Over at Washington Monthly, Jesse Singal asked today for opinions about the term "Obamacare." Is it derogatory or is it neutral? Should supporters use it or not use it? People on both side do use it. It's an easy shorthand, less awkward than "the Affordable Care Act." But in using it, are we ceding a propaganda advantage to the right? I'm inclined to say we are. here's my reasoning.
I think the term is perceived as more negative than neutral or positive. The right certainly uses it a sneering scare term hoping to turn it into a liability, like they did "liberal" for the last thirty-five years. But, even if it was merely neutral, I would still be against using it. This kind of personalizing detracts from the actual content of the legislation and turns approval of the legislation into a referendum of whether or not you like Obama. That is, when you call it Obamacare, people who don't like Obama are immediately inclined to hate it and anything about it.
When you call it "healthcare reform" or the "Affordable Care Act" you neutralize it a little, but people are still inclined to think about it as nothing more than the individual mandate, which almost everyone hates.
However, when you mention actual elements of the legislation, like no discrimination for preexisting conditions, you force people to think about it. If someone hates Obamacare and thinks it should be repealed, a position most Republicans and a lot of independents rally around, ask if that means they want to open the doughnut hole or throw college kids off their parents' insurance or repeal tax credits for the smallest businesses to buy insurance. Most will back off from blanket hostility.
Many of the commenters on Singal's post say we need to take control of the word and make a term of pride. I find that naive. That almost never works. It might be something that can be used by a minority group over a long term--"queer" was brought up in the comments--but politics demands results in the short term. Democrats have nine months to convince people that healthcare reform is a greater positive that a negative.
It's always a bad idea to let the other side define your terms, like saying "Social Security reform" when we mean "privatization" and "benefit cuts." Democrats and liberals are really bad at that game. We used to be better at it--New Deal, Great Society, pro-choice. For the last generation, conservatives have run circles around us. They are great at message discipline and we suck at it. We need to relearn those skills.
Opinions?
Showing posts with label rhetoric. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rhetoric. Show all posts
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Thursday, February 09, 2012
Did Santorum just call Obama the Antichrist? Updated
The short answer is "yes."
For over thirty years, the religious right has been teaching its followers that they are under siege by modern society, by liberals, by secularists, and by the Democratic Party. Anything they find even moderately unpleasant, their leaders tell them is an attack aimed directly at destroying, not just them, but Christianity and Christians. This paranoid world view fits very well into the Protestant end-times narrative. If they already believe that they are under constant attack by vaguely defined, almost irresistible forces it's not much of a jump to believe that those forces are diabolical in nature. And many do make that jump.
Rick Santorum gladly encourages those feelings of paranoia in his audience and is trying to direct them into a force that he can ride into the White House. When Obama says every kid should go to college, Santorum says that's because the Left uses college to indoctrinate our kids. The secular Left, he warns, wants to crush religious dissent, just like in the old Soviet Union. The day day after Obama spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast, Santorum railed that "he has done more to assault religion in this country than any president." Santorum has never been one to shy away from over the top rhetoric including, of course, the Hitler card.
Today he managed to go beyond Hitler and the Soviet Union. Today, he suggested to his followers that Obama is the Antichrist or, at the very least, paving the way for the Antichrist.
So, you might ask, where's the Antichrist in all that talk of the French Revolution? Guillotines have a special place in most versions of the end-time narrative being passed around. The non-raptured Christians who stay behind and battle the Antichrist during the Tribulation are supposed to be martyred on the guillotine if they are captured. End-time writers base this detail on Revelation 20:4.
This is not an obscure detail; this is something that any apocalyptic Christian will instantly recognise. Google "antichrist" and "guillotine" and you will get over two million results. This is something that even secular survivalists have added to their repertoire of things to be paranoid about. Browse through those Google results and you'll find them all tied up with FEMA concentration camps, the New World Order, vapor trails, Bilderberg, and the Illuminati. It shows up in the Ron Paul forums.
The Obama-Antichrist link isn't new. The urban legend debunking site Snopes has had a page on this since 2009. Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, who was arrested last fall for shooting at the White House was quoted by acquaintances as believing Obama was the Antichrist. Till now, that kind of talk has been limited to televangelists and the fringe. Santorum is taking a big leap by bringing it into the mainstream.
The Antichrist angle is new low, even for Santorum. He needs to be called to account for it.
Update: It looks like the guillotine dog-whistle is going to be a regular part of Santorum's stump speech. He repeated it in Oklahoma today.
What a disgusting human being.
For over thirty years, the religious right has been teaching its followers that they are under siege by modern society, by liberals, by secularists, and by the Democratic Party. Anything they find even moderately unpleasant, their leaders tell them is an attack aimed directly at destroying, not just them, but Christianity and Christians. This paranoid world view fits very well into the Protestant end-times narrative. If they already believe that they are under constant attack by vaguely defined, almost irresistible forces it's not much of a jump to believe that those forces are diabolical in nature. And many do make that jump.
Rick Santorum gladly encourages those feelings of paranoia in his audience and is trying to direct them into a force that he can ride into the White House. When Obama says every kid should go to college, Santorum says that's because the Left uses college to indoctrinate our kids. The secular Left, he warns, wants to crush religious dissent, just like in the old Soviet Union. The day day after Obama spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast, Santorum railed that "he has done more to assault religion in this country than any president." Santorum has never been one to shy away from over the top rhetoric including, of course, the Hitler card.
Today he managed to go beyond Hitler and the Soviet Union. Today, he suggested to his followers that Obama is the Antichrist or, at the very least, paving the way for the Antichrist.
They are taking faith and crushing it. Why? Why? When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights, then what’s left is the French Revolution. What’s left is the government that gives you rights. What’s left are no unalienable rights, what’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do and when you’ll do it. What’s left in France became the guillotine. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re a long way from that. But if we do and follow the path of President Obama and his overt hostility to faith in America, then we are headed down that road.
So, you might ask, where's the Antichrist in all that talk of the French Revolution? Guillotines have a special place in most versions of the end-time narrative being passed around. The non-raptured Christians who stay behind and battle the Antichrist during the Tribulation are supposed to be martyred on the guillotine if they are captured. End-time writers base this detail on Revelation 20:4.
"Judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands."
This is not an obscure detail; this is something that any apocalyptic Christian will instantly recognise. Google "antichrist" and "guillotine" and you will get over two million results. This is something that even secular survivalists have added to their repertoire of things to be paranoid about. Browse through those Google results and you'll find them all tied up with FEMA concentration camps, the New World Order, vapor trails, Bilderberg, and the Illuminati. It shows up in the Ron Paul forums.
The Obama-Antichrist link isn't new. The urban legend debunking site Snopes has had a page on this since 2009. Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, who was arrested last fall for shooting at the White House was quoted by acquaintances as believing Obama was the Antichrist. Till now, that kind of talk has been limited to televangelists and the fringe. Santorum is taking a big leap by bringing it into the mainstream.
The Antichrist angle is new low, even for Santorum. He needs to be called to account for it.
Update: It looks like the guillotine dog-whistle is going to be a regular part of Santorum's stump speech. He repeated it in Oklahoma today.
It was a secular revolution on which we relied on the goodness of eacother. This is the left’s view of where America should go. And of course where did France go? To the guillotine. To tyranny. If there are no rights that government needs to respect, then what we see with ObamaCare is just the beginning of what government will do to you.
What a disgusting human being.
Monday, September 12, 2011
So much propaganda in such a little piece
Here's another one of those chain mail style statuses floating around Facebook. As far as I can tell, it's been around since early summer.
Where to start... where to start? Lets start at the bottom.
"No wonder we are a country in debt." The implication here is that our national debt is caused by giving goodies to illegal immigrants, not by running two wars while reducing revenue or from any other cause. For over a year now, politicians and pundits have been telling us that the debt and deficit are the single worst problems facing the country, that they are a threat to the very existence of our country. In that context, this little note is is saying that "they," the illegal immigrants, are destroying America. It is only self-defense to fear and hate them. That is, as our high-school English teachers tried to teach us, the thesis statement of this particular essay.
Now lets go to the top. "If you cross the North Korean border illegally..." Why are we talking about North Korea, Afghanistan, and Iran? Two of these countries are the surviving members of the Axis of Evil and the third is one of the worst places on Earth to live. Is the writer saying that we should view them as role models and try to be more like them? Even though many of the intended readers of the note will say "hell, yeah!" at the idea of killing people who try to cross our borders without the proper papers, that's not really the point of mentioning these three countries. The point is a matter of contrast. The brutal punishments handed out by the Axis of Evil are strong. Handing out goodies is weak and that weakness is destroying us.
Who is it that is creating that weakness? Is it the writer? No. Is it the reader? Presumably, also no. Since the writer and the reader would never do anything to destroy America, it must be someone more powerful. The policies that are destroying America must come from an elite internal enemy, a second "they" aligned with the external enemy to bring about our destruction.
Let's look at that list of goodies. At a casual glance, it would be easy to say, "yeah, if you pretend to be a citizen, you can get the same things citizens get. So what?" But the response this kind of letter is trying get isn't a shrug. It's phrased so that the implication is not that illegal immigrants can get these things, it's they will automatically be given these things.
