A Prison of Their Own Design

This is a couple weeks old, but I just caught it -- Crooks & Liars reports (h/t: LowerManhattanite) on the latest project from the alternate reality that is modern American conservatism: QubeTV. Like Conservapedia, QubeTV is an attempt to combat reality's liberal bias, as manifested in online communities -- in this case, YouTube:

Apparently, cats playing the piano and homemade videos of soap stars and Harry Potter characters to the soundtrack of the latest pop love song are too…shall we say…liberally biased:

The popular video-sharing Web site first debuted "Hillary 1984," which compared Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. to a Orwellian dictator, then-Sen. George Allen's career-altering "macaca" moment and the "I Feel Pretty" video that chided former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards' good looks.

But YouTube, which is owned by Google, has also been a favorite target of conservatives, who accuse the site of a liberal bias.

Railing against YouTube, two Republican White House veterans have launched QubeTV as a conservative alternative.

"The 2008 campaign will be dominated by video and in particular by user-generated video," says QubeTV founder Charlie Gerow, a former aide in the Ronald Reagan White House.

"There are a vast array of young conservative activists and operatives out there armed with cell phones or hand-helds that are going to capture the next 'macaca' moment or John Kerry bad joke and put them on Qube TV," says Gerow, whose Pennsylvania strategic media firm, Quantum Communications, created the Web site.

Gerow insists YouTube banned a video by conservative blogger Michelle Malkin about radical Islamists.

Responding to that incident, a statement on the Web site reads: "We fly the conservative flag here at QubeTV, and we will not be about banning or deleting conservatives."

For what it's worth, Michelle Malkin personally has 25 of her videos on YouTube and a site search yields 251 results, so she's hardly underrepresented. But that's just that pesky reality again. It's much more fun to embrace victimhood, even if it's a ridiculous lie.

The whole thing is eminently mockable in and of itself, but web-based projects like QubeTV and Conservapedia are excellent illustrations of the pitfalls of the larger conservative strategy of constructing parallel institutions. The point of something like YouTube is to share information and experience with the widest social network possible -- what makes it useful as a political tool is the fact that political speech (even if it's just self-produced propaganda) joins the same pool where millions of people are looking for American Idol clips or breakdancing 5-year-olds. It's an online agora, a form of civic sphere.

But conservatives, over the past few decades, have increasingly focused on talking to each other, not to the public. In fact, they're openly suspicious of conservative politicians who do make an effort to talk to the wider public -- I've referred to this in the past as "cultural secessionism." You could also just call it a counterculture.

The strategy has boosted conservative political fortunes to an extent - is there any doubt about the role of Fox News in disciplining and motivating the Republican base? But it has its limits, and something like QubeTV is a perfect example. Okay, ghettoize yourself - post your video clips at QubeTV and nowhere else. You'll be the only ones watching them. Everyone else will be over at YouTube, or whatever replaces YouTube.

Not satisfied with merely preaching to the choir, conservatives seem intent on building walls around the choir box to shut out the rest of the congregation entirely.

Labels: Conservapedia, conservatives, counterculture, QubeTV

  ¶ Posted by Paul Curtis 2:21 PM 0 comments

  The Joy of Conservapedia

Oh, this is going to be a hoot. Seems that Phyllis Schlafly's even-loonier son Andrew has finally found a solution to the rampant liberal bias of reality Wikipedia. Introducing... Conservapedia! It's an encyclopedia of know-nothingism, Godly and patriotic:

Conservapedia is a much-needed alternative to Wikipedia, which is increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American. On Wikipedia, many of the dates are provided in the anti-Christian "C.E." instead of "A.D.", which Conservapedia uses. Christianity receives no credit for the great advances and discoveries it inspired, such as those of the Renaissance. Read a list of many Examples of Bias in Wikipedia.

Conservapedia is an online resource and meeting place where we favor Christianity and America. Conservapedia has easy-to-use indexes to facilitate review of topics. You will much prefer using Conservapedia compared to Wikipedia if you want concise answers free of "political correctness".

While I presume that there are more than a few conservatives who just find the damn thing embarassing, that's not going to stop us from having a little fun with it.

Unfortunately, the poor site's servers are not holding up well under all the traffic, so a little patience is required if you want to nose around. Let's look at a few highlights, though. I'll try to keep them concise and free of "political correctness."

First stop: Conservative. Here is the entirety of the entry:

Of or relating to Conservatism.

Pete Seeger, once accused of being a communist, countered “I say I’m more conservative than Goldwater. He just wanted to turn the clock back to when there was no income tax. I want to turn the clock back to when people lived in small villages and took care of each other.”

Retrieved from "http://www.conservapedia.com/Conservative"

Well, this is perplexing. Pete Seeger?

Let's follow the link to "Conservatism":

Login required to edit
From Conservapedia
Jump to: navigation, search
You have to log in to edit pages.

Return to Conservatism.

Retrieved from "http://www.conservapedia.com/Conservatism"

I know these guys are new and all, but one would think that Conservapedia would have more to offer on the subject of conservatism than a terse little tautology embellished only by a mystifying reference to a communist folk singer.

Well, they say you can define people by their enemies, right?

Liberal

A liberal in the early 1800s in Europe was one who favored more powerful elected assemblies. The term was common in France shortly after the French Revolution. Modern liberals are treasonous [1] and generally hate America [2].

Concise indeed! I'm pleased to see that Conservapedia's entries include sourcing - though disappointed to find that neither footnote actually leads anywhere.

In fact, none of this is leading anywhere. Let's try again - this time starting at the top.

Fictional Characters (Redirected from God)

God is pretty popular, but judging by God's blog, and several thousand years of human history, He's kind of a dick.

John Galt is generally a bit less popular, but he's got more sex appeal.

I have to admit, these conservatives are really throwing me for a loop, here. John Galt? Who's that?

It's beginning to appear that Andy could use some help with this project, and evidently that help isn't going to come from God. Where else can he turn? Mom?

There is no page titled "Phyllis Schlafly". You can create this page.

For more information about searching Conservapedia, see Searching Conservapedia.

Nothingness! It's enough to drive a man to atheism!

Atheism is the disbelief in the existence of any supernatural deity. This disbelief can take a number of forms, such as the assertion that deities do not exist, or the absence of any belief in any deity.

Stalin and Richard Dawkins are prominent atheists. Dawkins wrote a book, called "The God Delusion". Stalin is now dead, having killed millions of people in the name of Marxis-Leninism (which is predicated on atheism). [Take that Dawkins! How many people have you killed? What? All you did was write a book, you pansy? - ed.]

Atheist morality
Viewed as a simple philosophical framework of "no god exists", atheism can provide no logical basis for any moral standard. Some atheists reject normal social conventions and live their lives according to the rule that "anything goes". Many feel this has led to a large rise in crime[1], drug use, pre-marital sex, teenage pregnancy,[2] pedophilia[3] and bestiality.

Thus does Conservapedia lead one way: downhill, and fast.

Labels: Andrew Schlafly, Conservapedia, conservatives

  ¶ Posted by Paul Curtis 3:56 PM 5 comments