The simple fact is, the right clings to these kind of stories because it allows them to project their own worst characteristics on others, to claim that others are the real violent fascists. Call it "implausible deniability".
These stories also play nicely into their artificial siege mentality; the ludicrous idea that the white conservative Christian majority is on the brink of extinction at the hands of the evil secularist multicultural hordes.
They need to create a climate where those who stand opposite them are not merely possessed of a different viewpoint but possessed of evil itself. They need to create a climate where one of their own can kick and beat an unarmed protester at a Republican function and not be turned over for criminal charges but rather protected, hidden and of course anonymously applauded. They need to create a climate where other protesters can be shown on television being brutalized by police who later brag and joke about it and the viewing audience at home laughs along with them. They need to create a climate where people can call for bodily harm to be done to political opposition while claiming it's "just satire".
We're the enemy to them. Not just 'a' enemy but The enemy; a threat to all they hold dear, to every societal contrivance they've built that holds them up while crushing everyone else. We know this. It's not like it isn't repeated ad infinitum all across the conservative media. Whether it's the soft sell or the hard-line "They're traitors who should all be strung up!" routine, it's all towards the same end.
I wish I could say I see a good conclusion coming out of this. I wish I could say people are going to wake up and stop letting the powerful few set them at the throats of others for the sole gain of that powerful few. I wish I could say we're not heading down another one of history's long dark roads into madness. I can't. To do that would be to deny what I see around me every day, to ignore the voices from the shadows of the 'Net that speak longingly about how they wish they could do something about people like us, something very permenant. It would be pretending not to see the bloody scrawlings on the wall that take the form of a YouTube video lovingly depicting the fictional murder of unarmed border crossers, or a message calling for "direct action" against openly homosexual public figures, or an editorial calling the purposeful destruction of a non-Christian religious display a "Christmas miracle"; all of which essentially say the same thing: "You. Next. Soon."
I can't really think of a good way to finish this comment off. Perhaps I've ruminated overly long on all the ugliness squirming beneath the right's thin facade of civility, looked too long into that abyss. Maybe it's just the good ol' holiday blues. Either way I'll sleep on it and see what it looks like.
Skullhunter,
You've more or less taken the words out of my mouth. I've been more or less feeling the same way for some time now. I just don't see it ending well. I don't think we've reached the tipping point yet and I'm truly afraid of how things are going to go when even people I once considered reasonable have taken to repeating things like Obama being a muslim and repeating the idea that the 'mexican hordes' are going to come take over the entire US, somehow.
It just makes me wonder what exact shape the explosion, when it happens, is going to take.
I have no certainty whatever that should the election of 08 be a landslide for the good guys that the righties won't just start shooting. My mother lives down the street from a synagogue that was burned by Klan types. Domestic terrorism is personified in the "pro-life" doctor murderers. I think I read somewhere that 87% of counties in America have no abortion provider, despite legality. Do you think that might be the result of terrorists using violence to achieve a political end? Nope, guess not. They don't believe in anything but their own power. If they lose it, they might just go berserk.
Speaking of 10-foot poles, when I was a student at the U. of TN back in the early '80s there was a conservative Christian man who showed up on campus every once in a while with a bible in one hand and a freaking huge crucifix in the other. He stood on one of the busiest street corners when students were on their way to class and screamed that the girls were whores and we were all going to hell. I thought it somewhat amazing, considering the number of often rash boys that surrounded the guy, that he didn't kick the ever-loving shit kicked out of him for those unwarranted verbal attacks. But hey, we all know how fearfully intolerant those secular university humanists are, don't we?
Tendrin:
You're right, we definitely haven't reached the tipping point yet. The events of 9/11 didn't prove to be enough to shove the average American over the edge of being able to conscience some kind of mass violence against their fellow Americans. For now that kind of thing remains mostly in the fantasy realm of the people who long for the police to use live ammunition on protesters and make sick jokes about people like Beth O'Brien.
I don't think it's going to stay there forever though.
Since the Reagan era, I have seen the right become progressively more paranoid and reactionary. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, their gaze now focuses more within our own nation in their need to find an enemy. The "War on Terror" seems almost secondary to their desire to find enemies here at home. Homosexuals, immigrants, non-Christians, feminists, the poor, it doesn't matter. They're obsessed with the people they claim are ruining their "pure" nation and they're itching to violently purge the country the second they believe they can do so without consequence to themselves. All that's lacking right now is a catalyst event, not a Reichstag Fire but something far more bloody, something that will allow them to silence any criticism and justify any action. My greatest concern is that if someone doesn't give them that catalyst event, they will manufacture it, much as this Francisco Nava attempted to do on a smaller scale. We know the right is not above this simply because they have done so before and continue to do so even now. If they do not create the situation themselves, they will exploit a situation in order to appear as besieged victims who deserve to strike back violently against anyone they choose. We're seeing a bit of this now with the Colorado shootings; deprived of the ability to point to some swarthy non-American as the perpetrator they now hold it up as proof somehow of endemic violence against Christian Americans.
So, it may not actually take one massive catalyst event but many smaller ones all within a short period of time. My only advice on the subject is, continue to work to change minds and better your community, but for gods' sake be prepared to run if need be. Network as much as possible with other like-minded people around the country and outside it: they may notice things happening before you do and vice versa.
The uncertainty of it all is the worst part; it could all get set off tomorrow, or a year from now, or twenty years from now. There's no way to divine what would be the cause and how long it would take. Like any other disaster, all we can do is prepare for it the best we can.
Anyways I'm done filling Dave's comments with doom and gloom for now. Sun's coming up, which means I need to get some sleep. Thanks to you all for indulging me and my insomnia.
Faking hate-crimes against yourself?
Yes, the right has now officially copied every single lame tactic of the biggest idiots on the left.
At least when a black woman complains about being a victim, or oppressed, I can see the basis - when White Christian Conservative men do it it just looks pathetic.
"when I was a student at the U. of TN back in the early '80s there was a conservative Christian man who showed up on campus every once in a while with a bible in one hand and a freaking huge crucifix in the other. "
Brother Jed! He toured the college circuit far and wide. But you missed out if he didn't have Sister Cindy with him, explaining how she used to be a "disco queen".
Ah, good times...
Once again, back to the future. The Germans of the 1930's were fed horror stories of Jewish thuggery against helpless blonde Aryans, who were out to destroy the Germanic race blah blah blah blah. In that view, Kristallnacht was a purely defensive manuever against a more powerful enemy, right?
I wait in eager anticipation of the list of "crimes" that Ken Hoop will produce, as further proof that the American White Man is in peril.
What I don’t understand is this: Given the near certainty that some person with liberal views has beaten up a conservative for their views in the last year, why is the right always jumping at the hoaxes to prove how violent liberals are.
I note one thing about the hoaxes they tend to leap at; they almost always feature gangs of Liberal Secular Humanist Islamofascist BGL Environmentalists beating up a lone conservative. As I said I’m sure a liberal has beaten up a conservative for his views in the last year, the chances that it hasn’t seem diminishingly small, so why jump at the hoaxes. My guess is that the conservatives themselves don’t report the individual violence. Reporting that kind of violence would be both an admission that they are not as tough as they like to imagine themselves, and it would also force them to resort to invoking the same kinds of protections they deride others for using.
On the other hand martyrdom at the hands of the crowd, that seems to resonate.
huh?
Erm, no, the embarrasment, Professor, lies in the fact that at the time you posted this information, the reports revealing it to be a hoax were online and readily available (the Daily Princetonian report was up at 8 p.m. Friday; yours went up at 11 p.m. Saturday, more than a full day after the hoax was reported).
I don't know how to "prove" this, but I *did* Google Nava's name on Saturday and the admission that it was a hoax was *not* online.
This looks like the Friday story with an UPDATE at the top which they cite as occurring on Dec 15.
I think what is happening is that the Princetonian is putting up Web Updates on their site but not changing the original publication date.
I bet if you track blog coverage you won't find any mention of the "Friday" admission of a hoax prior to Monday. But the Hoax story was definitely not at the Princetonian as of Friday.
