{"id":185050,"date":"2021-05-17T12:00:40","date_gmt":"2021-05-17T11:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=185050"},"modified":"2021-05-15T04:17:00","modified_gmt":"2021-05-15T03:17:00","slug":"the-time-has-come","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/05\/the-time-has-come\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Time Has Come . . .\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">14 May 2021 &#8211; <em>Reflections on the Limits of Citizen Tolerance for Government, Military, Corporate Abuses and Betrayal <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>It is Time to Speak . . . To Act<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It is time, Lewis Carroll wrote in 1871 in his collection of poems, <em>Through the Looking Glass:<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things, . . . . Of shoes, and ships, and ceiling wax, and cabbages and kings, and why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Lewis Carroll went on to write of other cartoonist images in his fabled fiction works, using metaphors and fantasy to alert us to the uncertainties of reality, and our child-like willingness to deny and accept conventional socialization filled with deception, deceit, and dishonesty.<\/p>\n<p>The time has come to declare our intolerance and independence from the treachery shaping our lives across generations, compelling us to accept governance controlled by oligarchs, shadow governments, special interests, and privileged sectors of our society. For too long, we have accepted vast,\u00a0 visible, and obvious injustices and human rights abuses, perpetrated by a \u00a0government which carefully dismissed these faults, flaws, and failings for the benefit of narrow a few at expense of the all others.<\/p>\n<p>Information, knowledge, and wisdom through the now widely available to citizens across the world has brought consciousness of the exploitation of citizens via labor abuses, wars, participant democracy, and biased justice systems.\u00a0 We cannot go back, even as promises are to correct the errors and mistakes. The phrase \u201cA return to normalcy\u201d is a tropism, used by governments, amidst the discomforts of the pandemic, to return to the familiar world in which we were prisoners to abuses. This is a \u201cbetrayal\u201d of citizenry, and ultimately, humanity!<\/p>\n<p>If we accept \u201cnormalcy,\u201d we must suppress the progress made in human rights, changing laws, and protests. We must accept and be content with we can have comforts and conveniences (e.g., Marsella, 2014)<\/p>\n<p>The government of the United States of America, in concert and alliance with private and foreign sources, is engaged in a massive compromise, abuse, and denial of citizen rights and privileges. It is protecting financial, political, and moral special interests.\u00a0 In doing so, it is engaged in betrayal. <sub>1<\/sub><\/p>\n<p>This tragic reality, now increasingly apparent, is a result of national and international public and private forces seeking to preserve USA dominance of our society, and the world, via a global social order (i.e., New World Order). Totalitarian control is required.<\/p>\n<p>Rapid, and unanticipated, \u201cglobalization\u201d has pushed powerful public and private forces in government military and corporate sectors to pursue a vision of a \u201cglobal empire.\u201d \u00a0The United States government, using military, political, economic, legal\/illegal, and secretive policies and actions, is working with concentrated sectors of global wealth, power, and position, to establish an imperial global empire and order, imposing hegemonic and homogenized authoritarian control, domination, and exploitation.<\/p>\n<p>The \u201cNew World Order,\u201d once announced so openly and proudly by President George Herbert Walker Bush during his tenure in different government offices, was merely a code word for encouraging, promoting, and sanctioning an unmitigated assault and destruction of our Constitutional political system of checks and balances. Tragically, many citizens accepted the words and terms at face value: there would be massive changes in the social order leading to peace and justice. Lies! Deceit! Propaganda by the elite and privileged. Concentration of power and position in the present \u201cmilitary-industrial-congressional-education-media\u201d complex, betrays our heritage, and our hopes for citizen freedoms, liberties, and opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>Across the world, at local, national, and international levels, we are witnessing institutional responses that are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Protecting<\/em> narrow political, economic, and social interests and constituencies;<\/li>\n<li><em>Promoting<\/em> competition, confrontation, and conflict;<\/li>\n<li><em>Blocking<\/em> and\/or eliminating accountability, regulation, and transparency;<\/li>\n<li><em>Halting <\/em>prosecutions of individual, organizations, institutions engaged in illegal and immoral abuses;<\/li>\n<li><em>Restraining<\/em> and\/or limiting citizen protests and activism;<\/li>\n<li><em>Ignoring<\/em> concerns for social and transitional justice;<\/li>\n<li><em>Preventing <\/em>equality, and denying basic human rights.