Next time someone claims that Michael Moore is the same as Ann Coulter, I'll throw this link in their face. 
Not that it'll actually do any good... :/
Is it possible to put together a comparable list for liberals? I suspect that liberal speech contains lots more f bombs and far less hate speech. It would be an interesting comparison. Of course, one of the major difficulties would be finding someone who is comparable to Rush or Ann or Savage or Beck. I just don't think there is such a liberal - mainstream, that is - to provide a comparison.
Jake
Amazing Compilation. Even if you could gather quotes of similar racism/fascism/authoritarianism (which I doubt), liberal hate-spewers would still lose in the most important category: reach.
Add the reading/viewer public of Limbaugh, Coulter, Savage and O'Reilly. Then add Glenn Beck for good measure. We'll spot them Sean Hannity as he's more of a shoe-licker than a firebrand. You can easily reach 60-70 million people with this kind of conservative wisdom.
Michael Moore, who is as mainstream as a liberal media figure gets, reaches (maybe) 10 million people, and far less often, with far less virulence. Even blog commenters, who usually go two full degrees more acrid than their home blog in their rhetoric, don't usually call for mass deportation or murder of entire ethnicities or political movements.
Sure, you'll find the odd outraged 18-year-old talking crap. But take a stroll through Free Republic or Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiller and tha tis -all- you find, very graphic and with loving details of the make and caliber of the firearms to be used in the coming purge.
Our Ward Churchills get maybe 200 page views a day and are lucky if they can do a lecture for no pay. Theirs have tens of millions of supporters and grow wealthier and more politically important, the harsher their message.
Show me the equivalency.
Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds. Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead. (O'Reilly)
Sounds good to me, ain't nothin' east of The Rockies we need.
Correction: the "Declaration of Expulsion" was from Human Events, not Reason. They're both right-leaning magazines, but they're, um, pretty different from each other.
Stooping to their tactics?
I think it is intellectually dishonest to take remarks out of context and to be hypocritical about it. I only tested one link, the one associated with this quotation attributed to Melanie Morgan:
"I would have no problem with [New York Times editor Bill Keller] being sent to the gas chamber."
Media Matters, in fact, headlined the article in a more honest fashion:
If NYT's Keller convicted of treason, "I would have no problem with him being sent to the gas chamber"
A big difference is created by taking her words out of context. Conviction for treason is currently subject to the death penalty in the U.S.
This is not a defense of Melanie Morgan only a rejection of the tactic used here.
By the way the definition of eliminationism as presented here is so broad as to do away with almost all concepts of justice current in the civilized world.
Dave,
Want to read something and really spook yourself? Read America's Right Turn by "Funding Father" Richard Viguerie (the book describes him as the "Thomas Paine of our era") and David Franke, with an introduction from Tim Lahaye.
When you read it (if you read it) keep in mind Viguerie and Lahaye are two of the top guys from the Council for National Policy (reborn from the ashes of the John Birch Society); these guys got best of both extremist worlds, Birchers and Dominionists/Reconstructionists.
The book is downright creepy. I've just begun going through it, but much of it is framed in terms of various ideologues who attempted to "eliminate" someone or something.
Lahaye says in the intro that the book was written to let liberals know how they lost America and to get used to it. I read that and wondered to myself: or else what?
Well, the authors hint at it. The book starts off by framing the conservative movement media revolution (what we would call the noise machine) as analagous to Martin Luther starting a propaganda war against the Catholic Church. We know how that worked out. And then it says that not since Lenin or Mao has anyone had so much power through the press.
I skimmed ahead and found another passage where the authors state that the undergroud press (direct mailing, I think they meant) guards conservatism control like a water moccasin. Or something like that, I'm going from memory. But you get the idea, the book is full of stuff like that.
Mr. Miyagi told Daniel-son there are no bad students, only bad teachers. Well Viguerie and Franks seem to have a lot of teachers that killed a lot of people.
There's another bit where they admit Fox is ideological, and assert that there is no such thing as non-ideological truth. That's troubling, as that has historically led people to abandon the pen and pick up the sword to put their Truth on top.
And too be honest, I skimmed this post since most of these are old news to me, so if this is already in the post, my apologies:
Recall that David Horowitz's book Art of Political War was widely circulated among conservative operatives and at the RNC before Bush 43 became president.
In it, radical communist turned radical conservative Horowitz quoted another militant ideologue (a bad teacher, I would say)
"You cannot cripple an opponent by outwitting him in a political debate. You can do it only by following Lenin's injunction: 'In political conflicts, the goal is not to refute your opponent's argument, but to wipe him from the face of the earth.'"
Then there's Ralph Reed's (former head of the Christian Coalition, which was formed by Pat Robertson, a member of the Councial on National Policy( i.e. the John Birch Society with a pretty name):
"I want to be invisible. I do guerrilla warfare. I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag"
He and his Dominionists pals are pretty good at being invisible. Just look at how many members of Congress get a rating of 80-100% from the Christian Coalition. I begin to wonder if he'd be equally adept at the body bag part, somehow I find that it would be the application/opportunity that holds him back, not so much his conscience.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp...8-
2005Apr8.html
Not to be outdone, lawyer-author Edwin Vieira told the gathering that Kennedy should be impeached because his philosophy, evidenced in his opinion striking down an anti-sodomy statute, "upholds Marxist, Leninist, satanic principles drawn from foreign law."
