‘Debate’ About Torture

I’m not particularly happy with the idea of Brennan as the head of the CIA – but then again, I’m not particularly OK with the CIA in the first place.  Anyways, there’s also a problem with the idiotic rhetoric of ‘opening a debate‘ about the use of torture.  I definiately don’t take issue with debates – I’m pleased with the defeat of a challenge to NYU’s Coke ban in a debate, to cite the most recent example – but I’m fairly sure that any ‘national debate’ about torture will look nothing like a productive discussion about torture, or state violence.  The terms of the debate will be left up entirely to people like Brennan – not only will he choose what people talk about, but also the forum in which they do it, and the terms in which it is described.  The cacaphony of a truely national debate will be reduced to the talking points of a hoarde of ‘national security experts’ and other apologists for the exercise of US military power.

Here’s the point: I don’t think debate is a problem, but in the narrow, imagistic environment that constitutes public discourse, the idea of a ‘debate’ all too often only serves as a fig-leaf to media campaigns meant to justify some pretty fucked up stuff, and I’m not buying it.

NYU Coke Ban Gains More Support

NYU’s ban on Coke products was reaffirmed by the CAS Student Council yesterday.  After an hour long debate between a member of Students Creating Radical Change, and two members of the College Republicans, the CAS Student Council General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to continue backing the ban.  Two reports of the vote count gave 21-5 or 30-4 as the margin of victory.

The CAS vote supports a ban put in place by the NYU Senate in 2005 in response to the paramilitary assasinations and kidnappings of Columbian Coke Bottling Plant union leaders and their families.  The vote rejects claims made by the Coke Company and their supporters that a document produced by the International Labor Organization constitutes a ‘independent investigation of human rights abuses committed against the Sinaltrainal Union’.

The ILO report not even contain the words ‘human rights’ or ‘assasinations’, but it never even claims to be an investigation – it writes up an 11 day walkthrough of bottling plants in Columbia, where workers were interviewed in the presence of their bosses, and no evidence was demanded to support or disprove claims.  Also, Coke’s director of global labor relations, Ed Potter, is the US ambassador to the ILO, putting the independence of the organization in question.

Human rights abuses, including kidnappings, torture and death threats against the SINALTRAINAL union continue to this day.  NYU made a promise to workers in Columbia that it would hold Coke accountable for this reign of terror.  Lifting the ban now would betray that promise, and provide a foothold for Coke to undermine support for the ban in the 52 colleges and universities that stood up to them and demanded respect for the right to organize, and an end to human rights abuses.

DEBATE OVER

NOW:

There are no words.

Quick Debate Response

from victoriabernal's flickr photostream

First reaction: those drinks were strong.

Second reaction: toss-up, maybe a little bit of Obama lean.  McCain came out of the gates strong with the Joe story, but it lost its impact when he kept riding the point – it stopped being a compassionate story and started looking more and more like a talking point as the debate wore on.  Reagan told stories like this but switched them up and kept moving on as in casual speech; McCain is no Reagan.

Obama fell behind in verbal talking points, but kept still.  By that I mean that McCain was a blinking, figidity, interrupting mess while Obama spoke, which hurts McCain on the new key Obama talking point -that McCain is ‘erratic’ and out of control of his campaign (himself).

Third reaction: Obama made a coherent and cogent defense of a women’s right to choose in a Presidential debate.  That is very nice.  I think that’s the biggest impact his campaign has made – that he articulates intelligent defenses of progressive ideals, like he did on healthcare in the second debate (“I believe healthcare is a right”) and in his acceptance speech.

However, the danger is that he undermines many of those values elsewhere: I don’t believe coal power is good, tort reform is downright evil, and Obama NEVER ONCE TALKED ABOUT WIRETAPPING TORTURE OR PRESIDENTIAL POWERS. Seriously folks.  This campaign cements the fact that torture, wiretapping and an imperial presidency will be part of American politics for years to come.  And that is terrifying.

I’ve decided to keep up my criticism of Obama even as I campaign against McCain because I don’t think people should be caught unprepared for the sweet talkin’ back stabbing President Obama might become.  And this debate only made me more wary.

That being said, Obama is one of the most interesting and compelling symbols in the history of American politics, and I don’t want to lose track of the important things he’s doing for our political discourse.  He is advocating progressive ideals, he is talking on the grossness of the way Bush ran the last 8 years (rhetorically at least), and doing it all in a way that makes people feel empowered.

I just hope they really are.