Preventing World War III, Part 4
Manifestations of Our Collective Suicidality
Some may recall my calling Donald Trump and Joe Biden “two sides of the same coin.” Biden represents the state of politics that led to Trump. Trump instigated a global situation—I am speaking of an emboldened Vladimir Putin and an affirmed Benjamin Netanyahu—that the military-industrial-CIA complex is seizing as an “opportunity”. Come November 2024, Biden is the only choice for imminent survival, but his own party has made it so (including by helping Trump).
The current American political system is not compatible with survival—not just our own but humankind’s. Yet, the revolutionary fervor that might have been has been psychologically coopted by a deadly party (Thom Hartmann has written about my research here), and those who seek true reform have been thwarted.
The Democratic Congress has unanimously voted to arm Ukraine against a madman with another 61 billion dollars, and by a large majority (173-37) have voted to send another 14 billion dollars to Israel’s madman, so that he can continue his massacre of Palestinians. Republican Speaker Mike Johnson stoked the situation by calling Russia, China, and Iran the new “Axis of Evil,” just before Secretary of State Antony Blinken was to fly to China to threaten more U.S. sanctions if China exported weapons the way the U.S. does all the time.
Working in tandem, both parties are driving us toward World War III. There is no strategy for winning for Ukraine, but a horrific proxy war has been promoted while obliterating all opportunities for negotiation. Most perceive Putin’s aggression as inevitable, but “strongmen” are in truth weak men who are highly suggestible, like Donald Trump.
The U.S. could have found other ways of helping to protect Israel than to support Netanyahu’s war, but shared imperialist goals made the U.S. complicit in the slaughter of Gazans—even as the American people are protesting against it en masse across the country, especially young people. Merely suppressing rhetoric, such as politicians and donors are trying to do through university officials, is not the answer.
I took some time to examine the criteria of the 1948 Genocide Convention, matching them against trial documents that recognized genocide in the past—in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Cambodia. Even with the difficulties that the Convention poses, I believe the eventual verdict will agree with that of a professor of Holocaust history at Hebrew University of Jerusalem (where I once gave a lecture and was very moved by the enlightened students), who has stated that what is happening in Gaza qualifies as genocide.
From my perspective, what is imperative is to call attention to the collective “Death Spiral” this contributes to: if we become inured of even genocide, what else will we condone? It conditions us to accept atrocities as a reasonable option rather than, as I have written about before, a collective madness. Here is just a small sampling of articles in just the past couple weeks that speak of a potential global war if not nuclear holocaust:
Israel attack on Iran Is What World War III looks like | The Intercept
America and its allies are entering a period of nuclear uncertainty | The Economist
World War 3 fears loom for voters in 2024 amid Iran-Israel clashes | USA Today
Ukraine warns of WW3 ahead of long-stalled Congress aid vote | BBC
Vladimir Putin threatens new conflict to stop NATO amid growing fears of World War 3 | Express
Putin friend predicts nuclear strike 'most likely' coming | Newsweek
Denying Cold War II, fearing World War III | The Hill
72 minutes until the end of the world? | Politico
Welcome to World War III | The Diplomat
Has the third world war already started | People’s World
Are we heading for World War Three? Experts give their verdicts | Sky News
‘Prelude to World War III’: World leaders react to Iran’s air attack against Israel | CNBC
Could conflict between Israel and Iran trigger a third world war? | The Independent
Terrifying map shows how nuclear strike would wipe out US cities amid WW3 fears | Irish Star
The U.S. has no small part. Since at least 2013, the rest of the globe has considered the U.S. the greatest threat to world peace. Since 2021, it has considered the U.S. a threat to democracy.
Since the Trump era, the U.S. has been imposing unilateral trade restrictions to hinder China’s economy, in violation of international trade agreements, the most recent being the Congressional vote that Chinese owners must sell TikTok to an American owner. Earlier this month, Israel bombed Iran’s embassy in Syria, in violation of international law, in an apparent attempt to goad the U.S. into a larger regional war, and the U.S. has indeed jumped into the fray, both with the United Nations Security Council and with sanctions against Iran when it retaliated.
I have written in my textbook, Violence: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Causes, Consequences, and Cures, about the synergy between global violence and structural violence (various forms of inequality and oppression). In addition to both keeping the average American considerably deprived, our two political parties are war parties. Both serve the same interests: the arms contractors, the military-industrial-CIA complex, and Wall Street. To distract from the real war of survival, the industry-driven propaganda pits Russians against Ukrainians, Israelis against Palestinians, whites against minorities, and rich countries against the rest—and we forget that the human family is one.
Since my writing about our “collective suicidality” in my textbook, Violence, and my beginning this Substack Newsletter on “Society’s Safety and Survival” two years ago, the world has become a much more dangerous and unstable place. Dangerous circumstances elevate dangerous personalities, who then accelerate the dangers. We learned from Donald Trump that even an “alien invasion”—which is what the nonhuman pandemic essentially was—will not bring us together if we do not change our mindset. In our world of instant annihilation, with nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, it is considerable how the dangers simply do not quiet down but only accelerates, to the point where the calamities are human-caused, specifically leaders-caused. Love, cooperation, and mutual assistance, so essential for human survival, do not even enter the vocabulary of governance. Instead, we choose to give “an eye for an eye [which] makes the whole world blind.” What is psychologically driven needs to be psychologically prevented, and I would here repeat Albert Einstein’s words: “We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.”
Preventing WW III is why it's so important to identify, sideline, see-through, tame, and even consciously participate in the annihilation of Ego. Ego is the part of human nature that allows children to identify themselves, but like baby-fat, needs to be (consciously) discarded if we are to mature.
