by Anthony J. Marsella, PhD
There have been many suggestions about what is needed in response to the growing national security state of the United States. Responses have come from around the world, and many names are now familiar (e.g., Noam Chomsky, Mairead McGuire, Amy Goodman, Johan Galtung, Chris Hedges). Here are some options for building a more enduring and effective response:
- Become informed: Become informed and educated about the scope and sources of the national security state threats to privacy and behavior control. This can only be done by reading credible sources, reading beyond popular media, and questioning sources with specific hidden agendas (i.e., corporate, military).
- Engage in activism: Become as active as your circumstances permit in peaceful protests that may include opinion writing, letter writing, petition signing, phone calls to elected representatives, and joining discussion groups via the internet or in real time. Become as active as your circumstances permit with regards to supporting alternative information sources (e.g., Transcend Medial Service, Truthout, Guardian, Engaging Peace), and supporting pathways to prosecution for those violating Constitutional and civil rights.
- Commit to non-violence: Be committed to non-violence and non-killing as viable pathways for bringing about change. This may well make change a slow and arduous process, and it may never be completely successful. Yet the course of violence, insurgency, and revolt can only lead to destruction and death, as we are witnessing in the United States and around the world.
The challenges are many and complex; there is little reason to believe citizens can easily reduce or eliminate the massive national and international surveillance network. If change is to occur, it will be because hope as an essential enduring human virtue can inform action and that non-violent action will be undertaken.
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
References:
Bacevich, A. (2012). The short American century: A post-mortem. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Chumley, C. (2014). Police State USA: How Orwell’s nightmare is becoming our reality. NY: WND.
Deneys-Tunney, A. (July 12, 2012) Rousseau shows us there is a way to break the chains from within. The Guardian, London, UK.
. Harris, S. (2010). The watchers: The rise of America’s surveillance state. NY: Penguin Group.
Hedges, C. (2015). A nation of snitches.
Mills, C. W. (2000). The Power Elite. NY: Oxford University Press
Priest, D., & Arkin, W. (2011). Top secret America: The rise of the new American Security State. NY: Little Brown.
Slavo, M. (July 31, 2019). Satellites Have Already Started Watching Your Every Movement.
Taggart, D. (2019). Americans Don’t Trust the Govt, the Media, or Each Other: Fading Trust is “Sign of Cultural Sickness and National Decline.”
Unger, D. (2012). The emergency state: America’s pursuit of absolute security at all costs. NY: Penguin Press
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 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. His TMS articles may be acessed HERE and he can be reached at marsella@hawaii.edu.
This article, lightly edited and abridged, originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 5 Aug 2019. TMS: “Omnipresent Surveillance:” Dystopian Society in Our Global Era .
Martin Luther King Jr, at a press conference / World Telegram & Sun photo by Walter Albertin, 8 June 1964. No known copyright restrictions