Here’s the facts, ma’am. Just the facts, sir. The crushingly vivid facts are available, but you don’t see them on the corporate media. Those media serve the military-industrial complex, and the military-industrial complex benefits from death and destruction. You don’t. Nobody does in the long run.
Please watch the trailer again and again and ask yourself, “Can I really do nothing? Can I turn a blind eye on the carnage my government is perpetrating in my name, in the phony names of peace and democracy? Can America be great while allowing a few powerful interests to profit from the murder of innocent men, women, and children elsewhere?” There is absolutely no moral justification for what is being done.
Watch the trailer. Find and watch the whole film. Forward the links. Search for the voices of peace. Fight despair. Identify and support the voices of peace. Vote for the advocates of peace, the opponents of war. You can do it and sleep better at night.
And if you need more facts, read Andrew Bacevich’s America’s War for the Greater Middle East. Facing the facts is a bitter pill to swallow but if we don’t all take our medicine, the murderous epidemic being spread by the people in power who control our country and its resources will envelop everyone.
Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service
For Memorial Day USA – 29 May 2017
What more can be said of war
That has not already been said,
That has not already been written,
That has not already been sung in song,
Recited in verse, shared in epic tales?
What more can be said of war
That has not already been committed to screen,
In iconic movies with legendary actors,
Fighting and dying in glory amidst waving flags,
Or in heralded documentaries, carefully
Edited with photos, letters, poignant words
Of lament spoken, amid haunting tunes?
What more can be said of war
That has not already been sculpted in marble,
Painted on canvases,
Photographed in black and white,
And vivid color,
Revealing blood is red, bone is white,
Death is endless.
What more can be said of war
That has not already been inscribed in minds and bodies
Of soldiers who survived,
Civilians who endured,
Prisoners captive to trauma,
Scars visible and invisible?
What more can be said of war
That has not already been carved
On ordered granite gravestones,
In national cemeteries, honoring sacrifice,
Their death veiled in shade and sunlight?
What more can be said of war
That has not already been said about heroes and villains,
Soldiers and generals,
Warriors and misfits,
Freedom fighters and terrorists,
Victims and collateral damage,
Apologies and reparations?
What more can be said of war,
That has not already been said about
Glorious and evil causes,
Lusts for power and control,
Access to wealth and resources,
Messianic responsibilities, moral duties,
Domination . . . ascendancy . . . Revenge?
What more can be said of war
That has not already been eulogized
On fields of battle,
Where lives were lost, minds seared,
And historians’ crafts polished
With the biased narratives of victors:
Waterloo, Hue, Fallujah?
There is no winner in war!
And why, if so much has been
Spoken, written, and engraved,
Why do the lessons of war,
Continue to be ignored, denied, distorted?
And now . . . Syria?
______________________________________
I wrote this poem in the course of two days as I witnessed the tragedy of death and suffering in Syria, bewildered again and again, by the endless uses of so many death technologies. I was dismayed by a score of nations pursuing selfish interests, engaging in ethnic and tribal cleansing and genocide. We are living with endless war. Nothing more can be said about war. Violence begets violence, war begets war! No cries of noble responsibilities to protect and defend from either side are sufficient or warranted. They are merely part of the tactics, strategies, and policies sustaining war. Who benefits from war?
This poem was first published in TRANSCEND Media Serviceon September 2, 2013. The poem is also included in two of volumes I have published: Marsella, A.J. (2014). Poems across time and place: A journey of heart and mind. Alpharetta, GA: Aurelius Press, Pages 63-65; Marsella, A.J. (2014). War, peace, justice: An unfinished tapestry. Alpharetta, GA: Aurelius Press, Pages 55-57. The poem may be circulated.
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.
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 29 May 2017.
Note from Kathie: Wherever possible, we attempt on this blog to provide psychological perspectives on violence and nonviolence. Today, we share this slightly condensed Open Letter from Canadian Psychologists regarding Donald Trump’s travel ban.
“We as Canadian professors of psychology and practitioners condemn the executive order signed on January 27, 2017, to ban people from specific countries from entering the U.S. We also condemn the right wing rhetoric, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, and xenophobic actions that are dominating political discourse in the U.S. and some European countries.
