IP: Cyber force behind protest
Vladimir Z. Nuri
vznuri at netcom.com
Fri Oct 30 17:46:25 PST 1998
From: E Pluribus Unum <eplurib at infinet.com>
Subject: IP: Cyber force behind protest
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 06:59:50 -0500
To: E Pluribus Unum Email Distribution Network <eplurib at infinet.com>
Cyber force
By Anne Williamson
What is dismaying to Democrats is a cliche to
Republicans; no one has done as much for the
Republican Party over the past six years as
has Bill Clinton. But Bill Clinton has
succeeded in making another significant
contribution to American political life.
Citizenship is back with a vengeance. If you
don't believe me, then just check out the
hottest site on the Internet, freerepublic.com.
Begun by a handful of concerned citizens who
discovered their comments regarding Clinton
administration corruption were being
censored in an AOL political chat room, the
website itself is the achievement of one man,
Jim Robinson of Fresno, California. A retired
software executive suffering from muscular
sclerosis, Robinson marshaled his outrage
and his resources to establish the website.
With nearly 10,000 posters and over 120,000
daily hits, Free Republic has become a
phenomenon, a community and -- most
recently -- a nascent political force of
mindboggling potential.
Dedicated to free speech, constitutional
government and the exposure of government
corruption, Free Republic works on an
interactive basis. The pretext for opening
debate is for participants to search the Internet
for pertinent news articles and post them
under Free Republic's many topics to
discussion boards of which "Whitewater" --
the catchall Clinton scandal header -- sizzles
the loudest. And then -- like a decorative tank
of pirhanas tossed a treat by a friendly
barkeep -- posters move in to dissect and
critique the article.
What emerges by the end of the fast-moving
discussion "thread" no longer bears the
prejudicial marks of journalists belonging to
what FR characterizes as "the lamestream
media." Freepers, as Lucianne Goldberg has
dubbed them, employ links to other Internet
sites for unusual citations, contrary opinions
and facts supportive of their various
arguments. Original material found wanting
is received no differently. Dubious sourcing
and fuzzy thinking take a drubbing. In fact,
FR's forum is rigorous enough to have helped
develop several contributors' writing careers:
Lawyer J. Peter Mulhern went from a lengthy
call-in encounter with Rush Limbaugh to a
column for The Washington Weekly after a
stint as an FR regular; and David Burge, the
IowaHawk, whose whimsical and hilarious
"verbal cartoons" lampooning the political left
make him a FR favorite, lasted just long
enough to get plucked by the Conservative
News Network. Since the posts and
accompanying threads are indexed and
archived daily, FR's history along with that of
the nation is readily available.
Otherwise, tinker, tailor, soldier are all to be
found on the Forum -- a cornucopia of
experience and knowledge -- who are joined
by White House monitors, disenchanted
Democrats, San Francisco "soccer moms with
brains," discouraged feminists and the
occasional liberal iconoclast. New players
stumble onto the site usually via a link from
Drudge, WorldNetDaily, Town Hall or other
news site while still others are tipped to the
political cyber-salon by a friend or relative.
When "lurkers," who often prowl the website
for months, finally emerge in discussion
threads, their first comments almost always
reflect the same relief, gratitude and simple
awe at the human resources assembled
common to most posters: "I love Free
Republic!"; "I can't believe what I'm seeing, I
thought I was the only person in the country
concerned about this administration!"; and
"Free Republic forever!"; are typical of first
posts.
The site's development has been fueled by the
Clintons' political thuggery. En masse, freepers
form one giant collective detective bent on
cracking a devilishly complicated case.
Relevant facts are assembled, questions asked
and informed speculation engaged in daily,
hour by hour. With an alert and articulate
investigative team numbering in the
thousands, the exercise makes for riveting
entertainment. Colorful villains enliven the
storyline; there's "Slick," of course, a/k/a
"Bent" and "Clintoon," there's "Hitlery" a/k/a
"Shrillery" and "Hildebeast," and there's
"Whorealdo," "CarVILE," "Sid Bluminsky,"
"George Steppinalloverus" and other
luminaries from the "Kneepad Democrats"
branch of the DNC.
But FR is not just conservative angst and sly
mockery. The site was instrumental in the
quick exposure of CNN's fraudulent report
regarding the alleged use of nerve gas against
U.S. deserters during the Vietnam War, in the
overturning of Clinton's attempt to negate U.S.
federalism with Executive Order 13083
(signed when he was in Birmingham,
England) and in achieving a moratorium on
funding for a national identification card and
for re-examining the desirability of a national
data bank of all citizens' private medical
records. Emboldened by success, it was
shortly after the CNN fraud was revealed that
Free Republic evolved yet again; organized
political protest was undertaken by members
of the regional chapters which formed rapidly
over the summer.
Ever since Labor Day, Bill Clinton has had
nearly every public appearance in the course
of his nonstop fundraising dogged by
determined freepers waving protest signs and
shouting stinging chants ("He's late, he's late,
he musta had a date!"). Consequently, Barbara
Boxer, Carolyn "Mostly-Fraud" and other
endangered Democrats have had to resort to
playing hide and seek with freepers.
Some freepers suspect their growing
effectiveness tipped the Los Angeles Times
and the Washington Post to file suit several
weeks ago against Jim Robinson and Free
Republic for violation of their property's
copyright based on freepers posting entire
articles from their respective publications.
FR's position is that the postings and
discussion threads compare to neighbors
mulling over the daily newspapers around a
kitchen table and are therefore allowed under
the fair use doctrine, which permits the
nonprofit use of copyrighted material for
purposes of public discussion.
The courts must sort it out but if I were
writing the script, I'd pursue Free Republic's
defense on the "creation of something new"
aspect of the fair use doctrine. The website is
unlike any other venue in American life; the
newspaper articles alone are just so much
fishwrapping for tomorrow's garbage, but the
archived material is the unique product of an
informed community of engaged citizenry;
the very purpose the founders intended free
speech to serve.
This week Free Republic is undergoing
another evolutionary leap, an unintended
consequence of intoxicated Teamsters having
roughed up demonstrators earlier this month
in Philadelphia. After viewing television
footage of the incident, Jim Robinson
determined he'd had enough. He would, he
posted to the forum, travel to Washington
while the weather was still warm enough for a
lone man in a wheelchair to spend the day
outside the White House holding aloft a
protest sign.
Within hours, several hundred people
determined that Jim Robinson wouldn't be
making that journey alone. Now the
protesters number in the thousands and Free
Republic's "March for Justice" has been
moved on account of its growing size from
Lafayette Park to the Ellipse and from there to
the Washington Monument.
On Saturday, literally thousands of average
Americans -- people who look like your
neighbors because they are your neighbors --
from across the country, many of whom never
gave a thought to political protest before in
their lives, will have descended on America's
national home in order to participate in a six
hour grassroots protest funded out-of-pocket.
They will be standing with one man in
support of just one idea; the idea of one
nation, under God, with liberty and justice for
all. Eagles up, America!
Anne Williamson, a WorldNetDaily contributor,
has written for the Wall Street Journal, The New
York Times, Spy magazine, Film Comment and
Premiere. An expert on Soviet-Russian affairs, she
is currently working on a book, "Contagion: How
America Betrayed Russia," a chapter of which can
be read online.
--
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E Pluribus Unum The Central Ohio Patriot Group
P.O. Box 791 Eventline/Voicemail: (614) 823-8499
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Meetings: Monday Evenings, 7:30pm, Ryan's Steakhouse
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