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If the existing course of acceptance for the concentration of wealth, power, and position (e.g., Marsella, 2013, <em>The Just Enough Principle<\/em>) continues unabated, it will be too late to alter tragic consequences.\u00a0 Never before in history, have so few individuals and institutions controlled the political, economic, and social well-being and welfare of global citizenry. And more important, never has the control been with such intentional and willful malice.<\/p>\n<p>It is now evident from military, diplomatic, governmental, and commercial policies and actions, the forces of concentrated wealth, power, and position, are moving with haste toward full dominance and control, using every possible means of influence, authority, and violence to gain complete ascendancy (e.g., Engdahl, 2011).<\/p>\n<p>Governments and private organizations and institutions around the world have acquired the capacity for surveillance and monitoring of all citizens with the intent of control and domination. The rise of nanotechnologies, in which sub-microscopic substances and mechanisms can be used for surveillance, monitoring, and archiving, are now widely available through implants, nanotechnology, computer hacking and monitoring of personal privacy.<\/p>\n<p>The emphasis of those in power is on containing protests, insurgencies, and insurrections, since these would interfere with the economic and financial systems in power whose major purposes are profit and accumulation of wealth and position. The recent revelations of the \u201cPanama Papers,\u201d indicates tens of trillions of dollars, which could be used for improving the human conditions, if properly and morally taxed, is a vivid example of what is occurring.<\/p>\n<p>To accomplish control and domination, high levels of \u201cfear\u201d must be propagated and maintained; this serves to justify repressive and oppressive actions in the minds of gullible citizens, led to believe radical Muslim forces, and China, Russia, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran are trying to kill us because they envy us.<\/p>\n<p>Even a casual recognition of national and world events is sufficient to grasp the intentions and goals being pursued. The course continues: preserve and protect the interests and roles of those in concentrated positions of wealth, power, and position. I turn to others for agreement with my words. \u00a0Colin Todhunter (2013) writes<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>. . . the evil-doers are already in control and waging war not only on the people of those countries just mentioned, but on the people within their own countries too via the tools of surveillance, the penal system, the comatosing effects of spymaster imported illegal drugs, or the infotainment industry, and the barrage of legislation that is serving to strip away civil liberties. The game is up, the dominant Western economy (the US) is broken beyond repair.\u00a0 Imperialism and militarism won\u2019t save it, but dissent won\u2019t be allowed. . . . And as private bankers entrap us all even further via their license to print and loan currencies to national governments then also loan them the interest on it that spirals out of hand so it can never be paid back, they are able to line their pockets even further by buying up national assets on the cheap from the countries they bankrupted in the first place. It\u2019s not racketeering. It\u2019s\u00a0<em><strong>austerity<\/strong> (Todhunter, 2013, p. 2)<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Government and private sources in the United States of America are promoting and perpetuating the concentration of wealth, power, and position for global domination.\u00a0 Government and private sources are engaging in foreign policies and actions, guided by a multi-faceted strategy supporting military, diplomatic, and cultural methods of control and dominance, including: (1) military invasion, (2) occupation, (3) construction of global military bases, (4) assassination, (5) drone murders, (6) installations of puppet regimes, (7) a war-weapon economy, (8) sales of arms to subversive groups to promote instability, (9) financial support for allies, (10) military and economic protection of corporate interests, (11) denial of basic human rights, justice, and laws nationally and internationally, (12) reliance on surveillance, monitoring, and archiving, (13) propaganda, calumny, and deceit, (14) exportation of popular American culture values, and (15) failure to prosecute. <sub>1<\/sub><\/p>\n<p>All of these efforts are powerful means to dishonorable ends.