I'm sure this happens to everyone, but I've been thinking a whole lot about this issue lately, and thought it might be worth sharing.
My Grandmother, who is a saint (charitable, bakes pies for strangers funerals, donates to the youth group, cooks dinner for the priests, goes to mass 6x per week, etc..) sent me this forward:
He gives more praise to Iran and the Muslim culture than he does of
the United States of America, for which he claims to be our President.
You can blame the main media for not vetting all of his propaganda
before the Democrats labeled him GOD.
HE is a Muslim not a American.
This jerk is our leader and calls himself an American????? God help us
if he gets in again!!!!!
Send this to your CHRISTIAN CHURCHES, and to every TRUE American you know.
This must be show to all Christian and Jewish people.
How can our America Liberals Live with this and call themselves Christians and
Jews?
This will probably make you sick. Absolutely disgusting. This is
America and we do not have an American President.
This is "supposedly" the video that FOX NEWS has been trying to show
that is constantly blocked by the
administration.
Watch this QUICKLY--I am sure it will get ZAPPED OFF the Internet soon!
IF YOU HAVE ANY DOUBTS ....THIS SHOULD CHANGE YOUR MIND... PLEASE
FORWARD IT TO EVERYONE ON YOUR LIST.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=tCAffMSWSzY#t=28)
First, downrate that video.
Here's my response:
Hey Grandma,
Mom forwarded me something that was rather disturbing (it's the email in blue) that I think was re-forwarded by you?
I think the general idea was that since President Obama attended an Islamic school while in Kenya he's a secret Muslim now and he's bent on ending America as we know it or some such...
First, that video was cut together and edited in such a way so as to literally put words in his mouth, so I don't think it represents an honest accounting of the facts.
Second, lets say President Obama actually is Muslim. So what. President John Kennedy was a Catholic. All of the Protestants in 1965 thought the world would end because someone who got their secret orders from Rome would annex the U.S to Italy.... we know now that never happened. I see this line of attack on Obama in a very similar light.
You might be thinking "Andrew, Muslims flew plains into the World Trade Center and killed three thousand Americans, if he's a Muslim, he's a terrorist". I would say "Grandma, that was 10 years after Christian right-wing extremists blew up a federal building and killed 150 people, and just last year a right-wing Christian extremist killed over 70 teen-agers at a day camp in Norway because they were the children of immigrants". The point I'm making is that the Twin Towers, the Federal Building, and Norway are all examples of extremists. I don't think Obama, or any other Muslim, is innately a terrorist because of their religious views; just like I don't worry about Grandpa and yourself blowing up a federal building based on your Catholicism.
There are lots of things I'm not happy about regarding the Obama presidency. I don't think this type of attack, which undermines a core American freedom, is necessary.
Regarding that, I'm actually working on a movie project about a man who lost his job in 2007, became homeless, won the lottery, and decided to run for president on a working class platform (and to clarify, this is not a real story, I wrote it)
Here's the text of a political ad I'll be filming for it:
Separation of Church and State / No State Sponsored Religion Ad
America was founded as a land of religious tolerance, free of oppressive state sponsored religions that can enable persecution, strife, and civil war.
Americans are free to seek the grace found in the worship of Krishna, the tolerance found in the Koran, the inner-peace sought by Buddism or the unquestioning forgiveness exemplified by Jesus.
However, there are leaders in America that seek to undermine this founding liberty, pressing for the installation of a hard-line Judeo-Biblical replacement of our laws. The application of this rhetoric can be seen in Islamo-Fascist regimes that we are all familiar with: the Supreme Ayatollah of Iran and the currently nation-less Taliban.
My name is Larry Tunner, I believe that religious intolerance is wrong for America, and I strongly support this message.
****
Moving on from that subject, how is everything with Grandpa? Everything is ok here....
From there it just transitions to a family email. So, what I'm left with is how did the RW market my sweet Grandmother in believing this, and further, supporting the idea that some Judeo-Biblical set of laws would be better here? Those fucker's are masters at messaging....
Best,
Andrew