Evil people brief stupid people before elections
There are evil people among us who manipulate stupid people. I know there are a lot of stupid people because Mr. Ann and I are related to some of them and they forward e-mail to us.
Just as I'm ready to shut down my computer last night a message from a cousin pops up in my in box. The subject line is "Fw: Who's Funding Obama." The message begins, "This is incredible. No wonder he is being so generous in helping Hillary with her campaign debts. It is greatly surprising, almost shocking that this liberal journalist would write such a column." I agree—it is incredible.
There are a couple of red flags before I even get through the first paragraph of a column supposedly written by Maureen Dowd June 29—"fund raising campaign" instead of "fund-raising" or "fundraising campaign," "more then" instead of "more than." The whole thing is full of writing errors; there's no way the New York Times could have published it. It claims Barack Obama campaign insiders admit most of his contributions are coming from the Middle East and China. Funny this is the first I've heard of it . . .
I know about Obama's Fight the Smears page, and I know how to find it quickly: a link on the Nevada Mojo Rising blog (thanks, NV Mojo!). I visit the page, and there it is under "Updates": "Fake Maureen Dowd Column." It provides links to the column Dowd actually wrote June 29 (about Obama and Hillary Clinton's Unity appearance) and to the Obama campaign's policy against accepting donations from foreign citizens.
I hit "reply all" (something I don't do without thinking about it first) and add the name of the person who forwarded the e-mail to my cousin. (I decide against adding all the people she sent it to; I figure I'll be annoying enough relatives and strangers without doing that.) I paste in the information from Fight the Smears and add a note about how there's no way something that poorly written and edited could have been published by the New York Times. Total time from receipt of the forwarded e-mail to my rebuttal: 15 minutes.
This morning I receive a conciliatory message from my cousin: "I will check out your articles. How do you find that stuff? He certainly seems to have a tremendous amount of campaign dollars. I never hardly see anything in the papers up here or other articles I read about McCain." She goes on to discuss her life and asks about mine.
I begin a conciliatory reply ("I knew about the Obama 'Stop the Smears' website so I checked there when the column seemed odd. He definitely is raising lots of money."). I'm writing about my job, garden and family when another message arrives. This one is from her husband, who is on my cousin's mailing list and therefore on my "reply all" list. His message is not conciliatory:
I mention the husband's message in my message to my cousin and tell her I don't want politics to come between us. I won't waste my time responding to the husband.
I would never send out a mass e-mail about politics because I wouldn't want to offend anyone (I write this blog instead), so I keep wondering why Mr. Ann's and my stupid relatives don't hesitate to forward crap like that to us. They obviously assume everyone feels the same way they do about such things. It makes me think of the new book The Big Sort. It says, according to Publishers Weekly, that Americans have sorted themselves out so they are always "among people with similar ways of life, beliefs, and in the end, politics." I assume our relatives don't think twice about sending us right-wing diatribes because all the people they hang out with think they make perfect sense.
The more I think about it, the scarier it is that the only sources of information about current events for so many people—so many stupid people—are right-wing talk shows, the Fox News Channel and untrue forwarded e-mails. I would say I hope they're too stupid to vote, but we know plenty of them voted in 2000 and 2004. How can they let evil people manipulate them like that?
Just as I'm ready to shut down my computer last night a message from a cousin pops up in my in box. The subject line is "Fw: Who's Funding Obama." The message begins, "This is incredible. No wonder he is being so generous in helping Hillary with her campaign debts. It is greatly surprising, almost shocking that this liberal journalist would write such a column." I agree—it is incredible.
There are a couple of red flags before I even get through the first paragraph of a column supposedly written by Maureen Dowd June 29—"fund raising campaign" instead of "fund-raising" or "fundraising campaign," "more then" instead of "more than." The whole thing is full of writing errors; there's no way the New York Times could have published it. It claims Barack Obama campaign insiders admit most of his contributions are coming from the Middle East and China. Funny this is the first I've heard of it . . .
I know about Obama's Fight the Smears page, and I know how to find it quickly: a link on the Nevada Mojo Rising blog (thanks, NV Mojo!). I visit the page, and there it is under "Updates": "Fake Maureen Dowd Column." It provides links to the column Dowd actually wrote June 29 (about Obama and Hillary Clinton's Unity appearance) and to the Obama campaign's policy against accepting donations from foreign citizens.
I hit "reply all" (something I don't do without thinking about it first) and add the name of the person who forwarded the e-mail to my cousin. (I decide against adding all the people she sent it to; I figure I'll be annoying enough relatives and strangers without doing that.) I paste in the information from Fight the Smears and add a note about how there's no way something that poorly written and edited could have been published by the New York Times. Total time from receipt of the forwarded e-mail to my rebuttal: 15 minutes.
This morning I receive a conciliatory message from my cousin: "I will check out your articles. How do you find that stuff? He certainly seems to have a tremendous amount of campaign dollars. I never hardly see anything in the papers up here or other articles I read about McCain." She goes on to discuss her life and asks about mine.
I begin a conciliatory reply ("I knew about the Obama 'Stop the Smears' website so I checked there when the column seemed odd. He definitely is raising lots of money."). I'm writing about my job, garden and family when another message arrives. This one is from her husband, who is on my cousin's mailing list and therefore on my "reply all" list. His message is not conciliatory:
I checked out all those websites. The donation one anyone could fill that out incorrectly . Who's to check on it and who monitors it? The column that Dowd wrote was about Obama mockery. Professional newspapers write all kinds of poorly written and untrue, and personal opinion columns.He signs his wife's/my cousin's name.
I do not feel it was your business to forward to my family and friends. You could have sent back the message and asked me to do it.
I mention the husband's message in my message to my cousin and tell her I don't want politics to come between us. I won't waste my time responding to the husband.
I would never send out a mass e-mail about politics because I wouldn't want to offend anyone (I write this blog instead), so I keep wondering why Mr. Ann's and my stupid relatives don't hesitate to forward crap like that to us. They obviously assume everyone feels the same way they do about such things. It makes me think of the new book The Big Sort. It says, according to Publishers Weekly, that Americans have sorted themselves out so they are always "among people with similar ways of life, beliefs, and in the end, politics." I assume our relatives don't think twice about sending us right-wing diatribes because all the people they hang out with think they make perfect sense.
The more I think about it, the scarier it is that the only sources of information about current events for so many people—so many stupid people—are right-wing talk shows, the Fox News Channel and untrue forwarded e-mails. I would say I hope they're too stupid to vote, but we know plenty of them voted in 2000 and 2004. How can they let evil people manipulate them like that?
...and so it begins ...the nuts are desperate and out in force!
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Thanks for writing this. Yesterday, i read that McCain-Palin were leading in the lateset polls, I kept wondering how ppl can be that stupid/naive to vote for them after the last 8 year debacle. I guess, evil ppl and stupid ppl have banded together to expel all common sense from this world.
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