“A tree is a democracy.” — Alfred North Whitehead

Power

• 10 Data-Based Relational Principles of Power (A Series: Constructing a Relational Frame for Democratic Practices in a Capitalist Culture)— Nov 16 :: 8 min read
• A “Perspective” on Power — Oct 28 :: 2 min listen

Culture

• Why Authoritarian Practices Exist in Rural American Cultures — Oct 13 :: 6 min read (with 6 min AUDIO in author’s voice)

Change

• This is the Relationally Democratic Human — Nov 16 :: 2 min read
• 20 Serious Self-Care Practices You Don’t Know You Need Yet — Nov 2 :: 16 min read

Power, Culture, & Change: Authoritarianism

• Authoritarianism Functions in Everyday Practices That We Can Change — Jun 22 :: 8 min read (with 12 min AUDIO in author’s…

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“You are an explorer, and you represent our species, and the greatest good you can do is to bring back a new idea, because our world is endangered by the absence of good ideas.” ~Terence McKenna

Escaped from academia, exploring, and immersed in research of radically different cultures than mine, I found that the what of things is much less important than the how of them when solving problems in the actual world.

Take, for instance, water. That it is “an odorless, tasteless, very slightly compressible liquid oxide of hydrogen H2O” is far less important in my everyday life than how it functions to quench my thirst on a long, hot hike. Or, my name is certainly a what of me — Cathy B. Glenn — but the name is much less important than how I move through the world as a privileged straight white cis female human in relation with others on a shared planet. …

I used to be a bit of an asshole. Accomplished, articulate, and pretty damn smart. I knew it and I leaned on it: it’s all I had. I learned two roles growing up: how to be second to my father and how to be his object. For the first half of my life, I had no idea how to be a whole human in relationship with other humans. I was able to pass as a functioning human on the strength of how ferociously skilled I was at being a second to older white men and/or being their object.

I’m the first-born of six children. My white authoritarian father wanted a boy when I was born, and he wouldn’t be told “no” by the universe or my mother’s womb. He made it his mission to pass on to me — his first-born female child — the hyper-masculinist survivalist vision he embodied. My mother submitted, enabled, and enforced. …

“Go get me the stick. Now.”

My ill, weakened father is sitting in a chair, unable to stand. He is in the last stages of lung cancer, and it has spread throughout his body. The chemo treatments have ravaged his ability to stand without assistance. Cancer has not softened the sharp edges of his controlled rage, though. It has also not diminished the considerable authority he claims as the man of the family.

I do as I’m told. I find “the stick” in its resting place, a wooden croquet mallet handle that leans in a corner by the kitchen table. My legs move on their own, conditioned to obey without question. …

I knew who was coming to the Capitol yesterday because I was studying them in 2016. Those who could not imagine the white (mostly) rural Americans storming the Capitol until yesterday need to ask themselves what’s missing in their perspective or training that blinded them to all the signs.

Everything I publish is based in 3.5 years of firsthand in-field anthropological ethnographic documentation and experience in the cultural conditions that continue to grow in Rural American Cultures (RAC). …

While researching Rural American Cultures (RAC) in Southern Oregon, a dominant cultural norm that emerged in the findings was in the patterns of active efforts on the part of “old-timers” and “insiders” (old white conservative men and women) to silence young people and other marginalized groups. It stunned me, being from the San Francisco Bay Area — until it also deeply pissed me off. What I observed and documented around me were barriers erected intentionally, over and over, that slowed, staggered, or stopped dead democratic participation on the part of young people and other marginalized groups.

Peter Sage is one of those “old-timers” or “insiders” whose relational practices as an “activist” intentionally excludes and discourages the participation of young people, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ in the Southern Oregon Democratic party and political forums beyond. The retrograde racist messages that Mr. Sage spreads — like similar old-timers do on the ground and in person in RAC—represent the outdated thinking of many who call themselves progressives in Southern Oregon. …

People’s Action: Democrats Will Continue to Lose Rural Voters With Vilsack Appointment

WASHINGTON, D.C. People’s Action Director George Goehl today released the following statement in response to media reports that President-elect Joe Biden plans to nominate Tom Vilsack as Secretary to the Department of Agriculture (USDA):

“Representative Fudge would have been an outstanding Secretary of Agriculture. In his previous stint as Secretary of the USDA, Tom Vilsack missed the mark in big moments to stand for racial justice. The President-elect had the opportunity to show that he does not reward such failures. …