Saturday was the final performance of the political play “Truth or Consequences” at the Barking Legs Theatre. Money raised from ticket sales go to the Chattanooga Community Kitchen.
The play was adapted by Matthew Hine - who also serves as director - from Craig S. Barnes original full-length play “A Nation Deceived” (www.ANationDeceived.org) and performed by the Chattanooga Progressive Players. In Hine’s adaptation, George W. Bush and Richard Cheney are on trial for committing fraud before Congress and the American people in the lead-up to, and in the continuing prosecution of, the Iraq War. Though the play is hypothetical, it is based on documented facts publicly available. The individual performances, though subtle, reflect the cast’s commitment to presenting the known details without bias or spin.
The defendants are excused from the fictional court due to their “national security duties” but they are ably represented by attorneys loaded with official talking points and purely political concerns. Representing the “People” in the case of the People versus George W. Bush and Richard Cheney are the “Public Interest Prosecutors.” They stick to provable evidence, but like most of America, and most of the world for that matter, you’ll probably notice a level of frustration at the sheer number of Constitutional violations, the disregard for International conventions, and the appalling connections between the Administration’s buddies and no-bid war-profiteering contracts. Adding to the frustration is the astonishment that the Bushies have gotten away with these extreme misuses of the public trust for more than six years. So I don’t think that the actors portraying the prosecutors are wrong in showing the audience (serving as the Court of Public Opinion), the true dimensions of that frustration and astonishment.
Hine and the Progressive Players purpose in producing the mock trial is to stimulate enough debate among Chattanoogans about the “Truth” of the Iraq War, that they will begin to take note of the “Consequences” of this deadly and expensive cowboy adventure. Beyond the U.S. fatalities (getting close to 3,400), the 25,000 wounded with permanent mental or physical challenges, there is the rise in divorces and suicides within the military family community. Then there are the Iraqi civilian deaths and the steep loss of our credibility in the eyes of the world. They all think we have abandoned the long-held principles and values (except for slavery and stealing land from the Indians) that have earned this great country a level of respect and admiration for more than two centuries.
The less obvious, but equally serious, “Consequences” we face: how we as a nation could better use the 2 billion dollars a week the war is costing us (and our future grandchildren). We seem to forget that it is being financed and corrupted by borrowed dollars, a lot of which comes from countries who don’t necessarily have our American interests at heart. So that $100 billion a year, plus interest, is not there to provide health care for those who desperately need it, or to provide educational opportunities that would enrich our communities, strengthen our economy and end homelessness and poverty. We could put that money into real Homeland Security by protecting our transportation systems, our public utilities, our schools and universities, our water and food chains.
No one could dare argue that we are safer now since Bush and company invaded Iraq under false pretenses, while blatantly ignoring the opportunities for peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. At the very least we could rebuild the shattered lives of the military families who have made the brunt of the personal sacrifice in the execution of a war that the majority of Americans no longer support.
The play ends on a surprising, but not necessarily unexpected, note, leaving the audience to decide the trial’s verdict. The clear hope by Matthew Hine and the Progressive Players is that audience members will leave the theatre, digest some of the information provided, then stand up for those proud American ideals: truth, justice, free speech and the belief that they can spur change and keep those ideals alive for generations. To help you in that endeavor, I’m recommending the following reads, some humorous, some deadly serious:
Writing on the trial of Lewis “Scooter” Libby and the Administration’s outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame in the April issue of Vanity Fair, Michael Wolff chronicles the demise of the once masterful (and usually sinister) White House marketing machine. In the article, titled “Caught in the Spin Cycle,” Wolff sums it up this way: “The dubious byways of this White House were found not by that hoary Watergate-era investigative technique of following the money but by the more media-savvy method of following the talking points. In their composition and editing (and in the chicken-scratch notes in the margins) and ultimate distribution in press releases and distillation in speeches and the prepared responses of various administration spokespeople, we were able to see the particulars of the big lie, which got us into Iraq, as well as the much smaller ones.”
Elizabeth de la Vega’s UNITED STATES v. GEORGE W. BUSH et al. is published by Seven Stories Press (www.sevenstories.com). Ms. de la Vega uses her 21 years as a federal prosecutor and her law enforcement credentials to create a hypothetical indictment of “conspiracy to defraud” which she presents to a fictional Grand Jury. Like “Truth,” Vega’s book uses actual facts. Not the least bit boring or overly legalistic, you’ll be petrified by the details and characters involved in the crime.
Another book from Seven Stories Press is IMPEACH THE PRESIDENT: THE CASE AGAINST BUSH AND CHENEY (326 pages, $17.95) edited by Dennis Loo and Peter Phillips with an introduction by Howard Zinn. It’s a comprehensive collection of essays that go beyond the Iraq War and into all the other areas that are grounds for impeachment.
