It’s striking, when you stop to think about it, how large an unspoken role symbolism plays in our understanding of the world and the ways in which we organize our lives. There are words, sounds, colours, images, clothing, objects, and even intonations that we don’t acknowledge on an almost second by second basis that trigger certain deeply held meanings for us and fundamentally inform how we wind up understanding a given experience. These symbols and the impact on our perception of things are so pervasive that one can stand side-by-side with a good friend, become exposed to the same set of variables and dynamics making up an experience, and interpret what happened in totally divergent ways.

That symbolism seems to operate on a myriad of levels and in an infinite number of contexts, from the tiniest of everyday interactions to the most expansive of meta-narratives. And more often than not, I think, we remain largely unconscious of this component of our perception and conception of the world. It was against the backdrop of that thinking that I happened to listen again to On Point’s November 16 podcast about the upcoming trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed et al. and it was just that kind of thinking that has lead me to see the whole trial within the prism of a lose-lose matrix of outcomes. [Read more →]

Few bloggers have had quite as controversial a career as Little Green Football’s Charles Johnson.  Johnson began blogging in earnest back in 2001 after the attacks on the twin towers, and continues putting out content at a furious pace nearly a decade later.

He is perhaps best known for playing a key role in the resignation of CBS’s Dan Rather following the forged Killian document scandal.  He also played a role in bringing attention to altered photographs in the Adnan Hajj photographs controversy. In July 2008, LGF identified that photographs of Iran’s nuclear missile test had been altered.

More recently, Johnson has locked spears with many on the right over issues such as Obama’s birth certificate, creationism in schools, and “Obama Derangement Syndrome.”

He helped found the popular new media site, Pajamas Media, though he has since fallen out with the publishers and, as of September, has removed all links from Little Green Footballs to Pajamas Media.

I had a chance to exchange emails with Charles Johnson about his experience as a blogger and the current state of affairs on the war on terror and the conservative blogosphere. [Read more →]

The below audio wherein Michael Ignatieff, leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, praises the US role in championing human rights globally and specifically George W. Bush’s role in explicitly committing to human rights in the “Arab world” has been circulating my Canadian Facebook network far and wide,

The full audio can be found here.

Needless to say, this is a bit of a doh! moment for Ignatieff given the swirling charges around the use of torture techniques by the Bush Administration, the generally perceived failure of the Iraq invasion, and the fall of neocon/neoliberal national-building sentiments from grace. The audio was recorded back in January 2005, just shy of a year before Ignatieff returned to Canada with the express purpose of running for office. And, of course, Ignatieff’s stance on human rights, American exceptionalism  and assuming the “lesser evil” approach to national and global security isn’t exactly breaking news, which shows as much about how little attention many Canadians often pay to their political leaders as it does anything else.

That said, it doesn’t strike me as helpful that this audio is circulating now and may goes to undermine some of the arguments that the Liberals are trying to make vis-a-vis the handoff of Afghanistan detainees into torture environments — though, absent the comments about Bush, I think Ignatieff could make at least a substantive case for his positions. No large media outlets are picking it up (because, you know, it isn’t really news) and I wouldn’t expect that to change. If the audio does surface, it seems sadly likely that it will be in terms of muddying the attack of Liberals against Conservative torture trespasses in Afghanistan.

While I know there were a a handful of folks on the eleft screaming about Ignatieff’s views on human rights when he came back to Canada in the first place and during both his successful and unsuccessful leadership bids, it is pretty sad how little play the expressed views of one of the most currently prominent Canadian politicans have seen nation-wide. It is really an indictment of how little truly critical analysis is involved in mainstream political discourse in Canada and should function as a spur to those of us who would like to see the situation otherwise.

Andrew et al link to a polling graph that places my misreading of party ID numbers last week in pretty obvious context. I’ve spent the last week thinking a lot about that post and the push back I received to it.

