“Belief is the absence of fact.”
“Politics are for the rich, revolution is for the poor, and most revolutionaries are closet aristocrats.”
“Are your feet tired, because you’ve been running through my mind all day long.”
“I think I might be tapped out.”
Philip Zimbardo knows how easy it is for nice people to turn bad. In this talk, he shares insights and graphic unseen photos from the Abu Ghraib trials. Then he talks about the flip side: how easy it is to be a hero, and how we can rise to the challenge.
Philip Zimbardo was the leader of the notorious 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment — After serving as an expert witness during the Abu Ghraib trials, he wrote The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. From Nazi comic books to the tactics of used-car salesmen, he explores a wealth of sources in trying to explain the psychology of evil.
A past president of the American Psychological Association and a professor emeritus at Stanford, Zimbardo retired in 2008 from lecturing, after 50 years of teaching his legendary introductory course in psychology. In addition to his work on evil and heroism, Zimbardo recently published The Time Paradox, exploring different cultural and personal perspectives on time.
Still well-known for his controversial Stanford Prison Experiment, Zimbardo in his new research looks at the psychology of heroism. He asks, “What pushes some people to become perpetrators of evil, while others act heroically on behalf of those in need?”
John McCain in last night’s debate: “I know the veterans. I know them well. And I know that they know that I’ll take care of them. And I’ve been proud of their support and their recognition of my service to the veterans.” - Debate transcript from CNN
McCain’s Voting Record: He Does Not Support Our Troops and Veterans
Some highlights:
September 2007: McCain voted against the Webb amendment calling for adequate troop rest between deployments.
May 2006: McCain voted against an amendment that would provide $20 million to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for health care facilities.
April 2006: McCain was one of only 13 Senators to vote against $430,000,000 for the Department of Veteran Affairs for Medical Services for outpatient care and treatment for veterans.
March 2006: McCain voted against increasing Veterans medical services funding by $1.5 billion in FY 2007 to be paid for by closing corporate tax loopholes.
March 2004: McCain voted for abusive tax loopholes over veterans when he voted against creating a reserve fund to allow for an increase in Veterans’ medical care by $1.8 billion.
October 2003: McCain voted to table an amendment by Senator Dodd that called for an additional $322,000,000 for safety equipment for United States forces in Iraq
April 2003: McCain urged other Senate members to table a vote (which never passed) to provide more than $1 billion for National Guard and Reserve equipment in Iraq related to a shortage of helmets, tents, bullet-proof inserts, and tactical vests.
August 2001: McCain voted against increasing the amount available for medical care for veterans by $650,000,000.
Convergence Center from GammaBlog on Vimeo.
Creative Time’s year-long program Democracy in America: The National Campaign culminates in the Convergence Center: a major exhibition, participatory project space, and meeting hall mounted in New York City’s Park Avenue Armory just in time for election season.
My video includes an interview with Chitra Ganesh talking about Index of the Disappeared. The show goes from playful to thoughful, to terrifying to silly with everything scattered throughout the huge Park Avenue Armory. I enjoyed exploring the building, you have access up to the fourth floor. I shot it early Sunday afternoon before the performers and speakers were scheduled. The unknown Karaoke guy at the end was the only person with guts enough to lay it all out on the line while I was there.
643 Park Avenue at 66th Street, Manhattan
Noon to 10PM - $free
Continues through September 27
creativetime.org/programs/archive/2008/democracy/convergence.php
The main hall, viewed from the second floor Moose room. Continued reading >
After viewing this collection of Jaffee’s fold-ins in Mad Magazine, I think he definitely helped mold my earliest political thinking. I remember the harsh ones shown here from the Vietnam war years. From month to month you never knew if you’d get a silly celebrity joke or hard political commentary, until you actually folded the page, or had fun trying to join the left and right panels in your head. The New York Times has an interactive web version of a bunch of Jaffee’s illustrations which mimics nicely the paper folding reveal of the punch-line (drag with your mouse).
At the age of 19, Murat Kurnaz vanished into America’s shadow prison system in the war on terror. He was from Germany, traveling in Pakistan, and was picked up three months after 9/11. But there seemed to be ample evidence that Kurnaz was an innocent man with no connection to terrorism. The FBI thought so, U.S. intelligence thought so, and German intelligence agreed. But once he was picked up, Kurnaz found himself in a prison system that required no evidence and answered to no one.
