Deconstructing "Progressive " thought

[a_majoor]

Governor Palin has been a lightning rod of Progressive hatred all out of proportion to her actual standing and achievements (something like Obi-Wan warning "You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.") The question is "why?". Here is a possible answer:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704590704576091962633206964.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion

Palinoia, the Destroyer
What's behind the left's deranged hatred.

By JAMES TARANTO

Why does their hatred of her burn so hot?

Ask them, and they'll most likely tell you: Because she's a moron. But that is obviously false. To be sure, her skills at extemporaneous speaking leave much to be desired. But that can be said of a good many politicians on both sides of the aisle, including George W. Bush, John Kerry and, yes, Barack Obama. And don't get us started on the man who defeated her for the vice presidency.

Whether or not she is presidential timber--and we are inclined to think that she is not--there is no denying that she is a highly accomplished person. She is also a highly accomplished woman, what in an earlier age would have been called a feminist pioneer: the first female governor of the malest state in the country, the first woman on the presidential ticket of the party on the male side of the "gender gap." Having left politics, whether temporarily or permanently, she has established herself as one of the most consequential voices in the political media.

They say she is uneducated. What they mean is that her education is not elite--not Harvard or Yale, or even Michigan or UCLA. They resent her because, in their view, she has risen above her station.

In this respect we identify fully with Palin, for we have been on the receiving end of similar disdain. Our education, like Sarah Palin's, consisted of too many years at inferior state universities, although unlike her, we never even got around to graduating. The other day Paul Reidlinger took a shot at us for featuring one of his restaurant reviews under our "Wannabe Pundits" heading last month: "I was even denounced by noted high school graduate James Taranto." (For the record, our high school diploma is a GED.)

"Denounced" is far too strong a word; "mocked" is more like it. Reidlinger writes for San Francisco Bay Guardian, whatever that is. He doesn't say, but we surmise that he possesses advanced degrees from Stanford or the University of California, both very fine institutions. He observes that "it is a writer's job to afflict the comfortable and complacent." That would be an insufferably pretentious way to describe our job as a political columnist for an elite newspaper. What is a restaurant critic going to "afflict the comfortable" with? Food poisoning?

Professional jealousy and intellectual snobbery, however, only scratch the surface of the left's bizarre attitude toward Palin. They explain the intensity of the disdain, but not the outright hatred--not why some people whose grasp of reality is sufficient to function in society made the insane inference that she was to blame for a madman's attempt to murder Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

This unhinged hatred of Palin comes mostly from women. That is an awkward observation for us to offer, because a man risks sounding sexist or unchivalrous when he makes unflattering generalizations about women. Therefore, we are going to hide behind the skirts of our friend Jessica Faller, a New Yorker in her 30s of generally liberal politics. Over the weekend, she wrote us this analysis of Palin-hatred, which she has generously given us permission to quote:

  I am starting out with a guess that this stems from her abrupt appearance on the national scene during the McCain-Obama race. She appeared out of nowhere and landed squarely in a position of extreme attention and media power. Her sex appeal might not have been as much of an issue had she been a known entity with a tremendous, watertight political résumé.

    Even lacking that, her sex appeal might not have been such an issue if her demeanor on the campaign trail had been more, well, conservative. But here is this comely woman, in a curvy red suit, giving "shout-outs" during the debate with Joe Biden, giving controversial interviews without apology, basically driving in there, parking the car, and walking in like she owned the place.

    I'm not saying it's a bad thing. But she couldn't have pulled it off if she were a gray mouse in a pantsuit, and because the devil in the red dress wasn't orating like a professor, it roused an unquenchable forest fire of rage and loathing in the breasts of many women, perhaps of the toiling gray mouse variety, who projected onto her their own career resentments and personal frustrations.

    I am amazed at how people still abhor her. I personally do not. I don't feel she would be a good choice to run this country, but she does not deserve the horrific treatment she gets. I can tell you, being privy to the endless, incendiary rants this past week about her, coming from hordes of liberal women--age demo 25 to 45--they rip her to pieces, they blame her for everything, and the jealousy/resentment factor is so clear and primal. I've never seen anything like it.

We'd say this goes beyond mere jealousy. For many liberal women, Palin threatens their sexual identity, which is bound up with their politics in a way that it is not for any other group (possibly excepting gays, though that is unrelated to today's topic).

