To Hell with You People

Look, I am past exhausted talking about liberal media bias. It’s real, we all know it, and people who deny it aren’t even fooling themselves. But some things just have to be pointed out. This morning I watched the first 15 minutes of the Today Show. I don’t particularly love or even like the program, but I find it useful to see what the producers think is the big news of the day. And sometimes Chuck Todd is on, and I like him. If I sound defensive about watching the show it’s only because I am.

Anyway, the first ten minutes was about Gabby Giffords’ return to the House yesterday. I’m not sure it merited the full ten minutes or trumped the hard news that later followed, but it’s a great story and everyone is rooting for the lady, so I’m fine with it.

But think about this for a second. The Giffords shooting sent the media elite in this country into a bout of St. Vitus’s dance that would have warranted an army of exorcists in previous ages. Sarah Palin’s Facebook map was an evil totem that forced some guy to go on a shooting spree. The New York Times, the Washington Post, all three broadcast networks — particularly NBC whose senior foreign-affairs correspondent, Andrea Mitchell, devotes, by my rough reckoning, ten times as much air time to whining about Sarah Palin as she does about anything having to do with foreign affairs — flooded the zone with “Have you no shame” finger wagging. A memo went forth demanding that everyone at MSNBC get their dresses over their heads about the evil “tone” from the right. Media Matters went into overdrive working the interns 24/7 to “prove” that Republicans deliberately foment violence with their evil targets on their evil congressional maps.

Everyone “knew” the shooter was a tea partier. Except he wasn’t. He wasn’t even a conservative. He was a sick, demented, nutball. And it still didn’t matter! More bleating and caterwauling about the “tone” followed. More chin stroking and tut-tutting from Meet the Press roundtables and “very special segments” on the Today Show. More pizzas were ordered for the Media Matters galley slaves.

Finally, president Obama, our national-healer, gives a speech. It was a good speech. Indeed it was one of the first speeches in a long while that got anything like bipartisan support. Civility. New tone. No more martial metaphors. These were the takeaways.

So flashforward to this week. Tom Friedman — who knows a bit about Hezbollah — calls the tea partiers the “Hezbollah faction” of the GOP bent on taking the country on a “suicide mission.” All over the place, conservative Republicans are “hostage takers” and “terrorists,” “terrorists” and “traitors.” They want to “end life as we know it on this planet,” says Nancy Pelosi. They are betraying the Founders, too. Chris Matthews all but signs up for the “Make an Ass of Yourself” contest at the State Fair. Joe Nocera writes today that “the Tea Party Republicans can put aside their suicide vests.” Lord knows what Krugman and Olbermann have said.

Then last night, on the very day Gabby Giffords heroically returns to cast her first vote since that tragic attack seven months ago, the vice president of the United States calls the Republican party a bunch of terrorists.

No one cares. I hate the “if this were Bush” game so we’re in luck. Instead imagine if this was Dick Cheney calling the Progressive Caucus (or whatever they’re called) a “bunch of terrorists” on the day Giffords returned to the Congress. Would the mainstream media notice or care? Would Meet the Press debate whether this raises “troubling questions” about the White House’s sensitivity? Would Andrea Mitchell find some way to blame Sarah Palin for Dick Cheney’s viciousness? Would Keith Olbermann explode like a mouse subjected to the Ramone’s music in Rock and Roll High School? Something inside me hidden away shouts, “Hell yes they would!”

The Today Show even had Debbie Wasserman Schultz on this morning for five minutes talking about Giffords. No one thought to ask her what she thought of Biden’s comments? It’s not like she’s the Democratic party’s national spokesperson or anything. Oh, wait. She is!

Instead, after the full ten minutes on Giffords, we get an update about the debt-limit situation (which is supposedly an Armageddon-level issue) and Kelly O’Donnell basically carries water for Biden on the issue by completely muddying whether he said anything of the sort at all. (His office says, no, no the vice president didn’t call them terrorists, he just politely agreed with all the Democratic congressmen in the room that they “acted like terrorists.” Ah, this is a distinction a team of a million Jesuits working around the clock would have a hard time slicing.)

