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.
The article is obviousely flawed - for example, it seems to miss the fact that Free Republic really didn't orchestrate anything against the Dixie Chicks except in Natalie Maines' head. And their description of Free Republic is a bit over the top, to say the least. But before this thread descends into Dixie Chick and Canada bashing, is this really how we FReepers want to be perceived - as a crowd of "the most paranoid, xenophobic and reactionary characters the political landscape has to offer" who "attempt to outdo each other in posting the most pungent, juvenile reactions to stories"?
Sometimes, we need to remember that anything we post anywhere on the Internet can be read by anyone anywhere in the world - even those in the MSM who want to tarnish this website's name.
Does anyone here really care what some barking moonbat thinks of F.R.?
I think I remember reading this here a while ago. Question a liberal about something stupid they say, you're taking away their rights. Yet conservatives can't speak their thoughts.
Regarding the Dixie Chicks, nobody here made them come out and say something stupid and lose their fan base.
I wonder what his screen name is...
Hey, where's the Barf Alert?
"...we need to remember that anything we post anywhere on the Internet can be read by anyone anywhere in the world..."
You must also remember that people will choose to believe or disbelieve, misrepresent or misquote anyone. Although I do believe we, as conservatives, should hold ourselves to a higher standard of conduct.
Bite me.
Great read! Outa-sight comedy!
The day we start tailoring our replies and comments based on what the MSM, libs, socialists, commies, Nazis, Muzzies, etc. might think about what we say, is the day this website and its members are doomed. One should never, never, kowtow, or bow to liberals. They will never, never love us, as George Bush should have figured out about 5 years ago. No amount of "can't we just get along" will ever work, and trying to appease those that are unappeasable will be the death of conservatism. You know, freedom of speech, and all that rot. The leftists would like nothing more than to shut it down.
DU, the model for civility and love...
HA!
Amen!
Wow, he read my profile page!
....Which are precisely the kind of malignancies cheered on by the likes of Ivor Tossell and the rest of his humorless, masturbating ilk.
LOL! A Canuckian chick with CTV (theglobeandmail.com, Toronto area) mentioned you. She wrote some pretty funny quotes--unintentionally funny, IMO.
Interesting that you posted another one of Ivor Tossell's articles which criticized Free Republic last year:
"Sometimes, we need to remember that anything we post anywhere on the Internet can be read by anyone anywhere in the world - even those in the MSM who want to tarnish this website's name."
Cry me a river.
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