\u00a0 We see daily how those in power praise and join with one another in an illegal and immoral conspiracy serving self interests. Never has the principle of \u201cEnds justifying means,\u201d become more apparent. Citizens, accustomed to accepting the deceit through effective public relations, satisfaction and content with comforts (e.g., Just Enough Principle), and the demoralizing failure of the media, relied on us to alert the public in the past, have carefully managed and staged the disaster.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>The Fourth Estate: Need for Honest Media<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Colin Todhunter, in a courageous article, entitled, \u201cThe lies of democracy and the language of deceit,\u201d (www.Global Research.org, July 18, 2013), accuses the media of extensive betrayal of its role as defender of truth and justice.\u00a0 He writes:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>And where is the mainstream media in all of this? Where are those journalists whose claim to respectability is their rigid\u00a0<em><strong>professionalism<\/strong><\/em>, <em><strong>accountability<\/strong><\/em>, their\u00a0<em><strong>objectivity<\/strong><\/em>? If you can call professionalism, accountability and objectivity being in the pocket of and not wishing to offend advertising interests, officialdom, lobbyists or corporate think tanks then they are paragons of absolute virtue!\u00a0 Peddling their high salaried lies, they have failed and continue to fail the public. By shining their dim \u2018investigative\u2019 light on \u2018parliamentary procedures\u2019, personalities, the rubber stamping of policies and the inane machinations of party politics, they merely serve to maintain and perpetuate the status quo and keep the public in the dark as to the unaccountable self-serving power broking and unity of interests that enable Big Oil, Big Banking, Big Pharma, Big Agra and the rest of them to keep bleeding us all dry (Todhunter, 2013, p. 1).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3><strong>Social Darwinism: Roots of Concentrated Wealth, Power, Position, and Person<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Much of our current situation is the legacy of the late 19<sup>th<\/sup> and early 20<sup>th<\/sup> Century philosophies and structural (i.e., economic, political, social) changes that can be traced to advocates of \u201cSocial Darwinism,\u201d including, especially, the British philosopher, Herbert Spencer (1820-1903).\u00a0 Spencer advocated a \u201csurvival of the fittest\u201d position rooted within the widespread intellectual popularity of Charles Darwin\u2019s evolutionary biology. This position found strong support among the so-called <strong>\u201crobber barons\u201d<\/strong> of industry and finance defining the <em>Gilded Age <\/em>(e.g., Jacob Astor, Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt).<\/p>\n<p>The USA counterpart in Great Britain (e.g., Cecil Rhodes, Lord Nathan Rothschild, Lord Alfred Milner), enabled the development of a cabal believing they were destined by position and wealth, to take control of global political governance and economic financial systems) For these individuals, the idea certain individuals were superior in their intelligence, ambition, and personal talents and pre-dispositions, were sufficient causes for them to engage in conspiratorial actions. This position promoted a \u201cmentality\u201d (ideology) justifying exploitative capitalism with all of its abuses, insults and degradations to human and natural environmental life. <sub>2<\/sub><\/p>\n<p>Spencer\u2019s advocacy of Social Darwinism suggested the \u201cnatural selection\u201d of living things proposed by Darwin could be applied to society.\u00a0 It was Spenser who actually coined the phrase \u201csurvival of the fittest,\u201d a phrase erroneously attributed to Charles Darwin\u2019s famous work: <strong><em>The Origin of Species<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 Spencer\u2019s thoughts were widely accepted by wealthy industrialists and financiers of the \u201cGilded Age\u201d as \u201cevolutionary\u201d explanations for the privileges of opinion, action, and ideology that accompanied came with their wealth and power.<\/p>\n<p>In summarizing Spencer\u2019s position on government and governance, Bria (2012) wrote:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Spencer opposed government aid to the poor. He said that it encouraged laziness and vice. He objected to a public school system since it forced taxpayers to pay for the education of other people&#8217;s children. He opposed laws regulating housing, sanitation, and health conditions because they interfered with the rights of property owners. Spencer said that diseases &#8220;are among the penalties Nature has attached to ignorance and imbecility, and should not, therefore, be tampered with.