To make that implication, the writer has engaged in an intellectual bait-and-switch. The US example comes forth in a list, which makes it appear that all four are talking about the same thing. If you enter North Korea illegally you get prison; Afghanistan, shot; Iran, prison; America, presents! But, the four are not the same. If you enter North Korea illegally and get caught, the government sends you to prison. If you enter the US illegally and get caught, the government does not give you presents; it puts you in jail for a while, then deports you. Maybe that's more lenient than shooting you on the spot, but it is not a basket full of goodies.
The list of goodies itself isn't just dishonest; it's calculated to create a strong sense of resentment. The reader sees that illegal immigrants automatically are given a job, health care, child benefits, a place to live (and housing!), and a tax free business for seven years and the reader's expected reaction is, "no one gave me those things. I have to work hard for what I get." A sense of personal injustice is created. Before the reader has a chance to think about anything, their mostly emotional response is further provoked by the sneering conclusion, "No wonder we are a country in debt." Not only is the reader being screwed, but our children and the whole country are being screwed by these foreign invaders and the enemy within.
If the reader had paused long enough to look closely at the list and think about it, they would have seen how laughably absurd it is. A tax free business for seven years? Just for being an illegal immigrant? How do you get these things? Is there a government office that you go to to apply for them? If I go to that office and tell them I'm an illegal immigrant, can I get health care and a seven year tax exemption?
The whole piece would be laughable if it, and others like it, weren't resonating with so many good people. Americans are hurting. The working poor are seeing their hopes of rising into the middle class dashed. Millions in the middle class are facing the real possibility of sliding downward. Additional millions are unemployed, using up their last resources, and facing a national leadership that is indifferent to plight when it isn't openly hostile to them. We're scared, we're hurting, and we want to know how we got into this mess. We want someone to blame. Propaganda like this little note distract us from finding real answers.
Propaganda like this is calculated to bring out the bully in people. We feel powerless in the face of an increasingly cold and hostile world. Rather than confront the forces that are hemming us in and taking away our sense of control over our lives, this kind of propaganda encourages to find someone even more powerless than we are and to take our our frustrations on them. As long as we are fighting each other down here, the people at the top of the food chain have nothing to fear from us.
The person who wrote this little note almost certainly did not have all of this in mind when they wrote it. Many of the elements in the note have been circulating for years. This particular version dates back to the beginning of the summer. A longer email blaming the debt on immigrants was circulating two years ago. It was based on a piece published on a conservative web site two years before that. Scopes traces the seven tax-free years claim back at least to the sixties. In a more generalized form, this kind of politics of resentment is as old as propaganda. And that's old.
So much propaganda in such a little piece.
98% of the people who read this post won't send it on to their crazy uncle...
SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT ... If you cross the North Korean border illegally, you get 12 yrs. hard labor. If you cross the Afghanistan border illegally, you get shot. Two Americans just got eight years for crossing the Iranian border. If you cross the U. S. border illegally you get a job, a drivers license, food stamps, a place to live, health care, housing & child benefits, education, & a tax free business for 7 yrs ...No wonder we are a country in debt. Re-post if you agree
Where to start... where to start? Lets start at the bottom.
"No wonder we are a country in debt." The implication here is that our national debt is caused by giving goodies to illegal immigrants, not by running two wars while reducing revenue or from any other cause. For over a year now, politicians and pundits have been telling us that the debt and deficit are the single worst problems facing the country, that they are a threat to the very existence of our country. In that context, this little note is is saying that "they," the illegal immigrants, are destroying America. It is only self-defense to fear and hate them. That is, as our high-school English teachers tried to teach us, the thesis statement of this particular essay.
Now lets go to the top. "If you cross the North Korean border illegally..." Why are we talking about North Korea, Afghanistan, and Iran? Two of these countries are the surviving members of the Axis of Evil and the third is one of the worst places on Earth to live. Is the writer saying that we should view them as role models and try to be more like them? Even though many of the intended readers of the note will say "hell, yeah!" at the idea of killing people who try to cross our borders without the proper papers, that's not really the point of mentioning these three countries. The point is a matter of contrast. The brutal punishments handed out by the Axis of Evil are strong. Handing out goodies is weak and that weakness is destroying us.
Who is it that is creating that weakness? Is it the writer? No. Is it the reader? Presumably, also no. Since the writer and the reader would never do anything to destroy America, it must be someone more powerful. The policies that are destroying America must come from an elite internal enemy, a second "they" aligned with the external enemy to bring about our destruction.
Let's look at that list of goodies. At a casual glance, it would be easy to say, "yeah, if you pretend to be a citizen, you can get the same things citizens get. So what?" But the response this kind of letter is trying get isn't a shrug. It's phrased so that the implication is not that illegal immigrants can get these things, it's they will automatically be given these things.
To make that implication, the writer has engaged in an intellectual bait-and-switch. The US example comes forth in a list, which makes it appear that all four are talking about the same thing. If you enter North Korea illegally you get prison; Afghanistan, shot; Iran, prison; America, presents! But, the four are not the same. If you enter North Korea illegally and get caught, the government sends you to prison. If you enter the US illegally and get caught, the government does not give you presents; it puts you in jail for a while, then deports you. Maybe that's more lenient than shooting you on the spot, but it is not a basket full of goodies.
The list of goodies itself isn't just dishonest; it's calculated to create a strong sense of resentment. The reader sees that illegal immigrants automatically are given a job, health care, child benefits, a place to live (and housing!), and a tax free business for seven years and the reader's expected reaction is, "no one gave me those things. I have to work hard for what I get." A sense of personal injustice is created. Before the reader has a chance to think about anything, their mostly emotional response is further provoked by the sneering conclusion, "No wonder we are a country in debt." Not only is the reader being screwed, but our children and the whole country are being screwed by these foreign invaders and the enemy within.
If the reader had paused long enough to look closely at the list and think about it, they would have seen how laughably absurd it is. A tax free business for seven years? Just for being an illegal immigrant? How do you get these things? Is there a government office that you go to to apply for them? If I go to that office and tell them I'm an illegal immigrant, can I get health care and a seven year tax exemption?
The whole piece would be laughable if it, and others like it, weren't resonating with so many good people. Americans are hurting. The working poor are seeing their hopes of rising into the middle class dashed. Millions in the middle class are facing the real possibility of sliding downward. Additional millions are unemployed, using up their last resources, and facing a national leadership that is indifferent to plight when it isn't openly hostile to them. We're scared, we're hurting, and we want to know how we got into this mess. We want someone to blame. Propaganda like this little note distract us from finding real answers.
Propaganda like this is calculated to bring out the bully in people. We feel powerless in the face of an increasingly cold and hostile world. Rather than confront the forces that are hemming us in and taking away our sense of control over our lives, this kind of propaganda encourages to find someone even more powerless than we are and to take our our frustrations on them. As long as we are fighting each other down here, the people at the top of the food chain have nothing to fear from us.
The person who wrote this little note almost certainly did not have all of this in mind when they wrote it. Many of the elements in the note have been circulating for years. This particular version dates back to the beginning of the summer. A longer email blaming the debt on immigrants was circulating two years ago. It was based on a piece published on a conservative web site two years before that. Scopes traces the seven tax-free years claim back at least to the sixties. In a more generalized form, this kind of politics of resentment is as old as propaganda. And that's old.
So much propaganda in such a little piece.
- Scapegoating. Check.
- Conspiratorial paranoia. Check.
- False equivalency. Check.
- politics of resentment. Check.
- Bald-faced lies. Check.
- Divide and conquer. Check and check.
98% of the people who read this post won't send it on to their crazy uncle...
Thursday, September 01, 2011
They are not the same
Yesterday, disgusted over Boehner telling Obama that the time he requested to address Congress just wasn't convenient, I posted on Facebook:
I received some "likes" from the usual liberal suspects. I also received some surprisingly tough pushback from friends who I think would all call themselves independent. All of them forcefully argue that Democrats are just as bad a Republicans. One says Bush had it tougher. Another said " The bile ... oozes out about equally from both sides of the aisle." I tried to clarify several times that I'm not talking about pundits, talk radio, or some guy with a blog. I'm talking office holding politicians and republican Party officials. I offered this as evidence:
You might have noticed that I have no patience with arguments based on a false equivalency. The behavior of the two parties is not the same and hasn't even been close since the early nineties. Again, there have always been nuts in the streets, but before about '92 both parties kept them at an arm's length. For the last two decades, the Republicans have been embracing their worst extremists and legitimizing them and the Democrats have not.
I'm going to throw this open to a new audience. Understand, I'm not looking for people to gang up on my friends, I really want to know how equal you think it is. If you know someone with a good argument for equal nastiness from the Democrats, I'd like to hear it. Give me examples. Are there equivalent cases of Democratic Party officials and office holders treating a Republican President the way Republicans are treating this Democratic President? Feel free to go back through both Bush's, Reagan and even Nixon.
I have never seen a president treated with as much disrespect by the other party as Obama by the Republicans. Not Nixon by the Democrats. Not Bush by the Democrats. Not even Clinton by the Republicans. It seems there is no bottom to how low the modern Republican Party will go.
I received some "likes" from the usual liberal suspects. I also received some surprisingly tough pushback from friends who I think would all call themselves independent. All of them forcefully argue that Democrats are just as bad a Republicans. One says Bush had it tougher. Another said " The bile ... oozes out about equally from both sides of the aisle." I tried to clarify several times that I'm not talking about pundits, talk radio, or some guy with a blog. I'm talking office holding politicians and republican Party officials. I offered this as evidence:
- What is the Democratic eqivalent of a Republican mayor and party official sending around pictures of a watermelon patch replacing the White House lawn?
- What is the Democratic eqivalent of a member of Congress shouting "you lie" during a presidential address?
- What is the Democratic eqivalent of a member of Congress calling the president "God's punishment on us" as leo Berman did?
- What is the Democratic eqivalent of members of Congress questioning the president's citizenship or encouraging those that do?
- What is the Democratic eqivalent of a member of Congress calling the president "an enemy of humanity" as Trent Franks did?
- What is the Democratic eqivalent of a member of Congress saying of the president that they are "very concerned that he may have anti-American views” as Michele Bachmann did or un-American as Trent Franks did?
- What is the Democratic eqivalent of members of Congress saying the President leads a “gangster government” as Steve King and Bachmann did?
- What is the Democratic eqivalent of a governor saying a presidential contender "pals around with terrorists?"
- What is the Democratic eqivalent of a member of Congress saying the president should be impeached even though he can't think of a reason why as Michael Burgess did?
- What is the Democratic eqivalent of a member of Congress comparing the president to Hitler as Paul Broun has done? For decades that has been the hallmark of extremist political commentary.
You might have noticed that I have no patience with arguments based on a false equivalency. The behavior of the two parties is not the same and hasn't even been close since the early nineties. Again, there have always been nuts in the streets, but before about '92 both parties kept them at an arm's length. For the last two decades, the Republicans have been embracing their worst extremists and legitimizing them and the Democrats have not.
I'm going to throw this open to a new audience. Understand, I'm not looking for people to gang up on my friends, I really want to know how equal you think it is. If you know someone with a good argument for equal nastiness from the Democrats, I'd like to hear it. Give me examples. Are there equivalent cases of Democratic Party officials and office holders treating a Republican President the way Republicans are treating this Democratic President? Feel free to go back through both Bush's, Reagan and even Nixon.
Monday, May 02, 2011
My predictions
Starting Monday, the conservative talking points will be:
- Osama really isn't that important anymore,
- the special ops troops deserve the credit, not Obama, and
- how does this lower the deficit and/or gas prices?
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Violent escalation
My friend David Neiwert has been warning us for years that this was coming. Tea Party activists appear to have attempted to murder a member of congress.
Words have consequences. For almost twenty years, the rhetoric of the far right has been getting more violent and eliminationist. Eliminationism is a particular form of rhetoric that not only dehumanizes the oppositon, but that portrays them as a threat to the audience's very life--a threat that must be eliminated if they are to survive. It takes us-and-them rhetoric and cranks it up to eleven: only one of us can live. The most common imagery in this style of rhetoric is painting the opposition as a disease or as vermin. Of course, a few comments of this kind will show up in any heated debate, but when it is a steady drumbeat, day after day, it amounts to nothing less than inciting a mob to massacre the other side. Stalin used it to prepare the countryside for his dekulakization massacres, Hitler to go after Jews and Communists, Radio Rwanda scced the Hutu on the Tutsi, and Milososovic's allies used it start the ethnic cleansing of Bosnia. Death panels, baby killers, end of America, treason, armed rebellion, secession. At one time, no office holding politicial would be seen near such talk; now it the--the Republicans--who are doing the talking.
The Virginia Tea Partiers really, really hate Rep. Tom Perriello. In November the Danville TEA Party planned to hold an event where they would burn Perriello and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in effigy. The event was eventually called off when the farmer, whose land they were going to use, backed out. Yesterday, Sarah Palin today tweeted: "Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: 'Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!' Pls see my Facebook page." Her Facebook page showed a map with the districts of twenty Democratic House members marked with crosshairs. Perriello was one of them.
On Monday, Mike Troxel, an organizer for the Lynchburg Tea Party, published what he thought was Perriello's home address with the message, "I personally believe it’s so important for representatives to remain fully grounded and to remember exactly what it is their constituents are saying and how they are telling them to vote. Nothing quite does that like a good face-to-face chat. It has a much more personal touch to it." In fact, Troxel the address published does not belong to Perriello; it belongs to Perriello's brother, Bo, who lives there with his wife and four young children. When told of this fact by the online magazine Politico, Troxel said he would leave the address up until the congressman's office proded him with Perriello's real home address. Troxel also ignored a direct request fromy Perriello's office to take down the address.
Nigel Coleman, the Danville Tea Party Leader who wanted to burn Perriello in effigy last fall, copied the address from Troxel's blog and posted it on his Facebook page with the message, "This is Rep. Thomas Stuart Price Perriello’s home address ... I ain’t holding back anymore!!" When notified by a local paper that, like Troxel, he had put up the wrong address and was actually sending people to the home of Perriello's brother, Coleman shrugged it off. "Do you mean I posted his brother’s address on my Facebook?" Coleman wrote. "Oh well, collateral damage."
Damage is what it almost was. Yesterday, Bo Perriello recieved a threatening letter. In the evening he smelled gas and discovered that the line to a propane tank on his patio had been slashed. FBI, local police, and fire marshalls are investigating the incident as a possible threat on a member of congress. Coleman's cavalier attitude towards collateral damage has dissolved. He is "shocked" and "almost speechless," he "obviously condemn[s] these actions." Naturally, he also denies any responsibility, "we don’t know this is a related event."
Democratic congress members arriving for the healthcare vote walked a gauntlet of angry Tea Partiers. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) was spat on by a protestor. John Lewis (D-GA), a civil rights icon, was called a "ni--er." A small crowd began chanting "fa--t" at Barney Frank (D-MA). Now that intimidation has failed, they are moving on to unveiled threats and actual vilolence. Over the weekend, at least five Democrtaic offices were vandalized. Louise Slaughter's office received a phone message threatening to assasinate the children of lawmakers who voted for the bill. At least ten members of congress have requested extra security. The Virginia police have stepped up patrols in Bo Perriello's neighborhood.
Like Nigel Coleman, the Tea Party leaders, talk radio, and Fox News pundits will all express horror at near tragedy with the Perriellos. They will say the attempted arsonist was a lone crazy who has no connection to them. They will deny that their words have consequences. And, when they are done with their pious denials, they will manage to slip in that, anyway, it's all Perriello and the Democrats' faults for making us mad. Then they will go on demonizing their fellow Americans and priming the pump for the next violent attack.
Words have consequences. For almost twenty years, the rhetoric of the far right has been getting more violent and eliminationist. Eliminationism is a particular form of rhetoric that not only dehumanizes the oppositon, but that portrays them as a threat to the audience's very life--a threat that must be eliminated if they are to survive. It takes us-and-them rhetoric and cranks it up to eleven: only one of us can live. The most common imagery in this style of rhetoric is painting the opposition as a disease or as vermin. Of course, a few comments of this kind will show up in any heated debate, but when it is a steady drumbeat, day after day, it amounts to nothing less than inciting a mob to massacre the other side. Stalin used it to prepare the countryside for his dekulakization massacres, Hitler to go after Jews and Communists, Radio Rwanda scced the Hutu on the Tutsi, and Milososovic's allies used it start the ethnic cleansing of Bosnia. Death panels, baby killers, end of America, treason, armed rebellion, secession. At one time, no office holding politicial would be seen near such talk; now it the--the Republicans--who are doing the talking.
The Virginia Tea Partiers really, really hate Rep. Tom Perriello. In November the Danville TEA Party planned to hold an event where they would burn Perriello and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in effigy. The event was eventually called off when the farmer, whose land they were going to use, backed out. Yesterday, Sarah Palin today tweeted: "Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: 'Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!' Pls see my Facebook page." Her Facebook page showed a map with the districts of twenty Democratic House members marked with crosshairs. Perriello was one of them.
On Monday, Mike Troxel, an organizer for the Lynchburg Tea Party, published what he thought was Perriello's home address with the message, "I personally believe it’s so important for representatives to remain fully grounded and to remember exactly what it is their constituents are saying and how they are telling them to vote. Nothing quite does that like a good face-to-face chat. It has a much more personal touch to it." In fact, Troxel the address published does not belong to Perriello; it belongs to Perriello's brother, Bo, who lives there with his wife and four young children. When told of this fact by the online magazine Politico, Troxel said he would leave the address up until the congressman's office proded him with Perriello's real home address. Troxel also ignored a direct request fromy Perriello's office to take down the address.
Nigel Coleman, the Danville Tea Party Leader who wanted to burn Perriello in effigy last fall, copied the address from Troxel's blog and posted it on his Facebook page with the message, "This is Rep. Thomas Stuart Price Perriello’s home address ... I ain’t holding back anymore!!" When notified by a local paper that, like Troxel, he had put up the wrong address and was actually sending people to the home of Perriello's brother, Coleman shrugged it off. "Do you mean I posted his brother’s address on my Facebook?" Coleman wrote. "Oh well, collateral damage."
Damage is what it almost was. Yesterday, Bo Perriello recieved a threatening letter. In the evening he smelled gas and discovered that the line to a propane tank on his patio had been slashed. FBI, local police, and fire marshalls are investigating the incident as a possible threat on a member of congress. Coleman's cavalier attitude towards collateral damage has dissolved. He is "shocked" and "almost speechless," he "obviously condemn[s] these actions." Naturally, he also denies any responsibility, "we don’t know this is a related event."
Democratic congress members arriving for the healthcare vote walked a gauntlet of angry Tea Partiers. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) was spat on by a protestor. John Lewis (D-GA), a civil rights icon, was called a "ni--er." A small crowd began chanting "fa--t" at Barney Frank (D-MA). Now that intimidation has failed, they are moving on to unveiled threats and actual vilolence. Over the weekend, at least five Democrtaic offices were vandalized. Louise Slaughter's office received a phone message threatening to assasinate the children of lawmakers who voted for the bill. At least ten members of congress have requested extra security. The Virginia police have stepped up patrols in Bo Perriello's neighborhood.
Like Nigel Coleman, the Tea Party leaders, talk radio, and Fox News pundits will all express horror at near tragedy with the Perriellos. They will say the attempted arsonist was a lone crazy who has no connection to them. They will deny that their words have consequences. And, when they are done with their pious denials, they will manage to slip in that, anyway, it's all Perriello and the Democrats' faults for making us mad. Then they will go on demonizing their fellow Americans and priming the pump for the next violent attack.
Monday, December 14, 2009
How does that work?
It just wouldn't have been a news week if we didn't have a group of fear mongering Republicans warning that giving Guantanamo prisoners a fair trial is wrong and will lead to a nuclear attack on the United States. The Constitution can't be trusted to keep us safe and should be shelved any time we're scared, goes their argument, and we should be scared right now!! Steve King (R-IA) was given the honor of making the predictable attack on the judicial branch. Activist judges, he warned, would make activist decisions to actively turn terrorists loose on the streets of your home town!! Actively. In case we might miss the point that Judges are the primary threat to our safety, they held their press conference in front of the Supreme Court and festooned their lecterns with the messages, "Protect our homeland" and "Keep terrorists out of America." Trent Franks (R-AZ) got to wave the mushroom cloud. Giving the suspects "a megaphone to speak to the planet ... only hastens the danger" of a nuclear attack.
I'm curious about how that works. Do the terrorists already have nuclear weapons that they're not using? If we give the prisoners a megaphone in the form of a fair trial, will that finally provoke them into using their nuclear arsenal? Or is it that giving the prisoners a fair trial will somehow magically lead to the terrorists gaining nuclear weapons? What is so provocative about a trial? Didn't they know we had these prisoners? Didn't they know the prisoners had been abused? Is there anyone on the planet who doesn't know that? What's the mechanism, what's the cause and effect that leads from trial to mushroom cloud? Can anyone explain this to me?
I'm curious about how that works. Do the terrorists already have nuclear weapons that they're not using? If we give the prisoners a megaphone in the form of a fair trial, will that finally provoke them into using their nuclear arsenal? Or is it that giving the prisoners a fair trial will somehow magically lead to the terrorists gaining nuclear weapons? What is so provocative about a trial? Didn't they know we had these prisoners? Didn't they know the prisoners had been abused? Is there anyone on the planet who doesn't know that? What's the mechanism, what's the cause and effect that leads from trial to mushroom cloud? Can anyone explain this to me?
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Bad History
History & Policy has started a series called Bad History aimed at dismantling historical myths in contemporary discourse and at exposing the spinning of history for political and PR purposes. The series is written by professional historians, members of the History & Policy Network. Most of the pieces, so far, deal with the misuse of history in British discourse but they should be of interest to anyone interested in history, rhetoric, and propaganda.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Vile hyperbole
Over the last few years, the rhetoric used by Republicans, right-wing pundits, and other conservative leaders to demonize the left has become more and more extreme. Ever since Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism was published, no slur has been off bounds. Even the most middle of the road Democrats are regularly accused of wanting to destroy the economy or surrender to the enemies of America. Republican representatives take to the floor congress to call the president a socialist. Conservative talk show hosts call anyone to the left of Ben Nelson would be tyrants, communists, fascists, often both, and embrace the most ridiculous conspiracy theories. Leaders of the Republican Party rush to pander to the most unhinged members of the right. With that state of affairs, this shouldn't surprise me, and yet it does.
Operation Free is an organization of veterans trying to educate Americans on the potential threats to national security posed by dependence on foreign oil and ignoring climate change. They have, like everyone these days, organized a bus tour to take their message to towns across America.* Along the way, they try to meet with local legislators. Here is the letter from Republican Pennsylvania State Representative Daryl Metcalfe declining their invitation:
Keep in mind that this is a letter to the veterans calling them traitors and not an offhand comment to someone else about the bus tour. This is what we have come to, Republicans are calling veterans traitors for not supporting the anti-science position of the Republican Party.
Correction and Update: Metcalfe did not send his despicable letter to Operation Free, he sent it to every member of the Pennsylvania State House. Metcalfe, who sits on the House Veteran Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee, not only has refused to apologize, today he repeated his claim that supporting cap-and-trade legislation is a violation of a soldier's oath to uphold the constitution and that makes them traitors. This isn't the end this conflict; Pennsylvania newspapers and fellow statehouse members have started to condemn Metcalfe for his slur.
* I wish I'd had the foresight about two years ago to invest in the comapanies that lease out tour buses. Their investors must be rolling in dough about now.
Operation Free is an organization of veterans trying to educate Americans on the potential threats to national security posed by dependence on foreign oil and ignoring climate change. They have, like everyone these days, organized a bus tour to take their message to towns across America.* Along the way, they try to meet with local legislators. Here is the letter from Republican Pennsylvania State Representative Daryl Metcalfe declining their invitation:
I believe that any veteran lending their name, to promote the leftist propaganda of global warming and climate change, in an effort to control more of the wealth created in our economy, through cap and tax type policies, all in the name of national security, is a traitor to the oath he or she took defend the Constitution of our great nation!
Remember Benedict Arnold before giving credibility to a veteran who uses their service as a means to promote a leftist agenda.
Drill Baby Drill!!!
Keep in mind that this is a letter to the veterans calling them traitors and not an offhand comment to someone else about the bus tour. This is what we have come to, Republicans are calling veterans traitors for not supporting the anti-science position of the Republican Party.
Correction and Update: Metcalfe did not send his despicable letter to Operation Free, he sent it to every member of the Pennsylvania State House. Metcalfe, who sits on the House Veteran Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee, not only has refused to apologize, today he repeated his claim that supporting cap-and-trade legislation is a violation of a soldier's oath to uphold the constitution and that makes them traitors. This isn't the end this conflict; Pennsylvania newspapers and fellow statehouse members have started to condemn Metcalfe for his slur.
* I wish I'd had the foresight about two years ago to invest in the comapanies that lease out tour buses. Their investors must be rolling in dough about now.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Nasty and mean with a side of stupid
There is still far too much of this kind of thing going on in America. Here's the nasty and mean part:
New York bashing is fairly standard conservative fare. Even the most moderate Republican has no problem bashing New York, Berkeley, San Francisco, and, now, Chicago on the floor of Congress (though they would demand instant censure for any Democrat who made the same kind of comments about "the Heartland"). Gay bashing is also fairly standard conservative fare, though some conservatives have broken ranks and most office-holding Republicans aren't honest enough about their fear and hatred to say "fag" in public. Bashing modern art is standard conservative fare. It's the other part of the formulation that should raise eyebrows. Mr. Burk didn't seem to think giving tax money to a "fag in New York" raised enough outrage, upped the ante to "black fag in New York."
In the conservative mythos, New York represents a foreign, immoral place that looks down on the self-proclaimed "real America." The fear that someone, somewhere is looking down on them, and the anger that that thought engenders, is the core element of the politics of resentment. Artists share the same foreign and immoral status as the cities in which they live. Hollywood and modern artists are seen as conspiratorial forces seeking denigrate all that is good and pure in "real America." Fag is a caricatured other meant to evoke fear and revulsion. There are enormous literatures for both of these.* Tying the them together is a no-brainer for a twentieth century conservative because all three are acceptable, and perennial targets for conservatives.
This brings us back to black. Black represents a third acceptable target: the undeserving. Deserving is an important qualification in the conservative conception of compassion and charity. An impoverished widow with children is more deserving of charity than an impoverished mother who was never married. A raped virgin is more deserving of compassion (and possibly an abortion) than a sexually experienced woman who is raped. Deserving usually involves a strong element of moral judgment. It also involves a strong element of class and regional prejudice. Urban poor are less deserving of compassion and charity than rural poor. People who start out poor are less deserving of compassion and charity than members of the middle classes who slip into poverty. What is usually left unsaid, but implied, is the race of the urban, coastal, and chronically poor--the undeserving poor. What was the race of Reagan's Cadillac driving welfare mother? She wasn't white. Burk broke a strong taboo by saying out loud that the despised other stealing the taxes of hard-working real Americans is black.
The racist angle is almost lost in the story and comments. That surprises me. The headline for the story is "Geneva High School teacher accused of anti-gay remark" with a subtitle of "Gay high school student wants him fired." The only mention that the racist aspect is the first sentence: "A Geneva High School teacher is being accused of making anti-gay and racist comments in his classroom." The comments on the story also focus almost entirely on gay slur, with the the commenters split between "no prejudice is acceptable" and "it's PC run amok, the little faggot should stop being such a crybaby." There has been a noticeable increase in white resentment since the election, but most of it has been couched in dog-whistle terms like Reagan's Cadillac driving welfare mom. Has open racism in America managed to become so pervasive in a mere ten months that when someone complains about "some black fag [taking] pictures of other black fags" that no one notices the black part?
I probably went on too long about that. Here's the stupid part:
This the the classic non-apology. Burk's attorney is not saying his client is sorry he said it; he's saying he's sorry if anyone was offended. If no one was offended, does that mean he's not sorry? It puts the onus for the whole situation on the offended for being offended. It's like the old joke about getting a child to apologize: "John, tell your sister your sorry for calling her stupid." "Okay. I'm sorry you're stupid." That isn't an apology.
Tegeler adds a new level of stupid to the formula when he says "Mr. Burk's biggest problem is he does not want to intentionally offend anybody." Shouldn't not wanting to offend anybody be a good thing? Burk wouldn't have a problem if he was more confident in his offensiveness? Tegeler clearly has the right stuff to be a Washington insider. He should say goodbye to Geneva, Illinois and get himself a job as spokesman for a Senator--preferably a white, heterosexual one with no artistic ability.
* Artists and gays also involve the whole issue of fear of pollution, culturally and bodily, but I've already gone way too psychological and social sciencey here.
Dave Burk, who teaches [high-school] consumer education, is accused of making the comments by his students during an Oct. 5 lecture on tax money involving the National Endowment for the Arts.
"How would you feel about your tax dollars going to pay some black fag in New York to take pictures of other black fags?" Burk allegedly asked, according to student Jordan Hunter.
[...]
Hunter, who reported Burk to the administration, wants Burk fired.
"If he wants to talk about a poor place to put our tax dollars, I think his salary is a poor place to put our tax dollars," said Hunter, who is gay.
Hunter said several other students have contacted him, saying Burk repeated the same phrase in all his classes.
New York bashing is fairly standard conservative fare. Even the most moderate Republican has no problem bashing New York, Berkeley, San Francisco, and, now, Chicago on the floor of Congress (though they would demand instant censure for any Democrat who made the same kind of comments about "the Heartland"). Gay bashing is also fairly standard conservative fare, though some conservatives have broken ranks and most office-holding Republicans aren't honest enough about their fear and hatred to say "fag" in public. Bashing modern art is standard conservative fare. It's the other part of the formulation that should raise eyebrows. Mr. Burk didn't seem to think giving tax money to a "fag in New York" raised enough outrage, upped the ante to "black fag in New York."
In the conservative mythos, New York represents a foreign, immoral place that looks down on the self-proclaimed "real America." The fear that someone, somewhere is looking down on them, and the anger that that thought engenders, is the core element of the politics of resentment. Artists share the same foreign and immoral status as the cities in which they live. Hollywood and modern artists are seen as conspiratorial forces seeking denigrate all that is good and pure in "real America." Fag is a caricatured other meant to evoke fear and revulsion. There are enormous literatures for both of these.* Tying the them together is a no-brainer for a twentieth century conservative because all three are acceptable, and perennial targets for conservatives.
This brings us back to black. Black represents a third acceptable target: the undeserving. Deserving is an important qualification in the conservative conception of compassion and charity. An impoverished widow with children is more deserving of charity than an impoverished mother who was never married. A raped virgin is more deserving of compassion (and possibly an abortion) than a sexually experienced woman who is raped. Deserving usually involves a strong element of moral judgment. It also involves a strong element of class and regional prejudice. Urban poor are less deserving of compassion and charity than rural poor. People who start out poor are less deserving of compassion and charity than members of the middle classes who slip into poverty. What is usually left unsaid, but implied, is the race of the urban, coastal, and chronically poor--the undeserving poor. What was the race of Reagan's Cadillac driving welfare mother? She wasn't white. Burk broke a strong taboo by saying out loud that the despised other stealing the taxes of hard-working real Americans is black.
The racist angle is almost lost in the story and comments. That surprises me. The headline for the story is "Geneva High School teacher accused of anti-gay remark" with a subtitle of "Gay high school student wants him fired." The only mention that the racist aspect is the first sentence: "A Geneva High School teacher is being accused of making anti-gay and racist comments in his classroom." The comments on the story also focus almost entirely on gay slur, with the the commenters split between "no prejudice is acceptable" and "it's PC run amok, the little faggot should stop being such a crybaby." There has been a noticeable increase in white resentment since the election, but most of it has been couched in dog-whistle terms like Reagan's Cadillac driving welfare mom. Has open racism in America managed to become so pervasive in a mere ten months that when someone complains about "some black fag [taking] pictures of other black fags" that no one notices the black part?
I probably went on too long about that. Here's the stupid part:
Burk's attorney, D.J. Tegeler, said Monday he was not personally aware of the terms Burk used to his classes, but that Burk apologizes for any offense.
"Mr. Burk is cooperating fully with both the principal, the dean of students and the school board," Tegeler said. "Mr. Burk's biggest problem is he does not want to intentionally offend anybody and if he did, he apologizes."
This the the classic non-apology. Burk's attorney is not saying his client is sorry he said it; he's saying he's sorry if anyone was offended. If no one was offended, does that mean he's not sorry? It puts the onus for the whole situation on the offended for being offended. It's like the old joke about getting a child to apologize: "John, tell your sister your sorry for calling her stupid." "Okay. I'm sorry you're stupid." That isn't an apology.
Tegeler adds a new level of stupid to the formula when he says "Mr. Burk's biggest problem is he does not want to intentionally offend anybody." Shouldn't not wanting to offend anybody be a good thing? Burk wouldn't have a problem if he was more confident in his offensiveness? Tegeler clearly has the right stuff to be a Washington insider. He should say goodbye to Geneva, Illinois and get himself a job as spokesman for a Senator--preferably a white, heterosexual one with no artistic ability.
* Artists and gays also involve the whole issue of fear of pollution, culturally and bodily, but I've already gone way too psychological and social sciencey here.
Monday, October 05, 2009
Not the greatest generation
Ryan Watkins, guest posting at Think Progress, caught this little tid-bit in an interview of former Ron Paul economic adviser Peter Schiff that appeared in the Washington Post yesterday. Schiff is running as a Republican for Connecticut’s U.S. Senate seat which is currently held by Chris Dodd.
You gotta love the qualifications: I'm not saying I'm heroic; and I'm not saying I'm making the same same sacrifices as the Greatest Generation(tm); and the money is better in politics, so's the food, and the shoes; and I didn't mean to imply that anyone is a Nazi (okay, maybe I did); and I get to spend a lot more time with my wife/mistress/boy-toy than a GI would have; and I'm fighting against other Americans rather than for all Americans; but, other than that (and a bunch of other things), it's exactly the same!
I'm interrupting my career. It's not like I want my new career in politics. But I'm willing to interrupt it the same way that somebody interrupted their career and joined World War II and went off to fight the Nazis. I don't think that I'm that heroic, and I don't think I'm risking as much as a soldier. But it's the same principle.
You gotta love the qualifications: I'm not saying I'm heroic; and I'm not saying I'm making the same same sacrifices as the Greatest Generation(tm); and the money is better in politics, so's the food, and the shoes; and I didn't mean to imply that anyone is a Nazi (okay, maybe I did); and I get to spend a lot more time with my wife/mistress/boy-toy than a GI would have; and I'm fighting against other Americans rather than for all Americans; but, other than that (and a bunch of other things), it's exactly the same!
Thursday, September 24, 2009
You call that patriotism?
Chuck Norris is calling on his fellow tea partiers to deface the American flag. I'm not kidding.
Really? Stain the flag? I have a better idea Chuck, maybe you could show your dissatisfaction with the government by stomping on the flag or burning it.
I'm not an aging former martial arts star with a Townhall column, so maybe I'm not up to snuff on this, but, when I was in the Cub Scouts, they taught us that soiling the flag was a definite no-no. It's this kind of suggestion that usually drives conservatives to write, call and shout at their congressional representatives to pass laws and constitutional amendments criminalizing flag desecration. For the record, I oppose such laws because I see them as the thin end of the wedge that leads to complete abandonment of the First Amendment. However, i do expect people who claim to respect the flag to actually - you know - respect the flag. This kind of suggestion seem to me to be of a part with those who want to demonstrate their patriotism by seceding and dismantling the Union.
Beyond the forehead smacking idiocy of his suggestion, Norris' column and the comments that follow offer an insightful glimpse into what my friend David Neiwert calls the eliminationist mindset. Norris sets up the us-or-them framework. Naturally, he calls his side the "patriots." What's surprising is what he calls his side's perceived enemies (that's us, dear readers); he calls us "modernists." While conservatism is anti-modern at its core, it's rare to see such an open admission from anyone, except the most extreme fundamentalist, that they are in revolt against the modernity. They usually claim that they are opposed to certain cultural aspects of modernity, not the whole shebang. More ominously, he says of the teabagger movement "we are seeking to protect our nation against enemies of our republic from within (his italics).
Norris' fans take up his Manichean frame and run straight towards the eliminationist goal zone. Cliff in comment #134 says of us, "this group is anti-American. They are traitors in our midst." Linda at #141 confesses, "This is the first time I have ever felt that we are truly being betrayed by our President and that instead of wanting to defend and protect this country, he is trying to bring it down and destroy it. His actions have not been that of an American, but that of a Benedict Arnold." vamtns41 at #15 echoes Norris' language: "Our enemies within (Statist, progressives, far left liberals, Marxist, communist, etc.) are clearly working hard and often successfully at destroying our great country." Jocey at #40 moves them closer to eliminationism: "We really ought to charge with treason those representatives who wantenly (sic) trample the Constitution." What is it that you do with traitors? Herbert at #11 answers the question: "[O]bama should be tried for treason,and put on death row."
This is what passes for patriotism on the far right these days--desecrate the flag and kill the president. These people are dangerous nuts who should be shunned by anyone that we have entrusted with authority or power. Yet one side of our two party system has chosen to pander to the nuts, embrace, and encourage them. It's enough to make the sober want to drink and the drinkers want to give it up.
Update: Looks like Steve Benen at The Washington Monthly beat me to this.
I suggest you fly some revolutionary flag in lieu of your 50-star flag over the next year. Post the 13-star Betsy Ross flag, Navy Jack or Gadsden flag ("Don't Tread on Me") or any representation that tells the story of Old Glory and makes a stand for our Founders' vision of America.
Of course, patriots know that the 50-star flag truly represents one nation under God and our Founders' republic, but modernists simply don't get it. So what do you say we make a statement by flying a different flag and educate our neighbors when they ask us, "Why are you flying that flag instead of the contemporary Stars and Stripes?" (If you insist on posting a modern USA flag, too, then get one that is tea-stained to show your solidarity with our Founders.)
Really? Stain the flag? I have a better idea Chuck, maybe you could show your dissatisfaction with the government by stomping on the flag or burning it.
I'm not an aging former martial arts star with a Townhall column, so maybe I'm not up to snuff on this, but, when I was in the Cub Scouts, they taught us that soiling the flag was a definite no-no. It's this kind of suggestion that usually drives conservatives to write, call and shout at their congressional representatives to pass laws and constitutional amendments criminalizing flag desecration. For the record, I oppose such laws because I see them as the thin end of the wedge that leads to complete abandonment of the First Amendment. However, i do expect people who claim to respect the flag to actually - you know - respect the flag. This kind of suggestion seem to me to be of a part with those who want to demonstrate their patriotism by seceding and dismantling the Union.
Beyond the forehead smacking idiocy of his suggestion, Norris' column and the comments that follow offer an insightful glimpse into what my friend David Neiwert calls the eliminationist mindset. Norris sets up the us-or-them framework. Naturally, he calls his side the "patriots." What's surprising is what he calls his side's perceived enemies (that's us, dear readers); he calls us "modernists." While conservatism is anti-modern at its core, it's rare to see such an open admission from anyone, except the most extreme fundamentalist, that they are in revolt against the modernity. They usually claim that they are opposed to certain cultural aspects of modernity, not the whole shebang. More ominously, he says of the teabagger movement "we are seeking to protect our nation against enemies of our republic from within (his italics).
Norris' fans take up his Manichean frame and run straight towards the eliminationist goal zone. Cliff in comment #134 says of us, "this group is anti-American. They are traitors in our midst." Linda at #141 confesses, "This is the first time I have ever felt that we are truly being betrayed by our President and that instead of wanting to defend and protect this country, he is trying to bring it down and destroy it. His actions have not been that of an American, but that of a Benedict Arnold." vamtns41 at #15 echoes Norris' language: "Our enemies within (Statist, progressives, far left liberals, Marxist, communist, etc.) are clearly working hard and often successfully at destroying our great country." Jocey at #40 moves them closer to eliminationism: "We really ought to charge with treason those representatives who wantenly (sic) trample the Constitution." What is it that you do with traitors? Herbert at #11 answers the question: "[O]bama should be tried for treason,and put on death row."
This is what passes for patriotism on the far right these days--desecrate the flag and kill the president. These people are dangerous nuts who should be shunned by anyone that we have entrusted with authority or power. Yet one side of our two party system has chosen to pander to the nuts, embrace, and encourage them. It's enough to make the sober want to drink and the drinkers want to give it up.
Update: Looks like Steve Benen at The Washington Monthly beat me to this.
I'm rarely able to understand Norris' perspective, but this seems especially bizarre. Americans who claim to be patriotic should stop flying the American flag? If patriots insist on using the stars and stripes, Norris wants them to pour tea on the flag until it's deliberately stained?
Norris added that doing this would "make our Founders proud." I have no idea what this means.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Obama weather
For the last decade or so, far right preachers like Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell regularly made headlines by interpreting every disaster as God's wrath on America for immorality, or tolerating immorality, or just plain toleration. Natural disasters and especially hurricanes are a favorite of theirs. Hurricane Katrina was a divine judgment against Mardi Gras festivities. Any hurricane that hits Florida is His punishment for a gay pride parade in Ft. Lauderdale or Disney giving benefits to same sex partners of employees at Orlando. So, what are we to make of the fact that, since Obama was inaugurated, we've had an unusually mild hurricane season? I'm not drawing any conclusions; I'm just asking.
Saturday, August 01, 2009
Best new term
Flat Birthers.
I'm not sure who used it first. It appears to have been a blogger named Mark Byron last Wednesday. I think we all need to jump on this bandwagon.
I'm not sure who used it first. It appears to have been a blogger named Mark Byron last Wednesday. I think we all need to jump on this bandwagon.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
That's not what animal-husbandry means, Senator
Last week, Sam Brownback, introduced Senate Bill 1435, entitled the "Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act of 2009." After finding that:
The bill forbids making or transporting human/animal hybrids and establishes a punishment of One million dollars and ten years in prison for any mad scientists who break the law. Though, it would be hard to convict anyone under this bill, since mad scientists have an automatically recourse to the insanity plea. In introducing the bill, Brownback, who is a member of the same party as Larry Craig, David Vitter, Sarah Palin, Mark Sanford, and Michelle Bachmann, emphasized the need to protect human dignity.
When Bush called for a ban on human-animal hybrids in his 2006 State of the Union address, calling it one of "the most egregious abuses of medical research," most people were baffled. After all, wasn't Manimal a good guy? It didn't take long to discover that human-animal hybrids were a peculiar nightmare of the same faction of the religious right that made banning stem-cell research an article of faith for the Republican Party, even though most members of the GOP hadn't heard of the concept before 2001.
Just two weeks ago, Bobby Jindal signed a similar ban into law in Louisiana. Since that time there has not been a single werewolf attack in the Magnolia state. Brownback and twenty other members of the Senate decided it's time to take a record of success like that and go national.
While the fears of the voters Jindal, Brownback, and company pander to sound like so much comic book fantasy, there is just enough reality in the concept to keep them going for years. There really is a line of research that involves inserting genes from one species into another to better understand the control mechanisms within cells. Observing a petri dish full of hybrid cells is a much better way to understand genetics than purposefully initiating mutations in human births, or that in doing nothing and waiting for possibly fatal mutations to happen. Biologists have been pursuing this type of research for over twenty years and have bred bacteria that can produce interferon, insulin, and human growth hormone.
The Brownbacks of the world care less about understanding life and developing successful therapies that they do about pandering through fear. This type of politics is based on stoking the Luddite paranoia of their supporters by confirming their worst fears. Fear serves to bind followers to their leaders and keep them from straying. In passing bills like this, they assure their followers that the threat--in this case posed by scientists and godless liberals--is real and that only their swift action prevented the unthinkable.
For the dynamic to work best, the feared threat must not only be unthinkable, but also not very well thought out. The worst threats are those that remain in the darkness, where we can't measure their full extent. Brownback and the others alarm their followers by telling them "we must stop this ungodly mixing or... you know." The followers each get to fill in the blank with their own particular demon.
Political observers often point out that this kind of communication between leaders and followers is done in a sort of code. Much was made of Bush's use of Biblical language in this respect. The most important massage that Bush communicated to the religious right was simply that he was one of them. A wink, a nod, a secret handshake, and the right phrasing was all it took to convince millions that he was one of them, that he shared their values and concerns.
Brownback's bill tells a certain group that he and his co-sponsors understand and share their fears. But, with the fears hidden and barely defined, should we believe that it's all about mad scientists and cartoon monsters? Brownback's blog says: "Creating human-animal hybrids, which permanently alter the genetic makeup of an organism, will challenge the very definition of what it means to be human;" "This legislation is both philosophical and practical as it has a direct bearing upon the very essence of what it means to be human;" "The issue is that when you make changes in the germ-line, such changes are passed along to one’s offspring;" and "Tampering with the human germ-line could be the equivalent to setting a time-bomb that might detonate many generations down the line." At issue is purity and the preservation of the human race.
What other fears might his language connect with? A quick look at the sponsors of the bill and their home states reveals something about what some of those fears might be.
Of the twenty-one sponsors, only four are from states outside the greater South (former Confederate and border states). This is region that still bears a burden of infamy for its past concerns about preserving the purity of the race and the dangers of mixing.