An important strand of contemporary liberalism is feminism. As a label, "feminist" is passé; outside the academic fever swamps, you will find few women below Social Security age who embrace it.

That is because what used to be called feminism--the proposition that women deserve equality before the law and protection from discrimination--is almost universally accepted today. Politically speaking, a woman is the equal of a man. No woman in public life better symbolizes this than Sarah Palin--especially not Hillary Clinton, the left's favorite icon. No one can deny Mrs. Clinton's accomplishments, but neither can one escape crediting them in substantial part to her role as the wife of a powerful man.

But there is more to feminism than political and legal equality. Men and women are intrinsically unequal in ways that are ultimately beyond the power of government to remediate. That is because nature is unfair. Sexual reproduction is far more demanding, both physically and temporally, for women than for men. Men simply do not face the sort of children-or-career conundrums that vex women in an era of workplace equality.

Except for the small minority of women with no interest in having children, this is an inescapable problem, one that cannot be obviated by political means. Aspects of it can, however, be ameliorated by technology--most notably contraception, which at least gives women considerable control over the timing of reproduction.

As a political matter, contraception is essentially uncontroversial today, which is to say that any suggestion that adult women be legally prevented from using birth control is outside the realm of serious debate. The same cannot be said of abortion, and that is at the root of Palinoia.

To the extent that "feminism" remains controversial, it is because of the position it takes on abortion: not just that a woman should have the "right to choose," but that this is a matter over which reasonable people cannot disagree--that to favor any limitations on the right to abortion, or even to acknowledge that abortion is morally problematic, is to deny the basic dignity of women.

To a woman who has internalized this point of view, Sarah Palin's opposition to abortion rights is a personal affront, and a deep one. It doesn't help that Palin lives by her beliefs. To the contrary, it intensifies the offense.

It used to be a trope for liberal interviewers to try to unmask hypocrisy by asking antiabortion politicians--male ones, of course--what they would do if their single teen daughters got pregnant. It's a rude question, but Palin, whose 17-year-old daughter's pregnancy coincided with Mom's introduction to the nation, answered it in real life.

Recently we were at a party where a woman in her 60s, a self-described feminist, called Palin a "moron" for having encouraged her daughter to carry her child to term and "to marry the sperm donor." Even apart from the gross language, this was a completely irrational thing to say. First, that Palin's values are different in no way reflects on her intelligence.

More important, why is Bristol Palin's decision to carry her child to term any of this lady's business? Those who claim to be champions of privacy and choice need to do some serious soul-searching if they have so much trouble tolerating the private choices of others.

What about male Palin-hatred? It seems to us that it is of decidedly secondary importance. Liberal men put down Palin as a cheap way to score points with the women in their lives, or they use her as an outlet for more-general misogynistic impulses that would otherwise be socially unacceptable to express.

Liberal women are the active, driving force behind hatred of Sarah Palin, while liberal men's behavior is passive and manipulative. In this respect, feminism has succeeded in reversing the traditional sexual stereotypes. If this is the result, you have to wonder why anyone would have bothered.

 

[a_majoor]

First page of a long article. "Progressives" have moved off the reservation with the assertation that Human Rights=Imperialism:

http://pajamasmedia.com/zombie/2011/01/21/human-rights-imperialism/

Human Rights Imperialism: Leftist Satire or Moral Collapse?
January 21, 2011 - by Zombie
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The Guardian recently published a wicked satire of moral relativism, a Swiftian send-up entitled “End human rights imperialism now” with the classic sub-heading “Groups such as Human Rights Watch have lost their way by imposing western, ‘universal’ standards on developing countries.” Brilliant! Hahahahaha! I didn’t know the Guardian had branched out into humor.

But about five minutes after my laughter subsided, a horrible suspicion dawned on me: Could it be that the author was serious?

A quick re-read confirmed my fears. This was no joke. This was the modern left finally taking its last inevitable step into the abyss of moral oblivion.

A few quick quotes from this astonishing manifesto will introduce you to a disturbing new way of looking at the world:

Founded by idealists who wanted to make the world a better place, [the human rights movement] has in recent years become the vanguard of a new form of imperialism.

