing.html" target="_blank">1. In Search of the Deeper Healing</a></h4>
<br />
The technological project has permeated virtually every aspect of biomedicine from the manufacture of drugs and the analysis of blood samples to such visualisation technologies as fibre optiscopes and PET scanners.<br />
<br />
Yet healing partakes of more than material interventions. This post reflects on the movements of mind, faith and spirit in the work of deep healing.<br />
<br />
<h4>
</h4>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWZR_1zfogi60gsNo0RJs0s2J6l5NMTSNbA1FPHx_iKz4K0UsupPqfXYWuS7ZPMcQ93tSSn9IULizoAhE7E_Dn5XUf0TggxgL7t4ihSAKl0QDh0tXtSbofw1xhzJJ2PjmaJ9mnXkpLYuxf/s1600/Water+drop+from+leaf.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWZR_1zfogi60gsNo0RJs0s2J6l5NMTSNbA1FPHx_iKz4K0UsupPqfXYWuS7ZPMcQ93tSSn9IULizoAhE7E_Dn5XUf0TggxgL7t4ihSAKl0QDh0tXtSbofw1xhzJJ2PjmaJ9mnXkpLYuxf/s200/Water+drop+from+leaf.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<h4>
</h4>
<h4>
<a href="http://thehealingprojectweblog.blogspot.com.au/2010/12/of-love-and-medicine.html" target="_blank">2. Of Love and Medicine</a></h4>
In her book <i>Kitchen Table Wisdom. Stories that Heal</i>, Rachel Naomi Remen makes the following observation: "For all its technological power, medicine is not a technological enterprise. The practise of medicine is a special kind of love."<br />
<br />
This post offers a short phenomenological reflection on the experience of being admitted to the Emergency Ward of a small public hospital on the outskirts of Melbourne, Australia. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Vincent Di Stefanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559307846832090756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6016363827616660391.post-66843394875308715592016-04-14T09:01:00.001-07:002021-01-26T19:28:34.999-08:00The Slow Bleed. Fukushima Five Years On<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggVWOKAMnwhwTYgkxwUsfVAZPNX02lkmFgwCVuDjsfN8h8dhuhh_AxRDTC9EyE36hzvBzcN-LPpuONlxI8Ex0EHC-8DCiGpVnRIP9-WyQ1k3CHlSe3hU1685LHTEGGxQia0j-1LQveFoIv/s1600/Fukushima%252C+Reactors+3+and+4.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="417" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggVWOKAMnwhwTYgkxwUsfVAZPNX02lkmFgwCVuDjsfN8h8dhuhh_AxRDTC9EyE36hzvBzcN-LPpuONlxI8Ex0EHC-8DCiGpVnRIP9-WyQ1k3CHlSe3hU1685LHTEGGxQia0j-1LQveFoIv/s640/Fukushima%252C+Reactors+3+and+4.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fukushima, Reactors 3 and 4</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><i>The melt down of three nuclear reactors at Fukushima in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami of 11th March 2011 seems to have quietly slipped out of our collective awareness - as quietly as the cauldrons of radioactive elements that were once within the active cores of the reactors invisibly bleed into the groundwaters and seawaters of the region. This event has become yet another minor detail in the distorted mosaic of ruin that mirrors the latter days of a civilisation in free-fall.</i></b></blockquote>
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Arnie Gundersen is looking a little weathered these days. He has
just returned from a five-week long speaking tour of Japan. He spent much of that
time in the company of many whose lives have been indelibly seared by the Fukushima catastrophe. What he reports is unlikely to appear in the mainstream media, but such has ever been the
case when it comes to the hidden machinations of big government and big business.<br />
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What Gundersen has to say is worth closely attending to. As a nuclear engineer, he has been deeply involved in the American nuclear industry for over four decades. He has a special interest in the design and safety of containment structures and holds a patent for a nuclear safety device. He has also managed and coordinated nuclear projects at 70 nuclear power plants in the US and is a former nuclear industry senior vice-president. He knows the industry well, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/12/nyregion/paying-the-price-for-blowing-the-whistle.html?pagewanted=1" target="_blank">particularly its toxic underbelly</a>.<br />
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Arnie Gundersen served as an expert witness in the investigation of the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, and found that releases of radioactivity from that particular event were 15 times higher than the figures published subsequently in a government report. He is no stranger to the prevarication and deceit that have too often accompanied statements made by the nuclear industry and its government supporters.<br />
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Gundersen has been an active critic of the nuclear industry for over two decades. More recently, he has <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/publications/Campaign-reports/Nuclear-reports/Lessons-from-Fukushima/" target="_blank">co-authored a Greenpeace International report</a> on Fukushima. He was among the first North American commentators to speak publicly and forcefully on the implications of Fukushima in the days and weeks after the meltdowns. And since that time, he has been tireless in his efforts to provide an informed narrative of developments at Fukushima and their consequences for both the inhabitants of Japan and on the global community.<br />
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Arnie Gunderson reports that the Japanese Government continues to put the interests of Japanese banks and power companies ahead of the safety of its people. Within a short time of the Fukushima meltdowns in 2011, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) who were in power at that time arbitrarily raised the "acceptable" limits of radiation exposure twenty-fold: from 1 millisievert (mSv)/year - the maximum dose recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection - to 20 mSv/year. In 1998, over a decade beforehand, Rosalie Bertell <a href="http://www.ccnr.org/rosalie_testimony.html" target="_blank">presented the findings</a> of a number of independent studies published in peer-reviewed journals, including the British Medical Journal and the Journal of the American Medical Association that showed unequivocally that radiation doses as low as 2.5 mSv/year were associated with significant increases in the incidence of leukaemias and myelomas, and cancers of the pancreas, lungs and female reproductive organs in nuclear industry workers.<br />
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As Japanese medical practitioners <a href="http://permaculturenews.org/2014/09/25/tokyo-contaminated-fit-habitation-doctor-says/" target="_blank">begin to encounter the effects of radiation exposure in their patients</a> - particularly children - the government now refuses to pay doctors who record a diagnosis of radiation-induced sickness in their patients. This will come as no surprise to those who followed the actions of the Soviet government and later, the Russian, Ukraine and Belarus governments <a href="http://www.ratical.org/radiation/Chernobyl/" target="_blank">in their concerted suppression</a> of medical reports dealing with the consequences of radiation exposure on the lives of their citizens after the Chernobyl meltdown.<br />
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<h4>
Rearranging the Deck Chairs </h4>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggxOODLk_mZYyzc_lnjmNB7cLlOErPQsBeuEI_NZJ9kxFeMHJPHy0FvqBK3PgOFVtdJazVg-Fo4z2aDsa8B0H7SaAsW-onDlaOm_c0qIzUk91lBmgBnKEYFy84RNAy0LyvCD7appiH-kcT/s1600/Temporary+Housing+of+Fukushima+Evacuees.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggxOODLk_mZYyzc_lnjmNB7cLlOErPQsBeuEI_NZJ9kxFeMHJPHy0FvqBK3PgOFVtdJazVg-Fo4z2aDsa8B0H7SaAsW-onDlaOm_c0qIzUk91lBmgBnKEYFy84RNAy0LyvCD7appiH-kcT/s320/Temporary+Housing+of+Fukushima+Evacuees.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Temporary housing for Fukushima evacuees</td></tr>
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Over 100,000 people are still not able to return to their homes in Fukushima prefecture since the meltdowns. In a disturbing disclosure, Gundersen reveals that many of the evacuees have received virtually no information regarding the issue of radiation exposure either from the Japanese government or from TEPCO, the operators of the Fukushima power plant. The subsistence stipend that they have received since being evacuated will cease in March 2017. Considerable pressure is being put on former residents by the government that they now return to Fukushima and tough it out regardless of the ongoing contamination. <a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2016/03/09/voices/five-years-fukushima-evacuees-voice-lingering-anger-fear-distrust/#.VwnpiD_ycu0" target="_blank">Many have grave concerns</a> regarding the effects of such a move on the future health of their families.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWfIw-1faXbwV_HlDKgvxKr41vsHNqM8gLSw-u9Z5famuN8aGG3AqkZ5Gn_03fqGiwEK_CJiQytfnUWtJVJKxiY1tkSizSNO2YpnwSL5YkmEOWVAaTTs_tmZg8bP2ZUBzR8Z0eYuFnG3dM/s1600/Fukushima.+30+Million+Bags+of+Radioactive+Debris.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWfIw-1faXbwV_HlDKgvxKr41vsHNqM8gLSw-u9Z5famuN8aGG3AqkZ5Gn_03fqGiwEK_CJiQytfnUWtJVJKxiY1tkSizSNO2YpnwSL5YkmEOWVAaTTs_tmZg8bP2ZUBzR8Z0eYuFnG3dM/s320/Fukushima.+30+Million+Bags+of+Radioactive+Debris.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Endless Acres of Radioactive Waste</td></tr>
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Another remarkable aspect of the present situation concerns the manner in which highly contaminated materials - which include radioactive soil, leaves and other debris - have been dealt with. Thirty million tons of such debris has so far been gathered from throughout the Fukushima prefecture. Much of this is now stored in over 9 million large plastic bags scattered throughout the affected areas. Three years after being filled, the bags have started to disintegrate and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/08/opinion/playing-pass-the-parcel-with-fukushima.html?_r=0" target="_blank">nobody seems to know what to do next</a> since their contents need to be kept isolated for at least another 30 years. One favoured option is to <a href="https://nuclear-news.net/2014/11/10/fukushima-japan-has-chosen-to-incinerate-tons-of-radioactive-waste/" target="_blank">incinerate them</a>. This would certainly decrease their number, but would inevitably result in the further dispersion of radioactive elements in aerosol form around Japan.<br />
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There are clearly some who still hold to the old but ultimately banal adage that, <i>the solution to pollution is dilution.</i><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUqEpZ3XVCxfscrCsdTHwtRlqVwZbtrEbh0S2d0hVmrGxznwmkPAWxr6dRO1V7bYio23vfDH_9D4hf5GTHmy6YCAQm8LhY_wvKvn5qM4xVHFdQwPDcwCEidER2sK1CP9-9Men2selaC7ZO/s1600/Fukushima+Contaminated+Water+Storage+Tanks.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUqEpZ3XVCxfscrCsdTHwtRlqVwZbtrEbh0S2d0hVmrGxznwmkPAWxr6dRO1V7bYio23vfDH_9D4hf5GTHmy6YCAQm8LhY_wvKvn5qM4xVHFdQwPDcwCEidER2sK1CP9-9Men2selaC7ZO/s320/Fukushima+Contaminated+Water+Storage+Tanks.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Contaminated Water Storage Tanks at Fukushima </td></tr>
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Dwarfing the problem of solid wastes is the ongoing leaching of radioactive elements from the melted reactor cores into groundwater and seawater. For the past five years, between 200 and 500 tons of groundwater flow through the reactors every day as a result of multiple cracks in the containment structures. Some of this water has recently been diverted away from the reactors, but an estimated 150 tons of groundwater <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/five-years-after-meltdown-it-safe-live-near-fukushima" target="_blank">continue to flow</a> through the reactors daily. This irradiated water inexorably flows on, steadily bleeding into the northern Pacific. Furthermore, 700,000 tons of highly radioactive water salvaged from cooling operations since the meltdown is presently stored in massive tanks that now pepper the reactor site. More are being built as contaminated water continues to accumulate.<br />
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<h4>
The Tragic Absurdity </h4>
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It is common knowledge that engineers will be busy for the next 30 to 40 years in their efforts to put the lid on the cauldron of radioactivity that seethes in the reactor basements at Fukushima. Meanwhile, the Pacific tectonic plate continues its own inexorable movement beneath the continental Okhotsk plate on which Japan sits creating the conditions for future mega-thrust events like that which shook the region on 11th March 2011. The unspoken terror is that it could all turn again in the blink of an eye.<br />
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Despite what has happened at Fukushima, the Abe Government is determined to restart Japan's nuclear reactors that were all shut down after the 2011 earthquake. Widespread anti-nuclear protests throughout Japan have been ignored and three nuclear power plants - two at the Sendai nuclear complex in seismic-sensitive Kagoshima prefecture and another in Fukui prefecture - have been restarted since August 2015. Over the next year, a further six to twelve reactors are slated to resume operations. Business reigns as usual.<br />
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There are many who proudly insist on riding the nuclear beast regardless of the human and environmental consequences. They trumpet that this is the way of the future and a "necessary" solution to the problems of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and an ever-accelerating movement towards numerous tipping points which include ocean acidification, loss of polar albedo effects due to melting of polar ice, and the bubbling up of vast new wells of methane gas from the melting of northern permafrost and sea-floor deposits. In the immortal words of the poet <a href="http://thehealingprojectwebcast.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/blog-post.html" target="_blank">Edwin Arlington Robinson</a>, <i>what folly is here that has not yet a name?</i><br />
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<h4>
Arnie Gundersen's Report</h4>
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The video clip below (https://vimeo.com/161631054) presents an interview between Arnie Gundersen and Margaret Harrington recorded soon after he returned from a recent speaking tour of Japan. The first 25 minutes of the interview offers deep insight into how the worst industrial accident in the history of humanity has affected the people of Japan, and how the Japanese government increasingly serves the interests of power companies and their financial backers rather than those of its own people. Arnie Gundersen is unambiguously clear regarding the nature of what has gone down in Fukushima in this presentation. And the moral abandonment of both the Japanese government and TEPCO in the downplaying of the present and future consequences of the meltdown are not lost on him.<br />
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The second half of this clip offers a detailed review by Gundersen of the developments at Fukushima over the past five years. A separate high-definition version of the second segment can be accessed <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivCj_BSuZU0" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Vincent Di Stefano D.O., N.D., M.H.Sc.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Inverloch, April 2016</span></b>Vincent Di Stefanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559307846832090756noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6016363827616660391.post-32785505698977508732016-02-14T22:38:00.001-08:002021-01-26T19:28:07.967-08:00Blood on the Sand, Blood in the Sea. Of Courage and Treachery on Libya's Shores<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYvsJ2Jg1TcB0L4v6E7ODKIN0NSh5oluDq0nn1JZUBY12MBF4RxVF6c_9920-SzEtFmqOqefxPLzGl1Hm98hJpyzbBZZZMtrqPnEy6jfOi-005_-kStYnOrmJk_q7ScgsOXo5XdfmaiSMN/s1600/The+final+march+of+the+martyrs.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYvsJ2Jg1TcB0L4v6E7ODKIN0NSh5oluDq0nn1JZUBY12MBF4RxVF6c_9920-SzEtFmqOqefxPLzGl1Hm98hJpyzbBZZZMtrqPnEy6jfOi-005_-kStYnOrmJk_q7ScgsOXo5XdfmaiSMN/s1600/The+final+march+of+the+martyrs.jpg" /></a></div>
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<i><b>"One incurs no blame in giving up one's life that the good and the right may prevail.</b></i></div>
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<i><b>There are things that are more important than life."</b></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>(Hexagram 28, Line 6, <i>Preponderance of the Great</i>. I Ching, Wilhelm/Baynes translation)</b></span></div>
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I am no stranger to Libya. I spent most of the third year of my life travelling with my parents between Tripoli and Benghazi. And long before I had entered this world, my father, together with many other young Italian men, had come to know Libya's towns and deserts very well. Most of them had taken leave of their families because there was no work to be had in their towns and villages. The wages they earned helped to sustain the lives of mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters back home.<br />
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The world in which those young men lived is virtually inconceivable for most who live in the so-called developed world today with its fully charged and fully wired ways. The spaces in which we live are now awash in a chaos of invisible energies beamed by over 1,100 communications satellites orbiting the earth. They endlessly transmit our voices, our images, our texts, our financial transactions. They direct the movements of fighter jets and devastatingly lethal missiles.<br />
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Yet even in the midst of the technological power and control that dominates the times, there are some things that have barely changed. Among them is the deep poverty in which many continue to live despite the good times and fast living that the western world distractedly pursues. Over three billion people - nearly half of the world's population - live on less than $2.50 a day. This would not even cover the cost of a morning coffee. <br />
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Many decades after the time that my father worked on construction sites in and around Benghazi, Libya remains a place where both young men and older men from impoverished families continue to look for work. Egyptian men in particular. But Libya has become a far more dangerous place than ever it was before, as we so graphically learned in mid-February 2015.<br />
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<h4>
<i>Because a Few, by Fate's Economy shall Seem to Move the World the Way it Goes</i></h4>
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Long before the attack on the Twin Towers in September 2001, the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, the <i>Shock and Awe</i> attack that preceded the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in October 2011, and the ruinous dismembering of Syria that has been steadily progressing since March 2011, the game plan for the Middle East had already been drawn up.<br />
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<a href="http://www.pnacinfo.us/doc/index.php?POSTNUKESID=b3aa218f09d4355d4a6f22801b73979c" target="_blank"><i>The Project for the New American Century</i></a> was formed in 1997. It gathered together many of the militarist hawks who would soon after form the inner circle of George W. Bush's presidency. It included such shadowy luminaries as Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and John Bolton. Within months of its formation, <a href="http://www.iraqwatch.org/perspectives/rumsfeld-openletter.htm" target="_blank">an open letter </a>was sent to President Bill Clinton. The letter was signed by the core members of the group as well as carrying the signatures of an additional 30 political and military heavy-weights. The letter unambiguously called for the removal of Saddam Hussein from power: "What is needed now is a comprehensive political and military strategy for bringing down Saddam and his regime."<br />
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Its first formal declaration <a href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf" target="_blank"><i>Rebuilding America's Defences</i></a> was published in September 2000. The following comment appeared in that report: "[T]he process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic event like a new Pearl Harbour." The report also urged that the methods to be used to maintain US global hegemony should include the right to launch pre-emptive military strikes and the freedom to overthrow regimes deemed "hostile" to US interests.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjttLCU3kdto1UoezbSf9VFMc-a4wmwgAPw3VSsJLkAiHVU5twNxbuJEm_kUw_HXO8BYx-F_dVflO_Av8KvXKyi65OXERzHV4GC4e_CdhbDAmyNyMoM4UIA6mjECBW5vhU1pr0YFpkunw8k/s1600/Ruins+of+the+Twin+Towers.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjttLCU3kdto1UoezbSf9VFMc-a4wmwgAPw3VSsJLkAiHVU5twNxbuJEm_kUw_HXO8BYx-F_dVflO_Av8KvXKyi65OXERzHV4GC4e_CdhbDAmyNyMoM4UIA6mjECBW5vhU1pr0YFpkunw8k/s400/Ruins+of+the+Twin+Towers.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Ground Zero</i>, New York</td></tr>
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The desired "new Pearl Harbour" event dramatically materialised within 12 months of releasing the report when the Twin Towers were brought down by two passenger planes that had been hijacked by 10 young men. Seven of the men were from Saudi Arabia, two were from the United Arab Emirates, and one was from Egypt. Within 24 hours of the 9/11 attack, both Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz had <a href="http://www.antiwar.com/orig/stockbauer1.html" target="_blank">called for the overthrow</a> of Saddam Hussein. Their moment had come and these men were determined to whip the horse as hard as they could.<br />
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The first stage of the program was enacted through the saturation bombing of Taliban positions in Afghanistan a month later. Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and their inner circle patiently waited a further 18 months until Afghanistan had been sufficiently "subdued" and the American people sufficiently "persuaded" that Sadam Hussein was somehow behind the attack on the Twin Towers.<br />
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A torrent of missiles was unleashed upon Iraq on the night of March 19th 2003 in a spectacle that was broadcast and viewed as live "entertainment" throughout the western world.<br />
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<h4>
<i>By Dint of Slaughter, Toil and Theft</i></h4>
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The invasion of Iraq was built on two lies. The first was that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. The second was that Iraq had been a haven for al-Qaeda and that Saddam Hussein was in league with Osama Bin Laden. Al-Qaeda was non-existent in Iraq when the US-led attack commenced in March 2003. But within a few months, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a former Jordanian lone-wolf militant had sufficiently exploited the chaos in Iraqi society to gather around him a sizeable group of former Iraqi military commanders and assorted Sunni Jihadists. In April 2004, he formally pledged his allegiance to Osama Bin Laden and declared himself head of the newly-formed al-Qaeda in Iraq. Soon after, he released a video depicting an act of breath-taking cruelty which set a precedent that has been ritually re-enacted throughout the Middle East on numerous occasions since.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLbkXNhFyo72N_dexjWZSpRhqoeVO9921wd3wvu8DIGTitqrdyVTwJEknwYEQHrULIeUG5Nj8dvVroloIzFoQjISFxyEb5gfs53q7JKDehPDTKLLJMpPW28P-VKFO1PzEFgqJpCa5vUgRf/s1600/Nick+Berg+and+al-Zarkawi.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLbkXNhFyo72N_dexjWZSpRhqoeVO9921wd3wvu8DIGTitqrdyVTwJEknwYEQHrULIeUG5Nj8dvVroloIzFoQjISFxyEb5gfs53q7JKDehPDTKLLJMpPW28P-VKFO1PzEFgqJpCa5vUgRf/s320/Nick+Berg+and+al-Zarkawi.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
American telecommunications contractor Nick Berg was abducted in Baghdad by al-Zarqawi's men in April 2004. His headless body was found near a highway overpass near Baghdad on 8th May 2004. Three days later, a grisly five minute video was broadcast by an Islamic website. It showed Berg in an orange jump suit - a standard issue item for Islamic detainees in the notorious Abu Graibh prison near Baghdad. Berg was surrounded by five masked men. After identifying himself, two of the men held him down while a third - allegedly Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - beheaded him with a knife. A fourth man then read a statement that concluded with the following remark: "You will not receive anything from us but coffins after coffins . . . . slaughtered in this way." The sands of the desert and the shores of the Mediterranean have been awash with hand-drawn blood ever since.<br />
