In the last week, a tide of moral outrage arose as the wider internet community but also
members from a "blogburst" group of 200 bloggers associated with the "
Stop the ACLU Coalition" coalesced in condemnation of the behavior of "Stop the ACLU Coalition" founder, Nedd Kareiva, who had published
address and contact information on his website, of the family targeted in what I've come to call the "
Indian River Incident"....
This post will describe the problem. I am developing a description - based in part on the actual implementation of "social shaming" against the behavior of the "Stop the ACLU" founder - of a method that seems to be effective at curtailing such acts of political thuggery, through "shaming", which can cut through the usual lines of political polarization and which challenges those concerned to speak out as voices of moral conscience against such acts. Not from a "safe" distance though but, rather, as a direct personal challenge that calls those who engage in political thuggery to account.
Now there are three types of
thuggery I'd like to mention here : All three methods are popular methods used to `of silence political adversaries and are used by both the American left and right. The first I'd like to mention needs little explanation :
threats. The next I will call "
targeting" : the publishing of personal contact information of targeted individual(s), on the Internet or another media venue, alongside a condemnation that demonizes the individual(s) and often accuses them of various undefined and severe charges ( "treason", "terrorism" and so on ).
The next type is "incitement" : the picture above is from another website associated with "Stoptheaclu.org" : "stoptheaclu.com", described as "the official blog" of the .org site. The rhetoric issuing from both sites is a ceaseless litany of attacks against and demonizing the ACLU.
"Stop the ACLU" has become quite celebrated recently by the American right and has been plugged by Tammy Bruce and Michelle Malkin
As Glenn Greenwald writes, in the internet post cited below:
Stop the ACLU is not some fringe, isolated group. To the contrary, the "official blog" of StopTheACLU.org is StopTheACLU.com (h/t Hunter), a very prominent player in the right-wing blogosphere. That blog is the 14th most-linked-to blog on the Internet, and is often promoted and approvingly cited to as a source by numerous right-wing bloggers such as Instapundit and Michelle Malkin. The blog Expose the Left (which aspires to be the C&L of the Right), yesterday condemned the "nutcases on the left side of the blososphere" who "are sending unfounded attacks" against StopTheACLU for this plainly despicable thug behavior.
Both of the "Stop The ACLU" websites have engaged in incitement and targeting, and Lawyer Pinatas Aren't Murder is an attempt, posted on the personal blog of one frequent commentor on the "Stop the ACLU" sites, that seeks to justify Jay Stephenson's apparent exhortation towards violence against ACLU lawyers, in a picture posted on one of the "Stop the ACLU" websites, as a "joke". Stephenson's "satire" was accompanied by the following "disclaimer", "For those who are too stupid to understand, the below picture is satire. It is a joke. We do not actually advocate murder in any way here at STACLU", and the post mentioned above which defends that "satire" demonstrates where ideologically charged human imaginations can take this particular form of incitement :
I am a Christian, but I don't think I've ever made this out to be a Christian blog. I joked below about beating an ACLU lawyer with a stick...Now enters the wackjob liberal. A liberal blogger by the name of ThinkingMeat decided to say Jay is a wannabe murderer. He obviously ASSumed Jay meant hanging lawyers. In my mind, it's much funnier imagining an ACLU lawyer hanging from the waist kicking and screaming, who wouldn't die but would rather be beat with a stick until giving up candy (or at least some money)
A commentor on the ensuing discussion thread ventures into hate-infused theological realms with:
I think Jesus would find it quite funny to see a God-hating and Christian persecutor ACLU lawyer being tied like a pinata and being hit by a bunch of kids by pinata sticks,NOT BATS, okay. Its all a joke. Please don't try to use Jesus to help you in debates. Your prayers come unto deaf ears unless you are a believer. Not only is Jesus a loving God, but also a wrathful God, and also had a sense of humor. If you would read the Bible, then you would know this.
Now, direct personal threats tend to be judged illegal, but incitement and targeting more often than not are deemed to be shady but legal and so they are especially useful methods of harassment for those who cannot prevail by force of logical argument.
