Words Matter – Where the Dangerous Discourse Began

Re: Clinton Calls Out Armey And Gingrich For Reprising Roles, Reusing Lines, by Sam Stein, Posted: April 16, 2010 12:47 PM

President Bill Clinton, speaking in Oklahoma yesterday on the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing (inserts, […], not mine):

“I love seeing that picture in the [Washington] Post today, with that outline of [Former Majority Leader Dick] Armey with the cowboy hat on,” Clinton said. “I remember when he called Hillary a ‘socialist.’ I remember when Newt Gingrich, shortly after becoming Speaker Elect, said that Hillary and I were the ‘enemies of normal.’ It didn’t bother me a bit. I was planning to get in and mix it up. But what we learned from [the] Oklahoma City [bombing] is not that we should gag each other…. but that the words we use really do matter, because there is this vast echo chamber and they go across space and they fall on the serious and the delirious alike.”

Sobering, honest, and pertinent. Clinton is scolding – telling us that we are responsible for the language we use. Every politician or other notable speaker must be aware of and  must be held accountable for their own rhetoric that pushes the envelope of civility. Some do. Others seem to charge ahead as if they wanted the crazies to start something, anything, just so it is bold enough to make the 24 hour news cycle.

This all started during the campaign in 2008. The Republicans, John McCain and his vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, proudly proclaimed that Senator Obama was associating with terrorists, effectively labeling Obama as the enemy. And when an audience member shouted “kill him!” nothing was done to correct the crazy. This from an article in the Huffington Post by Dawn Teo, HuffPost Arizona Correspondent, Posted: October 24, 2008. She hits the nail on the head:

In recent weeks, as the McCain-Palin campaign has increasingly been called out for leveraging — at rallies and in its notorious robocalls — words of division, suspicion, and contempt, the emotions and tempers of McCain-Palin supporters have been heated beyond the boiling point. The language of the McCain-Palin campaign now goes far beyond the divisive language typical of modern American political campaigns. John McCain and Sarah Palin are actively promoting a perception of Barack Obama as an enemy, not as an opponent.

Civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) said that John McCain and Sarah Palin are “sowing the seeds of hatred and division” through hostile rhetoric. Indeed scientific research by psychologists has shown that the type of framing used by McCain, Palin, and their surrogates can create and foster disunity, hostility, and even violence. The resulting societal tensions may be more lasting and severe than John McCain and Sarah Palin realize.

…John McCain and Sarah Palin are attempting to imbue Obama with the characteristics of a traitor by disassociating him from “real America” and associating him with those who are commonly accepted in our society as public enemies. They are using rhetoric that has traditionally been reserved for propaganda against traitors and foreign enemies.

McCain tried to stop the craziness once, at a rally  October 10, 2008. A supporter at the McCain town hall-style forum in Lakeville, MN said “Obama is an Arab,” which McCain quickly corrected. Then McCain was booed by his own supporters for correcting the crazy lady. His efforts were too little, too late. Pandora’s box was already opened.

 Who they are:

*birthers (he’s born in Kenya, etc.),
*deathers (death panels. Grandma’s plug pulled, remember? dwindled. not a big issue anymore since all these facts got out about HCR.),
*armed christian militia/survivalists (crazy dangerous. group arrested in Michigan this past week. they will show up with guns and 2nd amendment signs. they all train together. arrest them all.),
*Birchers (John Birch Society, 1950’s hold-overs still ranting about communist takeovers. Koch brothers are members, uber billionaires, Koch Industries, father was founding member, Koch brothers started Americans for Prosperity, bankrolls tea parties. radically opposed to anything “socialist”. not grassroots no matter how loud they get. inches from becoming armed survivalists.),
*racists (will carry signs depicting Obama caricatured as almost anything except an American President. shouts the “n” word at black passersby.),
*xenophobes (loudly suspicious of anyone brown and foreign-looking/sounding. sees terrorists everywhere.),
*libertarians (no taxes, period. never mind all the public transportation they used to get to the rally.),
*tenthers (refers to the 10th Amendment. 13 states’ Attorneys General are filing a frivolous and improbable lawsuit claiming the health care mandate, a Republican idea, is unconstitutional. they believe states have the power above the federal government. big dog whistle for anti-civil rights.),
*cold warriors (stuck in the 60’s cold war. be afraid of the communist threat.)
*Zionists (more anti-Muslim than pro-Israel. picture Senator John McCain on stage singing, “bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran”.)

This was the beginning. The McCain campaign gave birth to the radical, and dangerous, Tea Party zombies.

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