Tag: Congress

The federal budget: Invasions, yes! Peace, no!

Posted on by kathiemm

At least that’s what the politicos are telling us.

By now, everyone must have heard something about the debates about the new U.S. budget. You may know that to address the deficits that have accrued since former President Bill Clinton created a budget surplus, powerful forces in Congress seek, among other things, to

  • Gut the Environmental Protection Agency
  • Block spending for health care
  • Cut food and other assistance programs for children, the elderly, and the disabled
U.S. Institute of Peace building
U.S. Institute of Peace, Washington, D.C.

But did you know that while declaring funding for the Pentagon off-limits for budget considerations, a majority in the House of Representatives also voted to eliminate funding for the United States Institute of Peace (USIP)?

The USIP, established by Congress in 1984, conducts research and training designed to prevent and end wars and to promote international peace, stability, and development. In recent years it has engaged in mediation and conflict resolution activities in Afghanistan, the Balkans, Colombia, Iraq, Kashmir, Liberia, the Korean Peninsula, Nepal, Pakistan, the Palestinian Territories, Nigeria, Sudan, and Uganda.

Despite the fact that the U.S. spends as much on what is euphemistically called “defense” as the rest of the world combined, Congress wants to end this independent nonpartisan organization with a budget that is only one tenth of one percent of the State Department budget.

The previous budget for USIP was minuscule compared to the spending in Iraq and Afghanistan (approximately $42.7 million every 142 minutes according to Congressman Dennis Kucinich).

What message is Congress sending to the American public?  To the rest of the world? Why is there so much more commitment to the arms industry than to peace?

Please send us your answers—and consider becoming an activist on behalf of peace and justice.

For inspiration, check out this BBC video and consider how we are all one people and if we want to survive in all our commonalities and all our uniqueness, we need to support efforts for peace.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Revolting against tyranny: Then and now

Posted on by kathiemm

[Note from Kathie Malley-Morrison: Today’s post is by our guest contributor Dr. Mike Corgan.]

The protests against tyranny suddenly sweeping the Middle East still focus on the achievement of the Egyptian people and what they accomplished. Now the world waits to see what the army will do.

George Washington portrait by Peale
George Washington, 1776, by Charles Wilson Peale (Photographic reproduction in public domain; from Wikimedia Commons)

As we in the U.S. celebrate this Presidents’ Day weekend, it is well to think beyond the car and flat screen TV sales and reflect on just how lucky we were with our revolution and why we honor these two presidents.

George Washington was unquestionably the ablest military man among the Americans who chose to fight British absentee governance and taxation. Qualities far beyond his generalship immortalize his  service to democracy and his country.

When the war was over and the British had surrendered he could have been king if he wanted it. Instead he went to Congress and laid his sword on a table and said his work was done. How many other military leaders of a victorious revolutionary army have ever surrendered to civilian control like that? None–before or since. We were lucky beyond all others.

Yet again, when the army later threatened to march on Congress in Philadelphia to get promised benefits, Washington went to the plotters in Newburgh and defused the situation. He pleaded with his officers not to undo all they had stood for in the name of democracy against tyranny and force with a military show of force.

His oratory and sincerity and even his dramatic putting on of glasses and saying that he himself had grown blind in the service of his country ended the affair, many plotters leaving the meeting in tears. Our revolution succeeded in its aims for many reasons, but George Washington was one of the most important ones.

Michael T. Corgan, Associate Chair and Associate Professor of International Relations, Boston University

Dehumanizing or demonizing the other (Moral disengagement, part 7)

Posted on by kathiemm
Photo of antisemitic Nazi propaganda
Antisemitic Nazi Propaganda. (Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license. From WikiMedia Commons)

Dehumanizing or demonizing the other is a particularly common form of moral disengagement, especially during wartime or other types of conflict.

Another moral disengagement mechanism described by psychologist Albert Bandura, it refers to portraying your enemy as less than human, as some sort of vile creature.

During World War II, all factions in the conflict created posters of the enemy as a subhuman monster. In addition, propaganda and feature films of that era–as well as during the Cold War and the Vietnam War–stereotyped, sub-humanized, dehumanized, and demonized the enemy.

Consider this quote: “…[This nation is] aiming at the exclusive domination of the [world], lost in corruption, [characterized by] deep-rooted hatred towards us, hostile to liberty wherever it endeavors to show its head, and the eternal disturber of the peace of the world.”

Who do you think said that? To what nation was he referring?

The answer to the first question is Thomas Jefferson, in 1815, when he was President. The nation in question was Great Britain. Imagine what might have happened if weapons of mass destruction were available back then. Suppose Jefferson, as President, pushed Congress for a preemptive strike against Great Britain. Would a more peaceful world have been achieved?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Note: This post was adapted from my previously published article in Peace Psychology (a publication of the American Psychological Association), Spring, 2009.