“Omnipresent surveillance:” Dystopian society in our global era, Part 2

Sign at the March for Science 2017 in Washington, DC. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. Author: scattered1 from USA

by Anthony J. Marsella, PhD

II.     National security abuses and excesses

“There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice.”
— Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) , The Spirit of Laws, 1748

A. Technologies for omnipresent surveillance

  • Bill-Board photography and monitoring of automobile drivers
  • Airport body scans [“Within the next year or two, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will instantly know everything about your body, clothes, and luggage with a new laser-based molecular scanner fired from 164 feet (50 meters) away. From traces of drugs or gun powder on your clothes to what you had for breakfast to the adrenaline level in your body—agents will be able to get any information they want without even touching you. And without you knowing it.” (Gizmodo, July 10, 2012).
  • Brain wave (EEG) readers
  • Bugs (intrusive car, phone)
  • Bugs (intrusive computer)
  • Collaboration between massive corporations (e.g., Amazon, Face Book, Google) and government agencies (algorithms for sharing information)
  • Drones (Used to photograph, monitor house odors, disable equipment)
  • Facial recognition
  • Finger prints, hand prints, footprints
  • Genetic DNA sampling
  • House-Air Sampling (Drones)
  • Monitoring, copying, and retaining all phone, email, texting communications:
    • Source number,
    • Target number,
    • Time of communication,
    • Date of communication,
    • Precise location of source and target numbers,
    • Record conversation,
    • Archive data in Fusion Centers 
  • Neuroimaging technologies (e.g., CAT, PET, EMR, SPECT, X-Ray) [Medical imaging information gathered via CAT scans, nuclear magnetic resonance, SPECT, and other methods reveal the distinct and unique pattern of electromagnetic radiation (EMR) from your various organs.  Everyone has a distinct pattern, and knowing that pattern makes one vulnerable to specific controls using low radio wave frequencies and other invasive technology methods.  This is especially a source for abuse using brain information.]
  • Radio-Frequency Identification Inserts (RFID)
  • Satellite monitoring
  • Vision data [Vision identification is more accurate than fingerprints. Thus, when you stare into optometric equipment to determine both your visual   equation and your eyes disease, a permanent record is photographed   and maintained.  Whether access to this record can be gleaned or shared willingly remains a question.]
  • Cameras at traffic intersections [The ubiquitous camera at many traffic intersections has already recorded your face and upper body for security reasons. If you wear sunglasses, efforts will be made to affirm your visual identification.]
  • Wire taps (proximal and distal)

B. Sources of information

  • Brain wave (EEG) readers
  • Catholic confessional (bugging & taping)
  • Medical information (EKG, blood tests)
  • Facebook data
  • Fake photos and videos
  • False accusations, requiring court and legal responses
  • Finger print data base
  • Foreign nation surveillance (e.g., USA, UK, China, Russia, Israel)
  • Garbage analysis
  • Google, Amazon, Facebook monitoring
  • License plates readers on streets and highways
  • Neighbor & friends as informants (Project InfraGard)
  • Photographs
  • Political ideology organization surveillance (e.g., AIPAC, Anti-Defamation League, Southern Poverty Legal Fund, Anti-Boycott Laws https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/04/23/us-states-use-anti-boycott-laws-punish-responsible-businesses, White and/or Black, Latino, and Islamic extremists and radical groups)
  • Private Investigators (PI can be ruthless and relentless in acquiring data, bugging cars and phones, planting rumors, calling police, eluding laws.)
  • Project ImfraGardarted by FBI, 1997, Cleveland, Ohio. Involves recruitment of stores, malls, professions, etc. to report on targets.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InfraGard Expands FBI data-gathering system. Numerous sources of information regarding individuals or groups are now available to local, national and foreign security groups via (1) shopping expenditures, (2) restaurant preferences and expenses, (3) hair stylists/barbers conversations, (4) grocery purchases, (5) gasoline purchases, (6) automobile information, (7) travel information, (8) hotel records, (9) publishers, and (10) medical/mental health services.  Yes, what you say to your physician and/or therapist is grist for the mill that has been created.]
  • Pupillometry (eye parameters)
  • Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID)
  • Records acquisition: HIPAA, medical, schools
  • Records: family history, pedigree, family tree mapping
  • Smart and interactive TVs
  • Smart medicines (Track Use)
  • Smart meters (Utility Usage)
  • Store security officials [While you shop, photos are taken, your preferred products identified, your shopping behavior; recall FBI Project InfraGard.]
  • Stingray computer email monitor.. [btains your email from a close distance. Illegal but used by authorities, foreign nations, and suspicious neighbors]
  • Subliminal perception on TV and EMR messages (Can also be used for behavior control)
  • Television program monitoring
  • Use of consultants, collaborators, cooperatives, cronies, informants, plants, shils, and other forms of collusion to gather info, and to assess or create risk for investigation and persecution/prosecution [Think East German STASI.]
  • Use of law (e.g., Section 215 of Patriot Act authorizes FBI to interview friends, family, professionals, and to swear all parties to silence)
  • Video records
  • Window vibration decoding of conversations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_microphone

