David Neiwert has done an outstanding job of tracking and analyzing Republican speech. But his 12/10/03
"Thought Crimes" article disturbed me because it shows that the Republicans are not just wrapping themselves in the flag or identifying their party with good values or even refuting arguments. Identifying dissent with treason is to nullify anything liberals say before they say it. It is, in fact, political preemption and erasure.
To disagree with Republicans is to betray the United States. Dissenters are pariahs to be hidden away.This goes beyond political (rancorous) discourse, beyond ideological standoffs. It is the identification of a party and of a leader with the country itself. It should probably be no surprise to see neocons, such as former leftists Norman Podhoretz and Irving Kristol, apply Marxist tactics of "thought control."
Never mind that Republicans criticized Woodrow Wilson for imprisoning dissidents and immigrants during and after World War I. Or that Republicans themselves have a history of publicly disagreeing with U.S. military intervention in WWI, WWII, and, more recently, in Bosnia. In Treason, Ann Coulter defines Democrats as treasonous, even though men such as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. held in contempt those who wanted to do nothing about communism. Rush Limbaugh pointed to the Democratic leaders recently, asking listeners to imagine what would have happened if "those people" had been leaders during World War II. The fact that Democrats were leading the country at that time escapes him.
When I pointed out to a conservative friend that people like Limbaugh were intent on getting rid of the Democratic Party, he responded, "And that's a bad thing?" The fact is that Republicans and conservatives define how liberals are perceived. Even though this country is evenly split, the Republicans behave as if liberals are a distinct minority. And we know what Rush thinks of minorities: "Who cares what you think."
Or, as Dr. John Alford said of the Republican gerrymandering in Texas, "This goes beyond [Republicans having the majority of seats] ... into a territory where the nature of the system itself determines the outcome, rather than the will of the voters." And Alford supports Republicans having the majority of seats. The goal is to have power, and using language to eliminate reasonable discourse and dissent is one means to that end.
The Republicans are taking away the voice of liberals and Democrats. Because of my background, I believe that speech is a fundamental human right, ability, and power. The hobgoblin of many conservatives, Noam Chomsky, formulated a theory that seems well established today--that language is a biological function of being human. It is a built-in capacity, and I think it is what makes humans "human." Language is so powerful, in fact, that it is the means by which the Biblical God created the universe . . . naming is in itself power. And so it is true in everyday life and particularly in political life.
What the Republicans are doing has many names: "propaganda," "lying," "demonizing," "doublespeak," "distortion," and "control." The effect is to preempt democracy by making the liberal position untenable and, more importantly, controlled by conservatives.
This is a pattern that you see in their language and actions. For example, look at what the Republicans are doing in Texas, Colorado, and elsewhere. They claim to redress unfavorable districting but ensconce themselves in the state and national legislatures, creating the illusion of domination when in fact this country is evenly divided between conservatives and liberals. They go beyond any legitimate proportions that the voting percentages might indicate to enthrone themselves without competition.
They do it with language, as well. Remember when they made "liberal" so bad that it became the "L" word? Do you realize what this means? "Liberal" was now in a family of bad words, like the "N" word and the "F" word. And this is all well thought out. It's not accidental. It immediately steals any voice liberals have. The Party Whose Name We Dare Not Speak.
They also associate liberals and Democrats with a dead past. The language of liberalism is a dead, failed language.
Theirs is a deliberate, well crafted strategy.
It's what Rush Limbaugh practices on a daily basis. He even exports his propaganda to his listeners, encouraging them to do the dirty work as well. How to defeat your liberal friends, he says. He offers articles and pamphlets on this thread (for a price, of course).
Newt Gingrich did the same thing in his pamphlet "Language, A Key Mechanism of Control." The goal is to associate liberals with anything bad, thereby making their positions illegitimate. Look at the words he encouraged Republicans to use whenever talking about liberals.
They have worked to streamline their own party as they castigated Republican dissidents such as McCain and Jeffords. There are many flavors of conservatism, as Michael Lind points out in Up From Conservatism: What The Right is Wrong For America. But they are not all tolerated within the Republican party, which is controlled largely, as Lind argues, by the radical right. They have gained power by creating a unified voice.
After the Normans conquered England, there was an important transformation of the English language, not just the sounds but the words themselves. The language of the conquerors was valued over the language of the conquered. For example, Anglo-Saxons were and still are considered crass (e.g., fuck, shit, piss) as opposed to the socially acceptable Latinate words (e.g. copulate, defecate, urinate). It's a simple lesson that language is a means of conquering, and we had better realize that Republicans understand this all too well.
I, for one, think it has been a foolhardy mistake to paint Bush as stupid and dumb because, in a way, it makes him benign, sort of like the dumb old brother. It puts him (and his party) beyond the suspicion of using language to control how Americans think. Whether Bush is himself dumb or not is really not the issue. He is the face of a group that is very smart about how to use language and how to control perception. You could argue that calling him "dumb" was the Democrats' own way of defining Bush. The fact is that it was not effective.
This is what the Republicans are doing and how it is affecting politics and power in this country. In future posts, I'll continue to examine this agenda, tracking examples, as well as why it happened and what can be done.
Hate Words
# Anti-(issue) flag, family, child, jobs
# Betray
# Coercion
# Collapse
# Consequences
# Corruption
# Crisis
# Decay
# Deeper
# Destroy
# Destructive
# Devour
# Endanger
# Failure
# Greed
# Hypocrisy
# Ideological
# Impose
# Incompetent
# Insecure
# Liberal
# Lie
# Limit(s)
# Pathetic
# Permissive attitude
# Radical
# Self-serving
# Sensationalists
# Shallow
# Sick
# They/them
# Threaten
# Traitors
# Unionized bureaucracy
# Urgent
# Waste