Walt Whitman Returns . . .

This is what you shall do: by Anthony J. Marsella, channeling Walt Whitman

 

This is what you shall do:

Love the earth and sun and the animals,

Despise riches,

Give alms to everyone that asks.“

 

 I.

 Again! Again!

Hate’s fiery cauldron overflows?

No lessons learned.

Battlefield tolls unheeded:

Gettysburg, Manassas, Chancellorsville, Vicksburg?

More than places!

Sacred lands, defiled!

Unshaven old men, pimpled-scarred youth,

Blue or grey, now red!

Bodies lying in heaps . . . or alone,

Limbless, moaning, seared souls,

Dead!

Posterity captured:

Rifles in hand, pistols gripped, swords unsheathed,

Bloodstained rocks, smoldering earth, shattered trees.

Flies gathering to feast,

Buzzing amid charnel,

Reflexively choosing choice sites!

 

II.

 Brave soldiers march to cadenced drums.

Flags wave,

Artillery towed,

Medaled-generals salute,

Parades!

“Charades” . . . I say!

Battles forgotten,

Triumph’s costs denied.

Music and verse:

“Mine eyes have seen the glory . . .”

 “Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton …

                     “Onward Christian soldiers . . .”

      

And in the background,

Still in shadows,

Time unchanged:

“Steal away, steal away; Steal away to . . .

                    “Deeeppp river, Lawd! My home is over Jordan.

 “Illusions . . . delusions,” I say!

Podium, stage, pulpit,

Platforms for death and destruction;

Foundations for domination!

How inadequate Periclean words,

Unfit for all times.

Preserving lies!

Inspiring myths!

Nurturing cultures of war,

Cults of nations,

Food for empire!

 

III.

 Did you not see what I saw?

Endless rows of blood-stained sheets,

Gaunt nurses placating life,

Tears streaming from bedside widows,

Hollow-eyed children begging for bread!

Charred houses,

Broken bridges,

Shattered trees,

Smoldering carcasses,

Stench like no other!

Damn the cannon makers!

Damn the smelters making them!

Damn the voices cheering their firing!

Guiltless;

Blind to their sullied metal fruit,

Deaf to cries,

Distant from shot to crater,

Buffering conscience!

Make them walk brimstone,

Breathe fumes of seared flesh,

Beg for mercy,

Ask respite from hot metal,

Seek relief from scorched earth.

Make them know pain, suffering, death –

Avoided – escaped – denied

Hidden amidst comforts of

Gilded rooms,

Leather chairs,

Polished tables,

Sycophants:

“Sir!”

“No, Sir!”

“Yes, Sir!”

“More, Sir?”

Sherry, Sir?

 

IV.

 What use conscience?

What value brain?

What function heart?

What glory courage . . .

If ignored, denied, separated

From a silent human face.

A face, once admired and prized,

Bursting forth from a mother urging

Her swollen womb;

Grunting . . . screaming

Unfathomable mysteries,

Birthing life!

A face emerges!

Its future inscribed.

 Tear down your crosses, crescents, and angled stars.

You ignore their precepts.

Excuses for madness,

Salve for betrayal,

Gloves for stained hands

Veils for truth!

                          

Fall upon your knees,

Beg forgiveness,

Judas!

Failed prophets!

Flawed angels!

God pretenders!

Stainers of time!

 Mortal art thou, Man!

Blood, bone, sinew!

Seeker!

Mind!

Spirit essence!

V.

Sing the song of life!

Cast seeds upon the land,

Plant trees in barren hills,

Water fallow fields!

 Look to mountains,

Forested woods,

Desert sands,

Mirrored lakes,

Gaze in wonder!

 Inhale air,

Sip water,

Break bread,

Behold skies;

All else is vanity!

                  

Go now!

Walk tortoise paths,

Follow hare tracks,

Eat berries,

Urinate,

Create streams – droplets!

Erase scars of war!

 

All is sacred!

Behold grandeur,

Fill senses with awe –

Failing this,

Know you never lived!

