Right Wing Pundits, and the Billions that Support Them

August 7, 2004 3:43 PM

Michelle Malkin and the Big Hustle Matt Stoller does a good job explaining the right-wing noise machine backing up author Michelle Malkin, whose new book promotes the virtue of Japanese internment camps and racial profiling. Eric Muller, UNC law school professor also does a pretty good job ripping up her arguments. As Stoller says: "Right-wing institutional support, with places to house people to create ideas, outlets to distribute and promote them, and the tactics and relationships to turn these ideas into the mainstream, is breathtaking".
posted by owillis (65 comments total)

Here's an excellent Photoshop Contest giving M.M. and her ilk their due (obviously NOT on Fark), that earned the ire of InstaPunk himself.
posted by wendell at 4:09 PM on August 7, 2004

Six decades before Guantanamo, Fred Korematsu refused to go quietly when the government tried to put him in a prison camp because of his race.
posted by homunculus at 4:15 PM on August 7, 2004

I have a sincerely honest question: Is it better to ignore radical literature or "insert speech of choice here", thus depriving it of much needed publicity, or better to loudly denounce said literature and attempt to cause a preemptive boycott?

I ask this because the book, IMHO, has not received much "positive attention". Reminds me of Moore's movie, before it became a hit. I didn't get the impression that anti-Moore folks were creating a national campaign to smear the movie until after it became a box-office smash (for documentaries). Were they (the anti-Moore folk) late with their campaign, or simply react to a developing "evil"?
posted by BlueTrain at 4:17 PM on August 7, 2004

Sorry, last line should read: , or simply reacting to a developing "evil"?
posted by BlueTrain at 4:18 PM on August 7, 2004

There's something to be said about preemption [insert irony here]. Malkin is about to get the big push (as the Swift Boat Vets have, though on a lesser scale) and its best to arm the gatekeepers (the media) with the whole story.
posted by owillis at 4:37 PM on August 7, 2004

I don't know, BlueTrain, I think the anti-Moore crowd swung into action as soon as it took the Palme d'Or at Cannes - they had to know where it was going. By the time Moore launched his "Disney controversy," I thought it seemed like the Right was all ready for him. That was weeks before the the film actually opened, so I'm not sure your assertion that they weren't out to "smear the movie until after it became a box-office smash" is really true...

In this case, Malkin set herself up - she's a blowhard, she's about as "Lunatic Right" as they get, and her own background make her look more than just a little like a hypocrite, so she was easy pickin's. Sorry, but going public with a suggestion that WWII Japanese internment camps were a good idea is bound to get you ridiculed, no matter who you are.
posted by JollyWanker at 4:38 PM on August 7, 2004

I'm not sure I understand your question BlueTrain, are you referring to Bowling for Columbine or Farenheit 9-11? I'm not sure when the Bowling campaign started, but the anti-Farenheit campaign started well before the movie was released. Many of the right wing critics even came out and said that they didn't have to watch the movie to know that it was a "pack of lies". And yes, you are correct, all of that attention helped to make it one of the highest grossing movies of the year (100 million + in the US alone).

In this case, it appears that the critics have actually read the book and are taking issue not only with the premise but the methodology and the supporting evidence. Should they ignore it? No. The problem that this book will be hyped beyond belief by the SCLM that is literally overflowing with apologists for fascist social theory these days. So they can ignore it and just let the rightwing pundits quote it to death as the US government begins setting up islamic concentration camps in the Arizona desert, or they can do their jobs as academics and make sure the book has an honest reading at some point.
posted by sic at 4:40 PM on August 7, 2004

Somehow this reminds me of the guy whose book was about how IBM helped the Nazis.

I thought this book might be worth reading until I caught an interview with the author on CNBC. Tyler Mathisen grilled him about his thesis and the evidence. It turned out that some of his "proof" was that IBM execs had walked by bulletin boards -- written in German -- with something to the effect of "Step one, get punchcard machines; step two, ????; step three, kill all jews."

I suspect that as this woman continues to make public appearances, any flaws in her theory and/or evidence will become apparent. Publicity being a double-edged sword, she would be discredited in this event.
posted by ilsa at 4:45 PM on August 7, 2004

I could be wrong about the Moore anecdote, BTW. Perhaps I didn't follow the anti-Moore sentiment closely enough. (Hell, before I saw the movie, I was a part of the anti-Moore sentiment, if only on principle) However, I guess the bigger point I was trying to make was whether preemptive attacks upon questionable speech are more effective than a tempered reaction to it after they're released to the general public.

