 Hello there, it's Thursday at noon. I know it is Do you remember our arrangement Thursdays at noon on CFUV Are you ready to get started? What do you have in mind? What I want to do now is called first-person plural You make it sound excessively attractive That's what I have in mind We record this episode for broadcast the United Nations has begun a two-day general debate on the Security Council's new resolutions on Iraqi disarmament at Issue is how forceful the United Nations wants to be in enforcing disarmament and other Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq Specifically does the United Nations want to engage in military action against Iraq? the United States a member of the 15 Nations Security Council is Calling for a policy that will result in regime change in Iraq If the current regime does not meet all of the United Nations demands in his September 12th 2002 speech to the UN General Assembly George W. Bush stated if Iraq's regime Defies us again The world must move deliberately decisively to hold Iraq to account We will work with the UN Security Council For the necessary resolutions But the purposes of the United States should not be doubted the Security Council resolutions will be enforced The just demands of peace and security will be met or action will be unavoidable and a regime that has lost its legitimacy Will also lose its power Regime change is not allowed as policy according to the United Nations Charter There is considerable resistance to taking the United Nations as far as the United States wants to go Central to all of this seems to be the future credibility of the United Nations United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan summed up the opportunity before the UN in a recent statement Quote if we handled this properly, we may actually strengthen international cooperation the rule of law and the United Nations Enabling it to move forward in a purposeful way Not only in this immediate crisis, but in the future as well close quote Meanwhile the US Congress passed a resolution last week giving George W. Bush sweeping authority to use force in Iraq to quote defend the national security of the United States close quote and To quote enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq close quote It should be noted since it has not been noted by any of the corporate news agencies to the best of our knowledge That the resolution that the US Congress passed did not go as far as Bush had asked Bush wanted authorization to use all means that the president quote Determines to be appropriate including force in order to enforce the United Nations Security Council resolutions referenced above Defend the national security interests of the United States against the threat posed by Iraq and Restore international peace and security in the region close quote What Bush got was a resolution that required the president to report to Congress prior to use of any force if possible If not possible the president must report to Congress no later than 48 hours after any military engagement and must justify his actions On the basis of it having been a last resort after all diplomatic attempts had been exhausted This is not the blank check for which Bush had hoped no matter how it is being spun in the corporate press after the fact But even with congressional accountability the United States is moving closer to a war with Iraq with or without the United Nations Approval protest against any war with Iraq have grown worldwide Earlier this month nearly a half million people hit the streets in London, England protesting Great Britain's support of the war effort Elections in Germany were essentially determined on the basis of the party support our opposition to the impending war with those favoring opposition being elected Anti-war organizations can be found all over the Internet Calling for a peaceful means to disarm Iraq and to avoid war It has been said that politics makes strange bedfellows former UN chief weapons inspector Scott Ritter is a strange bedfellow of the anti-war movement He is a proud ex-marine intelligence officer and a self-described policeman Unlike many of those who come to listen to his lectures on Iraq. He is not anti-war He is stated unequivocally that he would serve in what he terms illegal war He declares himself a faithful Republican and while not happy with the current president He admits to having voted for him in the last election So why did nearly 1500 people turn out earlier this month in Victoria to hear what Scott Ritter had to say Why is he invited to speak all over the world including to the half million who met in England? How do some people's messages get heard? Perspective and heated from the many voices available to hear respect and heat There are certainly political answers to these questions. There are certainly psychological answers to these questions In today's episode of first-person plural, we will examine a sociological perspective on the case of Scott Ritter Essentially Scott Ritter is making social problems claims He is suggesting that there are problems with the ways in which the United States government is handling the Iraq situation In addition, he is claiming that social action is needed to solve the problems he is identifying Sociologist and Donnelly Secky in her book thinking about social problems Offers an excellent framework upon which to examine social problems claims such as Scott Ritter's It is her framework that we will be using this now As we look at what Scott Ritter had to say during his visit to Victoria in an