Tag: injustice

Prison and the just world fallacy

Posted on by kathiemm
Recreation of Dr. King's prison cell
Recreation of Dr. King’s prison cell. National Civil Rights Museum. Image by Adam Jones, used under CC Attribution-Share Alike 30 Unported license.

Many Americans want to believe that anyone who is in prison deserves to be there. To differentiate themselves from people in prison, they cling to just world beliefs [opens in pdf]—i.e., the conviction that life is just, that good things happen to good people, and that bad things happen to bad people.

Just world beliefs can give people a sense of stability and reassurance–a belief that sooner or later they will be rewarded for their inherent if not always obvious goodness.

Just world beliefs can also be a barrier against empathy; they can shield people from feeling that they must do something to correct injustices—e.g., police brutality, racial profiling.

Yet we want to remind you that many people have been imprisoned–in this country as well as elsewhere–because they saw and challenged injustice and spoke truth to power.

To mention just a few:

  • Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Read his letter from a Birmingham jail.
  • Father Daniel Berrigan. See his interview with Amy Goodman.
  • Chelsea (Bradley) Manning. Learn more about the effort to obtain a pardon for Chelsea.

Dr. King, Father Berrigan, and other celebrated activists for peace and social justice have regained their freedom, but there are thousands of men and women in prison today who do not have the social and economic support to gain release. (See previous posts on prisons—and torture in prisons–in the continental United States and in Guantanamo Bay.)

To make the world a better place and to make our own country a better place, we need to begin by recognizing that a just world has not yet been achieved.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Preferring secrecy: Guantanamo

Posted on by kathiemm

Transparency is a term seen increasingly in the media. Wikileaks, founded in 2006 by Julian Assange, is best known for releasing secret documents provided by Bradley Manning. Wikileaks, like many of the progressive online media sources, strives for transparency when people in power would prefer secrecy.

Consider this recent story from Al Jazeera: For over three months, more than 100 of the detainees at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, most of whom have never been accused of a crime and/or were actually cleared for release three years ago, have been on a hunger strike.

As one prisoner, Musa’ab Omar Al Madhwani, said, “Indefinite detention is the worst form of torture….I have no reason to believe that I will ever leave this prison alive. It feels like death would be a better fate than living in these conditions.”

Consider also the issue of forced feeding. In its Declaration of Malta on Hunger Strikers, adopted in 1991 and revised in 2006 (in large part due to issues at Guantánamo), the World Medical Association states: “[f]orcible feeding is never ethically acceptable. Even if intended to benefit, feeding accompanied by threats, coercion, force or use of physical restraints is a form of inhuman and degrading treatment”—and “inhuman and degrading treatment” violates the United Nations Convention on Human Rights, which the U.S. helped develop and has ratified.

Some people argue that it is more humane to force feed prisoners than to let them die in protest of their treatment. But are there not alternatives to these two extremes, alternatives that are consistent with human rights principles?

If Americans want to live in a truly democratic society, we need:

  • Information about inhumanity and injustice being perpetrated by Americans
  • The opportunity to reflect on the inhumanity and injustice and its alternatives
  • The will to consider and promote alternatives.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

A new birth of freedom

Posted on by kathiemm

“[W]e here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain–that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom–and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”  (Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg, PA, November 19, 1863)

Abraham Lincoln, 1858
Abraham Lincoln, 1858. Image in public domain.

As we celebrate Lincoln’s birthday on Sunday, let’s reflect on  freedoms that still demand pursuit. There are many:

  • Freedom from racism, sexism, prejudice, and discrimination
  • Freedom from tyranny and injustice
  • Freedom to have control and choice in regard to one’s body, one’s mind, one’s labor
  • Freedom to live by the ethic of reciprocity without being punished for doing so.

Right now, important efforts to obtain freedom and democracy are underway in many parts of the world, and often without the support of our own democracy in the U.S.

Our own democracy is in need of support as well, as it is often undermined by our own government and citizens in the name of national security.

The United States does not have a good record regarding support for democratic movements elsewhere in the world. As a Muslim friend of mine said, the election of Barack Obama was in many ways revolutionary—an effort to take back the power of the people, by the people, and for the people from the ruling military/industrial/media complex.

The pro-democracy and Occupy movements throughout the world offer an opportunity for the President and the American people to put our money, support, and understanding where its professed values lie—to advance freedom, democracy, and peace.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

A resolution for Labor Day

Posted on by kathiemm

“Whereas, the appalling loss of life which will inevitably result…will fall with crushing force on the working class alone…., and
Whereas, no possible outcome of such an international war can benefit to any extent whatever the workers, whose enemies are not the workers of other nations, but the exploiting class of every nation…
Therefore, as representatives of the organized working class, we declare the …war to be an international crime and a horror…” (Seattle Central Labor Council)

“There is no way to fund what we must do as a nation without bringing our troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan. The militarization of our foreign policy has proven to be a costly mistake. It is time to invest at home.” (AFL-CIO Executive Council).

The first statement above was issued in 1914 at the beginning of World War I in Europe. The second statement was issued August 3, 2011. Throughout this period, organized labor—and sometimes less organized labor—has recognized that among the many injustices of war, particularly wars waged by richer nations against poorer nations, is the disproportionate costs borne by working people and their even less fortunate comrades in the lowest economic classes.

Despite active war resistance, members of the working class were drawn into war after war through a “universal” conscription process—up until 1973 when the draft was replaced by a “volunteer army,” which is a euphemism for “economic draft.”

The Vietnam War showed clearly that drafting young men from the middle and upper classes increased anti-war activism among groups with serious economic and political clout. However, promising income, training, and benefits to unemployed members of the working class has proven to be a way of conscripting the less powerful members of society into the armed services.

Let us honor labor on Labor Day by joining them in the fight against war.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology