terrorists – Page 2 – Engaging Peace

Natural and human-made disasters

Posted on July 30, 2016June 4, 2019 by kathiemm

Disasters: “More than a Word”

by Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D.

1. Distant Disasters

The word “disasters” has become much more than a word as humanity becomes aware of the numerous natural, human-made, and human-facilitated disasters in our times. In distant times and in recent past centuries, relative isolation of people and events kept tolls of disasters exacted to more confined people and spaces. These tolls, obviously, were no less destructive in their tragic consequence for people and milieu. Indeed, some distant disasters continue to impact the evolution and survival of life today.

Examples of distant-past natural events include: (1) meteor strikes on extinction of dinosaurs and life forms; (2) Mediterranean earthquakes and Gibraltar-collapse flood; (3) Krakatoa volcanic eruption in Indonesia; (4) Ice Age on human migration and survival; (5) possible shifts in magnetic polarity of Earth’s poles and magnetic field shields.

Examples of human-made events shaping in near century-times include: (1) ancient Egyptian military conquests, (2) Alexander’s conquests, (3) Roman Empire conquests with subjugation of people and exploitation of land; (4) Mongolian conquests of Asia and Europe, and British imperialistic conquests of Asia, Pacific, and Africa.

Human-made disasters have been rooted in wars of imperialistic and empire intent among groups and nations seeking “global” hegemony. The impact of British Empire invasions and conquests remain with us today in the struggles of developing nations seeking to establish an identity and purpose under the burden of colonial occupation.

One of the most egregious legacies of the past continuing today is human slavery and labor exploitation. We may never escape the consequences of WWI and WWII upon our lives and psyches. The past is always with us! Victimhood is a legacy many seek to correct and prevent; many others seek to forget.

Knowledge of the enormous destructive impacts of natural and human-shaped disasters upon animate and inanimate milieus has prompted nations and global consortia to develop organized risk and hazard efforts and tools. These include early warning, appraisal, communication systems, intervention, and prevention efforts. Recognized organizations include the USA’s Department of Homeland Security Disaster Program (Washington, DC) , the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, and the World Health Organization (WHO), in Geneva, Switzerland. There are scores of cooperative agencies engaged in monitoring natural disaster and human-made risks.

Efforts to end human-made wars and violence among and within nations continue. Even optimists, however, cannot deny the continuing horrors of current genocides and destruction and oppression of people the world. Human beings struggling to survive pray for relief and an end to wars and violence; but efforts have proven inadequate to the Brobdingnagian nature of the task. Tragic!

I have taken upon myself the task and responsibility to identify and communicate in graphic and tabular forms examples of natural and human-made disasters. I do so because I believe it is essential we do not deny or ignore the multitude of risks we face. The graphic and tabular formats may be useful in immediate apprehension for teaching or discussion. Knowledge, by itself, is not necessarily prevention or salvation, but it does provide a foundation for grasping the spectrum and sources of the challenges we face.

2. Disasters

A dictionary definition of disasters is in many ways unneeded. We know that a disaster is an event of much destruction and suffering. Nevertheless, a dictionary definition is a shared arbiter of the denotative and connotative meanings of the term. There are many definitions. I like the following from the Webster App:

A sudden calamitous event bringing great damage, loss, or destruction; Broadly: A sudden or great misfortune or failure.

According to the Webster APP, the term was first used 1568, and is derived from the French “desastre,” and Italian “disastro.” I once asked my Sicilian mother about the status of a store bought boxed cake: She said in English: “It is a disaster! Never again!” There are big and small disasters, there are personal and global disasters. In all instances, they are not good!

Consider the lexicon of related disaster terms, many of which have biblical referents: Apocalypse, calamitous, cataclysmic, catastrophe, damaging, debacle, destruction, devastating, dreadful, earth-shattering, lethal, momentous, powerful, ruinous, strong, toxic, and virulent! Simply reading the lexical list is depressing!

As a cultural psychologist, I wondered what terms constitute the lexicon in other languages and cultures. What, for example, would we find in Chinese languages, given the ancient age of this mighty land that has been compelled to withstand natural and man-made disasters for millennia!

Chart 1 is a graphic display of natural disasters. The Chart offers a quick encompassing view of the spectrum of natural disasters. Chart 1 is followed by Table 1 which provides a written listing. Once again, my intent was to help discussion and education activities by having a quick reference to the topic.

Chart 2 is a graphic display of human-made and human-facilitated disasters. The Chart’s contents reveal a tragic compilation of the consequences of human actions upon the species and upon of the natural world. Some have taken to calling humans the super predator. If only animals and nature could speak? Table 2 provides a written summary. Words versus images offer no consolation. The following sections elaborate upon disasters, offering brief commentaries.

