Friends Committee on National Legislation

Beware the spin!

Posted on April 8, 2017March 11, 2021 by kathiemm

By Kathie MM
In 1961, Dwight D. Eisenhower warned the nation about the threat of the military-industrial complex (MIC) to national security, social justice, and peace. Not only has the MIC become gargantuan since his warning, it has also swallowed up institutions that should be alerting citizens to the persisting dangers identified by Eisenhower.

In 2005, Norman Solomon* warned the nation about the entanglement of the corporate media in an expanded military-industrial-media complex. He provided frightening examples of members of the media cozying up to the military and assuring the public that each new war is good, valiant, necessary, and desirable when pursued by the U.S. government (which, after all, must struggle to line all those pockets that bring it to power).

To Norman Solomon, I sing, in the music and words (with a little editing), of Don McLean:

“Now, I understand, what you tried to say to me

How you suffered world insanity

And how you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they did not know how

Perhaps they’ll listen now.”

Sadly, war drums are once again drowning out voices of reason and ethical reflection. The enthusiastic rush of the corporate media to anoint Donald Trump as miraculously “presidential” because he ordered the launching of those “beautiful” missiles towards a site in Syria is a scene right out of 1984.

The day after the first strikes, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) revealed that the corporate media were singing the same old song: Rah, rah for the red, white, and blue.

If you must read the establishment newspapers and watch hyped-up television programs glorifying Trump’s attacks, at least balance out your exposure to the military-industrial-media complex by diving into alternative media:

Read War is the ultimate distraction by Mark Summer.

See what Former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, tells Paul Jay on Real News .

Learn more about #HandsoffSyria demonstrations .

Listen to the first song (Nasty Man ) Joan Baez has written and recorded in 25 years:

And see what the Friend’s Committee on National Legislation recommends .

*Solomon’s War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death (John Wiley & Sons, 2005). The first chapter of the book can be found at WarMadeEasy.com.

Morality and taxes

Posted on March 28, 2011April 18, 2021 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:

Go to the FCNL page to learn more about how your taxes are spent and to retrieve a toolkit that will give you some ideas about how you can get involved
Participate in Global Day of Action on Military Spending, April 12, 2011.

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

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Why vote?

Posted on October 25, 2010July 6, 2011 by kathiemm

All registered voters in the U.S. can vote without being subjected to torture and death—a fact that is largely taken for granted. This freedom, although not perfect, compares well with what is happening in many other nations.

To name just a few of the countries where elections in 2010 were preceded by torture of anti-government protesters:

In Rwanda, the ruling regime ordered arrest and torture of opposition candidates.
In Zimbabwe, torture camps reappeared to insure that Mugabe retained power.
In the Philippines, torture is a frequent tool of the Arroyo regime, conducted under the guise of support for the U.S. “war on terrorism.”
In Iran, three anti-government protesters were tortured to death in prison.

Although in many countries people risk their lives to gain the right to vote in democratic elections, in the U.S., where that right is well-established, the majority of the population often fails to vote. For example, only about 37% of the voting age population vote in mid-term elections, which can determine the well-being of not just Americans but people around the world for years to come.

Accept your responsibility as a citizen of a democracy. Get out and vote, and get out the vote. Exercising your democratic right to vote is a way to demonstrate proactive moral agency (see Engaging Peace post on October 14).

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is….make peace not war a campaign issue.

The Friends Committee on National Legislation has some suggestions about how to do this:

Contact candidates running for Congress and ask their views on issues such as nuclear disarmament, global warming, auditing the Pentagon, and ending the war in Afghanistan
Write a letter to the editor of your newspaper or online news site, responding to its coverage of the election.

We have additional suggestions:

Educate yourself. Have facts ready to support your arguments.
Find out who the anti-war candidates are.
Join together with others in the anti-war, pro-peace movement. Make your voices heard.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology