A counterpoint for the brokenhearted

Reading the heartfelt lament by Josh Ellis today on "The More Beaufiful World " - a Facebook group dedicated to Charles Eisenstien I could easily relate to my own recent struggles. Even more so, to those of a friend whose life ended 3 years ago this month.

He left this world alone and homeless with a message of hope.   .

Both he and Josh Ellis have been advocates for the disadvantaged and marginalised, in rather different ways.

Within a year of our first meeting 11 years ago, he was homeless. living in a tent and fasting for economic rights. Some years earlier he'd lost his home and family through divorce.

His problems had begun at university when he'd taken out a student loan on the wrong application form which left him with a debt he was unable to pay and his degree witheld. He'd taken a job in the building trade where an accident had left him with a disability, but through tenacity had managed to establish a successful cable TV installation business. He lost everything.

As I learned later he'd also become infected with Hepatitis C which would be the cause of his death..

As a member of the boomer generation he had an unique opportunity in 1996, when his activism for MIA veterans caught the attention of Bill Clinton, leading to an invitation to serve on the steering group of the Committee to Re-elect the President.

Having no brief, he spent the time writing   which warned of the collapse of an economy based on imaginary debt and the risk that those excluded, seeing their lives threatened would be justified in defending themselves by violent means.

18. Modifying the output of capitalism is the only method available to resolving the problem of capitalism where numbers trumped people – at the hands of people trained toward profit represented only by numbers and currencies rather than human beings.  Profit rules, people are expendable commodities represented by numbers.  The solution, and only solution, is to modify that output, measuring profit in terms of real human beings instead of numbers.

19. We can choose to not reform capitalism, leave human beings to die from deprivation – where we are now – and understand that that puts people in self-defense mode.

20. When in self-defense mode, kill or be killed, there is no civilization at all.  It is the law of the jungle, where we started eons ago.  In that context, 'terrorism' will likely flourish because it is 'terrorism' only for the haves, not for the have-nots.  The have-nots already live in terror, as their existence is threatened by deprivation, and they have the right to fight back any way they can.

21. 'They' will fight back, and do.  

Among the influences on this work was a vision of a new reality to displace the old. Perhaps the counterpoint to existential angst - "A positive vision of what peace can be":

: His work would lead to an experimenrtal economic development intiiative in Russia and he was in Crimea doing something similar when he reflected on 9/11 and what he'd warned Clinton.

"Once a nation or government puts people in the position of defending their own lives, or that of family and friends, and they all will die if they do nothing about it, at that point all laws, social contracts and covenants end. Laws, social contracts and covenants define civilization. Without them, there is no civilization at all, there is only the law of the jungle: kill, or be killed. This is where we started, tens of thousands of years ago.

By leaving people in poverty, at risk of their lives due to lack of basic living essentials, we have stepped across the boundary of civilization. We have conceded that these people do not matter, are not important. Allowing them to starve to death, freeze to death, die from deprivation, or simply shooting them, is in the end exactly the same thing. Inflicting or allowing poverty on a group of people or an entire country is a formula for disaster.

These points were made to the President of the United States near the end of 1996. They were heard, appreciated and acted upon, but unfortunately, were not able to be addressed fully and quickly due primarily to political inertia. By way of September 11, 2001 attacks on the US out of Afghanistan – on which the US and the former Soviet Union both inflicted havoc, destruction, and certainly poverty – I rest my case. The tragedy was proof of all I warned about, but, was no more tragedy than that left behind to a people in an far corner of the world whom we thought did not matter and whom we thought were less important than ourselves."

He would return to Ukraine with my support in 2004 on the eve of the Orange Revolution.

An NGO trip report I forwarded to him in 2006 would lead to his focus on children who were disabled and institutionalised. These were economic orphans who were considered of no social value. Their existence was also being exploited by Mafia. From his own experience, It should not be difficult to understand his empathy.  He took great risk to speak out about "Death Camps for Chilldren" and was threatened and defamed for it. he didn't give up.

With his strategy plan for development later that year, he'd emphasised:

'This is a long-term permanently sustainable program, the basis for "people-centered" economic development. Core focus is always on people and their needs, with neediest people having first priority – as contrasted with the eternal chase for financial profit and numbers where people, social benefit, and human well-being are often and routinely overlooked or ignored altogether. This is in keeping with the fundamental objectives of Marshall Plan: policy aimed at hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. This is a bottom-up approach, starting with Ukraine's poorest and most desperate citizens, rather than a "top-down" approach that might not ever benefit them. They cannot wait, particularly children. Impedance by anyone or any group of people constitutes precisely what the original Marshall Plan was dedicated to opposing. Those who suffer most, and those in greatest need, must be helped first -- not secondarily, along the way or by the way. '

He'd worked with Sumy State University in 2009 and 2010 to deliver 2 papers on Economics for Ecology and a study guide to the economic crisis of 2008

At the beginning of 2008, he'd delivered a message to a president in waiting when Joo Biden and Barack Obama were at the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Calling for their support in addressing urgent social problems he ended his "Genesis" letter with these words:

"Thank you for your time and attention to this. I and others will look forward to hearing from you. I hope we continue to realize ever more fully that outside the box and inside the box have only a box in the way. We outside the box know quite a bit of what’s going on, many times in exquisite detail, perhaps in ways that those inside the box can’t quite as easily access if at all. We are grossly underfunded in favor of missiles, bombs, and ordnance, which is about 100% backwards. Now, with even the US Pentagon stating that they’ve learned their lesson in Iraq and realize (so says top US general in Iraq ten days or so ago) that winning hearts and minds is the best option, I and others shall continue to think positive and look for aid budgets and funding spigots to be opened much more for people and NGOs in silos, foxholes and trenches, insisting on better than ordnance, and who understand things and how to fix them. We can do that. We can even do it cost-effectively and with far better efficiency than the ordnance route. Welcome to our brave new world. Except it’s not so new: learn to love and respect each other first, especially the weakest, most defenseless, most voiceless among us, then figure out the rest. There aren’t other more important things to do first. This message has been around for at least two thousand years. How difficult is it for us to understand?"

On the eve of his death in August 2011, a leader of the Maidan activists and myself heard the same words from him as he faced his last hours alone still in poverty far from home:

"The author of breakthru report “Death camps for children” Terry Hallman suddenly died of grave disease on Aug 18 2011. On his death bed he was speaking only of his mission – rescuing of these unlucky kids. His dream was to get them new homes filled with care and love. His quest would be continued as he wished."

In all the time I knew him I never once heard him lament his personal situation. I struggled to understand his tenacity in the face of so many obstacles. He's once told me what he's been told by a college tutor - if you want to establish a world changing idea, it takes more than passion. It requires affliction.

As he said on the matter of social enterprise: 

"Allowing that some people do not matter, as things are turning out, allows that other people do not matter and those cracks are widening to swallow up more and more people. Social enterprise is the first concerted effort in the Information Age to at least attempt to rectify that problem, if only because letting it get worse and worse threatens more and more of us. Growing numbers of people are coming to understand that “them” might equal “me.” Call it compassion, or call it enlightened and increasingly impassioned self-interest. Either way, we are all in this together, and we will each have to decide for ourselves what it means to ignore someone to death, or not."

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