The SPAM problem has reached a new level of insanity. A colleague of mine, who works for Instructional Computing here on campus, declared it a war. You win some battles, you lose some battles - but it’s nothing less than a war due to the sheer volume of SPAM he deals with daily. How much Nigerian nobility are there anyway, and why are so many leaving their fortunes in limbo after they die? And if you really need Viagra or Cialis, please don’t buy it from someone who is misspelling it on purpose.
Aside from SPAM, I get regular e-mails. Probably more than most people, but not as much as some. The majority of it still isn’t for me personally - press releases, events promotions, and all other things that folks would hope to get promoted at a radio station. Last year, I started receiving some politically oriented newsletters from a two groups: Alain’s Newsletter and The Conservative Voice. As you can probably guess, I did not ask to be on their respective e-mail lists.
The Christian Right really perplexes me. Growing up in Irvine, I had to deal with these people a fair amount, and I’ve yet to understand how they arrive at their views. To add an even stranger twist to the story, I once attended a Harvest Crusade. For those not in the know, a Harvest Crusade is where Christians take us sinners to experience the power of Jesus Christ. You could also get a hotdog and soda for $2.50. Although I did find myself pretty overwhelmed (I was much more naive back then about what I was experiencing), I never followed up. Frankly, I gave these folks all the opportunities one could give, and they couldn’t convince me that they were right.
But I digress…
To call Alain’s Newsletter and The Conservative Voice “conservative” is a gross understatement. They are fanatically right wing. Honestly, I was somewhat conflicted about whether to post something about these folks or not, because I didn’t want to give them any more exposure - even in a remote part of the web like CoolMojo.Net.
Here’s an example of Alain’s Newsletter. The article is about Alain’s “young nephew” and his “take on the Democratic Party”. The grammar is Alain’s:
He told me that the democrats support killing our children who deserve the right to Life according to the constitution. They promote destroying more people by promoting to them the gay lifestyle, which will kill them of sooner. They want to take away the money from people who work hard (Making them not want to work as hard, why bother) and giving it to people who DO NOT want to work hard (Making them never want to work hard to get ahead, why bother). They want to take God way from Americans, making them hide Him in a closet where He is never mentioned in public like something to be ashamed of, yet God is where all our freedoms and great blessings originate. And he ended his summary, they are historically bigots, even having current leaders who were once proud members of the KKK. (from The democratic party, what a swell group, 6 Feb 06)
There is really only one part that is true, which is that the Democratic Party does have a racist past. The KKK was largely founded by Democrats - albeit 140 years ago. Democratic senators Albert Gore, Sr., Robert Byrd, and J. William Fulbright all voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. So did Republican icon Barry Goldwater, but that’s conveniently left out of Alain’s article, as is any mention of John F. Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson - both of whom helped get the bill before Congress. And so is any mention of Strom Thurmond, who ran for President in 1948 as a segregationist and did so as a Democrat, only to switch parties in 1964 in opposition to Johnson’s support of the Civil Rights Act. Lastly, the Democrats overwhelmingly supported the Civil Rights Act. At best, the part of Alain’s article that is even remotely true is still plagued with inaccuracies.
That information took me all of 20 minutes to look up. 20 minutes. Granted, they do hide information like that in books. Alain’s is the lowest form of political punditry - punditry that folks like Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter and the like practice ad nauseum. In this case, the real crime is reinventing history to suit your own purpose. Alain’s Newsletter is really nothing more than hot air, and has as much factual basis as the Flat Earth Society. Or the Intelligent Design movement.
Which brings me to The Conservative Voice, published by Nathan Tabor:
A scientist might have a fossil, but we can only speculate as to the age and appearance of the animal creating that fossil. No one has ever witnessed evolution of life, no one here now was there to observe, study and experiment. Like it or not, we can only form theories and beliefs about what might have been. As sound as these theories might be, they are and will always be theories. Evolution is simply a system of belief based on what we think might have happened. Those who believe in evolution have faith in the scientist’s abilities to speculate and imagine what might have been. This is not science. This is faith. (from The Religion of Science, 13 Jan. 2006)
So the objective here to equate “theory” with “faith” - as though the two terms were synonymous. They are not by definition synonymous, but that’s irrelevant to Tabor. Rather than critique the actual scientific theories behind evolution, he reduces the debate to a matter of semantics. If a theory is nothing more than faith, then anything labeled a “theory” is nothing more than a belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. This is the exact reason why actual science is left out of the debate entirely. See also: Schiavo, Terri.
Of course, there’s plenty of “material evidence” and “logical proof” behind evolution, but that is not Tabor’s issue. This has nothing to do with the “debate” over evolution. Tabor didn’t bother to try to critique any scientific studies. In all of this - abortion, euthenasia, evolution, the Iraq War - facts and proof are a luxury. As George Bush proved three years ago, you can make up anything you want and trot it out before the world as fact. Those asking for you to back up your claims, or actually have evidence to refute them, will be deliberately ignored. With the Christian Right especially, being able to support your point of view is absolutely secondary to having their point of view - facts, proof, and evidence be damned.
All that aside, like SPAM, there’s a strategy here. The issue with SPAM isn’t the large payoff. Spammers know that 99% of the people that get it will ignore it. They are looking for that 1% return to make their efforts worthwhile. That is exactly the strategy that Alain’s Newsletter and The Conservative Voice are employing. As I mentioned, I didn’t sign up for these newsletters - they just started arriving in my inbox along with penis enlargement offers, real estate deals, home loan offers, and porn links. Alain and Tabor are looking for that 1% return - 1% that could be influenced by their rhetoric. What does it say about the far right that they feel the need to employ the same strategies as Spammers in order to get their message out?
It could be ideology. Repeat a lie enough times and people will end up believing it whether or not it is true. It could also be money. There’s no shortage of ads on either website. And I imagine, like Falwell, Robertson and their ilk, it’s largely arrogance. I know from experience that it takes some ego to set up a blog and pontificate about politics and culture. You have to get your pants specially made if you are going to e-mail your babble out to an unsolicited audience. You almost have to be that arrogant to run for office - which, incidentally, Tabor did in 2004 (Jerry Falwell called Tabor a “young Jesse Helms“. I’m assuming Falwell meant it as a compliment).
Lastly, they do have some motivation in trying to shape the political debate. If you stand around shouting “kill them all”, then the people shouting “kill some of them” seem much more reasonable. Alain’s Newsletter and The Conservative Voice are doing their part by inundating people with such a right wing point of view that those not quite as reactionary seem much more reasonable. In other words, if they are too conservative for you, then just maybe George Bush isn’t.
What a frightening thought that is?
Update: Apparently, Google considers Alain’s Newsletter hate-speech, and refused to add it to their newscrawler. This of course, was a surprise to Alain. Yeah, you declared yourself a proud homophobe. What did you expect?
Wait… don’t answer that.
Abby, our family dog, had to be put to sleep today. My mom e-mailed me with the news. She was 14 years old. While she was clearly my mother’s dog more than she was mine, I would be lying if I were to say I didn’t shed some tears when I read the e-mail.
