Back in January of 2007, I posted "Language Pollution" at Conceptual Guerilla's Strategy & Tactics site in which I attempted to get at the ways and means by which the radical right laid its foundations for the hysterical hatred and fear-mongering now the hallmark of our current, blighted administration. I would urge you to look it over. In the upcoming presidential campaign, we're going to be inundated with specious rhetoric duly polluted by Republican politicians and their tame media pundits. Believe it. At the same time, keeping a fine, firm grip on the truth has probably never been more important in the history of this country. Over the last eight years, we have frittered away our best chances of coping with the big issues facing the survival of modern civilization and irrevocably diminished our possibility of containing them painlessly, distracted by deliberate rightwing lies and misdirection.
This needs to be clearly understood: What the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, the Club for Growth and all the rest of those radical right tool sheds are REALLY doing is using every means at their disposal to sell a fraudulent bill of goods. They don't care about you or me or America. They seek only to preserve and protect the power of the Ruling Class in a society divided into masters and serfs. They see themselves as elites with all the rest of us as their servants. And if you think I'm exaggerating here, just take a look at who benefits most from tax cuts, accounting loopholes, subsidies, tax shelters, golden parachutes. Consider: The places where George W. Bush went to school to fart around and party 'til he puked--Andover, Yale, Harvard--cost more than you're going to make this year. So whose best interests has he's been looking out for? Not yours and not mine, bucko; this is the scion of privilege who told a professor at Harvard Business School that "people are poor because they're lazy."
Cheap-labor conservatives have no option but to dupe the electorate into voting for them because their "enrich the wealthy" agenda couldn't possibly fly on its own merits; it hasn't got any. They have to appeal to something other than rational logic here. They have to con you, cajole you, otherwise motivate you to vote against your own best interests and give, say, fabulously rich oil executives MORE money. That they have managed to do this with so much success over so long a period is a marvel to me...and a tribute to their unquestionable skill at dissemblance.
There is profound intellectual dishonesty which lies at the rancid heart of rightwing ideology, my friends. They may or may not actually believe that stuff themselves--and it isn't especially important in any event--but they have not the slightest qualm about full-bore prevarication in defense of it. They will look you right dead in the eye and lie like a Persian rug, not merely with straight faces, but with conviction!
This never fails to amaze me.
When actual facts or documented history begin to display their inconveniently liberal bias, they are chucked away without hesitation or backward glance only to be replaced by more Republican-friendly fictions. Let me supply, as an introductory example, some language pollution noted recently by Matthew Yglesias. And you may be sure that in the grand scheme of GOP deception, this one is pretty small potatoes...but it's wholly indicative of their modus operandi.
This has been going on for so long that it hardly even phases me anymore, but it's striking the extent to which the conservative discourse about Iran hinges crucially on misrepresenting uncontroversial facts about Iran. How many articles or speeches have you read on the subject of the Iranian nuclear program that dwell at length on inflammatory rhetoric from Ahmadenijad without noting that he doesn't control the relevant aspects of Iranian policy? Beyond that, I recall at least one Weekly Standard article that was unable to make due with outrageous things Ahmadenijad actually said and just decided to attribute some additional conduct to him. Beyond that, it's been over two years since Charles Krauthammer said Iran was months away from nuclear capacity [and] almost two years since Bernard Lewis confidently stated that Iran would unleash the apocalypse on August 22, 2006, etc. (Emphasis mine)
Flagrant, obvious distortion and outright lies are one thing. This aspect of the gestalt of Republican duplicity is worthy subject matter simply because they need to be called on it EVERY time, never allowed to get away with even the tiniest prevarication under any circumstances. (An impossible goal...but I can dream, can't I?) My focus here, however, is the much more subtle and, therefore, insidious phenomenon I choose to call language pollution. It has to do with inflaming the basest elements of human nature--greed, vanity, insecurity and fear--and it treacherously alters the essential meanings of familiar words. This is a technique in which they specialize: they've been doing it for DECADES.
Duncan "Atrios" Black has demonstrated a grasp of the concept. On Friday, May 16th, he said this: "...Wingnuts have created a whole lexicon of totemic phrases that they just appeal to, often devoid of real meaning. Additionally, usually any national security "attack" is assumed to be some all powerful weapon which causes everyone to just cry and whimper."
Let me give you some concrete examples of how this polluted language, these "totemic phrases," are utilized by the GOP in Real World situations and you can see for yourself how despicable the tactic truly is.
