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The Current Transcript for October 4, 2018

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

We were taken aboard an American coast guard ship and chuckled to each other by the feet. There on the dick, we were exposed to rain, sun, fog for over 40 days.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Alfredo Herrera-Villarreal describes the scene on the deck of a U.S. Coast Guard ship, an incarceration that began when he was forced to board a Canadian Coast Guard ship by U.S. agents. It's all part of a U.S. drug interdiction program in international waters. And when Canada's involvement in handing over suspects to the U.S. was first reported here on the ground it raised concerns over Canadian complicity and the breaking of international law, that created meetings at the highest levels than the Department of Defense and triggered a review. In half an hour we're asking what that investigation has changed. Also today, Batman going rogue in the Dark Knight may appear to be just the movie to you.

SOUNDCLIP

I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you.

AMT: But A man who's been tracking cinematic superheroes, even those who whisper, an extreme just of the plots on Digital Demand says they have laid the groundwork for us to accept extreme politics and political leaders who don't care about the mainstream. Hear How Vampires, Zombies, Androids and Superheroes have Made America Great for Extremism in an hour. And speaking of the media:

SOUNDCLIP

I hope that you find this as interesting and important as I do because I don't understand what the rest of the British media is utterly uninterested in something that speaks to the very heart of our Constitution.

AMT: The British media is not paying attention but what he's talking about has been happening here in Canada on Parliament Hill under the radar. We're starting there. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

Back To Top »

'Very naive' to think election interference can't happen in Canada, says MP Charlie Angus

Guests: Charlie Angus, Carol Cadwalladr

SOUNDCLIP

And to all businesses, large and small, you may have heard that there's a four letter word to describe what we conservatives want to do to you. [Laughter] It has a single syllable. It is all Anglo-Saxon derivation. [Laughter] It ends in the letter K. [Laughter] Back businesses.

AMT: Well that is the British prime minister Theresa May speaking yesterday about what the post Brexit future will look like for British business. And despite the cheers from her party members 'back' is not the word many Britons have in mind about the state there will be an after the UK leaves the European Union. Brexit day is just six months away but there is still no deal in place and no end in sight for the political turmoil Brexit has sparked. To put it politely, the UK is dealing with Brexit chaos. And across the ocean in an after while committee room, Canadian parliamentarians have been delving into the infamous referendum that brought Brexit into being. Listen to this. This is NDP MP Charlie Angus grilling Zachary Massingham the CEO of aggregate IQ - the Canadian digital advertising and software development company that reportedly received millions of pounds from groups working to get out the Brexit vote.

SOUNDCLIP

CHARLIE ANGUS: They're accusing you of being an electoral money laundering machine in one of the key elements that is your rule with BeLeave and the 625,000 pounds that went directly through this marginal student's group into your operation which is used in the last six days of the Brexit campaign. Do you think that that may have affected the result? Because that's what they're seeing in the United Kingdom.

ZACKARY MASSINGHAM: I can't speak to what effect it might have had. I only know what BeLeave asked us to do one place and that would do it well.

AMT: That was the meeting of the Standing Committee on access to information privacy and ethics in April. Zachery Massingham was back before the committee last week to answer more questions. The committee vice chair is Charlie Angus and he joins me from Ottawa. Hello Mr. Angus.

CHARLIE ANGUS: Good morning thank you for having me on the show.

AMT: How would you describe aggregate IQ?

CHARLIE ANGUS: Aggregate IQ are international data mercenaries. They are tied in apparently because, trying to get a straight answer from them has been proven very difficult even one we've heard them under oath, but they're tied in to larger groups like SEL which is tied to Steve Bannon, which is tied to Cambridge Analytica, Robert Mercer, Alexander Nicks, companies are involved in international psyops, electoral or hijinks in countries like Nigeria, Trinidad and Tobago. And Aggregate IQ which appears as this little Canadian operation set up above an optometrist shop was the key player in moving millions of pounds in ads during the Brexit vote. They're credited as having helped to win that Brexit vote through the lead campaign and they're also accused by the British electoral- Well the campaign the overall campaign is accused of having broken the British electoral laws to do that. Aggregate IQ, their role in all of this still despite numerous attempts by the committee remains somewhat murky.

AMT: So why was the chief executive officer at Aggregate IQ appearing before your standing committee on access to information privacy and ethics?

CHARLIE ANGUS: Well this all began when we became aware of the huge Facebook data breach. We wanted to investigate as is the duty of our committee whether or not Canadian Information had been breached. And that led to an investigation into the raw the millions of names and information from that data breach had been possibly usurped for electoral purposes and that was particularly focused in the UK. And the idea that a platform like Facebook could be a exploited by third party operators to undermine a vote as serious as Brexit to me is a very chilling question about the future of democratic accountability. And then we found that, hey, there's deep Canadian connections. Christopher Wiley who was the whistle blower in this whole issue came forward is Canadian. He also pointed out the Canadian connections of Zach Massingham Jess Sylvester and this Victoria based company Aggregate IQ.

AMT: So what were you trying to get out with your questioning?

CHARLIE ANGUS: Well the integrity of the electoral system anywhere in the world has to be protected and the power of these third party operators, digital mercenaries to undermine, to misrepresent, to use platforms like Facebook puts us in a really frightening new world. We wanted to find out exactly how this has been done? Who are the players internationally? Are there implications for the Canadian electoral system? And certainly we see with the chaos that resulted in Brexit, if these companies were funneling money as they had been accused of by Christopher Wiley coordinating campaigns what they want supposed to try to force these votes. It doesn't take much to tip a referendum and we saw in Canada in 1995 how close we came to political chaos. Imagine if a group like Aggregate IQ had been around then. So were hoping to draw some attention of the Canadian Parliament but I think also internationally that we have to start looking at the international connection to these kind of companies in their roles in the elections around the world right now.

AMT: And so it is not solely the issue of the breach of data. This has to do with money and then the question is whether the money spent on the sleeve campaign Aggregate IQ was involved in went over an electoral cap, whether broke election spending rules in Britain.

CHARLIE ANGUS: Well this is certainly where we ended up focusing, partly because for some time Aggregate IQ did not appear to be cooperating with the UK committee, and we felt well there was in Canadian jurisdiction we could start to ask some of these questions. So what it appears from the findings that the UK electoral commission in the UK information commissioner is that there were the two camps. There was the Vote Leave campaign and the electoral spending limit and then suddenly appeared this student group, a marginal students group run by a 22 year old, that received a million dollars Canadian.

AMT: And that was called BeLeave.

