What Is To Be Gained By Calling It “Terror”?

Brad Evans writes:

Politicians know better than most that words function politically. More than offering some definitive truth to a situation, the use of language conditions what is further possible. The decision therefore to label the horrifying spectacle of violence witnessed on the streets of Woolwich in South London yesterday as a “terror attack” will have consequences. 

But what is actually to be gained from labelling it in such a way instead of a criminal act, politically motivated violence or just pathological derangement?

Before all the facts were established, politicians and media alike were quick to declare that the violence “looked like terror”. This justification was made on two counts. Firstly, it was presumed that the target for the violence was a military personal. The second, more compelling at the time, was the footage of an assailant who stated without remorse for the action: “We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. The only reasons we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day. This British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. We must fight them”.

Further adding as if to claim that the burden of history left him with no option: “I apologise that women had to witness this today, but in our land our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your government. They don’t care about you.”

The British Home Secretary, Theresa May, immediately responded by declaring that the vicious assault on the soldier was more than an individual crime but an “attack against all of us”. This justification however raises a number of serious questions. Assuming that the violence was politically motivated does that necessarily imply that the attack was on the entire fabric of our society? And what does it mean to collapse the military with the civic so that no distinction can be established?

Not only has the role and function of our militaries been radically transformed beyond “defence” as they have been given the oxymoronic task of fighting for peace, under the auspices of the War on Terror many have been deeply uncomfortable with their interventions and the violence this created. Violence, it must be added, many even in the policy world believe to be the source of the today’s fundamentalism. Moreover, if we are to use the words of the assailant as justification for political motive, should we not take these more seriously and open them up to rigorous scrutiny?

Like the violence witnessed at the Boston Marathon last month, it is evident that this spectacle of violence was markedly different from the horrors of 9/11 and 7/7. No longer purposefully aiming for “mass casualty” shock appeal, the numbers of victims are much less in number. That does not demean the nature of the tragedy. It does however raise the question as to why these localised acts of violence can still be presented as part of a continuum of threat that endangers global security?

Michael Clarke, the director of United Kingdom’s less than impartial think tank the Royal United Services Institute, speaking on the BBC called the perpetrators of the attack “Homicidal exhibitionists”. They represent a handful of individuals – possible lone – who crave the media spot-light and shock through the celebratory nature of violence as a public spectacle. This may well be true, but the question remains why do these particular acts shock us while the comparable events in other parts of the world are barely considered? Indeed, why are we so fixated in the contemporary period on these types of “media-events” instead of the continual violence many suffer on a daily basis which just so happens to occur outside of the spotlight?

Such events continue to be presented to us as random. This is not incidental. Random events strike without warning. They offer in other words no credible foresight. Some even reason that we need to accept their inevitability. Surely, however, if we accept that the violence is political then there is nothing random whatsoever about it occurrence? Political violence is always a process. It always has a history. Its spectacle as such cannot be divorced from the violence which precedes it. Neither can a solution be found unless it faces up to the altogether more difficult political task.

Perhaps one of the more disturbing aspects of the violence was the manner in which the video of the assailant went viral. This should not escape our attentions. Our culture is fascinated by spectacles of violence. From Hollywood movies, video games, to nightly dramas, violence seems to grab our attention more than any other performance. Maybe this alone demands more in depth scrutiny and more ethical consideration?

We must remember that “Terror” by definition is morally and politically loaded. Far from offering to us an objective assessment, it immediately invokes ideas of barbarity and evil, even though the act of violence is deemed to be pre-mediated, rationally calculated, and politically motivated. What is more, neatly setting apart bad guys from good guy, it rightly de-legitimates some forms of violence, yet morally authors others as necessary for the protection of the core values of societies.

Its peculiarity however is that while terror is a political term, once applied it consciously prevents serious politically discussion. Terror offers no compromise. There is nothing to be negotiated. There is no credible politics to be spoken of. More than failing to even entertain that the term may be brought into critical doubt, what remains is a framing of the violence in such a way that militarism reigns supreme. Terror in other-words sanctions the need to meet violence with a violent response.

It is no doubt disturbing to see this type of violence come to our cities streets. It is also deeply unsettling to witness the assailants remaining at the scene and continuing to calmly walk about and justify their actions to a filming public as if the violence was normal. For violence to have any shock value it must appear somehow exceptional. And yet to understand it fully we need to take seriously the claim that its exceptional qualities are wholly dependent upon highly contingent factors. Not least which side of the political divide we just so happen to have simply been born into.

We may remain shocked, angry and outraged by the violence witnessed on our screens. This is an understandable human response. Too often we forget that emotions matter. There is nothing however to be gained by labelling it a “terror attack” other than to perpetuate a climate of fear that fuels hatred and extremist positions on all sides. Dealing instead with it as either a localised form of criminality that should not be dignified with a political response or a politically motivated attack outside of the Terror frame may just allow us to break this tragic cycle of violence.

Brad Evans is director of Histories of Violence, Global Insecurities Centre, School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies (SPAIS) at University of Bristol.

FreeThoughtManifesto has also provided an Al-Jazeera video on this subject:

Woolwich Attack: An Act Of Terrorism?

"I think what we can see from this attack is that it was a very ideological attack, in so far as the men involved attacked symbols of the state. They attacked a soldier, but then didn't threatened any of the passes-by or bystanders. They really let them go on with the business, and waited there until the police arrived, and then once the police arrived they attacked them.  So it is clear to me, that this was an ideological attack, with the very clear political message, that wanted to target elements of the state, that they felt aggrieved with."

- Shiraz Maher, International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King's College London.

How Fear Skews Our Spatial Perception

By Carol Clark, 

That snake heading towards you may be further away than it appears. Fear can skew our perception of approaching objects, causing us to underestimate the distance of a threatening one, finds a study published in Current Biology.

“Our results show that emotion and perception are not fully dissociable in the mind,” says Emory psychologist Stella Lourenco, co-author of the study. “Fear can alter even basic aspects of how we perceive the world around us. This has clear implications for understanding clinical phobias.”

Lourenco conducted the research with Matthew Longo, a psychologist at Birkbeck, University of London.

People generally have a well-developed sense for when objects heading towards them will make contact, including a split-second cushion for dodging or blocking the object, if necessary. The researchers set up an experiment to test the effect of fear on the accuracy of that skill.

The more fearful someone reported feeling of spiders, the more they underestimated time-to-collision of a looming spider.

Study participants made time-to-collision judgments of images on a computer screen. The images expanded in size over one second before disappearing, to simulate “looming,” an optical pattern used instinctively to judge collision time. The study participants were instructed to gauge when each of the visual stimuli on the computer screen would have collided with them by pressing a button.

