Human beings seem to spend a lot of time emotionally manipulating each other. It's a skill we begin practicing at an early age and we discover very quickly that it often works. Depending on our mood and situation it might be amusing to discover that we are on the receiving end of someone's manipulations but at other times it can feel threatening. Sometimes we wonder if our suspicions aren't exaggerated, if we aren't becoming unnecessarily paranoid. 

Tammy Bruce, the author of "The New Thought Police", assures us that we are indeed being deliberately manipulated by the political Left. The goal of that manipulation is our silence and submission. She speaks with authority, as a person who once engaged in that manipulation from inside a Leftist organization.  Bruce describes herself in the beginning of her book as a 
liberal lesbian and former member of the Democratic Party. In the mid-1990s she was president of the Los Angeles chapter of NOW and for a time, was on the board of the national organization. She left NOW when she discovered that it is dedicated to imposing socialism on America, not improving women's lives. 

 The leaders of the Left, which includes Betty Frieden, who secretly joined the Communist Party in 1940 and was a founder of NOW, Gloria Steinem, who is a member of an organization that has ties with Socialists International, and Jesse Jackson, whose chief aide has long been known to the FBI as an old-time Communist organizer, as well as their endless special interest groups, have no real interest in  the social progress of American minorities. What they are intent on is to disrupt and throw into confusion the American culture, to make it more amenable to the massive changes planned for it by the Left. 

According to Bruce the target populations of the Left's manipulations are two-fold. The first is the civil rights movement which the Left co-opted from conservatives in the 1960s.  As the natural enemy of conservatives, the Left allied itself with the Democratic Party, giving it a legitimate political cover for its activities and powerful backing in Washington, D.C.  It is the constituencies of the civil rights movement -- blacks, women and homosexuals -- who are the vital source of the Left's power today.  These constituencies must be convinced that the Left is their sole defender and that conservatism is their enemy. The Left must make itself appear to be striving mightily for the progress of these constituencies while at the same time 
convincing them that they are losing ground, increasingly victimized by conservative Americans, and desperately in need of the continued leadership of the Left. 

The second target population of the Left's manipulations -- conservatives and the religious --  are tenacious in their belief and confidence in ideas the Left must defeat -- individualism (as opposed to group identity), personal responsibility (as opposed to group responsibility), freedom of expression (as opposed to silence) and tolerance (as opposed to antagonistic divisiveness).  These ideas are the underpinning of the idea of America itself. America came into being as a result of long and loud debate, discussion and analysis of history. There is seldom if ever total agreement among conservatives. It is through continued discussion, disagreement, constant questioning and compromise, following the standards set for us by the Founding Fathers, that we protect our freedoms. To defeat the conservatives of America (whatever their race, sex or sexual orientation), the Left has only to silence them. 

Why does the Left's success require silencing Americans? Why does it not welcome the opportunities in America to debate with us their own ideas? If the transformation of our culture would improve the lives of Americans why would we not want to hear about it, to better understand how this could be brought about, to hear from them what our culture would be like after such a transformation? Tammy Bruce tells us that while inside the Left, at the 
highest levels, she learned that the Left has no ideas, no excitement or discussion about improving the lives of Americans. According to Bruce, the leadership of the Left has only a pre-eminent will to power, to rule. It is because the Left has no ideas, no betterment to offer, that it must silence debate. Energetic questioning of their goals, analyzing their goals and 
activities through the lens of history, ancient and modern, would expose the Left as frauds and our sworn enemies. 

In example after example throughout her book, Tammy Bruce describes for us the tactics of the Left in silencing not only conservatives and the religious, but also their own constituencies, and those within the civil rights movement itself who begin to question the lack of genuine concern for minorities. Deceit, distortions of information and manipulation are the Left's tactics of necessity; the goal of these tactics is fostering fear in Americans....fear to speak out. 

No American wants to admit being silenced by fear. It is extremely uncomfortable to admit that even to ourselves.  And so we say we are 'rethinking the issue'; we attempt to 'see the issue from the other fellow's perspective'.  We begin to agree that probably 'women think differently from men', or that, if you are white then you aren't capable of understanding 'how 
blacks experience and feel about our society'. Just as though we aren't all simply human beings!  Through films and television shows the Left continually provides us with role models for coping this way with the fear they foster in us. 

The mildest expressions of doubt, strong or mild opposition, even using language not approved by the Left,  risks public mockery, social isolation, the loss of a job, lawsuits or economic losses. Merely being a conservative who voices tolerance of people different from ourselves illogically invites automatic attack. Making examples of well-known conservatives reminds us of the Left's willingness and ability to cause us great pain if we oppose them. 

Bruce describes her political awakening as she observed the destructiveness of the Left's attacks on Dr. Laura Schlessinger in 1998, resulting in the cancellation of her television program. Those attacks included death threats to Dr. Laura herself, letters to her sponsors threatening bombs and also vandalism to their retailers. Other letters went out to Dr. Laura's 
neighbors exhorting them to accost her whenever they saw her out for a walk, to demand from her an explanation for her "destructiveness" to homosexuals. 

A mere handful of GLAAD activists, working through the internet, accomplished this mayhem. Laura Schlessinger's crime? She stated on her program that homosexuals are genetically unable to relate sexually to the opposite sex and should not be rejected only because of their sexual orientation.  Schlessinger has worked for many years with a support  organization for the parents of gays and lesbians.  She urges them not to reject these 'different' children. Why would a homosexual special interest group object to Schlessinger's  statements and activities?  Because she is a conservative. She is a "Now, go do the right thing" woman.  The Left continues its attempts, even now, to silence her. 

With messages brought to us through magazines, books, films, television news and entertainment programs, Americans are told we are a racist nation. That even if the evidence indicates that racism has greatly declined in our country, in our minds we are still racist. In fact, the Left tells us that if we are accepting of blacks and other minorities, pleased that minorities participate more fully in our society, that attitude in itself is indicative that we harbor 
secret racism in our minds!  And so Americans, horrified, re-examine themselves wondering why they don't "get it", questioning their deepest thoughts, searching for this hidden racism. People of other countries have long noted the American habit of self-examination and devotion to fairness  It is not a trait you will find in anyone on the Left, but it is a trait easily 
exploited by the Left to cause us to distrust our own thoughts. This distrust has led many to avoid speaking out, especially in public, afraid of inadvertantly exposing this 'hidden racism' (or sexism, or homophobia), perhaps resulting in censure and isolation. 

Consider the experience of Star Parker, a black conservative and former welfare mother. She was invited to speak by Penn State's Young Americans for Freedom, and her speech was titled "From Entitlement to Empowerment".  Bruce describes for us the Left's reaction to this young woman: Parker was "interrupted by demonstrators who, determined not to allow her to finish, blew whistles and marched to the front of the room in military clothing. They then continued to disrupt the speech by performing a skit. The situation was so chaotic that Parker was forced to leave the building through a back door."  It is confusing to read what Bruce tells us about another program at Penn State, which was funded by students fees and state tax dollars. That program was titled "Cuntfest" and as described by Bruce was as insulting and contemptuous of women as the title indicates! 

It is not merely the "wrongness" (as determined by the Left) of statements and actions by conservatives or the religious that the Left objects to. It is the expression of any view by conservatives. The Left is intent on silencing any participation in discussion about cultural issues by any conservative, whatever his political affiliation or cultural status.  And it has enjoyed success only to the degree that conservatives have not spoken out. To the degree that
conservatives have not used their power in the marketplace, in voting booths, on school boards, in local political offices, letters to the editors of 
newspapers and telephone calls to their political representatives to
forthrightly question the tactics and manipulations of the Left....to that degree it has succeeded in silencing us. 

You may not agree with many of Tammy Bruce's choices or even some of her political views. But what she has to share about the manipulations and divisiveness of the Left, and  its hunger for our power, is important information for us to know and consider. 

Peggy Whitcomb 

© 2002 Peggy Whitcomb