CHARLIE ANGUS: BeLeave, yes. So the conduate between BeLeave and Vote Leave is Aggregate IQ. And in this final six days of the campaign a million dollars Canadian went through that BeLeave campaign and where did it go? Was it being used to target Facebook ads, using the kind of technology they developed from the Facebook data breach to target people who could be flipped in their vote. We still have not got any answers exactly where those ads, how they were placed and whether or not the money was funneled back to the just overall to the Vote Leave campaign. But that seems to be what the electoral commission has found. They say that this was the whole process to circumvent the electoral rules.

AMT: And what are the implications for Canada when it comes to concerns over election spending and tracing money trails?

CHARLIE ANGUS: Well Anna Maria, what worries me is that I think the political parties are now in the digital arms race. The world has changed dramatically since 2015. So youll see some concern from political leaders that we need to have you know there are privacy laws for data and we need better oversight. But the power of these tools have been practiced in a number of jurisdictions and SEL which has now morphed into some other company have been privy to this kind of technology. It will be used in the next Canadian election. Misinformation will be used. We're moving into the world. I think your shows talked about the power of deep fake ads, black ads that are being pushed on Facebook and other means. It can seriously undermine the legitimacy of electoral process. If it happened in the United States and it happened in the UK we'd be very naive not to think it can happen in Canada. This is why I hope our committee, which has actually worked in an incredibly nonpartisan way for the first time I've ever seen in my 14 years in Parliament together to try and get some answers so we can shine a light using our electoral the power of our committee that maybe lessons can be learned, that maybe legislative, that may be legal and may be certainly changes to electoral laws.

AMT: In July the information commissioner's office in Britain ordered Aggregate IQ to stop handling decodable morning to British citizens. Why did he do that and what did Aggregate IQ do?

CHARLIE ANGUS: Well, again, the aggregate IQ was proven to be very difficult to get straight answers from. We've been certainly are unimpressed with their appearance at committee. But the fact that they claimed that this money that was given to this BeLeave campaign, legally placing ads when what was found in the electoral reports was that the adds [unintelligible]. So where did that money go? What did they do with the data? Because the data it is about profiling, and it's about the ability of using something like Facebook to identify people who are the ones who will go on someone else's Facebook site and then maybe post stuff bold the immigrants are coming in they're going to steal your jobs, or are people who can be targeted because of certain psychological profiles. We don't even know how this kind of data is being used because it's very complex and it kind of algorithms they're using. But this is about being able to flip elections. Obviously the UK information commissioner is feels that Aggregate IQ are dark operators. My concern is as they aren't the only ones. We need to really identify the larger threats that are posed by this kind of a digital monkey wrenching.

AMT: Have you heard from any British parliamentarians or government investigators about Aggregate IQ since your committee started its investigation?

CHARLIE ANGUS: Well our committee has been a fascinating committee because it's the first time we've ever spoken with. We've spoken with the UK committee on their work. We've offered help in the kind of information we can bring forward we certainly study their findings. We spoke with Elizabeth Denham who is a Canadian who's the information commissioner in the UK and an extraordinarily credible. Independent commissioner for the British system. We've met with her because we want to make sure we do this right. We also don't want to use our committee to unfairly target. This isn't a witch hunt. We're trying to get answers so we've been trying to do this in a manner that other jurisdictions can look at and say there are a lot of dark operators out there are there are people who can play some really disturbing roles in elections. For example we looked into the Nigeria campaign that Aggregate IQ and SEL involved in, some very very ugly and dirty stuff and these kind of dirty tactics are going to become more and more the norm unless you have some kind of rules in place.

AMT: Charlie Angus, we have to leave it there. Thank you for your time.

CHARLIE ANGUS: Thank you so much.

AMT: Charlie Angus NDP Member of Parliament, vice chair of the Standing Committee on access to information privacy and ethics. He's in Ottawa. We did ask Aggregate IQ about its role in Brexit then it sent us a statement and then quote here: "During the UK's EU referendum Aggregate IQ provided advertising services to a number of organisations including Vote Leave and BeLeave. At the time the UK electoral commission had advised Vote Leave that donations such as the one made to BeLeave were allowed under UK law. All work Aggregate IQ does for each client is kept separate from every other client and Aggregate IQ did not see any evidence of coordination between any of these campaigns." The statement goes on to say: "Aggregate IQ has met three times with the House of Commons Standing Committee on access to information privacy and ethics. Once with the UK parliament's Digital Culture Media and Sport Committee and provided extensive follow up information to the respective committees after each visit. Aggregate IQ continues to cooperate with regulators in both Canada and UK to assist in their investigations." While the earthquake that is Brexit continues to shake Britain to its core there is a mounting campaign for a more thorough investigation in the UK about the tactics used in that referendum. Carole Cadwalladr has dug deep into the players and maneuvers that made the league victory in that historic referendum possible. She's an investigative reporter with the British papers The Observer and The Guardian. She is also this year's winner of the Orwell Prize in journalism. Carole Cadwalladr is joining me from London. Hello.

CAROLE CADWALLADR: Hi. Thank you for inviting me on.

AMT: How important do you think the hearings in Ottawa are about Aggregate Q to understanding what's happened in that Brexit vote?

CAROLE CADWALLADR: Well it's been very important actually because I've been tracking A IQ's role in the referendum for a year and a half now and I had utterly failed to get proper answers from them during this time. And even now as Charlie was saying there is that they were not properly cooperating with the British authorities. And one of the reasons why we seek that Vote Leave used them for exactly this reason, that they were outside British jurisdiction. So they were in the same way that we see billionaires putting money offshore because it makes it dark and secretive and unaccountable. It's the same concept here; you put data offshore and it makes it dark and accountable. And that definitely seems to have been some of the reasoning because the one thing which is the burning question for a very long time is: why on earth did this British campaign, multiple campaigns actually in Britain, used this tiny Canadian outfit thousands of miles away. I think it's eight different time zones from London. I mean it made no sense. And at the time one of the mystifying things to me was that Don Cummings who is this chief strategist for Vote Leave when I put that as a direct question, how did you even find Aggregate IQ? He said: 'Oh somebody found them on the Internet'. And it was this sort of preposterous answer because at the time A IQ website wasn't even searchable via Google. So there is all sorts of questions swirling around them and particularly the first thing that I uncovered a year and a half ago was this relationship that I discovered, covert relationship, between it and Cambridge Analytica. It was a Canadian reader actually wrote to me at The Observer and who was the one who spotted this, that's a company which called itself SEL Canada. So it was like a regional branch office of Cambridge Analytica. It was the same person who is listed whose telephone number was listed there Zach Massingham who was also listed as the director of A IQ. And this opened up sort of whole can of worms because I'd already been investigating Cambridge Analytica's role in the referendum with a fringe Leave campaign headed by Nigel Farraj called Leave EU. And then I uncovered this fact that this affiliated companies to Cambridge Analytica were working for the main official Leave campaign Vote Leave. But yet the link between these two were was hidden. It wasn't said until I started asking questions, then Cambridge Analytica deleted Zach Massingham from their website, said that he'd been a minor software contractor and essentially the sort of cover up began.

AMT: So let me let me just clarify briefly. The issue here's the money trail because of electoral laws in Britain. This is where the crack is? This is where the light comes from?

CAROLE CADWALLADR: Yes it's exactly that because we have, as I think you do, we have strict laws which control the spending of money in elections. And so the campaigns have strict limits on what they can spend.

AMT: And the allegation is that the money was funneled through A IQ to another entity which was actually part of the original entity.

CAROLE CADWALLADR: Yes exactly because there's also very strict rules about campaigns coordinating and this is the sort of key thing. The rule is that if you want to work with another campaign you can but you have to declare your spending separately. Whereas if you purport to be completely different campaigns you get an extra - it's a million Canadian dollars you can spend for each different campaign. So if you've got an outside, a third party operator like Aggregate IQ, which is working for all these different campaigns then you can just funnel the money through and it becomes one big campaign and that's is in breach of our electoral laws. If you see us I mean if it's being funneled into a black box and it's all being mixed up. Does that make sense?

AMT: Yes and I just want to keep moving you along here before we run out of time to vote now. There is now a campaign mounting to push for special counsel inquiry into this almost Robert Muller type investigation into the Brexit vote. Is that possible? Is there attraction for this, given Brexit is months away now?

CAROLE CADWALLADR: There is massive sort of political pressure that the government desperately doesn't want to do this, but we're now seeing cross party support. So Damian Collins as a Conservative MP who's the head of the committee who's been liaising with Charlie's Committee and his committee are now calling for that Muller public inquiry. We've also had the deputy leader of the Labor Party Tom Watson who's now calling for that inquiry. There are so many different sort of crimes and issues that are mounting up many of which lead to Aggregate Q in Canada, some others to Cambridge Analytica and further ones to the question of what the Russian state was doing. And that's why we desperately need an overarching inquiry into the [unintelligible].

AMT: Okay well. Your reporting has answered questions and raised more. Thank you for your time today.

CAROLE CADWALLADR: Thanks very much Anna Maria.

AMT: That is Carole Cadwalladr. She is an investigative reporter with the observer and the Guardian, the British newspapers. We reached her in London England. Stay with us. The news is next and then, the results of our documentary The Catch about Canadian coast guard work with the U.S. on drug interdiction in the Caribbean. Stay with us for an update.

Back To Top »

U.S. Coast Guard acted 'legally and ethically' in anti-smuggling co-op, Canadian Forces review finds

Guests: Brian Santarpia, Kasia Malinowska

AMT: Hello I'm Anna-Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Still to come:

SOUNDCLIP

I said only Marty Byrd can somehow convinceme to partner with their bunch of...

[Gunshot]

AMT: Okay well that was a bit of violence there. If you're watching the new season of Ozark networks you'll recognize that scene. If not, suffice to say it's one of many scenes are gripping over-the-top violence on the show. It seems that is par for the course from much of the entertainment we take today. In half an hour culture critic Peter Siskind makes the case that the mainstreaming of extreme Entertainment has helped pave the way for extreme politics, such as what we're seeing in Washington today or maybe elsewhere. But first the northern front of the war on drugs.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Last June we brought you a documentary investigation called The Catch by The Current producer Kristin Nelson. In it, Kristin investigated how the Canadian forces work with the United States Coast Guard in intercepting suspected drug smugglers at sea. She collaborated with South Wessler, a New York based journalist with the Investigative Fund. His 2017 New York Times Magazine exposé headlined the coastguards floating Guantanamo's raised serious questions about the conditions under which suspected smugglers are detained on Coast Guard cutters. Most suspects apprehended in international waters are low level smugglers often from poor fishing villages in Central or South America. The Current's investigation identified 38 alleged or convicted smugglers locked up in the U.S. in which a Canadian ship was involved in their interception. One of those men is 61 year old Alfredo Herrera-Villarreal from Carter Haner Columbia. This is a translation of a letter he sent.

SOUNDCLIP

We were taken on board an American Coast Guard vessel iand placed in a gangway on deck and chuckled to each other by the feet. There, on the deck, we were exposed to a rain, sun, fog for over 40 days. When with the thick we had to do it on top of other faeces. Every two or three days the buckets were dumped out in the sea. It was simply inhumane. Even a phone call to our families was denied. To this day I have nightmares because of the experience I went through on those boats.

AMT: Mr. Herrera-Villarreal was initially picked up by U.S. Coast Guard members working from a Canadian naval vessel. Since 2010 as part of a program called Operation Caribbe, Canada has allowed U.S. Coast Guard teams to ride on Canadian vessels. The forces maintain that anyone picked up during Operation Caribbe deployments are not actually Canadian detainees. Quote: "These detainee detainees remain in the care custody and control love and are guarded by U.S. Coast Guard personnel." But in the documentary we also heard from Michael Byers, a professor of international politics and international law at UBC in Vancouver, and he said that if the allegations of mistreatment are true. Well then:.

SOUNDCLIP

The United States has violated international law and Canada is doing so by complicities. Canada is providing a ship, a sovereign vessel, the Canadian Forces ship with Canadian personnel on board who are responsible to the Canadian government and ultimately to Canadian citizens and as part of that responsibility are bound by both Canadian and international law.

AMT: Well after The Catch aired on the current Amnesty International in the B.C. Civil Liberties Association published an open letter calling on Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan to providing answers. Amnesty's secretary general Alex Neve said there were troubling parallels with the Afghan detainee crisis.

SOUNDCLIP

And so we were troubled to see here we go again, obviously a very different context, but the same concerns about working together with the forces of another government in a collaborative military or security operation. Human rights concerns are rising with regard to how those prisoners are treated once fully in the custody of that other country and when Canada's role and responsibility in the middle of that. And so we felt it was important to come back to the government ,signal that we still are concerned about the fact that we don’t have strong policies and approaches in place in this area and we want some scrutiny, investigation, answers and reform.

AMT: Well another Operation Caribbe deployment is scheduled to begin later this month with three Canadian ships stationed in international waters. And the Canadian Forces say the scrutiny, investigation and reform Alex Neve was calling for has occurred. Rear Admiral Brian Santarpia is a naval officer. He is chief of staff operations at Canadian Joint Operations Command in The Canadian Armed Forces and he is on the line from his office in Ottawa. Hello.

BRIAN SANTARPIA: Hello and How are you.

AMT: I'm well thank you and thank you for joining us. We just heard a reading of a letter from a suspected drug smuggler alleging mistreatment while in U.S. Coast Guard custody. He is one of several dozen detainees who have reported mistreatment, claims that were confirmed by members of the U.S. Coast Guard. How does the Canadian forces respond to those allegations?