Life without Ego is gloriously free and beautiful, highly energetic, motivated when called, and continually enthralling.
Our great spiritual disciplines, such as Taoism (in all its forms), Hinduism (in all its forms), Buddhism (in all its forms), Judaism (in all its forms), Christianity (in all its forms), and Islam (in all its forms) all have the common insight that the first step in each discipline is to identify, sideline, see-through, and tame Ego.
We don't need a new paradigm, psychology, or theology. We have to recognize that we will not implement the wisdom humanity already possesses as long as we allow Ego to contaminate our sciences, social norms, and spirituality.
So far, the United States (as well as a globe that follows the U.S lead) has put the fox in charge of the hen house. We've given the human Ego cataclysmic technologies and we can be assured that once given these technologies, if not tamed, the Ego will destroy the species.
One reason we give Ego free-reign is most people confuse Ego with Self, believing Ego is what they are, not realizing Ego is a small part of human nature. (Of course, for those interested in such things, humanity is not even Self.)
Long ago I gave up on current psychology as being capable of incisive insight. Ego dominated psychology in the 1900's, but psychology can mature. It must if we are to survive with our technologies.
Dr Lee, history doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes. This is a nonlinear world and present is not repetition of past but there are some similarities. Let's look the world from present perspective of pre-WW2 era.
Geopolitics of Pre WW2 era was a drive for expansion of empires. Hitler was the biggest factor that lead to WW2 but there were other actors that were also significantly responsible including UK and Russia. UK held the largest colonial empire pre-WW2. Hitler wanted to carve out German empire, actually an ambition to rule the world - that automatically put him into clash with UK (& France) first. Stalin wanted soviet empire by taking over Europe, first starting with eastern Europe. Stalin and Hitler made a unholy pact to divide Europe while both scoundrels secretly planned to betray each other. Stalin and Hitler got the war started in Europe, then Hitler betrayed the pact and attacked Russia. The fate of world order was at stake and US had no choice but to enter the war especially after Pearl Harbor attack by imperial Japan.
Russia, Germany, Imperial Japan wanted to build their empires that put it on war path with UK (& France) who controlled much of the world at that time. US joined UK and France to build the alliance of Democracy vs the axis.
Geopolitics of today - Post WW2 era was ruled by informal empire of US. US influenced much of the world, less with brute military force but more with economic and financial system. A system which it crafted and controlled with great success. The western bloc now comprises of US, Europe, Israel and Asia Pacific.
The other side of power Bloc is China, Russia, Iran etc. And in between there are non-aligned actors like India, other BRICS nations, SCO nations etc (so called illiberal world order).
What leads to confrontation and possibly war?
War happens for 2 reasons. When a superpower (or a bloc) tries to expand its outreach or when it believes that its power structure, hegemonic interests are threatened. Since we have Nukes today, we don't directly go to military war. The wars usually start with economic & industrial wars, proxy wars, asymmetric conflict.
The US industrial policy is actually a response to China's economic rise. The global corporations of China have become powerful enough that they are out-competing American and western corporations (green tech, batteries, EVs, Solar energy etc). The global economic pie is shrinking for American corporations that ruled the global markets in previous decades. China is driving US social media corporations from its market. China has banned Facebook, Youtube etc thereby denying American companies access to the largest markets. Now US is trying to drive Chinese TikTok out of American markets. These are all tit-for-tat moves.
Russia was the aggressor in 2022 attack on Ukraine. Not just a real threat but a perception of threat (which may be wrong) can also make superpower to go to a war. There was no immediate threat to Russia from NATO but Putin wrongly perceived there was. Add more dimensions to it. Ever since collapse of USSR, there's a tinge in Russian elites to reclaim an empire. Hence they are doing a land grab to recreate some sort of past glory. And Russia is a corrupted state ruled by oligarchs. The expansion of empire is actually to enrich these oligarchs, not really some novel Soviet glory. And finally add in the Trump factor. When Putin saw madman Trump coming to power in America, Putin got the delusion that America is now a failed society, its internal structures have now collapsed. Putin became delusional and emboldened that a failed dysfunctional society like America won't be able to stop Russian aggression - a gross miscalculation.
Flash forward to today. Ukraine is now in fight for its survival, war of attrition. I am afraid it's becoming a poor victim that will be squeezed between two super powers. If US stops giving military aid, Russia will destroy Ukraine. Of course, US military aid is fat profits to military industrial complex but it is now also the only lifeline for Ukraine's survival. A political solution needs to be found to end this war. Sooner rather than later.
There's not really much to add on Bibi's war. It's a convergence of many actors and interests. First and foremost is the imperial nature of Zionist state. Then US always wanting a conflict in middle east, partly to keep this region away from becoming a Chinese sphere of influence. The oil is important, but not as relevant now. The renewable energy boom is making oil as less lucrative asset. The core geopolitics is the main driver in middle east. Then Bibi's facing a prison because of all his corruption. He wants a long war as a diversion to stay out of jail. To stay in political power and out of jail, Bibi has created an alliance with ultra right wing ultra-orthodox radical politicians (BenGvir etc) who also demand big war with Iran.
The bottomline today is that there are variety of superpowers, power blocs and regional powers who either want to expand their empires or feel that their hegemony is getting threatened from rival power factions. That's really driving the world towards instability. We now have two theaters of military war. In Europe and middle east. A third theater (in Asia pacific?) may be the straw that will break the camel's back.
Solution really is to end the military wars. Create a world order based on co-operation instead of confrontation.