Or I found this from Josh Marshall:
"The administration, Public Safety, the students who were threatened [and] the other members of Anscombe have all acted in an exemplary manner," George told the Daily Princetonian late today. "They have worked together and cooperated together. Within 72 hours, we were able to expose this as a hoax ... Princeton, all the way from the administrators down, had the good sense to hold their fire, get the facts first, before drawing conclusions. There's a good example for other institutions. Follow the example of Princeton, not Duke."
"72 hours" - fit that into the timeline.
Well, my PC is about to crash, but this PJM report from a Princeton student (I think?) makes the timeline more clear - as of Saturday, the Hoax theory was still up in the air.
I have no doubt you will clarify and/or correct this promptly.
Tom,Thank you for the link to my article at PJM. I'm not a Princeton student; I'm a Princeton Township resident, and I audit one class per semester at Princeton as part of their Community Auditing Program.
The commenters at my blog were the first to raise the issue of a hoax. Additionally, Princeton Tory "Princeton's Conservative Voice" had details on Nava's background by early Monday morning.
As for the attack itself,
the reports revealing it to be a hoax were online and readily available (the Daily Princetonian report was up at 8 p.m. Friday;
This is rather impossible since Navas staged the attack hoax on Friday night.
As for my blog, as soon as the news was released that Navas had confessed to a hoax, I posted it. I finished the PJM article approx. 1 hour later. Navas confessed to police yesterday morning.
But Tom, you provided no facts that contradict David's story. What exactly is he supposed to correct or clarify?
Correction to previous post:
"didn't kick the ever-loving shit kicked out of him for those unwarranted verbal attacks."
Should read:
"amazed he didn't get the ever-loving shit kicked out of him.."
Richard, I guess I missed the former disco queen. My visual memory of him is from across the street. Maybe she was there too, working the passing crowd.
Woops, Fausta provided an actual fact. My bad.
No, Tom's quite right, and I've posted a correction.
Oh, lordy -- Brother Jed. Yes. We had a literal, physical soapbox (well, a short platform that served as a speakers' corner) out front of the student union at UCLA, and he'd come around often. I remember Cindy, too.
What a show. Guy had a tireless voice. The most fun would be had when the conservative and orthodox Jewish students would come along and eat his lunch on their knowledge of the Old Testament. After a while, he learned to ignore the guys in the black hats and kippot. They were too tough a crowd for him -- dogged, indefatigable arguers whose command of logic was simply more than he could handle. You could almost literally hear the circuits popping in his head.
Mrs. R.
You could almost literally hear the circuits popping in his head.
I don't know why I thought of "magic smoke" when I read that.
JB: Man after my own heart... We used to have a bottle of magic smoke around the office that one of my coworkers made by popping a bunch of electrolytic caps into a soda bottle and sealing the lid.
No, Tom's quite right, and I've posted a correction.
Thanks very much. (For spoiling my fun...)
This might not be the best place to bring it up but I'm compelled to ask anyway: What the heck is going on at universities these days? We're bombarded with the notions that universities are such bastions of "liberal" ideology that wants to undermine all that the US stands for but they seem to me like a haven for right-wing extreme ideologies. This Princeton thing has me thinking about politics and universities.
Where are all these "liberals"? I've no doubt some of the educators at the college level have left leaning tendencies, certainly in the 1960s campuses were sites of protests against the Vietnam War, however in my experience the instructors and professors at the schools I attended were mostly conservatives of one stripe or another. One was a very old school Tory, educated at Cambridge in the UK, another was Libertarian ideologue. Several simply were conservatives of the Regan variety, one (this is rich) was a member of something called the Constitution party and from a couple of his rants I learned that he basically thought the US needed to repeal all its amendments to the Constitution! He stated that some were flawed, some were signed in under duress, and the Bill of Rights was self evident and implied in the Constitution itself and not needed or something like that. I did have some classes with instructors who were clearly liberal or left-leaning in their politics, but by in large my time at the universities in the 1980s-90s was spent with conservative and authoritarian professors and conservative students. The administration might have been considered much more "liberal" than the education departments insofar that the majority of the administration saw the Democrats as the party that looked out for their interests by including university wants/needs in the state budgets. I'm not sure how "liberal" that is, it is voting what your wallet says to you.
