Social Researchers, Right-Wing Demagogues, and the Blank Space in American Democracy [631484]

Social Researchers, Right-Wing Demagogues, and the "Blank Space" in American Democracy
Author(s): Matthew O. Howard
Source: Social Work Research, Vol. 35, No. 2 (June 2011), pp. 67-70
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/42659784
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EDITORIAL
Social Researchers, Right-Wing Demagogues,
and the "Blank Space" in American Democracy
Matthew O. Howard
On Arizona) as April I write, 8, announced 201 minority 1, less than on whip the a fortnight Jon Senate Kyi floor (R- ago as I write, minority whip Jon Kyi (R-
Arizona) announced on the Senate floor
that "if you want an abortion, you go to Planned
Parenthood. And that's well over 90 percent of
what Planned Parenthood does" (Collins, 2011).
Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards
quickly countered that the real figure is actually 3%
(Bassett, 2011). Later that day, Kyis press secretary,
Ryan Patmintra, reported to CNN that the 90%
figure "was not intended to be a factual statement"
(Nowicki,201 l).PolitiFact (201 lb), a 2009 Pulitzer
Prize- winning, nonpartisan Web site dedicated to
evaluating the truthfulness of political assertions,
concluded that Kyi's statement gready exaggerated
Planned Parenthood's involvement in providing
abortions. Kyi eventually admitted to misrepresent-
ing an estimate he had taken from a report published
by the Chiaroscuro Foundation (201 1), a nonprofit,
pro-life group (Nowicki, 2011).
Commenting on the Kyi debacle, syndicated col-
umnist Leonard Pitts (2011) concluded that his re-
view of 100 "pants on fire" political statements (that
is, assertions that are untrue and that make ridiculous
claims) evaluated on PolitiFact indicated that
when it comes to serial lying, to the biggest,
most brazen, most audacious lies, the lies re-
peated ad nauseam until people mistake them for
the truth, when it comes to the most absolute
contempt for the facts and for the necessity of
honest debate, it is not even close. Conservatives
have no equal.
Lies, distortions, and calumny seem to permeate
contemporary political discourse, from Sarah Palin s
allegation that President Obama's health care bill
would institute "death panels" for elderly people
to Rush Limbaugh's (2009) bizarre contention that
Obama was seeking to mandate circumcision. De- spite the imbecilic quality of the conspiracy-theory
rants of right-wing celebrities like Sean Hannity,
Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck that currently
sufïuse the air waves, right-wing demagogues are in-
fluential. Polls indicate that 1 8% to 24% of Americans
believe Obama is a Muslim, despite overwhelming
evidence to the contrary and his repeated denials
(Holan, 2010). Donald Trump, the well-known real
estate entrepreneur, is currendy leading the pack of
potential Republican presidential nominees, despite
(or perhaps because of) the fact that he has joined
forces with the "birther" movement and publically
questioned the president's citizenship (PolitiFact,
2011a).
Most social researchers are surely troubled, if
not appalled, by the mean and misleading nature
of contemporary popular political discourse. A
majority, perhaps, regards the rampant mendacity of
public figures as an exigent, even existential threat
to American democracy. Yet social researchers seem
rarely to enter the political fray in a meaningful,
decisive manner, despite the light that they could
shed on pressing social problems. We should pon-
der the reasons for our current disengagement
from the political process and then do something
about it – particularly given that the Internet and
the utilities it has spawned, like Facebook and
Twitter, now provide propagandists and other
purveyors of political misinformation with the
most powerful tools for their purposes the world
has ever known.
Perhaps the most contemptible and potentially
dangerous of recent politically motivated assaults on
the truth are Glenn Beck's diatribes against political
scientist, sociologist, and former Columbia Univer-
sity School of Social Work faculty member Frances
Fox Piven. Beck has launched literally dozens of
ad hominem attacks on Piven on his radio and TV
programs and his Web site, the Blaze (http: //www.
theblaze.com).
CCC Code: 1070-5309/1 1 $3.00 0201 1 National Association of Social Workers 67
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Beck initially focused on Piven's landmark
article "The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to
End Poverty," which she coauthored with her hus-
band, Richard Cloward (Cloward & Piven, 1966).
Therein, the authors presented what has become
known as the Cloward-Piven strategy (n.d.).
Referring to this strategy on February 18, 2010,
Beck commented that "you ve got total destruc-
tion of wealth coming. . . . It's the final phase of
the Cloward- Piven strategy to collapse the system"
(Beck, 2010). Cloward and Piven presented a strat-
egy to reduce poverty by encouraging people who
were eligible for welfare benefits but not receiving
them to enroll for such benefits, thereby leading to
bureaucratic and fiscal crisis at the local and state
levels and, eventually, to federal intervention in
the form of provision of a minimum guaranteed
annual income. On the basis of her authorship of
this aging article, Beck has called Piven one of the
"nine most dangerous persons in the world" and "an
enemy of the constitution" (Schmidt, 2011). Beck
(2010) holds Piven personally responsible for a host
of modern maladies, including the recent collapse
of Wall Street financial institutions and the need
for monumental bank bailouts, characterizing her
writings as acts of "economic sabotage" intended to
overthrow the U.S. capitalist system and usher in a
socialist state. A recent article by Piven (2010), ad-
dressing how unemployed people might organize to
achieve greater political power and federal support,
has further inflamed Beck.
Predictably, Beck's incendiary rhetoric has caused
Piven to receive numerous death threats, and she
has had to have an armed guard present when she
lectures at the City University of New York. A re-
cent banner on the Blaze, referencing Piven's (2010)
article, read as follows: "Frances Fox Piven Rings in
the New Year by Calling for Violent Revolution"
(Seidl, 2010). Excerpts from the Seidl article's "com-
ments" field included the following: "We should
blow up Piven's office and home"; "Maybe they
should burst through the front door of this arrogant
elitist and slit the hateful cow's throat"; and "I am all
for violence and change Frances: Where do your
loved one's live?" (Schmidt, 201 1). Several progres-
sive and professional organizations have called on
Beck to refrain from his defamatory and provocative
attacks on Piven. Likewise, these groups have asked
Fox News to rein Beck in, which it has steadfastly
refused to do (Schmidt, 2011) (though it should
be noted that the channel and Beck have recently agreed to part ways in the near future, as I write,
Beck's program continues to air unfettered).
In some ways, Piven seems an unlikely target for
extremist invective. By any reckoning, she has had
an illustrious career. She has served as president of
the American Sociological Association and past vice
president and president of the American Political
Science Association and the Society for the Study
of Social Problems, respectively. She has published
numerous important books, including Regulating the
Poor (Piven & Cloward, 1972), Poor People's Move-
ments (Piven & Cloward, 1977), The New Class War
(Piven & Cloward, 1982), Why Americans Don't Vote
(Piven & Cloward, 1988), The Mean Season (Black,
Cloward, Ehrenreich, & Piven, 1 987) , Labor Parties in
Postindustrial Societies (Piven, 1992), The Breaking of
the American Social Compact (Piven & Cloward, 1997),
Why Americans Still Don't Vote (Piven & Cloward,
2000), The War at Home (Piven, 2004), and Chal-
lenging Authority (Piven, 2006). For her prodigious
and influential scientific work, social engagement,
and commitment to poor and disenfranchised
populations, Piven has deservedly received many
awards. She represents the politically engaged social
researcher par excellence. But it is perhaps precisely
because she has ventured so frequendy outside the
cloistered walls of academia that she is now the target
of Beck's rants and in real physical danger.
In the face of this onslaught, Piven (2011) has
characteristically searched for broader sociopoliti-
cal explanations for Beck's attacks on her and the
violent and irrational reactions that have ensued,
reasoning that
lunatic though they are, the ravings about our
plan for an orchestrated crisis to destroy capi-
talism … are important because they provide
theories of a sort to people who are made anx-
ious by large-scale changes that have overtaken
American society. Those include deindustrializa-
tion and our [that is, the United States'] loss of
pre-eminence in the world, changes in family
and sexual norms, and, perhaps most of all, the
growing diversity of the American population
and the election of an African- American presi-
dent. Social scientists themselves do not agree
about the causes of all these developments, and
people without the luxury of time and training
are often left angry and confused.
