Posted on 11/26/2002 7:18:46 AM PST by jasonalvarez
Chronicles magazine’s December 2002 issue features a piece by Sean Scallon in its Cultural Revolutions section discussing the evolution of Free Republic, billed as "the largest conservative-oriented website in the world." Scallon heralds the closure of cyberspace as a frontier of freedom, citing as his evidence the degeneration of Free Republic into a discussion forum beset by heavy-handed moderators who compulsively censor out any posted material deemed detrimental to the GOP Establishment’s reign in conservative circles. Scallon notes that as Free Republic grew in popularity, size, and cost, "it was only natural for...site administrators to want to look good for prospective donors." The question naturally arises: why would conservatives regularly donate to a website with a Stalinesque reputation for sanitizing their members’ commentary?
Many readers of Scallon’s piece will be surprised to learn that the operation of the Free Republic website requires an estimated $240,000 in donations annually from readers. The Freepers donate that kind of money because they really are convinced and excited (read: deluded) that they are "piece of the action." They really believe that their online (and off-line) advocacy and organizing efforts are effecting political change. They like the idea that they are "part of the system" and on the side of a winning majority now that the GOP has re-taken the Senate and Bush sits in the Oval Office. To swipe a phrase from Jesse Jackson, it "keeps hope alive." And hope is the archetypal political opiate, rendering populations docile and leaving them unwilling to decisively act to change their circumstances. The Freepers feel as though they’re connected and influential, but they don’t seem to realize that this is largely an illusion. The GOP’s hierarchy already has its marching orders, independent of the input of the GOP grassroots. The GOP’s top brass merely pretends that it cares about the "regular folk" at Free Republic. The GOP is always glad to take their money and their votes, though, and is equally happy to use Free Republic as a distribution node for official party "talking points."
Some alert Freepers, however, sense that the GOP they work so hard to support is not very responsive to the conservative agenda. Many Freepers are concerned about the immigration problem in this country, for example, yet the consensus of the average posters is that they have to "wait" and not push the GOP so hard on this issue because they feel constrained by what they call "practical politics." They worry that they will be cast as "too extreme" on certain issues, so they are content to water down their positions so that they can maintain a veneer of relevance and influence—influence that they never had to begin with in the places that matter.
Free Republic’s existence is a symbol of the continuing captivity and betrayal of the conservative base of the GOP. The widespread appeasement and accommodation of the GOP’s hierarchy by these "conservatives" guarantees there never will be any decisive pro-conservative change within the party, since the party is permanently assured that its conservative base, ever fearful of the bogeyman of a Gore-style presidency, will never abandon it. In a sense, the "mainstream" conservatives are as captive an electorate as the Blacks in the Democratic Party. Just as the Blacks are under-served and taken for granted by the Democrats, so too are the conservatives jilted by the Republicans. True conservatives are kept in the basement, and are not allowed to speak at GOP national conventions anymore. Yet, these sycophantic conservatives shuffle around the plantation of "Massa GOP" hoping a bone will occasionally be thrown their way, looking as broken and pathetic as Pavlov’s famed dogs. Cries of "tax cuts" take the place of the ringing of bells for these piddling dogs. The Freepers believe they live in an era of conservative victory, but fail to grasp that the price of that victory was the gradual transmutation of conservatism itself into a variant of the same liberalism that movement had long been fighting. The day enough Freeper types realize this terrible situation, and stage a revolt against their masters, is the day conservatism has a chance again in America.
This tactic of "mainstream conservatism" supposedly "overcoming" its liberal enemy by adopting the ideological attributes of liberalism is not confined merely to internal matters of political strategy. The same attitude, essentially defeatist, emerges in the context of more important issues, including the future demographic composition of the nation itself. For example, one Freeper exclaimed that he had no problem with fifty percent of the population of the United States becoming Latino, if only the Latinos immigrated legally to the United States. In essence, that particular Freeper believes America should handle the current "immivasion" from Mexico by turning the United States into Mexico.
Sadly, that poster is not alone in his willingness to allow the GOP to import a new electorate for itself and new cheap laborers for its corporate constituency—hitting two Mexicans with one taco, so to speak. On the other hand, Free Republic’s rabidly pro-Zionist administrators would not take kindly to a poster suggesting that they had no problem with Palestinians becoming fifty percent of the Israeli population (with citizen-status). Indeed, judging from one member’s post, Freepers who plan to counter-demonstrate at future anti-war protests intend to wave Israeli flags rather than American. And I’d thought the Freepers were arguing that war against Iraq was in the name of America’s interests. Such are the quirks of Free Republic, and the priorities of the "mainstream" conservatism it represents are radically askew.
Scallon is right. Free Republic is a large institution, and as with most organs of the Establishment, it is also ideologically bankrupt. In a sense, there is an element of fraud at work as well, since Free Republic’s methodology and approach cannot possibly deliver what it promises: conservative political change. The frontier of freedom in cyberspace isn’t yet totally closed, though—Scallon could have listed additional alternative forum websites where paleoconservatives and Constitutionalists can gather and discuss the issues, such as Ether Zone (obviously) and Original Dissent. The Freepers are oblivious to the fact that they are the tail, not the dog. Their Reaganite mantra of sunny optimism they always point toward, and always out of context, functions as an effective tool of political control.
"Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact."
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Paul Fallavollita holds an M.A. in political science from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Paul is a regular columnist for Ether Zone.
Paul Fallavollita can be reached at pfallavollita@aol.com
Published in the December 3, 2002 issue of Ether Zone. Copyright © 1997 - 2002 Ether Zone.
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Scallon is wrong - in his assumptions. He sets up a "straw man" to knock it down.
Fact - no web forum is going to deliver what he claims the FR is supposed to deliver. But the FR promotes the free exchange of ideas, and provides for diverse opinions that can enable people to think. People have the ability to post and defend their points of view. It is rare in the "physical world" to have the freedom to criticize and defend as can be done in a web forum like this one (after all, with family, friends, and co-workers one tends to mute criticism and argument if you wish to maintain relations with people.)
In addition, the FR enables people to organize and get in touch with each other. This enables real-world political organization.
Education. Thought-provoking. Organizational enablement. Me, I say the FR does a pretty good job.
Not a dime's worth of difference between so called Libertarian/Conservatives such as Mr. Fallovita and 60's era liberals.
They both trot out tired old hippie slogans of the 60's.
One may agree or disagree with the above Freeper's sentiments, but they are not the equivalent of "turning the United States into Mexico". Unless, of course, you are taking the xenophobe's view.
The Democrats "control" 90% of mainstream media. The ten percent they don't control is talk radio. The edge is not in talk radio. No. The edge is Republicans in general and their platform in general are less deceptive and less irrational than Democrats.
The general public is moving away from politics and especially irrational and deceptive politics.
Politics suck. Politics suck objectivity out and insert irrationality in. Sometimes a small error will be compounded over and over until it becomes a massive problem. In mid-term and presidential elections tens-of-millions of people vote for the lesser of evils despite that it still begets evil. How can so many people thinking they're right be so wrong?
The tide is turning; the pendulum is swinging the other direction. Reality asserts as sure as honesty outlives the lie. It always has and always will. In politics, democrats are but the first party in the pendulum's path to be defeated in their irrationality and dishonesty.
The author of this piece sounds like a fatalist -- in which case NO group, no matter what its size, has any effect on the GOP unless they are somehow pulling the strings. That's a pretty negative worldview. It says more about the author than it does about Free Republic.
What qualifies one as GOP Brass? In my area the leaders have all been around for awhile and are largely unaware that Free Republic even exists. They certainly have no detailed knowledge of the wide agenda and activist projects around the country.
The writer is expressing his fear. He knows that the power of FReepers is dangerous.
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