How can we nonviolently prevent nuclear war? Part 1

Worldwide nuclear explosions. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license. Author: Worldwide nuclear testing.svg

by James Manista

     1. Like so many in Congress we can ignore nuclear weapons and hope they go away—some in the new administration want to  restart talks—that’s progress

 2. The pope condemns war and nuclear weapons every so often but diplomatically hasn’t mentioned anyone by name

      3. Political oppositions must rise up in all nuclear nations and press   

          governments to reduce their numbers—zero’s a nice number.

      4. Convince the military to dismantle them—gotta include that one 

      5.  Wave a magic wand

No one knows how effective the new government will be. Obama promised to rid us of nukes and to close Guantanamo—still waiting. The pope has spoken for himself but most bishops are hardliners. Activist efforts continue despite setbacks. The fourth method is an outlier, but it has been tried. Ground Zero’s attempt last year to urge submariners to disobey unlawful orders (viz.,“Fire the missiles”) didn’t dent Trident. So keep waving that wand, Bubba. What do you do if writing your congress-person or upholding honkable banners is not yielding the desired results?

One method I didn’t mention is direct action (civil disobedience/ nonviolent resistance) which was first advocated by Henry David Thoreau against slavery and the war with Mexico. Ghandi employed it for civil rights in South Africa and against colonial rule in India. More recently Martin Luther King, Jr., and others used the same principles effectively in the struggles of the ‘sixties. However, the tactic has a risk not characteristic of the others of financial loss and/or incarceration.

It’s one thing to claim imprisoned heroes like Plowshares7 Jesuit priest Steven Kelly or Wikileaks’ founder Julian Assange or soldier and intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden, leaker of National Security Administration surveillance methods; it’s quite another to follow in their footsteps.

In May of  2019, the Ground Zero Center for Non-Violent Action (GZ) emailed me about their proposal to protest at the Bangor-Kitsap Trident Base the weekend of May 11. Activists were invited to perform brief gestures of non-violent civil disobedience. They scheduled a morning of inspirational talks by GZ leaders and a keynote by Kathy Kelly, a well-known war-crime protestor and Afghanistan activist. In the afternoon a lawyer sympathetic to the cause would present legal information and instruction. Replying I’d attend, I ordered an 8’ x 3’ vinyl banner and contacted other Olympians to rideshare that day. 

By scheduling the event the day before Mothers’s Day they wished to remind people that holiday had close connections to peace advocacy. Ann Reeves Jarvis of West Virginia used her Mothers Friendship Day in 1868 to reconcile former Union and Confederate soldiers. Two years later the suffragette and abolitionist Julia Ward Howe authored her Mother’s Day Proclamation urging mothers to unite in promoting world peace.  

At the entrance of the Trident Base a one-foot-wide blue line, labeled US Government brightly in white, has been painted on each lane of the highway at Trident Boulevard, the Navy property. Knowledge of this line is critical to the nature of the GZ protests.

After lunch GZ’s legal advisor clarified for us that protestors who stand (dance, read poetry, sing peace songs, etc.) blocking highway traffic on the state side of the blue marker who also refuse to disperse when ordered to do so by the highway police will be cited for blocking access on a state highway and must report to a state court as notified to answer the charges. Those protestors who cross the blue line onto the base and stand (dance, read poetry, sing peace songs, etc.), who refuse to return to the state property when ordered by base security (the Marines) will be cited for federal trespass and informed they must report to a federal court. He could not make it plainer the federal violation is regarded as more serious—occasionally much  more serious—than the state offense.

We were then asked as to what course we’d choose without judgment as to our sincerity or dedication to the cause: 1. to stand alongside the highway; 2. to violate the state law; or 3. to violate the federal law. Eight stalwarts opted for the state side; I chose the federal side: the rest, about fifty in number (and average age), chose to march, sing, witness, and cheer.

GZ and Navy base security had earlier agreed on the site and timing to avoid dangerous surprises. Banners and signs in hand we proceeded to the base as state police cars gathered on an overpass, and Marines with protective vests and weapons, parked their van near the blue line.

First the eight formed a line in front of the blue demarcator and began with a song, followed by each demonstrator via bullhorn presenting his or her rationale for blocking the road: citing international law, recounting other heroic stands, praying and announcing recent comments of the pope. Finished, they stood in place, and as each was approached by the highway police to move off the road, they refused, and were in turn politely taken by an arm and led off to the berm where individual citations were drafted and delivered. 

As the last was led away I stepped forward with my banner held chest high, got to the center of the road, and took two steps behind the blue line. A Navy security officer told me to step back to the state side. I stood still and did not answer. Then he asked if I knew the meaning of the word trespass. I acknowledged I did and was approached by two guards, one who took the banner out of my hands while the other led me behind the van out of sight of the crowd.

They took several photographs (presumably for Navy and NSA records) while a guard asked for my ID and address. 

