Beyond the Wrapper: Cultural Dissonance

Cultural dissonance is the largest problem facing the United States. It is not fake news or shallowly branded politicians nor is it Russian hacking, and it is not Donald Trump as a President. Although, his foreign policy might really put us in grave danger. Cultural dissonance is the underlying diseases with fake news, shallow politicians, propaganda hacking, as well as many other visceral fears we hold as a society representing the symptoms. But do not forget, cultural dissonance has to have a population willingly believe in falsehoods (yeah, it’s just as much our fault at this point). Many of you are going to say that you don’t buy into a lot of the falsehoods out there. Well, good for you, but we’re a nation, not only a group of different states and communities and we are all in this together. So, if my neighbor is stupid, so too am I, at least in an attempt to relate and understand.

Sad day, I know

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Blackwater (PMSC) Remembered: Abu Ghraib Human Rights

Expert from: Coutnerterrorism and its Affronts to Human Rights by. Kurtis Edwards

**Eric Prince, Blackwater founder, is the brother of Betsy DeVos, current US Secretary of Education.

One of the more sinister parts of detaining terrorists and the subject that brings PMSC back in the conversation is the torture and humiliation of prisoners at the hands of PMSCs and military personal in clandestine prisons. Mentioned above was the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal of 2003. What were the causes of that scandal and what does it mean for PMSCs in general? Scholars like Kristine Huskey (2012), George Mastroianni (2011), and Bernardo Zacka (2016) find the cause to be in multidimensional causalities. They look at the organizational attributes of the operating staff and employer, the chain of command along the division lines of military and contractor, as well as the personal sexual deficiency of particular PMSC workers at Abu Ghraib.

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