I'm not claiming Brownback, or any of the co-sponsors, are making a direct or conscious appeal to racism. Their anti-science and anti-modern message is enough reason to condemn them without adding other charges. But the uglier appeal is there. In recent years, the Republican Party and movement conservatives have been painting themselves into a racist corner and have come to regret it. How many votes will their sliming of Sonya Sotomayor and their encouragement of anti-immigrant groups lose them in the next round of elections?
Now more than ever, the Republicans should be cautious about saying anything that could be interpreted as pro-racist. The problem for them isn't that Democrats and liberals might call them racist. Gotcha politics and faux outrage is a game that both sides play and that accomplishes nothing except to numb people to real outrages and destroy confidence in the political system. the reason they should be cautious is that, in appearing to give comfort to racists, they might give comfort to racists. Hate crimes are on the rise.
There are real monsters in the dark, but these weren't manufactured by mad scientists. These monsters are made from fear, resentment, and ignorance. Shining a light into the darkness is one of the best ways to banish the monsters, but a good laugh is also powerful. It's hard to take someone seriously, as a threat or as a leader, once they have been made ridiculous. Brownback may be a pandering demagogue, but he's also a buffoon. Let's take this opportunity point and laugh and say, "That's not what animal-husbandry means, Senator."
(1) advances in research and technology have made possible the creation of human-animal hybrids;
(2) human-animal hybrids are grossly unethical because they blur the line between human and animal, male and female, parent and child, and one individual and another individual;
The bill forbids making or transporting human/animal hybrids and establishes a punishment of One million dollars and ten years in prison for any mad scientists who break the law. Though, it would be hard to convict anyone under this bill, since mad scientists have an automatically recourse to the insanity plea. In introducing the bill, Brownback, who is a member of the same party as Larry Craig, David Vitter, Sarah Palin, Mark Sanford, and Michelle Bachmann, emphasized the need to protect human dignity.
When Bush called for a ban on human-animal hybrids in his 2006 State of the Union address, calling it one of "the most egregious abuses of medical research," most people were baffled. After all, wasn't Manimal a good guy? It didn't take long to discover that human-animal hybrids were a peculiar nightmare of the same faction of the religious right that made banning stem-cell research an article of faith for the Republican Party, even though most members of the GOP hadn't heard of the concept before 2001.
Just two weeks ago, Bobby Jindal signed a similar ban into law in Louisiana. Since that time there has not been a single werewolf attack in the Magnolia state. Brownback and twenty other members of the Senate decided it's time to take a record of success like that and go national.
While the fears of the voters Jindal, Brownback, and company pander to sound like so much comic book fantasy, there is just enough reality in the concept to keep them going for years. There really is a line of research that involves inserting genes from one species into another to better understand the control mechanisms within cells. Observing a petri dish full of hybrid cells is a much better way to understand genetics than purposefully initiating mutations in human births, or that in doing nothing and waiting for possibly fatal mutations to happen. Biologists have been pursuing this type of research for over twenty years and have bred bacteria that can produce interferon, insulin, and human growth hormone.
The Brownbacks of the world care less about understanding life and developing successful therapies that they do about pandering through fear. This type of politics is based on stoking the Luddite paranoia of their supporters by confirming their worst fears. Fear serves to bind followers to their leaders and keep them from straying. In passing bills like this, they assure their followers that the threat--in this case posed by scientists and godless liberals--is real and that only their swift action prevented the unthinkable.
For the dynamic to work best, the feared threat must not only be unthinkable, but also not very well thought out. The worst threats are those that remain in the darkness, where we can't measure their full extent. Brownback and the others alarm their followers by telling them "we must stop this ungodly mixing or... you know." The followers each get to fill in the blank with their own particular demon.
Political observers often point out that this kind of communication between leaders and followers is done in a sort of code. Much was made of Bush's use of Biblical language in this respect. The most important massage that Bush communicated to the religious right was simply that he was one of them. A wink, a nod, a secret handshake, and the right phrasing was all it took to convince millions that he was one of them, that he shared their values and concerns.
Brownback's bill tells a certain group that he and his co-sponsors understand and share their fears. But, with the fears hidden and barely defined, should we believe that it's all about mad scientists and cartoon monsters? Brownback's blog says: "Creating human-animal hybrids, which permanently alter the genetic makeup of an organism, will challenge the very definition of what it means to be human;" "This legislation is both philosophical and practical as it has a direct bearing upon the very essence of what it means to be human;" "The issue is that when you make changes in the germ-line, such changes are passed along to one’s offspring;" and "Tampering with the human germ-line could be the equivalent to setting a time-bomb that might detonate many generations down the line." At issue is purity and the preservation of the human race.
What other fears might his language connect with? A quick look at the sponsors of the bill and their home states reveals something about what some of those fears might be.
- Sam Brownback - Kansas
- Jim Bunning - Kentucky
- Richard Burr - North Carolina
- Saxby Chambliss - Georgia
- Thomas Coburn - Oklahoma
- Bob Corker - Tennessee
- John Cornyn - Texas
- Jim DeMint - South Carolina
- John Ensign - Nevada
- Lindsey Graham - South Carolina
- James Inhofe - Oklahoma
- Mike Johanns - Nebraska
- Jon Kyl - Arizona
- Mary Landrieu - Louisiana
- Mel Martinez - Florida
- John McCain - Arizona
- James Risch - Idaho
- John Thune - South Dakota
- David Vitter - Louisiana
- George Voinovich - Ohio
- Roger Wicker - Mississippi
Of the twenty-one sponsors, only four are from states outside the greater South (former Confederate and border states). This is region that still bears a burden of infamy for its past concerns about preserving the purity of the race and the dangers of mixing.
I'm not claiming Brownback, or any of the co-sponsors, are making a direct or conscious appeal to racism. Their anti-science and anti-modern message is enough reason to condemn them without adding other charges. But the uglier appeal is there. In recent years, the Republican Party and movement conservatives have been painting themselves into a racist corner and have come to regret it. How many votes will their sliming of Sonya Sotomayor and their encouragement of anti-immigrant groups lose them in the next round of elections?
Now more than ever, the Republicans should be cautious about saying anything that could be interpreted as pro-racist. The problem for them isn't that Democrats and liberals might call them racist. Gotcha politics and faux outrage is a game that both sides play and that accomplishes nothing except to numb people to real outrages and destroy confidence in the political system. the reason they should be cautious is that, in appearing to give comfort to racists, they might give comfort to racists. Hate crimes are on the rise.
There are real monsters in the dark, but these weren't manufactured by mad scientists. These monsters are made from fear, resentment, and ignorance. Shining a light into the darkness is one of the best ways to banish the monsters, but a good laugh is also powerful. It's hard to take someone seriously, as a threat or as a leader, once they have been made ridiculous. Brownback may be a pandering demagogue, but he's also a buffoon. Let's take this opportunity point and laugh and say, "That's not what animal-husbandry means, Senator."
Thursday, July 09, 2009
We're about to invade Poland
Sen. Jim DeMint must be jealous of the attention his fellow South Carolina Republican, Governor Mark Sanford is getting. There's no other way to explain his run of contemptibly stupid public statements this week.
On Monday, he defended the overthrow of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya by saying it "was no more a coup than was Gerald Ford’s ascendance to the Oval Office or our newest colleague Al Franken’s election to the Senate.” Ah, yes. I remember watching with satisfaction as the army stormed the White House to drag Nixon from his bed and put him on a plane for Mexico City. And when the Minnesota National Guard physically booted Norm Coleman out of office--well, that was just the miracle of democracy in action.
Last night, in a book tour event at the National Press Club event, he explained where Obama's "power grab" (by getting elected) has brought us:
DeMint is clearly a joke, but the increasingly irresponsible rhetoric coming from Republicans and right-wing pundits is no laughing matter. The cumulative effect of all their talk about secession, treasonous liberals, the need for revolution, and how Obama is leading us into communism/fascism/shariah law isn't merely polarizing, it's dangerously polarizing. If you combed through the last forty years, it wouldn't be difficult to find examples someone on the left making every one of those claims about the right. But the speakers you would find would almost always be fringe characters, with limited exposure in the national media, and no support among mainstream politicians. It's the right that has begun assassinating people in America, not the left. My friend David Niewert over at Crooks & Liars and in his new book, The Eliminationists, should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand the dynamic at work here.
Meanwhile, Poland and France had better start looking over their shoulders.
On Monday, he defended the overthrow of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya by saying it "was no more a coup than was Gerald Ford’s ascendance to the Oval Office or our newest colleague Al Franken’s election to the Senate.” Ah, yes. I remember watching with satisfaction as the army stormed the White House to drag Nixon from his bed and put him on a plane for Mexico City. And when the Minnesota National Guard physically booted Norm Coleman out of office--well, that was just the miracle of democracy in action.
Last night, in a book tour event at the National Press Club event, he explained where Obama's "power grab" (by getting elected) has brought us:
Part of what we're trying to do in Saving Freedom is just show that where we are, we're about where Germany was before World War II...
DeMint is clearly a joke, but the increasingly irresponsible rhetoric coming from Republicans and right-wing pundits is no laughing matter. The cumulative effect of all their talk about secession, treasonous liberals, the need for revolution, and how Obama is leading us into communism/fascism/shariah law isn't merely polarizing, it's dangerously polarizing. If you combed through the last forty years, it wouldn't be difficult to find examples someone on the left making every one of those claims about the right. But the speakers you would find would almost always be fringe characters, with limited exposure in the national media, and no support among mainstream politicians. It's the right that has begun assassinating people in America, not the left. My friend David Niewert over at Crooks & Liars and in his new book, The Eliminationists, should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand the dynamic at work here.
