Locomotive Mule

The new GOP buzzword: Fascism

President Bush in recent days has recast the global war on terror into a “war against Islamic fascism.” Fascism, in fact, seems to be the new buzz word for Republicans in an election season dominated by an unpopular war in Iraq.

Yeah , yeah, and Santorum before him and Limphaugh before him.

Funny thing about Rovian politics, it seems that the basic technique is to identify a weakness in yourself and then accuse your opponent of exactly that characteristic. That way you can force them to deny, and by doing so you’ve removed their ammunition against yourself.

By calling these terrorist thugs, fascists, the neocons are 1) in essence admitting publicly that they are in fact fascists and 2) redefining the word to mean something completely different.

And Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Tuesday took it a step further in a speech to an American Legion convention in Salt Lake City, accusing critics of the administration’s Iraq and anti-terrorism policies of trying to appease “a new type of fascism.”

New type of fascism because they have to redefine the word, and quickly, before some Democrat actually grows a set and uses it on them!

White House aides and outside Republican strategists said the new description is an attempt to more clearly identify the ideology that motivates many organized terrorist groups, representing a shift in emphasis from the general to the specific.

“I think it’s an appropriate definition of the war that we’re in,” said GOP pollster Ed Goeas. “I think it’s effective in that it definitively defines the enemy in a way that we can’t because they’re not in uniforms.”

Uniforms? What the fuck do uniforms have to do with being fascists? Bush himself is a prime example of the fact that one need not dress like Mussolini to be a fascist. Christ we must be stupid for them to really expect us to buy this crap.

What I find incomprehensible is the fact that these “strategists” talk about this stuff like it’s a big game - as if no one’s paying the slightest attention to them. Just stupidly gobbling up their stupid - oh yeah. I keep forgetting.

Dennis Ross, a Mideast adviser to both the first Bush and Clinton administrations and now the director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said he would have chosen different words.

“The `war on terror’ has always been a misnomer, because terrorism is an instrument, it’s not an ideology. So I would always have preferred it to be called the `war with radical Islam,’ not with Islam but with `radical Islam,”‘ Ross said.

Why even mention the religion? “Because that’s who they are,” Ross said. “Fascism had a certain definition. Whether they meet this or not, one thing is clear: They’re radical. They represent a completely radical and intolerant interpretation of Islam.”

Wow, a voice of sanity, but the WINEP is not exactly invited to the White House for dinner these days.
But even he has it wrong - it shouldn’t be called a war at all - elevating this to the status of war is bestowing the honor of warrior on these pissant thugs.

While “fascism” once referred to the rigid nationalistic one-party dictatorship first instituted in Italy, it has “been used very loosely in all kinds of ways for a long time,” said Wayne Fields, a specialist in presidential rhetoric at Washington University in St. Louis.

“Typically, the Bush administration finds its vocabulary someplace in the middle ground of popular culture. It seems to me that they’re trying to find something that resonates, without any effort to really define what they mean,” Fields said.

Something that resonates - exactly. Some word that will evoke a visceral response in those that hear it (there’s a special hatred of fascists in this country - we lead the world in crushing them not so many years ago). A word they don’t really have to define or explain to anyone. To ask them to define it will just get you a slight, tired grin, that condescanding kinda grin that says “oh you silly liberal, you fell in the trap again, please, allow me to make you the fool”.

This particular word more than resonates though, it’s nearly the perfect word for the times: it’ll bolster the poll numbers, it gives one simple, compact “idea word” that all the rethugs can use to sound united, and it deflects anyone from calling these fucking fascists what they are. By redefining the word, they’ve made themselves innocent of all charges.

And that brings us to the obvious conclusion: This is the worst type of newspeak, and it’ s happening.

[Updated 8:50 8/30/06]
Imagine that - a newsman has the set to call the bastards out.

Kieth Olbermann delivered a truly amazing speech tonight. Again the mudshark has been replaced.
Read it here. Watch it here.

I’ve been reading Pravda off & on for a number of years, ostensibly to keep up with what the ‘other side’ is saying but also just because sometimes it’s downright entertaining.

But today I find an opinion piece which is unfortunately not entertaining.

Written by David R. Hoffman, Legal Editor for Pravda, it is chillingly accurate.  I say chillingly because an institution like Pravda has a long and very deep understanding of this topic and can certainly hold forth with some authority.