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Al-Zarqawi was himself killed in an air strike in June 2006. His fellow-combatant and senior aide Abu Ayyub al-Masri immediately stepped into his shoes. Within four months, al-Masri had succeeded in merging al-Qaeda in Iraq with a number of other Sunni insurgent groups and declared the formation of the Islamic State of Iraq, nominating the shadowy Iraqi nationalist scholar Abu Umar al-Baghdadi as its head. Both were killed in 2010. The reins were then taken over by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.<br />
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Within 3 years, The Islamic State of Iraq was fully operational in Syria. In April 2013, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi formally announced a change of name, and declared the formation of the <i>Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant</i> or ISIL (more commonly referred to as ISIS or simply IS). A year later, he proclaimed himself as Caliph of the Islamic State, a successor of Muhammad, and leader whose exercise of power is absolute.<br />
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The invasion of Iraq by the US and its "coalition of the willing" not only enabled al-Qaeda to firmly establish a presence where it had not been, but ultimately created the conditions whereby a far more lethal entity was able to sink firm serpentine roots into the wracked and bloodied soil of Iraq and thence to spread its cancerous venom throughout the Middle East.<br />
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Over the past two years, ISIS militants have taken advantage of the chaos ensuing in Libya after the "successful" NATO campaign to oust Muammar Gaddafi, who was brutally murdered in October 2011. The presence of ISIS in Libya was dramatically brought to the attention of the western world in February 2015 when it released a shockingly graphic video of the beheading of 21 Christian migrant workers on the shores of Sirte in northern Libya.<br />
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<h4>
<i>Black-Drawn Against Wild Red</i></h4>
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On the night of December 27th, 2014, a group of Egyptian workers, all Coptic Christians, were abducted by members of ISIS from their quarters in Sirte, a coastal city situated mid-way between Tripoli and Benghazi in northern Libya. A week later, another group was similarly abducted. Their captors chose only Christian workers, releasing all Muslim fellow-workers who were staying in the same compounds. The Egyptians all knew of the dangers of working in Libya since the killing of Muammar Gaddafi. Before the <i>Arab Spring</i> which began in Tunisia late in 2010, two million Egyptian men were employed in Libya at any given time. For virtually all of them, such work represented a life-line for their impoverished families enabling them to have food on their tables and to provide schooling for their children. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/20/egyptians-risk-lives-work-libya" target="_blank">By late 2014</a>, their numbers had dropped to 750,000.<br />
<br />
Thirteen of the men who were abducted were from Al Aour, a village and farming community of a few thousand people situated three hours south of Cairo. For seven weeks there had been no word regarding their fate or the fate of the other men who had been captured. On Sunday 15th February 2015, ISIS released a video that confirmed the worst fears of their families. This highly produced film showed a group of 21 men being led single file along a rocky shoreline. The men were dressed in orange jump-suits similar to that worn by Nick Berg when he was beheaded by Abu Masab al-Zarqawi in Iraq 10 years beforehand. Walking behind each man was a black-robed masked ISIS militant of gigantic stature. This was all part of the grotesque theatricality that had long been favoured by ISIS in portraying itself as a ruthless super-human force to be universally feared.<br />
<br />
<h4>
<i>As Quiet Fiends Would Lead Past Our Eyes Our Children to an Unseen Sacrifice</i></h4>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-eY_qpatIF8wAhmyuTKw02eSFBw2XsczE4TAoBTvydYmlS_QCpAFasfHT7c6MKZq_hJdTlnR7vuwk1uI9wv_kXVEGReK1NwLK25CmypmjZlPBeU81MFQ9ZAzg4tTF62DdqXPaJmy5M_Fe/s1600/Mathew+Ayairga+and+two+companions.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-eY_qpatIF8wAhmyuTKw02eSFBw2XsczE4TAoBTvydYmlS_QCpAFasfHT7c6MKZq_hJdTlnR7vuwk1uI9wv_kXVEGReK1NwLK25CmypmjZlPBeU81MFQ9ZAzg4tTF62DdqXPaJmy5M_Fe/s320/Mathew+Ayairga+and+two+companions.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mathew Ayairga and Companions</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The 21 men who were led along the Wilayat Tarabulus coast in Libya went knowingly to their fate. Each of them was offered their freedom if they renounced Christianity and embraced Islam. Each of them refused. Remarkable in this story is that one of the captives, Mathew Ayairga a worker from Chad, was not a Christian but had somehow been included with the 20 Coptic men. The original video aired by ISIS shows that he was given an opportunity to save himself. When asked "Do you reject Christ?", he replied unflinchingly, "Their God is my God."<br />
<br />
The hidden story of the 21 martyrs is documented visually in the following short video clip, which is a highly moving collage of news reports, still images, and edited excerpts from the ISIS video. It offers a rare and precious experience of human faith and courage in an age that has been overtaken by the cult of ego, the pursuit of distraction and the collapse of depth. It provides a glimpse of the hidden pain of those whose lives have been shattered by inhuman cruelty wilfully inflicted on others. It points to the ultimate transience of human life. And it reveals the peace that can be carried within a man that will, in the fullness of time, find expression in a renewed humanity.<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1xEpUIeIZcg" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Notes</b><br />
<br />
1. "<a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2015/10/enemy-enemies-rise-isil-151017151127849.html" target="_blank">Enemy of Enemies: The Rise of ISIL</a>" is a superbly produced documentary that carries extensive archival footage of the peculiar sequence of political and strategic mutations that led to the formation of the Islamic State in its present manifestation. A significant part of the presentation centres around discussions between highly informed and articulate commentators, each of whom has participated intimately in the movements of events from the invasion of Iraq in 2003 to the present impasse.<br />
<br />
2. The headers in this essay are drawn from E.A. Robinson's perceptive and prescient poem first published in 1916, "<a href="http://thehealingprojectwebcast.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/blog-post.html" target="_blank">The Man Against The Sky</a>", which offers an early reflection on the mental character of a civilisation gone awry.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Vincent Di Stefano D.O., N.D., M.H.Sc.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Inverloch, February 2016</span><br />
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<br />Vincent Di Stefanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559307846832090756noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6016363827616660391.post-75344135322496910762016-01-31T01:02:00.002-08:002021-01-26T19:27:47.058-08:00The Art of Disregard. Jaduguda and the Indian Nuclear Project<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuLRB1vuGdSXAZjTgjFBn3pMrMvVMYB2ENITrkNbXR1tprkFCUPkx0GP7bZGS8tf9r4UgY-rplAoWKNvXXq4xUZYb0psrvyj-4tQoV32NZKONY7erVBpqmQ5MlZspvpvuY5PJDfGOAo4NO/s1600/Richard+Westall+Image.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuLRB1vuGdSXAZjTgjFBn3pMrMvVMYB2ENITrkNbXR1tprkFCUPkx0GP7bZGS8tf9r4UgY-rplAoWKNvXXq4xUZYb0psrvyj-4tQoV32NZKONY7erVBpqmQ5MlZspvpvuY5PJDfGOAo4NO/s400/Richard+Westall+Image.jpg" width="274" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<i> </i><span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, </i></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>against powers, against the rulers of darkness in this world, </i></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>against spiritual wickedness in high places. </i></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i> </i><span style="font-size: x-small;">St. Paul, Ephesians 6:12</span></div>
<br />
<br />
I
had considered myself to be reasonably conversant with what is going down in
matters nuclear. The language is no problem as physics, chemistry
and mathematics were all part of my schooling. And together with
many of my generation, I was drawn into political activity during the deadly '80s
when over 50,000 nuclear warheads bristled in nuclear silos, on mobile
launchers and in nuclear submarines silently plying the dark oceans of
the world.<br />
<br />
Like many during that time, I attended
anti-nuclear conferences and rallies, participated in study groups,
worked with community radio stations, and wrote papers. Sellafield,
Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were all part of our common lexicon, as
were Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Cuban Missile Crisis. More recently, we watched as
shadowy forces on both sides of Australian politics manipulated policies
so as to expand uranium mining in this country. We witnessed cold
pragmatism and moral treachery as a former anti-nuclear rock singer
turned environment minister signed off on a deal to <a href="http://thehealingprojectweblog.blogspot.com.au/2011/10/learning-to-shine-through-ruins.html" target="_blank">double the uranium output</a>
of the BHP Billiton Olympic Dam Mine in South Australia. The triple
meltdowns at Fukushima in March 2011 put the brakes on that one however, and the
global nuclear industry pulled back on a widely-heralded nuclear
renaissance that aimed to fill the world with a new generation of
nuclear reactors. At the present time, closed room discussions focus on ways to soften the people of Australia for the eventual construction of
nuclear power stations and the creation of nuclear
waste dumps in South Australia and the Northern Territory.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTn7JmFUpKHJVyAzm90ZJ0RDk156jXn-vHZlJrXtPsvNNpPbal-qUFmwZcC7TQ4f5qXV-ZQgdCYzWwniB78SLmKSj7pcSREjHMx-VijSXr4pppDmtCl4ISKVxf1IuzMiDwwp7dptcuSYfs/s1600/Protesters+at+Kudankulam.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTn7JmFUpKHJVyAzm90ZJ0RDk156jXn-vHZlJrXtPsvNNpPbal-qUFmwZcC7TQ4f5qXV-ZQgdCYzWwniB78SLmKSj7pcSREjHMx-VijSXr4pppDmtCl4ISKVxf1IuzMiDwwp7dptcuSYfs/s320/Protesters+at+Kudankulam.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Protesters at Kudankulam</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I had some small knowledge of the Indian nuclear
project: That it was a relative latecomer, starting in the late 1960s
by which time the US, the Soviet Union, Canada, and several European
countries were all in possession of nuclear reactors. That it had refused to
sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in 1968. That it had detonated
its first nuclear bomb, quaintly named <i>Smiling Buddha</i>, in 1974
and conducted further nuclear tests during the 1990's. That it had <a href="http://currentnews.in/nothing-green-about-nuclear-power/" target="_blank">highly ambitious but largely unrealised goals</a>
for fuelling its economy by a massive expansion of nuclear power plants. That not everyone in India was particularly happy about the
prospect, <a href="http://www.countercurrents.org/dianuke110912.htm" target="_blank">as was shown in the protests</a> against the Kudankulam nuclear reactor complex in southern India in 2012.<br />
<br />
I still recall my disgust at the degree of brutality exercised by
Indian police against villagers who were protesting peacefully at the
time. They showed their fidelity to the cause of serving as protectors
of the people by shooting into crowds of unarmed civilians, killing one
44 year old fisherman and injuring many others, destroying property, and then proceeding to spit and urinate
inside the Mother of Lourdes Church in Kudankulam which had served as a base around
which 8,000 to 10,000 local villagers had gathered for the protest.<br />
<br />
I have more recently been made aware of how little, in fact, I know about the nuclearisation of India and its consequences. <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/12/14/18844/india-s-nuclear-industry-pours-its-wastes-river-death-and-disease" target="_blank">A recently-published article</a>
by London-based journalist Adrian Levy reveals how deeply hidden
the ugly side of the Indian nuclear project has been from the very
outset and how callously many communities that are out of sight of the rest of
the world have been crushed and ignored in order to satisfy the
Promethean aspirations of their governments.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Out of Sight, Out of Mind</h4>
<br />
The village of Jaduguda
is situated in the newly created state of Jharkhand in north-east India.
Low-grade uranium ore was discovered there in the early 1950s
and mining started in 1967. In the intervening decades, approximately 1,000 tons of uranium ore has been brought to the surface
daily and processed at a mill situated adjacent to the mine. Milled uranium concentrate is then transported
some 1,400 kilometres to Hyderabad where it is further processed into
uranium oxide pellets that charge the fuel rods
powering ten of India's nuclear reactors. Approximately 25% of the
uranium used by the nuclear industry in India comes from the Jaduguda
mines.<br />
<br />
History has shown that mining is a
destructive and dirty business. Over 500 years ago, <a href="http://thehealingproject.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Paracelsus.-Light-of-Europe.pdf" target="_blank">the great physician Paracelsus</a> wrote a treatise on diseases that were peculiar to miners. In the
intervening centuries, we have come to know that it is not only those
who spend their time in underground mines who suffer the consequences of
inhaling the toxic dust produced in mining
operations, but that the surrounding environment is often contaminated
with the by-products of such activities. And over the past 70 years, we
have come to understand the particularly noxious effects of unearthing radioactive elements on the surrounding air, land, waterways and eventually, the communities that happen to live nearby. <br />
<br />
Jaduguda is no exception. In fact, it has become a tragic example of the prevarication, deceit and disregard that are endemic to the whole nuclear enterprise.<br />
<br />
The Indian government was determined to pursue a nuclear future in the immediate post-war period. The Indian Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was established in 1948, and the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) in 1954. Geological surveys established early that Indian uranium ores were scarce and of poor quality, but that vast amounts of thorium were available. The decision was made to exploit uranium deposits in and around Jaduguda, at that time part of Bihar state. The area was home to numerous tribal communities that had lived as autonomous and thriving cultures for many centuries until the time of British colonial rule during the middle to late nineteenth century. The cultural stability of these local indigenous communities, the Adivasis, was insidiously undermined by the entrepreneurial drive of industrialists who were eager to exploit such resources as coal, minerals, forests and water which were abundant throughout the area, a story that has been replicated many times and in many places throughout history.<br />
<br />
Without even the semblance of a consultation process, local land was acquired by the Uranium Corporation of India (UCIL), a subsidiary of of the Department of Atomic Energy in 1962, and work commenced on the establishment of three underground mines near the villages of Jaduguda, Batin and Narwarpahar, all situated within a few kilometres of each other. Tailings dams were constructed near the Jaduguda mine in order to
provide repositories for the huge quantities of liquid waste produced by the
mining and milling operations.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw1MGhzkMDiiiDq3iG1JXgwMBXnK0JDWI2CccuHsIqaDC32iwqNVr1INZYx6izDXXvrZUI9j-VKCKBCMKh5Hiu0hvquyscBhh3PDivJH_eGfK2QZnewkpMVyOU0YlS1PfYlBwkc2Uk2O7n/s1600/Tailings+dam+100+m.+from+Santhal+village%252C+Jaduguda.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw1MGhzkMDiiiDq3iG1JXgwMBXnK0JDWI2CccuHsIqaDC32iwqNVr1INZYx6izDXXvrZUI9j-VKCKBCMKh5Hiu0hvquyscBhh3PDivJH_eGfK2QZnewkpMVyOU0YlS1PfYlBwkc2Uk2O7n/s320/Tailings+dam+100+m.+from+Santhal+village%252C+Jaduguda.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tailings dam situated 100 m. from Santhal village, Jaduguda</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Some 20,000,000 tons of uranium ore has been brought to the surface and processed since the Jaduguda mining and milling complex commenced operations in 1967. The extraction of uranium from its ore requires immense amounts of water, corrosive acids and toxic solvents.The wastes or mill-tailings produced in this process are then converted into a liquid slurry that is carried through a series of crude pipelines (that have on a number of occasions burst and discharged their contents into the countryside) to eventually discharge into the tailings dams. All of these activities have taken place on the very margins of local villages, with some houses being situated only 30 metres from the tailings dams. <a href="http://jadugoda.jharkhand.org.in/2008/08/jadugoda-uranium-mine-jharkhand.html" target="_blank">Around 50,000 people</a> live in and around 15 villages within a 5 kilometre radius of these operations.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrz9V-YSIvJR6KqkA04fw44h2ww38OdZ2l7Tyatx4SZRAei_EdH3hUN1Cg92WM9OxbDxxIcyIZR76hRSVub5vy2_YPLdS2W3Qig2EjJ2ALlZypkFM9klPWopak4QEr6ECTdvZZWkHR6fCZ/s1600/Tailings+pipeline%252C+Jaduguda.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrz9V-YSIvJR6KqkA04fw44h2ww38OdZ2l7Tyatx4SZRAei_EdH3hUN1Cg92WM9OxbDxxIcyIZR76hRSVub5vy2_YPLdS2W3Qig2EjJ2ALlZypkFM9klPWopak4QEr6ECTdvZZWkHR6fCZ/s320/Tailings+pipeline%252C+Jaduguda.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tailings pipeline, Jaduguda</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Because of the poor quality of the uranium ore, which contains only 0.065% uranium, huge amounts of both solid and liquid wastes are generated in milling operations. It is estimated that the extraction of one kilogram of uranium concentrate from the Jaduguda mines results in the production nearly two tons of solid waste and uses up nearly three times that amount of water. Since the Jaduguda operation commenced, immense quantities of solid waste have been generated. This material carries both radioactive elements and highly toxic minerals. UCIL, the government agency in charge of the mining operations at Jaduguda and throughout India, <a href="http://www.rri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/NSRG/genpatu/india/JADFINAL.pdf" target="_blank">has devised a number of novel methods</a> for disposing some of this waste. It has been used in the building of local roads and as construction material for the walls of local houses, and more recently, as <a href="http://www.nirs.org/mononline/NM776.pdf" target="_blank">rock linings</a> to be used in the construction of 80,000 new water wells throughout Jharkhand. <br />
<br />
Massive amounts of liquid waste have been pumped into the poorly constructed tailings dams over the past five decades. Water from these tailings dams, together with its burden of radioactive elements and toxic chemicals, <a href="https://inis.iaea.org/search/search.aspx?orig_q=RN:42067059" target="_blank">has slowly and inexorably wept into the groundwater</a> of the region. And as if that were not enough, <a href="http://www.rri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/NSRG/genpatu/india/JADFINAL.pdf" target="_blank">there is strong evidence</a> that UCIL has used the Jaduguda mill and tailings ponds as disposal sites for nuclear wastes from other parts of India.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Dark Waters, Thickened Airs</h4>
<br />
The consequences were starkly predictable. By the 1980s, local communities began to notice an increase in general malaise, skin conditions, stillbirths, deformities in newborn babies, deformities in newborn calves, skin diseases in fish caught in local streams and rivers, and a widespread disappearance of small mammals such as monkeys, mice and rabbits from the area.<br />
<br />
All requests for assistance and assessments made by the local communities were effectively ignored until 1993 when a series of radiological and health investigations were initiated. By that time, the Adivasis of the Jaduguda area had endured 26 years of continuous exposure to tainted air, polluted water and contaminated grazing and agricultural lands.<br />
<br />
The survey took two years to complete and confirmed the fears of local communities. Ajitha George, who co-ordinated the study <a href="http://jadugoda.jharkhand.org.in/2009/05/adivasi-live-under-nuclear-terror-in.html" target="_blank">offers the following account</a> of the findings:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The report revealed that 47% of women suffered disruptions in their menstrual cycle, 18% said that they had suffered miscarriages or given birth to stillborn babies in the last 5 years. 30% suffered fertility problems. Nearly all women complained of fatigue, weakness and depression. Further, the survey found a high incidence of chronic skin diseases, cancer, tuberculosis, bone, brain and kidney damage, nervous system disorders, congenital deformities, nausea, blood disorders and other chronic diseases. Children were the most affected. Many were born with skeletal distortions, partially formed skulls, blood disorders and a broad range of physical deformities. Most common were missing eyes or toes, fused fingers, or limbs incapable of supporting them. Brain damage often compounded these physical disabilities."</blockquote>
The study also confirmed that tens of thousands of people who lived within five kilometres of the mining operations were exposed to abnormally high levels of radiation. UCIL simply refused to acknowledge these findings and continued business as usual. <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbARBCY4Ki7RLF8cc3XkDO33A1ytQrfH60CvP_HRfAu7HZ2EJKg51ZeDA5MXyEZSwW1UyTibPRWl9XfVrgWNDX6eYHwDt-erI2TmTdW3zmTRdJbyW_LA-UbIKFVjprCKW2oVDPXo9MqKNs/s1600/Jaduguda+mine+and+processing+mill.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbARBCY4Ki7RLF8cc3XkDO33A1ytQrfH60CvP_HRfAu7HZ2EJKg51ZeDA5MXyEZSwW1UyTibPRWl9XfVrgWNDX6eYHwDt-erI2TmTdW3zmTRdJbyW_LA-UbIKFVjprCKW2oVDPXo9MqKNs/s320/Jaduguda+mine+and+processing+mill.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jaduguda Mine and Processing Mill</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
A few years later, Dr Sanghamitra Gadekar, a specialist in radiation hazards <a href="http://www.ipcs.org/pdf_file/issue/SR90-Chaitanya.pdf" target="_blank">conducted further medical studies</a>. Her findings confirmed those of the the earlier survey but did little to prompt action by UCIL. On the contrary, UCIL continued to expand its mining operations around Jaduguda. Early in 1996 while under the protective cover of local police and paramilitary units, UCIL contractors and their heavy machinery moved onto lands it had "acquired"11 years earlier and summarily demolished 30 houses. They then began to overturn and uproot agricultural fields, local graveyards and sacred groves of trees in order to create a third tailings dam.<br />
<br />
Word travelled fast and within three days, massive protests were mobilised and many women lay down in front of bulldozers to prevent further destruction. Legal action was taken by politically active local Adivasi groups. The local courts appeared to be in collusion with UCIL and did nothing to restrain the demolitions and dam construction.<br />
<br />
Before long, a mass protest by Adivasi communities throughout the region gathered at the dam site but they were met with organised police violence. Many were arrested and incarcerated. Two weeks later, Adivasi groups throughout Jharkhand began to mobilise and assembled in Jaduguda in great numbers. The police then backed off.<br />
<br />
The indigenous people of Jaduguda have endured effective dispossession by their governments. Medical studies, radiological surveys, mass protests, political action and media mobilisation have done little to curb the determination of the Indian government to pursue its nuclear agenda at any cost.<br />
<br />
The central Jaduguda mine was closed in 2014 as its reserves are close to exhausted although the processing mill continues its operations. In the meantime, three further uranium mines and another processing mill have commenced operations at Turamdih, Mohuldih, and Banduhurang, all situated nearby. Since these new mines were opened, extraction of uranium ore has increased to 5,000 tons daily.<br />