C. Behavior control and harassment methods

  • Make annoyance phone calls
  • Engage in baiting [monitoring open purses, money on floor, wheel-chair elderly, flirtations to facilitate arrest]
  • Exercise behavior control (Think Manchurian Candidate)
  • Control brain waves
  • Develop and foster hostility for certain groups (e.g., Target Muslims, African-American protest groups, drug cartels)
  • Develop “pseudo” Face Book, Twitter, and other social network services to entrap individuals or groups
  • Distribute drugs (e.g, LSD) causing depression, mania, confusion, dulling, feeling stoned, amnesia
  • Engage in defamation of character
  • Entrap [e.g., use promises of reduced prosecution to get desired information]
  • Abuse the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court) system. [e.g., Designate critics of government or political candidates as individuals warranting FISA Court listing as terrorist, criminal, or spy.
  • Harassment—e.g.,  planting false evidence to facilitate arrest
  • Harassment, abuse, and/or prosecution of whistleblowers
  • Hypnosis
  • Identification implants
  • Infiltration of listservs, media services, groups
  • Informants (e.g., use of prior offense people to entrap)
  • Microwave stun gun (proximate & distance)
  • Rumor planting and monitoring with friends, neighbors
  • Use of paid private investigators to stalk and harass individuals
  • Use of citizens as research subjects (injections, drugs, sprays) without consent (hundreds of examples by government agencies)
  • Use of toxins (e.g., spraying toxic substances)
  • Use of spoiled or toxic foods when shopping. Exchanging similar foods in shopping carts with toxic foods.
  • Misuse of voice recognition systems  (e.g., monitoring, samples and recreating offensive messages)

Data from mass-surveillance technology methods and techniques are distributed to DHS/NSA State Fusion Centers, and a Computer System named AQUAINT, standing for “Advanced Question Answering for Intelligence.”

WORLD ORDER AND DISORDER: THE “GAMES” AND “GAMBLES” OF LIFE AND LIVES ©

Temple of a million years of Rameses II – Ozymandias statue, Luxor, Egypt. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported. Author: Steve F-E-Cameron (Merlin-UK).

More than Nations . . .

by Guest Author Anthony Marsella

Contrary to the widespread myth, nations are not the sole source of massive international political, economic, and social international events, forces, and changes. It is true the story of history is often told with nations as the grand hand behind unfolding events. Reality, however, is very different. Nations are merely one player among many players shaping history each day amid a complex crucible of “games and gambles” serving many interests.

