Conservatism can only rear its ugly head or sustain itself in a top-down society where information is guarded by a few Fauxes and concealed from the general masses. The real views and real positions of right wing conservatives are fringe positions, which only a small minority of Americans (and a small minority of people in any country) believe in.
Thus the conservatives have carefully tried to construct a society where the newspaper, radio station, network, and religious institution in their community are right wing propaganda outlets with the silent majority stifled through intimidation tactics or lack of an outlet. And they've been able to do that partly because their economic philosophy is beneficial to those who can afford to buy up these corporations.
But that is now changing.
We are fast becoming a bottoms up media society where all the information people need to make informed decisions is becoming more readily available to them. With the power of YouTube or Google or a simple website, you can learn all that you would never have learned years ago. And this is devastating news for conservatives.
Imagine what would have happened in 1968 or 1972 if the media had done its job and played the video or audio clips of Richard Nixon's McCarthyist rantings?
Imagine what would have happened in 1980 or 1984 had the news media played all those clips of Ronald Reagan supporting the Ku Klux Klan and the destruction of our social infrastructure?
Imagine what would have happened in 2000 if the media simply created a ten minute montage of all of Bush's quotes or spent two minutes a day reporting on Bush's close associations with Texas' Neo Nazi Right or Bush's links to Project For The New American Century?
In each instance, the Republican candidate for President would have been toast and America would be entering its 47th consecutive year of a Democratic president. (Or Alternatively we'd have a somewhat liberal Republican Party which would have had some clout.)
In the past, all of the damaging audio and video would be concealed in the network's studio never to be heard. If you gained access to that audio or video, the extent of your audience was at most your immediate family and a few friends on your VCR or casette player.
In the past, you would never have found out about Dick Cheney's 1994 comments on Iraq. In the past you would never have found out about Rudy Giuliani's real 9/11 record. In the past you would never have found out about George W Bush's comments that he didn't care about capturing Osama Bin Laden or his candid admission that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11.
Thanks to the Internet, the days of a top down media structure are gone. Should this diary reach the recommended list, it will be read by more people than those who read David Broder's latest column in the Washington Post. This would have been unimaginable five years ago.
Conservative ideology can not survive in the information world because the information world is Socratic while the conservative ideology is autocratic. Conservatism is about the repression of ideas while most of us are about the free expression of ideas. I'm about exposing people to as many different ideas as possible and letting people make up their own minds based on as wide a range of views as possible. Conservatives are generally about imposing one set of views on people without regard for the facts and without giving others the opportunity to present contrary information.
And this is where the Internet comes in. For example, by recognizing the existences of hundreds of different religions, a person is more likely to freely select views that he or she is comfortable with rather than blindly accept the views that he or she was brought up with. For example, by being aware that there are more people out there of different cultures and races, a person is less likely to adopt the bigoted views that he or she may have been raised with. On issues like abortion, contraception, sex before marriage, gay rights, and other so called hot button social issues, the conservative viewpoint is going to increasingly become more marginalized because the mere exposure to differing viewpoints will change some people's minds. And the Internet also gives us the power to expose injustices. How many of you would have ever heard of the Jena 6 or Pawlenty's Vetoes if it were not for the Internet?
There is also a comfort zone with the Internet. People can feel freer to express their views with less fear of retribution. There's very little the conservative ThoughtPolice can do to stop people although you can bet they will try.
This is not to suggest that the Internet will be a conservative free zone. There is still a place on the Internet for vituperative right wing bloggers, vacuous windbags like David Broder or Joe Klein, and many of the Malkinish hate sites. And while I personally disagree with hate mongers and fringe extremists like Bill O'Reilly, he is entitled to espouse his points of view to others.
So a toast to the Internet.