weapons manufacturers – Engaging Peace

Civilized, Barbarians, Savages, Part 3

Posted on April 20, 2020April 19, 2020 by kathiemm

By Antonio C. S. Rosa

The three pillars of high finance and international movers are:

oil,
armaments (legal and illegal),
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 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.

“Omnipresent surveillance:” Dystopian society in our global era, Part 3

Posted on August 14, 2019August 14, 2019 by kathiemm

by Anthony J. Marsella, PhD

What Government Agencies and Organizations are Involved?

According to Wikipedia,

“The United States Intelligence Community (IC) is a federation of 17 separate United States government intelligence agencies, that work separately and together to conduct intelligence activities to support the foreign policy and national security of the United States. Member organizations of the IC include intelligence agencies, military intelligence, and civilian intelligence and analysis offices within federal executive departments. The IC is overseen by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) making up the seventeen-member Intelligence Community, which itself is headed by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), who reports to the President of the United States.[1][2]”

There are, as documented in this Wikipedia excerpt, an extensive number of “intelligence” gathering and utilization organizations, involving thousands of employees and an unknown, but obviously considerable, amount of money. All of this in the name of domestic and national security. There are numerous issues regarding duplication, competition, communication, hierarchies, strengths and weaknesses, and costs among these known groups. There is reason to believe there are also unknown groups that function independently.

There is irony and paradox here! The approved protectors and guardians impose constraints and abuses on citizens in the name of national security; however, in doing so, they impose control and domination.

This is a bewildering anomaly, and one from which there may never be an escape, given the secrecy and depth of penetration of governance and private surveillance groups. Can we really expect military intelligence to give up its roles and its methods, and its ties to weapons manufacturers like Lockheed Martin and others in the war industry? Of course not!

There are powerful connections among Silicon Valley corporations, military weapons manufacturers, and the Defense Department. They support one another in a “silent” conspiracy of financial relations and ties. Numerous retired military officials and officers go to work for Silicon Valley and weapon industry corporations as consultants and executives. The fix is on! Will this system harvest what it sows? The fabled Military-Industrial-Congressional-Academic Complex lives . . . at least for now; too many on the take, too few guided by an essential conscience!

Foundations of the National Security State

The USA’s national “security state” and its impositions are possible for a number of reasons:

Technological developments (e.g., big data) permit mass surveillance, monitoring, and archiving of information on all citizens;
Suppression and condemnation of protests, including harassment, persecution, and prosecution of those speaking out against the national security state;
Collaboration and cooperation of a biased and compromised media, which is, arguably, the most important societal check and balance against the abuses, violations, and identification of government and private criminal actions;
Location and control of power within a small group of individuals (oligarchy) who by stain of temperament, disposition, position, and financial interests seek to increase, sustain, and protect USA state terrorism policies, actions, and organizational structures;
Development of a vast complex of “escape” clauses within our executive, judicial, and congressional systems permitting individuals to lie, distort, misrepresent, and speak with impunity without fear of prosecution. In brief, a privileged and oligarchic “group” is “free” to engage in illegal actions without accountability, transparency, or risk;
Lust for power, wealth, position and the domination and control accompanying these impulses. Selfish motives from troubled minds.
Use of Congressional acts and secret agreements to justify and protect abuses, including The Patriot Act, The Department of Homeland Security and Fusion Center authorizations, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF).

Marc Slavo (2019) points out the nefarious cooperatives among countries with mass surveillance systems. He writes:

“Many countries have surveillance systems, but the countries in the Five Eyes, Nine Eyes and 14 Eyes alliances work together to share data on a massive scale, according to a report by Cloud Wards. Innocent people are spied on every day. The Five Eyes, Nine Eyes, and 14 Eyes groups are big players in the global surveillance game. Each country involved can carry out surveillance in particular regions and share it with others in the alliance.
The Five Eyes are the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The Five Eyes alliance, also known as FVEY, was founded on Aug. 14, 1941, and can be traced back to the WWII period. During the second world war, the exchange of intelligence information between the UK and the U.S. was important, and the partnership continued afterward.
The Nine Eyes alliance consists of the Five Eyes countries, plus Denmark, France, the Netherlands and Norway. Though there’s evidence that the Nine Eyes and 14 Eyes exist, little is known about what they can and can’t do.
The 14 Eyes alliance is made up of the Nine Eyes countries, plus Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Sweden. It’s an extension of the Five Eyes and Nine Eyes alliances, but its actual name is SIGINT.

A recent CIA sponsored Bill, the “Intelligence Authorization Act” (SB: 3153; HB 3194) garnering Congressional support would criminalize whistle blowers and reporters. Imagine, citizens are to be criminalized and punished for engaging in citizen expected responsibilities of complaint.”

Daniel Schuman (July 25, 2019), policy director of DEMAND PROGRESS, writes:

“House Intelligence Committee Chair expansion of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act beyond all reason will effectively muzzle reporting on torture, mass surveillance, and other crimes against the American people — all at the request of the CIA.”

Dagny Taggart (a pseudonym for a seasoned reporter fearful of retaliation), based on Pew Survey, results, writes (2019): “Americans Don’t Trust the Govt, the Media, or Each Other: Fading Trust is “Sign of Cultural Sickness and National Decline.”

Is this any wonder? Years of corruption, cronyism, and crime by government, private corporations, military, and other societal institutions make “trust” a foolish and unwarranted action. This is nothing new!

[Note from Kathie MM:The conclusion of this series will be published on EP Friday August 16, with some recommendations for addressing the problems described here. Don’t miss it!]

The first American gun control law: the Second Amendment

Posted on April 29, 2013September 16, 2016 by kathiemm

The arms manufacturers and the NRA lobbyists have it all backwards. The Second Amendment was not created to guarantee an individual right to bear and use arms for whatever purposes desired. Instead, the Amendment can be considered the nation’s first national gun control law, designed to keep arms out of the hands of insurrectionists.

The Second Amendment’s national gun control effort was preceded by state gun control laws. For example, in the 1750s, Georgia statutes required slave patrol militias to make monthly searches of “all Negro Houses for offensive Weapons and Ammunition,” that is, to keep guns out of the hands of slaves.

Although James Madison’s original wording of the Second Amendment stressed the importance of “a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country,” the word “country” was replaced by “state,” in order to win the approval of Virginia and other slave-owning states for the new Constitution.

In its final wording–“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”)–the Second Amendment:

Granted the federal government the right to use armed militias to protect the security of the new nation, and
Left untouched the state right to use militias to prevent slaves from obtaining and using weapons.

To learn more, read this article or watch this powerful interview with Thom Hartman.

For more than 100 years, the judgments of state and federal courts as well as the United States Supreme Court held sway: the Second Amendment did not guarantee an individual’s right to buy and use guns outside the context of a state-controlled militia.

Then as recently as 1977, at a meeting of the National Rifle Association, a concerted effort was undertaken by ultraconservatives to sell the country on a reframed version of the Second Amendment establishing those rights.

The arms industry has now gained control over enough of the government to usurp arms control, undermining the democratic processes by which ordinary citizens seek to reinstate reasonable restrictions on weapons sales.

So ask yourself, do you want arms manufacturers rewriting our history and our Constitution, especially when their lobbying has contributed to the U.S. having the world’s highest gun fatality rate?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology