Ain't technology wunnerful? I mean, it saves all that wear and tear on the VW Mini-Bus, saves the trees that would otherwise be cut down for anti-war signs, the paint, the tye-dying of shirts, the buying of sandals... heck all sorts of things and time can be saved because the World Wide Web has brought technology to leftist activism!
I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
It's also a great thing that those evil, rotten, Nazi, CONSERVATIVES have not discovered the WWW as a place to gather their forces. It's so heart warming that the left can, at long last, use technology for good instead of evil.
Or so it seems the Washington Post imagines the world has been set to rights because today a charming article has appeared in their paper letting us know that hey have found the "perfect example of how antiwar is waged in the Internet age." Or at least so says Jennifer Earl in "Where Have All the Protests Gone? Online".
The piece is all aflutter over all the downloading, uploading, people gathering, reachering outering, and general info disseminatoring going on with the good 'ol WWW. The Post has seen it... and it is good.
Amusingly, the Post's writer writes as if she has only now just discovered all this internet thingie.
However, the Internet hasn't become a venue just for facilitating the logistical details of old-fashioned protests, the place to find ride-sharing schedules and parking tips for the big day. Increasingly, the Internet has become the venue for protest -- the new Mall, so to speak -- where online-only activists deploy new technologies to challenge governments and corporations and promote causes mundane and sublime. I've done research, funded by the National Science Foundation, about the Internet and protests, and I've found that these efforts are transforming the way everyday citizens connect with and participate in activism and social movements.
Yeah, "transforming". Naturally, it only seems that our pal Jennifer, the Post's intrepid internet "expert", cannot find any space in her piece to mention the many millions of us on the right who have similarly found the effectiveness of the Web. She mentions music lovers, aging hippies and leftists, on-line gamers, MySpace users... but, not a hint that Conservatives just might have a computer or two handy.
Seems like wishful thinking on Jenny's part, eh? All those information superhighways and not a Conservative in sight. You can just feel her sighing in bliss.
Most of this thing is mere fluff written to impress 80 year-old, ex-hippies that their world has not disappeared, just gone to that great tangled mass of wires and electrical impulses they watched on Star Trek in between Nam protests ever so long ago.
But, there is a dangerous part to her piece.
But online activism is not just for cranky customers, rabid gamers or television fans. Sometimes, it can reach the highest levels of political action. In 2000, and again in 2004, so-called vote trading or "vote pairing" Web sites popped up nationwide. These sites helped voters from different states coordinate their votes to undercut what many regarded as the undemocratic effects of the electoral college on presidential elections.
These sites helped transform voting -- the icon of individualized and conventional political participation -- into a collective and highly contentious political act. These vote-swappers took on one part of the Constitution (the electoral college), while relying on another (the First Amendment). Without the Internet, it is unlikely that this movement could have emerged, or that voters could have been matched so efficiently.
She seems quite pleased with the attempt by these "vote swappers" to destroy our electoral system and frighteningly sees no problem with using one part of the Constitution to attack another.
A famous saying goes that the Constitution is not a suicide pact, but Jenny doesn't seem to mind if one hand of Lady Liberty chops off her other. And if as many users of the internet are as unmindful of the American system as little Jenny here, we have trouble indeed.
Still, it's great our miss Earl has finally realized the power of the internet, the one we here on NewsBusters use every single day, eh?
Now, be veewee qwiet. Der might be some eeevil Conservatives awound here.
Editor at Large
Comments Policy
And, Al Gore didn't really in
February 4, 2007 - 11:20 ET by ucAnd, Al Gore didn't really invent it.
Wha... wait. Yer joshin' me.
February 4, 2007 - 11:29 ET by Warner Todd HustonWha... wait.
Yer joshin' me.
He saidhe did!
Are you callin' Al 20-foot-high-rising-seas Gore a LIAR??
I quess you won't believe thi
February 4, 2007 - 11:48 ET by ucI quess you won't believe this quote for Senator Tom Carper from a column he wrote under "What Works" >>>
"Mutual Aid" (article title)
"No community has the resourses necessary to cope with every potential emergency alone. So when state and local...authorities formulate strategies for responding to terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and other calamitous incidents, they must cooperate across jurisdictional lines and plan to share personnel, equipment, and other assets."
Good words for Iraq it seems, I should point out that the "..." replaced his two words: "homeland security."
From "Blueprint" magazine Vol 2004/ No 1 and written as above noted by Senator Tom Carper, also know as then DLC Chair for "Best Practices."
Yup. "I don't know the
February 4, 2007 - 11:48 ET by DyneYup.
