The Power of Tyranny, the Tyranny of Power

Police in riot gear at Ferguson, MO, protest. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. Author: Jamelle Bouie.

By Kathie MM and Anthony J. Marsella

To begin our new series on Torture, Tyranny, and Terrorizing, Dr. Anthony Marsella shared his perspectives on torture , highlighting the many forms that torture can take, ranging from child abuse through slavery to waterboarding, and murder.

Today we turn our attention to tyranny, defined as the “arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power; despotic abuse of authority.” Power, like torture, is a many-edged sword that can wreak terror and injustice in the hands of a tyrant.

As described by Professor Marsella in Transcend magazine:

  1. “Politics is about the “distribution” of power;
  2. Power is the capacity to effect “change” through control and domination of power sources and distribution;
  3. “Asymmetric” distributions of power risk abuses of individual, group, and nation rights, privilege, and choice;
  4. “Governance” constitutes a structure, organization, and process for monitoring, distributing, and sustaining power;
  5. Vertical “governance” structures and processes are subject to abuse via hierarchical concentrations of power;
  6. Societal population sectors with disproportionate wealth, privilege, and position can establish power “hegemony” (i.e., excessive self-serving influences);
  7. “Hegemonic” power sanctions use of “force” both to maintain control, dominance, and influence, and to preserve the status quo favoring power bases;
  8. “Force” options used by those in power include violence, war, “total” war, assassination, false flags, propaganda, deceit, character defamation, and assassination;
  9. “Absolute” power may be invested in a dictator, secret government, established government-military-corporate-media-educational complex, and/or cabals of undemocratic sources;
  10. “Absolute” power corrupts “absolutely;”
  11. All forms of power corruption result in asymmetric distribution of rights, privileges, and opportunities;
  12. Power corruption is evident in cronyism, bribery, favoritism, secrecy, advantage, force, nepotism, tribalism, and excessive wealth accumulation;
  13. “Absolute” power does not yield readily to public criticism, disapproval, or condemnation;
  14. Legal, ethical, constitutional, and moral codes of power distribution are often “biased” in favor of those in power, resulting in “injustice;”
  15. Power “injustice” abuses result in reactive and compensatory uses of “force” by victims of “injustice,” including protests, rebellion, violence, and “allegations” and “accusations” of “terrorism.”

BUT, resistance to power injustices does not always take the form of reactive force.  In our next post, we will consider the range of options—and forms of power—available to individuals and groups dedicated to resisting abuses of power.

 


Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D., a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and 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. He can be reached at marsella@hawaii.edu.

The complete Transcend article can be found here.

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

The first casualty of the last war, and the next war, and the next

Aeschylus, an Ancient Greek writer of theatrical plays. This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication

Greek writer and poet Aeschylus (525–456 BCE—a very long time ago!) proclaimed that “Truth is the first casualty of war.” Isn’t it just as true in the US as elsewhere that supporters of war try to prove they are in the right, and use lies and distortions to support their position?

And think of the advantages to the military-industrial-media complex of gaining support for a “war on terror” instead of a war only on the selected evil country of the moment.  Given our government’s policies, there are likely always to be a few terrorists around. What a swell way to guarantee a perpetual war with perpetual profits—in money and/or power.

In his Monday post, Dr. Anthony Marsella wrote passionately about how the power structure in the US has used Propaganda, Media Deception and Abuses, and Lies to convince Americans that being dragged along one path of violence after another is not only in their best interests but also the right thing to do.

Once the mainstream corporate media, a strong arm of the power structure, has planted misinformation in people’s minds, it can be a challenge to get those people to rethink their views. (Remember the expression “Don’t confuse me with facts. My mind is made up.”) For example, long after it was well established that Iraq did not have the weapons of mass destruction that were the purported reason for the 2003 US invasion, some people, especially conservatives, continued to insist that the weapons were there.

In order to override misinformation, lies, and propaganda, it is helpful to have the facts  communicated by people who are seen by their audience as having some credibility.  That is why the efforts of anti-war veteran activists to lead us from the path of war to the path of peace are so important.

 Check out the sites for:

Iraq Veterans Against War: http://www.ivaw.org/

Vietnam Veterans Against the War: http://www.vvaw.org/

Veterans for Peace: http://www.veteransforpeace.org/

 And, in particular, listen to this interview with Ross Caputi, a frequent contributor to this blog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7ZwuizScxw

 

Continue reading “The first casualty of the last war, and the next war, and the next”

Operation Shanghai

 

Coalition leaflets threatening punitive consequences of any Iraqi use of anti-aircraft opposition to Coalition bombing of Iraq.

According to the New World Encyclopedia, psychological warfare involves using propaganda or similar methods to demoralize an enemy and ensure victory, possibly without physical violence. Modern examples include the U.S. spreading leaflets over Japan during WWII and more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan

A similar term, psychological operations, is defined by the U.S.  Department of Defense as:“The planned use of propaganda and other psychological actions having the primary purpose of influencing the opinions, emotions, attitudes, and behavior of hostile foreign groups in such a way as to support the achievement of national objectives.”

A glaring omission from these definitions is the extent to which people in power can use “psychological operations” to intimidate and coerce their own people into compliance with their goals.

During WWII, the US government used propaganda leaflets to convince Americans that it was shameful for them to take time off from work  even for a holiday  and that they needed to mistrust everybody.

In olden days and in some parts of the world today, civilians have been kidnapped, beaten, tortured, and forced to fight battles for their kidnappers.  Today, in the US and many other parts of the world, leaders can influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, and behavior of their own people without necessarily using violence to achieve their objectives. Does refraining from violence when pressuring and enticing people into using violence make that coercive influence any less an abuse of power than shanghaiing them?

Is there any valid reason for believing that throwing all of our military might at ISIS will make us or anyone else in the world safer?