quote:The dictionary definition of the word “terrorize” is simple and not open to misinterpretation:
“To fill or overpower with terror; ... all » terrify. To coerce by intimidation or fear.”
Note please, that the words “violence” and “death” are missing from that definition.
The key to terror, the key to terrorism, is not the act—but the fear of the act.
That is why bin Laden and his deputies and his imitators are forever putting together videotaped statements and releasing virtual infomercials with dire threats and heart-stopping warnings.
But why is the Republican Party imitating them?
Have you seen this ad air? I hadn't, and I hope I never do, or I may break my TV by accident.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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There's a difference between trying to terrorize someone by threatening to commit violence and telling someone that someone else wants to commit violence against them. This is basic stuff, and this political hack knows it.
I'm just waiting for those who criticize OSC for tactics that don't go half as far as this to come in and applaud this drivel.
Especially the part about finding the remains in NYC.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I don't understand why anyone pays any attention to any political ads or flyers, or mailings, or phone calls. Treat 'em like car dealer ads and realize they ain't telling you the whole story. Worse, actually, since car dealers legally have to run actual figures at some point during the commercial.
Research your candidates -- with the Internet, it's easy -- and choose. Don't base your decision on what was said about the candidate, by him or herself or by the opponent.
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quote:There's a difference between trying to terrorize someone by threatening to commit violence and telling someone that someone else wants to commit violence against them.
You're right. One is a terrorist, and the other is merely giving the terrorist free air time.
I did think he went a bit far with the 9/11 remains though, so no argument on that front.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Chris Bridges: I don't understand why anyone pays any attention to any political ads or flyers, or mailings, or phone calls. Treat 'em like car dealer ads and realize they ain't telling you the whole story. Worse, actually, since car dealers legally have to run actual figures at some point during the commercial.
Research your candidates -- with the Internet, it's easy -- and choose. Don't base your decision on what was said about the candidate, by him or herself or by the opponent.
posted
And never, ever, ever believe what someone says about their own or their opponents voting record.
Votes are made to be confused and distorted.
As an example, I wrote Senator Talent why he should support an increase in the minimum wage. He responded with a form letter thanking me for agreeing with him that we should not increase the minimum wage.
He fought hard to avoid even the idea that we should increase the minimum wage.
He voted many times to not increase the minimum wage.
Last week he put out a commercial proudly proclaiming that he did vote to increase them minimum wage.
The truth is he only voted for the increase in the minimum wage when it was attached to a law that would have permanately cut the inheritance tax, which was really what he wanted.
I want to start a website quoting the commandment, "Thous Shall Not Bare False Witness" and shove it in the face not of every politician, but every political handler that is crafting these commercials, of every size and position.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:There's a difference between trying to terrorize someone by threatening to commit violence and telling someone that someone else wants to commit violence against them. This is basic stuff, and this political hack knows it.
I see no indication that Keith Olbermann equated these two. That's pretty basic stuff too.
I don't see how making false accusations elevates you over the level of political hack.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:I see no indication that Keith Olbermann equated these two. That's pretty basic stuff too.
He didn't equate these two, nor did I say he did. He called them both a form of terrorism. I expressly said they were different. I also intentionally implied that the difference was large enough that both should not be called terrorism.
Reading comprehension. It's your friend.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Errr...he specifically lays out why he calls them both terrorism, i.e. they are both using terror to accomplish their goals. That they are different on some qualities other than this is irrelevant to this similtude. I have no doubt that if you asked him Olbermann would agree with your statement:
quote:There's a difference between trying to terrorize someone by threatening to commit violence and telling someone that someone else wants to commit violence against them.
There is obviously a difference. But that doesn't neccessarily make what he said invalid.
You seemed to be implying that this difference made what he said invalid, but it doesn't, based on the case he carefully laid out. eros started off this thread with a quote of this:
quote:The dictionary definition of the word “terrorize” is simple and not open to misinterpretation:
“To fill or overpower with terror; ... all » terrify. To coerce by intimidation or fear.”
Note please, that the words “violence” and “death” are missing from that definition.
The key to terror, the key to terrorism, is not the act—but the fear of the act.
That is why bin Laden and his deputies and his imitators are forever putting together videotaped statements and releasing virtual infomercials with dire threats and heart-stopping warnings.
If you disagree with the idea that the Republican party and the ad displayed aren't "coerc[ing] by intimidation or fear." that may be one thing. If you disagree with the definition, that might be another.
But saying "There's a difference between these two things." is irrelevant to what Olbermann said and certainly not grounds for calling it drivel or him a hack.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
I myself was also hoping Dag would return to elaborate on that comment. Admittedly, some of Olbermann's arguments weren't great; I certainly wouldn't have gone from "they can't recover bodies" to "they can't protect the homeland." But OSC's tactics not going "half as far"? I'd like to hear a defense of that.
I'd also be interested to know why he called Olbermann a hack. From what I've seen of him he's fairly liberal, but that doesn't make him a hack. When I think of a hack, I think of a politician or media person who cares more about the fate of a particular party than just about anything else.* There was quite a bit of conviction in that clip. You could call Olbermann mistaken, but not a hack as I understand it.
But wrong as you (and I) may think he is, we don't need insults. I mean, we haven't even gotten to a good Bush vs. Clinton argument yet!
*If someone else knows a better definition, please share.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
I think he went too far with the 9/11 remains thing. It's one of those things that I don't think the President himself has any control over. What does Olbermann expect, for Bush to get down there with a bucket and shovel himself to search? Giuliani/Bloomberg can take the heat for that, they should've kept a closer eye on the situation perhaps, but even then I don't really blame them. Besides, it sounds like the sort of pointless attack that SOUNDS good but in actuality means nothing that Republicans would make, so I disagree with Olbermann's use of it, even if it is against people I disapprove of.
As for the rest of it, it's fearmongering. It's an implied threat. Sure there is a difference between making a threat and reporting a threat, but that isn't all that is going on here, and if you don't agree with me there, maybe you should ask Joe McCarthy, or any other of the hundreds people could mention, what comes of fearmongering.
Olbermann is right about a lot in that 10 min blurb. Bush can't have it both ways. He can't stand up and say "I've made America safer" and then turn around with an ad like that and say "My god, don't you people know how much these people want to KILL YOU?" It's ridiculous to take credit for our safety and then claim the other side is going to get everyone killed. And if anyone really thinks that ISN'T what the Republicans are doing, then I'd call that an explosion of naivete.
I wrote TIME magazine awhile back after I read an article by Charles Krauthammer (spelling?) called "The Case for Fearmongering" wherein he stated it was GOOD that we were being scared out of our wits by the government. I tried to make the case for courage (and got my letter published in the letters to time part, yay!). "the things you fear are undefeatable, not by their nature, but by your approach." That's from Jewel Kiltcher, and I honestly don't have any idea who that is, but the point is well made.
Where is the leader who tells us we have nothing to fear but fear itself? Where is the leader who tells us that while there is danger abroad, Americans won't be afraid. "stay the course" is one thing, but it doesn't really matter when you get on TV and say "stay the course" and then later that night air an ad telling us that determined people want to nuke us and he is the only way out. I don't trust the man that tells me logic must give way to fear, as I believe that fear triumphs over logic in most every way.
Olbermann's point is a good one, and he was eloquent, and it wasn't hackery, it was him calling the President and his party on their BS, and I'm glad he did it, and I like the way he did it, it was, after a fashion, proud.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Juxt, Oh, see I figured that point where he insulted a bunch of posters with this:
quote:I'm just waiting for those who criticize OSC for tactics that don't go half as far as this to come in and applaud this drivel.
was what you were talking about.
If it were my statement, it seemed to me that Dag was attacking Olbermann by saying that he equated the two, which would have been a false accusation and the sort of think a political hack would do. Dag has since clarified to say that this wasn't what he said, but instead attacked him with something that seems irrelevant to what Olbermann said. I was wrong, but I think understandably so. As it is, I don't understand why Dag thinks his criticism makes any sense.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Squick, what's the point here? I gave an explanation, you ignored it:
quote:I also intentionally implied that the difference was large enough that both should not be called terrorism.
It's clear I'm not saying, "They're different, therefore he's a hack." If the implication wasn't clear, that's one thing. You now know I intended to communicate that the difference was large enough that both should not be called terrorism. And, yet, you continue to ignore it.
So, to be clear:
1.) There's a difference between trying to terrorize someone by threatening to commit violence and telling someone that someone else wants to commit violence against them.
2.) This difference is so great as to make applying the label "terrorism" to the latter a ridiculous thing to do.
3.) The level of ridiculousness is such that the person applying such a label is engaging in political hackery.
On the ridiculousness point, it is sometimes necessary for a person to a) point out something to be feared, and b) state that the person is the best qualified to address the fear-causing thing.
By the standards this commentator is using, Gore is engaging in terrorism with "An Inconvenient Truth." He's using fear to try to change people's behaviors and to influence the outcome of elections. That accusation is ridiculousness.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:On the ridiculousness point, it is sometimes necessary for a person to a) point out something to be feared, and b) state that the person is the best qualified to address the fear-causing thing.
By the standards this commentator is using, Gore is engaging in terrorism with "An Inconvenient Truth." He's using fear to try to change people's behaviors and to influence the outcome of elections. That accusation is ridiculousness.
Do you honestly believe that this is at all an accurate description of, let's take the simplistic case, the ad presented in this clip?
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I'm not ignoring that you think this difference is large. I'm saying, this difference is irrelevant to the case that Olbermann made. He laid a careful case for what he said. You came along with something that doesn't touch on this case and said his case was invalid. The magnitude of this difference does not make it any more relevant to the case he made.
You just started to address what his actual case was above, so I'll wait for your answer before continuing.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:posted by Dagonee: 1.) There's a difference between trying to terrorize someone by threatening to commit violence and telling someone that someone else wants to commit violence against them.
2.) This difference is so great as to make applying the label "terrorism" to the latter a ridiculous thing to do.
3.) The level of ridiculousness is such that the person applying such a label is engaging in political hackery.
Here's the problems, as I see them, with this argument: 1. Olberman defined "terrorism" (or more acurately "terrorize") in the beginning of the clip, and provided justification for his definition.
2. I don't think you can convincingly argue that the RNC is simply telling us that people want to commit violence against us. Is there anyone in this country who isn't painfully aware that there are terrorists who want to blow us up?
quote:On the ridiculousness point, it is sometimes necessary for a person to a) point out something to be feared, and b) state that the person is the best qualified to address the fear-causing thing.
3. Were this true, wouldn't a better ad be one that simply gives reasons why the Republicans are better able to address said fear-causing thing?
MrSquicky, I meant both his and your statements, actually. I tried to clarify, but apparantly failed. Hope this fixes that.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Were this true, wouldn't a better ad be one that simply gives reasons why the Republicans are better able to address said fear-causing thing?
There's a huge difference between saying "this isn't an effective or fair ad" and "this ad is terrorism."
To add other examples that demonstrate his criteria to be untenable, those who say that Bush is turning this country into a fascist state would also be vulnerable to being called terrorists. After all, they're trying to use fear to coerce behavior - the same behavior that th Bush ad tries to coerce, voting behavior.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I'm not sure I saw an answer to the question. If that contains an answer and I missed it, could you rephrase it in perhaps a more definitive manner?
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There is a big difference between identifying something that people should be concerned or even fearful about and fear-mongering. This difference lies in the focus, tactics, and motive, among other things.
I find that ad is a transparently clear piece of fear mongering. As I said above, I don't think I've seen your answer as to whether or not it is.
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The difference here is not between threatening to kill people versus saying "OMG! These people are trying to kill you!!! And they're going to do it unless you vote for me!", but between the way that the threatening things are treated.
A parent who works out a plan with his child to deal with people trying to do bad things to that child differs from a parent who creates imaginary threats to scare his child into being dependent and doing whatever the parent wants, ala Nackles.
edit: to remove the link to what I think was copyright violating material.
posted
Dag, as a liberal, may I take over for you?
Yes, some Republicans, conservatives, and Bush Supporters use fear and terror to motivate and scare the populous into voting for them.
So do some Democrats.
For every Homeland Defence commercial there is a Global Warming Act NOW commercial. Left or Right the politics of fear is active and successful and the biggest threat to the United States than anything else I can think of.
But that is fear mongering, so please ignore it.
Every ad that points out a problem without offering a solution other than voting against someone else, is a fear ad.
The only workable solution is for us to vote not out of fear but out of which ever candidate offers us hope.
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posted
EDIT - I'm slow. This is in response to Dag's post.
It depends. Is the message intending to convey a problem, and then provide a solution in a straightforward and honest manneer?
Or is the primary purpose to cause fear?
A difficult distinction to make, but an important one.
Also, the flipside of the argument that you're making is that it's not possible to terrorize someone unless you use physical violence.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Dan, The problem I have is that, observing the American political scene, it is clear to me that your rosy optmism as to people ignoring things like this is unjustified.
I do believe that a large number of people in our society could reach a point where they would ignore such things, where the populace would take a responsible and mature approach to voting. However, I don't believe that state exists. As such, they will be manipulated by this ad and the ongoing campaign of fear mongering that I see people engaging in. And, what's even worse, by playing the fear angle so hard, these people are making it so there is a much worse chance of the sort of development that I'd love to see happen.
So, I don't think that saying "I'm just going to ignore this." is the best I can do. I think clear opposition and labeling of fear mongering as fear mongering is an important thing to do.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote: I meant both his and your statements, actually. I tried to clarify, but apparantly failed. Hope this fixes that.
No worries. If it helps any, my intention was primarily to point out what I saw as poor behavior on Dag's part (which was apparently unjustified) and I used terminology from Dag's own post to convey this.
I do think, in a case where someone posts an aggresively insulting post, as Dag's was, that contains false accusations (as I mistakenly thought Dag's did), that it should be said that this is a poor thing to do, even if in this case it was ultimately unjustified.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:There's a huge difference between saying "this isn't an effective or fair ad" and "this ad is terrorism."
