Shucking Oysters: The Summers of Love

August 24, 2023

Living on Hornby Island can be seen as both a curse and a blessing. Loved to death and living in “paradise.” The perfect Molotov cocktail (with one of those tiny drink umbrellas). And this is not an isolated phenomena; this over-tourism theme is everywhere.

Hornby summers are intense (especially if you work on the front lines and need to go from A to B). The traffic jams at the four corners. The waiting to turn on Central after a ferry has unloaded. The line ups at the Co-op. The market. The market! The amount of cars parked in the vicinity, you’d think it was a Taylor Swift concert. And e bikes. After the paddle board, e bikes of course, are the next best thing. But when I have to speed up in my car to pass a bike going 30k, that worries me.

In the summer, many Hornby Islanders feel that they are living in some theme park. Most visitors think the entire island is Disneyland. (Those are the ones on their magical rides zig zagging down the middle of the road in blissful oblivion.) But, hey, how can you not love Hornby, “the Hawaii of the north”? When it’s too, too busy, perhaps?

I find myself staring at visitors like they are aliens from a foreign country: unfamiliar and disturbing. The incessant staring down at the glow of their smart phones. The inability to navigate themselves in a small grocery store. The challenges with reading signs, from the 60 kilometre speed limit sign to the “Sorry, no ice” sign. Parking their cars blocking entrances, driveways and beach accesses. Parking with no dog in the shaded “dog in car parking only” area or worse, leaving dogs in their car in the blazing sun, window open a crack in 24 plus degree weather.

And the garbage. Every public receptacle is stuffed to the max. Recycled signs are blatantly ignored and apparently it’s far too inconvenient to go up to the depot. Just toss the bags at the bottom of the entrance, someone will deal with them. And those green doggie poop bags? Tossed willy-nilly on the side of the roads and in the parking lots. I even see those poop bags hanging off branches on the trails, like some exotic breed of bird. Is that a green forest flicker? And let’s not forget the random used diapers that “accidentally fell” off the roof of a car, lying on the shoulders like road kill.

Working on the front line means I know too much. Waaay too much. Sure, you’re on holiday, but really? You didn’t do a Google search before you got here? It’s like playing Existential Question. “Is there a beach?” “Is the coffee fresh?” “Are these today’s newspapers?” Can both destiny and free will exist simultaneously? What is the location of the soul? Does it reside within you?

I know, I know, Hornby needs its tourism. But, as I keep saying, it’s the difference between four people showing up at your front door and 20 people.

A sobering Canadian documentary, “The Last Tourist,” darkly exposes the effects of mass tourism on our planet. The timing of the documentary’s spring 2022 release as the world’s borders reopened and people looked to travel with purpose, made it all the more prescient.

Executive Producer Bruce Poon Tip points to the “unconscious consumers” created by the vacation industry, and says while we live by a certain set of values at home, we often suspend those values when we go on holiday. When on vacation, “we tend to have more showers, we tend to be more wasteful, we tend to eat more,” says Ryerson University Professor Rachel Dodds.

It is no surprise that it’s the internet driving all this. “The advent of social media has completely changed the way we travel,” says Dodds. “We’re going after a photograph.” Filmed in over 15 countries, “The Last Tourist” is overpopulated with millennials posting Instagrams everywhere.

And warning, with its blunt coverage on the cruelty of animal tourism, the doc is not for the faint of heart. As Kim Hughes wrote, “It’s a tough slog, this film, partly because it delivers its arguments with a sledgehammer, and partly because we know what it’s saying is true.”

Closer to home, the Sea to Sky Destination Management Council, an offshoot of Destination BC, launched a ‘Don’t Love It to Death’ campaign in 2022. “Having access to beautiful spaces and vibrant communities is a privilege — one we will lose if we don’t change our ways.” The campaign reminded visitors that we “are all guests on these lands and waters. Respect the people, wildlife, natural spaces, and communities by exploring mindfully.”

