Pretty Clever, Huh?
Mon., December 8, 10:16 AM
Among the more insidious actions some people can take is to set oneself up in a position of authority and then use that position to spread opinion masked as fact. I know you’ve all come across such sites. Most common is someone who starts a “support” chatroom; there are usually enough individuals in need of that support that the chat room has plenty of hits. Aha, a mailing list!
Suddenly there are messages that have nothing to do with support. “I thought this might interest you,” followed by promotional stuff pushing a specific church or a political viewpoint. Personally, I use the delete button a lot. Ahem.
I have a friend who is usually disturbed by such messages, often disturbed enough to phone me to vent. [I do serve a purpose in this world…] She is not looking for trouble, so she never responds by saying, for example, “I am Jewish; please do not send me messages about Jesus.” This morning, however, the message angered her so that she called to discuss what she is going to do.
Evidently it was long involved letter purporting to prove how Democrats and Jews are behind whatever difficulty was the subject — doesn’t matter, of course — even quoting snopes, although careful reading demonstrated that it was a plagiarized letter and twisted what snopes said. She was all ready to respond to everyone one the list that she was hurt by the bigotry and angered by the lack of logic as well as the obvious lies.
But then she had a better idea. She will respond by saying that she does not believe that all Republicans are so bigoted as this letter would lead one to believe. In other words, she will try to use their own words against them. Go, girl!
I did point out that such a letter is an instance of fear dividing people into “us” and “them.” Maybe you’ve read that somewhere? She doesn’t read blogs, or so she says, and will probably never see this; let’s give her credit for using her brain anyhow.