The participants tended to underestimate the collision time for images of threatening objects, such as a snake or spider, as compared to non-threatening images, such as a rabbit or butterfly.

The results challenge the traditional view of looming, as a purely optical cue to object approach. “We’re showing that what the object is affects how we perceive looming. If we’re afraid of something, we perceive it as making contact sooner,” Longo says.

“Even more striking,” Lourenco adds, “it is possible to predict how much a participant will underestimate the collision time of an object by assessing the amount of fear they have for that object. The more fearful someone reported feeling of spiders, for example, the more they underestimated time-to-collision for a looming spider. That makes adaptive sense: If an object is dangerous, it’s better to swerve a half-second too soon than a half-second too late.”

The researchers note that it’s unclear whether fear of an object makes the object appear to travel faster, or whether that fear makes the viewer expand their sense of personal space, which is generally about an arm’s length away.

“We’d like to distinguish between these two possibilities in future research. Doing so will allow us to shed insight on the mechanics of basic aspects of spatial perception and the mechanisms underlying particular phobias,” Lourenco says.

Via: "eScience Commons"

No Matter Who “Wins”, Humanity Loses

By Larry Chin,

On one side, the Obama administration, and the traditional brand of neoliberal imperialism and international consensus, and false domestic populism. On the other side with Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, militant right-wing extremism, an apocalyptic war agenda and the politics of sadism at home.

The final choice will not be made by voters (who will be disenfranchised again, via electronic vote fraud and other manipulations), but by the criminal elements who seize final control of the apparatus over the final month of the “contest”.

The “children” are being allowed to fight it out amongst themselves. The side with ultimate command of the corporate media propaganda, the most effective back door deals, and the most effective dirty tricks and election night shenanigans, will prevail, the pre-determined result promptly encrypted into the software of controlled Diebold voting machines.

The Debate Charade
 

It is tempting but futile to dissect the theatrics of the debates, which are based on entirely on false premises to begin with. Not one exhaustively argued “talking point” addresses realities.

The carefully pre-selected issues assume a host of falsehoods, from the legitimacy of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the destabilizations of Iran and Syria, to the need for fiscal austerity.

These are rhetorical dog-and-pony shows without real differences, beyond timing, style, and method, by which they will execute similar agendas.

Both sides largely agree on foreign policy. Both sides proudly trumpet how best to inflict crippling economic warfare on “nuclear Iran”, and topple Syria. The only argument is whether the sequential multinational stranglehold (“diplomacy”) led by the Obama administration continues apace, or, if Romney/Ryan and the right will get what they really want: an all-out war with Iran.

Both sides agree on the same falsehoods regarding the national debt (without mentioning that the world war that they enthusiastically wage is the main expenditure) and the US financial crisis (ignoring the fact that the financial “crisis” and “bailout” was a manipulation that centralized the power for Wall Street constituents, the big banks, who support both sides equally, at the expense of US taxpayers). In terms of social programs (that will be cut in any case in order to pay for more war), the Romney/Ryan contingent calls for an immediate destruction of the entire social structure of the US—a swift draconian end to social programs such as Medicare and Social Security—while the Obama administration takes a more gradual approach.

Essentially, the candidates have already admitted that they do not serve the interests of most of humanity.

The media “analysis” of the election has been stomach-turning— nothing more than insanity heaped atop insanity. The chattering of talking heads over infantile nonsense, such as “who looks presidential”, who got more “gotchas” and “zingers”. A dumbed-down spectacle for a dumbed-down, manipulated populace.

Which Way To The Abyss?

There have never been real elections in contemporary America, and there will be no “election” this time either. There will, as always, be no real choice: war-mongering, mass-murdering imperialist “A” or war-mongering mass-murdering imperialist “B”.

America and the world must pay attention to which brand of fascism will ultimately be chosen, if only to properly prepare for what is to come. The marginal differences in method and style have ramifications, domestically and globally.

The quelling of increasingly large swaths of humanity is more important to the elite than ever before. The next White House occupant will spearhead the likely UN and NATO regime changes for Syria and Iran, both of which have been systematically destabilized by the CIA and its affiliates, and the “reconstruction” of the American social net.

Will it be more of the fist inside the velvet glove, or the hammer directly to the skull?

No matter who “wins”, humanity loses.

Via: "Global Research"

Edward Bernays: The Master Of Modern Propaganda

Posted by guest blogger "Sayf Maslul" 

Part-1



Part-2



"The modern master of the propaganda game was PR genius Edward Bernays, Viennese-born nephew of Sigmund Freud. Bernays took propaganda seriously for his career work: he combined individual and social psychology, public opinion studies, political persuasion and advertising to construct “necessary illusions” which filtered out to the masses as “reality.”

"Bernays proudly referred to this all-important social process as the “engineering of consent.” All of this had little, if anything, to do with real democracy. The objective for Bernays was to provide government and media outlets with powerful tools for social persuasion and control. As a matter of fact, so impressed was he with Bernays’ early works Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923) and Propaganda (1928) that Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels relied heavily upon them for his own dubious inspiration in the 1930s. Apparently, that Bernays was a Jew mattered little to Goebbels....

"Bernays and journalistic giant Walter Lippman came to Woodrow Wilson’s aid in 1917 to reverse negative public sentiment about war. These two behind-the-curtain wizards were indispensable in helping the president whip gun-shy America into an anti-German frenzy to go “over there” for WWI. Bernays created the patriotic war slogan “Make the World Safe for Democracy”—an irresistibly patriotic mantra that America embraced..."

(above comes from "Propaganda: The Art of War", by James Sandrolini at Chicago Media Watch.)

---

"...Wilson created the Committee on Public Information (CPI) on April 13, 1917. According to a must-read study by Aaron Delwiche at the School of Communications, University of Washington, (4) "Under the leadership of a muckraking journalist named George Creel, the CPI recruited heavily from business, media, academia, and the art world. The CPI blended advertising techniques with a sophisticated understanding of human psychology, and its efforts represent the first time that a modern government disseminated propaganda on such a large scale. It is fascinating that this phenomenon, often linked with totalitarian regimes, emerged in a democratic state." "Invoking the threat of German propaganda," the study continues, "the CPI implemented 'voluntary guidelines' for the news media and helped to pass the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. The CPI did not have explicit enforcement power, but it nevertheless 'enjoyed censorship power which was tantamount to direct legal force.'"

"The tools, techniques and processes developed by the CPI to manipulate the collective attitudes of the public did not disappear with the termination of [WWI]. The heads of the organization went on to apply the lessons learned in time of war to a country at peace. These former CPI agents moved on to Madison Avenue, joined the nascent Public Relations firms and became lobbyists.

