What We Say, What They Hear, and What That Could Mean if "IT" Happens Again

[Pamela Troy]

One of the lessons I’ve learned online since 9/11 is that the right wing assessment of statements often relies, not so much on the context and actual meaning of the words, but on who is saying them.

For instance, if a right-wing blogger asserts that open criticism of the Iraqi war is treasonous, and that therefore Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, and Democrats in general are a bunch of traitors who deserve to be rounded up, put on trial for treason, and shot, the reaction from other right-wingers is likely to be kudos to the writer for putting it all so succinctly and wittily.

If however, a liberal blogger points out that making open criticism of the Iraqi war treasonous would result in Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, and many, many Democrats, including the liberal and the liberal’s family, being hauled off for execution, many of those same right-wingers will scornfully denounce liberal “paranoia.”

The reactions don’t logically scan until you realize that the right-wingers in question are not actually objecting because they believe that what the liberal says is untrue and therefore “paranoid.” They are objecting because the liberal has made rounding up American dissidents, putting them on trial for treason and shooting them sound like a bad thing.

So yet again, the sheer irrationality of the right-wing blogosphere has oozed into the offline world, with two especially egregious examples cropping up in the past few weeks. One has to do with rock star Ted Nugent’s recent http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3PriJ31M70" title="onstage, gun-waving rant">onstage, gun-waving rant about prominent liberals:

“I was in Chicago last week I said, ‘Hey Obama, you might want to suck on one of these, you punk?’ Obama, he’s a piece of shit and I told him to suck on one of my machine guns. Let’s hear it for them. I was in New York and I said, ‘Hey Hillary, you might want to ride one of these into the sunset you worthless bitch.’ Since I’m in California, I’m gonna find Barbara Boxer she might wanna suck on my machine guns. Hey, Dianne Feinstein, ride one of these you worthless whore.”

Rational viewers have already mentioned the right-wing reaction's over-the-top reaction to the Dixie Chick’s criticism of Bush, but Sean Hannity himself offered an example of just how bizarre the conservative right-wing mindset has become on Hannity and Colmes the other day. While discussing Nugent’s tirade, http://mediamatters.org/items/200708270006" title="he said,">he said, in all apparent seriousness:

“I see you liberals more upset about that, but I don't hear anybody criticizing Barack Obama for accusing our troops of killing civilians, air-raiding villages, et cetera, et cetera. What's more shocking to you? What's more offensive to you? Is it Barack Obama's statement about our troops or Ted Nugent?”

As Democratic strategist Bob Beckel observes on that same show, Obama’s comment had been about changing our strategy in Aghanistan so that the US is "not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians.” Hannity is equating Obama acknowledging that civilians are being killed in Afghanistan with someone standing on a stage before cheering crowds, waving an automatic weapon, and threatening to shoot public figures.

Keep in mind that there’s not a shred of evidence Hannity or his viewers are insincere about this. When many on the right encounter even polite and nuanced criticism of how the war is being conducted, they apparently truly don’t hear rational argument. They hear “hate speech,” the equivalent – or worse -- of someone publicly threatening to kill those who disagree with them.

Another example of what many on the right “hear” when confronted with comments from prominent Democrats came earlier this month and was, once again, highlighted on Fox. Take the following quote from editorial writer Stu Bykovksy and Fox commentator John Gibson's response to it:

“I'm thinking another 9/11 would help America… If it is to be, then let it be. It will take another attack on the homeland to quell the chattering of chipmunks and to restore America's righteous rage and singular purpose to prevail.” Stu Bykovsky http://www.philly.com/dailynews/columnists/stu_bykofsky/20070809_Stu_Bykofsky___To_save_America__we_need_another_9_11.html" title=""To Save America, We Need Another 9/11"">“To Save America, We Need Another 9/11” Philadelphia Inquirer 8/9/07

“I think it’s going to take a lot of dead people to wake America up.” Fox commentator John Gibson http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKaza_kaBtg" title="endorsing Sy Bykovsky's comments">endorsing Sy Bykovsky’s comments 8/10/07

And compare it to the following quote from Hillary Clinton and Fox commentator John Gibson's response to it:

“It’s a horrible prospect to ask yourself, ‘What if? What if?’ But if certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world,” Hillary Rodham Clinton speech 8/23/07