<br />
Similar tactics were used by UCIL in the <a href="http://www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/776/paradise-lost-%E2%80%93-indigenous-tribes-jharkhand-fight-against-uranium-mines-tarun" target="_blank">acquisition of land for the mines</a> as occurred in Jaduguda 60 years ago. Hundred of acres of tribal lands have been summarily seized, and the mines have been built in total disregard of the wishes of the local community. Concerns continue to be expressed about the effects of these operations <a href="http://www.gfbv.de/uploads/download/download/110.pdf" target="_blank">by many within the medical profession</a>.<br />
<br />
<h4>
And What will be Left to Inherit?</h4>
<br />
The story of uranium mining in Jharkand mirrors that experienced by indigenous communities throughout the world: In Australia, in North America, in the former Soviet Union, in Africa, and most recently, <a href="http://www.tchrd.org/chinese-miners-threaten-tibetans-trying-to-save-sacred-mountain-from-uranium-mining/" target="_blank">in Tibet</a>. The lives that have already been destroyed and irrevocably afflicted are a foretaste of what confronts future generations as long-lived radionuclides progressively spread through ecosystems everywhere. One can only hope and pray that a world-wide awakening will recognise the folly of the blind and dangerous pursuit of nuclearisation that has been driven by those within the military, by mining corporations, and by governments willing to tear the earth apart and poison the future of coming generations in order to maintain their power and a way of life that is ultimately destructive and unsustainable.<br />
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Telling it from the Inside</h4>
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The story of Jaduguda was first documented visually by Indian film-maker Shri Prakash in his 1999 production, <i>Buddha Weeps At Jaduguda</i>. This sensitively produced low-budget film examines the activities of UCIL - the Uranium Corporation of India - on the lives of the Adivasi people of Singhbum district of Jharkhand. It offers a gentle entry into Adivasi culture through images of village life, music, dance and interviews with community members and representative elders. The film documents the gross negligence of UCIL towards the safety of both workers and of members of local communities.<br />
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<i>Buddha Weeps at Jaduguda </i>is an artfully understated presentation whose message is carried as much through images and music as through the thoughts and words of those who are interviewed. It is a superb example of what can be achieved by frugal means and dedicated commitment. It was written and directed by Shri Prakash and produced by a single cameraman and a single editor.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FxO_LlHaYvs" width="560"></iframe>
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And Fifteen Years Later</h4>
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The clip below was recorded at the World Uranium Symposium held in Canada in 2015. In the first section, Dr Shakeel Ur Rahman describes the findings of a study of 2,000 households living around Jaduguda that was undertaken in 2007. The study confirmed that there was an increased incidence of infertility, infant mortality, congenital deformities among children, and cancers of many types. The study also found decreased life expectancy among those who lived in the area.<br />
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The second section carries a substantive presentation by Shri Prakash, director of <i>Buddha Weeps in Jaduguda</i> reflecting on his visit to Jaduguda fifteen years earlier. He notes how little has changed for the local Adivasis in the time since. It is gratifying to see that Shri Prakash has maintained his advocacy for and commitment to the cause of the Jaduguda communities even into the present time.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GE6YA3kCE5g" width="560"></iframe>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Vincent Di Stefano D.O., N.D., M.H.Sc.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Inverloch, January 2016</span><br />
<br />Vincent Di Stefanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559307846832090756noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6016363827616660391.post-78807737248240695152015-08-19T20:42:00.003-07:002021-09-16T00:54:39.265-07:00In Search of the Deeper Healing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCZhYuGqK-QQ5t8QC3iEMvjVMQf-MdTPzAeKca3t3j9o7TuEDC8YX9h59jdfn5J9n_VrGZ0N1BU2xR3VxvvBHt5ZbMy6rcJR7UdRiU3aFQhQH10Z-JNxtmUC5gcAL9wOWe0ago20yaadKZ/s1600/Deep+Healing+II.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCZhYuGqK-QQ5t8QC3iEMvjVMQf-MdTPzAeKca3t3j9o7TuEDC8YX9h59jdfn5J9n_VrGZ0N1BU2xR3VxvvBHt5ZbMy6rcJR7UdRiU3aFQhQH10Z-JNxtmUC5gcAL9wOWe0ago20yaadKZ/s320/Deep+Healing+II.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>"The healing intention has taken many forms throughout history. It has been voiced in the prayers and invocations of countless generations of priests and shamans. It has been carried by the men and women who sought out the substances present in nature and those produced by human ingenuity that help to ease the pain of sickness and hasten the return of health. It continues to find expression in the skill and precision of those dedicated surgeons who daily exercise their art."</i></div>
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <a href="https://www.academia.edu/4494633/Introduction._The_Making_of_a_New_Medicine" target="_blank">Introduction: <i>Holism and Complementary Medicine. Origins and Principles </i></a></span></b></blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvjVonghfDGDoDflijoZn8-lDlXfBiDgk3erAWXacbM-watl1iSk44yaTnSBfwRMO5R4_3-_sRP8cZxLfcmEmlv63Z8EEyrhf3GRSZo1GTifv9voX-3zLH9YbDnCavs0fNMiJaRyn9V4Bm/s1600/Water+drop+from+leaf.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvjVonghfDGDoDflijoZn8-lDlXfBiDgk3erAWXacbM-watl1iSk44yaTnSBfwRMO5R4_3-_sRP8cZxLfcmEmlv63Z8EEyrhf3GRSZo1GTifv9voX-3zLH9YbDnCavs0fNMiJaRyn9V4Bm/s200/Water+drop+from+leaf.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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I have in recent days had cause to accompany a family member on a visit to a specialist clinic at Saint Vincent's Hospital, one of Melbourne's larger public hospitals. This experience has brought me into deep and intimate contact with the invisible pain that fills both the world and the lives of so many throughout the world. Even before arriving at the hospital, the journey itself became a revelation. I had spent the previous night in one of the outer-flung suburbs of Melbourne and traveled into the city along the Eastern Freeway, a heavily trafficked tollway very different to the narrow winding roads around the Victorian coastal community where my wife and I live.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3gcMLhyphenhyphenhKZZ4SUHlLPKaE-2szpIPvsKAB_dc0AkiszJXVRxdhwiIfoIaoqhPredIYsZezjPyd0HnZIAorIaRmHzRAjhyphenhyphenlamqRZLHtbap-Ugek4nghTcUAKzKNRydyYSqIOUTk_wSgVEoZ/s1600/cars+on+freeway.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="159" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3gcMLhyphenhyphenhKZZ4SUHlLPKaE-2szpIPvsKAB_dc0AkiszJXVRxdhwiIfoIaoqhPredIYsZezjPyd0HnZIAorIaRmHzRAjhyphenhyphenlamqRZLHtbap-Ugek4nghTcUAKzKNRydyYSqIOUTk_wSgVEoZ/s320/cars+on+freeway.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Though it had been some years since I had traveled that particular route, I found myself thinking similar thoughts to those that had often arisen on previous trips. With 10 lanes of cars stretched endlessly before and behind, I imagined this scene repeated in every major city in a world that carries over one billion motor vehicles, with hundreds of millions of cars undertaking the same daily pilgrimage from home to workplace and back. Seeing smoke pouring from the exhaust of one of the numerous heavy trucks that muscled its way along the freeway, I reflected further on the inexorable thickening of an already-burdened atmosphere whose carbon dioxide levels <a href="http://co2now.org/" target="_blank">have steadily risen</a> over the past three years from 397 parts per million in July 2013 to over 401 parts per million in July 2015. So sad. So silly. So much for the increasingly desperate calls of <a href="http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1126.pdf" target="_blank">James Hansen</a> and Bill McKibben over the past 7 years.<br />
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While such notions were gently coursing through my mind, the eTag sitting on the windscreen gave an audible beep - the first in over a year - as I drove under a toll point situated above the freeway. I imagined a symphony of such beeps sounding in the cabins of every vehicle on that tollway and on every other tollway operating in the world, and of the automatic siphoning of a dollar or two from bank accounts everywhere with each beep. It brought to mind the saying, <i>money makes the world go roun</i>d - yet another of the many lies that help prop up dying empires.<br />
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It also vividly reminded me of the vast and invisible networks of humanly-made and modulated electromagnetic fields that track our motions, broadcast our voices, texts and images, guide our airliners and smart bombs, direct silent-gliding nuclear submarines with their calculated arsenals of ballistic missiles, and steer our spacecraft through the cold and empty reaches of interplanetary space. <br />
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The road then began to descend as the lines of cars on the freeway snaked towards the entrance of the Melba tunnel, a massive one and a half kilometre long marvel of engineering built in 2008. And I wondered: Is this what we came here for? To move at high speed along bitumen corridors? To pride ourselves on marvellously wrought feats of engineering? To spend our days travelling to and from the maze of towering citadels that canyon the business districts of cities throughout the world?<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix7VBNBkL0u3l2fsVbWvG-22kDsnvcRtZZ69PBnnzOKpg9VOtuwx_4y6OZwtBJwLRyq9I_Zq1iqAJtqliBpLb4qUmSPzjy9FL3HOqbrYv-jROFLFJPL-WdOo9pswejplVaZPUpSXKZK7In/s1600/Saint+Vincent%2527s+Hospital+Melbourne.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix7VBNBkL0u3l2fsVbWvG-22kDsnvcRtZZ69PBnnzOKpg9VOtuwx_4y6OZwtBJwLRyq9I_Zq1iqAJtqliBpLb4qUmSPzjy9FL3HOqbrYv-jROFLFJPL-WdOo9pswejplVaZPUpSXKZK7In/s1600/Saint+Vincent%2527s+Hospital+Melbourne.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">St. Vincent's Hospital Melbourne</td></tr>
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Soon enough, we arrived at the end of a long queue of cars that slowly inched its way from the end of the freeway into the tangle of streets and humanity at the edge of Melbourne city. After finding a parking spot, with its own hungry meter devouring coins in exchange for an allotted time of respite from the predations of eagle-eyed parking officers looking to further empty the pockets of those who didn't return to their cars on time, we made our way to the Daly Wing, one of the older sections of St. Vincent's Hospital, originally conceived through the vision of 5 nuns, Sisters of Charity who raised enough money over a four year period to purchase a large terrace house on Victoria Parade and set up a cottage hospital of 30 beds in 1893. It is now a sprawling multi-storey teaching complex of 400 beds that occupies several street blocks near the inner city.<br />
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As we passed through the hospital entrance, I noticed the presence of a cross carrying an image of the crucified Christ on the wall. I felt reassured by this powerful reminder of a love and an innocence that had endured unspeakable pain. It added a certain grace and depth to a morning that had otherwise been punctuated by the ubiquitous triumphalist monuments of a thoroughly secularised technological civilisation.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj7qqUZ45Xdce4sEkLFyZKQYsE0TJix6ul33ov7V5TJxgThqxBchsNGBtI-l80-iSfG32YQpivr99W3gKvNMAVCNgE7im3DlfpjT3FJhW5JncY-TBBoPQVMsTA1NrgXwAZhB5WzXzJzVIV/s1600/Medieval+Hospital.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj7qqUZ45Xdce4sEkLFyZKQYsE0TJix6ul33ov7V5TJxgThqxBchsNGBtI-l80-iSfG32YQpivr99W3gKvNMAVCNgE7im3DlfpjT3FJhW5JncY-TBBoPQVMsTA1NrgXwAZhB5WzXzJzVIV/s320/Medieval+Hospital.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Medieval Hospital Ward</td></tr>
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It also reminded me of the fact that a distinct lineage can be traced between the healing ministry of Jesus when he walked the streets and deserts of Palestine 2,000 years ago and the formation of the first hospitals in Europe by monastic groups and Christian communities. When the Emperor Julian took the throne and sought to re-paganise the Roman empire in 360 AD, he directed that State-funded hospitals or <i>xenodochia</i> be established in every city in the empire in order to counter the influence of the numerous healing ministries and houses of healing set up by early Christians. A decade later, <a href="http://thehealingprojectwebcast.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/ephraim-of-syria-pearl-part-i.html" target="_blank">Ephraim, Bishop of Syria</a> set up a facility with 300 beds for those afflicted by the plague that hit Edessa in 372 AD. Most recently, the work of <a href="http://thehealingprojectweblog.blogspot.com.au/2011/02/where-do-we-take-our-instructions.html" target="_blank">Mother Teresa of Calcutta</a> has shown how fully the work of healing - even when all hope of physical survival is lost - is integral to the Christian mission.<br />
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On arrival at the reception desk, we were surprised to see so many in the waiting areas. Virtually all of the 70 or 80 seats were occupied while many other people were standing along the walls and in the corridor. A nurse with a clipboard was working her way through the room occasionally announcing in a loud voice that it was an unusually busy morning and that there could be some very long waits. Many were visibly disappointed and frustrated. It seemed that this was not the first time they had experienced such delays. One woman approached the nurse directly and was told that her appointment would probably be three to three and a half hours later than the scheduled time. The woman said she had another appointment in the afternoon that could not be put off and asked if she could book another time. The nurse informed her that the next available appointment would be in mid-October - some 8 weeks away.<br />
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I realised then how thin was the veneer of efficiency and sufficiency of the public hospital system in Melbourne - and probably most cities in the developed world. And this at a time of relative steadiness and stability. So if one is unwell or suffering from a disease, how is life to be lived out in the Sudan or the Congo? Or in Gaza, or Syria or other places afflicted by war and oppression? The certainties within which we live are all as vapour. Yet we build our dreams and empires upon them.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMdSAnBsvcWCBOMKtEXaWmb6uNj1ow9so_4eMjXSWM-dvy6ONCu8xFOPzDV6cFCWKX7J07_Tm636HmOxDnYM2g9CybFVHUZBvuIFlfOV4olyRnhzv1GVqrDQIOzZ1hhexO-xnozJUjyKbN/s1600/Hardware+inside+MRI+machine.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMdSAnBsvcWCBOMKtEXaWmb6uNj1ow9so_4eMjXSWM-dvy6ONCu8xFOPzDV6cFCWKX7J07_Tm636HmOxDnYM2g9CybFVHUZBvuIFlfOV4olyRnhzv1GVqrDQIOzZ1hhexO-xnozJUjyKbN/s320/Hardware+inside+MRI+machine.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Inside an MRI machine</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
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It had been 7 years since I had last accompanied our younger daughter to St. Vincent's hospital. My remembrance of that time relates more to the technological hardware that is now integral to the biomedical project than the experience of individuals awaiting specialist medical care in the public hospital system. That occasion was also my first contact with nuclear medicine and the first time I had witnessed the contemporary technological mastery embodied in a bone-scan machine. I will also never forget the late-night visit to the basement where the hospital's two MRI scanners costing between one and three million dollars apiece were operating constantly. Reaching the MRI suite through the basement corridors was a surrealistic wander through a labyrinthine network lined with large variously-coloured cables and pipes that vibrated to the sound of a constant low hum.<br />
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I began to understand how deeply the technological project had permeated virtually every aspect of biomedicine, the practice of which is now fully locked into techno-industrial civilisation beginning from the manufacture of drugs, to the analysis of blood samples, to the many visualisation technologies from fibre optiscopes to PET scanners, and the altogether extraordinary armamentaria routinely used in surgical procedures. Such a long, long way from the original vision of five prayerful women of action, the five Sisters of Charity who first opened the doors of Saint Vincent's Hospital in 1893.</p><p>Yet there are some things that will never change.<br />
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</p><h4>
Of Finer Fields and Gentler Ways</h4>
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As has been suggestively voiced by so many, <i>we do not live by bread alone</i>. In the same way that the body has its sources of nourishment, so too do the soul and the spirit. This understanding would have been central to the mission of both the nuns and the small group of honorary physicians and surgeons who helped to staff St. Vincent's, the first Catholic hospital to be established in Melbourne. Apart from providing for the medical needs of patients, the hospital was also a place of prayer, a place where the transience of human life was consciously acknowledged, a place where the interpenetration of birth, life and death was experienced, a place where healing was sought not only from the administration of drugs and surgical procedures but from the power that invests the invisible world in which <i>we live and move and have our being</i>. We sit comfortably with the notion that the world is charged with invisible energies that connect us through our mobile phones and direct us through GPS devices. Yet there are many who would violently resist the notion that intelligent, intentional energy in the form of spirit plays any part in the story of being human, that we participate in a vast nexus of influence of which the material world with all its man-made fields and man-made powers are only a small part.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcLbVptri5kHGTAvU_c6DfKs9NtFWBowNFNfB_vB0yxe5xFhVkbrnJH7ruGi0XMN9-GWxSeAin-kMl3yB6WJIzMm6E_isegRO-T3VovpAIswV2Zc7WsikfyD8VWNB-G2pvVd1wGJEhCW-2/s1600/Casa+Sollievo+Della+Sofferenza.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcLbVptri5kHGTAvU_c6DfKs9NtFWBowNFNfB_vB0yxe5xFhVkbrnJH7ruGi0XMN9-GWxSeAin-kMl3yB6WJIzMm6E_isegRO-T3VovpAIswV2Zc7WsikfyD8VWNB-G2pvVd1wGJEhCW-2/s320/Casa+Sollievo+Della+Sofferenza.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Casa Sollievo Della Sofferenza</td></tr>
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The healings performed by Jesus during the time that he walked the earth 2,000 years ago are not historical fantasies designed to placate the hopes of the credulous and the gullible. Such healing power has ever been one of the Gifts of the Spirit described by Saint Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians. This has manifested historically and continues to manifest daily in such places of pilgrimage as Lourdes in France, Fatima in Portugal, San Giovanni Rotondo in southern Italy, and Medjugorje in Bosnia. There is no shortage of documentation for those who would care to search it out. Yet, to paraphrase Thomas Aquinas, <i>to one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible</i>.<br />
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbgXRODiT04" target="_blank">Padre Pio of Pietrelcina</a> not only brought about numerous remarkable healings through his own charism, but in the immediate post-World War II period personally oversaw the funding and construction of a large modern hospital, <i>La Casa Sollievo Della Sofferenza</i> that <a href="http://www.ptwf.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=98:medical-technology-for-the-italian-hospital-of-saint-padre-pio&catid=87&Itemid=524" target="_blank">has recently been described</a> as "one of the best equipped hospitals in all of Europe." Despite the fact that he was intimately familiar with the reality of divinely-mediated healing, he never ceased to encourage those who would be healers to not only make use of all the material fruits of human ingenuity made available through technology and medicine, but to ceaselessly draw their inspiration from divine reality. In his <a href="http://thehealingprojectweblog.blogspot.com.au/2014/03/padre-pio-of-pietrelcina-healer-for.html" target="_blank"><i>Prayer for Healers</i></a>, Padre Pio says:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Illuminate our intelligence in the pursuit of an understanding of the
pain and difficulties caused by the numerous afflictions that can assail
our bodies until, by skilfully availing ourselves of the findings of
science, the causes of sickness no longer remain hidden to us. By your
grace, may we be neither deceived nor mistaken regarding the nature of
our patients' symptoms, but with sure judgement, select the best
remedies or treatments that have been made available through your Divine
Providence. </i></blockquote>
But there are times when powers other than those carried in the best remedies and treatments manifest in human reality.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Vincent Di Stefano D.O., N.D., M.H.Sc.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Inverloch, August 2015</span><br /> <br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">1. <a href="http://thehealingprojectweblog.blogspot.com.au/2014/03/padre-pio-of-pietrelcina-healer-for.html" target="_blank">Padre Pio of Pietrelcina. Healer for a Broken Time</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">This post
offers a review of the life and work of Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, a
Capuchin priest who carried the wounds of the crucified Christ. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">It includes an English translation of his <i>Prayer for Healers</i>, and carries an embedded documentary that examines his life and influence. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjFlvpA4sAtgaJmRghnrQbffvg3ATNCZ91b4pb0wxz7w19wML-V6_GrusSN7dR8QxF_3CQs3cUedPHy9Hb45yYzro5slUxm4hvtUtHTxwURRg8H2-CNFLhzsgh1kXkOH673Gduyw5t6rCe/s1600/Giuseppe+Caccioppoli+con+Padre+Pio.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1007" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjFlvpA4sAtgaJmRghnrQbffvg3ATNCZ91b4pb0wxz7w19wML-V6_GrusSN7dR8QxF_3CQs3cUedPHy9Hb45yYzro5slUxm4hvtUtHTxwURRg8H2-CNFLhzsgh1kXkOH673Gduyw5t6rCe/s320/Giuseppe+Caccioppoli+con+Padre+Pio.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">2. <a href="https://lavianuminosa.blogspot.com/2018/02/in-presence-of-transcendent-giuseppe.html" target="_blank">In the Presence of the Transcendent. Giuseppe Caccioppoli and Padre Pio of Pietrelcina</a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The meaning of the life of Padre Pio cannot be fully encompassed by
knowing his story or the range of his spiritual gifts. It is only in the
context of his day-to-day influence on the lives of those who knew him
and loved him that one can begin to form a coherent understanding of the
man and of his mission. The reminiscences and stories of those who were
close to him provide far more light than any formal examination of
the many available histories and commentaries that attempt to describe
his life and detail his attributes. One such story is told by
child psychiatrist and former priest Giuseppe Caccioppoli, a spiritual son of Padre Pio.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">This post also carries a downloadable Italian-language audio file in which Giuseppe Caccioppoli discusses his experiences with Padre Pio. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>Vincent Di Stefanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559307846832090756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6016363827616660391.post-29707630308105148882013-12-26T00:32:00.005-08:002021-04-14T23:37:40.817-07:00Slouching Towards Gaza<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPPL297NYPafZPXmLM4_Vjg4-lpdrhnXx7_O_66Upi1G4xQ1jT9G92LvBiZjN3iuDhMGrU3TC9oUQO96_bIYab1yDAIKcWdeS4fWc1wHu_pj5OUHp_10peH1MYX1HYkAa3a2uxAaZp6nF2/s400/Phosphorus+bomb+over+Gaza,+January+2009.jpg" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Phosphorus Bombs over Gaza City, January 2009</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Two days after Christmas in 2008, the isolated and densely populated city of Gaza was visited by volley upon volley of deadly missile and mortar fire. The intense bombardment of "one of the most densely populated places on earth" (<a href="http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/8142EC2398C6A3CB85257AC3005ACBDE" target="_blank">United Nations Development Programme</a>) continued unabated for a period of three weeks. By the end of the assault, over 1,400 Palestinians had been killed and more than 5,000 wounded, many seriously. Between three and four hundred of the dead were children. A total of 13 Israelis were killed during the same time, four of them by the action of their own troops. <br />