""Two years later," the study states, (5) "the Director of the CPI's Foreign Division argued that 'the history of propaganda in the war would scarcely be worthy of consideration here, but for one fact — it did not stop with the armistice. No indeed! The methods invented and tried out in the war were too valuable for the uses of governments, factions, and special interests.' Sigmund Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays, took the techniques he learned in the CPI directly to Madison Avenue and became an outspoken proponent of propaganda as a tool for democratic government. 'It was, of course, the astounding success of propaganda during the war that opened the eyes of the intelligent few in all departments of life to the possibilities of regimenting the public mind,' wrote Bernays in his 1928 bombshell Propaganda. 'It was only natural, after the war ended, that intelligent persons should ask themselves whether it was not possible to apply a similar technique to the problems of peace.'"

"The intelligent few....regimenting the public mind... Edward Bernays [1891-1995] is also known as the Father of Spin (6) and the godfather of modern public relations (the "father" of public relations is Ivy Lee whose firm, Ivy Lee & T.J. Ross, was hired for $25,000 a year by the German conglomerate, I.G. Farben, which invited him to meet Hitler and Goebbels. His son, James Lee went to work for Farben in Berlin.)

"The Institute for Propaganda Analysis, founded in 1937 to educate the public about the nature of propaganda, identified "seven basic propaganda devices: Name-Calling, Glittering Generality, Transfer, Testimonial, Plain Folks, Card Stacking, and Band Wagon."

(the above is from Propaganda: Then and Now, by Gilles d'Aymery at Swans.)

---

"Bernays was a press officer for Woodrow Wilson at the peace conferences in Europe following World War I, his job being to present Wilson in the most favourable light possible in order to boost his popularity with the American public. By this time the word propaganda was already gaining a sinister implication in the West due to its association with communism, and Bernays coined the term Public Relations as a positive alternative. 


Back in America Bernays set to work for major corporations, with one of his most spectacular successes being to help break the taboo against women smoking. He paraded a group of attractive young ladies through New York smoking and bearing the slogan 'March for Freedom'. Anyone criticising the idea of women smoking would now appear to be against freedom, and the numbers of women taking up the habit shot through the roof.

"After this success Lehman Brothers and other big New York banks financed the development of department stores, confident that they could use the techniques pioneered by Bernays to persuade people to purchase a range of products that left to themselves they may very well not have bothered with. This period also saw the introduction of the techniques of product placement and psuedo-scientific product endorsement so familiar to us today. All of this dubious activity in the capitalist economy was one of the main factors leading to the bubble which ended in the Wall Street crash of 1929.."

(The above is from BBC's Century of the Self, a review by Paul Shepherd.)

Additional information On Edward Bernays From: "Wikipedia"

indoctriNATION

Posted by Guest Blogger "Sayf Maslul"


Because there is so much indoctrination that many people can’t even understand the word “profits.” If you try using the word “profits” around Harvard, for example, in the Kennedy School of Government, if you say “Clinton’s out there getting profits for rich Americans,” then people would be appalled — “Is he some kind of conspiracy theorist? Marxist? anti-American? or crazed radical?” 

Even elementary truisms like this, which to someone like Adam Smith, are so obvious he scarcely even bothered to talk about them, are completely beaten out of heads of educated people. In fact, I think it’s worse among the educated sectors than among the uneducated. 

I’ve talked to all sorts of people, and it would be harder to convince Harvard graduates that this deal with Exxon was for profits than it would be to convince guys on the street. They’d say “Yeah, obviously.” 

And the reason is, if you’ve been really well educated, meaning well indoctrinated, you can’t even think rational thoughts any longer. They can’t come to you, the words can’t come to you. 

So, I don’t think Elaine Sciolino is lying, it’s just that the conception of the state working to increase profits for wealthy Americans is inconceivable. You can’t think that thought. If it’s ever expressed, you have to designate it “unthinkable,” with scare words like “conspiracy theory.” And that’s the process of “good education.” 

People who don’t internalize those values are weeded out along the way. By the time you get to the top, you’ve internalized them.”
[By Noam Chomsky]

'US Media War' In South America

The US wants to counter the 'propaganda' of Telesur, which is backed by Venezuela's leftist government [EPA]


Diplomatic Cables Show The Struggle For Public Opinion Between Telesur and Voice of America.

By Nikolas Kozloff
Last Modified: 26 Mar 2011 13:06
Courtesy Of "Al-Jazeera"

In an effort to deflect and counteract leftist regimes in Latin America during the Cold War, Washington attached great political importance to its propaganda efforts.

From Cuba to Chile, the US sought to promote friendly media while cultivating the support of right-wing reporters.

Ultimately, such propaganda efforts proved not only economically wasteful but also politically self-defeating as Washington antagonised the Latin left, leaving a bitter residue for years to come.

In light of the Cold War experience one might expect Washington to learn from its mistakes, yet in 2006 Voice of America started to broadcast toward leftist Venezuela.

Originally founded in 1942, the Voice of America is overseen by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (or BBG), a quasi-independent company in charge of US "public diplomacy" which in turn beams radio and TV programming to countries such as Cuba.

'Media War'

Recent diplomatic cables disclosed by whistle-blowing outfit WikiLeaks underscore Washington's high stakes media war in Latin America.

Though Cuba had been an earlier focal point of US propaganda efforts, in more recent times it is Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's president, who has sounded the alarm bell over at the state department.

In a 2007 cable disclosed by Argentine paper Página/12, US diplomats speak candidly about the need to counteract media initiatives launched by the firebrand leftist leader from Venezuela.

As I discuss at great length in my recent book, Chavez has done much to promote state-sponsored media in South America in an effort to counteract traditional, conservative media tied to the US.

After right-wing forces allied to the Bush administration and Venezuela's right-wing media failed to dislodge Chavez in a 2002 coup, Caracas stepped up its information war, first by promoting domestic media and later by spurring the growth of more innovative pan-South American outlets.

Though US diplomats expressed concern about left-leaning media in general, it was Telesur which most raised the Americans' ire.

A satellite news network sponsored by Venezuela and leftist allies such as Argentina, Uruguay, Cuba and Bolivia, Telesur was the "main source to broadcast anti-US propaganda", running "particularly slick" documentaries about CIA meddling in Latin America.

US officials wrote that they would continue to recommend different measures to counteract Chavez, who posed a threat to American interests.

Voice of America

Washington, diplomats declared, "cannot expect the region's leaders to rally to our defence; rather we need to more proactively make the case for and implement our transparent strategy for the region".

As it turns out, officials at the State Department were not the only ones growing concerned about the growth of pro-Chavez media.

On Capitol Hill, Republican representative Connie Mack of Florida crafted an amendment to a State Department Foreign Appropriations Bill designed to expand radio broadcasting to Venezuela.

Earlier, Mack had sounded the alarm bell after Telesur concluded a content-sharing agreement with Al Jazeera. The move, Mack charged, would surely serve to create "a global television network for terrorists".

Mack's proposal, which passed the House, included a request to supply the BBG with additional resources to extend the entity's broadcasting reach through the Voice of America.

When he got wind of the measure Hugo Chavez was predictably none too pleased, remarking that the proposal was a "preposterous imperialist idea".

Fortunately however, tensions have cooled down somewhat since the Bush era, as Washington has adopted a somewhat less abrasive approach to Latin America.

It's unclear, however, whether the Obama administration continues to place great importance on its propaganda efforts in private. 

Hopefully, WikiLeaks will continue to release its cables on such vital matters so the public may form a clearer idea of the Obama White House's true political priorities in the region.

Honduras Coup

It would be instructive, for example, to get access to more WikiLeaks cables relating to the 2009 coup d'etat in Honduras and the role of the media.

The right wing military coup, which overthrew democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya, was an early blot on Obama's foreign policy record.

A maverick who challenged Washington, Zelaya was a key Chavez ally in Central America and needless to say Hillary Clinton's state department was less than forceful in pushing for the Honduran president's reinstatement.

What is less known, however, is that Telesur played a key role in covering the coup, even during the darkest days of the military clamp down.

At one point, the network even broadcast a live interview with president Zelaya as the ousted leader swooped over Tegucigalpa in a jet.

Telesur threw a lot of resources toward its coverage in Honduras, and at times during the first week of the coup the South American network was the only channel with a live feed from the Honduran capital.

Hardly amused, the Honduran army cut off Telesur's local broadcasts while soldiers rounded up the network's journalists in Tegucigalpa.

What was the Obama administration's take on the media politics surrounding the Honduras coup? Was Washington concerned about Telesur's growing profile throughout the region?

Without a clearer view from WikiLeaks cables, it's difficult to say though recent developments suggest we may be headed straight back to the future: recently, BBG Chairman Walter Isaacson remarked that the US could not afford to be "out-communicated" by enemies such as Telesur.

Two years ago, a freshly inaugurated Obama spoke of the need for an equal partnership between the US and Latin America during the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad.

Yet, when officials like Isaacson make dated and inflammatory type statements which hark back to the Cold War, such lofty aims are severely hampered.

In the final analysis, the US will have to ratchet back its long-standing propaganda machine if it wants to ease regional tensions and improve relations with the likes of Chavez. 

Nikolas Kozloff is the author of Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left.

Technology Addiction and Virtual Reality

By Charles Sullivan
November 22, 2010
Courtesy Of "Information Clearing House"

It will be difficult, if not impossible, to bring the U.S. back from the brink of social and economic collapse upon which it is so precariously perched. Our collective inertia is carrying us to the edge of the abyss. Changing course will require a change of consciousness, an awakening. Critical mass must be reached, but we have not even begun contemplating making that immense journey. We should have started long ago. Now it may be too late for us.

The American people are brainwashed by prolonged exposure to the corporate media, particularly television, which has a financial stake in keeping them propagandized and in a stupor. The religion of America is buying and selling. Capital is God and everyone and everything is subservient to it. Corporations are people. Money is free speech. Virtual reality has replaced actual reality.

With the proliferation of technological devices and the widespread use of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, people are receding deeper into catacombs of fantasy. Irreplaceable social skills are being lost in the process. Text messaging is no substitute for physical human contact. The touching of human lips and a furtive glance is more pregnant with possibility than a series of x’s and o’s sent over an IPhone. The psychological development of a healthy human being requires personal contact and social interaction.

Despite its potential use as a tool for social networking, the collective use of technology has had the opposite effect by trivializing conversation and by diminishing social interaction. People are more enamored with the technology than the quality of the communication. They are spending huge sums of money on the latest technology in order to avoid the stigma of “phone shame,” when older technology will suffice or personal contact is required. Monotonous chit chat is no substitute for real conversation about the important issues that affect us all.

As technology gains primacy, people are forgetting how to communicate with one another. We no longer know how to live in the natural world. The spiritual umbilical that connects us to the earth and promotes a sense of belonging to the greater biological community was severed by technology. As a result, technological Homo sapiens are careening out of control; they are spiritually and psychologically isolated from one another and from universal consciousness.

Due in part to our fascination with technological innovation, our perception of reality is either distorted or lost. We are wandering aimlessly toward oblivion, text messaging and chit-chatting like mechanical drones seeking to extract meaning from a world where the laws of physics do not apply and anything is possible, up to and including the impossible. That is the appeal of virtual reality: you can believe anything you want and pretend that it is true. We are attempting to suck nutriment from a block of styrofoam. We are dying inside.

Cell phones, IPods, Blackberries, Androids, high definition television, and computer games are little more than expensive toys that distract us from living authentic lives. Like pornography, electronic devices isolate people and prevent them from forming meaningful social networks that might promote revolutionary ideas.

Globally, perhaps more than a billion people are disconnected from one another by their addiction to technologies that keep them subservient to corporate power. The manner in which these ubiquitous devices are used tends to divide rather than unite people. Their use has done little to raise public consciousness or to produce better, more engaged citizens. Our infatuation with technology is working against collective awakening and the long term survival of the species. As Thoreau lamented long ago, “men have become the tools of their tools.” But who reads Thoreau nowadays? Reading great literature is such a quaint idea, a remnant of a bygone era. Who needs literacy when you can buy an IPhone or a really cool MP3 player? We do.

Technological innovation and capitalism go hand in hand. Capitalism fosters the conquest of nature and stimulates superfluous consumption and waste. The raw materials of industry and technology are taken from the earth, annihilating indigenous populations and promoting colonization. Driven by a philosophy of endless expansion, the ideology of the cancer cell, population growth is encouraged in order to increase the supply of consumers, as well as provide cannon fodder for the frequent military incursions that are inherent to capitalism.

Saturation advertising creates artificial wants and promotes usury lending. It leads to debt peonage that diminishes personal sovereignty while simultaneously promoting dependency on gratuitous goods and services. Militarism and occupation is a prominent feature of capitalism, as well as the dehumanization of the work force. These activities have enormous impact on the biosphere and on human relations.

