Much ado about Sarah's rhetoric ... and why it matters.

From the Twitterati this week, there have been primarily three types of tweets about Sarah Palin: those that mock her mercilessly, those that criticize and call for intelligent people to stop paying attention to her, and those who wax sentimental (and selectively) about the glory days of Tea Partying pre-Palin.

I, too, have cautioned about giving her more power than she actually has. I, too, have certainly indulged my moments of snark and outrage with her behavior. And, I can even partially acknowledge and affirm the frustrated observations of Tea Partiers who complain that corporate GOP influences vis-vis Palin have increased.

However . . as distasteful and tedious and wearisome I find the task of studying Sarah Palin's rhetoric at this moment in history, I think it would be foolish and reckless not to do so. Particularly now that she has become the face and the de facto leader of the Tea Party movement.

What I love about my field of rhetorical theory and criticism are the training and perspective and tools it provides to study and understand the strategies and historical lessons of persuasive discourse in public life. When it comes to rhetorical strategies, there is very little that is extraordinarily new . . . although contexts and purposes and media vary greatly in our culture, there are still only so many ways to start and motivate and sustain a popular movement. And one of the most simple and powerful ways to do this is to create a common enemy - what Kenneth Burke explained as "identification by anti-thesis" and what Eric Hoffer identified as "the devil" of a mass movement. Using such rhetorical tactics in turn creates a firm basis for demagoguery and exciting the emotion and fanaticism of psychologically pre-disposed followers - the same type of rhetorical demagoguery and fanaticism that eventually became Nazi Germany.

Now hear me clearly on this: I AM NOT SAYING THAT PALIN IS HITLER, and I think fear-mongering from the left about fascism on the right is premature, academically unethical, and potentially just as reckless as what is happening on the right.

It is wise to keep in mind that fanaticism and true believers can develop on either side of the political aisle, and further, that mis-diagnosing a problem makes it impossible to provide a solution that is timely and effective. In academic research, the admonition to consider the simplest explanation that fits the evidence is good advice. And I firmly believe, from the rhetorical evidence that we have so far, that we are dealing with fanaticism, not fascism. I agree that this is serious enough to be taken seriously - but going off half-cocked and fighting another rhetorical devil that hasn't actually happened yet is a waste of time that may prevent a more sensible solution and strategy to the problem from being heard.

With that said, however, I will acknowledge that based on the evidence from our ongoing research, I do think Palin and the Tea Parties are rhetorically dangerous because of the fanaticism they breed toward the US Government, and in particular, the irrational hatred and fear they exploit and nurture toward out current President, Barack Obama. She clearly stated in Nashville that her motives are to start a revolution . . . and she seems wholly unaware that some revolutions end badly and with long lasting negative consequences for liberty and freedom. (e.g. the Russian Revolution, the Iranian revolution)

And THAT is why we need to watch her - that is why she gets more press than a peaceful gathering of intelligent and (far more interesting) women bloggers for the Blissdom convention at the Opryland Hotel. That is why we must - and will - continue to talk about her. This is not some mis-guided voyeruristic excursion - this is an informed academic conclusion about the consequences of ignoring history.

Because you see, in some ways, she is far more dangerous than Hitler, because Hitler was deliberate in his rhetorical strategy. He KNEW what he was doing when he gave his speeches and stirred up fanaticism. He was wholly and completely conscious that he was playing with fire.
The problem with Sarah Palin is that she herself is a True Believer . . . I honestly think she has no clue what she is doing, and I honestly think she believes she is doing a really great thing for America. (You betcha!) But much as I saw happening in the Bush administration, I see someone with very little solid education about human history recklessly running strategy and calling rhetorical plays without full consideration or even awareness of the potential consequences. And wish as we might, she is not going away - indeed, her voice is getting bigger, thanks to Fox News.

This is not to say that I also think the neocon influences that some of the Tea Partiers are now complaining about are likewise so ignorant. I think they may in fact be well aware of what they are doing, and that is also a concern that must be taken seriously. However, to also wax sentimental as if the Tea Party movement that started in April of 2009 had and has nothing to do with this fanatical build-up is a wishful, delusional re-writing of history that fails to take proper responsibility and provide a proper accounting of the rhetoric of this True Believer movement all along. The Tea Partiers are, and always have been, a movement threatening revolution against the U.S. Government, and in particular, President Barack (Hussein) Obama.

