It’s time for saying goodbye.

As I sit here—waiting for the floodgates to open, not knowing how to wrap up this column—I fault myself for not having a bombshell to drop on you, or some breakthrough headline that will change the course of American history in its tracks. I think we’re so conditioned that we expect all endings to mimic the cliffhanging drama of television season finales. But that’s not the world we live in. Sometimes, things just end… with as much or as little pomp and circumstance we choose to lend the situation.

The cruel nature of endings will often force us to examine the beginning, the prompt, the driver. When I’d made up my mind to write this column at the start of term, I knew I’d have a hard time changing peoples’ minds, never mind changing the world. But every week I sat down and shared my experience with you, in hopes that my perception would enlighten your own. That’s the writer’s drive: we think we see something that you cannot, we think we have something to say. Clearly, that’s not always the case; it also involves a healthy dose of ego.

Whatever the case, I wanted to share with you my plight—my inability to change the world around me. I wanted you to orient yourself to our situation, rather than have you levy judgement in passing. I felt then, as I feel now, as if I were alerting your attention to a baited trap whose existence I’d only discovered the hard way. Who knows whether I was successful in this endeavour.

Looking back, as the end draws ever nearer, I want to be clear that despite all the gargantuan obstacles and crippling shortcomings, I can honestly tell you that I’m hopeful. I have faith that we will weather the storm and come out cleaner on the other side. I have faith in humanity, for no other reason than, at the end of the day, I am humanity… as are you.
We are the product of our collective actions. We may destroy ourselves, our planet may wither away under our negligent stewardship. It’s only then when we’ll realise what’s important—when survival becomes the main objective. Sadly, we’re known for having to learn the hard way. But we’ll adapt, we’ll cling together, and we’ll make it through.
But till then… we continue.

And so I leave you. My deepest thanks and best wishes to you on your journey. I hope you’ve enjoyed this as much as I have.

Warm regards,

Andrew Mendes

Ever hear someone say they had to laugh to keep themselves from crying? Of course you have; it’s an adage. Well, the other evening, while watching The Colbert Report on Comedy Central, I found myself engaged in the American pastime of laughing at the corruption and vitriol plaguing American government and news.

That is what we’re doing when we watch those shows—like Stephen Colbert or Jon Stewart or even David Letterman. We laugh at the largest problems facing our nation. Sometimes you cry a little whilst laughing—but that’s okay; it’s that other type of crying and not actual crying crying.

If you’ve stuck with me for this long, you know that we’re in no shortage of obstacles to overcome. But it seems to me, it’s getting to a point where it’s all coming undone. This is a good thing; eventually, we’ll realise it’s no laughing matter. That’s how change begins.

The beauty of the present situation is that the hypocrisy is now almost offensively apparent. I’ll direct your attention to our ongoing healthcare debate—which is long overdue. Nearly 65% of Americans are in favour of a public option—that’s code for a socialised health insurance scheme, but in America, anything with the word “social” attached to it is shunned and feared like a Nazi, commie, abortion-slinging, swine-flu harbouring, homosexual, serial rapist. That’s another thing we have to get over: fearing that government can solve problems.

Obviously, those on the right are droning away trying to instil as much fear as possible into the fragile minds of the American public. These little gems were reported by the Huffington Post.

“It’s gonna kill people.” -Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.)

“Places like Canada, United Kingdom, and Europe. People die when they’re in line.” -Rep. Steve King (R-Ia)

The language is getting stronger and stronger… the better to scare you with, my dear.

There’s footage available on C-SPAN, America’s version or Parliament TV. If you could have seen it, you’d notice that many of the Republicans were holding up pieces of paper, waving them about—the supposed alternative to the Democrats’ scary, anti-American, public option.

Now get this. A junior congressman from Florida, Alan Grayson, became curious as to what the Republican’s plan could possibly be, because thus far—despite their constant damning and fear-mongering—they’ve been rather secretive about how they would tackle our healthcare woes.

So plucky, young, Grayson walks over to the other side of the chamber to have a peek at what the Republicans were waving about. Guess what? Those sheets of paper—the great Republican alternative: blank. Their so-called proposal was nothing more than a blank piece of paper, leading a rather angry Grayson to make the following statement:

“If you get sick, America, the Republican health care plan is this: die quickly. That’s right. The Republicans want you to die quickly if you get sick.”

Of course, now everyone on the right is up in arms, demanding he apologise. FOX News, in their eternally fair and balanced manner, offered a rebuttal in their aptly titled piece, “You Die!” If you have a read for yourself, you’ll notice a reoccurring theme: death, death panel, Grim Reaper, danse macabre, angel of death, inferno, tide of death.

No joke.

As I’ve written perviously, the American system of campaign financing guarantees that a good portion of our representatives (Democrats and Republicans alike) are bought and paid for by the health insurance companies—of which there are only seven in total.

Now here’s where it get really ugly. In slightly related news, Michael Moore, of recent docudrama fame, was on Hardball with Chris Matthews (an American version of John Campbell, but with roid-rage) to discuss his newest film “Capitalism: A Love Story.” It investigates what’s known as “peasant death insurance”.

Moore: They take out life insurance policies on the employees, big companies, Procter & Gamble, McDonnell Douglas, Hershey.

Matthews: Do they bet on unhealthy people dying?

Moore: Yes. They actually [do] and they name the company as the beneficiary. So, the sooner an employee dies, the more money, obviously, the company can make.
What’s best: the profits from these insurance policies are tax-free.

Apparently, this has gone on since the 1980s but the practice has been growing in popularity. Many Republicans have been jumping through fire hoops to keep this issue from coming up for a vote. Some, like former Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX) (“Foreclosure Phil”, who never met a corporate titian he wouldn’t shill for, who helped bring us the mortgage foreclosure crisis) even advocated for expanding this peasant insurance to teachers and school workers.

So the same folks who seem hell bent on keeping accessible healthcare from coming to America are the same people defending the corporation’s right to make windfall profits from our early demise.

“The Republican healthcare plan is this: die quickly.” Representative Grayson’s words ring through with eerie credence on the tails of this knowledge. Despite all the scare-tactics, people are finally starting to see these people for what they are: corporate sellouts.

America’s not laughing anymore. This may be the moment of clarity we’ve needed for the past decade.

Walter Cronkite was known as the most trusted man in America. He was anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years. He was that man in the living room lounge with you and your family every evening; he told American families about events like Vietnam, the death of President Kennedy, Watergate, Iran Contra, Presidential elections, Moon landings, The Beatles—the big ones.

Mr. Cronkite died last month. A black hole opened up in broadcast media. This man was a part of your life—via this medium we call “the news”—and there was a vacuum caused by his absence. I’m sure there’s a New Zealand equivalent.

So now, people are starting to ask themselves the question, “Well, now who’s the most trusted man in America?” Where is that guy I trust to give me the facts as he found? Where is that guy with integrity? This is CBS Evening News, after all; these are benchmarks of journalistic professionalism. In essence, who is the next Walter Cronkite?

“Tuffy.”

First look at what we’ve done with the news. We have the “conservative” media and the “liberal” media. Fox is right, CNN is left. As contestable as that statement is, that’s what we think. We know and acknowledge this. And it’s all pseudo-newsy. Glenn Beck says, I’m not a journalist, I’m an entertainer—while he entertains us with current events with a “FOX News” logo spinning around behind them. We have Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Tucker Carlson.

Will Ferrel in Anchorman is more credible and likable.

Of course, these aren’t news broadcasts; it’s punditry. It can all be as groundless and fact devoid as they please.

So who’s the next Walter Cronkite?

The answer should be easy. Dan Rather anchored the CBS Evening News after Cronkite retired in ’81. Logically, he would be the next Walter Cronkite because he succeeded Walter Cronkite. Except Dan Rather was sacrificed at the alter by the network for daring to investigate President George W. Bush’s suspect military history.

Ironically, Dan Rather recently addressed a non-profit group called the Aspen Institute—begging for media reform.

“A truly free and independent press is the red beating heart of democracy and freedom. This is not something just for journalists to be concerned about, and the loss of jobs and the loss of newspapers, and the diminution of the American press’ traditional role of being the watchdog on power. This is something every citizen should be concerned about.

“I feel particularly strong about coverage of the wars. […] I just can’t stand to leave those guys out there, fighting, dying, bleeding, getting torn up and say, ‘Look, it’s page 14 news.’ Or ‘Sorry, not on tonight’s newscast.’ It’s an example of the problem, that and not having the watchdogs.”

The Aspen Daily News reported that Rather urged President Obama to establish a White House commission on public media. That’s right; he said public media. Our private, for-profit, news media hasn’t been serving us well. That’s why nobody trusts anything about the American news anymore.

Our media incites racism to sell a corporate agenda. Our media fails to report that the protestors who are shouting down healthcare debates at these town hall meetings are being bussed in from out-of-district by PR firms hired by lobbyists for the insurance industry.

They’re using under-informed Americans to lobby for the insurance companies who make a profit by denying them care when they have a medical emergency. These are ridiculous people who don’t know what they’re for or what they’re against. It’s guerilla marketing by a corporate lobby.