The pervasive addiction to complex technology has led to the evolution of a passive consumer culture that is incapable of acting in its own self-interest. It has rewired the human brain and significantly reduced attention spans. As a result, skills such as reading and writing are diminishing. Intricate social interaction is on the wane. People are becoming increasingly withdrawn and isolated from their neighbors and from their communities. They are alienated from nature. People inhabit virtual worlds because they no longer possess the psychological capacity, spiritual fortitude, and social skills required to live authentically in the actual world.

We Americans are being entertained to death. Having lost our visceral connection to nature, we can no longer differentiate between the real and the artificial. We think that we can believe whatever we want, regardless of the facts, and that ignorance will somehow protect us from the consequences of false consciousness. We ignore the exponential effect of witlessness at our own peril.

Behaving as if the laws of physics do not apply to the actual world does not bode well for our long term survival. We choose to live with our heads up our asses rejecting reality because it is too complex for us to comprehend. Being informed makes us too uncomfortable. Knowledge and understanding are too burdensome. Possessing them would require us to live better and simpler lives, and that requires too much effort. We do not crave a life of meaning and purpose but a life of ease stretched out on the sofa drinking beer, eating cheese and watching TV.

Thus we choose entertainment to blunt our senses and to suppress true consciousness from awakening. Our lives are predicated upon speed and laced with anxiety. Life is a blur mimicking the speed of electrons around a nucleus. The computer microchip and the motherboard is a microcosm of our cities and our harried lives of not so quiet desperation.

Life passes with little awareness. Everyone is in a hurry but no one is going anywhere. We are speeding up when we should be slowing down to notice the world around and within us. We vainly attempt to fill our empty lives with toys and electronic contraptions in an attempt to find a semblance of meaning in our hollowed-out existence.

The technological age has created a race of human beings that are no longer equipped to live in nature. Thus we destroy the very biosphere that is the source of all life. We exist as if there are no consequences to what we do. Cause and effect may not apply in the virtual worlds we create for ourselves, but it is a governing principle in nature. Technology is no substitute for carrying capacity.

Unable or unwilling to comprehend the implication of events such as the false flag operations of 9-11 or the problematic issue of global climate change, we retreat deeper into fantasy. Electronic technology is the opiate of the masses. Taken to excess, technology is a form of escapism no less destructive than the hallucinatory world created by heavy-duty recreational drugs or by hardcore pornography. Fantasy does not provide us the means of living an authentic life in the midst of nature. Moreover, it has not produced a worthwhile culture of close-knit communities based upon common need with high regard for the public welfare and planetary health.

We cannot confront the injustice of social and economic disparity, militarism, colonialism, gluttonous consumption, or the mass extinction of flora and fauna, until we acknowledge their existence. This requires that we live in the actual world with its stupendous biodiversity and complexity. It requires us to open our eyes and our minds to the possibilities of the actual world. We must strive to raise our own true consciousness and that of the people around us. This requires real contact between real people, and it entails initiating meaningful dialog. We must learn to be fully present in our own lives.

Charles Sullivan is a photographer, free lance writer and social activist residing somewhere in the hinterland of West Virginia.

Managing Public Perception

Psychological Warfare: Managing Public Perception

A Democracy Of Material Goods

How did the land of the free and the home of the brave arrive at a place where citizens could be manipulated with such efficiency and on such a massive scale?

Includes original interviews with a number of dissident scholars including Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, Peter Phillips (“Project Censored”), John Stauber (“PR Watch”), Christopher Simpson (“The Science of Coercion”) and others.http://metanoia-films.org/



Actor Mark Ruffalo reads union leader Eugene Debs' famous "Canton, Ohio" speech. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuGp-0G1p4M

Who Are We?

By Frank Scott
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Sep 14, 2010, 00:15
Courtesy Of "The Online Journal"

Under assault by a consciousness control system that insists we are doing quite well even when evidence shows we’re on the critical list, we have reason to be confused.

We were advised that combat in Iraq had ended as media swooned over 4,000 troops leaving, without mentioning 50,000 remaining. Or the 100,000 mercenaries who would continue our murderous policy. Or the treasonous lies used to wreak devastation upon an innocent people murdered, made refugees and reduced to poverty as a result of our destruction of their developed state, leaving a dysfunctional nation in its place.

We were informed that North Korea was “menacing” 30,000 U.S. military personnel on its borders, playing what were called “war games.” If 30,000 North Korean troops were rehearsing mass murder off the coast of California, we would not feel threatened but instead send them peace offerings of kimchi. Meanwhile, our joined-at-the-U.S.-bankroll brethren in Israel continued suffering an existential crisis because Iran may someday have nuclear weapons which could destroy the hundreds already existing in the Israeli arsenal.

And we were entertained by a revival of what has come to be known as the “peace process.” These are pointless meetings offering photo-ops and blather between Israel and the United States with mis-representatives of the Palestinians, while the apartheid atrocity continues unabated. The charade was renewed as Hamas conducted attacks on what most of the world sees as invaders of its land. Their actions against settlers -- the Western term for armed colonialists, as they are seen by those in whose homes and on whose land they settle -- was criticized as bloody murder while complete silence was maintained, as always, about bloody murders and dreadful conditions in Gaza.

Politicians who voted against funding health care for workers sickened by cleaning up the debris after 9/11 then decided that hallowed ground should not have an Islamic cultural center built more than two blocks away from ground zero. These parasites had no idea the project existed until it was brought to their attention by a Muslim hating blogger who, common to that breed, treats the world’s more than one billion Muslims as though they were the alleged 19 terrorists of 9/11. These ghouls -- they actually give a bad name to creatures who feed on the dead -- unleashed an anti-Islamic wave of moronic and hateful bigotry beyond anything provoked by real problems of war, immigration, unemployment and the overall economic crisis.

The programmed remembrances of that tragic day of 9/11 always attempt to obliterate awareness of the much greater slaughters it was used to provoke and the present national threat posed by our perverse foreign and economic policies which serve wealthy minorities while driving the majority apart -- and nearly out of its mind -- with divisive cultural and identity barriers. These prevent us from seeing the ominous burdens we bear collectively and from which we have no personal, cultural or hyphenated protection. We are made to accept ourselves as dozens of artificially separated minorities, but are forbidden from seeing ourselves more realistically as two hyphenated groups:

1: Rich-American

and

2: the-other-ninety-nine-percent-who-work-for-a-living Americans.

Our mind managers and their servants tell us how desperately we need those wealthy people to invest in the market so that we can survive with jobs they somehow create. Belief in this economic folklore is like believing the most intelligent person in America is that Florida fanatic who threatened to burn the Koran. If you think that’s so, don’t read any further.

The richest 1 percent of Americans now earn -- an extremely relative term -- more than the bottom 50 percent combined. Back in the 1970s, the richest 1 percent collected 8 percent of the national income. By the year 2006, that rose to nearly 23 percent and continues climbing. At this point 99 percent of us are sharing about 75 percent of the income. Sounds fair, if you’re satisfied with being a serf or peasant compared to your rulers. And while the top 100 CEOs once averaged earning 45 times more than their workers, in 2009 the nearly incredible ratio was 1,071 to 1. But wait, that’s not all.

The 400 richest Americans have a combined wealth of more than $1.3 trillion, which averages out to more than 300 billion dollars each. How hard do those 400 work, if at all, compared to the average sanitation, bank, school, healthcare, transit or other worker among the millions in that 99 percent below them who are the substance of daily economic life? Does the expression “democracy” have any real meaning?

We are allowed and encouraged to mobilize against suspected 9/11 conspiracies organized by “our” government, strongly urged and manipulated to form Tea Parties in opposition to the injustices of “our” government, but forbidden from seeing “our” government as a creature of minority wealth operating against “our” interest and threatening the social and natural environment in the process, while sustaining itself by setting us against one another. We are disorganized to hate others among the majority while justifiably being enraged about material conditions which are directly controlled by minorities, which might as well be invisible gods for the way we are socialized to treat or think about them.

If we, the people of these United States are ever to be a united nation, we have to penetrate the lead curtain of misinformation in which we are imprisoned and begin thinking as a population with a collective destiny which demands collective action. We have a serious social identity crisis and cannot save ourselves by making war against ourselves. But if we want a peaceful world and safe environment, we need to break out of the mental prison in which we’ll remain as long as we are kept separate, and unequal, by the controllers of what goes into our minds under the false label of information.

Frank Scott writes political commentary which appears in print in The Independent Monitor and online at the blog Legalienate. Email: frankscott@comcast.net. 

Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal

The Role Of "Mental Imagery"

Giving a "Human Face" to Racism, Genocide and War Crimes

By Denis G. Rancourt
Source: "Activist Teacher"
June 15, 2010
Courtesy Of "Global Research"

Psycho-Biological Basis For Image Leverage – General Model

For the corporate elites to continue practicing genocidal predation for power and profit in developing countries, it is necessary that the predation be cast in a false cover of humanitarian aid, democratic development, solidarity, progress, and the like, and that the most overtly murderous practices be cast as necessary in a fight against evil.

If sufficient care is not taken to secure this cover of mental imagery, then the bosses’ actions will appear more to be what they are, murderous and psychopathic, and the bosses’ children may not feel comfortable sitting on the bosses’ laps and the bosses’ partners may not feel comfortable sleeping in the same bed…

Actually, this problem is solved within the elite nuclear family with a strong family culture of elitism and racism. And it is solved in the bosses’ communities of friends with a strong community culture of classism, elitism, and racism.

But these gated communities are not hermetic. The elite classes have contacts and interactions with the more vibrant broader society. That’s where things get tricky. If the broader society sees the bosses as being psychopathic then by reflection the gated community will see itself as defective and this will represent a serious challenge to its self-image and to its sense of security.

One reaction is for the gated community to further isolate itself, to deepen its elitism, classism, and racism and to build higher walls around its community but this strategy is not sustainable [1]. Often, just the potential for the broader community to develop a negative impression of the elite bosses is enough to somewhat keep the elite psychopaths in check.

A main battlefield therefore is the mental environment in the broader society. The elite bosses own the media and control the schools and the institutions. They work hard and continuously at branding themselves and their finance-corporate projects in a positive light. Energy extraction giants are “green”, in fact greener than ever. Finance giants bring development to the world – one wonders why we need NGOs. NGOs alleviate any guilt or second thoughts from the rampages of exploitation and wholesale destruction. An elaborate mesh of lies is constantly constructed and maintained in order to keep the bosses hidden and their dirty work clean.

The mental environment therefore is a place where elite forces cross swords in winning over hearts and minds (read impulses and impressions) and where activists can have a counter influence. People talk. Errors get through. Interpretations go wrong. New communication platforms suffer temporary democracy.

An important tool in the activist’s arsenal is to go for the jugular. Call murder murder and genocide genocide. Call it displacement, extermination, and a war crime when that is what it is and name the exploiters and murderers. Find them and name them. Expose it in the broad society and flyer it in the gated community if you can.

Once the blood on their hands starts to show they will want to escape the mess that they have created. They will be more constrained than before. Having to create appearances always caries a real price – a new standard to which the mental environment must conform... Expose expose expose and they will need to spend more resources than ever defending their image. And the more they spin the more obvious it becomes that they are spinning.

So our job is to keep them honest by bold, creative, radical and repeated affirmations about their crimes, in the hope that their partners and children will leave them until they come to their senses and discover inter-class and inter-race civility, in the hope that their desires to be accepted in the broader society will reign them in.

This model of leverage on the powerful via public image is applicable at every level of a given control hierarchy and in relationships between individuals, institutions, corporations, and sovereign nations…

Individual Example – Terrorist vs. Freedom Fighter

The military understands this. An essential step in creating a killing machine that follows orders is to separate him/her from his/her nuclear family and community and to displace all self-worth evaluation in the individual to the sole standard of following orders, to replace community with an isolated squadron of death legitimized by orders and to demonize the enemy.

Following this, the more community-tied and morally constrained individuals, if they don’t escape or rebel, suffer “post traumatic stress disorder” (PTSD), no wonder. The more the war is questioned by the broader society and the aggressor home community, the greater the need for soldier and military-community isolation and the greater the incidence of PTSD. “Support our troops” becomes a military exigency.

Soldiers following orders in geopolitical wars of aggression – even if masked in aggressor-nation “self-defence,” like elite finance-corporate boss predators and “facilitators,” are terrorists.

Similarly, an essential step in making a suicide bomber is to kill his/her family, to separate him/her from his/her original community, to isolate him/her both physically and ideologically, and to replace all self-worth evaluation with liberation through martyrdom. The difference is that the suicide bomber is fighting the perceived killer of his/her actually-murdered family and actually-destroyed community in a desperate act of guaranteed death, not playing a video game from the relative safety of a helicopter gunship.

The freedom fighter on the other hand is a self-defence fighter on home territory [2], relatively integrated with the home community during the fighting. The freedom fighter is motivated by his/her ties with community, rather than artificially isolated from it. As a result, freedom fighters do not suffer PTSD but instead are strengthened by the solidarity of a community struggle for survival. This is why the Viet Cong and Northern People’s Army of Vietnam were unbeatable without massive all-out nation-wide aerial and economic destruction.