&#8221; He even faulted private organizations like the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children because they encouraged legislation. In the economic arena, Spencer advocated a laissez-faire system that tolerated no government regulation of private enterprise. He considered most taxation as confiscation of wealth and undermining the natural evolution of society\u2026 He (Spencer) noted the fittest persons inherited industriousness, frugality, the desire to own property, and the ability to accumulate wealth, while the unfit inherited laziness, stupidity, and immorality (BRIA -Bill of Rights in Action &#8211; 19, 2, 2012).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>For the <strong>\u201crobber barons\u201d<\/strong> who built the major industrial and financial empires of their day and that continue to exist today, and for their scions who inherited family wealth, insuring their familial legacy of beliefs and thought via endowed foundations and universities, the concentration of power in the hands of a few, the challenges of our current times requires a reconsideration of their continued interest and controls, especially with regard to American foreign policy and suppression of human rights.<\/p>\n<p>Spencer argued for <em>laissez faire <\/em>capitalism (i.e., government hands off, limited regulation). He did not envision the development of monopolies, nor the extent his views would have for racism, eugenics, and class divisions \u2013 the foundations of a \u201cversus\u201d mentality.).\u00a0 Within the context of these views, polarized, confrontational, competitive stances and postures pit different constituencies against one another. And they do this amidst serious asymmetries in power and influence.<\/p>\n<p>In their own minds, they were \u201cfittest\u201d for survival, and the best sources for deciding the future for humanity and the world, through their control of wealth, power, and position (see G. Edward Griffin, 2010, <em>The Creature from Jekyll Island; History of Federal Reserve based on 1910 meeting in Jekyll Island, Georgia, of bankers and politicians: Nelson Aldrich, Abraham Andrew, Frank Vanderlip, Henry Davidson, Charles Norton, Benjamin Strong, Paul Warburg)<\/em>. This is precisely what they did, as they supported and established financial, educational, and governmental institutions under their control.<\/p>\n<p>While this was occurring in the United States, a similar effort was underway in England, leading to a tragic alliance described by Carroll Quigley (2013; 1981) in his volume: <strong><em>The Anglo-American Establishment (2013;1981), <\/em>and <em>Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (ISBN: 978-0945001010).<\/em><\/strong> Quigley had, through assiduous and courageous scholarship, identified corruption and betrayal beginning in Great Britain.<\/p>\n<p>Quigley and other writers (e.g., Docherty &amp; Macgregor, 2013), describe the egregious efforts to create a privileged group of men imbued with the belief they were selected to provide moral leadership for the world by concentrating their wealth and position through marriage, business alliances, and the institutionalization of efforts to promote and sustain their power (e.g., Rhodes Scholarships to bring hundreds of Americans to Oxford University to learn principles of governance and finance designed to empower their efforts, and the value of the Federal Reserve System, which creates national banks beholden to private moneyed interests).<\/p>\n<p>In Britain, a conspiratorial group was formed, a secret society (<strong>The Society of the Elect), <\/strong>consisting of Cecil Rhodes, William Stead, and \u201cLords\u201d Esher, N. Rothschild, Salisbury, Rosebery, and Milner, and a lesser group of helpers (i.e., The Association of Helpers). These men were stricken with a vision of intellectual and moral superiority. They saw in their privileged cabal, an opportunity to shape the world according to their beliefs and for their interests.<\/p>\n<p>The concentration of wealth, power, and position in megalithic organizations and leaders, constitutes dangerous levels of control and domination.\u00a0 It protects the very sources of constant violence, war, and exploitation that have gathered to act with common political, economic, and social goals and methods designed to perpetuate and protect their existence.\u00a0 We have only to be reminded of the \u201cmonopolies of the early 20<sup>th<\/sup> Century that we were compelled to \u201cbreak-up\u201d because of their obvious intentions. Now they are back!<\/p>\n<p>The current protests, insurrections, insurgencies, evolutions, acts of \u201cterrorism\u201d and domestic, civil, and international wars across the world reveal peoples\u2019 resistance. This is good! But efforts after control, domination, and supremacy of a few nations, governments, private organizations, and individuals, seeking to protect and perpetuate their privileged position, and long history of oppression, present in \u201cGilded\u201d Age figures and their inheritors, continues unabated.