History is a powerful weapon in political debate, but it's a dangerous one, too – especially for wingnuts who don't know what they're talking about. The name-dropping, analogy torturing, and metaphor mixing surely must provide a heady mix of near-intellectualism and affected pomposity for the conservative with more important priorities than context. Still, a couple of hours in front of the History Channel does not a Thucydides make, nor does a recent front page post at RedState constitute anything approaching the history-based argument against the Employee Free Choice Act it purports to be.
Join me, if you will, in the Cave of the Moonbat, where you resident historiorantologist has prepared a dissection of a conservative history diary. Feel free to poke, prod, and tell stories of the times you've seen history abused by our conservative friends, but do be careful of the slippery floor – you know how those liberals' hearts bleed! (yuck, yuck)
I'm not particularly interested in seeing RedState's numbers go up, but since there's a teachable moment here – one about linking to sources; kind of a given if one wants one's work taken with any degree of seriousness – I'll first provide a link to the "blog" in question, then will endeavor to describe and examine what makes it such a classic of the right wing version of the historical narrative.
The piece, authored by Erick, is entitled The Democrats In Charge: Trotsky Would Be Proud (we'll get back to Trotsky, as the author mentions Comrade Leon again later on), and as mentioned above, it was on the top of RedState's front page earlier today. The ludicrous title is certainly eye-catching, but what first draws the reader's attention is an image that I'm leery of reproducing here due to copyright concerns. The author, apparently, had concerns of his own – the first sentences of his piece acknowledged that some RedStaters had complained it was "mean" and "nasty."
The image is meant to denote an ongoing series, in this case entitled "Democrat-Socialists Take Back Congress." The first two words are at the top of the image, the last three at the bottom; all are presented in a Courier-type font reminiscent of typewriters and secret dossiers. Herein lies the first amusement peep into the wingnut mindset, as it exposes the simplistic formula by which they determine who's wit' 'em an' who's agin' 'em: Socialist=Communist=Enemy. Since they have no time (even the mighty Jack Bauer only gets 24 hours) for nuance or distinction between political systems, they simply use all three words interchangeably. It probably never occurred to the artist that the Democratic Socialists of America, while alive and well – and laying claim to being the largest socialist party in the United States today – is a separate and distinct entity from the Democratic Party, whose members were elected to a majority of seats in both houses of Congress in 2006.
Yellow and pink/purple sepia tones dominate the work, which consists of a jumble of unrelated images abhorrent to the Republican mind. These include:
- A Star with Hammer and Sickle – though the Soviet Union hasn't existed since the early 1990s, it's easy to confuse modern Dems with Politburo members, what with all that talk of bourgeoisies and proletarians and dialectics and stuff.
- An Imperial Japanese Naval Ensign – otherwise known as the "Rising Sun" flag. This radiates outward from behind the Soviet-esque star. I have absolutely no idea what a Japanese WWII flag is supposed to mean in this context, or why it was included in the image – theories welcome.
- The Withdrawal from Saigon – the lettering, Yamamoto standard, and the Commie star are all superimposed over a greenish background photo of a crowded ladder and a helicopter on the roof of the US Embassy in Saigon in April, 1975. Its inclusion here is a mystery: does it represent frightened Republicans abandoning Congress?
Having grabbed the reader's attention with a silly title and a sillier graphic, the author gets down to business in the second paragraph, providing some valuable historical context to his claims of a Commie takeover of the US government by talking about the Russian one 90 years ago. Here we find that one of the things the Russian Communists did was "end multiparty rule," which leaves me wondering: was that the multiparty rule under the Tsar, or is he referring to that resplendent few months of glorious democracy under Kerensky's Provisional Government?
In January 1905, on 'Bloody Sunday', the army in St Petersburg shot at a crowd demanding radical reforms. Opposition to the tsar grew and Nicholas was forced to grant a constitution and establish a parliament, the Duma. Nicholas's concessions were only limited. Changes were made in the voting laws to prevent the election of radicals and the secret police continued to crush opposition. However, the Duma did give many more people, especially the middle classes, a voice in government.
BBC
Thus passed the months of May and June, 1917. One would have liked to find something to relate, but nothing happened apart from the incoherence of the regime of Kerensky, who inspired everyone with a feeling of profound contempt. He had appointed himself War Minister and Minister President. He exerted himself, went to the front, made speeches there, came back, made more speeches, set out again for Moscow and Sebastopol, whither a sailors' meeting called him, and presented the appearance of a squirrel in a cage.
Sounds like somebody we know, but not a Democrat...
Princess Paley, Memories of Russia, 1916-1919
The author then moves on to a critique of media censorship by Vladimir Putin and Hugo Chavez, describing the two as "Soviet lovers." I don't know exactly what that means, but it sure sounds bad – maybe Vlad will clear things up after he finishes re-erecting all those Stalin statues, or Hugo when he's done addressing a conference of plenipotentiary delegations from the various Socialist Republics of Venezuela. His point, I believe, is to equate a dictator's censorship of opposition with that of an ideologically-driven superpower exploiting state control of the media for its own ends, but what the hell? Just throw "Totalitarianism" into that All Enemies Being Identical formula, and think no more of it.
He then moves on to the real meat of the matter. Here's the money paragraph:
Today, the Democrats intend to bring forward a vote on the Employee Free Choice Act, a Soviet style piece of union and Communist Party USA backed legislation that will deny employees a secret ballot in union elections. Union thugs will be able to intimidate and harass opponents of unionization and verify everyone follows the party line in the vote.
He's speaking, of course, about the EFCA (link to the AFL/CIO page) that's been getting so much air lately. It's a good piece of legislation, as pointed out by the people who know organized labor issues best:
The Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 800, S. 1041), supported by a bipartisan coalition in Congress, would level the playing field for workers and employers and help rebuild America’s middle class. It would restore workers’ freedom to choose a union by:
* Establishing stronger penalties for violation of employee rights when workers seek to form a union and during first-contract negotiations.
* Providing mediation and arbitration for first-contract disputes.
* Allowing employees to form unions by signing cards authorizing union representation.
ibid.
As the site points out, it's a bipartisan coalition that supports this measure – but that doesn't immunize it from the Slavic Bugaboo. Neither, presumably, would the strong and rationale arguments in its favor that have been posted here by Avenging Angel, Trapper John, and many other worthies who expended a great deal more effort in presenting a favorable case than Erick did with his casual, strawman-intensive dismissal. "Communist Party USA backed?" What the hell is that? Would my answering why I and the Communist Party might support the same piece of legislation obligate him to explain why Focus on the Family and the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan have identical views on abortion?
Oh, and as for that second bit: I'm a member of a union, and I gotta tell you, thuggery just ain't what it used to be. Do you have any idea how much a 2x4 even costs these days? Those things don't grow on trees. Neither do those fancy-schmancy aluminum baseball bats, which, for all that the new generation likes them, just don't have the same feel as a good ole' Louisville Slugger when you're smashing it up against the head of some Pinkerton goon.
I'm just really glad that there's no way an employer could ever use the secret ballot as a means of bullying workers about to vote on unionization – since we know that they're all just trying to run a fair and equitable business, where an honest day's work is paid an honest day's wage, and perish the thought that they'd ever even dream of screwing a working man and pocketing the difference.
The author next engages in a bit of that favorite sport of the historical amateur: name-dropping. There are certain words and references that just make one sound smart, and some wingnut mouth-breathers have actually spent enough time in front of the History Channel (drawn, no doubt, by the recent addition of Ice Road Truckers to the lineup) to learn a few of them. A favorite, used in this article in reference to the Fairness Doctrine, is "Orwellian," which to a Republican means "anything I disagree with." Properly, of course, the term is used to refer to "an attitude and a policy of control by propaganda, misinformation, denial of truth, and manipulation of the past." Here's a handy chart for our Republican friends to help keep the two straight:
Orwellian |
Not Orwellian |
"Clear Skies Initiative" |
Clean Water Act |
"No Child Left Behind" |
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." |
Perino: Americans Voted For "Surge" In 2006 Midterm Elections |
Employee Free Choice Act |
Apparently, our "puppet think tanks" are attempting to make the astonishing case that maybe too few companies owning too many media outlets might lead to a certain...uniformity of opinion is quite worrisome to him. Even more troubling to this avowed Commie-despiser is that in seeking enforcement of the Fairness Doctrine, we lib'ruls are proposing to side-step the greatest fairness-arbiter of all, the Free Market (peace and blessing be upon it). So wrapped up is the author in hating last millennium's enemy that he misses his own key point: that it is dominance through the centralization of media that is the problem, not whether it is labeled "Soviet" or "Communist," nor whether that centralization comes about as a result of government or Free Market (pbui) actions.
This little dip in the shallow end of the gene pool comes to a rousing conclusion, as the author brings it all together with the elegance and skillful precision of a shotgun blast:
The Democrats seek to consolidate power by taking away secret ballots, taking away altnerative (sic) voices on the air, and by changing the language of the debate — calling "success" "failure" and "winning" "losing."
They could probably have taught Trotsky a thing or two.
Well, my friends, he got us. Hang up you bloggin' shoes, stick a fork in us – we're done. The bad guys have figured out the secret methodology behind the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy; now our Jedi mind tricks will work on them no longer. As for Trotsky (who, given the title, I thought would be teaching us)...well, maybe the Right is currently more in need of old Leon's advice than we are:
This colossal betrayal (by the sold-out party leadership) cannot be understood if one accepts the idea that what existed in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe was "real socialism", as the CP leaders maintained for decades. The collapse of the Soviet Union was in reality the result of decades of bureaucratic degeneration. At a time when the Moscow bureaucracy was boasting about "building socialism" the USSR was in fact moving away from socialism. And, as Trotsky predicted in 1936, the ruling caste of officials would not be satisfied with their privileges and high salaries, but would want to secure their position and that of their children, by turning state property into private property. This was inevitable, unless the working class overthrew the bureaucracy and returned to the Leninist policy of workers' democracy and internationalism. In the end, it was exactly what happened.
But then again, history never was a Republican strong suit.