The myth of “nation” determinism is encouraged by a select group of individuals, organizations, and nations who seek to hide their wealth, power, position, and privilege in shaping the world order and disorder. It is to their advantage to function as shadow forces, often beneath the mantle of nations. Their immediate visibility may be hidden, but their influence is profound. The players are displayed in Figure 1.

worldorder
Figure 1

The question must be asked: Can any nation or groups of nations control and dominate the many powerful agencies, organizations, and rogue nations immune or resistant to a nation’s power? Have the times, which nurtured and now sustain, a new array of powers capable of cooperation or contention according to their interests, created a chaotic and desperate dance unresponsive to policies and strategies of control and domination once accepted as successful? A partially visible system now exists, dedicated to the preservation of powerful military-industrial-congressional complex, cited by President Eisenhower in his farewell address (January 17, 1961), as an emerging danger to our nation.

It is assumed nations will pursue the interests of their citizens and state. This too is a myth! What is accurate is certain powerful or rogue nations with access to unlimited military have the capacity to intervene at will to shape the world order through (1) imposed regime changes, (2) invasion and occupation, (3) war, death, destruction, (4) economic and financial controls, (5) sanctions, (6) cultural and religious systems, and (7) many other illegal and immoral policies and actions. Using secretive policies, strategies, and tactics, nations can become shills for private interests. But this Orwellian dystopian situation, relying heavily on military power and private wealth, is now leading the world toward disaster.

In today’s global community, many competing nations, and their hidden shadow groups, have access to military power and might. They also have access to other means of exercising power including economic, historic, moral, religious, and information communication technology (ICT). For the latter, the word and process becomes both a shield and weapon.

I must include “protest groups and factions” because they are present, and exercise some direct and indirect influence. Indeed, responses to these groups and factions (e.g., unions, abolish nuclear groups, Wall-Street protestors, environment activists, peace advocates) often require even more assertions of power and might by those in power. In this respect, the groups and factions are players, albeit often desperate amid their limited numbers and organizational stature.

The World Order: “Games” and “Gambles”

The seductive “games” and “gambles” to control and shape world order has been played for thousands of years by individuals, societies, and “nations.” The prize for winners: Empire! Global domination, control, and wealth! Why? With domination and control comes power to impose selfish interests on conquered people, regions, and societies. A certain “cache” is also sought! Etching the names of individuals, groups, and nations, amid the famous and infamous collection of empire, suggests “immortality.” We may despise those enshrined in history, but we cannot deny they remain alive in memory — now omnipresent in Google.

Even a passing knowledge of world history reveals the pursuit of “empire” has ancient roots (e.g., Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, Aztec, Inca, Ottoman, Mayan). The words of the romantic-era poet, Percy Bysshe Shelly’s (1792-1822), Ozymandias, capture the inevitable demise of empire. But while it lasts, it is an intoxicating and blinding stimulant, feeding heart and mind with the pleasures of adulation and comforts of power:

Ozymandias

I met a traveler from a distant land, who said:
Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . .
Near them, on the sand,
Half-sunk, a shattered visage lies . . .

And on the pedestal these word appear:
My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works ye mighty, and despair!”

Nothing beside remains
Round the decay of that colossal wreck,
Boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

The Pursuit of Empire

The pursuit of empire continues! Ozymandias embody the tragic impulse and result. Power, its inevitable rise and fall! No lessons learned! Only the deceptive rush of visions immune to reason! Empire remains the quest for nations and their private supporters seeking protection and opportunity. Empire is no longer confined to a sovereign state or nation. There are too many competing players. Most are unwilling to yield to a single supreme authority, but eager to use its mantle to pursue their interests.

As Figure 1 displays, the players in the “games” and “gambles” for world order and disorder, sow and protect their seeds. How can a sovereign nation control diverse powers having no loyalty to nation, but loyalty only to their own existence and security? Amid their privacy, they too often escape condemnation, but they too must know “empire” passes. Privatization, the preferred policy of the neo-liberal and neo-con establishments, provides an omnipresent petard on which to fall.

Conspiracy? Of Course . . .

