How To Negotiate with Today’s Enemy

by Mary W Maxwell, LLB

There has been a lot of gloom and doom at Gumshoe News lately.  Of course that’s as it should be, since we try to reflect what’s happening in the real world out there.

We need to offer ways to get out of the gloom and the doom. My plan is not going to be as sexy as the one described yesterday (in the Book of Judith). Mine has to do with inviting everyone to the table, especially the way-out bad guys. I think everyone needs to be at the table, and the sooner the better.

Mind you, the majority of people don’t want to participate in public life. So, OK, we have no hope of changing that.  Let them stay home. And the bad guys, you may think, will scoff at any notion of having to talk with us, ever.  Well, watch and see.

This Is Not the Level Playing Field Sort of Thing

There are times when there isn’t any super-strong enemy out there to contend with.  So when social change is needed it’s up to some responsible individuals, on their own initiative, to map out an arrangement and offer it to the public for approval. This has often occurred in history.

It entails plenty of conflict, since each party will try to get the best deal for itself.

But there is another kind of social planning – the kind that occurs during an emergency. Here, each player knows he’s unlikely to get an optimum deal. In fact he realizes he’ll be lucky to get out with his skin intact.  So the parties on both sides are willing to give; they are “motivated.”

This  is the situation to be addressed in this article.  Thus we will set aside the dynamics and the etiquette of democratic power-sharing. Did Judith use etiquette with Holofernes?  No, she did not. She had a mission to accomplish, and the mission sets the tone.

A Unified Mafia

Let’s lump the two parties at the emergency table into two categories:  a unified mafia, and “everybody else.” I think that pretty well describes what we have today.  A secretive but ruthless group that can control the life or death of most of the others – and the peasants.

I can’t absolutely swear that there is a unified mafia in our world, responsible for most of our griefs, but it does look to me that there is, so I shall adopt this as a premise. Many writers refer to this group as the cabal, the Deep State, or the hidden government.

I’m employing the word “mafia” to imply two important features: they get their way by giving everyone a hint of their brutality (they make you an offer you can’t refuse), and they don’t have an official status – a mafioso is not a judge or a king. Actually the lack of status works to their advantage; no one can hold them accountable.

When I say they are “unified,” I don’t necessarily mean their worldwide members are each aware of what the other ones are doing. Rather, the direction seems to come from a centre and reaches out like the spokes of a wheel.

Although various mafia members are “employed” by a boss, they might never have met that boss or know what the big picture is.  All they care about is that benefits keep coming their way in exchange for their playing by the boss’s rules.

Who Is at the Table Now?

At my putative table sit two groups – the unified mafia, and ordinary folks. The folks wish to put a stop to what the other side, the “mafia,” is getting up to.  Those mafia people are very, very spoiled.  They have been able to capture wealth from just about everyone, and they do as they please — while enjoying immunity from the law!

Whenever a negotiator (or “arbitrator”) is asked to deal with two parties, she looks to satisfy the needs of both sides.

She would figure that the main need of “the folks” is to have the mafia stop their cruel deeds. That could be theft, rape, tampering with elections, setting up a lying mass media, poisoning of the environment, you name it. The folks wish for a peaceful life. Of course they also desire  creature comforts.

The main need of the mafia, on the other hand is not for a peaceful life. And they are well stocked with creature comforts so that’s not of concern to them.  The one need they have, and for which they require help from the folks, is to escape punishment for what they have done. Someone recently blew their secrecy cover, so they find themselves in major doo-doo.

Note: the negotiating to be described here does not involve a search for justice, nor is the negotiator required to cater for “equality” of the parties. Forget justice and equality. This is a dire emergency and each side has a different need.

To repeat: the folks’ concern is for survival – they need to get away from the mafia’s lethal behaviour. The mafia’s concern, also, is survival – they need to be spared punishment for what they have done. The mafia have fantastic weapons but they are human beings, vulnerable to anxiety.

Therefore the negotiating will focus on these primary concerns of each party.

Hampered

You may ask Why negotiate with the baddies? Why not just use the law to crack down on them?  That has been my preferred approach for years but I don’t quite see it happening. Police, judges, and politicians, have clearly shown an unwillingness or inability to do what they are supposed to do. Without them how can we enforce the law? We are hampered.

Granted, I dream about going for the jugular, but it’s best to start with a modest position. I will assume that we do have to get the bad guys’ cooperation.

Also, we have to play it cool because they may have a Plan B.  Have you ever wondered about that? It often seems that the cabal’s arrogance has made them forget the need for a Plan B —  they’ve assumed that they can ride along on our stupidity and our lack of focus. But they do have strategists on board, and their may be quite the awful Plan B lurking.