“Well, I realize I'm doing a little interpretation here, but what she actually said was it'll be a terrible thing if there was a terror attack, a terrible thing for her campaign, uh, because a terror attack would help the Republicans. Al Qaeda hates Bush, hates the Republicans, so it appears she was sending this signal, as they say, to Al Qaeda, that it would, it would not be smart to attack the United States of America before the election. Otherwise you're going to get another Bush militarist in there, and he's gonna bomb your cities, and kill your kids and your women. So lay off 'til I'm president, and I'll go easier. Hillary makes a deal with Al Qaeda.” John Gibson denouncing Hillary Clinton’s comments 8/24/07

See? Sy Bykovsky opining that another 9/11 would “help” America by silencing all those pesky critics of the war is GOOD, you see. Hillary Clinton observing that another 9/11 before the election could help the Republicans by muting criticism of the war, however is BAD, possibly even bordering on the treasonous.

Clinton’s comments are unsurprising given the increasing tendency of right-wingers to wax nostalgic and long for a return to that time of “unity” that presumably followed 9/11. It’s an idea that seems to have truly gotten its legs this year, starting in January with radio host Mike Gallagher who said, on his January 29th blog, “…it will take another terror attack on American soil in order to render these left-leaning crazies irrelevant again. Remember how quiet they were after 9/11? No one dared take them seriously. It was the United States against the terrorist world, just like it should be.”

On June 3rd Dennis Milligan, Chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, "At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on , and the naysayers will come around very quickly to appreciate not only the commitment for President Bush, but the sacrifice that has been made by men and women to protect this country."

This was followed by Rick Santorum’s July 6 appearance on the Hugh Hewitt Show, in which Santorum said:

“…between now and November, a lot of things are going to happen, and I believe that by this time next year, the American public’s going to have a very different view of this war, and it will be because, I think, of some unfortunate events, that like we’re seeing unfold in the UK. But I think the American public’s going to have a very different view, and part of it will be the education that these three men will be imparting on the American public during the course of this campaign."

And on July 7 by Lieutenant Colonel Doug Delaney, Chair of the War Studies program at the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario, who told the Toronto Star, “It may well be that the key to bolstering Western resolve is another terrorist attack like 9/11 or the London transit bombings of two years ago.”

Exactly why, as Mike Gallagher wistfully observed, “no one dared” to even countenance criticism of the administration is not often mentioned by those who embrace the notion of post 9/11 solidarity. It’s worth remembering that during that time of America “pulling together”…

Dan Guthrie, an award-winning columnist in Oregon, was fired for a September 15, 2001 column in which he wrote that the United Flight 93 passengers, who are believed to have struggled with 9/11 hijackers on the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania "are the heroes of this rotten week. They put it all on the line. Against their courage the picture of Bush hiding in a Nebraska hole becomes an embarrassment."

Tom Gutting, city editor of the Texas City Sun, was fired after writing a September 22 piece in which he described George W. Bush as “a crippled president” “who continues to be controlled by his advisers. He's not a leader. He's a puppet, and it has never been more apparent."

Tim McCarthy, for seven years the editor of The Courier in New Hampshire, was fired by the paper’s publisher on February 13, 2002. He had written a series of editorials in September criticizing the rush to war in the wake of 9/11. Among his comments:

"Sometimes it is necessary to rally around the flag. But it is also dangerous. Someone has to keep watch, someone has to sound the alarm should all the flag-waving slip from an expression of grief and anger to a reignited patriotism to a dangerous jingoism…someone has to make sure that this war is not waged at the price of our civil liberties. . . . Any increase in federal police power must be viewed with extreme caution. Once it has been given, it is hard to take back, and who knows how it might be abused somewhere down the road."

It wasn’t just journalists who were feeling the “unity.”

On October 23, 2001, Barry Reingold, a retired phone company worker in his sixties, was visited by the FBI at his apartment in Oakland California. He had made strongly critical remarks about George W. Bush and the war on terror at his gym.

Stephen K. Jones, a graduate student at the University of Maine was informed by his advisor on March 11, 2002 that he was in “deep do-do” and that his “physical presence” was a problem at Old Town High School, where he was interning for his teaching degree. Jones had, with the approval of his university, the school’s principal, and the 10th grade teacher whose class he was instructing, put together a lesson plan on Islam and Islamic civilization. Less than two weeks after he started teaching the class, he was informed not only that he was not wanted at the school, but that the superintendent of schools didn’t want him teaching anywhere in town. When he went to the newspapers about his dismissal, he was kicked out of the Master of Arts Teaching Program.

