Political Internet Addiction, Hockey Values, Social Contract

I must first acknowledge that politics is above my pay grade. I am a peasant.  As a middle class , even upper middle class, Canadian I really have very little influence on Canadian politics.  Around the world politics is a game played by a very very few.  I think the ‘club’ membership of those who actually are the real ‘players’ in the game is something like a billion. I used to think millionaires were allowed in the room to watch and maybe cheer and boo but I’m pretty jaded.  It might even be that you need 10 billion dollars to sit at the game tables or a hundred billion dollars.
When I have gone to a casino I’ve suffered losing $20 dollars so politics by contrast is really high stakes poker. It’s a war game between this one multi billionaire team and another multi billionaire team.
So why am I hooked on the internet media politics game show.  It’s pretty much the same for me as hockey.  I don’t play hockey today but I did as a kid.  I actually last played hockey on an “old timers league”.  But that was decades ago.
Politically, as a kid I was on my high school student council executive and president of a city religious youth organization. I was even a city representative to the youth parliament in the capital. At university I participated. I was editor of a unversity newspaper and wrote political articles. I’ve read countless books on politics, all the classics, and studied history extensively, at the post graduate level, and routinely discuss politics with professors in political science, economics, game theory, war college, social science, ecology,  or any of the areas politics might be relevant.
At the professional level I was on the executive of the specialists association and served on hospital committees and other work related committees. I’ve been on executives and even  board members of socially relevant organizations.  I’ve been a debater and public speaker and appeared on television and radio.   I’ve been to the business meetings and participated in the organizational meetings of the social and spiritual clubs I’ve belonged too. Most people would call me that often maligned word , “joiner”, when really I’m a hermit.  I’ve managed some form of business profitably for nearly half a century and employed dozens of people throughout that time. I’ve even managed major projects with an amazing number of moving parts and expertise and people involved to achieve world class results.
I’ve met and shook the hands of 4 prime ministers, spent a day with one, had dinner with another, met a much larger number of federal and provincial ministers, have had friends who are members of cabinet, congressmen and senators. I’ve been that close to the action.  I’ve actually voted in countless elections and participated in political parties most of my adult life, even to the point of giving thousands of dollars to the political parties, much like I’ve supported my church.  I often wonder what these ‘charitable contributions’ say about my sanity, or faith, since often I feel I’m supporting both sides of the equation. Politics seems to be paving the way to hell whereas Religion often points the way to heaven.  Not only that, they’re  often in bed with each other making it highly hypocritical when either talks about sex.
Still I’m at very most a bit player.  Canadians are little more than Jamaicans on the international scene. It’s not like we’re China, or Russia, or America or Britain or Saudi Arabia.  I’m in Vancouver and it’s not New York, Beijing, Moscow or Mexico City.  Our Capital City Ottawa barely recognizes Vancouver’s existence. And Victoria the capital city of our province often doesn’t acknowledge the existence of Vancouver.  I have long ago accepted my irrelevance to most everyone else but myself and my dog.
The point is though, politically,  I really do have ‘skin’ in the ‘game’.  Most people who talk or riot about politics in my opinion don’t. It’s  often very apparent to me from fatuous comments. Much like hearing a person pompously saying that the goalie wasn’t any good in last nights game because he let the football past him several times.  On the other hand curious children and those who are humble adults often have the most insightful comments such as ‘why is the woman shouting instead of using her microphone?’ Much like the child who says the goalie should have caught the puck with his glove rather trying to bat it with his stick.
At  the end of the day I’m really no more relevant to the grand political game than I am watching the Canucks win or lose in a hockey game.  I once said hello to, now memory may fail me, but I think it was Rocket Richard and I got his autograph on my hockey card. At that moment I really was important in the whole world of hockey and impressed all my little buddies no end.
I have always taught that in the grand scheme of things, I am “insignificantly significant” and “significantly insignificant’.
In politics and in hockey I am a ‘fan’.  I’m the fan base.  That’s what these ‘entertainment/marketting’ organizations want and depend upon.
Admittedly my “sports fan’ buddy puts more time and money into his ‘hobby’.  He spends literally days and weeks of hours of time watching the sports channel and has seasons tickets to sports events that cost thousands of dollars. He’s got the funny hats and funny numbered shirts and really does bore people much more than I do.
I’d argue my interest in politics is more relevant.  My participation in politics at the local level has kept the city or province or organization ticking along.  My friends wife believes that the sports associations of the world have all benefit from her husbands money supporting them more than they do her or her kids. A lot of people support casinos, liquor stores and marijuana outlet stores too so my friend has a relative superiority to those low lifes.  I personally accept that as he supports the Canucks among the many teams he follows he can’t be that ungodly.  I’m not sure his wife sees things as I do.
There are however decisions that need to be made to keep hospitals open or to fund emergency shelters and I’ve really helped in the lubrication of that process.  I’ve liked the voluntary aspect of it.
But increasingly politics as opposed to sports has been saying ‘if you don’t join me you will die’.  One of the reason’s I’ve liked hockey better than soccer is that hockey is generally more of a ‘gentleman’s sport’.  Soccer is so very low brow that they routinely have riots in the stands. Occasionally a couple of hockey players might have a go at it on the ice but it’s extremely rare for one teams fans to attack another teams fans.
The Vancouver hockey riots increased my interest in politics because nothing says more about the decline of Canadian civilization than hockey fans rioting.  I don’t think I even read an internet political post before the Vancouver Hockey Riots. Odd, looking back ,that that would be such an important night. I thought the police were great that night but had real mixed feelings about the politicians.   Canada used to be a civilized country.  Soccer fans have been rioting and killing each other forever but Canadians simply were above that sort of behaviour.  Canadians had a higher set of values. We were a cultured people. Hockey was a cultured sport.
But the worst was the realization that the Judges  and Politicians didn’t understand history, hockey, politics or Canada. The judges were the real disappointment.  Indeed if there had been riots when the judges light sentences were dispensed after they were  paid  millions for their political decision I would have been less concerned . These rioting  animals who claimed to be hockey fans got off with sentences that would only encourage future riots for any occasion. This ‘test riot’ in a major Canadian city must now be the beginning of riots and more riots.
Indeed my interest in internet politics followed the  violence among hockey fans.  It was apparent that rich and poor elements were  inciting  that violence. Low brow elements were paid for by the highest.  War was being encouraged and frankly I felt frightened after the judges decision because  I have come to realize I’m  bit old to fight. It really was decades ago that I played in the Old Timer’s Hockey League.  
I also feel there is no where to escape to.   I have visitted Cappadocia where Christians hid underground and built underground churches. I have visitted Meteora where Christians built monasteries on mountain peaks.  But there seems no place for a poor Christian to hide today.  The rich are building space ships.
Meanwhile the thugs are even soiling hockey and the judges and the politicians are encouraging them.  Older, I want law and order but am left with memories of hockey rioters breaking into jewelry stores and fur stores and stealing hoards.  In one night a group of young thugs took financially what it would take me a lifetime or two to earn by working. And frankly it looked easy and tempting. It looked even more tempting when  I saw that the judges only slapped the wrists of rioters.
I watched with interest as gangs of Islamic rapist sexually assaulted gorgeous young western women in Cologne and the Politicians and Judges of the EU first denied it then gave only light sentences to the offenders. . It looked so easy.  A gang of young men could surround a beautiful vulnerable young woman and rape her without any consequences to the offenders.
There is martial law in France, not because of Muslims but because of the gangs of young Islamic men that the government has let into the country whose violence their judges at first supported until now all the citizens of France have soldiers daily on their streets.
I don’t trust this government in Canada, let alone world governments.
 I’m not safe.   The Social Contract is broken in Canada.  The Social Contract I worked for and paid into all my life is no longer supported by my own government or the law courts.  I am losing faith that I will be cared for in my old age. I’m losing faith that there will be doctors or nurses or medicine for me when I’m sick and dying. I am seeing that there will be committee meetings and there will be politics and marketing and advertising people calling things what they are not.
But now that we have hockey riots and judges who support the destruction of the social contract I am more afraid.  Watching the political internet I’m like a gambling addict watching the dice roll on the casino table,  I am really hoping for snake eyes.  If the dice roll snake eyes maybe it will be safe for me to go outside. Right now as things are it’s not safe on Canadian streets.  Rioters are puffed up and swaggering, brown shirted and confident.  The young men go in groups.  I don’t know when they will snap.  They have tremendous encouragement to do so.  Just south of the border there are riots all the time now.  There it was supposedly for a police shooting or for an election. But everytime there are riots people seem to get away with stealing millions and millions of dollars worth of hard earned goods. They also destroy houses, police cars and ambulances and burn down buildings.
