Insanity and robotisation: Militarisation and US society Horace
Campbell 2010-11-18, Issue 505<http://www.pambazuka.org/en/issue/505>http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/68824<http://www.pambazuka.org/en/c
ategory/features/68824>
[http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/505/campbell.jpg] cc
ghbrett<http://www.flickr.com/photos/orpost/5127072845/>On the
strength of the psychological warfare and mind control inflicted
on its citizens, US societys increasing militarisation should be
treated with acute concern, writes Horace Campbell.
A rally to restore sanity was held in the Washington Mall on 30
October 2010.
Called by two comedians, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, the rally
drew over 200,000 persons (CBS News:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20021284-503544.html). Another
4 million persons watched this rally on cable television. The
escalation of intolerance and use of violent language by the
conservative forces gave this rally tremendous importance in the
politics of the USA.
The singers and performers who appeared in this three-hour rally
were persons known to be opposed to Islamophobia and militarism.
Although built in jest as a Rally to restore sanity and/or fear,
we take the theme of this rally very seriously, especially for a
society that is involved in wars, militarisation and the robotisation
of its youths. It is important to adequately highlight the insanity
inherent in the militarisation of the US society and the psychological
warfare and mind control of the US citizens, oriented toward hate,
killing and perpetual warfare. Unfortunately, in the Rally to restore
sanity Colbert and Stewart did not make clear and strong statements
on the US wars of occupation in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan or
the trillion-dollar budget devoted to the militarisation of the
planet. It is now up to the peace and justice movements to deepen
the delegitimisation of US militarism and torture. The conservative
forces have been so emboldened that there is a rehabilitation of
George W. Bush, who can now boast on national TV that he authorised
torture. Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU) have rightfully called for a criminal investigation
into his admission of authorising torture. In a letter to Attorney
General Eric Holder, the ACLU reminded the US Department of Justice
that a nation committed to the rule of law cannot simply ignore
evidence that its most senior leaders authorized torture. This call
for investigation should not be taken lightly because this sort of
criminal investigation into international lawlessness would be one
other way of beginning to restore sanity in the US. Indeed, such
sanity can only come from a break with the traditions of celebrating
killings as progress and brutality as true courage.
GEORGE W. BUSH AND THE CONSERVATIVE CORPORATE MEDIA
It was during the period of George W. Bush that the mainstream US
media became more deeply interwoven with the US psychological warfare
against its citizens.
Simultaneously, new sources of insurgent news platforms developed
from below.
It was no less a body than the Columbia Journalism Review that
elaborated on the mind games that have been played against US
citizens immediately after 11 September 2001. It was Donald Rumsfeld
who argued
that<http://web.archive.org/web/20080330191442/cjrarchives.org/issues/2006/3/
schulman.asp> the most critical battles may not be in the mountains
of Afghanistan or the streets of Iraq but in places like New York,
London, Cairo, and elsewhere. More than half of this battle is
taking place in the battlefield of the media.
Those who study public relations and information management are
comparing the propaganda capabilities of the US to the propaganda
machine of Nazi Germany.
We leave it to these students to decide if the information warfare
and mind control in the US has not far outstripped the capabilities
of Goebbels and the Third Reich Ministry of Propaganda in Nazi
Germany from 1933 to 1945. In the USA, the propaganda techniques
to psychologically prepare the society for perpetual warfare remain
in the hands of a conservative corporate media, which is dominated
by the same elements who profit from the militaryinformationindustrial
complex. For these forces, it is essentially profitable to mobilise
and motivate US citizens for war.
There are now revelations that the Justice Department of the USA
has been hiding for the past four years the CIA's (Central Intelligence
Agency) efforts to protect known Nazi war criminals in the United
States<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/ns/nightly_news/#40182976>. The
New York Times carried an extensive account of the role that prominent
members of Germany's Nazi party played in the early, formative years
of the CIA, following the Second World War. It alleges that the CIA
created a safe haven for Nazis believed to be of use to the US's
Cold War efforts (see details in the New York Times article, Nazis
Were Given Safe Haven in U.S., Report Says.http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/us/14nazis.html?_r=1)
It is urgent that the forces for peace push the Justice Department
of the USA to publish this report on how the collaboration with
Nazis shaped the intelligence and security apparatus. Peace activists
in the USA must raise their voices to expose the past mind control
and the full extent of the collaboration of the intelligence services
with Nazis past and present.
It is now even most alarming that the mind control has gone beyond
the popular media into the virtual world of video games to robotise
and militarise the psyche of young persons, preparing them for
perpetual warfare.
ROBOTISATION AND MILITARISATION OF THE YOUTHS
Whether in fiction or in forward planning for military engagement
in the 21st century, writers such as P.W. Singer (Wired for War:
The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century) are
involved in the discussion of the period when robots would do most
manual work and when robots would be deployed for war to maintain
the military superiority of the US. What writers such as these also
need to connect is the robotisation of the youths to turn them into
mindless consumers and warriors. On this front, the conservative
media conglomerates are reinforced by the video-game industry.
Youths are raised to the violence of games such as Grand Theft Auto.
The Pentagon itself is using video games as a recruiting tool. We
are now informed of a new video game in which the youths are supposed
to practice the killing of Fidel Castro. This video game, entitled
Call of Duty: Black Ops, went on sale in North America and Europe
on Tuesday 9 November 2010.
Building on the macho themes of the elite forces of the US armed
forces this video game set in Cuba, the Soviet Union and Vietnam,
is a hyper-realistic violent Cold War role-playing game in which
the player joins the Bay of Pigs invasion and then completes the
task of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961 of Cuba with the
mission to assassinate a young Fidel Castro.
The game's first mission is to assassinate Fidel Castro before the
1962 missile crisis, the moment when the Cold War came closest to
tipping into a full-blown nuclear conflict. Later missions take
gamers inside the former Soviet Union and southeast Asia during the
Vietnam War.
According to the website Cubadebate, This new video game is doubly
perverse.
On the one hand, it glorifies the illegal assassination attempts
the United States government planned against the Cuban leader and
on the other, it stimulates sociopathic attitudes in North American
children and adolescents.
What the United States government did not manage to do in 50 years,
now it attempts to accomplish by virtual means.
Perhaps these unrepentant beings would soon make video games in
which kids are trained to facilitate the CIAs collaboration with
and recruitment of Nazi officials for safe haven in the USA.
Peace activists in all parts of the world must denounce these video
games and call for a boycott of these violent games. There are
dangers in raising a future generation of persons who are meant to
see nothing wrong with killing in the virtual world in preparation
for killing with drones and bombs in the real world. The training
ground for the perpetual war of the US military is not just in the
military bases, but in the virtual world of video games that are
supposed to entertain the youths. In the words of Nick Turse, through
video games, the military and its partners in the academia and the
entertainment industry are creating an arm of media culture geared
toward preparing young Americans for armed conflict. It is in this
context that the video games that meant to help young persons
practice the killing of Fidel Castro is not accidental but part of
the forward planning to turn American youths against those youths
who admire Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. Can a society which carries
out torture, murder, killing with drones, assassinating perceived
enemies and raising its young ones to do the same be a healthy
society?
MILITARISM AND INSANITY
The concept of the hero and the triumphant American has been so
ingrained in the popular culture that the society cannot cope with
the decline of American power. Economic decline is threatening to
reproduce new forms of insecurity in the US. The US society is
delicately poised at the precipice of a new form of insanity inspired
by the militaryentertainment complex. Last weekend, I participated
in a commemoration of the life of Bill Sutherland at the Schomburg
Institute in Harlem. Bill Sutherland passed away at the age of 91.
What was striking of Bill Sutherland was his refusal to fight in
the Second World War. He was a pacifist who supported the
self-determination projects of peoples all throughout the 20th
century. At the same time there was another ceremony to celebrate
the life of Marilyn Buck, a freedom fighter who saved the life of
Assata Shakur and who fought against racism, homophobia and the
militaristic state. It is the history of peace and justice forces
such as Marilyn Buck and Bill Sutherland in the USA that has prevented
the society from complete insanity.
Frantz Fanon, the psychiatrist from Martinique, gave us some of the
best insights into the relationship between wars, colonial occupation
and mental disorders. In his book, The Wretched of the Earth, he
wrote a chapter on how states at war carry out the brainwashing of
their population. Added to this brainwashing is the general attempt
to manipulate the minds of the people and make them insensitive to
hating and killing other human beings. The evidence of brainwashing
and psychological warfare against the citizens of the USA is now
well-documented. This documentation needs to be engaged by the peace
forces in order to link mental health to physical health.
Inside the US there are many young people who return from Afghanistan
and Iraq with deep psychological scars such as post-traumatic stress,
suicidal tendencies and other forms of mental illnesses. Many
communities suffer the after effects of the psychiatric problems
of many of their youths. And the challenge for the US is whether
the mental disorder is only to be found in these youths or in the
society as a whole. Again, I ask: Can a society that carries out
torture and murder and kill with drones be a healthy society? It
is here that we have to go back to Fanon who said that total
liberation is that which concerns all sections of the personality.
In this sense, we would want to agree with Fanon that physical
health, spiritual health and mental health are all related. The
absence of robust healthcare for the citizens of the US is only one
manifestation of the wounds that have to be carried by a society
facing psychological warfare and brainwashing. Health in this context
requires a radical transformation of society. And a prerequisite
for health is peace. What the US society should be teaching young
people is Ubuntu how to be at peace with other humans and with the
planet earth. Young persons in the US need Ubuntu and video games
for peace, not militarisation, robotisation and the rehearsal of
how to kill perceived enemies. The sanity of mind of our children
is required for a peaceful world.
BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS
* Horace Campbell is a teacher and writer. His latest book is 'Barack
Obama and 21st Century Politics: A Revolutionary Moment in the
USA'<http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745330068&>,
published by Pluto Press.
* Please send comments to edi...@pambazuka.org<mailto:edi...@pambazuka.org>
or comment online at Pambazuka News<http://www.pambazuka.org/>.
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