Cliff LyonRight Wing Blogs Reveal A Cultural Disease
A Kossak (DailyKos) who spent six months following right wing blogs (RWB) has posted a number of observations. Not surprisingly, they are identical to my observations having spent at least a year, albeit more casually, traversing MilBlogs.
I think Macabee’s first observation about banning is the most salient:
In RWB, trolls are banned with much fanfare. Usually the ban is announced by an administrator with a thousand pounds of self righteous indignation, and then the loyal visitors piled on and that is that…Generally on RWB, discussions are well within the accepted range of fundamental beliefs. In other words, if you are a Democrat or hate Bush, those are so far outside the things people were banned for.
There are two powerful indictments of this tribal culture that should concern every American.
First is that people are banned for differences of opinion that are well within the mainstream of American political debate.
Second is the ceremony, fanfare, and piling on by tribal loyalist when someone is banned. This highly tribal behavior is so utterly consistent, I argue that one can reproduce this result with 100% confidence. Try it.
In one recent experiment, the ceremonious re-banning of MilMom received over 100 comments
(nice pile on) easily ten times the average number of comments on that blog.
One again, I need not point out the eerie parallels to authoritarian behavior as described in John Dean’s revealing book “Conservatives Without Conscience”. Watch this interview.
Dean’s book is based largely on Bob Altemyer’s essential work on authoritarianism. He’s releasing a new book in pdf form, one chapter at a time. I urge anyone with an interest in this subject to get it.
January 28th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
I have been obsessed with the shocking display of non-critical thinking so clearly reflected in the now visible community of people that support the neocon agenda and Bush.
It was not until I landed on this authoritarian stuff that it all be soooo clear.
Many, including my patient rational readers should NOT write off these RWB folks. In fact, we should be paying very very close attention.
So much so, that we can develop a whole new vocabulary around authoritarianism such that it enters our cultural conscience.
“Never again” depends on it.
I quote from Altemeyer:
“Anyone who has watched, or been a liberal arguing with a conservative (or vice versa) knows that personal opinion and rhetoric can be had a penny a pound. But the arguing never seems to get anywhere. Whereas if you set up a fair and square experiment in which people can act nobly, fairly, and with integrity, and you find that most of one group does, and most of another group does not, that=s a fact, not an opinion. And if you keep finding the same thing experiment after experiment, and other people do too, then that’s a body of facts that demands attention.”
January 28th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Cliff, I confess I do tend to write them off. They are the people Lincoln said you can fool all of the time. However, until Fox News ratings drop a lot more these folks need to be watched and countered as much as possible. Bush is up for another war, if he thinks he can get away with starting another one.
January 28th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Don’t ask what the hell I’m doing here. It must be the Vicadin I took for my back a bit ago. I think it’s important to be a little about two points here, Cliff. The first is “Milmom” never really existed and was a figment of YOUR imagination that you created for the purpose of posts like this. You’ve never quite explained the proof either.
The second is that on that post with 100 comments, almost half of those (43) came from liberals complaining about. Another 21 were Terri’s responses and many others were just part of the ongoing responses to daddyphatsax. It’s like 100 people were “piling on” the fact that Milmom/You were banned.
January 28th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
CJ,
It is a pleasure to hear from you.
Here’s the deal. You are an authoritarian follower. I won’t even get into the Mormon convert thing of which I am deeply knowledgeable.
None of the issues you raise in your comment are relevant to this very important, very, very important issue.
Blind obedience to authority is responsible for every MAJOR atrocity committed by humans.
What you need to be concerned with is not who MilMom is, but the extent to which your mind is capable of denial of this fact and the resulting loss in your life of the beauty and beneficence of the kind of self-actualization, clarity and confidence that comes with an infantile curiosity of the world around you.
If you can do this, you will love harder, laugh harder, cry harder and shine more brightly on this Earth. You will experience less fear and more real, deep inner confidence and optimism. Issues like what heaven holds become stupid if not irrelevant.