 

At end of day,

Earth will accept your

Crumbled remains,

And . . . try again!

And you will have no choice!

 

and here are the words from Walt Whitman’s Preface to Leaves of Grass (1855):

 “This is what you shall do:

 Stand up for the stupid and crazy,

Devote your income and labor to others,

Hate tyrants, argue not concerning god,

Have patience and indulgence toward the people,

 

Re-examine all you have been told

At school or church or in any book,

Dismiss whatever insults your own soul;

And your very flesh shall be a great poem.”   

 

Comment by Anthony Marsella:

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) is my favorite poet – and in many ways, my favorite humanist. He witnessed the horrors of the American Civil War — its sights, sounds, and smells inspired his commitment to peace. But long before the War, his special senses gave voice and word to the changing world about him.  He captured time and times!

I find life in his every word — each line and verse, a sacred-clarion call to life!  In his words – their pace, stridency, boldness – spring passionate observations, accusations, and visions of hope revealing uncommon and uncompromising courage and wisdom.

I wonder what Walt Whitman would say if he appeared in our time?  I know he would recognize the betrayal of history’s lessons – humanity’s continued infatuation with violence and war.  He would scold us!  Reprimand us!  Remind us solutions are to be found in compassion and connection — not metal.

I wrote a draft of this poem in hours the next morning and early day.  I waited a few days, overwhelmed by my efforts to hear his voice, to channel his presence.  It is best to rest when you awaken the dead.  My words lack the power and grace of Walt Whitman; but I am consoled by the fact, my intention is his!

 

Anthony 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.

 

Do you hear what I hear?

Iraq_war_protest_poster

Photo by Tom Pratt.. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

 

 

 

Every way I turn my head, I hear echoes from 9/11.

What I hear:

Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump. The excited heart of George W. Bush as he envisioned finishing what his father had started and planting Uncle Sam’s big boot on Iraqi oil fields.

No! No! No! The screams of babies, children, mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunts and uncles as they’re being pierced, shattered, and  torn apart by guns, mortars, bombs, and collapsing buildings, courtesy of the U.S. military.

Thud, thud, thud.  Earth and sand being thrown on all those graves.  There in Iraq. Here in the US.

What I don’t  hear:

Triumphant cheers from Iraqi perpetrators of 9/11. And why not? Because Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

The hum of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq—there were no WMDs in Iraq until the US sent its troops.

Can you hear what I hear?

The echoes are getting louder. The reverberations are getting stronger.

Beat.   Beat.   Beat. The sound of the war drums. [http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/06/13-4 ]

               My poet friend Tom Greening [www.tomgreening.com ] has a message that is relevant to all the Americans eager to gear up, flaunt their weapons, increase the Department of Defense budget, refill their pockets, distract people from problems at home, and once again make a bad situation worse:

Waging war is often occupational therapy
for men unsure about their
masculinity and life goals
and deluded about
how best to serve their country.
Patriotism should not be confused
with chauvinism and adolescent posturing.

What do I want to hear?

I want to hear all the anti-war groups, all the anti-violence groups, all the pro-peace groups, all the nonviolence groups join together and just say NO! No troops. No bombing. No more killing.

 

The image in the upper right  of this post is a poster from Arlington West Memorial Project of the Veterans for Peace (Licensed under the Creative CommonsAttribution 2.0 Generic license). Learn more about the Veterans for Peace projects at: http://www.arlingtonwestsantamonica.org/

USA: A culture of violence, Part 3

Final in a series by guest author Dr. Tony Marsella

The foreign policies and actions of the U.S. over the past 100 years are rooted in intentions to control and dominate the international order of nations and cultures. These policies and actions have proven destructive to national and global peace, and have served and empowered the interests of a limited number of individuals and groups.  While announced as intentions to bring democracy and freedom, they have too often resulted in occupation, oppression, and repression of human rights.

An obvious result — visible in virtually every nation caught in our efforts – is the costly growth of a vast US network of:

  • Military bases and operations [more than 900 known foreign bases]
  • Massive fortress embassies/consulates
  • Encampments/prisons/death squads
  • Cultural disintegration and decline.

