Giving in to bullying isn’t “damage control”
by digby
PFAW has done an excellent analysis of how the right wing bully strategy works using a recent kerfuffle at the Smithsonian institution. This bit is particularly important:
Within 48 hours of the CNS story’s publication, the Smithsonian bowed to pressure and removed Wojnarowicz’s work from the exhibition, leaving no time for a public debate on the role of our public museums, much less on the value of the work in question. When it closed the door on a public debate, the Smithsonian clearly hoped to close the door on a brewing scandal. It did not. Instead, it sent a clear signal to both would-be censors and their opponents: the Smithsonian’s collections, and our collective history, are open to politically motivated revision.
The same approach applies to everything from “ACORN” to “Betrayus” to “NPR” to missing “W” keys on the keyboards. The modern conservative media apparatus changes in some details but the song remains the same. It’s a well known strategy, it’s been in effect for over a decade and the liberal institutions fall for it over and over and over again. I don’t know when they will learn that trying to “get out in front” of these things by firing the alleged offender or joining the conservative outcry is more than simple cowardice — it’s exactly what the conservatives need them to do to fulfill the strategy. The “damage control” is factored in.
Read the whole piece. It’s really interesting.
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