One guard, fearful I might faint, inquired if I preferred to sit on the van floor where the side was open. I did and gladly accepted a paper cup of water besides. Despite our training to remember carefully everything we were asked and said, there was some casual conversation before they returned my banner and took me back across the blue line. My allies cheered my return. The citation told me I would be advised within ninety days of my court date. 

The Conditions for Human Health and Well-Being Reside in the Psycho-Social Contexts of Life

by Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D.

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. . . . A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called games of amusement and amusements of mankind. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.”  

— Henry David Thoreau
Jul 12, 1817-May 6, 1862
Walden (Aug 9, 1854)

Introduction

12 Jul 2017 – I call upon the timeless words of Henry David Thoreau, a 19th Century student of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1889-1888), to open this article on the critical consequences of the socio-cultural context for human health and well-being. It is, perhaps, coincidental today is Thoreau’s birthday; his 200th year anniversary, a reminder of the enduring power of great thoughts and words.  Guide me, Sir!

I offer only a few lines of Thoreau’s words as an epigram, insufficient to honor the timelessness of his thoughts, but perhaps sufficient to acknowledge his special sensitivities to the human condition of his age and our age. Thoreau’s entire works deserve reading. The unfolding industrial age in which he lived, was the source of problems paralleling the problems of our unfolding socio-technical age.

I can think of no better guide to justify the thoughts and words of this article. In so many ways, we have forgotten the tragic consequences of the psycho-social contexts of life for the human condition; we have become infatuated with “reductionism,” a wondrous gift of technological progress, but a distraction from the realities of human nature.

No one can deny the sheer wonder and glory of our growing knowledge of the CNS, brain, organs, and genetics. Yet, the magnificence of our knowledge must not detract from our understanding the socio-environmental determinants of our life milieu.  Political powers, controlling funding have called for various national initiatives: “Decade of the Brain.” Similar initiatives for increasing awareness of psychosocial topics have too hidden agendas (see documentary: America’s War on Drugs) directed toward arms deals, racial oppression, and disguised foreign relations policies.

Psychosocial Contexts

Kurt Lewin (1890-1947), one of psychology’s great thinkers, contended behavior is a function of the interaction of organism and environment (B = O x E). It is the interaction of an organism and its milieu which generates behavior, and the problems of disease and disorder. Nothing exists apart from its inner and outer singular milieu. Although physicists may disagree, nothing exists in a vacuum! Life is connections.

As we become increasingly, and deservedly, awed by reductionist discoveries and revelations, and as we seek insights, answers, and solutions to major human problems within reductionist levels, we are failing to address and resolve the challenges of the psychosocial context of our lives. The psychosocial context is the life context in the behavior equation. The psychosocial context has critical implications and consequences for health and well being. It is a formative cause of problems, a precipitating cause, an exacerbating cause, and a maintaining cause. The psychosocial context requires careful attention and understanding in all of the causal relations.

We may be excessively concerned and pre-occupied with the physical aspects of our being, even to the extent of dividing solutions into medical specialties, sub-specialties, and sub-sub specialties. We journey across limb, organ, cell, gene, atom, and molecular space; this journey has proven miraculous for many diseases and disorders. However, this journey alone cannot address nor resolve the tolls exacted on human health and well being forged and sustained within the psychosocial contexts of our lives.

There are many empirical and theoretical reasons concluding many diseases, disorders, dysfunctions, deviancies, and distress arise from the psychosocial contexts of our life than from our body alone. Indeed, the experiences forged and sustained in the psychosocial contexts shape and generate many of these tragic “D” words as the body and mind become war zones for survival struggles – lives of “quiet desperation.”

Today, humans seek respite and relief from “desperation” in prescription pills, illegal drugs and substances, and/or both. Pills and substances are often temporary palliatives, unable to treat and heal the broader destructive contexts of human life, located in the “isms,” poverty, violence, war, and oppression.

There can be no doubt pills and substances alter behavior via neurochemistry and anatomical structure. However, seeking solutions to the determinants of problems requires solutions appropriate to the level generating them and their consequences. Tragically, psychosocial contexts, though obvious, are too often ignored. These are big problems!   Too often local, national, and international leaders yield to the preferences to the wealthy, powerful, and positioned. The result is the medicalization of society and human existence; the abuse of power is history’s story!

Many noble minds and hearts sought to awaken humanity to the psychosocial sources of their problems (e.g., Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chavez, Nelson Mandela, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy), but those in power, continue to dominate, “tossing bones of solace” to reaching hands. Today the world is gifted by many new heroic stalwarts, who are advancing peace and social justice (e.g., Mairead McGuire, Michael Knox, Antonio de Rosa, Glenn Paige, and numerous others). The struggle, however, is endless, and requires a person become a social and political activist. As has been suggested by many, today’s situation requires us to merge personal, occupational, and civic lives; there must be a fusion or a gathering of “self.”

In a previous publication, ( See Anthony J. Marsella (September 17, 2012). Transcend Media Service (TMS): www.http://transcend.org/…/the-conditions-for-human-health-and-well-being-reside in the psychosocial contexts of life/  .  I suggested a number of psycho-social contexts determining health and well being.  These and others are now displayed in Figure 1, along with suggestions of the human responses and conditions they breed.

