http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/62818In the Fever Swamp of the Radical WingnutsBy Gavin McNett, AlterNet. Posted September 26, 2007.
To truly appreciate what the sleek spinmeisters at the top of the right-wing echo chamber are saying, you've got to dig into the crazies that dwell at the bottom.The next time you find yourself inhabiting a quiet moment, listen closely and you'll be able to hear a clattery drone off in the distance. That's our right-wing opinion media, hammering and sawing away at another of those weird Trojan-animal contraptions they're always building -- another giant rickety thing with off-square corners and oval wheels, emblazoned with some slogan like "supporting our troops" or "defending marriage." They're planning to wheel it innocently up the hill, whereupon America will open the gates and let it in -- and you know how the story always goes from there.
It's always something new with those people. To switch metaphors abruptly, I cover what you might call the waterfront -- the dank and fishy between-realm that divides life as we know it from the vast sea of unexamined prejudices, of blind enthusiasms and angry yawpings that make up the right-wing urge in America. I write mostly about conservative pundits and bloggers, and mostly about the danker, fishier ones at medium-traffic blogs and at conservative news sites such as Townhall, WorldNetDaily, and Newsmax.
The denizens of these sites are widely read by conservatives, especially by base-type conservatives who also consume products like Rush Limbaugh's show, but they seldom reach a mainstream readership, although they'll occasionally turn up, for instance, as guests on cable news shows, identified by a caption, like "conservative columnist" or "conservative blogger," that avoids any specific claims of expertise. That's because they're mostly howling idiots.
There are two reasons that I follow them. The first is that, being idiots, they're easy to make fun of. The second reason is more practical as well as more personally salutary: Minor right-wing pundits are like what the biologists call an "indicator species": By watching how they react to their environment,
you can get a good sense of what's happening in the major conservative media.- snip -
Rather than, for instance, arguing for the elimination of New Deal social programs, today's message machine will slap together rickety claims of a Social Security crisis and have its yawpers run around scaring people, offering as the cure a "saving Social Security" plan that coincidentally means privatization. Rather than arguing, in time-honored GOP fashion, that the wealthy should pay less taxes, conservative yawpers will run around advocating an "IRS reform" to simplify the complicated tax forms that we all hate filling out -- coincidentally by eliminating graduated tax rates. In short, conservatism now functions by fooling the public with a succession of Trojan horses -- as well as Trojan rabbits, pangolins, tapirs, and whatever other animal serves their aims (including donkeys in the case of Joe Lieberman). The hammering and sawing of their constructions is ceaseless and ever-puzzling.
- snip -
Among the many variants of this style is that of the nominally liberal columnist (such as Thomas Friedman or Richard Cohen) who finds himself continually forced by events to repeat conservative talking points and express disdain for his fellow liberals -- message: "This hurts me more than it hurts you." When executed well, this routine can be repeated weekly for an indefinite number of years. The equivalent on the moderate right was until recently epitomized by the Times op-ed columnist John Tierney, a self-identified libertarian who was largely indifferent to the subject of liberty, and instead produced a relentless stream of gee-whiz columns in which he'd happen across something new to deregulate or privatize, such as the space program or Central Park, or would learn of a new argument against environmentalism, women, global warming research, those crazy kids today, non-Republican politicians, or (just in time for the election) the idea of voting. At the end of last year, Tierney moved downstairs to the Times' science section, where his current beat, more or less, is to help champion corporate-sponsored junk science.
- snip -
It's tempting to dismiss Schlussel as a fruitcake simply because she's a fruitcake. But she's actually not even the worst fruitcake of that type (that would be the shriektastic Pam Oshry of the blog, Atlas Shrugs) -- and in fact, Schlussel's conclusions are entirely rational, given the Trojan horse that was built to sell the War on Terror. What Schlussel believes is simply what the Bush administration has been trying to make all Americans believe since 9/11: That everything changed on that day, that global Islamism is planning to take over the world, and that America is constantly threatened by terrorist enemies inside and outside its borders -- moreover, that we're in a 'generational war' against terrorism in which Iraq is the central front, and that our enemy there is mostly "the people who attacked us on 9/11" (i.e., Al Qaeda). Additionally, progress in Iraq is ongoing, and Republicans are keeping us safe from terrorism while Democrats want to capitulate to the enemy. The overall message, underneath the administration's careful qualifications and trimmings, is simple, raw fear.
MORE
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