<br />
This post offers a fifth anniversary commemoration of that tragic and highly destructive event. It offers a substantive audio presentation recounting the pivotal
events in the history of Israel/Palestine from 1947 to the present
through the reflections of a number of informed and articulate
commentators. This post also includes a modified version of an essay <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/12/25-1" target="_blank">published in December 2010</a> as a two-year commemoration of the assault and the events leading up to it. <br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="40" mozallowfullscreen="true" src="https://archive.org/embed/SlouchingTowardsGaza" webkitallowfullscreen="true" width="500"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
<i>Slouching Towards Gaza</i> can be streamed using the media player above. A broadcast quality mp3 file (192 kbps) is available for download <a href="https://archive.org/details/SlouchingTowardsGaza" target="_blank">here</a>. CD quality (128 kbps) and LoFi audio are also available for download <a href="http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/73443" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
<br />
<h4>
<b>Production Notes</b></h4>
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>The Voices</b></span><br />
<br />
Chris Hedges (New York Society for Ethical Culture, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7w0GMLZV74" rel="nofollow">January 2009</a>)<br />
Richard Falk (Middle East Monitor Conference, London, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znNZDFK4wBo" rel="nofollow">Dec. 2010</a>)<br />
Sara Roy (University of Sydney, <i>Ideas</i>, <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2008/beyond_occupation.shtml" rel="nofollow">October 2008</a>)<br />
Tanya Reinhart (University of Sydney, <i>Ideas</i>, <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newscategoryid=5&newsstoryid=1381" rel="nofollow">October 2006</a>)<br />
Mustafa Barghouti (TUC Radio, <a href="http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/8916" rel="nofollow">March 2004</a>)<br />
Edward Said (U. of California, Berkeley, <a href="http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/71683" rel="nofollow">March 2003</a>) <br />
David Ben-Gurion (June 1947, <i>Talking History Archive</i>, <a href="http://www.albany.edu/talkinghistory/arch2009july-december.html" rel="nofollow">Dec. 2004</a>) <br />
Ilan Pappe (University of Bern, Switzerland, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R91asKI_kQ" rel="nofollow">November 2012</a>)<br />
Robert Fisk (Interview with Cindy Sheehan, <a href="http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/01/13/18669068.php" rel="nofollow">September 2010</a>)<br />
Eyal Weizman (KPFA, <i>Against the Grain</i>, <a href="http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/49672" rel="nofollow">April 2009</a>)<br />
Mads Gilbert (Unusual Sources, <a href="http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/38792" rel="nofollow">January 2010</a>; Muslim Perspectives, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC2PKTeYD3A" rel="nofollow">January 2010</a>; Sounds of Dissent, <a href="http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/64865" rel="nofollow">Nov. 2012</a>)<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>The Poetry</b></span><br />
<br />
Suheir Hammad. <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju_i5-NDhnQ" rel="nofollow">Gaza Suite. 1: Gaza</a></i><br />
Vincent Di Stefano. <a href="http://thehealingprojectwebcast.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/careful-now-reflecting-on-mutations-of.html" rel="nofollow"><i>Careful Now</i></a> (Excerpt). Music composed and performed by <a href="https://myspace.com/nicodistefano" rel="nofollow">Nico Di Stefano</a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>The Music</b></span><br />
<br />
Gilad Atzmon and Orient House Ensemble. <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtIAgMqkVYk" rel="nofollow">Dal'Ouna on the Return</a></i><br />
Rim Banna. <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixMQE52bqz8" rel="nofollow">The Wall</a></i><br />
<a href="https://myspace.com/yggdrasilmelbourne" rel="nofollow">Yggdrasil</a>. <i>Al Dabaran</i><br />
Sirocco. <i>Nomads</i><br />
<a href="http://www.idanraichelproject.com/en/" rel="nofollow">The Ida Raichel Project</a>. <i>Azini (Comfort me)</i><br />
<a href="https://myspace.com/digitalsamsara" rel="nofollow">Digital Samsara</a>. <i>C#</i><br />
Jocelyn Pook. <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xgPgbTMQI8" rel="nofollow">Migrations</a></i><br />
Steve Kahn and Rob Mounsey. <i>I See a Long Journey</i><br />
<a href="http://www.elefanttraks.com/theherd" target="_blank">The Herd</a>. <i>Kids Learn Quick</i><br />
Digital Samsara. <i>7am</i><br />
Outlandish and Sami Jusuf. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI1W4078DB8" rel="nofollow"><i>Try not to Cry</i></a><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Produced by</span></b> <br />
<a href="http://thehealingproject.net.au/" target="_blank">Vincent Di Stefano </a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>With thanks to Maria Gilardin of <a href="http://www.tucradio.org/new.html" target="_blank">TUC Radio</a> for generously making available audio of Mustafa Barghouti and Edward Said lectures</b></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-weight: normal;">AND WHAT ROUGH BEAST SLOUCHES TOWARDS GAZA?</span></b></span></h2>
<h2>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Operation Cast Lead</i> and the Dismembering of a People </span></b></span></h2>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaDhpP872Fdjsqe2t4SLXertZpFynnrqewqMVFytACOwH_NPwmN0NF3QvuYzFveLj2JVR3ymQpXLaWjxP67oLsxLgSGQUjd6tHM8kn-fIpSo6BiDtxc6LqnBfbXs0eq-USk-G58DMqeaUK/s1600/Phosphorus+Bombs+in+Gaza+I.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaDhpP872Fdjsqe2t4SLXertZpFynnrqewqMVFytACOwH_NPwmN0NF3QvuYzFveLj2JVR3ymQpXLaWjxP67oLsxLgSGQUjd6tHM8kn-fIpSo6BiDtxc6LqnBfbXs0eq-USk-G58DMqeaUK/s320/Phosphorus+Bombs+in+Gaza+I.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Phosphorus bombs at UN Complex, Gaza City, January 2009</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In early January 2009, two lone voices braved the Australian
media to offer a differing view to that given by Government spokespersons
regarding <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Operation Cast Lead</i>, the
22-day assault of Israel on Gaza that began on December 27<sup>th</sup> 2008.
The first was that of Greens Leader, Senator Bob Brown. He urged Julia Gillard
to speak out against the “violent and disproportionate action by Israeli leaders.”
More pointed were the comments of Julia Irwin, Federal MP for the NSW seat of
Fowler. <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/01/10/1231004352831.html" target="_blank">In an article</a> published in the Sydney Morning Herald at the time, she used
metaphor to draw our attention to the travesty that was occurring in Gaza: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 9.0pt; margin-right: 10.3pt; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 10.3pt 0cm 9pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">“It all
reminds me of an old story from the days of the Roman Empire. The emperor </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 9.0pt; margin-right: 10.3pt; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 10.3pt 0cm 9pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">Nero
was upset that his prized lions were being distressed by Christians, who ran
away from them in the Colloseum. Nero ordered that at the next circus, a
Christian was to be buried up to his neck in the sand to make things easier for
the lions. When the lions entered the ring, the biggest and the meanest saw the
hapless condemned, swaggered over and stood astride the Christian’s head,
roaring for approval from the crowd. At that moment, the Christian craned his
neck and bit off the lion’s testicles. The crowd was shocked. “Fight fair!
Fight fair!” they yelled.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Israel’s attack upon Gaza was met with a curious
indifference by most of the so-called leaders of Western nations. As acting
Prime Minister of Australia at the time, the ill-informed Julia Gillard refused
to criticise, let alone condemn the actions of Israel. Supposedly speaking on
behalf of the Australian people, she said: “Australia recognises the right of
Israel to defend itself.” That comment was made on the third of January 2009,
by which time it was widely known that 430 Gazans had already been killed and
2,300 wounded in 750 individual strikes carried out by air and by sea over the
previous five days. <span style="color: red;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Five years ago, we witnessed a stone-hearted disregard of the
humanity of those living in one of the most densely populated regions on the
planet by an unspeakably powerful military force. How is it that
politicians can so casually intone, “Israel has a right to defend itself”? Defend
itself from what? From the miserable Qassam rockets that vent the rage of an
immiserated group of Palestinian men, many of whose families have lost sons,
daughters, freedoms and lands since the military occupation of Gaza by Israel
that began in 1967? From the petulant stones hurled by boys and young men at
the supremely armoured Merkava tanks that have blown apart their communities
and knocked down their family homes? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is much that underlies the grief and resentment that
sears the minds of invulnerated Palestinians, much that has been ignored,
suppressed and dismissed by those who would tell us what we should believe. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Operation Cast Lead</i> could not have
happened without the widespread acceptance of a view that dismisses the
essential humanity of the Palestinian people. How is it that so many in the
West have come to perceive the Palestinians as a hostile race, a violent
people, an unruly group with whom any reasoned and reasonable dialogue is
impossible?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihSybQES-hW1Ktt60ra5dXo3Hr3t2nE2EDtsNJ1RHTYoF7RmsCj8rpwzuL5KaQvnKKSCQSNumXBTblXcYtlsswpMZ2Rv2C_wCNjrn690LUrRz601Fes4DvX1r5yjFkhDahIpM6mEwirLKQ/s1600/Edward+Said.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihSybQES-hW1Ktt60ra5dXo3Hr3t2nE2EDtsNJ1RHTYoF7RmsCj8rpwzuL5KaQvnKKSCQSNumXBTblXcYtlsswpMZ2Rv2C_wCNjrn690LUrRz601Fes4DvX1r5yjFkhDahIpM6mEwirLKQ/s200/Edward+Said.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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The late Edward Said spent most of his adult life in an
impassioned quest to awaken our collective understanding to what has happened
to the people of Palestine since their traditional lands were handed over to the
newly created state of Israel in 1948 even as the embers of the Second World
War had yet to cool. In a lecture delivered at the University of California at
Berkeley eight months before he died in 2003, Edward Said reflected on the
sorry fate of Palestinians since 1967: </div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">“The
thirty-five year old military occupation, now the longest and most brutally
sustained in modern history has taken a terrific toll in the human condition of
the Palestinians at every level. In fact, short of genocide itself, I cannot
think of a single one of their human rights as a people that has not been
violated with a kind of refined viciousness designed to dehumanise, break
their spirit and humiliate them to a degree that is, even to someone who has
been carefully but helplessly aware of what has been taking place, simply
stupefying.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">What
has made it worse is how much of this has been wilfully shielded from
witnessing eyes by propaganda about fighting for survival and against
terrorism, claims that in any other instance, would defy the credulity of the
most gullible intelligence.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Things have changed little since Said voiced these thoughts.
The past ten years have seen a deepening rather than an easing of the plight
of the people of Palestine, and more particularly, of the inhabitants of Gaza.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Edward Said was no armchair academic. He was a driving force
in the creation of the Palestinian National Initiative, a democratic movement
committed to providing Palestinians with an alternative identity to that
offered by Yasser Arafat and his Fatah inner circle. Among Said’s collaborators
in that project was Mustafa Barghouthi, a Palestinian doctor. <a href="http://www.thenation.com/print/article/steadfast-goliath" target="_blank">In an article</a> written two weeks after Israeli troops pulled out of a ruined Gaza in January
2009, Barghouthi offers a weepingly beautiful portrait of the Palestinian
people and a clear restatement of both their identity and the character of
their struggle. He reflects: “The main reason so much effort is put into distorting
the character of Palestinians is that if the world were to really know what is
going on here, the collective emotion would shift from apathy toward our
struggle to one of anger at our oppressor.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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One cannot understand the grievousness of what has happened
in Gaza without understanding the depth of dispossession and the degree of
oppression to which Palestinians have been subjected since the United Nations
partitioned the British-ruled Palestine Mandate in November 1947. According to
UN General Assembly Resolution 181, Israel was to be apportioned 55% of the
mandated territory while the Palestinians were to be apportioned 45%. That
never eventuated. Even before the Israeli land acquisitions of the Six Day War
in 1967, the new state of Israel had sequestered 78% of Palestinian lands.</div>
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<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYUH7JPqZUAJhglr44a0uw7Xd4I-RNPXWt1rnLBc6otA2uEdjbPNRNxoyPLtv2pWj1XRVx5FolBCy0RX-tHpSxuzdNr4FMhOUhUS5mozLPm-2O6qMxOn6L82GPX0hjJLTlx21qg7Y9PyDJ/s1600/Uprooted+Palestinians.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYUH7JPqZUAJhglr44a0uw7Xd4I-RNPXWt1rnLBc6otA2uEdjbPNRNxoyPLtv2pWj1XRVx5FolBCy0RX-tHpSxuzdNr4FMhOUhUS5mozLPm-2O6qMxOn6L82GPX0hjJLTlx21qg7Y9PyDJ/s320/Uprooted+Palestinians.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Uprooted Palestinians</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Between 1947 and 1951, more than 400 Palestinian villages
were totally destroyed. As Jewish immigrants poured in from all over the world,
nearly a million Palestinians were made homeless. Attacks by the Jewish army,
the Haganah, and the ruthless Irgun, a militia group headed by Menachem Begin
caused a massive exodus of Palestinians from their traditional lands. Reprisals
occurred, the slaughters continued, waves of Palestinian refugees fled into
neighbouring countries, and the Israelis took control of more lands. The
slaughter of 120 Palestinians at Deir Yassin on April 9<sup>th</sup> 1948 and
of 200 Palestinians at Tantura on May 15<sup>th</sup> 1948 were the earliest in
a series of blood-lettings that extended from the <i>Naqba</i>, the Great Catastrophe,
to the Sabra and Shatila massacres in Lebanon in 1982, the <i>al Aqsa</i>
mosque massacre in 1990, the bloodbath at Jenin Refugee Camp in 2002, and most
recently in the 1,400 Palestinian deaths that occurred during <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Operation Cast Lead</i>. </div>
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<h4>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">The Soured
Election</span></h4>
</div>
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The more direct antecedents of <i>Operation Cast Lead </i>lie
in the Palestinian elections of January 2006. These elections were largely
driven by the Bush Administration in co-operation with the newly elected
Mahmoud Abbas, who took over the presidency of the Palestinian National
Authority after the death of the decrepit and opportunistic Yassar Arafat,
founder of Fatah. Investigative journalist Chris Hedges <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/26-6" target="_blank">comments on life in Gaza at that time</a>: “Gaza, ruled by warring factions, warlords, clans, kidnapping
rings and criminal gangs, had descended into chaos under Mahmoud Abbas’ corrupt
Fatah-led government”.</div>
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Things did not go according to plan in those elections. On
January 26th 2006, Hamas won 56% of the seats in the Palestinian Legislative
Council. The US and Israel took immediate steps to “correct” the situation.
Together with the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, the US
demanded that the new Hamas government agree to accept the terms of all previous
agreements made with Arafat’s Palestinian Authority and to formally recognise
Israel’s right to exist. Hamas refused. The spigot was immediately turned off.
All aid was immediately terminated. The newly elected government no longer had
the means to fund its $2 billion annual budget. With over half of the
Palestinian population living on under $2 a day at the time, there was no
possibility of generating funds through such conventional methods as tax
revenues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3VIsOywuQ7RlN5ijzbtIArdTEVdliA7ENPy1lkODtNWsUplIxYbfrKEhgg3UGdVTEEDWzmEODy4QYwqH1wmWonJVCeYpVqng6RyOftyR6gMiHc0UTdsYASONSrZMVd_18d2BkLVLTnqBz/s1600/Queues+at+border+crossings,+Gaza.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3VIsOywuQ7RlN5ijzbtIArdTEVdliA7ENPy1lkODtNWsUplIxYbfrKEhgg3UGdVTEEDWzmEODy4QYwqH1wmWonJVCeYpVqng6RyOftyR6gMiHc0UTdsYASONSrZMVd_18d2BkLVLTnqBz/s1600/Queues+at+border+crossings,+Gaza.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Queues at Border Crossing</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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</div>
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</div>
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Israel lost no time. It immediately tightened its border
crossings and blocked all movement of Palestinians into and out of the
Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) summarily rounded
up and “arrested” over 60 Hamas officials including new ministers and
Legislative Council members. The Israeli government was clearly displeased with
the outcome of the elections. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Soon after, the Bush Administration followed suit when it
learned that Mahmoud Abbas was engaged in discussions with Hamas about the
possibility of forming a unity government. Condoleezza Rice was sent to
Ramallah to sort things out. In early October 2006, she instructed Abbas to do
whatever was necessary to dissolve the Hamas-led government as soon as possible
and to prepare the ground for a new election. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Several weeks passed and nothing had happened. Mahmoud Abbas
was delivered a thinly disguised ultimatum by the US State Department. It read,
“We need to understand your plans regarding a new [Palestinian Authority]
government . . . You told Secretary Rice you would be prepared to move ahead
within two to four weeks of your meeting. We believe that the time has come for
you to move forward quickly and decisively.” (Quoted by David Rose, <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804" target="_blank">VanityFair, April 2008</a>)</div>
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Tensions between Hamas and Fatah turned deadly as Hamas
learned of the collaborations between Fatah and Washington. Fighting broke out
on multiple fronts. By December 2006, dozens were being killed every month.
Meanwhile, Condoleeza Rice had arranged a series of meetings and discussions
with the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
David Rose comments: “She asked them to bolster Fatah by providing military
training and by pledging funds to buy its forces lethal weapons. The money was
to be paid directly into accounts controlled by President Abbas.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Before year’s end, four trucks loaded with 2,000
Egyptian-made automatic rifles, 20,000 ammunition clips and two million bullets
were quietly ushered from Egypt into Gaza through an Israeli-controlled
crossing. Their deadly cargo was delivered to Fatah officials. At much the same
time, the United Arab Emirates handed over cash payments of between 20 and 30
million dollars to Fatah.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The new hardware from Egypt was put to use within weeks. By
early February, Fatah forces stormed the Islamic University of Gaza, which was
viewed as a Hamas stronghold, and torched several buildings. Hamas responded by
attacking Fatah-controlled police stations. </div>
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<br /></div>
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With Gaza on the verge of a full-blown civil war, King
Hussein of Saudi Arabia quickly convened a meeting. Abbas and his US-appointed
national security advisor met with a group of Hamas Leaders in Mecca. As a
result of the meeting, Fatah members were offered several key posts in the
Legislative Council, and a national unity government was formed. The Saudis
agreed to pick up the tab for the Palestinian Authority’s bills, which had not
been paid for over 12 months. The celebrations that followed were, however, to
be short-lived. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Incensed at this development, the US drew up a plan to
provide Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah forces with $1.27 billion dollars in
military training, hardware and salaries over the following five years in
exchange for an assurance that he would “collapse the government” in accordance
with the wishes of the US and Israel. Details of this plan were unexpectedly
leaked to a Jordanian newspaper on April 30, 2007. Within days, Hamas had
become aware that a US-backed Fatah coup was in the making. </div>
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<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkdi6mAngBfV38c-N_YOxbvyepceyls4g4vOt_oFIQrXAnG-VY-ywF1KAIx77jG2LR7nacA1Nt2BTtR6HzhvTiUHoheNQmfCawuDZHZdfEf90jiQFcluJBzZknyXSt09j-Gsi3hfvPKfQS/s1600/Fatah+militia.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkdi6mAngBfV38c-N_YOxbvyepceyls4g4vOt_oFIQrXAnG-VY-ywF1KAIx77jG2LR7nacA1Nt2BTtR6HzhvTiUHoheNQmfCawuDZHZdfEf90jiQFcluJBzZknyXSt09j-Gsi3hfvPKfQS/s1600/Fatah+militia.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fatah Militia</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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</div>
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In mid May, five hundred Fatah National Security recruits
crossed the Egyptian border in new outfits sporting new weaponry and driving
new armoured vehicles. An observer commented: “They had new rifles with
telescopic sights, and they were wearing black flack-jackets. They were quite a
contrast to the usual scruffy lot.” Hamas fighters tried to intercept these new
recruits as they crossed into Gaza but were pushed back by the tight discipline
of the new Fatah recruits. By the end of May, Hamas and the newly armed Fatah
security forces were at each other’s throats. </div>
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<br /></div>
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The camel’s back was completely broken on June 7th when the
Israeli newspaper <i>Haaretz</i> revealed that an even larger shipment of
Egyptian arms was ready to be shipped to Fatah forces. <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804" target="_blank">DavidRose reports</a>: “Abbas and Dayton [the US security co-ordinator for the
Palestinians] had asked Israel to authorise the biggest Egyptian arms shipment
yet - to include dozens of armoured cars, hundreds of armour-piercing rockets,
thousands of hand grenades, and millions of rounds of ammunition.” With over
250 Hamas members having already been killed in the previous six months, Hamas
decided to put an end to it there and then. </div>
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<br /></div>
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It was all over within a few days. The Fatah security forces
were routed and ruthlessly cut down by Hamas fighters. Mahmoud Abbas dissolved
the nascent and barely-formed Palestinian Authority-Hamas unity government a
week later. Hamas claimed full control of Gaza on June 15<sup>th</sup> 2007.
