He's Onto Us!
No one has any excuse anymore for being surprised when Newt Gingrich once again gets up on his hind legs to publicly lie about Liberals; Newt Gingrich has been lying about Liberals in dozens of different ways and in dozens of different venues for at least three wives now, so nothing remarkable there. No, what sets these particular comments at this particular event apart from all of Newt's other old, stagnant lies is his special emphasis on the urgent newness of the circumstances:
"...because I believe," sez the slimy little fucker, "-- and I would never have said this at any time before now -- I believe we are now in a struggle over whether or not we are going to save America. I believe that the radical left is a secular, Socialist machine so dedicated to values destructive of America..."...and yadda yadda yadda.
Got it?
Poor, reasonable, level-headed Newt Gingrich has finally been moved --Nay, driven! Impelled! -- into the angry appendix of the Big Book of Impressive Words for Little People to fish out just the right words -- words like "Socialist and "radical"; words like "destructive" and "machine" -- to properly limn the specific and singularly unique nature -- the utter First!Time!Evah!-ness -- of this moment in history.
Except, of course, that's another Big Fat Gingrich Lie, isn't it?
For at least the last 15 years, Newt has been taking his lame "Socialist!" charges for walks around the block oftener than a man with dozen diuretic Pekingese.
And as to the other Very Harsh Words into whose arms he says he has only now been reluctantly driven been , Jesus Fucking Christ, the man wrote a fucking pamphlet for his fellow Republicans in 1996 entitled "Language: A Key Mechanism of Control" (which he followed up with taped training sessions on how to "...speak like Newt.") laying out in detail exactly which words Republicans should train themselves to robotically repeat to describe Democrats every time they were in front of a camera or microphone.
These brainwashing tapes advised that speaking like Newt "takes years of practice" but that basically any properly conditioned simian could become a good little Party Automaton "if we help a little. That is why we have created this list of words and phrases."
Would it surprise anyone, anywhere (except, of course, the Pig People at the CPAC convention who gave Gingrich a rock star greeting) that among the words Newt was advising Republicans to use to demonize Democrats at every opportunity in 1996 were words like "radical"?
Words like "destructive"?
Words like "machine"?
That while the Reasonable, Slow-To-Anger Newt of 2010 was telling his minions that he had, for the first time in his life, finally just been pushed to the point where he could no long keep from shouting the Terrible Truth about the Radical Left, the Newt the Methodical Pamphleteer was telling his minions in 1996 that he understood that:
"Sometimes we are hesitant to use contrast. Remember that creating a difference helps you. These are powerful words that can create a clear and easily understood contrast. Apply these to the opponent, their record, proposals and their party."Here, for your future reference, is the complete list:
This was the moment when the violent but often scatter-shot fascist impulses of the Conservative Movement made another massive leap into darkness and atavism: when Newt Gingrich -- at the time the de facto leader of Republican Party -- made the calculated decision to systematically deploy the most divisive, hateful and inflammatory language imaginable into the everyday, conversational drinking water of the GOP.
abuse of power intolerant anti- (issue): flag, family, child, jobs liberal betray lie bizarre limit(s) bosses machine bureaucracy mandate(s) cheat obsolete coercion pathetic "compassion" is not enough patronage collapse(ing) permissive attitude consequences pessimistic corrupt punish (poor ...) corruption radical criminal rights red tape crisis self-serving cynicism selfish decay sensationalists deeper shallow destroy shame destructive sick devour spend(ing) disgrace stagnation endanger status quo excuses steal failure (fail) taxes greed they/them hypocrisy threaten ideological traitors impose unionized incompetent urgent (cy) insecure waste insensitive welfare
These days, a very famous Conservative Apostate named Andrew Sullivan makes a fine living wondering Very Loudly where all these crazy Palinites that are destroying Saint Ronald Reagan's Beautiful Movement are coming from.
They are, of course, rolling off an assembly line that Gingrich and other of Sullivan's fellow Conservatives built for them long, long ago.
These days, another a very famous Conservative Apostate named David Brooks makes a fine living whining Very Loudly about the catastrophic loss of comity and courtesy and trust in our political discourse.
David Brooks prattles on about "Watergate and Vietnam...", but somehow always fails to mention that the frightening trend he sees unfolding before him is nothing more than the blossoming of a terrible harvest which Gingrich and other of Brooks' fellow Conservatives planted long, long ago.
