At some point back in 2005 or so, I was exchanging email with a few friends, kicking around this idea that I’d had to start up a parody right wing blog — not actually an outright obvious satire like Jesus’ General, but rather, something that would walk the fine line between plausibility and idiocy, so that readers would never quite be sure if we were serious or not.
And we called it “Red State.”
No, I kid. The idea kind of fizzled out, though somebody at that point — maybe me, but I don’t want to take credit where it’s not due — came up with the name “Freedom Fist!”
In March, 2006 I wrote a cartoon about the “Nitpicking Squad” — based on the prevalent right-wing-blog tactic of, well, nitpicking. You know: “The President never said that specific word, so clearly liberals are completely wrong about everything, nyah nyah nyah.” And that got me to thinking once again about the mighty Fist. And to make a long story short, I snagged a few more people into my little scheme, and for about a month we had a great deal of fun. For instance:
A Bleg
I’m working on an article about the Democrat party’s petty vendetta against Dick Cheney. In my research, I noticed people like Eschaton keep mentioning Haliburton. Does anyone know where I can find out more about this?
posted by Objectivist in CA @ 3:01 PM
Hey Objectivist
Don’t forget how the Dimmocrats tried to make such a big deal out of a simple hunting accident, when Dick Cheney was more concerned with getting his friend to the hospital than with holding a press conference for the spoiled babies in the MSM.
(also, this is a “blog”, not a “bleg.” It is short for “weblog.”)
posted by Patriot Zero @ 4:05 PM
Unleash The Energy!
I recommend Halliburton.com, the company website. As a corporation, they are legally required to make everything you need to know public, something liberal idiors never seem to understand!!
You can even login and create your own account under MyHalliburton, right under the picture of three strong men in red hats. I mean, MyHalliburton, what else do you need to know they are acting on our behalf?!?
posted by Falkland Avenger @ 4:06 PM
It kind of went on like that.
The project lasted a few weeks and then sort of fizzled out. I went on a book tour for “Hell in a Handbasket,” which totally killed my own momentum — but more than that, maintaining a blog is actually a lot of work, and blogging regularly under assumed personnas, walking that fine line between parody and freeper-reality, ended up taking more time than any of us expected.
I think it’s probably more fun, at least for now, if I just let you read the thing without revealing who was using which screen name. But one note of explanation is necessary: you will notice that one of our faux-wingnuts posts under the name “Michael Berube.” This is because Professor Berube was, in fact, one of my unindicted co-conspirators, and — I assume because he created a subsequent Google account under his own name — his wingnut identity has been subsumed by his actual identity. So when you see a post by “Michael Berube,” just imagine that it is actually by the “Red Lantern.” Unless you find it more amusing to imagine that a not-very-bright wingnut somehow thought it would be funny to post under the name of “Michael Berube,” in which case, you are free to go with that scenario instead. It’s like a song, or a cartoon — once it’s released into the world, it’s yours to interpret as you please!
The link below will take you to the March archive, which is pretty much the whole archive. But don’t forget to click through to April, where you will find one final post, explaining why the Fist became dormant.
And one other note: sadly, I must report that comments have been lost to time, due to the various Google/Blogger updates. And we actually had a few — from at least one genuine reader who genuinely seemed to be taking us at face value!
So without further ado — Out of the Mouth of Freedom Comes a Mighty Roar! (I recommend scrolling to the bottom and working your way up.)
And just for the record, we definitely did not continue the project under any other name, such as Red State, which, to our knowledge is a 100% genuine blog not being created as a high concept prank by a bunch of left-wing bloggers and cartoonists. Honest!