 On the street I’ve had groups of young men who appeared stoned  shove past me. They’ve shown me some deference because I’m old but rather big.  They have literally pushed littler people and women out of their way as they swaggered down the street knowing they are safe because the judges and politicians don’t do anything against them.  Indeed I’m more afraid of judges and politicians because they only seem interested in taking money from law abiding citizens with more and more ludicous taxation and regulations while criminals are the only ones who appear to be ‘free’ in Canada, once land of the ‘free’.
One group with their pit bulls attacked me and my dog and I faced them down to protect my dog but I don’t walk on those city trails any more.   I remember mothers used to push their babies along those trails and others with little dogs walked them but now only the young men and women with pit bulls walk those trails or the adults who are bicycling or running.  It doesn’t take more than one incident to make an old person scared. We don’t feel we have second chances.
I actually still feel I’d capably kill a young bully but I don’t think I’d survive the trial process which might well find me guilty despite even witnesses saying I acted in self defence.  There is so much hatred for the old in Canada.  One man in his 90’s who killed a drug crazed home invader spent the next six months of his life facing a murder charge despite all the evidence eventually proving him guilt free.  He was punished as an old man first by the homicial drug crazed maniac home invader interested in stealing his television and then by the legal system playing its game of timeless resources and endless money while he waited to learn whether he would die in jail or not.
 Indeed if I reported the incident of the young man whose dog almost killed my dog or I  hurt more than the  young man’s pride by picking up his pit bull and throwing it in his face I’d be considered the ‘bad’ man.   Thugs go in groups.  They have witnesses to lie for them  In Canadians courts today perjury has no consequence. We see it routinely in such important national trials such as the Gian Gomeshi case. Perjury was blatant to all and even the judge but there was no consequence as those who lie are not jailed or made to pay for the injury of ‘false testimony’.
When I was growing up in Canada, the Canadian Christian value of
"Thou shalt not bear false witness” prevailed in the courts. Bearing of false witness was akin to murder and once a person lied in their testimony, all else that followed was considered false because their character was now defined by their lying  I have spent a life time of truth telling and believed that in court I was required to ’tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth’ . However when they took the Bible out of the courts it appears the judges began to celebrate the liars more.    
I no longer feel safe in the city.  For months a man who threatened to kill me and my dog continues to email me threats despite my contacting the police and the attorney general and blocking him.  Every few weeks I am faced with a  new threat  email . When I talk to others, now hundreds, they tell me, mostly women but also  men that they’ve threatened too and that there was little consequence to those who uttered threats and terrorized them sometimes for years. At most the police have given ‘restraining orders’ which are routinely broken with little consequence.
It’s like the whole issue of gun laws. Law abiding citizens with guns have a 99.9% safety record yet the government keeps restricting and fining this group while all the guns used in crimes appear to be by criminals with illegal weapons. Further repeat offenders increasingly are out of the street despite their recidivism.  Law abiding citizens are punished while criminals are not.  
A day doesn’t go by that someone doesn’t tell me another story of the breakdown of the social contract. Old men and women are homeless. Old men and women are kicked out of hospitals with no where to go. Old men and women have had their savings stolen. Old men and women are being taxed into poverty. A couple of friends who worked hard all their lives are now going to food banks to survive.
More and more my old people are as likely to die on waitlists as they are to get the care they were promised when they were young and worked for Canada believing the Social Contract would be in tact.
I am simply afraid.  I know if I an upper middle class Canadian  afraid then really most Canadians must be terrified when they watch their government and see the decisions of judges and watch the scourge of drug addiction in the city and see that millions are unemployed and that no more money is going to health care orto  the old people but rather it is being spent on palaces and foreign country silliness.
I really don’t think the church has anything much to offer me either. Marx said ‘religion is the opiate of the masses’ and my church has been as lamed brained about distant ideological social constructs while ignoring the poverty among their old. Individually they help but the rhetoric from above is often as space stationed as the nonsense from the politicians.  Everyone who is wealthy and powerful like Bishops and Judges and Government Ministers, Criminals  and Billionaires think I’m silly to be afraid too.
All I have really is  prayer.   And I’m the lucky one.

