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In the ongoing debate about torture versus the rule of law, constitutional values, and American identity and values, the media seemed to miss the mark, not surprisingly again.

Jon Stewart still wins.

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Mirror Error

Some other thoughts on the 'T' word from Andrew Sullivan and blogger Hussein Rashid.

Literature has often been a teacher of humanity for me. As this subject is debated over various outlets, my memory takes me back to IB English in 11th grade. Our reading list included Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon. For those of you unfamiliar with the story, Wikipedia has a decent synopsis.

My memory of the novel is fragmented. It's sort of a mash-up between other things I was reading, junior and senior year of high school. I was also reading Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron, Edgar Allen Poe's The Pit and The Pendulum and Elie Wiezel's Night. These stories stayed with me. They were stories of the individual versus the state. Maybe it was my first literary encounter with torture and why I think of it now. The Pit and the Pendulum, Night, and Harrison Bergeron along with Darkness at Noon form this dystopic nightmare for me. The lines where these stories overlap in my brain comes to this point: totalitarian regimes suppressing the rights of individuals and systematic murder of citizens. The Spanish Inquisition was torture. Rubashov in Darkness at Noon was tortured and was compelled to fake a confession. Harrison Bergeron was murdered for not conforming to the rules of the State that suppressed his individual freedom. Elie Wiezel survived living in a concentration camp while Nazis methodically murdered Jews, gypsies and others.

Isn't it odd that the conservative movement fears Obama Administration's policies on social entitlements and tax code versus the Bush Administration's sanction and codification of a torture program? Where's their fear of losing the rule of law?

Not everyone has read these stories. They've read others, perhaps. Maybe it didn't affect them as much as it has affected me. Maybe they can't see how these stories were written so that we remember to do better. Maybe they can't see how at this moment, art and life are thisclose. That is not a typo. We still have time. We're the ones we've been waiting for.

Not In Our Name

'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.' - Martin Luther King

I'm not sure if enough people are talking about this.

I've been avoiding it myself. Looking at the issue straight in the eye. See the character of the American people through the actions of our leaders. Honestly, I don't want to. But much like that nagging small voice inside your head, you must relent and deal with it.

Part of the strategery in releasing these memos is that it forces us to talk about it. Everyday people, beyond the mainstream media. Some would like to frame this debate as 'leftwing' issue. Some have even attempted to phrase the conversation in this way:

It’s hard for me to look at a great nation issuing these documents and sending them out to the world and thinking, ‘Oh, much good will come of that.’ Sometimes in life you want to keep walking… Some of life has to be mysterious.

- Peggy Noonan

On the interwebs, populist outrage seems to be simmering. Andrew Sullivan and Ta'hesi Coates for the Atlantic Monthly have written about it.And again, we have Shepard Smith, with his flashes of outrage. This guy's done a song about it, Jon Stewart reported it satirically on the Daily Show, Nick Flynn wrote a brilliant essay about it in Tin House last year, George Saunders wrote satirical story about it for the New Yorker, and yet, I sort of get the feeling that we're not angry enough.

We are avoiding talking about it. It's ugly. It's ugly like lynchings, serial killers, interning Japanese American citizens, rape, police brutality, eugenics projects, and slavery. It's the dark side of the force that everyone tries to forget.

For what good is this great republic if we can't be honest and be held accountable for our crimes? How dare we say that we're the moral compass to the world when we're unwilling to prosecute crimes committed by our leaders? When did we let our fear forfeit the rule of law?

The most damning realization in my reading these memos, the Red Cross Report, the Senate Arms Services Committee Report, and other sources to deconstruct the issue is this: Torture became policy. Torture suborned confessions to support the invasion of Iraq. Torture was policy and vehicle to support a political and agenda.

And that realization sends chills down my spine. It makes me weep. I hope I'm not alone.

Torture is wrong. Waterboarding is torture. There, I said it. And I will say it again and again. We all should. And we can't stop until officials of the previous administration are brought to justice and are held accountable for their crimes against humanity and the republic.

photo: © syreeta mcfadden 2009

Fellowship of the Ex-Presidents

Oh, to be a fly on that wall for that conversation...

But my absolute favorite is sitting president W's excitement in counting himself as a member of the ex-president's club.



But body language says a lot. I'm not sure why Obama and W. were centered the way they were. Carter the furthest away from Clinton for the photo op. Bush Sr. far away from Bush Jr, seperated by Obama. Like a child separating bickering divorced parents to keep the peace. In another video, as the photographers start to leave, and questions hurled at the presidents past, present and future, the awkward family dynamic persists, Clinton comments to W. about how much he liked the rug in the Oval Office. Carter stands and smiles longer, and is off to the far left of screen. Bush Sr. and Obama smile at each other. In the theater of American politics, it's nice to know that you can never really escape the awkward and dysfunctional family drama.

Viva La Vida

I've been thinking a lot about this song lately.

I knew immediately when Coldplay released their latest experiment, with the album cover of the Delacroix painting and the storm the Bastille aesthetic that they were styled in, that something big, unnameable and epic was on the horizon for us -real americans- and the world. I remember listening to the opening opus thrilled yet melancholy by the rather upbeat and contradictory lamentable lyrics.

It occurred to me then that this was the subtle cultural response to the Bush Years. No? Think about it:



The song is persona piece of a historical figure, Herod, King of Jerusalem, before it collapsed under the rule of Romans and the subsequent crusades that dominated the ancient world. Considering the Bush years led to our own experience in a holy war. I don't need to summarize the last 7 years of what we've experienced -soldiers, civilians, Americans, the world, respect, etc.- but consider the losses we've had.

The election of Barack Obama sent people dancing in the streets. It was amazing to see humanity celebrate possibility.



But at the same time, I felt a little bad for W. Seriously. I certainly can't wait for the end of the Bush years. But I felt sad for him because he's that guy. It's like the song: "Revolutionaries wait, for my head on a silver plate". Granted, no one was storming the White House gate like it was the Bastille or anything nearly as bloody as the Delacroix painting. It was more like a peaceful manifestation of the Delacroix painting, the flag waving and the cheering, ecstatic mob outside of the castle waiting for the deposed king to leave.

The financial system collapsing adds another nuance to this culturally significant ditty. Watching the fall of giants such as Bear Sterns, Lehman, Washington Mutual, the auto makers, and the remix of a Ponzi scheme with Bernard Madoff seems to make the timing of the release of Viva la Vida hold a deeper resonance for our times in ways that I'm not sure they've even imagined yet.

Funny, huh.