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The Pulpit of Bullies
One of the most memorable moments in television coverage of American politics came during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968. Out on the streets, anti-Vietnam war demonstrations were attacked viciously by law enforcement officials in what later was described in an official report as “a police riot.”
Inside the convention hall, tightly controlled by the political machine of the city’s notorious Mayor Richard J. Daley, CBS correspondent Dan Rather was attempting to interview a delegate from Georgia who was being removed from the floor by men in suits without ID badges. One of them slugged Rather in the stomach, knocking him to the ground. As the reporter struggled to get his breath back, from the anchor booth, Walter Cronkite exclaimed, “I think we’ve got a bunch of thugs here, Dan!”
It was an uncharacteristic outburst from America’s Most Respected Newsman, indicative of just how terrible the violence was both inside and out and how shocking it was for a journalist to be so blatantly attacked while on the air by operatives acting on behalf of politicians.
As appalling as that 1968 assault was, thuggery is nothing new in politics; it transcends time, ideology and party. But what’s even more disturbing in 2010 is how much of the public, especially many of those who count themselves among the conservative adherents of the Tea Party, is willing to ignore bullying behavior – and even applaud it – as long as the candidate in question hews to their point of view.
Here in New York State, of course, we have Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, who combines the boyish charm of J. Edgar Hoover with the sunny quirkiness of Pol Pot. So extreme are Paladino’s views, so volatile his temper, that even Rupert Murdoch’s right wing New York Post has endorsed Democrat Andrew Cuomo, which is a bit like the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano dissing the Pope and singing the praises of Lutherans.
Doubtless this is in part because Crazy Carl, as he is affectionately known to many, almost came to blows with the Post’s state political editor, the redoubtable Fred Dicker, shouting “I’ll take you out, buddy!” at Dicker after the journalist asked Paladino for evidence to back up allegations the candidate was making against Cuomo and Paladino claimed the paper was harassing his out-of-wedlock daughter.
The Post had to admit that Paladino is “long on anger and short on answers... undisciplined, unfocused and untrustworthy -- that is, fundamentally unqualified for the office he seeks.”
Okay, Paladino will lose, but in other parts of the country, Tea Party-supported candidates with a similar bullying, threatening attitude, or who seem to surround themselves with such people, are more likely to win. Republican Allen West, endorsed by Sarah Palin and John Boehner, is leading in his race against incumbent Democratic Representative Ron Klein in South Florida’s 22nd Congressional District.
A retired Army lieutenant colonel, West resigned from the military, according to the progressive website ThinkProgress.org, “while facing a court martial over the brutal interrogation of an Iraqi man: according to his own testimony during a military hearing, West watched four of his men beat the suspect, and West said he personally threatened to kill the man. According to military prosecutors, West followed up on his threat by taking the man outside and firing a 9mm pistol near his head, in order to make the man believe he would be shot.”
You can’t make this stuff up: Last week, NBC News reported that West has been communing with a notorious Florida motorcycle gang, the Outlaws, which the Justice Department alleges has criminal ties to arson, prostitution, drug running, murder and robbery. And on Monday, West could be heard at a rally urging some bikers – also with Outlaw connections -- to “escort” out a Klein staffer who was video recording the event. “Threats can be heard on the videotape,” said a reporter from NBC’s Miami affiliate. “West supporters forced him to get back into his car.”
The West campaign responded that “the latest attacks aimed at associating... Allen West with a criminal and racist gang are completely baseless and nothing short of a hatchet job.” So what’s with the photograph of him glad-handing bikers who according to NBC brag about their association with the Outlaws? And why did West tell a supporter to back off when concern was expressed about “criminal organization members in leather” appearing at West’s campaign rallies?
Which brings us to Joe Miller, the Republican and Tea Party candidate for the United States Senate from Alaska. On Sunday, at a Miller town hall, private security guards hired by the campaign – two of whom were moonlighting, active duty military – took it upon themselves to detain a reporter pursuing Miller with questions, placed him under citizen’s arrest and handcuffed him – then threatened to detain two other reporters who were taking pictures and asking what was going on.
The plainclothes rent-a-cops, complete with Secret Service-type earpieces and Men in Black-style neckties and business suits, come from an Anchorage-based outfit called DropZone Security, which also runs a bail bond service and an Army-Navy surplus store – with one of those anti-Obama “Joker” posters pasted to its window. One-stop shopping for the vigilante militiaman in your life – kind of like that joke about the combination veterinarian-taxidermist: either way you get your dog back.
All of this would be funnier if not for the fact that this kind of hooliganism and casual trampling of First Amendment rights from people who claim to embrace the Constitution as holy writ is symptomatic of a deeper problem.
The anger of the electorate is understandable: politicians and politics as usual have given voters much about which to be mad; furious, in fact. But bullying is different. It comes from insecurity and fear, and lashes out with tactics of intimidation. To dismiss it as merely a secondary concern and say “I’ll take my chances” as long as the candidates in question agree with you is dangerous. Scuffling with the press and others may seem minor, but it’s just the beginning. In states where there is early balloting, already there are allegations of voter harassment, primarily in minority neighborhoods.
The only way to fight back against bullies and thugs is to stand up and tell them to go to hell. To do otherwise is to give an inch and prepare to be taken for the proverbial mile. That way lies madness. And worse.
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47 Comments so far
Show AllAnd as you probably know by now, those DropZone Security dudes are actually active duty military moonlighting! That should certainly send shivers up even the most jaded Tea Partier or Demo sell-out. But I get the feeling that it will just be excused like every other affront to decency, the law and all those other "quaint" notions we have grown up with about America and how to treat people.
You mean, by night they rail against socialism, and by day they belong to the most blanketly socialist enterprise in America? Got it.
Verbal bullying by the likes of Beck/Palin/Hannity/Limbaugh/Lou Dobbs/Bill O'Reilly/McConnell, Sessions, Boehner emboldens others. Many speakers get on a stage and go a little insane with the unaccustomed attention of a whole crowd.
But the statement, "The only way to fight back against bullies and thugs is to stand up and tell them to go to hell" is not the right answer to this behavior. It's sometimes a long drawn-out battle behind the scenes to pull the rugs out from under the bullies. It takes not only bold opposition. It takes patient doggedness and an unwillingness to allow the bully to have the position of king of the mountain.
From 1968 until today, it takes personal identification and persistent attack to defeat a bully. Being alone on stage can cause the speaker to forget himself. Being in a mob of police or other thugs can grant one enough anonymity to be really vicious. To go for a bully, single him/ her out and meet them later, repeatedly. Don't ever give the playground over to the bully.
The symbol of the Tea Party is a couple of dueling scars in the shape of an X. People like Paladino and West are the Horst Wessels of this competing Brownshirt faction of the Republican party. Since it's now become absolutely clear that the majority of the American people don't care about democracy or maintaining their civil liberties, these street brawling and potentially murderous thugs may very well represent the wave of the USA's political future. It is not just citizens of the USA who need to shudder but the rest of the world as well.
"Since it's now become absolutely clear that the majority of the American people don't care about democracy or maintaining their civil liberties..." Yeah, they only care about acting big and showing out as my Grannie would have said. And big bellies as I would say. Why? A school system run by chamber of commerce types fur over a century- ain't just a recent rise of incipient tyranny.
a not drunk enuff MD
PS don't offin endorse soft drinks but we got one bottled in East TN called Dr Enuff that's right tasty an' gots some vitamins in it
"The symbol of the Tea Party is a couple of dueling scars in the shape of an X."
I thought it was a twisted snake - representative of how they speak in forked tongue - on a yellow background - representative of their cowardice.
Am I wrong?
I think it's crossing penises,a Freudian slip so to speak. A visit to the TP website reveals that the dialogue is about how big their "guns" are and it's a well known axiom that men use "guns" as a substitute for penises.
The American SA is at it again.
It's classic brown shirt SA taken from the annals of the history 1920's, 30's Germany. Upton Sinclair predicted it some 75 years ago with his remark "it can happen here", meaning NAZISM and here it is, it is happening here.
I think this is indicative of a larger, more pervasive issue that goes much deeper in America. Larger portions of Americans than ever - both on the right and the left - are developing an immunity to behavior and lawbreaking by their country and its representatives that is appalling.
The fact that there is an ongoing debate about whether the U.S. torturing prisoners is "ok" or "not ok" or "ok in certain cases" underlines this. Twenty years ago there wouldn't even BE a debate. The majority of Americans then would be absolutely appalled at the thought. But here we are in 2010 - and poll after poll shows that over half of Americans feel it is o.k. That says a LOT about our citizens.
I don't remember the specifics, but several months ago there was an article on CD about a cop who arrested a black professor from a major university in MA (I think) IN HIS OWN HOME when he had locked himself out and was trying to get back in. The professor was asked for ID by the cops, and got a bit loud and beligerant at the cops that he lived there and didn't have to produce ID. They arrested him for "disturbing the peace." About half the comments on RawStory - where the piece also appeared - were that "he was asking for it, for being so loud and beligerant."
Think about that. 50% of the people who read that story didn't even think twice about the fact that there is no law against being loud or rude to a police officer - they just automatically believe that people need to be super-nice and respectful and fawn at all cops' feet. I.e. - thuggishness and law-breaking by those who are supposed to be upholding the law is perfectly acceptable to a lot of Americans. They don't even question it anymore.
Same with the large number of Americans who see nothing wrong with Muslims being detained simply because they are Muslims, or Mexicans, etc. Put all of this together, and you see a pattern: Americans are slowly but steadily becoming used to those with power abusing that power, until they no longer even see it as abuse.
THAT is very, very scary indeed. We will all be good little Germans before you know it.
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross."
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross."
I think it will be wrapped in $100 bills and sporting a two-headed mascot: an elephant and a donkey. And its already here.
Moonpie, if the Dems and the GOP are exactly the same, why are the corporations spending millions to defeat Democrats? It would seem to be a massive waste of money if they already completely own both parties.
@ RSJ:
"why are the corporations spending millions to defeat Democrats?"
Because they did the same with the Democrats to defeat the Republicans?
"It would seem to be a massive waste of money if they already completely own both parties."
Perhaps, our civil-minded public officials are not satisfied with a one-time donation and require monthly installments to ensure the quality of their loyalty?
It's simple:
Those millions pay back in BILLIONS, or TRILLIONS. That is, they pay back by a factor of one thousand to a millionfold. Three to six orders of magnitude.
They do it because that's what it costs to create the illusion we have choice. They do it for the same reason wealthy landowners hired white overseers for their black slaves--to create a class that would defend it from the poor masses.
"It would seem a complete waste of money" demonstrates that the deception works.
The elections are the curtain.
Just look behind it.
Please.
I take the points of both you and the Rev. but I heard on MSNBC that this year the corporate money was, for the first time in recent history, 'all in' for the GOP with very little for the Dems. If this is all just a Kabuki show, certainly they could conduct it without spending hundreds of millions on the election -- as I said, it would be a waste of money if you owned both sides. Some of the Blue Dogs Dems are leaving, like Chris Dodd, and it seems the corporatists are trying desperately to get rid of any even remotely progressive Dem, such as Finegold and Boxer. Perhaps they know the jig is up and this will be the last election they can influence before the torch-wielding hordes come after them and the corporate Frankenstein they created. They want a GOP majority to lock down the country and turn us all into peons ready to work for next-to-nothing for food. It's a stupid idea that will come back to bite them as they then won't have a market for what they sell, but then most of these people aren't too bright. As Dorothy Parker once said: "If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to." Miserable, pathetic, backstabbing, egocentric, paranoid, frightened sociopaths who can't be contented no matter how much money they have. They're killing themselves with the wasting addiction of greed and they don't know it, but they are on their death beds just the same.
"Americans are slowly but steadily becoming used to those with power abusing that power, until they no longer even see it as abuse."
You're right. Many Americans are not only used to it, they live it vicariously. They feel so unempowered that any exercise of power feels good to them. Making rude remarks is perceived as having the upper hand.
The mean spiritedness can be seen in the smartmouthy oneupsmanship of the TV commercials.
But, although my opinion doesn't seem to count for much in the grand scheme of things, I agree with dwyerj1 that "standing up to them" only prolongs the argument, makes people hang tough with their opinions.
I'm not a great sports fan, but I enjoy watching them now and then. SF Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum, he with the long hair and the nickname "Freak." Phillies fans were jeering at him and calling him girlieman and other choice genderbashing epithets, and he just smiled and brushed it off, did NOT respond to hostility with counterhostility.
It's hard not to get mad back when people are angrily harranguing you, but those who can will do better than those who try to "stand up" to those who are trying to shout them down.
Yeah, laughing at them, like Lincecum did, really makes them red-in-the-face mad. Unfortunately, such acts don't work against the real reactionaries like Bush, Cheney, Biden, or Obama, or those pulling the strings.
I got news for all of u, many of them would like slavery to make a comeback and are doing everything they can toward that end. I have no doubt that if we had a really major calamity in this country along the lines say of some kind of deadly disease wiping out most of the pop. in short order the guys with guns would take over quickly and it wouldn't be pretty.
Even guys with guns have to sleep sometime.
Hear, hear, Seaglass, I've been saying the same thing for a while now. I feel that the crumbling of the empire will catapult that when the Southern states 'declare their independence' and reclaim their 'right' to slavery. This time around, it won't be just the blacks.
Check the Constitution (13th Amendment). Slavery is not illegal in the USA.
The government can have slaves, legally. It was private slavery that was eliminated.
It´s been said that "Hell is the impossibility of reason." Bullies and thugs are everywhere, even here at CD. In 40 years of activism, I have never seen a more vicious time, when creating alliances and earnestly working for or against a cause one believes in more difficult. Perhaps a part of it is this medium, without faces and real people, we lose respect for the other. Perhaps. It certainly doesn´t help in my opinion. But leave the US for a little while and note the differences. Chilling.
A recent study by the University of Michigan recently indicated that college students today have far less empathy for others than they did in years past.
My response: And this should come as a surprise?
"The only way to fight back against bullies and thugs is to stand up and tell them to go to hell. To do otherwise is to give an inch and prepare to be taken for the proverbial mile. That way lies madness. And worse."
Sorry to let you in on this michael, but, we the people have already given so many inches already, we might as well be talking miles. Our protests have become meaningless, carnival like affairs. Our presidential election in 2000 was hijacked and we gave at least a half mile by not starting a revolution then. We need to do what the french are doing right at this moment by taking to the streets and starting to stand up to the insanity we face in the form of our political system. Yes, it involves risk but what is the alternative? Waiting for the new Gestapo to come for us?
I WOULD MUCH SOONER DIE ON MY FEET THAN LIVE ON MY KNEES...
"the best lack all conviction, while the worst are filled with passionate intensity."
William Butler Yeats said it aright. We are bound for American-style fascism because the right is ruthless and energized, and the left is finally coming to understand that the original promise of this country will never be realized, because Americans as a whole are just too selfish.
American are forged into consumerist, narcissistic, gluttons of mindlessness.
Let's see, the current President claims the right to extrajudicially execute anyone, anyplace, at any time.
Every Governmental war crime investigation is blocked by executive claims of State Secrets.
Mass murders as XE are still obtaining Government contracts.
Now wonder political punks feel free to join the trampling of the Constitution.
Fascism is not coming, it is Here and Now, just ask Diebold.
If Mr. Winship had entitled this article "The Pulpit of Bullies and Liars" he could have included almost every republican and democrat already in Washington.
The majority of both parties, like the two arms of a cyclops, are more than ready and willing to destroy us all in order to feed the beast, to which, they are both attached and dependent.
The eye of this cyclops will not be destroyed by either of its own arms.
