I live in Denver. I was thumbing through the inserts that came with my Sunday paper and found a most peculiar thing: A DVD attached to a leaflet called "Obsession".
I'm almost afraid to watch it because I am almost certain I know what it is: Religious right propoganda.
Here's what the leaflet says:
Obsession is a film about the threat of Radical Islam to Western Civilization. Using unique footage from Arab television, it reveals an 'insider's view' of the hatred the Radicals are teaching, their incitement of global jihad and their goal of world domination. The film also traces the parallels between the Nazi movement of World War II, the Radicals of today, and the Western world's response to both threats.
Now, I've seen some pretty weird advertising in newspapers, but this really takes the cake.
The entire thing appears to be a fundraising effort for something called "the Clarion Fund" It prompts people to "get informed, get involved, take action (by going to www.radicalislam.org) and contrubute (tax decuctable donation at www.clarionfund.org).
I went to the clarionfund website and it states the following:
CLARION FUND, created in November 2006, is a non-profit, non-partisan organization whose mission is to educate Americans about issues of
national security.
Our primary focus is on the most urgent threat of radical Islam. By utilizing the following three mediums, Clarion Fund is helping Americans understand that
the mainstream media is not adequately conveying the reality of radical Islam.
There are a couple things wrong with this statement:
- It says it's nonpartisan, and yet furthers an exclusively right wing view.
- It has a very simplistic, single minded look at "national security". If you were REALLY going to create a charity to educate people on national security, you could scarcely ignore such hot button topics as Nuclear proliferation, pandemic response, diplomacy, China, Russia, and hell every single other country that has a dictator and lives in squallor. This is no more about "national security" than it's about feeding the hungry.
And this thing came to me in my SUNDAY PAPER! How many other people got this garbage? Who the hell is this "Clarion fund"? Who is behind them? Why in the hell are they even a tax-deductable charity???
I'm pissed and I want to know answers. Where do I even look?
What creeps me out the most isn't JUST their fixation on Islam. It is such a short walk between inciting people to "attack Islam" and directing them to attack anyone who gets in their way (namely, us left thinking Americans).