One thing that struck me tonight, upon seeing the video in the top-rated diary, of the folks going to the Palin/McCain ralley in Ohio was how many of them mentioned this nonsense about him being Muslim. And a terrorist. Muslim=terrorist, both a total lie. This struck me because it seemed to transcend the whole Ayers nonsense, which is a real non-story. So why was this so sudden, and so intense, and in Ohio?
I was just reading on another forum about this "Obsession" DVD, a hate-mongering piece of propaganda that was sent out for FREE to millions of people in swing states, like Ohio, all across the country a couple of weeks ago.
And I realized there's probably a connection here. Let's look at who sent this crap out, and how they managed to bankroll this massive mailing campaign.
First off, on September 28 there was a story here by Chris Rodda about how Muslim Children Gassed at Dayton Mosque After "Obsession" DVD Hits Ohio.
On Friday, September 26, the end of a week in which thousands of copies of Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West -- the fear-mongering, anti-Muslim documentary being distributed by the millions in swing states via DVDs inserted in major newspapers and through the U.S. mail -- were distributed by mail in Ohio, a "chemical irritant" was sprayed through a window of the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, where 300 people were gathered for a Ramadan prayer service. The room that the chemical was sprayed into was the room where babies and children were being kept while their mothers were engaged in prayers. This, apparently, is what the scare tactic political campaigning of John McCain's supporters has led to -- Americans perpetrating a terrorist attack against innocent children on American soil.
And right on cue, this last week or so the McPain campaign has decided to ramp up the hatred and the fearmongering by having their little Evita running around deliberately tapping into this same anger.
Coincidence? Ha. "Just look at his name" those people in Ohio were saying.
Anyway, there's a great website that has cropped up in response to this, and it's called ObsessionWithHate.com. It's compiled a lot of information regarding this.
What's disgusting is how many newspapers cooperated in this. To call them "media whores" is certainly accurate in this case:
Colorado - Boulder Daily Camera, Centennial Citizen, Colorado Springs Gazette, Denver Post, Fort Collins Coloradoan, Greeley Tribune
Iowa - Daily Nonpareil, Des Moines Register, Iowa City Press Citizen, Quad City Times, Sioux City Journal
It is a concern for all level-minded Americans that self-respecting mainstream news agencies would allow themselves to carry and distribute hate material for financial gain. These newspapers have not disclosed Clarion's source of funding to their customers. If they do not know the source, how can they be sure it is not funded by the KKK, or Al Qaeda? And if they do know, then why aren't they disclosing this important public information? How do we know it is not funded by an illicit group? Contact the papers' editors and demand accountability. Tell them it is one thing to champion free speech, as everyone should, and another thing to embrace and abet hate speech.
Indiana - South Bend Tribune
Florida - Daily Commercial, Florida Times-Union, Ft. Lauderdale El Sentinel, Ft. Myers News Press, Miami Herald, Ocala Star Banner, Orlando Sun Sentinel, Palm Beach Post, Tampa Tribune, Tallahassee Democrat, St. Petersburg Times, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Michigan - Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Lansing State Journal
Midwest - The New York Times
Missouri - Springfield News-Leader
Nevada - Las Vegas Review-Journal/Sun, Nevada Appeal, Reno Gazette-Journal
New Hampshire - Portsmouth Herald News, Union Leader
New Mexico - Clovis News Journal, Hobbs News-Sun, Rio Rancho Observer
Ohio - Canton Repository, Columbus Dispatch, Dayton Daily News, Middletown Journal, Morning Journal, Toledo Blade, Youngstown Vindicator
North Carolina - Charlotte Observer, Raleigh News & Observer
Pennsylvania - Bucks Co. Courier Times, Erie Times-News, Morning Call, Philadelphia Inquirer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Reading Eagle,
Virginia - Sun-Gazette, Virginian-Pilot
Wisconsin - Green Bay Press-Gazette, Janesville Gazette, Journal Times, La Crosse Tribune, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The following papers in the following swing states REFUSED to participate in the distribution of the Obsession Hate DVD:
Michigan - Detroit Free Press
Missouri - St. Louis Post-Dispatch Story
North Carolina - Greensboro News & Record
Ohio - Cincinnati Enquirer, Cleveland Plain Dealer
Pennsylvania - The Patriot-News
Please contact their editors to thank them.