I'm not saying the ad is ineffective or unfair. I'm saying it's immoral. It's immoral because it's intended to provoke an instinctual reaction to the fear of death and pain. It's manipulative on a primal level. Inasmuch as anyone else uses this tactic, they are similarly behaving in an immoral manner. I won't try to judge in this post where else that might have happened.
And it IS fair to compare someone who uses this tactic to terrorists. They aren't using the same means, and it makes a whole lot of difference, but it isn't only the means that are wrong.
posted
I'd say the difference (other than what I agree with above, about offering a solution) is the difference between offering a warning, and threatening.
What I could understand and even appreciate was if the Republicans were saying, "Hey, there's guys out there that might want to kill you, just in case you didn't know." Now that is fair, hell, it's dutiful. But changing that into "If you don't vote for us you're probably going to die," edges on a threat, to say nothing of the fact that Olbermann's point, about the ad basically being a terrorist mouthpiece is entirely correct.
I find it insufferably hypocritical for Republicans to accuse Democrats of not being patriots when they are the ones giving TERRORISTS FREE AIR TIME.
The other problem with the definition of terrorism in play here is extremism. We've been told for the last 5 years that terrorism is people blowing stuff up. Suicide bombers, the guys who plany IEDs, snipers on top of buildings, THOSE are terrorists, but Joe McCarthy and guys just like him aren't.
I don't care about Godwin, and I'm not calling Republicans Nazis, but when you look at METHODOLOGY, tell me (anyone here) that you aren't frightned when you hear and see videos of Hitler blaming all the ills of Germany on the Jews, and that if you support him and only him, then all those evil nasty problems will go away, and then you see the Republicans saying that terrorists are going to kill you at the market tomorrow unless you vote for them and only them, and they'll make all those nasty terrorists go away. Republicans aren't genocidal murderers, but look at the methodology, it's chilling.
I like Dag's comparison to Democrats and Global Warming, but I think the difference fails in severity and warning. Ignoring the substantive difference in Democrat/Republican approaches to foreign policy, and the substantive differences in the Democrat/Republican approaches to energy, when Democrats stand up and say "Global warming is on it's way in the next century or two, you should really buy a hybrid," it's not the same thing as "Any day not you might die in a fiery mushroom cloud." If someone is going to draw a like between a threat, and reporting of a threat, I think there's a much more clear line there. And it goes back to what I said before about warnings and threats, global warming "alarmists" really are just warning you. I've yet to hear the Democratic ad that says if you don't vote Democrat, you're going to drown tomorrow from polar ice cap melt.
I'll leave this post with this: Fear mongering is the way you get someone to support you when you don't have anything of substance or value to keep you in power.
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posted
Except that Democrats don't say that. They say "and Republicans are making it worse by not acknowledging/doing anything about Global Warming. Vote for Democrats and save the Environement before you breath, eat, and drink toxic waste!"
You said you have yet to hear? What, are you DEAF?
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quote:They say "and Republicans are making it worse by not acknowledging/doing anything about Global Warming. Vote for Democrats and save the Environement before you breath, eat, and drink toxic waste!"
The first part I've seen. The second, I've only seen from some pretty extreme groups. Do you have an example of a mainstream Democrat saying anything like that Occ?
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Here in N. Illinois we are inundanted with the ads claiming that one candidate wants to give our money to illegal aliens with scary pictures of people climbing over fences in the dark.
Another one tries to be scary by mentioning San Francisco.
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posted
Oh to live in the most red state in the Union. Neither party bothers spending money campaigning here.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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I'll cop to the first part too, they do in fact say that. And there's nothing wrong with that. You're allowed to say that you can do the job better than the other guy. But they absolutely do not say the second part, except as Squick says, from ELF and other extreme extreme fringe groups. Is there anyone in Congress who has said that, or in the DNC?
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Oh to live in the most red state in the Union. Neither party bothers spending money campaigning here.
Hah, when I read that, I was thinking maybe you were in Kansas, too. Then I checked your profile. We'll just call it a tie.
I will state, for the topic, that I agree with Lyrhawn. The fear mongering, on any issue, won't solve any problems. I don't care which party spouts it; I won't vote for candidates who wage campaigns of fear.
Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
What gets me is how insulting those ads are. Are we really so cowardly that fear is the most effective way to motivate us? Maybe so, but I don't want to vote that way.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: "the things you fear are undefeatable, not by their nature, but by your approach." That's from Jewel Kiltcher, and I honestly don't have any idea who that is, but the point is well made.
Jewel Kilcher is a pop/folk musician, better known as just plain Jewel.
You may now return to your regularly scheduled partisan bickering. Posts: 884 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Oh I know who that is, just never put two and two together there. Funny how more information trips me up than less would have. Thanks Shmuel.
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