Sadly Milgram and Zimbardo looked only at the normative behavior in this…and not why there were a handful of those that resisted. I think that Phil Zimbardo himself has realized that he missed an opportunity there. I’m wondering if he has any raw data on the “non-conformers” that he could dig out.

argh! zimbardo has been looking at the “non-conformers” (and has promised to do more) – but he studies situations, not individual attributes. see the last chapter of his recent book. and here are some links:
http://www.lucifereffect.com/heroism.htm
http://greatergood.berkeley.ed…..bardo.html
http://www.radioopensource.org…..l-part-ii/
http://journalism.berkeley.edu…..php?ID=385

The experimenters in both cases took a variety of measures to “ensure compliance”. The participants were isolated, the authority figure “bird-dogged” them, the were given promises that they were absolved of personal responsibility. There were no statements regarding ethical behavior by the participants. There was no way to “report” or gain advice about the activity from an outside source. In the Stanford Prison Experiment the actors were pledge to secrecy.

In this case Bush constantly harped how the release of information regarding the methods of interrogation “aided the enemy”… thus making the Congressmen susceptible to charges of treason. That was on top of the extreme pressures by the public after 9/11. Plus the mandatory vow of secrecy.

And Bush, after 9/11 restricted who could provide information to Congress, and what information was available. The pool of recipients was narrowed to a very small number…who couldn’t even talk about it to their fellow members on the Intelligence Committees. In other words, it wasn’t actionable. It made not a whit of difference what they knew, since they could NOT act to prevent it…even within their own Committees.

Quite clearly this state of affairs cannot continue.

Bush was telling Congress that he would not even let them see the unclassified version of the Iraq NIE, because he feared they would leak. This was just as they had to vote on the authorization on Iraq. He put the fear of god into them even if they discussed something in the public domaine. Those who are reading out Pelosi in that environment, don’t know what the heck you are talking about. Don’t expect everyone to jump in the ring with the Lions. That’s not really the role of members of congress.

Way back in the distant past, my Congresscritter, Don Fraser, who had led a congressional faction against the Vietnam War for a decade, made what he called the biggest mistake of his political life. After the US was out of Vietnam in 1975, and as vice chair of the House International Relations Committee, he accepted a CIA briefing on Cambodia. It was part of taking a trip to Cambodia. But he had to sign secrecy agreements that essentially neutered him in any discussion of either Cambodia or Vietnam. Imagine, the Vice Chair of International Relations in the House, and the subcommittee chair for SEAsia. This is all not at all new. It is how you silence Congressional Critics. Until we understand that if you want leadership from Congress, they have to have their own voice for advocacy, we are not clear with the system. If we personalize, and jump on people with out understanding their political environment, we are worse than useful as advocates. No one is going to listen to advacates who say, “go wring your political neck.”

Now — this site has taken me over an hour to read. For some reason it takes a minute pause between scroll commands. It also takes no more than 25 letters and spaces in comments without a nice long pause. Editing is impossible. It needs attention, and I am running XP-Pro.

A Democratic leadership that confronted Bush’s early push to war and torture with yawns and ineffectual, private handwringing, similarly encouraged Cheney in his already held belief that he could do more of such things and simply get away with them. Connivance by silence or active agreement, Cheney also knew, would make it that much harder for a different Democratic leadership to alter course without considerable embarrassment.

Well, bring on the embarrassment. Let’s use it to replace several of these Democratic Congress Critters, including Jello Jay, Harman, not just Bush and Cheney’s GOP enablers. We don’t need another anti-torture law. We just need Congress to enforce the ones on the books, yes, even if it means (gasp!) disagreeing with the Bush or Cheney publicly, and even if it means losing a few votes.

Bob in HI