Heather Brooke Quotes

Two things signal to me when a group is more interested in self-righteousness than making actual policy: Picking on allies and name calling.

To solve our current dependence on fossil fuels is a complex problem that demands communication and cooperation. Taking binary stands and publicly shaming people, doesn’t seem a good way to solve this problem.

I would feel homesick for Federal Way, Washington where I grew up. A city both exuberant with nature but also nature’s destruction: virgin forests giving way to freeways, streams filled in to build strip malls, dams destroying ancient salmon spawning grounds.

A brutal work culture adds to the feeling, pushing people toward transience. Jobs have primary importance not just for a necessary salary but to get health insurance.

They say everything is bigger in America but when you’re barreling along a 10-lane highway with massive trucks on either side of you and an aggressive SUV shoving your rear, it’s hard not to feel insignificant in a hostile universe. The only sensible solution seems to be to supersize yourself so you don’t get run over. It’s as if insignificance was the design brief for so much of American architecture and infrastructure. It ignores the reality of human size, let alone vulnerability, preferring an egoic delusion that humans are separate and superior to nature. But this feeling of insignificance leads to an insatiable hunger. For a bigger vehicle, a bigger house, more money, more guns - anything to feel more secure, and that security never materializes.

What I see now when I visit America is the juxtaposition of wild nature and sterile humanity. People boxing themselves away - in houses, cars, offices.

Followers of fascism also have their own ‘daddy issues’. Are they drawn to an authoritarian father figure, as replacement for their own? The fascist leader granting a simulacrum of love, acceptance and belonging to men who feel cast out from the fatherly fraternity.

The oppression of women is key in fascism because insecure men don’t feel they have what it takes to attract and maintain a relationship with a woman. They believe the only way to get a woman is through manipulation or force. Why would a free woman with choices and resources, choose them? In their mind, they wouldn’t, so their solution is to take away freedom, choice and resources from women. This is also the driving insecurity of patriarchy, which is a form of fascism.

Instead of real power - the power someone has when they know they are worthy, wanted and have what it takes to handle life - the insecure man seeks domination. He doesn’t feel worthy or wanted or that people will want to be with him on his own merits, so he sees manipulation and violence as the only way to be in relationship to others. He doesn’t feel he has what it takes to deal with life, so he seeks control.

With its idolising of stony-faced ‘strong men’, its fantasies of domination and control, fascism is the ideology of the insecure man. A man who feels - at base - unworthy, unwanted and powerless.

Violence is a moral crime not just against others but against one’s own heart. And we can only commit such crimes when we let our minds override the voice of our soul.

Does bullying feel right in your heart? Threatening people with violence? How about actual killing? Our hearts know what is right, and what is morally wrong. It’s the mind that plays tricks. It’s the mind that - without training, and given superiority over heart - leads us to do the things that make us feel small, corrupted, fearful and tight in our own skin. Propaganda exists to help us override our heart wisdom. The lies others tell us and the lies we tell ourselves can be used to justify the worst cruelty and harm.

It’s action, not beliefs, that matter most. Thinking is great. Thinking leads to action, but too often thinking can hijack our higher wisdom. The wisdom of the human heart. Too often we discount cruel or unjust actions because of beliefs. If an action is immoral but we want to do it anyway, or someone else wants us to do it, justifications are made. Beliefs are created about the lesser value of others.

Protesting is one of our most important democratic rights. It ensures the most fair and efficient running of a country because it allows new ideas to be raised, criticisms to be vented. If you suppress all protest, societal discontent builds like a pressure cooker. Sooner or later, it’s going to blow, and in that chaos, all sorts of bad actors can try and gain power. That’s the real importance of protest. It means something for both a society and for an individual. It gives us agency when so often we can feel powerless. It is such a worthwhile thing to come together and petition for reform. In too many countries, it’s a privilege, but it should be our human right.

Real power is the ability to imagine something better, something different and act to bring that vision to life. That’s what I want for all people. Not that we crave weak power. But that we ARE power. By our actions and our choices we re-make the world in such a way that Life and Nature are sacred once again.