Meanwhile, Poland and France had better start looking over their shoulders.
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
GOP open to gay supreme
At least that's what I take away from this story.
Look at what he says; it's filled with all that secret code language we hear so much about. "I think it would be a bridge too far right now." That means he'd be open to it later. "[T]his first pick is going to be a kind of important one, and my hope is that he'll play it a little more down the middle." Only the first pick has to be "down the middle." That means he'll be okay if the rest of Obama's appointments are true liberals. Who says the Republicans aren't willing to accept the judgment of the voters and play ball with the new administration. A new era of bipartisan cooperation and compromise is upon us. Can't you feel the love?
[C]onservative leaders have warned the nomination of a gay or lesbian justice could complicate Obama's effort to confirm a replacement for Souter, and another Republican senator on Wednesday warned a gay nominee would be too polarizing.
"I know the administration is being pushed, but I think it would be a bridge too far right now," said GOP Chief Deputy Whip John Thune. "It seems to me this first pick is going to be a kind of important one, and my hope is that he'll play it a little more down the middle. A lot of people would react very negatively."
Look at what he says; it's filled with all that secret code language we hear so much about. "I think it would be a bridge too far right now." That means he'd be open to it later. "[T]his first pick is going to be a kind of important one, and my hope is that he'll play it a little more down the middle." Only the first pick has to be "down the middle." That means he'll be okay if the rest of Obama's appointments are true liberals. Who says the Republicans aren't willing to accept the judgment of the voters and play ball with the new administration. A new era of bipartisan cooperation and compromise is upon us. Can't you feel the love?
Monday, April 20, 2009
What comes after Fascism?
Saul Anuzis, who lost out to Michael Steele in a bid to become chairman of the GOP, explains the escalation of epithets hurled at President Obama. "Liberal" no longer shocks after thirty years of overuse. "Big spender" has no credibility after eight years of Bush deficits. "Socialist" and even "Communist" no longer scare now that a whole generation has grown up without the Soviet boogyman. "We’ve so overused the word ‘socialism’ that it no longer has the negative connotation it had 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago," Anuzis tells the New York Times. The GOP and Fox News needed something bigger to scare voters with, so they turned to Jonah Goldberg's silly book for guidance: "Fascism — everybody still thinks that’s a bad thing."
It's an amazing confession. Anuzis makes no attempt to explain what, if anything, is fascistic about Obama's policies. He doesn't even imply that he believes the policies are in any way fascist. Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, and Jonah Goldberg might be able to delude themselves into believing it, but it's nothing more than a marketing decision to Anuzis. The Republicans needed a scary name to call Obama, "fascist" still makes people take pause and listen, so "fascist" it is.
If Anuzis' cynicism is stunning, his frankness about his cynicism is doubly stunning — and stunningly stupid. This seems to be a new trend developing among political operatives. They can't seem to resist bragging about their tactics, even though that bragging lets the other side prepare their counter-punch and warns the public about how they are about to be manipulated. It's like a magician telling his audience, "I'm going to wave this shiny thing over here so you won't notice me pulling the dove out of the secret pocket in my coat with my other hand." It's counter-productive for both the magician and the political operative. In show biz, it's career suicide. In politics, it's not only career suicide; it contributes to the public's cynicism and undermines their faith in the electoral system. Democracy needs a certain amount of faith to survive.
Calling the other side fascist is usually a sign that you're a kook, losing the argument, or a kook who's losing the argument. Even when it's technically accurate, it turns off the audience. Left wing debaters have been blowing their credibility away for decades with this tactic; now it's the right wing's turn to do the same. And, when "fascism" doesn't work for them, what will they turn to next? Blood libel?
What the hell is wrong with these people?
It's an amazing confession. Anuzis makes no attempt to explain what, if anything, is fascistic about Obama's policies. He doesn't even imply that he believes the policies are in any way fascist. Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, and Jonah Goldberg might be able to delude themselves into believing it, but it's nothing more than a marketing decision to Anuzis. The Republicans needed a scary name to call Obama, "fascist" still makes people take pause and listen, so "fascist" it is.
If Anuzis' cynicism is stunning, his frankness about his cynicism is doubly stunning — and stunningly stupid. This seems to be a new trend developing among political operatives. They can't seem to resist bragging about their tactics, even though that bragging lets the other side prepare their counter-punch and warns the public about how they are about to be manipulated. It's like a magician telling his audience, "I'm going to wave this shiny thing over here so you won't notice me pulling the dove out of the secret pocket in my coat with my other hand." It's counter-productive for both the magician and the political operative. In show biz, it's career suicide. In politics, it's not only career suicide; it contributes to the public's cynicism and undermines their faith in the electoral system. Democracy needs a certain amount of faith to survive.
Calling the other side fascist is usually a sign that you're a kook, losing the argument, or a kook who's losing the argument. Even when it's technically accurate, it turns off the audience. Left wing debaters have been blowing their credibility away for decades with this tactic; now it's the right wing's turn to do the same. And, when "fascism" doesn't work for them, what will they turn to next? Blood libel?
What the hell is wrong with these people?
Friday, October 24, 2008
Is deregulation immoral?
In the comments to my War on Christmas post, a correspondent called, charmingly, Youaredumb wrote that a world without religion is a world without morals. Leaving aside for the moment that I didn't say anything about eliminating religion from the world, lets look at the implications of that belief, a belief that shows up with dreary frequency in any discussion of atheism or religious vs. secular values. When you think about it, what they really mean when they say that religion is required for morality is that God, and fear of his divine retribution, is required for morality. They are saying that the only thing that will get people to do the right thing is knowledge that their every action is being watched by a higher authority who promises severe punishment for any transgression; without that we will all run amok. It's a profoundly bleak view of human nature and an ugly insight into their opinion of their own ability to control their worst impulses.
This belief in the absolute necessity for a supervisory authority and threat of punishment runs deep in conservative religious philosophies all over the world. For crime, they favor lots of police and have deep faith in the deterrent effect of draconian punishments like the death penalty, chopping off body parts, and three-strike laws. They want the state to protect them from temptations by banning or severely restricting access to vices like gambling, drugs, pornography, and the "wrong" type of books. They believe that families need to be organized as a strict hierarchy with the father/husband at the top. In child-rearing they favor corporal punishment, a strict father figure, and believe children need to have their wills broken as a first step to becoming good citizens. In international relations, they prefer military might over diplomacy. They believe that other people's freedoms--as in gay marriage--are a threat to the proper order of their own lives.
But American Christian conservatives allow one glaring exception to this world view. In economics, they believe that corporations, banks, and other businesses should all be allowed to do whatever they want with no supervision or regulation at all. How they can think that it's impossible for individual humans to behave decently with out a heavenly big brother watching their every move and imposing a strict code, while at the same time believing that groups of people wielding vast financial power will always do what's best for us all if we would only remove all supervision and regulation, is beyond me, but they manage to square that particular circle.
One of the challenges of the next few years, will turning back some of the ill-considered and ideologically-driven deregulation from the last thirty years. Maybe pounding on this contradiction in conservative thought will provide an arguing wedge to break some of their resistance. If not, it should at least be a good argument to keep in reserve for tormenting your conservative friends and kin. And that's always worthwhile.
This belief in the absolute necessity for a supervisory authority and threat of punishment runs deep in conservative religious philosophies all over the world. For crime, they favor lots of police and have deep faith in the deterrent effect of draconian punishments like the death penalty, chopping off body parts, and three-strike laws. They want the state to protect them from temptations by banning or severely restricting access to vices like gambling, drugs, pornography, and the "wrong" type of books. They believe that families need to be organized as a strict hierarchy with the father/husband at the top. In child-rearing they favor corporal punishment, a strict father figure, and believe children need to have their wills broken as a first step to becoming good citizens. In international relations, they prefer military might over diplomacy. They believe that other people's freedoms--as in gay marriage--are a threat to the proper order of their own lives.
But American Christian conservatives allow one glaring exception to this world view. In economics, they believe that corporations, banks, and other businesses should all be allowed to do whatever they want with no supervision or regulation at all. How they can think that it's impossible for individual humans to behave decently with out a heavenly big brother watching their every move and imposing a strict code, while at the same time believing that groups of people wielding vast financial power will always do what's best for us all if we would only remove all supervision and regulation, is beyond me, but they manage to square that particular circle.
One of the challenges of the next few years, will turning back some of the ill-considered and ideologically-driven deregulation from the last thirty years. Maybe pounding on this contradiction in conservative thought will provide an arguing wedge to break some of their resistance. If not, it should at least be a good argument to keep in reserve for tormenting your conservative friends and kin. And that's always worthwhile.
Friday, October 03, 2008
Just wondering
Am I the only one who finds the conservative cult of personality that has emerged around General Petrais a little creepy and more than a little un-American? They did the same thing with Bush during his first term. Now that he's damaged goods, they've transferred their affections to the general. Listening to Palin last night and others over the last few months, it sounds like they are talking him up in preparation for a coup--General Petrais, savior of the republic.
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