Category Archive

Yup, it’s another Keith Olbermann Special Comment.

This one is largely a rehash of his January 31st Special Comment, updated in light of the House of Representatives’ refusal (despite Bush’s efforts to scare them into submission) to pass the FISA extension today in a form that Bush would be willing to sign — that is, one that includes immunity for the telecoms who have helped the White House illegally spy on Americans.

The key point of the comment: assuming Bush is correct that extending the FISA statute as soon as possible is critical for our nation’s counterterrorism efforts, Bush’s repeated threats to veto any bill that doesn’t include telecom immunity is putting the financial status of the telecom companies above the lives and safety of American citizens.

Oh, there is one significant amendment from the previous special comment. Keith Olbermann calls George Bush a fascist, subject-verb-object. He even suggests that Bush have a t-shirt made up with the word fascist emblazoned on it.

About time someone in the mainstream media had the guts to say it.

As usual, I’m sure Crooks and Liars will get the video up quickly. Go watch it, especially if you missed the earlier Special Comment on this subject.

It all points out, once again, why Bush and Cheney really ought to be impeached.

- jane doe

Just got done watching Keith Olbermann’s latest Special Comment. (The video is already up on Crooks and Liars, as is the transcript.) Once again, Keith showed what a strong voice he has been against the many outrages of this administration.

This Special Comment was about Bush’s insistence that any extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) include immunity for the major telecom companies “believed to have assisted” the administration in its illegal spying on American citizens (though of course, that’s not how Bush described it).

He raised a number of excellent points in the course of his commentary. Chief among these: if, as Bush claims, the extension of FISA is critical to our national security, then why is the alleged president threatening to veto any such extension that doesn’t include telecom immunity?

Here’s how he opened tonight’s Special Comment (excerpt courtesy of The News Hole):

In a Presidency of hypocrisy, an Administration of exploitation, a labyrinth of leadership, in which every vital fact is a puzzle inside a riddle wrapped in an enigma hidden under a claim of executive privilege supervised by an idiot, this one is surprisingly easy.

President Bush has put protecting the Telecom giants from the laws…ahead of protecting you from the terrorists.

He has demanded an extension of the FISA law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, but only an extension that includes retroactive immunity for the Telecoms who helped him spy on you.

Another quote, this one focusing on some equivocating language from Bush’s SOTU speech earlier this week:

If you, sir, are asking Congress and us to join you in this shameless, breathless, literally textbook example of fascism - the merged actions of government and corporations who answer to no government - you still don’t have the guts to even say that the telecom companies did assist you in your efforts? Will you and the equivocators who surround you like a cocoon never go on the record about anything? Even the stuff you claim to believe in?

I could go on and on here, quoting gems from his diatribe, but since the entire text is already posted elsewhere, that seems like unnecessary effort on my part.

On the whole, I would say that this Special Comment was very good, though probably not his best one to date. Nevertheless, it is well worth checking out online if you missed Countdown this evening (or don’t get MSNBC).

And it points up one more reason why Bush and Cheney really ought to be impeached.

- jane doe

Okay, listening to the MSNBC coverage of the speech. And Olbermann starts out with calling Bush on distortions and outright lies about terrorist plots the government has allegedly stopped. Also compares Bush’s words about Iran with the stuff he was saying in the run-up to the war with Iraq — which, as we know, turned out to be almost entirely false or inaccurate. Thank you, Keith!

- jane doe

It bears repeating. Tonight’s Special Comment was probably his best yet. News Hole already has the transcript up, of course, and I am sure that Crooks and Liars will post the video clip shortly. Go watch it, or read the transcript.

Tonight, Keith talked about how the Bush presidency has been transformed into an operation designed around one purpose: to keep Bush, Cheney, and their minions out of prison for repeated, flagrant violations of our laws and our constitution. He talked about Daniel Levin, the lawyer at DOJ who, when tasked with determining whether waterboarding was torture, went to a military base and had himself waterboarded. The lawyer who, when he concluded that waterboarding was indeed a form of torture, was forced out of his position at the Department of Justice, so Alberto Gonzalez could come up with a memo more favorable to the president’s position without fear of contradiction.

For once, the story apparently did not break on the blogs — at least as far as I know. It broke in the mainstream media, on ABC News, in a rare instance of them getting it right before it became common knowledge in the blogosphere. This is not some minor difference of opinion. This is a major instance of our government doing something appalling and inhumane, something flagrantly illegal, allegedly in the name of keeping us safe.

But Keith correctly points out the darker aspect of all this, which goes back to my concerns about how Terror Management Theory is being used by this administration to manipulate the public. Because ultimately, torture does not produce good intelligence. We have been hearing this repeatedly from military and intelligence experts — most often retired intelligence experts who are safe from retaliation by the administration. What it produces is a lot dubious information which the victim of torture makes up in a desperate attempt to make the torture stop.

But perhaps, as Keith points out, Bush doesn’t really care if he gets good intelligence. Because what he really wants is continued ammunition in his war against the constitution, and that means keeping the American public scared of threats from outside. Because most people will countenance any number of abuses, any expansion of executive authority, if they come in the guise of keeping us safe.

But safe from whom, I wonder? False intelligence certainly won’t protect us from future attacks. Meanwhile, our government is becoming increasingly dangerous to us, to our rights, to the essential liberties guaranteed by our founders.

Which brings me back to what I have said here repeatedly. Bush and Cheney really ought to be impeached. Now. Before it is to late.

-jane doe

Addendum: Crooks and Liars now has the video of tonight’s Special Comment up here.

Yes, the Democratic presidential candidates are debating again tonight. I’ve lost count as to how many times they’ve done this. Keith Olbermann pointed out this evening that it really kind of depends on how you define “debate” — which is probably all you really need to know about how many of these things there have been, now that I think about it.

I will not be liveblogging. I started to, but I got sick of listening to Hillary. Not that I blame her. In their first responses to questions, Edwards and Obama went after her, and she defended herself. The third question was directly to her, and by then her voice had become sharp enough that I had to hit the mute button to hear myself think. She’s making good points (though so were Edwards and Obama), but her tone of voice was bugging me.