Ominously, Vieira continued by saying his "bottom line" for dealing with the Supreme Court comes from Joseph Stalin. "He had a slogan, and it worked very well for him, whenever he ran into difficulty: 'no man, no problem,' " Vieira said.
The full Stalin quote, for those who don't recognize it, is "Death solves all problems: no man, no problem." Presumably, Vieira had in mind something less extreme than Stalin did and was not actually advocating violence
I was going to suggest doing another post where you superimpose all this movement conservative eliminationism on top of other historical eliminationist rhetoric that actually did lead to applied eliminationism, but there might not even be a need for that, as Horowitz, Viguerie, Viera, etc. have already done it.
Little Green:
What exactly about the "context" of Morgan's remark did I misrepresent? Even including the context that it was conditional on his being convicted of treason, what exactly would make it less ugly? Isn't she rather obviously hoping he will be convicted?
I'm also curious just what parts of eliminationism as I've defined it (and you should at least read Part 1 of the series for the full definition) you consider to be part of normative justice. Targeting people for elimination? Identifying your political opponents with the enemy, vermin, disease? Please enlighten us.
Morgan constantly harping about the treason of liberals ... it's reasonable to assume she considers the conviction a given, the trial a formality.
"Sentence first, verdict after."
I think the Red Queen said that.
I would love to have an even bigger list, and with more info about the people quoted, ready to hand. One of the biggest problems is that these are (as David and others have long pointed out) people with national audiences and clout within the modern GOP and rightwing, not the smalltime commenters and obscure professors that are used to "balance" this kind of list.
But the problem is that a list like this, like the GOP scandals list, is a fulltime project for one or even more people. There are just so many examples, and new examples virtually daily for years. It's almost an impossible task to list them all, and this, it's been pointed out, is long part of the problem, since you just can't keep them all in mind -- there's far too many.
""""Lahaye says in the intro that the book was written to let liberals know how they lost America and to get used to it. """"
"Lost" America? Hardly. Abortion is still legal, Gay marriage is not banned, the federal government still exists, despite some questioinable appointments the supreme court is still around, there is massive government spending, the local sheriff is not the highest law of the land, t.v. doesn't conform to the vision of the parents telivision council, xxx business of all sorts are still everywhere, immigration is not ever going to end, the minutemen are embarassing or simply confusing to many americans, and even many once hardcore tough talking republicans don't like to admit they voted for Bush.
These people have won some battles, but they have certianly not won America.
They might like to pretend they have, but it shouldn't fool anyone. I think much of this rhetoric is overcompensation and fear. They have to huf, puff, and beat their chests because they know they are far from the kind of victory they truly envision, and they know demographic trends are against them, especially the religious right faction.
As we've seen in the past, these right wing surges coe periodically. They sweep themselves in to power, hit the ground running, burn very bright, and ultimately burn themselves out, and spend 5-10 years regrouping.
Not only could the GOP majority of the 90's not get what they wanted under a Democratic president, they could not even get all they seemingly wanted under a republican president.
I think some of this eliminationist rhetoric is based in fear, the fear that they really can lose all these battles, and also based on the anger they feelat knowing they have lost MANY of the "cultural" battles. Acceptance of gays is growing, and doesn't seem likely to stop, and the majority of Americans support the general abortion policy, that abortion should be legal until the third trimester.
The battle with these people is not only far from being over, but it is also FAR from being decided, and it is certainly not decided in their favor. Their overreach an their screw ups give the left and democrats a chance to go on the offensive and show the public what these people REALLY are, and turning the tide of opinion against them.
"I would love to have an even bigger list, and with more info about the people quoted, ready to hand."
I think that would be extremely useful. I'm thinking short book length, a Reference guide to eliminationism in America today.
Juxtapose the eliminationism with numbers regarding influence, audience, etc.
Or perhaps some kind of wiki should be started for this. I dunno. Something more needs to be done to expose this trickle down effect, though.
I talked to a guy (on-line) that says he has a licence to carry a gun. Says he always has it on him. Says that, if for some reason, he ever was present as an abortion was about to be performed, he would pull out the gun and order the doctor to desist. Says that if the doctor doesn't he'd shoot (to kill: if I recall correctly,but memory is fuzzy). Says that since he can't imagine any doctor performing the abortion under those circumstances, he'd never have to shoot one in the first place.
To me, there are several things about this chap's "reasoning" that jump out at me which I will assume are obvious. The most distrubing of which is that the only probable scenario in which he'll ever be present at an abortion is if he decides to go to one.
I would hazard to say that he'll find that temptation more difficult to resist if a Democrat (and especially if it's Hillary) is president next go-round.
I think the idea of the a short reference book to expose the eliminationist rhetoric is a good idea. Actually, the right once did that, listing quotes to "prove liberals hate America" or some such nonsense.
I don't know how effective it was, but I think that the right promotion and marketing could make the inevitably more lurid and frightening elinationist reference book a big splash, and it could EASILY put these people on the defense. You can go after Ann Coulter for what she said at CPAC and she MIGHT be able to get off by saying she was misunderstood or is being quoted out of context, but a book of hundreds of eliminationist quotes from many many people won't be so easily explained away.
People won't buy the right wing dodge that its out of context or they're "misunderstood", not for several hundred eliminationist quotes.
Something like that could go a long way to exposing them to a wide audience.
Thomas Ware said, of California becoming its own country, "Sounds good to me, ain't nothin' east of The Rockies we need."
i have a feeling that if we go, Oregon, Washington, and New England will go with us. Maybe we'll join Canada? Think they'd have us? (West coast states would be the Provence of American Columbia, while New England would just keep that name?) I have heard that California gives more money to the Federal Government than it gets, so it would save us money to separate, wouldn't it?
Dave -- I googled Derik L. Jobe and all there was were references to the letter you quote. If he were a real person, wouldn't there be more?
Well, they don't use foul language, so that makes them not as bad as liberals.
Because "Raghead" and "Faggot" aren't really foul words, just 'misunderstood jokes'.
This site made me physically ill... seeing in one place so much hate is so repulsive there aren't even words to describe it.
Thomas HomeLessOnTheHighDesert Ware writes from Oregon.
California is, ahhh... an inconvenience we are, ahhh... learning to live with.
Wow, what a depressing - if impressive - collection of bile.
About that hunting permit: I wonder if, after a while, the word "liberal" might be considered an offensive, unprintable slur? It's been beaten down just about that far.
Stirling Newberry (over at the late, great www.BopNews.com) did some analysis on federal tax receipts, and determined that the blue states essentially support the red. So yeah, I'd like to take O'Reilly up on his offer (h/t Thomas Ware). Doesn't California's Central Valley grow something like 20-40% of the country's food?
I'm thinking that a breakup of the USA is becoming more probable as time + this intense polarization goes on. In general, the forces holding nation-states together have been weakening over the last fifty years, after a period of four or five centuries where there was a lot of incentive for nation-states to be the dominant political paradigm. The Soviet Union crumbled, and a few years later a wealthy Saudi named Bin Laden was able to not only make a significant attack on the wealthiest country on the earth, but to also lure said country into a collossal quagmire. Not bad for a guy in a cave with a cellphone. It couldn't have happend 50 years earlier.
And so I expect talk of breakup to gain currency (it will take time). Eventually, when the facts of our blue to red state cashflow becomes more widely known, the smart people are going to get tired of supporting the belligerant idiots of Jesusland.
Great, now I can get a permit! And no limit, goodie!
'Tisn't that simple. The Blue v Red divide is urban/old suburbs vs. exurban/rural.
Most liberal bile is of the schadenfreude kind. Wishing that televangelists would get caught with their hand in the till, or in another man's pants. We like mocking the Haggards, Bennetts, the gazillion chickenhawks contributing to the subject of Dave's post (Limbaugh being the King of Chickenhawks, what with his 4F for an anal cyst). We wish for humiliation out of public life. I couldn't care less what they get up to in private life, as long as they aren't polluting the airwaves with their BS.
I suspect that liberal speech contains lots more f bombs and far less hate speech.
Only because liberals are allowed only very limited access near the airwaves or in print, while conservatives practically live there.
Robert Frost wrote a poem called "Fire and Ice" - short enough to quote here, and relevant:
Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
So... basically what we're talking about here is the ice side of the equation - hate. The basic human drives toward acquisition (desire) or aversion (hate) are represented by the elemental forms of fire (desire) and ice (hatred) in Frost's poem. Your list is all about aversion - hatred - and it is a stunning compilation. It's the old "yer either with me or yer against me" trope. Not much tolerance for ambiguity here, just hateful oversimplification.
Your list of eliminationist rhetoric is a powerful reminder that Frost was right. If greed doesn't do us in then aversion to difference will.
I fear that if the economy goes sour on us (which the present economic policies are making inevitable) or if we are attacked domestically again, the eliminationists would seize control. After reading Chris Hedges, I think he has a point. He saw it happen in Yugoslavia.
Kim, I'm an unabashed partisan of California secession -- an axe I ground elsewhere long before I ground it here.
You're right that CA is a major money export state. It's also the world's sixth largest economy (or fifth, or seventh, depending on your source -- anyway, it's BIG), the single most diverse and productive agricultural state, the country's unrivaled technology leader, the site of three of the four biggest ports on the west coast, still an oil power, and a cultural bellwether that gets nothing but grief for its innovation. My home state has never gotten the respect it deserves from the rest of y'all, and it needed to take back its lone star and leave a long time since.
If Oregon and Washington wanted to come with us, I'm sure we'd accommodate you, as long as you Oregonians promised to cease and desist with the "Californication" jokes. I expect the rest of the country would be upset at the loss of its entire western shoreline, but they'd just have to either deal -- or beg and plead to be accepted to the, uh, New Western Union. On our own, we'd blow the doors off the rest of the US in every significant measure -- economy, innovation, quality of life, social services, environment, civil liberties, all of it -- so fast that they'd be left by the roadside wondering what happened.
