“Omnipresent surveillance”: Dystopian society in our global era, Part 1.

Sign at the March for Science 2017 in Washington, DC. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. Author: scattered1 from USA

by Anthony J. Marsella, PhD

Imposing Authoritarian Control, Domination, and Rule: Strategies, Methods, Techniques, Tactics 1

“Man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains.”
— Jean Jacques Rousseau (28 Jun 1712 – 2 Jul 1778), Social Contract, 1762

I. Authoritarian Control, Dominance, Rule: Course of Human History

Fictional accounts of compelling dystopian societies, including, Brave New World, 1984, The Handmaiden’s Tale, Fahrenheit 451, The Matrix, and scores of apocalyptic movies, are proving prescient.

Once confined to popular reading, entertainment, and college seminars, fictional accounts of dystopian societies have assumed a frightening reality as government, military, corporate, and private sectors impose oppressive surveillance strategies, methods, techniques, and tactics on citizens. These impositions are destroying the last semblances of legal and moral individual “privacy,” freedoms, civil rights, and USA Constitution First and Fourth Amendment rights, especially those guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. 2

Citizen fears for personal safety and security are encouraged and promoted by media collaborators with governments, military, and corporate beneficiaries of violence and war; a pervasive sense of peril, danger, and jeopardy is now normal. This sense of fear both sanctions and authorizes authoritarian national security sectors to impose egregious abuses of citizen rights and privileges with oppressive and punitive measures.

Playing upon Western nations fears of  being overrun by invasions, occupations, and exploitations by international migrants, especially from Islamic, Sub-Saharan African, and Central American nations, citizens in many European countries have elected right-wing populist governments determined to implement draconian immigration and refugee policies, limiting or blocking immigration to selective groups and conditions.

USA President Donald Trump announced all “illegal” resident immigrants will be expelled form the USA beginning June 24, 2019, under the auspices of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by the Department of Homeland Security. President Trump considers illegal immigrants to be a threat to national security as sources of violence, crime, disease, and competing cultural traditions.

A convincing xenophobia has found its way into minds and hearts of citizens and officials resulting in the emergence of widespread of “hate” cultures and outbursts of gun violence. “Our nation is under attack by dangerous foes seeking our demise and collapse!” This is the thematic cry of those seeking more power, control, and domination of citizen masses, an appeal to fear and heroic nationalism.

Condemnation of violations of citizen privacy and rights, guaranteed in the Fourth Amendment of the USA Constitution, is drawing urgent attention from legal and NGO sources, with little legal consequence. Government, police, military, and corporate and private agencies are supporting numerous laws and regulations legitimizing pervasive surveillance, monitoring, and storage of citizen information for potential prosecution.

Control, Domination, Rule of Citizens: An “Old” Policy and Practice

“Experience has shown that even under the best forms of government, those entrusted with power have in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”
— Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), Preamble to a Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge, Fall 1778, Papers 2: 526-527.

Control, domination, and rule of citizen thought, behavior, and identity by authorities and ruling classes is the story of human history; it is the logical outcome when States, Nations, Empires, and Colonial Rulers, especially dictatorships, assume disproportional power.

Protests and rebellions are quelled by a variety of oppressive measures, including arrests, imprisonment, torture, as well as murder, beatings, and crowd control tactics. Assassinations and disappearance of rebel leaders is common, as desperate authorities oppress contention.

While inspirational stories of citizen uprisings protesting control, domination, and rule, including the French and American Revolutions, are celebrated each year as sacred holidays, the harsh reality emerging is “omnipresent-mass surveillance.”  Past glories are diminished in the presence of new oppressions.

Never before in history have the vast means of citizen control, domination, and rule been as total and complete as they are now because of the uses and abuses of technology. Romantic notions of citizen heroes leading uprisings against abusive and corrupt governments and authorities are the stuff of past myths. Mass government surveillance and monitoring of citizens and groups has destroyed individual and group privacy and rights. Oppressive conformity, homogenization, and subjugation are now accepted goals for authorities claiming national security needs.

Tragically, continued use of effective media and propaganda has resulted in citizen concurrence and acceptance of oppression and violation of Constitutional rights and privileges.  A tragic paradox!  “Yes, oppress and control me; I need your protection in a dangerous world.” (“Escape From Freedom. . . . . .”)

Control, Domination, Rule . . .  

Governance is needed! This reality cannot be contested!  Contestations of   abuses of power, however, omnipresent in the government-congressional-corporate-military-educational complex is required and essential. As elections approach, why are no candidates willing to risk the tolls of exposing the situation? Where are calls and accusations of encroaching oppression,

A challenge for citizens is the reality “society” often hides, distorts, and represses concerns for freedom. Openness, transparency, participation is required in a democracy. Past presidential candidates have won on a platform of these admirable goals, only to find upon election, they succumb to shadow powers, and conform to traditional agendas using war and violence to achieve unwarranted goals. Who controls the leaders? Hidden governments?

In the USA, most citizens never imagined government would “betray” citizens given the protections of the USA Constitution. Today, however, surveys indicate less than 10% of USA citizens trust the government, and often see the government as biased in favor of special interests via lobbyists.