I'm not suggesting that poor excuses for books, like this, shouldn't be addressed. But I get the feeling that people are looking for a fight. And instead of the general public coming to their own conclusions, we have "pundits" explaining to us how racist this book is.
posted by BlueTrain at 4:50 PM on August 7, 2004

The sad thing Ilsa, is that the SCLM will probably gloss over the flaws, especially if the real academics don't make a huge stink about them. Even if they do, the SCLM can just choose to ignore them or paint them in a negative light. It's unsettling to think that the reason that these hate authors exist is because there is a huge market out there for this kind of crap and the political zeitgeist, starting from the White House and mnoving through Congress approves of them.
posted by sic at 4:54 PM on August 7, 2004

Malkin's quite-long rebuttal, sources, and footnotes.

Seems like that's something that should have been put in the original post, maybe?
posted by Asparagirl at 4:56 PM on August 7, 2004

BlueTrain, I think you are mistaken if you don't think that the conclusions, on any issue, of the vast majority of Americans are greatly influenced by the media. That's why this book must be debunked in a big way and quickly.
posted by sic at 4:57 PM on August 7, 2004

ilsa, the book you reference - "IBM and The Holocaust" - is, in fact, a comprehensively, even exhaustively researched book, based heavily on internal IBM and German government documentation and financial records. It constitutes a devastating indictment of IBM's, uh, shall we say, flexibility, and deserves far, far better than the short shrift you've given it.

It especially does not deserve to be mentioned on a thread concerned with a work of shoddy scholarship that, if not knowingly written in bad faith, still skirts plagiarism even as it manages to dismiss the majority of responsible research into the Internment.

Shame on you for doing the far right's work for them.
posted by adamgreenfield at 5:09 PM on August 7, 2004

This racist crap tears me up inside.

Practically every group that came to the United States was first discriminated against. It started with the Native Americans who were already here, we killed hundreds of thousands of them, and tried to enslave them, but because they knew the territory too well they would often escape. We treated the African Americans about as well when we put them into slavery. We treated almost every other group that came over similarly, the Jews, the Japanese, Italians, Mexicans, and even the Irish, just to name a few. It may surprise some to know that at one time in America, the Irish were considered less than human, and drawn as savages in newspaper comics. The Irish weren’t even considered “white”. And look at how we threw the Japanese into internment camps in WWII. Japanese Americans were actually getting plastic surgery to look more white so that they wouldn’t be taken away. (See the Fred Korematsu link above). After the women’s rights movement, after the civil rights movement, you would have thought that Americans would have learned.

And now, after all that... isn't it obvious that we’re doing the same thing today with Arab Americans and gays??? It just makes me cry. History has a lot to teach us here.

The reason America was so successful was because we were a tolerant society. People do not want to live in a society where they are not wanted and treated poorly. Now because of the way the rest of the world perceives the United States, as an intolerant society, we are losing our creative class. We are also losing scientists, who find Europe to be much more tolerant. It is ultimately destroying our economy, and is alienating us from the rest of the world. You can read more about it here (http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/31466)
posted by banished at 5:24 PM on August 7, 2004

What are "we" doing to Arab Americans and gays that's the "same thing" as killing hundreds of thousands of Native Americans, enslaving African Americans, and treating the Irish like subhuman savages?
posted by techgnollogic at 5:33 PM on August 7, 2004

If "we" (Americans?) treated "almost every other group that came over similiarly, " but "The reason America was so successful was because we were a tolerant society," then:

When were we tolerant and successful, in your interpretation of US history?
posted by techgnollogic at 5:41 PM on August 7, 2004

Arab Americans are being racially profiled, and thousands are being held without lawyers. As for gays, ever hear of Matthew Shephard? Ohh yeah, and we're saying they don't have the right to get married, or have sex either, thanks to draconian sodomy laws.
posted by banished at 5:46 PM on August 7, 2004

We were never completely tolerant nor completely successful, but with the abolishment of slavery, the integration of schools and emphasis on diversity, and the women's rights movement, it seemed that we were headed in the right direction.
posted by banished at 5:48 PM on August 7, 2004

I'm completely shocked by the existence of this book. This goes way beyond Ann Coulter apologizing for Joe McCarthy. It's saddening that anyone still thinks Japanese-American internment was worthy of the United States.
posted by inksyndicate at 5:51 PM on August 7, 2004

Aaron James McKinney and Russel Arthur Henderson received two consecutive life sentences each for the murder of Matthew Shephard, and the Supreme Court struck down the Texas Sodomy Law in November, 2003.

Slavery is still abolished, schools are still integrated, diversity is still emphasized, and women still vote. We're still headed in the right direction.
posted by techgnollogic at 5:54 PM on August 7, 2004

So you think this book is an example of how we're headed in the right direction?

The fact that a book is being published called "In Defense of Internment" doesn't make you question that maybe we're not quite on track here?
posted by banished at 6:01 PM on August 7, 2004

I'm going to naively assume techgnollogic was being sincere in his question.

Guantanamo Britons were 'chained to the floor and beaten'

Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, was last night forced to address allegations that the American military subjected British prisoners to psychological torture and beatings during their two years of detention at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Al- Qa'eda and Taliban suspects on their knees at the American base

Speaking for the first time since his release this week, Jamal Udeen, 37, from Manchester, outlined a brutal regime of oppression including being chained to the floor during 12-hour interrogations and having an unknown drug administered by injection.

In a separate statement, Tarek Dergoul, 26, from east London, said he had been interrogated at gunpoint, beaten and subjected to "botched medical treatment" thought to involve amputation.

Red Cross: U.S. May Have Committed War Crimes at Guantanamo Bay

As for techgnollogic's second question I'm not really sure what answer he's looking for, might might be that perhaps the US hasn't been as tolerant as they like to claim, which doesn't absolve them of anything in the present. And certainly doesn't justify any of this woman's current onslaught of racism.
posted by Space Coyote at 6:03 PM on August 7, 2004

Let take gay marriage for one...

Now, I don’t know where you stand on the issue of gay marriage. Religiously I believe it is wrong, but I think if gay people want to be married, they should be allowed to. This nation was founded by those who were escaping religious persecution, people like the Pilgrims, who were not free to worship until they came to America. The whole point of America was supposed to be that this place would be a haven for various different people with different beliefs to come together and enjoy the freedom to worship whatever God or gods or idols that they choose to.

The whole point was to create a tolerating society in which the church and state were kept far apart to maintain these freedoms. Whether or not I think gay people are engaging in immoral acts by having sex with each other or getting married should be irrelevant. Limiting their freedoms just because they are gay is ridiculous! What ever happened to live and let live? What ever happened to the philosophy of the law? The philosophy of the law is to protect people and their property, not to limit the freedoms of a specific group of people.

Start trying to put yourself in other people's shoes techgnollogic. Sentencing murderers to life in prison doesn't make gay hate crimes go away. Saying we haven't been discriminating against Arab Americans after September 11th doesn't make it so. Get a clue. These are all signs that people still aren't getting it, this isn't what America was supposed to be about.
posted by banished at 6:07 PM on August 7, 2004

Well, for one techgnollogic, our troops are over "there". Perhaps, there's a case to be made that Americans, wherever they are, need to be interned too. Not that I agree. But of all the people I'd like to march off into a camp where I can forget all about them, people like you would probably fit that bill. Therein lies the danger of an official, or even not-so official, policy that seeks to categorize people by superficial traits.

I can't stand reading for instance, what I believe to be your ignorance. Does that mean you are? I don't know. But that's certainly not reason enough to lock you up for what I deem to be uncomfortable traits that don't jibe with mine.

Can't you see the slippery slope we're careening down? If you're unwilling to stand in another's shoes, if for only an instant, why should "they" be willing to stand in yours? This reactionary stupidity is what will surely bring about more terrorism, an uptick in policestate-like measures and for the most part, stick a fucking fork in our freedom to be individuals. We're done, if we start heading down this path.

Your way or the highway perhaps. It's assholes like you who are in power afterall. But I would advise against defending the normalization of treating an entire class of people as though the rights that they enjoy are only granted to them via a schizophrenic majority of which you call yourself a part.

All anybody asks is that one reasons these things through. If you can't, if a good portion of us can't, then you see techgnollogic, you and I both are completely wasting our time even drawing air.

When were we tolerant and successful, in your interpretation of US history?

I am an American who can tolerate and doesn't want to kill nor intern you am I not? There is your answer. There are millions of us. No matter how broken and morally bankrupt the right in this country is, they are not America. America has always been a sum of its parts. I'm a part, you're a part. Are you willing to meet half way and agree, that just because I disagree with what has become of us, I'm not on your side too, as an American? If you can allow for a country that not only allows for, but encourages dissent, as in freedom of speech, then you will understand that this is immutable. The Bill of Rights doesn't get set on pause just because a lot of us can't see the forest for the trees.
posted by crasspastor at 6:10 PM on August 7, 2004

Oh, great. adamgreenfield is back, just in time foor a good shaming!
posted by trharlan at 6:16 PM on August 7, 2004

I'll second Adam Greenfield's defense of "IBM and The Holocaust" and also note that American financial interests were not merely complicit in conducting business with both the Allies and the Axis during WW2 - corporate America was proto fascist and played a pivotal financial role (see: WALL STREET AND THE RISE OF HITLER and also these metafilter discussions. here, here, and here. ) in financing both the rise of the Nazi Party and the rebuilding of the German war-making potential. America, further, provided other non-pecuniary assistance to the Nazis, notably a dual inspiration in the form of new science of advertising and propaganda conceived by Edward Bernays and also the American Eugenicist Movement of the early 20th Century - which continues in a low key but persistent form to this day. :

The "Pioneer Fund" -

"Behind this resurgent fascism stands the Pioneer Fund. Established in 1937 by textile machinery millionaire, Wickcliffe Draper, the Pioneer Fund has a long connection with Nazi and neo-Nazi race theories, and for many years has been funding a small, tightly knit group of people who cite each other's work, review each other's books and acknowledge each other in their books. When scandal emerges, these people invariably deny knowing anything of the Pioneer fund's nefarious history, even though many scandals have broken into national prominence and articles about the fund have appeared for over three decades.

The Pioneer Fund was incorporated in 1937 by two American scientists: Harry Laughlin, who received an honorary doctorate from Heidelberg University in 1936 in honor of his contribution to Nazi eugenics, and Frederick Osborn, who wrote in 1937 that the Nazi sterilization law was 'the most exciting experiment that had ever been tried'.(35)

The fund had two purposes. The first, modeled on the Nazi breeding program, was aimed at encouraging the propagation of those 'descended predominantly from white persons who settled in the original thirteen states prior to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States and/or from related stocks, or to classes of children, the majority of whom are deemed to be so descended'. Its second purpose was to support academic research and the 'dissemination of information, into the 'problem of heredity and eugenics' and 'the problems of race betterment'."
posted by troutfishing at 6:50 PM on August 7, 2004

People aren't stereotypes, no matter how hard you want them to be. I think that is the problem with solutions like that proposed by Malkin. The environmentalist David Suzuki was a 3rd generation Canadian, but he was shipped off to live in squalor like all the other Japanese living in British Columbia. 3rd Generation! Does being Japanese define who he is as a person? How does one justify imprisoning people based on something beyond their control. The reasons for internment were wrong 60 years ago, and they are wrong today. This is absolutely ridiculous; more so, it is disgusting. In all this time people haven't moved on. Ignorance is so pervasive.
posted by chunking express at 6:52 PM on August 7, 2004

I'm telling you, build a 1-mile-high wall around America and keep the crazy bastards penned in. Now that's internment I could get behind!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:00 PM on August 7, 2004

Just let me "escape" to British Columbia first.
posted by crasspastor at 7:15 PM on August 7, 2004

crasspastor, I'd say we're already heading down that path. Fear drives this whole damned thing, and as it's in the right's interest to keep the fires of fear stoked, so too do they portray those who might try to downplay the threats or raise issues of civil liberties when it comes to "reasonable" suggestions such as internment as fifth columnists; and in a nation still so terrorized by September 11, plus innumerable stories of what might happen next, it reverberates.

I am beginning to think that the right has to just drive us right over the fucking cliff before people start to see things differently.
posted by kgasmart at 7:20 PM on August 7, 2004

Don't try to escape here, crasspastor. We interred a lot of Japanese, with the usual complimentary screwing-over of material assets. A generally unspoken and unacknowledged bit of Canadian history. :-(
posted by five fresh fish at 7:35 PM on August 7, 2004

So you think this book is an example of how we're headed in the right direction?

The fact that a book is being published called "In Defense of Internment" doesn't make you question that maybe we're not quite on track here?


