MY NEW BOOK LAUNCHES, TODAY!!
Thu May 01, 2008 at 05:45:04 AM PDT
(check out the Online Launch Party at Facebook. -JF)
Despite the constant flow of violent rhetoric from right-wing pundits, I am happy because my new book Outright Barbarous launches, today! Hurray!!
The book is a follow up to Framing the Debate, focusing not on the difficulty that progressives have in framing key issues, but on the aggressive, violent language and ideas that key right-wing pundits use. The end result of these pundits, I conclude, is not just a confrontational form of political debate, but a poisoning of the public sphere so integral to our democracy.
Progressives have come a long since the last Presidential election woke up so many people in this country. But we still need to dedicate ourselves to the massive project of rebuilding a democracy that inspires and protects Americas, and is capable of solving the huge pragmatic challenges sitting on our doorstep.
Outright Barbarous contributes to that effort, and I hope everyone will both enjoy reading it and find real solutions in it.
Reason for the Book
There were many small incidents that got me thinking about the way right-wing pundits used language and the long-term impact that was having on our country's ability to protect its citizens and achieve our future.
But there was once incident in particular that focused me and was, ultimately, the reason I wrote the book. I recount that in the first pages of the Preface. Here is a snippet from that opening section:
My decision to write a book on the problem of right-wing pundits use of violent language came in the days following the horrific massacre of students in Blacksburg, Virginia on April 16, 2007. I had lived for almost a decade in Charlottesville, where I earned my Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology. So I knew many people connected with Virginia Tech, and spent most of that day on the phone trying to make sure that everyone I knew was alright. Not since September 11 had I felt such a loss of control as on the day of the Virginia Tech shootings.
Thankfully, everyone I knew was unharmed, although the same
could not be said for the dozens of people whose lives were ended senselessly by the bullets of Seung-Hui Cho. By coincidence, the National Rifle Association (NRA) had held its annual meeting in St. Louis just a few days before the Virginia Tech shootings. In preparation for the meeting, NRA President Wayne LaPierre had circulated a letter to the group’s membership, a copy of which was still on the NRA’s website as news of the wounded and killed in Virginia appeared in the national media:
Today is one of the most important days of the year for gun owners. The start of the NRA Annual Meetings is both a celebration of freedom and a rally for the Second Amendment, but it’s also a show of force by gun owners to the enemies of freedom everywhere...They’re not interested in lobbying Congress or state legislators. Instead, they want to go global, with the help of anti-gun politicians in countries without the Second Amendment. That arms trade treaty, if ratified by Congress or signed by a future president, would mean a global war on your guns the likes of which has never been seen. But when we gather in St. Louis, we show them we won’t be pushed around.
After reading the letter, I sat silently at my desk for a long while. Current events can often turn what would otherwise be ordinary words into statements of significance far beyond their original intent. This was one of those occasions. LaPierre was the most prominent right-wing pundit on gun ownership, author of several books, and a regular on TV talk shows. While he mourned the tragic loss of life in Blacksburg as deeply as every other American, just days prior he had rallied his membership with violent rhetoric. As the most visible advocate for gun safety, the NRA should have known to replace that letter with something far more appropriate. Yet, LaPierre’s letter was not just about guns
or constitutional rights or government policy. It was an effort by a right-wing pundit and political leader to define his opponents through a logic of violence.
It's difficult to overestimate how much that turn of events sat on my mind. It was horrific. The realization I had was not just that progressives needed to reframe issues better--on our own terms--but that we needed to grasp what the right-wing media machine was doing to our body politic, and then stop that from happening further.
In the meantime, LaPierre's words provided a starting point for me:
I printed out LaPierre’s letter and called a friend to meet for coffee to discuss it. "My goodness," I said. "This letter talks about you, me and most people I know in the same language the media uses to talk aboutterrorists." Suddenly, LaPierre’s political opponents in the gun issue were traitors to America. To make matters worse, other right-wing pundits amplified the NRA’s violent language in the broadcast media. On April 17, Bill O’Reilly accused "the far left" of waiting only "minutes" before using the mass murder to advance an "anti-gun story."2 The following day, columnist Ann Coulter argued that strict gun laws, state legislators, and administrators were the real cause behind the deaths in Blacksburg, not the gunman:
Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker praised the legislature for allowing the school to disarm lawful gun owners on the faculty and student body, thereby surrendering every college campus in the state to deranged mass murderers.
The effort to frame the Blacksburg massacre as the product of
left-wing politics echoed from coast to coast. The end result, as Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne observed, was not merely offensive, but fundamentally damaging to the American tradition of getting things done.4 Innocent people died on the Virginia Tech campus, but what suffered from the right-wing media tactics that followed was American pragmatism. Dionne was correct in every aspect of his argument except one: pragmatism had suffered in more than just the gun control debate. Pragmatic solutions to
every major political issue collapsed during the years of the Bush administration, under the strain of violent language heaped on our national debate by right-wing pundits.
Because the subject of right-wing pundits is so massive, Outright Barbarous takes a narrow focuses. I examine the key figures who (1) have published best-selling books and (2) appear regularly on TV: LaPierre, Buchanan, Coulter, O'Reilly, Gibson, Dobson, and D'Souza. I also look at a few right-wing politicians: Bush, Cheney, Gingrich, Giuliani, and briefly at McCain.
In my view, a great deal of attention has already been paid to radio personalities, but little if any critical analysis had been applied to the actual books that these super high-profile pundits produced.
It is the right-wing books, I argue, that are the starting point for most of the violent ideas that get pushed by right-wing outlets. But here's the catch: Progressives never read these books by right-wing pundits.
So, that is exactly what I did. I read their books and I quote them at length in the pages of Outright Barbarous.
I will admit: it was not easy to write this book for the simple reason that the research dragged me through some of the most violent rhetoric I have read in a long time. After writing the chapter on James Dobson, I literally took a vacation just so I could clear my head.
This is not easy material, but it has had and will continue to have a profound impact on American government unless we begin to systematically take it on.
Thank You Kossacks!
Thank you all for your support of this project. Thanks not only to everyone who choses to buy a copy of the book, today, or in the future, but to everyone whose contributes to this site. Your ideas are in my ideas. And for that I am grateful.