Love Cliff
PS: You will also be able to shed the muck of trivial concerns like whether or not to ban someone or if they have insulted your wife or used a pseudonym.
January 28th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
Richard,
We cannot write off this issue. The costs are too high.
In a marginally weaker democracy, imagine the damage the Bush cabal could have achieved assuming even that we have seen the end.
Christ, we are still hearing very sober credible voices claiming that Bush WILL drop a nuke on Iran at the very moment all the experts say they are on the cusp of democratic reform.
How can we possibly write off the source and cause of the potential for human evil when we as the supposedly greatest democracy on Earth have a higher incarceration rate than than Stalin and Mao during the peak of their regimes.?
…while our income disparity approaches that of the 1920’s, infant mortality is the highest in the industrialized world, and shanty towns are cropping up around the country?
For the sake of the ever-living loving God, the doomsday clock is approaching midnight rather than retreating.
We have been lucky lazy and cannot afford to rest in the comfort of the last election. It is not at all assured yet that we have averted disaster.
January 28th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
CJ,
Nice to speak with you again, brother. My best to you and your’s and, of course, your back (I suffer the same affliction).
Cliff does, however, raise an interesting point, as is discussed in the Kos top-post - i.e., the existence of RWBs necessarily depends on the banning of dissenting opinion. You were faced with two choices when folks from OneUtah and elsewhere descended upon your blog - fight back with analysis, or simply ban the dissenting opinion. Unfortunately, for ASP, you chose the latter, a choice that only confirms the analysis provided in the Kos top-post.
While I admire your persistence in supporting the troops vis-a-vis continued support for the CIC, you must now realize, CJ, that you are a member of a fast-shrinking minority. Folks are simply no longer willing to digest the lies and obfuscation that spew from the Bush administration.
Your site won the blog contest and I congratulate you for that - I only voted five times for ASP. But if you truly want to make ASP a blog known for analysis from all sides, rather than mere tribal “oorah,” then ditch the moderation and censorship and open the forum to true debate. Sure, you will always have rubbish posts - e.g., check out the neocon troll commentary on the Huffington Post - but the true mark of credibility is the analysis in response to such commentary, and not the censorship so commonly found on RWBs!
January 28th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Let me invite CJ to comment on my post about Thomas Ricks’ book Fiasco and tell us if he thinks our soldiers and commanders have learned how to achieve “victory” in Iraq (as defined by the Bush administration). We are almost five years into this war, and making the same mistakes we made from day one.
January 28th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
Oops, I meant to say the Iraq war is entering its fifth year soon. We’re running out of troops, vehicles and equipment. The US Army only has ten divisions (compared to 14 when I was on active duty). Why isn’t strategic withdrawal the best plan now?
January 28th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Hi CJ; Glad to see you around.
Let’s face it, none of know shit about any of the others. This is cyberspace. To assume that there is a pile on or conspiracy(milmom) is to waste the opportunity and validity of all our writings, in the common exchange of ideas, that can hopefully end the current conflict to our advantage and the Iraqi people, and even those we fight.
Disagree with what people say, but be willing to fight to the death for their right to say it. A worthy American Ideal. Got that from a Marine crew mate long ago, and upon reflection, have since been willing to do the same. That said the left and right are busy banners depending on the case.
January 28th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Hi Glenn, long time no partake! Best to family, especially sister A. Need some god damn snow for tele turns, god damn it! Maybe next week ….
January 28th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
The skiing up in the Northwest this year, hundreds of inches of base, at elevation. Got some shaped skis I have to mount, and I am free. Found a virtually brand new pair of T3’s(new ones) for 5 bucks at the GJ Salvation Army. Quite a find.
Everybody is keeping on.
January 28th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
Great find! I am still amazed that so little tele gear shows up at the swap meets.
Is A in SLC this week for Outdoor Retailer show?
January 28th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
Likely. They were just in Vegas. Give me your #, glennhoefer@yahoo.com.
January 29th, 2007 at 6:39 am
Talk about piling on, Cliff. There were only two comments before I showed up. We’re pretty good for business around here it looks like. You’d barely survive if you didn’t have us to write about. Any way we can help I guess.
January 29th, 2007 at 8:09 am
4 of the posts are Neph and I, talking about ski boots and family. 3 of the posts are players saying hi to you, and welcoming you back.
Good spin though CJ, the admin well needs you. You serve your master well.
January 29th, 2007 at 8:22 am
There was a story in the trib. yesterday about a native american marine who was awarded conscientious objector status by the corps when he, surprisingly discovered an inate healing capacity. He’s becoming a medicine man, and can no longer have violent thoughts or behaviors. I believe that after he returned from is first tour of Iraq, that the friends and family who loved him, supported his ‘reincarnation’ as a healer and found a way for him to bail from the meat-grinder. That’s one native american. Now, I wonder where the support for getting the rest of these young men and women to recognize thier more positive natures and to get past the, ‘Alls I know how to do is Kill people and blow things up’, mentality.
So if you really support the troups, don’t ask them to do the heinous, the criminal, the mindless. Our freedoms are not purchased with such script. Help them get on a path where profits are generated to our communities and not to the blood soaked soils of far-off lands and into the pockets of Haliburton and such.
January 29th, 2007 at 11:28 am
Ah, Glen, but no different than the spin used as a basis for this post to begin with. Is it that hard to admit reality?
January 29th, 2007 at 11:38 am
CJ,
I don’t mean to interject but, you seem not to be hearing the common refrain around here that you miltypes never address the issue but instead just attack the messenger.
If you don’t like it, its spin.
January 29th, 2007 at 11:41 am
BTW CJ,
I find it incredibly ironic that you are over here posting after the huge hullabaloo over on your site about banning people from this site. Do you not see a little hypocrisy here?
January 29th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
CJ, what reality? Are you still under the misapprehension that I am somehow on this team?
My acquaintence CJ, I know Cliff better’n you do, though you have revealed much more, he is hardly objective and has an agenda. Thanks.
I have had the honorable luxury of being banned by you both. I got the goods on Cliff, first post I ever wrote onc ASP. Look it up. I was myself that day. cheers glenn
January 29th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
Phillip, no I don’t see the hypocrisy. You don’t see me parading your wife or Cliff’s around my website do you? You don’t see me creating identities for the sole purpose of shouting down the authors and seeking to dishonestly portray a grieving mother do you? I’m sure Cliff could easily ban me, but I haven’t really given him a reason other than reciprocity.
Glenn, I’m at work and don’t have time to respond directly to you yet. I’ll be back. Sorry for the cliffhanger (no pun intended)
January 29th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
CJ,
What don’t you get about being a public figure. You chose to post your family publicly. Christ, you invited the media into your home.
I notice your blog is full of personal attacks on otherwise earnest people in the public square. Why would you expect to somehow be immune to that?
Get over it.
January 29th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
Phillip, so just because I choose to show who my family is gives anyone the right to denigrate them? I mean, if you’re saying it’s okay to denigrate other mens’ spouses, by all means say so. I don’t expect to be immune to that. I do expect my innocent wife to be immune to that. And I think you’d feel the same way if your wife was attacked like that (or husband)
January 29th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
CJ, How was your wife denigrated?
January 29th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
You’re kidding right? Did you just start reading OU yesterday?
January 29th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
I’m sorry CJ. You’ll have to help me.
January 30th, 2007 at 5:37 am
Cliff,
I am not sure if you concider my blog a RWB or not, but I am going to assume that you do since I support our troops, our Country, and am joining the Army. So, I invite you to come to my blog and read the comments under two post that I wrote. You could read more comments from other post but I think these two would be enough. You dont even have to read the post because the commnets to them really do not pertain to the post. Well, one of the dones’t. They are titled ‘Inspiring Others?’ and ‘Sound Off’. The only comments that I removed and ban the authors, were those that used foul language or issued death threats and I am not sure that I got them all. Anyway, the Sound off post explains why I received the hatefull, death wishing comments from around the world. The reason I wont remove the comments has to do with showing the readers the truth of how some people in the world feel about the United States and Americans.