Is conspiracy present? Yes! Conspiracy is an attempt to hide, conceal, veil, or secrete actual events and forces from recognition. Conspiracies exist to serve special interests, contrary to interests and welfare of others. Conspiracies use an array of methods and tactics to elude attention, lest the methods and tactics be recognized as immoral, illegal, and dishonest or criminal. Recall, the villainous lies, deceit, and abuses used by the Bush-Cheney government to invade Iraq, and cast the Middle-East into flames: Iraq has nuclear weapons; we must use torture to obtain information; a global war on terrorism is necessary. With their actions, they indicted our nation, embedding us in endless war. Citizens became co-conspirators by our passive agreement (See Abby Martin interview with Lt. Colonel Wilkerson, former assistant to General Colin Powell, who was tricked into claiming Iraq had nuclear weapons (see http://fktv.is/the-classic-decay-of empires-us-army-colonel-lawrence-wilkerson-27480). Wilkerson points out the massive deceit used by a small group with access to power to launch the USA into a “total” global war.

The ubiquitous iconic “back room” of politics is not a myth! It exists and functions to maintain public ignorance, under the guise the public does not need to know, for it would not understand what we must do. The conspirators: En loco parentis! We act for your welfare by protecting our welfare. “Trust us! Trust us! If you do not, do not stand in our way!

What tragedy! What a betrayal! What a despicable effort. This effort continues across the spectrum of “players” involved in the “games” and “gambles” of world order and disorder! The players have the political, economic, and military power to continue the “games” and “gambles.” They lack only moral justification. A tangled web of deceit!

Table 1 offers a list of policies and actions used by the world order players. It is frightening! These are not limited to nations or governments. They have become part of the options available to private individuals, groups, and commercial organizations. This is what is so frightening and dangerous! The foe and their methods escape visibility and prosecution. The justice systems normally relied upon to keep order and to protect, are part of the problem. There is an unbounded flow of mutual connections across the nations and groups via common board members, financial supporters, and shared visions of morality.

Table 1:

Policies, Actions, and Alternatives (Alphabetized)
In Support of Nation and Other Organization Aims and Goals

  • Assassinations/death squads/drones;

  • Bounties for info/capture, and assassination;

  • Bribery, purchase, and installation of pro-American leaders and dictators;

  • Celebration of national “morality” in the face of evil acts;

  • Collaboration/contracts with foreign universities, scientists, professional organizations, and intelligence agencies defaming their character;

  • Contingent “humanitarian” aid – implicit and explicit;

  • Contingent “foreign” aid;

  • Control of UN via vetoes and economic and political pressures;

  • Control of IMF and World Bank;

  • Cooperation with foreign nation security services (e.g., military, intelligence, corporations);

  • Development of domestic crowd controls (militarization of police);

  • Drones(Widespread use of drones by domestic/national groups and agencies);

  • Drug wars. Corruption of local officials;

  • Disproportionate support of “allies.” Enemification of others;

  • Entrapments of targeted individuals and groups – persons of interest;

  • Establishment of military bases [more than 700 known USA foreign bases];

  • Exportation of unpopular American culture (i.e., consumerism, materialism, commodification, competition, crony capitalism, corruption, celebritization)

  • False flag operations disguised military and/or economic interventions/invasions);

  • Foreign student/faculty/consultant exchanges (used for intelligence recruitment);

  • Fund development of disguised/pseudo-organizations used for national military and security purposes (e.g. Human Ecology Fund, ONR, AID);

  • Glorification of war, militarism, warrior mentalities and images, machismo;

  • Hegemonic globalization (i.e., control of socio-technical changes and economy);

  • Infiltration of peace, anti-war groups, and social activist organizations;

  • Invasion and overthrow, including regime change;

  • Justification of torture (“enhanced interrogation”);

  • Mass surveillance, monitoring, and archiving of info/communication data;

  • Massive growth in government/private intelligence agencies and organizations;

  • Media influence and control via biased news and biased news commentators;

  • Military interventions and occupation of nations and regions;

  • Mind control technologies (e.g., drugs, EMR, behavior control technologies);

