NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #16/NN_1992_16.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/5375

Text File | 1992-07-27 | 7.1 KB | 188 lines

Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!destroyer!gumby!wupost!mont!pencil.cs.missouri.edu!rich
From: [e-mail] (Harel Barzilai)
Subject: RE-FRAMING DISSENT AS CRIMINAL SUBVERSION (part 1)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: [e-mail]
Sender: [e-mail]
Nntp-Posting-Host: pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: ?
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 21:33:32 GMT
Approved: [e-mail]
Lines: 173

Topic 45        Repression & Paradigm Shift Frame       4 responses
cberlet Public Eye Network      10:01 am  Jul 25, 1992
 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

RE-FRAMING DISSENT AS CRIMINAL SUBVERSION:

PARADIGM SHIFT AND POLITICAL REPRESSION

A version of this article first appeared in
Covert Action Information Bulletin.

====================================================
Footnotes are available in the printed version
appearing in Covert Action Information Bulletin,
Summer 1992 (Number 41). Send $6.00 to
Covert Action, 1500 Mass. Ave., N.W., #732
Washington, D.C. 20005
====================================================

by Chip Berlet

The following reply files contain the
text of the article.


Topic 45        Repression & Paradigm Shift Frame       Response  1 of  4
cberlet
Public Eye Network      10:02 am  Jul 25, 1992



RE-FRAMING DISSENT AS CRIMINAL SUBVERSION:

PARADIGM SHIFT AND POLITICAL REPRESSION

by Chip Berlet

-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -
"What is secret is often squalid as well. In the
dark, men were able to act contrary to the values
they proclaimed in public. Paying service to
democratic ends, they made league with scoundrels
whose interest is anything but the survival of
democracy...today's New Right ideologues believe
in the omnipotence of the goal and the
irrelevance of the deed. So their tactics are
those of the enemy they hate and fear, and they
award America's franchises to con men, hustlers,
terrorists, racketeers, murderers and other
sleazy characters who for a fee sign up for the
crusade." --Bill Moyers. <1>
-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -


When our national security interests are
perceived as threatened, secrecy becomes sacred,
and the ends justify the means. Since the end
of World War II, the techniques of
political repression recur, banal and
predictive, like the musical theme that
signals stalking in a grade-B thriller. Those
organizations and individuals targetted for
repression are portrayed as enemies of democracy;
those investigating and attacking then assume
the mantle of democracy's guardians <2>.

Because of the covert nature of campaigns and the
enormous difference in resources between government
agencies and dissident/reform movements, it is often
impossible to document or prove the existence of an
organized campaign of political repression in its
earlier stages. In case after case, however, later
investigation has revealed illegal government
surveillance, harassment and public opinon
manipulation, as well as media complicity.

Therefore, when classic patterns of political
repression emerge, a political or social
movement would be wise to consider tactics and
strategies to protect its members from the
negative effects of political repression--political,
emotional, and physical. members can be provided with
simple, common sense techniques to prevent fears
(and actual incidents) of surveillance and
infiltration from paralyzing or disrupting the
group and diverting it from its goals.


PARADIGM SHIFT

One of the earliest and most overlooked warning signs
that a campaign of political repression is underway is
"paradigm shift." Paradigm shift, in this usage,
means a major negative change in the way the
public perceives the political movement that is
ultimately victimized. Paradigm shift frequently
is associated with episodes of political
repression, and frequently precedes more overt
signs of attack such as assaults, break-ins and
surveillance. Political repression telegraphs
its punches.

For many years the major threat to "the American
way of life" was popularly believed to be
communism, then generalized leftist
revolutionism, and now a vaguely-defined domestic
terrorism. Targetted individuals are seen as not
only engaged in criminality, but also attacking
core cultural and political

values which, if abandoned, would destroy America
as we know it, and which therefore represent a
threat to national security. This concept of
America under attack frequently is filtered
through a paranoid worldview that represents what
social scientists call a "subversion myth."

The perceptual shift from dissent to criminality
first goes public with unsubstantiated
allegations and conclusions in the newspapers,
newsletters and magazines of the reactionary and
paranoid political right. These right-wing media
attempts to re-frame the public's perception of
the dissident group. The concept of the
"frame-up" has been popularized in pulp crime
novels and <film noir>, but few people stop to
consider what it means when, with wide-eyed
innocence, the person being dragged to jail
proclaims, "I've been framed." The term "frame"
is condensed from the original jargon, "to hang a
frame" on someone, which means to select for an
observer a perspective from which certain
conclusions about a person, group or event seem
readily apparent, logical, and even inescapable.

Eventually, right-wing re-framing of dissidents
as subversives or criminals spills over into more
mainstream media. A growing segment of the public
begins to see the targeted political movement as
fundamentally at odds with mainstream society.
This antagonism is portrayed as irreconcilable.
The dissidents are seen as non-rational,
unstable, alien, and capable of odious crimes
because of their zealous mindset. Lists of
potential crimes are discussed, and finally
actual crimes are blamed on the political
movement. Ideas that were once merely
marginalized are thus criminalized. Popular
opposition to government and private attacks on
the dissenting group is partially neutralized. In
some cases the re-framing is so successful that
there is widespread popular sentiment supporting
the attacks. When this process of re-framing is
successful, paradigm shift has occurred.

Often, derogatory information passes back and
forth between government agencies and private
right wing groups through informal back-door
channels, and the actual source becomes obscure.
Lawsuits and declassified documents have revealed
that sometimes it is the investigative agency
that leaks information to the right-wing press,
and in other cases investigative agencies
rationalize investigations by citing charges
appearing in the right-wing press. The
relationship benefits both sides. The agency is
able to test public sentiment and prepare the
ground for its assault, while the right-wing
press furthers its political agenda and at the
same time appears to be generating hard
investigative journalism.