Some late breakfast thoughts…

In these times, parasites have invaded the body politic in Australia. Fortunately, our communal immune system can help us overcome.

The redhead (apologies to others with gorgeous flame hair) is living rent free in many people’s heads at the moment (including my own, ill admit).

Every screen I look at, she’s there…sucking the joy out of the movement, every Cafe I go to, conversation turns to her.

Our fossil fuel owned legacy media are pumping out stories about her and foreign bot farms are plastering social media with incoherent rubbish relating to her antics.

If you’re finding this overwhelming, as some good folks have confided, take moments through the day to remember that this is just one bitter old lady grabbing attention. None of her policies will work, everything she does is a reaction against good. Her whole world is based on the victimisation of vulnerable groups.

Now, many, once seemingly good, rational people (I define rational thought and action as those that do the greatest good in a situation) are getting annoyed, angry, argumentative, their calm has been leeched away by this person. Their lives have been affected negatively by the underlying vibe of bitterness anger and frustration she exudes, magnified many times by media lenses. This is the goal. Once you become upset and angry, especially when it is a general malaise, its easy to have that anger manipulated and focused. That’s why many who would never have seemed the type are voting orange.

Don’t cut friends who voted orange from your lives, as I’ve seen others doing. Exclusion is a tool of both of the orange ones, exclusion leads to ridicule and victimisation and then we are firmly in their court and they’ve won, even if we didn’t vote their way, they’ve still got the result they want.

I’m not saying go out and hug a One Onion supporter randomly in the street -, the orange one thrives off the insecurities we have about intimacy and closeness, but don’t cut them out. That’s the worst thing we can do. Mute them in your social media, counter their direct arguments with fact and show kindness and care at every opportunity. Don’t do it as condescension, do it from the heart, even if it means taking a few moments to take a breath before and after.

These are the things the orange and the red can’t fight. They are concepts that are foreign (pun intended) to them.

I’m not recommending letting them carry on unimpeded. Freedom of speech doesn’t negate the right to reply, so don’t sit back and let them spout nonsense with no repercussions. Peaceful doesn’t have to be passive, in fact, peac can be powerful, challenging and confonting. Peace is stronger and longer lasting than anything they can bring to the table.

We can counter their actions by building affinity with the groups most affected by their hate. When one is diminished, we are all diminished. How can we do this?

The best way is to (caveat here – if you’re not suffering trauma from one of the following examples, that is and, no judgement, were all suffering multiple trauma every day) find a marginalised group that you feel uncomfortable with and make a connection. If you have a discomfort with, say Iranian folks at the moment, pop down to one if their grocery stores (yeah, I know, stereotyping…but it’s on my mind because we were just at one) if you’re able, and spend some time, buy something (the buying is acceptance and financial transactions are equivalent to personal transactions at this point). You don’t have to get into heavy conversation, just have the experience. The same with our Indigenous brothers and sisters, out LGBTQI+ community members. You don’t have to become besties, just acknowledge and accept that they are all suffering from the same oppression that we are. You don’t need to make a shopping list of the parts of our community that bug you (though that, in itself can be enlightening), just work with the one that springs to mind.

Be nice, be polite, experience. It is the experience that will build us all, unite us and get us through.

Don’t think of people as community members. Membership implies roles, privileges, and even a financial stake. It also defines the organisation you are a member of as an individual entity with boundaries. Think of us all as Participants in the Process of community.

Most politicians benefit from exposing and weaponising divisions and sore spots in people, not just communities and their efforts break coherence and unity. But they benefit more from destroying the process that community really is.

Think of the process of community as our shared immune system and strengthen it at every opportunity.