Those within Fatah who managed to survive the deadly battle of Gaza limped back
to Abbas’ new stronghold, the Israeli-occupied territory of the West Bank. The
US and Israel were satisfied that the West Bank and Gaza were now fully
isolated from each other. And the blood spilt and damage done during that sad
episode was but a minor prelude to what was to be unleashed on Gaza eighteen
months later by the IDF in <i>Operation Cast Lead</i>.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<h4>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">Tightening
the Stranglehold</span></h4>
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Gaza was declared a ‘hostile entity’ by the Israeli Security
Cabinet, and the blockade of Gaza was intensified. Israeli forces closed all
portals of entry and Egypt followed suit at its northern border with Gaza. The
movement of people and of goods into and out of Gaza was frozen. Overnight,
Gaza had become totally ghettoised. Predictably, Hamas resumed its useless
rocket attacks on southern Israel.</div>
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<br /></div>
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By December 2007, 90% of the functioning factories and
workshops in Gaza had closed down. With the blocking of all imports into Gaza,
there were simply no materials available to work with any more. The income of
70% of the population of the Gaza Strip had by then dropped to below $2 a day. </div>
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<br /></div>
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By June 2008, the situation of ordinary Gazans had become
intolerable. The year-long Israeli blockade had cut off supplies of all the
vital materials whereby civil society could be sustained. In desperation, Hamas
sought ways of breaking the Israeli stranglehold of its borders. Through talks
mediated by the Egyptian government, an agreement was reached whereby Hamas
offered to end the firing of rockets into Israel in exchange for an easing of
the blockade at the borders. A cease-fire was agreed upon on July 19th 2008.
All Hamas rocket fire ceased immediately. But <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/26-6" target="_blank">in the words of ChrisHedges</a>, “Israel never upheld its end of the agreement. It increased the
severity of the siege.” </div>
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<br /></div>
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A year earlier, in May 2007, nearly 11,000 trucks carrying
goods crossed the Israeli controlled border-posts into Gaza each month. These
provided essential materials – food, medicines, building materials, industrial
supplies, educational items, clothing and technology – to serve the needs of
Gaza’s one and a half million inhabitants. By October 2008, the number had
dropped to under 3,000 trucks each month. During the month of November 2008,
the month before <i>Operation Cast Lead</i> was launched, Israel allowed only
579 trucks to cross the border. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Israeli planners had learned well from the strategic course
charted by George Bush Senior, Bill Clinton and George Bush Junior in Iraq.
Weaken the enemy to the point of abject impotence through blockades and
sanctions, and when they have become totally defenceless, unleash all hell with
the deadliest military hardware this planet has ever seen. By the end of
January 2009, the results in Gaza mirrored those in Iraq. Broken buildings,
broken bodies and untold numbers of grieving mothers, fathers and children. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<h4>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">The
Preparations</span></h4>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The cease-fire agreement of July 2008 between Israel and
Hamas lasted only four months. It was broken by an Israeli military strike on
Hamas on November 4th 2008. Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International
Law at Princeton University and UN Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human
rights reflected on the
event: “A temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that had been in
effect since 19<sup> </sup>July 2008 had succeeded in reducing cross-border
violence virtually to zero; Hamas consistently offered to extend the ceasefire,
even to a longer period of ten years. The breakdown of the ceasefire . . . came
about mainly as a result of an Israeli air attack on 4 November that killed six
Hamas fighters in Gaza.” </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Israeli game plan had, however, been set long before the
July cease-fire agreement. Israeli military planners bided their time until the
opportune moment. That moment happened to coincide precisely with the day of
the US elections, November 4, 2008. The Israeli military knew well that their
attack would not appear on the front page of any newspaper outside of the Arab
world. <span style="color: red;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On November 5<sup>th</sup>, the siege of Gaza became
absolute. Israel completely shut down the borders. Predictably, useless rockets
and mortars were once again launched across the border from Gaza into Israel.
This was precisely what the Israeli military had counted on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The rest moved like clockwork. F-16 fighter jets and Apache
helicopters were loaded with precision missiles and messy bombs; Israeli navy
attack ships lined up off the Gaza coast-line; and earth-shaking battalions of
Merkeva tanks were set rolling together with their well-armed ground troops as
the pyrotechnics were about to unfold.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<h4>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">The Deadly Visitations</span></h4>
</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHQy43MBIrh1us3hcj4EOfTFo555b_I9NQ00GP_rDsDEZTnN39EtroCWFHuYkTVhdyvsQZgiaLzwqio_AluLQjRdkDY9_Kk6zXEbRA9VgH_xv_-cOxZz7Kn08lPd5oIutYzevw6_2MEWHe/s1600/Israeli+air+strike+in+Gaza+City.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHQy43MBIrh1us3hcj4EOfTFo555b_I9NQ00GP_rDsDEZTnN39EtroCWFHuYkTVhdyvsQZgiaLzwqio_AluLQjRdkDY9_Kk6zXEbRA9VgH_xv_-cOxZz7Kn08lPd5oIutYzevw6_2MEWHe/s320/Israeli+air+strike+in+Gaza+City.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Israeli air-strike in Gaza City</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">In the days after Christmans 2008,
volley upon volley of monstrous weapons shredded the skies of Gaza, a tiny,
densely populated strip of land 8 kilometres wide and 45 kilometres long. On
January 4<sup>th</sup>, the sour-mouthed Israeli President Shimon Peres said:
“Israel’s aim was to provide a strong blow to the people of Gaza so they would
lose their appetite for shooting at Israel.” That strong blow was relentlessly
delivered. It resulted in the death of over 240 children under the age of
sixteen, the death of hundreds of non-combatant men and women, the wounding of
five thousand others and the creation of enduring psychological terror for
tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">The Israeli soldiers returned to their
homes and barracks. The bloodied mess of broken bodies and broken roads and
buildings was left for the people of Gaza to deal with. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">But who now remembers Gaza? </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeHuOGf6u4VWUfRsIzZ_oTnHAY5d8wYfPox-mdvYBoPDM8oAgZuvT8V2_YIXdENT_eMKqEvoB-NSLtVKCgBsrduwy855n7HSmT_mC_mxTZ4FX6-jMphLC5eSJW7rG_3wrtEr7KelAoCjLs/s1600/Three+children+killed+in+Gaza.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeHuOGf6u4VWUfRsIzZ_oTnHAY5d8wYfPox-mdvYBoPDM8oAgZuvT8V2_YIXdENT_eMKqEvoB-NSLtVKCgBsrduwy855n7HSmT_mC_mxTZ4FX6-jMphLC5eSJW7rG_3wrtEr7KelAoCjLs/s320/Three+children+killed+in+Gaza.png" width="249" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">There is a peculiar cynicism hidden in
the events leading up to <i>Operation Cast Lead</i>. Ariel Sharon callously
oversaw the massacres at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon in
1982. Two decades later, the haughty George Bush Junior lauded him as a “man of
peace”. A year after that ludicrous statement was made, Sharon’s apparent
prince-hood was confirmed in the minds of many by his order to dismantle all
Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and to evacuate the 7,000 Israeli
“settlers” who had illegally claimed lands in Gaza under the protective mantle
of well-armed Israeli Defence Force guards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">The attack upon Gaza in December 2008
could never have happened without Sharon’s emptying of Gaza of its Israeli
inhabitants four years earlier. The captive native population was thereby laid
open to a continuous disgorgement of lethal weaponry by the Israeli military in
<i>Operation Cast Lead</i>.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Israel has in recent decades become a
major developer and manufacturer of sophisticated weapons. But most of its
military hardware has been supplied over several decades by the US. After the
Vietnam debacle in the 1970s, Israel stepped up to the pad as the next major
recipient of US military aid. It has retained that position ever since. </span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmsz2j1n_MNq2mZF5kNTUIuw0MAjlPNsRwy-QuCe4p3DXtAiFJ8rdjOmdnyX3jxPclMdKwwTFyfCC8McLpSStKG5Prf7rwTjnCeth6OUW4LWsO1obKZlb6akCR0Yf2v4h1lR6way3Rbofu/s1600/israeli+fighter+jets+II.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmsz2j1n_MNq2mZF5kNTUIuw0MAjlPNsRwy-QuCe4p3DXtAiFJ8rdjOmdnyX3jxPclMdKwwTFyfCC8McLpSStKG5Prf7rwTjnCeth6OUW4LWsO1obKZlb6akCR0Yf2v4h1lR6way3Rbofu/s320/israeli+fighter+jets+II.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Israeli fighter jets</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Israel has been gifted over two billion
dollars every year - most of it in the form of military “assistance” - by the
US for decades now. The Bush administration alone provided over 21 billion
dollars in “security assistance” during its time in office. In addition to
these lethal gratuities, Israel has more recently signed contracts with US arms
manufacturers for over 22 billion dollars of new military hardware. This
includes a deal for 75 Joint Strike Fighters, 9 military transport aircraft and
4 combat ships.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Israel presently has 180,000 heavily
armed regular troops in their armed forces, 140,000 conscripts, 4,300
impenetrable Merkava battle tanks, 10,000 light tanks and armoured cars, 500
missile-laden fighter jets, 1340 helicopters, three submarines, three
destroyers and 40 smaller warships. And the full might of Israeli military
force was projected into the tiny space of Gaza during the three week period
from December 27<sup>th</sup> 2008 to January 18<sup>th</sup> 2009. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">In February 2009, investigative
journalist Conn Hallinan was to describe Gaza as <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/02/18/death-s-laboratory/" target="_blank">"Death's Laboratory"</a>. <span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span>
Israel’s new weapons had caused injuries never before seen in the hospitals of
Gaza. Many of these were the result of the widespread use of a new class of
weapons called Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME). These were initially
developed by the US Air Force and scientists from the University of
California’s Lawrence Livermore Laboratory nine years ago. DIME weapons consist
of a high explosive core around which is wrapped powdered tungsten alloy in a
carbon fibre container. On detonation, the tungsten sprays out explosively over
a ten-meter radius shredding everything in its field. The resultant injuries
are truly shocking. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg37gv27-6TUtYDZsP9NYxiLmfmrbJ8TRrQL34ZUTqutizjIPU4QCyNw3YlC1JRGkAHXqzd29Zww11uLlLozh0Yw6sJq9I37E3QuAi1ZYPgh3inypyJm0IMdDAu2Yu3Z748_usrNDHQu_oB/s1600/DIME+weapon+effects,+Gaza.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg37gv27-6TUtYDZsP9NYxiLmfmrbJ8TRrQL34ZUTqutizjIPU4QCyNw3YlC1JRGkAHXqzd29Zww11uLlLozh0Yw6sJq9I37E3QuAi1ZYPgh3inypyJm0IMdDAu2Yu3Z748_usrNDHQu_oB/s1600/DIME+weapon+effects,+Gaza.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">DIME weapon leg injuries</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert
commented: “The muscles are sort of split from the bones, hanging loose, and
you also have quite severe burns. . . . Those inside the perimeter of this
weapon’s power zone will be torn completely apart. We have seen numerous
amputations that we suspect have been caused by this.” He went on to say, “I’ve
never seen anything as bad as that. I have been to many conflict zones. I was
in Beirut in 1982 . . . but Gaza was the worst.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">A German doctor working in southern
Gaza offered his own observations: “Initially, everything seems in order. . .
But it turns out on operation that dozens of miniature particles can be found
in all their organs.” Most of those who survive the shredding of their limbs
succumb soon after to septicaemia and organ collapse. Habas Al-Wahid, head of
emergency at a Gaza hospital observed that in several cases of DIME-caused
injuries, the legs of the injured were sliced from their bodies “as if a saw
was used to cut through the bone.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Are these the intended fruits of human
ingenuity, of our capacity for deep intelligence, of our mastery of the art of
technological innovation?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">The longer-term consequences of the use
of tungsten-based weapons have yet to be realised. Like depleted uranium, which
has caused numerous cancers and monstrous birth deformities in Iraq, aerosol
tungsten will doubtless bring its own train of future woe. Conn Hallinan
reports that it has already been implicated as a possible cause of leukaemia
and other cancers.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">The DIME weapons used in Gaza were
either supplied directly to Israel by the US or were manufactured in Israel
under US instructions. They have yet to be banned under the Geneva Conventions
because - until Gaza - they had yet to be systematically “tested” on a living
population. Despite all pleas to the contrary and claims of good conduct by
Israel, the war upon Gaza, like all wars, was yet another act of profound
lawlessness and deceit. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQcMwuZ1IEQJcLFIxk_xDQUoXUj8k0zVuB41SdRfOVkk7qDlMERUdXcbiiSzGvgJCla2fS5stIZKfqLrGds5LKgl1PZeG11P5Dvmyjke8G1gXC8eyBcJn6FuV8cJvzqD0l2OveHfN72XO7/s1600/Suspected+white+phosphorus+burns.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQcMwuZ1IEQJcLFIxk_xDQUoXUj8k0zVuB41SdRfOVkk7qDlMERUdXcbiiSzGvgJCla2fS5stIZKfqLrGds5LKgl1PZeG11P5Dvmyjke8G1gXC8eyBcJn6FuV8cJvzqD0l2OveHfN72XO7/s320/Suspected+white+phosphorus+burns.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Suspected white phosphorus burns, Gaza 2009</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">The use of phosphorus-based weapons
near populated areas has long been prohibited under international law. But this
did not prevent the use of such weapons by Israel. Suspicions were raised early
when, in addition to the hundreds of half-ton “conventional” bombs that rained
upon Gaza every day, the characteristic spray of burning white phosphorus
streaking through the sky began to be noticed in some of the airbursts. Within
a short time, people arrived in casualty wards of Gaza with horrible burns that
continued to smoke and smoulder even after they had been washed and bandaged.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">During the first week of Israel’s offensive,
journalists from the UK <i>Times</i> identified row upon row of American-made
pale blue M825A1 white phosphorus artillery shells from high-resolution images
of Israeli artillery units on the Israeli-Gaza border. Their reports were met
with strident denials by IDF spokespersons. This echoed the Israeli denials
three years earlier of having used phosphorus against civilian targets in
Lebanon. They lied in August 2006 and they lied again in January 2009. But that
is all part of how war is conducted by civilised nations in obscene times.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">On 11<sup>th</sup> January 2009, IDF
spokeswoman <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/01/12-6" target="_blank">Major Avital Leibovich stated</a>: <span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span> “I can assure you we do not use any weapons that are
prohibited by international law. There are other nations that use phosphorus
bombs, and we have the right not to comment on this.” She was probably
referring to the fact that both Britain and the US used white phosphorus in
Iraq, especially during the Fallujah campaign. So the fact of one obscenity is
thereby used to justify another. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Another weapon used in Gaza was the
newly developed GPS-guided mortar. The GPS mortar was developed by the Israeli
weapons industry working closely with the US company Alliant. GPS mortars are
equipped with satellite navigation systems and are said to act with surgical
precision. Yet they were found sorely wanting. Israeli journalist <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/01/16-0" target="_blank">Amira Hass reported</a><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span>
that during the second week of January, such a weapon missed its intended
target by 30 meters and slammed into a United Nations Relief and Works Agency
school where many women and children had sought refuge. It killed 30 of them
outright. Another 10 women and children died of their injuries later. Many
others sustained horrendous injuries.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">After months of back-room negotiations,
the US agreed to supply Israel with 1,000 GBU-39 bombs in September 2008. These
new weapons had been developed and assembled by the Boeing Corporation. The
GBU-39 is designed to penetrate deep into the earth before exploding. Arrays of
these new weapons were delivered in early December. Within the first hours of
the Israeli offensive, hundreds of GBU-39 bombs had been dropped on Rafa in an
attempt to destroy the network of tunnels that enabled the movement of
essential goods and materials from Egypt into Gaza. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<h4>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Cold Spin</span></h4>
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">The assault upon Gaza was many months
in the making. <a href="http://fpif.org/defending_israeli_war_crimes/" target="_blank">Steven Zunes reported in May 2009</a>: <span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span>“Israeli Defence minister Ehud Barak admitted that the Israeli
invasion had been planned for months, back when a six-month cease fire was
still in effect.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Not a single Hamas rocket had been
fired into Israel from the time the cease-fire was declared on June 18<sup>th</sup>
2008 and the deadly truce-breaking Israeli air attack in Gaza on November 4<sup>th</sup>
2008 that killed six Hamas members. Steven Zunes observes that in spite of the
predictable and cynically anticipated resumption by Hamas of cross-border
rocket fire, “not a single Israeli had been killed by rocket attacks for more
than half a year prior to Israel launching its war on December 27.” The
planning for <i>Operation Cast Lead</i> was well under way in March 2008. It
was fully in place many months before the actual assault. The IDF was therefore
militarily well prepared for the December 27 assault. So too was its public
relations arm. Like the GBU-39 bombs at Rafa, silver-tongued commentators
miraculously and simultaneously appeared in the major media outlets throughout
the Western world. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">In an impassioned piece entitled <a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n02/henry-siegman/israels-lies" target="_blank">"Israel's Lies"</a> <span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span>
published in the London Review of Books on January 29<sup>th</sup> 2009, Henry
Seigman, former national director of the American Jewish Congress inveighed: </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 9.0pt; margin-right: 13.8pt; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 13.8pt 0cm 9pt;">
“Western governments and most of
the Western media have accepted a number of Israeli claims justifying the
military assault on Gaza: that Hamas consistently violated the six-month truce
that Israel observed and then refused to extend it; that Israel therefore had
no choice but to destroy Hamas’s capacity to launch missiles into Israeli
towns; that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, part of a global jihadi network;
and that Israel has acted not only in its own defence but on behalf of an
international struggle by Western democracies against this network. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 9.0pt; margin-right: 13.8pt; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 13.8pt 0cm 9pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 9.0pt; margin-right: 13.8pt; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 13.8pt 0cm 9pt;">
I am not aware of a single major
American newspaper, radio station or TV channel whose coverage of the assault
on Gaza questions this version of events. . . Middle East peacemaking has been
smothered in deceptive euphemisms so let me state bluntly that each of these
claims is a lie.” </div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Those lies were swallowed up whole by
the Western world. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Even as the tanks began rolling and the
bombs were exploding, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni instructed her
minions to engage foreign language speakers everywhere to take “emergency
measures to adapt Israel’s public relations to the ongoing escalation in the
Gaza Strip.” (Julia Irwin, “Getting Away with Murder”, <i>Sydney Morning Herald</i>,
11/1/09) Within hours, the smooth-voiced Israeli spokesman Mark Regev and
Martin Indyk, a former official of the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee, were everywhere to be heard on Radio National and the ABC network
throughout Australia. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">UK journalist Robert Fisk happened to
be travelling through Canada at the time the offensive was launched. He noted
that numerous articles attempting to justify Israel’s actions by asking readers
to imagine the horror of coming under Palestinian rocket attack began to appear
simultaneously in large-circulation newspapers.<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span> <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-wherever-i-go-i-hear-the-same-tired-middle-east-comparisons-1297595.html" target="_blank">He commented</a>: “I’m
waiting for the same writers to ask how we’d feel if we . . . came under
sustained attack from supersonic aircraft and Merkava tanks and thousands of
troops whose shells and bombs tore 40 women and children to pieces outside a
school, shredded whole families in their beds and who, after nearly a week, had
killed almost 200 civilians out of 600 fatalities.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">US journalist Chris Hedges <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/26-6" target="_blank">similarly railed</a>:<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span> “The use of
attack aircraft and naval ships, part of the world’s fourth-largest military
power, to level densely packed slums of people who were hungry, without power
and often water, people surrounded on all sides by the Israeli army, was
fatuously described as a war. The news coverage held up the absurd notion that
a few Hamas fighters with light weapons and no organization were a counterforce
to F-16 fighter jets, tank battalions, thousands of Israeli soldiers, armoured
personnel carriers, naval ships and Apache attack helicopters. It fit the Israeli
narrative. It may have been balanced and objective. But it was not true.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">The attack upon Gaza was clearly part
of a longer-term project for the complete subjection of Palestinians by Israel.
