I hate to see the Internet used for evil, rather than good, but unfortunately a lot of people are doing just that. Some of them are, in fact, so thoroughly corrupt and maleficient that they use the Internet to attack Canadians, the most lovable and inoffensive creatures on God's green earth (except for hedgehogs and penguins). A perfectly nice and upstanding Canadian started this website, Canadians for Wesley Clark, which is perfectly sensible because a Clark presidency would improve US-Canadian relations dramatically, given that quite a lot of Canadians hate Bush, and that Bush has done a lot of things to screw over Canada. There is also, I should point out, a Canada for Dean whose stated goal is to encourage American citizens living in Canada to vote Dean. While searching for this site, I also found a really sad and dire piece of right-wing hatery called 'If you like Canada, You'll Love Howard Dean', which is, from my perspective, a very true statement: I think Dean would fit in very well with the ruling Liberal Party up north. The article's take is, as you might imagine, somewhat different. To the author, Canada is something bad, which just goes to show how intellectually bankrupt these people are. I won't link to the article, because it's not very good at all, like most right-wing propaganda. It compares Dean to Lenin, which pretty much says it all right there.
But this bit of tripe is a perfect example of a 'conservative micromedia' which lashed out against our valiant Canadian brethren and sistren. There are a lot of right-wing Internet gadflies out there. The Freepers, and their ilk. Matt Drudge. Bloggers like the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, or Little Green Footballs. Or even harmless old Andrew Sullivan, who, though he doesn't threaten liberals with personal violence or offer another forum for racists, still spouts a lot of untruths and half-truths and deliberate distortions (on everything except gay marriage and pot) while peddling conservative ideology. And that's just on the Internet, leaving aside the Rush Limbaughs, the Bill O'Reillys, the Michael Savages and so forth who infest television and talk radio.
As this gentleman informed me earlier today, these people discovered Canadians for Wesley Clark, and deluged it with hate-mail.
It seems to me--I'm no expert, you understand--that this conservative micromedia is behaving just like a good old-fashioned mob. It only needs some flaming torches and pitchforks. The mindless aggression, us vs. them polarisation, hysteria, and illogical thought are all there already.
Should these people alarm us? Well, maybe. Ask David Neiwert.
Posted by aloysius at December 23, 2003 01:13 PM | TrackBack |