The columnist Michelle Malkin has in the last few days seen fit to publicize a case where an individual most observers would place on the American left made threats, in at least one email, directed against the ( self identified ) conservative blogger Jeff Goldstein and Goldstein's family. Oddly though, Malkin herself has recently engaged in conspicuous incitement that seems to have provoked death threats against 3 University of Santa Cruz students, in a case analyzed by a frequent writer on hate speech Dave Neiwert. Malkin has also has defended Pat Robertson's public call for the assasination of the foreign head of state Hugo Chavez.
As Glenn Greenwald writes, below, such little challenged behavior, on the part of prominent public figures, amounts to the mainstreaming of tactics once practiced mainly by groups on the American political fringe such as the white supramacist group "World Church Of The Creator".
In The thug and intimidation tactics of the Far Right go mainstream, author and lawyer Glenn Greenwald makes a forceful case that tactics of political thuggery I have mentioned have now entered the mainstream of the America right.
As is true for many lawyers who have defended First Amendment free speech rights, I have represented several groups and individuals with extremist and even despicable viewpoints (in general, and for obvious reasons, it is only groups and individuals who espouse ideas considered repugnant by the majority which have their free speech rights threatened). Included among this group were several White Supremacist groups and their leaders, including one such group -- the World Church of the Creator -- whose individual members had periodically engaged in violence against those whom they considered to be the enemy (comprised of racial and religious minorities along with the "race traitors" who were perceived to defend them).
One of the favorite tactics used by such groups is to find the home address and telephone number of the latest enemy and then publish it on the Internet, accompanied by impassioned condemnations of that person as a Grave Enemy, a race traitor, someone who threatens all that is good in the world. A handful of the most extremist pro-life groups have used the same tactic. It has happened in the past that those who were the target of these sorts of demonization campaigns that included publication of their home address were attacked and even killed.
Greenwald mentions prominent Neoconservative commentator David Horowitz's accusations that "Democrats, liberals, and leftists" are in essence guilty of treason and Horowitz's linking in the some post in which he makes such allegations, on the "Front Page" magazine, to an post by another "Front Page" contributor Rocco DiPippo who writes:
I issue a call to the blogosphere to begin finding and publicly listing the addresses of all New York Times reporters and editors. Posting pictures of their residences, along with details of any security measures in place to protect the properties and their owners (such as location of security cameras and on-site security details) should also be published.
Greenwald continues:
DiPippo published the home address of NYT Publisher Arthur Sulzberger, along with directions to his home, and linked to a post by right-wing blogger Dan Riehl which contained directions to Sulzberger's home along with photographers of it.
As Greenwald notes, treason is a crime that can be punishable by death, and Horowitz's apparent exhortation to would-be vigilantes should be taken in that light....
Or is it all just an off color joke ? - "Here are the directions to the house of the traitor ( who probably should be killed ), har har..." ? - and are "lawyer pinatas" not "murder" but do they, instead, simply amount to political humor ? Well, leaving aside the simple fact that pinatas - as objects - are customarily beaten with sticks until they bust open...
The fact remains that acts of actual violence against the specified targets do sometimes ensue following such public targeting, and there's a deep and execrable mendacity inherent in denials that claim that such tactics are innocent and unconnected to real world events.
The American right has long flung charges at the American left accusing it of "moral relativism" and of employing "situational ethics". Well, what can we say about those on the right, or for that matter the left, who justify such tactics on the grounds that they are - well - not, strictly speaking, actually illegal though they might come pretty darned close ? What can we say of the actions of those who deny that their public speech - or the emissions of their automobile for that matter - has no actual effect on the world ?
Well we could say a lot of things, but there are ways to respond to such behavior which serve to incite an already inflamed climate of political antogonism and then there are methods more directed and disciplined - which cut through the typical demarcations of left and right - that enlist spontaneous coalitions of social disapproval against those who engage in the sort of tactics of political thuggery discussed here.
I will be packaging some of my writing, from the last several days, on this and also there is a public initiative in the works to direct collective voices of moral condemnation.
Please stop back in a few hours...