episode we call A War of Words You're listening to first-person plural on CFUV Victoria's Public Radio 101.9 FM 104.3 cable And on the internet CFUV.UVAC.CA Giving sociology an edge Secky's approach to understanding a social problem is to understand the process by which a claim is made received accepted and implemented into social action What makes a claim powerful enough to draw crowds and media attention is the focus of Lisecky's perspective We are not going to be concerned during this hour with how truthful Ritter's claims are We have our opinions on the United States Policies and on Ritter's claims these opinions are not the focus of today's show Instead we hope to share with you how we came to believe what we believe about Ritter's claims and to help you see how He is making his claims well known and legitimated Lisecky begins with claims makers the people who say and do things to convince audiences That a social problem is at hand social problems claims are made all the time Just sitting around the donut shop with friends one is bound to make a dozen claims about what is wrong with the world and how it might be fixed However, Ritter isn't sitting around the donut shop He is on an active international campaign and seems to be gaining support for his point of view So what is it about Scott Ritter that makes his claims more legitimate? Several possibilities are available when we think about a claims maker Some claims makers speak with the authority of status Certainly George W. Bush's claims about Iraq are heeded simply because of the position he holds in his society Depending upon the claim Physicians Scientists and other designated experts are often afforded more credibility Organizational backing also creates attention as spokespersons Representing specific organizations often carry more authority than individuals Celebrities who already have our attention often make social problems claims that are given more weight than those by the average citizen are given Perceived motives also give credence to claims Claims made by those who would profit from the solution are regarded as less credible than those that seem to be born from altruism In a press conference before his lecture Attended mostly by CFUV's spoken word broadcasters We asked Scott Ritter why he was traveling around the world giving lectures. I was really happy I got the question of why are you doing what you're doing posed to him during that press conference It actually was the last question of the press conference if I remember right I thought that his answer was very telling he was Reliant upon both his position and his motive to legitimize his claim His position as a UN inspector his position as a former US Marine were very prominent in his answer So was the fact that he was willing to die for his country You kind of left one wondering what he's getting out of this other than just doing his duty Well invariably, that's a catch 22 if you have no motive to be doing what you're doing That makes you suspect But if you have a motive to be doing what you're doing that makes you suspect too more over Indicating that you might possibly know what you're talking about in the specific case He really was in Iraq. He really was a UN weapons inspector isn't necessarily quote argument from authority closed quote He is standing up and saying look this is who I am and this is what I've seen and this is why I'm doing it I do think that he left a couple of things out in his answer It's stuff that he addressed in other places mind you I'm just referring to the answer at the press conference right now He leaves out the fact that he's a whistleblower In 1998 the reason that he resigned is he was upset with the fact that the CIA had taken over his operations in Iraq And were in fact using it for spying trying to get information that would help them topple the Hussein government And he walked out on it and he said I will have no part of this and he quit That puts him in the role of a whistleblower I mean he turned around then it went to Congress and said look what happened and then he started doing lectures back in 98 He's getting a lot more airtime now but that's the role he's been playing I also wonder if he doesn't have some ulterior motive regarding the recognition of his work Essentially what these leaders are getting up and doing are saying hey in 1991 they had weapons So they must have it today and he spent six years of his life making sure that they didn't So right away they're impugning his credibility And the quality of his work not just his credibility but the very thing that he did They're saying no Scott Reder you didn't do a good job And I think that he does have an ulterior motive that he doesn't speak of often Of standing up and saying you know damn it I did do a good job We went in there and we got rid of a whole bunch of nasty things I don't think he seriously questions whether anyone believes that he enjoys having his work impugned And I don't know whether it undermines his credibility or not But it certainly is something that he's not using to increase his credibility Losaki suggests that the making of a social claim is the constructing of a morality A social problem's claim is a claim to what the right thing to do should be This morality argument is based upon not only how legitimate the maker of the claim is But also upon how well the claims maker convinces his or her audience that the claim is justified morally This can be through the evoking of shared values such as religious, organizational, or humanitarian moralities Reder