FIGURE 1: PSYCHO-SOCIAL CONTEXTS FOR HEALTH AND WELL-BEING

figure 1

There are so many more items that should be included, as the “interaction” of the contexts foster yet new contexts and complexity.  Amidst this challenging “matrix,” it is easy to become pessimistic, to give up on solutions, and to accept forces and fates as destiny. Do not!

As the struggles appear overwhelming, find inspiration and hope from those about you, especially at local levels, making contributions to peace,  justice, and dignity. They are the new heroes our times.

________________________________________

Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D., a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and 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 Center in Honolulu.  He is known 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 21 books and more than 300 articles, tech reports, and popular commentaries. He can be reached at marsella@hawaii.edu.

 

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 17 July 2017.

What it’s really all about

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison. Henry David Thoreau, 1817-1862. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Author: Shane T. McCoy, U.S. Navy , Eugenio Hansen, OFS

The argument you get from the warlords, the arms industry, the right-wing extremists, the power-seekers is that some forms of torture are needed to fight terrorism, to save lives endangered by “ticking bombs.”  Bull hoowey. If you want to understand why people torture,   consider the components of this definition from Miriam Webster:

Torture is “the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure.” (emphasis added)

To punish.  That’s a biggie, one we’ve discussed before on this blog.  The monotheistic religions “of the Book” (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), as well as countless other religions from earlier centuries, have promulgated visions of Hell in which “sinners” (e.g., violators of cultural norms, rebels against authoritarian rulers) will be punished (tortured) by eternal burning and sometimes other horrors.

That preoccupation with punishment has a broad reach and is as American as apple pie.  Parents who inflict intense pain on children (e.g., whipping, burning) for “not minding their manners,” for “giving lip” or “being sassy” are inflicting torture on their children—and were often tortured themselves while growing up.   Both men and women often torture their partners physically or psychologically to punish them for infidelity and other “crimes.” And racism in this country has, for centuries, been associated with the torture and murder of people of color, both in the streets and in prisons, to punish them for their differentness.

To coerce.  Okay, in today’s world “coercion” could be interpreted as requiring an admission regarding  the location of a ticking bomb (although there is no evidence of such a location ever having been discovered this way) but for centuries coerced confessions involved, for example, admitting that one was or was not a “good” Catholic. Think Inquisition.  We may well ask how effectively torture worked to protect Catholicism from infidels and purify the image of the Roman Catholic hierarchy.

For sadistic pleasure: Heartbreakingly, torture for sadistic pleasure is widespread in the U.S. and elsewhere around the world where abuse of various forms is a part of everyday life.  My guess is that every one of my readers has at some point in his or her life met someone who got pleasure from inflicting pain on some person or animal.  Right?

Regardless of its purpose or motive, torture, as well as cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, is banned at all times, in all places by international law.

Shouldn’t people of conscience be acting to resist its use in their homes, their communities, their country, and wherever their efforts can reach? Time to stop excusing it?

 

Uncle Sam wants YOUR money!

Correction: Uncle Sam wants your money unless you are among the country’s largest U.S. corporations (e.g., GE, Microsoft, IBM, Exxon, Chevron). As reported in that radical rag, the Wall Street Journal, 60 of those large corporations “parked a total of $166 billion offshore last year” shielding anywhere from 40 percent to 100% of their profits from U.S. taxes.

It takes taxes and bonds poster
Image in public domain

While avoiding payment of taxes in the U.S., these corporations relied on the U.S. government to protect their interests from, for example, those who object to extraction of their natural resources by American companies.

Today is April 15. You have probably filed your 2012 income tax return, but in the coming year it would be wise to attend to proposals being made by the President and Congress regarding who will pay taxes and how the money will be spent.

You may have heard about proposed cuts in Social Security and medical and social welfare programs. Do you also know that President Obama is proposing a half billion dollar shift of funds from nuclear nonproliferation programs to upgrading the U.S. nuclear program?

Are your priorities the same as the government’s?

Historically, Americans have found many nonviolent ways to protest or rebel against taxes they judged to be unfair or immoral.

  • In 1773, to protest the tea tax imposed by the English government to finance its wars, colonists in Boston dumped English tea into Boston Harbor;
  • During and after the Revolutionary War, many Quakers, Mennonites, and members of other peace-oriented religious denominations refused to pay taxes intended for military expenditures;
  • Henry David Thoreau refused to pay a toll tax levied to support the Mexican War, spent a night in jail, and wrote about it in the essay “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience.”
  • Since World War II, many individuals (e.g., Noam Chomsky) have formed groups to protest using tax dollars to finance war. You can learn more from the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee  (http://www.nwtrcc.org/ ).

War tax resistance may not be the right choice for you, but do consider this question: Are the issues raised here important enough so that you will make your own voice heard?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology