to the right, always to the right, never to the left. Sing Hosanah!

I have to admit, I love going into right-wing world on the net and trying my viewpoints out. To suddenly give their on-message world a counter-point. Newsmax is not the only source for news! Try reading the NY Times instead of the Washington Times! (why do you not trust a Moonie at an airport, but you trust him for news?)

It is, of course, a losing battle. They've got a million sites, a million arguments, and they attack in gangs. If you try to do some quick research on the net, you find that there point-of-view was the rage de jour, and looking for a rebuttal, or reasonable counter-attack takes you 20 pages in on Google. The first 20 pages are all the various right-wing boards trumpeting this outrage! I have to hand it to them: they are well-fed, they are passionate in a way that most liberals aren't (dare I use the world "zealots"?), they got game. They come up with what I call "older brother" arguments, arguments so audicious, you can't believe what you just heard.

One of my favorites: Ann Coultier defending Rush Limbaugh's fall from grace by saying "Why is it that liberals attack anyone who advocates decency and makes a mistake?" Maybe because when you attack others publicly for things that you do yourself is darn close to the definition for a word called "hypocrisy"?

Anyway, I have a few pals who have this sickness, to venture forth into the chat rooms, the internet bulletin boards that are strongholds of the right and try to goose them. Here is one of their stories:

Dear Friends

If you want to correspond with me, use my WORK e-mail. I was "permanently expelled" from AOL. I have had this bad habit of arguing in the "From the Right" chat room on AOL. Two days ago I started arguing with this woman in the chat room about something (I don't even remember the topic). When she told me to "shut the fuck up," I looked at her profile and found that she had a confederate flag on her profile. When I pointed out that I didn't give much credence to the viewpoints of racists as suggested by her profile, she told the chat room that I must be personally interested in her, and that she only "accepts cash." I responded by saying that I wasn't really into "dumb whores". I was reported "hall monitor" style to AOL police who told me that they were permanently canceling my AOL membership because I had been warned previously (four other times in 7 months) about offending people on AOL. Keep in mind that I have been an AOL customer for over 10 years and that I have all sorts of stored information, e-mail addresses, photos, etc. on AOL that I will lose permanently now. I spent hour after hour on the phone with customer service, and with customer service supervisors but so far I am without recourse.

It sounds funny but the consequences are actually pretty devastating as my internet identity and information of 10 years have been destroyed. The only real humor came from hearing an AOL customer service representative read my previous transgressions in his Indian accent. During the Presidential elections when some college kid, who had spent most of his time in the chat room trying to pick up women with lewd come ons, told me that he would never vote for someone who looked like Herman Munster, I told him, "Instead of you people spending your time sending pictures of your cocks and pussies to each other, you should read a newspaper so you actually have something to talk about in a political chat room." On another occasion, I called one of the fanatical Terri Schiavo supporters in the room, a "Rapture Right Retard". Again, I admit to making offensive comments using an anonymous screenname but bear in mind that the people I was chatting with often made comments equally offensive in my direction. My comments were not made to people in a church group chat room. The only difference is that I didn't feel the need to "report" their behavior to AOL Mommy and Daddy.

Just seems a bit hypocritical that AOL allows for "mature" chat rooms like. "DaddyLooking4Slutdaughter" and "Mom4Son", etc. but using the word "retard" was enough to take away my information and contacts, accumulated over a decade. There has to be some additional irony in the fact that ultimately I was told that my behavior in a political chat room offended people, at the same time that AOL parent, Time Warner, put Ann Coulter on the cover of Time Magazine this week. Which is more offensive, calling a bigot in a chat room a "whore" or publishing for millions the viewpoint of a woman who called overweight women who attended the Democratic National Convention, "Pie Wagons"? While censorship involves government activity, I guess we are in an age when mega-corporations can do whatever they want and cannot be held accountable and no one can call it censorship. I have to wonder if the person that made this decision at AOL took into account my political viewpoints and whether or not they would have made the same decision if they had agreed with mine. So much for Freedom of Speech. AOL Uber Alles.