Hey, go read this

...because it is a brilliant take down of some conventional wisdom that is floating around.

When the Soviet Stalinist government of the 1930s meant to discredit old elements of the regime, labelling former cadre of the Communist Party "enemies of the state", the intended result was the "false confession." At that time, the Dewey Commission in the United States (named after the respected U.S. academic who chaired the investigation, John Dewey) investigated and cleared Leon Trotsky and other "old Bolsheviks" from the wild prosecutorial claims of the Russian prosecutors. It was the "confessions" of some of these former leaders of the Soviet Union that seemed so inexplicable at the time. The drama of the situation was captured by novelist Arthur Koestler in his famous novel, Darkness at Noon.

Much later, the supposed confessions of Hungarian Cardinal Josef Mindszenty after his 1948 arrest by the Stalinist police greatly puzzled Western observers. It was supposed that he was tortured, but even then, how had he been made to "confess" in such a relatively brief period of time?

The issue of false confessions elicited under torture had its largest airing when, in 1952-53, captured U.S. airmen told their captors that they had engaged in dropping biological weapons on North Korea and China as part of the U.S. air campaign against those countries. The accusation was vigorously denied by the United States, and a propaganda campaign was begun in the guise of investigating the "brainwashing" of U.S. prisoners. Wild stories of mind control drugs and secret interrogation techniques that could gain unique influence over the personalities of its victims were circulated. It was in this environment that Albert Biderman, Lawrence Hinkle, Harold Wolff, Robert Jay Lifton and others were enlisted to study how the Chinese had produced the "false confessions" of U.S. POWs.

Except, were the confessions false?

Publicly, that was the story. But when researchers met behind closed doors, or at professional meetings, a different story emerges. At a 1957 symposium organized by the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (GAP) on "Methods of Forceful Indoctrination: Observations and Interviews", Dr. Louis West noted that "the enemy had a considerable degree of success in obtaining intelligence information and in forcing prisoners to engage in propaganda activities" (emphasis added; the quote is from GAP Symposium No. 4, July 1957, published by GAP Publications Office).

Invictus is a Daily Kos blogger, and his regular site just went on my bookmarks. Invictus is also on the Out of Iraq Bloggers Caucus along with this site, so we are kindred spirits, of a kind, and it's always wise to link to someone who we should have been linking to all along. It's called "rectifying the situation" in my parlance.

This person nails the whole supposed story about the use of Chinese techniques from the Korean War and knows his stuff.

It's Blogrolling Amnesty Time!

Hey fellow bloggers, this post is for you.

When I add new finds to one of my blogrolls, I pretty much do so without announcing it or sending an email to the person I am blogrolling. Sometimes I don't even leave a comment. I add it for my own convenience - to make it easy to check your sites.

I do, however, try to link back when I discover that someone has added me.

Well, the king of blogtopia™ (sctp) does the occasional blogrolling amnesty. And since we here at Blue Girl, Red State ('we' being yours truly, a three year old and two cats) consider skippy to be pretty much a blogging God, and not just because he gave us a t-shirt.

I am certain I have missed one or two, so please, if you have me linked and I haven't reciprocated, drop me an email or leave a comment to let me know, and I will add you! And what is an amnesty without a wide-open invite to share links?

Say hello to a few new friends

The truly observant among you might notice a couple of subtle changes to the sidebar. Another short piece by Mark Twain has been added to the "Required Reading" links list, and there is a new category right below that "Stuff you should have learned in school, but you were smoking pot in the bathroom" (I know because I was in the next stall over, so don't try to bullshit me.) Currently there is only one link - to the National Archives United States Constitution website. More links will be added, but the Constitution is the best place to start I can think of.

I have also added a couple of links to other blogs that have recently come to my attention. My local paper, the Kansas City Star, is (thank Dog) a McClatchy outfit, and one of our local reporters is in Baghdad on assignment. He is writing a blog from there called The Missouri, the Kaw, the Tigris and the Euphrates. Scott Canon is doing a fine job and making some great posts. Check it out.

Under the Science Blogs link list, you will find The Catalytic Triad - (which might be the best name for a blog ever) - which takes place at the nexus of science, education and progressive politics. Beer is on me if you can refute his well-thought out and sourced arguments. Go on - I dare ya.