It all stems from the same problem: how we finance political campaigns—what representatives really represent. We need public campaign financing. We need a strong public media on the public airwaves—doing a public service, a la BBC News. We need a public health option because our system, as is, is driving us bankrupt and, because it’s for-profit, it’s totally counterintuitive. All these protests and fuzzy-news are a smokescreen for huge, well-moneyed, well-lobbied, special interests who would face competition from a public option.

I trust Dan Rather. Since my question remains unanswered, I agree with his call for reform—across the board. It’s time to start moving forward again.

Last month, a woman stood up in a town hall meeting in Delaware holding a zip-lock bagged copy of her birth certificate. She then demanded her congressman, Mike Castle (R), why President Obama hadn’t produced a certified copy of his birth certificate. She then rallied the room to their feet, where they all pronounced the Pledge of Allegiance, putting particular gusto on the phrase “one nation under God”. This began what is now called the “birther” movement.

Their claim—that Barack Obama is not really the President because he wasn’t born in the United States—has been investigated and debunked by multiple parties on multiple occasions. The Washington Independent recently had to report that these rumors were put to rest in 2008 during the run up to the election by John McCain’s (R-AZ) own presidential campaign.

In a White House Press Briefing, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs called the rumors “made-up, fictional nonsense”. I daresay most Americans are of the same opinion. Still, the ‘birthers’ remain unsatisfied, incited by blatantly racist right-wing radio broadcasters like Rush Limbaugh—of “Barack the Magic Negro” fame—and Glenn Beck.

The major news broadcasters are just as guilty. Lou Dobbs, CNN news anchor and managing editor of the nightly Lou Dobbs Tonight show, gave the ‘birther’ story so much airtime the President of CNN had to intimate that he personally believed that the story was “dead” to discredit Dobbs’ reporting. (As managing editor, Dobbs would have total content control of his show.)

Lou has had problems with race before; He said Mexicans would bring horrible infectious diseases—like leprosy— to America. The silence of other networks makes them equally complacent in the rumor’s perpetuation.

Now, who are these ‘birthers’? More importantly, what does this mean? Republican congressmen have told Politico that they’re afraid of returning to their districts where they’ll come under pressure from “birthers”.

With only 23 percent of Americans identifying themselves as Republicans, Republican congressmen are finding it hard and harder not to alienate their lunatic fringe by confronting them with facts. The cream certainly rises to the top when you’re down to 23 percent, doesn’t it? These were the same people shouting “terrorist” and “kill him” at Sarah Palin rallies.

The ‘birthers’ are a product of the Republicans’ own political agenda, born from the campaigning strategies they used during the entire election cycle. He’s a muslim, a terrorist, a Kenyan, a Marxist; he’s always the other. Of course he’s not American.

Republicans need to realise who they are representing and, by proxy, what they represent. Our broadcast media—instead of balancing the news by giving each side equal credence along political lines—should deal with facts and champion their dissemination. There needs to be a dialogue about race in America. It is impossible to move forward if racism and bigotry remain a political platform.

When I started writing this column, the world was wrapped up in the American politics, Obama had just become the first African-American President, and we were all sinking in a military-industrian quagmire. These days it’s a bit more nebulous, as interest in American politics has waned. I operate on the (rather large) assumptions that you 1.) give a damn about American politics at all, and 2.) that you care to hear my two cents.

So to make this all the more painful, I ask you for your opinions. What are some things that you just don’t get about America and Americans (like how they feel entitled to spew their political ramblings in a foreign country’s university publication)? Did you ever wonder to yourself, “My God! How did they let that happen?” There’s always more to it than you’d think. We’re not actually that stupid… most of the time.

In short, I want to hear from you. Because I only see the world through my eyes, I don’t want to waffle on about issues that only I care about, while you sit, rolling your eyes at the sight of my words. I know this could open a flood gate that I’d rather not see open, but that’s the fun part. Let’s get a dialogue going; so much has been happening in American politics since we last met.

The torture debate has died out… along with my angst and doom-n-gloom outlook on the state of my country (and state). It was like a lightbulb going off or the last piece of the puzzle falling into place. I’ll tell you about that later. Don’t get me wrong—we have a mountain of problems—but for a while I was certain that there would be no saving us. Perhaps, in truth, there isn’t… but I’m feeling more optimistic these days.

Of course, anything non-Michael-Jackson-related isn’t worth mentioning, really. (Did you see how they rolled out that gold-plated coffin and had all the children dance around it? What’s wrong with us? What a creepy display.) Which brings us to our dearest and most ongoing problem: The news has been canceled… permanently. The boob-tube is perma-set to MJTV and on the front page of the New York Times this week there was a story about how porn makers are using smaller-length featurettes for web use. Clever.
But things are happening. America will finally get an accessible healthcare system. Of course, I’m meant to be afraid of healthcare. That’s what they’re telling us… that a public health system would usher in the end of days. Meanwhile we spend more than twice as much per person—than anywhere—on healthcare… and we don’t get better outcomes… and not everyone’s insured.

Thirty-one percent of every dollar spent on healthcare goes to things like marketing and adverts and CEO bonuses at private insurance companies. They preach to you that the competition is the basis of the free market, yet when their insurance companies stand to face competition from us—being able to buy in bulk and pool our money—all of a sudden, competition must be stopped and legislated out of existence.

Oh, do you remember that mess when Nancy Pelosi said the CIA had lied to her… and every right-wing politician and pundit demanded her resignation? Well, that’s turned out to be true. I don’t want to speak too soon but it looks like my cautious optimism was warranted. Good-ol’ Dick Cheney has been linked to the cover up and there’s still more to come. Believe me. The American justice system moves slowly, especially when the entire Justice Department is run by Bush underlings for 7 years. We’re only now starting to see the sweater unravel.

So, exciting times. We have the confirmation of Sonya Sotomayor coming up, who may be the first Latina to sit on the US Supreme Court. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee is hard at work calling her a racist—because she’s said that she sees the world through the eyes of a Hispanic woman and hopes to bring those insights to work with her. Ironically, Jeff Sessions’ own 1986 nomination was killed in the same Senate Judiciary Committee, which was unanimously opposed to his “gross insensitivity” on racial issues. History’s funny like that. A known racist who obviously has a problem with non-white-folk will try to convince you that Sotomayor is racist because she’s not white.

And so I leave you with that to ponder. Wrack your brains, you Kiwis, you Americans out there, you big-brains, you… person who thinks he is smart and loves the sound of his own voice. What do you want to ask an American? Make it good; I’m very busy and important.

The real strategy of right-wing politicians

Newt Gingrich:

“Let me just say, I think people should be afraid. I think the lesson of 1993—the first time they bombed the World Trade Center—was: Fear is probably appropriate. I think the lesson of Khobar Towers—where American service men were killed in Saudi Arabia—was: Fear is probably appropriate. I think the lesson of the two embassy bombings in East Africa was: Fear is probably appropriate. I think the lesson of the Cole being bombed in Yemen was: Fear is probably appropriate.

“I’ll tell you, if you aren’t a little bit afraid after 9/11 and 3100 Americans killed inside the United States by an effort, if you aren’t worried about the second-wave attack that was designed to take out the biggest building in Los Angeles, I think that you are out of touch with reality.”

Host David Gregory:

“But, Speaker Gingrich, you make the point about how Vice President Cheney felt—personally, personal fear. And isn’t President Obama’s argument that fear as a basis of national security policy is not sustainable over time? How do you come up with a sustainable legal framework, a sustainable national security policy? Don’t we elect leaders to transcend fear for lasting policy?”

I was listening to NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ over the radio (‘cause I’m one of those people, see). Newt Gingrich, Republican mouthpiece and former Speaker of the House, was debating Senator Dick Durban (D-IL) over the politics of national security. As you’ve just read above, Newt spilled the beans and admitted—in not so many words—we govern by fear.

Afraid. Fear. Kill. Attack. Bomb. 9/11. Fear works. Fear sells. We’ve used it repeatedly. We instill fear; we weave it into all our political issues and stances. We’re the Fear Party; we’ve been the Fear Party for a long time. Fear. Be afraid.
Fear has permeated American society. It influences our political decision making process. It dictates how and when we’ll surrender our rights. It justifies our bigotry. It’s our biggest crutch and our biggest detriment.

Who should we be afraid of?

You should be afraid of the other… of course. You should fear what you don’t know or understand. Be afraid of the vagina—it’s strange, she’s a witch, she’s a baby-killer. Be afraid of the black man—he’s big, he’ll take your women, he’s violent. Be afraid of the gays—they’re freaks, they’ll raise freak children, they’ll corrupt our moral society. Be afraid of terrorists—they have funny sounding names and that crazy religion, they attacked us, they constantly want to kill you, there’s one under every bed. Be afraid. They’ll all take your children to a satanic black mass—with real black people and drugs.

Why should we fear?
‘Cause we exploit your fear for political reasons to enrich ourselves. We had to make you afraid so you’d give up your liberties voluntarily. We waited for a time of utter chaos and utter tragedy. We told you to fear the terrorist. We told you to be patriotic and go shopping. Then we made you afraid of every common object that you could imagine. Remember model airplanes and pens, poison pen-guns, ferries, exploding cows? The smoking gun could be a mushroom cloud. Unmanned aerial vehicles could come here and spray you. Shopping malls are scary dangerous places every year at Christmas. But go shopping; don’t mind the terrorists. Hell, we sure don’t.

We use fear to win multi-million-dollar defence contracts. We knew you’d never allow this new defence industry we own. We knew we’d need some catastrophic and catalysing event––like a new Pearl Harbor. We wrote about it in ‘Rebuilding America’s Defenses. Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century’. We wanted a wartime President. We knew you’d be less uppity that way.

Should we keep being afraid?

Yes, do. Vote against equal protection under law for an entire class of people because you fear them, or don’t understand them, or don’t know them. Don’t forget to fear God. Fear not going to heaven. Fear the notion that if you can’t get them to believe like you, you’re not going to heaven. Remember how your whole life is organised around fear. We have to keep you divided, see.

In closing, people are afraid of somebody or something all the time now. It has to stop. It’s led us down a really bad road. We’ve had eight years of fear and division. Take a look at who’s telling you to be afraid—telling you that if you’re not afraid, something is wrong with you. They are the right wing of America politics. They’re the ‘traditional values’ people. They’re the ‘law and order’ people. They’re the people who just lost power.

Fear is not sustainable. We must transcend fear. We must stop dividing. We need to orient ourselves. We have a lot to fix.

Former Vice-President Dick Cheney has been busy trying to convince the American public of the merits of torture—euphemistically known as Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EITs)—claiming that torture was a legal and effective way of preventing further terrorist attacks. However, not only has evidence come to light debunking the effectiveness of ‘the Cheney method of interrogation’, but several investigations have found that torture was used, almost exclusively, to elicit false testimony linking Saddam Hussein with al-Qaeda, in order to build a case for the war with Iraq.

Last Wednesday, former FBI special agent Ali Soufan testified before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee charged with investigating torture. Soufan’s testimony debunked Cheney’s claims that the use of torture had led to information that prevented further attacks after 9/11, stating that the “techniques, from an operational perspective, were ineffective, slow and unreliable and harmful to our efforts to defeat al-Qaeda.”

Soufan interrogated CIA detainee Abu Zabaydah before CIA contractors took over, and was able to obtain actionable intelligence within one hour, using approved, non-torturous “Informed Interrogation Approaches”. This intelligence lead to the capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the suspected planner of the 9/11 attacks.

Following Soufan’s interrogation, CIA contractors then waterboarded Zabaydah 85 times, after which he shut down—no further information was gained. When CIA interrogators declared that Abu Zabaydah had to be treated “like a dog in a cage”, FBI director Robert Mueller pulled Soufan, and the FBI presence, from the interrogation proceedings.

Recently, British newspaper The Daily Telegraph revealed that US military experts had warned the CIA that the use of torture was likely to produce “unreliable information”. The article, entitled ‘CIA ignored warnings from US soldiers that torture and extreme stress would not work’, cited a leaked memo from the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA), an arm of the US government that trains military personnel to resist torture if captured.

“A subject in extreme pain may provide an answer, any answer or many answers to get the pain to stop. The application of extreme physical and/or psychological duress (torture) has some serious operational deficits, most notably the potential to result in unreliable information.”

The CIA is reported to have “reverse-engineered” torture resistance techniques from the JPRA’s SERE programme (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) for use on suspected terrorists. The same techniques were used to break down US captives in the Korean War for propaganda purposes and were well known to produce false confessions and misinformation. The CIA ignored the warnings of the JPRA under pressure from the White House.

The White House intentionally used techniques that were known to produce false information because false information was needed to build a case for war with Iraq.

Last Thursday, a former State Department official told CNN that “finding a ‘smoking gun’ linking Iraq and al-Qaeda became the main purpose of the abusive interrogation program the Bush administration authorized in 2002.”

Retired Army colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, then chief of staff for former Secretary of State Colin Powell, published the findings of his investigation in The Washington Note, using information gained from current and former officials. Col. Wilkerson has been investigating the scandal around the treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison since 2004, at the request of Colin Powell.

“Its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the US but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qaeda. So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to Cheney’s office that their detainee “was compliant” (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP’s office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qaeda-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, “revealed” such contacts. Of course later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop.”

A similar report was published by former NBC investigative producer Robert Windrem on Tina Brown’s blog, The Daily Beast. Windrem—a Senior Research Fellow at the NYU Center on Law and Security and recipient of over 40 national journalism awards for his work on issues of international security, strategic policy, intelligence and terrorism—has confirmed from two US intelligence officers that the suggestion to waterboard Iraqi prisoners, who were suspected to have knowledge of a Saddam-al-Qaeda connection, came from Vice President Cheney’s office.