As for joining Canada: No. The math doesn't work out at all. People don't appreciate how damned sparse humanity is up here: BC is bigger than CA in area, but only has 5 million people. There are already more Californians than there are Canadians, total. Adding any couple US states would, in effect, require Canadians to surrender their sovereignty, because they'd be so soundly outnumbered. Not gonna happen.
Besides, I don't see any former US states doing well under a parliamentary government. We're used to a much different rhythm of things.
Because "Raghead" and "Faggot" aren't really foul words, just 'misunderstood jokes'.
In the case of the speaker, they're neither. They're her props for 1) getting attention and 2) moving the conversation rightward. She would say "dick" or "computer" or "doggy" if they did the same thing.
The more and more I look at her last outburst, the more and more I am convinced that Ann Coulter is an artist in the medium of media manipulation. She cracked a joke for the sole purpose of having it be replayed on the nightly news. Announcers may have tepidly deplored it, but they also put her on air to talk. She got what she wanted. American liberals, in our "I can't believe we give Ann Coulter air time outrage," are her unwitting accomplices, since this is exactly what she wants. The Edwards campaign is in no position to complain, as it got a surge of donations, something else that had to be preplanned, as Coulter is a bête noire for Democrats.
David,
Little Green is right.
Obviously there is a big difference between putting someone is a gas chamber for no good reason and putting a person CONVICTED OF TREASON in a gas chamber. It is simply the difference between murder and capital punishment.
Neither of which I personally support.
I would add that Ms. Morgan was wrong to wish such a fate on anyone. Good for Olbermann for calling her on it. But is it necessarily RIGHT to pick out the most inflammatory sentence while avoiding the context of what she said?
Two wrongs (a major wrong and a lesser wrong) don't make a right.
Hmmmm. Well, I could easily restore the missing phrase and it would still fully qualify for this list. I only used the shorter version because it had more brevity.
"In the case of the speaker, they're neither. They're her props for 1) getting attention and 2) moving the conversation rightward. She would say "dick" or "computer" or "doggy" if they did the same thing."
--Diamond LeGrande
Regardless of how the speaker intends to use them, they're still foul words. They may be used as props, but that changes nothing about their offensiveness.
Maybe we'll join Canada?
That would still leave you with Yoshida and Steyn.
You're right that CA is a major money export state. It's also the world's sixth largest economy (or fifth, or seventh, depending on your source -- anyway, it's BIG), the single most diverse and productive agricultural state, the country's unrivaled technology leader, the site of three of the four biggest ports on the west coast, still an oil power, and a cultural bellwether that gets nothing but grief for its innovation.
~ Mrs. Robinson
Hmm. How strong is California in the military department? You know that there will be a frenzied "search for WMDs," or perhaps a vigorous push to "spread democracy" in the State's general direction, should it secede from the Imperium.
Jahf--
Picture Ukraine when the USSR went blooey. The difference between California and Iraq: we really do have weapons of mass destruction--in numerous, well-stocked and well-staffed military based throughout the state. I doubt any US military commander is going to want to take a chance on that.
Mrs. R--
Music to my ears. I started the California Libre party years ago. Maybe it's time to revive it. After all, the Bear Flag very clearly says "CALIFORNIA REPUBLIC"--nothing about a state there.
David,
Imo, that's a good idea.
David:
"What exactly about the "context" of Morgan's remark did I misrepresent? Even including the context that it was conditional on his being convicted of treason, what exactly would make it less ugly? Isn't she rather obviously hoping he will be convicted?"
Well, obviously, it is isn't clear that "she rather obviously [is] hoping he will be convicted." Her statement was in the form if p then q. You chose to eliminate the "if p then" portion and report only the "q" portion as if it were a standalone assertion. That is intellectually dishonest.
"What exactly would make it less ugly?" Ugliness was not the issue. As I said previously, I was not defending Melanie Morgan. I was objecting to your tactic here.
"I'm also curious just what parts of eliminationism as I've defined it (and you should at least read Part 1 of the series for the full definition) you consider to be part of normative justice."
I'm not sure you typed what you meant or understood what I said, but lets look at this part:
"categories of eliminationism, namely: Expressing a desire or a demand for extermination, removal, or infliction of harm"
Most civilized systems of justice recognize the reasonable desire and demand for the REMOVAL of criminal elements from society, miscreants and malfeasants from office, etc.. Incarceration of people convicted of a crime which is also prevalent, forfeiture of property, etc., is most certainly infliction of harm to most reasonable people.
I conclude, therefore, that most civilized justice systems are guilty of being "eliminationist" and thus worthy of your condemnation under your definition, which I find telling as to the quality of your argument.
(I left out "exterminate" because it is inflammatory and ambiguous: capital punishment or genocide?)
"(and you should at least read Part 1 of the series for the full definition)"
Well, that was pretty authoritarian of you or was it simply your effort to imply that you had already "won" because I hadn't done my homework?
*holds up his printed copy of all ten parts of David's essay with marginalia*
"Please enlighten us."
Hmm, used to be a troll in another life? Still are? Or do you always refer to yourself as us?
In your essay, you do not confine yourself to eliminationism as a specific kind of rhetoric, but to politics, culture, ideas, etc, an expansion which includes all aspects of a society/culture. You lose focus and meaning at that point for all societies and cultures seek to eliminate or punish some behaviors in most cases quite reasonably.