    Want to depose the government of a poor country with resources? Want to bash Muslims? Want to build support for American military interventions around the world? Want to undermine governments that are raising their people up from poverty because they don’t conform to the tastes of upper west side intellectuals? Use human rights as your excuse!
    …

    Human Rights Watch is hardly the only offender. There are a host of others, ranging from Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders to the Carr Centre for Human Rights at Harvard and the pitifully misled “anti-genocide” movement. All promote an absolutist view of human rights permeated by modern western ideas that westerners mistakenly call “universal”.
    …

    Just as Human Rights Watch led the human rights community as it arose, it is now the poster child for a movement that has become a spear-carrier for the “exceptionalist” belief that the west has a providential right to intervene wherever in the world it wishes.
    …

    Those who have traditionally run Human Rights Watch and other western-based groups that pursue comparable goals come from societies where crucial group rights – the right not to be murdered on the street, the right not to be raped by soldiers, the right to go to school, the right to clean water, the right not to starve – have long since been guaranteed. In their societies, it makes sense to defend secondary rights, like the right to form a radical newspaper or an extremist political party. But in many countries, there is a stark choice between one set of rights and the other. Human rights groups, bathed in the light of self-admiration and cultural superiority, too often make the wrong choice.
    …

    Human rights need to be considered in a political context. The question should not be whether a particular leader or regime violates western-conceived standards of human rights. Instead, it should be whether a leader or regime, in totality, is making life better or worse for ordinary people.

It’s not that the essay’s author, former New York Times Bureau Chief and current anti-imperialist professor-activist Stephen Kinzer, is wrong about his facts: it’s quite true that life under a totalitarian police state is often safer and more secure than living in lawless anarchy. That’s why the war-torn masses throughout history sometimes clamor for peace even at the cost of their own freedom. Yet forgotten in Kinzer’s approval of oppressive societies is that wannabe dictators always use this excuse to justify their crushing of human rights: We need to remove your freedom in order to guarantee your safety. Never mind that the new regime was usually one of combatants endangering the citizenry in the first place.

No, the issue is that Kinzer seems to have just now woken up to a phenomenon that many of us have known about for quite some time — that the human rights movement “has in recent years become the vanguard of a new form of imperialism.”

The only error in that statement is the word “recent.” The notion of “universal human rights” was formulated in the West and is the basis of Western civilization; and the the notion of bringing these “Western values” to oppressed and backward peoples has been the goal not just of the modern human rights movement but of missionaries, do-gooders and yes, even the American military for quite some time.

Kinzer has freshly arrived at the blinding and quite correct realization that the “human rights movement” and “Western imperialism” are one and the same. And having become aware of this, you’d think that as a human rights activist, he’d have a life-altering epiphany: Perhaps I’ve been wrong about what I call “imperialism” this whole time. Maybe it is a force for good after all.

But no. Standing on the brink of a psychological breakthrough, Kinzer turned the other way and instead had a breakdown. Pinioned by the idée fixe that America and imperialism and Western values are always and irrevocably wrong, when faced with the fact that human rights are a subset of Western values, Kinzer felt he had no choice but to discard his belief in human rights. Which must have been quite difficult for someone who formerly regarded himself as a human rights activist, but hey, ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

Moral relativism vs. cultural imperialism

What we see in this essay is moral relativism finally taken to its logical conclusion. No longer will the Left be able to claim credit for the “good” aspects of two fundamentally oppositional viewpoints. Either you are for respecting native cultures and native value systems, or you are for bringing “human rights” (i.e. “Western values”) to Third World peoples. But you can’t do both simultaneously. Yet that is exactly what the Left has been doing for decades — claiming credit as the world’s humanitarians and advocates for universal human rights, while at the same time claiming credit as the defenders of native cultures and opponents of imperialism.

 

[a_majoor]

The curtain keeps getting pulled back. Notice how the actual content of Piven's talk is never discussed by the legacy media, rather the narrative is to attack the messenger. So there is no mistake or misunderstanding, I will highlight Piven's own words in bold:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/01/028190.php

The Left's Tucson Strategy: Stage Two
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January 22, 2011 Posted by John at 6:18 PM

The Left's attempt to link the Tucson shootings to angry rhetoric (not theirs, of course) was stage one of a broader strategy--what both military men and political strategists refer to as preparing the battlefield. The movement to feign nonpartisanship at the State of the Union address by seating Republicans and Democrats together is another aspect of this stage. At the same time, the Left is moving on to stage two--an effort to cash in on battlefield preparation by attacking specific figures on the right and trying to shut down speech that the Left finds inconvenient.

