Corruption

I [am s]care[d] – Our common welfare should come first

/ stefanfeller / 1 Comment

On the featured picture: I asked the AI assistant to create a symbol expressing care and being scared at the same time.

It’s been a while, again. My last blog post “On Aging“ dates back to July 21, 2024. If you read it, you will see a reference “Joe, I pray for you, you will make the right decision“. I meant that the incumbent President of the United States of America would hopefully make the right decision on whether to run for office again, or not. It was literally a few hours later that President Joe Biden announced to step out of the race. Which is pure coincidence. Mr. President, I will never ever forget your commanding voice in the Assembly of Bosnia&Hercegovina, when you reminded leaders, elected officials, politicians in Bosnia&Hercegovina of their duties to their constituencies, to their peoples: That their common welfare should come first. Not that I would feel it changed things in my beloved Bosnia&Hercegovina. But if I can’t forget Joe’s thunder, others may have felt that impact as well, and perhaps the memory will add to change, hopefully to the better, hopefully in not a too distant future.

What happened since President Biden’s decision to pass the baton to a younger generation, it was nothing short of a miracle. Vice President Harris’ nomination as the Democrat’s presidential candidate, the immediate launch of a ground-breaking political campaign, the positive energy and momentum, the rekindled hope and positivism, the difference between dark and hateful gloomy and self-centered fear-mongering and a bright and energetic appearance filled with passion, smiling, and profound substance, it could not have been starker. Moderate Republicans joining the Harris/Walz-Campaign, former civilian officials and retired highest military generals who served under Nr. 45 speaking out on Nr. 45 being fascist to the core, and him being perhaps the biggest contemporary threat, all of this is unprecedented. Despite the fact that numerous polling documented a huge shift in public sympathies towards Kamala Harris, it would appear the jury is still out on what is happening in less than two weeks, after one of the fiercest campaigning battles I have witnessed ever.

And sure, one of the ugliest campaigns ever, on the side of Nr. 45, including awkwardly dancing around for 39 minutes to some music playlist instead of campaigning by substance. A billionaire (Elon Musk, reportedly the richest man on the planet) jumping around on a podium behind Nr. 45, and doling out 1-Million-Dollar-Checks to voters in swing States. A running-mate for the office of the Vice President repeating insulting lies that Haitian migrants eat the cats in their neighborhoods. There is someone attempting to grab the highest office in the United States who acts following the principle “My welfare comes first and nothing else matters“.

Watching U.S. media closely, I am puzzled about how little is being reflected in German public broadcasting. At the time of this writing (October 23), I watched the news from the German “Tagesthemen” on the U.S. electoral battle. A battle it is. The report this morning left me frustrated. Reporting from rural Southern countryside with honest U.S. citizens emphasizing that all they expect is economics lowering their costs of living, some pictures of Nr. 45 handing out french fries at a local McDonalds, and a little bit of footage about Kamala’s intense campaigning. It all feels so awkward because of the paucity of reflection of what I see reflected in U.S. news.

Like, I’d like to see more on the brazen attempt of an “autocrat hopeful” to exact revenge on political opponents, to talk about the “enemy from within”, to attempt silencing media perceived as being hostile by threatening to revoke their licenses if he gets re-elected, to come up with every lunatic conspiracy theory under the sun, to lie, to incite hatred, to endanger legal migrants, to glorify the events of an insurrection on January 06, 2021 as the most peaceful patriotic event ever, not even to talk about his misogynist and xenophobic side, and his affinity for crude sexual remarks for opponents. Watching the bipartisan efforts attempting to make clear how monstrous the consequences of a re-election would be, it is heartening. To see Liz Cheney joining Kamala Harris in a conversation in Pennsylvania, wow. The reflection of all this in German news tastes pale, often dry. But may be that’s just me. Usually it’s just me. If so, I’m sorry. No, I’m not. I am scared.

I am reminded these days of David Faber’s book “Munich, 1938 – Appeasement and World War II“. I read it many years ago. It is still on my mind. For me, a member of generations growing up post World War II, there is no time for complacency when fascism raises its ugly face. It is not easy to define fascism, as I learned when I wrapped my mind around Umberto Eco’s fascinating set of three essays “How to Spot a Fascist“, also many years ago. But I can smell one when I see one. So I take Gen. Mark Milley, former U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff serious, when he calls Nr. 45 a “fascist to the core“.

Anne Applebaum published her newest book “Autocracy, Inc. – The Dicators Who Want to Run the World“, and I am reading it right now. To quote Amazon’s book description: “All of us have in our minds a cartoon image of what an autocratic state looks like, with a bad man at the top. But in the 21st century, that cartoon bears little resemblance to reality. Nowadays, autocracies are run not by one bad guy, but by sophisticated networks composed of kleptocratic financial structures, security services and professional propagandists. The members of these networks are connected not only within a given country, but among many countries. The corrupt, state-controlled companies in one dictatorship do business with corrupt, state-controlled companies in another.” By the way, Anne has made it on the list of people degraded by Nr. 45. Which I take as a badge of honor.

I am reading the first chapters. And it strikes me how correct she is with the complicity between such self-serving networks, the cold calculating world of financial institutions, and the “double-speak” of the West, often saying one thing, and sometimes silently doing another thing. Or arguing one thing here, and the opposite thing elsewhere. When I listen to friends from the Middle East or Africa, I can so much understand their frustration, and often disbelief in truthfulness when we talk about values. Are we meaning what we are saying? Or are we measured by the consequences of hidden agendas? But inasmuch as I can fully understand the grievances by those who are really suffering from attempts of all sorts of networks preying on them, autocracies, kleptocracies, former colonial powers, own dictators and rulers, and so much more, I remain very concerned when I hear this complaint about “double speak” in conversations here in Germany, from people who slowly but visibly navigate towards the right, or the far right. Because what lies beyond, the extreme right, the fascist right, the angry sick phantasies of restoring the glory of a nationalistic approach, it never happens without a broader support within a larger constituency.

All this appears to be connected, globally.

It’s been three weeks since I listened, again, to Jay W., a fellow recovering friend in 12-Step-Recovery. I always enjoy seeing him in a Zoom window, surrounded by sometimes hundreds of other little pictures of my friends who connect from literally all over the world. Jay’s story began including when, at the age of roughly half a year old, his “mom went out of the door”, never returning. His father remarried and gave Jay away to another family when Jay was three years old. In Jay’s own words, this family locked him in a pitch-black closet, where he lived for the next three years. He slept, toileted, ate, existed in that closet. He was pulled out once a day to be washed, ritualistically tortured, and/or raped by three adults. When he was in the closet, all he wanted was the freedom of getting out of the dark, and when he was out of the closet, all he wanted was the safety and solitude of being back in the closet.

Jay’s story is the story of Jay and Nancy, his late wife, the love of his life. It is the story of “Jancy”, in Jay’s words. It is a story which you can read in his book “Relationship Resilience: Applying the 12 Traditions to Relationships“. Amazon’s review curtails the message of this book a bit: “This small work contains twelve powerful tools to guide couples to transform deep loving feelings into consistent loving behavior. The tools are loosely based on AA’s Twelve Traditions, and they work – quickly and transformatively – whether you are or are not in any 12-Step Program. These tools will change your relationship – whether you’re on the verge of breaking up, in a good partnership but wanting it to be better, or in a great relationship but always open to new tools to cultivate loving closeness.“

Because, in this book, Jay does not only talk about personal relationships, like, family relationships, or intimate relationships. He is talking about any relationship. Whether professional, or private. Whether a spouse, or an employer/employee-relationship. Whether you love this person, or respect this person, or you suffer from this person, or hate this person, or are being subjected to hate.

Inasmuch as 12-Step-Recovery, based on the principles identified first by Alcoholic Anonymous, is based on those 12 Steps, there are the 12 Traditions as well. Many will say that the 12 Traditions guide the way how 12-Step-Groups are being organized, in the most fundamental democratic way you can ever imagine. But Jay is not the only one who is able to describe the power of the 12 Traditions in every aspect of life. Yet, his book contains the most recent demonstration. Like, TRADITION ONE – OUR COMMON WELFARE SHOULD COME FIRST.

I’ll leave it there. Read.The.Book. Love you, bro.