And, David, when you say "rhetorically... it always depicts its opposition as beyond the pale," you skewer your own work.
This is absurd. As absurd as when conservatives make the reverse claim. Although liberals' preferred form of vituperation is to call conservatives, "Nazi," "Hitler" or "Klansman," even if we limit ourselves to "joke" death threats, we can quickly find:
Spike Lee re NRA President Charlton Heston: "Shoot him with a .44 caliber Bulldog."
Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen on Newt Gingrich's adultery: "For hypocrisy, for sheer gall, Gingrich should be hanged."
Nina Totenberg: "[I]f there is retributive justice [Sen. Jesse Helms] will get AIDS from a transfusion, or one of his grandchildren will get it."
Julianne Malveaux on Clarence Thomas: "I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter and he dies early like many black men do, of heart disease."
Al Franken: "Hey, I was glad when that [Hasty] Pudding homosexual got killed in Philadelphia."
Radio host Stephen Crockett: "If I had my way, I would see Katherine Harris and Ken Blackwell strapped down to electric chairs and lit up like Christmas trees. The better to light the way for American Democracy and American Freedom!"
"Snipers Wanted" - Craig Kilborne, caption under photo of George W. Bush, on his late-night talk show.
St. Petersberg, FL Democratic Club: "And then there’s Rumsfeld who said of Iraq “We have our good days and our bad days.” We should put this S.O.B. up against a wall and say “This is one of our bad days” and pull the trigger."
Alec Baldwin: "[I]f we were in other countries, we would all right now, all of us together, all of us together would go down to Washington and we would stone Henry Hyde to death! We would stone him to death! [crowd cheers] Wait! Shut up! Shut up! No shut up! I’m not finished. We would stone Henry Hyde to death and we would go to their homes and we’d kill their wives and their children. We would kill their families."
Alexander Cockburn: "There is a sound case to be made for dropping a tactical nuclear weapon on the Cuban section of Miami. The move would be applauded heartily by most Americans. Alas, Operation Good Riddance would require the sort of mature political courage sadly lacking in Washington, D.C., these days."
Little Green:
Did you listen to Morgan's entire rant? I think it's unquestionable that she hoped for Keller's arrest and conviction and ultimate execution. Moreover, these outbursts are part of a larger context in which a broad range of suspected "liberals" -- including insufficiently "loyal" journalists -- are being accused of treason.
As for your argument that, as defined, eliminationism would encompass the legal system, I'd like to point to this, from Part 1, as a core identifier of eliminationism:
It is focused on an enemy within, people who constitute entire blocs of the citizen populace.
Now, I can see I should be clearer on this point, but this encompasses something I've emphasized all along, particularly in my many discussions of hate crimes, namely, that these acts target people not for what they do, but for who they are.
Confusing criminals with the targets of eliminationism overlooks this essential point. Moreover, the object of criminal law is not to eliminate criminals as a bloc but to punish and reform them for what they do. It is their acts, not their identities, that make them fit for punitive action. And the purpose of the punitive action is not elimination of undesirable elements but the simple protection of society from people inflict harm on other people.
However, it must also be pointed out that, as I note in the next core identifier, the means of elimnationism could be either extralegal violence or legal means. The Sundown Towns described in detail in Part 7 operated fully under the color of law; the Indian genocide was considered a matter of legal war; and the internment of Japanese Americans was a duly "legal" process.
Now, regarding whether eliminationism should be considered only as a form of rhetoric and not politics and culture, I'd urge you to consider the Nazi example. Obviously, eliminationist antisemitism wasn't simply rhetorical but was a cultural, political and ideological phenomenon as well. It pervaded every aspect of the scene at the time.
DWPitelli:
I've never argued that liberals do not engage in eliminationist speech. Obviously, they do. Some of your examples, however, are specious, particularly the Franken example. (It's obvious you lifted your list from Sean Hannity.) And wishing death upon individuals is not the same as eliminationism, which targets entire classes of people. (You'll note, for instance, that I've omitted the many, many instances of right-wingers wishing death upon such individuals as Michael Moore, Jane Fonda, and Barbra Streisand.)
What I have said all along is that there is a significant difference in (A) the levels from which the eliminationism is being dispensed (that is, on the right it's coming from leading figures in the conservative movement, including top officials and major pundits), (B) its sheer volume and pervasiveness, and (C) its nastiness.
A last note to Little Green, WRT: "when you say 'rhetorically... it always depicts its opposition as beyond the pale,' you skewer your own work."
Actually, I'm not making any judgments about eliminationist rhetoric or its purveyors being "beyond the pale." I don't suggest that these people have moved beyond the bounds of decent society, because obviously they largely operate out of the "mainstream" of conservatism and it has, moreover, been around in our culture for a long time. What I can and do talk about is the predictable effects of this kind of rhetoric and the role it can play in creating a fascist mentality. My argument is not that it is "beyond the pale" but rather that, being hardwired for it, it's necessary that we begin confronting it.
The only people I consider genuinely "beyond the pale" are those who display a callous disregard for humanity, human life, basic decency -- to wit, Michael Savage's remark about the tsunami victims was one I labeled as "beyond the pale." I also laudatorily quoted someone else who described the thugs who put a horse's head in a political opponent's swimming pool as "beyond the pale," and called a comment by Dr. Laura that as well.
