COMMUNITY GROUPS

Right wing leaders control their pawns through fear

by Bill Henderson

Second of a series on the new Radical Right.

The key to understanding how to counter the new Radical Right, and to understand how millions of Americans contribute hundreds of millions annually to these groups, lies in realizing that most of the people are manipulated by a few dozen

wealthy white men and a handful of white women. The manipulation is successfully applied by these privi-

African-Americans, Catholics, Jews, and women. In some places in America, despite our Constitution, the same language is still used against these groups.

new

So, who is the leadership behind the new Radical Right? In a class of their own are Patrick Buchanan and Rev. Pat Robertson. Ultra-conservative Pat Buchanan is a leader within the most purely political facet of the Radical Right. Speaking about the "identity crisis" the new Radical Right is creating within the GOP,

OUT oice

leged few and is meant to maintain their economic power, their political dominance, and their personal status in the "growth industry" of right-wing organizing.

The manipulation is applied, as always, through breeding fear of some type of loss: fear of losing a job; of danger to a family member; of family conflict; fear of losing status within a peer group, worship community, or political organization. Or, by promising hope of some sort of gain: hope of earning recognition for a task well done; of earning improved status within a peer group, worship community, or political organization; hope of maintaining personal power through distinctions based on sex, race, or class.

The point is that we do ourselves a major disservice by demonizing or stereotyping the followers of these cynical national or regional leaders. The followers are participating because they are defending themselves against things that they have been convinced by the Radical Right leaders they are inadequate to face alone. Or they are participating to achieve a status they have been convinced to feel is rightfully theirs. The cynicism is that the fears are deliberately misdirected, and the hopes are based on unconstitutional distinctions of sex, creed, class and race.

We are being skillfully played against each other, divided from each other, and manipulated by Religious Right leaders-simply because we fear something in each other, or we are willing to accept status over each other.

"Demonizing," or the use of stereotypes, is an effective weapon of the Radical Right to make open-minded Americans or homosexual Americans appear to be "less deserving,""dangerous," and "ungodly." This manipulation is the core of political domination. Understand that and you will be able to resist and counter the new Radical Right. We must teach everyone to look behind the words and actions and see who is benefiting from domination over the less empowered.

The Religious Right often uses manipulative language that says anti-discrimination protections for lesbian gay and bisexual people would be "special rights." This phrase is a deliberate misdirection meant to make heterosexual folks believe that I, as a gay person, already have all the rights that they have under the constitution. Over 70 percent of Americans polled do not know that, solely for being perceived as gay, I can be fired, or not hired, or denied my choice in where I wish to live. Lesbian, gay and bisexual people do not have the same protection from discrimination as people of color, people of varied faiths, or people not born in America. In fact, we are discriminated against in jobs, housing, and public accommodations. "Special rights" language is a phrase used again now by people who wish to continue their patterns of bigotry. In the past, such language was used against

he announced, "If they turn their backs on us, it's time to find a new party." He is isolationist, classist, anti-Semitic, and anti-homosexual. He barely avoids overt racism, but many of his goals have grave racist impact: defunding of public education, an end to multi-culturalism, and trade and immigration barriers. He rejects affirmative action as a remedial action to end America's history of job hiring bias against African Americans and other people of color. His sister and presidential campaign manager stated openly on Nightline, regarding the passage of Colorado Issue 2 in 1993, "We believe Americans have a constitutional right not to hire or rent out property to homosexuals," bizarrely adding, "just as we don't want to hire or rent to fat people either."

Buchanan constantly promotes Radical Right organizer Paul Weyrich's phrase that homosexuals seek "special rights" at the cost of others' rights of "association" or religious beliefs. Again, that same manipulation! In America, nobody is granted rights to "discriminate" or to hold status over another class of citizen. We are free to believe whatever we wish, but not to withhold the rights of other citizens. Buchanan has said, "Our culture is superior... multi-culturalism is an assault on our history. Our flag did not fly over slave quarters, it flew over battlefields." He speaks as "proof" of the inferiority of other cultures "their histories of human sacrifice (Central Americans), female circumcision (Africans) and suttee (an Asian tradition of suicide upon the death of a spouse), noting sarcastically, "In the case of Bill and Hillary that may be justified." When Buchanan called for a "cultural war" at the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston, he meant exactly that.

William Bennett is becoming an heir to Buchanan's presidential hopes among many conservatives. He is also indicative of the Radical Right's influence over the GOP. Former "drug czar," then secretary of education under Ronald Reagan, Bennett appears in anti-gay videos used as fundraising and organizing tools by many Radical Right organizations.

In the 1990 campaign, Jesse Helms ran a race-baiting TV ad against his opponent Harvey Gantt, an African-American. It featured a white worker's hands crumpling a job rejection notice as the voice-over intoned, "They had to give it to a minority because of a racial quota.” Affirmative action remedies to end job bias have long been a target of the Radical Right. Bennett publicly supported Helm's use of the ad and opposes Affirmative action as "special treatment," disregarding its effect toward ending discrimination. As Secretary of Education he also opposed multicultural education programs and refused to address racial bias claims by his employees at the Department of Education.

Bill Henderson is vice-chair of OutVoice.

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