From: target@batstar.net

To: psysr-disc@yahoogroups.com

Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2008 15:27:02 -0800

Subject: Re: [psysr-disc] A letter I posted on Obama's website

Edc, you are still the "voice of peace" to me.

I've seen lines of argumentation that are well-meant and truthful, but I think it's necessary to expose what Marx would see as the "essential contradiction" in the situation.

That frames the issue, given the "prescientific" nature of today's social science/"mental health" paradigm.

Quoting Edc:

The world-wide protests and those in the U.S. are showing their effects. We mustn't be deceived, however. The imperial power and its satelite will do everything necessary to avoid facing the politically impossible - the emptying of the settlements and their return to the Palestinians as part of a final settlement.

I've heard the argument that we must support the Mental Health Clinic in Gaza and (from an Ethical APA activist on another list) that the clinic is used as a "cover" for Hamas leaders "posing" to hide. In my view neither of these views - although most salient - engages that "essential contradiction."

Israeli intelligence poses the view that Palestinians are like rats that need to be "behaviorally managed." And I believe Hamas "intelligence" would argue the contrary, viz. that the Israeli attitude justifies their using the clinic for purposes divergent from healing. Neither of those views is respectful of the "service recipients" because both are toxic applications of conventional psychology.

I imagine if McCain had won in November, we'd "bomb, bomb Iran" and the same "essential contradiction" would be playing out there, in a variant way.

I think that developing a trusting mutual advocacy for PsySR involves revisiting the "creative maladjustment" issue previously raised here, and in the blog that Lynne Stewart and I posted August 12.

Andrew Phelps