Eliminationists, rather by contrast, consistently and repeatedly depict their targets as being outside the norms of acceptable society, akin to criminals, and deserving of extermination, often barely human or verminesque. "Beyond the pale," actually, is a fairly tepid description.
David Niewart
1) You are triply mistaken. I did not get my list from Hannity, I confirmed the Al Franken quote at the Harvard Crimson site, and Franken also clearly attacks the "entire class" of homosexuals (see below).
2) Rush Limbaugh is bigger than Al Franken and Stephen Crockett put together. But that is because Limbaugh is bigger than any liberal radio commentator, not because there is a comparable "Rush Limbaugh of the left" who eschews such talk.
From:
http://www.thecrimson.com/articl...aspx?
ref=112149
Franken started to smile again, but his tone was serious, too serious. "It's not preppies, cause I'm a preppie myself. I just don't like homosexuals. If you ask me, they're all homosexuals in the Pudding. Hey, I was glad when that Pudding homosexual got killed in Philadelphia." The smile became so broad it pushed his eyes shut. He couldn't stand it any longer. "Put that in, put that in," Franken laughed, leaning over the desk. "I'd love to see that in The Crimson."
No, I mean it's specious because it's not an example of eliminationism. It's clear to me, at least, that Franken is satirizing the kinds of hatemongers who spew anti-gay hate.
Indeed, few of your examples qualify, since nearly all of them are aimed at individuals. The only one that does fit is Cockburn's -- and I hold no brief for him.
It may well be that when you look at this particular subset of unacceptable discourse, those on the right are guilty more than those on the left. (The truth or falsity of this would depend in part on definitions of comparable people on each side, where there are major asymmetries.)
But:
1) You cannot eliminate Franken's comment because it is a "joke" -- that excuse would also apply to the offensive comments of Limbaugh and Coulter.
2) Explicitly calling your opponents Nazis or Klansmen is a form of "B: Identification of opponents with national enemies" and as hateful as much of what you decry.
3) Many of the examples in the post are likewise directed at a person (e.g., "We've got a bull's-eye painted on [Nancy Pelosi's] big, wide laughing eyes." ).
4) Saying we have to defeat terrorism lest we have a pogrom is not the same thing as "D: Expressing a desire for or approval of genocide or murder." Indeed, it was a commonplace among liberals after 9/11 that Bush would impose such a pogrom if there were another attack (and perhaps even if there were not). Glenn Reyolds and Mark Steyn should not be seen in the same category as Michael Savage. Personally I would not expect an anti-Muslim pogrom in the face of another 9/11-type attack, but I would think one likely if a US city were hit with a Hiroshima-size nuclear device. That does not mean I "desire" such a pogrom.
I'm sorry David, but little green is talking out his ass.
'Treason' is a near constant epitaph thrown around by right wing yobbos to anyone who is in any way moderate. Go to Captain's Quarters or Little Green Footballs, and you'll get endless pontification in the lists about how liberals or people opposing the war are actually guilty of 'treason'. They seem pretty sincere about it.
The comment is therefore not leavened. Treason is the accepted term when talking about Bill Keller. There's no debate as to whether or not Bill Keller is a traitor or has committed treason. The universal assumption of the right thinking is that he is and he has.
Therefore, he deserves the death penalty. After a show trial, of course. But there's no debate as to whether he would be convicted or found innocent.
Little Green is merely parsing words out, pretending the Keller quote is less bloodthirsty than it was.
The Keller quote implies first that Keller is a traitor, and second that he would be convicted. Therefore, death is just deserts.
Classic eliminationism.
And classic obfuscation of naked eliminationism.
I also think that the right wing argument that 'the left does it too' is a hugely offensive red herring.
It justifies bad behaviour and evades responsibility by asserting moral equivalence.
In short 'my bad conduct is acceptable and moral because my enemy engages in similar conduct.'
In shorter 'my bad conduct is justified by what I *believe* my enemy is doing.'
Let me explain something: If your moral floor is defined by what you imagine to be the worst quality of your enemy.... you have no moral floor. You have no morals.
Frankly, any response to Right Wing eliminationism that starts off by looking at left wing misconduct is simple and utter bullshit.
The language of the left may be a subject for examination and discussion in turn.
But in its current use, its merely an attempt to avoid the real issue.
You'll note, for instance, that I've omitted the many, many instances of right-wingers wishing death upon such individuals as Michael Moore, Jane Fonda, and Barbra Streisand
David,
In some instances, however, those count towards eliminationism though. When you demonize a category - "liberals" - then set up particular individuals as representative of that class and also demonize those individuals you are stereotyping the whole class.
For example, you've got Hannity's book on the list, and rightly so. The title suggests liberals are an evil equivalent to terrorists and despots to be delivered from.
Two sundays ago, on the absolutely noxious Hannity's America, Sean did a segment called "Enemy of the Week"
The center of the screen was a shadow profile to be filled in with the enemy of the week. On the left and right of the image were other enemies.
