Lou "the Demagogue" Dobbs strikes again! Along with other right-wing shills, he exploits the Fort Hood shooting to broadcast his Islamophobia. This time, he does it by calling out to "Anglo-Saxons" everywhere, and in doing so tries to drag down George Orwell into his cesspool.
More after the flip. .. .
Though I usually avoid it like Ebola, I happened to tune in this evening to Lou Dobbs' 'show,' where I was treated to a 'discussion' about the Fort Hood shooting with Phyllis Chesler and John Nichols. Nichols, as many of you know, writes for The Nation; Chesler has been an important advocate for women's rights since the 1970s, but she was on Dobbs' program because she has also become (alas!) someone who loudly bangs the anti-Jihadist drum, music to Lou's ears. (She also equates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism; as a Progressive Jew who has worked some on I/P issues, I am sadly familiar with the type.)
Let me be clear that I do not underestimate the dangers of radical Islam. And the links between it and the Fort Hood shooter do need to be closely (re-)investigated. But there's no getting around the frightening way this is being demagogued, and I am very worried about backlash against our Muslim brothers and sisters.
Dobbs clearly is not worried about that; I think he actively seeks such a backlash. And he revealed this via his "Anglo-Saxon dog whistle." He was trying to bully Nichols into agreeing that the Ft. Hood shooting was a terrorist act. Nichols, good on him, refused to do so. Dobbs repeatedly insisted, like many other right-wing troglodytes, that this whole thing is the fruits of political correctness. And then he said something like--I can't find the transcript, or I'd give it to you verbatim--"Why can't we use good old Anglo-Saxon words and short declarative sentences? Whom are we worried about offending?" Now, many of you may recognize the occulted source here--Orwell's classic essay, "Politics and the English Language." There, he identifies "pretentious diction" as one of "the tricks by means of which the work of prose-construction is habitually dodged." More specifically, he cites a preference for Latinate words when simpler, Anglo-Saxon ones will do.
This advice has entered into general lore about good writing, much of it quite conservative, really, though Orwell's work is, of course, much subtler and still worth reading. But it's hardly a coincidence that Dobbs would have turned to it at this moment, even though if Orwell were alive, he'd eviscerate this fathead as a spewer of the propaganda he fought against. It's difficult to know if this was a conscious move or something so deeply woven into Dobbs' twisted, racist brain that he did it subconsciously. Whichever, it was no coincidence that he did so in the midst of a discussion seeking to identify the shooter as a member of a Muslim Fifth Column Seeking to Undermine Anglo-Saxon America, Abetted by Politically-Correct Stooges on The Left. I seriously doubt whether most of Dobbs' audience picked up the reference to Orwell, but even if Dobbs actually knew his source (which I also doubt), the point, of course, was to send a signal to his fellow Anglo-Saxons--and his Jewish allies (we're useful to a point, close to qualifying as Real Merkuns). We Anglo-Saxons need Anglo-Saxon words to unveil the anti-Anglo-Saxonism at the heart of Obamerica. Oh, did we mention that the President is not, um, a full-blooded Anglo-Saxon? That he might even be a Muslim? That Brown People continue to pour over our border? Don't need to. It's at a pretty high frequency, but we can hear it crystal clear in the dog whistle.
I know it's hard for us to react concretely to this poison, since there's no transcript or YouTube clip yet. But if and when it comes, I'll update and attach some contact info. I also know this may look like a relatively small point in the larger Right Wing Noise Machine. But it really touched a nerve in me. . .and, I hope, in you--the nerve exactly opposite to the one that Dobbs hoped to activate.