This is why US-trained and supported “contra” forces kill community. This is why they are trained to root out and murder all community organizers and visible leaders of civil society, to remove the community from the freedom fighters, to destroy the motivation to resist.

Contrary to Empire soldiers and trained killers, freedom fighters readily move from battle to civil society and from defence to community, without suffering overly debilitating adjustments. I have met former civil war freedom fighters with battle scars (including a bullet hole in the head) that were among the most adjusted, rational and authentic community builders I have ever known, including a village mayor, an independent war museum guide, and a community historian. Where are the former Empire soldiers in these positions? – Few and far between.

Nation State Example – The Case Of Israel

Take the case of Israel [3][4]. It is the local super power in the Middle East and the uncontested military occupier of Gaza and Palestine. From the evidence available, the only thing keeping it from all out genocide of the Palestinians and nuclear extermination of Muslims in the region is public opinion in combination with Israel’s desire to be accepted as part of the broader community of nations.

This is why Israel considers its branding in the world a military priority, because its image limits its military options. This is why the recent flotilla fiasco [1] was a national emergency, because world opinion can tie Israel’s hands and cause the blockade on Gaza to be lifted. This is why jam and crackers are now allowed into Gaza, in order to alleviate public opinion leverage as the international community demands an impartial inquiry.

This is why Israel wants its ballet dancers to tour the world and its scientists to exchange with international laboratories and its perfumes to sell in supermarkets around the world, because positive image is a prerequisite for colonial occupation and indigenous genocide. Ask Canada. Ask the US. Ask Australia. Ask any First World nation that uses immigration labour and practices finance-corporate colonialism.

This is why Boycott-Divestments-and-Sanctions (BDS) for Palestine is such a big deal. BDS alone cannot hurt Israel’s economy. It hurts its image. This in turn produces real leverage regarding Israel’s treatment of Palestinians because it can affect Israel’s relationships even to its closest allies, thereby significantly putting its military economy at risk.

Israel’s image is so low that it is bringing down the credibility of its allies, the US and Canada. How far can this go before the allies want to distance themselves? This is why the Israel Lobby in the US and Canada is part of the real battle [5]. It must constantly fabricate domestic US and Canadian support for Israel and constantly battle infiltration of negative image and opinion from the rest of the world.

Damn it’s hard to practice a proper colonial genocide these days when the indigenous population does not collaborate and has friends in the broader world! It’s tough being Israel.

Our job is to make certain that all colonial exploiters and elite bosses get the image that they deserve. In the case of Israel the violations are flagrant and the leverage is real.

Notes

[1] "Israelis Celebrate IDF Flotilla Attack" - youTube.
[2] "Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you." Jean-Paul Sartre.
[3] "Rabbi Weiss Criticizes Zionist Occupation of Palestine" - youTube.
[4] Norman Finkelstein on the Israel-Palestine conflict - website.
[5] "The Israel Lobby (Marije Meerman, VPRO Backlight 2007)" - youTube.

* * *

Denis G. Rancourt was a tenured and full professor of physics at the University of Ottawa in Canada. He practiced several areas of science which were funded by a national agency and ran an internationally recognized laboratory. He published over 100 articles in leading scientific journals. He developed popular activism courses and was an outspoken critic of the university administration and a defender of student and Palestinian rights. He was fired for his dissidence in 2009. [See www.academicfreedom.ca]

List of other essays by Denis G. Rancourt:
www.academicfreedom.ca/blogs/essays

Denis G. Rancourt is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Global Research Articles by Denis G. Rancourt

The Black Art Of ‘Master Illusions’

By John Pilger
June 02, 2010
Courtesy Of "Information Clearing House"

How do wars begin? With a “master illusion”, according to Ralph McGehee, one of the CIA’s pioneers in “black propaganda”, known today as “news management”. In 1983, he described to me how the CIA had faked an “incident” that became the “conclusive proof of North Vietnam’s aggression”. This followed a claim, also fake, that North Vietnamese torpedo boats had attacked an American warship in the Gulf of Tonkin in August 1964.

“The CIA,” he said, “loaded up a junk, a North Vietnamese junk, with communist weapons—the Agency maintains communist arsenals in the United States and around the world. They floated this junk off the coast of central Vietnam. Then they shot it up and made it look like a fire fight had taken place, and they brought in the American press. Based on this evidence, two Marine landing teams went into Danang and a week after that the American air force began regular bombing of North Vietnam.” An invasion that took three million lives was under way.

The Israelis have played this murderous game since 1948. The massacre of peace activists in international waters on 31 May was “spun” to the Israeli public for most of last week, preparing them for yet more murder by their government, with the unarmed flotilla of humanitarians described as terrorists or dupes of terrorists. The BBC was so intimidated that it reported the atrocity primarily as a “potential public relations disaster for Israel”, the perspective of the killers, and a disgrace for journalism.

A similar master illusion currently preoccupies Asian governments. On 20 May, South Korea announced that it had “overwhelming evidence” that one of its warships, the Cheonan, had been sunk by a torpedo fired by a North Korean submarine in March with the loss of 46 sailors. The United States maintains 28,000 troops in South Korea, where popular sentiment has long backed a détente with Pyongyang.

On 26 May, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton flew to Seoul and demanded that the “international community must respond” to “North Korea’s outrage”. She flew on to Japan, where the new “threat” from North Korea conveniently eclipsed the briefly independent foreign policy of Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama, elected last year with popular opposition to America’s permanent military occupation of Japan. The “overwhelming evidence” is a torpedo propeller that “had been corroding at least for several months,” reported the Korea Times. In April, the director of South Korea’s national intelligence, Won See-hoon, told a parliamentary committee that there was no evidence linking the sinking of the Cheonan to North Korea. The defence minister agreed. The head of South Korea’s military marine operations said, “No North Korean warships have been detected [in] the waters where the accident took place.” The reference to “accident” suggests the warship struck a reef and broke in two.

To the American media, North Korea’s guilt is beyond doubt, just as North Vietnam’s guilt was beyond doubt, just as Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, just as Israel can terrorise with impunity. However, unlike Vietnam and Iraq, North Korea has nuclear weapons, which helps explain why it has not been attacked, not yet: a salutary lesson to other countries, such as Iran, currently in the crosshairs.

In Britain, we have our own master illusions. Imagine someone on state benefits caught claiming £40,000 of taxpayers’ money in a second home scam. A prison sentence would almost certainly follow. David Laws, chief secretary to the Treasury, does the same and is described as follows:

“I have always admired his intelligence, his sense of public duty and his personal integrity” (Nick Clegg, deputy prime minister). “You are a good and honourable man. I am sure that throughout you have been motivated by wanting to protect your privacy rather than anything else.” (David Cameron, prime minister ). Laws is “a man of quite exceptional nobility” (Julian Glover, the Guardian). A “brilliant mind” (BBC).