<\/p>\n<p>The inheritors claim commitments to the virtues of democracy, liberty, freedom, and human rights, even as they avoided accepting any blame for the legacies of power, greed, and control their ties to 19<sup>th<\/sup> century Social Darwinism, replete with its exploitations and humiliations of human life.<\/p>\n<p>The continued efforts of these \u201cgilded\u201d sectors to dominate, control, and perpetuate their wealth and power under the guise of concerns for the welfare of the vast majority of humankind and other forms of life constitutes a deceit in purpose and consequence, and, in actual fact, violates of all accepted international and national laws, codes, ands standards of legality and morality.<\/p>\n<p>An egregious example of this is the release of the now widely known <strong><em>Panama Papers<\/em><\/strong>, revealing how wealthy individuals make use of off-shore banking to hide billions in wealth to avoid taxation. This in a world of huge wealth discrepancies between rich and poor; does anything more illuminate the indecency of character and the violation of conscience than this \u201cimmoral\u201d tactic to preserve and concentrate wealth for a few. Why do we give honor, awe, and privilege to these financial and government leaders, and treat them as celebrities? They hold citizens in disdain or they would yield their wealth, power, and position immediately. They fool us with words and tainted donations designed to keep us fans to their obvious flaws.<\/p>\n<p>In my opinion, the core of our present circumstances remains the age-old social formations sustaining wealth and class inequities witnessed across time. The constant struggles of domination of rich against poor, powerful against weak, positioned against marginalized, are inscribed in endless tales of uprisings, revolts, insurgencies, and \u201cterrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Paulo Freire, in his volume, <strong><em>The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, <\/em><\/strong>wrote:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;It is not the unloved who initiate disaffection, but those who cannot love because they love only themselves. It is not the helpless, subject to terror, who initiate terror, but the violent, who with their power. create the concrete situation which begets the &#8216;rejects of life.&#8217; It is not the tyrannized who initiate despotism, but the tyrants. It is not those whose humanity is denied them who negate humankind, but those who denied that humanity (thus negating their own as well). Force is used not by those who have become weak under the preponderance of the strong, but by the strong who have emasculated them.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>(Freire, 1997 [1970]. P. 37).\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Unfortunately, these individuals and groups never disappear. They assume new and seemingly innocent forms as presidents, ministers, investors, and corporate leaders, and military leaders. Consider the current situation regarding oil, banking, insurance, military, medicine, pharmacology, agriculture, and others driven by profit and greed. The \u201ctoo big to die\u201d mantra, readily adopted by our government, simply preserves the existing system.<\/p>\n<p>Delusional individual and collective visions and actions of the arbiters of this illegal and immoral system are rooted in self-deception. They assume virtues of birth, familial and organizational ties, shared positions of power and wealth, and a common commitment to an \u201cexceptionalism\u201d rooted in social Darwinism, justifies their continuation. This is a major challenge to the survival of the United States of America as a government, nation, and ideal.<\/p>\n<p>Many groups exist for perpetuating this state of affairs (Bilderburgs (<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.Bilderburg.org\" >www.Bilderburg.org<\/a>), Trilateral Commission, Bohemian Club, Davos Factions, Grand\u00a0 Orange Lodge, Council on Foreign Relations, Skull and Bones. \u00a0To this we must add many Philanthropies and Foundations, which become tax dodges for the wealthy and privileged, and which deny citizen control by funding ad privileging special interests.<\/p>\n<p>Many individuals and groups have their roots in past concentrations of wealth, power, and position (e.g., see G. Edward Griffin [2010] <strong><em>The Creature from Jekyll Island<\/em><\/strong>, Westlake CA: American Media).\u00a0 Networks of the wealthy are there to secure and preserve selfish interests, and to extend their interests to international proportions via hegemonic globalization and tribalism continues (e.g., Marsella, 2005).