To: s-acc@yahoogroups.com
From: Andrew Phelps <no-action@cwnet.com>
Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2009 06:51:02 -0800
Subject: Re: [s-acc] Torture???
Aaa:
On Thu Apr 2 22:12, you sent:
Andrew Phelps wrote:
When I helped San Jose City College administration to let the Mental Health Client Association student group put out
a flyer with SJCC's name on it, challenging interrogation torture and suggesting that treatment can also be torture; what I found happened is that some of the tension and distrust subsided.A quote from that flyer, "In the U.S, mental health clients are sometimes subjected to treatments that can be viewed as torture. These include forced hospitalization, non-consensual electroshock, and overmedication."
..
I think you and I have different ideas about torture in the MH system. Although it could be just that you are taming things down for your audience in that flyer.
I believe this latter interpretation is correct. This flyer was developed by myself, Robin Kahn, and Phil Winn and the effort was to make a social accommodation to [1] the anti-torture movement, where the MHCA was participating in weekly demos against the Jeppesen Corp. which plans CIA rendition flight paths, to [2] the boundaries of SJCC regarding what the top administration will let their name adhere to on a flyer by a registered student group, to [3] the going psychological denial system (it quotes Zimbardo, whom we consider to be lying about deep issues of torture) and [4] representation of truth sufficient to make the flyer have salience.
The standing problem
was that complaining about torture and expression of rage/anger get compounded so political unity can't be built among those who've experienced it. Hello, I'm diagnosed as having "an anger problem." Today however the shrink from Sidwell Friends School who put that on me, would have to explain were he still alive/there to SFS how Andrew could have a "black rage problem" and yet that Obama's daughters can safely be students there. My point is that we need to find the way to mainstream our pain and woundedness and put our expression of that into a context for effective action.
Andrew
To: <s-acc@yahoogroups.com>
From: "Andrew Phelps" <starfish@northcoast.com>
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 08:32:29 -0700
Subject: Re: [s-acc] Torture???
Aaa:
I should have added [5]: We ran this flyer by the CNMHC public policy committee on a conference call which all three of us participated in. We wanted the wording to be 'tepid' enough so that they could consider endorsing our anti-torture effort. However, they declined to endorse.
Later we did local organizing and got the Coalition for Justice and Accountability to become an official endorser of the "Ethical APA" demo in San Francisco.
Andrew