Insanity and robotisation: Militarisation and US society

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 ‘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 military–information–industrial 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. 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 CIA’s 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 military–entertainment 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', published by Pluto Press.
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