  • Negotiation/conflict resolution delays are now policy;

  • No Prosecution of connected military, government, civilian law violators/abusers;

  • Military occupation of foreign nations, regions, and cities;

  • Promotion of nationalism, pseudo-patriotism, USA exceptionalism;

  • Project for a New American Century (Developed to insure USA Hegemony);

  • Project Infra Guard (Collaboration between FBI and hundreds of thousands of businesses in USA to report on citizens resulting in creation of mass list of citizens with no opportunity for contesting surveillance. (Every mall and every store provides video and other personal information;

  • Propaganda to instill citizen fear, and vilification of individuals and groups;

  • Recruitment of spies, informers, collaborators, agents among friends, neighbors. The best spy is a person who doesn’t now they are a spy, but in fact, as they share information on neighbors, friends, and family, the information is collected and archived;

  • Renditions in numerous countries;

  • Use surrogate nations and forces to accomplish military goals;

  • Use false-flag incidents;

  • Use major philanthropic foundations to influence policy and actions;

  • Vilification, demonization, enemification of domestic and/or international critics;

  • Weapons/arms dealer sales for money, and for promoting conflicts;

  • Witness protection programs.

What an array of possibilities! In a world of lawlessness, anything goes, and does! We remain in shock at the destructive events occurring across the world. Yet we too often ignore these events as consequences of the protected policies and actions of nations, individuals, private organizations, engaged in protecting their interests. Millions of lives and life are lost oblivious to the sorrow and grief exacted. Protected from harm, the perpetrators of harm are engage in the “games” and “gambles” of world order and disorder. To what end?

This essay was originally posted by Transcend Media Service, December 17, 2015; reprinted with permission.

Anthony J. Marsella, PhD, is emeritus professor of psychology, University of Hawaii, and former president of Psychologists for Social Responsbility (http://www. psysr.org). His recent publications include Marsella, A.J. (2012). Globalization and psychology. Journal of Social Issues, 68, 454-472; and Marsella, A.J. (2011). Nonkilling psychology and lifeism: I am what am. In J. Pim & D. Christie (Eds.), Nonkilling Psychology (pp. 361-378). Honolulu, HI: Center for Global Non-Violence.

 

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Reflections on Witnessing the Republican Presidential Candidate Debate

Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg, Richard Coeur de Lion à la bataille de Saint-Jean d’Acre, New Walk Museum and Art Gallery, Leicester
Image by Ji-Elle and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

By guest author Anthony J. Marsella

(December 15, 2015 – CNN TV – Las Vegas, Nevada)

I sat and watched, speechless, at what was unfolding before me. Billed as a debate of potential presidential candidates, I expected — hoped — the candidates and CNN would respond to the gravity of the event by producing educated and informed discussions and disagreements of global and national challenges and solutions. What emerged was a display of personal insults, character assaults, and offensive remarks more often found in testosterone-stench locker rooms.

What occurred was a CNN-produced “theatrical” display of inept potential leaders of our nation pandering to media-hype, and to endorsements of hate-filled agendas designed to brutally persecute and murder human lives nationally and across the world. Could this be happening? Was this what was celebrated as a display of democracy? “Demoncracy,” I say!

I understood! This was nothing more than a ratings-driven and profit-making entertainment spectacle for those seeking an affirmation of media-fed stereotypes and minds closed by anger, fear, and frustration. This was a “Joseph Goebbels-like propaganda creation.” Recall: Joseph Goebbels was Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda in Nazi Germany. He sought to prepare Germany for “total war.” Who is in charge here?

What a shameless display of ignorance! What guilt-free and conscienceless display of murderous impulses! What an egregious display of Judeo-Christian morality! What a humiliating display of the moral-less pursuit of power and position! What a tragic display of American cultural decline, shown to the world in a theatrical format insulting the very word “democracy.” What a depressing display of the collapse of America’s noble heritage, now embraced and controlled by bigots under the guise of salvation and apocalyptic-visions.