<\/p>\n<p>I do not deny the right of these powerfully positioned individuals and groups to meet, and to discuss issues of mutual concern. But I do deny them any right to use their wealth, power, and position to preserve their interests at the cost of our citizens and our nation\u2019s rights, liberties, and welfare. I do deny them the right to seclude their wealth and secret their intentions\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 With their disproportionate wealth, power, and position, they \u201cbuy\u201d their continuation via corruption, cronyism, and criminal actions. They abuse and insult a government created to preserve citizen rights and opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>To accept in silence the existence, actions, and influence of this concentrated group of individuals, institutions, and nations, compels citizens to remain contented with the material comforts and pleasures offered at the expense of citizen identity, agency, and courage. This sustains a <em>status quo<\/em> that continues to assure citizen disenfranchisement, powerlessness, and passivity.\u00a0 Silence in the face of this situation condemns not the abusers, but those who are abused, and assures further efforts after further control and domination.<\/p>\n<p>I repeat my earlier concern that under the guise of \u201cnational security,\u201d governments and private corporate and commercial enterprises have acquired extensive powers of surveillance, monitoring, and archiving of personal and collective information, and the means for mass control and domination.\u00a0 Recent investigative journalism publications have pointed out that the government surveillance and monitoring activities involve more than a million employees, and this does not include the numbers involved from growing private-sector surveillance and monitoring enterprises and \u201cblack-operations.\u201d\u00a0 <sup>(3)<\/sup><\/p>\n<p>A hierarchical system of power now exists.\u00a0 Can police officers or soldiers say \u201cno\u201d to commanders who order them to \u201cStop citizen demonstrations by any means available.\u201d\u00a0 New weapons for crowd control and protest subjugation now exist including sprays, gases, electronics, electromagnetic forces, bullets, bombs, and arrests, prison brutality, and denial of rights.\u00a0 The use of the term \u201ccounter-terrorism\u201d actions becomes ludicrous and indefensible when the state and governments &#8212; our nation &#8212; are the oppressors. That is who we are today as a nation!\u00a0\u00a0 Do not be misled by the continuation of everyday life activities that serve to hide the events occurring and to keep citizens calm and unresponsive.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Closing Thoughts:<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>As citizens committed to the restoration of our rights, privileges, and legal and civil responsibilities, as framed in the USA \u00a0Constitution and related codes of justice, we are compelled to act within the framework of law, even as we witness and experience the abuses of the law now abounding at public and private levels.\u00a0 Our recourse is simple, but not easy.<\/p>\n<p>We must as citizens, resist the many myths that we have been taught about the United States of America, including the democracy, equality, opportunity, peace, capitalism, honest government. These are myths. They kept us pacified.\u00a0 We must not belief what we had been told \u2013 what we had been indoctrinated in for years.<\/p>\n<p>The global context of our lives, with its \u201cinterdependency,\u201d requires a different ethic and cultural ethos \u2013 an ethos rooted in peace, social justice, freedom, and access to resources and services essential to survival and growth. This requires rethinking of the existing social orders, economic formations, and political policies that are rooted in 19<sup>th<\/sup> and 20<sup>th<\/sup> Century national events, forces, and structures (e.g., American exceptionalism, military interventions and occupations, Western cultural domination and imposition, corporate economic dominance, and a belief in \u201csurvival of the fittest\u201d).\u00a0 These anachronistic forces continue to guide policies and actions no longer viable in a \u201cshared\u201d world. They cater to special interests, not to the common good.<\/p>\n<p>While some would reason (<em>argue<\/em>) \u201ccompetition\u201d is an inherent characteristic of life resulting in the \u201csurvival of the fittest,\u201d and while some may claim the \u201cinherent\u201d validity of social Darwinism, I believe there is considerable evolutionary support for \u201ccooperation,\u201d \u201ccollaboration,\u201d and \u201ccivility\u201d as the essential arbiters for survival.\u00a0 Clearly, in a global era in which events in distant lands can have profound implications and consequences across the world, we can no longer afford the illusion that a \u201cversus\u201d mentality is justifiable, and that it can provide the foundation for stability, peace, and justice so desperately needed.