No, I don't think the book is an example of any direction. It doesn't sound like something I'd agree with, but how does the fact that it's published have anything to do with how tolerant a society we are? We tolerate racist gibberish. We tolerate speech we don't agree with. If I published a book tomorrow called "Internment is Bad, M'kay" is that evidence that we're back on track? Of course not! There are dozens of books published every year that are full of lies and sick ideas.

Banished, you say that you think gay marriage is wrong, but think it should be allowed and tolerated. You don't say that it's a sign that we're on the wrong track, however. How come one thing you think is wrong (gay marriage) should be tolerated and isn't anything to panic about, but another thing you think is wrong (writing a book called "In Defense of Internment") is a sign that we're headed in the wrong direction?

I, personally, don't see either as anything to panic about. I don't think we're an intolerant society. I don't think we're treating Arabs anything remotely like we treated the Japanese. I certainly don't believe that we're less tolerant than we used to be. That doesn't mean we're perfect, or that we've reached the pinnacle of tolerance and have no where else to go. I just don't see how you can think that now we're headed downhill because we're intolerant, whereas before, when "we were successful because we were tolerant," we were officially treating minorities like second-class citizens, wouldn't let women vote, kept people as slaves, or killed them for the color of their skin.

Crasspastor: first you say "of all the people I'd like to march off into a camp where I can forget all about them, people like you would probably fit that bill" then you say "I am an American who can tolerate and doesn't want to kill nor intern you am I not?" So it's kind of hard for me to tell.

You also seem to identify me as someone who wants to lock an entire class of people up for no reason. I have no idea why you think that. I don't want to lock anybody up who hasn't done anything wrong. I don't think we should round up the Arabs or the Pakistanis or the Anti-war protesters or any other kind of people. I do think, however, that we are at war against an enemy who is relatively small in number but willing to employ incredibly powerful weapons to kill innocent people, and that might make our law enforcement agencies a little paranoid and sensitive. This sucks, and we have to do everything we can to avoid locking up, detaining, interning, or harassing people for no good reason.

I don't like the government. I don't trust them to respect my privacy. I don't want to give them any more leeway than I absolutely have to. But given a choice between arresting 1000 people for suspicious activity and holding them while their story checks out, or not arresting anybody because I don't know for sure they're terrorists and seeing 6 of them kill a thousand a month later, I think I know which I'd have to choose.
posted by techgnollogic at 7:37 PM on August 7, 2004

We interred a lot of Japanese

Well, we didn't inter as many as the yanks did, but we did intern quite a few!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:38 PM on August 7, 2004

techgnollogic: well put.
posted by loquax at 7:54 PM on August 7, 2004

I'm only saying techgnollogic -- it's a slippery slope, no matter which way you want to go. Not only that, it's ethically/legally inconsistent. The second or third worst terrorist attack on US soil was done by a renegade "patriot". Stav, above, made a good point I believe -- something about a wall.

Internment, war, maligning of an entire class of people, this is the lazy route. You wanna solve it? Start coming up with some better answers to the complex problems we face. We shall be harried by this and that until the end of time, it's time to get used to it and fuck this "our hands are tied" bullshit. You know as well as everyone else what became of tens of millions of souls during the twentieth century -- they were put to death due to potent, mass fear induced brainwashing. Are we willing to slide any further? Think about it: Terrorism, bombings, threats, fears, rumors of threats, hatreds, stigmatizings, lessons our grandchildren will hopefully learn never to do again, forever, for as far as the human eye can see.

And yes, I feel bad that I called you an "asshole" fwiw.
posted by crasspastor at 8:08 PM on August 7, 2004

Whether people of Japanese (and Italian*) descent were a security risk during the war, at the beginning, can be debated reasonably on both sides. However, in a crass political move, it was Earl Warren, later Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who advised President Roosevelt to *keep* the Japanese in camps in southern California, long after they were deemed harmless. He hoped to get the support of the dust bowl "Oakies" living there, who despised the Japanese as competitors for jobs.

* There was an internment camp for Italians in the midwest.
posted by kablam at 8:52 PM on August 7, 2004

i might agree with bluetrain on this one. Its like the STOP RACISM stickers...
posted by Satapher at 9:02 PM on August 7, 2004

"can be debated reasonably on both sides." - Ah, the establishment of "equivalence".
posted by troutfishing at 9:33 PM on August 7, 2004

After all, the US wasn't lining it's citizens up an machine gunning them into ditches.

