5 October 2010 Nixon’s gone but his legacy remains

Writing about the killings at Kent State

On the right, hateful words are fired like bullets



By Richard Cohen

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

“My God, American soldiers had shot American college students. This was not China, not Tiananmen Square, and not Iran and the pro-democracy rallies of last year -- not any of those places. This was America, just yesterday (take my word for it) and yet it had happened. How? I thought hard and then I remembered. Bullets had killed those kids, sure -- but they were fired, in a way, from the mouths of politicians

The governor of Ohio, James Rhodes, demonized the war protesters. They were "worse than the Brownshirts and the communist element. . . . We will use whatever force necessary to drive them out of Kent."

That was the language of that time. And now it is the language of our time. It is the language of Glenn Beck, who fetishizes about liberals and calls Barack Obama a racist. It is the language of rage that fuels too much of the Tea Party and is the sum total of gubernatorial hopeful Carl Paladino's campaign message in New York. It is all this talk about "taking back America" (from whom?) and this inchoate fury at immigrants and, of course, this raw anger at Muslims, stoked by politicians such as Newt Gingrich and Rick Lazio, the latter having lost the GOP primary to Paladino for, among other things, not being sufficiently angry. "I'm going to take them out," Paladino vowed at a Tea Party rally in Ithaca, N.Y.

Back in the Vietnam War era, the left also used ugly language and resorted to violence. But the right, as is its wont, stripped the antiwar movement of its citizenship. It turned dissent into treason, which, in a way, was the worst treason of all. It made dissidents into the storied "other" who had nothing in common with the rest of us. They were not opponents; they were the enemy: Fire! “

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/04/AR2010100403856.html?hpid=opinionsbox1



Cassi Creek:

Mr. Cohen makes an accurate point. The co-option of words, phrases, and symbols has no become a primary weapon in the battle between political parties.

During the Nixon years the act of burning the American flag as an exercise in freedom of speech caused a loud and fulminate response from within the blue-collar workers, construction tradesmen, and those citizens for whom the introduction of the birth control pill signaled the end of morality as proclaimed by the tent revivalists.

The word “liberal” was attacked and branded as equating with communism during the Reagan era. A whole series of symbols and words became weapons. “Welfare,” “family planning,” “ecology,” and “conservation” suddenly became words to be used against the very people who were most truly interested in conserving America in a battle against corporate raiders, televangelists, oil companies, and the emerging and strengthening theocrats.

Bush II and Cheney took over when Reagan finally foundered in the senility that was already evident when he was first elected. Clad in the American flag, waving a bible he didn’t believe in, he read speeches that were made of nothing but trigger phrases to motivate the mob.

The Tea Party mobs now cloak their selves in symbols drawn from American history but fail to recognize the inherently radical nature of the men who wrought those symbols.

The need for civility in politics is deep and immediate. We need an end to hate mongers like Limbaugh, Palin, and Beck stirring the cauldron of hatred and racism that drives the Tea Party mob. They are experts at mob manipulation and we need to find a way to stop their use of all the old symbols and their demonization of political terms.

Not all the labels from our history should be forgotten. I’m quite willing to begin making every reference to the GOP and Tea Party share the “No Nothing” label. I suggest others do likewise. It’s not mean or abusive, just honest and direct.

A very colicky computer and leftovers for dinner. 92% (A-) on my art-history exam.