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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
But I think we do more harm than good by demonizing, labeling and ascribing all sorts of mental ills to people we disagree with.
Do you believe it fair to say of someone who advocates genocide vis-a-vis shadowy code language that that person is saying stuff that sounds what someone advocating genocide would say? Do you think it fair to quote what people who have actually committed genocide have said if it sounds the same to make the point? Do you believe that part of the reason humans commit atrocities commit actrocities is that they do not see them as such, and if so, do you believe that drawing parallels that may make a person with beliefs which sound like proto-genocidal beliefs is something that might reduce the likelihood that it will happen?
If someone had said in 1920 Germany that anti-Semitisism was bigotry, that it was setting the stage for the persecution of Jews would that person have been demonizing and dehumanizing and labeling? Is it fair to call a racist a racist? Is it fair to call a bigot a bigot?
Isn't some portion of this labeling a process of dehumanizing conservatives that we must undertake to justify hatred and to establish our superiority?
Yes, some portion of it it. People that think Cheney dying at the hands of a terrorist attack are certainly guilty of that. I'm not one of them.
The outcomes of his policies may be evil. He may be flawed, personally. He is more likely just wrong.
That's the whole point. I'm not Sean Hannity. I'm not talking about fighting the EVIL of fascism, terrorism, and conservatism. I'm not saying that there is EVIL committed by EVIL people in the world, and the the GOOD must fight it and "Them" to the end.
I'm saying that there is a movement that looks and resembles other movements in history that have turned into totalitarian movements. Every single person I've read that warned about totalitarianism said you take alarm at the start, not at the end.
The Germans and Russians were not EVIL. They were people. They were people who did horrible things because people have the capacity to do horrible things given the "right" reasons and the "right" circumstances.
Knowing what those reasons are, knowing what those circumstances are, we can work to avoid them. I do not believe that the conservative movement is a monolith - I do not believe that movement conservatives are totalitarians or monsters ... that's why I'm saying this now. I believe that if they notice how the movement as a whole is heading down a path that has ended in disaster before in history they will not go down that road. I don't want to hear any Charles Lindbergs ... saying how sickened by the slaughter of Japanese he was after the war after he advocated joining with the Germans to deal with the "yellow danger."
Damn you all for making me sound like a moderate.
Oh, come off the high horse. You know who one of my heroes is? He's a literary character. In fact, he was the star of the book that was the inspiration for the book by Conason that you can see advertised on this page.
Doremus Jessup, the protagonist of It Can't Happen Here? In that book a fascist dicatorship took hold of America. Do you know how the book's main character went out by "fighting" fascist dictatorship? He started an underground newspaper ... he championed democratic values with the pen (or, er typewriter.) Even after a fascist dictatorship took over Sinclair Lewis imagined his hero fighting it with ideas ... with the ideas of democracy.
That's what I'm driving at. There is a movement, and it is anti democratic. I can't imagine how anyone that hs been reading this blog for a while could dispute that. There is an Inner movement (really an inner, inner movement) within that movement that is nightmarish, totalitarian movement (Christian Reconstructionism, and to describe it as such is NOT hyperbole.)
What do you think will be likelier to reduce the problem? To not talk about it openly in the hopes that Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter and D. James Kennedy can be persuaded with sound argument, or to start getting people to realize that if they had their way we'd be living in a one-party state, that at the very least, would not be a democracy.
I've really got to learn to use the preview function. I hope that was generally understandable despite the various errors.
The Left prominently trumpets the so-called "netroots," i.e., all the Left-wing blogs and their supporters for evidence that America wants to do this or that ( support Howard Dean, end the war, fill in the blank).
It is precisely because the Left pushes the nettroots as supposedly representative of Left-wing sentiments that comments on Left-wing blogs are fair game for comment. There's no "cherry picking" about it.
talking about "The Left" as if it were a single object instead of a loose collection of people with varying agendas. Of course, that way its easier to lie about it.
"Why is naming the Jews 'unAmerican'? Because it is segregating them as a group, setting the ground for anti-Semitisism ... it is a match lit near a pile of excelsior" - Anna Lindherg, in response to her husband giving a speech where he blamed Jews for the impending war with Germany.
Was Ann Lindberg wrongly demonizing Charles from labeling his speech 'unAmerican'?
Does that quote have any relevance to Sean Hannity writing a book that begs for the grace of God to deliver America from Evil - Hannity is categorical, there is Evil in the world, period ... its Evil, there are no explanations - Evil derived from Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism. Is it fair to surmise that Hannity is suggesting - at least in his title - that terrorists, despots, and liberals are all Evil to be delivered from?
Is there something wrong with me quoting this
I think I know who these people ... are talking about when they talk about the Judeo-Christian tradition. By "Judeo-Christian", I suspect, they mean evangelical. (And by evangelical, I'll bet, they mean anti-abortion, pro-school prayer, anti-gay rights, pro-Star Wars, extreme right-wing Reaganite Republican. - Hendrik Hertzberg, "Antidisestablishmentarian", The New Repulic, Sept. 16, 1985
and then making the point that part of what led to the persecution of Jews in Germany was there segregation out of society for not real Germans. Is it wrong to say that when Bill O'Reilly talks about "traditional" Americans being at war with "Secular Progressives" he's framing his argument the same way fascists have done? Is it wrong to say that there are Dominionists in the conservative movement who talk about war with secular progressives, but unlike O'Reilly, mean it literally.
Is is demonizing to point out that O'Reilly, by presenting his moderate, figurative "war" between "traditionals" and "S-P"s is providing the extremists within the Dominionist movement the cover they need to make their views sound and appear mainstream.
Do you think that relates in anyway to the Washington Post writing an editorial whitewashing a right-wing dictator after his death?
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
