reflectivepundit

The Shame of a Nation (III): Spineless GOP Does Not Stand Up to Gun-Nuts and the 2. Amendment Myth

By Brigitte L. Nacos

For a moment or two after the mass shooting in Newtown before Christmas I thought that this was a real opportunity to counter the glut of assault weapons in the hands of millions of Americans. Who in heaven would not support reasonable regulations in a nation with far more handguns and far more shooting victims than any other comparable democracy?

I wasn’t naïve enough to think that the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the gun industry that fills the NRA’s coffers would change their tune. But in the face of 20 little boys and girls mowed down by a lone gunman in a short shooting spree I hoped for some leaders in the ranks of the Republican Party to ignore the pressures and threats from the gun lobby and its fanatical followers in the militia and Tea Party movements.

It is now clear that I was wrong. Very wrong.

Yesterday, after President Obama introduced his comprehensive but altogether modest gun regulation proposals,  the chairman of the National Republican Committee (NRC) Reince Priebus issued a statement that called the president’s initiative “an executive power grab” and criticized that Obama “paid lip service to our fundamental constitutional rights, but took actions that disregard the 2nd Amendment and the legislative process.”

As head of the NRC Priebus speaks for the GOP. He is the closest to what one would consider the Republican Party’s current leader. And what his comments boil down to is a sanitized version of what the paranoid wingnuts post on their web sites.

There has not been one Republican in the Congress who has refuted Priebus or those colleagues in their midst whose hate speech endears them to the gun rights fanatics. Not even in the face of those who talk about Obama’s impeachment; and not even in response to those who allude to a new revolutionary or civil war—the very nonsense dominant in far-right cyberspace communications.  

This is what Tea Party darling and 2016 GOP presidential hopeful Rand Paul said even before Obama had introduced his gun regulation plan:

"I'm against having a king.  I think having a monarch is what we fought the American Revolution over and someone who wants to bypass the Constitution, bypass Congress--that's someone who wants to act like a king or a monarch. I've been opposed to executive orders, even with Republican presidents. But one that wants to infringe on the Second Amendment, we will fight tooth and nail.”

Tooth and nail? Sounds like the call to arms in the virtual echo chamber of the militia and Tea Party milieu.  

Time for President Obama to Use the Bully Pulpit and Assert Strong Leadership

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Thanks to his clear victory this week President Obama has replenished political capital to assert the same strong leadership he displayed in reaction to Hurricane Sandy.

To be sure, Republican leaders in Congress have shown none of the qualities that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie demonstrated when he abandoned partisan politics and cooperated closely with the president in the face of a horrendous crisis for the benefit of the many hard hit hurricane victims in his state.

President Obama must nevertheless strive to install the bipartisan Obama-Christie cooperation model in Washington in order to find agreements to solve the nation’s most pressing problems. Never mind that Republican leaders, who might want to cooperate, will continue to feel threatened by the wrath of uncompromising Tea Partiers and Grover Norquist, the unelected ruler of the GOP’s no-new-tax dictate.

The president’s stump speeches in the last phase of the campaign underscored that he is an excellent communicator if he so chooses.

Unfortunately, the great communicator Obama was mostly absent from the political arena for most of his first term. Had he explained, for example, in plain language the provisions of the “Obamacare” package, he could have enlisted solid public support.

He left it to the opposition to fill the gap with misinformation.

This must change. In today’s mass society with its many forms of mass communication and mass self-communication a strong leader must constantly inform and engage the people rallying their support for policies benefiting the vast majority and opposition against those measures designed for the super-wealthy 1 percent.

First of all, and before the new congress convenes, the so-called fiscal cliff must be dealt with decisively. Unless there is finally a fair agreement on how to handle the expiring tax cuts adopted during the George W. Bush presidency, there will be across-the-board spending cuts in Pentagon and domestic programs.

President Obama must insist on doing away with all of the favorable tax rates for the rich and super-rich while preserving those for the lowest and middle income groups. He should muster all his communicative qualities to lead a vigorous public discourse on good and bad ways to deal with the fiscal crisis.

And he should try to win former President Bill Clinton to be his negotiator-in-chief with congressional leaders in the upcoming struggle to avoid going over the financial cliff.

But ultimately it is the presidential bully pulpit that matters most.

Mitt Romney: The Whatever-It-Takes-To-Become-President Candidate

By Brigitte L. Nacos

In his most recent New York Times column, David Brooks celebrated the return of the “moderate” Mitt Romney during the first presidential debate last week and praised the GOP candidate for “breaking with the stereotypes of his party” and “offering a more authentic version of himself.”