At the moment, the second most-read article at the New York Times site is this one: "Spotlight From Glenn Beck Brings a CUNY Professor Threats."

    On his daily radio and television shows, Glenn Beck has elevated once-obscure conservative thinkers onto best-seller lists. Recently, he has elevated a 78-year-old liberal academic to celebrity of a different sort, in a way that some say is endangering her life.

    Frances Fox Piven, a City University of New York professor, has been a primary character in Mr. Beck's warnings about a progressive take-down of America. Ms. Piven, Mr. Beck says, is responsible for a plan to "intentionally collapse our economic system."

Let's pause there for a moment. First of all, Ms. Piven is not a "liberal academic." By her own description, she is a radical, a leftist and a Marxist. Nor is she merely an academic; she has been a far-left activist for decades. The Times continues:

    Never mind that Ms. Piven's radical plan to help poor people was published 45 years ago, when Mr. Beck was a toddler. Anonymous visitors to his Web site have called for her death, and some, she said, have contacted her directly via e-mail.

    In response, a liberal nonprofit group, the Center for Constitutional Rights, wrote to the chairman of Fox News, Roger Ailes, on Thursday to ask him to put a stop to Mr. Beck's "false accusations" about Ms. Piven.

    "Mr. Beck is putting Professor Piven in actual physical danger of a violent response," the group wrote. ...

    Ms. Piven said in an interview that she had informed local law enforcement authorities of the anonymous electronic threats. ...

    The Nation, which has featured Ms. Piven's columns for decades, quoted some of the threats against her in an editorial this week that condemned the "concerted campaign" against her.

    One such threat, published as an anonymous comment on The Blaze, read, "Somebody tell Frances I have 5000 roundas ready and I'll give My life to take Our freedom back." (The spelling and capitalizing have not been changed.)

    That comment and others that were direct threats were later deleted, but other comments remain that charge her with treasonous behavior. ...

    The Center for Constitutional Rights said it took exception to the sheer quantity of negative attention to Ms. Piven.

    "We are vigorous defenders of the First Amendment," the center said in its letter to Fox. "However, there comes a point when constant intentional repetition of provocative, incendiary, emotional misinformation and falsehoods about a person can put that person in actual physical danger of a violent response." Mr. Beck is at that point, they said.

This is Orwellian on several levels. It is Ms. Piven, not Glenn Beck, who explicitly defends violence, and comes perilously close to advocating it:

Piven was heartened by the recent riots in Greece and England and urged that radicals in America adopt them as a model:

  (B)efore people can mobilize for collective action, they have to develop a proud and angry identity and a set of claims that go with that identity. They have to go from being hurt and ashamed to being angry and indignant. [T]he out-of-work have to stop blaming themselves for their hard times and turn their anger on the bosses, the bureaucrats or the politicians who are in fact responsible.

    An effective movement of the unemployed will have to look something like the strikes and riots that have spread across Greece in response to the austerity measures forced on the Greek government by the European Union, or like the student protests that recently spread with lightning speed across England in response to the prospect of greatly increased school fees.

As Ms. Piven undoubtedly knows, the Greek riots have been extremely violent, and several people have been murdered. That is the violence that she wants to see here in the United States.

Glenn Beck has pulled back the curtain on this disgraceful specimen by quoting her accurately. No one has identified any statements he has made about Piven that are incorrect, or claims that he has in any way threatened her. Unlike Piven, Beck is a staunch opponent of political violence. But the mis-named Center for Constitutional Rights--another Orwellian touch--thinks there is such a thing as too much free speech. They want Fox News to shut Beck up because of the "sheer quantity" of Beck's references to Piven.

Anyone who engages in public debate and achieves any level of notoriety is likely to receive threats. (I assume Piven's statements in this regard are truthful; the Times offered no details.) We have been threatened with violence a number of times. I doubt that there is a single member of Congress who has never received threats. Until now, those threats, almost none of which are serious, have generally been disregarded. But the Left now thinks it can put them to use as a means of either silencing or discrediting those whose arguments they cannot rebut.

 

[Redeye]

Wait, so Piven, an academic on the fringe of any sort of movement, makes some comments (something called Constitutionally-protected speech, incidentally), and it's okay to excuse people who send her death threats? 

