The demonization of liberals takes a deadly turn
There is a wonderful guest commentary, on the Greely Tribune, written by Jonathan Bellman (a professor of music at the University of Northern Colorado). Here's a couple excerpts:
The real demonization of the word “liberal” dates from Reagan’s first presidential campaign against Jimmy Carter. The term was misapplied, but Republican strategists knew a winning strategy when they saw one, and liberal as an evil epithet — entirely decoupled from any real meaning it previously had — has for decades been routinely applied to anyone who frightens the social absolutists among us.
Here in Greeley, bumper stickers say, “A vote for the Democratic Party is a vote for radical Islam,” and I saw a well-crafted, homemade sign on a pickup truck that read “Democrats=Defilement.” Editorialists and letter-writers to The Tribune vilify not only political liberals but also religious liberals: those who refuse to subscribe to the dark, narrow and perpetually terrified worldview that fears all difference or diversity. Many of these editorialists — disappointingly, they are often leaders of churches — confidently use a couple of isolated biblical quotations to “prove” who is good and who is bad, who is saved and who is damned, who is in or out. Or who should be. We smile, or turn the page; it’s just, y’know, Tribune policy. And it’s just politics, right? It’s not like the regular anti-liberal litanies are as dangerous as racism, anti-Semitism, or gay-bashing.
Wrong. The coffins in Knoxville prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Fox News and the conservative talk shows have been spectacularly successful in disseminating this righteousness-drenched hatred.
full article
We listen, yet we don’t object;
when we don’t object,
we tacitly endorse
The real demonization of the word “liberal” dates from Reagan’s first presidential campaign against Jimmy Carter. The term was misapplied, but Republican strategists knew a winning strategy when they saw one, and liberal as an evil epithet — entirely decoupled from any real meaning it previously had — has for decades been routinely applied to anyone who frightens the social absolutists among us.
Here in Greeley, bumper stickers say, “A vote for the Democratic Party is a vote for radical Islam,” and I saw a well-crafted, homemade sign on a pickup truck that read “Democrats=Defilement.” Editorialists and letter-writers to The Tribune vilify not only political liberals but also religious liberals: those who refuse to subscribe to the dark, narrow and perpetually terrified worldview that fears all difference or diversity. Many of these editorialists — disappointingly, they are often leaders of churches — confidently use a couple of isolated biblical quotations to “prove” who is good and who is bad, who is saved and who is damned, who is in or out. Or who should be. We smile, or turn the page; it’s just, y’know, Tribune policy. And it’s just politics, right? It’s not like the regular anti-liberal litanies are as dangerous as racism, anti-Semitism, or gay-bashing.
Wrong. The coffins in Knoxville prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Fox News and the conservative talk shows have been spectacularly successful in disseminating this righteousness-drenched hatred.
full article
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