<\/p>\n<p>We need to rethink our views of human nature, and to grasp the need to move toward different arbiters for individual, societal, and national policies and decision making.\u00a0 And here, I must note, it is essential the \u201cindividual\u201d be considered a basic unit for effecting change via educational efforts addressing not only \u201cemployment\u201d as a goal, but also the education of the total individual, including citizenship, personal responsibilities, moral obligations and duties, and a deep appreciation for the enduring human values of truth, beauty, liberty, freedom, compassion, respect, civility, and dignity.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Footnotes:<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ol>\n<li>See, for example, the following references:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Wolin, S. (2008). <strong><em>Democracy inc.: Managed democracy and the specter of inverted totalitarianism.<\/em><\/strong> Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Pilisuk, M. (2009).\u00a0 <strong><em>Who benefits from global violence and war: Uncovering a destructive system.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 Westport, CT: Praeger;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Johnson, C. (2010). <strong><em>Dismantling the empire: America\u2019s last best hope.<\/em><\/strong> NY: Metropolitan Books.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Hedges, C., &amp; Sacco, J. (2012). <strong><em>Days of destruction, days of revolt.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 NY: Nation Books.<\/p>\n<ol start=\"2\">\n<li>These words are not a blanket condemnation of a \u201ccapitalistic\u201d economic system for a number of reasons. Among them is the simple fact that there is no one system of capitalism; nor is there no possibility for its presence to be accompanied by a socially responsible, and just expression of policies and actions, that provide opportunities for an equitable and just distribution of wealth, power, and position.\u00a0 While it is a fact that virtually the entire world is now captive to a relatively uniform, hegemonic, and monolithic \u201ccapitalism\u201d controlled by a few Western nations, this does not mean that \u201ccapitalism\u201d cannot assume a more humane and socially responsible form.<\/li>\n<li>See, for example, the following references:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Priest, D., &amp; Arkin, W. (2011).\u00a0 <strong><em>Top secret America: The rise of the new American security state.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong>NY: Little Brown.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Bacevich, A. (2010).\u00a0 <strong><em>Washington rules: America\u2019s path to permanent war<\/em><\/strong>. NY: Metropolitan Books.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Engdahl, W. (2011, 3<sup>rd<\/sup> Edition). <strong><em>Full spectrum dominance: Totalitarian democracy in the new world order.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 Joshua Tree, CA:\u00a0 Progressive Press<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Wedel, J. (2009). <strong><em>Shadow elite: How the world\u2019s new power brokers undermine democracy, government, and the free market.<\/em><\/strong> NY: Basic Books<\/p>\n<h3><strong>General References:<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>BRIA (Bill of Rights in Action) (2003, 19:2).\u00a0 Social Darwinism and American laissez-faire capitalism. <strong><em>Constitutional Rights Foundation.htm<\/em><\/strong>. <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.crf-usa.org\/bria19:2htm\" >http:\/\/www.crf-usa.org\/bria19:2htm<\/a>. Wikipedia.<\/p>\n<p>Docherty, G. &amp; MacGregor, J (2013). <strong><em>Hidden history: The secret origins of the First World War.<\/em><\/strong> Edinburg, Scotland: Mainstream Publishing.<\/p>\n<p>Freire, P. (1997). <strong><em>The pedagogy of the oppressed. <\/em><\/strong>\u00a0NY: Continuum.<\/p>\n<p>Gibney, J. (January 23, 2013<strong><em>).\u00a0 Davos\u2019 dubious strategic partners<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/2013-01-23\/davos-s-dubious-strategic-partners.\" ><strong>http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/2013-01-23\/davos-s-dubious-strategic-partners.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Huxley, J. and Kittlewell, H.B.D. (1965),\u00a0<em><strong>Charles Darwin and His World<\/strong><\/em>,\u00a0 NY: Viking Press (p. 81),<\/p>\n<p>Marsella, A.J. (1998).\u00a0 Toward a global psychology: Meeting the needs of a changing world<strong><em>. <\/em><\/strong><em>\u00a0<strong>American\u00a0 Psychologist, 53<\/strong>, <\/em>1282-1291<em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Marsella, A.J. (2005) \u201cHegemonic\u201d globalization and cultural diversity: The risks of global monoculturalism. <em>Australian Mosaic, Volume 12<\/em><em>, <\/em><em>#4, 15-22.