It was merely rounding them up in concentration camps while their homes and businesses were seized and looted.
posted by troutfishing at 9:36 PM on August 7, 2004

At least in a free society we know that there are people who want to "stop" it, no matter how inane and useless the bumpersticker. Kinda like the anti-war marches last year. Didn't do a bit of good did they?

I would disagree. But maybe that's only because I attended the two "big" ones. Like this war, those who have fought in it, may cling to the belief that what they were doing wasn't just the sad simple fact, that they were conscripted into what amounts to the stirring of the timeless, ethnically fueled hornets nest of human suffering. The thimble-brained hornets of course, misconstrue time and again, why the big empire did the stirring in the first place. They didn't just didn't get it. That's why we had to ship them off or kill them where they stood.
posted by crasspastor at 9:38 PM on August 7, 2004

Seized their businesses, looted their property, ripped apart their families, housed them inadequately in mountain camps, hoped they'd all die, and then told 'em to start again, no hard feelings.

Not to mind, though. We did much the same with Ukrainians, a good number of other Europeans, and during the dirty thirties, took care of most of the single young men in Toronto by shipping them off to work camps in the middle of the prairies.

Unbeknowst to most Canucks, we've quite the sordid history.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:30 PM on August 7, 2004

Don't try to escape here, crasspastor. We interred a lot of Japanese, with the usual complimentary screwing-over of material assets. A generally unspoken and unacknowledged bit of Canadian history. :-(

aprox. 23,000 japanese canadians (in the usa it was aprox. 120,000) were abused by their own gov't, but it's hardly been unspoken and unacknowledged. almost the entire 1980's was an open discussion about wtf to do about this foul event. in '88 the gov't issued an official aknowlegement of wrongdoing and an apology, and paid each survivor $21,000. it's in history books and kids learn about it at school.

Unbeknowst to most Canucks, we've quite the sordid history.

odd how i learned most of that stuff in high school. things must be very different out west.
posted by t r a c y at 10:51 PM on August 7, 2004

techgnollogic has tried to make the false assumption that anyone in here is arguing that this book should be banned, and thus gets to cliam the free speech high-ground. No one is arguing anything of the sort, of course. It's the fact that it's being taken at all seriously be some sectionso of the media that is most worrying.

It almost feel like the right in the US is pushing the limits to see how much can be gotten away with in the name of national security and safety..
posted by Space Coyote at 11:30 PM on August 7, 2004

The second or third worst terrorist attack on US soil was done by a renegade "patriot".

But this book says that Oklahoma City was the work of Islamic Extremists with ties to Iraq! McVeigh was just a fallguy, how could an American be a terrorist?
posted by mosch at 11:44 PM on August 7, 2004

This comment below the first article nails the main point pretty well:

I am inclined to agree, though it's not clear whether she's a xenophone or plays one on TV. The real point of this article is that Michelle Malkin herself is irrelevant. It is those who are backing her that deserve scrutiny - they are the ones trying to rewrite history. There are always xenophobes, kooks, and those willing to say anything to make a buck. It is the system that employs and encourages these people that is the source of corruption.

The Heritage Foundation deserves to be discredited, along with the Amway salesmen who fund it. Malkin discredits herself.
Posted by: Matt Stoller at August 7, 2004 02:59 PM

posted by Space Coyote at 1:26 AM on August 8, 2004

Malkin's quite-long rebuttal, sources, and footnotes. Seems like that's something that should have been put in the original post, maybe?

Or not. After reading Eric Muller's amazingly detailed discussion of Malkin's awful scholarship (at the Volokh Conspiracy last week) *and* his six-part response to Malkin's petulant, laughably unfocused rebuttal (part two is among the most scathing, but all are well worth your time), it seems to me impossible to argue that Malkin knows what she's talking about. Which, as Stoller points out, won't make a bit of difference to her audience.

Muller - author of "Free to Die for their Country: The Story of the Japanese American Draft Resisters in World War II" - deserves some kind of blogger award for his work on this one.
posted by mediareport at 7:41 AM on August 8, 2004

odd how i learned most of that stuff in high school.

Did you also learn that we put generic Europeans into concentration camps? Did you also learn that we interned a lot of Ukranians?

Did you learn about the purging-of-the-cities during the depression and how the Canadian government used basic slave labour to build the West's highways and parks?