Meanwhile back on Hornby, we continue to debate the uppers and downers of tourism. The employment benefits, all that money entering our local economy. The crowds, the stress on businesses and locals (human and otherwise). I’m even hearing from people who have been coming to Hornby for years, rethinking about coming back next year because of the huge influx of visitors. I know it’s not every visitor that treats this place with disrespect, but enough of them, that you see the evidence everywhere.

Are we loved to death? Or is it seduction and we should just lie back and enjoy it?

Threats, Lies and the Misuse of Public Funds – Team TIG

August 10, 2023

Domino effect with human face silhouettes.

Threats, Lies, and the Misuse of Public Funds

Imagine if you were a Denman Island newspaper publisher who received an email from a local public employee that attempted to intimidate you by threatening to cut off your publicly funded advertising revenue unless you conformed to their personal idea of what your editorial policy should be. No, this is not the “offer you can’t refuse” gangster scenario that you might expect in The Godfather.

In a written message to The Islands Grapevine (TIG), Bronwyn Schuster, who was hired by the publicly funded Denman Island Bus Service to do its marketing and publicity, demanded editorial policy changes from TIG’s publisher/editor Mike Van Santvoord, or face the withdrawal of the public monies used for advertising in TIG from the budgets they manage. While no mobster would be foolish enough to put such a threat into writing, this is what Bronwyn Schuster wrote in their email to TIG:

“I am deeply concerned by the things you are choosing to publish”

“I understand you have been holding an editorial policy to publish everything with no curation [sic].”

“I will be choosing alternate avenues for articles and advertising for the various community projects I am involved with (emphasis added) until you create an editorial policy that holds the vulnerable members of our community in higher regard.” Letter to The Islands Grapevine from Bronwyn Schuster, July 19, 2023.

The CVRD funded Denman Island Bus Service (DIBS) has advertised in TIG in the past, but it would now seem that Bronwyn Schuster has followed through with their threats, as they no longer advertise these publicly funded projects in TIG, and have redirected their advertising expenditures elsewhere, just as they threatened to do. TIG holds a “high regard” and respect for all members of our communities. Bronwyn Schuster has misused public funds by weaponizing them to implement their own personal agenda.

Bronwyn Schuster is being paid by DIBS from the Comox Valley Regional District (CVRD) tax supported funds disbursed through the non-profit agency DenmanWorks, which is Chaired by Anthony Gregson, who is also a member of the DIBS committee. Bronwyn Schuster’s partner, local Islands Trustee Sam Borthwick, is the DIBS Coordinator, who is paid with the same public money that is funnelled through DenmanWorks to DIBS from the CVRD. Part of Borthwick’s job as DIBS Coordinator, is to advise his partner Bronwyn Schuster on their work in marketing and publicity. Anthony Gregson’s position as DenmanWorks Chairperson, and as a member of the DIBS Committee, is oversight of all public funds that are channeled from the CVRD through DenmanWorks to DIBS.

TIG is demanding Bronwyn Schuster’s resignation or summary dismissal from any positions where they are responsible for expenditure of public monies, as a result of these breaches of public trust. TIG insists that Schuster reveal all of the projects for which they are responsible for publicly funded advertising and publicity programs and they should be required to apologize to TIG and all Denman Island residents for these threats and malfeasances. The Islands Grapevine has forwarded these correspondences to the appropriate agencies and legal authorities for review.

Everyone has the right to express their opinion in regard to TIG’s editorial decisions, but they don’t have the right to make threats in order to extort editorial policy changes, then manipulate CVRD tax funded advertising money by withdrawing and redirecting it based on their personal views, especially when these views are unfounded and dishonest claims containing false accusations. In this case, Bronwyn Schuster has done just that, and attempted to justify it as a defence of “vulnerable members of our community.” TIG firmly rejects any content that is homophobic, transphobic, or is discriminatory or bigoted toward any identifiable group.

TIG publishes its clear editorial policy relating to content it receives from all contributors to the paper and has rejected submissions based on this policy, or asked contributors to revise their written submissions that violate its editorial policies, and these contributions do not necessarily reflect the personal views of its publisher/editor. Schuster’s claim that TIG will “publish everything with no curation” is an obvious lie. Here’s publisher/editor Mike Van Santvoord’s July 19, 2023 responses to Bronwyn’s threatening letter:

“I couldn’t discern if your email to me was a private note, or intended for publication. If it was the latter, I would reject it in its current form, as it violates TIG’s editorial policy.”

