mass extermination – Engaging Peace

Anti-nuclear arms protesters display a banner during the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance (OREPA) rally at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. April16,2011. Author: Brian Stansberry

By Anthony Marsella

Here is a straightforward list of actions and policies to promote peace amidst the madness of pursuing destruction and war for the apparent rewards of empire, economic, and delight in immorality and illegality.

Productive Foreign Policy and Domestic Options, Choices, Alternatives: Paths to Peace and Social Justice

Acknowledge the national security of the USA is best secured by pursuing and modeling peace, not by engaging in constant accusations and enemification of nations, cultures, religions, and people;
Address and resolve domestic inequities and inequalities in wealth, power, and position. Create new policies for equity and opportunity;
Address and limit monopolies (e.g., Big Agro, Big Pharm, Big Health, Big Transportation, Big Education, etc.) because these monopolies concentrate power, and they become impossible to control – “Too big to fail.”
Address the reality of USA decline in reputation and image by stopping the pursuit of a global empire;
Adopt a “Never Again” policy and practices for all countries, by all countries. “Never again” must not be limited to a single group or nation;
Apologize and ask for forgiveness in a public forum. Express intention to no longer pursue violence and war as national policy;
“Be the nation you want others to be;”
Build museums, monuments, holidays, and tributes to peace. Stop glorification of war;
Cease all vilification of Muslims and Muslim nations;
Condemn and prosecute apartheid;
Choose and support non-violent and non-killing protests and social changes;
Circulate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) to all schools and governments as an accepted guide;
Close Guantanamo, and other “war on terrorism” prisons, camps, and rendition sites;
Destroy all weapons of mass destruction Nuclear, Toxic, Gas, etc);
Develop Department of Peace as an official standing cabinet office separate from State or Defense Departments;
Develop a metric to assess and prosecute USA international abuses and crimes;
Develop metrics to assess USA contributions to advancing humanity and the natural sectors. Assess metrics constantly;
Develop, implement, and empower UN conflict resolution office;
Develop ethic/ethos of global interdependency;
Diplomacy dialogue, rather than military force or violent interventions;
Educate women and children, and re-educate men;
Empower UN, and improve its functions and roles;
End corporate political election influence, control, and dominance;
End global surveillance and restore privacy and constitutional rights;
Increase governmental transparency and accountability;
International loan forgiveness;
Join and cooperate with international courts;
Limit “imperial” president powers as reflected in abuses of signing statements;
Limit lobbyist influence and control of public offices;
Limit Presidential terms of office to six years;
Limit Congressional terms of office to eight years. End seniority system of power;
Limit military-industrial-congressional- education complex powers;
Non-Contingent humanitarian aid and assistance, rather than contingent aid;
Practice humility, apology, and forgiveness;
Prosecute American war and military crimes to national and international laws;
Public apology for violent and destructive national and international policies and actions (e.g. NATO);
Reconsider political and economic treaties that isolate and marginalize nations (e.g., TPP) and seek hegemonic control (e.g., Russia, China);
Resist military solutions to conflicts and disagreements – choose diplomacy;
Restore balance of power across executive, congressional, and justice sectors. Dominance of the executive branch under the auspices of protecting national security has been abused, and has proven a failure and crime;
Restorative justice to victims;
Restrict central banking model of financial control over nations’ debt;
Review immediate and long-term consequences of DHS/NSA Abuses;
Stop “for profit” prisons, and their associated judicial corruption;
Speak truth, do not distort or exaggerate, practice transparency;,
Use “Justice” as an arbiter for decisions;

From: A.J.Marsella (2014).Two Paths in the Wood: “Choice” of Life or War. First published in Transcend, 27 October 2014. TRANSCEND MEMBER

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 guided bomb unit-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb prototype is shown in a weapons test moments before impact. The detonation created a mushroom cloud that could be seen 20 miles away. March 11, 2003. In the public domain. Author: U.S. Air Force

by Kathie MM

Uh, oh, the war drums are echoing around this country, as bombs drop in Syria and Iraq, in Yemen, and horrifyingly with the mother of all bombs in Afghanistan.

My response to the beating of those war drums is to urge you to read and share this excerpt from an essay by Anthony J. Marsella on total war. Scroll down for the excerpt. You can find the complete essay here.

” CODA. “

“It is WRONG — morally, ethically, legally — for any nation or people to pursue political, economic, and/or cultural interests, security, and safety by openly or insidiously imposing on any other nation or people, a form of political, economic, culture (e.g., values, religion, language), and/or military invasion, occupation, and control, serving to colonize, oppress, and dominate this nation or people by any and all means which limit their rights, liberties, and freedom of self-determination.

“These are my words; but THEY are not words solely of my making. These words, and the thoughts they embody and represent, appear in timeless historical documents inspired by many noble sources, including: (1) Founding documents of nations (e.g., Declaration of Independence); (2) Global organization statements (Universal Declarations of Human Rights – UDHR); (3) Statements of human aspirations for justice, dignity, freedom (e.g., The Montpelier Manifesto; Magna Carta, Gettysburg Address); (4) Liberation leaders and writers (e.g., Martin Luther Ling, Jr., Frederick Douglas, Paulo Freire, Ignacio Martin-Baro, Malcom X, Susan B. Anthony, Franz Fanon); and (5) Scores of anti-war and anti-violence advocates, who have sacrificed their lives in service to humanity and life.

“The coda speaks to the timeless human impulse for self-determination, and to resist oppression. At the heart of the coda is an abiding determination to resist domination by foreign powers seeking to subdue, subjugate, and eliminate resistance, by any and all means. This domination strategy is known as “total war.”

“Total War”

“Total War” is not restricted to the USA. It is a timeless strategy designed to defeat a targeted population through the use of any and all means. While “Total War” may initially give priority to military warfare over destruction of civilian and civil society survival needs, it can, however, easily morph into ethnic cleansing, mass extermination, and genocide. Recall how early American settlers and the USA engaged in the extermination Native American Indians via small pox infestations, starvation, famine, assassinations of leaders, uprooting of homelands, and punitive forced marches. Consider also the tragic consequences of USA “total war” on Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Middle-East nations.”

by Anthony J. Marsella

When you read these powerful words, what do you want to do? The US has shown humanitarian impulses in the past, thereby strengthening rather than weakening national security–as in helping the AXIS nations rebuild after World War II. Recently, a bipartisan group of Congressmen have petitioned Trump to put on the brakes regarding his planned expansion of war in Yemen and there are hunger strikers at UN headquarters.

DON’T JUST SILENCE THE DRUMS. REPLACE THEM WITH RATIONALITY, GOOD SENSE, EMPATHY, A DESIRE TO PRESERVE LIFE ON EARTH.

HERE IS A GOOD PLACE TO START:

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