A
legitimate free press is our main weapon to prevent hate speech from dominating the public media
Hate is hate in any language
Ann Coulter on tour: "I think a baseball bat is the most effective way these days" to talk to liberals (1)
Rwanda: In the cover of the December 1993 issue of a very popular Hutu magazine A machete is displayed under the question about "what weapon to use to defeat the [Tutsi cockroaches]" (2)
A chilling coincidence ?
Both propaganda machines are using many of the same tactics, namely:
Staged events:
creating events to lend credence to propaganda
Accusations in a Mirror:
projecting into their opponents exactly what they and their own party are planning to do.
Hate Radio:
Pundits like Rush Limbaugh
1 million dead in 4 months The weapon of choice ? A machete
With such a tactic, propagandists persuaded their listeners into taking whatever measures were necessary "for legitimate [self-] defense". 1 million people were killed by their own neighbors, employees, co-workers, etc..
On April 6, 1994, the airplane carrying President Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira, the President of Burundi, was shot down... As though the assassination was a signal,
military and militia groups began rounding up and killing all Tutsis they could capture as well as the political moderates irrespective of their ethnic backgrounds. Large numbers of opposition politicians were also murdered.
(3)
Propaganda or Revenge ?
A president being assassinated is pretty traumatic. His wife and a handful of assessors used the public's surprise and outrage to spark one of the largest genocides in recent history, and one of the top 5 mass murders of the last 50 years (4) (As a curiosity, despite Ann Coulter's revisionist history, Saddam didn't "make it into the top 5
But there are several indications that the mass murder was being planned openly way before the assassination: The Prime Minister of Rwanda revealed that the genocide was openly discussed in cabinet meetings. He described, how one cabinet minister said she was "personally in favor of getting rid of all Tutsi". "Without the Tutsi," she told ministers, "all of Rwanda's problems would be over" (6)
The 3 main tactics in Rwanda
Staged events: creating events to lend credence to propaganda - such as the bombing of a civilian target
Accusations in a Mirror:
projecting into their opponents exactly what they and their own party are planning to do. The spin master explains, "In this way, the party which is using terror will accuse the enemy of using terror."
Hate Radio:
Pundits spent the whole day on the radio yelling for punishment for the "traitors"
The Bush Administration use of the same tactics
A poster here has a good summary
Staged events: The Bush Administration makes liberal use of staged events. "Mission Accomplished" on the deck of an aircraft carrier comes to mind; the toppling of the statue of Saddam Hussein is another..
Accusions in a mirror: To cover his own growing controversy over his Air National Guard service, Bush et al unleashed the Swift Boat Vets barrage. Also, while blatantly re-shaping the reasons for the war in Iraq, Bush accused John Kerry of being a flip-flopper.
Hate radio: Rush Limbaugh. Need I say more? Most prominent to me were the Bush 2004 campaign events where Bush and his mouthpieces reinforced that you were unAmerican if you questioned the war in Iraq
by RenaRF on Sat Feb 19th, 2005 at 20:00:03 CDT.(5)
Accusations in a mirror - Here in America
Of all the techniques pioneered in Rwanda, one of the most effective, and one of the most used by Bush & Co is "Acusations in a Mirror" It consists on accusing your opponent of doing what your side is doing. Doing so has 3 main advantages:
A) * Already sets up a patzi to blame for the crime, in case there's public outrage.
B) * Turns suspicion away from your side. People will think "If he is dennoucing the crime he can't be the perpetrator"
C) * Smears your opponents. Even if they get cleared of wrongdoing, some suspicion will always linger in the public's eyes
Who got cozy with Iran spies again ?
The most recent example is the new Swift Liars smear : Dems helping Iran get the bomb. "The author for the Swift Boat Liars book.. Jerome Corsi... is setting his sights on Congressional Democrats, accusing them of taking money form the Iranians, and somehow helping them develop nuclear weapons -in short, treason.(7)
But in reality, it is the Bush administration cozy relationship with Ahmed Chalabi that led to him revealing US state secrets to his allies in Iran. Secrets such as the fact that US intelligence had broken the Iranian message codes. And guess who is taking Iraq's government after the elections ? Iranian citizen Al Sistani's shia party, the one coziest with Iran. So if anyone is helping Iran get US secrets it is the Bush administration and their cavalier attitude with state secrets and national security.
By accusing Dems of being in collusion in Iran the Bush camp is achieving the objectives A, B and C of it's accusation in a mirror. Brilliant, isn't it ?
Rwanda's handy guide to fomenting hate
All those techniques of propaganda are described in a "Propaganda for Dummies" handbook found in Rwanda: In a mimeographed document entitled "Note Relative à la Propagande d'Expansion et de Recrutement," found in Butare prefecture, one propagandist tells others how to sway the public most effectively. Obviously someone who had studied at university level, the author of the note presents a detailed analysis of a book called Psychologie de la publicité et de la propagande, by Roger Mucchielli, published in Paris in 1970.
The author of the note claims to convey lessons learned from the book and drawn from Lenin and Goebbels. He advocates using lies, exaggeration, ridicule, and innuendo to attack the opponent, in both his public and his private life. He suggests that moral considerations are irrelevant, except when they happen to offer another weapon against the other side. He adds that it is important not to underestimate the strength of the adversary nor to overestimate the intelligence of the general public targeted by the campaign. Propagandists must aim both to win over the uncommitted and to cause divisions among supporters of the other point of view. They must persuade the public that the adversary stands for war, death, slavery, repression, injustice, and sadistic cruelty. (2)
Propagannon
Propagandists echoed and magnified the hatred and suspicion sown by the President and officials around him. Under the cover of.. freedom of the press, they blared forth messages disseminated more discreetly by officials
Rove and Luntz twin souls in Rwanda ?
Propagandists developed the same themes over and over, both before and during the genocide. While some of the similarities in their messages may result simply from sharing the same cultural milieu, other similarities in technique suggest deliberate coordination among propagandists and between them and government officials
No good can come out of preaching violence
So what is the bottom line for this diary ? Those similarities are not just coincidence
Although I believe conservative Americans would take a lot more than propaganda to be turned into a mob of murderers I can't help but wonder... Won't this hate speech destroy something near and dear to America ?
This kind of hate speech has been proven to work, and to create the social conditions for mass murder
It has done so TWICE in the last 50 years: Germany and Rwanda. At least 7 million people died because of this kind of hate speech. Should we take it in stride and believe the Ann Coulters and Sean Hannity's are "just joking" ? Can we afford to be wrong ?
Why Gannon Matters
A legitimate, attentive and active free press is, so far, the ONLY effective weapon we have against this kind of hate speech. Censoring it won't make it go away. Uncovering it's distrortions and lies might...
Update [2005-2-25 14:32:25 by lawnorder]: More scary news via Common Ground Common Sense
Bush and Co Following Hitler's playbook, To the tee
This is a really scary article. Apparently the neocons are LITERALLY following Hitler's playbook. It's almost "paint by numbers" for them
References
(1) - http://mediamatters.org/items/200410070004
(2) - http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/rwanda/Geno1-3-10.htm
(3) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwanda_genocide
(4) - http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/POWER.ART.HTM
(5) - http://lawnorder.dailykos.com/comments/2005/2/19/12356/9661/33#33
(6) - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3572887.stm
(7) - http://lawnorder.dailykos.com/story/2005/2/24/161723/465