[We] believe that the following principles have been well-established:
1. When people feel secure and accepted in their society, they will tend to be open, tolerant and inclusive with respect to others. Conversely, when people are discriminated against, they are likely to respond with negative attitudes and hostility towards those who undermine their right. Rejection breeds rejection; acceptance breeds acceptance.
2. When individuals of different cultural backgrounds have opportunities to interact with each other on a level playing field, such equal status contacts usually lead to greater mutual understanding and acceptance. Creating barriers between groups and individuals reinforces ignorance, and leads to mistrust and hostility.
3. When individuals have opportunities to endorse many social identities, and to be accepted in many social groups, they usually have greater levels of personal and social wellbeing. Individuals who are denied acceptance within many social groups usually suffer poorer personal and collective well-being.
In addition to supporting these three principles, we note the following:
A. Global humanitarian crises do not happen overnight. Such chaos begins in small steps, which may appear benign, somewhat acceptable and even justifiable under given conditions. The world witnessed too many humanitarian crises during the last century.
Not speaking out against such events right at the outset contributed to the escalation of evil and its dire consequences. The current immigration ban applied to seven predominantly Muslim countries (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen) may not be felt by majority of Canadians. However, it can contribute to the escalation of the unfair treatment of a wide range of groups.
B. Studies show that blatant “us vs. them” categorizations contribute to prejudice, discrimination, group polarization and intergroup antipathy. We argue that it is in no one’s interest to narrow the membership of “us” (e.g., Canadian, American, or European) and to widen the membership of “them” (e.g., Muslim, Mexican, members of the LGBT, feminist, and refugee communities). Such polarization leads to fear, rejection, and discrimination, with the negative consequences noted in the three principles described above.”
Signed: John Berry, Ph.D., Queen’s University; Gira Bhatt, Ph.D., Kwantlen Polytechnic University; Yvonne Bohr, Ph.D., C.Psych. York University; Richard Bourhis, Ph.D. Université du Québec à Montréal; Keith S. Dobson, Ph.D., R. Psych., University of Calgary; Janel Gauthier, Ph.D., Université Laval; Jeanne M. LeBlanc, Ph.D., ABPP, R. Psych.; Kimberly Noels, PhD. University of Alberta; Saba Safdar, Ph.D., University of Guelph; Marta Young, Ph.D., University of Ottawa; Jeanne M. LeBlanc, Ph.D., ABPP, R. Psych.
All Quiet on the Western Front is a masterpiece for many reasons: the story is mesmerizing; it refrains from glorifying war while understanding that young men sometimes do just that; it demonstrates the author’s empathy toward his characters, some of whom learn in turn to feel empathy towards others; and it “tells it like it is” (a form of moral engagement), demonstrating the harm inflicted on all the hapless people trapped in warfare.
A more recent novel stimulating empathy for characters on opposite sides of a horrendous war is All the Light We Cannot See, winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; this novel weaves together the stories of a young German boy and a young (blind) French girl, as Europe moves into and struggles bloodily through a devastating second World War.
Regarding his motivations for writing the book, Anthony Doerr tells Scribner Magazine that he asked himself, “Could I tell a story about how a promising boy got sucked into the Hitler Youth and made bad decisions that led to terrible, unforgivable consequences, yet still render him an empathetic character? And could I braid his story with the narrative of a disabled girl who in so many ways was more capable than the adults around her?”
He also explains, “My attempt in this novel is to suggest the humanity of both Werner and Marie-Laure, to propose more complicated portraits of heroes and villains; to hint at, as World War II fades from the memories of its last survivors and becomes history, all the light we cannot see. [See more here,and here. A mostly positive review in The Guardianasserts, “There is a worrying even-handedness in Doerr’s treatment of the Germans and the French.” I disagree. There are horrendous passages on cruelty by German officers and nothing comparable for French characters. It is true that one can empathize equally with the German boy and the French girl, which is, I believe, one of the gifts of the book.
I suggest that while reading the novel or shortly thereafter, you participate in the following exercise. Reimagine the basic story in today’s world, with the technology updated and the warring powers being the United States and say, Syria, Iraq, or Afghanistan.
Remember that in the book, Germany was the aggressor and France the occupied country; thus, in your reimagining, the Werner character must be an American boy, and the Marie-Laure character a Middle Eastern girl. Can you do this? Can you see these characters? Can you envision feeling empathy for individuals on both “sides” of the conflicts in which the US is embroiled today?