Moreover, Brooks wrote, “Having taken this step, he’s broken the spell. Conservatives loved it! They loved that it was effective, and it was effective because Romney could more authentically be the man who (I think) he truly is…”

These statements deserve scrutiny on three counts:  

First, perceptions of the contemporary Republican Party that Mr. Brooks characterizes as “stereotypes” are not simplistic clichés by partisan opponents but the result of massive Tea Party influence in, if not control of the GOP following the 2010 mid-term election.

That has nothing to do with stereotypes. That is political reality.

More importantly, Brooks’ account of the moderate Romney’s return can only mean this: what Mitt Romney told the nation for more than a year, both during the Republican primary battle and the general election campaign, was just a recital of Tea Party orthodoxy.

So, he never believed what he told the rich during fundraising events. He never believed what he told voters?

Second, Brooks tells us that the newly emerging moderate Romney is “a more authentic version” of the candidate. Since authentic means genuine, real, and true, someone or something is either authentic—or not. This is not a more or less quality.   

Third, yes, Mr. Brooks, the Republican base and Tea Party extremists support Romney —the old and the new version-- because they want to defeat President Obama.

They love his debate performance, precisely because it lifted their hope for victory.

But as forRomney beginning" to define the Republican identity," the dominant right wing of the party has no intention to support a “moderate” and “bipartisan” Romney if he becomes president. Just take a look at the communications of Tea Partiers before they made the tactical decision to vote for him as the lesser evil.

And, frankly, there are no indications that Mr. Romney gives a damn about Republican ideology or Republican policy. He obviously can live with a right of center or an extreme right agenda.

As long as he gets what looks like his only goal: he wants to be president. .

Global Media Stage Allows Norwegian Terrorist Breivik to Spread his Propaganda of Hate

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Spending all of last week at a conference in Ankara I did not have an opportunity to follow the news media as closely as I normally do. Yet, channel surfing early in the morning and late at night in my hotel room was enough to conclude that the prominent and massive coverage of Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik’s trial afforded him a global stage to explain and promote his anti-Islamic ideology and try to enlist supporters in the process.

After describing the gruesome details of his killing spree that took the lives of 77 persons last year, Breivik claimed that he studied Timothy McVeigh’s Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and Al Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks for instruction and inspiration. Calling Al Qaeda the “most successful revolutionary movement in the world,” he said he had learned from the organization’s successes and failures. Obviously sticking to his claim that he is not a lone wolf but part of a group of likeminded comrades determined to defend Christian Europe against the onslaught of Muslims, he told the court, "We want to create a European version of Al Qaeda.”

Obviously, the Norwegian court was well aware that Breivik would exploit the trial to spread his messages of hate. But in democratic systems, where citizens need to be fully informed in order to make educated decisions when they participate in the political process, public information is a highly esteemed value. Rightly, so--even in the face of occasional misuse and abuse.

Although cameras and microphones were banned from the court room, journalists reported at great length and detail Breivik’s exploitations of the global media stage. To be sure, the coverage was prominent and plentiful after the attacks. But at that time, the focus was more or at least equally as much on the victims rather than the perpetrator. This time around, it has been the Breivik show so far.

The  Oklahoma City bomber McVeigh received fan letters and marriage proposals as he awaited first his trial and later his execution; Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda won supporters and recruits after 9/11. Breivik, too, may have endeared himself and his convictions to some people who already shared his extremist views.

As Matt Pearce reported in the Los Angeles Times, 23-year old American Kevin Forbes of Massachusetts exchanged letters with Breivik and told Norwegian TV, “I believe that Breivik is a rational man who committed atrocious but necessary actions.”

To be sure, the majority of people in Europe and elsewhere reject everything that Breivik has said and done in disgust. But it is not unusual that highly publicized acts of terrorism and crime result in copy-cat deeds. Moreover, successful methods of attacks used by terrorists and criminal are sometimes carried out by individuals or groups already committed to violence.

Nearly three years ago, taking into account the dramatic advances in communication technology in the beginning of the 21^st century, I published an article in the on-line journal Perspectives on Terrorism that revisited media contagion theories--mostly in the context of terrorism and to a lesser extent concerning crime. My conclusion was that “when it comes to international and domestic terrorism, various kinds of media figure quite prominently in both tactical and inspirational contagion.” The pro-copycat conclusion seems as relevant today as it was earlier. Indeed, Breivik’s terrorism may well qualify as a case of contagion since he himself revealed in court that he studied and learned from 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing.

