Tag: war

USA: A culture of violence, Part 3

Posted on by kathiemm

Final in a series by guest author Dr. Tony Marsella

The foreign policies and actions of the U.S. over the past 100 years are rooted in intentions to control and dominate the international order of nations and cultures. These policies and actions have proven destructive to national and global peace, and have served and empowered the interests of a limited number of individuals and groups.  While announced as intentions to bring democracy and freedom, they have too often resulted in occupation, oppression, and repression of human rights.

An obvious result — visible in virtually every nation caught in our efforts – is the costly growth of a vast US network of:

  • Military bases and operations [more than 900 known foreign bases]
  • Massive fortress embassies/consulates
  • Encampments/prisons/death squads
  • Cultural disintegration and decline.

These networks do not promote cooperation and admiration; rather they encourage instability via reflexive protests, insurrections, rebellions, revolutions, and acts of domestic, state, and international terrorism.

All nations act in their own interests. In a global era, however, selfish national interests result in direct and indirect opposition. Nations in which people feel victimized and humiliated by the U.S. consider revenge as just and appropriate. This creates an endless cycle.

Who benefits from the following examples of U.S. foreign policy and actions?

  • Assassinations/death squads/drones,
  • Celebration of national “morality”/necessity of torture
  • Controlling the UN via vetoes
  • Controlling the IMF and World Bank
  • Development of domestic crowd controls (militarization of police)
  • Disproportionate support of “allies” and enemification of others,
  • Glorification of war and militarism
  • Mass surveillance, monitoring, and archiving of data,
  • Massive government/private intelligence security agencies/organizations
  • Media influence and control
  • Promotion of nationalism/pseudo-patriotism
  • Propaganda and promotion of USA exceptionalism
  • Purchase and installation of pro-American leaders and dictators
  • Recruitment of spies, informers, collaborators, agents
  • Vilification of domestic/international critics
  • Weapons/arms dealer/sales

In both of the articles cited below, and in this post, I argue that we are headed for a “dreadful reckoning” (Grieder’s term) if we do not come to an awareness of the many sources and consequences of violence in our lives, particularly the perpetuation of “cultures of violence” that are sources of endless suffering, destruction, and death.

  •  “The United States of America: A Culture of War” (Marsella, A.J. [2012]. International Journal of Intercultural Research, 35, 714-728.
  • “Nonkilling psychology and lifeism” (Marsella, A.J. (2011). In J. Pim & D. Christie (Eds.) Nonkilling Psychology (pp. 361-378). Honolulu, Hi: Center for Global Non-Violence.

The answer resides in the necessity of non-violent activism to prevent violence. This is the timeless answer of every great peacemaker.

Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Hawaii, November 8, 2012

 

Us versus them (Portraying “the Other,” Part 1)

Posted on by kathiemm

[By guest author, John Hess.]

I was stunned by the title of a post on Engaging Peace. “Recovery through forgiveness” contrasts so greatly with Regeneration through violence: The mythology of the American frontier, 1600-1860, the first volume of Richard Slotkin’s trilogy on American culture.

Slotkin’s argument is similar to that advanced by Christopher Hedges in War is a force that gives us meaning.

Specifically, nations often seek to work out pressing internal problems and bring about national unity through violence directed at an adversary who is portrayed as “the Other,” an embodiment of evil.

The U.S. used this approach in justifying the “War on Terror,” and later the Iraq War:

  • Us against them
  • Good against evil
  • War against those who hate our way of life and want to destroy it.

The first major example Slotkin discusses in Regeneration is King Philip’s War. That 1675-6 conflict is said to have been, relatively speaking, the most destructive war ever fought on (what became) American soil.

Puritanism was then in the throes of a spiritual crisis, with many of the more intransigent ministers claiming there had been a “falling away” from the fervor and purity of the original colonists. At the same time, the New England colonies were rapidly expanding, which led to a demand for more land. This in turn brought them more and more into conflict with the Native tribes, who were on land the Puritans desired.

Puritan thinkers increasingly came to portray the Natives as their direct opposites:

  • Where the English were Christian, the Natives were pagan
  • Where the English were civilized, the Natives were savage
  • Where the English were the new Chosen People, the Natives were not
  • Where the English were doing God’s will, the Natives were certainly on the other side.

John Hess, Senior Lecturer in English and American Studies, University of Massachusetts, Boston

War costs money*

Posted on by patdaniel

*and it’s OUR money.

During the past month, Engaging Peace has offered a number of perspectives on the financial aspects of war.  Some highlights:

  • The true costs of war are difficult to determine because of the intricacies of federal budgeting and accounting, as well as the use of deficit spending
  • Some of the financial impacts of war will occur in the future, due to veterans’ benefits and social costs to families of returning service people
  • Aside from the direct costs, war has a generalized negative effect on the economy, as seen in fewer jobs, increased debt, diversion of money from health care, education, environment, and other domestic needs
  • War tax resistance is a method that some have used to protest the funding of war by tax dollars

Despite the challenges of determining the accurate costs of war, totals for the Iraq war alone are estimated to be as high as $4-6 trillion.

To learn more specifics about the costs to the U.S., check out the Costs of War project.  For perspective from the U.K., watch a video on the economic impact of Britain’s involvement in U.S.-led wars.

You might wonder who is paying the taxes that support the war machine. It’s ordinary people like you and me–and not the most wealthy or the corporations that often profit from war efforts.

As an outgrowth of the Occupy Wall Street movement, a number of groups across the U.S. are calling attention to inequities in our tax structure–specifically the low tax rates paid by the 1%. For example, in Boston, a Tax Day march and rally on April 17 will be based on the message “Corporations and the 1%: Pay your taxes! Fund our communities!” Minneapolis, San Francisco, and other communities have also focused attention on these disparities.

The world economy is hurting. The pocketbooks and bank accounts of ordinary citizens are hurting. We feel it especially during tax season in the midst of what feels like a never-ending recession.

How to ease the pain and start the money flowing again?  The answer is clear:  Stop the wars.

Pat Daniel, Ph.D., Managing Editor of Engaging Peace

Thank you, George

Posted on by kathiemm
George Washington portrait
Portrait by Gilbert Stuart in public domain. Photo by Metropolitan Museum of Art.

American schoolchildren learn at least a few things about George Washington—that he fought the British to help achieve independence for the American colonies, that he was the first President of the United States, that he refused to become King.

But how many of them have learned of Washington’s views on war? He said, among other things:

“My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth.”

“Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all.”

Foreshadowing President Dwight David Eisenhower’s familiar warning about the military industrial complex, Washington said, “Overgrown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.”

And perhaps foreshadowing the movement toward government of, by, and for the wealthiest and most powerful, Washington commented, “Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.”

Washington, like all great individuals, was a complex man influenced by his historical context even while offering much great advice for a better future.

A few other messages from him to consider on Presidents Day (Monday, February 20):

  • “Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.”
  • “If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”
  • ”Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.”

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology