This guy's face is completely out of proportion with the rest of his head. And what's with the eyebrows?
Posted on 03/08/2007 11:40:55 PM PST by conservative in nyc
The Dixie Chicks have a movie, Shut Up & Sing, coming out today, and, to keep things lively, they're staging a grudge match with the worst site on the Internet, political-rhetoric division.
"The fat chick will only drive traffic to this site," writes one poster to the site.
"The Frenchy Chix can't get a gig in a gay bar in Ithaca," writes another.
Others chime in with more corruptions: Chubby Chicks, Ditsy Twits, Vichy Chicks.
"Yep typical liberals," says someone else. "No character."
This is Free Republic, an exercise in political extremism that, despite being and something of an anthropological train wreck, keeps popping up square in the mainstream.
Most recently, it has resurfaced as a villain in the Dixie Chicks movie, which traces the fallout from lead singer Natalie Maines's infamous 2003 London declaration that she was embarrassed that George W. Bush was, like her, from Texas.
It was a bad time to be anti-war, and Americans are touchy about being criticized on foreign soil at the best of times. The "grassroots" backlash that followed -- orchestrated, in part, by the people at Free Republic, who mobilized their large and largely disgruntled membership -- saw the band savaged in the press and at the box office.
The site is a venerable and storied Web forum for American arch-conservatives. Funded by member donations, it was founded in 1996 as an anti-Clinton grandstand, and soon became a place where members could post news stories and discuss them -- though "discussion" might be the wrong word. More often, it's a kind of pantomime, where the name of the game is to cheer the good guy and boo the bad guy every time he creeps on stage.
Freepers, as the sites denizens are known, are the good guys. The bad guys, according to site founder Jim Robinson, are practitioners of "liberalism, socialism, fascism, pacifism, totalitarianism, anarchism, government enforced atheism, abortionism, feminism, homosexualism, racism," and "wacko environmentalism."
So it is that, day in and day out, Freepers attempt to outdo each other in posting the most pungent, juvenile reactions to stories. Articles containing an opposing viewpoint have the words "BARF ALERT" appended to their titles. Slurs are encouraged. When the first same-sex Canadian soldiers were married last year, the story garnered 73 angry responses, ranging from "Disgusting and despicable" to "I'd resign my commission before performing a ceremony to marry a couple of bone-smugglers" to "Let's see what happens when the Canadian military has an AIDS epidemic on its hands."
It's a hateful place that, if the world was working as it should, would be relegated to the Internet's endless fringes, where conspiracy theorists and pyramid-power believers roam the wasteland. But what's interesting about Free Republic is that, despite having attracted a crowd of the most paranoid, xenophobic and reactionary characters the political landscape has to offer, it continues to find itself in the news.
For instance, during the 2004 U.S. presidential election, it was central to the network of websites that uncovered the forged memos about Bush's Vietnam service that appeared on CBS News and ultimately cost Dan Rather his job. (Paranoia, in this instance, paid off.) Later, and less admirably, Jerome Corsi, the co-author of Unfit for Command -- the hatchet job about John Kerry's military service that crippled his campaign -- was found to be posting racist, sexist diatribes on the site.
And then there was the flap about the Dixie Chicks, spurred on by zealous Freepers. Thanks to their movie, Free Republic is getting another moment in the sun. Not helping things was the band's manager publicly calling Robinson "a coward" for refusing to be interviewed for the film. ("I am jealous of you Mr. Robinson," declared one Freeper in response. "You have been singled out and attacked by America's premier Entertraitors.") These, ladies and gentlemen, are grassroots at work. There are a lot of organizations out there that are in the business of whipping their members into a lather and unleashing them on corporations and politicians alike.
But if Free Republic has a virtue, it's that, unlike other pressure groups, it's transparent: You can see the cogs turning, the anger mounting, the members joining the half-baked me-too condemnations that will surface on tomorrow's news agenda. It's like a glass ant farm for zealots. It's a little stomach-turning, but man, they're diligent little things. It's hard not to stare sometimes.
Proud Member since 1998....and I have never soiled my hands (or hearing) with a Vichy Chicks CD...
useless...
This is Free Republic, an exercise in political extremism that, despite being and something of an anthropological train wreck, keeps popping up square in the mainstream.
Dear Mr. Beckwith,
You are completely wrong. "extremism", "train wreck" these are terms meant to disuade your readership from probing deeper.
Why Sir?, would you seek to divert attention unless we at FreeRepublic were on target to destroy your fraud.
At FreeRepublic we encourage engagement with all sources of information, you Sir, seek to shut them down.
FreeRepublic is beyond you. Like a child fallen through an ice covered pond, you hopelessly claw at the unforgiving cover above. Your whimsicle moment in the spotlight, where a few remnant curios bite, will be displaced by a roar of indepentent human intellects stomping on your anthopoligical head.
Rest well, fading discredit monger.
Eddie01
This guy's face is completely out of proportion with the rest of his head. And what's with the eyebrows?
Ha ha! And that is about the extent of it, isn't it!
There's old daily traffic stats here, but unfortunately they stop about 3 years ago:
http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/weekday-report
Vichy chix has a nice truthful ring to it.
Whoa. Who knew?
Just out of curiosity, Jim, under what name did this Ivor dumpster-diver Tossell post at FR? What a maroon
""So it is that, day in and day out, Freepers attempt to outdo each other in posting the most pungent, juvenile reactions to stories."
Bite me."
I'm laughing so hard I am crying. Too Funny!
This story helped relieve my constipation. Thanks!!
You didn't seem to "get" Beckwith's point: the author of the article used improper grammar.
It's the camera angle (taken from a sort of lower than eye-level point toward his chin). He could use a tan, though.
Don't forget Person of the Year
It doesn't matter. If there were 1,000,000 freepers that supported the Dixie chicks, the liberal media would cull the remarks of the one that doesn't. They're always going to twist and take remarks out of context.
This article only shows that freepers are effective in combating liberalism.
Well said.
Huh?
Wow. Thats a great testimony of what you really think about the fine people on this forum. Way to get people on your side.
Is not the beauty of the forum that we can say what we believe without having it corrupted by some editor or attacked unchecked by some troll?
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