is essentially making two claims One, the United States is violating international and constitutional law By advocating and working towards regime change in Iraq Two, the United States is starting on this path because certain members of the government Are intent upon unilateral American world domination What he calls American imperialism I thought that Losaki's concepts were easily applicable to what Ritter is doing Probably because Ritter is being very rational about the arguments that he's making Sometimes when you look at claims makers, it's hard to see their rationality Ritter, however, is very articulate and very reasonable in the way that he presents his argument And as such, it makes it very easy to identify the moralities to use Losaki's terms That he's reliant upon Let me clarify that before you go any further You speak of moralities in Losaki's work Does that mean absolute claims to ethical conduct? Or is she constructing something else with the word? What she means by the word is People, in order to make a social problems claim A social problems claims maker has to tell you what is right and what is wrong They have to clarify within the text of their claim what is right and what is wrong So she's talking not so much about what is really right and really wrong But what they construct as right and wrong And she divides it up into three possibilities And one of them is that kind of absolutism Where you have religious claims that, you know, say God says that this is the way it should be Or our ancestors have taught us this is the way it should be and so forth But she also allows for what she calls organizational and humanitarian claims These are a little more gray area claims They are arguments that are based upon reasonable assumptions That are presented within the argument So it's not assuming something outside the box So it means prescriptive Yes, they are being prescriptive That's the whole point of making the claim It's saying this is bad, this is wrong And this is what you have to do to make it better And the claim has both of those elements in it So the claim is saying this is a problem because And here is a solution because Okay, I understand Okay, so Ritter is making some very specific claims And he's saying this is bad because it's a violation of law It's a violation of international relationships It is anti-democratic And he, you know, really strikes a chord When he talks about it being imperialistic And he's basically saying this is why it's bad This is why a unilateral war with Iraq Without approval from the UN Security Council Is a violation of law and it's a violation of democratic principles And so he's making, for the most part, organizational claims For the most part he's saying, look, we have this constitution We have this UN charter We have laws that we abide by And it's the right thing to do to abide by these laws He's saying that Bush and the other people who are supporting Bush In this effort are in fact violating these laws And that that is bad Yes, he's making the claim that it is in fact bad He's not saying they're violating the laws But that's okay because they are the law But that's okay because if they don't really want to They're not bound by it He's saying there's no getting around obeying the law Sure, in the press conference He's marking rule of law as the bad rock of the argument Yeah, in the press conference he was asked about A debate that he had with his former boss And he responded, I'm holding you as an American Accountable the same way that I'm holding Iraq accountable Everyone is accountable to the law And that's a basic premise upon which he's making his claims It's the basic morality that he's appealing to The problem is, is that I think he's kind of naive In his discussions of this He sort of forgets a little bit of American history When he's presenting this It's kind of hard to talk about the U.S. government Respecting international law up until this incident Of unilateralism When you look at two things One, the U.S. government has failed to up until this point Ratify the universal declaration of human rights And it also has failed to support the world court And this makes one suspect of their intention all along To abide by international law Or indeed a grasp of rule of law at all Sure, you wonder what they're up to You wonder if they're not willing to talk about basic human rights And agree to basic human rights Especially since Eleanor Roosevelt was one of the authors Of the UN universal declaration of human rights And then if you wonder why they won't go to the world court What ulterior motives do they have? They're already suspect, I guess, is what I'm saying Is they're already suspect in the international community The other thing is that he talks about American imperialism Like this is a brand new thing And I think that if you were to interview a few native folk And that's not even looking at different foreign policies That are suspect in American history He paints the United States as being a basic good guy nation Up until this point It serves his claims making well to do that It makes him vulnerable as well As does a rather obvious logical flaw He's anointed the Americans for not respecting rule of law And he considers that as he pointed out to be the absolute in his argument The basis of the ethical recommendation The Americans being unilateralists contest that very point So right away he can't convince them No doubt that frustrates him But from a strictly quote logical close quote standpoint He has no argument Social claims only work in general If the person to whom the claim is made respects the bedrock principles What Losecchi would call the moralities of the argument So there's a bit of a catch-22 Losecchi suggests that once a moral base is constructed Strategies for claims making need to be adopted How moralities are evoked can be seen as the strategy That a claims maker uses to get the claim heard by a social audience The claim is not just made It is made in a way that evokes a response Else it is never heard or heeded Successful claims are successful in part Because the best strategies were chosen Strategies can include multiple approaches Strategies must consider competing claims And address these claims Strategies must consider the audience Including mass media coverage Ritter has testified before governmental bodies He has lectured before crowds and all seven continents He has been interviewed by news agencies all over the world He has had public debates on major networks He has written books and authored articles for major news agencies The content of Ritter's claims have remained essentially consistent Throughout all these media with a list of eyewitness accounts And political analyses of what he has seen and experienced To really get the flavor of his strategies You kind of have to listen to the entire lecture The soundbite that we picked is a good example of But it certainly is not all-inclusive of his argument I've read some transcripts and listened to some interviews I mean one of the things is the cop metaphor He used it several times during his lecture I think that it's a nice little metaphor for him to use It's sort of like he's talking to the law and order generation And they're going to understand this metaphor Because they all sit around and watch law and order And wish for this perfect world in which cops do this wonderful job It makes his work more accessible What provides a metaphor for his work that he considers an accessible one And may consider an accurate one as well When he's describing how he took the Iraqis And put them in different rooms and kind of played them off of each other Like he would go into one room and say So-and-so in the other room told me about such-and-such And he would trick them into telling them about where a weapon was That seemed very real to me for some reason It made me feel like I understood what he did A lot better than hearing, well, we can't talk about this Because of national security interests or all the crap that you get You think it provided verisimilitude Yeah, it was a story that I bought And when I think of it, I have no idea whether it's true or not But it seemed true And I think that that leads to one of the things that I really like about his approach He seems to be giving out a lot more information Than most people who talk about foreign relations And weapons inspection and so forth give out I mean, on The Daily Show, he had John Stewart Totally fascinated with the whole process And that was probably the first exposure I had to this And I was like sitting there going Wow, I never thought about that before I never thought about what you go about doing You know, it was just always this sort of vague concept before Oh, disarmament, well, you go, you find the bombs, you blow them up The drawback, of course, is that details are the mark of a good con artist It's something that he would do if he were serious about getting people to believe him Given that he wasn't telling the truth Given that he was a mole for whomever or for whatever But I think Michael Moore is a good comparison He started with nothing as well Ritter started with a little more than that But they both just started doing what they wanted to do In terms of turning out text Moore's text was film, Ritter's is Lectures Yes, and books and other media, if I may call them that It's interesting that you compare the two because they both have the same publicist Do they? Yeah, I think that it's interesting that he's doing the You talk about lectures and books and so forth And I was thinking about, you know, there are other ways that he could be presenting his message And certainly if you take a look at what George Bush is doing Showing up in front of cameras with, you know, special backgrounds behind him And always the American flag around And having, you know, pretty pictures taken of him with world leaders And, I mean, he's obviously doing a kind of Madison Avenue approach Without giving you very much information Ritter, like Moore, on the other hand Likes to go and talk to college people And do personal in-depth interviews And engage in debates And so forth And it's kind of almost like an intellectual circuit that he's on Sort of the activists and the intellectuals And he goes about doing it Without doing too much to look like he's Madison Avenue In spite of the fact that both of them, both Moore and Ritter have a publicist They have somebody who arranges public relations for them Has somebody who, you know, helps them create an image But you don't get that sense of it You don't get a sense that they're creating an image The image that they're creating is a kind of intellectual, sincere image Instead of a sound bite spin image The point I'm trying to make is that you can't really assess their veracity What you can do is note what they have to say or not note it And particularly, you may do so in the future Based on what you have heard from them in the past I really have no idea if there are weapons of mass destruction Or trivial destruction Or spontaneous generation Or any other sort of weapons in Iraq What would the opposite of mass destruction be, I guess I've often wondered what a limited Moore is I'm old enough to remember Vietnam at least that well But the point is, under postmodernism One no longer believes anything One notes it, does not note it Compares it to other texts and so forth Sure, and what we're talking about right now Is legitimation strategies And the two are somewhat compatible and somewhat incompatible I guess the only other thing I might want to mention at this point Is that it surprises me that He doesn't make more of the whistleblower thing I mentioned that earlier Talking about him as a claims maker But the CIA involvement He talks about it some And he talks about it not so much in terms of who he is But in terms of how wrong it is He actually is making moral claims about The CIA taking over the inspections And I think that that is an interesting strategy Especially in international audiences Because he Well it's the thing that worries me about his safety I mean I sometimes feel like if he gets up and says it's too much The next thing you're going to hear about Is that he died in a plane accident Under mysterious circumstances or something I am amazed that he has done The kind of whistleblowing that he's done It's the thing that worries me Contradicting what I said less than two minutes ago About his credibility Does he really not expect people from countries Other than the United States To say CIA, USMC, NSC You all look the same to me Does he really think that someone from Iraq For example is going to draw a distinction between The Marine Corps and the CIA Because the Americans tell them to I don't know I bought that I bought that they knew the difference That they understood that the U.N. inspectors Were gathering information for one reason And then they started figuring out that the CIA Was gathering it for another You know I suppose in the specific case That makes sense But one of the things about the native holocaust Was that the Caucasians Considered that's not my department to be a specific And definitive argument In every case They said no no that's the Bureau of Indian Affairs's problem And the Bureau of Indian Affairs would say no no That's the Justice Department's problem And Justice would say no no that's the Army And they'd just give the natives the runaround Of these particular issues And at times it looked as if they were doing it deliberately Wouldn't it have been a surprise to find out That it was deliberate Hardware says it's software Software says it's hardware Who are you kidding? Yeah But I think the argument he's making Is not so much that it was because it was the CIA But rather it was because What the CIA was using the information for That that was the violation of law And again you know it's a moral claim That he's making it doesn't matter Whether they were getting away with it In Iraq or not What mattered is They were violating law by doing it And he holds the CIA accountable to the law Yes he was quite clear on that point The point he was not clear on was enforcement If the CIA breaks the law Who's going to do anything about it And he can say well other police agencies And agencies that aren't called police Agencies but still are But in practice police agencies And agencies that aren't called police Agencies but still are Show a great reluctance To interfere with each other's livelihood And thus a whistleblower is needed And that's why I think of him More than anything else as a whistleblower We're listening to First person plural Your source Pursuing sounds of sociological so gaseousness The police state is using It's phallocentric organ The corporate media To control ordinary people Like you And me In order to be successful A claims maker must assess who his or her audience is And construct a vision of the audience For the audience Because the problem is being approached as a social problem It requires an understanding of a social response To do this claims makers have to construct Particular kinds of conditions Affecting particular kinds of people Conditions include the frequency, severity And causes of the problems As well as the efficacy and feasibility Of the solutions The people are villains, victims or good guys It is not sufficient to convince an audience That there is a problem The claim is about a solution to the problem The claim is also about what the audience can do To affect the solution Ritter has an international audience That has run the gamut from government officials To anarchistic protesters In order for his claims to be successful He must convince this wide range of people That they have a part to play In stopping American imperialism Clearly his villain is George W. Bush And Bush's cronies who seem bent On world domination Saddam Hussein is also a villain The victims are the Iraqi people Americans who stand for democracy And members of the international community Interested in a peaceful and secure world The good guys are the United Nations And those who support international law Where does the audience, in this case A Canadian audience, fit into Ritter's claims making? There is some question in my mind As to whether Ritter knew to whom he was speaking At the press conference and at the lecture He didn't seem to get what Canadians were all about I don't either, but I think I get it better than he did The My Country Writer Wrong routine Does not really go ever well here And he wasn't exactly at that point But he still had this sort of little buddy attitude Toward Canada The big guy who hasn't been put in a