You DO realize that when we dismiss each other blithely by calling others XXXXXXX-Haters, that we

[tom_paine]

are doing the work of the Loyal Bushies for them.

Think about it. Bushies have invented whole cottage industries (based in the most up-to-date and soundest methods of psychological manipulation, advertising, marketing, and PR) designed to make disinterested observers tune out truth-tellers like Richard Clarke, Valerie Plame, etc.

One of these dozens of methods performed on literally hundreds or thousands of people is the Big Smear. Take all their views and dismiss them in a single rhetorical flourish. In an A.D.D. Society, Bushies have mastered the quick sound byte that delivers advertising punch straight to the subconscious.

One of these serial-Big Smears is the blanket dismissal of EVERYTHING a Loyal American says to a Bushie by calling them a "Bush Hater". They have also pioneered such big smears with the pseudo-psychology behind it like, "Bush Derangement Syndrome" and other I am sure we have not yet heard.

I have always proposed that Bushie Framing and Propaganda, because it now so suffuses everything with it's False Reality Bubble and Phony Conventional Wisdoms, combined with the fact that like all good advertising, it acts on the subconscious making it more difficult to defend against, means that we all are affected, even those of us who are on constant guard against Bushie Propaganda and adopting Bushie Frames.

My point: Have not all of us who call each other "XXXXXXX Haters" do the same thing in the same way, as our TVs have taught us, even if we so badly consciously wanted it not to be so? Because in the end, it is such an effect silencing and discrediting tool, as much or more as "conspiracy theorist".

Am I the only one who has noticed a sudden and sharp rise in the use of the "Hillary/Hugo/Whoever Haters" smear around here? Noticed that is an absolute debate-killer?

To those who feel this is a proper sentiment and would like to see people do more discussing of issues and less "You're a Hillary/Hugo/Whoever Hater!", could you please give it a kick and a recommend?

No, I don't think it will change anything, but I think it still needs to be said.

[tekisui]

1. Very true.

Framing is everything in politics. Many legitimate criticisms of a candidate will be ignored and/or deflected. Then, the critic is torn down.

[Breeze54]

2. Thank You! ~ It is being used here as a "silencing tool"!

I suspect the culprits are trolls.

If they aren't, then they sure act like trolls.

Good Post! :D

:kick: & Recommend!

[tom_paine]

3. A few are trolls, but I believe the vast majority are DUers.

It's like a tool that sits on the wall, tempting a person because it is a rhetorical flamethrower that razes the opponent to ahses.

I'd be lying if I said I never did anything like that. But as time goes by, I realize it more for what it is.

[troubleinwinter]

12. "they sure act like trolls". YES.

[BOSSHOG]

4. Its also used in the Sports Forum

Not to diminish your excellent post and point, but if you point out the shortcomings of a football conference you run the risk of being called a hater. Its rather funny in that forum, but you make an excellent point.

[formercia]

14. Warrior Nation Psyche

Hate the enemy. The difference between sports and war is that most walk off the field in sports.
Sports is part of our warrior training and mental conditioning as a nation.

[tom_paine]

16. I imagine that it's use, like all Convetional Wisdom, in now increasingly felt everywhere

It is becoming how we, collectively as a nation, think.

Like in that High School where the kids wearing the t-shirts had a large part of the high school viciously (not violently, though, I think) getting insults, death threats, high scholl minor sem-bully shit, etc.

Or the recent open hostility of the S-CHIP veto or the cutting back of LIHEAP (heating aid for the elderly and poor).

Not everyone, generalizations always have exceptions, sometimes as numerous as the "generalization", but our National Personality has definitely taken a "mean-drunk" turn for the worse.

Also, in the sports forums, such kiddie-behavior is sometimes FUN :evilgrin: and it's ultimately harmless.

My team sux. No your team sux. Blah blah blah... It's a sports talk-radio party! :party:

Not so much so in the institutions that help shape public opinion by providing information, which if it isn't quality information people can analyze for themselves, hurts the whole nation rather badly. Or tenfold in the halls of power where decisions based on faulty 1/0 yes/no thinking also hurt the nations, and many millions of people personally.

[BOSSHOG]

18. "Stop with the Hater-aid" complete with color pictures

I have to chuckle. I have a hard time rationalizing hating an inanimate object.

I might add to your post "becoming how we think." I believe the turning point was when reagan did away with the fairness doctrine giving birth to the screamers on right wing radio. At least that pushed the process along. Conservatives are mostly responsible for changing the tone in America and then fake outrage when others who do not agree with them join them in the tone. And the escalation continues.

