Tag: Eric Gulliver

A cure for cynicism

Posted on by kathiemm

Fed up with the rampant cynicism in Washington and throughout society? Don’t clam up. Exercise your voice. Be an activist.

Democracy means nothing without you
Poster by Eric Gulliver, 2011

For a useful free guide to grassroots activism, download Jim Britell’s pdf file: Organize To Win – A Grassroots Activist’s Handbook: A Guide To Help People Organize Community Campaigns. It’s full of good tips and some heart-warming examples of how one person, investing a few minutes, made a change for the good.

Join an activist organization that fights for a cause in which you believe.  For example, I am proud to be a member of Psychologists for Social Responsibility. There are hundreds of other groups also working for a better world. Find the right one for you.

Sign up for Change.org or the Petition Site, where you can sign (or not sign) petitions dealing with hundreds of different causes related to justice, the environment, human rights, and other issues. You can even start your own petition to seek support for a cause that you want to pursue.

Participate in a blog—like Engaging Peace and Reader Supported News. Read it regularly and submit your comments as a way of making your voice heard.

Sidestep the mainstream corporate media controlled by the military-industrial establishment, and become an oped writer for the alternative press. It’s another easy step. Just subscribe to, and become a contributor to, OpEd News.

You can make a difference. A good one. Try it.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Osama bin Laden: A “just” killing? (Just war, part 7)

Posted on by kathiemm

[Note from Kathie Malley-Morrison: Continuing the series on just war, Dr. Mike Corgan offers some reflections about whether the killing of Osama bin Laden meets the criteria for just war.]

Though details are still being released it seems the raid at Abbottabad and the killing of Osama bin Laden do meet the requirements of just war.

Poster of Bin Laden with words violence cycle
Poster by Eric Gulliver, 2011

Bin Laden certainly made himself a legitimate target for military and even lethal retaliation by his continuing orchestration and advocacy of attacks directed at civilians, and not just military or police, in Muslim and in Western countries.

The raid itself was risky precisely because it was a proportionate use of force and not a dropping of a dozen or twenty 2,000 lb bombs on the compound which certainly would have caused many civilian deaths.

The women and children were unharmed except for the wife who rushed the attackers; she was shot in the leg, not the head. Of course bin Laden was shot in the head, twice, though he appeared to have had no weapon in hand. However, the use of suicide bomb vests by Al Qaeda is well documented and the shooter, who had one or two seconds to make a decision, had no reason to assume bin Laden did not wear one.

There seems to have been no “collateral damage.” It was about as well carried out as these things can ever be.

Michael T. Corgan, Associate Chair and Associate Professor of International Relations, Boston University

Humiliation: Terry Jones and the deadliest of emotions

Posted on by kathiemm
Poster of Terry Jones: Intolerance breeds hatred
Poster by Eric Gulliver, 2011

If you have ever been deeply humiliated—by a schoolyard bully, members of a gang, even a loved one—you know what feelings of powerlessness and rage can beset you. Humiliation is exactly what was done by Pastor Terry Jones when he followed through on his threat to burn the Qu’ran last week.

Sadly, Jones has achieved many of his probable goals: he has proven himself able to defy that bugaboo, the government; he has gained notoriety as a crusader for the supremacy of his hate-filled form of Christianity; he has incited the violence he knew he would incite, thereby making a few small groups of Muslims look like vicious animals.

The dangers of humiliation are many:

  • Amnesty International has designated humiliation as psychological torture, along with sleep deprivation, isolation, and mock executions.
  • Efforts at humiliating the enemy in times of armed conflict can also take a markedly physical form, as when the armed forces of one side rape the women of the other side.

Humiliation has been widely recognized as an experience that can lead to many forms of violent confrontation, including war and terrorism.  For example:

  • Many historians believe that humiliation of the German people at the end of World War I  led to the rise of Hitler and World War II. Allied powers were sufficiently convinced by this argument to prevent a similar humiliation of the defeated powers after World War II.
  • Perceptions of historical injustice and humiliation have been identified as factors leading to suicide bombing and other forms of terrorism. When individuals and groups believe that they have been repeatedly and unjustifiably humiliated, they may decide they have nothing to lose by committing violent and punitive acts of revenge.

Let us all work to be sure that Pastor Terry Jones does not achieve what is likely his ultimate goal–a genocidal attack on Muslims.  Let us hope that he is jailed for the rest of his life for violating international law and the dignity of adherents to Islam.

Let us also consider alternative ways to cope with people who frighten and anger us. I will have some suggestions on that topic in Thursday’s post.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Morality and taxes

Posted on by kathiemm
"Tax Dollars" poster
Poster by Eric Gulliver, 2011

With April 15 (Tax Day in the U.S.) looming, I consider myself to have three moral obligations:

  • Pay taxes that can provide funding for many vital programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, public transportation, human services, education, environmental protections, and veterans’ benefits.
  • Protest tax policies that further entrench the rich and powerful while robbing the poor, depleting the middle class, and killing innocent people in the names of profit and national security.
  • Protest policies allowing huge corporations like General Electric to make billions of dollars in profits from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while paying NO federal taxes.

To find out where your tax payments go, check out the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL). According to their analysis, out of each dollar paid in federal income taxes in 2010, 39 cents went to fund current and past wars. This is probably an underestimate.

The federal budget deficit has been growing alarmingly since 2001, and it makes sense to look for ways to trim expenditures. But ask yourself, is it moral, is it just, and in the long run is it wise to cut the budgets for programs such as Social Security, job training, and Head Start, while keeping the Pentagon budget “off the table” and maintaining enormous tax breaks for the wealthy (e.g., through recent tax cuts on millionaires’ estates).

For a detailed breakdown of how social programs could be saved if some of the tax breaks for the rich were reduced, see the Center for American Progress.

In last year’s “weak economy,” hundreds of new billionaires emerged in this country while more and more people were losing their jobs and homes and falling below the poverty line. Is this what you want your taxes and current tax policies to support?

Finally, I have some suggestions:

To get some idea about what a cutback in military spending could accomplish, watch this video:

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology