The never-ending poison of the “Obama is a Muslim” e-mail

[Cyrano]

If Obama becomes our candidate, a despicable e-mail might just cost him/us the general election. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go to snopes.com and look up Barack Obama, where this now infamous e-mail is exposed for the vicious lie that it is.)

Over the past month, I’ve run into perhaps a dozen or so people who actually believe that Obama is a “radical Muslim” who “took the oath for the Senate on the Quran,” and “won’t recite the Pledge of Allegiance.”

Barbers, store clerks, elderly people, and many others who don’t own a computer, aren’t even aware that the lies they believe and are spreading, began with an anonymous e-mail. They all believe it to be true. And although I have carefully explained the nature of this lie, I don’t know how many have the slightest idea of what I’m talking about.

It goes without saying that it should make no difference if a candidate is a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew, a Hindu, or a Druid. Our Constitution calls for no religious “tests.” But let’s face it. Part of the human makeup seems to contain some degree of fear or distaste for “The Other.”

This miserable damn e-mail, posted by some horribly malignant being(s), is generating intolerance, hatred, and perhaps another stolen election. And I have little doubt that he/she/or they are sitting there laughing at us.

[idovoodoo]

1. I got a forwarded copy of it from somebody I would have bet knew better.

I'm not a big fan of Obama but that really pissed me off...I did a reply-all saying "What sick motherfucking liar made this shit up?"

[Iris]

3. me, too.

[lazyriver]

12. The last time I received that POS email I replied to all with:

"If you dumb assholes believe this shit, you'll believe anything. How about this motherfuckers: If you reply to my rant, Bill Gates will send you $1,000,000".


I got six blank replies.

[Kikosexy2]

33. Let the smears ...

begin...hope Obama can handle them...

[SharonAnn]

34. Me too. I explained the facts, pointed them to his website, they still believe it.

[islandmkl]

2. but...they all do have TV's...Barack's personality and message

transcends internet, radio, etc. attacks...most all of which are 'preaching to the choir' anyway

[Iris]

6. Never underestimate the power of an ingorance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcXjeOLOX6o

[zanne]

I once suggested we start our own email...

Unfortunately, I suggested a John McCain smear and the thread was deleted.

[sharp_stick]

8. Why not just rerun the ads that shrubbo and rover

ran in 2000? It would be a nice cheap way to attack McCain and claim complete innocence.

I really think we should run every puke ad that ever slammed McCain over and over and over again without any editing.

[zanne]

9. We're supposed to be "better than that".

But with this coming general election campaign, I'm more than willing to not be better than that.

[RoadRage]

45. I Did.. about a month ago. Here it is if you'd like it to copy..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4032401&mesg_id=4032401

Feel free to share with any republican you'd like. :)

[lligrd]

4. The Only People Still Falling For This Email Are

those that want to and wouldn't vote for Obama anyway. They wallow in and proudly display their ignorance.

[eissa]

15. Exactly

People who vote for candidates based on gender, race, religion, etc. are not the kind to vote for democrats anyway. I've gotten that blasted e-mail a dozen times myself and each time I reply with the snopes link and a message to all that this is considered hate mail and to think twice before forwarding such crap, especially if you're doing it from work.

[lligrd]

35. Nobody Has Dared To Send This Email To Me At Work

I have made it quite clear that they are not to ever forward me a chain email and it is against company policy anyway. But someone did have the nerve to show me the one they got (which they had fallen for).

I told her that she better delete the BS right away because it was racist and anti-religious and would most definitely get someone fired if management found out about it. I then printed out the Snopes article and a news story, handed it to her and told her that it took less than 3 minutes to find the truth. The sad part was that the Email referenced Snopes as verifying the lies (a big lie in itself). I told her that I was extremely disappointed in her and thought that she was smarter than that.

I guess I was a bit loud because she kept telling me to "shhh". I don't think she will be spreading that information around in the future.

[Cyrano]

16. Don't count on it. This morning, my barber asked if I knew that

"Obama is a Muslim extremist." He's not a bigot, but he has bought into what he's heard.

He doesn't own a computer, has a vague idea of what an e-mail is, and, even though I spent a while trying to explain to him what was going on, it was clear he just didn't get it.

The terrible part of this is that before he heard about the e-mail, he was a big Obama fan.

Let's not underestimate the power of hateful propaganda. The fact that he isn't online doesn't make him stupid, just uninformed. And whether our candidate is Obama, or Hillary, you can count on the Republicans using their usual weapons -- fear and disinformation.

On edit: This is a response to lligrad, not the original post.

[lligrd]

30. Sorry, But I Think Spreading Disinformation Without

checking it out makes one stupid. Of course, stupid people can do a fine job of cutting hair. And hopefully, he will believe you as easily as he believed the one that told him the untruth.

[Cronus Protagonist]

36. My dentist said pretty much the same thing last week

I told him that Barack was Cheney's cousin. That almsot caused HIM to choke instead of me :P

[RoadRage]

44. Here is a quick reply...

I posted this about a month ago... feel free to share! http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4032401&mesg_id=4032401

[route66left]

28. Sorry to burst your bubble but in my precinct on election day...

Republicans were coming in, all talking about Obama being Muslim, and then asking for a Democratic ballot to vote. They said McCain would be their choice in November. Pretty sad ...open primaries and caucuses are for the birds.

[lligrd]

32. My Bubble Is Just Fine

We'll see come the GE but I don't believe the majority of Americans are going to vote for a 100 year war. The Muslim fact is stupid anyway. Why would anyone care if he was a Muslim.

[dmallind]

5. I agree - and a genuine question occurs to me.

Why does this only work for Democrats? Why was it so easy to Swiftboat Kerry and why did Bush avoid being similarly hurt with far more substantive AWOL stories?

It's easy to point fingers at some ephemeral "them" like the media, but that's unlikely the real culprit. Both smears got some attention, and both were largely devalued by most (not all) media sources.

Is it maybe that people are naturally more willing to believe innuendo about left wing vs. right wing candidates? Or is that the right wing electorate is more willing to believe rumor period? Dunno. Why would it be?

Is it perhaps that the right wing are simply more skilled and/or more willing to generate smears and use them in the first place? That would be a nice comfortable self affirmation in a rather defeatist way but again not sure it holds. Koresh knows we saw plenty of zeal and acceptance around many many anti-bush rumors here. Some of them quite well founded of course, but some not. No I don;t think we are all altruistic paragons of restraint either.

[Rabrrrrrr]

13. A few reasons republican smearing works so well.

One is the rightwingers are more willing to just make shit up and boldly lie. They don't have the more academic worldview of liberals/progressives (who tend to be better educated, anyway) that asks for footnotes, citations, evidence, etc. Rightwingers will go more on "gut instinct" (and we've seen where "gut instinct" has gotten us in seven years...), which generally means "Follow my prejudices and biases and damn the evidence".

Rightwingers are more willing to believe anonymous bullshit, esp. if it's something about bad about someone they don't like, no matter how outrageously or even impossible it might be.

They are LESS willing to believe anything bad about people they like (part of their black and white mentality - if Shrubby is "good", then he's good ALWAYS; if Obama is bad, then he's bad always. Shrubby could murder 30 kids on live tv broadcast around the world, and the righties would go, "Well, he didn't really *murder* them, he's still a moral Christian man" and they'd some totally irrelevant "pounding evidence" claim, like "Besides - would you rather have a French cheese eater in the White House? Yeah. There ya go.").

Rightwingers are more willing to engage in attacks on personality and behavior - liberals prefer to stick to debating ideas and philosophies.

And Democrats/liberals are - sadly - LESS likely when this nonsense shows up to come out and declaim it loudly and profusely and sledgehammerlike. Kerry totally fucked up when he didn't immediately come out and denounce the swiftboat ads. And other dems have failed in the same way. If Kerry had come out and alpha-dogged it, calling the swiftboaters liars and disrespecters of veterans and totally out of line and how dare they malign a military hero, he would have impressed a lot of rightwingers - they like the alpha-dogging. They might not have still voted for him, but it would have ended the swiftboating nonsense.

Sometimes I think if we'd just stand up for ourselves, we'd do a lot better - people like the bully, but only until the one being bullies stands up against the bully - then people like the underdog. But they don't care for an underdog that rolls and over and exposes its belly.

[displacedtexan]

7. Some of my Texas relatives are stupid enough to believe that crap.

Except for my brother, the Latin teacher, that is.