James Risen’s STATE OF WAR - THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE CIA AND THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION (Free Press/Simon & Schuster, $26) focuses on the abuse of power and the intimidation of career employees in the national security community. Risen, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the New York Times broke the story of the NSA’s secret, warrantless eavesdropping on Americans in a front page piece in 2005. It’s his experience covering the national security scene that make Risen’s insights into the unsavory politicization of the intelligence gathering community well worth the read. He interviews key figures in national security positions and concludes that a major element in the ramp-up to war, the use of torture and the infamous
cherry-picking of intelligence to fit the White House’s political goals, can be linked to the odd relationship between Bush and former CIA Director George Tenet. If you are going to read Tenet’s new book (reportedly he got a $4 million advance), pick up Risen’s book first.
Keith Olbermann’s THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD AND 202 STRONG CONTENDERS (Wiley, $22.95) is the printed version of his serious yet humorous segment towards the end of his groundbreaking MSNBC newscast Countdown. It’s not surprising that members of the Bush administration and their principal water carriers frequently end up with the Bronze, Silver or Gold medals in the worst person category, but Olbermann also gives the awards to mean people, hypocrites and groups that pollute our culture with idiotic ideas. I’m not alone in thinking that Keith is the bravest and brightest man in broadcasting since Edward R. Murrow.
THE POLITICS OF TRUTH - INSIDE THE LIES THAT PUT THE WHITE HOUSE ON TRIAL AND BETRAYED MY WIFE’S CIA IDENTITY (Carroll & Graf, $16.95) is Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s account of the events that led up to the Bush administration’s outing of his wife Valerie Plame. Wilson’s diplomatic and foreign policy credentials are impeccable. He has represented American interests with honor and distinction in Bosnia, sub-Saharan Africa, and most importantly in Iraq. From 1988 to 1991, he was the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. During Desert Storm, he negotiated the release of several hundred American hostages. I found the Timelines section most useful because it lays out the events surrounding the “sixteen words" Bush used in his 2003 State of the Union speech. Of special interest, the full text of Wilson’s newspaper commentaries in the pre-war period and after, including the now famous New York Times piece on July 6, 2003 titled “What I Didn’t Find in Africa.” That’s the one that provoked the egregious personal attacks on Wilson’s character and prompted the outing of Plame.
New York Times Op-Ed columnist Maureen Dowd delivers funny and brutally insightful political commentary in BUSHWORLD - ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK (Berkely $15), a collection of her columns and stories through 2004. No one packs a punch or coins a phrase that comes into common usage like Dowd. You can count on her to assess a scandal, a blooper or a policy blunder from either side of the political aisle, with stinging accuracy. And she is one of a handful of writers (Christopher Hitchens being another one) that will regularly send me to the dictionary for word definitions.
Two important books on Abu Ghraib are Seymour M. Hersh’s CHAIN OF COMMAND - THE ROAD FROM 9/11 TO ABU GHRAIB (Harper Perennial, $14.95) and Janis Karpinski’s ONE WOMAN’S ARMY - THE COMMANDING GENERAL OF ABU GHRAIB TELLS HER STORY (Miramax/Hyperion, $24.95). Hersh is the award-winning investigative journalist who wrote the story of the massacre at My Lai, Vietnam (he received a Pulitzer Prize for it) and he has spent the last 37 years uncovering valuable news stories that others are afraid to touch. His articles for The New Yorker magazine have detailed governmental misdeeds and annoyed the Bush administration to no end. Karpinski is the first female general to command troops in a combat zone but she ended up being one of the Pentagon’s easy scapegoats in the Abu Ghraib scandal. She courageously survived the good ole’ boy military environment, became a master parachutist, received a Bronze Star during Desert Storm and trained a fighting force of Arab women before taking command of 3,400 U.S. soldiers whose mission was to remake Iraq’s prison system, post-Hussein. But instead of responsibility moving up the chain of command (to Alberto Gonzales, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and President Bush), the buck stopped at Karpinski. That she was targeted, instead of her immediate superiors who happened to be male, is a sad indictment of Pentagon politics and the civilian leaders who never served a day in uniform.
Ending on a hopeful note, I urge you to pick up the 50th anniversary edition of John F. Kennedy’s PROFILES IN COURAGE (Harper Perennial, $13.95) It was written when Kennedy was in the U.S. Senate and it profiles eight senators who paid a steep price for putting their country above their own political gain and comfort. Kennedy elevates the status of these men who often dissented from their political party and their President, at great cost to their reputations, their families and their own political future. In the original foreword to the book, brother Bobby says: “If there is a lesson from the lives of the men John Kennedy depicts in this book, if there is a lesson from his life and from his death, it is that in this world of ours none of us can afford to be lookers-on, the critics standing on the sidelines.” Included in the anniversary edition: vintage photos, a letter from Ernest Hemingway, an introduction by daughter Caroline Kennedy, and speeches from recipients of the Profile in Courage Award.
(Bambi Evans is a freelance writer in Chattanooga. She writes about books, films, music and modern art. Her e-mail address is stonyirons@aol.com)