“Secret State” and “Shadow State” groups of powerful and positioned individuals assumed power and control, betraying their oaths and loyalty in favor of personal agendas keeping them in power.  Much of the “Secret State” individuals are ensconced in Justice Department offices and agencies (i.e., CIA, FBI, DHS, NSA). Crimes and abuses of these groups continue to unfold daily revealing a tragic story of corruption, collusion, and crime.

When societal institutions breakdown and collapse under pressures of corruption, cronyism, special interests, and inadequate funding, citizens are bereft of resources for protection and security. In an open and democratic society, transparency, social responsibility, and voting are keys to citizen awareness and empowerment. What happens, however, when these too are lost to political interests?

Tragically, many “secret state” societies around the world have already destroyed or denied citizen rights, enabling groups with special interests and concerns to exist and to exact their toll. Under these circumstances, citizen wellbeing and welfare yield to special interests and the advancement of control in favor of mega-groups pursuing their own interests.  Citizens are no longer players, and when they attempt to act against control, they are promptly subdued as enemies of the State.

Citizens look to government to protect them, but corrupt governments are too closely linked and connected to secret and known “power” groups, to offer citizen protection. In the process, citizens lose trust in governments and societal institutions; this raises the threshold for both protests and repression.

Within this context of institution collapse, and the rise of special interest and concerns, citizens become identified with certain groups at the cost of a society’s democratic identity and membership. They seek the comfort and security of identity with fringe elements offering simple solutions and identification of obvious enemies among minorities, immigrants, and radical revolution members. Heroes, calling for change, become victims.

Footnote 1:

The term “omnipresent surveillance” is taken from John W. Whitehead’s recent article, “The Omnipresent Surveillance State: Orwell’s 1984 Is No longer Fiction.” Information Clearing House. June 11, 2019. See also Rutherford Institute, Virginia, USA.

Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D., a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, is a past president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, Emeritus Professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii’s Manoa Campus in Honolulu, Hawaii, and past director of the World Health Organization Psychiatric Research.

TOWARD 2020 AND BEYOND

Humanity and not religion…Love and peace. Lotus Temple in Delhi. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Author: Ideavashu123.

by Stefan Schindler

The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love. – William Sloane Coffin

Engaging Peace has a “comments” section that occasionally inspires stimulating dialogue. The editor of Engaging Peace has invited me to share my reflections on recent comments on my posts in, as it were, a main-page post. 

I can’t see governments, including our own, fading away anytime soon (as Karl Marx hoped and predicted).  Nor do I see in the near future a triumph of the proletariat, on either a national or global basis, establishing a civil civilization – a culture in which swords have been turned into plowshares, misogyny and racism at last relics of the past, and the common good of humanity resting on a firm foundation as cooperation takes precedence over competition.  But I am not without hope that something sane, humane, and glorious may emerge from the mess we are now in.

America’s national redemption must come from the people, and their Judeo-Christian-Bodhisattva good-works on a daily and enduring basis.  For me, that also means perpetual self-educating, increasingly honest socio-political discourse, and electing leaders brave enough to shatter the status quo.  Embracing Thich Nhat Hanh’s notion that “To be is to inter-be,” I believe that love is the heartbeat at the core of our identity, and that, therefore, agape – universal brother-sisterhood – is our prime obligation as being-in-the-world-with-others, which Martin Buber expressed as “I and Thou.”

I believe that educated citizen activism is our best hope for survival.  Given what’s left of our endangered democratic choices, that includes an obligation to vote for what is usually and clearly “the lesser evil.”  For example, I believe that if Jimmy Carter had had a second term as president, the Reagan-Bush packing of the Supreme Court with Republican ideologues would not have happened; and, therefore, the judicial coup d’état in December of 2000 (the Supreme Court cancellation of further vote-counting, and their unconstitutional appointment of George W. Bush as president) would not have occurred.

I also believe that if Al Gore had assumed his rightful place in the White House, 9/11 would not have happened (with its subsequent multi-trillion dollar wars on the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, constituting yet another of America’s “crimes against humanity”).

Also – and of profound importance! – President Gore (having already published his book Earth in the Balance) would have transformed America into a leading light in the world’s long overdue attempt to rectify destruction of the biosphere, and confront, with all due pragmatism and rapidity, the globally increasing dangers of climate change.

In short, who sits in the White House, in Congress, and on the Supreme Court, does make a difference.  Yes, the system is rigged; but we can – with intelligence and determination – mitigate the damage, and by voting wisely, perhaps steer the ship of state toward democratic ecosocialism, fiscal pragmatism, economic security, and lifelong health-care and education for all.

Change will not come without intense struggle.  We are in a battle for the soul of our nation, and I shudder to think that Thomas Paine and Martin Luther King lived and died in vain.  The Bill of Rights is increasingly threatened, but it is hardly obsolete, and it is certainly worth preserving.

I do not know if we will, collectively, survive the next 50 years.  I suspect that “civilization” as we now know it will indeed collapse.  But I also believe that we have a socio-political obligation to steer a path through the trauma to a brighter global culture for all future generations.

