Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Too Bad to Be True? It Probably Isn't

Fake political emails have been especially plentiful for the past few months. I’ve received a video email a few times recently supposedly showing President Obama being snubbed by the Russians. False. I’ve received an email stating that Canada thinks President Obama is a failure, and another describing Mrs. Obama is an over-indulged princess. Also false. The Canada Free Press, an ultra-conservative Canadian newsletter, was being passed off as the legitimate news agency of Canada, like our Associated Press. And besides, both stories were written by Americans.

Several months ago there was a fabricated email story circulating—with a copy of the so-called bill—that Mrs. Obama had a very expensive brunch at a posh hotel in New York when she wasn’t there. The publisher printed a retraction, but didn’t forward it to me. I had to track it down on my own.

There was yet another email story zooming around cyberspace stating that a doctor of philosophy wrote a dissertation on Mr. Obama’s narcissism. While that author did comment about Obama possibly being a narcissist, the poor author was erroneously credited with a hate-filled article published on a secularist website and written by an ex-Muslim using a pseudonym. That author was so hateful I left his website as soon as I could for fear of being infected.

Why do we forward and circulate so much misinformation and even hatred? Partly, of course, because we can. In years past, who would have driven to the local copy center to make multiple copies of a hand-written or typed letter stating their reasons for hating someone? And then filled and addressed dozens of envelopes, affixed dozens of postage stamps, and slipped them into a U.S. postal mailbox for distribution? And if they did, what would we think about them? Hello? Does the name Unabomber ring a bell? As I said, we forward this “stuff” because we can, because it’s free and so easy to do. And yes, of course I’ve done it also.

“People say believe half of what you see, son, and none of what you hear." I Heard it Through the Grapevine, Marvin Gaye

With today’s amazing, readily available computer software, it’s no longer safe to believe “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Still photos, videos and voice recordings can and are routinely altered to sell something or make a point. There are probably tens of thousands of good people out there who believe that photo of a gun-totin,’ bikini-clad Sarah Palin was real. It wasn't. The photo was digitally altered. You knew that too, right?

And why is it necessary to paint Mrs. Palin as a sexy, gun-happy, beauty queen? Why is it necessary to paint Hillary Clinton as a shrewish, man-eating, ball-busting harpy? Right now some of us are saying, “Because they are,” aren’t we?

“Check it out.” John Mellencamp

How do we stop the proliferation of these WMD’s (weapons of mass deception)? Here’s my plan. Add our government representatives’ email addresses to our email contacts. If, after checking truthorfiction.com, urbanlegends.about.com, and snopes.com, we find an email story is indeed true and we object to its message, we can forward it to our Senators and Representatives and tell them this news really pisses us off. We can even insist they do something about it. Then when those angry, and yes, sometimes funny emails show up, it will be as easy to make our voices heard by our government as it is to hit the “forward” command and entertain our friends.

Donna

Next Week: Are we still supposed to shave our legs if we only have twelve hairs left on them? Laugh—it’s good for us!

6 comments:

  1. You hit the nail on the head!Why can't the media print the truth...well I think people still want gossip and they still read that crap. I don't respect much of the media. Thanks for this special blog!
    GHF

    PS: Who needs two or three hairs sticking out? What a sight!

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  2. Seems like WE are always ready to forward what WE think is the truth.
    Shame on US for not researching for the facts. Papers do this to get people to buy them. I promise to research more before I hit the forward button.
    Sandy

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  3. Welcome, BeachGirl! Thanks for signing up. As the saying goes, "A blog is only as good as the people who read it."
    Donna

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  4. I've often wondered why people waste their time sending ridiculous, stupid and untrue e-mails. Thank God, most of them I don't believe! Susan

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  5. I really loved this opinion, because I feel exactly the same. I have a very conservative republican cousin, that I am always receiving hate-Obama e-mails from. He really thinks he's going to turn me. I must say that being a shrewish man-eating ball busting harpy is a compliment, I kind of wish I was kind of like that, when I went thru my divorce. Keep up the great blogs. Daria

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  6. Donna, right on. I could not have said it better myself -or rather - you said it better than I could ever have!! What we have seen in the past 2-3 weeks at the town-hall-meetings, tea-parties etc. is organized by some powerful people who are influencing the gullible. I am not fooled! The health-care-reform bill is over 1000 pages long and I don't even think any one in Congress or Senate read it!! Therefore, they are as unimformed as the rest of us. But spreading fear is easy.Normally it would not have been necessary to even dignify Mrs. Palin's remarks about "death panels", but a great part of Americans are petrified of the unknown. Change does NOT come easy, as you have seen.However, reform of the health-care system in this country IS a must.I don't understand that it was o.k. to WASTE trillions of $ in Iraq, and the Congress and Senate deemed that to be acceptable. But when it comes to helping our OWN people, they demur. Strange, strange. I guess you can tell how this is occupying my mind. If you want me to, I'll tell you what I really think. Gerda

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