And then there’s the visit the FBI paid to the Houston Art Car Museum because of an exhibit on US covert operations, the college student in Durham North Carolina who had agents knocking on her door because of “un-American material” (an anti-Bush poster) in her apartment, and the Milwaukee CEO who ended up apologizing to employees for sending a personal $250 donation to the peace group, Not In Our Name.

Journalists being fired, teachers being dismissed, private citizens being questioned for criticizing George W. Bush at the gym or putting up posters in their homes…. What’s not for a die-hard Bush supporter to love? Especially these days, with Bush’s popularity in the toilet and editorial writers openly expressing the same sentiments that just a few years ago cost Dan Guthrie, Tom Gutting, and Tim McCarthy their jobs.

If there is another terrorist attack here, it’s possible that the American people will once again rally around George W. Bush. It’s also possible that the opposite will happen, that the American people take such an attack as further proof of the Bush administration’s ineptitude.

What is almost certain, taking them at their own words, is that some Bush supporters will see such an attack as a valid rationale for completely embracing the overt repression of political dissent. In a political environment where a nationally televised pundit like Sean Hannity defends Ted Nugent’s gun-waving public threats against liberal politicians, and a national televised pundit like John Gibson equates a Democrat speculating about the ramifications of another attack with making “a deal with Al Qaeda” the attitude towards dissent in a post attack America could become even more toxic than it was back in 2001.

The far right today has such an oversized sense of entitlement that they no longer even bother to hide the double-standard they are waving.

[havocmom]

1. Lots of R's - how 'bout a kick now

:kick:

Excellent work, Pamela Troy. Thank you. Bookmarking this wonderful analysis and documentation you provided. Good to have the linked info handy. Good arrow to have in the quiver when RW loons go into their well established auto pilot talking points.

All the RW rhetoric about how helpful another 9-11 type attack reminds me of something... Oh, yeah, the hate filled rantings of RW clergy against choice and the posting of people's pictures with cross hairs on them along with addresses. They were all so terribly upset when the 'lone wolf' activists they so diligently cultivated actually pulled triggers and dropped doctors and clinic worker.

Yes, it all sounds so familiar. Pounding the message to the dupes they really count on to do their dirty work.

And anyone speaking truth to power gets all kinds of grief.

I want my beautiful America back.

[TheMadMonk]

17. Unfortunately *your* America is a bit of a fiction.

Your America was a carefully cultivated image. A Potemkin Nation in which the "victims" themselves happily resided, blind to what was (and is being) done to them and who's authors have abandoned it as no longer necessary to keep the populace dumb and compliant. (I'm not speaking of the founding fathers btw.)

The "Perfect America" you hark back to was the creation of the oil and motor vehicle industry and manufacturers of consumer goods. It was built for the purpose of separating the average citizen from his money; To get him to willingly hand it over for some shiny bauble; To get him to do it again and again, no matter how quickly or often that shine turned to tarnish; And ultimately to willingly sign himself into indentured servitude, for yet further grasps at particularly shiny baubles.

Well the last number I saw, was that some 90% of the wealth in America is now controlled by 1% of the population. 9% control another 5% and the final 5% is shared amongst 90% of the population.


There is no further advantage in propping up the hoardings painted with the bright primary colours of your America. Red the blood of patriots. The True Blue of fidelity ans the White of innocence.

The theft of the nation is over. Its only value now is a tool for smashing opposition to extending that theft to the rest of the world even more ruthlessly than in the final 50 years of the 20th Century. Red is now the blood of martyrs, both: fraudulently co-opted, post 9-11 to justify subjugation beneath the icy blue eye of Big Brother; and (perhaps deliberately) made to continue this conflict into generations to come. What better justification to occupy those juicy oilfields than a string of constant attacks against "American Interests" around the globe. And white is the wash that is painted over reality, and the canvas upon which a compliant if not fully owned media paints the *NEW IMPROVED* (Made from 100% rehashed New American Century propaganda) ALL AMERICAN REALITY.

[havocmom]

20. Old enough to know 'my America' as illusion, yes

but they had to give us more in order to maintain that illusion. I'll take that in my old age.

The 50s were grand... women were often drugged to keep them quiet if not quite happy and all the people of color knew their place, or at least the place WASP men wanted them to know....


But there were some trappings of a people allowed so degree of privacy in their homes and papers, save for those women who wouldn't pop valium, people of color who wanted out of their assigned rolls, and, of course, the peace movement.

[TheMadMonk]

23. That was the point I was attempting to make.

There is no longer any need to maintain the illusion. You're either for or against, and if against, they no longer even have to con you into purchasing their Handy Dandy Dialamatic Sponge Sharpener. They just declare you an enabler of terrorists, an enemy of the state and take your assets and those of your children. Why spend money when you don't have to.

And I find nothing particularly wonderful about your America, it contained much the same amount of hate as today's. It merely had "legitimate" outlets upon which to vent that hatred. Uppity niggers; unwed mothers; workers looking for a fair deal; Commies; Pacifists.

Your's was and is a schizophrenic nation. Your laws (finally) for the most part recognise that there is no place for hatred in a sane society, but your dominant religion defines itself, not by who God would love (that's easy. THEM) but by who God should/must hate.

[havocmom]

25. OUR dominate religion?

:rofl:

No racism or sexism down under, right?

:rofl: :rofl:

The reicht wing is alive and well in my hood and yours

[ms liberty]

2. Very good - Welcome to DU! K&R n/t

[Z_I_Peevey]

3. Kick

[caraher]

4. That's a really critical question - what to say and do "next time"

I'm sorry to say that we need to approach how to act if there's "another 9/11" with the working assumption that it's a matter of how to respond *when* "it" happens again. At least for as long as folks are still prosecuting what they label as a war on something as vague as "terror."

I think that the most likely reaction, if it happens on *'s watch, is that a huge majority of Americans will rally around Bush, but with two very different mindsets. The reality-based community will certainly "take such an attack as further proof of the Bush administration’s ineptitude." But most will hope he does well because, like it or not, he's the "decider" and we're stuck with him.

Of course, we know what the hardcore Bushbots will say. They'll call for "unity" as they place blame on every American who has tried to keep the nation from destroying the very freedoms for which we are allegedly hated. They'll recycle all the lines about how only the hard-liners truly understand our enemies and generally argue that "24" is reality, war and torture are the only alternative to national suicide, etc.

I think you're right, the public discourse will probably become even more toxic.

[Time for change]

5. This is truly very scary stuff

[stressfulreality]

6. if our government can pull off another 9/11, bush becomes dictator. bush wins. n/t

[chervilant]

7. PLEASE

Please call Nancy Pelosi's California office at [phone] AND her DC office at [phone]. If all of us call and assert that we will not rest until she begins impeachment proceedings; further, that she is in line for impeachment for failing to act in the face of the BLATANT criminal behavior of this administration; further, that We The People will not go silent into the night, maybe she will get busy! (If you read her "New Direction Agenda," you can see how insipid is her response to the crisis we face.)


The Global Internet Community (We The People--remember us?) is metamorphosing our Body Politic faster than the Corporatist-driven propagandists can keep up. They cannot stop us. Increasing numbers of us are getting clear about corporatism and its myriad shills, e.g. Fox, ABC, PELOSI, et. al. In 1789, the French Imperialists had to learn their lessons the hard way. Perhaps the Corporatists are doomed to make the same mistake.

The Revolution has begun. We The People ARE NOT GOING SILENT INTO THE NIGHT!!!

[bamacrat]

8. All of this just forever cements my disgust with the republican party.

Also, why hasn't Ted Nugent been arrested, last time I remember making death threats to anyone, but especially an elected official, is against the law. Imagine if someone on the left said the exact same words about B*sh or any puke for that matter. He would be visited in the night by Homeland Security and shot. Oh there goes that liberal paranoia.

[WinkyDink]

9. But I thought Bush was PROTECTING us!

[barbtries]

10. it's opposite world

and every thing is pretty fucked up. excellent piece of writing, thanks

[tom_paine]

11. They don't bother to hide the Bushevik Double Standard because their infoganda has laundered it

into "conventional wisdom".

That perhaps lies at the root of why these New Kinder and Gentler Nazis are so scary. The wholsale RealityWashing they do and how it programs their drones, very 1984 and Orwellian, with ne rewritten histories to retrofit whatever new talking points The Bushie Party wishes to propgram them with.