The Oxbridge club and its associate members in politics and the media have tried to link Laws’s “error of judgement” and “naivety” to his “right to privacy” as a gay man, an irrelevance. The “brilliant mind” is a wealthy Cambridge-groomed investment banker and gilts trader devoted to the noble task of cutting the public services of mostly poor and honest people.

Now imagine another public official, the force behind one of the great war criminals and liars. This official “spun” the illegal invasion of a defenceless country that resulted in the deaths of at least a million people and the dispossession of many more: in effect, the crushing of a human society. If this was the Balkans or Africa, he would very likely have been indicted by the International Criminal Court.

But crime pays for the clubbable. In quick step with the Laws affair, this truth was demonstrated by the continuing celebration of Alastair Campbell, whose frequent media appearances provide a vicarious thrill for the liberal intelligentsia. To the Guardian, Campbell is “bullish, sometimes misdirected, but unafraid to press on where others might have faltered”. The Guardian’s immediate interest is its “exclusive” publication of Campbell’s “politically explosive” and “uncut” diaries. Here is a flavour: “Saturday 14 May. I called Peter [Mandelson] and asked why he didn’t return my calls yesterday. ‘You know why.’ ‘No, I don’t.’ He said he was incandescent at my Newsnight interview …’ ”

In a promotional interview with the Guardian, Campbell dispensed more of this dated incest, referring just once to the bloodbath for which he was a principal apologist. “Did Iraq lose us support in 2005?” he asked rhetorically. “Without a doubt …” Thus, a criminal tragedy equal in scale to the Rwandan genocide was dismissed as a “loss” for New Labour: a master illusion of notable profanity.

www.johnpilger.com

War and Public Opinion

By Glenn Greenwald
Monday, December 14 2009
Courtesy of The Salon Media Group

In May, 2008, Dick Cheney caused an uproar when he told ABC News' Martha Raddatz that public opposition to the war in Iraq was, in essence, irrelevant:

RADDATZ: Two-third of Americans say it’s not worth fighting.

CHENEY: So?

RADDATZ: So? You don’t care what the American people think?

CHENEY: No. I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls.

Today, New York Times Editorial Page -- which has become one of the most vehement supporters of the war in Afghanistan (and Pakistan) -- echoed Cheney's sentiment when demanding that European leaders escalate their commitments to the war despite overwhelming and growing opposition among their citizenry:

Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, and France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, have repeatedly stated that their countries have a stake in the future of Afghanistan and the future of NATO. But both are wary of pushing their voters too far, too fast. (Both have essentially postponed their decisions on further troop contributions until late next month.) Democratically elected leaders cannot ignore public skepticism, but they should not surrender to it when they know better.

Although Cheney's decree was a bit more blunt and not as concerned with meaningless self-justifying caveats ("Democratically elected leaders cannot ignore public skepticism, but . . . "), those statements seem quite similar.

In the U.S., public opinion toward Afghanistan is now decidedly more pro-war than it is in Europe. Whereas polls earlier this year found majorities of Americans against the war, polls now show that -- after Obama's decision to escalate again -- a majority supports his "surge." That's not surprising: when you combine (a) GOP support for any American war (especially one begun by George Bush) with (b) the support of many Democrats for anything and everything Barack Obama endorses, you get a majority. And indeed, this recent change in public opinion towards the war in Afghanistan is due to "a notable jump in support from the president’s Democratic base" once Obama announced his "surge." Obama speaks and many Democrats follow, even into more war (see this weekend's explanation of "Obamania" from Matt Taibbi about how and why that works).

But even with all of the "debate" over the war in Afghanistan, there are still significant anti-democratic features to it. Over the weekend, Time's Joe Klein, undoubtedly reciting what his hawkish government sources told him, trotted out a brand new "justification" for the war in Afghanistan: we have to stay in order to prevent India and Pakistan from going to war with each other. The U.S. government excels at finding brand new Urgent National Security Reasons to continue fighting wars once the original justifications fail or otherwise become inoperative: no more Al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Still have to stay, otherwise India and Pakistan will fight. As part of his stenography services, Klein explained:

[S]ome of the best arguments about why this war is necessary must go unspoken by the President.

So there are deeply compelling reasons to escalate in Afghanistan. But they're secret. They "must go unspoken by the President." The American people have no right to know what the alleged purposes and objectives are of this war. They're supposed to fight in it (a tiny percentage, anyway) and pay for it with massive debt but they can't be told why it's really being fought. And, of course, one of the most significant prongs of this war -- the one fought with Predators and drones in Pakistan -- is something no American government official will even mention, let alone explain and defend. Recent escalations of that part of the war -- as well as ones being actively considered still, such as targeting a large Pakistani city where high civilian causalties are likely -- will remain strictly secret. That, too, "must go unspoken by the President."

It's true that as a Constitutional Republic, the U.S. is not governed by direct democracy. Political leaders are at times expected to exercise judgment independent of public opinion. And once wars are underway, things like troop movements and battle plans are legitimately classified. But whether to fight wars -- and the reasons they're being fought -- are probably the least appropriate decisions to immunize from public opinion.

The Constitution ties the ongoing use of military force to the approval of the American citizenry in multiple ways, not only by prohibiting wars in the absence of a Congressional declaration (though it does impose that much-ignored requirement), but also by requiring Congressional approval every two years merely to have an army. In Federalist 26, Hamilton explained that this Constitutional requirement is vital for ensuring constant public involvement in debates over war and peace. In Federalist 24, he described the need for public involvement in such matters as "a great and real security against military establishments without evident necessity." That's because the Founders were all too aware, as John Jay put it in Federalist 4, of the "variety of other motives, which affect only the mind of the sovereign, [that] often lead him to engage in wars not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of his people."

Urging leaders to continue to wage wars in the face of great public opposition, as the NYT Editorial Page does today, is deeply misguided and undemocratic. But fighting wars for secret, undisclosed reasons -- as Klein suggests and defends is being done by the Obama administration -- is even worse. But -- as former Navy Commander Jeff Huber and former Marine Scott Ritter, among others, have both recently pointed out -- Dwight Eisenhower's warning has come true: the military has become its own branch of government, uncontrolled by anyone and almost entirely unaccountable. It virtually always gets what it wants. The stated reasons for fighting in Afghanistan make so little sense that Klein is almost certainly right that the real causes are undisclosed. It's extremely difficult to imagine a circumstance that could justify that.