I also have five six seven eig (AARRGGGHHH! Make that) ten new friends who could use some love that I want to introduce you to.

First up is Manifesto Joe. He is an underground writer, living in Texas. He has joined the team of bloggers at WTWC and is helping us keep an eye on the Statehouse down there and the Texas delegation in Washington. Texas born-and-bred, he is a valuable addition to our team over there, and a fine blogger in his own right. Check out his site and I guarantee you'll bookmark him for return visits.

Second is Desdinova - Supervillain of the Ozarks. I blogroll him (in part) because I am afraid not to - you see, when he is the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, I am one of the few people who will be allowed to live. He is raging against the dieing of the light in the media. It's a noble cause and I wish him well, and offer my humble support by linking him. I dread leaving the safe cocoon of the city because eventually, I lose the signal to civilized radio...I would don a cape and mask, too, if I lived in the Ozarks, I am afraid.

Third up is Worldwide Sawdust. I just learned about them, and when I went to have a look-see, by golly, there was your humble blogging servant, linked in the sidebar. I looked around a bit and decided I might not be worthy - Bob Higgins and company are doing some damned fine blogging over there, quality alternative journalism in the same vein as Watching Those We Chose. Check them out. After all, intellect can not live on snark alone.

Fourth is The Barstool Chronicles - dispatches from the existential sinkhole. I saw his link when I checked my site stats and wondered over to have a look around. I liked what I saw. Just the right touch of irreverence, indignation, and pissed-off. Besides, his bio pic shows him playing a Fender J-bass. Gibson folks have to earn a link - but Fender guys get linked automatically. There you have it and now you know. My prejudices are not racial - they are guitar-based.

And I have saved the best for last - The Blog of the Unknown Soldier is brand-spanking new - With only six posts in the archives, you can read them all, and I think you should. This guy is obviously a Mensch, and service by folks like him gives me hope that the military I have loved and revered since my first breath of life can and will be redeemed, rebuilt and repaired. It took men like my husband to rebuild it the last time. Now that they are retired or retiring, it's going to fall to young men like him to do it this go-round. Just in case you don't know me all that well, christening (no, that's not right...Jews can't christen anything - that's just fundamentally wrong, like a Buddha atop a Christmas tree) Dubbing (there, that'll do) someone a Mensch is the highest compliment I am capable of bestowing.

Updated @ 6:00 p.m. - Right after I posted this, I checked the sidebar, and realized a couple of folks who had been added recently without comment, and let's face it - my sidebar is a cacophony - although I prefer the word Opit uses - trove. Then I looked at the bookmarks and said to myself "Self, you were supposed to move some of these to the blogroll a long, long time ago, so why don't you just get off your ass and do that?" and I responded "Yes, Ma'am" because I sounded particularly stern when I called myself out. So here are five more you should be reading...

Sixth and seventh - the ones I forgot and had to come back to add - Voices of Reason - is a blog that has been providing me high-quality intellectual protein for so long I forgot I had recently added the link to share with you all......Ditto a part of my daily routine that should have been moved from the bookmarks to the blogroll long, long ago is Leila who writes the wonderful Dove's Eye View. Leila is an Academic, a feminist, a peace-maker, a breast-cancer survivor and she happens to be an Arab American. I hope she will forgive me for the oversight. It has been rectified now.

Constructive Interference is a blog written by my fellow Political Animal MSR. I blogrolled him some time ago, but did so without comment. He also blogs about his adventures in beer brewing and mead making here. He is quickly becoming a must-read for me, and not just because we are like, eexactly the same age and both science-types, either.

I promised myself a long time ago that I would blogroll the Politicky Bitch the next time I updated, so I kept my word and did so. Irreverence and snark are the trump cards in her deck.

Finally, rounding it all out to a perfect ten is Sic Semper Tyrannis; the blog of Patrick Lang, retired U.S. intel professional and author of the seminal 2004 essay Drinking the Kool-Aid. I have blogged about him before - in fact I have done so recently.

There you go - lots of new diversions to keep you occupied until I get back to the city and a high-speed connection and back in the swing. This place is just so peaceful and beautiful that it saps the snark right out of me. If I lived here full-time I fear I would lose my edge. Or make the headlines and not in a good way, either.

(Before someone asks, I'll pre-empt the question...I forgot the digital camera. Sorry. Next time, I promise.)