Class Status & Power: Final Exam Discussion: "How can you apply the theories and concepts from our class to an analysis of the current news story of prison abuses by the U.S. military in Iraq?"

Excerpts from students' online discussion:

• Through reading different articles from all over the world, it becomes so clear that a huge factor in the friction between so many countries is that we all have different ideas of reality. . . . There has been so much hostility in the world for so many years, every society in each country has already formed it's own attitude toward other countries. This in turn affects how we all get (or don't get) along. Our own realities (as created by the society around us) are in control of how we see and feel about the rest of the world.
• I also kept thinking on Mills . . . because of the way society is organized and because of the way institutions are structured, certain individuals can take advantage of others and their positions. . . . the structure and organization of the way in which interrogation was done they were able to take it even further . . . Had the institution been set up differently perhaps this would have never happened.
• Spencer's ideology, although now long unaccepted, is lurking in the structure of American society.
• Goffman would note the situation at the prison would further support his research on total institutions. He said that in prisons, as well as in hospitals and schools, individuals lose power and are at the mercy of the those who are in control.
• World system's theory was developed by Immanuel Wallerstein. He would declare that we, as a core country, are in Iraq for their resources. Hegemony is taking place since we are trying to incorporate a democracy into Iraq, which would be considered a periphery country compared to our standards (Hurst 163).
• We as a society have created an atmosphere where everyday violence is not all that shocking, but often our entertainment.
• I believe that what this country is experiencing is much of what Paulo Freire talked about. In his accounts he spoke a lot about the oppressed being cynically oppressed, because they could never get themselves out of it. Shame on us for making them fall back into this trap.
• Rumsfeld coming up with a dollar amount to rectify the Iraqi situation. . . . I can relate this to what Karl Marx thinks about capitalism. He thinks that people are becoming disconnected to society because of the commodification of everything we do. In a capitalist society we believe that money will make everything ok.
• The prisons in Iraq where the abuse took place is a good example of a total institution.
• the principal reason some countries are underdeveloped is because they are minor players in the world market and are linked to major nations through ties of exploitation.
• They have a feeling of ethnocentrism and aren't looking at these people as individuals with the same rights as themselves
• Another reason the troops may be acting in an abusive manner towards the prisoners is because of racial inequalities. They look at them as inferior because of their race. This has been apparent for people of other races during WWII. In our book on p. 112, it describes the racial inequalities that were apparent at the time against the Mexicans and Japanese.
• Without structure in a society people may fall into “anomie”, a state of normlessness – leading to deviant behavior. Furthermore, enduring war in a foreign culture, these abnormal conditions may force people into abnormal roles. These troops are losing focus and as well as their moral obligation (Durkheim).
• most of us will complete this final and Iraq will become the farthest thing from our mind. None of us will personally make attempts to fix what is wrong.
• Mob mentality definately plays a role here, they are part of a group and there is pressure to be loyal. The fact that others are doing it gives it a stamp of approval. The individual responsibility is dispersed over the entire group. The fact that these soldiers felt ok to take those pictures tells us something about the culture that developed. I've heard of a process called "moral disengagement" which is separating themselves from their actions.
• C. Wright Mills states that mass media is controlled by those at the top of the power structure . . . and "tells people what their experiences are or should be and stereotypes them"
  Here's an example for thought-- in an article I picked up in Newsday (NY), it states that American citizens are so shocked at the prisoner abuse - "at the spectacle of their soldiers humiliating naked, hooded men under their power" and describes this as "a singular unheard of event"! Yet another article I read from Canada described how : "During the invasion of Afhanistan, America ignored evidence US Special Forces troops had watched-or even participated-in the massacre of 3,000 Taliban prisoners by..Northern Alliance soldiers", also "persistent reports of prisoners being tortured by U.S. captors in Iraq,Afganistan, Diego Garcia, Jordan, Egypt, and Guantanamo..were..ignored"
• Another view is Goffman's "Presentation of Self in Everyday Life" -- Frontstage, the image is being constructed for external consumption -- statues being toppled amidst cheers, soldiers assisting people in building roads and schools, Bush on an aircraft carrier announcing victory. Backstage, what is really going on is hidden from view -- prisoners being abused, U.S. soldiers coming home in coffins, a high suicide rate amongst U.S. soldiers in Iraq, Bush and Colin Powell fighting. Once the backstage is uncovered, the image carefully put together by the power elite is destroyed.
• this situation can also be related to Ida B. Well's social theory about pathological interaction between differences and power in U.S. Society.
• this all deals with the social construct of race , . . . that is similiar to some of the dehumanization that was done during slavery.
• . . . in an article by the Toronto Star is that this type of situation is inevitable because of our own inability to see the difference between what we think we are as Americans and what we are actually capable of. (the definition of the situation clouds perception.)