Here are the links to those two post:
http://blog.cindyiniraq.com/2007/01/27/inspiring-others.aspx
http://blog.cindyiniraq.com/2007/01/27/sound-off.aspx
January 30th, 2007 at 9:21 am
Hi Cindy,
Thanks for the invite. I tried to post on you blog but keep getting security errors. I gave up.
I find this to be the case almost exclusively on right wing blogs (RWB). Does that answer your question?I
January 30th, 2007 at 9:42 am
Cliff,
I got your comments. I am not sure why you would have any problems, but it did come through.
Anyway, you missed the point I was trying to make. Your post here was talking about people being censored on what you called right wing blogs (RWB). You state that RWB’s ban and censor those that don’t agree with the blogs view points. I was just trying to show you that some of the blogs that you might consider RWB, do not censor the comments that are posted. If you read through the comment from the post I pointed out to you, I think you would agree that a lot of them do not agree with me. Some of them wish for my death. If I was one who censored the comments because they did not agree with me, then these comments would not still be there and the commenter’s would have been ban. They have not.
As for my comments that you talk about above, I didn’t get into everything that I could have. I will be the first to say that I am not as educated on some of the laws and events happening around the world. But do know what I have seen with my own to eyes and what I have heard with my own two ears and I will stand on that.
January 30th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Cindy,
Your blog may, indeed, be a RWB, but I have a great deal of respect for you, particularly in light of the reply comment that you provided “Ramone” on the Sound-Off post. As you told Ramone:
“… Like I have told many others, you don’t have to agree with the war, just don’t disrespect those that are putting their lives on the line to this Country. Being able to disagree with our government is one of the reason that we live in such a great country….”
This is what sets you apart from the ASP mentality, Cindy. ASP’rs steadfastly refuse to acknowledge that it is ok to reject the war and the blunderheads that are prosecuting it, but still support the troops.
Thank you, Cindy, for showing us that not everybody over at ASP is so full of themselves and their purpose that reasoned minds cannot ultimately prevail. We can only hope! If only some of your manner of thought would rub off on CJ and Cpl.M and their merry band of followers.
January 30th, 2007 at 10:49 am
Cindy,
Why would you censor the death wishes? What does that change. Since I can see them, I question their content and the integrity of your claims.
Being satisfied with your lack of knowledge of law and the US Constitution is disheartening.
The success of of our democracy depends on an informed public.
to say: “I will be the first to say that I am not as educated on some of the laws and events happening around the world. But do know what I have seen with my own to eyes and what I have heard with my own two ears and I will stand on that.”
..is unacceptable, and frankly, an insult to all Americans. I am so sorry you are so firm and proud of your position. Its little wonder there’s an idiot in the White House.
January 30th, 2007 at 11:34 am
Cliff,
As said, I was not sure that I got the death threats and wishes deleted. There are a lot of comments and am but just one person.
I also never said that I was satisfied with not knowing or being uninformed. I am not! I am learning things every day and will continue to do so.
When it comes to Iraq….. I have been there. I have seen and heard things myself that are the reasons that I have the opinions I do about our being there.
Please don’t read into my words things that are not there.
Nephi,
Thank you for seeing the things you have in my responses. I do understand that you can hate the war but respect the soldiers. I also understand why some feel that you can’t do that. I am who I am and I believe what I believe. I don’t mind a good debate as long as when everything is said and done, both know that they may not have swayed the other and that to agree to disagree is OK and healthy.
January 30th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
I’m at work and I don’t have time right now to delve into Cindy’s blog, but let me say I think we owe those KBR truck drivers some gratitude. Baghdad is at the end of a 300 mile supply route from Kuwait (think Monticello to Salt Lake City). It runs past millions of outraged Iraqis, most of whom are armed. In fact, at one point in 2004 they were rationing food in the Green Zone because the highways were cut off.