CHART 1:
EXAMPLES OF NATURAL DISASTERS

TABLE 1:
EXAMPLES OF NATURAL DISASTERS
(Alphabetical Order)

Asteroids/Meteors (Global)
Avalanches, Mud Slides, Soil Erosion (Global)
Climate Change (Global Warming) (Global)
Drought/Dust/Desertification (e.g., Sub-Saharan Africa)
Earthquakes Land (e.g., San Andreas Fault; Madrid Memphis Fault; Himalayas. Now earthquakes are occurring in many USA areas because of Fracking)
Earthquakes Ocean (e.g., Fukushima Tsunami, Indonesian Tsunami)
Floods: Rain Storms, Rivers (West Virginia Floods, Texas Floods, China, Bangladesh, India)
Heat Waves (Global; India)
Livestock Greenhouse Gases
Ocean Resource Depletion (Fish, Water, Pollution) (Global)
Solar Flares (Magnetic Field Collapse) (Global Electric Grid Collapse)
Viral, Bacteria, Fungus Infection Epidemics (e.g., Zika, Pneumonia; Regional and Global)
Volcanic Eruptions (e.g., Indonesia, Chile, Mount St. Helens)
Wild Fires (California, Pacific Northwest, Australia)
Wind Storms (Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Typhoons) (Regional and Global)

The human, economic, political, and moral costs of natural disasters is beyond estimation. When a mega-natural disaster occurs, all aspects of human and natural life are implicated, often for decades of recovery. Natural disasters are common-place across the world, even as some are confined to certain areas. Whether an onslaught of natural disasters may deplete and erode government capacities for intervention, and provoke regional and national instability is now a major concern.

There can be no doubt of the massive tolls exacted in death, destruction, and injury. The tragedy of natural disasters is further compounded by the fact natural disasters are frequent in number, severe in consequence, and often repetitive. Human roles in creating natural disasters are now widely known, especially in climate change challenges. Certain regions are subject to continual disasters and erosion of recovery resources. The Philippines is an example of this situation.

Human-Made and Human-Facilitated Disasters

The growing number of human-made and human-aided disasters is humbling and frightening. Human stewardship of life in all its forms is proving to be a disaster in itself. I am reminded here of the popular Pogo cartoon: “We have met the enemy, and it is us.” True words!

Even as we question why humans continue to engage in self-destructive acts, we are perplexed by the paradoxes. We look to leaders, but amid their corruption, cronyism, and selfish concerns, solutions appear impossible. A massive financial effort is needed; more importantly, however, there is a need for a new consciousness; humanity is part of nature, not its ruler!

The time-honored motivation of pursuing wealth, power, and position for a few to the exclusion of the welfare of the masses has become the norm. Tragic! “When will we ever learn?” These are folk song lyrics filled with the grief and sorrow of failures to learn form our actions.

CHART 2:
EXAMPLES OF HUMAN-MADE DISASTERS

Even as I write these words, I find myself concerned about humanity’s future. It is not only humanity’s survival, adaptation, and adjustment as we think of it in conventional terms it is about the extensive reliance on artificial intelligence (AI), and especially the unbridled use of AI in developing robotics. The combination of AI and robotics is challenging our basic assumptions of human nature (i.e. ontology). At some point, AI creations will surpass human capabilities and talents (i.e., singularity). What then? Will this be another human-made disaster? I called this “Relinguishing Human Identity,” in a chapter on unfolding evolution via bio-metric communication technologies (see Marsella, A.J. (2016). Gatherings:” A collection of writing genre. Alpharetta, GA: Mountain Arbor Press). Think drones! Think cloning! Think dehumanization! Think dystopia!

TABLE 2
EXAMPLES OF HUMAN-MADE AND HUMAN-AIDED DISASTERS
(Alphabetical Order)

Desertification of Arable Land (Sahara)
Fracking (Destruction of Potable Water, Earthquakes)
Industrial accidents (Bhopal, India; Minimata, Japan)
Logging Destruction (Amazon, Borneo, Pacific Northwest)
Major Oil Spills (Exxon Valdez, BP Gulf)
Mass Murders (Orlando, Columbine, Virginia Tech)
Mining Accidents (Coal Ash Leaks)
Nuclear Accidents (Chernobyl, Fukushima)
Ocean Pollution and Extinction of Marine Species
Radiation Genetic Damage (Socorro, NM, Fallujah, Iraq)
Structure Collapse: Buildings, Bridges (Bangladesh, India, USA)
Terrorist Attacks
Toxic Chemicals (Agent Orange, Vietnam)
Wars (Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan)

And So . . . ?