Maybe I wasn't paying attention in school, or maybe they weren't talking about this stuff back in the 70s.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:06 AM on August 8, 2004

mediareport - that demolition job by Muller is one of the most quietly destructive things I've ever read online. Informed, well written and filled with a gentle rage. I'm going to have to pick up one of books at some point.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 9:15 AM on August 8, 2004

Did you also learn that...

that's precisely what i was referring to. i suppose the schools i went to weren't particularly mainstream (private, alternative, and performing arts), but i learned of these things at about the same time they apparently weren't teaching you about them. regardless, the information is out there, in the form of dramatic films, documentaries, books, etc. the information has hardly been hidden away.
posted by t r a c y at 9:48 AM on August 8, 2004

Free country, she's entitled to her opinion and if we start locking up US citizens without due process, the terrorist will definitely have won. Oh, and my opinion is that if there were a possible way to call an asian woman an uncle tom, she's the most self-hating kind.
posted by mikojava at 9:57 AM on August 8, 2004

if there were a possible way to call an asian woman an uncle tom, she's the most self-hating kind.

FYI, mikojava, "Yellow Uncle Tom" is already in use. But as someone who's occasionally labeled a "self-hating Jew" for daring to criticize the Israeli government, I think criticism of Michelle Malkin that uses the fact that she's of Asian descent to draw conclusions about her psychological state is both unproductive and offensive. Can we just stick to the facts, please, without quasi-racist armchair speculation? Thanks.

thatwhichfalls: I agree; Muller's tone throughout the debate has been beautifully calm (I know I'd have turned up the snark factor long ago). FWIW, I've been reading Muller since he first started IsThatLegal; he's that rare combination - a smart blogger who doesn't have time for viciousness.
posted by mediareport at 10:35 AM on August 8, 2004

But given a choice between arresting 1000 people for suspicious activity and holding them while their story checks out, or not arresting anybody because I don't know for sure they're terrorists and seeing 6 of them kill a thousand a month later, I think I know which I'd have to choose.

That you don't see how deeply unamerican that is is very disappointing, to say the least. Locking up 994 innocent people because you're scared that the other 6 may be planning to do something is basically and intrinsically wrong, no matter what's going on in the world. Or who you're afraid of. Or who the government in power wants you to be afraid of.

That whole blog thing (posted by EB in MeTa the other day) rebutting Malkin is really gold--and definitely the best of the web.
posted by amberglow at 11:41 AM on August 8, 2004

If I were to dissect Malkin's motivations it would lean more towards the fact that she was an unremarkable writer making little money working for a third-rate paper in Los Angeles who discovered the right-wing gravy train. I don't know if her idiotic views came first or second, but again, it doesn't matter. She's just a pretty face to attach to heritage foundation talking points.
posted by Space Coyote at 1:01 PM on August 8, 2004

Malkin is just another piss ant lying assed shill to be disposed of like so much toilet paper when she is no longer of use.

Follow the money.

That's where the truly dangerous people are.
posted by nofundy at 1:23 PM on August 8, 2004

After the women’s rights movement, after the civil rights movement, you would have thought that Americans would have learned.

It's not an American thing, it's a human thing. Just about every nation on earth has done similar things, we're just bigger and more powerful than most so our applications of that ugliness are more noticeable.

I dunno that any movement anywhere will ever completely remove the urge to hate an "other" from the collective human psyche. I don't like it, but I'm beginning to conclude that's the way it is. We can remove thelegalistic manifestations of prejudice and hatred, but the emotional drives will always be there in one form or another.
posted by jonmc at 3:15 PM on August 8, 2004

who discovered the right-wing gravy train

Long before it became real, I thought it would be real smart to write some evangelist Christian graphic adventures in the "Kings Quest/Monkey Island" genre.

I could have made a killing.
posted by five fresh fish at 5:28 PM on August 8, 2004

I dunno that any movement anywhere will ever completely remove the urge to hate an "other" from the collective human psyche.

except for a movement that removes all notion of "other" ... the "race traitor" movement? the "biodiversity" movement? unfortunately, i'm pretty white (as is my girlfriend), but if everyone was committed to only procreate with a person of a dissimilar race/religion/nationality, it seems like we'd be a lot better off in a few generations. except we couldn't identify those darn terrorists as easily ...
posted by mrgrimm at 6:16 PM on August 8, 2004

mrgrimm, race is only the tip of the other hating iceberg. There's nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, politics, being from the next block, and having the wrong haircut. And every last human being on the planet is guilty of it to some extent.
posted by jonmc at 6:24 PM on August 8, 2004