“I have attached the TIG editorial policy for your convenience.”

“Your threat to take business elsewhere will have no effect on TIG’s editorial policies.”

To date, Bronwyn Schuster has not replied to TIG’s response to their threats. You might think that we’re being “crabby” about the loss of advertising revenue, but the loss of revenue is well beside the point. It would seem that Bronwyn has a distorted grasp of the facts, a warped sense of entitlement, and a lack of the needed integrity in handling tax supported budgets for publicly funded projects.

Team TIG

Apology

August 10, 2023

APOLOGY by Sally Campbell

What makes the simple act of apology so hard?

Why does a poorly-timed apology make matters worse?

When I explain why the wrong happened, shouldn’t that make it okay?

These are a few of the questions surrounding the “ouchy”, often complicated realm of apology. As children, we were often taught to say we were sorry when we didn’t feel sorry. We learned that if we refused to apologize, things were going to get worse. We might’ve felt righteous (& rightful) indignation at the idea of apologizing, convinced that the other was at fault, not us. To add to our sense of injury, the adult(s) involved might not even have cared who was right, who was wrong. They simply wanted the matter resolved and they saw an apology as a public act of contrition that the other party was obliged to accept, thus putting the dispute to rest.

Alas, the world does not really work that way. Sometimes an apology is given in a tone of voice that merely heightens the acrimony. Lack of genuine remorse from the offender gets communicated nonverbally to the aggrieved person. Sometimes the apology is followed by minimization of the offence, or detailed justification. These kinds of responses erase the value of the apology and can easily create more inter-personal distance. The overt conflict may be considered to be “done with”, but really the conflict has just gone underground, or more dangerously, into the body, rather than being resolved.

If the apology is given too quickly in an attempt to convince the offended person to “just get over it”, its value is lost. We live in a general culture that is busy and driven, that expects things to move quickly and efficiently. Matters of the heart move in kairos time, not chronos time. They are related to the spiritual and emotional aspects of our being, not the mental/rational aspects. This may be why we feel those old hurts, that unfinished business so strongly, even though they may be years in the past. The memory of the cut, the wound, is as if it occurred yesterday. An apology given before one is ready to really hear and receive it can go right over the offended person’s head. Timing matters.

There are many ways to deliver an incomplete apology; certain expressions or turns of phrase mark it as such. Here are a few examples:

“If I did something to offend you, I am sorry.”

“I am sorry you feel that way”.

“I’m sorry you got so upset about it”.

None of these apologies show the speaker taking responsibility. They don’t acknowledge what was done or said that caused offense, they merely show regret that offense may have happened.

Aaron Lazare, MD, head of Psychiatry at University of Massachusetts Medical School, has some wonderful insights on apology. He outlines what he sees as necessary steps to constitute a complete apology in his book, On Apology (Oxford University Press, 2004). Here they are in the context of private rather than public apologies.

1. Acknowledging the offense.

When we acknowledge we were wrong, both we and the offended party are assured we share certain values. Effective acknowledging includes a fair and complete remembering of what happened, and how it was offensive to the other person. He says: “This places high demands on our truthfulness” (p.80), as there is often temptation to distort or to minimize.

2. Communicating remorse

If we don’t feel genuine remorse or regret about what happened and our part in it, we may not be ready to apologize. As well, this aspect of an apology entails communication of a resolve to do something differently. Looking back, the apologizer accepts responsibility for the offense; looking forward involves commitment to avoid repeating the offending behaviour (forbearance).

3. Explanation

An explanation often helps the injured party understand the context, and can go a long way toward mending a torn relationship. “…explanations demystify offenses committed against us by telling us whether an offense was a random act, …how much responsibility we share for the offense and whether we should expect similar offenses in the future”(p.120). It is critical that the explanation not be given as an excuse or seen as an attempt to minimize the harm done. When that happens, the value of the apology is lost.

