Ediblog.com
Selwyn Duke
The Race For The American Mind
©
2008 Selwyn Duke
Last
year’s scamnesty bill had widespread support among the powers-that-be, with
the president, the Democrat majority and mainstream media all singing its
praises. Yet it went down to defeat,
slain by a new-media coalition of talk radio and blogosphere warriors.
Working tirelessly to expose the truth and rally the grassroots, they
became a David who slew a Goliath.
Forty-three
years ago it was a different world. Ted
Kennedy had co-authored the “Immigration Reform Act of 1965,” which created
a situation wherein 85 percent of our immigrants hail from the Third World and
Asia. He took to the Senate floor,
claimed his brainchild wouldn’t change the demographic composition of the
nation and passed the culture-rending bill under the cover of darkness.
This
darkness was not absence of light but that of truth; it was a media blackout.
With no Internet and little talk radio, mainstream journalists had a
monopoly over the hearts and minds of America.
And they knew best. The
little people didn’t have to worry their pretty little heads about actions
that would forever alter the face of the nation.
This
is why the old media fears the new one. The
latter watches the watchers, polices the police.
It has cut into the Rathersphere’s market, causing a diminution of
circulation, viewership and – this is what really gets their collars up –
power. They can no longer
propagandize with Tass-like impunity, for the e-hills have eyes.
Yet
this is no time for a victory dance. The
new media is under attack, as the left aims to silence dissent before it grows
strong enough to block the thought police’s coup de grace.
This is the race for the American mind.
And
we are losing.
The
attack upon free expression is more varied than one may think, but I’ll start
with the obvious. Most have heard of
the euphemistically-named “Fairness Doctrine,” which would essentially
eliminate traditionalist talk radio. People
such as Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh may then be relegated to satellite –
assuming they’re willing to leap into the ether – and its far smaller
audience.
Then
we have hate speech laws, which empower governments to punish
people of politically incorrect passions.
In Europe, Canada and elsewhere, average citizens have suffered
persecution for criticizing homosexuality and Islam and voicing other
unfashionable truths. And as hate
speech laws become more entrenched and accepted, the list of taboos of the
tongue grows longer – and more widespread.
They’re coming soon to a theater of social operations near you.
And
these laws are netting the famous as well as the anonymous.
Two Canadian “Human Rights Commissions” are investigating columnist
Mark Steyn and the country’s bestselling news magazine, Macleans,
because it published an excerpt from Steyn’s book containing criticism of
Islam. In Britain in 2003, Scotland
Yard launched an investigation of colorful commentator Taki Theodoracopulos –
not for using more letters in a name than one ought – but for “inciting
racial hatred” by writing that most criminals in northern English cities were
black thugs who belonged to gangs. Across
the North Sea in Germany, a leftist politician filed charges against the citizen
encyclopedia “Wikipedia” because one of its entries contained too much Nazi
symbolism. Here’s the kicker: It
was a piece about the Hitler Youth. Then
there’s Jewish historian Arno Lustiger, who filed a lawsuit in Germany against
Vanity Fair magazine because it published an interview with a neo-Nazi.
While
the stout-hearted Mark Steyn won’t end up cooling his heels or capitulating,
the same cannot be said of everyone. Wikipedia
caved quickly and altered its content, and, although we can expect greater
fortitude from more professional operations, the implications are ominous.
As such investigations, charges and lawsuits become more prevalent and
start to stick, the media will be increasingly gun shy about publishing
politically incorrect views. Fewer
and fewer will deviate from the new Tass line, until news and commentary are
banal, barren and bereft of truth.
Surely,
though, some of the millions of blogs and other Internet sources would not be
cowed, and it would be hard to arrest every one of their operators.
But the government won’t have to. There’s
more than one way to skin a Constitution.
While
the Internet seems like a wild and woolly land of bits and bytes, just as
information can be transmitted at the touch of a button, so can it be
suppressed. Remember, when spreading
your message, you’re at the mercy of an Internet Service Provider (ISP),
hosting company and, to a lesser extent, services that disseminate information,
such as search engines. And as these
businesses have already proven, they’re more interested in currency than
current events.
Consider
Google’s well-publicized capitulation to communist China.
Using a filter known informally as “The Great Firewall of China,” the
search engine’s Chinese version censors information about the independence
movement in Tibet, the Tiananmen Square protests and anything else China’s
commissars find objectionable.
It
seems like Google’s motto “Don’t be evil” should have a corollary:
“But cooperating with it is fine.”
It
should be noted that Google censors information in its German and French
searches as well (and probably elsewhere).
Then
there’s Google’s subsidiary YouTube. Early
last year it agreed to remove a video Turks found objectionable after a court in
Turkey ordered that the site should be blocked in that nation.
It took YouTube all of two days to say mercy.
But
direct government action isn’t necessary for censorship, as social pressure
often suffices. In fact, the private
sector often enforces “hate speech” codes even where states do not, such as
here in the US. In 2006, pundit
Michelle Malkin’s mini-movie “First, They Came”– it showcases victims of
Islamic violence – was deleted
by YouTube after being “flagged” as inappropriate.
Malkin isn’t alone, either, as other anti-Islamism crusaders have not
only had videos pulled, but accounts suspended as well.
Getting
back to Google, it has also been censoring traditionalist websites from its news
search for quite some time now; entities such as The New Media Journal, Michnews.com
and The Jawa Report have been victims, just to name a few.
While
these information sources can still be accessed, such censorship takes its toll.
When the most powerful search engine in the world strikes you from its
news service, it reduces both your readership and the amount of information at
users’ fingertips.
Censorship
threatens individual activism as well. There
are now countless everyday folks who disseminate information via email,
sometimes to thousands of recipients. It’s
a quick, efficient and, most importantly, free way to sound the alarm about
matters of import.
Yet
email is far from sacrosanct. Social
commentators Dr.
David Yeagley and Amil Imani had their MSN Hotmail accounts terminated
for criticizing Islam. Then
there are the proposals to tax or levy fees on email, a truly stifling measure.
It would make bulk transmissions prohibitively expensive for the average
citizen, thereby robbing him of a resonant Web voice.
It
doesn’t take the prescience of Nostradamus to project into the future.
If political correctness continues to capture minds and hearts, the
pressure – both governmental and social – to call truth “hate speech”
and censor it will continue to grow. What
happens when search engines not only purge traditionalist dissent from their
news services, but also their search results?
What about when sites won’t publish such content for fear of being
swept away in the ideological cleansing? These
entities will fold like a laptop.
It
could reach a point where ISPs won’t service you if you send the “wrong”
kinds of emails and will block “hateful” sites.
Don’t forget that “access forbidden” prompt.
At the end of the day – and it may be the end of days – hosting
companies may just decide that such sites’ business is no longer welcome, and
registrars may even freeze their domains (a hosting company provides a site’s
“edifice”; a domain is its “address”).
They may be consigned to Internet oblivion.
While
these forces march on, we “haters” are busy educating more people every day
about the their nature. This brings
us to the race for the American mind. If
we could influence enough citizens to reject political correctness and oust
public officials who serve its ends – if we could sufficiently transform the
culture – the dropping of this iron muzzle could be forestalled.
By spreading the truth we could ensure that the thought police wouldn’t
succeed in suppressing it.
But
there’s a reason why I phrased that in the subjunctive.
We
are losing.
Education
isn’t easy when people aren’t listening.
A great victory for the left is that it has dumbed-down civilization,
making people lovers of frivolity and vice, comfortably numb.
It has created legions of disengaged, apathetic hedonists who wouldn’t
read a piece of commentary if it was pasted to a stripper.
Such people can be led by the nose and, when they occasionally notice the
goings-on in their midst, will welcome the silencing of the “haters.”
And
what of us – you? If you are a
“hater,” your voice will grow fainter, fainter, fainter . . ..
Toward
the end, perhaps when tired and old, you'll have no recourse but to mount a
soapbox and preach on some busy corner, as people nervously avert their eyes or
measure you up for a straightjacket. That
is, until the men in white coats or black uniforms come and take you to a happy
place, or a sad one, the last stop in this world for recalcitrants.
Selwyn Duke is a freelance writer out or Larchmont, NY. He has written for various publications including: IntellectualConservative.com, AmericanThinker.com and is a regular columnist for RenewAmerica.us.