Idiotic anti-Obama email I received from an aquaintance:

Does anyone have that 60' list of BushCo misdeeds and crimes that was posted recently? I want to debunk this trash and send her a few facts about her boy (and I'm not an Obama fan, but this REALLY pisses me off)!

Subject: Fw: PLEASE READ-----Very IMPORTANT---and send it on
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Again I have not taken the time to verify all these "facts" but I know
>> most to be be true.
>> If you have heard it before GOOD !!
>> You all need to hear it AGAIN AND AGAIN !!
>>
>> We have elections coming up !!!
>>
>> You have the obligation to LISTEN to all of the candidates.
>> M
>>
>>
>> With this backround he'd be a perfect fit with Slick Willie and that
>> moron Carter, why not, we manged to have the last 16 years of bought and
>> paid for clowns
>>
>> PLEASE READ-----Very IMPORTANT
>>
>> This is some serious stuff------Wake Up America and look
>> Around.......It is Happening.
>> Please everybody Read and Pass this on .. Need to get
>> it to everybody possible.
>> WE Can't let this happen..........
>>
>> Very interesting and something that should be considered in your choice.
>>
>>
>> If you do not ever forward anything else, please forward this to all
>> your contacts...this is very scarey to think of what lies ahead of us
>> here in our own United States...better heed this and pray about it and
>> share it.
>>
>> We checked this out on "snopes.com". It is factual. Check for yourself.
>>
>> Who is Barack Obama?
>>
>> Probable U. S. presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama was born in
>> Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a black MUSLIM from
>> Nyangoma-Kogel, Kenya and Ann Dunham, a white ATHIEST from Wichita,
>> Kansas.
>> Obama's parents met at the University of Hawaii.
>> When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced. His father returned
>> to Kenya.
>> His mother then married Lolo Soetoro, a RADICAL Muslim from Indonesia.
>> When Obama was! 6 years old, the family relocated to Indonesia. Obama
>> attended a MUSLIM school in Jakarta. He also spent two years in a
>> Catholic school. Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a
>> Muslim. He is quick to point out that, "He was once a Muslim, but that
>> he also attended Catholic school." Obama's political handlers are
>> attempting to make it appear that his introduction to Islam came via his
>> father, and that this influence was temporary, at best. But,in reality,
>> the senior Obama returned to Kenya soon after the divorce, and never
>> again had any direct influence over his son's education. Lolo Soetoro,
>> the second husband of Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, introduced his stepson
>> to Islam. Obama was enrolled in a Wahabi school in Jakarta.
>> Wahabism is the RADICAL teaching that is followed by the Muslim
>> terrorists who ar! e now wa ging Jihad against the western world.
>> Since it is politically expedient to be a CHRISTIAN when seeking major
>> public office in the United States, Barack Hussein Obama has joined the
>> United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background.
>>
>> ALSO, keep in mind that when he was sworn into office he DID NOT use the
>> Holy Bible, but instead the Koran. Let us all remain alert concerning
>> Obama's expected presidential candidacy. The Muslims have said they plan
>> on destroying the US from "the inside out". What better way to start
>> than at the highest level - through the President of the United States
>> being one of their own!!!!
>>
>> Please forward this to everyone you know. Do you want this man leading
>> our country?......
>>
>>
>>

and fired back a nasty letter.

was it sent out from some RW talk show host's site?

And yes, I will be firing back a (somewhat) nasty letter. She a sweet woman, but uninformed and totally dominated by her worthless RW husband.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU

This has all the info you need.

Why are you posting this here?

for debunking this BS. Crap like that shouldn't go unanswered.

And hit up all the people it's been forwarded to too.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/obama.asp

There are so many false things in there.

First, he did not use the Koran. He used the Bible. It was Keith Ellison, from Minnesota, I believe who used the Koran.

But even so, so fucking what. What kind of right wing shitbird cares what book someone uses when they get sworn in.

But who is behind this? The Refucklicans? Hillary?

"I did not even read this whole thing about this man. A friend sent it to me and I think we have enough problems in this world to bring on any more. I am not looking at the color of this man. Take the color away and what do you have? Who ever is going to get in they will get in no matter what. And people are going to vote for no matter what. Make sure that you check all your facts. How do you know what you read is true? Which is true? I am sorry that I sent this to you but, I won't be sending anything else."

hasn't even read? And the advice to 'check all your facts' is comical. Sounds pretty defensive to me, and I'm glad you sent the rebuttal.

I want to put an end to these kinds of emails (I already sent the debunking reply thanks to Babylonsister). She's a very uninformed person and needs something from a source that is not Faux News or Limbaugh.

put that person on a very nice porn/spam email bomb list. :hi:

Why?

to debunk this piece of RW propaganda. I don't have hours to spend Googling every fact to past it into a reply. Thankfully, babylonsister provided an EXCELLENT link to a reply that I just copied, pasted, and sent to REPLY ALL.

Every time any of us receive something like this we should NOT allow it to go unanswered.

Sometimes this thing gets posted here two or three times in the same day. Each posting increases its propagation.

and slap them hard. Be sure to reply to all.

Interesting how it says they checked it out on snopes when snopes debunks it!

I included my own two cents in my response (in addition to the stuff from snopes). Feel free to use any of it to shoot down the laziness and bigotry.


REPLY TO ALL
Barack Obama is not my first choice for President. But this, I believe, amounts to an unfair smear against the man.

First, I am suspicious of any e-mail questioning Obama's credentials that uses his middle name. The person who crafted the missive is quite aware of the negative perception Americans have of the name "Hussein." We do not normally refer to politicians or presidential candidates by their full names. Can anyone tell me Mike Huckabee's middle name? What about John Edwards? What is the point of including Obama's middle name other than an attempt to build a negative impression by name association? Clever marketing. FYI - his first name means "blessed" I know this because it is very similar to the Hebrew word for it.

Second, why the need to use capital letters for Muslim? If a letter came to me screaming that Mitt Romney is a MORMON I would be suspicious of the person creating that, too. I can only imagine that if we had e-mail fifty years ago, similar chain e-mails would have been sent reminding everyone that John Fitzgerald Kennedy was a CATHOLIC and how the Vatican was itching for a chance to get more influence in America. If we had a viable Jewish candidate, anyone sending something like this about Jews would be labeled an anti-Semite (and rightly so).

As for the claims of this forwarded e-mail

Much of it has been debunked here: http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/muslim.asp and http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_barack_obama_muslim.htm
and http://www.newsweek.com/id/91424

(I then included a summary of each debunked point, with some of my own thoughts and additions)

It is interesting that the e-mail claims this warrents looking into, but supplies no documentation for its outrageous claims. It is relying on, no, manipulating our latent fears and ignorance of Islam. It is also relying on the laziness of most of us who will believe a claim without bothering to research it.

"Thanks for the input from the Dumbass Brigade. I'll make a note of it."

that says everything about the email writers. They don't care about the truth at all, they just want to get as many people as possible to believe their lies.

Spread the truth.

At least the poster said "I just got this. Is any of it true?" I just told him to check out snopes & then provided the link. No one else on the list overreacted; most of the other replies were various versions of mine. That makes me glad because we have all types of political persuasions in my senior class. :) We were a smart bunch, so I'm not surprised.

dg