I have been thinking about this whole mess with Hillary, Ferraro and Hillary's hardcore female supporters attacking Obama and others that oppose their views with outrageous and baseless accusations of sexism, and I realized that it reminds me a lot of Bush's way of relating to the world and his response to differing opinions (or let's say how he reacts to democracy).
Originally posted on The Personal Is Political.
If you recall, pre-2006, if you were against the war in Iraq, or if you had the audacity to question ANY of Bush's policies, foreign or domestic, you were branded "un-American", as if criticism of Bush equaled a rejection of the entirety of America. As if Bush represents America, as if Bush and his policies are America.
We can see the same thing with people who recklessly throw out the term "anti-Semite" or "anti-Israel" to anyone who dares question ANY policy of Israel's, or any part of American foreign policy related to Israel, or even talk too much about the fact that Israel is a state that has policies and influence. As if criticism of specific Israeli policies is tantamount to hating Israel, or wishing the destruction of Israel, or hating Jews, or denying the Holocaust or any number of ridiculous accusations. As if the hardliners in control of Israeli's government speaks any more for Jews than Bush speaks for Americans as a whole.
But none of these things are really about being un-American or anti-Semitic or sexist, they are about brutishly silencing the opinions of others because you don't want to hear them, so you throw out loaded terms such as these to slander your opponents and silence them. It is anti-democratic, it is anti-intellectual, thus it is anti-truth and anti-reality. It is the last desperate fortress of those who can't win on the merits of their arguments, of those who are wrong and know they are wrong and can't admit they are wrong. So when Bush brands his critics un-American, he does so because his policies are based on lies, greed and death, and can't stand up to scrutiny.
When hardline supporters of Israel brand critics of Israeli policies anti-Semitic or anti-Israel, they do so because the policies people criticize are illegal violations of human rights, and they can't continue if exposed for what they are and challenged by an unintimidated international community.
And when Hillary and Ferraro and Hillary's hardcore supporters blast anyone who ever had a negative thing to say about Hillary, or anyone who admits the reality that it is mathematically impossible for her to win as "terribly sexist" or "misogynists", they do so because what people are saying is true, and they are fighting an uphill battle against reality, and the only way to continue to suspend the realization of reality is to intimidate, slander and shout down their opponents, just like Bush, just like hardline supporters of Israel, just like countless tyrants throughout history who have crushed dissent because their positions were so backwards, corrupt and immoral that they could never exist in a free and open society.
And sadly in every example the abuse of these loaded terms makes them eventually lose their edge. People now freely mock Republicans for attacking everyone anti-war as being un-American because the term was used and used and used to the point of absurdity. It lost its meaning and people came to eventually realize that those who peddled the term were corrupt and ignorant, and afraid of truth. To a lesser extent people are starting to realize that the neocons and hardline supporters of Israel are abusing the term "anti-Semitism" in order to crush opposing viewpoints, and that it has nothing to do with the real bigotry against Jews which really does exist in the world. But this is where it gets dangerous, because if the term "anti-Semitism" loses it's meaning, and if the people who use it (and those who they pretend to speak for, namely the Jewish people) are discredited due to overuse, trying to cry wolf too many times, acting too brutishly and playing the victim ad nauseam, then we risk a backlash, we risk real anti-Semitism being ignored.
The same goes for people who claim to be the voice for all women accusing everyone who says or does anything they don't like, no matter how obviously it has nothing to do with sex or gender, of being sexists who are out to get them, constantly attacking others while playing the victim and throwing gender out as both a shield and a weapon, the inevitable result is a backlash, and the term "sexism" losing some of its meaning. There is very real sexism in this country, and in the world, and it does an injustice to that real sexism when you co-opt that term for your own political goals, just as it does an injustice to real anti-Semitism when you use the term to further your political agenda.
I don't want to see a backlash against any of these groups, and I don't want people to start ignoring claims of real sexism and anti-Semitism just because some shameless groups or individuals decided to cynically co-opt these terms for their political agendas, not caring about the repercussions on the very people they pretend they are speaking for. Anyway, it is a dangerous game, and I'm sick of people playing it, which is why I will continue to respond to Hillary and her gang, and to the neocons and the hardline supporters of Israel, and to Bush and the Republicans and anyone else who uses these tactics to silence, slander and bully their opposition.