by Joe Kandra, Kathie Malley-Morrison, Pat Daniel
Tag: civil rights
“Omnipresent surveillance:” Dystopian society in our global era, Part 4
by Anthony J. Marsella, PhD
There have been many suggestions about what is needed in response to the growing national security state of the United States. Responses have come from around the world, and many names are now familiar (e.g., Noam Chomsky, Mairead McGuire, Amy Goodman, Johan Galtung, Chris Hedges). Here are some options for building a more enduring and effective response:
- Become informed: Become informed and educated about the scope and sources of the national security state threats to privacy and behavior control. This can only be done by reading credible sources, reading beyond popular media, and questioning sources with specific hidden agendas (i.e., corporate, military).
- Engage in activism: Become as active as your circumstances permit in peaceful protests that may include opinion writing, letter writing, petition signing, phone calls to elected representatives, and joining discussion groups via the internet or in real time. Become as active as your circumstances permit with regards to supporting alternative information sources (e.g., Transcend Medial Service, Truthout, Guardian, Engaging Peace), and supporting pathways to prosecution for those violating Constitutional and civil rights.
- Commit to non-violence: Be committed to non-violence and non-killing as viable pathways for bringing about change. This may well make change a slow and arduous process, and it may never be completely successful. Yet the course of violence, insurgency, and revolt can only lead to destruction and death, as we are witnessing in the United States and around the world.
The challenges are many and complex; there is little reason to believe citizens can easily reduce or eliminate the massive national and international surveillance network. If change is to occur, it will be because hope as an essential enduring human virtue can inform action and that non-violent action will be undertaken.
Footnote 1: The term “omnipresent surveillance” is taken from John W. Whitehead’s recent article, “The Omnipresent Surveillance State: Orwell’s 1984 Is No longer Fiction.” Information Clearing House. June 11, 2019. See also Rutherford Institute, Virginia, USA
References:
Bacevich, A. (2012). The short American century: A post-mortem. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Chumley, C. (2014). Police State USA: How Orwell’s nightmare is becoming our reality. NY: WND.
Deneys-Tunney, A. (July 12, 2012) Rousseau shows us there is a way to break the chains from within. The Guardian, London, UK.
. Harris, S. (2010). The watchers: The rise of America’s surveillance state. NY: Penguin Group.
Hedges, C. (2015). A nation of snitches.
Mills, C. W. (2000). The Power Elite. NY: Oxford University Press
Priest, D., & Arkin, W. (2011). Top secret America: The rise of the new American Security State. NY: Little Brown.
Slavo, M. (July 31, 2019). Satellites Have Already Started Watching Your Every Movement.
Taggart, D. (2019). Americans Don’t Trust the Govt, the Media, or Each Other: Fading Trust is “Sign of Cultural Sickness and National Decline.”
Unger, D. (2012). The emergency state: America’s pursuit of absolute security at all costs. NY: Penguin Press
Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D., a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development 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. His TMS articles may be acessed HERE and he can be reached at marsella@hawaii.edu.
This article, lightly edited and abridged, originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 5 Aug 2019. TMS: “Omnipresent Surveillance:” Dystopian Society in Our Global Era .
Kerala: The graveyard of all war propaganda, Part I
by Ian Hansen, PhD
A preamble on the logic of war and the logic of peace
There is a little-known statistic, hidden in an academic paper on another subject, relevant to the dangers of militarism. The statistic is that the more militarized a country is—the more of its population in the armed forces, the greater proportion of its GDP going to the military—the more refugees are likely to have fled that country, presumably in terror. More militarized countries are also judged less free, in terms of civil liberties and political rights, by the organization Freedom House. The same paper finds that the embrace of militarism, as a psychological proclivity, is so strongly correlated with the embrace of oppression and atrocity that the militarism-loving and oppression/atrocity-loving items form a single unified scale. These findings together suggest that militaries tend to terrorize and traumatize people—sometimes foreign people, sometimes their own1.
Even to the extent armed forces can be persuaded not to corrupt and betray civilian governance at home, adherence to Golden Rule morality still suggests that it is wrong to organize militaristic political economies. Militaristic political economies tend to systematically impoverish and lie to some underclass of vulnerable young people and then, having seduced/coerced them, condition them to become more blasé about harming and killing other human beings en masse. The world would do well to slough off such political economies, enlightened society by enlightened society.
Nevertheless, too much attention to the evils of war can result in triggering deep-seated human intuitions that we need to wage our own organized violence to discourage, punish, or “manage” the war that’s already out there, or that might one day be. Almost all nations and movements that inflict or prepare to inflict carnal, flesh-ripping war claim to be doing it for the sake of peace and/or justice. Thus people—whether as ordinary individuals, commanding officers or heads of state—feel best about inflicting atrocities when they can plausibly assert the pretense that they are resisting or punishing other people’s atrocities. The pattern that shows up repeatedly is (1) first we rage at the oppression and atrocity of others and then (2) we commit our own oppression and atrocity, rationalizing it as a justifiable excess to prevent/avenge excesses by the dreaded Them. This pattern reflects an ensnarement in the logic of war.
To get caught up in the logic of peace instead, it helps to keep our eye on peace working, and not just on war being horror. One place to look at long and hard if hoping to be caught up in a logic of peace is Kerala. Kerala is a small, populous, and not nearly famous-enough state on the southwest tip of India. Peace there has arguably watered a soil in which more peace flourishes. Kerala, I will explore in subsequent posts, is living evidence that most, even all, the wars that humans have fought over the last hundred years have been murderously wasted effort.
Footnote
1. This was, in fact, a major reason that the Central American nation of Costa Rica abolished its own army in 1948—an example other nations, my own especially, would do well to follow. Costa Rica is not the subject of this essay of course, but worth a mention in this context.
Ian Hansen, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Behavioral Sciences Department at York College, City University of New York, with a research focus on social psychology, religion, ideology, tolerance, and support for peace and pluralism. His core research interest is investigating psychological “odd bedfellows” phenomena with regard to religion and ideology. He is also an active member in Psychologists for Social Responsibility, and served as its 2017 president.
MORE THAN AN “ICON” . . .
By Anthony J. Marsella
Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) is the most important historical figure of the 20th and 21rst centuries, the indisputable enduring icon of modern times. There are many brave individuals whose contributions have advanced the human condition, often with similar tragic personal and social results. However, the more I have studied King’s substantial national and international legacy, the more I have become convinced King is the more than the defining “icon” of our times. His legacy remains an implacable force and influence long after his passing fifty years ago. In my opinion, this is because King assumed many roles and functions whose consequences continue to endure.
The fact is King was (is) more than a relentless courageous civil rights leader whose efforts promoted justice, equality, freedom, and hope for all humanity. He challenged and altered illegal time-endowed values, beliefs, policies, and crimes.
A leader in many roles, King was:
• A minister accustomed to offering inspiring and arousing sermons sensitive to moral issues, especially the failure of idealized religious beliefs and practices to address societal failures and flaws. Reformer!
• An anti-war activist and advocate questioning individual and national pursuits of violence and war. Anti – War Activist !
• A statesman, offering political, economic, and social visions for a “new” world free of oppression and abuse, governed by laws, democratic participation, ethical and moral codes, and personal conscience. Statesman!
• A global leader who liberated citizens around the world from their chains of domestic and foreign governmental oppression. He enlightened minds and aroused souls to use non-violence against oppression. Liberator!
• A living embodiment of human conscience, replete with struggles and pains of abuse and flaws. Conscience!
• A symbol of for justice, especially the role of justice in moderating positive goals like peace, harmony, and accord, and contesting negative repressive actions. Symbol!
• An intellectual well-versed in the historical and situational determinants of individual and national behavior, including pseudo-rationalizations for beliefs and actions. Intellectual!
• A leader capable of mobilizing citizen support of millions across racial and class boundaries in of his beliefs and “dreams,” offering a new vision of what is possible! Visionary!
• A prophet, emerging at a point in history, demanding revolution in thought and actions. Prophet!
King was persecuted and assassinated, much as other revolutionary prophets have been abused and murdered across history. King’s enduring contributions require that he be placed among the prophets. Chart 1 displays some of the King’s roles, functions, and legacies:
CHART 1: REVEREND MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.’S
MANY ROLES, FUNCTIONS, AND LEGACIES
