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Whenever I hear about this kind of ignorant, stomach-turning disinformation campaign, I can't help but think of one of my favorite Henry James quotes: “I don’t want everyone to like me. I should think less of myself if some people did.”
The people who put this stuff out and the majority of the people who are going to be swayed by it most certainly fall in that "some" class. They remind me of another favorite quote from British philosopher and sociologist Herbert Spencer: "There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation."
These people are not going to be swayed by facts or debunkings or logic. They have substituted contempt for thought and so intensely fear reality-based information that the possibility of it being valid is untenable to them.
Does their ignorant point of view sometimes determine elections? You bet it does. Because too many progressive voters stayed home on election day, George W. Bush was elected not once, but twice by it.
Does this crap need to be addressed? Certainly. Kudos to Salon for a fairly decent job of tackling the issue.
Do we need to get all fired up about it and get involved in flame wars with morons here in the discussion section? Maybe not so much, eh?
What we do need to do is become as informed as we can about the subject and when we get that fwd: fwd: fwd: from Uncle George -- in my case it would probably be Aunt Phyllis, but she knows better than to include me in anything like that again -- we need to do as others here have suggested and hit the "Reply to all" button and reply with the truth.
I've written a few of those truth responses. They all went something like this:
"Dear Aunt ____ [or whoever]. I've got to admit that I'm a little embarrassed that someone related to me [someone I care about, etc.], and that I know is usually better informed than this, would send me such silly nonsense. Have you been into the sherry again? You know what the doctor said about sherry with your diabetes!"Surely you're aware that blah, blah, blah, blah [reality]. The next time you get something like this in the mail and are tempted to send it on, why not look here [snopes link] and make sure it's real before you embarrass both of us by forwarding it to everybody we know. I think you'll be glad you did.
"Your loving nephew [friend, etc.]"
It works almost every time, as does the face-to-face version of the same when running into somebody spouting their nonsense in the non-virtual world.
Getting excited about it and fussing and fuming here influences nobody and wastes energy that is better spent registering new progressive voters and getting them out to the polls on election day.
