Month: June 2017

Getting to peace and social justice

Posted on by kathiemm
Anti-nuclear arms protesters display a banner during the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance (OREPA) rally at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. April16,2011. Author: Brian Stansberry

By Anthony Marsella

Here  is a straightforward list of actions and policies to promote peace amidst the madness of pursuing destruction and war for the apparent rewards of empire, economic, and delight in immorality and illegality.

Productive Foreign Policy and Domestic Options, Choices, Alternatives: Paths to Peace and Social Justice

  • Acknowledge the national security of the USA is best secured by pursuing and modeling peace, not by engaging in constant accusations and enemification of nations, cultures, religions, and people;
  • Address and resolve domestic inequities and inequalities in wealth, power, and position. Create new policies for equity and opportunity;
  • Address and limit monopolies (e.g., Big Agro, Big Pharm, Big Health, Big Transportation, Big Education, etc.) because these monopolies concentrate power, and they become impossible to control – “Too big to fail.”
  • Address the reality of USA decline in reputation and image by stopping the pursuit of a global empire;
  • Adopt a “Never Again” policy and practices for all countries, by all countries. “Never again” must not be limited to a single group or nation;
  • Apologize and ask for forgiveness in a public forum. Express intention to no  longer pursue violence and war as national policy;
  • “Be the nation you want others to be;”
  • Build museums, monuments, holidays, and tributes to peace. Stop glorification of war;
  • Cease all vilification of Muslims and Muslim nations;
  • Condemn and prosecute apartheid;
  • Choose and support non-violent and non-killing protests and social changes;
  • Circulate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights  (UDHR) to all schools and governments as an accepted guide;
  • Close Guantanamo, and other “war on terrorism”  prisons, camps, and rendition sites;
  • Destroy all weapons of mass destruction Nuclear, Toxic, Gas, etc);
  • Develop Department of Peace as an official standing cabinet office separate from State or Defense Departments;
  • Develop a metric to assess and prosecute USA international abuses and crimes;
  • Develop metrics to assess USA contributions to advancing humanity and the natural sectors. Assess metrics constantly;
  • Develop, implement, and empower UN conflict resolution office;
  • Develop ethic/ethos of global interdependency;
  • Diplomacy dialogue, rather than military force or violent interventions;
  • Educate women and children, and re-educate men;
  • Empower UN, and improve its functions and roles;
  • End corporate political election influence, control, and dominance;
  • End global surveillance and restore privacy and constitutional rights;
  • Increase governmental transparency and accountability;
  • International loan forgiveness;
  • Join and cooperate with international courts;
  • Limit “imperial” president powers as reflected in abuses of signing statements;
  • Limit lobbyist influence and control of public offices;
  • Limit Presidential terms of office to six years;
  • Limit Congressional terms of office to eight years. End seniority system of power;
  • Limit military-industrial-congressional- education complex powers;
  • Non-Contingent humanitarian aid and assistance, rather than contingent aid;
  • Practice humility, apology, and forgiveness;
  • Prosecute American war and military crimes to national and international laws;
  • Public apology for violent and destructive national and international policies and actions (e.g. NATO);
  • Reconsider political and economic treaties that isolate and marginalize nations (e.g., TPP) and seek hegemonic control (e.g., Russia, China);
  • Resist military solutions to conflicts and disagreements – choose diplomacy;
  • Restore balance of power across executive, congressional, and justice sectors. Dominance of the executive branch under the auspices of protecting national security has been abused, and has proven a failure and crime;
  • Restorative justice to victims;
  • Restrict central banking model of financial control over nations’ debt;
  • Review immediate and long-term consequences of DHS/NSA Abuses;
  • Stop “for profit” prisons, and their associated judicial corruption;
  • Speak truth, do not distort or exaggerate, practice transparency;,
  • Use “Justice” as an arbiter for decisions;

From: A.J.Marsella (2014).Two Paths in the Wood: “Choice” of Life or War. First published in Transcend, 27 October 2014. TRANSCEND MEMBER

Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D., a  member of the TRANSCEND Network, is a past president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii, and past director of the World Health Organization Psychiatric Research Center in Honolulu. He is known nationally and internationally as a pioneer figure in the study of culture and psychopathology who challenged the ethnocentrism and racial biases of many assumptions, theories, and practices in psychology and psychiatry. In more recent years, he has been writing and lecturing on peace and social justice. He has published 15 edited books, and more than 250 articles, chapters, book reviews, and popular pieces. He can be reached at marsella@hawaii.edu.