Furthermore, we need them! They have charge of industry, of technology, and maybe many valuable secrets. Those are bargaining chips on their side.

The Ronald Bernard Plan

Now wait till you hear this additional complication for the negotiator. I am referring to forgiveness!

Some victims of the most awful cruelties of the bad guys have expressed a desire to engage in forgiveness. One victim, Ronald Bernard, indicates that he was almost a baddy himself. He says  his heart, his soul, was “locked in a bunker.” By luck he was able to get free, and now wishes his fellow-baddies could do the same.

He has said that “there is an army of people waiting to help them” if only they can come “across a bridge” toward us.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking the baddies might fake it. Indeed they might, but one would expect them to imitate each other, to some extent, and perhaps they will see role models being sincere.

We must make room for Ronald Bernard-ism. Already my friend Trish Fotheringham has been telling me for years that she sees her “perps” as human beings and wants them to become healed. She always says “Love is the answer.”

Still, the mafia does not yet know that this is a possibility at the negotiating table. I mean individual “mafioso’s” are probably unaware t=of the existence of a Ronald Bernard/Trish Fotheringham offer.

The Silence of the Good People

I now propose that we step away from the negotiating and try to realize how confusing is the hidden identity of the bad guys.

One has to wonder how many of our everyday acquaintances — doctors, lawyers, teachers childcare workers, priests, politicians, and police — are in on the game. They might look normal but not be normal.

It has always disgusted me that when a scandal emerges in a profession, the members of the profession don’t loudly condemn the offending colleague, or even distance themselves. Does this mean they support them? For instance, I never heard good Catholic priests even say “Outta here, you creep” to the worst of the predators.

And though I have done an in-depth study of the suppression of successful cures for cancer, I rarely see a doctor admitting that his profession is the wrongdoer for having  suppressed those cures.  Rather, they are doggedly silent. This sure makes it seem that they do know but consider it against their interest to speak out. Yuck.

Same with Bill Windsor’s exposé of the bad lawyers and judges, in his Youtube series “Lawless America.” Why doesn’t every good judge rail against this? Good judges must hate what is done to their reputation by the bad ones. They should send Bill Windsor a thank-you note for trying to keep up the old standards.

The Call-out

I hereby call on all of those professionals to come out. Be it priests, childcare workers, doctors, or judges, we want to take a census of the good ones.

They will be welcomed as potential tattlers. Also, they can help enlighten us as to the tricks that their profession plays. Granted, we sufferers of those tricks are somewhat aware of what’s happening, but few of us understand the games they play on us with regard to, say, finance.

So let’s nominate a particular month for each profession in which it is mandated that the members “declare.”  You would think this phalanx approach would counteract their fear of losing their job. That is, they may find it more worrisome for their job security to NOT declare for our side.

It  would nice if the media would provide a big celebratory background for such a coming out. Oops, I had forgotten that there’s a communication problem.  While it’s true that the Internet is the means of our awakening, they could turn it off any time. They can also load it with wrong instructions.

Better get that call-out happening soon.

Conclusion

Wow, are we at an unusual moment in history!  We’ve only lately found out that our picture of reality has long omitted a very powerful mafia-type group. The main way they control us is by controlling the ordinary, above-board aspects of society – clandestinely.

But now they have been outed and we see their astonishing crimes. It won’t be possible to proceed in the traditional fashion to treat them as criminals. They are powerful.  They are ruthless. They are (mostly) unidentified. They are confident we cannot get at them.

Yet they are now perfectly vulnerable. So the wise thing would be to negotiate. As stated above, the needs of the two sides are not on a par. We need relief from their crimes; they need relief from our threatened punishment of them.  And they have significant bargaining chips, being  so highly placed and in control of secret knowledge.

I personally want to see them punished but it’s smarter to give priority to what our side needs – relief from them.

Please think of this as an emergency. Please contribute whatever you can to getting something going.  Of course that includes ranting and raving so “they” will get the message that their situation is no longer the piece of cake it once was.

And, as stated above, some victims have told us that perpetrators who appear evil are not evil – they are just children inside, waiting to be given a way to grow up. Furthermore, perpetrators were themselves brutalized (at least in some cases). “Their heart is locked.” Thus, forgiveness has to be part of the plan.

Who could ever have imagined we would be talking like this!

— Mary W Maxwell is the author of Prosecution for Treason (2011) and Fraud Upon the Court (2015)