People, the truth can no longer be avoided, or postponed, or parsed. We no longer have the luxury of hoping that the political dialogue in this country is just that: dialogue. Something shared between reasonable people who, at the end of the day, still respect one another.
In the last 7 days, the stakes have risen in our rhetorical battle with those on the political right, and they have declared their bonafides: We are traitors and they intend to treat us as such.
This webpage is one of the most disgraceful outrages I've ever had the misfortune to happen upon on the internet. I came across this latest project by David Horowitz through Eric Alterman's blog, where he teased, "Is Bruce a communist? Read about it here."
This slander, no matter how absurd you think it may be, cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. Because for every outrage unchallenged, those that perpetrate the outrage are that much more emboldened to do it again. And worse.
And this is just one of several such developments during this past week. More on the flip.
Update [2005-2-21 16:41:27 by bigskiphazzy]:I've been amazed and heartened by the amount of dialogue this diary has generated. I intend to print the whole thread and compile a list of action items. Thanks to all.
Now, some have opined that it might not be the best tactic to respond to such a "fringe" website, which could potentially draw more viewers to their site. Well here's my answer:
Time Magazine, with its 4,189,981 subscribers worldwide, named this jackass's rantings as the "blog of the year." A man who essentially called Jimmy Carter, ex-President of the United States, evangelical Christian, humanitarian and Nobel Prize winner, a TRAITOR, is Time's blogger of the year. Now you tell me, should we be responding to these fringe websites? (Thanks Digby for the link, via kos.)
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I'm going to frame this simply: This is a goddamn blacklist! Let there be no mistake: Nothing short of that. We are the enemy. They are compiling lists, brazenly linking us with sworn enemies of the United States, and delivering to the world a nifty search engine for anybody looking for slanderous "talking points" in which to poison the debate.
Before I wrote this diary, I searched the KOS diaries and found only three diaries on the subject, none of which was recommended and, between them, there was only 18 total recommendations.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/2/15/124332/208
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/2/16/145945/944
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/2/19/32748/3761
For the most part, kossacks poked fun at the site, wondering how to get on it, who they left off, and why their coding was so shoddy. Well and good to have some laughs.
But folks, this shit AIN'T funny! This shit is dangerous. This shit is insidious. And this shit cannot go unanswered! If people think that Horowitz is baiting us - I'm no Horowitz scholar, I admit - well I'm saying that the we have to take the bait!
Am I the only one who sees a picture of Barack Obama next to the mug shot of Ayatollah Khomeini and wonders what the fuck??? Bill Moyer's picture is just below that of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the recently dubbed "face of terror?" Bruce Springsteen and Mohammed Atta on the same list? Folks, you need to go over there and have a look.
In the introduction of the "individuals" page, the professed goal of the project:
examines activists for leftwing agendas and causes, radical egalitarians, and opponents of American 'imperialism.'
By cynically equating Howard Dean, for example, and Fidel Castro under this thesis - essentally postulating that all "activists" on this list have the same goal: to bring America down - they plant the seeds. And its from these seeds that the hammer, which pounds dissent into useless shards, begins to grow.
If this were an isolated incident, maybe I'd think we should be more measured in our response. But consider this:
This web project, discoverthenetwork.org, was officially launched on Feb. 15, 2005, which happened to be the same day that New York State GOP Chairman Stephen Minarik said this about the Democratic Party and Chairman Howard Dean. Dean is:
the personification of today's national Democratic Party _ elite, radical, out-of-control, and sadly out-of-touch with ordinary Americans. The Democrats simply have refused to learn the lessons of the past two election cycles, and now they can be accurately called the party of Barbara Boxer, Lynne Stewart and Howard Dean.
Now it's not bad enough that a State party leader equated the Democratic Party Chairman and an outspoken Democratic Senator with a woman recently convicted of aiding and abetting a terrorist, but when Dean demanded an apology, Minarik basically told him to go Cheney himself. At the same time, a Republican Jewish group launches an ad trying to link Dean to terrorism.
All this in the span of a week.
And folks, what's been going on as a backdrop to all this? You got it. The Conservative Political Action Conference, starring Ann Coulter, Ollie North, Michelle "I never met a minoritiy I wouldn't racially profile or intern" Malkin and all the hatred you can fit under one giant big tent. Keynote Speaker: The big dick himself. Richard Go-Fuck-Yourself Cheney.
Here's our good friend Ann at CPAC:
"Liberals like to scream and howl about McCarthyism, I say let's give them some. They've have intellectual terror on campus for years....it's time for a new McCarthyism."
Does it alarm anyone but me that the Vice President of the United States of America is the featured guest at a conference where speaker after speaker are rallying for a "new McCarthyism"? Fuck me. Orwell's editor would have CUT this past week from the manuscript, claiming the author was DIVORCED FROM REALITY. (Gratuitous Hookergate reference. My obsession with watching that story unfold has most likely delayed this diary.)
Read Oliver Willis's chilling assessmentof the state of things at the CPAC convention:
Wake up, folks. We're in an ideological war with these folks and the sooner you realize that the better. The goal of the modern conservative movement, as embodied by George W. Bush, is not just a simple majority of conservative thought - rather, it is the elimination of everything but conservative thought.
And don't think for a minute that Horowitz didn't have someone down there pimping his blacklist database, getting it into the hands of every fevor-pitched kool-aid drinking orc they could find.
If we don't fight this right fucking now, it'll be harder the next time. It's up to us. We can't bang our heads against fucking Ken Salazar for next 4 years hoping for a miracle. There ain't gunna be NO Miracle, Armando. Reid's doing his part. We ... Don't ... Govern ... Get it? And if we don't stand up against cocksuckers like Horowitz and Minarik right now, they're gunna be throwing a lot more people in jail than just Lynne Stewart and a bunch of US citizens that just happen to be of "middle-eastern descent."
Look, here's the final paragraph of discoverthenetwork's mission statement:
The disingenuous tradition of the political left has continued into the present. In the 1960s, the radical organizers of the mass anti-war demonstrations pretended that their only interest was to "Bring the Troops Home," when in fact their agendas embraced a radical menu that was anti-capitalist and welcomed a Communist victory. In the campaign against the war in Iraq, a similar pattern emerged, as the information provided in this database clearly demonstrates."
Now, let me ask you something, does this tortured logic start to make sense when you go back and look at some of the motives of the McCarthy witch hunts, and specifically, the hollywood blacklist?
Liberalism, not Communism, may, in fact, have been the true target of the HUAC investigators. The Right wished to discourage any Hollywood impulse to make films advocating social change at home or critical of foreign policy.
So here's what I'm asking of you folks. We need to put together a response.
We need an orchestrated effort to isolate all the lies and distortions and outrages put forth on the discoverthenetwork project and we need to begin this campaign NOW!
I think we can put together a petition - I think I saw a free online service - get a name and start contacting the media. I also think we must contact "friends" on that list of support and/or a statement. If we can't get this web site to retract its slander, then I'm proposing that we organize a rally. People for Open Discourse in America.
I'm completely open to any and all ideas, other than ignoring this. We've been punched in the mouth one too many times. Just today, America said it is BEGGING Democrats to stand up to the Bush Administration. We are democrats. We can't let Harry Reid and Barbara Boxer do all the heavy lifting. We must be prepared to fight.
As our boy Sean Connery was wont to say: "If they put one of ours in the hospital, we put one of theirs in the MORGUE! That's the Chicago WAY!"
Thanks all for reading this far, and it would be nice to have some "recomendo mojo" to get some legs for this idea.