Mental and Military Battlegrounds

By Ezrah Aharone

Instead of saying something typical like, “testing 1-2-3,” to check his microphone for a radio broadcast, Ronald Reagan once jokingly said, he had “Signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever…We begin bombing in five minutes.” Humor reveals elements of truth. But the historical connection between “bombing” and “signed legislation,” reveals a violent and dangerous trait of the U.S. government that has proven far more fatal than funny.

Ever since 1776 when the 56 founders signed their declaration and bombed their way into independence, Euro-Americans have established a systematic pattern of violence where they spare no human, material, or military expense when it comes to controlling land, labor, and resources. Even their national anthem which was inspired by the War of 1812, sensationalizes violence and bombs “…The perilous fight…ramparts gallantly streaming…rockets red glare,” and “bombs bursting in air!”

Euro-Americans have unilaterally exerted their ways over others for so long, that they believe they can sign and bomb people and systems in or out of existence. To exert over Black America, after centuries of violence and signing uncountable laws to sustain the System of Slavery, they bombed during the Civil War and then signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Segregation was sustained by further violence until they signed the Civil Rights System into existence. While the current signing and bombing attempts in Iraq have backfired, they did successfully re-sign the Voting Rights Act back into existence. Now, for the next 25 years, Black America is reassured the right to vote for the next crops of White multimillionaire and billionaire senators, governors, and presidents who will continue the signing and bombing process.

This is not intended to ridicule “rights” but rather to sound an alert to another kind of ongoing war that is being fought without a military—a war where battlegrounds are located in the mind—a war where the battle-plan is to subtly capture and mold thoughts, standards, and actions to conform and align with “Institutionalized Ideals and Interests.” When properly executed, the damages of psychological combat are equally lethal as any bomb. Incessant battles are waged to saturate Black thought with Americanization to the point where all other ideals, particularly Black sovereign ideals, are regarded as invalid, irrelevant, and non-authoritative.

Because psychological combat is fought on mental battlegrounds, the enemy is not always physical or visible. The enemy incubates as a “Process of Thought” that can come in any color, religion, or political affiliation. The enemy is concealed within camouflaged fatigues of ideologies, philosophies, doctrines and traditions. You cannot see a racist thought, a flawed philosophy, a false doctrine or a distorted perception. But you do see the manifest social injustices, economic inequities, and political inadequacies.

Psychological warfare is not however some kind of plot, where mad scientists in laboratories at the Pentagon are concocting mind serums or scheming to implant microchips in your head. The initial attacks were struck during slavery through fear tactics. Have you ever closely observed in photos the facial expressions of enslaved or some newly-freed Africans? The stunned constitution, the empty stare, the bewildered gaze of uncertainty—these are all telltale signs of a people conquered by hostile psychological combat. In such pictures you’re not just looking at enslaved individuals, you’re looking at Psychological Prisoners of War.

A similar process is still at work. Differing only in that hostile combat is now substituted with techniques of habituation and indoctrination, as was humorously related in a political cartoon depicting a finger-pointing Uncle Sam caricature, saying: “Be A Loyal American! Stop Knowing Things We Don’t Want You To Know.” A recent segment on Dateline showed babies as young as 2-years-old who could identify various food logos like Starbucks, KFC, Dunkin Donuts, and McDonalds. This illustrates indoctrinated conditioning at the earliest stages. “Indoctrination” is comprised of 3 words: In, Doctrine, and Nation—which simply means to be “In” the “Doctrine” (teachings) of a “Nation.”

Due to indoctrination we no longer outwardly exhibit the spooked-out look of slaves, but the unjust grips of Americanization remain unquestionably fixed as ever before—as plainly demonstrated in our abject incapacities during Katrina, compounded by our inability to hold the U.S. government accountable for its criminal negligence.

In this “Age of Reciprocated Terrorism” where national security is primary, perhaps the government used Katrina’s fallout to conduct a “controlled chaos” military drill for future study and implementation? The armed commando-like guards; The depravation of food, water, and medicine; The stench and horrid living conditions; The forced transport of people to-and-from sports stadiums (stadiums which can easily be converted into prison concentration camps)—all have suspicious overtones of eventualities that could unfold if any mass group attempted to incite a “civil uprising.”

Since we are supposed to be “free” and have full access to information to shape our views, it’s understandable that some people would dispute that our thoughts are somehow being held POW. But the effects of indoctrination are imperceptible to the untrained mind and eye. It’s difficult to self-detect the extent to which our minds are not free, being that our minds have never been free from the influences of Americanization. Proverbially, it’s like being unable to “see the forest because of the trees.”

Thought invariably produces substance. The substance (or lack thereof) of Black America is a product of our thinking—we think like a people who are content with being “governed by others,” rather than thinking like a people who strive to “govern for self.” There are consequential differences between the two. Our current “Process of Thought” must therefore be countervailed with a sovereign-minded “Process of Thought”—Philosophy against philosophy; Ideology against ideology; Doctrine against doctrine; Truth against lies. Only then can our thoughts become sovereign enough to self-define and ultimately produce the true freedom and the quality of substance we justly deserve.