Hilary Rosen, Ann Romney, and Stay-Home Moms: A Non-Issue Blown Up into Media Frenzy at the Expense of Debating Real Issues

By Brigitte L. Nacos

The news media and social networks blew up one sentence spoken by one political strategist into a major political controversy and handed the Romney campaign a convenient weapon to intensify their attacks on liberals and especially President Obama as the real enemies of mothers and wives and daughters in the “war on women” in America.

What happened? Hilary Rosen, a Democrat, political strategist and analyst for CNN, commented during a CNN program on the fact that Mitt Romney cannot connect with women, is clueless as to women’s concerns, and has of late told audiences that his wife Ann is better at articulating his real concern for women’s well-being.

Rosen’s statement was this: “His wife has actually never worked a day in her life,” she said. “She's never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids? How do we send them to school? And why we worry about their future.”

What is so offensive here? For starters, cable TV, other media outlets, and social media honed in on the first sentence, “His wife has actually never worked a day in her life.” That is a wonderful sound bite for media that strives on conflicts and clashes. In most instances, the rest of the “explosive” remark was omitted and thereby the whole context of the discussion.

There was no need for the president, his wife, former first lady Barbara Bush, Ann Romney, the Romney campaign and supporters to defend stay-home moms as women with the most heavy and difficult workloads. The real issue here is whether women with the extraordinary financial means as enjoyed by Ann Romney have any idea about the struggles of ordinary women with modest or low incomes. Rosen’s criticism was not at all targeting all mothers who make the choice to stay home and raise their children. But it reminded us that many women do not have a choice, even if they would love to stay home, they need to work to put food on the table.  

If a candidate defers publicly to his wife as the expert on women’s issues, especially economic ones, why would it be wrong to point out that Mrs. Romney, given the family’s wealth and plush life style, is as detached from average women (and men) as is her husband?  

This morning, I saw a clip of Ann Romney’s response on FOX News. “I can tell you and promise you that I have had struggles in my life." Promise us? I am sure that Mrs. Romney like all mothers had her struggles with five active sons around. I am sure that she had and has her struggles with her illness. But she did not have the economic struggles and worries of so many mothers (and fathers) about the daily necessities of life, food, housing, health insurance, the education of their children.

In short, this is once again a case of much ado about nothing, media feeding frenzy and political opportunism at a time when the nation is faced with real and urgent domestic and foreign policy issues.

Limbaugh Up-Date: Massive Exodus of Advertisers

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Sarah Palin’s public support for Limbaugh’s right of free speech—and by extension for male chauvinism and gutter language directed at women—did not stop the exodus of advertisers from the Russ Limbaugh radio show. As Media Matters reports based on yesterday’s (March 8^th) 3-hour Limbaugh program:

86 ads aired during New York based WABC's broadcast…; 77 of those ads were public service announcements donated free of charge by the Ad Council; and of the nine paid spots that ran, seven were from companies that have said they have taken steps to ensure their ads no longer air during the program.

ThinkProgress reports that on Thursday, “listeners in the nation’s largest media market [New York] were treated to over five minutes of radio silence where Limbaugh’s advertisers once stood.”

The talk show host’s claim that the withdrawal of about 50 advertisers has not impacted his show and the 600 stations around the country that air the program is not credible. While it is possible that he will win new deep pocket advertisers that share his views and his style, it may not be as easy as he pretends.

Palin is right, when she reminds us that the First Amendment guarantees Mr. Limbaugh the right of free expression. Indeed, he can say what he wants. If he defames a private person, and I think this was the case in his outbursts against law student Sandra Fluke, he could be sued for libel (as an aside, while private persons have only prove that they have been defamed to win libel cases, this is very different with respect to public officials/public figures: Since the New York Times vs. Sullivan ruling, the “actual malice” clause makes it next to impossible for public figures to win libel cases even if they have been defamed).

Fox News star Bill O’Reilly has seconded Limbaugh’s attacks on Sandra Fluke accusing her to ask the government to pay for her social life. Why hasn’t there been an anti-O’Reilly protest? The diffence is simply that O’Reilly does not have the influence that Limbaugh has for many years within the Republican Party. His coronation by the Republican Party came in 1994, when the GOP finally won a majority in the US House of Representatives and Newt Gingrich became Speaker. Limbaugh was celebrated by a united Republican front as “Majority Maker.”

Nearly 18 years later he remains the single most influential voice of conservatives, the Republican Party and its powerful Tea Party wing. That’s why GOP leaders and especially the contenders for party’s presidential nominations do not criticize Limbaugh--regardless of what he says.

Obviously, they all hope that he will be their “majority maker.”

For Sarah Palin to call anti-Limbaugh protests the “definition of hypocrisy” is disingenuous in that she insists on Mr. Limbaugh’s free speech right without granting the same liberty to his critics.   

Boycott against Rush Limbaugh’s Advertisers is Not Enough

By Brigitte L. Nacos

His hateful tirade against a female law school student and her demand for insurance-covered contraceptives even at church-related institutions cost shock jock Rush Limbaugh according to today’s New York Times seven advertisers so far. But as successful as the spontaneous on-line protests against Limbaugh’s despicable attack on Sandra Fluke was--by extension an attack on all women practicing birth control and requiring insurance coverage--, the pressure must not stop but expand to a boycott of all radio stations that carry Limbaugh’s talk show and TV- and radio-networks they are affiliated with.  

It is telling that the usually unapologetic Limbaugh issued an apology after one advertiser after another jumped ship over the weekend. To stem this tide and financial harm, he issued a lame apology. “My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir,” he said in his statement.  “I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices.”

That was actually a non-apology. What Limbaugh said in his endless rants in his broadcasts on three consecutive days was not simply a poor choice of words-- he called Ms. Fluke “slut” and “prostitute”--but rather another shameful manifestation of his disrespect for many groups, including women and minorities.

Since Limbaugh strives on controversy and attention-getting hate-speak to promote his show and excite his huge audience, one might conclude that it would be best to ignore the episodes of particularly vile insults. But that would ignore the reality that Rush Limbaugh is for many years the most influential voice in the Republican Party.   

In the past, even the slightest criticism of Limbaugh’s most distasteful outbursts resulted inevitably in “forgive me, Rush” apologies. That explains the reactions of leading Republicans this time around. Mitt Romney said, “It’s not the language I would have used.” In other words, Romney has no problem with the substance of Limbaugh’s attacks, rather with his linguistic choices. This leaves me to wonder whether Romney would have used more civil terms (perhaps sex worker?) to substitute Limbaugh’s choices. Rick Santorum called the controversial Limbaugh episode “absurd” but nevertheless “justified” since Limbaugh is an entertainer. Ah, an entertainer with so much influence in real Republican politics!

Newt Gingrich: A Wealthy Man and Political Insider in Common Man’s Clothing

By Brigitte L. Nacos

With all attention focused on Mitt Romney’s income and taxes, Newt Gingrich has gotten a free ride after disclosing his and his wife’s 2010 tax returns. The adjusted gross income of $3.1 million that Mr. and Mrs. Gingrich reported is significantly lower than what the Romneys collected--mostly in capital gains. But making more than $3 million a year is not chopped liver either. The same is true for the total assets of the new Republican frontrunner for the GOP’s presidential nomination. It has been long known that Romney’s wealth amounts to $250 million or so.  But totally lost in the have versus have-not debate is the considerable wealth of Newt and Callista Gingrich—according to Newt Gingrich’s recent disclosure between $7.3 million and $38 million. While $7.3 million is quite a nest egg and might explain Mrs. Gingrich’s preference for Tiffany jewelry, it is utterly amazing to report a more than $30 million gap between the lowest and highest estimate of total assets.  

But whether $7 million or $38 million in his name and regardless of Matt Romney’s greater wealth, Newt Gingrich is a very wealthy man—part of the one-percent financial elite.

And while Gingrich hammers Romney for the ways in which his rival made hundreds of millions of dollars as the head of Bain Capital, he continues to deny that he made his own fortune as political insider, influence peddler, and unregistered lobbyist. To describe his $300,000 a year fee from Freddie Mac, an agency in the midst of the mortgage scandal, first as compensation for his role as historian and then as a strategist comes down to what he easily accuses his political opponents of—not telling the truth. Such phony explanations are insults to everyone else’s common sense.

So, the real Gingrich is a wealthy man who made his fortune as a political influence peddler. Yet, he has succeeded in convincing a growing number of Americans that he is fighting for the common man, for the common interest. That he is the man of the people and for the people. Gingrich speaks the language of and courts members and sympathizers of the populist Tea Party movement. Central to the populist message is faith in the goodness and rightness of ordinary citizens and the idea that the common sense of the common man trumps the views and judgment of elites. Not surprisingly, Tea Partiers have justified their cause by revisiting the grievances and demands expressed by Thomas Paine during the build-up to the American Revolution in his famous pamphlet “Common Sense,” a title that Tea Party patron Glenn Beck borrowed to attack what he alleged to be an out-of-control federal government. Gingrich himself identified early on President Obama and liberals as the greatest threat. Shortly after the birth of the Tea Party, Gingrich said, “People have a growing awareness that the combination of the Obama administration and left-wing Democrats who dominate the Congress means a genuine threat to everything about their life.”

