Psyche, Science, and Society

McCain morally unfit

As we face the true horror of what John McCain calls his “campaign,” we know that the country is at a crucial turning point. Will we let these Rovian tactics win an election to keep in power a group worse, more corrupt, and more incompetent than those who’ve ruined the country over the last 5 years? If there is no limit to what filth and lies people, and the system, will swallow, then there is no hope for the country. I still expect a mass revulsion, with people saying “Enough!”

John Aravosis at AmericaBlog pulls together two important statements today to which I can only say “Ahmen!”

Josh Marshall:

[W]hat is already apparent is that John McCain is running the sleaziest, most dishonest and race-baiting campaign of our lifetimes. So let’s stopped being shocked and awed by every new example of it. It is undignified. What can we do? We’ve got a dangerously reckless contender for the presidency and a vice presidential candidate who distinguished her self by abuse of office even on the comparatively small political stage of Alaska. They’ve both embraced a level of dishonesty that disqualifies them for high office. Democrats owe it to the country to make clear who these people are. No apologies or excuses. If Democrats can say at the end of this campaign that they made clear exactly how and why these two are unfit for high office they can be satisfied they served their country.

Andrew Sullivan:

McCain made a decision that revealed many appalling things about him. In the end, his final concern is not national security. No one who cares about national security would pick as vice-president someone who knows nothing about it as his replacement. No one who cares about this country’s safety would gamble the security of the world on a total unknown because she polled well with the Christianist base. No person who truly believed that the surge was integral to this country’s national security would pick as his veep candidate a woman who, so far as we can tell anything, opposed it at the time.

McCain has demonstrated in the last two months that he does not have the character to be president of the United States. And that is why it is more important than ever to ensure that Barack Obama is the next president. The alternative is now unthinkable. And McCain – no one else – has proved it.

September 10th, 2008

WUNC The State of Things interview: Torture and Interrogation Symposium

I was interviewed today, along with law professor Scott Silliman, by Frank Stasio on WUNC, North Carolina Public Radio, on the show The State of Things. Here is the program description:

Torture and Interrogation Symposium

Since the attacks of 2001, there has been growing controversy over the United State’s use of certain interrogation techniques against so-called enemy combatants.  A symposium at the Parr Center at UNC this weekend will address many aspects of this controversy, including the complex and uncertain laws regarding torture, and the surprising role psychologists play in helping the government apply its interrogation methods. Host Frank Stasio will be joined by guests Scott Silliman, professor of the Practice of Law and executive director of the Center on Law, Ethics, and National Security at Duke University, and Stephen Soldz, the director of the Center for Research, Evaluation and Program Development at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis.

You can listen to or download the program here. I am brought in about 12 minutes into the show.

If you’re near Chapel Hill, come hear me speak on Saturday, September 13.

September 10th, 2008