Okay. Just checking.

The curtain keeps getting pulled back. Notice how the actual content of Piven's talk is never discussed by the legacy media, rather the narrative is to attack the messenger. So there is no mistake or misunderstanding, I will highlight Piven's own words in bold:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/01/028190.php

 

[a_majoor]

Kindly re read the highlighted portion.

If you know and understand history, Piven is explicitly calling for a violent uprising (and just to refresh your memory, the Greek "riots" resulted in the murder of several people, killed during an arson attack on a bank branch). Sedation and calling for the violent overthrow of the government is NOT protected speech, however rather than discussing the content of the speech (and suggesting the appropriate means of dealing with it; i.e. a long prison sentence), the Legacy media chooses to attack the person who highlighted her speech.

Priorities, don't you know.....

 

[Redeye]

You'll have to forgive me for wanting the entire context of what she said, and I notice that even if that's exactly what she said, that in no way justifies death threats.

 

[ModlrMike]

Sedation and calling for the violent overthrow of the government is NOT protected speech...

I think you wanted to use "sedition" there. A bunch of sedated folks are unlikely to overthrow anything. 

 

[a_majoor]

I think you wanted to use "sedition" there. A bunch of sedated folks are unlikely to overthrow anything. 

Luckily for most of us, sheeple are "sedated". Unfortunatly spellcheck does not understand intentions

 

[Redeye]

I'm going to do my best to feign being shocked that a right wing nutcase like Beck would rip a tiny part of an editorial out of its context, but the reality is of course that there's no reason whatsoever to be surprised by that.

The entire piece is here:

http://www.thenation.com/article/157292/mobilizing-jobless

And it's worth reading.  I don't really agree with Piven's views, but in reading the whole thing and her hearing her subsequent comments it's clear that what she is advocating is an organization of the disenfranchised to demand action that will improve their lot - which is essentially what a strike is.  Read with the complete piece (in particular, the last paragraph as a whole about the Civil Rights movement) it's clear that while Piven thinks is ideal is a major, attention grabbing, nationally organized but locally focused movement, there's nothing that especially suggests an affinity for violence unless you read one line of a large article.  Is her point of view rather radical?  Sure.  Do I agree with her?  Not really (other than her highlighting that the "solutions" proposed by politicians are nonsense).  Is she calling for some massive violent revolution?  No.  Not even remotely.

By contrast, those who make death threats against her, spurred on by the vile rhetoric of the deluded cult figure Beck, have no excuse.  Also from The Nation: http://www.thenation.com/article/157900/glenn-beck-targets-frances-fox-piven

 

[Rifleman62]

Small Dead Animals  http://smalldeadanimals.com/

Watch: How Liberal Journalists Think

 

[Brad Sallows]

>You'll have to forgive me for wanting the entire context of what she said, and I notice that even if that's exactly what she said, that in no way justifies death threats.

Do you have a nomination for a person who defended death threats?

>but in reading the whole thing and her hearing her subsequent comments it's clear that what she is advocating is an organization of the disenfranchised to demand action that will improve their lot

And how do those demands for actions usually turn out in practice?  Are we supposed to pretend that she meant her comments in the context of some sort of idealized frictionless universe where protests by even relatively well-off people such as Greek civil servants and British students don't turn violent?

 

[a_majoor]

Frankly, this is like dropping a hand grenade into a barrel of fish  >

From Instapundit 25 Jan 11:

PROFESSOR ANN ALTHOUSE DELIVERS A SOUND THRASHING: “History tells us” something that history doesn’t tell us, say sociologists stumbling to protect Frances Fox Piven.

So vigorous debate about Piven’s ideas is really important, but it better be the right kind of debate by the right kind of people and most certainly not that terrible, terrible man Glenn Beck. She’s very lofty and serious, so, while she should be challenged, she must be challenged only by lofty and serious individuals, and of course, Glenn Beck is not one. . . .

Does lofty, serious, intellectual sociology involve looking at evidence and analyzing it rationally? Linking the Tucson massacre to hot political rhetoric was a rash mistake made by demagogues — you want to talk about demagogues?! — demagogues who were slavering over the prospect of a right-wing massacre that would prove politically useful. . .

So Piven should not have called for “something like” Greek-style riots, and it was good of Glenn Beck to point out that Piven crossed the line, right? I mean, we’re dedicating ourselves to serious, undistorted analysis here. That’s what you said you wanted, didn’t you?