So who are the people who financed this? Why they're pro McCain, of course. But that's just part of it.
A professor named Omis Safi did some serious looking into the matter and wrote it up in this great expose titled Who Put Hate in My Sunday Paper?
Uncovering the Israeli-Republican-Evangelical Networks behind the "Obsession" DVD
Something strange has been showing up inside the Sunday newspapers of millions of Americans the past few weeks. The material being included alongside comics, coupons, and advertisement for local stores is a controversial DVD called "Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West." Some 28 million copies of this DVD have been distributed for free so far in this fashion. In some ways the scale of this campaign, and its ideological venom, are unprecedented: many newspapers state that they had never previously distributed free DVDs as inserts, certainly nothing with such a charged content. The copies were distributed not randomly across the country, but in the "swing states" (Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado, etc.) that are seen as a toss-up in the November Presidential elections between McCain and Obama. Obviously, someone is trying to influence the American electorate by playing on fear-mongering and hate-mongering themes. But who? Who is behind this massive, multi-million dollar campaign?
I'm having one of those moments where I just want to cut and paste the entire article. This guy is a good writer, and he really nails it. Here's what he says about the newspapers who ran this crap:
Upon contacting the local newspaper, the Raleigh-based News and Observer, and asking why such a hateful piece of propaganda was being distributed for free to all the subscribers, the response of the paper was less than impressive. Jim McClure, vice president of display advertising for The News and Observer, said: "Obviously, we have distributed other product samples, whether it's cereal or toothpaste."
Really? Is this where we are? That a DVD which includes 77 minutes of propaganda footage slicing together videos of violent Muslims with those of Nazis, suggesting that Muslims are out to destroy Western civilization, is comparable to cereal and toothpaste? Puhleeze...
When it comes to who did bankroll the tens of millions of dollars that it took to pull this off, there are a long list of suspects, some of them "the usuals", i.e. neo-cons with familiar names such as ......... but also some very wealthy and extremely right wing and war-mongering Israelis. I'd have to quote far more than is allowed here, so I'll just cut to the first section of his conclusion:
The massive scale of the Obsession campaign raises a number of disturbing questions: it does point to the ease with which foreign groups from Israel have established non-profit organizations in the United States to sway US elections by working with fringe from the pro-Israel lobby, Republican, and Evangelical community. While their ideology is marginal, their wealth and influence is anything but marginal. Non-profit organizations seeking to exert a political influence is not illegal, but non-profits seeking to endorse political candidates and swaying elections is, and this is precisely what the network behind the Obsession DVD seeks to do.
The "Obsession Project" also does point to the eroding standards of journalism. Why has mainstream American journalism been so slow to pick up on these networks, all of which are publicly available, with some investigation?
The Obsession Project also points to the ever-increasingly poisonous political climate in our country, where demonizing an entire ethnic or religious community seems to be becoming more and more commonplace. We have seen African-Americans, Hispanic, Muslims, Gays and Lesbians, and others characterized in such a fashion. Perhaps no community in the West has been the victims of millennia-long persecution and "Other-ing" campaigns as has the Jewish community. That makes it all the more devastating, and disappointing, that centrally-situated and powerful Jewish organizations from both Israel and the United States are now deploying the same Other-ing strategies against other minority groups, with hardly a voice of dissent being heard from other Jewish organizations. Indeed, Obsession is already tearing down bridges of dialogue between Muslim and Jewish groups across the country that had taken years to establish.
At any rate, it seems like there's a very deliberate connection between the mass distribution of this DVD to voters in swing states, and the deliberate stirring up of hatred by the McPalin campaign. I'm not doing the greatest job of writing this because I'm really tired and I have to go to bed, but I wanted to get that out there and maybe someone else can write it up better than I have now. :)
Oh, and here's a bit of evidence to support this: Fox News showed this same program before the 2006 elections. What's that tell you? It tells me it's official propaganda of the Republican party.