The reason both the Conservative Mr. Brooks and the Conservative Mr. Sullivan spend so much effort strenuously ignoring large swaths of Conservative history and bending their own past into horrid little origami renderings of Ronald Reagan is simple: Mr. Brooks' and Mr. Sullivan's continued economic and professional viability depends entirely on maintaining the absurd and destructive fiction that, sometime between 2004 and 2005, a Pure and Noble Conservatism to which they have devoted their entire adult lives was suddenly hijacked by Dick Cheney.
But of course, that's all bullshit.
The problems that the Conservative Mr. Brooks and the Conservative Mr. Sullivan now decry at 120 decibels were caused, not by some easily dismissible "fringe" group, but by the leaders of the very Movement to which Mr. Brooks and Mr. Sullivan have lent their unstinting and enthusiastic supporting for decades, and to which they both entirely owe with professional success and prosperity. And the moment they are forced to face that fact is the moment their 20-year-long ride on the Conservative Public Intellectual gravy train comes to a screeching halt and they both have to go out and get honest jobs.
So don't hold your breath.
And lastly, despite the fact that Newt Gingrich is a frequent and respected guest at the Sunday Morning Mouse Circus, the reason you will also never hear a single soul challenge him on his squalid, bomb-throwing past -- or a single a word of this discussed in the Mainstream Media generally -- is that there is absolutely no way to look at the political events of the 1990s and pretend that the responsibility for the spread of this virulently hateful political culture belonged to anyone other than the Republican Party. In the 1990s, there simply was no "Liberal" Gingrich (or Falwell, or DeLay, or Robertson, or Limbaugh, or Murdoch, or Koch Family, or Richard Mellon Scaife, or American Spectator Magazine, or Ralph E. Reed, or Grover Norquist, or, well, you get the idea) on the Left inflicting the kind of brutal, grievous, long-term damage to the American body politic that the scumbags like Newt was gleefully meting out every single fucking day.
This was one side-- the Republican Party -- and one man -- Newt Gingrich -- making the conscious, premeditated and utterly despicable decision to abandon Abraham Lincoln once and for all and throw in his his lot with Joseph Goebbels.
And if the last 20 years has proven anything, it is that the Mainstream Media will absolutely never under any circumstances report on any serious and systemic political problem if they cannot somehow figure out a way to allocate at least 51% of the blame to the Dirty Fucking Hippies.
UPDATE: Welcome DKos Readers.
10 comments:
Drifty, I feel your pain that you expressed on the M.Steele letter.
I feel that pain almost every time I hear someone who should know better refer to those dolts that you want to go away with a double-plus good designation. conservative
< forgive the soapbox, it seems apt, although I know Driftglass is one of THE BEST at calling out these 23%-ers (or has it gone down? 19%? >
Language: A Key Mechanism of Control
When I get on an airplane, I want the pilot to be conservative; I don't want experimental maneuvers from a free-thinking hippie pilot stung out on the dope.
Language is something that can be very democratic,
On your last podcast you both seemed to be reaching for something to feel good about that can be, perhaps less reactive.
Language can help break the spell. Neut admits, almost that lanuage can help cast a spell.
wingers, or authoritarians, or something 1/2 way accurate.
No doubt it is a mind f#ck to have people, even smart people, call these 21%ers, who designate these wingers "conservative", as if the word doesn't have a double-plus good meaning.
Using the word "conservative" to refer to those that
support starting criminal invasion? While lowering taxes on the rich? conservative?
Words have meaning.
while lowering taxes for the rich "Conservative"
Love your work,
Peace.
Saw him on Cspan @ CPAC convention. Playing to his audience and pimping his book. This is bad enough, but can you even begin to imagine being married to this puke??!
Would the foreman please read the verdict?
GUILTY on all counts.
Goddamn dude you not only have a huge fucking vocabulary and a gift for writing, you also have a memory like a steel trap!
We should make a bingo card with Newt's words and play the game every time newt speaks. Healthier than a drinking game, anyway.
Kathryn in MA
(i can't remember my password)
Interesting to see how the "conservative" have de-evolved. What will be next? Just a puddle of toxic slime?
BTW,
THIS
is the post you submit to the Koufaxes. Not because it's better than the others, but it is the best summation of many of your most excellent posts I've read.
Newt & his cohorts are trying to instigate a French-type "Revolution", complete with tumbrils guillotines. Onlyh THIS time the peasants will rise up and kill all the other peasants who are tying to bring truth and democracy to the country.
That'll show those "Aristos!" Boy, will they be scared, or what?
Thanks for shining a light back on this.
As some of us have been saying for years, the new right is under a form of mind control.
Seriously.
There are many reasons but you touch upon one of the two most important ways conservatism’s handlers have been able to gain control of millions of minds.
Language control is a major mind control technique.
The second tactic they deployed and imo the most important, was the 30 year systematic and successful campaign to demonize all sources of information which did not follow the new right's world view as defined for them by people like Limbaugh, Pat Robertson, Newt, and the "True" father of today’s right, Sun Myung Moon. (If you are still calling 1994 the “Gingrich” revolution you haven’t been paying attention. Moon outspent anyone creating, molding and empowering the new right in America. No one outspent Moon funding today’s conservatism and the Republican Party through his fronts, money for individual like Richard Viguerie, Falwell etc etc… and of course Moon’s multi billion dollar influence and intelligence gathering machine, The Washington Times.)
The right’s leadership worked non stop to condition their followers not to even consider information from a non-approved source of news. This is form of "Information Control" another mind control technique. They might say, "I read that liberal NYT and watch the Commie News Network so I get it all." But in truth they are conditioned to mentally negate anything said about the movement as it is defined for them by the aforementioned cast of characters.
The new right is also led by their handlers to believe they are being persecuted. Making your followers think you have the only way, (that you are the "patriotic" ones), and that those who oppose you are getting unfair advantage and persecuting you is a major way cults keep their flocks in line. They make their victims feel trapped and that the outside world is out to get them. Only Rush can save them. (btw…Bill Maher was very right to call people in cults “victims”)
You will notice when the right has some pet outrage that has been thoroughly debunked by the left and news outlets except for the right’s echo chamber, the folks in the cult of conservatisms go bonkers with “Why won’t the MSM report this?!!” Well the reason most of the time is it isn’t true but the conservative victim sees it as more persection, so the cycle reinforces itself. (deceptions prop up more deceptions.)
The Moon movement deploys what is called “Heavenly Deception” which means it is OK to lie to bring about the world Moon says God wants. People in cults believe that since they, and only they, are doing God’s will, then it really doesn’t matter what they do. Of course the theocratic vein is thick on the right and that goes hand in hand with the belief that Jesus and God take a personal interest in their success.
I am not naive to the fact that some of this goes on in many situations across the political divide but much of what the left does is in reaction to years of the right deploying these deceptive tactics. Just like why left wing radio won’t work, the left does not feel a need to be constantly told it is being persecuted anymore than it will walk in step with language. Also, one must take into account – use - a sense of proportion, something cults do not have in them. This is where the use of false equivalencies on the right comes to play.
Anyway folks, this is the NUMBER ONE national security problem this a country faces. It is huge. No other issue comes anywhere close. We have tens of millions of people in this country who are controlled, and their controllers are power hungry people who will never relinquish that power. To keep that power and use these victims they must keep them in a false reality.
Massive national security problem – one that if not faced our nation is doomed. It can’t govern itself. It cannot make intelligent choices.
And that’s the way it is Feb. 23, 2010.
We should remember something however. That, while Newt has certainly played a key role in exasperating poisonous partisanship, he was merely using a tactic that has been a part of the Conservative strategy for decades. Conservatives have been taring liberals as radicals, Socialists, Communists, etc. since the 1920's when Legionares and Conservative Demagogues like Dilling(The precursor to Ann Coulter) were fighting "godless Progressivism" and "secret Communists" that had supposedly co-opted the liberal movement in the Country. Essentially, Newt simply made the old new again.
Well said Driftglass. Anyone believing anything that comes out of the mouth of Newt the nitwit should have their head examined. The man is a certified liar. But blaming the mainstream media for not exposing his lies misses the point. If the targets of his scorn, i.e., Democrats (liberals) don't see the need to respond to him in kind, why do the mainstream media have to do the Democrats' dirty work? After all the media have their own fish to fry, and that is to make as much money as they possibly can. If the Democrats continue to be the perennially lazy, spineless, whinny cowards who cannot play politics according to the extant rules, don't blame the mainstream media. And don't blame Newt, he's not the problem. The real problem continues to be the Democrats. When they are ready to get off their fat asses, we will be ready to experience real change. Until then, let the hand-wringing continue.
The Truth Forum Reporter
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