Stepping into the ring of online news media: Dick Cheney, Unobama, Sen. Heinrich, Young Dave Foreman and the Ghost of Judi Bari
by Panagioti, Earth First! Newswire
There have been a few full articles, like those of J. Christian Adams and Victoria Taft scoffing at the fictitious EF!-fringe “EAT IT” which we featured on the EF! Newswire last month, or UK’s Daily Mail tabloid last week which connected EF! to a grand conspiracy that tied a Democratic Party Senator, Obama, Ted Kaczynski and the ghost of Dave Foreman’s EF! past all together in one fell swoop
But to really understand the praise and attention of the right-wing “conservatives,” one must enter into the realm of their one true stronghold where they enjoy an over-abundance of grassroots public support: the invisible world of anonymous online comments.
Navigating this mysterious realm can seem a vast, overwhelming feat, until you realize that those hundreds of comments under every article are saying pretty much the same meaningless things over and over again: “Save me from Obamacare,” “Shoot liberals for target practice,” “Sierra Club = Environmental Nazis,” and then there are the pseudo-philosophical ramblings extolling “Just exactly what we were warned would happen if we should foolishly allow our Republic to degenerate into a Democracy.”
While it may never be proven, reading over this stuff gives an impression that it’s all the same few people debating with themselves under various fake usernames, not to mention drooling on themselves, eating cheez-wiz straight from the can, staring at the screen all night long, wearing nuthin’ but soiled ol’ tighty-whitees. [Sadly, the same also appears to be happening over at anarchistnews.crap.]
Here is one favorites from “MsContrary” commenting on the copycat story that ran in the Daily Caller in the US at the same time the Daily Mail posted it in the UK:
MsContrary’s “avatar.” White and domesticated.
“…The Marxist Stream Media screams daily about the billionaire Koch Brothers. They’re chump change compared to the billionaires Soros and Bloomberg who are in one of the aforementioned groups. (I could have simply used the term Communists in the first sentence.) It’s become obvious to me that Communists have been building fortunes expressly for the purpose of buying elections and positioning themselves to overthrow our governments at all levels globally.”
Yes, that’s one of the 145 comments under the article titled “Democratic New Mexico senator worked closely with convicted eco-terrorist.” My guess would be that “MsContrary,” contrary to the Ms. title, most likely has balls behind those skidmarked undies.
This one is also a real gem, a little moral lesson from Purplesuiter aimed more directly at us EF!-types:
Purplesuiter’s “avatar.” Tough guy.
“Eco-terrorist! How many Americans working in the timber industry have been injured because of those kind of folks spiking [hammering nails in trees] trees so that when lumberjacks took a chainsaw to a tree it kicked back when it hit a nail.”
Indeed, Purplesuiter, I wish you would let us know how many people have been injured by environmentally-motivated tree spikes? Maybe you have some access to secret documents that the world hasn’t seen. But the only case on record I’ve ever been able to locate is that of George Alexander, which was actually publicized most thoroughly by Judi Bari, a notorious EF!er herself. That one doesn’t indicate Earth First! involvement (beyond the speculation that a random person may have read about treespiking in the book Ecodefense.) On the contrary, the only responsibility which that one known spiking victim pointed to was industry carelessness and corporate indifference.
Oh, and by the way, at the time of this article, Purplesuiter, self-described only as “retired military,” had posted 4,068 comments on the Daily Caller.
Back to the subject at hand. Are stupid comments on right-wing pro-industry news sites to be written off as irrelevant non-sense, or is there something going on in them that warrants our attention (for more than comic relief).
A case-in-point: Neil Patel, former chief policy advisor to Vice President Cheney, is a co-founder of The Daily Caller According their site: “The Daily Caller readership has grown to more than 8 million unique visitors per month.”
In reviewing these articles and, painfully, a few pages of their comments, it becomes even clearer to me that “conservative” right-wing ideology is more of a meaningless incoherent facade than ever before. Still it seems to perpetuate enough confusion to offer the needed distraction which allows corporate elite to uphold this system of industrial greed. Sorry to end a mostly-absurd article on such a serious note. Hate to break it to you, but it’s not all fun and games folks. This shit is real. It seems our empire-building enemies have also built an army of lunatics that put the most wingy of our eco-wingnut militia to shame. (One more time, i reference Anarchistnews.stupidity for those who skipped the link the first time.)
