Category: Political

Categories
Government

Torture and Learned Helplessness

image from Seligman's research

My senior psychology research project was about “learned helplessness”, based on the work by Martin E. P. Seligman. He saw it as the underlying basis for depression, while I was interested in its effect on workers.

I have written about learned helplessness in the past. Oddly enough, one of the writings is titled, Learned Terrorism, posted in 2002. Others are The Value of Anger, and What’s the Use?

I would never have dreamed that this theory would become the foundation for a system of torture used by the CIA against US prisoners. All I can say is the practitioners most likely discovered what I did, years ago: you can’t artificially engineer “learned helplessness” directly. Not to the extent these interrogators wanted. You can in dogs, but you can’t in humans. If anything, attempting to do so can have an opposite effect than the one intended. Rather than generate the helplessness that would, somehow, make the prisoners compliant, it could make them even more determined not to cooperate.

For learned helplessness to occur, circumstances have to meet a specific set of criteria. They would have to get the prisoners to internalize the current events; to see themselves as the cause for the negative circumstances. Yet individuals differ in how they internalize negative events–there is no one size fits all technique you can use to create the same effect with everyone. The person would also have to feel nothing they can do will change their circumstances. This runs counter to the seeming desired effect of the interrogators. After all, if you want a person to respond with information in order to prevent negative events, you don’t engineer in them a feeling that no matter what they do, or say, nothing will ever change.

So if they did, somehow, engineer “learned helplessness” in the prisoners, in the hope of showing that the effects can be mitigated by providing data, the prisoners would not have been able to make this association. The whole basis of the theory is that the sufferer would have been unable to see the solution offered. Either the engineering would fail, and the prisoner would dig in, even harder, against cooperating, or the engineering would succeed, and the prisoner would become completely apathetic. In both cases, the prisoner would either say nothing (because of anger or apathy), or they’d say everything—they’d blather along until their captors seemed satisfied with their blather, completely indifferent to any possible negative consequences for giving incorrect information, because no matter what they did, nothing would change.

Unbelievable. Not only was the psychology abused and twisted, it wasn’t even accurately applied.

Categories
Political

Ferguson: STFU

Hands Up Don't Shoot

Our Governor Jay Nixon has decided to roll out the troops by declaring a state of emergency before the Ferguson Grand Jury decision. As LOLGOP tweeted:

The St. Louis County police have been put in charge of a unified force. This is the same police force that decided armored trucks and men with high powered rifles pointed at peaceful demonstrators was an appropriate action. The same police force that spent over $170,000 stocking up on tear gas and rubber bullets. Oh, I’m sorry, make that sting balls.

Two things we’ve learned from Nixon’s action. The first is that the decision will most likely be announced very soon. The second is that the police and Nixon have known all along what the decision will be, and that’s Darren Wilson won’t be indicted.

Nixon and the rest of the leadership in this area are going to do everything in their power to ensure demonstrators act ‘peacefully’, which translates into ‘sit down, and shut up’. No one wants to hear angry voices. No one in the power structure wants to see anything interfere with the upcoming Christmas spending season. Many of the white people in this area are tired of hearing about Ferguson; tired of being on national TV. They want things to go back to normal.

It doesn’t matter if what’s normal in St. Louis is morally wrong. It doesn’t matter that since Mike Brown was shot, other black men have also been gunned down by St. Louis area police. It doesn’t matter that we’ve heard a lot of words about things improving, all the while actions reflect the opposite—including spending thousands of dollars on tear gas, while doing nothing about the unequal justice system that still saturates the communities surrounding St. Louis. The leaders can’t even keep that idiot in Ferguson from shooting off his mouth, seemingly in a deliberate attempt to further inflame emotions.

In the last few weeks, every time we’ve been told that our Constitutionally protected rights would not be infringed, the statements have been followed up with a “But…”

“This is America. People have the right to express views and grievances, but they do not have the right to put fellow citizens and property at risk,” Gov. Nixon said Tuesday. “Violence will not be tolerated.”

Sorry, Mr. Nixon, but the protestors aren’t the ones who spent $170,000+ on weapons and incendiary devices. Who exactly is the party threatening violence?

Governor Nixon is telling us we’re all welcome to exercise our freedom of speech, as long as we don’t speak above a whisper. We can assemble, as long as we do so politely. We can express our anger and our hurt, but we should do so tastefully, and minimize our impact on the upcoming Rams game.

Bull. I think we should yell as loud as we can for as long as we can, and meet in the streets and dance a rejection of the status quo. No one pays attention to the group quietly sitting to the side in peaceful protest, and we need that attention. We won’t get meaningful change without that attention. We don’t have to burn the place down, but we should light a fire under Nixon’s butt and tell him to do something more useful than declare a state of emergency and call out the Guard on the people who put said butt in the Governor’s office.

Photo by Light Brigading CC BY-NC 2.0

Categories
Government

Healthcare Sign Up: New and Improved

I signed up for healthcare coverage for 2015 at Healthcare.gov. Unlike last year, absolutely no problems with the system. The only hiccup occurred with United Healthcare when I tried to review its provider network—that system seems to be unable to stand the load. The government site, though, was a piece of cake.

I was able to get a plan that was about a third of what I paid this year. It’s more of a managed plan where I have to use a set of providers, but I’m OK with the providers. I stayed with Coventry because they provided good coverage this year, and they seem to be the only provider who has its online act together.

Only one problem with this year’s sign up, and it’s bureaucratic not system specific: proving income.

To be eligible, I have to mail (hard copy), or upload proof of income for 2015. I have to send in one of the following:

   Wages and tax statement (W-2)
 · Pay stub
 · Letter from employer
 · Self-employment ledger
 · Cost of living adjustment letter and other benefit verification notices
 · Lease agreement
 · Copy of a check paid to the household member
 · Bank or investment fund statement
 · Document or letter from Social Security Administration (SSA)
 · Form SSA 1099 Social Security benefits statement
 · Letter from government agency for unemployment benefits

I’m a self-employed writer, which means my income is erratic. According to the notice, the self-employment ledger can be pre-filled in with estimates. I keep a spreadsheet, which I guess will have to become my self-employment ledger. Or I can send a copy of my lease or bank statement, but that doesn’t really prove my income. It’s bizarre, and more than a little irritating.

There’s a thing called the 1040—why this isn’t acceptable, I don’t know.

Anyway, I’m all finished. Now what the hell will the GOP have to bitch about if they can’t bitch about Healthcare.gov?

Categories
Government Legal, Laws, and Regs

Before you sign that petition

The USDA has been busy approving genetically modified crops for cultivation, including a potato and alfalfa. I’ll have much more to say on GMO later, but I wanted to focus on one aspect of the approval process—the submittal of public comments.

Before the USDA approves a new GMO crop, it opens the approval for public comments. The USDA has to address all of the comments, in one way or another, before the approval. The same holds true for all of the government agencies, and most decisions made by those agencies: the decision goes through a period of public commentary, and the agency has to read each comment and ensure any concerns in the comment are addressed. An example is the recent invitation for the public to comment on the USDA’s proposed changes to the Conservation Stewardship Program.

The GMO potato approval received exactly 308 comments. Considering how controversial genetic modification of food crops is, you might be surprised that there were so few comments, but no there were only 308 comments that the USDA addressed.

Of course, one of the comments was a consolidated document consisting of “identical or nearly identical letters, for a total of 41,475 comments.” What effect did all those 41,475 separate letters have on the USDA decision? They had the effect of one, single, submitted comment.

Frequently when a government decision is opened for public commentary, one site or another will start up a petition for people to add copy and paste comments that the organization will submit to the agency on their behalf. And in every single case, the entire collection of signatures becomes exactly one comment. For the most part, it doesn’t matter how many signatures are attached to the comment, it’s still treated like one comment. It doesn’t matter how many letters are attached if they’re identical, or nearly identical: they’re treated as one comment.