And yet you know the next time there’s the slightest, remotely exploitable tragedy or hint of violence, the same reporters, editors, producers, and politicians are going to insist that blood was spilled because of the right wing’s rhetoric.

Here is an extract from my book that I think is relevant to our current circumstances. It appears to me that we're at Stage 3. Note that there are some instances verging on Stage 4, such as the county official in New York who was forced to resign from her job because her religious beliefs forbade her to issue a "marriage license" to a pair of sodomites.

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Here are the usual steps a government will take in suppressing resistance or dissidence. Check your situation against this list, to determine how far things have already gone, and what might be coming next. Only when you know these things can you prepare to neutralize government actions.

1. Identify

The government will attempt to identify resisters, "troublemakers," and influential or motivational persons who might serve as focal points for organization of resistance. Without leadership, especially without widely recognized leadership, there are no "centers" around which resistance can coalesce. Even those individuals who might be ready to join a resistance movement will feel they are alone. Means the government may use to identify possible resistance groups or leaders include gun registration lists, computerized identification systems, and domestic intelligence gathering activities. Glick details examples of the latter, from American experience. Thomsett describes the measures Hitler used to identify possible focal points for resistance. During the Bill Clinton administration, the U.S. government compiled a list of anti-abortion leaders, on the grounds that they might commit violence against abortion mills. Your government may already be compiling lists of potential dissidents. Do your best to stay off them.

2. Marginalize

Once a group or individuals have been identified, the next stop is to marginalize them. The print, broadcast, and electronic media will proceed to present the identified group in unfavorable terms, to lead the public into viewing the group as "undesirable," "extremist," or simply on the fringes of society. Remember, the Communists in the Soviet Union never killed any "people." Instead, they killed kulaks, capitalists, wreckers, saboteurs, enemies of the people, counter-revolutionaries, and similar "extremists." Likewise the Nazis never killed any Jewish "people." Instead they killed maggots, menaces to society, scum, parasites, bacilli, etc. By first marginalizing the people they wanted to destroy, these governments were able to get away with their murders. Note that in 1935, Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister, organized "spontaneous" demonstrations against Jews. The purpose was to make the German people think anti-Jewish sentiment was much stronger than it really was. Those Germans who were not anti-Jewish were made to feel that they were in a minority.

In the U.S., this marginalization happened to the "militia movement" after the Oklahoma City bombing, even though there was no connection between the convicted bombers and any "militia" organization. During the government siege of the Branch Davidians at Waco, Texas, the Davidians were constantly referred to in the news media as a "cult" living in a "compound," not as a "religious group" living in a "community." This effectively marginalized them.

Once marginalization has been successful, the public is less likely to identify with or sympathize with the target group as the government campaign is stepped up.

3. Demonize or Label

Once the public has, in its mind, relegated the target group to fringe status, it is easier for the government to attack it. The public can be manipulated against the group. Public attitudes can be led from antipathy to open hatred. Hitler was very successful in using this against Jews, Gypsies, and other marginalized groups. During the spring and summer of 1935, the "spontaneous" public outbursts organized by Goebbels made it appear anti-Semitism was the norm in Germany. When the racist Nuremberg Laws were enacted in the fall of 1935, the public was already convinced that most Germans were anti-Semitic. Those who weren't anti-Semitic felt themselves to be a small and isolated minority.

4. Persecution

Once the target group has been pushed to the fringes of society and made out to be the "bad guys," violence against the group’s members can be taken with impunity. Wholesale criminalization of the marginalized groups will lead to aggressive actions against them by law enforcement personnel. Thugs and goons who attack members of these marginalized groups will not be prosecuted. Anyone who attempts to oppose these actions on "civil rights" grounds will be regarded as some kind of freak.

