Source: The Northwest Florida Daily News Page: 4F of the March 22, 1998 Daily News. Pubdate: 22 Mar 1998 Contact: http://www.nwfdailynews.com/today/feedback.html FAX: (904) 863-7834 Website: http://www.nwfdailynews.com/ Columnist: Ray Aldridge Note: Ray Aldridge is a novelist and Web designer who lives in Fort Walton Beach. You may e-mail him at THE NETROVERT - INFORMATION ON POLITICS EASY TO GET The Internet is changing the face of American politics. The culture of sound bites and spin doctors that has dominated the electoral follies for generations is beginning to lose its influence. The Internet gives voters a new way to acquire political information, independent of the moneyed interests that have had such a corrupting influence on the process. Consider, for example, that on the Internet, the war on drugs was lost a long time ago. Online, it's very difficult to find someone to defend this massively destructive and massively expensive social experiment, and impossible to find someone who can defend it ably. The drug warriors have nothing but reefer madness propaganda to support their position, and on the Internet, with its instantaneous access to scientific materials, this is an overwhelming disadvantage. Polls conducted among Internet users show a huge majority want to end the war, and a lot of them have set up polished and professional Web sites dedicated to that purpose. One particularly good one is the Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/ - which collects and archives news on the war. A while back, for example, the site recorded a truly astonishing example of political stupidity on the part of Steve Forbes, the man who would be America's CEO. It seems that the good citizens of Washington, D.C., were entertaining a petition to permit the medical use of marijuana. Evidently Forbes saw this as a golden opportunity to establish his drug warrior credentials. He made the usual arguments, assuring us that allowing the sick and dying to smoke pot without fear of incarceration would lead inevitably to the collapse of civilization. That's all well and good, from a political viewpoint. Lots of voters believe the same thing. But then Forbes goofed. He claimed that "well-financed legalization forces" want to "make America safe for Colombian-style drug cartels." The drug lords' greatest fear is that we might end the war, and take away the countless untaxed billions they have come to expect as their due. That Steve Forbes is apparently ignorant of this basic economic fact does not argue well for his candidacy. If he doesn't understand that "legalizers" and drug lords are the bitterest of enemies, how will he ever grasp the more subtle aspects of statecraft? His opponents in the primaries will, unfortunately, never take him to task for his foolish remarks. In American politics, to criticize even the most obviously deranged drug war rhetoric is to leave yourself open to the charge that you're "soft on drugs." That accusation can be fatal to your career, and few politicians are brave when their career is at risk. But the Internet is slowly flooding America's political grassroots. It's becoming America's political memory, and it never forgets. Voters can now share their opinions directly with thousands of other voters, cheaply and efficiently. Some of them are going to be wondering if it's really such a good idea to elect a dullard to the highest office in the land, even if they like his political philosophy. © 1998 Northwest Florida Daily News