The Iraq War has claimed the lives of over 4000 US soldiers and over a million Iraqis. America chose war. We chose to invade an unarmed nation that had never attacked us. War was sold to the American public based on a trumped up relationship between Saddam and Bin Laden, playing on our fears of another 9/11. We know now this to be false, and as of last week we know that torture was used—not to keep us safe, as Cheney insists—but to justify preemptive war.

Torture was used to justify murder.

The atrocities committed by the Bush administration—in my name—have now compounded into a disgusting, festering mass of war and misery and death and naked bodies stacked into pyramids and mutilated human flesh. There is no avoiding it. Congress now has to acknowledge what’s happened to us and take steps to fix it.

I believe that Senator Laehy’s truth commission will finally be tabled and people will be held accountable. Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, and the others have been exposed for what they are:

War criminals.

Let’s face it; these are some interesting times we’ve inherited. World markets crumbling, wars across the globe, food shortages, America on the brink of collapse, traditional values uprooted, corporate-owned armies, overpopulation, a dying planet—all these problems will be ours to shoulder in only a few short years. How will we weather the storm?

The predicament we find ourselves in today is the product of the actions (and inactions) of generations before our own. We can only play the cards we’ve been dealt and, in our case, the deck has been stacked against us from the start. Such is the way of history. Still, our world is changing, and it now becomes our responsibility to ensure that change is a positive one.

In 1997, Jane Kelsey, University of Auckland law professor, warned us, “In a market-driven system, student assumptions of what the market demands will increasingly dictate what courses and perspectives universities provide.” As students, our time at university will dictate the course of our futures and, in a greater sense, the future of our world. Kelsey’s warning came from knowledge of this fact. We choose our path of study either out of passion (in rare cases) or, more commonly, a desire for a financially secure future.

Success, in our world, is measured in terms of money and power. We assume, and correctly so, that our level of ‘success’ depends on our ability to navigate and manipulate the system into which we were born. This system demands knowledge of practical information and skills. For this reason, the prestige and popularity of Commerce degrees, Law degrees, and Science degrees have been on the rise; while Arts degrees are repeatedly dismissed as “bugger-all”.

While no one can argue that non-Arts degrees aren’t essential to the progression and improvement of society—we need lawyers to champion justice, we need economists to peruse prosperity, we need doctors to guard our health, and we need those able to understand the natural world around us—all of these degrees, generally speaking, centre around a set process and how best to execute said process. We are learning vocations; we’re learning how to be doctors, lawyers, businessmen, economists, analysts, managers, etc. It’s what the market demands. At no point do we ever question the market itself.

So why then all these problems? There’s been no shortage of lawyers, economists, or managers; yet injustice, disparity, and chaos are as equally plentiful, even among ‘developed’ societies.

The times in which we now live are a culmination of decades committed to the advancement of staunch professionalism, neo-liberalism, a corporate culture, infallible markets with invisible hands, and a ‘trickle-down’ hierarchy now permitting every form of societal organisation. As we are now constantly reminded, with every headline we read and every news-hour update, the fruits of these labours have now come home to roost, and in a very big way.

The corporate elite are now revealing just how much power they wield, as entire governments and economies—particularly the United States, our global superpower—are crumbling under the weight of their intricate financial instruments. The same restructuring programmes once exported by the United States to promote free trade and a globalised economy, intentionally undermining state sovereignty, now threaten to undermine the sovereignty of the Unites States itself. We’ve created a monster whose tentacles have a hold on every economy and government on Earth. What’s worse, we don’t even know who’s at the wheel.

The academic argument as to whether democracy leads to a developed market, or a developed market will lead to democracy—a lecture every first year POLS student has sat through, rolling their eyes—is hopefully now dead and settled. We know now, as I suspect we’ve always known, that freedom and democracy are contingent upon more than just the existence of a free market. We were lead to believe the opposite because enough people, with enough letters behind their names, kept telling us it was true.

It is these same people who are now holding the reigns of power. Their economic policies—globally dominant and largely unquestioned—are designed to keep themselves in control. They are the architects of the system in which we all must live and operate.

The storm is coming. The vacuum left by the United States will be filled not by a rival political power, but a globalised corporate entity—answerable to no one but their shareholders, valuing nothing but their bottom line. What else should we expect when we’re taught to see everything as a commodity, of no intrinsic value other than monetary, or to how much it can be exploited?