Social Capital and Addiction

According to the Oxford Dictionary, social capital refers to 'the networks of relationships among people who live and work in a particular society, enabling that society to function effectively.'
The World Bank has recognised the contribution of social capital to the well being of a country.

Mutual trust, wilful reciprocity of help and participation in civic society are described as three particular markers of social capital.

"When social capital is high , individual coping capital increases, but when it is low, crime rates, divorce and family violence increase"  (Sheila Hollins, Past President, Royal College of Psychiatrists. )

Addiction leads to a massive loss of social capital.  It also increases where there is a lack of social capital.  While addiction is understood to be predisposed by a "dopamine reinforcement deficiency' genetic marker there is an environmental contribution best described in 'anomie' research.  Anomie research overlaps clearly with the work on social capital.

Addiction is associated with brain atrophy and specific loss in the limbic system and frontal lobes. Using McLean's Triune Brain model, the frontal lobes are the latest brain development and are associated with what we most consider to be the 'human' brain, all that which is distinct from animal.  The limbic system is considered part of the 'emotional brain' and well developed in the animal. The first and oldest brain structures are akin to the lizard.

Reciprocity is not a capacity noted in the lizard or the psychopath. The psychopath is considered as clever but lacking the capacity for empathy, a particularly overlapping consideration akin to reciprocity.  The psychopath can 'chameleon' emotion but lacks true feelings. They're rare.  In contrast the 'sociopath' is developmental an animal like creature who can relate to it's particular 'tribal' association but can not go beyond 'blood' association to the more abstract and civilized associations noted by humans.  Just as psychopaths can "chameleon' emotions, sociopaths can 'act' human and survive in 'human' societies though commonly their relation is 'parasitic' and at best 'symbiotic'. 

Reciprocity at it's most 'human' is 'love your neighbour as yourself.'.  Naturally lizards lack this capacity and animals are more driven, with exceptional moments, by self gratificaton and species and tribe specific behaviour.  We celebrate the dog and cat "playing" together and the bird and cat "playing" together because they are exceptional.  Normally these 'enemies' would be at each other in competition for survival.  By contrast it's not uncommon for humans to 'play together' and we celebrate most when humans actually at war 'play together' such as the German/Allied Christmas festivities during WWI and WWII.  Such behaviour is furthest from the lizard.

Alcoholics and addicts devolve with increasing slavery to addiction.  They become 'religious' in their relationship to their substance of abuse and worship the addiction. Cinema has long used the models of 'vampires' and 'zombies' to represent the addictive process in the end stage.

Research on successful outcomes in recovery have pointed to the importance of 'participation' in society.  Addiction is isolation. Recovery is participation.  Indeed 'individual therapy' was consider ineffective by Freud and Jung.  AA in 1935 offered the first 'reproducible' success and offered a 'group process' model.

"The results of treatment outcomes studies indicated that the 12 step method is an effective for mof treatment for Alcohol/Drug Disorder (Harrison 3t al 1991). Overall abstinence rates for 1 year were 68% in 1,663 outpatients and 60% in 8,087 inpatients in a study derived from 35 different treatment sites (Hoffman and Miller 1992). The abstinence rates increased to 82% and 75%, respectively with regular attendance at AA."
- Textbook of Traumatic Brain Injury, American Psychiatric Association 2005
(More recent studies have supported the earlier research.  Cochrane Reports in contrast have been shown to have limitted validity in mental and behavioural health research due to an inherrent design flaw).

The key consideration is the need for 'socialization' of the addict and for increasing their social capital. Hence education such as the 12 steps have been successful in bringing individuals who have lost or never had a 'moral compass' back on track. Rehabilitation only begins when the 'substance' is stopped. Abstinence is the precurser for the reconstructive treatment that is 'resocialization'.  Resocialization in turn increases long term 'abstinence.'

Central to this is as noted above, "participation in civic society' and "wilful reciprocity of help". AA is considered in research terms as a 'peer support' process and early in the 12 step program individuals are encouraged to take on a sponsor and then sponsor someone else. This is like the classic 'see one , do one, teach one' model all medical students know.  In the process of learning the real key is the ability then to teach the learned subject.  Further participation in the 'fellowship' results in relearning of often lost on unlearned 'socialization' activities.

Mutual trust is commonly lost in the addict. This is consequence of the excessive 'trauma' that follows more often than precedes addiction. Further the addict has been predominantly associating with drug dealers whose moral development is likened to pedophiles.  There is no reason to expect an addict to have the capacity for 'mutual trust' at the beginning of their journey of recovery.  However only in the 'risk taking' of making new relationships can a person unlearn the long history of abuse that comes from being the slave to the drug dealers.  Drug dealers are simply classic sociopaths, some indeed psychopaths but all of the 'predator' class.

Psychopaths, sociopaths and predators all believe they can 'take' without 'consequence'.  Their arrogance and immaturity are central to their antisocial behaviour.  Like a gambler on the beginner's winning streak they do not need to accept 'compromise' and 'barter' as long as their 'bullying' tactics work out.  Limit setting is a central first stage in interatcting with these individuals before any hope of progress in their learning can be achieved.

Addicts learn 'reciprocity' by association with those more socially advanced than their addicted 'culture' of deviance and 'parasitology'.  More advanced cultures have inherrent internalized reciprocities such as health care.  For example, no drug dealer or cartel holds themselves accountable and provides insurance programs for those who overdose on their product.

It behooves everyone in the addiction field to consider 'social capital' in terms of treatment and recovery.  Along with this new models are using a '5 year abstinence' assessment cut off as used in other chronic disease and when this is used the power and success of models of therapy that, like 12 step programs, incorporate consideration of social capital shine.  Indeed, the term spiritual values used in 12 step programs and other areas of treatment is to some extent overlapping with the term 'social capital'.