The contemporary political economy thus
poses grave challenges to democratic possibilities,
68 Social Work Research Volume 35, Number 2 June 2011
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not only, as is often said, because a sharply skewed
distribution of income and wealth empowers
business and the rich, but also because the sheer
complexity of our economic and political system
makes democratic choice and deliberation dif-
ficult if not impossible. Democratic possibilities
depend crucially on the ability of the public to
understand what is happening to our society and
why, and especially on the ability of the public to
decipher the role of government policies.
But who can decipher the impact of a policy
to regulate financial institutions when the policy
and regulations approach the length of an ency-
clopedia, and the text of the encyclopedia deals
with such incomprehensible matters as credit
default swaps? The blank space in the democratic
process is an invitation to propaganda by those who
want to limit the democratic influence of the public,
and propaganda is flourishing in American politics
today [italics added].
Confronted by complex and powerful social
changes they do not fully understand, much of the
U.S. citizenry is vulnerable to political hucksters
proffering simplistic, distorted, and self-serving
"explanations" of key issues of national importance.
A case in point would be former President George
W. Bush's efforts to capitalize on the blank space in
American democracy by leading the United States
into war with Iraq on the basis of an organized dis-
information campaign, accompanied by a disturbing
level of media complicity.
What, then, could social researchers do to re-
duce the blank space in American democracy? At a
minimum, we could strive to subject all proposed
legislation and public policies to rigorous scien-
tific analysis, with particular attention paid to their
implications for vulnerable populations. We might
also translate public policy options and their con-
sequences into language easily understood by the
general population and ensure broad dissemination
of these materials .We could also foster the develop-
ment of public intellectuals within social work and
across the social sciences, as I discussed in an earlier
editorial (Howard, 2010). Demagogues like Glenn
Beck would be far less effective if they were regularly
challenged in public venues by more well-informed,
nonpartisan professional scholars.
Furthermore, social work organizations could
jointly develop a strategic plan to combat the
personal invective, ad hominem attacks, policy dis- tortions, and other malign activities of right-wing
extremists. In operational terms, this might mean
closely monitoring TV, radio, and Internet media
sources and effectively challenging such behaviors
as they arise. In this vein, the Southern Poverty
Law Center has had some success in monitoring
the activities of hate groups in America. Arrange-
ments to support the specific people targeted by
conservative extremists should also be put in place
proactively. Attacks such as those launched by Beck
against Piven could be intended to silence promi-
nent social researchers seeking societal change on
the basis of research findings and compassion for
the less fortunate.
A final point concerns the contemporary educa-
tion of social researchers. During our training, we are
often exposed to simplistic formulations portraying
science as merely a method for discovering truths
about the human condition. But all research, we soon
discover, is enacted within particular social, political,
economic, geographical, and historical conditions
that define the appropriate foci and methods for
scientific investigation. In an unprecedented age
of instantaneous and global communication, the
principal obligations of social researchers, it seems to
me, are to make as unbiased and informed a search
for truth as is humanly possible and then to lay out
for all concerned the likely consequences of differ-
ent public policy actions. Because we are human
and have our biases, these, too, should be critically
examined and made as transparent as possible.
Most important, we should vigorously and publi-
cally challenge propaganda and untruths of all sorts
whenever we encounter them, particularly when
they lead to policies and practices that are detri-
mental to poor and vulnerable people or endanger
citizens' lives. It is imperative that social scientists
enter the political process in large numbers and seek
out media venues that ensure broad dissemination *
of the knowledge they have acquired through long
training and hard work. BSS3
REFERENCES
Bassett, L. (2011, April 21). Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards: We're not going anywhere. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/201 1/04/08/ planned-parenthood-president-shutdown_n_846640.
html
Beck, G. (2010). Study says we're toast . Retrieved from http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/ article/198/36505, Black, F., Cloward, R. A., Ehrenreich, B., & Piven, F. F. (1987). The mean season: The attack on the welfare state.