The Enemy of the Week was Amanijahad(sp? too lazy to look). On the left enemies pictured were: Hugo Chavez, Amanijahad (redundant, one would think), Fidel Castro, and Kim Jong Il
On the right: Barbara Streisand, Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn, and MIchael Moore (if I recall correctly)
That's eliminationism. That's the sort of defamation tactics that I expect Nazis used in their rise to power. Does that mean I'm saying Sean Hannity is a nazi? No. But it does mean I'm saying he did something that is behavior that nazis engaged in.
There's something seriously wrong with American society when a primetime host on a supposed news network can character assasinate other American citizens in such a despicable manner with zero consequences.
http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/
elec...the_state_award
Forget Keith Olbermann's "Worst Person In The World" contest — it's now been completely upstaged by a new Sunday contest on Fox: Sean Hannity's "Enemy of the State" award. Last night, Hannity's new Sunday night program aired for the first time, and from here on he'll award his "Enemy of the State" prize — a term originating with ancient Roman dictators placing bounties on rivals — on whatever red-state abortionist, anti-war activist, or run-of-the-mill Democrat who has attracted Hannity's ire that week. Imagine Hannity in that famous Twilight Zone episode, as the ranting Chancellor putting to death the old librarian portrayed by Burgess Meredith, and you'll get the idea. So who won the first "Enemy of the State" prize last night? To watch the segment and find out, view our YouTube here.
"Enemy of the State". That's even worse. Has a nice, 1984ish ring to it.
Sorry for the triple post, Den's mention of Bill Keller above caught my eye.
I'd remind that Michelle Malkin and her video editor Bryan Preston have previously doctored footage of Keller in order to create a video which suggests (not so tacitly) that Bill Keller has confessed to wanting al Qaeda to defeat the United States of America.
When commenters in the Hot Air thread pointed out the footage had been manipulated, Bryan quickly admitted as much, but maintained that his version was actually truer than the real version. The commenters fell into agreement. One even said the video was "admitted treason."
Again, that's something bordering on defamation worthy of legal action. In a normal world, Malkin would lose her job over something like that.
But the lack of consequences just goes to show that she is paid for her propaganda services, not because she is somekind of truth-seeker fighting a "liberal" establishment.
I described it as such before:
Or better yet, insinuating Bill Keller confessed that the New York Times is on the side of al Qaeda after Patterico kicked off one of their circular orgies, with Patterico stating "As I said to the guys on Pundit Review Radio: you notice he didn’t say which side he’s on."
Except if you read the transcript the quote comes from you see that Bill Keller is indeed saying what side he's and the NYTs is on, and that side is not al Qaeda's.
Malkin's shameless propaganda video
http://hotair.com/archives/vent/...-is-the-nyt-on/
Keller transcript
http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/
pd...face_070206.pdf
Here's what Preston said about his video doctoring:
I edited Keller’s quote, snipping out a few words that made it longer than I wanted it to be but without changing the meaning of what he said. In context, Keller says what he says in Vent, but doesn’t say which side the press is on or which side it wants to win the war. He just says that it’s not neutral. Given that he doesn’t say which side the press is on, it’s up to us to figure it out, and the best way to do that is to examine the actions the press has taken since the war began.
Remember the “brutal Afghan winter?” Remember talk of a quagmire just a week into the Afghan campaign? Remember Eason Jordan admitting that CNN covered up for Saddam? And remember that same Eason Jordan accusing US troops of targeting journalists for murder? The press started out bad and has only gotten worse, to the point that the NYT publishes wartime secrets and its reporters tip off terrorists and its photographers shoot the war from the terrorists’ point of view.
Making it clear, to me anyway, which side the non-neutral press is on.
That is 100% false (to anyone with reading comprehension skills) Here's what Keller said:
SCHIEFFER: If you had something to say to people in America on this Fourth of
July weekend about all this, what would it be, Mr. Keller?
Mr. KELLER: I guess I would say if you're under the impression that the presss is neutral in this war on terror, or that we're agnostic--and you could get that impression from some of the criticism--that couldn't be more wrong. We have people traveling in the front lines with soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. We've had people who've been murdered in trying to figure out the terrorist threat. You know, we live in cities that are targets, proven targets, for the terrorists. So we--we're not neutral in this.
Well there you go. Doctor up some video, acknowledge that its doctored but that its 'truer than true.' Say right out that Keller has admitted Treason.
Where's the rope? All that's needed is the rope.
There's too many couch potato lawyers on the right, splitting hairs to justify their bad behaviour.
I'm tired of it.
Den,
Context might help remind America that just because a person says he's not a hate-monger, that doesn't mean he isn't one. Seperate motivations from actions, and actions speak for themselves. Henry "history is bunk" Ford could not possibly understand why his Jewish friends were upset when he started publicizing The Protocols. Ford didn't consider himself a hate-monger.