Sociology does not enjoy an especially elevated reputation in the academy, and the American Sociological Association provides an object lesson in why that is. And these people can take anything except rational examination of their arguments.

UPDATE: And just to be sure that the focus stays where it belongs, lets remember what those Greek riots she was calling for were like:

At the same time, tens of thousands of protesters marched through Athens in the largest and most violent protests since the country’s budget crisis began last fall. Angry youths rampaged through the center of Athens, torching several businesses and vehicles and smashing shop windows. Protesters and police clashed in front of parliament and fought running street battles around the city.

Witnesses said hooded protesters smashed the front window of Marfin Bank in central Athens and hurled a Molotov cocktail inside. The three victims died from asphyxiation from smoke inhalation, the Athens coroner’s office said. Four others were seriously injured there, fire department officials said.

Just so we remember who’s actually advocating violence here. Shame on the American Sociological Association for trying, however ineptly, to obscure that point.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Prof. Jim Lindgren comments:
So let’s see if this makes sense:

1. Frances Fox Piven advocates left-wing violence by the unemployed against the government.

2. Glenn Beck criticizes her for this, calling such talk dangerous.

3. Then an unstable unemployed left-wing radical engages in violence against the government.

4. Glenn Beck then repeats his criticism of Piven.

5. Finally, the Am. Sociological Assn blames Glenn Beck for his criticism of Piven AND indirectly for the left-wing violence.

The logic of the Assn escapes me.

Indeed

 

[Redeye]

And this idiotic piece repeats the "left wing radical" canard, immediately rendering it pretty much too stupid to be worth reading.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Piven is one of the two advocates of the well-known Cloward-Piven strategy.  A strategy calling for the deliberate induction of a political / economic / social breakdown or crisis is certainly radical.  A strategic aim of a national minimum income is certainly leftist.  "Left wing radical" isn't a canard; it's an accurate truthful description.

 

[Redeye]

And this idiotic piece repeats the "left wing radical" canard, immediately rendering it pretty much too stupid to be worth reading.

Except in this case from the article making specific reference to Jared Lee Loughner.  Referring to him as a left wing radical is idiotic.  I  incidentally wouldn't even refer to him as a right wing radical, because despite there being more evidence of that than his being left wing, I don't think it mattered - he was just plain nuts.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Seen.  I thought the reference was to Piven.  Agree; Loughner has no ideology which is discernably coherent except to another mind operating in the same fashion as his.  Lindgren's argument doesn't make sense with the invalid premise.

But there is an overlying oddity: the TP, which mustered at its gatherings in an overwhelmingly orderly, peacable, and tidy manner and then went about effecting change through the primary and electoral systems, is castigated by many as an irrational aberration rather than the example to follow.

 

[a_majoor]

More on "hateful" political speech. Eliminationist rhetoric embedded in popular culture?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703956604576110100251027150.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion

Curt Olds, the Lord High Executioner
Eliminationist rhetoric against Sarah Palin: a production of the Missoula Children's Theater.
By JAMES TARANTO

For some perspective on the recent "debate" over "civility" and "eliminationist rhetoric," let's turn to Montana, home of the Missoula Children's Theater. A recent production there gets a bad review today in a letter to the editor of the Missoulian, the local daily:

Open letter to MCT director Curt Olds:
First I would like to compliment you and the entire staff of "The Mikado" on the beautiful sets, costuming and professional performance we experienced on Sunday, Jan. 23. However, I must call you on something that was inserted into the play which I am almost positive was not in the original book.

The comments made in such a cavalier and oh-so-humorous way were uncalled for. Now, I realize you play to a mostly liberal audience in Missoula and so, I am sure, felt comfortable in your calling for the beheading of Sarah Palin. I am painfully aware that most in the audience tittered with laughter and clapped because "no one would miss her" but there were some in your audience who took great offense to this "uncivil tone" about another human being.

We are in the midst of a crisis that took place in Tucson where many started pointing fingers at that horrible right wing with all their hatred and targeting and standing for the second amendment and on and on and on. So, here we are in a lovely play with beautiful voices serenading us and we have to hear that it is okay to call for the killing of Sarah Palin because we don't like her and no one would miss her. Unbelievable.