The attack was not an act of self-defence against miserable Qassam rockets. As
Ben White <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/jan/20/gaza-israelandthepalestinians" target="_blank">pointed out</a>:<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span>
“During the truce last year, rocket fire from the Gaza Strip was reduced by
97%, with the few projectiles that were fired coming from non-Hamas groups
opposed to the agreement.” The breaking of the ceasefire by the Israelis on
November 4<sup>th</sup> was a deliberate and provocative act that brought the
expected response from Hamas. The Israelis bided their time in order to teach
the Gazans a lesson for choosing Hamas during the 2006 elections. The ferocity
and the duration of <i>Operation Cast Lead</i> was intended to destroy Hamas
and to humiliate the Palestinians of Gaza who had deigned to chose Hamas as
their representatives.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Even before <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Operation Cast Lead</i>, the Gazans were already near-broken by the
debilitating Israeli blockade of their border crossings. The compliant Mahmoud
Abbas and his shadowy Fatah officials had been sequestered into what is left of
the West Bank to make sure that the Palestinians there did not get too rowdy or
emotional about what was happening in Gaza. Most Western leaders chose to look
aside and chorused in unison about the Right of Israelis to Defend Themselves
while the Israeli military set about systematically destroying every civil
institution and every form of essential infrastructure necessary for the
conduct of life, a life that for Gazans had already been made near intolerable.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">There are probably also other factors
behind <i>Operation Cast Lead</i> apart from the desire to destroy the will of
the Palestinians of Gaza and to “catastrophise” their experience of life. In a
more cynical vein, we would do well to remember that the Israelis have for many
years coveted the huge reservoirs of undersea natural gas in Gaza’s territorial
waters that were discovered by the British Gas Group about a decade ago. This
side of things may come increasingly to light in coming time as Israel attempts
to secure additional sources of energy during this time of dwindling reserves.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<h4>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Continuing Impasse</span></h4>
</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiar8naYSgYefrWx221OMT4qbnvba7241VmfCQz6SCEiMqriaK8OSuFmy4d5Tkt9CFjL50mUGMtk-0R12URQUiC03CYawE9rZVcF5rZFKQj5p_YweCGl0DaK-1J04fcSQ6EkWj-JUU8xAIo/s1600/Gaza+City,+January+2009.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiar8naYSgYefrWx221OMT4qbnvba7241VmfCQz6SCEiMqriaK8OSuFmy4d5Tkt9CFjL50mUGMtk-0R12URQUiC03CYawE9rZVcF5rZFKQj5p_YweCGl0DaK-1J04fcSQ6EkWj-JUU8xAIo/s320/Gaza+City,+January+2009.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gaza City, January 2009</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">During the 22 days of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Operation Cast Lead</i>, 20,000 buildings
and 5,000 homes throughout Gaza were completely destroyed leaving over half a
million metric tonnes of debris, much of which has yet to be cleared. The
Israelis targeted every part of the territory’s infrastructure. <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/05/04" target="_blank">Erin Cunningham observed</a>:<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span> “Homes,
businesses, factories, power grids, sewage systems and water treatment plants
were reduced to piles of rubble across the Gaza Strip.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Seven schools in Gaza were totally
destroyed, and 135 were substantially damaged. The Al-Azhar University of Gaza
was reduced to rubble. Hospitals, medical clinics and Red Crescent warehouses
were all targeted, as was every police station and every building associated
with Hamas activities. Over 250 civilian Palestinian policemen were killed
during the 22-day operation. <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/04/02/changing-the-rules-of-war/" target="_blank">George Bisharat documents</a><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span>
how Israeli military lawyers went so far as to authorise the bombing of a
police cadet graduation ceremony, killing 63 young Palestinian men in a single
strike.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhULyl7G0O68uV41GMdUODHN0Hnv6iwZ6FP3kK9X7IHT42pojqbCyYjs5jHFYAyie3IUgmYmQf9WJrs4zO5N6P-q9cXM7pWf3aP7W_mrZyLTOhGNZFFYN3Tr1ZIiDPnxXuLJnh89CiXwOtN/s1600/Dead+policemen+in+Gaza.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhULyl7G0O68uV41GMdUODHN0Hnv6iwZ6FP3kK9X7IHT42pojqbCyYjs5jHFYAyie3IUgmYmQf9WJrs4zO5N6P-q9cXM7pWf3aP7W_mrZyLTOhGNZFFYN3Tr1ZIiDPnxXuLJnh89CiXwOtN/s1600/Dead+policemen+in+Gaza.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Missile Attack on Gaza Police Cadet Graduation Ceremony</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Even though 70% of Gaza’s agricultural
system had been rendered useless by the Israeli border siege which had blocked
the entry of pipes and pumps essential for irrigation, Israeli tanks and
bulldozers set about ruining what little was left. Vast acreages of farming
land including olive orchards, fruit plantations, chicken farms and other
established farms throughout Gaza were systematically destroyed. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">According to a particular view, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Operation Cast Lead</i> represented the face
of a new and compassionate style of warfare where the dead are counted in the
thousands rather than tens or hundreds of thousands; where the entire
population is reduced to immiserated subjection rather than starvation unto
death; where all the institutional forms necessary for the conduct of civil
society are broken apart rather than being totally incinerated and destroyed;
where all such actions are claimed to be fair and just and necessary for
self-protection.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Among the first to speak loudly and
passionately about the criminality of Israel’s actions was Richard Falk, UN
special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories. As the first Israeli bombs
exploded on December 27<sup>th</sup>, <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/30-5" target="_blank">Falk drew attention</a><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span> to the massive
violation of international humanitarian law that was happening in Gaza. He
called upon the United Nations to halt Israel’s actions and to immediately
provide protection for the Palestinian people. But for decades now, neither the
wishes nor the resolutions of the United Nations have tempered the actions of
Israel towards Palestinians. Falk was later to write: </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 9.0pt; margin-right: 13.8pt; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 13.8pt 0cm 9pt;">
“The focus of legal debate should
not be upon whether Israeli force was disproportionate. Of course it was. The
focus should be on whether the Israeli attacks were a prohibited non-defensive
use of force under the UN charter, amounting to an act of aggression, and as such,
constituting a crime against peace. . . . </div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 9.0pt; margin-right: 13.8pt; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 13.8pt 0cm 9pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 9.0pt; margin-right: 13.8pt; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 13.8pt 0cm 9pt;">
Israel initiated the Gaza campaign
without adequate legal foundation or just cause, and was responsible for
causing the overwhelming proportion of devastation and the entirety of civilian
suffering” (<i>Le Monde Diplomatique</i>, 12/3/09).</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Soon after, George Bisharat, professor
of Law at the University of California published a series of articles in US
newspapers detailing how international law had been brutalised by Israel in its
22-day assault upon Gaza. He describes how Israeli lawyers deliberately
manipulate legal process to achieve their desired ends. Quoting Daniel Reisner,
former head of Israel’s 20-lawyer International Law Division in the Military
Advocate General’s office, he showed how powerful lawyers acting in concert can
effectively change the rules: </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 9.0pt; margin-right: 13.8pt; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 13.8pt 0cm 9pt;">
“If you do something for long
enough, the world will accept it. The whole of international law is now based
on the notion that an act that is forbidden today becomes permissible if
executed by enough countries. . . . International law progresses through
violations. We invented the targeted assassination thesis and we had to push
it. At first there were protrusions that made it hard to insert easily into the
legal molds. Eight years later, it is in the centre of the bounds of
legitimacy” (“Israel: Transforming International Law by Violating It”, <i>San
Francisco Chronicle</i>, 1/4/09).</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Yet there are some lawyers who are more
driven by ethical considerations than a will to serve political ideologies. In
early February 2009, a group of eight American lawyers, all members of the
National Lawyers Guild in the US visited and <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/02/08-0" target="_blank">reported on their observations</a><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span> of
the situation in Gaza. They confirmed that the IDF had fired missiles at UNRWA
schools in Gaza City, Jabalyia and Bet Labiya. They expressed deep concern at
the use of white phosphorus, DIME munitions and other prohibited weapons and at
“the use of conventional weapons in a prohibited manner, specifically, the use
of battlefield weapons in densely populated civilian areas.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">All eight members of the Delegation
called upon both Israel and the US - which supplied most of the weapons used in
the assault – to be held accountable for the criminality of their actions. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<h4>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Remembering Gaza</span></h4>
</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">The horror of Gaza cannot be dismissed
as a distant phenomenon that does not concern us. We may withdraw into our own
complacency and comfort, but in truth, no one is exempted from the pain visited
upon innocent households. No one can evade the consequences of the destructive
exercise of brutal force.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">The immense yet subdued anguish, the
heavy-hearted impotence that weighs on so many, the outraged sense of justice
at the grotesque disproportionality of the violence we have witnessed, the
travestying of all norms of reasonable human conduct will neither pass nor be
forgotten.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">The assault upon Gaza has done nothing
to further the making of peace in Palestine. It has done much to deepen
resentments that will find their own tragic and futile expressions in time to
come. No cheek has been turned at any stage in the volleys of violence that
have shaken the Holy Land for more than half a century. And little regard has
been given to the humanity of the generations swept into a gathering maelstrom
fired by a cold and calculated demonic determination. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">There is more that could be said, and
more, perhaps, that should be said about how the people of Gaza have been
manacled since 1993 when Israel closed the borders and “managed” the movement of
people and goods into and out of Gaza; about the 44 year long occupation of
Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem; about the wholesale separation and
isolation of the Palestinians of Gaza from their fellow Palestinians in the
West Bank; about the progressive cantonisation of the West Bank by the
relentless construction of militarily-protected illegal “settlements”; about
the “security barriers” that have drawn and quartered any semblance of
autonomous life and culture for all Palestinians; about the forced
impoverishment, reduced access to markets, and forfeited freedoms of all
Gazans. The betrayal of Gaza represents not only a failure of justice, but also
a failure of the human spirit. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Let us continue to remain vigilant
regarding further movements in the Middle East as the seams that hold the
phenomenal world together everywhere begin to stretch to their limits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<br /></div><h1>
<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Notes</span></h1>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1. In his speech “<a href="http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/71683" target="_blank">Palestine: a Challenge to Humanity</a>”
delivered at Berkeley in 2004, and recorded by Maria Gilardin of TUC Radio, Mustafa Barghouthi, graphically describes life
in Gaza and the West Bank under the policies of Ariel Sharon. Little has
changed for the Palestinians during the past six years. Barghouthi speaks both
as statesmen and as medical practitioner who has seen too many mothers, fathers
and children torn apart by fierce weaponry </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2. Edward Said was among the clearest of voices alerting us
all to the plight of the Palestinians. His passionate advocacy for the
Palestinian cause and his luminous intelligence are fully evident in a lecture
presented at the University of California at Berkeley in February 2003 on the
eve of the US invasion of Iraq. This was the last major speech that Edward Said
gave before his death. It was can be accessed <a href="http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/71683" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">3. Political economist and long-time
associate of Edward Said, Sara Roy offers a poignant and powerful portrait of
the plight of Gazans in a lecture given at the University of Sydney in October
2008. A podcast is available <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2008/beyond_occupation.shtml" target="_blank">here</a>.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> 4. The plight of the people of Gaza
continues unabated despite a commitment by the Israeli Government on June 20<sup>th</sup>
2010 to ease its illegal blockade of Gaza. Yet very little has actually changed
during the time since that commitment was made. For those who would maintain a continuing awareness of the reality lived by the inhabitants of Gaza, Eva Bartlett provides a highly informed watching brief through her powerful blog, <a href="http://ingaza.wordpress.com/author/evabartlett/" target="_blank">In Gaza</a>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span></div>
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<br />Vincent Di Stefanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559307846832090756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6016363827616660391.post-29204021278947373312012-07-18T01:56:00.001-07:002021-01-26T19:24:41.337-08:00Wendell Berry. Finding our Souls before we Lose the World<div style="text-align: right;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS_7SYAyllavX6A5K8r_15wSSomS2RhqKrebIhMgV24IeioqPN8FOypQA3PUSjwg0n9bL02o9BhTYlFtFEyEJwXAdFrwwTxPmGfDrFVtVLGo7qbsRm5sxdwTnwP2qWPDcQlYUG7VOAnLou/s1600/Mountaintop+Removal+Kentucky.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS_7SYAyllavX6A5K8r_15wSSomS2RhqKrebIhMgV24IeioqPN8FOypQA3PUSjwg0n9bL02o9BhTYlFtFEyEJwXAdFrwwTxPmGfDrFVtVLGo7qbsRm5sxdwTnwP2qWPDcQlYUG7VOAnLou/s400/Mountaintop+Removal+Kentucky.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
The muses are presently poised between a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mccKiZ9AfE&feature=relmfu" target="_blank">Requiem for the Species</a> and a Symphony for <a href="http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/55185" target="_blank">the Great Turning</a>. The song that our children hear will be determined by decisions made and decisions avoided during the remaining years of the present decade. There is much that has already occurred that portends a completely altered planetary and human reality. We know enough to know that neither governments nor mining and corporate behemoths are about to willingly alter the pattern of their present activities sufficiently to avoid the bang or the whimper towards which we inexorably move. The gestures of collective aspiration and goodwill that found expression in Copenhagen in 2009, at the Rio Summit in June 2012, and in the Occupy Movement since its inception have been met with the immensity, the intractability and the brutality of the forces arraigned against meaningful change.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil2uk1abfdlUD0U1PIud-xnAY9aOwdEgBeMEjRSUkkLBTkjG2jJTTBuQ5DGe98iKnU7wEOxgluIuSNl8wMNufJ6MbNKfLTrX4hmGeVOf_k5RdnNdx7k2QBidEEt0Y15ct-e6EYjfLMrVc9/s1600/Olympic+Dam+Mine+3.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil2uk1abfdlUD0U1PIud-xnAY9aOwdEgBeMEjRSUkkLBTkjG2jJTTBuQ5DGe98iKnU7wEOxgluIuSNl8wMNufJ6MbNKfLTrX4hmGeVOf_k5RdnNdx7k2QBidEEt0Y15ct-e6EYjfLMrVc9/s400/Olympic+Dam+Mine+3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
In the meantime, the continuing meltdown of three reactors at the Fukushima nuclear facility and the slow leaching of radioactive elements into groundwaters and ocean waters has done nothing to soften the determination of the nuclear industry in the pursuit of its ultimately destructive agenda even though both the Japanese and German governments halted their own nuclear programs in consequence and are now re-examining more sustainable and less damaging modes of energy production.<br />
<br />
Oblivious to these realities, and anticipating a much-vaunted "renaissance" of activity in the nuclear marketplace, Australian politicians have endorsed a voracious expansion of the Olympic Dam mine in South Australia into the world's largest open cut mining operation that will result in an increase of Australian uranium exports from their present level of 10,000 tons annually to an estimated 19,000 tons by 2020.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
While activists such as Chris Hedges in the US continue to warn all who would care to listen of the increasingly violent confrontations that are likely to occur as the heat builds up, many are coming to accept that, like the Titanic, industrial civilisation is steaming blindly towards inevitable tragedy. Many are now choosing to direct their energies to both creating and recovering ways of living that are more attuned to the sensitivities and limits of a seriously damaged planet.<br />
<br />
Among them is the American writer, poet, farmer and political activist Wendell Berry.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h4>
Heaven's Treasure, Earth's Friend </h4>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1TCYcwClEsT293mZBtXuCgbQjhGwePRaCa_3y41KY5SiMU576dQ59i-3qPqh3MqpvaKdNZnDrUXEr-NzJimc9-K8ZYlHJkfC7n4PmaU0KxayO_2nIy2JyOD80uWv0KOksEcyRgUAA7XrX/s1600/Wendell+Berry.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1TCYcwClEsT293mZBtXuCgbQjhGwePRaCa_3y41KY5SiMU576dQ59i-3qPqh3MqpvaKdNZnDrUXEr-NzJimc9-K8ZYlHJkfC7n4PmaU0KxayO_2nIy2JyOD80uWv0KOksEcyRgUAA7XrX/s1600/Wendell+Berry.jpg" /></a></div>
Wendell Berry was born in 1934 into a family that had been farming land in Kentucky for several generations. As a boy, his love of such activities as hunting and fishing was tempered by an equally great love of poetry and literature. At the age of 14, his father sent him to a military school to try and rein in his exuberant nature. On completion of his studies there in 1952, he immediately enrolled at the University of Kentucky, determined to become a writer. Within eight years, Wendell Berry had published his first novel, <i>Nathan Coulter,</i> which continues to be widely read. <br />
<br />
He took up a position as professor of English at New York University in 1962. Berry drew little satisfaction from New York's intellectual and academic circles and in 1964, accepted a teaching position at the University of Kentucky. He describes his departure from New York in the following terms: "The reason I came back [to Kentucky] was because I wanted to. . . When we started down the New Jersey turnpike with the New York skyline behind us, it was exhilarating." Berry, together with his wife and young daughter, was returning to the place where he had generational roots. Within a year, they had purchased <i>Lane's Landing</i>, which remains the family farm that he continues to manage to the present day.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
In the time since acquiring the farm, Wendell Berry has taught classes at the University of Kentucky, written over twenty books of poetry, sixteen volumes of essays, and ten novels. He has also been prominent in political actions against the Vietnam War, nuclear energy, US Department of Agriculture policy, George W. Bush's post 9/11 National Security policy and more recently, the mining of coal by the methods of Mountaintop Removal in Kentucky. All the while, he has continuously worked his 125 acre farm using the organic methods described by the English botanist and agriculturalist, <a href="http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/howard.html" target="_blank">Sir Albert Howard</a>. Berry has eschewed the use of heavy machinery, preferring rather to plough his land behind heavy horses. This is fully in keeping with his expressed view that mechanisation has contributed not only to alienation in the workplace, but alienation from the forces that sustain life and community, a view shared by such different individuals as <a href="http://thehealingprojectweblog.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/ef-schumacher-voice-for-wisdom-in-age.html" target="_blank">E.F. Schumacher</a> and <a href="http://thehealingprojectweblog.blogspot.com.au/2011/01/of-poverty-and-potency-reluctant.html" target="_blank">Simone Weil</a>. <a href="http://theotherjournal.com/2006/10/02/%E2%80%9Cso-as-not-to-be-estranged%E2%80%9D-creation-spirituality-and-wendell-berry1/" target="_blank">Berry observes</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"What I am against - and without a minute's hesitation or apology - is our slovenly willingness to allow machines and the idea of machines to prescribe the terms and conditions of the lives of creatures, which we have allowed increasingly over the last two centuries, and are still allowing, at an incalculable cost to other creatures and to ourselves."</blockquote>
Apart from the dehumanising aspects of mechanisation, the unspoken context of Berry's position is an understanding that the power and freedom gained by the use of machines will not be infinitely available as cheap and accessible reserves of petroleum begin to dry up. <br />
<br />
Over the course of his life, Wendell Berry has come to embody a peculiar synthesis of land husbandry and literary creativity. Through it all, he has maintained a moral position firmly grounded in his own Baptist faith. This has not prevented him from fiercely denouncing the long-standing and contradictory collusion of the established churches with corporate and political institutions that have over the past half century systematically despoiled the earth in the name of economic growth and industrial development. <a href="http://www.crosscurrents.org/berry.htm" target="_blank">Berry writes</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"If Christianity is going to survive as more than a respecter and comforter of profitable iniquities, then Christians, regardless of their organisations, are going to have to interest themselves in economy - which is to say, in nature and in work. They are going to have to give workable answers to those who say we cannot live without this economy that is destroying us and destroying our world, who see the murder of Creation as the only way of life."</blockquote>
Yet such workable answers are unlikely to emerge from the institutional forms of religion that are, like economics and industrial civilisation itself, riven by a deep alienation from the natural world. <a href="http://theotherjournal.com/2006/10/02/%E2%80%9Cso-as-not-to-be-estranged%E2%80%9D-creation-spirituality-and-wendell-berry1/" target="_blank">He continues</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"This separation of the soul from the body and from the world is no disease of the fringe, no aberration, but a fracture that runs through the mentality of institutional religion like a geological fault." </blockquote>
Berry's interests lie more in <i>economy</i> than in <i>economics</i>. He consistently uses the term in its etymological sense of housekeeping, of managing a household. The fact that both <i>economy</i> and <i>ecology</i> have common roots is central to his thinking. He is fully conscious of the immense disconnect between the principles that we nominally live by as "Christian" nations and the policies and values that determine our actions in the world:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Christ's life from the manger to the cross was an affront to the established powers of his time, as it is to the established powers of our time. Much is made in churches of the "good news" of the gospels. Less is said of the gospel's bad news, which is that Jesus would have been horrified by just about every "Christian" government the world has ever seen."</blockquote>
<br />
<h4>
The Peculiar Myth of Progress </h4>
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Wendell Berry takes a contrarian view regarding the near-universal acceptance of industrial development and technological innovation as forces for good in the world. The promotion of such notions by governments and their corporate sponsors effectively creates malleable populations that happily disregard the damage caused to peoples and planet in the name of "progress" in exchange for the promise of endless novelty and economic growth.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://sojo.net/print/magazine/2004/07/web-exclusive-wendell-berry-interview-complete-text" target="_blank">Berry describes</a> the more insidious aspects of the myth of progress that is everywhere used to underwrite and justify contemporary political, technological and economic depredation:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"It [the myth of progress] substitutes this infinite advance towards better and better life in the material sense for the old pilgrimage which you make by effort and grace to become a better person. . . . It takes people's minds off the important things. It becomes, at its worst, a kind of determinism. All we have to do is just passively go along and things will get better and better, and we'll be happier and happier."</blockquote>
Wendell Berry herein identifies a major cause of the widespread alienation and social narcissism that assails the present times. The Socratic focus on an examined life grounded in reflective consciousness has been displaced by the boundless positivism preached by scientific and technocratic elites who forever push the boundaries of what is known in pursuit of "the new." We are constantly reassured that such "cutting edge" developments will replace existing technologies with newer, faster and more efficient versions, entertain our restless minds, restore our deteriorating health, and eventually correct dangerously altered climatic patterns. All the while, our collective pockets are steadily emptied into the already bloated coffers of transnational corporations and their shareholders. In his characteristic manner, Berry queries the nature of the "progress" that has been so relentlessly pursued:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"What is the measure of progress? It is possible to measure the progress of the last two or three hundred years in soil erosion. We can measure it in the rate of species extinction. We can measure it in pollution, in the toxicity of the world. Those things, like power and speed, are perfectly measurable. But we need also to raise the questions that are not quantitative. How happy are people? What do we make of all this complaining? How healthy are people? How are love and beauty faring? What do we make of all this doctoring and medication that is going on all the time at such a great expense?"</blockquote>