It is the common factor of the most frightening tyrannies the world has ever known.

It is now a wholly American characteristic.

Well said, you nailed it. Another interesting perspective on the Fall of the Old American Republic.

:kick: & :toast:

[motocicleta]

12. I have always worried how the righties will react when the country, inevitably,

moves back left. These things are cyclical, after all. I do not think the Nugent types who have less to lose than Ted will take such a change lightly.

[GeorgeGist]

13. In short ...

they are PERVERTS because they enjoy it.

[lvx35]

14. What a fantastic piece of writing.

Welcome to DU.

I really enjoyed that. There is far to little actual analysis of the right wing social phenomenon, but its fascinating. I was reading one of their sites the other day, just observing the patterns. One thing they do is fixate on these little tiny events...in this case it was a teacher who made her students say "United States of America" to refer to this country instead of "America", and it was this huge outrage that "America" was being banned in the classrom, a total fiction they made just to feel outrage over a tiny detail in some school somewhere.
And yes, the ad hominem culture is amazing. They have no ability to see evalutate terms, just to evaluate whether they are from the conservative (good) or liberal (evil) side. And the most stunning part is exactly what you say, the same points will be evaluated differently based on who is saying them.

The analysis is so important because really, they are amazingly weak mind controlled little creatures, and all the techniques used to pull their leashes this way and that can be used by literally ANYBODY on them, not just the people who are doing it.

[Raksha]

15. K & R - This has been one of my sore points for years!!!

If THEY say, "Let's kill all the liberals!" it's patriotism, perhaps just a bit overzealous and extreme, but patriotism nontheless. OTOH when WE say, "They're going to kill all the liberals!" even if it's because we just heard THEM saying it, it's tinfoil-hat paranoia.

[chill_wind]

16. "The far right today has such an oversized sense of entitlement." A ruthless sense of it, in fact.

Especially when it comes to sending other people's offspring off to illegal imperialistic war and the squandered trillions of national debt our children's childen will be slaving under for generations to come, so they, the special chosen, can feel passingly 'safe' in their beddies at night. Screw the planet, too. The rapture will take care of all that.

[cyberpj]

18. K&R for Saturday morning discussions.

Well said.
It scares the crap out of me but I have to admit to actually feeling helpless now that I've seen our Sen Dems in in-action.

I used to think the US militias would come into play but now I think as long as pro-gun Repubs leave them alone they could care less what the government does.

[Danger Mouse]

19. Heartily recommended. Nicely written and welcome to DU!

It seems that the further Bush's star falls, the more hysterical the psychos on the right wing seem to get. Look for their garbage to become even MORE vile and disgusting in months to come.

[bbgrunt]

21. k & r--what you said.

[Jade Fox]

22. A large component of the Right's bizarre double-standard.....

is rooted in their belief that they are moral, and that puts their actions in a whole different context than the same actions by someone on the Left. The Right gives itself a huge amount of credit for meaning well. They have been convinced by the constant din of the Right wing pundits that Left/Progressive/Democrats do not mean well, and that we have no morals standards at all.

This came up last week around the Larry Craig scandal, and earlier around the Senator Vitter scandal: A defense pushed by Right-wing media people has been that at least these two Senators have moral standards to violate (they meant well!). This manages to put Craig and Vitters' hypocritical conduct in the frame of basically good men giving into the very evil they are fighting. As for Left/Progressive/Democrats, though our moral values are that we don't demonize the private adult sexual conduct of others, we've described as having none when it comes to sexual matters.

Viewing oneself as morally superior, as the Right does, allows for all sorts of discrepancies in behavior. I believe conservatives have for a very long time been looking for a way to feel superior to us Liberals. Those who espouse tolerance, progress, and inclusiveness (that's us) tend to look better in the long run, and are always more interesting (this is the Right's real issue with the "Liberal Media". Let alone, the media will always focus on what's more interesting). Conservatives have glommed on to this one issue--morality--and are using it as the framing devise for what is, after all, a sad, fantasy-based, and fundamentally anti-democratic world view.

[treestar]

24. Too late to recommend but kick

:kick:

They are even blind to the fact that another attack would just raise the issue that they claimed their acts and power-grabs were intended for our "protection" and in the event of another attack, those would have "failed." Making Bushco that dreaded thing of Repukes = losers.