Chris Hedges reminds us, “The humanities, the discipline that forces us to stand back and ask the broad moral questions of meaning and purpose, that challenges the validity of structures, that trains us to be self-reflective and critical of all cultural assumptions, have withered.”

It’s no longer acceptable to be contented with a degree that guarantees a comfortable niche in their corporate system. In the United States, now only 8% of university students graduate with a BA. The most popular degrees are now in business and business management. There, corporations write our laws, force us into wars, rape our natural resources, manipulate our media, and promote consumerism as success and happiness. All of this is achieved with the willing help of those who’ve never questioned the system.

In closing, to those of you pursuing other degrees—be wary. Keep things in perspective, get a conjoined degree or at the very least diversify your study as much as possible. To those studying the Arts, study hard. You’ll be needed the most in the days to come.

You learn what the icon represents. You’re taught about the Founding Fathers, who dared to venture the notion that the rule of the people, which was at the time merely the stuff of ancient Greek mythology, was possible. You’re told a story: early settlers, the fight for independence, the founding of a nation, the spanning of a continent, division, divisions mended, industrialisation, innovation, prosperity, the call to war, the saving of a distant continent, the hope of the world, the shining city on the hill, the beacon of democracy.

You learn your faults: peoples displaced, lands ill-gotten, human chattel, disunion, misogyny, racism, xenophobia, indifference. But even then you come to love your faults as virtues; in faults overcome lie dormant virtues. You learn that change for the better is always possible—in spite of everything—in spite of history’s forces, the times, justice or the lack of it, causes, religions, or kinds of government. Most importantly, you learn that this progression, this momentous drive for perfection, is the natural course of things; you learn that America will always correct itself. To quote President Clinton, “There is nothing wrong in America that can’t be fixed with what is right in America.”

I sat in school and learned these lessons well. I love my country. I love what I believe it represents. I see it as one of the greatest experiments in the history of the world. We’ve come so far in so little time. We’ve overcome so much. We have such possibility.

Then what am I doing here, you ask. I’m here because I never stopped learning. I’m here because you don’t see the world as it is, you see it as you are. I’m here to gain perspective. They say you should love her when she’s right, and right her when she’s wrong. Without perspective, wrongs remain un-righted.

In my history—being the history of the world since I humbly graced it with my presence—there have been too many disconnects between what I was taught about America, and what I see with my own lying eyes. Of course, I acknowledge that America had its fair share of wrongs before I arrived but that history has already been recorded. The history of our lifetime has yet to be written; it’s this history by which future schoolchildren will remember us.

This is the history of my journey; allow me my scrutiny.

The American scandal du jour circa my being delivered what Reagan’s Iran-Contra.

Iran: the covert sale of weapons to Iran.

Contra: those proceeds going to fund and arm anti-Communist contras in Nicaragua.

Iran-Contra was only one of the many times the United States government has lent its support and endorsement to a right-wing military dictatorship. This happened in Indonesia, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, and of course Chile. The loss of life that followed in each case was a direct result of American foreign policy. In each case, a freedom-loving constitutional democracy was in cahoots with a brutal military dictatorship. Communism is just a red herring; America was furthering its economic interests, the cost of which was human life.

The first Presidential election in which I voted was in 2000, Bush vs Gore, in Palm Beach county, home of the hanging-chad. There’s also a Supreme Court case entitled Bush vs Gore, where the highest court in the land inserted itself into the state of Florida’s electoral process and ordered us to stop counting the votes. The Supreme Court—handpicked by George Bush Sr.—had handpicked our new President, George Bush Jr. This was my first real-life lesson in democracy.

The next election brought a similar brand of democracy: caging lists, black-box voting, voter suppression, a suspicious lack of voting machines found only in districts that trend to vote Democrat, people waiting in line for eight hours to vote.

We didn’t ask for more; we never wanted it in the first place.

Now we invade openly: Shock n’ Awe, a carpet of gold or a carpet of bombs. Now we torture. Now we spy on our own citizens. Now our access to facts and information is limited to those picked for us by corporate powers; now we have propaganda. Now, even after a change of government, we refuse to investigate what on Earth happened to us; we refuse to treat torture and treason as crimes. Now, we’re looking to Afghanistan, then Pakistan, then Iran. Where does it end?

I loved the America I learned about in school… but I hate the America I see today. I had hoped to help America, armed with the perspective I’ve gained outside of the fishbowl. But how can I fix all that? Where would I even start to right her when she’s so wrong? The sight of an American flag, which used to bring me hope and pride, now only brings me one thing:

Depression.

