Credit Where Due

When I have commented at this and some other sites, I have mentioned my belief that left leaning bloggers have kept the faith, and that while I am sure history will have a low view of the element that kept the war criminals in power, I think we need at least a chapter. Those of us who refused to accept, and have kept giving the lie to, the right wing, should get our due.

This morning, Avedon and Molly Ivors were saying that as well. So I thought I would go ahead and make a demand. You who are writing about this disgraceful period in American history, you can't throw us into that stew that created and perpetuated it.

The pressures we've been under just jumped out at me here, at the CNN Quick Vote:

Do you think the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should be closed?
Yes 57% 155334
No 43% 117041
Total Votes: 272375

Who are these 43% who have no moral compass? Some of them occupy the executive branch of government, some of them couldn't make it through the PBS documentary I posted about earlier this week, "Torturing Democracy", and some of them are deluded by the Bill Kristol's of the press. But 57% of us know better, and some of us speak out against the atrocities, constantly.

There is another chilling item to explain the sympathizers. That is a report on a study conducted recently, that shows once again that subjects would consciously torture other human beings if they were given directions to do so, in a good cause. This replicated Milgram's earlier study that shocked the world. I think all of us just put it aside thinking it had been a peculiarity, and probably conducted by a much too convincing professor. Not so.

His study's design imitated Milgram's, even using the same scripts for the experimenter and suffering learner, but the key difference was that this experiment stopped at 150 volts -- when the learner starts asking to leave. In Milgram's experiment, 79 percent of participants who got to that point went all the way to the maximum shock, he said.

To eliminate bias from the fame of Milgram's experiment, Burger ruled out anyone who had taken two or more college-level psychology classes, and anyone who expressed familiarity with it in the debriefing. The "teachers" in this recent experiment, conducted in 2006, also received several reminders that they could quit whenever they wanted, unlike in Milgram's study.

The new results correlate well with Milgram's: 70 percent of the 40 participants were willing to continue after 150 volts, compared with 82.5 percent in Milgram's study -- a difference that is not statistically significant, Burger said. (Emphasis added.)

There are your 43%. If they are told something is right, they will break basic rules of conduct even to the point of inflicting pain, for that which they are told is right.

My footnote in history is that of the left wing. We will not commit crimes because the forces in charge say it's okay, it's for the right cause. We will dig in our heels and say NO. And as Diane said in her previous post, we may be very busy for awhile yet.