I am recording the debate, however, so I can fast forward through it later and pretend I am doing my civic duty. If anything particularly noteworthy strikes me, I will post about it.

Until then, allow me to reiterate that I really think that Bush and Cheney ought to be impeached.

-jane doe

I’ve said it before, and I say it again. Keith Olbermann is a god. Once again tonight he hit one out of the park with one of his special comments.

Keith was reacting to two things in this special comment: (a) the alleged president’s recent surprise trip to Iraq, during which he admitted to now being willing to (and I swear that I am not making this up) “speculate on the hypothetical” of removing some (not all, just some) of our troops from Iraq, and (b) this article in the New York Times (h/t to Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars) which includes excerpts from a Dead Certain, a new book by biographer Robert Draper, who managed to get half a dozen one-on-one interviews with the chimp in chief by casting the book he was writing as essentially the first draft of how history would interpret Bush’s legacy.

I have not read the book yet (just ordered it from Amazon — I’ll post a review later), but judging from some of the excerpts in the Times article, Bush is every bit as appalling in person in unguarded moments as I had previously suspected. Speaking about the ongoing debate about troop levels in Iraq, he actually told the biographer, “I’m playing for October-November…To get us in a position where the presidential candidates will be comfortable about sustaining a presence.” Playing, as if this were some sort of game and not hundreds of soldiers and civilians dying and suffering life-altering trauma.

Keith did an admirable job of ripping Bush a new one this evening, as he has so often with his special comments in the past. Tonight’s was particularly scathing. Crooks and Liars already has the video posted. Here are a few particularly choice remarks, transcribed as always by yours truly:

“And so he is back from his annual surprise gratuitous photo op in Iraq, and what a sorry spectacle it was. But it was nothing compared to the spectacle of one unfiltered, unguarded, horrifying quotation in the new biography to which Mr. Bush has consented.”

* * *

“And there it is, sir, we’ve caught you. Your goal is not to bring some troops home, maybe, if we let you have your way now. Your goal is not to set the stage for eventual withdrawal. You are, to use your own disrespectful, tone-deaf word, playing at getting the next Republican nominee to agree to jump into this bottomless pit with you, and take us into it with him, as we stay in Iraq for another year, and another, and anon.”

* * *

“Everything you said about Iraq yesterday, and everything you will say, is a deception for the purpose of this one cynical, unacceptable, brutal goal: perpetuating this war indefinitely. War today, war tomorrow, war forever! And you are playing at it. Playing! A man with any self-respect, having inadvertently revealed such an evil secret would have already resigned and fled the country. You have no remaining credibility about Iraq, sir.”

* * *

“Just over five hundred days remain in this presidency. Consider the dead who have piled up on the battlefield in the last five hundred days.

“Consider the singular fraudulence of this president’s trip to Iraq yesterday, and the singular fraudulence of the selling of the Petreus Petraeus report in these last five hundred days.

“Consider how this president has torn away at the fabric of this nation, in a manner of which terrorists can only dream in these last five hundred days.

“And consider again how this president has spoken to that biographer, that he is playing for October-November, that the goal in Iraq is, to get us in a position where the presidential candidates will be comfortable about sustaining a presence. And consider how this revelation contradicts every other rationale he has offered in these last five hundred days.

“In the context of all that, now consider these next five hundred days.

“Mr. Bush, our presence in Iraq must end. Even if it means your resignation. Even if it means your impeachment. Even if it means a different Republican to serve out your term. Even if it means a Democratic Congress, and those true patriots among the Republicans, standing up and denying you another penny for Iraq, other than for the safety and safe conduct home of our troops. This country cannot run the risk of what you can still do to this country in the next five hundred days, not while you, sir, are playing.”

Keith already said it, but just so there’s no doubt, allow me to state once again that I truly believe, based upon all the evidence to date of their various high crimes and misdemeanors against this country, that both Bush and Cheney ought to be impeached.

-jane doe

Addendum: There is a nifty extension that puts a countdown clock reflecting the number of days left in the Bush presidency (barring impeachment) right in that little status bar at the bottom of the browser window. It’s reassuring to see that number go down each day, I can tell you, though it is distressing to think how much more trouble Bush might cause in the time he has left in office. You can download the extension here.

Last night’s Special Comment by Keith Olbermann, prompted by our alleged president’s commutation of an unrepentant Scooter Libby’s prison sentence before all the appeals had even run their course, but also recapping Bush’s (and Cheney’s) other many crimes against this country, our Constitution, and the laws of man, was in it’s own way as powerful and moving as the words of Thomas Jefferson in our Declaration of Independence, adopted 231 years ago today.

Crooks and Liars had the video clip posted within hours of the broadcast last night (and possibly within minutes of the west coast broadcast, which is where I think Nicole Belle is based), and Salon.com posted the full transcript (with permission from Olbermann and MSNBC) today — as always, if you’re not a subscriber, you have to watch a short ad, but it is worth it.

A little later today, I will be posting a piece where I will go through the original Declaration of Independence and pull out all of the original King George’s offenses that could be said to apply equally to our current self-styled King George, but in the meantime, go watch or read Olbermann’s speech at one of the links posted above. He has done a far better job cataloging this administration’s crimes and articulating his condemnation thereof than I ever could.

Happy Fourth of July, everybody! And lest there be any doubt about it, I want to emphasize that I really think that Bush and Cheney ought to be impeached.

-jane doe

…yet somehow not at all surprising. Our alleged president has decided that Scooter Libby’s sentence — which was in accordance with federal sentencing guidelines for the crime he was convicted of — was “excessive”, and has therefore commuted his prison sentence. Libby will still have to pay a fine, but he got a Get Out of Jail Almost Free card today.

Was Bush within his rights as president to exercise his power in this manner? Absolutely. Was it an appropriate exercise of his power? Not on your life.

But I suppose at this point he feels he has nothing left to lose. He’s already lost the support of most of the electorate, as well as the respect of most of the people who are still backing him, I would imagine.

Is the commutation of Libby’s sentence grounds for impeachment? Sadly, no. However, that does not change my belief that Bush and Cheney should be impeached.

-jane doe

P.S. Keith Olbermann announced that he will be doing one of his “Special Comments” on the commutation of Libby’s sentence tomorrow night on Countdown, so be sure to set your TiVo.

In my previous post, I outlined some of the principles of terror management theory, and described the theory’s implications for American politics. But despite the length of my post, I left out one very important point that I really wanted to emphasize.

You see, I am aware of anecdotal evidence that awareness of terror management theory can actually change individuals’ reactions to those lovely death primes the research relies on. Certainly, I have found that my own awareness of the theory has changed the way I watch the news, and in particular it has changed the weight I give to various political assertions by members of the current administration.

But I am not drawing solely on my own experience in making this assertion, even though I am unaware of any published study that would support it. Rather, I am relying in part on unpublished whisperings among the graduate students at one of the academic institutions where much of the research into terror management theory has been conducted.

First, you must understand that much of the research in this field (as is the case with nearly all psychological research) is performed on undergraduate college students, usually those enrolled in undergraduate psychology courses. There is a very good reason for this, of course: undergraduates are a convenient research population, and they will usually participate without pay in exchange for a few extra credit points in their psych classes.

On at least one of the campuses where much of the research into terror management theory takes place, the graduate students who collected the data complained that they had gotten reputations among the current crop undergraduate psychology majors for always working on terror management studies, and the students participating in the studies would be looking for the death primes as soon as they saw the graduate students conducting the research. Suddenly, the researchers had trouble getting statistically significant results, even in cases where all previous research suggested that the present study should produce such results. In other words, awareness of terror management theory at least partially nullified the effect of the death prime. As a result of this, the grad students had to start going to other college campuses in the area to seek research participants.

It is for this reason that I have devoted so much time researching and writing my post on the politics of terror management. (Though the post ostensibly responds to Olbermann’s recent piece on the nexus of politics and terror, I have actually been working on it for some time and only made the changes that address his piece in the last two days.) I hope that my post on the subject, and a few others I have planned, will spark a discussion of terror management theory in the blogosphere, and that that discussion will eventually reach the mainstream media. It is my hope that, by increasing voter awareness of terror management theory and its implications, the ability of politicians to manipulate those voters with fear will be reduced.

Please note that I am not claiming there is no reason for us to be concerned about future terrorist attacks. The events of 9/11 made it plain that we are vulnerable to attacks on American soil, and it is appropriate for our government to devote significant resources to preventing future attacks. My point (and hope) is that voters should be able to make their decisions about which candidate(s) would be best to lead our country into a post-Bush future and undo the damage he has done to our country and our standing in the world arena free of the sort of emotional manipulation that we have been subject to in the recent past. Knowledge is power, and in the present instant, knowledge of terror management theory confers the power to resist manipulation by those who hope to use the theory to manipulate us with fear tactics.

And furthermore, I believe that Bush and Cheney ought to be impeached.

-jane doe

Monday night, Keith Olbermann updated a report he did in August 2006 about the nexus of politics and terror to incorporate recent events. He and his staff went through the news archives and found thirteen instances where the current administration either raised the terror threat level or announced the threat or foiling of a “terrorist attack” at times that could best be described as politically convenient. More specifically, these instances all took place at times when the White House was facing a variety of political difficulties (e.g., the absence of WMDs in Iraq, political scandals, the 2004 Democratic Convention, and so forth). Crooks and Liars has posted the clip and I suggest you go watch it here before continuing with this post.

Olbermann points out that, of course, the fact that these events happened close in time does not mean that they are related. It could, in fact, be a coincidence that the White House has just happened to raise the threat of terrorism whenever it is taking a particularly bad beating in the press over its various misdeeds.

And pigs might one day evolve wings and learn to fly.

I do not believe for one moment that it is mere coincidence that the Bush administration just happens to uncover some plot or threat of attack whenever the administration is facing political troubles. Rather, I believe that we are seeing is an administration deliberately using terror management theory to deflect attention from scandals and manipulate public opinion to expand White House power in our increasingly, distressingly authoritarian society.

What is terror management theory? If you are like the vast majority of people, you have never heard of terror management theory. In all the books I have read recently by various political commentators, I have seen plenty of talk about the White House’s use of fear and 9/11, but no mention of terror management theory. It has received surprisingly little attention from the mainstream media. Nobody talks about it outside of certain academic circles, mostly within the field of social psychology, and presumably certain government officials at the Department of Homeland Security and the White House, whose discussions I am not privy to.

The DHS and White House officials are among those who know about terror management theory because they’re the ones paying for at least some of the research in this field. DHS and military officials have received briefings from some researchers in the field, and have presumably reported on those briefings to their superiors in the White House. Other research has been funded by grants from the National Science Foundation and similar organizations.

All this silence on the subject of terror management theory is striking, because the theory so thoroughly explains much of the Bush administration’s interactions with the press and the public that understanding the theory can change the way you interpret the news.

Several times, I have seen Keith Olbermann ask Countdown guests if they knew why the Bush administration kept raising 9/11 for purely political reasons or in seemingly inappropriate contexts, and I have found myself saying to the television at these times, “Well, it’s basic terror management theory, Keith.” And I have foolishly assumed that, because I know about terror management theory, lots of other people who are interested in the political happenings of our world must, as well, so I have not done much with that knowledge. After all, there are plenty of articles out there on the subject. So lots of people must know about it, right?

But it has become clear to me that most people don’t know about terror management theory or its implications. Most of the articles that I have read appear in academic journals. As a graduate student at a large university, I have free access to many of these journals. Most people do not. It is for this reason that I am publishing this little primer, if you will, on terror management theory and its current political implications. Because I think this is something the general public, or at least political commentators, need to be more aware of.

So take my hand, don’t be afraid…because afraid is exactly what they want you to be.

The Basics

Terror management theory is primarily the brainchild of three university professors who do research in social psychology: Thomas A. Pyszczynski, at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, Sheldon Solomon, at Skidmore College, and Jeff Greenberg, at the University of Arizona. They initially articulated their theory in the late 1980s, but it didn’t begin to get much attention outside of social psychology circles until shortly after 9/11, when suddenly the government became interested in funding a lot of research in terror management.

This is already going to be a long post, so I’ll spare you a detailed history of the theory’s development, and will only be hitting relevant highlights of the theory itself. The three authors mentioned above co-authored a book called In the Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror following 9/11 which explains much of the theory and its background (and is also a really good read) if you are interested in finding out more about it. I want to emphasize that none of the terror management theory stuff is my work – I have just read articles and books by these three men and others in the field, and have drawn my own conclusions about the theory’s implications, specifically that George W. Bush and others in his administration have been deliberately using the results of terror management theory research to manipulate public opinion (though others have written about how the theory has played out in American politics, see especially Pyszczynski, 2004, as well as several of the articles mentioned at the end of this entry). Unfortunately, I can’t provide links to most of the articles I relied on in writing this post because they are in proprietary databases, but I will provide full citations at the end of this post for those who want to track down the articles.

At its most basic level, terror management theory has its origins in existential psychology. Human beings are, at least as far as we know, the only beings that are aware of the inevitability of their own death. This creates a tremendous amount of anxiety in most people’s minds, and we go to great lengths to insulate ourselves against that anxiety. We have, as individuals and societies, developed a number of defense mechanisms to protect ourselves from the thought of our own mortality. Religion provides us with a kind of immortality (e.g., life after death or reincarnation), as do various social institutions (e.g., I may die, but my family/country will go on).

Every now and then, though, things creep by our defenses and remind us of our own mortality. Maybe a loved one dies, or we have a conversation with a coworker whose spouse is terminally ill, or some fanatics fly airplanes into buildings killing thousands of people, forcing our minds to confront the possibility of our own deaths. This awareness of death is referred to by terror management researchers as mortality salience. This is where things start to get really interesting.

Terror management researchers have found that in conditions of mortality salience, certain predictable changes in individuals’ opinions and behavior occur as part of our defense against thoughts of our own mortality. Most intriguing for the purposes of this discussion are changes that affect the political realm, particularly how people are likely to vote.

The Intersection Between Theory and Politics

Let me repeat that last point. In italics, to show that I am not fooling around here. Terror management research can be used to influence how people vote. And it can be used by one party – the Republicans – more effectively at the present time than by the Democrats, because of the direction of changes in most people’s opinions.

You see, people in a mortality salience condition – that is, people who have recently been reminded of the possibility of their own death – are more likely to espouse more traditional opinions usually associated with the conservative end of the political (and religious) spectrum (see, e.g., Cohen, Ogilvie, Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2005; Pyszczynski, 2004). More importantly, given efforts by the Bush administration to expand White House authority and eliminate our civil rights (ostensibly in the name of fighting terror), people in a mortality salience condition are more likely to favor more charismatic and authoritarian leaders (Landau, Solomon, Greenberg, Cohen, Pyszczynski, Arndt, et al., 2004; Cohen, Solomon, Maxfield, Pyszczynski, & Greenberg, 2004).

Thus, it is very much in the interest of the Bush administration to put the public into a mortality salience condition when it is taking actions that are causing significant protest in the public arena. Not to sound like a member of the Tinfoil Hat Brigade, but I believe this is all a part of a deliberate attempt by the Bush administration to institute an increasingly authoritarian political agenda which may have continuing effects on the political landscape long after his term in office expires. I cannot prove this, of course, not having been privy to administration political strategy sessions, but I believe that the evidence supports this inference.

We saw significant evidence that this is exactly what the Bush administration was doing in the run-up to the 2004 presidential election. Bush repeatedly hammered the 9/11 theme in nearly every campaign speech and public appearance – often when it seemed inappropriate given the subject under discussion. At the time, many people commented on the way he was doing it, and wondered whether this was truly a good idea given that he had not been able to find Osama Bin Laden, and given that people were increasingly of the opinion that the whole Iraq mess might well have been a huge, tragic mistake – one that has now cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars.

Those who know terror management theory, however, saw these constant reminders of 9/11 for what they were: a death prime, intended to induce mortality salience in the public mind in order to sway more voters in his direction. Indeed, at least one study that I am aware of found that Bush’s constant hammering on the 9/11 theme played a significant role in the final outcome of the 2004 presidential election (Cohen, Ogilvie, Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2005).

Of course, as some will be quick to point out, politicians and other leaders have been using fear as one of many tactics to sway their followers (and opponents) for as long as there have been politicians. If I am recalling my ancient Roman history correctly (and forgive me if I am not, as it has been nearly twenty years since I read of this anecdote), Cato the Elder, as part of his ongoing effort to persuade the Roman Senate to authorize war against Hannibal and Carthage, once held up a freshly cut branch from a fruit tree and asserted that it had been cut in Carthage mere days before. His point was that if a branch from a fruit tree could get from Carthage to Rome so quickly that its leaves were still unwithered and fresh, how quickly might Carthaginian troops make the same trip? This tactic – a brilliant piece of political theater for the age – worked in a way that his constant exhortations at the end of his speeches that he thought Carthage out to be destroyed didn’t. Rome was soon at war with Carthage. (And doesn’t this whole incident remind one of the selling of the whole Iraqi WMD “threat” prior to the Iraq war? Aluminum tubes and yellowcake, anyone?)

What is curious about the present use of fear by Bush and his minions is just how blatant it is if one is aware of the workings of terror management theory. Olbermann’s piece on the nexus of politics and terror Monday night brilliantly points out some of the many times the Bush administration has attempted to use reminders of 9/11 and threats of future terrorism in its attempts to sway the public, and specifically how these attempts have often closely followed some of the many political reversals suffered by this administration.

Reminders of 9/11 and the World Trade Center have been shown not only to induce mortality salience, but also specifically to increase support of President Bush (Landau, Solomon, Greenberg, Cohen, Pyszczynski, Arndt, et al., 2004). According to the authors of that study:

From our perspective, the increase in favorability toward Bush reflects the effects of death reminders on the appeal of a leader who promotes security and the vanquishing of evil, but an alternative possibility is that reminders of death or 9/11 simply make people more politically conservative, which in turn makes Bush more appealing. (p. 1143).

Following their data analysis, however, the study’s authors inferred that the inductions (that is, the use of the mortality salience prime in terms of the reminders of 9/11) “enhanced affection for President Bush without altering political orientation” (p. 1144) – that is, people did not change their characterizations of themselves as politically more liberal or conservative, they just changed their views of President Bush. Curiously, both groups (liberal or conservative) fell at roughly the same level in their support for President Bush in the terrorism priming condition, unlike in other conditions with a terrorism-neutral death prime or a control condition in which the student participants thought about an impending academic exam (though the differences between liberals and conservatives in the other two priming conditions were not statistically significant).

The study’s authors acknowledged the possibility that mortality salience or reminders of terrorism might increase support for anyone in the presidency or with the potential to become president, so they conducted one further experiment as part of the study. They used four groups, two each to evaluate support for either George W. Bush or John Kerry. For each candidate, the parties were in one of two conditions: mortality salience (that is, they were reminded of death) versus intense pain salience (the report is silent as to the type of pain used for the induction, but researchers in terror management theory commonly use a reminder of severe dental pain for the control condition). The data for this study was collected in May 2004 – well before the presidential election the following November.

The results of this study were striking: in the pain condition, support for John Kerry was much higher than support for Bush – suggesting that in the absence of fear of death, Kerry might well have won the 2004 presidential election. However, in the mortality salience condition, support for Bush was much higher than support for Kerry. Conclusion: reminding people of death (and by way of example of 9/11) helped George Bush and hurt John Kerry.

It is worth noting that this study was published in September 2004 – roughly two months before the election. It would be interesting to see whether Bush upped the 9/11 rhetoric following the articles publication – though of course, even if an increase were shown, it could be argued that that was more a function of the increase in all political rhetoric in the final days in the 2004 campaign rather than of the Bush administration seizing upon the findings of the study and changing its tactics.

A Bit on the Nature of Psychological Research

Do the studies cited above mean that we are mindless in our responses in conditions of mortality salience? Of course not. As with all psychological research, this research does not mean that for every person who is reminded of (or in psych-speak, primed with) thoughts of mortality will respond in the manner predicted, but there will be statistically significant changes across groups in these opinions and behaviors. Some individuals will respond more or less strongly to death primes, and their manner of response may be influenced by other factors, such as the strength of their underlying values and beliefs, temperamental factors like tendency toward anxiety, perceptions about the likelihood of the event used as a prime happening to them or those they care about, et cetera.

Interestingly, the strength of an individual’s response to a death prime might vary given the specific nature or strength of the prime. Now, in psychological research, researchers are limited in the sorts of stimuli they can use in the course of their research. They are not permitted to cause their research subjects undue anxiety simply in the name of furthering this research, and all research that uses human subjects must receive prior approval from an institutional review board which examines the materials and procedures to be used in a study and may request changes to the study or refuse to authorize it entirely if they believe it may be in any way harmful to the participants. Thus, most research in the field of terror management theory merely induces some thoughts of death or some control stimuli (like the previously-mentioned thoughts of dental pain), either directly or with subliminal stimuli.

As a result, the degree of response to mortality salience in experimental settings (known in statistical terms as its effect size) is often relatively small – maybe only a few percentage points different on the dependent variable being studied (e.g., support for a given political candidate, degree of agreement with certain statements, level of anxiety), even though the difference is considered statistically significant.

However, in conditions of mortality salience in the real world, the impact of a death prime on thoughts and behaviors can be far more significant. One need only recall the crazy things many normally sane people were saying and doing in the immediate aftermath of the events of 9/11 (I, myself, actually expressed gratitude that Bush was our president instead of Al Gore on the day of the attacks, to my now great embarrassment), to realize the potential impact of a disaster of that scale.

Political Ramifications of the Research

Which brings me to some of the political ramifications of terror management theory, some of which we have seen and are continuing to see.

If you will recall, in the days before the 2004 presidential election, the race was really too close to call, with Bush and Kerry jockeying for the lead and a very closely divided electorate. In every speech and political appearance, Bush and his supporters kept hammering on the 9/11 theme – an attempt to raise mortality salience in voters, to sway those who were swayable to vote for Bush over Kerry.

Now, talking about 9/11 and the terrorist threat would not be as strong a death prime as an actual terrorist attack in those final days of the campaign would have been, but in a close election, Bush would not need to achieve a very large effect size, in terms of the overall percentage of voters swayed by reminders of 9/11, in order to tip the balance in his favor. And of course, when all was said and done, Bush won by a vary narrow margin of the popular vote, and by a single state (Ohio – a race which many still question the result of) in the electoral college. I am aware of at least one study that attributed his victory to reminders of 9/11 and the effects of terror management theory (Cohen, Ogilvie, Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2005).

When differences in the parties’ levels of support are much greater, as we saw at the midterm elections last fall, the relatively small effect size obtained by mere reminders of 9/11 would not be sufficient to overcome the many other factors influencing voter decisions (such as concerns over the continuing, deteriorating situation in Iraq, frustration with White House scandals and the rubberstamp Congress, etc). Thus, in 2006, we saw a change in the power structure in both the Senate and the House of Representative, in spite of White House officials repeatedly raising the specter of 9/11 and the terrorist threat.

All of this hasn’t really stopped the alleged president and many of the Republican candidates for the 2008 election from continuing to beat the 9/11 drum. Rudy Giuliani in particular has been guilty of this offense (and really, is there any wonder?).

And with the 2008 presidential election looming, I find myself getting increasingly nervous about the potential implications and effects of terror management theory in the run-up to the election. Care to venture into Paranoid Conspiracy Theory Land with me, my dear non-existent readers?

Your Humble Author Heads into Paranoid Conspiracy Theory Land

Okay, then. Let’s fast forward to, say, late September of 2008. Both parties have had their conventions by this time, and have nominated their respective candidates. For the present hypothetical, let’s assume that the Democratic Party has nominated Barack Obama and/or Hillary Clinton and the Republicans have nominated Rudy Giuliani and/or Fred Thompson, though the actual identities of the candidates may not matter all that much.

