Civilized, Barbarians, Savages, Part 3

By Antonio C. S. Rosa

Caricature of Darwin’s theory in the Punch almanac for 1882. In the public domain.

The three pillars of high finance and international movers are:

  1. oil,
  2. armaments (legal and illegal),
  3. drugs (legal and illegal).

International capitalism has become hopelessly dependent on the activities of organized crime, in fact adopting its Modus Operandi.

Government officials are hostage to their complicity with lobbies. The mafia entered the system and imposed its ethics. This state of affairs is not resolved with terrorism, but with radical changes not only in the paradigms of economic, political and social structures, but also and especially in the minds, in the individual consciences/consciousnesses that are beget in the womb of reality. We are the builders of our own realities–from the personal to the collective.

Need for an Alternative

For each Hitler there is a Gandhi. For each Trump there is a Nelson Mandela. For each Bolsonaro or Boris there is a Luther King. Those who are not part of the solution are, by necessity, part of the problem in a world with a record population of 8 billion interdependent beings where everyone affects everyone and nobody is an island. We represent a colony on earth—not a globalization construct, not merely numbers, statistics or resources to be exploited.

It is undeniable that societies classified as Civilized, First World or Developed, led by the USA and the West but spread throughout, retain the reins of world markets, politics, economics and culture, being the main producers of weapons, technology, science and atmospheric pollutants as well as wealth (or poverty, depending on the viewpoint) and materialistic values. As such, they also retain the greater share of responsibility for the misery that spreads throughout the so-called Third World. After the fragmentation of the former Soviet Union, the number of members of the underdeveloped has increased, not because poverty has expanded, but because the labels have changed places. In English, there is a rhyme: the West and the Rest.

We need a viable alternative–more benign–to the ‘trickle down’ economy, more aptly named ‘trickle up,’ which slowly and inexorably corrodes and erodes the spirit of nobility in everyone’s character, whether labeled or believed to be civilized, barbaric or savage. We become slaves to the monster we believe in, our Leviathan. The so-called Capitalist/Protestant ethics is outrageous, ignominious. God is not the God of the affluent, white people. This is an incongruity, heretic, unadulterated primitivism.

Our mental paradigm must change, both individually and collectively, towards cooperation, nonviolence, conflict resolution by peaceful means, and sharing–with equity and reciprocity–of the planet’s resources, instead of lethal competition for them; passing through the elimination of sick nationalisms and sociopathic and homicidal patriotisms that kill legally en masse. Our mental constructions must be modified by ourselves, by education, and not by the state. If there were no soldiers logically there would be no wars as generals do not fight each other. We must achieve a degree of civilization that does not require authority, police, justice, militarism or weapons of any type or size for collective control and destruction. Replaced by social servants, leaders. Utopia? I believe not; if we work for it.

United in our diversity and accepting our differences instead of dividing us into races, we may, in any future, acquire a Consciousness of Civilized Beings–and act on it. Without this shift in consciousness any other meaningful change is unlikely as Darwin’s myopic and ethnocentric theory will continue to influence our lives, private and public, and our spiritual (not religious) evolution.

I recommend the works of Prof. Johan Galtung.

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Antonio C. S. Rosa

Antonio Carlos da Silva Rosa (Antonio C. S. Rosa), born 1946, is founder-editor of the pioneering Peace Journalism website, TRANSCEND Media Service-TMS (from 2008), an assistant to Prof. Johan Galtung, Secretary of the International Board of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, and recipient of the Psychologists for Social Responsibility’s 2017 Anthony J. Marsella Prize for the Psychology of Peace and Social Justice. He is on the Global Advisory Board of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies and completed his B.A., M.A., and graduate Ph.D. work in the fields of Communication-Journalism and Political Science-Peace Studies/International Relations at the University of Hawai’i. Originally from Brazil, he lives presently in Porto, Portugal. Antonio was educated in the USA where he lived for 20 years; in Europe-India since 1994. Books: Transcender e Transformar: Uma Introdução ao Trabalho de Conflitos (from Johan Galtung, translation to Portuguese, 2004); Peace Journalism: 80 Galtung Editorials on War and Peace (2010, editor); Cobertura de Conflitos: Jornalismo para a Paz (from Johan Galtung, Jake Lynch & Annabel McGoldrick, translation to Portuguese, 2010). TMS articles by Mr. Rosa HERE. Videos HERE and HERE.

