Thursday, October 9, 2008

Another one of those emails from a Rep. friend...

Nani received another "Obama is a Muslim" email. Here is his response:
Anyway, the Obama "Muslim" bit is a well-known conspiracy theory that has been debunked.

Snopes is an objective Web site dedicated to debunking conspiracy theories, like the one you post below. It doesn't answer all the questions in the email below, but it does answer the ones about where the money came from: student loans and scholarships.

So, if you're down to no monetary support from clandestine parties, then what do you have? Will Obama be somehow loyal to a couple of college roommates (I'm not even going to try to verify or reject this link because it's not important - I've dated a couple of Muslim women, I've had and have Muslim friends, and I'm pretty sure that they weren't terrorists and also pretty sure they did not make me want to turn against my country; also, do we even know these roommates were terrorist supporters? C'mon) that he had spent a year or two with, and then met on a trip? Or will he be loyal to his life-long family, his white mother and grandparents who raised him with Christian values, his current family with a wife and children that, by all appearances, look like model family to me.

Your belief in this conspiracy theory is no different from another friend I have (left of me if you can believe it!) who believes that the U.S. government orchestrated the hijackings and put explosives in the World Trade Center on 9/11 to create a circumstance that would justify war with Iraq, or something along those lines.

Your fears over Obama, like many others in the country, is crippling to this country, and the incitement that McCain/Palin are creating at their rallies is only fanning the flames of division. To continue a previous conversation, I think that if McCain and Palin go down in angry, name-calling defeat, like Palin saying Obama is "Palling around with terrorists," then the chances of Obama being attacked go up with each barrage of nasty rhetoric. At some of their rallies, audience members are responding to the question posed by McCain or Palin, "Who is Barack Obama???" [insert scary Halloween music here]. The audience responds with things like, "Kill him!" "Terrorist!" and "Off with his head!"

Seriously, this is the opposition you support? Are we suddenly living in Iran or something where it is acceptable to threaten the life of a person running for office. That's some caveman shit right there, and McCain and Palin are sick for not rebuking those audience members.

Let's switch the scenario: if McCain/Palin were black and they were part of a Troopergate scandal, had an unwed pregnant teenager, graduated 894/899, had been involved in the Lincoln Savings & Loan debacle, had crashed several jets, had a history of boozing and womanizing, had cheated on a crippled spouse and left her for a sugar mama, had claimed to have foreign policy experience because they could see Russia from a mountain in Alaska, had lied repeatedly about "Thanks, but no thanks on that Bridge to Nowhere," and so on...., do you think they'd have gotten a pass? If Obama had any of these factors come out in this campaign would he be as easily forgiven?

The right is unfairly judging Obama.

And if you go to this link, which is a search for "Obama" on Snopes.com, you'll find 76 different conspiracy theories related to Obama or cohorts or opponents that they've debunked. To show you that Snopes is fair, they've also debunked 47 conspiracy theories related to John McCain. I would encourage you to check there any time you get something that seems like its trying to drum up fear. This site has been keeping America sane for several years now:

On Obama

On McCain

I just hope you'll vote on the issues, for McCain or Obama, but on the issues, not this conspiracy crap. It's below you.

2 comments:

shamus o'toole said...

How did they respond?

Nani J. Cootsack said...

"Of course I do not believe in the Obama conspiracy theory, I just wanted to read your thesis about how wrong I was."

Nonetheless, no smoking gun will ever turn this person into a vote for anyone but McCain.