What's It All Aboot, Bill?

I was thinking the other day about what writer from the past can give us the most relevant information about the current political state of this country. The name I settled on was Josef Goebbels. We are living in what is increasingly becoming a propaganda-based society. We now learn that our right-wing federal government freely uses taxpayer dollars to fund propaganda; right-wing tycoons (Murdoch, Sinclair, Moon, etc.) use unabashedly biased media outlets to dish out an unrelenting diet of propaganda; and the establishment media cowers and goes along, lest it be accused of "liberal bias", or even worse, treason. In whatever hell to which he is properly consigned, Goebbels must be smiling in satisfaction -- his apt pupils have exceeded the accomplishments of their teacher.

One of Goebbels' lessons is that a successful propaganda operation must constantly create new enemies who pose a grave threat to the fatherland. The modern American right-wing propaganda machine follows that lesson to a tee. Even though the right-wing now exercises total control over the federal government and most media outlets, the right-wing still promotes the illusion that it is an embattled minority that is constantly in danger of being overrun by a powerful and ruthless bunch of liberal elitists, who despise and are despised by the overwhelming majority of the country, but who nevertheless use their status as so-called intellectuals in order to continue oppressing normal Christian, heterosexual Americans. For example, I recently caught a bunch of pundits on Fox News who were all complaining bitterly that the establishment media had reported on Bush's inaugural in a highly unfair, "leftist" manner. Now for some sick reason that I do not fully understand, I stayed up late into the night watching the television coverage of Bush's inauguration, almost driving myself insane in the process. To say that the coverage of Bush's inauguration was uniformly gushing is the height of understatement. I would love to know what programs the Fox pundits were watching; it might have done wonders for my mental state if I could have tuned into them.

Of course, there was no such coverage of Bush's inauguration bearing a liberal slant. But that is the point of propaganda. Propagandists deal with the management of perception, reality has nothing to do with it.

The right-wing's creation of imaginary enemies often reaches ludicrous proportions. I previously wrote about Fox News' absurd campaign about Christmas being under attack. Having thoroughly routed all those ruthless Christmas bashers out there, Fox News is now taking on a new dire threat to America: Canada. Fox News has recently run several programs with the theme that the Canadian Broadcasting Company is controlled by extreme leftists, who are trying to use their propaganda machine to the north to bring the fearful threat of Canadian might to bear to cause the destruction of our vulnerable, and misguidedly peace-loving nation. Bill O'Reilly in particular seems to really have it in for these monsters to the north. Unless we wake up soon to this Canadian threat by outlawing their so-called "bacon", by building walls to keep out those frigid air-masses they keep inflicting upon us, and by taking other steps to defend ourselves against their generally un-American ways, Fox tells us, it may be too late!

Fox has both an economic as well as an ideological motive for demonizing the CBC. Fox News has had trouble getting access to Canadian broadcast and cable outlets because Canadian regulators insist upon broadcasters carrying a minimum amount of Canadian content. Unlike the tools who run our FCC, Canadian regulators still adhere to the quaint notion that broadcasters have some obligation to serve the local community in which they operate. Needless to say, Fox News finds such notions of community service loathsome, and hence its decision to transform Canada into a grave threat to our national security.

Fox's anti-Canada campaign has already gotten some echoes in the real-life policies of the Bush administration, as Bush recently told the Canadian Prime Minister that unless Canada became more compliant with the United States in its conduct of the so-called war on terror, America would have to re-think its commitment to Canada's defense. I'm not sure exactly who it is that America is defending Canada against, but I guess the spectre of hordes of reindeer-riding Lapps mounting an invasion across the pole is something that really strikes terror into the hearts of many Canadians.

Michael Moore once made a comedy called "Canadian Bacon", to my knowledge his only non-documentary, which is about an American President suffering from low poll numbers who decides to remedy his problems by whipping up war hysteria against Canada. When I first saw this movie, I did not care for it because I thought that the premise was too far-fetched to make for an effective satire. Perhaps I should watch it again.

Bill O'Reilly and his buddies might also want to take a look at the movie in order to give some consideration as to whether or not their latest propaganda campaign runs the risk of back-firing and making them look like the bunch of idiots that they are. However, I doubt that Bill could tear himself away from his loofah long enough to do that.

In the meantime, be on the alert for beaver-tails and skunk-smelling beer.

The Ministry of Truth Marches On

I had made a posting on Christmas Eve, which I concluded by wishing my readers a Merry Christmas, noting that this would be the subject of a future blog. I had intended to write something about the absurd "Christmas Under Attack" theme that was being promoted by Fox News (a/k/a "Faux News") and other right-wing outlets. ("Boxing Day Under Attack" would really be more accurate -- when was the last time anyone wished you a Happy Boxing Day?). I have subsequently seen quite a bit written about this and I concluded that I really did not have much to add to the discussion.

