By Anna Von Reitz
Since I was a little girl, I was told that if I want to change the world, I would have to change myself first. Change my mindset. Change my assumptions. Change my orientation toward the world. Think about what I was doing to contribute to the overall bad result.
And then change myself to align with the better world I want to create.
It seems like a simple enough process, doesn't it? But that kind of self-examination is tough. And weeding out the bad in oneself is even tougher.
Still, the fact remains --- we have to think differently and therefore act differently before there can be any change at all.
So I looked at the lives and words of people who changed the world for the better. I looked at Jesus, Gandhi, JFK, MLK, RFK.... I looked at what they actually said and did.
And I noticed something. Changing the world for the better takes sacrifice and suffering. The ego has to take a real beating. You can't be "concentered all in self" to quote Sir Walter Scott.
So I learned to take the insults and the misplaced rage of people who are reacting instead of acting. I learned to distance my true self from the pain and anger that are natural in response to being treated unjustly. I grew a thick skin. I learned to keep my eye on the prize.
If you want to change the world and make it better, you have to take the lumps and friction and carry on. Just throw it over your shoulder and keep walking forward, forward, forward.
The suspension of the new California Coordinators is a good example of failure to change ourselves and therefore, being stuck in re-creating the same old ugly world we say we want to leave behind.
One of the new Coordinators abused her trust and used the whole California mailing list in an inappropriate way, after she'd been told not to. This was a breach of trust and a misuse of the contact roster.
That in itself is a serious matter and shows lack of judgement and lack of respect for her own position of trust, but it was also the latest in a series of attacks against Michelle Ford, our long-time Coordinator.
When the new Coordinator Team was formed, everyone on it was told --- okay, this is a new day, a fresh start, a clean slate. We are all going to bury any hatchets and let any bygones be gone. We are going to work together as a team and get the job done.
Everyone was told that, point blank, nothing obscure or hidden about it. Everyone knew what was expected of them.
The first attack was an attempt to use Michelle's unsettled domestic situation and need to travel to see her kids as an excuse to sideline and exclude her.
That didn't work.
Next, it was to drag up a purported and long past misrepresentation by Michelle that was so slight that nobody but the "victim" even thought about it.
Next, it was to drag up the unjust Time Out that David Hara suffered and blame that on Michelle, even though California was not alone in misapplying Time Outs. Lots of other Assemblies had the same misunderstanding and made the same mistakes, but Michelle couldn't be forgiven.
Next, it was the False Claim that Michelle isn't papered up, because her declaration paperwork isn't published on the California LRO --- and this is after I have spent MONTHS, even YEARS explaining the many different ways that people can declare, record, and publish.
Michelle is one of the people that published on the original LRS and still has her card to prove it. She also has a Global Family Bank account and card, proving again that she is papered up. I have no doubt that if anyone had asked her nicely, in the name of keeping standardized records, she would have provided the LRO paperwork, too.
But they didn't ask nicely. Instead, a Big Alarm was raised and the email contact list was abused and Michelle was slandered and set up "under suspicion" --- and told that she couldn't attend Coordinator meetings until this was corrected to the satisfaction of her critics.
And I said, basically --- enough of this crap.
You are all gone until you grow up and change your mindset.
We have serious work to do. You were all told about the "clean slate" when you started and instead, it's been one thing after another, trying to disqualify, isolate, sideline, and exclude Michelle.
Same old Corporate Politics. Same whining and entitlement mindset coming forward from the Nanny State.
Everyone I work with every day has suffered greatly, including me. We've lost homes, wives, husbands, children, and years of our lives. Many have been sent to federal prisons on trumped up charges. We still bear the scars of all of this, and yet, we aren't bitter. We don't sit around staring at our navels. We don't look for anyone to blame.
We don't let the past poison what happens today.
And neither can any Coordinator Team.
They were let go and told that if and when they change their mindset, they can come back and help change the world.
Until then, if they aren't going to concentrate on the actual work we have to get done, we don't need them ginning up more problems and disruption.
And that is really all there is to it, for any of us.
If we want a new world, we have to change ourselves.
Granna
------------------
To support this work look for the Donate button on this website.
How do we use your donations? Find out here.
