Do Freeper types outnumber us?

[lwcon]

(revised and expanded from an earlier post)


I've been exploring some supposedly "neutral" political forums, and I'm here to report that the state of the union is... scary.

You think you're going into an open discussion, and you end up in the back of a pawn shop with Zed and The Gimp.

Freeper-lite culture is entrenched in these places far more than one can imagine, given the abject failure and complete dishonesty of everything the Bush administration has done.

Maybe they just type faster than we do or have less real work to crank out, but there seem to be plenty of people out there who still think everything's going peachy-keen (hey it's our grandchildren who will pay down that $9T deficit), and as long as some Muslim/Arab butt is getting kicked, they're a-okay with our military policy.

They use "terrorist" (when they can spell it, which is not often) to describe the people we attacked in Iraq. Even though we created terrorism where there was none, and Bush and Cheney have admitted that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. They're Arab, we attacked them, and goddamn it it's good. We're not doing enough of it, but it's good.

For example, check out the myspace.com political forums. This is what passed for April Fool's cheer there. Ha ha ha ha ha.

A look at the profiles of the regular contributors shows two major stripes:

* Righty quasi-centrist Libertarians with a couple of cherry-picked liberal social issues. You know: "I'm a rabid Republican but want to maintain indie cred"
* Liberals who are either too wishy-washy to rally around Democratic progressives or who have jumped right over the Democratic party into "all politicians are corporate-industrial Nazis, so what's the difference?"

To be fair, that's not everybody. I've "met" a few good, sincere lefties there, and I hope to meet more. And thankfully, the poll numbers suggest that the whacktivists may indeed be louder than they are many. But, from my recent travels, it seems like we are still in Kansas.
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Hey, the liberal light is always on at the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Please stop by and say "hi!"

[SHRED]

1. Well, TV is a powerful brainwasher afterall n/t

[xchrom]

2. all i can tell you is the intellectual character of too many americans

is lacking.

and it's past time that they were critisized publicly for their willfull ignorance.

[WePurrsevere]

3. Nah.. they're just louder, more obnoxious, less refined & pushy as heck.

It's a trend I noticed many years ago with uber-fundies and some other types of people who are almost always horrendously insecure and scared that they're wrong and/or lacking in some way important to them.

Basically... what they lack in "message" they make up for in "mouth". ;)

[pretzel4gore]

4. mob psychology

the busheviks throughout history have used the sike of the people against them; even our side has done so-truth is always a big fat slug to be brought up the hill, while the lie is a sweet lil thang to be rolled down!
if ya got a problem with this, talk to jeesus
(having read a bit of hushtory, i mean hisstory, i noticed when the 2 forces of fate are in direct contention , the bad always gets agoing earlier and seeming unstoppable, then the forces of good....ther best example of this is ww2 and the US civil war. Both wars involved good versus nasty, and in both-well you can still FEEL the gloating of the phoney conmen who led the south into war, and the supermench hitlerites. It's probably always to be the same. The lying thieves/conmen have nothing holding them back in their schemeing, while the other side is so limited it's actually easier just to give in to it, as we are seeing today with the dem hq with the 'serious' newsmedia...indeed, many have noticed that to be successful, the good guys seem to have to become bad guys, which then becomes them!)
in amswer to your question, the kids, the elderly, the exhausted, the poor, the overworked, the trusting and the innocent, the voiceless, outnumber the freepers and us, exponentially...

[ktlyon]

5. You are right it is pretty scary, the American people are buying it

Talk radio and the right wing have been repeating their message for so long it is burned in their minds. It is like they are in a cult and will need deprogrammers to bring them back to reality. Maybe more legal cases against their leadership will wake them up. Hard times on their families might snap them out of it. Eventually, maybe who knows.

[liberal N proud]

6. They just stand out because of their obnoxious behavior

[TheBaldyMan]

7. The standard of debate in GD & GDP is abysmal too

If only the FReeptards had a monopoly on idiot posters I'd be much happier. The xenophobia, sexism (incidentally from both sexes) and stubborn refusal to have a considered debate is shaming.