4. Reparations

Apologies often place us in the position of “one-down”. In order to restore balance to the relationship, the offender may need to offer reparations, either symbolic or real. Sometimes this is the most important aspect of an apology – to find ways to restore the loss. Other times, reparations are not enough, because the other critical aspects of apology have not been adequately addressed.

One of the most helpful points of Lazare’s book is the idea that an apology is actually the beginning of making amends, not the end!

(Next week: Part 2)

Green Wizardries with Maxine Rogers

August 10, 2023

Green Wizardries, Breast Cancer Prevention by Maxine Rogers

Did you know there has been an 80% increase in breast cancer in the last 40 years? Mammograms only pick up tumours when they are the size of a small grape. When they do the wide-incision biopsy to remove the tumour, in 2/3rds of cases there are multi-focal deposits of tumour in the surrounding tissue. So, not a great result with mammograms.

Why the sudden sharp increase? Well, our diet and the medication we take have both changed out of all recognition in the last 40 years so they may well be factors. Some aspects of our diet have changed without the public noticing. For example, several foods, including bread and milk, used to be enriched with iodine. This is no longer the case. Indeed, commercially prepared bread contains bromides which are iodine antagonists.

I got most of the information for this story by watching a recent interview with Dr. Nyjon Eccles, a British physician who holds a PhD in Pharmacology. Dr Eccles likes to call himself a Natural Doctor or a practitioner of Functional Medicine.

Dr. Eccles uses thermography in his clinic to detect changes in breast tissue before tumours develop. Thermography uses infrared cameras to look at heat in breast tissue and it can also detect abnormal veins and resistance to cooling. All these things can precede the structural changes seen later on a mammogram.

Dr. Eccles has been studying thermography since 2013 because he thinks we need to detect changes in the breast before it turns to cancer. He went on to explain that an abnormal thermogram is not a diagnoses of cancer but they do represent an increased risk of developing breast cancer later.

When he had a cohort of women with abnormal breast thermograms, he started studying them nutritionally. He measured their Vitamin D and iodine levels. He looked at how they were metabolizing their estrogen as some women metabolize their estrogen in a toxic way that can damage breast tissue. He also looked at their Omega 3 fatty acids. What he found was that women with abnormal thermograms, almost always, had imbalances in at least two of the four factors measured.

He worked with the women to overcome these imbalances and deficiencies. He found that within six months of starting treatment, 80% of the women would have normal or normalizing thermograms.

Dr. Eccles finds vitamin D and iodine deficiencies are very common. He also studied the Japanese who eat a diet high in seaweed. Their blood-iodine levels are very high and their breast cancer rates are some of the lowest in the world. Iceland, which is very far away and has a different culture also has very high rates of iodine in their diet and similarly low levels of breast cancer. Dr. Eccles says medical science does not know how iodine is protecting against breast cancer but there is a huge correlation between low-iodine levels and increases in breast cancer.

To get his patient’s Omega 3 levels up, he said they could eat fatty fish and if they preferred a vegetable source of Omega 3 fatty acids, he got them to eat flax, chia, hemp and echium seeds. I like his approach as it is very low-tech and inexpensive.

Dr Eccles is strongly against his patients taking synthetic progesterone as it leads to increased cancers and clotting. He finds natural progesterone has no associated risk of increased breast cancer.

The way a woman metabolizes her estrogen can be benign or toxic which damages breast tissue. The good news is that simply eating cruciferous vegetables allows a woman to switch from toxic estrogen metabolism to non-toxic. Just eating a plate of cabbage, Brussels sprouts, watercress, broccoli, cauliflower or the wonderful kale that grows so readily here, is enough to reduce this risk factor in women.

Dr. Eccles recommends 4000 to 5000 IUs of Vitamin D to all his patients even if they did not have an abnormal thermography. He pairs the Vitamin D with Vitamin K2 which ensures that calcium stays in the bones and makes these higher doses of Vitamin D safe.

Dr Eccles sites a 2016 study which showed that people having blood levels of Vitamin D at 100 nanomils per litre showed a sharp drop in all types of cancers. So, keep your Vitamin D levels at that magic 100 number to reduce your risk of cancer.