The only time the number of signatures matters, is when there’s enough publicity associated with the signatures to generate interest from the White House or Congress who will then intervene on behalf of the group of people. For the most part, you might as well spend your time knitting socks or tweeting what you had for lunch, for all the impact it will have to submit a comment through a petition.

However, if you submit a comment directly to the agency, it gets counted as one comment. The concerns you thoughtfully detail do have to be addressed. The comment does have an impact. The impact might be small, but it isn’t negligible. Signing your name to a petition is, for the most part, negligible. You’re not doing a damn thing. Not when it comes to federal rulemaking and decisions.

You’re better off focusing on issues that really matter to you and taking the time to write a detailed, thoughtful comment related to those specific issues, than you are blindly signing every petition that comes your way in Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.

Categories
Political

Ferguson: A Benefit of the Doubt

Ferguson protestor

My father was a cop. A Washington state patrolman. I like to think he was a good cop, and have never received any indication otherwise.

When Mike Brown was shot in Ferguson, less than 25 minutes from where I live, I wanted to give the policeman who shot him the benefit of the doubt. Even when I heard that Mike Brown was not armed. Even when I heard they left his body in the street for close to five hours. After all, my Dad was a cop, and if it had been my father who did the shooting, I’d like everyone to give him the benefit of the doubt.

But then there were all the things that just didn’t feel right. Mike Brown wasn’t shot in the dark of night in a back alley. He was shot in the middle of the day—the exact middle of the day—in the middle of a street, in the middle of a city, surrounded by people. I’m the daughter of a cop and I kept asking myself, how on earth a police officer got himself into such a situation where he feared for his life from an unarmed man who was running away from him, in the middle of a bright, clear day, in the middle of a city street, and fellow officers just minutes away?

And leaving his body lying there, in the heat, in the street—the exact middle of the street; face down, blood everywhere, with distraught and shocked people all around. We were told on TV that the delay to recover Mike Brown’s body was because the Ferguson police wanted the County police to take over the investigation, and it took time to manage the transfer of authority. But then we were told a large crowd threatened, and the coroner’s van couldn’t get in. And then we were told that shots were fired, the same nebulous shots fired that seemed to happen whenever it is oddly convenient for the police.

Benefit of the doubt. I was still holding on to that benefit of the doubt.

Surely, Brown must have been involved in some heinous deed when he was shot. Perhaps kidnapping a child? Beating up on an elderly person? Biting the heads off of kittens?

Jaywalking. The cop pulled Mike Brown over because he was jaywalking. To be precise, because Mike Brown and a friend were walking down the middle of the street. And when the cop yelled at him to get out of the street, Brown didn’t and that started the chain that left a bloody dead body, still in the middle of the same damn street.

Confusion turned to anger in the city and I watched the events unfold on TV and read about them in the Post-Dispatch online site. I still held tightly on to that benefit of a doubt, even when the police brought the dogs in to manage the growing crowds. I watched the cops with the dogs and the crowds of black people, and shook with the recognition of old black and white photos of cops and dogs and black people. I wanted to slap the face of the idiot who thought bringing out dogs was a good idea, but then the police brought in the armored trucks and mounted rifles, and I wanted to kiss the idiot because the dogs were actually the good part.

There’s something about seeing a cop in camouflage and bullet proof vest, on top of an armored truck with a rifle pointed at unarmed protesters, that shakes your faith in the police promise to protect and serve.

At the end of the week, my hold on that benefit of the doubt was more a matter of habit than belief, which means when the Ferguson police chief came out with the Mike Brown video just before giving the name of the cop who shot Mike Brown, the doubt vanished instantly, poof! Yeah, just like that.

I watched that man, sweating in the sun, stumble through the words about releasing the video because people asked for it when no one asked for the video. Chief Jackson knew exactly what he was doing by releasing that video, and his actions were not those of a man secure in the belief that his officer was in the right.

At that moment, the exact moment Jackson came out with the video, I knew without a doubt that the shooting was not righteous.

Photo by Jamell Bouie CC BY 2.0