However, I do want to pass along an interesting and illustrative anecdote. On Christmas Eve, my wife and I had come home from a frenetic bout of last-minute shopping, and we had one of those experiences of simultaneously saying that we wanted to relate to each other an interesting incident we had witnessed during the day. It turned out that the incidents were virtually identical. We had both been in lines at different stores and when the cashier completed the transaction, she wished us a Merry Christmas. In both of our incidents, the person on line behind us made a comment that was something like, "Well, I'm surprised that the store still lets you say that -- I thought that Christmas had been outlawed!"

I really found this experience quite chilling. It was as though Bill O'Reilly had occupied the bodies of the people standing in line and was like one of those aliens in "Independence Day," using the mouths of these people to speak for him. I mean, here we were standing in stores in which the symbols of Christmas were literally everywhere, yet these people were still expressing the opinion that Christmas was somehow under attack. And it is even more frightening when you think about the fact that both my wife and I had experiences that were virtually identical.

As Orwell would have explained, none of this should have come as a surprise. It is simply a manifestation of what happens when you have an efficient propaganda operation doing its job. Just as War can be made to equal Peace, so too can a society which is virtually obsessed with Christmas be converted into a society that allegedly subjects Christmas to ruthless attack. Propaganda causes people to reject all objective evidence and believe that which the propagandist promotes, regardless of the facts.

Sound familiar? How else could a genuine war hero be converted into a coward and a genuine coward be converted into a war hero? How else could the catastrophe that is the Iraq War be converted into America's finest hour?

Once again, Consortium News said it best: "It's The Media, Stupid!" We know the source of the disease; if we could only find a cure.

Again, I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and may the New Year bring some good news for a change.

The Stakes in the Gonzales Nomination

The current hearings on the nomination of Alberto Gonzales to be the next Attorney General raise stakes that are far more important than the future career-path of this one little opportunist. What is at stake is the future path of American government: Will we be a Republic in which the rule of law has meaning, or will we be an Empire in which the whim of one man decides all.

It all revolves around a law of the United States, a provision of the Federal criminal code, 18 U.S.C. Section 2340A, which states unambiguously:

"Whoever [being a national of the United States] outside of the United States commits or attempts to commit torture shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both, and if death results to any person from conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life."

This law does not provide for any exceptions.

In August 2002, Gonzales solicited a memorandum-opinion from the Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, that was clearly intended to provide legal cover to CIA personnel who either had used or intended to use interrogation tactics that could be construed as involving torture. The contents of that memorandum are what makes the current hearings so important.

The first section of the memorandum reaches the somewhat dubious conclusion that notwithstanding the very broad language of the statute, Section 2340A does not reach all forms of "degrading" and "inhumane" conduct that might fall within the common understanding of the term "torture" and instead applies only to "extreme" conduct. While I find this portion of the memorandum unconvincing as a matter of lawyering and somewhat disturbing in its cavalier treatment of the issue of torture, this part of the memorandum pales in comparison with what follows.

The real zinger comes as the end of the memorandum. The final section of the memorandum concludes that even "extreme" conduct that indisputably amounts to "torture" within the meaning of Section 2340A does not violate the law if it is carried out pursuant to the approval or direction of the President. The memorandum concludes that all Federal laws are trumped by the President's position as commander-in-chief of the armed forces; although not clearly spelled-out in the memorandum, this reasoning would also logically apply to all provisions of the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights. Thus, according to the memorandum, the President has the unfettered power to override all Federal laws -- including laws unambiguously prohibiting torture -- if the President unilaterally decides that it is necessary to do so in order to carry out military objectives.

There are no limitations on this principle suggested in the memorandum. Nor is there any reason to believe that the memorandum would draw any distinction between foreign and domestic exercises of Presidential power, so long as the President deems it necessary for the purpose of carrying out the war. Could the President authorize the seizure of property, the ransacking of houses, the taking of hostages, all if deemed necessary for military purposes? The Gonzales memorandum gives no reason to think not.

I hesitated about writing a blog on this subject. Unlike some liberals, I am not disturbed in the least by the prospect of pursuing terrorism as aggressively as possible. As a former prosecutor, I also believe that alarms raised by civil libertarians are often chimerical.

But this is no chimera. The law is the law. Torture is clearly and unambiguously made illegal by the laws of the United States -- as well it should be. Yet, we are now faced with a nominee for the position of the highest legal officer of the United States who has openly espoused the position that those laws -- and all other laws -- can be cast aside on the President's say so.

I harbor no illusions that Gonzales' confirmation can be blocked. His confirmation might not even be such a bad thing; Gonzales will almost certainly be a better Attorney General than Ashcroft.

Nevertheless, the hearings provide a good opportunity to take stock of the state of the nation, and to be very aware of the threats we are facing. It might also be a good time for Mr. Gonzales to do some soul-searching and to give some consideration to the words of Thomas More (as recounted in the play, A Man For All Seasons), a great Roman Catholic lawyer who chose to place a higher value on following the dictates of conscience than on loyalty to the service of his king:

"When the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you -- where would you hide, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast -- man's laws, not God's -- and if you cut them down d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake."