From: Andrew Phelps <math_anxiety@yahoo.com>

Subject: Re: [withholdapadues] A hard look at Doug Manchester

To: withholdapadues@yahoogroups.com

Date: Saturday, August 29, 2009, 9:33 AM

 

Eca:

I was a member of Local 25 HRE (DC) as a "client/survivor" person and was able FWIW to organize a "rank and file caucus" there, in the mid 70s.

On Sat, 8/29/09, Eca wrote:

In fact, I have never seen more than 3 picket signs in front of the main Hotel is the almost 2 years it has been boycotted. It still has an almost 100% occupancy rate.

As trade unionists, we always had to consider the "tradeoffs."  Was what we were doing consonant with the immediate needs?  Also, however, was it consonant with the longterm objective of overcoming the exploitation of labor?

If you boycott it, so be it. This began as a listserve to call the APA out on torture. Are we now changing course?

The Calif. "client/survivor" movement is currently stuck on finding its path to opposing the "blending," the expectation that when we work for the system, we should conform to its values and "behavior manage" with the the "learned helpless" prevailing target objectives of mental health management.  If we could learn to overcome the prevailing "torture denial" of our leadership (they accommodate the prevailing attitudes of clinical psychology (i.e. the APA leadership), then we could "untwist" ourselves enough reconstruct our struggle and oppose "blending" effectually.

In regards the Manchester Hyatt labor struggle, the APA leadership has made a statement by doing business there.  What is their reason?  It clearly does not relate particularly to whether either the boycott struggle or the Hotel business itself prevails.  It more likely relates to the conclusion they seek to promote regarding the "Ethical APA" challenge to their integrity and to their "torture denial" habit.  This issue is about how they lie and how they figure on "getting away with it."

I appreciate your bringing to our attention here the complexity of this matter.  I do think that "getting the APA leadership to 'behave'" is what's at issue, and that your response of opening your home and Div. 27's response of embracing the boycott forces are each wholesome and appropriate in their own capacities.  It seems to me that the 'rational' thing to do here is to embrace the complexity of response, by various anti-torture activists acting with integrity.  It is not the APA leadership that is expressing integrity here!

 

Andrew Phelps

Berkeley, CA