Two weeks ago, our Lame Duck-In-Chief sought to strike a transparently political blow at the Democratic Party's ongoing primary process from the floor of the Israeli Knesset, accusing Senator Barack Obama of seeking to "appease" our terrorist enemies by holding high-level talks with Iran. Leaving aside for a moment the unspoken and wholly distorted implication that Iran is plotting to do us outright harm, this was gross and blatant language pollution of the worst sort. I'd be willing to wager long odds that Mad Cowboy George doesn't have any clear idea of what appeasement actually means...he just knows its a bad thing to be doing. Whoever wrote that little hatchet job for him, though, almost surely DOES know. The unmitigated mendacity of equating simple dialogue--which, by the way, SecDef Robert Gates called for ONE DAY previously!--was as vile as it was intentional.
Sen. Obama handled it exactly right by pointing out in a rapid response counterattack that presidents JFK, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Bush Senior had ALL opened lines of communication with foreign leaders who were, ostensibly, our enemies at the time. (And, just for the record, Bush himself met with Vladimir Putin, who is no bosom buddy, on June 16, 2001.) Sen. Joe Biden leaped into the fray, delivering a sensational smackdown by reminding everyone that Gates and Condoleeezzza Rice have ALREADY met with Iranian president Ahmadinejad, asking if THEY were "appeasers," too. That's how the subterfuge of rightwing language pollution is best defused, by showing it for the premeditated misrepresentation that it is. The reply must also be swift as well as strident; allowing these poisonous bits of flotsam and jetsam to enter the media narrative unchallenged only makes clarifying the record at any later date MUCH more difficult. For details, just ask John Kerry...
Here's another. The cheap-labor contingent dearly loves to carry on about "patriotism." They delight in excoriating those who do not precisely mirror their own simplistic naiveté, who do not see things in clear-cut terms of 'good' and 'evil.' In his book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, Al Franken nails it precisely:
"If you listen to a lot of conservatives, they'll tell you that the difference between them and us is that conservatives love America and liberals hate America... They don't get it. We love America just as much as they do. But in a different Way. You see, they love America the way a 4-year-old loves her Mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups. To a 4-year-old, everything Mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes Mommy is bad. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad, and helping your loved one grow. Love takes attention and work and is the best thing in the world."
More often than not, when they use the word 'patriotism,' they're actually talking about nationalism...or even knee-jerk jingoism...for those on the right, such distinctions are irrelevant, any nuance strictly forbidden. The very idea that a flag pin on a jacket lapel speaks anything significant about somebody's true beliefs is simply absurd on its face. But we were treated to weeks of insufferable nonsense by the corporate media on that very subject...often by wingnut spokesliars who WEREN'T wearing flag pins themselves! Stupider than stupid.
Unsurprisingly, Blowhard Bill O'Reilly has made his own odious bid to join in the ranks of language polluters. In his book Culture Warrior, he set out to take the word 'Progressive' away from those of us on the left in much the same way that AM Hate Radio commentators have tried to demonize the word 'liberal.' (GOP higher-ups appear to think that this is, by now, a done deal. Their recent losses of three special elections in bright red districts, though--despite branding opposition candidates as unrepentant hardcore liberals--would seem to indicate otherwise. I would argue that they've never met with more than minimal success outside of their rabid base, a shockingly small percentage of the population...but that's another post for another time.) The O Man came up with the phrase "secular-progressive" and has been subsequently shoveling it out as a disparaging epithet on both his radio and television shows.
Go a hot flash for ya, Billo: It won't catch on.
First of all, its too long and it's got too many of those scary syllables in it. Plus it's hyphenated. The Big Giant Head should have remembered that the most potent, useful slurs are single words. Short ones. I would further venture that a majority of his audience doesn't even quite understand what the words are intended to convey. How many of them actually have a sufficient knowledge of history to understand what the Progressive Movement of the 19th century even WAS? I doubt it's very many; I can't see the percentage being more than miniscule. Still, he's trying to achieve traction for it with endless repetition.
It's the first part, however, where the calculated deception comes in. He's trying to twist the word 'secular' into somehow meaning ANTI-religious instead of its original definition of strictly NON-religious. Language pollution. This may indeed get some of the Fundamentalist Flying Monkeys foaming at the mouth as I assume it was intended to do, but their influence has been on the wane for a couple of years now and I do not see them as a significant factor either in this presidential election or from this point forward. These are the extremists whose stronghold is largely among the lower-income peoples of Midwestern and Southern states, entwined with a prideful and inbred anti-itellectualism that is also often overtly racist. They don't know and they don't want to know! And they frighten people. In attempting to reach out to them, I'd bet that O'Reilly has inadvertently insulted them. Way to go, Billo.
I suppose I could cite examples until the cows come home...but I'm sure you get the message by now.
They're liars.
Don't believe what they say. Don't get fooled again...