These networks do not promote cooperation and admiration; rather they encourage instability via reflexive protests, insurrections, rebellions, revolutions, and acts of domestic, state, and international terrorism.

All nations act in their own interests. In a global era, however, selfish national interests result in direct and indirect opposition. Nations in which people feel victimized and humiliated by the U.S. consider revenge as just and appropriate. This creates an endless cycle.

Who benefits from the following examples of U.S. foreign policy and actions?

  • Assassinations/death squads/drones,
  • Celebration of national “morality”/necessity of torture
  • Controlling the UN via vetoes
  • Controlling the IMF and World Bank
  • Development of domestic crowd controls (militarization of police)
  • Disproportionate support of “allies” and enemification of others,
  • Glorification of war and militarism
  • Mass surveillance, monitoring, and archiving of data,
  • Massive government/private intelligence security agencies/organizations
  • Media influence and control
  • Promotion of nationalism/pseudo-patriotism
  • Propaganda and promotion of USA exceptionalism
  • Purchase and installation of pro-American leaders and dictators
  • Recruitment of spies, informers, collaborators, agents
  • Vilification of domestic/international critics
  • Weapons/arms dealer/sales

In both of the articles cited below, and in this post, I argue that we are headed for a “dreadful reckoning” (Grieder’s term) if we do not come to an awareness of the many sources and consequences of violence in our lives, particularly the perpetuation of “cultures of violence” that are sources of endless suffering, destruction, and death.

  •  “The United States of America: A Culture of War” (Marsella, A.J. [2012]. International Journal of Intercultural Research, 35, 714-728.
  • “Nonkilling psychology and lifeism” (Marsella, A.J. (2011). In J. Pim & D. Christie (Eds.) Nonkilling Psychology (pp. 361-378). Honolulu, Hi: Center for Global Non-Violence.

The answer resides in the necessity of non-violent activism to prevent violence. This is the timeless answer of every great peacemaker.

Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Hawaii, November 8, 2012

 

“Give the military whatever they need and more” (Cost of war, Part 2)

[Note from Kathie Malley-Morrison:  Today we continue the series by guest author Neta Crawford. Part 2 picks up on the question of why it so difficult to accurately assess the true costs of war.]

First, there is a tendency to focus on what has been appropriated by Congress specifically for the war, with the consequence that the larger costs of war in Iraq are either missed or downplayed.

Dollars and dollars and dollars
"Artwork" with 20 Dollar Bills by selbstfotografiert, used under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike Unported 3.0 license

Specifically, many tallies focus on Congressional appropriations to the Department of Defense for the Iraq war, most of which were authorized in special emergency or supplemental appropriation, not included in the regular Pentagon “base” budget appropriations.

Others rightly include war related appropriations to the Veterans Administration and the State Department and US Agency for International Development (AID).  One of the most sophisticated of these analyses, by Amy Belasco of the Congressional Research Service (CRS) totals appropriations to Pentagon, State/USAID and the VA at $806 billion from 2003-2011.

But overall Pentagon appropriations and spending increased over the war in large part due to the Congressional desire to give the military whatever they needed and more.

Winslow Wheeler, of the Center for Defense Information, estimates that the base budget increase attributable to both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is more than $600 billion over the last 10 years (whether one counts in current or constant dollars, and that matters).

If Wheeler is right or even right by half, then the share of the increase in base appropriations to the Pentagon that can reasonably attributed to the Iraq war is between $190 billion and $380 billion.

The second reason the official estimates are low compared to what the war will actually cost is the tendency to forget how the Iraq war was financed — almost entirely by deficit spending.  If one calculates the interest on debt for just the Pentagon, State, and VA appropriations, using the amount appropriated according the CRS, for the Iraq war already paid, the total is about $117 billion.

Neta C. Crawford is a Professor of Political Science at Boston University and co-director of the Costs of War study www.costsofwar.org