mind control, tinfoil, or ? JUST 35 YEARS AGO, FREEPERS WEREN'T RETARDED!

[Richard Steele]

The other month, I happened to spend 15 minutes reading an old copy
of "Life" magazine from 1970.
Apparently, it was the next issue AFTER the one that covered
the Kent State Massacre.

Reading the "letters" section from that month's issue
was a bizarre experience. There were PLENTY of Freepish
missives supporting the "brave National Guardsmen who
quelled those rioters and restored the Almighty ORDER" (:puke:)

But what was STRIKING: the people saying those things WROTE WELL!

It wasn't simply a matter of spelling the words right.
The fascist assholes in 1970 wrote in complete sentences.
And they assembled those sentences into COHERENT paragraphs.

Their letters had a beginning, a middle, and an end; they displayed
a logical progression of ideas from 'opening statement' to
'closing arguement'.

It was like reading letters from some strange alternate reality where
the Freepers were actually THINKING, ADULT AMERICANS;
not just hypnotized, emotionally reactionary catchphrase-repeating
bloodthirsting, HATEgasmic parrot-monkeys.

And, I realized it really WAS a different reality in 1970.

SOMETHING has happened in the 35 years since; something that
has taken a particular group of ordinary, intelligent, well-spoken,
(albeit MISGUIDED) Americans and turned them into the logic-challenged,
delusional, sixth-grade-schoolyard bully-mentality GRUNTING CAVEMEN
we know as "Freepers" today.

[tuvor]

1. The Internet happened.

Now everyone's incoherent words are published.

[Initech]

6. You're half right.

It's more of a combination of the internet combined with the merging of news and "reality" television. Watching those 24/7 news networks is just another form of dumbed-down entertainment. It's no different than watching Fear Factor.

[mmonk]

2. Don't insult the retarded.

[razors edge]

3. perhaps the letters in the 70's

were mostly astroturf from cointelpro? remember the black panthers coloring books bs from them?

[razors edge]

4. perhaps the letters in the 70's

were mostly astroturf from cointelpro? remember the black panthers coloring books bs from them?

[tanyev]

5. Heck, before 2000, there were at lot of people at FR who were

very critical of Bush and Bush Family shenanigans. They've all mysteriously faded away.....

[Smarmie Doofus]

7. Television, consumerism gone wild, bad education...

these three ( and some other factors in the culture) have combined to contribute to the dumbing-down of America.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

8. In the olden days you had to get out your paper and a pen,

or maybe a typewriter, and you'd probably write at least a couple of drafts, which meant you'd rewrite the whole thing if handwritten, or at least use White-Out if the letter was typed, and then you'd have to address an envelope and put the letter in it, put a stamp on the envelope and place the envelope in a mailbox. In other words, some effort was involved, which tended to weed out the worst of the bottom-feeders. Now, however, any idiot with Internet access can bang out some incoherent, illiterate screed using two fingers or his thumbs or his nose or his d*ck, and send it instantly, completely unedited, to whatever slime-coated website will take it. Virtually no effort, skill, or competence is required. The fact that the Internet is an almost pure, unfiltered democracy is a good thing, but as such it exposes both the brilliance of the best and the baseness of the worst -- and affirms that freepers tend to be total dumbasses.

[Richard Steele]

9. That makes a lot of sense to me.

Maybe the explanation really is just that simple.

[pitohui]

10. you're very young, aren't you?

i was there and i can assure you that freepers were just as retarded, if not more so, in 1970

the magazine staff edited the letters

[Richard Steele]

11. I'm 37, and it's been a ROUGH 37...so, NO, I'm far from "young".

Like Grandpa Steele used to say: "it's not the mileage
so much as the maintenence", y'know?

But I wondered if that might have been the case;
if the editors back then had translated the
crayon-scrawled FreeperSpeak into legible English
before sending the issue to press.