BRIAN SANTARPIA: We heard the same reports through your own program and of course the New York Times and we took it very seriously. We wanted to make sure that how we understood the mission being operated really was how it was being executed. So we contacted the coastguards right away. We sent a senior naval officer out to sea in a coastguard ship for about 20 days, to firsthand view of how to conduct the operation. We made sure that our own orders were in place to make sure that our commanding officers understood their responsibilities. I think Professor Byers has some really important points and we take this really seriously. I think its key that Canadians have good confidence that that their people in uniform will act in a most professional way possible. And I think they can have that confidence. We're quite confident that the operation is being done professionally, legally and ethically.

AMT: Well you know we reported that senior ranking members of the Canadian forces were aware of these allegations of his treatment even before our investigation aired. So who was aware before the fact?

BRIAN SANTARPIA: We hadn't heard of those allegations until we saw the New York Times article. As soon as we saw the New York Times article we began to work with the Coast Guard so that we could get a better view and then a better understanding. We started out with with confidence in them as the professionals at the West Coast Guard is that they would act legally and ethically. And as soon as we began to understand those allegations in The New York Times we spoke to them, check through our own logs, checked with our own people, sent our naval officer on board thier vessel. So we understood, I guess basically after that New York Times articles that there were allegations, we are quite confident having done all of this work that those allegations aren't founded. In fact the treatment of the detainees is is quite it is perfectly reasonable, legal and ethical that they get the sort of standards of care that the Canadians would expect us to to offer to anybody that we were involved in detaining.

AMT: So 40 days on the deck of a ship with no charges, floating around the Carribean is reasonable?

BRIAN SANTARPIA: So I think the important thing to understand is the practicalities of the operation. When someone is detained as a suspected smuggler, they are looked after in terms of cover, in terms of food, in terms of cleanliness, in terms of sanitation, in terms of being able to move about freely for a period, in terms of the security of themselves. And then as soon as practical they they're brought into the United States. But it is not always possible to bring them in right away. So we wanted to make sure that we tightened up and understood the conditions that they would be under. So we've issued some new direction to our commanding officer is to make sure that they fully understand how long it's anticipated that these people will be at sea, and if there's any doubt at all that that information gets passed back up to our commander here, the joint headquarters, where we'll take a decision about whether we would transfer them now, given how long it'll be or whether we need to find some other arrangement to try to get them into port earlier. But I think it's important for Canadians to understand that while it might be a little longer than it would be if they were detained ashore, the practicalities of operation are that it won't be as fast as if they were detained ashore. There's just only so many assets.

AMT: Can I ask you, you talk about transferring them. So you are acknowledging that they're actually on Canadian - when they are picked up even by the Coast Guard guys who are working on your ships - your acknowledging that they're actually on Canadian territory with those ships.

BRIAN SANTARPIA: Normally they wouldn't be. Normally we would just bring the law enforcement detachment of Coast Guard people from our ship to the vessel that were stopping and they would go straight from there to the U.S. Coast Guard ship. But in some circumstances, particularly where there's a danger at sea, because of the weather conditions or because the condition of the vessel that we have stopped in some circumstances, five to date we've had them transferred on board the Canadian ship for a short period just to make sure that they were safe. And in all of those circumstances they remained legally under the authority of the U.S. Coast Guard. But we wouldn't deny that we are involved in the operation. And so I think it's important we don't want to mince words about about legalities. Certainly we have a responsibility as part of the operation in any way to make sure that the entire operation is conducted legally and ethically and we take that responsibility very seriously.

AMT: Have you insisted, or will you insist, on some prominent Canadian monitoring for those suspects who are transferring from your ships to the U.S. ships?

BRIAN SANTARPIA: That is another plan. We have high confidence. Having worked with the U.S. Coast Guard now for some time, having recently done an inspection, having seen their operation as it's been done we won't insist upon a permanent Canadian monitoring. But we will continue to work with them. The poor are likely assure our selves that that we still have the same high level of confidence we have today that they're acting legally and ethically.

AMT: Because you did, in Afghanistan, a permanent monitoring system was put in place.

BRIAN SANTARPIA: Absolutely. And I think it's important I understand that there's a difference between the newly formed government of Afghanistan at the time and the government of the United States. So we are treating this obviously a little bit differently.

AMT: The reason I'm asking is of course because Canada is a signatory to conventions that say if any of your soldiers or sailors hand over some to a third party and then there is mistreatment. They are culpable. They can even say 'the boss told me to do it'. So I'm just wondering about your ability to protect your own sailors if you're not monitoring.

BRIAN SANTARPIA: We believe that we've done the due diligence necessary to assure ourselves that the situation onboard the U.S. Coast our ship and the U.S. system thereafter is acting ethically and legally. And unless there was an indication that that cease to be the case, we're confident that our involvement in the operation and our work to date to do that due diligence covers that issue.

AMT: So are you confident after you put somebody, an officer on a U.S. ship for 20 days, you are confident that it's changed? Because of course the detainee mistreatment was confirmed by members of the U.S. Coast Guard.

BRIAN SANTARPIA: Yes sir. So what we are confident. I don't know that that I am confident in the U.S. Coast Guard reports by those met with the U.S. Coast Guard that were given anonymously. I’m less confident that those are accurate than I am confident that the U.S. Coast Guard is conducting itself legally and ethically. Having sent officer on board and having had high level communications with them, we're quite confident that they were and are acting legally and ethically and the other reports are not accurate.

AMT: Will the report be released to the public?

BRIAN SANTARPIA: So that isn't our intention, it was meant for internal use at this point.

AMT: Can you tell us more of what it found?

BRIAN SANTARPIA: It found that when we tracked when anybody was transferredon board to a U.S. Coast Guard ship that they were provided appropriate levels of care that comedians would expect to any detainee or prisoner, and that the actions of the Canadian sailors involved or the U.S. Coast Guard soldiers involved would make any Canadian proud, that they act professionally at all times and compassionately.

AMT: Rear admiral Santarpia thank you for your time today.

BRIAN SANTARPIA: Thank you, Anna Maria, I appreciate it.

AMT: That is Rear Admiral Brian Santarpia. He is Chief of Staff Operations at the Canadian joint operations command in the Canadian Armed Forces and he joined us from Ottawa.

SOUNDCLIP

All of us must work together to dismantle drug production and defeat drug addiction. I'm thrilled that every country in the room today has agreed to answer our call and deliver a drug free future.

AMT: President Donald Trump speaking at the United Nations last week. Canada was one of 130 countries to sign on to Mr. Trump's U.S. declaration to fight world drug problem, a document that was criticized by some for over emphasizing a war on drugs approach over health treatment and prevention. Kasia Malinowska is the director of the Global Drug Policy Program at the Open Society Foundations, that's a New York based non-profit group that focuses on democracy and human rights. And she joins us from our New York studio. Hello.

KASIA MALINKOWSKA: Hello. Good morning.

AMT: We just heard about Operation Caribbe, part of Canada's participation in the so-called international war on drugs. What's your assessment of that?

KASIA MALINKOWSKA: Well I listened to material with great interest because it actually points out I think quite clearly what happens when the US leads on drug policy efforts and when others engage. And I think the call to action that you had President Trump articulate here actually shows very clearly that punitive, sort of heartless humanless approach to drug war is really what the US is pitching to us all. And I am concerned that 130 countries signed on and they've done it, many of them, under extreme pressure from the US. Again the example that we listened to is just an astonishing example of US going after poor fishermen and treating them awfully, sort of in this in this framing of a violent war on drugs that does not consider human rights, that does not consider people's realities.

AMT: As we just heard the Canadian Forces is taking steps that it says will guard against the mistreatment of those suspected of drug smuggling who are in U.S. custody. Yet, Canada also signed on to this U.S. declaration. Do you see a contradiction?

KASIA MALINKOWSKA: Of course. Of course we see the contradiction. I've been looking at the list of the signatories as countries that are signing and I know that Canada came in quite late in the process. And I understand that it did so because of significant pressure from the US. Many other important treaties, I mean NAFTA was in the process of negotiation at that time. So I understand that in a diplomatic space, decisions need to be taken. And that's what Canada chose to do - again, to great concern of many of us who consider Canada a great leader in sort of thoughtful response to the drug problem, and we very much hope that this was sort of one time under pressure. So [unintelligible] U.S. But that Canada will continue to stick to its very thoughtful leadership in the drug space.

AMT: Well what concerns you about the US Declaration unveiled at the U.N. last week?

KASIA MALINKOWSKA: Well so there are a couple of concerns. The first one is when UN documents are produced they are produced with care and they are produced in a process of ongoing collaboration and consultation with others. I actually do not know of many U.N. documents where one country puts it forward and basically announces to everyone else that the language is non-negotiable and that basically they are just to come in and sign on. That is not an international practice. That is not UN practice. So the way the document was put together it's concerning. The pressure that was exerted on country is concerning. But most of all the world came together in 2016 for the U.N. General Assembly session on drugs, a process that was exhaustive, a process where discussions and consultations and negotiations took a while. Out of that process we have something that this called an August 2016 Outcome Document that basically lays out the framing for how the world is to deal with the drug problem and that includes - in addition to questions or issues that were raised by President Trump such as security - it includes issues of human rights and sustainable development and public health and proportionality of sentencing.

AMT: Well that declaration does call for expanded treatment efforts to save lives and promote recovery. Is not enough?

KASIA MALINKOWSKA: Well that is one of very many aspects that we need to take into account. Again the example that you've presented a couple of minutes ago clearly is drug related intervention where public health is not the primary driver. This is about human rights. This is about sustainable development. This is about treating people humanely. And I think this is where U.S. falls dramatically short in its own policy in the United States and as it engages internationally.

AMT: And you know that there is public anxiety around some of these policies that you were promoting. Why do you think that is?

KASIA MALINKOWSKA: Well because we lived the reality for the last 50 years. And I think what happened during the discussions and negotiations in 2016, for the first time there actually were some willingness across multiple states to acknowledge that the current approach is not working, that we'll have more drugs on the market than ever, that they are cheaper than ever, that they are most potent than ever, that the violence related to the drug market is enormous and has been on the increasing. So this is not just a failure. This is a failure of policy. And so we feel like the doors slowly started to open for The States to consider something different and something new and your own country adversely with cannabis regulations that's upcoming. So I see this as a blind closing doors on a discussion that's progressing.

AMT: Let me ask you. So Canada is legalizing marijuana use later this month. How does that fit in with the U.S. declaration?

KASIA MALINKOWSKA: Well exactly. So I would say that if Canada considered this document as a statement of fact at a given moment in time - well you know cannabis is still not regulated in Canada, it will be in a couple of weeks - so I sort of look at it that way but that was a statement of fact at a given moment when that request was made. That moment has passed now and we look forward to Canada's leadership in the cannabis regulation.

AMT: Well that's interesting because obviously if they stand behind a declaration I don't think they said we would just do it for a week. We will bring that to our own government. Thank you Kasia. Kasia Malinowska is director of the Global Drug Policy Program at the Open Society Foundations. She's in New York. We requested an interview with the Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland to learn more about Canada's involvement with the U.S. on this file. A spokesperson from Global Affairs sent us a statement saying quote: "Canada remains a strong supporter of international drug control framework and will continue working with our international partners to advance the objectives of the U.N. drug conventions including through efforts to combat drug trafficking and the crisis of opioid related overdose and death". Well we have a little bit of time to time but something else we're working on.

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[Sound: Mobile notifications]

AMT: Okay. If your hearing too many of those sounds you may be addicted to your social media. You are not alone. There is a man named Jaron Lanier who wants you to give it all up, everything, and he's not a Luddite is one of Microsoft's leading scientists. He's just written a book called Ten Arguments for Deleting your Social Media Accounts Right Now.

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At this point most people getting news that's in some way mediated by these algorithms. The primary job of the algorithms has to get them riled up in order to get them engaged, in order to get them modified for the service of the people who are actually paying for the whole thing, who are off to the side, the advertisers. It's almost impossible to have a rational political debate. Everything becomes a confrontation of irritants. It's bringing down democracies all over the world and it's bringing about bloodshed in developing areas all over the world. It's kind of ruining everything for people. It's a truly malicious ugly force in the world.

AMT: Okay well you won't hear more of what he has to say. Listen tomorrow a challenge today as our Friday host and she will be talking to Jaron Lanier at that time. Stay with us. In our next half hour the age of extremes on screen and off. Cultural Critic Peter Biskind joins me to talk about his idea. He says the sky is falling how Vampires, Zombies, Androids and Superheroes Made America Great for Extremism that just happens to be the title of his book. We'll get into it in about 90 seconds. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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How TV shows like 24 helped set the stage for 'extreme' politics

Guest: Peter Biskind

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1:There's a nuclear device under terrorist control that's on US soil.

VOICE 2: My god.

VOICE 3: I trusted everyone here at CTU to protect my wife and I lost her.

VOICE 2: I know Jack, I was there.

VOICE 3: 100 square miles will be irradiated within seconds. This bomb is going to go off today.

VOICE 2: I know you trust Jack Bauer explicitly but he's obviously suffered some sort of emotional collapse.

VOICe 1: I will do what I have to do.

VOICE 3: When you have a responsibility...

VOICE 4: God, are you going to lecture me on responsibility, Jack? I mean come on, we both know how you work.

VOICE 3: Have your team ready to move on my signal.

VOICE 4: You consider going against the grain some kind of a virtue.

VOICE 2: What can I say? The guy's a little crazy

VOICE 3: I know who you are. I know everything that you've done. Tell me where the bomb is. You're wasting my time.

AMT: There was never a dull moment on the TV series 24. The pace was always frantic and so was the star character. Week in week out the rogue intelligence agent Jack Bauer, played by Kiefer Sutherland, brought the world back from the brink of using torture and wanton violence to save the day. A decade ago when 24 was a going concern it had the power to shock. But compared with today's offerings on television Netflix the big screen the frenetic violence of 24 can seem decidedly mainstream. And when culture critic Peter Biskind looks at that mainstreaming of Extreme Entertainment he sees something larger happening in the world. Off screen. Shows such as 24, he believes, have helped pave the way for the political extremes defining our age. Peter Biskind is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. He is the author of a new book called The Sky Is Falling: How Vampires, Zombies, Androids and Superheroes Made America Great for Extremism. And he joins us from London England. Hello.

PETER BISKIND: Hi.

AMT: So we heard there about a nuclear bomb threatening L.A. and that was only season two. Remind us how extreme did 24 get.

PETER BISKIND: Well you know that clip you just played pretty much exemplifies how extreme that is. It's a ticking time bomb scenario. And 24 specialized in these apocalyptic situations where you had like five minutes before a plague wipes out you know a major American city. It was not the only show in which apocalypses and extreme situations were portrayed. And I think the reason for that is because the extreme situations call for extreme measures that justify extreme measures and certainly Jack Bauer was willing to do anything under the sun. Of course he resorts to torture and it's a justification among other things for torture, revenge, et cetera, et cetera.

AMT: What were the politics of Jack Bauer in 24?

PETER BISKIND: I would call it the extreme right wing show. And I don't think there's much- I mean the politics are really on its sleeve. Some of the shows the politics are rather invisible. I don't think it's too difficult to figure out the politics of 24. He does and he wants. He's working for a government agency but he's willing to break the law whenever he needs to and he's out of control, essentially right wing vigilante and the officials in the agency he works for are usually corrupt or just stupid.

AMT: What effect did the show have on the administration of George W. Bush?

PETER BISKIND: The Bushies loved it and they would hold seminars with the producers of the show. And Scalia for example is famous for saying at some point Jack Bauer has saved millions of people as we certainly wouldn't convict Jack Bauer.

AMT: Scalia who was on the Supreme Court.

PETER BISKIND: During a Supreme Court of Justice. They loved the show and certain ways I think mistook it for reality.

AMT: While this was happening against the backdrop of the war on terror and waterboarding.

PETER BISKIND: It was. And you know I think the show normalized waterboarding because you know it actually showed it and it was effective in the show. I mean whatever information they elicited helped to avert the catastrophe that was threatening them. So in that sense if you watch enough shows which are you know Hero eyes vigilantes and vigilante violence and breaking the law, when a Trump comes along it's not a surprise and it's not that unusual.

AMT: What makes a show or a movie extreme in your view?

PETER BISKIND: To explain extremism you have to understand centrism. And centrism or pluralism that ideology govern America from the end of World War Two pretty much through the Obama administration with a couple of digressions like the Vietnam War of Watergate and Ronald Reagan. Imagine America as a diverse, democratic, tolerant society and always use the metaphor of the big tent. The notion being that the bigger the tent the more different ethnicities and religions and so forth included under the tent, the more stable society and the fewer lunatics running around that side with Molotov cocktails throwing them into the tent. The extremes derided all of that. What was good for the center was bad for the extremes and vice versa. It sort of turned the center inside out both extremes the left and the right share certain characteristics that are often exclusive. They don't believe in compromise. They are intolerant of difference for the right and the left. But you know everything that the center stood for the extremes that turned upside down.

AMT: So what has pushed screen culture more to the extreme?

PETER BISKIND: Well I think a number of things. First of all with the collapse of the center politically although I think it's a kind of a chicken and egg problem, screen culture changed, the politics changed in which one influence the other is sort of hard to untangle. I think we like to use the phrase culture insights enhances what's going on in the political or social realm. One of the things that's happened recently is economic which is that say that the international market for American movies has become more important that the domestic market. And what travels best is action. Character driven movies or script driven movies don't travel to China as well as action movies do in China. It seems to be destined to become the most important market for American for Hollywood films in the world by 2020.

AMT: How does that fit into the issue of extreme, though?

PETER BISKIND: You got a lot of superhero movies and I think superhero movies also can be divided into right and left. In my view the Marvel movies which found their origin in the struggle against fascism prior to World War Two are left wing films. The villains in those movies are a Nazi organization called Hydra which infiltrates all levels of American government and the villains tend to be hydra spies ranging from the president to the senators to all the officials in the movies and on the other hand on the right. You have movies like The Dark Nights in which Batman who is supposed to have a code that's supposed to kill people. He's supposed to round up the criminals and deliver them to the police and then the courts for just a verdict, essentially ends up as a vigilante himself and killing people or watching them be killed and refusing to help them.

AMT: Well before we go to some specifics let's just let's stay with for a second now. You said chicken and egg. Is screen culture creating the change in politics? Or is it reflecting what's already happening on another level?

PETER BISKIND: I think it does both. It reflects and incites and sometimes it's weirdly predictive. Manchurian Candidate released in 1962 predicted Russian interference in the American electoral process. At the same time I think it's kind of an echo chamber that magnifies or enhances, enlarges changes that occur elsewhere have a roots in economics, demographics, political change. So it's both and I think it's a chicken and egg thing, very difficult to disentangle from political change. But I do think it fosters political change or at least paves the way for many instances.

AMT: Well let's look at some examples of movies you call extreme. And I'm going to point out you call this one left extreme. You point to James Cameron's Avatar from 2009. Let's listen to part of the trailer.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Jake Sully. I'd like to talk to you about a fresh start on a new world. You'll be making a Difference.

VOICE 2: I Became a Marine for the hardship. Told myself I can pass any test a man can pass. All I ever wanted was a single thing worth fighting for.

VOICE 3: Ladies and gentlemen. You are not in Kansas anymore. You're on Pandora.

VOICE 4: You should see your faces.

VOICE 3: They have an indigenous population called the Navi. They are very hard to kell.

VOICE 5: This is why we're here because this grey rock sells for 20 million a kilo. Their village happens to be resting on the richest deposit and they need to relocate those savages are threatening our whole operation. We are on the brink of war. You're supposed to be finding a diplomatic solution.

AMT: Well we'll talk about the politics of the sweeping trailer music in a minute. But we heard there our hero, former Marine Jake Solly's, saying he's always wanted one thing worth fighting for. Remind us who does he choose to fight for in the end?

PETER BISKIND: He chooses to fight for the Navi.

AMT: The indigenous people of the planet.

PETER BISKIND: Yes exactly. Who are being exploited for profit essentially for the unobtainium which is worth whatever he said 20 million dollars a kilo.

AMT: I'm reminded of the name of the mineral, unobtainium.

PETER BISKIND: Unobtanian Yes I know it's rather whimsical.

AMT: What makes the movie extreme?

PETER BISKIND: First of all the bad guys are the corporation that's exploiting Pandora and US Marines or their enforcers. You know the army they used to conquer the native people essentially steal their natural resources. This was at a time when America was still fighting hot wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. So to take a large corporation, the basis of American capitalism, plus Marines, American forces, and portray them as bad guys versus a completely victimized alien people - You know aliens are usually portrayed as hostile and aggressive in right wing films - but here they are victims and eventually they're turned and defeat the forces of the corporations.

AMT: What message do you see in that idea of what you call the post human?

PETER BISKIND: Well a lot of these films target humanity. You sort of look at where the crux of the evil comes from they seem to be saying that humans are innately bad news. And a lot of these films both right and left the heroes trying to escape the human and the evangelical right wing films try to fuse with Christ. So it's a strange kind of circular both extremes sort of meet each other.

AMT: You're talking about the Left Behind series?

PETER BISKIND: The Left Behind series and some of the other evangelical films.

AMT: I should note that the Left Behind series one of the big villains is the is the U.N. but it's also this Global News Network. And the scenes for that are shot in the building I'm speaking from.They shot it at the CBC. There you go.

PETER BISKIND: The global news network disperses fake news.

AMT: Yes exactly.

PETER BISKIND: To use the phrase of our president.

AMT: So let's look at the right because you were talking about Batman. You point to the Dark Knight the Batman trilogy with Christian Bale. We've got some clip of that. Here are Batman and his nemesis, Joker, in an interrogation room.

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BATMAN: You wanted me, here I am.

JOKER: I wanted to see what you do. And you didn't disappoint. You let five people die. Even to a guy like me, that's cold.

BATMAN: Where's Dent?

JOKER: Those mob fools want you gone so they can get back to the way things were. But I know the truth. There's no going back. You've changed things. Forever.

BATMAN: Then why do you want to kill me?

JOKER: I don't want to kill you. What would I do without you? Go back to ripping off mob dealers? No no. No, you complete me.

BATMAN: You're garbage. You kill for money.

JOKER: Don't talk like one of them. You're not. Even if you'd like to be. To them you're just a freak. Like me.

AMT: Really powerful dialogue, huh?

PETER BISKIND: Batman obeys the letter of the law. He doesn't kill people but he lets people die when he could save them and the Joker recognizes that and says 'that's cold', admires him for it. So I think Batman has traveled a long distance from the hero that we used to now.

AMT: And it is not what makes it extreme?

PETER BISKIND: That's one of the things that makes it extreme. Yes. And I think that's another film in which people are evil. The Joker creates a sort of thought experiment. He separates the convicts who escaped from prison from the good citizens of Gotham and they both behave the same way.

AMT: You make the point though that in popular culture we're seeing more of that where the individual makes a decision for their preservation but not necessarily what the authorities would, do not necessarily what the wider public would do. And we end up rooting for them.

PETER BISKIND: Yes. Well that's exactly right. I mean the authorities in extremist films are generally either corrupt or MIA. They just disappear because they can't deal with the apocalypses upon them, or they're essentially in cahoots with the bad guys and we're on the side of the Vigilantes the individualists who take the law into their own hands. The mainstream believes in abiding by the rule of law. But the extremes are the opposite.

AMT: I'm thinking of Ozark as you're talking because there's a lot of corruption in there and we kind of root for the guys who aren't as bad as the bad guys or something.

PETER BISKIND: Things have gotten so weird that on a spectrum of bad to worse you're rooting for the bad.

AMT: Who are the heroes in what you see as extreme shows and who are the villains?

PETER BISKIND: The X Men are a good example. Because Bryan Singer who directed a number of the X Men movies is Jewish, he's an orphan and he's also gay. He said explicitly that he sees the x men as outsiders and they're treated as outsiders inside the movies. The authorities are always trying to kill them or after them, are afraid of them or running from them and that's a character, again a characteristic of extremist movies where the authorities try to hunt down the superheroes. In fact and Bred Birds, first Incredibles movie, superheroes are illegal. And they're forced to adopt their secret identities and sit in an office and you know count pennies. And the reason is because they create too much trouble and they're too much of a threat to the center. And it's sort of democracy votes for mediocrity and superheroes are in some sense you know Ayn Randian figures, geniuses with super powers.

AMT: It's interesting we get back to the chicken and egg. It's the idea that the authorities are corrupt that there are other forces that can be at work other ways to do good and save people or yourself. We see that playing out politically.

PETER BISKIND: I mean that's certainly the mantra that Trump uses constantly. He's going to drain the swamp. He's going to put Hillary in jail. Everyone who preceded them was corrupted by Washington. He's a breath of fresh air. He doesn't seem to care much for the way things have been done or the rule of law for that matter.

AMT: He questions major institutions the FBI, the CIA, the intelligence services.

PETER BISKIND: Exactly.

AMT: Let's take a look at the massive cable TV hit The Walking Dead. Humans are facing a zombie apocalypse from the very start of the show. We've got tape of an early scene where hero Rick Grimes pays tribute to a man who fell to the zombies just before he takes an axe to his body.

SOUNDCLIP

Wayne Dunlap, Georgia license, born 1979. He had 28 dollars in his pocket money died. And a picture of a pretty girl. 'With love from Rachel.' He used to be like us; worrying about bills or the rent or The Super Bowl. If I ever find my family I'm going to tell him about Wayne.

[Sound: Axe and splatter]

AMT: Okay. We get the picture. I literally jumped in my seat there. It gets more gruesome from there. One season of the show had 308 dead bodies onscreen in the first eight episodes. And yet you see this is a mainstream show. Am I right?

PETER BISKIND: Yes I do.

AMT: Why?

PETER BISKIND: Well, I know it defies logic but I think it's still a mainstream show because you have a extreme situation calling for extreme measures. You know that's a great scene because it's sort of a death of normality and he's going to tell his kids about this guy who was just a normal everyday Joe. But what the show does really is try on extreme behavior. Rick especially with a leader of a small band of survivors and the show essentially asks the question is any kind of extreme behavior justified in a situation like the one that Rick finds himself in. In fact invariably he comes to the conclusion that, no, extreme behavior is not viable. There are still standards of behavior that you have to abide by. And in one season they come across a colony of cannibals and the cannibals think in mannequin terms. One woman says you're either a butcher or a cow and they've decided to be the butcher. Rick rejects that kind of black and white logic.

