People today are so obsessively tuned into all the electromagnetic
waves permeating the atmosphere through their television sets, cell phones,
blackberries, internets and video games that they have lost touch with
reality. Nature and social justice have
vanished into a puff of apathy, indifference and distraction as we trash the
earth and each other.
Torture, drones, wars of aggression, denial of basic civil
and legal rights and environmental devastation have not evoked a proportional
response of moral outrage or paroxysm of dissent in reaction to grievous
violations of human rights which formed the basic principles on which the
United States was founded.
At some point in the past, Americans could point their
fingers at other countries that were guilty of torturing prisoners and support
their government's actions to eradicate practices that violated the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and the American Constitution. But now, Americans are inured to "enhanced
interrogation" by the many years of torture at Guantanamo Bay, Bagram Prison,
Abu Ghraib Prison and black sites all over the world. Just consider the treatment of Bradley Manning
and the indifference with which the public has regarded his abusive treatment
at a military prison and the violation of his fundamental rights.
Targeted assassinations are a violation of international law
and hold the potential to expand the use of force without actually defining
such application of lethal tactics as an act of war. Even more alarming are the signature targets
in which the behaviour of an individual conforms to some preconceived pattern
of behaviour of a terrorist according to civilians who were trained to operate
predator drones and to select targets.
As if that weren't frightening enough, development of drones which
decide according to a computer program whether or not an individual matches the
behaviour patterns of terrorists is around the corner. Drone warfare renders obsolete the concept of
due process and the rule of law.
Libya was a war of
aggression as the U.S. and NATO blatantly and flagrantly exceeded the mandate
of resolution 1973 by training the military leaders of the rebellion and the
political leaders who sit on the NTC at the pleasure of their masters thousands
of miles away. Clearly, the overthrow
of Gadhafi was the main objective.
Propaganda leading up
to a possible attack on Iran is flouting common sense and any notion of
rationality as it repeats the same strategy invoked in the past to justify wars
of aggression dating back to the early post-World War II period. Iraq boggles every neuron in a rational
person's brain since it took four different pretexts, each replacing a
discredited previous one, before Bush could stand on thin ice and declare that
a war on Iraq was necessary.
The American system is predicated on the rule of law which
includes basic civil and legal rights such as the First and Fourth Amendment to
the Constitution. Nevertheless, protesters, terrorist suspects
often secured through the use of payments, or any American whose behaviour
seems suspect according to some law enforcement agency can be denied all the
rights assumed as a given since the passage of the constitution. Such wanton disregard of the basic rights of
these individuals threatens all Americans but the volume of protest is
inaudible.
Then there is the environment. The all-pervasive desperate search for new
reserves of oil and the use of force to secure known reserves reveals the profound
lack of understanding of the scale and criticality of the global warming crises. According to a consensus of scientists, there
is a point at which climate change will become self-sustaining and beyond the
control of even our brightest scientists.
Deforestation and destruction of the oceans, biodiversity and toxic
pollution are leading us to the sixth extinction on the planet.
To explain all these disasters, it is necessary to
understand the alterations to the culture in which we live. People do not spend very much time
appreciating the wonders of nature.
Shopping is far more accommodating to the multi-tasking attention
deficit people who walk around with blackberries monitoring twitter to discover
the latest trivial, mundane and banal daily antics of their favorite
celebrities. Messaging and cell phones
occupy a large proportion of people's time as the engage in dehumanizing and
depersonalized dialogue with their friends and family.
Today, violence has permeated our culture in a myriad
ways. Ultimate fighting was once banned
because it was too violent but is now a very popular "sport". Sports have degenerated into barbaric
rituals of violence and blood lust evoking the most primitive emotions of fans
who anticipate that their interest in a sport will be vastly enhanced by a
brutal hit.
Vivid and gory scenes of violence in video games or movies are
guaranteed to enhance their popularity.
Our culture removes us from each other and nature and
empathy, social justice and a sense of our belonging to nature has
suffered. Today's culture seems to
bring out the worst in us as human beings.
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