I mean, come on, the very metaphor of the Tea Party is one that invests in the imagery of rebellion against (at the time) the lawful government of the land. To selectively recognize that this particular rebellion against the tyranny of the British monarchy resulted in the freedom and liberty of many people in the 18th century and beyond fails to fully question and understand that such rebellion was NOT a revolution against a democratically elected government by a free electorate that also holds and cherishes the American Constitution as its own. President Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress and the people that ELECTED them are NOT the English Monarchy of the 18th century - not even close - and it is ludicrous to suggest that they are, or to think you can somehow limit the outrageous symbolic connotations and subsequent actions that some unhinged tea partiers will take this metaphor as license to uphold.

But I digress . . .another post for another day.

My point here is that we are foolish (even stupid) to ignore Sarah Palin and the Tea Parties - or to take comfort in smugly mocking her, as if this is somehow solving the rhetorical problem she poses and that we collectively face in this country right now. Likewise, I think it foolish to go overboard in rabid, fanatical opposition to what is so far only a fairly vigorous fanaticism. We must responsibly confront and thoughtfully engage this challenge without falling prey to the very forces of darkness we fear in opposing them.

I think Media Matters got it spot on yesterday when Jamison Foser claimed that is wasn't the QUANTITY of coverage that Palin gets that is the problem, but rather the QUALITY of coverage she gets. I wholeheartedly agree.

And rather than supporting liberal bloggers calling on Academics to join a reckless crusade, I recommend a different course of action: get out there and document the Tea Parties with your own participation and video and commentary. Use that rightful concern and wonderful passion for our country to get out there and DO citizen journalism and citizen RESEARCH about what is happening - document it - and keep the pressure on the media to report it accurately and completely.

Because if I have any gripe with anyone right now, it is that the media - neither right nor left - totally got it right about last weekend's Tea Party with Sarah. Instead, we have chronic asshats like David Gregory enthusiastically proclaiming, "she sounds like a Presidential candidate." Why didn't a single MSM journalist question the overwhelmingly all-white composition of the audience? Why didn't they point out how crucial stimulus funds were for our public universities (Among other things...)

Had they spoken to @coviner or @bugsact or myself about what we saw and heard during our participation at the outrageously expensive for-profit Tea Party in Nashville, or even if they had just simply done some factchecking and called Palin out on the obvious fallacies and lies in her speech, they might already be promoting better, quality coverage of this growing mass movement and providing real and useful information to those who need and want to know what is happening in OUR United States of America.

And that, my friends, is why I think (groan) we are and should be still talking about Sarah Palin and the Tea Parties.

Game on

A little less than three hours until registration, so I figured I would take the time to call attention to apparent demonstrations at the Tea Party Convention, by former Tea Partiers. While I appreciate what they are doing (and agree wholeheartedly with their assertions that this thing is too damn expensive) leave the delicious steak and lobster of which I am about to partake out of this.

Key insight from Hoffer on the characteristics of True Believers . . .

I think this is the key take-away from Hoffer right now.

And doesn't the last part (in italics) sound exactly like Glenn Beck? LOL

“What surprises one, when listening to the frustrated as the decry the present and all its works, is the enormous joy they derive from doing so. Such delight cannot come form the mere venting of a grievance. There must be something more – and there is. By expiating upon the incurable baseness and vileness of the times, the frustrated soften their feeling of failure and isolation….(p75)

“The effectiveness of a doctrine does not come from its meaning but from its certitude…presented as the embodiment of the one and only truth. If a doctrine is not unintelligible, it has to be vague; and if neither unintelligible nor vague, it has to be unverifiable. One has to get to heaven or the distant future to determine the truth of an effective doctrine….simple words are made pregnant with meaning and made to look like symbols in a secret message. There is thus an illiterate air about the most literate true believer.” (pp. 80-81).

Summary - Eric Hoffer "The True Believer" (1951)

Pasted below is the summary handout I've used in my rhetoric classes to begin the discussions of Eric Hoffer's work on True Believers and Mass Movements. I invite you to read through it and see if you think any of these characteristics apply to popular Conservative Talk Radio/Fox News personalities (aka "wingnuts") and/or the Tea Party movements we have witnessed since Barack Obama became President of the United States. Note particularly Hoffer's key insights at the end - and the essential insight that a mass movement need not have a god, but it MUST have a devil. It is this rhetorical anti-thesis that creates their primary identification as a group. "We are who we are because we are not THAT."

For Hitler's Nazi Germany, they were who they were because they were not Jewish (or any other non-Aryan group). Hitler himself remarked that if the Jews had not existed, he would have had to invent them (to be the devil) for the Nazi identity.

So . . .I wonder: who would Tea Partiers be if there was no Barack Obama?

My friend Genma related her experiences at the convention to me last night...and she was simply amazed that the group was so tightly focused on Obama as the (un-American, un-Christian) devil.

Indeed, this morning the keynote address at the convention is titled: "A comparison of the current administration to Marxist dictators of Latin America." (Okay, I'm stumped. Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama is like a Marxist dictator because . . . ???)

Note the determination to associate President Obama with anything "un-American" . . . birthers say he isn't American outright. Others simply keep calling him a "socialist" while still others refuse to believe the man is a Christian. This repeated mantra of "un-American Obama" serves a clear purpose in the identity (and motivation and fervor) of the movement.

I'll leave it to @coviner to tell you about what he found in his ideograph research and the connection between popular Conservative pundits and these movements and the rhetorical motivation that works to fuel this association and fanatical opposition to the President.

_____________________________________________________________

COMM 4650 – Long

Hoffer, E. (1951). The true believer: Thoughts on the nature of mass movements. New York: Harper and Row.

Definition: The true believer = “. . . the man of fanatical faith who is ready to sacrifice his life for a holy cause” (p. xii)

Rationale:

“It is necessary for most of us these days to have some insight into the motives and responses of the true believer. For though ours is a godless age, it is the very opposite of irreligious. The true believer is everywhere on the march, and both by converting and antagonizing he is shaping up the world in his own image. And whether we are to line up with him or against him, it is well that we should know all we can concerning his nature and potentialities. (p. xiii)

“The assumption that mass movements have many traits in common does not imply that all movements are equally beneficent or poisonous. The book passes no judgments, and expresses no preferences. It merely tries to explain…(p. xiii)

Hypotheses:

“Starting out from the fact that the frustrated predominate among the early adherents of all mass movements and that they usually join of their own accord, it is assumed: 1) that frustration of itself, without any proselytizing prompting from the outside, can generate most of the peculiar characteristics of the true believer; 2) that an effective technique of conversion consists basically in the inculcation and fixation of proclivities and responses indigenous to the frustrated mind.” (p. xii)

“ . . . a mass movement . . . appeals not to those intent on bolstering and advancing a cherished self, but to those who crave to be rid of an unwanted self. A mass movement attracts and holds a following not because it can satisfy the desire for self-advancement, but because it can satisfy the passion for self-renunciation.” (p. 12)

Potential Followers and ‘True Believers’ = The Disaffected

“Though the disaffected are found in all walks of life, they are most frequent in the following categories: a) the poor, b) misfits, c) outcasts, d) minorities, e) adolescent youth, f) the ambitious, g) those in the grip of some vice or obsession, h) the impotent (in body or mind), i) the inordinately selfish, j) the bored, k) the sinners.” (p. 25)

Content vs. Form:

“A rising mass movement attracts and holds a following not by its doctrine and promises but by the refuge it offers from the anxieties, barrenness, and meaninglessness of an individual existence. It cures the poignantly frustrated not by conferring on them an absolute truth or remedying the difficulties and abuses which made their lives miserable, but by freeing them from their ineffectual selves – and it does this by enfolding and absorbing them into a closely knit and exultant corporate whole.” (p. 41)

Preface: Part III - United Action and Self-Sacrifice (pp. 58-61)

When we ascribe the success of a movement to it faith, doctrine, propaganda, leadership, and ruthlessness and so on, we are but referring to instruments of unification and to means used to inculcate a readiness for self-sacrifice. It is perhaps impossible to understand the nature of mass movements unless it is recognized that their chief preoccupation is to foster, perfect and perpetuate a facility for united action and self-sacrifice. To know the processes by which such a facility is engendered Is to grasp the inner logic of most of the characteristics attitudes and practices of an active mass movement.

“The reader is expected to quarrel with much that is said in this part of the book….this is not an authoritative textbook. It is a book of thoughts, and it does not shy away from half-truths so long as they seem to hint at a new approach and help to formulate new questions. ‘To illustrate a principle,’ says Bagehot, ‘you must exaggerate much and you must omit much.” (pp. 60).

Factors promoting self-sacrifice (pp. 62-90):

1. identification with a collective whole (44-46)

2. make-believe (47)

3. deprecation of the present (48-55)

4. “things which are not” -

5. doctrine – not meaning but certitude (58-59)

6. fanaticism (60-63)

“What surprises one, when listening to the frustrated as the decry the present and all its works, is the enormous joy they derive from doing so. Such delight cannot come form the mere venting of a grievance. There must be something more – and there is. By expiating upon the incurable baseness and vileness of the times, the frustrated soften their feeling of failure and isolation….(p75)

“The effectiveness of a doctrine does not come from its meaning but from its certitude…presented as the embodiment of the one and only truth. If a doctrine is not unintelligible, it has to be vague; and if neither unintelligible nor vague, it has to be unverifiable. One has to get to heaven or the distant future to determine the truth of an effective doctrine….simple words are made pregnant with meaning and made to look like symbols in a secret message. There is thus an illiterate air about the most literate true believer.” (pp. 80-81).

“The fanatic is perpetually incomplete and insecure. He cannot generate self-assurance out of his individual sources – our of his rejected self – but finds it only by clinging passionately to whatever support he happens to embrace. The passionate attachment is the essence of his blind devotion and religiosity, and he sees in it the sources of all virtue and strength….He sacrifices his life to prove his worth.” (p. 85)

“The fanatic cannot be weaned away from his cause by an appeal to reason or his moral sense. He fears compromise and cannot be persuaded to qualify the certitude and righteousness of his holy cause.” (p. 85).

Mass Movements vs. Armies (p. 88-90).

Unifying agents (pp. 91 – 128):

1. hatred

2. imitation

3. persuasion and coercion

4. leadership

5. action

6. suspicion

Key insights/Summary from The True Believer (P. Bsumek, James Madison University, 2000)

• 1. We may be godless, but we are not irreligious.

• 2. Mass organizations appeal to us through appeals of self- advancement.

• 3. Mass movements offer and in fact require self-renunciation.

• 4. The logical content of the message is irrelevant.

• 5. A mass movement should have a god, but it must have a devil. (p.91)

• Characteristics of a devil:

• Devil is ugly.

• Devil is powerful

• Devil is strangely attractive

• Devil is omnipresent

• 6. If you want to stop a movement, you cannot argue against it logically.

• 7. Movements offer freedom, but only deliver brotherhood.

• 8. Proselytizing as a sign of doubt not of truth.

More about the research and other random tidbits...

As my co-writer has stated, this all started last year on tax day as we discussed the news of the Tax Day Tea Party gatherings across the country. From there came three weeks of hell, and I don't just mean the course work and the original paper, listening to Michael Savage spout off about H1N1 being some kind of terrorist plot involving Mexican mules certainly wasn't my idea of fun. However, the project grew from there and we realized something, this attack style commentary is something that fueled the fringe element of the Tea Party. I guess the argument can be made that the group is by and large a "fringe" group, at least from where I am sitting, but I have met enough of those who subscribe to their basic tenets who weren't batshit crazy that I will at least grant the benefit of doubt.

It's quite fitting that we started this now, on the eve of a crucial event in the history of the Tea Party. I will be in the audience as Sarah Palin delivers a speech that is sure to be full of the "political goodness" I promised. I am going incognito and cutting the hippie hair for this one. So by god, they better let me live tweet. If not, be sure to keep an eye out here, and for random updates whenever I can run enough interference to type out #nashtea on my cell phone.

From here, it's a little housekeeping. There are some things I am following that I will should be all over in the next few days, after I take a little time to watch the Super Bowl and maintain some semblence of a social life.

1) A little bit of uneasiness from Democratic incumbents in conservative districts. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. With losses in the House and Senate looming, we'll see where this takes us over the next few months. I expect to see a lot more centrist talk for those in trouble, and even those who are comfortable.
2) I feel the need to take this back to where this Tea Party started (or at least, where a lot of folks think it started) and look at the Rick Santelli rant on CNBC. Look for that next week alongside some Palin work.

Finally, I feel like this blog just looks a little too plain. Hopefully my more technologically proficient friends can help out with that, so we'll go ahead and give this thing a new look early.

"We need to read Eric Hoffer . . . "

This particular rhetorical criticism project began April 15th, 2009 - the day I was late to my rhetoric class because I was fascinated watching the tea party protests on the noonday local news in Nashville. I was also following blogger Oliver Willis as he began live tweeting from one in Washington, DC. And all I could think about this rhetorical phenomenon as I drove to class was: "we need to read Eric Hoffer."

I began reading and discussing Eric Hoffer's "The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements" with my rhetoric classes in the Fall of 2001. After 9/11, we spent a great deal of time talking and making sense. And one thing that just didn't make sense was the fanatical nature of Al-Qaeda. It also seemed to me that we needed to be mindful of our own nationalism; that our collective bonding in the face of such horror must not deterioriate into blind fanatical rhetoric and behavior of our own. So, because it helped us make sense of this rhetoric of our time, we would read Eric Hoffer's classic analysis of fanatical social movements at the end of every semester through the spring of 2004.

I've since changed Universities, and I've been teaching other courses since then, so I didn't include Hoffer in my course syllabus when I was assigned to teach a rhetoric course again last spring. It simply didn't seem as necessary to consider his work that winter because fanaticism per se was not so much in the public eye then. Mostly it was celebration and exultation following the election of Mr. Barack Obama as POTUS. And President Obama's rhetoric is not True Believer/fanatic rhetoric. It may be many things, but it is not that. So, I edited Hoffer readings and discussions out of my syllabus in favor of trying some different learning activities that are currently more in vogue with educators (i.e. group projects).

But then came Rush "I hope he fails" Limbaugh . . . and the army of True Believers that followed him. They had a very clear fanatical "devil" = any and all things un-American. And that's fine as far as it goes - I am pretty passionately patriotic, too. But they weren't standing up for American values, they were standing against a very specific un-American devil = the President of the United States, Barack Obama (and his leagues of evil liberal minions).

Jon Stewart captured and confronted the spirit of this developing rhetorical community quite well when he said on the April 7th Daily Show episode "Baracknphobia": "I think you might be confusing tyranny with losing...See, when the guy you disagree with gets elected, he's prob going to do things you disagree with...That's not tyranny, that's Democracy. See, now you're in the MINORITY. It's supposed to taste like a shit taco."


This demonization rhetoric characteristic of True Believer movements intensified throughout the spring, reaching it's first peak and public organization with the Tea Party protests on April 15th, once again prompting a "perspective by incongruity" from Jon Stewart on "Tea Party Tyranny".

To make the President of the United States and the US Government into an Un-American rhetorical devil like this is the hallmark of True Believers and Mass Movements, ala Eric Hoffer. And it was this rhetoric - this increasingly vehement, vitriolic, vengeful and intensely political action - toward our constitutionally elected leaders in the spring of 2009 - that made me throw out the vogue but bland course syllabus and start seriously discussing rhetorical current events with my students again. We voted to scrap the group projects and read Eric Hoffer and take a closer, academic look at this rising mass movement against the POTUS and US Government as our real time rhetorical criticism for the remainder of the semester.

My co-blogger, @coviner, was one of those students - and he has done great research on this topic with me since then, culminating in two conference papers that have used the tools of rhetorical criticism to dispassionately and academically investigate this rhetoric. He began by analyzing popular Conservative pundits, and then turned his attention to the tea parties and other rising true believer voices. His analysis of their ideographs and my application of Hoffer's ideas to this rhetorical discourse community form the core of our ongoing rhetorical criticism project seeking to understand the new social movements that have grown since the inauguration of President Barack Obama.

As luck would have it, the first Tea Party Nation convention is being held in Nashville, and we have the opportunity to study some of the discourse first hand. Thanks to our generous and adventurous assistant Dean of Liberal Arts, and the University mission to support student-faculty scholarship, we have two tickets to their dinner, to enrich and extend the rhetorical analysis we've established this far. We'll share that experience here - as well as some other insights from our ongoing rhetorical criticism project. We invite and welcome your thoughts and ideas, too.

Next up . . . a summary of Eric Hoffer's theories of True Believers and Mass Movements as a method for rhetorical criticism.

Our Pet Goat . . .

We probably would have started this blog much sooner . . . but try as we might, we simply couldn't come up with a good name that captured both the content and the spirit of rhetorical criticism that we had in mind to share with others. And for two rhetoric wonks like us, both usually good at naming things, this was a mighty frustrating fail at our craft.

After another fruitless phone call on the issue, I told @coviner to keep working on his research while I grabbed some dinner and did some more brainstorming with our Debate Coach and friend, Greg, who is also very creative and witty. Knowing Greg's love for trivia team names that involve various versions of "the goat", @coviner immediately said, "no goats" - a rule that I promptly shared with Greg. We had a good laugh at this, as friends do, and then settled down to dinner and brainstorming.

At some point, Greg jokingly complained about the "no goats" rule, and I jokingly suggested we just call it "rhetoric goat" . . . at which point we both stopped and looked at each other: Hey, yeah . . . that actually works!

After a quick search of "goats" on Wikipedia to consider more carefully the symbolic connotations of our new name, we became even more enthusiastic about the idea, so we made the pitch to Eric via text message. We accurately predicted that he would initially reject it, but then warm to the idea as he thought it through. And sure enough, he did: "I make really bad rules. I like it."

And thus, "The Rhetoric Goat" was born.

What sold us on the idea was reading about the diet and behavior of goats, which brought to mind some similar characteristics of the academic "diet" and behavior of rhetorical critics.

"Goats are extremely curious and intelligent. . . They are also known for escaping their pens. Goats will test fences, either intentionally or simply because they are handy to climb on. If any of the fencing can be spread, pushed over or down, or otherwise be overcome, the goats will escape. Being very intelligent, once a weakness in the fence has been discovered, it will be exploited repeatedly.
Goats have an intensely inquisitive and intelligent nature: they will explore anything new or unfamiliar in their surroundings . . .This is why they investigate items such as buttons, camera cases or clothing (and many other things besides) by nibbling at them, occasionally even eating them." (Wikipedia)

Rhetorical critics are likewise curious, intelligent, and inquisitive . . . and not easily held captive by mindless convention. The world of rhetoric is enormous, and far too interesting for a critic to remain comfortably tethered in one place for very long. Studying any and all forms of human communication and public discourse from political oratory to comic books, rhetorical critics are always exploring and "nibbling" the communication, events, and artifacts of our culture, searching for critical insight about the rhetorical habits and practices of what Kenneth Burke called "the symbol using, mis-using animal."

Rhetoric has also been personified throughout the ages as "the harlot of the arts," - the beautiful, fascinating, promiscuous, untethered, and dangerously irresistible temptress - impossible to tame or control - yet delightful to play with. This reflects the observation of Aristotle who noted, "rhetoric... belongs to no particular science," because every field of human endeavor involves rhetorical communication.

Much like the goat, you can't keep dame rhetoric in a cage . . . she's just not that kind of girl.

And thus, like the unconventional, promiscuous, curious goat that nibbles everything and inevitably escapes conventional constraints, the rhetorical critic is inquisitive and wide-ranging in pursuit of greater knowledge of, and practical skills for, our daily rhetorical lives. We take the world as it comes, but also seek to make it better by giving back the milk of our research and critical insight to our communities as practical nutrition for greater civic engagement and empowerment.

Okay, that's probably going WAY too far with this metaphor, but you get the idea. Rhetorical critics study anything and everything human and rhetorical. We're curious and inquisitive. We're not picky. We're prolific and (academically) promiscuous. We don't like cages. We're useful. And we're definitely ready and able to butt heads with folks when necessary.

In many ways, we're simply a lot like goats.

My colleague @alechosterman suggested that we call the blog "The rhetorical goad," following Burke's observation that the "symbol-using, mis-using animal" is always "goaded by the spirit of hierarchy, and rotten with perfection." My friend @designtwit seconded this suggestion because of the vital, active connotations of the word "goad" which you can see here.

But in the end, we decided to keep the goat. We like it.

Additionally, if you Google "rhetoric goat", as I did this evening, you'll also find a surprisingly wonderful history of this symbolic association in diverse cultural places. So that's neat, too.

And if nothing else, this title is a way for us to pay tribute to Greg, our mutual mentor, friend, and goat enthusiast, who brought us together when he enrolled @coviner in my rhetoric class last spring.

Welcome...

You have reached The Rhetoric Goat. My co-blogger will explain the name a little better later, but for now I want to give a little back story and tell you what it is we want to accomplish with this particular entry in the blogosphere.

This is part of a bigger academic project involving political rhetoric and social movements. It began as a paper for a class in the spring of 2009, the focus of which was ideographs and their use in popular conservative rhetoric. Ideas such as this will be present within the work we put into this blog, and we'll touch on all kinds of other political goodness in the process.

I think now would be a good time to get my political leanings out there. I am a proud liberal, however, I feel that there is plenty of work to be done from all corners of the political spectrum. So, while the bulk of work here will be focused on conservative rhetoric, I don't intend to sleep on divisiveness from any source I find. Also, if you catch a hint of bias, I apologize in advance. The ultimate goal is to remain objective, but we all know how difficult that can be at times.

Well, I am a firm believer in letting things play out, and I tend to ramble on for hours if unchecked, so let's leave the introduction at that. Feel free to contact me anytime in the future to bring things to my attention, tell me that I am awesome or inform me that I am a complete ass. I can handle it.