"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone." - Bill Cosby
Other extremely relevant quot
February 4, 2007 - 12:08 ET by ucOther extremely relevant quotes to support President Bush.
"Democrats need to have a credible answer for how we'll keep our country safe in a world where too many enemies wake up every day thinking of new ways to terrorize America."...
"If Democrats want to earn the right to lead our country in 2008, we need to reject pessimism, defeatism, and protectionism and offer a vision for hope, optimism, and making America a winner...in the global economy."
I am still waiting >> how about you all?
Quote is from Al From and Bruce Reed column on "Politics" in "Blueprint" magazine Vol 2006/No 5
I've done research, funded
February 4, 2007 - 12:10 ET by Jack BauerI've done research, funded by the National Science Foundation, about the Internet and protests, and I've found that these efforts are transforming the way everyday citizens connect with and participate in activism and social movements.
Just one small question... why exactly is a supposedly independent federal agency funding a seemingly left-wing socio-political project when it's remit is:
"The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 "to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense…" With an annual budget of about $5.5 billion, we are the funding source for approximately 20 percent of all federally supported basic research conducted by America’s colleges and universities. In many fields such as mathematics, computer science and the social sciences, NSF is the major source of federal backing.
We fulfill our mission chiefly by issuing limited-term grants -- currently about 10,000 new awards per year, with an average duration of three years -- to fund specific research proposals that have been judged the most promising by a rigorous and objective merit-review system. Most of these awards go to individuals or small groups of investigators. Others provide funding for research centers, instruments and facilities that allow scientists, engineers and students to work at the outermost frontiers of knowledge."
Let's be charitable and say this is a justified area for NSF funding. Then as a federal agency, isn't there a duty to be totally non-partisan and apolitical? And that would mean the equal study of conservative activism on the web?
Jennifer Earl
February 4, 2007 - 12:23 ET by iveseenitallHas Jennifer Earl ever read the Huffington Post? Quite intelligent stuff there. Truly "adult". And her leading an article with a quote from Jane Fonda should make any American wonder why we continue to let our children be brainwashed by the public schools. The ignorant left rolls on.
NEVER,NEVER trust a liberal
Could it be that they are get
February 4, 2007 - 13:58 ET by ucCould it be that they are getting ready to recommend to MacAfee and Norton that they isolate "Hillary for President" texts and positions and scan for a dumb dumb virus that corrupts definitions of language in marriage vows by denying same and similar meanings of similar imagery and words found in 22 Amendment? "To hold."
Did see "The Cowboy Who Came to Dinner" in past twenty four hours. >> "To have and to hold...in sickness and in health" comes between a run at the Presidency and natural warm relations as portrayed by Hollywood.
Look for Hillary language to maybe get quaranteened and maybe sooner rather than later.
Err, sorry, but I don't see
February 4, 2007 - 14:15 ET by Jack BauerErr, sorry, but I don't see how your post has anything to do with the subject of this thread. Or my post?
Movie was "The Cowboy an
February 4, 2007 - 14:41 ET by ucMovie was "The Cowboy and the Lady" not "the cowboy who came to dinner."
You make a great point. I f
February 4, 2007 - 16:10 ET by Al CzervikYou make a great point. I find it hard to stomach when people advocate raising taxes to pay for new programs when there is plenty of crap in the budget like this. Does the government really need to pay this nitwit to conduct research on anything???
The day they carve the last piece of crap like this out of the budget is they day a politician should even start to talk about more taxes.
What scientific phenomenom was the foundation for this research?
February 4, 2007 - 12:34 ET by acaiguanaWhat scientific phenomenom was the foundation for this research?
"I've done research, funded by the National Science Foundation, about the Internet and protests, and I've found that these efforts are transforming the way everyday citizens connect with and participate in activism and social movements."
And then of course, the follow up queston; are you remotely qualified to do research? Or are you a 'serious novelist' like James Webb?
I would have loved to see her 'research' proposal. Or was it a 'research proposal' written by someone more qualified? Someone who wasn't actually researcing the connection between the Internet and 'Protests'?
I'm sorry, but the 'I've done research' statement got to me. First, I don't believe it. Second, if I were to believe it I'd have to give up on the NSF.
She may well have 'done research' but it sure wasn't on any such topic. I'd bet that this twit hasn't a clue about the 'impact' of the Internet on anything.
But, what the hey? It sounds good.
ACA
...
Hillary Clinton says: "I want to take those profits."
ACA,What scientific phenomeno
February 4, 2007 - 13:22 ET by BlondeACA,
What scientific phenomenom was the foundation for this research?
Precisely. I was wondering the exact same thing.
Seems to me the NSF is yet another federal agency which needs to be audited, and held to account. I'd bet you dollars to donuts her research grant reqest had nothing to do with the end product.
Another disgusting waste of tax dollars, IMO.
Ok, I've calmed a bit. I did research (not funded) on Jennifer
February 4, 2007 - 19:25 ET by acaiguanaOk, I've calmed a bit. I did research (not funded) on Jennifer Earl.
This is from her resume.
Now there is an impressive resume, if I ever saw one.
So what we have here, in our Jennifer Earl, is an activist Professor with a PhD in sociology (I love sociology, they make up their own language within English to describe things in a way no one else can understand - like effect to be a verb) wallowing around in a world of the Internet telling us how we use it in a political world paid for by the NSF.
I retract my questions about your credentials, but my question about your 'research' remains. What possibly could be in your background to evaluate the Internet? Where is your real world research experience? I don't see it.
ACA
...
Hillary Clinton says: "I want to take those profits."
Notice on page nine it says-
February 5, 2007 - 01:16 ET by CarpareusNotice on page nine it says-
"Grant Reviewer for:
National Science Foundation (ad hoc reviewer for Sociology and the
Law and Social Sciences Program)
Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada"
how cozy.
"social sciences" are neither
February 5, 2007 - 02:21 ET by Warner Todd Huston"social sciences" are neither
Vote Swapping
February 4, 2007 - 14:00 ET by Gary HallWarner... Dangerous indeed. Let me repeat what you posted:
Can one even imagine what the media would do with such a conspiracy if it were being organized and implemented by the Republican(ic) party? I had a chat with a Kucinich organizer back then over this disgraceful crime. While he is one of those outraged individuals, over his percieved view of the 2000 election (stolen from Gore) - who, as an attorney, organized and participates ongoing polling watching - he sees nothing wrong about the vote swapping crime that he was a part of. I also asked him about other practices. Many leftists activists groups, on election day have organized programs where they pick up seniors from nursing homes. They bus them to the polling place, and walk and wheel them into the booths and instruct many of them how to vote. As many of such precincts are deeply buried in Democrat areas, the poll workers simply look the other way - it's all just a part of the necessary process, for them.
There were many of us, at the time who attempted to entice the media to react to this vote swapping scheme - to expose this organized effort to foil the will of the American voter. I think that we see today, how the MSM feels about ethics. There is only one set of ethics - what ever it takes, is ethical for the left side of the isle. Democratic my _____, Demofascist is more like it.
Thanks for catching this Warner. Let's hope that possible Fox News or some other responsible news organization might decide to do a feature length investigative documentary on such activity.
More who said this:"To f
February 4, 2007 - 14:23 ET by ucMore who said this:
"To feed its oil habit, the United States depends increasingly on a rogue's gallery of corrupt, despotic, and hostile countries. America's insatiable appetite, along with exploding demand from fast-growing countries like China and India, makes possession of oil and gas reserves the new currency of power for autocrats like Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's Hugo Chaves.
There is abundant evidence that U.S. petrodollars, recycled to extremists by Islamic "charities," have been used to finance terrorism. Saudi Arabia, which controls the world's largest proven reserves, has funneled $75 billion in the last two decades to aid the spread of Wahhabi puritanism across the globe. That has helped create a culture of intolerance, bigotry, and fanaticism in the Muslim World."
The above quote is from the opening paragraphs of the Progressive Policy Institute October 2006 six newsletter "A Progressive Energy Platform." Problem still remains that they state this much but don't yet recognize what such policies they go on to conclude as priorities would do to foreign economies. With Bush we are in this fight with possible allies before Democratic priorities can greatly cut into the jobs market and economy of many middle eastern countries and anger even more young citizens. As Democrats so far have it they want to dictate/mandate new rights in this region, put troops in (go along with Bush at first), then start pulling them out early, and, then setting higher priorities such as trying to as quickly as possible reducing our spending for their products.
Has anyone got it to add up otherwise yet?
What's vote swapping?
February 4, 2007 - 14:51 ET by nkviking75I'm confused. What's vote swapping? I've never heard of it. It obviously backfired in 2000, since Bush lost the popular vote but won the electoral college. (Like it or not, lefties, that's perfectly legitimate under our current system. Don't like it? Get the Constitution amended and change it.)
Vote 'swapping' is the exchange of your vote in one state for
February 4, 2007 - 16:05 ET by acaiguanaVote 'swapping' is the exchange of your vote in one state for a candidate you would not generally vote for in order for another person in another state to vote for a candidate they would not vote for. Thus, the example is Ralph Nadar trying to garner enough votes nationally (5% of the 'popular' vote) to get matching Federal Funds.
You live in State A which is going to go Democrat. I live in State B which is going to go Republican. I want you to vote for Nadar to increase the votes. You want me to vote against some representative or some issue on the ballot in my state. We trade our votes. I vote as you want and you vote as I want.
Nadar gets 5% of the popular vote.
That is the theory.
Legal?
Jury still out.
ACA
...
Hillary Clinton says: "I want to take those profits."
Vote swapping
February 4, 2007 - 16:11 ET by nkviking75OK, but how does that impact the electoral college? It's hard to imagine enough people getting involved to prevent someone from winning.
Well, the theory is that in marginal States, it can affect outco
February 4, 2007 - 16:37 ET by acaiguanaWell, the theory is that in marginal States, it can affect outcomes.
In very marginal states, outsider parties might be persuaded to cast their votes for say, Al Gore in Florida, in exchange for some promise of votes in another area for a Congress Critter.
ACA
...
Hillary Clinton says: "I want to take those profits."
In 2000 I subscribed to an e-
February 4, 2007 - 19:44 ET by Del DolemonteIn 2000 I subscribed to an e-mail list for a very liberal rock band, which shall remain anonymous, and this vote swapping scheme was very popular there. If they had been smart enough to figure out ahead of time that Florida was a state that could have given Gore the White House, he would have won.
Vote swapping part deux
February 4, 2007 - 22:43 ET by nkviking75Well, they missed their chance in 2000. Several states were very close. My state, Iowa, went for Gore, but a shift of a few thousand votes here would have given the whole shooting match to Bush (if memory serves).
Vote swapping is dependent
February 5, 2007 - 04:40 ET by old croVote swapping is dependent on honesty....ie You must vote as the person with whom your swapping would vote. In this internet age how could that be verified fully? Therin lies the little "back door" that would slam the Democrat party in the backside. If, and that is a very big IF, this practice became a threat to Republican candidates, I could see a number of people "swapping" thier vote with another, then going out and voting the way they would have anyway. At least I think I can see it, if that is the way this thingy works.
"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
But in practice, there is."
- Yogi Berra
We don't matter, I guess
February 4, 2007 - 22:46 ET by nkviking75I guess it doesn't mean much that conservatives on the net blew the Rathergate scandal wide open, bringing down the powerful anchorman of a major network newscast. I guess it doesn't matter that a bald faced lie meant to sink the President's reelection campaign was exposed for all to see. Nope, we conservatives make no difference at all. </sarcasm>
Email Sent to Jennifer Earl
February 5, 2007 - 03:14 ET by m1xramFound authors email address online with article and sent her this.
Jennifer,
You're article was interesting and very amusing. Yes there are a lot of people using the Internet for many things, but this didn't happen recently. Some of us have been using the Net for a long time now, this is where we get our news. We learn what is going on in Iraq by visiting various sites, find out the weather instantly, determine what's happening with US domestic policy, etc. People have to go online because it is no longer possible to obtain honest news from the old established news agencies.
The general rule of thumb for honest reporting is whether an article covers both sides of an issue. If only one side is given we instantly know a lie of omission has occurred. For instance, we can Google sites for "iraq reconstruction" or "operation iraqi freedom" or "iraq killed insurgents". The last search found a Washington Times article called "50,000 Iraqi insurgents dead, caught", see http://www.washtimes... You will note that the article calls into question the general's figure of 50,000 but please make note that this a story your paper (The Washington Post) would never print. Try searching your site for "iraq killed insurgents" the results are enlightening.
I came across your article "Where Have All the Protests Gone? Online." while reading a NewsBusters.org story. See http://newsbusters.o... In a short amount of time is was easy to determine your article was leftist propaganda. A quick read of the full text of your article confirmed this.
See how powerful the Internet is Jennifer? Because people can look things up we can determine the truth. That's bad news for The Washington Post.
Oh,m1xram !! Now you proba
February 5, 2007 - 06:26 ET by Warner Todd HustonOh,m1xram !!
Now you probably went and made that nice little Jenny chick mad at me for thinking ill of her!
She is gonna be cussin me and givin me that index finger salute!
See, Just like Jenny girl, I was thinkin there weren't any mean 'ol conservatives out there who would alert her to this story.
Ya know... too many people are allowed to go on the internet. If ONLY we could bring the "Fairness" Doctrine back!? I'm gonna get my pinko pal, Jenny, on this story right away!
Take it away jen, jen...
Sorry
February 5, 2007 - 14:15 ET by m1xramSorry Warner, but I hate to see these people not squirming. They think they're being sneaky when all they do is fool themselves.
Ha, ha. True, too true.
February 5, 2007 - 21:25 ET by Warner Todd HustonHa, ha. True, too true.