 

 

The Post Glory Exuberance Disorder-PGED

Posted on by kathiemm

                                                                                                               by Kathie MM

World War I Victory Parade – 700 Block Hamilton Street – Allentown PA. 1919.
In the public domain

Just google “perpetual war,” and you will find many articles on US involvement in what appear to be endless military actions around the world.  Google “PTSD” and you will find many more articles on the pernicious effects of war on those who are sent to wage it.

Given the huge costs of war–financial and humanitarian–why do so many Americans continue to support their government’s military undertakings?

These excerpts from an article in Transcend Network by Johan Galtung  provide one thought-provoking answer.

“Very well known is post trauma stress disorder, PTSD; no doubt a very painful disorder experienced by many, most, maybe by all of us. Something went very wrong: a shock, violence, physical, verbal, by and to individuals, groups in society, societies, groups of societies….  

What would be the opposite of trauma? Evidently something positive…. [One] type of trauma is defeat in a war and the opposite is victory.  Basking in the glory, not suffering the gloom of trauma.  And then, if trauma could lead to a state of stress,…maybe deep and repeated glory could lead to a state of, let us call it exuberance?….

Death in a war is a major trauma for the bereaved and all, victory a major glory for many and all. The loser is traumatized, the winner glorified. The loser may suffer deep disorder, like nations traumatized by Western colonialism. Or they may say “Never Again” and launch a peace movement.  The winner will do his best to keep war as an institution.  Till his time comes to lose….

Because to any PTSD it makes sense to postulate a PGED [Post Glory Exuberance Disorder] as a strong cause having that PTSD as effect. If we want to reduce the PTSD, it is obviously insufficient to work on the victim side only, with therapies and remedies, when PGED reproduces PTSD.  A whole system has to be changed…. 

Take the war system, … as alive as ever with threats of major wars in many places in the “Middle East” (West Asia), the USA-EU-Ukraine-Russia complex, and in the “Far East” (East Asia).  The relatively peaceful continents are in the “Third World”, Latin America-Caribbean and Africa; the enormity of violence against them being structural more than direct war.

In this there is a message to those who naively believe that “development leads to peace”; right now it looks more like the other way around.  Why, given all the suffering, the PTSD, caused by wars?

Because of PGED enjoyed by the winners.  Not only basking in the glory of ticker tape parades and similar orgies, but in billions to the winners, incidentally also to some of the losers…. Wars make money flow.

The world’s major war machine is the United States of America.  No US president winning a war has ever been blamed for human suffering caused…. The war in Vietnam was lost, a terrible trauma for US leaders, population, and the bereaved of 58,000 killed. But not of 3 million Vietnamese? Grotesque insensitivity.  Questions raised were not about the political use of war but how to win future wars to overcome the “Vietnam syndrome”.

To win means collective glory and exuberance, individual profits in the billions high up, and some heroism, glory, and medals lower down. Of the millions killed and tens of millions bereaved: no word.

Try one minute, or an hour rather, to contemplate the total PTSD perpetrated by US warfare on the peoples of Afghanistan from 2001, and Iraq from 1991, and 2003. True, there has been no US PGED but even some US PTSD from the “unfinished wars” as CNN calls it. Also true, lots of US psychotherapy for PTSD has been made available both places.

But most in need of counseling are Americans hit by wanting PGED, demanding winnable wars as therapy; disasters to the victims all over, even counting in the millions, with enormities of PTSD in their wake.

We are victims of a negative psychology of individual therapy. And short on a positive psychology to provide work for negative and positive peace, for security and good relations to higher ups who want PGED. And to remove causes of war: unsolved conflicts and unreconciled traumas.”

______________________________________

Johan Galtung, a professor of peace studies, is founder of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment and rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University-TPU. Prof. Galtung has published 1670 articles and book chapters, over 470 Editorials for TRANSCEND Media Service, and 167 books on peace and related issues, of which 41 have been translated into 35 languages, for a total of 135 book translations, including ‘50 Years-100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives,’ published by the TRANSCEND University Press-TUP.

 This is a shortened version of an article originally published on TMS: The Post Glory Exuberance Disorder-PGED.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What we can learn from Standing Rock—Part One

Posted on by kathiemm
Standing Rock, North Dakota, December, 2016. Author: Alice LoCicero

by Alice LoCicero

North Dakota: At the daily meetings, anyone who wishes to speak can do so, for any length of time, on any topic. Others listen carefully, patiently, and respectfully, in order to learn from those who do, and those who do not, initially look like they have a lot to teach.

For non-natives, noticing the patience and listening attentively is the first lesson: That there is a different way to engage—that unwavering focus with determination to meet a known goal is not the only—and not always the best–approach. That pushing someone to get to the point might lead you to miss the point entirely.

The wisdom the speaker has to share might come in the first sentence or the last paragraph, or throughout the comments. You cannot know in advance. You must remain engaged.

