The Right just keeps getting nuttier and nuttier. I could list a dozen examples, easily, but will settle for the fact that three of the ten Republican presidential candidates publicly disavowed evolution during their recent debate. Soon, the Right will be taking stands for and against heliocentrism. Oh wait…
This delusional thinking is, I believe, an artifact of desperation – desperation to hold onto power and prerogatives that are quickly fading. But the levels of the Right’s delusion and its desperation are so extreme that you have to wonder what’s going on. Well, I think I know, and it’s this:
"Day 1. I am progressive. I am liberal. I make no apologies. I believe government has an obligation to create an even playing field for all of this country's citizens and immigrants alike. I am not a socialist. I do not seek enforced equality. However, there has to be equality of opportunity, and the private sector, left to its own devices, will never achieve this goal."
That's the very first Daily Kos post, of course, and it appeared exactly five years ago yesterday (5/26/02).
This 5-year-old is turning out to be quite the prodigy. Others may disagree, and Kos himself may demure, but I believe DK was responsible more than any other factor for the Democrats regaining Congress in 2006, and for the fact that the U.S. is at the cusp of a progressive/populist revival. (“New New Deal,” anyone?) Great days ahead, people, great days.
The success of DK points, in fact, to a larger truth: that computer and Internet technology are inherently progressive tools in that they tend to distribute power and liberate individuals more than they do organizations, including governments and corporations. Sure, the organizations may win in the short term. But the long-term record, thus far, is on the side of the people. Scott Shane’s terrific book Dismantling Utopia: How Information Ended the Soviet Empire documents this relative to the fall of the Soviet Union. The USSR fell in 1991, a time when the Web was still nascent and thus not much of a factor. But digital communications technology, including the humble fax machine and early Apple Macintosh computers (which handled Cyrillic and other non-Roman fonts much better than PCs), played a huge role in disseminating information that sped the Empire’s demise. As Wikipedia notes, “With increased proliferation of computer technologies, it became practically impossible for the government to control the copying and distribution of samizdat.” (Wikipedia itself being a prime example of the liberating power of technology.)
Later, faxes and Macintoshes were also important tools for getting information out during China’s 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising.
Yes, there are plenty of counter-examples, the most infamous being the Nazis' use of IBM digital technology to efficiently murder millions during the Holocaust. But the interesting question here is how the availability of low-cost communications technology influences Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous "long arc of justice." ("The arc of a moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.") I believe that history incontrovertibly shows that it overall shortens that arc. The last time history saw such an efflorescence of low-cost communications technology it was called the printing press, and it sparked a little something called the Renaissance, which in turn sparked a little something else called the Enlightenment. And our current innovations leave the printing press in the dust, in terms of their potential to empower the disempowered. The level of "creative destruction" we can expect this technology to yield is, frankly, a little scary even to someone like me who eagerly anticipates it. Imagine how terrifying it must seem to someone who generally fears change, and has a lot to lose from this change in particular. Perhaps this explains the Far Right's (ours and other societies') retreat into medievalism and tribalism.
Right now an Egyptian blogger is jailed with his life at risk for “insulting Islam,” and Chinese bloggers have also been imprisoned. Other countries, including the formerly relatively-free (information-wise) Turkey and Thailand, are now actively censoring blogs and YouTube. These strategies will not work in the long term because (here it comes!) the ethos of conservatism and totalitarianism (to protect oneself by building walls) runs counter not just to the ethos and spirit, but the very architecture, of the Web.
On a more mundane level, this conflict between the ethos of arch-conservativism and the ethos and architecture of the Web may even explain why conservative blogs suck. Psychologically, it must take one hell of an ability to compartmentalize to use an inherently open and democratic medium to promote an ethic of privilege and intolerance and inequality - a level of compartmentalization that probably seriously impairs one's ability to think and communicate effectively.
All of which brings us back to my slightly belated KosDay celebration. Congratulations to Kos and the community for “raising” such a prodigy! Just imagine what this baby’s going to be able to accomplish by the time it’s ten, fifteen, twenty, etc…
I hope one day Kos writes in detail about the history of DK. Specifically, what inspired him to start it, and what he hoped to accomplish, versus what he actually did accomplish. What he did right and what mistakes did he make? What part of the site's success was due to strategy, and what part due to luck? And, most importantly, how can other progressives emulate his success with forthcoming generations of empowering technologies?
Crossposted at http://www.lifelongactivist.com. SusanG's review of Hillary Rettig's book The Lifelong Activist can be found here.