Where it all begins, Part 1

By Kathie MM

Most children, in this country and much of the rest of the world, have been subjected to considerable verbal and psychological violence, and often physical violence, by the age of two—and it may only get worse. The “terrible twos” often means terrible treatment.

Toddlers are routinely yelled at, sworn at, called names, threatened. They are shaken, slapped on the hands or buttocks, sometimes slapped in the face, spanked, sometimes hit with switches, kicked, beaten—and all of these things may happen in what people think of as “good homes.”

Given the level of violence in families, it should not be surprising that in day care and nursery schools, children are heard yelling, “I hate you, I’m going to kill you!” They don’t need to watch TV to learn these messages.

Robert J. Burrowes has written passionately about the likely outcomes of violence against children.

Here is an example of what he has to say:

“The man who inflicts violence on women was damaged during childhood. The white person who inflicts violence on people of colour was damaged during childhood. The employer who exploits workers was damaged during childhood.

The individual who endorses the state violence inflicted on indigenous peoples was damaged during childhood. The terrorist, the political leader who wages war and the soldier who kills in our name were all damaged during childhood.

The person who supports structures of violence (such as the military, police, legal and prison systems) was damaged during childhood.

The person who supports structures of exploitation (such as capitalism and imperialism) was damaged during childhood. The person who thoughtlessly participates in destruction of the natural environment was damaged during childhood.”

What do you think of Burrowes’ argument?

Do you have other explanations for this country’s high level of engagement in violence?

Clearly poverty and racism can also damage children but hordes of violent people are reapers rather than victims of those social ills. If we really want to reduce violence in and by our country, we better play closer attention to what we do in our homes.

Please share your views.

Ain’t Gonna Finance War No More!

Larry Bassett and his mother in front of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn, 1985.

by Larry Bassett

I have happily just passed the nine-month mark of my first year of massive resistance. I mark this new beginning of my life on June 11 with the death of my father and with my commitment to redirect as much of my inheritance as possible to make a better world.

Dad left me $1 million with instructions to distribute about half of it to grandchildren and great grandchildren and special others. I did that and set to work on my half.

My commitment to civil disobedience in honor of my mother who became a criminal for peace in her later years is acted out in my case with war tax resistance. I will resist the $128,005 I owe in federal income tax next month. I will have donated more than that amount to meet human needs internationally and nationally and locally.

To honor my father and mother, I am trying to do as they did many times in their lives in trying to directly help the less fortunate. They were brave and compassionate by giving money and offering a place to stay in their home and loaning other personal goods.

My parents found that helping others was not always free of risk. People who were ill and without resources sometimes took advantage of them. But my parents knew that they had much and others had little.

Since I live in the Internet age, I have had a much broader range of people in need. While I have given to many charities, I have also tried in a very small way to help some individuals in Haiti and Kenya and Uganda who had little compared to me, who had been left with so much by my father.

My effort with individuals has taught me a lot about the desperation of poverty. I have often remembered my first job out of college working with the poor in Pontiac, Michigan. Back then I came to the conclusion that what the poor need most is money. So when I found the international charity GiveDirectly that gives cash to the extremely impoverished in East Africa, I knew I had found an Organization that I wanted to support significantly.

My mother once spent 30 days in jail for merely “crossing the line” at a plant in Michigan that produced a part of a missile. What she learned from that experience was that the women who shared her jail cell were poor and black. She learned that the justice system needed reform.

The government learned and continues to learn that the biggest result of putting peace and justice people in jail is that they are creating people who diligently work to change the system.

I do not know what the justice system will do when I refuse to pay my federal taxes in April. I am a little bit scared of what they might do just as I was scared in 1985 when they took me to court. But sometimes as my parents knew, and as they taught me by their example. you have to do what you have to do.

As I write this post, I am remembering her and my father with pride just as they were proud of me back then.

Larry Bassett is a peace activist and son of peace activists; he has worked for the Conscience and Military Tax Campaign (CMTC), National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC), and National Campaign for a Peace Tax Campaign (NCPTF  You can learn more about him at facebook.  To read the story of his successful confrontation with the IRS, go here  To read an inspiring set of quotes that he has assembled regarding war, peace, government, humanity, etc., go here .