New York: Pantheon.
Howard / Social Researchers, Right-Wing Demagogues , and the "Blank Space" in American Democracy 69
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Chiaroscuro Foundation. (2011). Does Planned Parenthood need or deserve federal funds? An analysis of Planned Parenthood's revenue and services. New York: Author.
Cloward, R., & Piven, F. F. (1966, May 2). The weight of the poor: A strategy to end poverty. Nation , 202,
510-517.
Cloward- Piven strategy, (n.d.). Retrieved from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy Collins, G. (2011, April 13). Behind the abortion war. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes. com/20 1 1 /04/ 1 4/opinion/ 1 4collins.html Holan, A. D. (2010). Why do so many people think Obama is a Muslim? Retrieved from http://www.politifact.com/ truth-o-meter/article/20 10/ aug/26/why-do-so- many-people-think-obama-muslim/ Howard, M. O. (2010). Social workers as public intellectu- als [Editorial]. Social Work Research, 34 , 131-133. Limbaugh, R. (2009). Leave our penises alone, Mr. President! Retrieved from http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/ home/daily/site_082409/content/0 1 1 25 1 04.guest.
html/
Nowicki, D. (2011). Kyi aide takes responsibility for " not intended to be a factual statement" gaffe. Retrieved from http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/
azdc/ 125321
Pitts, L. (2011, April 19). Liar, liar: When ideology eclipses facts. Herald-Sun. Retrieved from http:// www.heraldsun.com/view/fiill_story/12838428/ article-Liar- liar- When-ideology-eclipses- facts?instance=leonard pitts Piven, F. F. (1992). Labor parties in postindustrial societies. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Piven, F. F. (2004). The war at home: The domestic costs of
Bush's militarism. New York: New Press.
Piven, F. F. (2006). Challenging authority: How ordinary people change America. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Piven, F. F. (2010, December 22). Mobilizing the jobless. Nation. Retrieved from http://www.thenation.com/ article/ 1 57292/mobilizing-jobless Piven, F. F. (2011, February 10). Crazy talk and American politics: Or, my Glenn Beck story. Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/ article/Crazy-TalkAmerican/ 1 26334/ Piven, F. F., & Cloward, R. A. (1972). Regulating the poor: The functions of public welfare. New York: Vintage
Books.
Piven, F. F., & Cloward, R. A. (1977). Poor people's move- ments: Why they succeed, how they fail. New York:
Pantheon.
Piven, F. F., & Cloward, R. A. (1982). The new class war: Reagan's attack on the welfare state and its consequences.
New York: Pantheon.
Piven, F. F., & Cloward, R. A. (1988). Why Americans don't
vote. New York: Pantheon.
Piven, F. F., & Cloward, R. A. (1997). The breaking of the American social compact. New York: New Press. Piven, F. F., & Cloward, R. A. (2000). Why Americans still don't vote: And why politicians want it that way. Boston:
Beacon Press.
PolitiFact. (201 la, April 7). Donald Trump says President Obama's grandmother caught on tape saying she witnessed his birth in Kenya. Retrieved from http://www. politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/201 1 / apr/07/donald-trump/donald-trump-says-president- obamas-grandmother-cau/ PolitiFact. (20 lib, April 8 ).Jon Kyi says abortion services are " well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does. " Retrieved from http://www.politifact.com/truth- o-meter/statements/201 1 /apr/08/jon-kyl/jon-kyl- says-abortion-services-are-well-over-90-pe/ Schmidt, P. (2011). On death threats, pushback, and the hounding of Frances Fox Piven. Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://www. chroniclecareers.com/article/The-Hounding-of-
Frances-Fox/ 1 26333/
Seidl, J. M. (2010). Frances Fox Piven rings in the New Year by calling for violent revolution. Retrieved from http:// www. theblaze. com/stories/ frances-fox-piven-rings- in-the-new-year-by-calling-for-violent-revolution/
Matthew O. Howard, PhD, is Frank A. Daniels Distinguished
Professor, School of Sodai Work, University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599; e-mail: mohoward@ email.unc.edu.
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