On Integrity – When Things Fall Apart – Setting Up Firewalls Against Corruption

/ stefanfeller / 1 Comment

Are you Mingyur Rinpoche?

My father asked me this question soon after I began studying with him, when I was around nine years old. It was so gratifying to know the correct answer that I proudly declared, Yes I am.

Then he asked, Can you show me the one thing in particular that makes you Mingyur Rinpoche?

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche with Helen Tworkov – In Love With The World – New York – Spiegel & Grau – 2019

Do you know this feeling when you attempt to describe something, and the subject of your attention is evading your focus like a moving target? Or at other times, it all feels like a cloudy foggy thing which you can not grab? Like, to the extent that you begin to doubt your own capacity to use elaborate, meaningful words? Ultimately doubting you have anything relevant to say at all?

Every now and then this feeling gets me when I attempt to muster fresh energy for my book projects. Since months I am working on finishing writing about the term “integrity“. There are several chapters on integrity within my draft book project on policing. I try to use examples from my own professional socialisation, reflecting on what guided me in adhering to principles such as “integrity”. In doing that I got caught up in memories about situations when my integrity was challenged, situations in which I may just have been lucky enough to escape a nearby-by catastrophe, allowing me to learn, after wiping off the cold sweat of anxiety and fear. Learning almost never happens through absorption of theoretical knowledge alone. It is always based on experiences, including mistakes. Especially making mistakes. Consider this an essential and it will soften your reflex to quickly judge people who made a mistake. As long as this leads to learning. How often got I lucky when riding my motorbike, escaping from a crash just because something like fate, or pure luck, protected me? How lucky was I when I fell from a tree two years ago, finding myself on the ground with a broken vertebrae, but no lasting damage? “What if things would have gone a little bit more sideways?” This question has been so pervasive in my life. And sideways many things in my life went, of course. I don’t know of any human being gaining experience without things going sideways.

So, if I just managed to act with uncorrupted integrity in my line of professional work, but at the same can not claim that this is true for every other aspect of my life, where does that leave me? Well, I can say that I know what I am talking about, both related to areas where I maintained integrity, and related to areas which required some thorough amendments, ultimately. It doesn’t make my statements less true, or weakens them. He or She who sees the splinter in the eye of others but not the big chunk of wood sticking out of the own eye (does this German idiomatic make sense in an English article?), is hypocritical: “It would never happen to me” is a statement which, at minimum, is foolish. Or may be that person has little imaginative capacity how fast things can go sideways. All too often, those who state things like these, they hide their own skeletons in the basement of their houses. I have witnessed moral sermons from people who got caught with their own dirty secrets later on. We live in times where it has become possible to act without any integrity at all, and to recklessly pursue egoistic agendas based on never ending streams of lies, and bullying behaviour. Tearing down the foundations of anything which is standing in the way. By the way: Huge kudos to the U.S. judiciary these days.

So, what is integrity?

And, speaking of my doubts: I am attempting to write my books since ten years. Nothing has seen the light of the day. But this blog has, since now almost ten years, captured a stream of consciousness which I initially had planned of being captured in books. May be I am not meant to write a book. May be I am meant to write here.

Integrity is one of those terms which can be subjected to a definition. Any definition I found or came up with myself is grounded within a context. Like “structural integrity” as an engineering term. Like “organizational integrity”, within a business corporation, or within a government administration. “Personal integrity” as well can relate to so many different situations. Integrity as a police officer, integrity as a partner in a relationship, integrity in adhering to principles, or, in a very specific context, integrity as a preventative firewall against relapse, into self-harming behavior, or substance abuse. In these, and so many more situations we use this term “integrity”.

Things that appear simple if we don’t think about them, or take them for granted, they get very complicated and hard to describe when you take a closer look. “Integrity” is one of these concepts that fall into this category. In a more recent private conversation I was presented with a sentence from Brené Brown: “Integrity – Choosing courage over comfort, choosing what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy; and choosing to practice our values rather than simply professing them.” Less a definition, more a pointer related to ethical behavior which, if applied, constitutes integrity as a character trait.

Leaving you here for the day. I’ll start to define integrity in my next blog entry.