AMT: It's interesting though that a show like that can be both mainstream in the sense it's on cable television and mainstream as you described mainstream in this that couldn't happen 20 years ago.

PETER BISKIND: Network television was one of the main purveyors of mainstream values and when cable came along, especially pay cable, which was not answerable to advertisers, a lot of the standards and practices that were in place within networks went out the window. So you had extreme violence, extreme sex. The advent of cable, the advent of the streaming services, have had a big effect on disrupting mainstream culture.

AMT: Does the move to the extremes make TV shows and movies more exciting, more layered?

PETER BISKIND: Yes. I don't think there's any question about it. I mean broadcast network television was so bland that it was almost impossible to watch. I once interviewed David Chase who was the developer and show runner of The Soprano's. And you know he pointed out that mainstream television is devoted to showing that American institutions at work in the courthouse, the schoolhouse, and showing that the agents of these institutions really care about our welfare. And of course in the extreme shows, Sopranos being one of them, they don't care.

AMT: And yet you say it leads to a move to the extremes politically.

PETER BISKIND: It's certainly not the sole cause of extremism in politics. But nevertheless it does play a role and I think it some sense desensitizes us because we're so used to seeing say vigilante violence, that we don't even give it a thought anymore and don't even notice it half the time.

AMT: So with movies and TV shows can contribute to pushing political culture to the extremes, do the people who create this cultural content have a moral responsibility to actually take a look at what they're doing and maybe at times create layered exciting centrism as an alternative?

PETER BISKIND: Well you know centrism was a mixed bag. It was in certain ways a phony centrism because it excluded so much that I think it was asking to be attacked in terms of the kinds of culture produce it was just boring and bland because it excluded so much of the reality of living in America. So I don't think that resurrecting the center is a solution. On the other hand some of these shows are so extreme that it makes you kind of nostalgic for the bland center. I don't think that talking about television and movies in this way and politically and ideologically implies necessarily value judgment. Some of these shows are very you know are a lot of fun to watch. I mean like 24 regardless of its politics. I'm certainly not in favor of censorship of any kind.

AMT: Or propaganda.

PETER BISKIND: A lot of these shows, depending on what your definition propaganda is, a lot of these shows are disguised propaganda. I mean there is a British director named Edgar Wright who directed Shaun of the dead and he compared his films to Trojan horses and said that under the guise of a zombie film he'd smuggled the serious themes into his movies. I mean a lot of the people who make the shows are perfectly conscious of what they're doing.

AMT: You do point to some new films with a centrist message. I've got a clip here from Wonderwoman. It's the final faceoff between Wonder Woman, Diana Prince, and Ares, god of war.

SOUNDCLIP

ARES: Look at this. Mankind did this, not me. They are ugly, filled with hatred, weak,.

DIANA: You are wrong about them. They're everything you say, but so much more.

ARES: [Screams] They do not deserve your protection.

DIANA: It is not about deserve, it's about what you believe. And I believe in love.

ARES: I will destroy you.

AMT: That was a bit of an abridged version because the actual scene goes on for ages.

PETER BISKIND: Well, yes, Wonder Woman and that scene is so fatuous that it makes you root for Ares, at least it did for me. It's interesting because what he's saying is exactly what the woman's mother says; that humans don't deserve you. And by the end of the film she's come around to doubling down on the humans which is what always happens in the center. And there's an interesting exchange with her boyfriend Steve Trevor. She basically winds for the good guys and he says 'you did all this' and she would correct them and says 'We did all this'. You know she essentially brings herself down to a human level and her love conquers all message at the end is just insane. But what's I think evident in this is she repudiates the extremism of her mother which she begins the film with.

AMT: So where do you see us headed culturally, toward a new centrist push further to the extremes?

PETER BISKIND: And I know I tried to end the book optimistically to some degree. I posited a revival of the center but leaning left as opposed to leaning right, which I think it does now. You know whether that actually happens or whether it's just wishful thinking. I have no idea. I mean I keep thinking that these superhero movies are eventually going to die out and people are going to get tired on them but they seem to have an incredible lifespan.

AMT: Well maybe because the audience outgrows them and a new audience shows up.

PETER BISKIND: Perhaps that's true. I think they're going to be with us for a while so I don't anticipate any major changes for the next few years.

AMT: It's fascinating to see these movies and TV shows through the prism that you present. Thanks for your time, Peter.

PETER BISKIND: Well thank you very much for inviting me.

AMT: Culture critic Peter Biskind is the author of The Sky is Falling: How Vampires, Zombies, Androids and Superheroes Made America Great for Extremism. He joined us from London England. What do you think? Did we leave out your favorite? Tell us. Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook go to our websitecbc.ca/thecurrent and click on Contact. That's our program for today. Stay with radio 1 for q. Novelist Jodi Picoult is on the show to discuss her new thriller A Spark of Light. We began this program talking about the Brexit referendum in the role a Canadian company may have played in shaping the outcome. Of course inside the UK people are very focused on the uncertainties facing them when the country severs its ties from the EU. We're going to leave you with some comedy from the BBC Radio 4 show The News Quiz. Bridget Christie and her panel weigh in on the latest Brexit chaos including news that a minister has been appointed to oversee food supplies. Here it is. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti thanks for listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: They've announced today it is going to be a minister so we don't all starve to death. It's an issue. [Audience laughs] I've got a Brexit drawer. So I've stopped Paul of in a [unintelligible] you genuinely, I have genuinely done this that has food that I will eat but I don't like that much. So I'm not tempted to eat it before Brexit. [Audience laughs]

VOICE 2: Brexit is going to be miserable enough without you, we are having just like a cup of soup and pot noodles.

VOICE 1: Yes. And economy teabags and Brown pesto. [Audience laughs]

VOICE 3: They will be parents doing that, won't that to Kids, going 'don't eat it until brexit. [Audience laughs] Those [unintelligible] are for after article 50. What have I told you?'

VOICE 2: This is the 2018 Labour Party Conference which closed on Wednesday with a keynote speech by Jeremy Corbyn. Labour's Brexit policy is like my approach to parenting. I just say whatever they need to hear so we can just get our shoes on and leave the house and/or the EU. [Audinec laughs] Corbyn has chosen to focus on the environment rather than Brexit which is great because next year when we all frantically stockpiling antibiotics and eating each other's pets we can all take comfort in the fact that it's also slightly easier to build a wind farm.

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