It was a bit surprising to me just how emotionally invested I became in the contents of that post and how charged my own actions became around the ensuing discussion. I’m generally pretty sincere in my writing, but also try to consciously maintain a certain distance from anything I write. I want to be open to as much as possible, unattached to being “right”, and swayed by the best arguments that happen to come along. My thought process on that post might lend some insight into why that wasn’t the case with that particular post and leads well into where my head is at now vis-a-vis its contents. [Read more →]

Greg Sargent parses some numbers on public opinion and health care today over The Plum Line, noting,

The poll finds that an overwhelming majority of 64% think Republicans are opposing Obama’s health care plans mostly for political reasons. But it also finds that an equally large number, 65%, say Democrats shouldn’t pass a bill without Republicans — even if they think it’s right for the country — and should instead compromise to win over some GOPers.

About which, Sargent concludes,

This shows, I think, that Democrats have convinced the public that the GOP wants Obama and Dems to fail at all costs. But they’ve failed to make the case to the public that GOP obstructionism may leave them no choice but to go it alone in order to realize reform.

Which is right, I guess.

But it leaves this sort of… empty feeling on my pallet. It’s not fair to say that Democrats have no obligation to make their case to the public, nor is it to say that it goes without saying that Democrats should leave Republicans at the door over health care.

But I can’t help thinking that there is a certain gutlessness that has come to pervade much of the political process — an inability to act when acting is the right thing to do that seems to be a kind of runt of the litter progeny of the permanent campaign mentality that is all the more ubiquitous due to it’s impish stature. [Read more →]

I know that we’ve had a bevy of posts on torture and the torture memos of late, but on the estimable Fox News this past Sunday, former head of the CIA Michael Hayden has this interesting bit to say about the Obama administration’s decision to release the memos outlining interrogation techniques used against enemy combatants and what may or may not constitute torture, which caught my ear:

There’s another point, too, that I have to make. And it’s just not the tactical effect of this technique or that. It’s the broader effect on CIA officers.

I mean, if you’re a current CIA officer today — in fact, I know this has happened at the agency after the release of these documents. Officers are saying, “The things I’m doing now — will this happen to me in five year because of the things I am doing now?”

And the answer they’ve been given by senior leadership is the only answer possible, which is, “I can’t guarantee you that won’t happen, but I do know it won’t happen under this president.”

Now, think what that means. The basic foundation of the legitimacy of the agency’s action has shifted from some durability of law to a product of the American political process. That puts agency officers in a horrible position.

So I think the really dangerous effect of this, Chris, is that you will have agency officers stepping back from the kinds of things that the nation expects them to do. I mean, if you were to go to an agency officer today and say, “Go do this,” and, “Why am I authorized to do this?”

And I say, “Well, it’s authorized by the president. The attorney general says it’s lawful. And it’s been briefed to Congress.” That agency officer’s going to say, “Yeah, I know, but I see what’s going on here now. Have you run it by the ACLU? What’s the New York Times editorial board think? Have you discussed this with any potential presidential candidates?”

You’re going to have this agency on the front line of defending you in this current war playing back from the line.

I understand where Hayden is coming from with these remarks, but my inevitable response is: listen, if there is anyone I want critically evaluating the implications of their actions, it’s CIA agents.

Americans often puff their chest and speak loudly about being the freest nation on the planet and I generally don’t disagree with that estimation, at least on a gross level of analysis. But one would be remiss in failing to acknowledge that there are a myriad of subtle, and in some senses not so subtle, ways in which the bureaucratic technocracy of our modern nation-states undermines our freedom (small “f”) while still reinforcing and protecting our Freedom (big ‘f”). The degree to which said technocracy spells out and cultivates an intuitive deference to symbols and centres of authority in our social hierarchy is surprisingly (perhaps not so) ubiquitous.

It is in calling out and challenging these vortexes of power when they extend beyond the acceptable limits of their scope that freedom-fighters from both the liberal and conservative persuasions are at their best. But all too often, the omnipresence of bureaucratic dominance has filtered into our every day lives in such a fashion as to dull the edges of those ideological scythes to a frightening degree. It is this ingrain, institutional, and knee-jerk deference to authority that I can’t help see running throughout every argument that Hayden trots out on this front. [Read more →]