CONCLUSION: A theory on HuffPost's motivation for its "racist" smear against the Tea Party; how to make your voice known

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Continued from:

FINDING 3: HuffPost is far guiltier than Tea Party leaders of tolerating and protecting members who engage in hate speech and calls for violence

CONCLUSION: A theory on HuffPost's motivation for its "racist" smear against the Tea Party; how to make your voice known

So what is HuffPost's motivation? What would cause it to maliciously smear the Tea Party's leaders, and attendees of its events ("the Tea Party"), with the false charge of "racism"?

Only HuffPost can explain why it has has acted as it has. Perhaps one day, someone in a position of influence will ask it to do so.

We contend there are a number of interrelated reasons for its behavior:

1. To blunt the growing resonance that the Tea Party is having with the American people --- without substantively addressing any of it.
   More Americans now claim the average Tea Party activist is aligned with their views on major issues than President Obama. 28% of Americans call themselves supporters of the Tea Party --- while only 20% of Americans self-identify as "liberal." This is a stunning success for an organization that didn't even exist one year ago. Rather than engaging the Tea Party in a civil debate on the substance of its concerns and criticisms, however, advocates of the status quo would rather hurl hateful, vile smears.
   
   
2. To deflect attention away from the fact that the vast majority of political violence and off-the-charts "hate speech" in recent years has been perpetrated by "liberals" and leftists.
   The Media Research Center recently completed a report on the proliferation of left-wing violence; more data here, here, here, here, here. Regarding the left's use of hate speech against political opponents (which HuffPost ignores, wholesale), see reminders of when dissent was patriotic here, here, here.
   May 2, 2010 update on leftist violence here; leftist "hate speech" signs here, here; video here.
   
   
3. To cause this worst-of-all smears to publicly hang over the Tea Party's head.
   After all, how does one defend against a false charge of racism? It's the equivalent of trying to respond to a question such as, "So when did you stop beating your children?"
   
   
4. To try to intimidate the Tea Party into silence.
   What better way to stuff a sock in a critic's mouth than to teach him that there will be a savage price for speaking out in the future?
   
   
5. To dissuade Americans of color from joining the Tea Party --- and stigmatize those who already are members, as being the equivalent of "Uncle Toms" to their races.
   And anecdotal evidence suggests that this has been a somewhat successful strategy --- until recently. More here, here. On the other hand, some black Americans have been motivated to stand up to such slurs and support the Tea Party, as documented here.
   
   
6. To promote the (false) notion that the American left is genuinely concerned about the welfare of African-Americans.
   Freedom-oriented economists and philosophers argue that leftists have caused more harm to black Americans than any other force in recent years.
   

In addition to these objectives, to have a "news" entity as powerful as HuffPost essentially leading the charge in smearing the Tea Party as "racist" serves as a larger warning, against others who speak out against the radical left --- or contemplates doing so.

We also asked Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr., M.D., a forensic psychiatrist and the author of the book "The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness," to comment on why an otherwise "professional" organization would knowingly smear others with false charges of racism. Dr. Rossiter's response (emphasis added):

The motivations and objectives of the radical left listed above are right on target, but are embedded in a larger and deeper set of motivations. In fact, the radical leftist views any opposition to his neurotically (and in some cases psychotically) driven agenda as a villainous attack on his efforts to create an egalitarian utopia, to undo what he believes to be the terrible injustices of capitalism, to compensate by “redistributing” to all who have suffered, and to punish the "evil rich" and others who, in his mind, are callously indifferent to the victims of the world.

This last motive is just as critical as the first three: the leftist mind is full of hatred originally felt as infantile rage toward the depriving, withholding, neglectful, abusive parents of his formative years. In his unconscious, the present day reincarnations of those evil parents are conservatives, republicans, libertarians, and anyone else who actively opposes him. In the leftist’s mind, these people must be punished.

The efforts of the radical leftist/statist to "shut down the debate" are different in degree but not in kind from any dictator's (the Russian, North Korean, Venezuelan or Iranian government's) brutal suppression of dissidents in the press or on the streets. The radical leftist is beyond intellectual cowardice in not permitting an open debate: in his doctrinaire mindset, opposing ideas are intolerable, must be seen as heresy, and must be excluded, lest they unsettle the minds of true believers. The leftist views any opposition to the idealized state -- the deified state – as the work of the devil (or in this case, Tea Party demonstrators).

The leftist's position on this matter is fundamentally paranoid: he believes that individual liberty, the sovereignty of the individual, and free market capitalism permit -- and even advocate – not only a lethal neglect toward the plight of ”society's” victims, but also an active exploitation of the masses for material gain and sadistic satisfaction. The left's paranoia envisions a malevolent conspiracy (“the vast right-wing conspiracy”) which must be destroyed in preparation for the coming collectivist utopia. In the leftist’s unconscious fantasies, that utopia is the idealized good mother/parent who will replace the evil, depriving, abusive, coldly neglectful, bad mother.

If this sounds nuts to you, it is -- but these dynamics are well established (in the work of Suttie, Sullvan, Jacobson, Klein, Kernberg, Kohut, Masterson, Meissner, Bowlby, Shengold, Pierce and Newton, and others in the psychoanalytic community, by Ellis, Beck, Maultsby and others in the cognitive psychotherapy community, by Bradford, Whitfield, Miller and Stettbacher and others in the inner child school, and by my own work on these matters.)

The radical leftist's use of racism as an epithet is clearly retaliatory: to the extent that he knows he is destroying the liberty and taking the wealth of his fellow citizens, he is vulnerable to feeling shame and guilt. In order to avoid these painful emotions, he has to blame his critics, suppress their protests about what he is doing to us and our country, and punish them for their heresy against his dogmas. Of course, the more ruthless of the radical left don't care about anyone’s protests, but those with some residue of conscience have to defend themselves against remorse for their all too obvious destructiveness.

Given the facts contained in this report, HuffPost clearly has a choice to make:

To continue fashioning "news" stories regarding the Tea Party's leaders and event attendees based on libels and falsehoods --- and continue publishing the hate-saturated comments that these stories incite in the radical leftists it has enabled, protected and emboldened. Or...

To recommit itself to its nonpartisan journalistic principles, and stop enabling and protecting radical leftists to pathologically violate its comment policy, and possibly even the law.

If HuffPost chooses the second course, it should give Tea Party leaders a platform from which to address the persistent vilification and libels that it has incited and tolerated against them over the past several months. For as Ms. Huffington said in a 2008 video interview, HuffPost is happy to provides a means for public figures to respond to accusations of serious wrongdoing against them:

"If someone wants to smear you about something, come to us."

Was Ms. Huffington serious about that offer? Time will tell.

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How to make your voice known

If you are as concerned as we are about HuffPost's actions, and would like to make your voice known to its management, here's how to do so.

We also encourage you to email your comments to huffwatcher1 (at) gmail.com. We'll be publishing the best of your comments in a few weeks, and forwarding them to HuffPost's management.


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To download and print out a PDF version of this report, click here.

You are here:

HuffPost vs. the Tea Party: Introduction

FINDING 1: HuffPost has used false/misleading "news" reporting to unfairly smear and incite hatred of Tea Party leaders and event attendees

FINDING 2: HuffPost's smearing of the Tea Party is part of its continuing pattern of smearing and unfairly inciting hatred against others

FINDING 3: HuffPost is far guiltier than Tea Party leaders of tolerating and protecting members who engage in hate speech and calls for violence

CONCLUSION: A theory on HuffPost's motivation for its "racist" smear against the Tea Party; how to make your voice known

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