"One of the most memorable moments in television coverage of American politics . . . "
Thanks for this, of which I'd been unaware. I was at the time in a motel conference room in Hyde Park, with others trying to do something for Eugene McCarthy.
It takes nothing from "the . . . moment" recalled by Michael Winship to refer to two others, both Walter Cronkite's as well, one from the same convention: "Those are our children they're beating out there".
The other came at the close of a "CBS Evening News" broadcast, which Cronkite had ended by reading a response from the government that was intended to debunk a revelatory report made several days earlier by a CBS reporter. The government statement was gibberish, with one exception -- it made it clear that CBS was never again to question the government's policy. Cronkite read it without sarcasm. When he'd finish, he looked into the camera and said, "If this reporter may be permitted a rare personal comment -- 'Oh'. And that's the way it is. This is Walter Cronkite, for CBS Evening News -- good night". We stood up, cheered, and cried.
The wingnuts only represent about 30% of the people. To allow them to violently take over would be an act of inexcusable cowardice.
More and more, it feels like we're living out a scene from Sinclair Lewis' book, "It Can't Happen Here."
I keep getting the Sinclair's mixed up.
I agree strongly with you estebandido about the need to discuss and act, but just want to point out that about the third of the nation is not solely "devoted to narcissistic nihilism" but is also struggling to survive with even the most basic needs such as housing, health and food. Another big portion of the population lives with background anxiety about losing their jobs and homes, seeing their children's education and prospects decline. Unfortunately, distractions abound. We have been well conditioned to confuse infotainment, shopping and spectator sports with thinking and living. We live in a nation best characterized by the show "The Wire". Every institution is corrupt, every public figure is untrustworthy, confusion is the norm.
As of yet, there is no need to herd us en masse into stadiums and conduct (I would say more than random) semi-public torture sessions to create fear, as there was in Chile. We have been neutralized and even news leaks about unconscionable repression cause a flight reaction rather than a fight reaction. Blank stares and then heads draw back into shells.
That is why I welcome things like "The Rent is Too Damn High Party". It wakes people up, makes them laugh and changes lethargy to psychic energy. One thing we have working for us is a sense of humor. We have to wake up before we can act.
Joe
estebandido:
I totally understand. I lived the complete reserve of what you describe, coming to the US from a completely closed, repressive regime where people just warily shook their heads "yes, yes, yes" in compliance to the same people rioting in American refugee camps because they didn't like the food being served to them. You are 100% right. When martial law strikes, the night raids become common place and the mangled bodies start showing up on the gutter every day, all dissent will be quenched and unity will rule the land.
Remember, you can't out bully the bully!
The solution or answer must come from a higher perspective. The solution to any problem or discord must come from a higher source of energy to be effective in dissolving and healing the bully's expression of his or herself in that moment. Emotions can create a reality that is nightmarish or peaceful given an awareness of one's life choices in the present moment.
The only reason people act this way is because they are feeling despair, powerlessness and anger. These feelings could be managed over time in more graceful ways that would offer ease and emotional healing for the individual and people around them. But many children learned bullying from their parents or caregivers. That's where the emotional pattern is set. You can determine your fears to be valid or you can choose to release them.
The same "bullying energy" given in reaction to the bully will only amplify the duality and discord between the individuals even more. Like attracts like. More forceful action will add more insanity to an already out-of-balance situation.
Humans who rely on bullying to solve problems are representative of people who are "crying out for help." All attack is a cry for help. In essence they are saying, "I'm feeling so powerless right now that I need to use my energy to force my will over your will and force you to acknowledge me and my needs to express how angry and out of control I really am. In other words, please help me. I'm angry and out of control. Bullying is an addictive emotional game. There are easier ways to get your needs met.
Once I responded to a bully by asking: Is there anything that I can help you "do", "have" or "be" that would make you feel better in the having of it without me having to give up who I really am?
She responded with a big "NO!" I then said, "Thanks for doing the best you can." I held my ground and spoke my truth. She thought for a moment and then backed off. The bullying energy she was demonstrating collapsed, and we laughed.
