'Collective' is much more up to date.
Posted on 08/23/2007 2:07:23 PM PDT by neverdem
“The government and the corporate media,” declares a prominent activist Web site, have created a “propaganda machine whose goal is to continue the expansion of a (fascist) state and to control every aspect of our lives and fortunes.”
Sounds like one of a bajillion posts on a left-wing “netroots” Web site these days, right?
Wrong. It’s from 1998. And I cheated a little. I’ve doctored the quote. “Fascist” was originally “collective.” The activist Web site? The populist-conservative FreeRepublic.com.
The short history of the Internet is already long enough to repeat itself. In dog years, I’m 288, but in Internet years, I’m Methuselah. I was the founding editor of National Review Online in 1998.
Back in those days, when the Internet ran on a series of pneumatic tubes and hemp-rope pulleys, conservatives were patting themselves on the back for seizing the commanding heights of the digital frontier. The argument was that because the Liberal Industrial Complex maintained a stranglehold on the Old Media, conservatives had mastered the fledgling forms: direct mail, talk radio, cable news and Al Gore’s invention, the Internet.
But today we’re constantly told not only that it’s liberals who have conquered the Internet but that it was their destiny to do so.
Joe Trippi, Howard Dean’s 2004 campaign manager, described the Web as “a medium that abhors command and control.” He continued: “Two guesses: Which party is really good at command and control? The Republican Party. Which isn’t? The Democratic Party.”
Translation: Progressives are better at the Web because the Web is all about hangin’ loose, letting your freak flag fly and stickin’ it to the Man, and that’s what freedom-loving liberals are all about. “Web 2.0,” we are told, is ushering in a “new politics” of participatory democracy and a new Progressive age.
Enough with the metaphysical mumbo jumbo about how the Web and liberalism were made for each other. The real story is much simpler: Liberalism is having a nice moment — largely because the Republican president and the Iraq war are very unpopular.
The energy is on liberalism’s side — and that translates into success in the digital world. Conservative media and FreeRepublic-style activists prospered in the Clinton 1990s, because that’s when they were on offense. And it’s always more exciting and easier to be on offense. In the Bush years, it’s the other way around.
In 2000, John McCain was hailed as a genius for raising a lot of money on the Web. Four years later, Howard Dean was a revolutionary for the same reason. Today, Barack Obama is dazzling the pundits by raising huge amounts on the Web.
What do these campaigns have in common? Popular candidates. Ask yourself: If Christopher Dodd appropriated Obama’s or Hillary Clinton’s Web operation, would we now be talking of the Dodd juggernaut?
Lastly, the netrooters say the Web is hostile to established power. They also assert that we’re on the cusp of some grand progressive era in which the differences between the United States and Canada will be some spellings and the use of “eh.” If that turns out to be true (I doubt it), you can be sure that soon enough we’ll be talking about the right’s dominance of the Web. Again.
© 2007 Tribune Media Services Inc.
To reach Jonah Goldberg, send e-mail to JonahsColumn@aol.com. © 2007 Kansas City Star
'Collective' is much more up to date.
the most important words from this article. We pass on some much stuff with this administration (yes I realize there has been a lot of grumbling) that would have never been allowed had everything been done in the same manner and yet a dem was at the helm.
When I first arrived at my first college, I bristled at it being called “Albany State,” instead of “SUNY Albany.” Then I saw that its official name was the State University of New York University at Albany University Center.
Wierd fact: It was designed for Arizona, and was modelled after a Sunni temple. They traded in one bad pun (sunny) for another (SUNY).
He was trying to make the point that by changing a single word in the sentence, you could pass off an eight-year-old conservative quote about the internet as a current liberal quote about the internet.
The article is about the cyclical nature of political internet dominance that swings largely based on the current oval office holder. In other words, we'll be back on top of the internets with President Hillary in charge. Yipee.
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