What can do we do? The challenges we face are enormous in proportion and consequence. The human, natural world, physical world costs exceed imagination. And yet we continue! Is iit possible to use education to address these challenges? Not traditional education mired in skill sets and memorization, but rather the introduction of visionary thoughts and knowledge. Imagine all college students having to begin their education by exposure in the first years to “Big History,” overviews of major history events and forces, including the ideologies and malicious forces that guide and nurture them.

Imagine elementary school children in the third grade exposed to the critical social, economic, and political events and forces shaping their lives so they do not become numb to the events and forces. The intent is a new consciousness. This is what the famous Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire, proposed in his critical pedagogy: Critical consciousness! In English “Conscientization; in Portuguese, “conscientizacao.” Education is not neutral. (See Wikepedia and Paulo Friere (1997), Pedagogy of the Oppressed (NY: Continuum Publishing). If education serves those in power, it is indoctrination! Is critical pedagogy any less important than fractions or grammar?

If we are to survive the onslaught of disasters, we will need to think in a more activist way, and to grasp the consequences of our choices. We must not socialize conformity to our existing world, but rather arouse awareness and encourage protests toward our failures.

Albert Einstein, advised: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them” Albert Einstein is no longer with us, but his words remain, and demand attention. Anything less … a disaster!

Author: Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus, University of Hawaii, Manoa Campus, Honolulu, Hawaii, 96822. He is the author and editor of twenty books, and more than 300 publications noted for challenging the ethnocentricity and biases of Western psychology and psychiatry, and for advocating peace and social justice.

Clever devils: getting good people to act bad

Posted on January 28, 2016 by kathiemm

“In Self-Defense”. 1876 editorial cartoon by A. B. Frost. Depicts a caricatured former Confederates in the U.S. South with a knife and smoking gun in his hands standing over the corpse of an African-American toddler.
Image is in the public domain.

Moral disengagement involves a set of unconscious psychological processes allowing individuals to engage in or support or tolerate inhumane treatment of others while still thinking of themselves as good people. Common examples include using euphemistic language to make bad things sound less bad (“collateral damage”), pseudo-moral justifications (“the war to end all wars”), displacement or diffusion of responsibility (“I was just following orders”), advantageous comparison (“killing a couple of terrorists is a lot better than letting them kill thousands”), and attribution of blame/dehumanization (“axis of evil threatening the peace of the world”).

Unscrupulous power-hungry political leaders throughout history have often successfully promoted moral disengagement in those whom they want to dominate for their own purposes. Unfortunately, in regard to the burgeoning global refugee crisis, expressions of moral disengagement in the home of the “tired and the poor” are rife.

Consider the following comments. What forms of moral disengagement, as listed above, do you see?

“When the Syrian refugees are going to start pouring into this country, we don’t know if they’re ISIS, we don’t know if it’s a Trojan horse….it could be the great Trojan horse of all time…”
“some people are going to be upset about it, but I think that now everybody is feeling that security is going to rule. And certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country in terms of information and learning about the enemy….things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago.”
“One of the problems that we have and one of the reasons we’re so ineffective is they [terrorists] are using them (civilians, family members) as shields….It’s a horrible thing, but we’re fighting a very politically correct war.”
“I think waterboarding is peanuts compared to what they do to us….They don’t use waterboarding over there….They use chopping off people’s heads.”
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems… they’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Reflections on Witnessing the Republican Presidential Candidate Debate

Posted on December 19, 2015February 6, 2016 by kathiemm

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.

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!

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

Militarize police against terrorists? Bad idea.

Posted on October 15, 2015 by kathiemm

Whether you are a privileged student in a good university, a parent of small children, a kid, a grandmother, or any of the other types of ordinary people in this country, you should be worried about the increasing militarization of the police.

The police are human beings. That means they are subject to all kinds of influences, just like everybody else; for some of them, their families, their communities, and the media to which they have been exposed have made them angry, frightened, violent, hateful, bigoted. These traits are pretty scary in anyone, but particularly in people with guns. Especially big guns, rapidly firing guns, guns with no brains or morals.

And because they are human, police can also make mistakes. Huge mistakes.

You all know about Ferguson, Missouri, and similar nationally-recognized episodes starring militarized police but even Ferguson has its less well known stories.

There are probably thousands of other examples of police misuse of their increasingly militarized power—and the limited sanctions that ensue from their misuse– that led to tragedy.

For example, read this brief TruthOut article for five really outrageous examples of SWAT raids gone wrong.

As is true of so many social problems, efforts are being made to rein in the abuses of a militarized police force .

If enough people become involved, perhaps we can reduce the progress towards 1984 in 2015 and beyond.