We are blessed to live in a society where freedom of speech still exists, where the right to vote still offers hope, and where protest has not yet become a crime.

So I’ll end here with a potent, poignant, intentionally satiric and ironic quote:

Oh no! [Fox News] has discovered our vast conspiracy to take care of children and save the planet. – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; newly elected Democratic member of the House of Representatives.

THE STANDING ROCK PROTEST: GENOCIDE, ECOCIDE, & CHANGE, Part 3

People protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline stand in the street with signs and banners. 15 November 2016 Author: Pax Ahimsa Gethen This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

by Anthony J. Marsella, November 26, 2016

JUSTICE VERSUS THE POLITICAL-ELITE SYSTEM

Standing Rock is more than a protest of an indigenous population struggling to claim and reclaim its rights to exist. It is a confrontation between good and evil!  Harsh words? No! Constructing an oil pipeline across Native American Indian lands will have tragic consequences for people, land, and nation.  “Fracked” oil and tar-sands oil from Canada will be transported across thousands of miles, a portion transported under the Missouri River and tributaries, all of it at risk of pipeline ruptures from faulty technology and protests. And when a rupture occurs . . . .

Where are the self-righteous voices who supported either of the corrupt political parties in our election; these political parties made a mockery of governance, the USA Constitution and our treasured Bill of Rights! Neither of you were respected or wanted. The events at Standing Rock happened on your watch! Do you get it? You made it happen! You, the corporate-government-military complex! Standing Rock is about justice! Standing Rock is about retribution. Standing Rock is about resurrection! Woe to you elite, choosing to demean Standing Rock’s consequences.

To the current USA political elites, cabals, and global-order members (e.g., Davos Factions, Bilderbergs, National Banks), I say, how dare you claim moral authority? How dare you claim wisdom as you engage in self interests

Standing Rock and the Dakota Pipeline happened on your watch. You did nothing! We were all betrayed by your endless condemnations of political opponents, attacking one another with foolish blather. You are the opponents of life! You have no right to impose your will and interests upon the world’s citizens. Your concentration of wealth, power, and position, carefully calculated to insure exploitation is a crime!

Will “Big Oil” fund your libraries, philanthropies, and luxurious houses? Will you gather at Davos, Bilderberg, Bohemian Grove, Skull & Bone reunions, and celebrity events honoring one another? Will any of you gather at Standing Rock, protest signs in your hands, taking blows from truncheons and pepper spray? No! Because you benefits from the oppression occurring at Standing Rock!

Standing Rock will endure with honor and dignity. It will be recalled a hundred years from now, if our nation and our land exist. Standing Rock will be treasured by those who saw through the lies of the political elite and their sycophants. Historians will write Standing Rock was the pivotal point in USA history when a few Native American Indians and their supporters, stood against the corporate-government-military Leviathan, claiming justice, denying genocidal efforts to eliminate them, and ultimately, at great cost, won a victory for humanity.

The actions of the political elite, their lies, propaganda, deceit, betrayal, smiling faces, cannot escape history’s judgment.  You had the opportunity, and you chose betrayal. None of your faces will be carved on Mount Rushmore. Your libraries will be maintained by your minions, but your stature will be demeaned because you represented special interests at the cost of the people of the world. Your money can no longer guarantee your image.  You could have helped but you did not!

AN UNFOLDING STORY . . .

And so, the Standing Rock protest will continue until a wave of public criticism and outrage rises across the land in support of Standing Rock as more than a specific event, but in support of the timeless values of justice, peace, honor, dignity, and morality. Standing Rock will enter history books and classrooms as an example of “people power,” but more important it will enter history books, classrooms, board rooms, think tanks, as an ignored iconic event that changed the course of USA history.

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 holy text of the NRA

By guest author Dr. Mike Corgan

The Second Amendment’s 27 words are the holiest of holy texts to the National Rifle Association (NRA) and its supporters. “We get to have guns” is an absolute right, says the NRA.

Assault rifle
Photo by 82josh used under CCA-SA 3.0 Unported license.

Is the Second or any of the other Bill of Rights Amendments absolute? Not so in the case of the First Amendment–freedom of speech. Federal courts have said you can’t “falsely call fire in a theater.”

But gun advocates seem to think differently, i.e., any infringement begins the “slippery slope” to confiscation.

Of all the Amendments in the Bill Of Rights, only the Second has an introductory clause that states its purpose: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State….”

In this Amendment, the words Militia, State, and Arms are capitalized, but “people” is not. Does this suggest an emphasis on what was deemed important, as writers of those days usually intended?

A number of federal courts have held that that the introductory clause is not itself  restrictive, yet it does stand alone in the Bill.

A recent article in the New York Times reported that the U.S. Constitution is no longer the model for new democracies around the globe. The reason? The Second Amendment.

Gun violence is still one of of the areas in which the U.S. leads the world. Another recent article in the Times noted that American buyers are keeping the Kalashnikov assault rifle factory in Russia going strong.

Is this how we want to be known?

Michael T. Corgan, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies
Department of International Relations, Boston University