Gussner Tells Pacifist Audience Of 'Mass Hysteria' in America

"Emotional engineering in the United States is causing hysteria and fear in the minds of the American people," Robert E. Gussner, Secretary of the northeastern division of the Fellowship of Reconciliation told a PBH audience last night.

Gussner spoke before the college chapter of the FOR, a national pacifist organization. He attacked what he called the present American viewpoint that the "state is God." "The pacifists believe that social structures should be built up around human values and not around violence and fear," Gussner said.

According to Gussner, the country is in the grip of a mass hysteria of national pride. "If I went out in the street now and stamped on the American flag," he said, "I would be instantly mobbed. But if instead, I went out and yelled 'Down with the Jews!' people would just say that I was crazy and walk away." He explained that such actions would show the popular interest in a national symbol and not in people themselves.

Gussner went on to attack the current foreign policy. "Russia has shifted its emphasis in the Cold War to a more peaceful path," he said, "Why shouldn't we? We are wrong to support such corrupt colonialism as England's. Rather we should look toward freedom for all." Gussner went on to emphasize that non-violence was the only way to solve the world's problems.

But he added that America is holding on to her riches by 'violence.'