Help Wanted - Right-Wing Violent Rhetoric Watch

**I NEED YOUR HELP**

With an eye towards the general election, I am beginning a new project focused on the problem of violent rhetoric from the Right and the problems it poses--not just to Democratic Party prospects at winning the White House, but to American democracy itself.

So far, the working title for this project is "Violent Rhetoric Watch", which will take the form of regular postings on DailyKos.

I had planned to begin this a bit closer to summer, but because the right-wing framing of Barack Obama has begun in earnest--as revealed in last week's events--I now feel an urgency to start this project immediately.

Continue reading after the jump to learn more about this project, what I have done so far, and how you can help.

Why Now?
In my view, the Democratic Party has chosen a candidate in Barack Obama.  Frankly, it's a great choice delivered at the end of an exciting contest.  In my reading of things, the Clinton campaign understands that they cannot win the nomination, but they have not yet found a way out of the primary that is politically acceptable to them.  So we will have a struggle for a little while longer while the Clinton campaign finds an exit they can live with.  In the meantime, I understand that many people may continue to push the Clinton camp to drop out, I understand why people are moved to keep doing that, and I respect that choice.  But I feel that the nomination process is sufficiently complete that those who want to can now turn their efforts to the general election and in particular to pushing back against the right-wing attempt to frame our nominee so as to render him unelectable.  

The Right and the Wright Affair
Bloggers did a great job pushing back against the right-wing smear that was the 'Wright Affair,' but we also need to see it as a wake up call--a sign of what to expect in the general election.   The logic of the right affair was not just race and racism.  It was violence.  What happened in the Wright Affair was that Barack Obama was framed as a black man who posed a violent threat to America.  This was the second time it happened, the first being the 'Barack Hussein Obama' email smear (which is ongoing).   Shockingly, the Wright Affair was much more successful than the previous campaign because it articulated with a deep fear amongst certain voters that African-Americans secretly harbor a desire for violent revenge.  We could spend a long time discussing the psychology and history that gives rise to this fear, but for now we just need to realize that it is there--and see that the Right has already started to exploit it.  The Wright Affair is and will continue to be the primary example of violent rhetoric from the right-wing and the core framing challenge we will face in this election.

Right-Wing Pundits and Media
Despite what is now a general understanding in the blogs on how the right-wing smears Democratic candidates, few bloggers actually focus their attention on tracking and pushing back against the smears.  Instead, big group blogs like DailyKos tend to react against the smears and then amplify the outrage.  That is good work and important to do, but we can do more.  In particular, we need to recognize that violent right-wing framing works through the efforts of best-selling pundits writing books and columns who appear regularly on right-wing TV.  Bloggers can play key role in preventing violent framing from taking hold only if we focus our attention on right-wing pundits and media every day. This means committing ourselves to reading and analyzing media sources that routinely accuse us of conspiring to harm the United States, of being sympathetic with terrorists, and of leading immoral lives.   It is not easy work to sustain over a long period of time, which makes working as a team even more important.

Work Completed So Far
About a year ago, I began tracking the problem of violent rhetoric and violent framing as it was being used by a host of very high-profile right-wing pundits (e.g., Buchanan, Coulter, Hannity, Dobson, Lapierre, Gibson, O'Reilly) as well as a few right-wing politicians (e.g., Giuliani, Bush, Cheney, Gingrich, McCain).  Growing out of this work, I posted a few blog pieces on DailyKos, Frameshop, and HuffingtonPost.  Finally, I write a book titled Outright Barbarous: How the Violent Language of the Right Poisons American Democracy in which I put down on paper a basic description of 'violent rhetoric,' who was responsible for  using it, and how it undermined American democracy.  This book will be out in May.  I wrote the book not just to present my findings, but because I know it can be tremendously helpful with the particular problems Democrats and the country in general face in this election.    

How This Project Will Work
Our next steps are to turn this work from the obsession of one blogger (me), into a team effort.  How many people join the effort will ultimately determine how much work we are able to do. Ideally, I would like to be able to provide a resource every day for DailyKos readers in the form of a daily diary posted under a series title (e.g., Violent Rhetoric Watch). Theses posts would include three basic elements:  (1) examples, (2) analysis, (3) suggestions for action.  This information would also be included on a general resource page linked to my personal blog Frameshop (http://www.frameshopisopen.com), distributed via a closed email list, etc.  The final format of Violent Rhetoric Watch will be take shape through discussion with those who join the effort, and we will make an effort to monitor what works and what does not work moving forward--revising and refocusing as necessary.

Netroots Nation Panel on Violent Rhetoric
Also with this project in mind, I have organized a panel on violent rhetoric that will be part of the program at this year's Netroots Nation Conference in Austin (formerly YearlyKos). The panel will offer a high-profile focus for the work we do here on DailyKos and give us all a chance to meet and discuss strategy/tactics as we head into the Fall. And we can also have drinks!  (the conference will be incredibly fun)

Please Help! What You Can Do Next
The next step is for us to create a list of kossacks who want to join in this effort.  To do that, just send me an email here:

VRW (at) frameshopisopen (dot) com

Be sure to include:

1. Your DailyKos user ID

2. An email address

3. Your actual name (optional)

4. Some way for me to verify that you are not a right-wing troublemaker

For obvious reasons, I will need to take item 4 very seriously, so please just be patient with that.  

Once I have an initial response I will create an invitation only Google Group and we will continue the discussion there.  

Thanks for reading.  I look forward to working with everyone who joins this project and to a successful effort at keeping right-wing violent rhetoric away from our candidate out of this election.

•  Thanks for your help!

  It's been a contentious few months here on DailyKos, but my confidence in this place and the people who come here is stronger than ever.

  If you're interested in joining this effort to push back  right-wing violent rhetoric in the 2008 election--to stop it before it does anymore harm to our candidate and our democracy--please send me an email (VRW (at) frameshopisopen (dot) com).  

  Questions? Comments? Concerns?  Post it all in this thread.

  And:  if you agree that this is an issue worth bringing to everyone's attention as I do, please rec this diary.

  by Jeffrey Feldman on Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 08:48:40 AM PDT

  •  I'm in. I'd rather take action than

    sit in exasperated rage typical of the Bush years.

    I'm busy with kids, but this is a project I can work on from home. You'll hear from me shortly.

    Thank you for your work, and this diary. Tipped and rec'd.

    by means are the ends on Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 09:30:16 AM PDT

•  then this site needs a lot of watching

  by tony the American Mutt on Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 08:52:23 AM PDT

  •  now that's funny, hat tip....n/t

    by Belvedere Come Here Boy on Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 08:57:10 AM PDT

  •  that's what Bill O'Reilly would say...

    which I know was not your intention.  

    DailyKos is a great place as always.

    by Jeffrey Feldman on Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 08:57:35 AM PDT

  •  This user has over 200

    hidden comments, most in the last several weeks.  Please do not feed mojo to the troll.

    by Same As It Ever Was on Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 11:01:45 AM PDT

•  I already have a right-wing watch.

  It runs backwards -- and the only numbers on the dial are "One. Two. Three. Many."

  by Finck II on Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 09:11:23 AM PDT

  •  lol

    Sounds like a good xmas gift...

    by Jeffrey Feldman on Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 09:15:41 AM PDT

•  Need precise "where it showed up" log

  I'm too tired, lazy and scattered to trust myself to do this, but I think another useful thing for the Democratic Party to have would be a really good, detailed tracking log/diary/calendar that showed precisely where and when (to the minute, if possible) stories like the Wright story started, which reporters at which news organizations put the stories in the national spotlight, what major message boards spread the messages, and which reporters at which publications followed up on the reporters who broke the stories.

  The reason: it would be great if we could know how the Republican negative story placement service (e.g., what I've been calling the Republican Hate PR Machine) operates.

  How many "negative story producers" does it have? Are the people who create the negative stories separate from the people who place them with news organizations? Do the negative story producers and placers just respond to the news, or do they have a quota? What day or days of the week does each producer roll out a new scandal seed? How many scandal seeds actually sprout trees that bear scandalous media feeding frenzy fruit? Are the reporters/media personalities who make the seeds bear fruit always people who have a clear right to be biased (e.g., Rush Limbaugh; Ann Coulter), or does it look as if a lot of the scandal spreaders are reporters who are supposed to be unbiased?

  I really resent it when people call me a troll just because I disagree with them or maybe use imperfect logic, but, of course, it also would be good to look for signs of people who are clear-cut, genuine, intentional, paid shills, as opposed to, say, Republicans who post here and elsewhere just to express their opinions. Are a lot of the shills posting from a single organization or cluster of organizations?

  Do the placers almost always use conventional tactics, or other legal, moral and ethical tactics, or have they actually bribed/blackmailed/co-opted reporters/editors/news organizations/etc. through criminal methods, or through other unsavory methods that might stop if they were brought to light?

  Examples: We mostly hate the Jeremiah Wright and the "typical white woman" feeding frenzies, and we mostly like the "HRC made up the Tuzla sniper stuff" frenzy."

  But, whether we like the frenzies or not, why is it that the reporters frenzied about these particular stories at this specific point in time? Why aren't the reporters frenzying about the 10 Commandments or abortion (or Iraq, or global warming) instead?

  by sclminc on Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 09:28:15 AM PDT

  •  Media Matters does lots of this

    so it's a good source to check. I also love NewsHounds (we watch Fox so you don't have to) for that specific source.

    by means are the ends on Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 09:44:13 AM PDT

    •  I think the thing is it has to be more precise

      and comprehensive than "Reporter X broke the story."

      I'm making this up as I go along, and I'm not really sure how to do this, but the main thing is, I'm not talking about, say, if Maureen Dowd gets on our nerves, but what PR person actually plants the seeds up that end up shaping various reporters' opinions, and how the seeds get fertilized.

      A lot of times, the assumption seems to be "the reporters are all against us," but they're really not. But the Republicans have a great machine shaping how the coverage workers, and the Democrats don't. It would be cool if we could figure out how the Republican machine gears fit together.

      by sclminc on Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 10:30:11 AM PDT

      •  that would be cool

        Or just to render it ineffective one story at a time.  

        by Jeffrey Feldman on Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 11:01:15 AM PDT

  •  good idea

    I know there are people developing this kind of tracking software (or perhaps tracking 'thingy' is the more precise term).  The idea here is to have as many pairs of eyes as possible focusing on this.

    by Jeffrey Feldman on Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 09:44:47 AM PDT