5. Elimination

The last step is elimination of the target group. This need not go to such blatant extremes as Nazi Germany’s "Final Solution," Stalin’s anti-kulak campaigns or starvation of the Ukrainians, or the Chinese massacre at Tiananmen Square. Mass jailings, confiscation of property, loss of jobs, and various civil penalties may suffice to break the back of the resistance. However, once the target group is sufficiently demonized and persecution has begun, even such extreme steps as those taken by Hitler, Stalin, or the Chinese Communists will meet with little public opposition, especially if the government has created an atmosphere of crisis. Rounding up the members of the target groups will become a routine exercise in logistics and transportation.

References:

Glick, Brian, War at Home, Boston, South End Press, 1989, ISBN 0-89608-349-7

Thomsett, Michael C. & Jean, The German Opposition to Hitler, Jefferson, NC, McFarland & Company, 1997, ISBN 0-7864-0372-1

There is no “complete victory” when conservatives don’t even control ONE house of Congress. It is BS to make there was.

Oh please. You're going to have to do better than conflating strategic for tactical victories to excuse such mendacity. People like you tried to fly the same nonsense to cover Rick Santorum when he betrayed conservatives by backing Arlen Specter over freshman SENATOR Pat Toomey (thus committing political suicide), but it didn't work then, either.

Whats-more, tell me what strategic goals the democrats gave up when they were in the minority during the Bush presidency: Abortion? Affirmative action? Federal bureaucracy?

No, the simple fact is RINOs like you are no longer going to remain unchallenged when you try to assassinate the little boy who says the emperor is naked.

No, Rush was being deceptive since ANY plan would have been amended. Anyone who has ever watched the Congress knows this.

If that is Rush being "deceptive," then this YOU being treasonous. He never claimed it wouldn't be changed. He PREDICTED it!

What he tried to tell all you "this is the best we can get" pansies is you're not going to be able to blame democrats because they WOULD change it and drop it right back in Boehner's lap!

Rush isn't the liar: YOU ARE!

You act as though the Michaels of the world just pop up and exploit the People, they don’t. They are what the People WANTED.

No, they're what people LIKE YOU wanted!

They want "the base" to support THEM, but when that same base gets pissed because they like the elites better than their own constituents they petulantly do a Crist/Scozzafava and try their level best to get THE DEMOCRAT elected!

No the converse of Von Clauswitz’s maxim is NOT true. Unless you are talking about ancient Rome maybe.

Luckily, such a breathtakingly stupid denial, worthy of PeeWee Herman himself, requires nothing but a newspaper to conclusively refute.

The crying shame of having to endure people like you is rather than allow yourselves to be educated by people who are demonstrably more competent than yourselves, you choose to sit back and pontificate on how "it is mathematically impossible to add or subtract letters," because you don't know the first damn thing about Algebra.

Yeah, getting rid of Santorum was suuuch a brilliant idea. Putting that doofus Carey in was a stroke of genius and has reeeely helped. Don’t do us anymore favors please, we can’t stand it.

Why would the Democrats give up “strategic goals”? The Republicans certainly haven’t changed their minds about any.

Of course, Rush predicated something that was a certainty for any bill that is what I said. Whatta Nostradamus.

Two weeks before Rush was also admitting that a debt deal was going to be made. Yet, he is now acting as though it were not inevitable. Spare me the histrionics, I don’t need them. I am only interested in defeating Urkel not pretending the impossible is possible.

There is no “liking the elites” going on here outside of your fevered imagination. Silly class warfare won’t help us defeat the RATs but only makes it harder.

I never voted for Michaels though I would have had he been running against ANY democrat. But he was the choice of many people for a long time during which YOU could have run against him. I guess you didn’t. Or some sterling conservative, I guess none did.

Was the rest of your irrelevant babble supposed to address some point or other or was it just a nervous tick?

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