Abolitionist and preacher Frederick Douglass once warned, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has and it never will.” Feminist and civil rights activist Audre Lorde similarly advised, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” Their words are worth remembering as we now witness a coordinated campaign of intimidation, deception, and obfuscation …
Author Archives: royeidelson
When Psychologists Deny Guantanamo’s Abuses
“To be in an eight-by-eight cell in beautiful, sunny Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is not …inhumane treatment.” – former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld Following a seven-month investigation, in July the Hoffman Report presented extensive evidence of collusion between leaders of the American Psychological Association (APA) and Department of Defense (DoD) officials. This secret collaboration – conducted over …
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How the American Psychological Association Lost Its Way
Written with my colleague Jean Maria Arrigo, this op-ed originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times. The American Psychological Association is in crisis. It began last December, when a Senate Intelligence Committee report laid bare the extensive involvement of individual psychologists in the CIA’s black-site torture program. Then in early July a devastating independent report by a …
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Rejecting the Obama-Cheney Alliance Against Torture Prosecutions
A decade ago, amid early reports of detainee abuse at CIA black sites and Guantanamo Bay, defenders of U.S. detention and interrogation operations promoted a flawed distinction between torture and “torture-lite.” They argued that, to our nation’s credit, rather than resorting to brutal and violent maiming and mutilation, we employed less cruel techniques—techniques like …
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Cast Into the Depths: Perilous Waters for the APA
In his book Life Lines, the late minister and theologian Forrest Church wrote, “When cast into the depths, to survive we must first let go of things that will not save us. Then we must reach out for things that can.” These are words – and actions – that the leaders and membership of the …
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Building a Racially Just Society: Psychological Insights
by Roy Eidelson, Mikhail Lyubansky, and Kathie Malley-Morrison Authors Note. As three white psychologists, we offer this brief essay with the awareness that our perspective is necessarily limited by our lived experience as members of the privileged racial class. Through our many years of work as both psychologists and activists, we know first-hand how …
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New Evidence Links CIA to APA War-on-Terror Ethics
"The position of the American Psychological Association is clear and unequivocal: For more than 25 years, the association has absolutely condemned any psychologist participation in torture." — Statement by the APA, November 2013 "The American Psychological Association, the largest professional organization for psychologists, worked assiduously to protect the psychologists who did get involved in the …
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Neuroscience, Special Forces, and Ethics at Yale
Last month, a proposal to establish a US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) Center for Excellence in Operational Neuroscience at Yale University died a not-so-quiet death. The broad goal of “operational neuroscience” is to use research on the human brain and nervous system to protect and give tactical advantage to U.S. warfighters in the field. …
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Torturing the Truth and Whitewashing Hell
The controversy continues regarding retired military psychologist Larry James, who is seeking an executive director position in the College of Education at the University of Missouri. As one of two finalists for the position, last week James participated in a public forum at the university. Many of the questions following his formal presentation were …
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The Torture Debate Echoes: An Army Psychologist's Job Search
For all of the wrong reasons, torture has been in the national news this past week. First, President Obama nominated John Brennan as the new director of the CIA, a man who embraced and defended the Bush Administration’s use of torturous “enhanced interrogation techniques” (before joining the current White House and becoming a leading advocate …
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