A report from the field.
As I sat doing my Daily Kos'ing this afternoon, reviewing the pageant of hostility, vulgarity, immaturity and outright racism that the tattered remains of the modern right has reduced itself to, the phone rang. The caller ID came up as "SERVICE MESSAGE."
Being the semi-crank that I am, I figured it was either a telemarketer or one of the numerous warranty/credit card scams that have been going around, and whoever was on the other end was going to get the standard piece of my mind reserved for such nuisances.
If only.
Instead I got a prompt from a recorded voice with a vaguely southern accent, asking me to press 1 to hear an important message. I took the bait hoping to get a human to... uh... "converse" with.
Instead I received a recorded message from the same voice saying the following (paraphrase from memory): "Defending the borders of our country is important. Please remember this and vote accordingly."
And that was it. No information. No targeting of any politicians in particular. No statement of what group was responsible for the message. No way to talk to anyone about it. No number to call if I agreed and wanted to support that group or give money.
Nothing but a friendly little reminder that I ought to be paranoid about illegals in the most broad sense possible.
A dog whistle so loud and blatant even I could hear it.
My blood boiled.
Now folks should understand that I am typing this as a person who does not have his mind made up about immigration reform. For one thing, I'm under informed. For another I am not someone who feels inherently that massive immigration (illegal or otherwise) or amnesty is a good idea (or not a good idea for that matter).
But what I do understand, in quite stark terms, is that using illegal Latino immigrants as scapegoats for all of our nation's ills went so far over the line so long ago that we can't even see the line with a pair of binoculars anymore. It is naked hatred, racism, and ignorance, plain and simple.
I dialed the number on the caller ID back (402-982-0798) -- the aforementioned piece of my mind was now turbocharged. The number was a phony -- no surprise there, of course.
Usually I flinch when I read diaries talking about how "they" do this, or "they" behave badly, or "they" are full of hatred -- in many ways it's no different that the crap-filled blanket statements made about liberals by the gaseous foghorns of the right.
But in this case I'm reduced to saying that THEY are vile, that THEY are using fear to manipulate, that THEY are appealing to the most base, vulgar emotions, that THEY are approaching a level that almost less than human, because in this situation I don't even have enough information to know who THEY are!
So, lacking any other possibilities I can do nothing but simmer in frustration, and share the news with you, my fellow citizens of our community of reason (well, most of you, anyway...) Forewarned is forearmed. Just like the health care reform 'protests' this week, the the robocalls have now dropped all pretense about being about politics or candidates or policy or reason, and have resorted to simple, raw, blatant appeals to paranoia and fear. We now know that there are more people in a state susceptible to these kinds of appeals than usual, and the forces of evil (and no, I do not use that term as hyperbole) are attempting yet another method of taking advantage. Hopefully this diary can spur conversation about how to beat back this latest insanity, or at least identify those responsible for it and shine the light of day on these hateful little roaches.
And a last thought -- to that southern gentleman who made that helpful appeal to my more primitive emotions today, I have a message for you: Buddy, you BET I'm going to vote accordingly. It just ain't gonna work out the way you hoped it would.
*****
ADDITION: Could someone who knows inform me if robocalls that do not identify the organization calling are legal?