He and I are Clinton supporters, but we've screamed until we're blue in the face
to our stupid Repuke relatives about this Obama/Muslim crap.

[doni_georgia]

10. Co-worker's minister told congregation Barack was Muslim

from the pulpit. I showed her the Snopes site, forwarded her countless links proving this wasn't true, but because her "preacher" said it - it's true in her book. Look, the way I see it - people who believe this shit are most likely Republicans anyway.

[StatGirl]

41. It sounds like someone's church . . .

. . . needs to be reported to the IRS for mixing religion and politics.

[Amy6627]

11. Here what to do when you get the email: Write the truth next to each

lie and change the font of the truth only to red, bold, underline, and bigger font size, then hit reply ALL. Even if you can't see the other names it will go to them. But be prepared for nasty replies!

[ProgressiveMuslim]

20. The TRUTH is that it's not a "smear" to be a Muslim. Can you imagine him being called a secret Jew?

Me neither.

[RoadRage]

46. Here is a reply email to that one...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4032401&mesg_id=4032401

Posted it about a month ago - feel free to use it!

[housewolf]

14. We need some new technology to track this type of emal

and send out corrections to everyone in the world who has received it.

[fortyfeetunder]

17. it's permeated to work...

Someone posted the infamous hand not over heart picture with the "Obama is a muslim" on a work bulletin board -- ironically next to the required "government equal opportunity" poster. I took the picture down, tore it up and threw it in the garbage. Dare 'em to try that again....

[kestrel91316]

18. Well, two can play that little game. After all, isn't it a known fact that

John McCain was brainwashed at that Vietnamese prison camp and is a secret communist, just waiting to get into the presidency so he can turn the US into a communist dictatorship?

[Iris]

19. Manchurian Candidate?

[ProgressiveMuslim]

21. Do you think this comes from Republicans or HRC supporters? nt

[Cyrano]

26. Please don't play this game. When we do so, it makes us

no better than those whom we oppose.

One day, we might just turn around and find that we have become worse than our political enemies, the Republican Party.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

29. What game? I'm asking a reasonable question. nt

[Cyrano]

31. Perhaps the word "game" was inappropriate.

What I am saying is let's not go after our own with no proof.

What we've seen are typical Republican tactics. There's no reason to believe it comes from other Dems. If, by some chance it has, they are the stupidest people on the face of the earth and will cost us the election.

[slackmaster]

22. I always respond to that one with "O'Bama is actually Irish Catholic"

:D

[monmouth]

27. Ahh, bless you, my cousins in Cork will love ya for this one! They love

Obama and are betting heavily (they'd bet on a flea crawling over the road)that he'll win....

[Ichingcarpenter]

23. IT GETS WORSE....read this about Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists

"Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists Publish Ominous Threats to Obama's Life"

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/77509/

It's from Alternet, a good site, but I'm not going to post the vile things they have discovered
from these sites .

[FlaGranny]

24. Conservatives

(especially the religious ones) are very gullible - AND fearful. They believe this stuff. Last time I visited my cousin, we started talking about politics and that's what she came up with - Obama is a radical Muslim. I set her straight, but good, and I believe she understood how it was garbage. My husband told me yesterday that one of his customers told him she didn't like Obama because he was a radical Muslim. I wish I had been there to set HER straight.

[G_j]

25. one of the versions, states that the info checks out with snopes

figuring that would be enough to keep folks from checking for themselves.

let me just say that only a racist jerk would fall for this racist hate speech, but the then there are lots of racist jerks out there.

[Subdivisions]

37. My BIL was just telling me yesterday about a visit to the

hospital in Ft. Worth the day before. He was having some stomach problems and was in to have it checked out. He said as he sat and waited to see the doctor, that he listened as a group of hospital staffers were talking about how if Obama gets elected "they" would immediately start turning this into a Muslim country and everyone was agreeing.

I told him they were a bunch of racist, clueless redneck kool-aid drinking, chain email- and text message-educated, American Idol idolizing, apathetic assholes and the total number of people that have come through that hospital and under their care were perhaps some of the luckiest people on the planet.

[cap]

38. code talk because they cant spread anti-black hate mail

so they are picking up on this. Call it out for what it is... a double whammy -- get to say something nasty against the Muslims and underneath the breath, say something bad about an African American without saying so.