The war in Iraq is continuing, and who knows, we might also be fighting a second front, either Afghanistan (again) or Iran, or maybe both if Bush gets his wish. Members of the military are on their fourth or fifth combat rotations since the start of the Iraq war, and there is talk of reinstituting the draft to fill a desperate need for more troops as the military has been stretched beyond capacity. Also as a result of the wars, the deficit has reached truly breathtaking new heights (more than it already has, that is), and the economy is suffering as a result.

The United States is essentially standing alone in the world, as Bush has completely alienated our few remaining allies. Most people have lost count of the number of Congressional investigations into various administration actions and scandals. The Democratic Congress has been unable to rein in an increasingly isolated and intransigent President Bush, because they lack the votes necessary to overturn his vetoes, and there are continuing rumors that the president has returned to the hard-drinking ways of his youth. Even Barney has abandoned him in disgust at this point.

Although the Republican candidates have attempted to distance themselves from Bush and link themselves to the memory of Ronald Reagan, their continued support for the unpopular war(s) concern many voters, and Giuliani’s positions on a number of social issues, particularly abortion, have alienated many in the traditional Republican base. Democrats are ahead in the polls by a substantial margin, both in the presidential race and the various Congressional races, and barring any unforeseen catastrophes, look likely to win the presidential race and increase their margins of control in both houses of Congress. Clearly, at this point, merely banging on the 9/11 drum will not be sufficient to turn the election in the Republican party’s favor.

Cut to a smoke-filled back room somewhere in Georgetown, where Dick Cheney and Karl Rove (who in my hypothetical finally left the White House early in 2008 to “pursue other options” following increasing revelations about his involvement in various White House scandals) meet with a number of Republicans and certain business leaders who have traditionally worked in a behind-the-scenes sort of way to maintain and expand Republican Party power in this country. Also included in their number are several less-savory types with connections to a number of organizations that Republicans would never publicly associate themselves with, in spite of utilizing their services on occasions when normal political channels will not produce the results desired. Cheney and Rove, of course, are aware of the particulars of terror management rheory and its implications, as they would have been briefed by DHS and military officials who were, in turn, briefed on the research by some of the researchers themselves.

[NB: I have picked Cheney and Rove for my little paranoid speculation because I believe them to be fully aware of terror management theory and because I think they are evil bastards, not because I have any substantive reasons to believe they actually have been or necessarily will be directly or indirectly involved in anything as sinister as I am about to describe. It could involve people mostly uninvolved in the current administration who have found out about terror management theory by reading the research, or hearing about it at other backroom political gatherings in the past, or whatever. Not that this is ever going to happen, of course. Just paranoid ranting on my part. But still, very, very plausible…]

Our evil back room cabal discusses the election, which at the moment looks bleak for the Republican party, and lets those not already in the know into the implications of terror management theory. After some debate, the group decides on a course of action. The meeting adjourns, and one of the less-savory types leaves to place a few calls from a secure line to some, for want of a better term, business associates in a country in Eastern Europe.

Flash forward again to Monday, October 20, 2008. The election is now fifteen days away, and the evil back room cabal’s plot is about to come to fruition. This part could play out one of two ways:

Scenario 1: Federal agents, acting on a tip, raid a storage locker near downtown Los Angeles, and discover a nuclear warhead that has somehow been smuggled into the country. The warhead is real – perhaps one that was lost around the time of the Soviet Union’s collapse, perhaps from some other source. Federal agents then raid the home of the Islamic immigrant in whose name the storage locker was rented, accidentally killing him in the process. A search of his apartment reveals no evidence of co-conspirators, but does provide “evidence” (planted by associates of the aforemention member of the evil back room cabal) tying him to the storage locker.

The White House immediately calls a press conference, showing everyone the nuclear warhead and touting the raid as a significant victory in the war on terror. Immediately following the press conference, there is speculation that the President may declare martial law and postpone the election, though that never actually comes to pass. People around the country, and particularly people who live and work in Los Angeles, lose a lot of sleep over the next few nights, thinking about the bullet they dodged.

Suddenly the presidential election looks too close to call, and the outcomes of a number of Congressional races look less certain, as well. Republicans return to the familiar territory of harping on 9/11, terrorism, and the Los Angeles plot. Political observers everywhere bite their nails as November 4th approaches.

Scenario 2: The above-mentioned Soviet nuclear warhead is smuggled into Los Angeles, but this time, there is no successful raid by federal agents. It seems some of those, um, business associates had a real desire to wreak some havoc here, and moved the warhead from the locker where it was supposed to be discovered to some undisclosed location – actually, to an unused office on one of the upper floors of an office building in downtown Los Angeles. The warhead is detonated, killing hundreds of thousands of people in the surrounding area, vaporizing the entire downtown section of Los Angeles, and injuring and sickening millions of others outside the primary blast radius. (I pick on Los Angeles in this scenario because it is a city the neocons probably wouldn’t miss much if something went wrong with the plot – though San Francisco might be better from that perspective – plus a nuclear warhead seems a somehow fitting, Sodom and Gomorrah type ending for that town.)

Chaos reigns, and people across the country go into a sort of dazed shock over the magnitude of the loss – it is like the aftermath of 9/11, but several orders of magnitude greater.

Bush declares martial law with himself under more-or-less complete control, under the provisions of that little policy directive for continuity of government that made the news a few weeks ago. Elections are cancelled. There is no real help for the residents of Southern California, because the bulk of the National Guard troops and equipment in California and the surrounding states are all in the Middle East fighting Bush’s wars, so Bush calls on his buddies at Halliburton and Blackwater to restore order. Civil rights are suspended, not only in the disaster area, but nationwide. Oddly, given the effects of terror management theory and the general public’s fear of further attacks, there is almost no protest against the President’s actions, and those few who dare to speak out are swiftly arrested, classified as unlawful enemy combatants and sent to Gitmo, never to be heard from again.

Of course, none of this could ever possibly happen. Clearly, I am allowing my distrust for the current administration and certain Republican politicians override my good sense and push me into paranoid fantasies. And strictly speaking, neither of these attack scenarios in the days leading up to the election are particularly original. I have heard both scenarios or variations on them discussed elsewhere, with two significant differences: (1) in the scenarios I have heard elsewhere, the attack or threatened attack in the days before the election would be the result of the actions of foreign terrorists, not a plot by American citizens hoping to influence the election; and (2) I have heard no mention of terror management theory in connection with any of these scenarios.

It is terror management theory that makes my scenarios believable to me – and makes me willing to speculate that the events I discuss could actually arise from the intentional action of Americans, rather than being the unfortunately-timed acts of real foreign terrorists. One implication of terror management theory, after all, is that it is possible for someone with knowledge of the theory to actually manage terror (though I am quite certain that is not the intent of any of the researchers who developed the theory).

So am I some paranoid person, looking for trouble where there is none and trying to create problems where none exists? Possibly. I certainly hope so, because the alternative – that I am correct in my speculations in this humble little blog entry – is really too terrible to imagine. Clearly, though, as this post from Crooks and Liars suggests, I am not the first to have thought of the possible political consequences of another terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

Nevertheless, just in case I haven’t made this clear already, I really think that Bush and Cheney ought to be impeached.

-jane doe

Addendum: I have tried to be as complete as possible in citing the studies I refer to directly in this article. If I have inadvertently omitted any citations or mistakenly cited the wrong study for one of the points I attribute to research in the field of terror management, please e-mail me at janedoe [at] inbox.com (particularly if you are one of the authors on a study where I’ve omitted the correct citation) so that I can make any necessary corrections to this entry. And as always, thoughtful comments on or criticisms of this entry are welcome and encouraged. Thanks! -jd

Addendum 2: I should probably note that I’ve made a couple of minor changes to this post, mostly in terms of fixing grammatical errors or clarifying some confusing phrasing. I didn’t specifically call out the changes, as they were non-substantive, but thought I should probably mention it.

References

Cohen, F., Ogilvie, D. M., Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T. (2005). American Roulette: The effect of reminders of death on support for George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 5, 177-187.

Cohen, F., Solomon, S., Maxfield, M., Pyszczynski, T., & Greenberg, J. (2004). Fatal attraction: The effects of mortality salience on evaluations of charismatic, task-oriented, and relationship-oriented leaders. Psychological Science, 15, 846-851.

Landau, M. J., Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., Cohen, F., Pyszczynski, T., Arndt, J., Miller, C. H., Ogilvie, D. M, & Cook, A. (2004). Deliver us from evil: The effects of mortality salience and reminders of 9/11 on support for President George W. Bush. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 1136-1150.

Pyszczynski, T. (2004). What are we so afraid of? A Terror Management Theory perspective on the politics of fear. Social Research, 71, 827-848.

Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S., & Greenberg, J. (2003). In the wake of 9/11: The psychology of terror. Washington, D. C.: American Psychological Association.

I am in despair tonight, and I should apologize upfront because this is going to be rambling and far less focused than my posts usually are, but I feel a need to vent.

Our country is in a sorry state, and most people seem to feel like it is someone else’s problem to fix. Perhaps it is beyond fixing. I don’t know. It just seems that everywhere I look, I see mounting problems, with more problems lining up behind them. I find myself laughing in that nervous, slightly insane way that is nevertheless preferable to screaming at the existential horror of it all. I literally pull my hair and bang my head against the wall, and I lie awake at night wondering whether our country will survive another 686 days with George W. Bush in the White House.

Why do I feel such despair, you may ask? I hardly know where to begin.

First, above everything, we have the war in Iraq. The war we shouldn’t be in. The war our alleged president manipulated intelligence, manipulated public opinion, and flat-out lied to get us into. It will be George Bush’s legacy to our country, to his and our everlasting shame. Support our troops by sending more of them over there to die, that makes sense.

From this problem stem so many others. Our executive branch’s apparent abrogation of the Geneva Convention (and large portions of the Constitution), the effective elimination of habeas corpus, the torturing of prisoners of war — sorry, unlawful enemy combatants — these are not steps the president should be taking in our names. Once America stood as the bastion of freedom, honor, and human dignity. It was supposed to be a place where all men and women stood equal before the law, where all were treated with respect and one was innocent until proven guilty. That no longer is the case. Instead our officials are resorting to the means and methods of petty dictators, while still trying to claim the moral authority we once had.

Remember those civil liberties that we were always told set our country apart from other, less worthy nations? The liberties politicians say they are protecting when they send our military men and women off to war — in Iraq, in Afghanistan? Gone now, many of them. Fourth amendment right to be “secure in [your] persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures”? Gone. Gotta fight them terrorists. Feel like exercising your first amendment right to speak up about that? You’re emboldening the terrorists, you traitor. We must fight the terrorists overseas so we don’t have to fight them here, and the only way to save our democracy is apparently by turning it into an authoritarian dictatorship.

And don’t get me started on the growing intolerance in this country. I want to cry when I hear Christians claiming there is some sort of war against Christianity in this country, just because some people think the ten commandments don’t belong in government buildings. The reason I want to cry is because I am a practitioner of a non-Christian religion, and I feel like I am regularly hit in the face with Christianity everywhere I look these days. Don’t get me wrong — I think people should be able to practice whatever religion they want. And I am cool with the fact that the majority religion in this country is Christianity so they get their holidays as official days off work, even though the rest of us don’t. But I am terrified by people who think they should legislatively impose their religious beliefs on the rest of us. And yes, if you think that stem cell research is immoral, that Intelligent Design should be taught as science, and that park rangers at the Grand Canyon shouldn’t be able to talk about how long it took for the river to carve the geological formations there because it contradicts the biblical timeline for creation, I am talking about you.

Of course, with the war, and all the money that is going straight from the IRS to Halliburton’s coffers (with a little bit trickling out the other end to rebuild Iraq and, oh yeah, New Orleans, remember them?), the economy is now going into the shitter. Market correction, my ass. If China is getting nervous, we all should be putting aside some danger money right now. The corporations have been having their way with our economy for years now, and particularly the past few years with Incurious George in the White House, and we are all screwed.

And the mainstream media, well, now, that’s just another bunch of big corporations, right? And not a very big bunch, either, getting smaller by the year, as mega-corporation merges with mega-corporation. Certain right-wing blowhards like to talk about the alleged liberal media, but it’s mostly a myth. With a few notable exceptions. what you have is the centrist media, which genuinely tries to just report the facts, and the right-wing media like Faux News and talking heads. Yes, there are a few liberals, and thank the deity of your choice for people like Olbermann, Stewart, and Colbert, but for the most part the mainstream media is as conservative as the large corporations that control it. Fair and balanced? Ha!