Seems to me there are too few Liberals in America willing to risk their heads being blown off in a motorcade. Dead, having lead, is much better than no leadership. ...if it comes to such things.
1000 Kennedy's are too many to kill.
I think that America is suffering from the massive karma that it has built up for generations. Our government has committed many crimes, including wars of aggression, and the negative energy that we are experiencing will continue and maybe get worse. I do think that we will weather this incredible storm of bad vibrations, and even be better for it, but it will not be easy. Each of us must search our hearts to see what we have done to make the situation worse, admit the harm that we have done to others, and work to make things right. Americans have been raised to be concerned only with our own interests, and so we stand by and allow others to suffer, getting angry only when our own way of life is threatened. What kind of world do we want? Do we want peace, or is hating others too much fun to give up? Each person's answer to that question will determine what kind of future they will live in. As for me, I choose peace.
The blood of 16,000 million innocents is too heavy for anyone nation to bear on its conscience for so long. I say the same exact thing you just said all the time. Karma is a bitch!
We need to connect the dots here. These crazies are backed by powerful people with deep pockets who want to maintain the status quo. They also happen to own the media too, so they get plenty of attention and airtime.
Add to this the inept Obama administration and the Dems who easily could have countered this but cowered instead.
Result: we're heading down the shitter and its going to get real ugly, real soon.
We're already in the shitter, and it's already gotten ugly.
"It was an uncharacteristic outburst from America’s Most Respected Newsman, indicative of just how terrible the violence was both inside and out and how shocking it was for a journalist to be so blatantly attacked while on the air by operatives acting on behalf of politicians."
Aaaaah, those were the days, my friends! Today, they'd give this "newsman" a wad of cash and he'll go on national television, stand on his head and sing the Makarena while claiming to be the Barber of Seville.
Translated as: for money, he will have the nation believe that it was violent, subversive rioters who viciously attacked the police under the direction of an Islamic terrorist who blah blah blah...while the sheeple angrily demand that they be sent to the electric chair for their crimes.
What a difference four decades make!
"I can hire one half of the working-class to kill the other half."
--Jay Gould, Gilded Age rail tycoon and real estate speculator
Those Drop Zone "moonlighting, active military" goons are just prelude to the "energized Tea Party" brown-shirt Sturmabteilung that will spread like rats in a landfill in this country as more and more psychologically brutalized troops and mercenaries return from their multiple-tours in lawlessness, PTSD and intensive cruelty towards unarmed civilians in Iraq, the "AfPak" and elsewhere to find there are no other jobs for them in the U.S. but plenty of poor people including minorities and vulnerable women and children whose lives they can devastate or destroy.
Go to Google and type "Haliburton confirms concentration camps already constructed." This contract was awarded by the George W. Bush administration. There are over 800 of them across the country and they are fully manned and operational at this time. Please google it. There is a lot of information on them. Does this answer your question as to where the powers that be are going with this? They have an answer for your uprising. Then ask yourself why our Habeus Corpus rights have not been restored. Now that the Supreme court has allowed corporations to pour unlimited amounts of money into political coffers, your rightly going to see prejudice, mean spirited and arrogant mongerals running for office, because they know the gig is up. The Clinton and Bush administrations set the kind of de-regulation in motion that would create the mega-rich. Their appointed Supreme court has now given them the right to buy elections. The power of their de-regulation has bankrupted the country, stolen most of the hard earned saving and investments of the middle class, whose main concern now is to just survive from day to day. Now they divert the anger of all who have lost everthing upon any and all minorities who have done nothing more than serve all for bargain basement wages. Once in total power, we will be jailed in a camp or possibly killed for mearly using your first amendment rights. Couldn't happen huh! Do the google , ask yoursel why? and then look again at the state of our politics. If the money used for the war alone was reinvested into our infrastructure, it would change everything. our government on both sides have not only refused to stop the war. They refuse to evn take care of our mentally and physically injured soldiers who fought the war. What do you really think they are going to do for you? If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, I'm pretty sure it's a duck! Only an act of God can save us now.