[ProgressiveFool]

39. It's insidious, yes. I just ridicule such people and ask them

"Are you really that fucking stupid?"

[sweetpotato]

40. I received this e-mail from my 36 year old niece

The thing started out with a statement that challenged the reader to "look it up on Snopes.com if you don't believe." And what is really funny, is that Snopes.com debunks the entire thing.

I replied to all and suggested that perhaps she should have checked that snopes link BEFORE sending this on to everyone in her address book because snopes calls this message a LIE.

She wrote me back complaining that she just didn't have the time to check on the references, that was for ME and everyone ELSE to do - she was just too busy, busy, busy.

I wrote her back and told her that if she was going to spread stuff, she better be able to back it up with more than "I thought it was interesting and could be true."

I think I've been removed from her mailing list.

I'll miss the pictures of my little great-nephew, but oh well.

I've committed the crime of being a liberal in a conservative family. I also read.

[RoadRage]

43. Here is a link to a "reply" email...

I posted this about a month ago.. feel free to copy & paste it to send to your niece!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4032401&mesg_id=4032401

[RoadRage]

42. HERE IS THE REBUTTLE

I posted this a month or so ago:http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4032401&mesg_id=4032401

Feel Free to Cut & Paste and share with your republican neighbor!



I think everyone has received this thing 10 times or more by now. My husband sent this email to his Dad the other day... and I encourage all Obama supporters to hit "Reply to All" when they get the next one and send something like this along. We need to start cleaning up these rumors!


Barack Obama is a Muslim?

No, actually he is not. He's Christian, and he's been a Christian for long before he ever considered a Presidential Run. (http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/muslim.asp ) Not that it's important to everyone, but we wanted to clear it up. There are certainly a lot of lies on the Internet about it... and the email just sent proves that.

Click here (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2007/dec/20/chain-email-gets-obama-religion-wrong/) for who started the rumor that Obama took his oath on the Koran. In actuality, he took his oath using his own personal Christian bible.

Click here (http://www.beliefnet.com/story/206/story_20604_1.html ) for the representative that DID use the Koran. His name is Keith Ellison, and you can call him a Muslim because he is, and he's proud of it! Freedom of Religion - what a novel idea in the United States of America!

Also, note that there is NO requirement in US law to take the oath on the Christian bible or any book for that matter. When the time comes for new Representatives to be sworn in, no Bible, Koran, or other book is involved. The Speaker of the House asks everyone to stand and raise their right hands. All 435 members are sworn in right then, at their desks, at the same time. That's the swearing in ceremony.

Later, a Representative may schedule an "unofficial" ceremony to be photographed for the voters in his/her district. THAT ceremony is set up by the Representative's office and can include anything he/she wants... a judge, a friend certified to give an oath of allegiance, and any book the Representative chooses (Bibles, Koran's and Law Books have all been used). He could even choose to use no book at all. Also, that ceremony has no official standing... it's just for the voters back home.

Something else to consider. The US Constitution states that in Article 6, section 3, that, "...no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States".

Additionally, If you really do want to know more of the TRUTH about the Senator from Illinois, click here (http://www.barackobama.com ). Obama has been more then forthcoming about his past.

I'm sure you did not intend to purposely spread lies about Obama - but by sending out emails like this before checking them for facts you continue to allow others with a political agenda to use you for their candidates gain. I hope that in light of this new information, you'll spread the truth about Barack Obama. You certainly don't have to vote for him or support his policies. But, I'd appreciate it if you also didn't spread false rumors about his past to further someone else's political agenda.

Thanks,

[Cyrano]

47. Great post. Your email may have lost you some friends or

acquaintances. But if so, it may not be that great a loss.

[RoadRage]

49. Ehh.. it really only lost my In-laws.. and, frankly they were lost long before I met them.

They like Huckabee. 'Nuff Said. ;)

I love them in all ways except political... so we just stay away from that. But when they started talking about Obama the Muslim extremist... i sorta went off. Hence, the email! It worked.. they don't call him an extremist in my presence anymore, and they did watch our daughter when we went to the Obama Caucus a couple of weeks ago. WHoo hOO!

[RedEarth]

48. That's very good....