Torture, Political Manipulation and the APA

[bbgrunt]

The following is an except from a piece about torture and the American Psychological Association that is rather telling. We are literally drowning in cognitive dissonance and the inability to separate reality from BS. If trained psychologists cannot resist the efforts at propaganda and control, what chance do the rest of us have?


Torture, Political Manipulation and the American Psychological Association

By Dr. BRYANT WELCH

The regressive effects of current forms of political manipulation that I describe in my new book, State of Confusion: Political Manipulation and the Assault on the American Mind (Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press, June, 2008) have not only affected American politics. They have also taken their toll on psychologists’ national organization, the American Psychological Association. Many APA members were shocked last year when APA twice refused to take an unequivocal stance against psychologists’ participation in the Bush detention centers. (snip)



More peculiarly, Fowler’s “agenda” for APA was encapsulated in the phrase “working together” a noble idea that to the best of my knowledge was never attached to any actual substantive agenda. Instead, it served as a means of social control, a subtle injunction against raising any of the conflictual issues, challenges, or ideas that need to be addressed in any vital and accountable organization. The APA became placid and increasingly detached.

The result was that much of the activity of the APA Council of Representatives turned away from substantive matters into an odd system of fawning over one another. Many members appeared to me to simply bathe in the good feeling that came from “working together.” For some, the bath was a narcissistic one and organizational regression became more debilitating. In other instances during this period, isolated dissent from rank and file members was stifled either with heavy handed letters from the APA attorney threatening legal action or by communications from prominent members of the APA governance threatening ethical action if policy protests were not discontinued.

http://www.counterpunch.com/

[Jackpine Radical]

1. I quit the bastards a few years ago.

And I'm glad, do you hear me?

Glad, GLAD, GLAD!

[bbgrunt]

2. they certainly seem to have lost their way--manipulated

by the same kind of language and tactics that they profess to study in a quest to "help" humanity.