I began my career in newspaper journalism more than a decade ago as an editorial writer and columnist for the Los Angeles Daily News (1992-94). Covered school board meetings and pole sign ordinances. Exposed Rep. Maxine Waters' gang-infested job-training center boondoggle. Received a death threat from the Mexican mafia. Moved to the Pacific Northwest and worked at the Seattle Times from 1996 to 1999. Wrote editorials supporting a repeal of the death tax. Opposed editorial board on everything else. Exposed Gov. Gary Locke's Buddhist temple cash connections. Opposed publisher and supported successful campaign to abolish race-based affirmative action in government hiring, contracting, and college admissions. Quit job and moved to Washington, D.C.
My column, now syndicated by Creators Syndicate, appears in nearly 200 papers nationwide. My first book, Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores (Regnery 2002), was a New York Times bestseller.


Now that is what I call an extensive resume. From writing about pole sign ordinances to bestseller. Seems some of her biggest accomplishments include death threats and quitting jobs. Even what little is here seems overstated.

Am I the only one getting tired of the fact that all one needs to be heard in this country and attract the big bucks is to hold a disgustingly nasty opinion about one race or another?

And I saw some links above that described some of her columns as "moderate." I have read this woman's articles for nearly 8 years and have yet to run across one that I would consider moderate.
posted by charms55 at 7:56 AM on August 9, 2004

Locking up 994 innocent people because you're scared that the other 6 may be planning to do something is basically and intrinsically wrong, no matter what's going on in the world.

Good thing that's not what I suggested. I spoke only of arresting suspects. You can argue that a law enforcement agency or asset is being sloppy or unreasonable, but you cannot argue that the detention of an innocent suspect is intrinsically unamerican. It isn't the police's responsibility to establish guilt or innocence. My example was a little ridiculous because you're never going to find 994 innocent people to arrest when you're looking for 6, but the point is that arrests of innocent people is not a failing of the system. It's an unavoidable aspect of policing a free society. When an innocent person is arrested, it's what happens after they are deemed harmless that matters.
posted by techgnollogic at 12:49 PM on August 9, 2004

I suspect techgnollogic is an Al-Queda operative! Lock him up for a year!
posted by five fresh fish at 1:12 PM on August 9, 2004

That would be an unreasonable suspicion and, therefore, wrong. It would not be wrong to arrest me if the suspicion was reasonable, whether I was innocent or not.

Focus on fighting unreasonable detainments, not detainments of innocent people. The chilling effects of the latter is like shooting yourself in the foot. If a reasonably suspicous man is arrested for a crime he didn't commit, then you should be glad when he's cleared, and make sure he gets cleared, but acknowledge how bad things looked to the arresting officer. How difficult is it to not seem like you're a member of an international terrorist organization?

Mike Hawash was an innocent man! Arrested for donating to the wrong charity! He didn't know! Innocent! America is racist! Free Mike Haw- He what? Oh, he plead guilty to conspiring to wage war against the United States, turned states evidence and testified against 4 other terrorist assholes, and was sentenced to 8 years in prison. *crickets* No retraction, no we were wrong to accuse dozens of law enforcement agents and justice department officials of racism and profiling and secret police fascism bullshit. Nothing, just more of the same baseless accusations you so easily, haphazardly, and wrongfully accuse the people - in the line of fire protecting your bitch asses - of making.
posted by techgnollogic at 8:37 PM on August 9, 2004

if everyone was committed to only procreate with a person of a dissimilar race/religion/nationality, it seems like we'd be a lot better off in a few generations.

Eh, I don't like this idea. We should be celebrating diversity, not trying to eliminate it. Besides, like jonmc said, people who want to hate will find a reason.

Why don't we try "eliminating the other", as you say, by just admitting we're all fucking human beings whose lives are equally valuable and we shouldn't be looking to hurt or hate others for their perceived differences?
posted by nath at 1:54 PM on August 10, 2004

techgno, tell us how many people have been arrested/picked up/detained since 9/11, or, since the Patriot Act was instituted? Oh, you can't say? Oh well.

How many convictions?
posted by amberglow at 2:24 PM on August 10, 2004

How many people have been arrested in the past 3 years? Uh, how should I know? Go find out yourself.
posted by techgnollogic at 3:04 PM on August 10, 2004