How can it be we find ourselves faced with such choices in national and international leadership? To what do we attribute the sheer insanity of justifiable murder and destruction without recognizing our own culpability in generating the very foes we now seek to “erase” from existence? Has the media we once relied upon to provide us an educated awareness of our political and economic limitations and faults become a partner in our demise? Could they be ignorant of their power and responsibility to shape opinion through biased and prejudiced information, posing as accurate and factual news?

I am no longer surprised at the appalling events and forces greeting each day as we head for global disaster, led by the preservation of American interests. These interests are not those of the nation we recall as the hope and light of the world for freedom and liberty. These interests serve chosen and selected individuals, groups, societies, and nations consumed by consumption, oblivious to the consequences of their assault on life in all its forms, wedded to material comforts and conveniences at the loss of their very identity as intelligent, compassionate, and wisdom carriers.

Consider the trade-offs voiced by the near morally-impaired candidates vying to lead the once most powerful world nation. Hark to their responses: (1) we must have mass surveillance and monitoring of all citizen information because this will enable us to protect ourselves from danger; (2) we must carpet bomb our enemies without consideration of innocence; (3) we must build borders with fences — north and south, east and west – protected by fortress walls and deadly traps, to stop desperate people from entering our obviously sacred land; (4) we must build intelligence gathering systems of such scope and magnitude that privacy for all citizens is obliterated; (5) we must turn to warrior generals and a military might of such proportion that death will be welcomed by our foes to escape the suffering of witnessing their families destroyed; (6) we must violate very known international, legal, moral, and religious code in defense of our people and land, even as we know this defense will create an endless supply of domestic and international “terrorists,” bent on our inevitable destruction from the sheer madness pf our policies and methods; (7) we must think first of ourselves – our citizens, culture, and (unspoken: corrupt and crony) political and economic system, designed to preserve the security of the (unspoken: a few hundred individuals) wealthy citizens who guard their wealth in off-shore accounts legally eluding taxation because the lower classes are undeserving of largesse.

Need I go on with this sorrowful dirge, this “We must” trope, pandering to the audience of citizens who feel their heritage of position and privilege is threatened now by the growing omnipresent and omnipotent non-white and non-Christian strangers from distant lands with dark skins, bearded and covered faces, slanted eyes, strange accents, and strange gods now visible in every school, store, restaurant, and hospital.

Can you not see the threat they pose, our potential leaders cry? Their values, dress, and foods are taking over! Mexican, Indian, Chinese, and African numbers in moderation was fine! But not in the numbers now present! They will dominate the population by 2030! We must take back our country!”

I ask: Whose country? When did a nation’s rights and privileges trump (no pun intended) the value of human lives and welfare? Has the United States forgotten the enormous contributions of immigrants to its land? Look at the celebrated figures in science, education, entertainment, culture, and accumulated knowledge and wisdom? Jews, Italians, Chinese, Indians, Poles! Look again, ,  Ari! Who made America great, if it ever was great without imposing victimhood?

The idealistic aspirations of the talented founding fathers soon yielded to abuses of shocking proportion: genocides of American Indians, enslavement of African Americans, dominations of indigenous people, invasions and colonization of the Philippines, Cuba, Central and South America. The list of faults and flaws is endless. We deformed and sullied initial aspirations in favor of selfish and avaricious needs.

As a nation, we pursued empire, stocking the world with more than 900 military bases, overthrowing elected governments, replacing them with purchased lackeys, invading nations to impose our will, killing millions in the process! We and our allies seized the unfolding changes brought by trans-border technologies (e.g., transportations, ownership, finances, communication, treaties) known as globalization, and immediately turned them into our control — a hegemonic globalization – abusing the emerging global interdependencies in favor of selfish national commercial interests.

Is this what we seek to preserve? Is this what we hold before us as national pride? Is this what we think of when we sing a national anthem so ingrained with violence it affirms the glory of wars, charging our souls with a flood of exploding bombs. Is this what the media entertainment program, billed as a presidential debate, was designed to address? If so, what a failure of candidates, vision, and conscience!

