Ok, I'm like PROPOSITION: The Internet has been one siginificant factor in the rightward movemet of the US for a number of reasons:

A) It has served to scatter the "left" into a million different sites with
little common denominators.
B) It has facilitated attempts to split and drive wedges betweeen facets
of the left, as we see for example in the efforts on left-liberal sites
like Counterpunch to point the 9/11 movement as ESSENTIALLY
rightitist. This is done by creating lifestyle niches a la Counterpunchs
ing "people who listen to Wilco and are aspiring to become the
last Independent Sociologist, should scoff at anyone who ever says the
sounds 9/11 because these people are low class Idaho listeners to
Alex Jones, and they necessarily hate jews dot com." (by the way I
think there are some of the very best articles on the net on Counter-
punch and this irony could well be exaclty the point -- see history of
the left liberal Encounter Magazine 1950-64, which was entirely paid
for by the CIA)

C) It facilitates the niche political marketing of groups like MoveOn.
This is BUshe-enabeling, because these ADA ish groups inevitably
end up selliing the latest Hillary Rodham Bush to people who know
and might call the bluff of the DLC_DNC if they were not at least
feeling alittle comfy on a website of their wewy wewy own.

D) The internet serves as an excuse for the Corporate Media to
be less and less balanced every day. Harry Reid is viewed as
Trotsky on this slimfast political spectrum. No I mean Trotsky
when he was still breathing.

E) It enables the Corporate Media to seem Mainstream because of
solely the number of readers-watchers it has. Even though there
might be 80% (of the MSM audience) who get thier news from wesites, because they scoff at the Brittnybellyuttonification of Wolf
Blitzkreig's Drang nach osten.

F) A few other reasons which I will type later when im seven %
less grumpy.

All I can say is what it has done for me.

This is a very red area in a blue state. Country people are generally judgemental, that is, rightwing. We have people displaying the stars and bars around here, and they LOVE Bush!

If it weren't for the internet, I would have NO people on the left to talk to. The internet is like a huge gathering place, many people are going to bring many views. Personally I love it!

I couldn't listen to radio at all before the internet--it was filled with hate mongers spewing their drivel about how horrible liberals are and how they continually ruin the country. A person can stand just so much of that before not turning the darn radio on at all. TV was no better, it just had pictures to go with the hatefilled words.

We were rightwing well before the internet came along (at least before most people were part of it).

Btw, MoveOn backs Obama, not Hillary.

In my world the internet has not made us more rightwing, it has brought us whatever we are looking for. But then, I don't visit those sites that believe in things that are not part of my nature.

I hope you can find sites that suite you better too.

The Intertubes enables us to actually find and use sources of information that we would not have if we only had television, radio, newspapers...and gossip....to keep us informed.

Just look at the people who get their info only from Faux Noise!


I LOVE the INTERTUBES!

I did not say there were no good things about the internet. I am not talking about the ability to offer variety. The internet is boviously great at that. What I am talking about is the ability to form a critical mass-- or a unified voice in opposition to the rightward drift. I know I am typing heretical thoughts here, because it is common to only write about the liberating aspects of the internet


I want to rememphasize that I am proposing that the internet might be ONE VARIABLE in a more complex equation that might explain this unopposed-- at least by an audience larger than 13 1/2--rightward movement. Any way it was meant to be a debate/discussion so thanks for participating!

Ok...but I still find that the net has done an excellent job of keeping noteworthy news before a vast number of people around the world. These events would have been quickly forgotten if not seen and continually discussed at blogs and discussion boards, such as this one. Example: ABU GHRAIB and other Bush Administration Scandals. Just google that term: Bush Admin Scandals.

Most of the Bush administration scandals would not have been reported by the msm and, even if actually reported, they would have been given very little coverage and attention.

Knowledge allows people to make their own decisions. Knowledge can unite people. Knowledge gained via the internet is a definite UNITER.

Ok so the scandals are reported on the net. Is that in some way taking pressuree off the Wasington POST? How do we explain that BUsh has done1600 things worse than Watergate and Harry Reid is one of the calmer mummies? In 19734 Watergate was page 1or 3 every day for two years in a row.. Now a scandal breaks fifty times bigger and the next story is a year and a half later in the NYT. In the "MSM" (hate that term but IN SOME WAYS THAT S WHAT THE INTERNET HAS CREATED--- BY DEFAULT) they are saying o well let the old people who still read go on the internet.

Again the issue is not THAT THE FACTS ARENT OUT THERE,,(though this is still tru in a lot of areas,) but rather that the facts are not out there in a medium that can lead to THE CRITICAL MASS THAT IS BIG ENOUGH AND COMMUNICATIVE ENOUGH TO LEAD TO REAL CHANGE. How else can you explain so much "out there" with so little change during the period of the most obvious systematic massive corruption in the history of multi-cellular organisms?

We lefties have always been this way. It has nothing to do with the internet, but rather it is our nature. Liberals are all leaders, conservatives are mostly followers. That is both our greatest weakness and our greatest strength.

Studies have shown that the left has pretty much taken over internet blogs and political forums. Right-wingers find it difficult to prosper in the unstructured, open forum, with it's free flow of ideas. They need to be handed directives, and spoon fed predigested ideas, and ideology by those they consider their betters.

We, on the other hand, prefer to search out various sources of information for ourselves, in order to gain a wider understanding. This the main reason right-wingers are hopelessly over-matched in internet forum debates.

Before the massive, open free flow of information became available on the internet, right-wing owned mainstream news media controlled a monopoly on information in the US. I had no idea how much US MSM was censored until I began searching foriegn news sources a few years ago. Now, the blogs are even beginning to shame US news media to report the truth in many cases.

No, I disagree. The internet came along just in time. Without it, the fascists would have already won.

Again, not saying the info is not out there just saying never before in hisotry has so much info been out there to so little effect.


But not only so little effect.


To so little effect at a time when there has been such unprecedented centralization of Corporate power. My argument is that the internet has served to whittle down 80% majorities"who do not recognize thier own stregnth" ie they dont recognize what they hav ein common because of their compepeting monistic obessions ppek oil people, cultural leftists who are trained like robots into thinking all 9/11 peopla are nazis etc. HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN? It has a lot to do with fragmenting audiences into smaller and smaller grouplets that are trained to distrust each other. Did I say trained? Yes, I strongly suspect it again ..... SEE HISTORY OF CIA ENCOUNTER MAGAZINE LEF-LIBERAL AND FUNDED ENTIRELY BY THE CIA ... with a purpose in mind.

THere have been sixty years of COMMUNICATIONS REASEARCH citizens. What do you think they were doing all those years, playng tiddly winks?? COnspiracy Theory you say........ well maybe what DOES YOUR SITE MEAN BY CONSPIRACY THEORY.... WELL MY SITE MEANS XYZ! So there!

The internet serves to increase both education and consciousness.

While agents prowl the internet 24/7, the scum of society runs amok and ignored because scum generally care less about education and consciousness.

An unfortunate consequence of the internet if that both disinformation agents and chronic liars are able to freely express their views. Albeit to a very small audience.

The internet is about the only "public place" where I feel any degree of safety.

This explains again what shoe said.

The intertubes bring us information we never could have had before. That is why government wants to control the internet. It isn't just 'us old people', have you seen the number of young people who are champing at the bit to get Bush out of office? They know internet backwards and forwards, and they learn from it. So far, it looks like they are learning good things.

Are you in an area where rightwingers are growing?

No but your question is a good one. I am in nyc, and what I see is an area that used to be very politically active in other ways besides just the two corporate war parties, and Now is an area where people Say "Im for Obama so the war in Iraq is not my fault" my translation there! In other words YES THERE ARE WAY MORE PEOPLE AGAINST BUSH but even with a majority of like 90 percent there is NO UNIFYINIG voice to ARTICULATE THIS URGE FOR CHANGE.

In short the following irony hovers like communications ploy: never has there been so great a desire for change and never has the articulation of WHAT KIND OF CHANGE been so amorphous and hazy. I think it is strategic hazzyiness, and I am suggesting that this has something to do with the changed communications environment that i have tried to articulate in my first post. Please see those first four points!


And no I do not see Obama as such a voice because he accepts almost all of the "national secutiry" war rhetoric that is really bipartisan elite manipulation.

Again, plese see my initial post. I IN NO WAY SAID THAT THE INTERNET IS BAD . I spend half my life on the internet. I WAS SIMPLY STYING TO SAY THAT THERE MIGHT BE MAJOR WEAKENSSES IN THE MEANS OF COMMUNICAITON THAT HAVE NOT BEEN ADDRESSED THAT MIGHT EXPLAIN WHY THE DEMOCRATS HAVE GOTTEN AWAY WITH ACCEPTING EVERY SINGLE MAJOR TENNANT OF THE BUSH LIE PROGRAM, and when I say accepting i mean not really speaking out about it.

Its perfectly fine for you to write your thoughts about the internet in genreal here, but also please see my initial post.

Ozzie Smith came to the St. Louis Cardinals as a superhuman defensive shortstop and almost no offense. Over time he became a real hitter, who averaged around 290 with 55 RBIs hitting high in the order and he was outstanding in the clutch.

Had he ONLY CONCERNTRATED ON THE STRONG POINTS and not addressed possible weaknesses would he be in the Hall of Fame?

Okay, I am looking at those points in your first post.

A) The 'left' has been scattered forever. We are thinking people and agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, totally disagree with each other and it has always been this way. That is just what thinking people do.

The right are descended from lemmings. Everyone has to follow the leader or they are not acceptable.

Right and left have differing views of how people should live. I call it the horizontal vs vertical agenda.

Horizontal means everyone gets to make up his own mind--people are equal in value.

Vertical means someone at the top makes all the decisions and everyone on down has to follow the 'leader'. Ever listen to 'talking points' coming from every pundit, every so-called journalist, on every station--and then hear them from your neighbors?

B) See answer A.

C) Media is run by corporate powers. It is going to sell corporate garbage no matter what we do. Media 10 years ago was not any better than media today. We have, is it five or six companies now, that run everything big media owns--and it owns EVERYTHING! It is now trying to stifle the internet because it hates that people in America can get information anywhere but at it's feet.

Actually, I get the feeling you want liberals to not have anywhere to say, "Ouch". Isn't it bad enough that we have been subjected for years to the ravings and disinformation of corporate media with no release? Why do you believe "feeling a little comfy on a website of their wewy wewy own" is THE problem? I don't sit here and go nowhere else, do you? We have an entire world of information at our fingertips and we do use it. Emphasis on we do use it.

D) Media treats every liberal or even centrist as the enemy. They don't need us as an excuse for that, it comes to them naturally. Has a lot to do with money in our governmental system. Corporations can buy and sell every government official, every news delivers system (they are still working on the internet--but they are breathing down our necks), and way too many American citizens.

Citizens in other countries think we are all fat and lazy, maybe even nuts because they see what our government is doing but we do not. We do not because media does not cover it. We do not unless we have computers and can read what is happening from news that never gets to us any other way.

I can see you are angry--I am angry too. But to be angry at the wrong people isn't going to help. Maybe being angry at the right people isn't either, but at least it is a step in the right direction.

Websites that encourage people to look, to think, are not the problem. I hope you will be able to understand that at some point. Otherwise, you will have to continue being so uncomfortable and not have any 'feeling alittle comfy on a website of their wewy wewy own. '

Good luck.

Wow! Some great points dori!

As far as the mainstream news media using the existance left-wing blogs to justify going to the right, listen to what Frank Zappa had to say back in 1988 (obviously well before the internet), after the death of the Fairness Doctrine:

Frank Zappa: The problem is that the whole myth of the liberal media bias is preposterous because nobody who owns a broadcast license, or a newspaper, is a Democrat. They're all screaming on the right. And the flap about liberal media bias was manufactured by the right wing. The right wing goes to some of their friends in another part of the right wing and says, "You attack my network. You say that CBS is too liberal, and that gives us the license to behave more conservatively in order to appear to be fair". Thereby pushing any liberal idea completely out of their broadcast, and doing it in a way that's saying, "We're doing this to provide balance". Perfect fakeout. Because that's exactly what the people always wanted to do to begin with. The demise of the Red Lion Decision guaranteeing equal time for opposing points of view in a political situation - they got rid of that last year, or the year before. Most people don't even know that regulation doesn't exist anymore. It is no longer required of a broadcaster to give equal time to the opposition. And so the removal of that regulation, combined with the desire to have only one point of view presented to the American public, has given them this great opportunity in this election.

http://www.science.uva.nl/~robbert/zapp ... art04.html

Loved that link! Big Frank Zappa fan.

Your a very interesting personality Dori.