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Marsella, A.J. (2011).\u00a0 The United States of America: A \u201cculture of war<strong>.\u201d <em>International Journal of Intercultural Research, 35, 714-728.<\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Marsella, A.J. (December 12, 2011).\u00a0\u00a0 American Popular Culture: Socializing and Homogenizing Mind, Nation, and World.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/search\/\" ><strong>https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/search\/<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><u>www.transcend.org\/tms\/2011\/&#8230;\/american-popular-culture\/<\/u><\/p>\n<p>Marsella, A.J. (November 19, 2012). American popular culture. Socializing \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and homogenizing mind, nation, and world. Transcend Media Service<\/p>\n<p><strong>https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2012\/11\/american-popular-culture-socializing-and-homogenizing-mind-nation-and-world\/<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Marsella, A.J. (2012). Globalization and psychology. <strong><em>Journal of Social Issues, 68, 454-472. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Marsella, A.J. (2014). The Just Enough Policy: Behavior control of collective protest through minimum reward. June 30, 2014. <strong><em>Transcend Media Services. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/06\/the-just-enough-policy-behavioral-control-of-collective-protest-through-minimum-reward\/\" ><strong>https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/06\/the-just-enough-policy-behavioral-control-of-collective-protest-through-minimum-reward\/<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Marsella, A.J. (January 21, 2019).<strong> Becoming God! \u201cControlling Human Ontology:\u201d Ambitions of the \u201cSecret-State Confederation\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/01\/becoming-god-controlling-human-ontology-ambitions-of-the-secret-state-confederation\/\" ><strong>https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/01\/becoming-god-controlling-human-ontology-ambitions-of-the-secret-state-confederation\/<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Marsella, A.J. (August 5, 2019<em>) \u00a0Omnipresent surveillance: Dystopian \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 society in a Global Age.<strong> Transcend Media Service<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/08\/omnipresent-\" ><strong>https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/08\/omnipresent-<\/strong><\/a><strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 surveillance-dystopian-society-in-our-global-era\/ <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Todhunter, C. (2013). The lies of democracy and the language of deceit. January 18, 2013. <strong><em>Global Research.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>___________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/anthony-Marsella1-e1507209259161.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-97653\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/anthony-Marsella1-e1507209259161.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"129\" \/><\/a><\/em><em>Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D., a member of the <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/\" >TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a><em>, is a past president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, Emeritus Professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii\u2019s Manoa Campus in Honolulu, Hawaii, and past director of the World Health Organization Psychiatric Research Center in Honolulu. \u00a0He 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<\/em> TMS<em> articles may be accessed<\/em> <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?s=Anthony+j+Marsella\" >HERE<\/a> and he can be reached at <\/em><a href=\"mailto:marsella@hawaii.edu\"><em>marsella@hawaii.edu<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;It is not the unloved who initiate disaffection, but those who cannot love because they love only themselves. It is not the helpless, subject to terror, who initiate terror, but the violent, who with their power. create the concrete situation which begets the &#8216;rejects of life.&#8217; It is not the tyrannized who initiate despotism, but the tyrants. It is not those whose humanity is denied them who negate humankind, but those who denied that humanity (thus negating their own as well). Force is used not by those who have become weak under the preponderance of the strong, but by the strong who have emasculated them.&#8221; (Paulo Freire, 1970)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":97653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[75],"class_list":["post-185050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}