However, a historical perspective. Burr and Hamilton did a helluva job of hating each other back in the day.

[tom_paine]

24. It's not the hating that's new, it's the industrialization of hating that's new.

Well, even that's not really new, now having been around for a century or more.

But this new form of Bushie-Orwellian redefiniton of language is operating along certain immutable psychological principles which become more easily predictable the large the sample group (talk about putting the power of the "psychological a-bomb" the hands of glorified marketing whizzes).

[bryant69]

5. It might have a place

I mean if someone is dismissive of Hillary or Edwards or Chavez without producing any valid reason, the term hater might be valid in those situations.

Of course producing a valid reason and producing a reason you agree with are two different things, I suppose.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Beausoir]

6. Rec'd. n/t

[robcon]

7. I don't think what we do on this board matters.

I think when the Democratic candidates attack each other with unfair spin, that matters. But DU is just a political board.

[havocmom]

9. DU has LOTS more readers than discussion participants

You might be underestimating the effect. Lots of people lurk and read to learn.

[robcon]

13. Yes, but LOTS MORE PEOPLE read about the latest speeches

by Clinton, Obama and Edwards - and what they've said about each other.

Any of the poisonous threads on DU are insignificant to the point that they can be completely ignored for their effect on the electorate, or on the ability of the Repugs to use those claims in the GE.

What the candidates say matters. What the posters on DU say can be ignored, IMO.

[havocmom]

15. Posionous thread get quoted by RW on-air air-heads too

Lots of people are followers. They find a comfy phrase and they take it to heart. They spread it so they have something to talk about to others.

DU ain't Vegas. What happens here DOES NOT stay here.

[EFerrari]

25. That's a good reminder. Words have consequences. n/t

[HughMoran]

8. K&R

This is really killing discussion here.

[havocmom]

10. K&R

Excellent points. Hope you keep this one in your journal for a LONG time. I would like to be able to refer some people here to the sane and accurate observation you make.

:thumbsup:

[mikelgb]

11. bush hater

[Catherine Vincent]

17. Sorry, but there has always been Clinton-haters.

It's just that some are here on DU.

[tom_paine]

21. Yes, but in those day we didn't make a cottage industry trademarked term

Sure that what the Bushies were and are...Clinton-Haters. With their customary totalitarian-style projection they therefore call our legitimate concerns of High Crimes and Misdemeanors by the Bushies involving a million plus dead and trillions stolen to a consensual adulterous blow job.

My point is not the existance of actual XXXXXXX-Haters. It's a statistical certainty that there are many people who unreasonably hate the Clintons, Chavez, Bush, Reagan, all public figures have those who revile them because they just don't like them.

My point is turning "XXXXXXX-hater" into this cookie-cutter defense now used more and more often by all of us. Sort of industrial-strength propaganda which the Bushies are so well-known for. It turns a quality of theirs (unreasoning hatred) into a shield, a bludgeon from which they can deflect and confuse legitimate criticism against them.

It's the Rovian-Orwellian verbal judo flip that we see so often. Up is Down. War is Peace. Slavery is Freedom.

That's what I am trying to bring out with this post.

[EFerrari]

19. There is a small group of people who really are haters.

And while that's an ugly term, it's what they do or at least, where they tend.

Lightly dismissing anyone for any reason is not a community builder. But naming a behavior for what it is can be a relief, too.

[tom_paine]

22. You are correct. See post #21. n/t

[Breeze54]

26. It's way over used at DU.

And it's used against anyone that says anything that the responder with the 'XXX Hater!' memo
apparently didn't comprehend or misinterpreted or because they're dumber than a box of rocks.
Very immature, imho.

[stirlingsliver]

20. Anyone Can Call Me An XXXX-Hater

Anyone can call me an XXXX-hater.

Where XXXXX = Bush

or where XXXX = Cheney

or where XXXX = most Rethuglikans

or where XXXX = "pro-life" politicians

or where XXXX = people who do not support full rights for ALL people.

[EFerrari]

23. The Algebra of Name Calling.

lol

:)

[blondeatlast]

27. Amen. for those of us who are undecided, it makes legitimate concerns not worth bringing up.

Quotes, votes, donations that concern us and are brought up are routinely dismissed as being "anti-..." or dismissed as trollish.

That REALLY bothers me. If this isn't a "safe" place to discuss legitimate concerns then there is no place for them.

I avoid GD/P and it kind of saddens me. I want to participate but the vitriol keeps me from it.

Let's remember we are all aiming for the same destination, but there's many ways of getting there. Some of us want to explore all the routes but instead are told we don't even belong on the road.

Very uncool.