As a professional you should be ashamed of yourself, the audience should be ashamed of themselves and I am ashamed of myself for not standing up and leaving at that very moment. I would like to see an apology from you not because I want to hinder free-speech but for the hypocrisy this so clearly shows.
Rory Page, Clinton

Well, perhaps Olds made a clerical error and one of Andrew Sullivan's works got into the Arthur Sullivan file.

In all seriousness, though, like much of what we have been writing about in the past few weeks, this incident is shocking but not surprising. For all the bogus accusations being thrown at Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, genuinely hateful political rhetoric is commonplace in the art world, even in art that is not overtly political.

The Missoula incident reminds us of an experience we had in 2005 and wrote about for The Wall Street Journal in 2008. At the invitation of our then-girlfriend, we attended a reading of poems from a book her mother had edited. The poet who served as mistress of ceremonies, Daniela Gioseffi, hijacked the event and turned it into an anti-Republican hate rally. Her rhetoric was not eliminationist--that is, she didn't call for anyone's death--but it was dehumanizing: "You can't be politically disengaged and be human."

James Taranto on the left's hateful rhetoric.
Nor is dehumanizing left-wing rhetoric limited to the world of high art. It can be found in popular culture as well. Blogger Howard Portnoy notes a video in which Tracy Morgan, until 2006 a member of the Now Ready for Prime Time Players on NBC's "Saturday Night Live," banters with basketball sportscasters on the TNT cable network. (TNT is part of the Turner Broadcasting System subdivision of Time Warner.)

One of the hosts jocularly asks Morgan: "Tina Fey or Sarah Palin?" Fey was the former "Saturday Night Live" player who returned to the program in 2008 to perform a refulgent impression of the newly famous Palin. Another host elaborates: "Sarah Palin is good-looking, isn't she? Tina Fey is good-looking!"

The query is frivolous, but Morgan's answer is indecent: "Yo, let me tell you something about Sarah Palin, man. She's good masturbation material. The glasses, and all of that? Great masturbation material."

Portnoy observes: "For a liberal male, the degradation of Palin as sexual fodder--which frankly is about as low as one can go in degrading a member of the so-called 'fairer sex'--is a way of dismissing the fact that (like it or not) she is a difference maker in the American body politic. But why is it that the nation's most accomplished liberal females haven't spoken up against this unseemly treatment?"

The answer, as we argued last Wednesday, is that liberal women are the driving force behind hatred of Sarah Palin. But Portnoy's complaint about male liberals--the word "men" doesn't quite seem appropriate here--echoes ours: "Liberal men [sic] put down Palin as a cheap way to score points with the women in their lives, or they use her as an outlet for more-general misogynistic impulses that would otherwise be socially unacceptable to express."

 

[Redeye]

Once again, the Right clutches at straws to find a moral equivalency on the "left" for the likes of Glenn Beck, etc.  And once again, it looks really rather ridiculous.

So a play put on by a school in a small town in Montana includes an off-colour joke about Sarah Palin (who, as far as politicians go, is something of a joke, though she's getting rather well upstaged by Michele Bachmann lately), and I'm supposed to believe that is as serious a problem as various media outlets churning out what essentially amounts to agitprop?  That's really how the WSJ is making their argument?

Being the butt of jokes, like Palin was in the article as it continues, is a part of public life.  Quite honestly, the jokes made about her, as about any politician, are based on her real life traits, and there is nothing wrong with that.  That's been a basis of political humour for a very long time.  Palin, like all politicians, and her supporters are going to have to deal with the fact that people don't like her.  A lot of people.

More on "hateful" political speech. Eliminationist rhetoric embedded in popular culture?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703956604576110100251027150.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion

 

[a_majoor]

So politicians using words like "target" a district for voters to upend an incumbent is hateful and violent rhetoric, while calling for Governor Palin to be beheaded because "no one would miss her" should be treated as a joke?

Legal scholars can argue what the exact definition of calling for an identifiable living person to be murdered is.  If there were people publicly calling for Redeye to be beheaded because "no one would miss him", I doubt you would take or treat this as a "joke".

I think you've just summed yourself up.

 

[ModlrMike]

Palin, like all politicians, and her supporters are going to have to deal with the fact that people don't like her.  A lot of people.

And her detractors, such as yourself, are going to have to deal with the fact that people do like her. A lot of people.