The benefits of industrial civilisation have been gained at a cost which is only now beginning to be more widely understood. The systemic nature of the damage already caused is affecting virtually every dimension of human and planetary life, from the health of ecosystems to the stability of climatic patterns. Together with <a href="http://thehealingprojectweblog.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/ef-schumacher-voice-for-wisdom-in-age.html" target="_blank">E.F. Schumacher</a>, Wendell Berry finds such destructive consequences to be inherent in the very nature of the methods of industrial civilisation. <a href="http://thegreenhorns.wordpress.com/essays/essay-in-distrust-of-movements-by-wendell-berry/" target="_blank">He reflects</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Industrialism, which is the name of our economy, and which is now virtually the only economy of the world, has been from its beginnings in a state of riot. It is based squarely on the principle of violence towards everything on which it depends. . . . The violence towards nature, towards human communities, traditional agricultures and local economies has been constant."</blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimKzr8CZj_lyb5fMOpkkkjW4wEvTdp3vpQgG73lH_DXW-mxfFv6lb02JpOab-pF3YYnD9MvBh4F4lVqPH7mUpmZ9-_9RP4B_lp5BrcsC3LlnbcpzSD3vaEOKKii1Le7DO8UqacHOMRH8e2/s1600/Industrial+Smoke+Stacks.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimKzr8CZj_lyb5fMOpkkkjW4wEvTdp3vpQgG73lH_DXW-mxfFv6lb02JpOab-pF3YYnD9MvBh4F4lVqPH7mUpmZ9-_9RP4B_lp5BrcsC3LlnbcpzSD3vaEOKKii1Le7DO8UqacHOMRH8e2/s1600/Industrial+Smoke+Stacks.jpg" /></a></div>
This violence is most obvious in the mining and energy industries from which industrial civilisation gains much of its momentum. But it is also present in more subtle ways in the sweat-shop and assembly-line methods of production that create the surfeit of poorly-made and often-useless "goods" that fill the shelves of retailers everywhere. Wendell Berry has long lamented the loss of community-based traditional skills that supported the work of shoemakers, bread-makers, soap and candle-makers and tailors. Unlike the sweat-shop, such activities provide a measure of independence and human dignity to the worker and cultivate the small satisfactions that come through personal attention to the fruits of one's labours.<br />
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Wendell Berry is untiring in his call for restraint in the political and economic forces that drive the now-ruinous industrial project. He continues:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The captains of industry have always counselled the rest of us to be 'realistic'. Let us therefore be realistic. Is it realistic to assume that the present economy would be just fine if only it would stop poisoning the air, or if only it would stop soil erosion, or if only it would stop degrading watersheds and forest ecosystems, or if only it would stop seducing children, or if only it would quit buying politicians, or if only it would give women and favoured minorities an equitable share of the loot? Realism, I think, is a very limited programme, but it informs us at least that we should not look for bird eggs in a cuckoo clock."</blockquote>
The Thrasymachean principle of "might is right" now operates in such areas as energy policy, economic development, resource extraction, and - as we have come to observe more recently in Occupy Movement protests - in methods of social control. Wendell Berry urges us to become more conscious of the background forces and the hidden agendas that conspire to keep power in the hands of corporate elites and their armies of political lobbyists. Central to Berry's mission is a call for the re-empowerment of local communities:<br />
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"If it is unreasonable to expect a bad economy to try to become a good one, then we must go to work to build a good economy. It is appropriate that this duty should fall to us, for good economic behaviour is more possible for us than it is for the great corporations with their miseducated managers and their greedy and oblivious stockholders. . . . We must learn to spend our money with our friends and not with our enemies. But to do this, it is necessary to renew local economies and revive the domestic arts."</blockquote>
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<h4>
Reclaiming Community</h4>
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Throughout his life, Wendell Berry has sought to artfully uncover the deceptive rhetoric that represents our time as one of utopian possibilities and universal fulfilment. While acknowledging the transformations wrought by industrial and technological civilisation, he calls our attention to the perennial values and unchanging realities that condition our being. We are born into the world and remain part of it regardless of our ability to construct space stations and cruise the ocean floor in nuclear-powered submarines.<br />
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Part of Berry's mission has been to awaken us to how far we have drifted from the sources that connect us to each other and to the earth. As one who has astutely observed the separation of our collective psyches from such basic considerations even as the source and nature of the foods that sustain us, he offers clear vision:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"No matter how urban our life, our bodies live by farming; we come from the earth and return to it, and so we live in agriculture as we live in flesh. While we live our bodies are moving particles of the earth, joined inextricably both to the soil and to the bodies of other living creatures. It is hardly surprising, then, that there should be some profound resemblances between our treatment of our bodies and our treatment of the earth." ("The Body and the Earth", <i>The Art of the Common-Place</i>, 2002)</blockquote>
Berry's pursuit of the perennial has also brought him to a clear understanding of the role of healthy communities in the life of humanity. <a href="http://arts.envirolink.org/interviews_and_conversations/WendellBerry.html" target="_blank">He reflects</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"What I'm talking about in my work is the hope that it may be possible to produce stable, locally adapted communities. . . . The idea of a healthy community is an indispensable measure, just as the idea of a healthy child, if you're a parent, is an indispensable measure. You can't operate without it."</blockquote>
Wendell Berry has never sought a following. But he has ever sought to awaken us to the sacred dimension of earthly life. Wendell Berry simply asks to be heard.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I will wait here in the fields<br />
to see how well the rain<br />
brings on the grass.<br />
In the labour of the fields<br />
longer than a man's life<br />
I am at home. Don't come with me.<br />
You stay home too.<br />
(<a href="http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/reading-notes-wendell-berry-a-farmer-and-a-poet/Content?oid=871248" target="_blank"><i>Stay Home</i></a>, 1980)</blockquote>
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Vincent Di Stefano D.O., M.H.Sc.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">July 2012</span></b>Vincent Di Stefanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559307846832090756noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6016363827616660391.post-17637151858136430742012-04-19T03:19:00.001-07:002022-10-22T17:51:05.624-07:00Thomas Berry. Healing a Savaged Earth<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0I5iAMKRd6KYsNpcu-D4ndI00DFQg2WJptR9YfZDMizbe7V9rTXJHW3fNr_907aVokkZphZx2shhz4EXp11y5j2knsbV9ImpiEjueT0jDc2LgzkW0SgSWowheFpp7GrL0u-WoIGxz7E7X/s1600/Thomas+Berry+2.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0I5iAMKRd6KYsNpcu-D4ndI00DFQg2WJptR9YfZDMizbe7V9rTXJHW3fNr_907aVokkZphZx2shhz4EXp11y5j2knsbV9ImpiEjueT0jDc2LgzkW0SgSWowheFpp7GrL0u-WoIGxz7E7X/s1600/Thomas+Berry+2.jpg" /></a></div>
Despite the fact that we have clearly entered uncharted territory in relation to the effects of industrial civilisation on the fate of the earth and her creatures, big government of all persuasions seems intent on relentlessly pursuing economic growth, environmental plunder and social and political control at every level.<br />
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In view of our gathering predicament reflected in such intangibles as <a href="http://co2now.org/">steadily rising carbon dioxide levels</a>, <a href="http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/futureoa.html">deepening ocean acidification</a> and <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/methane-levels-may-see-runaway-rise-scientists-warn-1906484.html">accelerating methane exhalations</a> from formerly locked under-sea and tundra deposits - to say nothing of the numerous social, political and environmental pathologies that continue to assail humanity - it may be instructive to revisit the thoughtful offerings of Thomas Berry, a wise elder who sought to awaken us all to the changes that have already occurred and those that will inevitably follow.<br />
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"Healing a Savaged Earth" is a tribute to the prophetic insight, vision and integrity of cultural historian Thomas Berry. Though others viewed him as a depth theologian and cultural guardian, he chose in his later years to call himself a "geologian" as an acknowledgement of his earth-centred philosophy which drew strongly from the insights of Taoism, Confucianism and the mysticism of Teilhard de Chardin and Henri Bergson.<br />
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This post offers an audio presentation drawn primarily from "The Ecozoic Era", a lecture given by Thomas Berry in 1991.<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="40" src="https://archive.org/embed/ThomasBerry.HealingASavagedEarth" width="400"></iframe>
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<i>Thomas Berry. Healing a Savaged Earth</i> can be streamed using the media player above. A CD quality mp3 file is also available for download <a href="http://archive.org/details/ThomasBerry.HealingASavagedEarth">here</a>.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>In bringing this program to formation, I am grateful for the inspiration offered by chazk of Virtual Renderings in his remarkable 2008 tribute to Thomas Berry, <a href="http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/28489"><i>Notes on Thomas Berry's Great Work</i></a>, and for his more recent exploration of the transitional time within which we presently find ourselves, <i><a href="http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/55185">Notes From the Great Turning</a></i>. </b></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Program Notes</span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Voices:</b><br />
Vincent Di Stefano (Intro)<br />
Thomas Berry, <a href="http://archive.org/details/ecozoicera_berry">"The Ecozoic Era"</a>, Great Barrington, Massachusetts 1991 (Schumacher Society)<br /><br />
<b>Music:</b></span><b>
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<a href="http://www.myspace.com/nicodistefano">Nico Di Stefano</a>, "The Inverloch Sessions"<br />
<a href="http://soundcloud.com/digital-samsara">Digital Samsara</a>, "C#" (SoundCloud)<br />
Ani Difranco, "Millennium Theatre"<br />
<a href="http://www.myspace.com/yggdrasilmelbourne">Yggdrasil</a>, "Al Dabaran"<br />
Prem Joshua, "Daia"<br />
Xavier Rudd, "The Letter"<br />
Paul Kelly, "Last Train to Heaven"<br />
<a href="http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/3661">Tryad</a>, "This" (Jamendo)</span><br />
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Vincent Di Stefanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559307846832090756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6016363827616660391.post-87494569950615445512012-03-13T01:20:00.001-07:002019-11-07T23:42:11.369-08:00E.F. Schumacher. A Voice for Wisdom in an Age of Folly<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The economist E.F. Schumacher has served as a source of inspiration for many over the past half-century. His essential message is carried in two books published in the five years before he died, <i>Small is Beautiful. A Study of Economics as if People Mattered</i> (1973) and <i>A Guide for the Perplexed</i> (1977).<br />
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His ideas continue to be explored, developed and disseminated by such groups as the <a href="http://www.schumacher.org.uk/about/">Schumacher Society</a> in the UK and the<a href="http://neweconomicsinstitute.org/about_us"> New Economics Institute</a> in the US as well as numerous individuals and groups in both the developed and developing world.<br />
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This post offers both an audio presentation drawn from two lectures given by Schumacher in the 1970s.<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="40" src="https://www.archive.org/embed/E.F.Schumacher.AVoiceForWisdomInAnAgeOfFolly" width="400"></iframe>
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<i>E.F. Schumacher. A Voice for Wisdom in an Age of Folly</i> can be streamed using the media player above. A CD quality mp3 file is also available for download <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/E.F.Schumacher.AVoiceForWisdomInAnAgeOfFolly">here</a>.<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Program Notes</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>Voices</b><br />
vincentd<br />
E.F. Schumacher, <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/lindisfarne_Schumacher">"Decentralist Economics", Lindisfarne 1974</a> (Schumacher Society)<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuhKIzqBcis">E.F. Schumacher at Michigan State University 1977</a> (Youtube)<br /><br />
<b>Music</b>
</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
<a href="http://www.myspace.com/nicodistefano">Nico Di Stefano</a>, "Slow March"<br />
<a href="http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/7406">SaReGaMa</a>, "One Thousand and One Nights" (Jamendo)<br />
<a href="http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/7823">Endorphine</a>, "Podroze:Kultura" (Jamendo) <br />
Esbjorn Svensson Trio, "Bound for the Beauty of the South"<br />
Dire Straits, "Telegraph Road"<br />
Cat Stevens, "Where do the Children Play?"<br />
John Butler Trio, "Treat Yo Mama"</span><br />
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Vincent Di Stefanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559307846832090756noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6016363827616660391.post-1347109997321214212012-02-20T23:26:00.000-08:002016-06-18T20:51:28.048-07:00A Beautiful Bohemian. Remembering Darren Jones<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5OHH-pibiVgwcgBZe4rNk5Bt7gaIGW8nbVZZ_SfYLQE4Xk-a9FXh2MIeWXBd20IIIGqPpgkkwSTmpOSfgvJKng09mkJhzERFYEk3fqIcGTvTdGl3wxhVYLK5n8vhxJ5XMmMW9FC99Ftqd/s1600/Darren+Jones+at+the+Aztec.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5OHH-pibiVgwcgBZe4rNk5Bt7gaIGW8nbVZZ_SfYLQE4Xk-a9FXh2MIeWXBd20IIIGqPpgkkwSTmpOSfgvJKng09mkJhzERFYEk3fqIcGTvTdGl3wxhVYLK5n8vhxJ5XMmMW9FC99Ftqd/s320/Darren+Jones+at+the+Aztec.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
We have in the present age become desensitised to violence. It is glorified in movies, simulated in computer games, sanctioned in contact sports and casually glossed over in the blur of daily news broadcasts. Yet every act of violence can create psychic and emotional shock-waves that reverberate thereafter in the lives of those affected by it.<br />
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<i>A Beautiful Bohemian. Remembering Darren Jones </i>offers a sixth anniversary remembrance of the death by knifing of Australian musician Darren Jones who was killed in an unprovoked attack while returning home from the Victorian College of the Arts in the early afternoon of February 23rd 2006. <br />
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This audio presentation was developed through a series of depth interviews with 11 people - many of them fellow musicians - who were part of Darren Jones' intimate circle. It explores the effects of this shocking event on the lives of a community of artists and reflects the slow and painful process of healing that follows such an existential collapse.<br />
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The music heard in this program is drawn from recordings of several bands in which Darren Jones participated as guitarist and vocalist. It also includes three musical tributes composed and performed by <a href="http://www.myspace.com/nicodistefano">Nico Di Stefano</a>, <a href="http://www.myspace.com/jahbenkelly">Ben Kelly</a> and <a href="http://www.danlicht.net/samsara-sun---white-soul-black-hearts.html" target="_blank">Dan Licht</a> . The track <i>Blood Stain</i> was composed and performed by fellow musician and friend, the late <a href="http://www.myspace.com/heathkingmusic">Heath King</a> who was himself tragically killed in a road accident in September 2008.<br />
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This program was first broadcast on public radio stations 3PBS (Melbourne) and 3MDR (Emerald) in March 210.<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="30" src="https://www.archive.org/embed/ABeautifulBohemian.RememberingDarrenJones" width="400"></iframe>
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<i>A Beautiful Bohemian</i> can be streamed using the media player above. A CD quality mp3 file can also be downloaded <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/ABeautifulBohemian.RememberingDarrenJones">here</a>.<br />
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A shorter half-hour version was broadcast on <i>360 Documentaries</i> (ABC Radio National) in September 2010. It can be heard <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/360/a-beautiful-bohemian/2973286">here</a>.<br />
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<br />Vincent Di Stefanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559307846832090756noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6016363827616660391.post-40726353240262527272011-08-31T03:01:00.002-07:002021-06-27T18:45:49.718-07:00Forgetting Jung's Tree<div style="text-align: left;">
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A dear friend recently offered some timely advice. She wrote: "Forget about Jung's tree. Tend to your tomatoes. They are just as important and life-giving." Being late winter in these southern climes, our tomato seeds are safely stored on sheets of tissue until the frosts have softened and spring's fires risen sufficiently to rouse them into a new and hopefully fruitful cycle. <br />
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I took the cue however, and cleared the hundreds of small weeds lavishing around the green spears thrust forth from around 400 garlic cloves planted in our garden under the full moons of May and June. We are a big family and we all love our garlic. <br />
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I have never forgotten Jung's tree. Carl Jung is remembered for demurring from the strictly libidinal psychology of Sigmund Freud with whom he had a curious relationship over several years before they finally parted ways in 1913.<br />
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One of Jung's major contributions to the life of the mind was his introduction of the notion of <i>synchronicity</i> to a wider Western audience. The term itself was coined by Jung to describe the interpenetration of psychic and physical space that manifests in the simultaneous occurrence of events that are not connected causally, but from which meaning can often be drawn.<br />
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Apparently unrelated events can coincide in ways that are highly suggestive of deep and often numinous meaning. Such events invite an integrative interpretation wherein rational and logical categories are transcended and a unitive perspective of one's life and circumstance becomes more available. The ego dissolves as one is confronted by deeply meaningful patterns of confluence within one's life and circumstance. Through such experiences, one more easily inclines towards the notion that we are moved by more than meaningless chance and blind necessity.<br />
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<h4>
Jung's Death </h4>
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After his wife died in 1955, Carl Jung spent much time in the garden of their home at Bollingen, situated on the shores of Lake Zurich in Switzerland. He would often read and rest in the shade of a magnificent old poplar tree during the summer months. It became one of his favourite places during his latter years.<br />
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Jung died on the afternoon of June 6th, 1961. While taking his final breaths, a great storm erupted around lake Zurich. As his body slowly cooled on his death-bed, the storm intensified locally. A bolt of lightning cleaved the sky, striking and splitting into two the poplar tree under which he had spent so much time.<br />
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This remarkable phenomenon has been viewed as a manifestation of the very principle of synchronicity that Jung had devoted so many years and so much energy. It was as a metaphoric affirmation of the reality of synchronicity as an inherent aspect of human experience. The magnitude and power of the event also pointed towards the titanic capabilities present within human consciousness.<br />
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Yet that was not all. At the time of Jung's death, his long-standing friend and confidante Laurens van der Post was returning to Europe from Africa. Completely unaware that Jung had died, <a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,913807-2,00.html" target="_blank">van der Post dreamed</a> that Jung was on the summit of <i>Zermatt</i>, Mount Matterhorn. In the dream, Jung waved to him and called out: "I'll be seeing you."<br />
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Some years later, van der Post returned to Bollingen with a film crew for what were to be the final takes of a documentary about Jung's life. In his <i>Jung and the Story of our Time</i>, Van der Post described what happened that afternoon:<br />
<blockquote>
"When the moment came for me to speak directly to the camera about Jung's death, and I came to the description of how the lightning demolished Jung's favorite tree, the lightning struck again in the garden. The thunder crashed out so loudly that I winced, and to this day the thunder, wince, and the impediment of speech it caused are there in the film for all to see, just as the lightning is visible on the screen over the storm-tossed lake and wind-whipped trees."</blockquote>
<h4>
The Revolving Door </h4>
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It is important to understand that such manifestations are not solely the domain of daemonic men such as Carl Jung, or of great siddhas such as Padmasambhava and inspired saints such as Teresa of Avila or Padre Pio of Pietrelcina. Many of us can find similar intimations - though probably far less dramatic - in our own experiences or the experiences of family members or friends.<br />
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We do not need to actively seek out such experiences. They usually arrive uninvited and unanticipated. When I was in my early twenties, a friend described to me how, while watching the sea in a deeply reflective state one afternoon, he vividly experienced the presence of a close friend he had not seen for over a year. He learned a few days later that his friend had been killed in a motor accident that very day.<br />
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My father several times recounted one of his own unforgettable experiences while in a prisoner-of-war camp in South Africa. He woke suddenly from a deep sleep to find his mother, dressed in white, standing at the end of his bed. She smiled and then disappeared even as he watched her. Three weeks later, he received news from Italy that she had died on the day that she appeared to him.<br />
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In my own life, there were several occasions in the months after my own mother's death when I experienced her living presence in synchronic irruptions of both luminous and imaginal events.<br />
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One does not need to lean exclusively on the reports of such individuals as the Dalai Lama or Elisabeth Kubler-Ross to contemplate the continuity between life and death.<br />
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<h4>
Of Mind and Matter </h4>
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There is a peculiar polarity in the world that arcs, on the one hand, between a fascination with anomalous events that break through the commonly-accepted boundaries of what is possible, and on the other, an outright rejection of anything that is not circumscribed by a limited, limiting and often tyrannical rationality. <br />
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The various methods of shamanism, the practices of yoga and tai chi, the ways of prayer and contemplation, and the focussed attention that may arise in times of grief and deep personal or collective crisis can all give rise to an intensification of consciousness and a loss of the egoic boundaries that limit and block our awareness of synchronic events and of non-duality. Such experiences have the potential to act as instruments of transformation that may prompt us to re-evaluate the dominant and insistent ethos of materialism that stridently denies the reality of the numinous while proclaiming life to be devoid of any transcendent meaning. <br />
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Most wisdom traditions accept that the gift of a sensitised consciousness capable of apprehending the subtle - and occasionally dramatic - mental and energetic fields within which we live and move and have our being does not usually fall out of the sky. Such states of consciousness are both created and sustained by the cultivation of a reflective and disciplined attention. Whether one places a value on pursuing such states and the understandings that may arise from them is, of course, another matter.<br />
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To find balance is a difficult thing. Thomas Merton long sought to encourage the practice of contemplation in a world driven by action. And more recently, <a href="http://thehealingprojectweblog.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/thomas-berry-healing-savaged-earth.html" target="_blank">the reflections of Thomas Berry</a> remain an ongoing rejoinder to pause within the busyness of our destructive times in order to connect more deeply with each other and with the living forces that act through the natural world.<br />
