Posted on May 19, 2009 in Articles

If you visited Reddit yesterday (and at some points today), the first post that greeted you was:

That links to a post by me entitled “What Exactly Has “Changed” Under Obama? The Rich Get Bailouts, Torture Goes Unprosecuted, AIPAC Decides The Fate Of Iran, and Democrats Are Still Silent Accomplices In Bush-Era War Crimes“. Followed by the posters comments on the story, it essentially implicates me and ProseBeforeHos as being mere operatives in a grander ploy by Republicans to turn social media sites against Barack Obama and the Democratic Party.

First, I would like to address the accusation in itself: Under no circumstances would I ever take money from the Republican party. I spent my seventeenth year on this planet working on Ralph Naders 2000 Presidential campaign. I spent 2004 and 2006 working for state Green Party’s (Virginia and Georgia, respectively). I’m not going to go into greater detail about my personal history or beliefs, but I am the farthest thing from a conservative. I do not have any sympathy, desire to work with, or would ever take cash to either manipulate a social media site, to promote a Republican or conservative agenda, or do anything that undermines the integrity of this website. I don’t hold many things sacred, but the purity and honesty in which I pursue things is one of them.

Secondly, yes, the title was hyperbolic. But, I stand by the assertions I made. I don’t think it is a big deal Nancy Pelosi was possibly consulted about torture techniques. What I do think is a big deal is Nancy Pelosi and Co. spending 6 years cheering on the worst offenses of George Bush’s administration. And at the center of the torture debate, the Democrats are scared to death, because they are implicit accomplices in Bush’s war crimes by not doing a damn thing to stop them while they occurred.

Thirdly, the incident revealed one sad aspect of the social networking frenzy: it breeds the worst kind of self-obsession and bloated sense of collective ego I have witnessed online. At most, Digg and Reddit garner a couple hundred thousand unique visitors a day. Do you really think that, in the grand scheme of things, the social networking sites are such a great democratic movement? Do you really think that you are so important as to warrant a grand conspiracy to influence your opinions? The answer is no to both questions, and we’d all be a lot better off if you got over yourselves.

Love always,

Alec