In the meetings I attended, some who spoke had traveled—some by foot– hundreds of miles to share their experiences and their hard-won wisdom—from other actions in other times.

Grandmothers led the communal prayers that began each meeting, and ended it, and their prayers of gratitude, of memory, of humble request, and of hope, were enhanced by drumming and singing, done by men—usually young men. Those prayers reminded us we were all in this together now—indigenous people, immigrants—voluntary and forced–and the descendants of immigrants. All races and ethnicities.

We all share this one, beautiful, earth. And every meeting left me in hope and awe, as I watched privileged young men and women—the descendants of colonizers–who had opted to learn, for now, from their indigenous relatives, rather than from their college professors.  And oppressed young men and women who had committed themselves to stand up and lead others in non-violent actions to protect the earth.

Everyone there was ready to stand with all willing relatives—we are all relatives–putting our bodies and souls on the line to protect the water for future generations.

This experiment in democracy, sustainability, justice, egalitarianism and community was not viewed favorably by the larger community. It was viewed with suspicion, hatred, and condemnation. And the response of the authorities in the nearby non-native communities, with the support of non-native community members, was unbridled, unjustified, absurd levels of violence, both direct and indirect. Violence toward the water protectors and toward the water itself.

Indeed, for hundreds of years, the democratic, egalitarian, spiritual, communal societies of indigenous western hemisphere natives have been viewed by non-natives with fear and hatred.

Natives have consistently been treated with absurd levels of violence, because, for all this time, the settler/colonizers did not—and probably could not–see the indigenous groups as human.  If they had, it would have posed a challenge to the colonizers’ values and way of life, with its central assumption that it is normal for humans to be driven by greed, competition, and individualism. With such values, respect is given not to those who share, but to those who own land, animals, and people.

Respect Action Principles, Standing Rock, North Dakota, December, 2016. Author: Alice LoCicero.

Dr. Alice LoCicero is currently a visiting scholar at The Wright Institute in Berkeley, California, and president-elect of the Society for the Study of Peace and Conflict (Division 48 of the American Psychological Association.) Dr. LoCicero was the first president of the Society for Terrorism Research. She is author of two books and several peer-reviewed articles on terrorism. Her recent scholarship has documented the costs of the US counterterrorism policies, focusing on the flawed Countering Violent Extremism programs, and the American Psychological Association’s actions that supported torture of detainees at Guantanamo and other sites. Dr. LoCicero was shocked to see water protectors at Standing Rock, who were committed to non-violence, being treated as if they posed a threat equivalent to terrorists.

 

What my filly taught me

Posted on by kathiemm
Kathie & Heidi, c. 1954

By Kathie MM

When I was thirteen, I tamed an outlaw horse named Heidi. She was pretty much a refugee from terror.

She was a small, beautiful, and initially rather wild Morgan horse who had been viciously beaten and neglected.

As a result of this mistreatment: she bucked ferociously as soon as someone mounted her; she rushed headlong into heavy underbrush trying to dislodge her rider; she jolted to sudden stops, pitching the rider forward; or, as a last resort, she dropped to her knees, then began to roll over onto  anyone trying to stay aboard.

I won her over through love and patience, long before anyone talked about “horse whisperers.” I stuck with her,  curried her, talked to her, and soothed her until she would accept me calmly, even joyfully, astride her.  Once I gained her trust, I rode her bareback  through the woods and onto beaches, using a hackamore bridle with no bit to pester her mouth.

Someone wrote an article about Heidi and me in the local paper.  I carried the clipping in my wallet for years ‑‑ long after the horrendous car accident, long after I couldn’t walk anymore.

During difficult teen times when I was hurt or upset ‑‑ at my mother, or father, or sister, or brothers, or some no good boyfriend– I would sit in the corner of Heidi’s box stall and feel sorry for myself. She would watch me for awhile, chewing her hay.  Finally, she’d come over and snuffle at my hair or cheek, and I would trundle back to civilization, feeling comforted.

Heidi & Kathie c. 1954

I learned a lot from Heidi–particularly, the rewards of being patiently persistent, kind, and understanding, and of working hard to earn trust.

I put myself in Heidi’s hooves, thinking how awful it must have felt to this magnificent, intelligent animal to be beaten and neglected, to nearly die from severe, untreated wounds, to have been grossly ill-treated by the human being who should have been taking care of her.

I learned als0 about the enormity of the love and empathy that could grow between very different beings who took a chance on each other, who didn’t assume from Day 1 that they already knew everything that needed to be known about the other.

I think these lessons contributed to the peace and non-violence advocate into which I evolved.  Patience, kindness, and empathy can serve many relationships with a vast range of “others.”