The Secret Downing Street Memo and the Politics of Truth: A Performance Text

Abstract

Reading forward from the recently released secret Downing Street Memos, to the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, in this performance text I critique the Bush Administration and its reliance on science, or evidence-based models of inquiry (SBR). SBR raises issues concerning the politics of truth and evidence. These issues intersect with the ways in which a given political regime fixes facts to fit ideology. Three versions of SBR are discussed, as is a model of science as disruptive cultural practice. I conclude by calling for a merger of critical pedagogy with a prophetic, feminist post-pragmatism

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38. The text is to be performed on a stage with three speakers: a narrator at a podium and speakers A and B seated
39. behind a table. Speakers A and B assume the voices of a variety of persons, including Joan Didion, President Bush,
40. Tony Blair and George Orwell. A spot light moves to each speaker when it is his or her turn to speak. When
41. speaking the speaker first announces the name of the person being spoken for. [2] The text reads:
42. This is Secret and Strictly Personal--UK Eyes Only David Manning FR: Matthew Rycroft Date: 23 July 2002
43. cc: Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Attorney-General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett,
44. Francis Richards, CDS, C. Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, Alastair Campbell IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER'S MEETING, 23 JULY This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be
45. shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents.
46. John Scarlett summarised the intelligence and latest JIC assessment ... C reported on his recent
47. talks in Washington ... Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove
48. Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the
49. intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy ... It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action ... The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal case for military action ... But the case (for war) was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea of Iran. [3]
50. Since no WMD were found, the reasons for the war had to be changed. They now include bringing American
51. style democracy to Iraq and the Middle East; fighting terrorists in Iraq before they strike America; and honoring the
52. dead who have been killed in the war.
53. Saddam did not represent a threat to America, nor to the world. There were no secret purchases of uranium
54. oxide from the African nation of Niger (Alterman and Green, 2004, p. 265). No one will take responsibility for, nor
55. be accountable for the mass destruction, the murders and the violence that have occurred since the beginning of the
56. war. Facts: over 2000 dead American soldiers; more than 30,000 dead Iraqi; disgrace and degradation in Abu Ghraib.