A Victory for Vengeance?: America’s Methods of Domination; Part Two

For more than 30 years now, the United States has taken a turn to the Right in how we organize our society. Prison populations have skyrocketed, prison sentences and anti-crime laws have become more and more draconian, torture has been used at home and abroad in the name of security, and the state has tightened its noose around those of us not in the upper classes… especially non-whites and the poor. Why has this occurred? What role has the rise in political Christianity played in the push for far right policies? Are there underlying reasons for this sad state of affairs beyond religion and the conservative politics of the Reagan/Bush era that are not even being talked about? And what can we do to make America more democratic, egalitarian and humanistic?

These are the questions we asked of journalists’ Sasha Abramsky, author of American Furies: Crime, Punishment and Vengeance in the Age of Mass Imprisonment and Kristian Williams, author of American Methods: Torture and the Logic of Domination and Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America.

 

 Abramsky and Williams Part Two [26:36m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The Church of the SubGenius is a satirical postmodern parody religion, originally based in Dallas, Texas, which gained popularity in the 1980s and 1990s subculture, with a large presence on the Internet.  The Church describes its philosophy in the following manner: “The Church Of The SubGenius is an order of Scoffers and Blasphemers, dedicated to Total Slack, delving into Mockery Science, Sadofuturistics, Megaphysics, Scatalography, Schizophreniatrics, Morealism, Sarcastrophy, Cynisacreligion, Apocolyptionomy, ESPectorationalism, Hypno-Pediatrics, Subliminalism, Satyriology, Disto-Utopianity, Sardonicology, Fascetiouism, Ridiculophagy, and Miscellatheistic Theology.”
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Tim Wise: The Extended Interview

Scientific naturalists recognize that our bias always threatens to keep us from accurately interpreting what we see. Indeed, the degree to which our efforts to study the world around us will generate the accurate information we desire, is limited by how effective we are at offsetting the bias that would otherwise mislead us.

While most naturalists are aware of the need to defeat bias in order to accurately perceive the world around us, when it comes to understanding what drives our fellow humans, naturalists are often far less committed to applying the standards of scientific evidence to attain an unbiased view. In America perhaps the most blaring examples of such unchecked bias obstructing our ability to perceive accurately has to due with the issue of race.

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