Quote:
Originally Posted by dark_crystal
Mark Morford
http://www.sfgate.com/
"Look, this is America: While you are halfheartedly allowed to be as optimistic, spiritually awake, book-learned, calm and reasonable as you wish, you are aggressively encouraged to be as suspicious, xenophobic, poorly informed, well-armed, God-fearing and insular as you possibly can" |
I love me some Mark Morford. I don't always agree with him but he always makes me laugh.
Was Sarah Palin's 'Blood Libel' Comment a 'Dog Whistle?'
"As Tom Diemer and David Gibson noted, the term " 'Blood libel' is an extraordinarily loaded phrase because it recalls the false accusation by Christians against Jews that was used for centuries as an excuse for anti-Semitic persecution. The libel generally refers to the charge that Jews required human blood, and in particular the blood of Christian children, to bake matzoh bread."
Some believe this could be an example of "dog whistle" politics. I'm not so sure. A cipher works when the only people who hear the "dog whistle" are your complicit allies. That is clearly not the case in this instance. And so if others can immediately decode it, is it a dog whistle?" [/QUOTE]
Like you and Ryobi, I'm unsure that this was 'dog-whistle' politics. Ms Palin is obviously trying to paint herself as the victim and is going out of her way to portray perfectly reasonable expressions of concern about political rhetoric in spurious stories that people are 'blaming Sarah Palin for the Tucson shooting'. Except that isn't what is happening. What's happening is that people are saying, rightly, that if you are trying to see if your gas tank is empty by lighting a match, you shouldn't be terribly surprised when your car explodes. Did you *intend* for the car to explode? No. But it blew up nevertheless.
I'm going to risk a "Godwin's Law" violation and point something out:
In the 20s and early 30s, before Hitler came to power, a similar cheeky game was played in Germany and the Nazis worked the refs (i.e. the press) in much the same way. Some Nazi would give a real red-meat, barn-burner of a speech and then some SA thugs would, on their way to the nearest pub, beat up the first Jew or Communist they happened across. Predictable denunciations would follow and the Nazis would claim that no one in the party advocated violence. Then it would happen again. And again. And again. Even as late as the fall of 1938, the Nazis were claiming that no linkage could be made between the anti-Semtic language in the Völkischer Beobachter (Racial Observer) or Der Stuermer (The Stormer or The Attacker) and the violent actions.
Now, I want to be clear that I am NOT---absolutely NOT--comparing the modern American Right with the Nazis. That is not my point here. My point is that the game that is being played has a long provenance. The Nazis used it. American segregationists used the same tactic--they would print or speak the most vile slanders against blacks and then, when someone took them at their word and actually DID something there were, as we are seeing now, the denials that the words of violence had anything to do with violent acts.
Cheers
Aj