The silence function of the machine works by delegitimizing dissent in advance

Evidence

Not only did AVOT set out to influence public opinion, it also sought to silence dissenting views. As its website declared, AVOT has a “steadfast commitment to attacking those who would blame America first.” This was part of a larger strategy that targeted all dissenters but particularly, as noted above, the Arab American Left. The neocons have vigorously argued that the United States has been a force for good in the Middle East and that people in that region therefore had only themselves to blame for the state of their countries. This argument has been articulated not just by the likes of Pipes and Lewis, but also by mainstream figures like Fareed Zakaria and Thomas Friedman. Neocon Ayaan Hirsi Ali has given legitimacy to this argument through her status as a “native informer.” Ali, who blames Islam for her difficult childhood in Somalia (and pretty much everything else), asks: “Why are Muslims so hypersensitive to criticism and why don’t they do anything with it except to respond by denying it or playing the victim?” In short, Muslims who attempt to articulate criticisms of US policy do not have any legitimate grounds. Irshad Manji, another ideological collaborator with empire, puts it more condescendingly when she tells her “fellow Muslims” to “grow up,” lecturing forcefully that the United States has been a champion of human rights and that “neither Israel or America lies at the root of Muslim misery.” As demonstrated in Chapter 3, these claims are far from true. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 688

Categorization

• XREF: Feeds the reader’s ‘refusal of representation’s hold’ thread: these native-informer and blame-America-first moves operate by foreclosing speech — showing who wins when dissent only contests the frame rather than refusing it. — connects to: Sustained collective silent attention can be choreographed by shared protocols — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!: A Manifesto of the…, 381; Reform-minded dissent within a system strengthens rather than threatens it; Silence transforms bystanders and emboldens perpetrators — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 151

Broader Connections

• Reform-minded dissent within a system strengthens rather than threatens it #corroborates (0.80)
• Sustained collective silent attention can be choreographed by shared protocols #corroborates (0.72) — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 381