Got off on a tangent

again. But for now, I'm leaving it. Here, an excerpt from chapter five:

Thirdly, and most importantly, it was important to frame the situation as a war. Among other things, this paved the way for Yoo’s rapid—and legally binding--declaration of unlimited presidential power. Although previous terrorist attacks, such as the first bombing of the world trade center, the attack on the U.S. Cole, and the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, had not been defined as acts of war, Bush was quick to define this attack as such. This framing as war was perhaps the single most crucial rhetorical move in positioning the administration to enact, in the OLC memos and elsewhere, its subsequent exercise of “plenary” executive power—including the right to torture.

For many, of course, calling the situation after 9/11 a war was logical and appropriate, if only because no previous attack on the United States in peacetime had even remotely approached the magnitude and scale of this one, both in sheer numbers and in its particularly horrific nature. Hours of compounded atrocities—the exploding fireballs, the trapped victims jumping to their deaths, the buildings collapsing on first responders, the United passengers who “rolled” on the hijackers—all of which “the entire world” had witnessed, live, and which the media replayed endlessly, became events and images that quickly reached iconic status. Arguably, 9/11 is the most powerful thematic formation in our current culture, one that, possibly uniquely, embodies the sway and authority of both a god-term and a devil-term.

Among the vast array of polyphonic strands of 9/11 as a devil-term: the crashing of planes into walls of glass, the rain of debris, the billowing black smoke, the bewilderment, the growing horror, the lost innocence, the breathless magnitude, the inexplicability, the rage, the injustice, the what-the-fuck?!, the loss. The fear. The grief.

Among its strands as a god-term: the sacredness, the coming together of strangers, the sharing of the grief, the honoring of the sacrifices, the beloved we will not forget, the innocence lost, the vulnerability, the reverence for the dead, the heroism, the uniting of “the whole world,” the sudden holiness of place, the outpouring of sympathy. The awful, searing majesty of the images: Edmund Burke's sublime writ large. 9/11 the divider of history: before and after. 9/11: the standard-bearer of American identity. Compared to 9/11, war itself is ordinary. Thematically, in its mystification, 9/11 attained the power to move mountains, to change reality. In the ensuing anger and grief, the desire for revenge and retaliation, the overriding thought that someone had to pay, were more than understandable.

Sooooo, if beheading

makes Them barbaric and savage, what does crucifixion make us? Because that's how a number of detainees in our custody have died. Hung by their wrists, like they did in the good old Spanish Inquisition, until they die of suffocation, arms dislocated from their sockets.

More humane than beheading? Less savage? Who are the good guys again? Because honestly, I can't tell any more.

When I am done with this project I am going to start a punch list. A slow, careful long-term compilation of NAMES, which I will post here, of people who participated in this, sanctioned it, who think it's okay, who got away with it, people I want to line up and PUNCH--along with a list of the names of their victims.

I can't punch them, of course. But I can bear witness. And I will.

Stupid goddamned fucking idiots. GOD I am pissed.

Am hitting a snag

I went through my files in my WONDERFUL Scrivener organizer (my abject worship of the genius who invented this continues), and I have fourteen pages of links to article and sources that document in meticulous detail the acts committed under the Bush Reich (sorry, but I'm PISSED, looking at all this stuff is really PISSING ME OFF) while he was mouthing off to the world ("heh heh heh now where were those WMD again?!") that the U.S. does not torture.

Fourteen pages of LINKS. That's LINKS to articles and sources, that link through to other articles and sources . . . Links. Double spaced. Fourteen pages.

And I probably haven't even scratched the surface of what's out there.

So my momentary dilemma--the one that's halted the momentum, such as it was (the writing is easy, relatively--the source management isn't)--is how to condense this all into a few pages of text. I don't think I have the TIME to go back through and read every one of those links, much less cull quotes, etc. Or maybe that's what I should do--scan, cull, pull a quote, move on. Yikes. I gave myself until tonight, with time out for a dog walk, to have this done. I've been trying to get INTO this for about three days, and time's a-wastin' . . .

So if there are any brilliant and bright ideas about how manage this floating around out there in the ether . . . I call you to me now. :-)

I swear to God

. . . the weirdest thing is happening.

Every night, or every day, whenever I am getting ready to work on this diss . . . the articles I need to have, the material that's missing, the links, the incidental info that is crucial to exactly that section of the chapter I am working on . . . appears on the screen before me.

I swear, I am not making this up. It goes like this: I do some sort of "gear-changing" surfing, maybe I'll go to one or the other of my political blogs, mess around, waste time, goof off--so I tell myself--but I get into my mind-set and switch gears. And something will catch my eye. A story. A phrase. A link. And then I click through, or I do a search, just out of curiosity. And sometimes an article will be there, or it will link to another . . . I read, it's cool, I'll bookmark it . . . and then I think I really better get to work, and as soon as I turn my mind to whatever it is I'm working on: there it is. All the connections.

For example, this evening, I was linking through a bunch of stuff, googling, I don't even know, and I just HAPPENED on this article that summed up everything I've been trying to pull together for the last week or so, namely how many confirmed deaths have happened in US custody due to violent means since the WOT began. There it is, right there. Not only that, but a summary of the methods that led to those deaths. Not only that, but somewhere along that twisted path was a discussion of the terms used in place of the word torture--VITAL to the diss--and a link to some right wing blogger who was saying, back in 2005, enough is enough we don't torture, that's not who we are. And somewhere down the page is a discussion, and in that discussion is the PERFECT, I mean the PERFECT comment to sum up the final section of this chapter: "stop saying 'torture is wrong' like it's an absolute and not just your opinion." Right there. Right in front of me, the comment that essentially sums up a whole core concept of this diss.

I mean . . . if I spent YEARS trying to find the perfect comment, I couldn't have found anything as perfect as that.

You see? It isn't me. It's not that I'm a genius. It's that--this is the best explanation I can come up with, because really I got nothin' else--just that there's a good star hanging over this project. A guiding star. The universe is working in my favor.

Of course, everyone thinks that (when they're not thinking the universe is aligned against them, and most likely neither is true).

But sometimes you feel like that, too. And that's cool.

Checking in

So, the feeling of "slogging" through doesn't abate . . . but today I have, suddenly, five solid pages and 18 more of notes, quotes, and raw material of one of the most difficult chapters, the context chapter, to turn into something coherent. I spent an hour trying to find an exact phrase, specifically where in the hell in Terror Presidency Goldsmith actually USES the much-quoted "golden shield." And it was a highly fruitful search. I am beginning to suspect that there's very little I will say that someone hasn't already said before me--but perhaps just pulling it all together in a way that makes a coherent narrative, that makes sense in a slightly new way, will be enough? Not sure, but I'm going to keep going.

What is emerging is a highly interesting look at the contested space of "power"--what it is, exactly, who defines it and how, where it's located. CDA is all over power and its abuses. But even the word means very different things to different people. And I can see, although I don't really believe, that Goldsmith believes it all WAS, first and foremost, about protecting the American people and keeping them safe.

I disagree. But then, he was there and I was not.

And that might not be a bad thing, to NOT be there to get caught up in the panic. If indeed it is panic???? When Addington says to him (and Addington is emerging as a REAL problem, perhaps an originator as much as Cheney of The Dark Side), after Goldsmith tells Addington he was NOT approving a specific "counterterrorism initiative" (cagey as hell, is Goldsmith)--when Addington says, with disgust, "If you rule that way, the blood of the hundred thousand people who die in the next attack will be on your hands," Goldsmith never questions him. Never looks at it as the hyperbole it is. Perhaps not for Addington, of course, but for those of us who live in the REAL world . . .

The really really fascinating thing about all of this is how minimal the actual threat is--although the potential threat is, admittedly, much greater. But there are so many other, greater ACTUAL threats--guns, smoking, cars, planes, family members, cancer, heart disease, obesity, high fructose corn syrup, and when you get right down to it, the greatest threat to "economic prosperity," which Goldsmith ties to terrorism in the book, is economic DISparity. So why this? What is it about terror, about 9/11, that pushes all the buttons that actual threats do not? And it's not even terror--it's a particular kind of terror. As someone in something recently (don't ask me who, or where, I'm fried) pointed out, after Timothy McVeigh, we didn't invade Michigan.

No, it's this particular threat. And that's maybe what I can tease out, in the language. Maybe that is what I'm looking for--evidence of that, of why--why this, why in this way, what is that button pusher?--that will contribute something to the larger discussion.

I don't know. Some site or other recently said, don't except national attention for your research. I'm not. But I do want it to be meaningful. To say something that hasn't already been said.

And the only way that is going to happen is if I keep going.

Of two minds

From an email to Alicia:

Well we finally broke down and rented "Inglorious Basterds" the other night. Have you seen it? I'd love to hear what you think of it. Ty hates Tarantino, and I agree with pretty much every reason why (the stylistic exaggeration is one of the big things), but still--stuff both in about that movie was awful and ridiculous and some of it--I really hate to say it!--was utterly brilliant. And it's this weird glorification--celebration--over-the-top-revelling-in massive huge absurd violence, but I think that was sort of the point?

And I think: I don't need to be told how absurd violence is, I already know it. It's like he takes adolescent boy fantasies and elevates them to high art. No mean feat, I'm thinking.

Anyway--I loved that it was IN the original languages, with native speakers, and the Nazi villain was so wonderful (he was the really brilliant thing), and so familiar to me, that he's been HAUNTING me ever since--me personally! And the cultural things were SO REAL and true, the Germans so utterly German, I felt like I was back home. I understood the German and much of the French and even a bit of the Italian, so I enjoyed all that immensely. And I'm not generally a Pitt fan, but I love the way he can make fun of himself.

But Ty got so impatient with the self-conscious "look at ME! I'm a DIRECTOR!" devices (maybe, he admitted, he's just too old to get post modernism) that he kept leaving the room, and finally went shopping and missed the grand finale, so I had to replay the interesting bits for him. He's no better at dealing with the killingkillingkillingkillingkillingkillingkillingkillingkilling (Sharry's synopsis of Pulp Fiction) than I am.

But I had to keep watching, even as they're all plotting to murder each other in grand conflagrations and huge mass killings with bombs and fire and machine guns--and then they do . . . and the really sad thing is? That's the part that was most true.

Sigh.

I don't want to like that movie, but I think I do. In spite of its cinematic over-the-top-ness. So have you seen it? I really hate to admit it, but I think it's worth seeing . . .

Parallel Universes

I live in the World of Things Appear and Disappear. This happens without warning, at random, any time of day, no matter how organized I think I am, or how carefully I try, just this once, to keep track of my physical world. I’ll have my phone in my hand, knowing I’m holding it, and then I look down and it’s not there. And it’s not in my purse, nor in the pocket where I normally keep it, nor on the desk or the counter or the table. It’s nowhere at all. Just, suddenly, not there.

I'm not just talking socks, mind you. Socks are for amateurs; really, all you need is a dryer. I’m talking about phone charger cords, bank cards, bills that must be paid, remote controls, important letters, scraps of envelope upon which I have hurriedly scribbled a crucial phone number, my brush or winter scarves or a shoe—one missing shoe, from the pair I decided to wear that day and nothing else will do. Anything in my life that will make it run more smoothly and efficiently is apt to disappear at will. And not MY will, but some magical mystery gremlin-ish will of the universe that plays impish tricks on its inhabitants for fun, or spite, or both.

My friend Alicia told me once that one day the remote control for the TV in her living room disappeared. Suddenly, without explanation. They used it every day; it was always there, and then it was gone. They looked all over the living room, and finally, mystified, the house. They tore apart the couches and looked underneath cushions, behind the lounger and the rocker and the bookshelf, under covers, in the cracks, between and beneath and beside. But it was nowhere.

There was no reason for it to disappear; their children had moved out of the house and the remote was half the size of the cat. Hard to imagine that Ben, their small orange feline, would all of a sudden find pleasure in transporting a boring, everyday, metal-slash-plastic device it had lived with for years to some secret unknown location. So they gave up looking and lived without. For months, actually, because what, really, do you do when your remote disappears, short of buying a new TV, something they were not inclined to do?

And then, months later, literally, there it was. All of a sudden. Right on the floor, in the middle of the living room.

My friend Alicia swears there is a parallel universe with small wicked goblins, devil-like Borrower creatures who travel back and forth, collecting objects for their anthropological research, and who then return them without warning when they are done. If so, they have defined my house as a prime location for study. So I spend inordinate amounts of time searching for whatever it is they have absconded with that day. I don't mind their curiosity; but really, don't you think they could be at least somewhat considerate about other people's things? Leave a note, perhaps, telling me what they've borrowed, and when they intend to return it? So I don’t run around the house searching for it like a Cornish hen without her head, convinced I’ve lost my mind?

But alas, the Borrowers never do. And so I live on, forever searching, flummoxed, perplexed, in a world where all of a sudden Things Appear, and Disappear, and Reappear, without any warning at all.