This information about members of Congress being aware of Bush torture techniques is nothing new. We’ve known since 9 December 2007 that Congress was briefed about torture. Now, you ask, why would I pick that date out of my behind? Because that’s the day that it was reported in the Washington Post. The article outlines how select members of Congress—including Pelosi—had been briefed, had taken virtual tours of the black-site prisons, and had been made aware of the harsh interrogation techniques used by the CIA.

A recently declassified document, the Member Briefings on Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EITs) Torture schedule, shows that Nancy Pelosi and Proter Goss (R-FL), the two ranking members on the House Intelligence Committee at the time, were briefed on EITs torture, including the use of EITs torture on Abu Zubaydah, background on authorities, and a description of the particular EITs tortures that had been employed. The document goes into no further detail than that.

However, earlier this week, Pelosi claimed that the briefing had only outlined potential techniques that were at the CIA’s disposal—that they had not been currently or previously employed—and that the information had been presented to her merely as legal opinion, to which she disagreed.

Now, on its face, that defence seems as shaky as a dog shitting bones. However, the 2007 article, aptly entitled Hill Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002, states that according to their sources, Pelosi had said that the techniques described in the briefing by the CIA were still in the planning stage. This would reinforce the stance she’s taking today.

It seems Pelosi’s finally had enough.

In a stunning press conference today, Pelosi said that the CIA had lied, that the CIA had told her that they were not using waterboarding and that the CIA was misleading Congress about Enhanced Interrogation Techniques torture.

“…They talked about interrogations that they had done and said, ‘We want to use enhanced techniques, and we have legal opinions that say that they are OK. We are not using waterboarding.’ That’s the only mention that they were not using it. And we now know that earlier they were. So, yes, I am saying that they are misleading—that the CIA was misleading the Congress.”

That’s a powerful thing to say.

Now, there were a number of other Congressmen who were briefed and who apparently did know, but they claim, as did Pelosi when she stated that because of the National Security Act of 1947, it was very hard to do oversight without violating secrecy oaths.

Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) had been briefed a year after Pelosi when she sat on the House Intelligence Committee in 2003. After the briefing, she sent a classified letter to CIA general council, Scott Muller, raising objections about the EITs torture, which was the appropriate course of action to register a protest. Yet, again, she had been prohibited from discussing the matter publicly.

The same goes for Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI); he wrote a letter objecting as soon as he was briefed. The Bush administration was hellbent on using torture and no letter was going to change their policies. Dick Cheney is still making the rounds on TV saying that he has no regrets on the matter.

Now, here’s the part that nobody talks about. Democrats realised these letters weren’t doing any good and that what they would need to stop the torture was to gain control of the majority to introduce legislature to ban it. So they did just that. In 2007, when the Democratic party won the the majority in Congress, they introduced legislation banning torture and it passed. But the President of the United States, George Bush Jr., vetoed it.

Get that? President Bush vetoed a bill banning torture.

“An effort to overturn his veto failed because of the votes of Republican members. We needed to elect a new president. We did. And he has banned torture. Congress and the administration must review—I’ve always believed the Congress and the administration must review the National Security Act of 1947. Now, we have a chance to do that with a new president—to determine if a larger number of members of Congress should receive classified briefings so that the information can be utilized by proper oversight.

“I have long supported the creation of an independent truth commission to determine how intelligence was misused and how controversial and possibly illegal activities like torture were authorized within the executive branch. Until a truth commission comes into being, I encourage the appropriate committees of the House to conduct vigorous oversight of these issues.”

This Truth Commission is actually happening; this might be where Pelosi vindicates herself for taking impeachment “off the table.” We’ll see.

Do I believe her? I don’t know yet. If you mean, do I believe that the CIA would mislead Congress or manipulate intelligence? Yes, I do.

Pelosi’s loyal opposition, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), refutes her claim:

“It’s hard for me to imagine that anyone in our intelligence area would ever mislead a member of Congress. […] I don’t know what motivation they would have to mislead anyone. And I don’t believe, and don’t feel, that in the briefings I’ve had that I’ve been misled at any one point in time.”

Boehner, like many Republican politicians, has selective amnesia. The CIA would never lie… slam dunk. Remember George Tenet, CIA director on the lead-up to the Iraq war? It was a ‘slam dunk’ that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

No, the CIA would never lie to Congress… especially on issues so important.

Boehner is obviously amiss to the fact that who’s in control matters—and who they work for. By the way, Porter Goss went on to briefly serve as director of the CIA. He’s been famously quoted as having said, “I couldn’t get a job with CIA today. I am not qualified.” Perfect, you could be the head of the CIA! You’ve already been briefed on torture and we need to keep this crime train moving somehow.

See how that works, Mr. Boehner?

I hope some good news comes from this. Apparently, Nancy had to wait for it to get personal; I guess I’ll take it.