Are there some statistics the right wing media uses to claim that the "liberals" run universities and make life hard on conservative professors and beat up conservative students? I'm inclined to think that like this Princeton mess, the idea of a "liberal" dominated university is mostly another boogy man...
timekiller,
I have spent way too long in and around higher education and have made a few observations. Certain liberal arts departments, like English, tend to be dominated by liberals. Your "hard" sciences, math, engineering, and business departments tend to be full of conservatives/libertarians (and the apolitical). Law schools are a mix. Those have been my experiences, anyway.
Brit Hume uses the New York Sun as a source. Now that's professional journalism.
Ah, popping circuits. I wonder what would happen to Brother Jed if he got into a biblical argument with my gay, South American by birth, Jewish friend who just completed his rabbinical studies? And he currently resides with his companion in detestable, liberal Sweden...
Oh, the humanity! 
Anybody who is still a true believer in Bush-Was-AWOL and is still defending Dan Rather, deserves a Pot, Kettle Black Award for criticizing anyone who fell for a hoax.
Bush was, in fact, AWOL. Rather reported this fact with one piece of fraudulent evidence among several other pieces of non-fraudulent evidence.
(Ask yourself why Bush never nipped all this speculation in the bud by saying "I was never AWOL at any point, for any period whatsoever." He never did say anything like that, and never will.)
He got nailed by the Zombie-Cons, while the retards who kept up the WMD lie are still respected by them.
Now, I'm not saying you're a retard or a zombie, I'm only saying that the only people I know who bring up that Dan Rather stuff are either zombies or retards or both.
The truth will out, Mr. Sullivan. Rather is going to have his day in court. As you know full well, the facts support the reality that Bush indeed shirked his TANG duty. You just want to pretend otherwise, so you ignore the manifest evidence that extends well beyond anything Rather presented.
The truth will out, Mr. Sullivan.
It already has. There isn't a single pilot who flew with Bush in TANG who has a problem with his career. I know some of them, and they laugh their asses off when they read you, Brad DeLong, Mary Mapes et al.
re:Hume
Had you watched the show in question you would have noted that he updated at the end of the first panel discussion noting that Nava had confessed to the hoax. That would make it about a 16 minute turn around time IIRC. Not shabby.
Might want to update your update.
The sad thing is that if Rather had been willing to come down from his mighty tower at Black Rock and mingle -- even for 15 minutes -- with a dirty fucking hippie blogger by the name of Paul Lukasiak, he'd probably have both his job and another Pulitzer today.
The facts were out there. Had been for years. Paul knew that letter wasn't enough to hang the case one. He also knew where equally good data could be had.
All Rather would have had to do is ask -- but Living Legends of Journalism (TM) do not consort with mere bloggers. Live by the pretentions of the MSM; and die by them.
Still, I'm looking forward to his day in court.
And, no, Pat, I don't doubt there are quite a few people who have "no problems with his career," especially after the Bush family arranged to sweeten their memories a bit. There's also ample evidence that they were very very busy cleaning up all kinds of little loose ends for several years in there before W became governor.
Gees, Neiwert, can't you ever get anything right?
Wrong and/or incomplete on Reynolds, Hume and the Bush/TANG story. Maybe you should take that offer from the Social Security Administration or the other one from the VA.
What happened to Dan Rather was necessary for the administration. It was a sucker job, obviously; it's easily believable that a lightweight phony tough guy like Bush hadn't fulfilled his service obligations. So the documents surface, nobody spends enough time to properly verify them in the rush to get the juicy story aired and nobody notices the great big rusty treble hook sticking out of it.
End result, a bunch of faux journalists suddenly become counterfeit document experts and Dan Rather ends up publicly humiliated with a trashed career, made into a very valuable object lesson for anyone else in the media who might be getting misguided ideas about silly things like integrity and truth. The real casualty isn't Dan Rather's career or reputation but rather all the other news that will go unreported out of the very real fear of the internet equivalent of the torch and pitchfork bearing mob.
And isn't it interesting that the originals have since been destroyed by the person they were acquired from in the first place? One might get the idea he had something to hide, something that perhaps he didn't share with Rather. But, as Mrs. Robinson said, it seems Rather was so very sure of himself he didn't think to ask around, didn't think to have it verified six ways from Sunday, probably counting on his impressive credentials to carry him through.
