why?

Our epistemological landscape is slippery and dangerous. In a time when the plausibility of dominant historical and political narratives is dependant upon strenuous exercises in doublethink, democracy can mean anything but popular sovereignty and human rights ceases to be correlated with the alleviation of human suffering. Language, like the human body in the face of depleted uranium shells and white phosphorous grenades, is frail. It should not come as a surprise that hegemonic networks of political, economic and military governance, responsible for the imposition of human suffering on a colossal scale, are apt to indulge in playful exercises in semantic manipulation in an effort to cover their bloody tracks. In what world but ours would the appointment of Tony Blair as “Middle East Peace Envoy”, or the slaughter of a million civilians under the painfully ironic rubric of the “war on terror” seem to make sense? In such a disorienting environment, the task of those journalists, politicians, academics and artists who are somehow able to free themselves (however partially and for however long) from the long tentacles of Empire is nothing less than to become faithful guardians of the truth. It is in view of this awesome responsibility that this blog begins.