"When a Nazi party official brought Hitler proof that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was a forgery in 1930, his curt reply: 'It doesn't matter. The Protocols are still true in principle.' It is probably no coincedence that his words echoed [Henry] Ford's own response when confronted with the same facts years before. 'The only statement I care to make about The Protocols is that they fit in with what is going on.' That their lies were predicated on an earlier lie was inconsequential. All the lies dovetailed to a truth of which Ford and Hitler were unwaveringly convinced." - Max Wallace, The American Axis
Malkin starts with the premise that liberals are guilty of treason and then looks for evidence/fabricates evidence that supports that assertion. If you manage to convince her she's wrong in a particular instance she just starts from scratch but does not alter her original premise. Over the last seven years, at some point or another, she has accused pretty much every paper/media outlet that isn't part of the noise machine of being seditious or treasonous. Recently she insinuated Lara Logan (a real journalist who has been putting her life on the line of a daily basis to provide US citizens with the information that democracy can not live with out) was disseminating enemy propaganda.
http://michellemalkin.com/archiv...ives/ 004565.htm
THE SEDITIOUS AL GORE
By Michelle Malkin · February 15, 2006 03:56 PM
Harvard Law student and columnist Ben Shapiro takes a look at the Left's silence on Al Gore's betrayal of America at the Jeddah Economic Forum this weekend, and examines sedition law...
The word is unhinged.
Where's the rest of Washington and the MSM on this?
There Michelle links to an excerpt of an article in which Ben Shapiro coyly argues for the imprisonment of people who criticize President Bush and/or the "War on Terror".
http://www.townhall.com/ columnis...secute_sedition
At some point, opposition must be considered disloyal. At some point, the American people must say "enough." At some point, Republicans in Congress must stop delicately tiptoeing with regard to sedition and must pass legislation to prosecute such sedition.
"Freedom of speech!" the American Civil Liberties Union will protest. Before we buy into the slogan, we must remember our history. President Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus and allowed governmental officials to arrest Rep. Clement Vallandigham after Vallandigham called the Civil War "cruel" and "wicked," shut down hundreds of opposition newspapers, and had members of the Maryland legislature placed in prison to prevent Maryland's secession. The Union won the Civil War.
Under the Espionage Act of 1917, opponents of World War I were routinely prosecuted, and the Supreme Court routinely upheld their convictions. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes rightly wrote, "When a nation is at war, many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right." The Allies won World War I.
During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the internment of hundreds of thousands of Japanese-Americans, as well as allowing the prosecution and/or deportation of those who opposed the war. The Allies won World War II.
During the Vietnam War, the Supreme Court repeatedly upheld the free speech rights of war opponents, whether those opponents distributed leaflets depicting the rape of the Statue of Liberty or wore jackets emblazoned with the slogan "F--- the Draft." America lost the Vietnam War.
This is not to argue that every measure taken by the government to prosecute opponents of American wars is just or right or Constitutional. Some restrictions, however, are just and right and Constitutional -- and necessary. No war can be won when members of a disloyal opposition are given free reign to undermine it.
I'm guessing that if the Halliburton emergency "detention centers" were built and an emergency was declared, Malkin would not be voicing much concern about whatever groups of people were being placed in the camps.
I expect she'd be busy giving arguments why "liberals" are unhinged thuggish monsters and why Mexicans are plotting to invade and conquer the US and why Muslims can't be trusted and that they were really behind the Oklahoma City bombing and such.
Hey, come on, everybody knows that Ward Churchill and that blogger lady from Arizona or wherever it was are FAR better known and even more hateful x 1000000000 than any of those harmless conservative patriots.
And besides, they were only joking. Where's your sense of humor?
Oh, yeah, and also, they were just WARNING liberals what might happen, they weren't threatening them. Only a typical paranoid liberal like you could interpret those helpful suggestions as threats.
Also, you took everything they said out of context. Every last word.
And besides that, it isn't fighting fair to use people's quotes against them. It's not like they're public figures who publish books or have radio shows or anything.
Have you no shame, sir? At long last, have you no decency?
David,
I really value your work and this is overall an excellent post. I have one small but important suggestion. I think it would be more effective to take out all of the quotes from commenters on conservative blogs, and just concentrate on blog proprietors and national media figures. The right points to comments on liberal blogs as evidence of liberal "hate speech" all the time, and this tactic can be annoying. Even without commenters who use aliases, you would have more than enough damning material here.
Hypocrisy? Double standards? Incurable self-righteousness?
Find out *why* the authoritarians have these (and other) awful traits in Bob Altemeyer's "The Authoritarians". It's a free book, available online at:
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
Got here via a friend of a friend and just wanted to thank you for the effort it took to compile all of this information. Seen all together in one place like that, wow. Maybe I should invest in a bulletproof vest...
Well, here's why I like it. I like any time a bunch of leftist feel-good hand-wringers are shown reality. - The O Man
Just think, a bunch of fascist shysters actually nominated this drug-addled bozo for a Nobel Peace Prize. My, my, my, we sure live in interesting times.
Den Valdron,
There aren't trackback lists for comment threads so thought I'd mention I linked to your comment (3/14 8:42 am).
Good stuff.
http://vernonlee.blogspot.com/
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One wonders if these people will have enough conscience to realize they now have blood on their hands (the TN UU church shooting). One hopes for a Lady MacBeth moment, but I suspect that even that's too much to hope for.
JDsg: They deny it.
Notice how the story hasn't appeared in the mainstream media for a while? I guess when the far-right media realized this guy was the result of their hate, they had to squash the story so the truth couldn't get out.
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