Rotten Minds, Shriveled Hearts and Human Souls

[babylonsister]

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/rotten_minds_shriveled_hearts_and_human_souls_20100201/

Rotten Minds, Shriveled Hearts and Human Souls

Posted on Feb 1, 2010

By Fred Branfman


Some two-thirds of the comments to my recent Sacramento News and Review piece calling for a new human movement to avert the climate crisis informed me that “bought off” climate scientists and those of us who believe them are “scumbags,” “cockroaches,” “assholes,” “leeches,” “lunatics,” “fanatics,” “stupid,” “liars,” “dorks,” “treasonous,” “the enemy,” “socialistic,” “elitist scared wimps,” “foolish,” “hacks,” “jokers,” “frauds,” “criminal frauds,” “zealots” and “mindless followers” who “despise America (sic)” and “want to steal U.S. wealth” and “we really do not need ya.” Al Gore, I learned, is an “ignorant moron” who deserves to die, and I am “a propagandist of the worst kind” whose “mind is rotted from the inside out,” and that “deep down, you know that you are a small man … with a shriveled heart.” “No, there is NO GLOBAL WARMING,” I was instructed, and the real issue is “does this author {me} deserve to live.”

My first response was a mix of wonder, sadness and anger. How could people who have not studied the complexities of climate science work themselves into such a frenzy against those who have? Why were they uninterested in communicating, or even swaying the undecided, but only focused on degrading and dehumanizing? Were they seeking relief from self-hatred and unhappy lives by projecting their despair outwards? Could people with loving relationships and meaningful work behave like this? I also felt the same rush of righteous anger as I suppose they did, and found myself thinking of how I could respond in kind.


And then my adult, rational, human brain took over from my reptile one.

While America has always experienced angry debate, today’s intellectual violence—featuring people anonymously spewing vicious personal Internet attacks rather than debating ideas—feels different. It is part of a general coarsening and dehumanization of the culture, as previously responsible media members seek to boost profits by provoking anger and bile, humiliating the well-known and setting talking heads screaming at each other. Facts, evidence and reason are irrelevant. Billionaire media moguls shamelessly and cynically provide a platform to broadcasters claiming without any evidence whatsoever that a U.S. president favors killing seniors or is creating his own private police force. Many folks, it seems, experience their deepest feelings in front of a TV set or computer screen rather than interacting with actual human beings.

Those who dehumanize political opponents are the moral equivalents of those in 1920s Germany who broke up meetings rather than engage in debate. They are primarily a danger to themselves at this point. But if, as I believe, we face years of joblessness and falling incomes, political unrest, class warfare and a growing threat of domestic terrorism due to our failed international policies, this kind of dehumanization could destroy what remains of our democracy. The rise of authoritarianism has always been preceded by this kind of objectifying of “the other.”

I am particularly disturbed when I see people with whom I agree politically demean their opponents as “wing nuts,” “crazies,” etc. I believe it’s especially important for those of us advocating peace, social justice and saving the biosphere to live our ideals. Martin Luther King Jr. and the nonviolent civil rights movement faced far more verbal and physical violence than do we. They triumphed because they remembered their humanity and did not stoop to demeaning others. Progressives and liberals need to embody the compassion and empathy they claim to seek for society as a whole if they are to prevail.

snip//

America will clearly face unprecedented economic, international and climate challenges in the coming years. Whether we meet them will largely depend upon our ability to remember our common humanity and communicate with each other as the suffering human beings we all are.

[Zoeisright]

1. While I agree with most of this, are we really going to get anywhere by

treating bigots and other Republicans with 'compassion and empathy'?

[Tuesday Afternoon]

2. curious

how would you suggest we treat them?

[cognoscere]

14. I dunno...

maybe treat them like the cancer they are?

[Bgno64]

15. Agreed entirely

Can't we all just get along? No, we can't.

These people are not going to listen to reason. OK? So trying to employ MORE reason, MORE empathy, you're talking to a wall. They don't care about facts, they're not interested, this is tribalism, they "feel" these things to be "true" in their "guts" and any "intellectual" or "intelligent" response only makes them hate you more.

When the barbarians show up at the gates you don't reason with them. You defeat them.

[Warpy]

4. Would you rather see them than be them?

I thought so.

That's the beginning of compassion.

[shirlden]

9. The bigots in my family

can't even spell 'compassion and empathy". I truly believe they are incapable of feeling for others in any meaningful way. They process everything through the ME channel and leave nothing of themselves for others. Hours of conversation with my family Teabagger has convinced me she cannot be reasoned with. I don't think she likes herself much and projects that onto the rest of us.....some kind of guilt tranference? I don't know. Just know I am tired of trying.

[Doctor_J]

10. No, we're not

That's what we've been doing for at least 20 years, and it's just gotten worse. Read tom_paine's excellent post below. Bullies do not respond to "compassion". Equating calling a wingnut a wingnut to broadcasting for weeks on end violent, seditious, and treasonous lies 24/7 exhibits deep, deep denial about the current state of things. We will not recover until we assess the reality of our situation

[tularetom]

3. Of course everything he says makes sense long term

Unfortunately you can't argue with stupid people so it's probably best to ignore them and do what you think is best.

[Syntheto]

5. The Rhetoric goes both ways...

..Both sides stridently call each other the same adolescent names, and such snarling defensive display postures are no more prevalent than in the area of AGW. The Little Enders versus the Big Enders, writ large and on blogs, and it's disingenuous to say otherwise.

[tom_paine]

7. The Rhetoric goes both ways, but does the blame for infantilizing the National Dialogue also go

both ways?

For myself and so many others, it took years, even decades of increasing lunacy and absolutist language from the RW, not to mention the vast success it enjoyed, before deploying "Aggressive Progressive" stances.

I am saying that while blame is not all on one side or the other, to just say "we are all to blame equally" sometimes, not always, begs the question of gazing straight at reality.

Sometimes, authoritarian movements sweep nations and I believe this is one of those times. I can't even begin to paint the picture without writing pages and pages, but just to say "both side are guilty" is a mistake and not based at all by the facts of the last 30 years.

You need to do some serious reading, I think. Here's some links to start with:

http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/jaspers02.htm

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

http://www.thirdreich.net/Thought_They_Were_Free.html

Books on the genesis of the RW Lie Machine such as "Blinded by the Right" by David Brock and online links like Neiwart's text on absolutism.

As one commenter put it in perfect response to the article:

I wonder how, he would respond to Hitler’s Brown shirts? Because, this is exactly the same tactic.

To shout down the opposition, to keep them from presenting their views, to make them appear weak and ineffectual so that they begin to feel that way themselves.

This is how facism is born, and we are witnessing this here right now in this country.

Verbal aggressionm, will lead to violent aggression and repression, we’re not that far away now.

Unless the left mobilizes and stands up to them, they will view it as a go ahead.

[Syntheto]

8. Thanks for the links...

...I'll keep an open mind about it, but there are websites and blogs tailor-made for whatever political view you want to adopt, no matter how far to either side of the political spectrum one wants to go (alternet, stormfront, etc, etc) .

Still, I respectfully say that you're wrong about the civility of discourse coming exclusively from the left. Frankly, that's plain silly and again, disingenuous. What about the sobriquet "Teabaggers", which refers the sexual practice of fellatio with the testicles dangling down someone's chin? As Anderson Cooper put it, "It's hard to talk when you're teabagging." Who came up with that? I first read about Bush being called "Chimpy McHitler" here, on this website, yet posters here are outraged and vehement in their denunciations of any sort of disrespect shown to Barry as indicative of the simplistic and undereducated 'wingnuts'.

However, in my opinion, the whole 'teabagger' thing, a juvenile frat boy tag-line, has crossed the line. Is that civil discourse? Is it funny because some people have convinced themselves that 'the other side' has no idea what they're talking about? Do you really believe that?

You may pride yourself on your posting style, but you certainly can't speak for the entire left movement, or even one single other person who posts on DU. Do you seriously think that there aren't others on the other side who feel the same way?

Besides, the blogsphere is the CB radio of the 21st century; everyone adopts a persona, and really, when you get right down to it, it's kind of pointless, and just a way most people go after a scratch behind the ears from their blogging peers as they sing to their respective choirs.

[olegramps]

12. When the right wingers embrace and spread vicious lies, polite responses are unwarranted.

The Republican Party has vowed to destroy President Obama, just as the pursued President Clinton while spending millions of tax payer's dollars. Sorry, but being kind to fascists who are willing to destroy the nation rather than do what is right by the citizens exempts them from any civil courtesy. Every attempt by President Obama to engage in civil discourse with the Republicans has been met with a barrage of outright lies. Its time to give the neighborhood bully a bloody nose.

[tom_paine]

13. I think you're missing my point

Incivility between factions is as old as humanity itself, on this I think we both agree. But incivility being tossed back and forth is not the issue here.

The issue here is an authoritarian movement sweeping the nation and emanating as they often, but not always (see the Soviet Union & China), issuing from the Right Wing.

I am not trying to speak for the entire Left movement but for what my eyes can see and have seen for the last 30 years. Are all Lefties pure as the driven snow? Hell no! Not even close! But if the Left Wing Authoritarians among us were to team up with the Corporate Aristocracy or anyone (though I fail to see who else would have the cash and power to achieve such an end) to create a gigantic False Reality Bubble based on almost 100% lies, misinformation, disinformation and half-truths with key elements left out so as to insure a foregone conclusion in the eyes of the Target Audience, then I might agree with you.

Basically, you are missing the forest for the trees, to use an old, overused, but still apt, cliche.

Down there in the forest, have people from different factions always slung mud at each other? Hell yes! But that is not the issue.

The issue is that, as in Germany 1925-1933, the Rich & Powerful have teamed up with a virulent authoritarian political movement using very much the same techniques that the Nazis did, adjusted for increased knowledge in the fields of propaganda, advertising, rebranding, marketing, and PR.

Also adjusted, as every totalitarian movement has been, to the culture and weaknesses of the particular nation in the particular age it's in.

From "the ground level", which you are gazing at, it looks like the same "he said/she said" that denotes the usual state of partisan factions throwing mud at each other. Sometimes, this is actually the case. Not this time.

I hope you will read at least some of the links and books. Our nation, driven by this authoritarian movement that now controls our National Dialog, is as immersed in falsity and lies as 1933 Germany. Just as in 1933 Germany, funded by Thyssen and the "German Industrialists", our madness has been constructed and funded by the same group/class of people.

Look at the BIG PICTURE of the last 30-40 years here in America, not just the individual verbal "food fighting" that is going on. There is so much more to see and be aware of.

Oh, and by the way, if you think Alternet and Stormfront are opposite sides of the same coin, then I question your own view of reality colored and tilted by the RW Lie Machine and the "me too" Corporate Media.

Please read some history. Please read the links and books I pointed you toward. If there is one thing Authoritarians on both the Left (Communists) and the Right (Nazis/Bushies) share, it's that they BOTH despise Liberals. Honest. Look it up.

[CanonRay]

6. Unfortunately, there really are "wingnuts"

although there may be rational people with whom one may rationally disagree. The wingnuts do not approach problems rationally, and facts are not relevant in their arguments, so how can you rationally disagree with them?

[mwb970]

11. I agree.

The reason I use the term "wingnuts" is that so many of the spokespeople for the Far Right Wing appear from their public utterances to be, well, nuts. I don't know how else to put it, aside from "batshit crazy".

Have you heard Michele Bachmann speak out on just about any subject? She strikes me as eminently certifiable. And what about the goofy stuff Glenn Beck says? (FEMA concentration camps, anyone?) Hannity said that 2009, the fifth hottest year on record, was "one of the coldest", and continued to repeat this lie long after it was shown to be false. This is simply not the behavior of a well-adjusted, sane person.

Since the loons of the Far Right really are nuts, and prove it again every single day, I feel no discomfort at all in calling these people "wingnuts".

[Martin Eden]

16. Let's not confuse CIVILITY with WEAKNESS

Whether or not we should be civil to people who are not being civil to us is a matter of what is most effective at bringing about the kind of changes that are so desperately needed.

We can be civil and also be forceful and persistent. I don't think it benefits our cause to lower ourselves to their standards of discourse in an emotional reaction to having our buttons pushed by angry, ignorant people. When we sling the same kind of mud both sides get covered with it and the observers on the sidelines who we need on our side become equally disgusted with both.