Bad Deeds for 7-22-2010 – RWAs Dominate the List

 

In Rick Perry’s Texas, Teachers Are Having to Take Second And Third Jobs To Support Their Families – A new survey by researchers at Sam Houston State University shows that the percentage of teachers who held second jobs this past school year was the highest in the three decades that the study has been conducted. Four in 10 teachers – a record number –moonlighted this year. The new figures represented a jump of nearly 50 percent from two years ago.

The survey also pointed to a potential toll in the classroom as two-thirds of those who moonlight said the quality of their teaching would be better if they didn’t have to work another job. But most say they can’t afford to quit.

 

Bad Deeds – A Long Republican Tradition – During the 1972 presidential campaign, the Nixon campaign committee maintained a “dirty tricks” unit focused on discrediting Nixon’s strongest challengers. According to Woodward and Bernstein, Nixon aide Dwight Chapin hired fellow USC alumnus Donald Segretti to run a campaign of dirty tricks (which Segretti dubbed “ratf–king”) against the Democrats in 1972.

The purpose of the operation was to create as much bitterness and disunity within the Democrat primary as possible. One notable example of Segretti’s wrong-doing was a faked letter on Democratic presidential candidate Edmund Muskie’s letterhead falsely alleging that U.S. Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson, a fellow Democrat, had had an illegitimate child with a 17-year-old. Many other dirty tricks were used such as putting out false press releases or “leaked documents” in the name of political opponents, spying on rival campaigns, jamming phone lines, hiring “rioters” and “activists,” conducting deceptive or offensive get out the vote phone canvasses, push polls, and similar activities.

Segretti recruited Karl Rove, who at that time was the executive director of the College Republicans, to work in this dirty tricks campaign. In the fall of 1970, Rove had used a false identity to enter the campaign office of Democrat Alan J. Dixon, who was running for Treasurer of Illinois. He stole 1,000 sheets of paper with campaign letterhead, printed fake campaign rally fliers promising “free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing”, and distributed them at rock concerts and homeless shelters, with the effect of disrupting Dixon’s rally.

Rove later became president of the College Republicans by faking credentials for convention delegates that resulted in two elections, further resulting in two presidents. Republican National Committee Chairman George H. W. Bush had to settle the dispute as to who was the actual president. In the meantime, a Rove operative sent out information to make it look like Rove’s competitor had leaked the dispute to the press. Based on this misinformation, Bush named Rove as president of the College Republicans.

Rove then introduced Harvey Leroy “Lee” Atwater to George H.W. Bush who was then the RNC Chairman. Atwater invented or improved upon many of the dirty tricks techniques, including creating and spreading reputation-destroying rumors. Atwater’s most notorious campaign was the 1988 presidential election, in which Atwater approved the infamous Willie Horton ad. This ad was so powerful and devastating that even though only a few people ever saw the ads when originally ran, they saw it or read about it in the news because of the stir they caused. This of course, is the ultimate in politics – free advertising (like the more-recent “swiftboat” ads).

During the election, a number of false rumors were reported in the media about Dukakis, including the claim by Idaho Republican Senator Steve Symms that Dukakis’s wife Kitty had burned an American flag to protest the Vietnam War, as well as the claim that Dukakis himself had been treated for a mental illness.

During that election, George W. Bush, the then vice president’s son, took an office across the hall from Atwater’s office, where his job was to serve as “the eyes and ears for my dad,” monitoring the activities of Atwater and other campaign staff. In her memoir, Barbara Bush said that George W. and Atwater became “great friends.”

After the election, Atwater was named chairman of the Republican National Committee.

As a member of the Reagan administration in 1981, Atwater gave an anonymous interview to Political Scientist Alexander P. Lamis. Part of this interview was printed in Lamis’ book The Two-Party South, then reprinted in Southern Politics in the 1990s with Atwater’s name revealed:

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Atwater: “You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’

By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’ – that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff.

You’re getting so abstract now that you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is that blacks get hurt worse than whites.

And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other.
You follow me – because obviously sitting around saying, ‘We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘Nigger, nigger.'”

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What Atwater was describing is commonly called “dog whistling,” a term for a type of political campaigning or speechmaking which employs coded language that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has a different or more specific meaning for a targeted subgroup of the audience [RWAs of the South].

For example, the phrase “states’ rights“, although literally referring to powers of individual state governments in the United States, has been described as a code word for institutionalized segregation and racism. In the same vein, Reagan’s use of phrases linked to insidious racial stereotypes—his talk of Cadillac-driving welfare queens, or “young bucks” buying T-bone steaks with food stamps—pandered to bigots while making sure not to alienate voters whom starker language would have scared away. And just tonight I heard a Republican candidate on TV saying they may need to use “second amendment remedies” if the election doesn’t go their way. That sounds like legal action to most people, but the Tea Party herd and NRA supporters know it means get out your guns and start shooting.

Now we have Republican operatives using fake video to get an organization that helps poor people defunded and disbanded, and a good person that helps poor farmers fired.

The bigger problem that needs to be addressed is what do we do to push back against the Breitbarts of the world and against Fox’s propaganda machine? Because they will do this again as long as they believe their tactics are going to work. Will other media outlets quit bringing him or others like him on the air to repeat their lies? Only if you tell them to stop doing it. Will people learn to recognize when something smells bad? Only with your active help. Know the facts; speak the truth. And demand it of everyone else.

Regards,

Jim