Have you noted that Gingrich does not speak of President Obama, just Obama, thereby signaling the extreme right’s view that the president is illegitimate—not born in the U.S., not a Christian, un-American. Like every populist, Gingrich appeals to the emotions, to the fears, the anger, the frustration of people; he overstates; he disregards the truth—everything to manifest and widen a “fundamental” gap between “we” (the good) and “them” (the bad).

Sarah Palin is right: The GOP Primary Show Should Continue

By Brigitte L. Nacos

I thought I would never agree with Sarah Palin. But today I do. Palin told FOX News last night that she wants the primary competition to continue beyond South Carolina. Her tactic to “keep this thing going” would be a vote for Newt Gingrich in Saturday’s primary. Obviously, she would like to see Mitt Romney’s steamroller slowed down and keep his competitors—especially Gingrich who is most fluent in divisive Tea Party-Speak—viable beyond South Caroline and Florida.  

Although for very different reasons, I agree with Sarah Palin that the primary process should continue. Otherwise, the presidential candidate selection process will be once again a gross violation of the democratic ideal that was the rationale for the post-1968 reforms in both parties: Not party bosses, not the political elite, but rather voters were to determine the nominees of their respective parties.

When a sitting president is not challenged, as is the case with Barack Obama this year, the sole focus is on the competition within the “out” party—this time around on the GOP.  But regardless of party, the selection process has proved to be as undemocratic as the pre-1968 situation, when primaries were merely beauty contests and subject to be embraced or disregarded by party leaders.

While the parties themselves contributed to this state of affairs, media reporting and punditry as well as pollsters are first in line in the list of villains.

A look at the caucus/primary calendar of the GOP reveals that relatively small, unrepresentative states with tiny numbers of delegates dominate among the early election sites. In Iowa 28 delegates were at stake, in New Hampshire 12. Far larger, demographically representative states, were weeks or month later than the earliest caucus and primary states. For example, California with a total of 172 delegates at stake is set for a primary on June 5^th, New York with 95 and Pennsylvania with 72 for April 3^rd.

The news media, pundits, and pollsters, all interested in hyping the news, have good reasons to rarely or never reveal the total number of delegates needed to win a major party’s nomination. In this year’s Republican competition, the winner needs 1,144 delegates—one half of the 2,287 total plus one!

Occupy Wall Street: Opportunities and Limits of Contentious Politics

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Yesterday, as I walked towards the Metropolitan Museum of Arts and encountered the Occupy Wall Street protest directed against Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the recent eviction of OWS protesters from Zuccotti Park in downtown Manhattan, I wondered whether I witnessed the beginning of the end of the two-month old initiative. The number of protesters was quite small. Their mood seemed more festive than combative. They actually seemed to blend naturally into the beautiful fall day in always action-laden Central Park. From news reports we know that the mood of far larger groups of demonstrators was very different in other parts of the country, most of all at the University of California, Davis, following the pepper spraying of peaceful protesters. But this may change as well.

The Occupiers themselves and reporters characterize OWS commonly as a “movement.” But unless the burst of contentious political actions grows into a persistent social movement, “99 percent” will be remembered more as a catchy slogan than a dramatic turning point in favor of a much needed public debate about social justice and sustained political action for closing the 1-99 percent gap.

In the newest edition of his book Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics, Sidney G. Tarnow defines the characteristics of both contentious politics and social movements. According to him, “Contentious politics occurs when ordinary people—often in alliance with more influential citizens and with changed in public mood—join forces in confrontation with elites, authorities, and opponents.” As for social movements, he notes, “When backed by well-structured social networks and galvanized by culturally resonant, action-oriented symbols, contentious politics leads to sustained interaction with opponents—to social movements.”

We also know that major social movements in America’s history coincided with the emergence of new media—pamphlets during the revolutionary era; the penny press during the Jacksonian period in the 1830s; the yellow press and muckraking magazines in the Progressive era, and TV-networks at the time of the Civil Rights movement.

Now, social media allow social networking like never before. Charles Tilly and Lesley Wood caution, however, to “avoid technological determinism” since “the mere invention of new communications media did not single-handedly change the character of social movements.” Of course, they are right. People determine whether, how, and for what to use new media forms. As the Arab uprising cases demonstrated, transnational TV-reporting was equally or more important in engaging people than social networking.