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Let us take the time while yet we can to catch the whispers in the wind, to marvel at the light glancing through the diamond dews of morning, to ride the luminous skyscapes edging fiery clouds at day's end - even while fetching wood, carrying water and tending the tomato seedlings.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Vincent Di Stefano D.O., M.H.Sc.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">August 2011 </span></b><br />
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<br />Vincent Di Stefanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559307846832090756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6016363827616660391.post-70814162235872041742011-07-23T20:38:00.001-07:002021-01-26T19:22:04.268-08:00Burning Horizons. Dirge for a Savaged EarthThis original piece
offers a poetic reflection on the moral obscenity of aerial warfare as
it has been exercised from the attack on Dresden in February 1945 to the
sacking of Baghdad in March 2003.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Production Notes</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Music: Nico Di Stefano</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Voice: Vincent Di Stefano</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="30" mozallowfullscreen="true" src="https://archive.org/embed/BurningHorizons" webkitallowfullscreen="true" width="400"></iframe>
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<br />
<i>Burning Horizons</i> can be streamed using the media player above. A CD quality mp3 file is available for download <a href="https://archive.org/details/BurningHorizons" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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What was it like when Dresden was sleeping<br />
And the sky shrieked metal then crashed all around<br />
And the town was a furnace a fiery hell-world <br />
For mothers and children now under the ground<br />
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And what was it like that big-sky morning<br />
When Little Boy cried then howled down the day<br />
The crashing of atoms the tempest of terror<br />
The unknowing mothers all blown away<br />
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First in Kabul and then on the Tigris<br />
Silicon soldiers tore open the night<br />
And wounded yet further a people near broken<br />
And brought further darkness in fulminant light<br />
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The hatred now stored in the cones of the missiles<br />
That rage and release in ruin and woe<br />
And the heart of the night pierced again with fierce metal<br />
The blood and the water continue to flow<br />
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I wait for the turn of a cheek that was promised<br />
I wait for the love of a world now in woe<br />
I wait for the call of a sorrowing mother<br />
For terror on terror can nowhere go<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Vincent Di Stefano</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">July 2011 </span></b>Vincent Di Stefanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559307846832090756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6016363827616660391.post-64590164766985150692011-05-14T23:29:00.001-07:002021-01-26T19:21:04.014-08:00The Herbal Medicine Tradition. A Long-burning Torch for Darkening Times<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBwyPeba7bBXaoP9VT3_cvPXaSL0P0FrncbyiDAtwTTNIApUo-lOKdS_Qwm5xj2SHfsmhcal4cRU8gL1irethyphenhyphen-dQh44V40JNkgYv7okIhRabvtvdNXBHDfwWyA5xejvtg2qVwnwvo6KJq/s1600/JosephWright_Alchemist.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBwyPeba7bBXaoP9VT3_cvPXaSL0P0FrncbyiDAtwTTNIApUo-lOKdS_Qwm5xj2SHfsmhcal4cRU8gL1irethyphenhyphen-dQh44V40JNkgYv7okIhRabvtvdNXBHDfwWyA5xejvtg2qVwnwvo6KJq/s200/JosephWright_Alchemist.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Joseph Wright, <i>The Alchymist</i> 1771</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
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Practitioners of herbal medicine hold the curious privilege of being carriers of a tradition whose origins cannot be traced during a time when traditional knowledge has been devalued by a technocratic ethos that celebrates transience and power. <br />
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Contemporary biomedicine continuously surfs the edge of ever-imminent "breakthroughs" that promise the conquest of refractory diseases and conditions through the discovery of new drugs. There are regular calls for increased funding from all available sources, from government, industry and the donations of a generous public in order that such salvific developments can proceed unhindered.<br />
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The biomedical establishment draws upon the energy of numerous dedicated individuals and also draws from the immense reserves of both national governments and multinational corporations in the knowledge that any successful "breakthrough" will bring immense financial returns.<br />
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The whole apparatus hangs on the assumption that there will be uninterrupted freedom and continuity in the various institutions and infrastructures through which such activities are initiated, pursued, marketed and delivered to established "health care" networks. We are just beginning to understand that business may not necessarily continue as usual in what is becoming an increasingly uncertain future.<br />
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The resources deployed within the biomedical enterprise are huge. They begin with the medical schools throughout the world that induct elite cadres of young aspirants through rigorous initiations which include a not-so-subtle professional socialisation while providing detailed and extensive training in anatomy, physiology, histology, embryology and pathology. The public hospitals in which their developing skills are exercised consist of vast and finely coordinated structures in which ambulance facilities, casualty departments, in-patient wards, operating theatres, intensive care wards, pathology units and pharmacy departments are serviced by large numbers of paramedics, nurses, nutritionists and caterers. medical officers, specialists, cleaners and hospital administrators.<br />
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The hospital system itself both supports and is supported by medical practitioners within the general community, by manufacturers of medical hardware ranging from disposable syringes, swabs and bandages to intravenous drips, cardiac monitors, fibre optic devices, defibrillators and magnetic resonance imaging scanners, and by a vast and powerful multinational pharmaceutical industry that produces the drugs which are dispensed and sold in huge quantities throughout the world.<br />
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This vast and interconnected network of activities both defines and supports the institution of biomedicine. Most governments in the developed world uphold this structure through political and legislative support, through the bankrolling of medical schools and public hospitals, and through subsidising the cost of diagnostic testing and pharmaceutical drugs.<br />
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Practitioners of herbal medicine are largely outside of the loop. They have little if any legislative support, receive their training in exceedingly modest educational facilities, have no access to the public hospital system, limited access to diagnostic services, and a questionable professional status. Despite this, the practice of herbal medicine continues to remain a vital and enduring source of satisfaction both for those who would carry the tradition through mastery of its methods and for those who seek out the services of knowledgeable practitioners.<br />
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What is going on here? Are practitioners of herbal medicine a quaint and harmless anachronism determined to cleave to largely discarded ways during a time where health care in most of the developed world has been technologised, corporatised and universalised? Are those who practise herbal medicine obstinately refusing to accept the reality of modernism with its celebration of centralisation, globalisation and standardisation? How is it that they do not covet the awesomely powerful methods that have become the signatures of biomedicine? Just what does the contemporary practice of herbal medicine represent?<br />
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<h4>
The Promethean Entrancement</h4>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Francis Bacon</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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Much of the driving force that has propelled technological civilisation and its remarkable productions - including biomedicine - derives its influence from a philosophical position that separates us from the natural world. Francis Bacon exhorted all who would build the New Atlantis to subject nature to their will and to forcibly extract those "secrets" that enable control and mastery of her forces. By mid-century, Rene Descartes declared the world and all that was in it to be a soulless machine that could be understood, controlled and manipulated by the exercise of human reason. And by the end of the century, Isaac Newton had confirmed that the physical universe operated according to immutable laws that, once known and understood, conferred immense powers of control and predictability to those who understood them.<br />
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The so-called European "Enlightenment" further encouraged a philosophical clearing of the decks of all that was deemed to be uncertain or "irrational" in order that a new era based on development, progress and control could proceed without interference.<br />
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The fruits of such methods and understandings have, over the past three centuries, completely transformed the world. Yet our fascination with the productions of industry and technology, and our participation in the power they confer, have blinded us to their effects on our view of ourselves, on our relationship with powerful institutions, and on our sensitivity to the natural world.<br />
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At the most basic level, we have become perversely and erroneously alienated from those potencies within our own natures and within the natural world by which we are formed, sustained and regenerated. Though we may live by more than bread alone, that bread has now been tainted and denatured by the methods of industrial agriculture and food production. Top-soils have been everywhere destroyed; fruits, often laced with low levels of insecticide residues, are gathered long before they are ripe and transported over long distances - even across the great oceans - before they reach our tables; the genetic structure of many staple grains has been knowingly altered with unknown consequences to future generations; the bee populations in many countries have begun to cave under the onslaught of agricultural chemicals. And this is to say nothing of the obscene plethora of heavily processed foods stacked on the overburdened shelves of supermarkets everywhere.<br />
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We seem to have collectively lost sight of the fact that our physical bodies are continuously reconstituted from the foods that we eat, the air that we breathe, and the liquids that we drink. In the early 1950s, long before chemical-heavy industrial agriculture had reached anything like its present levels, Max Gerson showed through his <a href="http://gerson.org/GersonTherapy/gersontherapy.htm">nutritionally-based cancer therapy</a> the vital importance of using fresh, unprocessed, chemical-free foods if health is to be restored in serious conditions. This understanding has yet to reach the busy kitchens of public hospitals throughout the Western world.<br />
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The anatomising of the body into its constituent tissues and organs is echoed in the anatomising of our foodstuffs into their constituent fats, proteins, sugars and calories. There is no measure that can accommodate the integrity, the totality and the equilibrium of living matter.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dark Fruits </td></tr>
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And so it is with the natural world. Our civilisation has recklessly plundered every identifiable resource with little thought to its relationship with the rest of the created order. Our forests have been felled, our soils destroyed, our rivers and lakes laden with the detritus of industry, our oceans robbed of their myriad fish species, our air oppressed by the burning of fossil fuels. And we wonder why the cost of health care throughout the developed world continues to steadily escalate despite the endless "breakthroughs" and all the fancy hardware and clever medicines.<br />
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Two decades ago, <a href="http://www.smallisbeautiful.org/publications/berry_91.html">Thomas Berry reflected</a>:<br />
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"We cannot have well humans on a sick planet. Medicine must first turn its attention to protecting the health and well being of the Earth before there can be any effective human health."</blockquote>
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<h4>
Guarding the Flame</h4>
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Before we can seriously direct our attention to protecting the health and well being of the earth, we must somehow reverse our sense of separation from the phenomenal world. We must somehow shake free from the illusion that we are masters of creation capable of doing what we will with both the earth and with our bodies. We must somehow reconnect with the forces that unite us with the natural world from which we can never truly be separate without damaging ourselves and the world within which we live.<br />
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The force by which a grain of pollen unites with an ovule to produce a seed that carries the full potency of the parent plant is no different to that which enables every new human life to come into existence. The power by which a plant draws water and nutrients from the earth, and oxygen, carbon dioxide and sunlight from the air to produce its myriad structures and chemical compounds is no different to that which enables our physical bodies to grow and to repair themselves after injury and illness.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfRiRO1AHWnGVOdlUO5gntZ_gG8lCiacoJdBF0IqZgdi8jThii3RjzQoDahmP_LDH1ZT80oQ3B8TdEWJz3_LYfmzejwWgFcn3Tyq0ryLXM74VciUbDrW7NkMZqU7nXCkI1m3IhJpEByup8/s1600/medicine_man_cheyene.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfRiRO1AHWnGVOdlUO5gntZ_gG8lCiacoJdBF0IqZgdi8jThii3RjzQoDahmP_LDH1ZT80oQ3B8TdEWJz3_LYfmzejwWgFcn3Tyq0ryLXM74VciUbDrW7NkMZqU7nXCkI1m3IhJpEByup8/s200/medicine_man_cheyene.jpg" width="167" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Howard Terpning. <i>Medicine Man</i>, 1983</td></tr>
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Generations of healers in all times and in all places have identified plants that will serve as reliable allies so long as we continue to take human form upon the earth. In the present time, the biomedical profession has claimed the exclusive right to make use of extracts and derivatives of such plants as <i>Papaver somniferum</i>, the opium poppy, <i>Claviceps purpurea</i>, ergot of rye, <i>Digitalis purpurea</i> and <i>D. lanata</i>, the purple and woolly foxgloves, <i>Ephedra sinensis</i>, ma huang, and <i>Atropa belladonna</i>, the deadly nightshade. Yet these and other powerful plants were long known and used skilfully and carefully by untold generations of healers, herbalists, midwives and shamans. These and many other plants of softer power will continue to spring forth from both wild and cultivated spaces for as long as the earth remains hospitable and habitable.<br />
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There will always be a community of knowledgeable individuals who will safeguard and transmit the knowledge of how these plants can enable us to better pass through the pains and afflictions that are an inevitable part of human life.<br />
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The methods of phytochemistry and pharmacology have recently confirmed the particular usefulness of many plants which have long been used in the various herbal medicine traditions. These include such plants as <i>Echinacea angustifolia</i>, which stimulates activity in the immune system, <i>Ginkgo biloba</i>, which enhances cerebral circulation, <i>Serenoa repens</i>, which is useful in the treatment of prostatic enlargement, <i>Hypericum perforatum</i>, used in the treatment of depression and other nervous system disorders, <i>Crataegus monogyna</i>, which can lower blood pressure and stimulate coronary circulation, <i>Valeriana officinalis</i>, useful in the treatment of insomnia, and <i>Silybum marianum</i> and <i>Cynara scolymus</i>, both of which support liver function. Such plants and their extracts are no longer used exclusively by herbalists and are now prescribed or recommended to patients by a growing number of practitioners of biomedicine. <br />
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Yet there remain may other plants within the herbal medicine traditions whose actions are perhaps too subtle to be easily determined by the harsh methods of phytochemical fractionation and pharmaceutical statistics. It is important to understand that medicinal plants and their extracts are categorically different to the pharmaceutical drugs used in biomedicine. A single medicinally active plant or its extract typically contains small quantities of numerous compounds and influences which can, both individually and synergistically, interact with our own natures. Although any given plant may contain a specific potency, as is the case with opium poppies and their narcotic alkaloids, foxglove and its cardioactive glycosides, and the buckthorns with their purgative anthracenosides, most plants used as medicines carry a constellation of influences which may include minerals, organic acids, essential oils, bitter compounds, flavonoids, steroids and so forth. This is certainly the case with such gentle treasures as lemon balm, golden rod, white horehound, cleavers, agrimony, motherwort, chamomile, plantain, dandelion, yarrow and many other plant medicines.<br />
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During this time when the ways of herbal medicine are often dismissed and demeaned as outmoded and useless superstitions, we are well advised to deepen our familiarity with the healing plants both in our gardens and in the wild. This will ensure that regardless of whether the future holds a bang or a whimper, this soft system of healing will remain available as a living force for the benefit of future generations.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Vincent Di Stefano D.O., M.H.Sc.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>May 2011 </b></span>Vincent Di Stefanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559307846832090756noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6016363827616660391.post-2970097181138765782011-02-27T17:44:00.001-08:002021-01-26T19:16:47.901-08:00Where Do We Take Our Instructions?We tend as a society to remove from sight those realities that may disturb our sense of order, of control, of comfort, of civilised pleasantness. It is very tempting to arrange things so that one lives a predictable and well-cushioned life shielded from the human wreckage that lies just below the surface. Yet something as simple as spending an hour or two in a railway carriage outside of peak hour can reveal how wafer-thin the veneer of social order and civility can be. And the surprising number of young people begging for food and money in and around the streets of central Melbourne reveals further what lies behind the façade of affluence and self-satisfaction that is everywhere projected. One does not need to walk the streets of Calcutta to know the faces of the dispossessed and the privation and deep need that everywhere burdens the life of so many.<br />
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Mother Teresa of Calcutta was born of a peasant family in Albania in 1910. Her father died when she was a young child and she was raised in the simple faith of her community. She joined the Loreto Sisters at the age of 18, having already decided when she was 12 years old that she would one day serve as a missionary in India. After a short stay in Ireland, she arrived in north India in 1929. Over the next 20 years, she formalised her religious vows and served as a teacher in a Loreto convent school for girls in Calcutta.<br />
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In 1948 after experiencing a profoundly transformative personal revelation, she departed the convent, replaced her regular Loreto habit with a plain blue-lined cotton sari, and immersed herself in the street life of Calcutta. After securing modest accommodation, she immediately started a small school for girls and began visiting the destitute and the dying who were everywhere to be found in the city. Her work was sanctioned by Rome in 1952 and the small group of women that had formed around her took on the name "Missionaries of Charity."<br />
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By the time Mother Teresa departed this world in 1997, her order had grown from a group of 13 women living in a small convent in Calcutta to over 600 missions housing 4,500 nuns in 123 countries. Among those missions were numerous hospices, centres for the care of leprosy, tuberculosis and AIDS sufferers, orphanages, refuges for the destitute and homeless, and schools. This simple woman from Albania had in a short 50 years brought selfless service and loving presence into the lives of the most neglected and abandoned among us in over 100 countries throughout the world.<br />
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While listening to Radio National some time ago, I caught the unmistakeable tarnished tones of Christopher Hitchens speaking at what was obviously a large public gathering. My attention sharpened when I heard an oblique mention of Mother Teresa's name, and roars of laughter and applause from a clearly adulatory audience. This unexpectedly brought to mind an article I had read some months earlier in which Hitchens had relentlessly attacked the life and work of Mother Teresa.<br />
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I decided to look into this a little further. There was no shortage of material on the Net. It is no secret that Hitchins has had it in not only for organised religion, but particularly for Mother Teresa for many years. One particularly abundant source of written, audio and video material regarding Hitchins and his ideas is the website of his close friend, Richard Dawkins. There is clearly a brotherhood of sorts among a small and vocal cadre of militant atheists who have made it their mission to dispel the darkness and folly of religious thought and aspiration with the enlightened understanding that this world is an essentially groundless and meaningless phenomenon wrought of the play of random chance and mindless chaos.<br />
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The English-speaking world was introduced to Mother Teresa and her work through Malcolm Muggeridge's film "Something Beautiful For God" which was broadcast by the BBC in 1969. Twenty-five years later, the English-speaking world was given a differing view of Mother Teresa and her work by Christopher Hitchins. His film "Hell's Angel", co-written with his then-ally Tariq Ali, was broadcast by the BBC in 1994. Like Muggeridge, Hitchens followed up with a book which was provocatively titled "The Missionary Position."<br />
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<a href="http://dotsub.com/view/4815f101-0096-493f-bce7-092bc49c4ab1">Hitchen's film</a> is a breathtaking assault on Mother Teresa. In it, he describes her as "a demagogue, obscurantist and servant of earthly powers." After dismissing "that old fraud and mountebank" Malcolm Muggeridge, Hitchins begins his harangue by criticising the modest facilities and rudimentary methods used in the <i>House for the Dying</i> in Calcutta.<br />
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Nowhere is there any acknowledgement that Mother Teresa and her nuns were working voluntarily under near-impossible conditions with no institutional support. Nowhere is there any mention that the derelicted men and women in the <i>House of the Dying</i> had been literally gathered from the streets, having been ignored and sidestepped by passers-by. And nowhere is there any mention that even if they somehow managed to get themselves to any of the public hospitals in Calcutta, they would not have been admitted. Such was the reality of life for the dispossessed in Calcutta.<br />
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Nor does Hitchens bother acknowledging that Mother Teresa and her nuns always maintained respect for the wishes and beliefs of those who were brought to the <i>House of the Dying</i>. Muslims were read the Koran, Hindus were brought water from the Ganges, And Catholics were administered the Sacraments. From Hitchens' elevated perspective, such ministrations were quaint and essentially useless exercises.<br />
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Speaking in front of a grotesque caricature of Mother Teresa which was an ever-present background image, Hitchens directed his silken vehemence towards her views on abortion and on her occasional meetings with politicians of influence. He effectively glossed over her work with the dying, with lepers, with the orphaned and the homeless as a well-meaning but misguided and inconsequential form of social work.<br />
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Nowhere does Hitchins reflect on the fact that, unlike himself, Mother Teresa's place was always with the lowly, with the abandoned and the damaged; that her work was based on love and on a transcendent vision of humanity and divinity; that she was a simple but strong-minded nun working selflessly within the framework of an institutional Catholicism laden with its own share of anachronisms and neuroses.<br />
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Regardless of Hitchins' cynical and stone-hearted polemic, the fact remains that through the drive and dedication of this woman, hundreds of thousands of individuals have been graced by the experience of human warmth and loving presence during their time of greatest frailty and vulnerability. Like Brother Francis of Assisi before her, Mother Teresa of Calcutta was gifted with the capacity to see and to honour the presence of divinity within every broken life that she encountered.<br />
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We are assailed on all fronts by conflicting views of what is in our interests and what is not, of what is correct and what is erroneous, of what is necessary and what is expedient, of what is fact and what is fable. Argumentation may win or lose debates, but matters of human truth cleave more to simple turnings of the heart than clever turnings of the tongue.<br />
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Vincent Di Stefano<br />
February 2011Vincent Di Stefanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559307846832090756noreply@blogger.com1