Our education system is falling apart, teachers are paid a pittance, and yet right-wing pundits act like the education lobby is some scary, fascist organization. You want to know how to fix education? Here’s a start: pay teachers enough money that all the brilliant people who would love to teach but want to earn enough money to own a house and send their children to college can actually do so by becoming teachers instead of going to law school. This country needs more teachers and fewer lawyers.

How about healthcare? Our country is facing a major crisis, in part due to the fact that we have so many people without access to health care. We are going to have a major influenza epidemic (bird flu, anyone?), and millions of people are going to die because when you have large numbers of people without access to healthcare the conditions for an epidemic flourish. Creating tax incentives for people to buy their own health insurance isn’t going to do the trick, because the people who are most likely to be uninsured through their employer are also the least likely to benefit from tax deductions, or even tax credits, because they have the lowest incomes.

Ooh, and speaking of healthcare, and getting back to the supporting our troops meme, how about supporting our troops after they come home? Giving them real healthcare and psychological services, and not make them wade through some sort of managed care phone tree to get treatment approved? These men and women are literally putting their lives on the line for this government’s policies. The very least the bastards in the White House can do is give them the red carpet treatment when they get back stateside and need care. That is how you support troops, Republican Party — by giving them the services they need, not by putting some magnetic American flag on your gas-guzzling SUV.

Which, of course, brings me to the environment. Sure, in the Midwest, in mid-February, global warming seems like a great idea. But come August, not so much. And I don’t imagine the polar bears are very happy about it, either.

And now we have our president, the one who lied to get us into Iraq, making a lot of scary noises about Iran. Pardon my French, but what the fuck? We don’t have the troops, we don’t have the money, and, hey, by the way, we don’t trust anything you’re saying anymore, Georgie-Boy. So just knock it off. We’re not going there. Got it? Let me repeat. We. Are. Not. Going. There.

Of course, he probably realizes we don’t have the forces to do that. That’s why he keeps making all the scary talk about nuclear — sorry, nucular – weapons. How low have my expectations for our government gotten if I say that I will be ecstatic if we can just get through the remainder of the Shrub’s term in office without him exploding a nuclear weapon somewhere in the world?

But really, all of this is only part of the cause of my despair. My real reason for being in despair is because it seems like the reaction of the vast majority of Americans to all of this angst-producing stuff is “Meh. Yeah, it sucks, someone should do something about that.”

Yes, I know, there are demonstrably lots of people out there trying to do something about all that. The blogosphere is full of people who have not for one second turned a blind eye to all the nonsense that is happening (and may the deity of their choice bless them all for that), and there are loads of people all over the country writing letters, sending e-mails, calling their congressional representatives, marching in the streets, what have you. But there are far, far more who aren’t doing a thing, who figure that it is someone else’s problem. ‘

In other countries, if the governments did some of the stuff our alleged president and his minions have done over the past few years, people would be rioting in the streets. Entire governments have been brought down for less. Hell, Bill Clinton got impeached over a blowjob, yet Nancy Pelosi says that’s not on the table right now in spite of all of Bush’s documented crimes against the Constitution, the American people, and — dare I say it — humanity. And we are all going about our business, saying “Yeah, someone should do something about that.”

And tomorrow morning, I will get up, and brush my teeth, and head to my office, before I go to classes in the afternoon. And I will think to myself, I should be doing something more. And I will come home in the evening, and watch Countdown, and The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report, and get my righteous indignation on, and then I will do my homework, and lie awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, and worry about all of this some more. And I will fall asleep, only to wake and repeat the whole cycle again. Maybe I will send an e-mail urging my senators to take some urgent action, to be logged and dutifully ignored by some senate staffer. I toy with the idea of starting a guerrilla political theater group on campus — maybe in the fall…

I know that I have broken no new ground with this post. Everything I’ve said here, has been said elsewhere, probably better than I could, already. But I needed to get it out of my system. If only so I can sleep a little better tonight.

So what’s the deal with the title of this entry? It’s from a recurring nightmare I had when I was younger. I was trapped in my house, which was full of spiders. Thousands of the eight-legged menaces, everywhere you looked — they spun their webs across the doors and on chairs, so you had to cut a web if you wanted to sit down, or go into another room, or do anything. And I would, understandably, be freaking out about the spiders in the dream, but I would be the only person who was. Everyone else just took them as a given. “Well, of COURSE there are spiders. Why are you letting it get to you?” And I wonder, is this — everything I’ve written about in this post, everything that’s troubling me about our country right now — the same sort of thing?

Questions? Comment?

-jane doe

Olbermann did another one of his special comments tonight, this one a response to Bush’s speech from last night. His special comments have been uniformly good, and tonight’s was no exception. A few excerpts, painstakingly transcribed by your humble blogger:

• “Only this president, only in this time, only with this dangerous, even messianic certitude could answer a country demanding an exit strategy from Iraq by offering instead an entrance strategy for Iran.”
• “This is diplomacy by skimming. It is internationalism by drawing pictures of Superman in the margins of the textbooks. It is a presidency of Cliff Notes.”
• “Who is left to go and fight, sir? Who are you going to send to interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria? Laura and Barney?”
• “You speak of mistakes, and of the responsibility resting with you. But you do not admit to making those mistakes, and you offer us nothing to justify this clenched fist towards Iran and Syria.”

And then there was one that summed up my feelings nicely:

• “You, sir, have become the President who cried wolf. All that you say about Iraq now could be gospel. All that you say about Iran and Syria now could be prescient and essential. We no longer have a clue, sir. We have heard too many stories.”

Thank you for saying these things, Mr. Olbermann. Please keep doing your special comments.

-jane doe

P.S. to my nonexistent readers — I don’t have the technological capability (or the bandwidth) to post a clip of the special comment, or I would. But Crooks and Liars always seems to post them, so you might check there if you want to hear it in its entirety.