His rule is to take 50 to 100 micrograms of Vitamin K2 for every 1000 international units of Vitamin D. Vitamin K2 is usually derived from fermented foods such as fermented pickles (delicious), sauerkraut and kimchee. We could all do with eating more fermented foods for general good health.

For iodine, Dr. Eccles explains that some populations routinely ingest 3 to 12 milligrams of iodine in their food daily. If you take higher doses of iodine than the body needs, it is excreted harmlessly in the urine.

When most people in the West take the SIP test to measure their levels of Omega fatty acids, they are usually 15 to 20 units of Omega 6 to every unit of Omega 3. The ratio should be more like 6 units of Omega 6 to every 3 units Omega 3. You can reduce your levels of Omega 6 by not eating any seed oils which are very unhealthy.

With the supplements mentioned and eating a large plate of cruciferous vegetables every day, we could make Denman and Hornby the capital of low breast-cancer rates in Canada

Letter to the Editor – Bob Morley

August 10, 2023

Dear Editor,

Upon coming across a ‘weird’ article by Alex Allen, I decided to look up weird in my Webster’s dictionary and it said: “fate, destiny; soothsayer, magical, unearthly, mysterious, odd, fantastic” to name a few adjectives. Further on, we were referred to being ‘rather normal’. So, I looked up normal in said dict and found that we were ‘perpendicular, regular, occurring naturally’ and I started to feel better about myself as I enjoy being perpendicular, rather than horizontal and regular rather than constipated. But as the writer referred himself as an ‘outsider’, I of course consulted my weber and discovered he is ‘a person not a member of some group’, but, ‘a contender not favored to win’. My humble conclusion therefore is: It is our destiny to remain regularly perpendicular to horizontal Hornby and leave the outsider to remain a contender between a rock and the Salish Sea. With love, Bob Morley

Monotooth

August 10, 2023

Red, Blue & White

August 10, 2023

Date: March 23, 2007

Topic: Red, Blue & White

Today it rained. As a matter of fact, it was the worst weather day we’ve had since my arrival here. This of course didn’t keep us from work. We returned to the same stretch of highway from the previous day, continuing our way south, as the encroaching roadside alders are endless. Thankfully the day was short (being a Friday) as the wind and rain had us wet and cold within minutes. It was one of those days where you had to keep moving… or freeze! Despite the weather, we still put in an exemplary effort. C.O. Person is happy as a clam. The approach that Crew #2 is taking in their work of late makes his task easier and rather than being left to write negatives about we ‘Reds’ in his log book, he writes only complimentary words. Surely it must reflect well on him too, which only makes him happier. I gather that aside from the best way it is the only way to get him to go to bat for us over things like sad sack lunches and such.

As it turns out, Mr. Wight’s sandwich from our lunch of yesterday must have given him indigestion. In truth, he was appalled at the meagreness of it. A dead battery drew him out to the work site and moreover his attention to our displeasure over lunches, up close and personal. Far better than a stack of inmate complaints ever could’ve accomplished. Upon returning to the compound after fetching us Mr. Wight went ballistic on the kitchen crew. Today’s sandwiches were STUFFED with meat. Hell, there was even lettuce in them too. Okay, they weren’t burgers as we’d prefer but, for now at least, the issue has registered with the keepers of this fine facility. My verbose complaint forms are debatably sitting among countless others in a trash bin somewhere and despite my entertainment in writing them, I suspect the gears that churn in order to have something happen would’ve continued to sit about inanimate and rusting if waiting on action for them. We’ll just have to see exactly how much movement a Senior Blue Shirt’s tirade imparts to the process. If it were reliant upon Wight’s physical girth, the impetus would be formidable but within the bowels of this prison there are those even bigger than he. Perhaps not in mass but in rank. And they are called the ‘White Shirts.’

Shucking Oysters: Smart Phones

August 10, 2023

Shucking Oysters: Smart Phones

Alex Allen

Smart phones make me worried about humanity. I was in Vancouver recently and I spent my entire time dodging people staring down at their gadgets completely oblivious to their surroundings. A fun act of civil disobedience would have been to merrily grab every phone as I ran down Burrard Street and tossed them with abandon off the bridge. Actually, that’s stealing and not very civil, but it would have been very fun.