At least it's a sign that we are not collective of dittoheads.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

8. they forgot a couple of paragraphs in their "joke"

Gasoline is expected to top $5 a gallon in the next few weeks and heating oil shortages will drive the price much higher in upcoming months.

Due to the fact that U.S. troops are overextended, with most soldiers staying in Iraq long after their tours of duty have expired, the draft will be reinstated later this year.

Funny isn't it?

[blue cat]

9. The media is afraid of them more.

The other day my rightwing supervisor said that the politicians were more afraid in her district because they have a higher percentage of people who vote. The district is mainly rich white people. She also said that she was sick and tired of paying for the Mexican immigrants public education. If they are here, I want them educated, although I didn't speak up.

[FormerDittoHead]

10. Getting off of DU reveals how important Lakoff's "framing" is...

I know it's been beaten to death here, and discounted by the "I'll just use the facts" crowd, but OFF of this cloistered little oasis is a world of right wing frames.

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml

[lwcon]

12. Exactly right!

We need to recognize that a freaking overwhelming amount of GOP scandal and policy failure is barely budging the voting public. Re-framing and re-defining are essential, and I'd like to see us tap into this great pool of smart progressives here to help accomplish this.

Bush-bashing is fine. It's my favorite hobby. But we also need to cull what we understand about the advantages of the Democratic agenda into frames, talking points, slogans, etc. so we can make people feel good about a vitally needed new direction.
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Hey, the liberal light is always on at the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Please stop by and say "hi!"

[Doctor_J]

14. It's hard to re-frame with no media access

the ratio of wingers to humans on the radio is about 1000:1. I don't really see anyway to frame anything as long as that's the situation.

[FormerDittoHead]

16. What? Juice cans and taught string won't do it?

:sarcasm:

You are absolutely right.

While THEY were building a propaganda infrastructure with taking over talk radio (which was formally "anti-establishment" talk radio, now is Republican talking point talk radio) as well as their tax-deductable "foundations" like the Heritage, AEI, etc etc, we were ignoring them (example: Micheal Moore's discounting of radio as a meaningful medium).

We have to continue (like AAR) building up and supporting the liberal media!

[Joe Fields]

11. No. They just out-organize us.

[samsingh]

13. hard to say since most freeper types can't use computers

[lwcon]

18. Some of them clearly are using computers. And they're typing a lot.

It's a bore debating with them, though. They've just got nothin'. They own the whole government, and they're screwing up so obviously, the only refuge they have is to change subjects, intentionally misinterpret some tiny detail and rail about that (while ignoring all the substance of what you're saying), or puffing their chests and saying something about us loving the terrorists.

Every time, I feel like the principal in Billy Madison:

"What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."
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Hey, the liberal light is always on at the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Please stop by and say "hi!"

[DFW]

15. Could it be that

Many more of us have lives than the Freepers, and for that reason and no other
do they post so much more than we do--they have nothing else to do with their lives.
They are angry, bored, and about as intellectually curious as a bale of hay. If you
have no life, you have the time to post, post and post. Some of us here still work for
a living.

[lwcon]

17. Can't you just imagine some of these Freepers...

... living on a trumped-up disability claim, whining online all night about the "welfare state"?

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Hey, the liberal light is always on at the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Please stop by and say "hi!"

[rhett o rick]

19. When they got power in Cambodia, they took all the intellectuals

into fields and clubbed them to death.

[Radio_Guy]

20. No way

More than 87,000 DUers strong. How many do freeper forums have? Maybe 2 or 3 thousand at best?

[TheBaldyMan]

21. BUSH LOST THE LAST TWO ELECTIONS !

just wrote it in FReep so you'd notice.

Yes that's right he got less votes in two successive elections and stole them instead. How can there be more RWers when more people ae actually voting for the Democratic Party.