Entire February 2010 Issue of the American Behavioral Scientist Devoted to State Crimes Against Democracy: |
Written by Elizabeth Woodworth, Professional Librarian | |||
Friday, 05 March 2010 00:00 | |||
Editor's Note: Our cause might be better served by supporting the publishers.
For 50 years the American Behavioral Scientist has been a leading source of behavioral research for the academic world. Its influence is shown by the fact that it is indexed by an extraordinary 67 major database services, causing its papers to be widely exposed on the international scene. The publisher, Sage, is headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in London, New Delhi, Singapore, and Washington DC. Each issue offers comprehensive analysis of a single topic. The six papers in the February 2010 issue are devoted to the recent concept of "State Crimes Against Democracy (SCAD's)," with emphasis on 9/11 and on how human behavior has failed to recognize its reality. [Ref.abs.sagepub.com/content/vol53/issue6] What are SCAD's? SCADs differ from earlier forms of political corruption in that they frequently involve political, military, and/or economic elites at the very highest levels of the social and political order," explains one essay. "Negative information actions" are defined by another as "willful and deliberate acts designed to keep government information from those in government and the public entitled to it. Negative information actions subvert the rule of law and the constitutional checks and balances." One paper shows that "preexisting beliefs can interfere with people's examination of evidence for state crimes against democracy (SCADs), specifically in relation to the events of September 11, 2001, and the war on terror in Afghanistan and Iraq." Another refers to TV's "popular culture passion plays" as "displacing interrogation of real-event anomalies, as with the porous account given by the 9/11 Commission for what happened that fateful day." And another deals with "the actual destruction of sovereignty and democratic values under the onslaught of antiterrorism hubris, propaganda, and fear," in response to 9/11, asking whether the Patriot Acts of 2001 and 2006 are themselves state crimes against democracy. The papers extensively quote the independent academic researchers who have been studying the 9/11 problem for years, including Dr. David Ray Griffin; Dr. Niels Harrit, Dr. Steven Jones, Chemist Kevin Ryan, and the rest of the team that studied nanothermite in the World Trade Center dust; and Dr. Peter Dale Scott, Dr. Michel Chossudovsky, Barrie Zwicker, Dr. Nafeez Ahmed, and The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. ____________________ Papers Listed in the February 2010 Issue, Amer. Behav. Sci. Matthew T. Witt and Alexander Kouzmin, "Sense Making Under 'Holographic' Conditions: Framing SCAD Research." American Behavioral Scientist 2010 53: 783-794. Lance deHaven-Smith, "Beyond Conspiracy Theory: Patterns of High Crime in American Government.," American Behavioral Scientist 2010 53: 795-825. Christopher L. Hinson. "Negative Information Action: Danger for Democracy."American Behavioral Scientist, 2010 53: 826-847. Laurie A. Manwell, "In Denial of Democracy: Social Psychological Implications for Public Discourse on State Crimes Against Democracy Post-9/11," American Behavioral Scientist 2010 53: 848-884. Kym Thorne and Alexander Kouzmin, "The USA PATRIOT Acts (et al.): Convergent Legislation and Oligarchic Isomorphism in the 'Politics of Fear' and State Crime(s) Against Democracy (SCADs)," American Behavioral Scientist 2010 53: 885-920 Matthew T. Witt, "Pretending Not to See or Hear, Refusing to Signify: The Farce and Tragedy of Geocentric Public Affairs Scholarship," American Behavioral Scientist2010 53: 921-939.
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