In the summer months on Hornby, we get to witness this strange phenomena daily. I see visiting teens sitting surrounded by beauty and interesting stuff staring down at their smart phones, not engaging, not seeing, just passively immersed in the glow of the screen. They could have saved themselves a lot of money by staying home. It’s the same view, after all. Couples sitting at the cafe both engrossed in whatever on their personal phones. Parents staring at their gadgets, ignoring their kids. And when I see a really young kid with a smart phone, I just think dumb parent. The modern babysitter. But what will that four-year-old be like when he’s twenty? Dumber or smarter?

A large study using data from the US National Institutes of Health found screen time was moderately associated with worse mental health, increased behaviour problems, decreased academic performance, and poorer sleep, but also found using a smart phone or device improved friendships and connection.

“All of us are basically living in a big social experiment where smart phones have taken over,” Dr. Jean Twenge, professor of psychology at San Diego State University said. “In effect, we’re experimenting with their brains, ‘Hey, let’s give them all smart phones and see what happens.’”

A report from the University of Texas, with the catchy title, “Brain Drain: The Mere Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity,” found that someone’s ability to hold and process data significantly improved if their smart phone was not in the same room. Even if the phone was turned off and face down next to them, the mere sight of one’s own smart phone seemed to induce “brain drain.”

Studies have shown that young people who shouldn’t have back and neck problems are reporting disc hernias and alignment complications due to prolonged smart phone use. Called “text neck,” our necks typically curve backward, but what they are seeing is that the curve is being reversed as people look down at their phones and text for hours every day.

Neuroscientist, Daniel Levitin in his book, The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload, wrote, “Email, Facebook and Twitter checking constitute a neural addiction.” Each time we check social media “we encounter something novel and feel more connected socially (in a kind of weird impersonal cyber way) and get another dollop of reward hormones.” Levitin warns ominously, that if everyone is spending hour after hour on their phones, scrolling through texts and time lines, then that becomes normal behaviour. “When normality becomes madness, the only way to find sanity is daring to be different.”

I don’t own a smart phone, but I did reluctantly buy a flip phone in January. Why? Because my partner wants to know which ferry I’m getting on. Otherwise, it sits in my glove compartment gathering road dust and feeling lonely. It rang one time and I couldn’t figure out how to answer it. Do I press the green button? The arrow button? The selection button? Flipping through the 43-page manual, I couldn’t find the answer anywhere. But I did discover other things. A calculator? FM radio? Recorder? I had no idea. And then finally 20 minutes later, on page 36 under “Call settings” there it was “1. Flip to answer the call.” They could have put that in the “Get started” or “Get to know your phone” section. Exhibit A why I don’t read manuals, they are not helpful.

I’m not on Facebook either. Seven years ago I was. I had four friends (my two sisters, my sister’s husband, and my niece). The sister with the husband, was like 100 friends. Every day, pictures of her walking her dog Poppy through the bucolic fields of East Sussex; cute animal videos; articles from the Guardian and on and on. Every day. The niece posted her artwork and wanted to be liked constantly. And then trying to ignore all those people (politely) that want to be your friend. It was exhausting. As Netflix founder Reed Hastings said, “A high sharing environment is my idea of hell. That’s why I’m not on Facebook.” It took me three months to get off Facebook. Not because I was hesitant, but because they kept on asking me…are you sure? Are you really, really, sure?

And no, I don’t miss it. Especially, the mean-spirited behaviour on our local Facebook page. (I have an informant.) The more divisive the issue, the more engagement it generates, the more time it induces people to waste their time feuding on line. I dare you all to say it in person or if not, at least be nice.

And don’t get me wrong I am not anti-technology. I’m just concerned with social media.* I love the internet. Emailing, online banking, ordering stuff — it’s great. I just wish I had more time to read all the blogs, listen to all the pod casts, watch the documentaries, and learn how to build a sauna.

*The best thing about social media? Uniting a lost dog with its owners after jumping off a boat at Tribune Bay.