special class He had an elementary school Who has decided that you're his friend And you dare not contradict him Because he's going to hug you to death Yeah, sometimes he hugs just a little bit too hard Yeah, there's a couple places that he missed the boat In contrast to the soundbite that we played It was interesting during the press conference That he did say at one point I think in response to a question you asked him About reciprocity on arms inspections That the United States had a moral standing In the world that allowed them to be beyond scrutiny My question was whether the United States Would accept reciprocal inspections That is, would they accept the UN coming in And inspecting their weapons If the UN determined that they had committed Human rights violations or other international crimes He said the UN and the rest of the nations In the Security Council formed a cartel Right after the Second World War Get used to it Yeah, he said that there were five nations With special status And the United States was one of them I think that what he was trying to do Was be very practical in his response I mean, he even began his remarks with It's going to be theoretical We could talk about it, but it's theoretical Because the reality is The US is never going to let it happen It's an interesting contrast because in the speech What he was talking about was You have to be the friend Who takes away the keys from the drunk Who's driving But he essentially said in the press conference Any way that we have to take these keys away Have very little bite If the United States just decides That they don't want the keys taken away That at some point There is no way to stop them But that response makes a joke Of the notion of rule of law Unilateralism means Supercession of rule of law By a given party Yes They are logically inconsistent They are mutually exclusive Ritter apparently didn't get that Unless he was being sarcastic Or playing devil's advocate I think he thought of himself as a realist At that point I don't think he was comfortable with the answer The US can do what they want But I think that he was saying Look, there's going to be a limit to what you can do What was interesting is He didn't bring that up In his direct address to Canadians He said basically you can be a good example And you can push your leaders To do certain things To kind of shame the United States Into being better people But he didn't bring out What he brought out in the press conference When he was questioned And that is that at some point The United States citizenry Is going to have to reel their own government in He quoted the American constitution Or I should say referenced The American constitution In the name of authoritative argument I don't think he's figured out that Canadians Don't really feel bound by the American constitution And the drunk driving metaphor Might have been ill timed as well He got a good laugh by pointing out That the United States has a drunk at the wheel Right now But the whole drunk driving campaign Was contextualized differently In the United States They'd never really been comfortable with alcohol The contrary borders on being At theocracy as it is And they drink But they never feel entirely good about it Compare with Canada Where everyone drinks all the time At least to my American perceptions Yeah, it's interesting We see a lot of behavior up here That we know our American friends Would describe as alcoholic behavior As in pathological And yet we also note That Canadians rarely regarded As pathological And they will drink Not just beer as the stereotypes suggest But anything with alcohol in it It's like Australian North Now that is my perception of the situation But the point is this In Canada drunk driving is Perhaps criminal In any case actionable But to an American audience It would be just plain immoral In absolute terms And I think Ritter was counting On that construction Of the immorality Yes, when he made the rhetorical appeal When he made the joke about George W. Bush being the drunk at the wheel And I don't think the Canadians Saw it that way at all So it was, it was a miscalculation We hope this analysis Will help you to sort through The war of words surrounding The U.S. Iraqi situation Ritter is, of course Only one claims maker Catching the interest of audiences Around the world We hope that you will think Critically about all the claims That are being made At this most dangerous time We want to encourage you Not to take our word for it You can hear the full lecture Presented by Scott Ritter From the internet at the U-R-L-W-W-W Dot U-V-S-S Dot U-V-I-C Dot C-A Slash A-W-U-Slash That U-R-L again is W-W-W Dot U-V-S-S Dot U-V-I-C Dot C-A Slash A-W-U-Slash You can find a link to a Recording of the Scott Ritter Victoria Press Conference By visiting our website at culturalconstructioncompany.com Go to the CCC radio shows And then to the link for First Person Plural Then link to this week's episode Which is number 22 We hope you will stay as Informed as you can And will encourage our leadership To do the same Thank you for listening We'll be back next week You have been listening to First Person Plural on CFUV 101.9 FM In Victoria, British Columbia Simulcasted on 104.3 cable And CFUV Dot U-V-I-C Dot C-A First Person Plural is produced weekly By Dr. Patty Thomas and Carl Wilkerson Music for First Person Plural is composed Performed and produced by Carl Wilkerson For more information about First Person Plural Or Patty Thomas and Carl Wilkerson Visit our website at culturalconstructioncompany.com