So here we go:

America’s corporate-controlled media: garbage disguised as news:

During the course of writing this article, I reached for my handy thesaurus to find appropriate synonyms to describe the profession of ‘cable television news journalist.’

There were three: 1). Pseudo-journalist, a.k.a. professional liar; 2). Bottom feeding scum sucker who regurgitates garbage; 3). A coward often known to hawk unjust and illegal wars from the safety of television studios while avoiding military service.

Hee hee - good one.

bout it: Corporate-controlled media in America were the primary instigators of the illegal invasion of Iraq. While it will never be known whether adverse media coverage alone would have dissuaded the incompetent and arrogant Bush dictatorship from attacking Iraq, these media consistently failed to ask relevant questions, simply because they were salivating over the ratings and profit potential of ‘embedded reporters,’ twenty-four-hour war coverage, and the opportunity to sponsor pro-war rallies.

Hmmm, so war is good for business.  This isn’t exactly a new idea, the earliest Caesars understood the concept. But when applied to the press, well, that’s an idea I hadn’t considered because:

But how did corporate-controlled media arrive at this dismal state? Ironically by shattering one of the myths of the capitalist system: Competition will always produce a superior product.

It took me several parsings of that paragraph to figure out what bothered me: “competition creating superior products” is a myth?  That’s your typical Pravda-esque slam against capitalism.  

Or is it?

The corporate-controlled media have proven that competition often lowers competitors to their lowest common denominator. Therefore a news network losing ratings and profits because it covers only relevant stories and issues will invariably lower its journalistic standards if it witnesses a pseudo-news network gaining ratings and profits by disseminating lies and covering salacious and superficial tripe.

Hear that?  That was the sound of the very cornerstones of my belief in capitalism cracking.

What constitutes a superior product?  Can competition create the best and worst product at the same time?  Who defines best?

Sadly it is unlikely corporate-controlled media will ever again elevate their journalistic standards, given the ‘junk-food’ culture of America. While many in the developing world are malnourished because of lack of food, America is a nation where people can be gluttonous, and still remain malnourished because of the quality of the food they are consuming.

This analogy also applies to the philosophies of corporate-controlled media: They provide the sensation of being ‘full’ (i.e. informed) while their consumers starve for lack of substance.

Which brought to mind a question by Prole:

Did the complacent, lazy, anti-intellectual, uninvolved and uncaring population get that way in spite of those things you mentioned, or because of them?  Chicken and egg, I suppose.  Is the root of the problem the listless populace or the institutions that have been working for decades to condition them to be that way?  

Not being a philosophy major, I’m hoping someone will pick this up and shed some light - although I suspect there is no “answer”.

So how low must the media sink before the consumer notices that something’s “not right”?  I’ve been hoping that we’re already there but that’s pretty much wishful thinking on my part:

Those who doubt this need only be reminded of how differently the media embraced the recent developments in the Christmas Day murder of JonBenet Ramsey and the recent developments in the Christmas day murders of Harry and Harriette Moore. The Moores, two African-American civil rights workers from Florida, were murdered when a bomb exploded in their home on Christmas Day, 1951, making them the first modern-day civil rights martyrs. A few days ago Florida’s Attorney General announced that these murders had finally been solved. Yet a viewer was hard-pressed to find any mention of this on the so-called cable ‘news’ networks. Conversely, coverage of the alleged resolution of the Ramsey murder inundated these networks for hours on end.

Mr. Hoffman has answered a few questions for me:

Are the neocons and those that control them really so powerful that they actually control the entire mass media? No - all they need is one major outlet in each medium: Fox, WaPo, ClearChannel, etc.

Is there some huge, overarching conspiracy to the control the masses via the media? No - only small conspiracies required.

The meta wars on kos take on a new significance when viewed from this point of view, no?

Cross posted at The Next Agenda

By way of James Wolcott:

A current pejorative adjective is narcissistic. Generally, a narcissist is anyone better looking than you are, but lately the adjective is often applied to those ‘liberals’ who prefer to improve the lives of others rather than exploit them. Apparently, a concern for others is self-love at its least attractive, while greed is now a sign of the highest altruism. But then to reverse, periodically, the meanings of words is a very small price to pay for our vast freedom not only to conform but to consume.
– Gore Vidal