I heard only “crusaders” justifying violence in the name of god and country . . . a regression to medieval notions of good and bad, to wars for a Judeo-Christian God, who must be crying at the continued ignorance of his believers. Hymns, anthems, white everywhere, an Anglo-Saxon Jesus legitimizing violence, camouflage clothing and minds, weapons in every pocket and bra, beer cans, fast cars, computer-salvation in algorithms absent any moral code, tumbling numbers and symbols yielding an ersatz wisdom at the cost of billions of dollars and compromised minds.

Consider this reality: (1) corporations have equal or more rights than individuals, and pay fewer taxes; (2) off-shore bank accounts harbor hundreds of billions of dollars; (3) our military expenditures exceed those of all other countries; (4) poverty levels are rising to new heights; (5) foreign and domestic lobbyists dominate government policies and actions; (5) lawlessness has become endemic as “moral” and “legal” codes model justification of any act by those in power; (6) education systems are rife with failure, blaming schools, administrators, teachers, students, and buildings, but not the very daily culture of our society. There is no need to continue.

What have we become? Oh my God! Can we have any pride in what we have become? Can we escape this emerging fate sealing us now in body and mind behind walls of concrete and minds of porous space? What can be done? I do not know! I had a different vision of the Republican Presidential Debate.

The process and steps I wanted? I imagined a truth and reconciliation process with the following steps:

1. Confession: I envisioned each candidate falling on their knees and confessing our nation’s faults, and uttering “Mea culpa – mea maxima culpa! I apologize for what we and I have done! I apologize for accepting and promoting the lies and deceit we accepted – strategic communications – lies to serve a purpose.

  1. Forgiveness: I wanted each candidate to ask for forgiveness from the world’s people. I wanted each candidate to beg for forgiveness for what we have done in endless egregious in acts and consequences. We have killed, tolerated, endorsed, authorized, and permitted murder by us and our allies. Forgive us! Forgive us! Forgive us!

  1. Restitution: I imagined each candidate advancing an agenda for healing the world: economic programs, educational supports, legal and justice systems, condemnations of violence, support for peace, changes in government policies and institutions, and on and on. Costs? Less than our military budgets, less than accumulated government waste, less than failed programs, and on and on.

The result: The beginning of a new era of global cooperation with hope, integrity, individual and collective worth, and the discovery of the possibilities of life. Reform! Rebirth! Renewal! Renaissance!

If not: “We reap what we sow!” More deaths and destruction! We become consumed with the fear fostered, and only gun dealers, war mongers, and hate-filled demented continue to thrive. Terrorism is an ancient act! Terrorism was present as Jewish zealots assassinated Roman soldiers in ancient Palestine. They sought escape from oppression and abuse, insults to their religion and way-of-life. Terrorism has been present throughout history, arising whenever a group of people believe they no longer have legal and non-violent options for correcting injustice. Terrorism by individuals, groups, and nations (i.e., state terrorism) is alive and well? Why?

At what point do we as a nation acknowledge we have helped create the tragedy of terrorism by our own actions — policies serving our selfish needs and those of a few allies. For this we have thrown the world into chaos and disarray! We cannot continue imposing our will and interests on the world without consequence. Think! Hate begets hate! Nuclear weapons now proliferate.

This essay was originally posted by Transcend Media Services, December 17, 2015; reprinted with permission.

Anthony J. Marsella, PhD, is emeritus professor of psychology, University of Hawaii, and former president of Psychologists for Social Responsbility (http://www. psysr.org). His recent publications include Marsella, A.J. (2012). Globalization and psychology. Journal of Social Issues, 68, 454-472; and Marsella, A.J. (2011). Nonkilling psychology and lifeism: I am what am. In J. Pim & D. Christie (Eds.), Nonkilling Psychology (pp. 361-378). Honolulu, HI: Center for Global Non-Violence.

ajmarsella@gmail.com