And of course not counting on getting completely and utterly skunked.
I'm interested to see Dan Rather have his day in court, however I doubt it will receive much publicity unless the decision goes against him.
Can't say we see eye to eye on at least the portions of your politics I've read in this post, but good on ya for the fix Dave.
The blogospheric editorial process is alive and well.
HUME: That's a good point.
Here is quick update, but the way, on that grapevine item we did from the "New York Sun" story about the Princeton student who alleged he had been beaten after coming out against the school distribution of condoms.
"The Daily Princetonian" now says that Francisco Nava, that's the guy, has admitted he made up the story and fabricated ex-mails threatening his life and those of other student and one professor.
Nava reportedly confessed to police today. He has been released with no charges so far. The school says the investigation continues.
Next up with our panel, the proper role for religion and politics — is there one? If so, what is it? We'll be right back.
Sorry. Would have put this up earlier but needed to eat. Major update/correction during a non-"breaking news" broadcast. Doesn't happen very often.
Brit Hume, of course, has no such excuse.
Doesn't really need one, does he?
Here is quick update, but the way, on that grapevine item we did from the "New York Sun" story about the Princeton student . . .
I'll repeat, Brit Hume uses the New York Sun as a source. Very professional. Maybe he should just put up anything Drudge says.
" Oh, lordy -- Brother Jed. Yes. We had a literal, physical soapbox (well, a short platform that served as a speakers' corner) out front of the student union at UCLA, and he'd come around often. I remember Cindy, too.
What a show. Guy had a tireless voice. The most fun would be had when the conservative and orthodox Jewish students would come along and eat his lunch on their knowledge of the Old Testament. After a while, he learned to ignore the guys in the black hats and kippot. They were too tough a crowd for him -- dogged, indefatigable arguers whose command of logic was simply more than he could handle. You could almost literally hear the circuits popping in his head."
They were at Indiana U. in the 70's& 80's also...but we had the older leader of the group, Brother Max, who sheparded Brother Jed after he found god on a beach in Morroco. Brother Max could attack with the best of them but during his time outs was one the nicest quietest guys you would know. I heard he died a couple of years ago and a part of my college years went with him...Bless them all.
Pug,
So if he'd sourced it back to the Daily Princetonian the story would have fundementaly changed? It was a comment on the Grapevine which is scripted before airing. The moment that it was brought to his attention that the story had changed he provided an update. Contrast with TNR, Rather et al.
If you have difficulties with Drudge you might as well stop watching any news. They all pull some stories from him.
Eric, OMG, I remember hearing Jed tell the story of his conversion on the beach in Morocco! He must have told that story well, because I can still recall vivid details of it 30 years later. I'd forgotten that until you mentioned it. Thanks,
I wonder if this guy knows he's part of the shared memory of an entire generation of American university students. I doubt he converted many of us -- but when we think of crazy fundies, Jed comes unbidden to the minds of thousands.
Both my grandmothers went to Indiana in the 1920s. One got a journalism degree, the other a chemistry degree. I visited a few years ago -- it's a gorgeous campus. My ggg-grandfather was the minister of the big Methodist church downtown after the Civil War. He'd been a chaplain, and survived Andersonville Prison, and came home to spend the rest of his career in that pulpit.
Neiwert's biases are showing strong. He hates Instapundit and conservatives with a raging passion, and he was so eager to pounce on a supposed error that he didn't even stop to notice what an idiotic theory he was propounding. According to Neiwert, the Princeton collegiate newspaper was magically able to report that the Nava incident was a hoax on Friday evening -- even when Neiwert's own post quotes a story showing that the incident supposedly happened on that same Friday evening.
Neiwert really ought to climb down from his moral high-horse about accuracy in blogging. Insulting other bloggers based on a self-evidently-stupid theory is far worse than what Reynolds did (i.e., posting about the story at a time when it seemed believable).
Anono | Homepage | 12.19.07 - 12:28 pm |
Thanks for playing, anono. Next contestant, please.
An aggressive whine, with bold front notes fading quickly into an acrid finish.
Best served chilled (to mute its harsh flavors). An ideal companion to Cheetos; also appropriate served as a chaser to a bottle or two of Southern Comfort on a particularly festive Saturday night.
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