Caitlin Johnstone – Notes from the edge of the narrative matrix

August 4, 2023

Disrupt The Culture Wars

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE

AUG 4, 2023

One of the great challenges faced by westerners who oppose the political status quo today is the way the narrative managers of both mainstream factions continuously divert all political energy away from issues which threaten the interests of the powerful like economic injustice, war, militarism, authoritarianism, corruption, capitalism and ecocide and toward issues which don’t threaten the powerful at all like abortion, racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia.

This method of social control serves the powerful in some very obvious ways, and is being used very effectively. As long as it remains effective, it will continue to be used. The worse things get the more urgent the need to fight the class war will become, and the more urgent the need to fight the class war becomes the more vitriolic and intense the artificial culture war will become in order to prevent political changes which inconvenience the powerful. This is 100 percent guaranteed. And what’s tricky is that all the vitriolic intensity will create the illusion that the culture war has gotten more important, when in reality the class war has.

It’s just a straightforward fact that the more miserable, impoverished and disempowered the public becomes, the more hateful and all-consuming the artificial culture war will be made to prevent revolution. That’s what’s been happening, and that’s what will continue to happen. You can hate hearing it, and you can hate me for saying it. But it is a fact, and I think we all pretty much know it’s a fact.

So what’s to be done about this? Obviously it’s not an option to just throw disempowered groups to the wolves and ignore the abuses they’re suffering under the directed hatred coming after them from the right. And obviously it’s not an option to run to the other side of the artificial partisan divide and play along with the mainstream faction which says we should focus only on culture war issues, as in Hillary Clinton famously arguing that breaking up the banks won’t end racism and sexism.

As with most problems, the first step toward finding a solution is to bring consciousness to what’s happening. Draw attention to the fact that marginalized groups are being used and abused by mainstream narrative managers to keep the public from turning their gaze on the abuses of their rulers. Draw attention to the way rightist narrative managers direct hatred toward marginalized groups to keep hatred away from our rulers, and to the way liberal narrative managers seize on that to direct their herd away from issues that can inconvenience the powerful and toward exclusive focus on the culture war.

Stop letting people get sucked up into the performance, and instead draw attention to what’s really going on here. Act like a loud jerk at a movie theatre who keeps yelling “None of this is real! Those are actors on a movie set!”

Can you imagine how hard it would be to get lost in the narrative of a movie if somebody was constantly doing that to you? After a while you’d stop seeing Oppenheimer and you’d only be able to see Cillian Murphy.

Basically all you’re trying to do is take all the emotional heat that’s being diverted into partisan feuding over issues whose outcomes will never inconvenience power in the slightest, and steer that emotional heat toward the people who are directing all this. This is both easy to do and completely honest, because how fucked up is it that they’re doing this? How fucked up is it that the most influential voices in our society on both sides of the mainstream partisan divide are facilitating the abuse of marginalized groups in order to protect the powerful?

It’s about as loathsome a thing as you could possibly come up with. They’re pitting human against human at the expense of society’s most vulnerable members and watching them fight from on high like Greek gods. Can you think of anything more vile?

Draw attention to how disgusting what they’re doing is. Draw attention to how deeply evil this behaviour is. Keep shouting in that movie theatre and drawing attention to what’s really going on to highlight how profoundly depraved these monsters really are.

Draw people’s attention to this dynamic wherever you see it. When right wing “populists” babble about LGBTQ conspiracies and shriek about wokeness, mock them for the ridiculous sheep they are for playing into a dynamic that directly serves the elite power structures they claim to oppose. When liberals are ignoring economic injustice, war, militarism, authoritarianism, corruption, capitalism and ecocide to focus on culture war battles whose outcomes will never even slightly inconvenience the powerful, highlight the disgusting way they themselves are feeding into a dynamic that imperils the marginalized communities they claim to defend.

People on both sides of the divide will object to this message. The source of their objection is the exact programming I just described. The truth hides just beneath that objection. On some level you all know this is happening.

Keep breaking the spell and drawing attention to what’s really going on, and you can stomp out the abuse at its source.

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.