Mean hoax (these things happen too often)

[Will Linden]

Remember the hooraw about the purported "memo" supposedly "leaked" from 
Vice-President Agnew's office about Nixon's plans to cancel the election 
and repeal the Bill of Rights?
    How often have you seen the "Hitler law and order speech" fabrication?
    How many times have you received forwarded versions of the "petition to 
prevent World War III" and other such? (Note snopes.com's remarks on 
"slacktivism".)

  Was this because the secular left is "particularly susceptible" to such 
disinformation?

  (Bracing for cries of "that was DIFFERENT!")

At 06:43 PM 8/24/05 -0500, you wrote:


>"Particularly susceptible"?  Is this like when the Washington Post said 
>that followers of the religious right are "largely poor, uneducated, and 
>easy to command"?  The FACT is that there are a ton of e-mail hoaxes out 
>there.  I get them sent to me.  Things like this as well as warnings about 
>a tax on e-mail or offers from Microsoft that will earn you money for 
>everyone you forward an e-mail to, etc.  Not all (or even most) of the 
>hoaxes I get have anything to do with the "Christian nation".  Rather than 
>it being about the general low intellect of conservative Christians that 
>you seem to be inferring, it's about people IN GENERAL not checking chain 
>e-mails at Snopes or similar sites.  People get e-mails from friends and 
>family and assume the information is correct.  But that is by no means 
>unique to "the rank and file of the religious right".  Could it be your 
>response says more about the stereotypes you are holding than about who 
>does or doesn't forward chain e-mails without checking them out?
>
>Brad Pardee
>
>Ed Brayton wrote:
>This is an old hoax. I've had it forwarded to me probably a dozen times 
>over the last few years and even took the time to debunk it on my blog, as 
>have many others. For some reason, the rank and file of the religious 
>right seem particularly susceptible to this sort of nonsense and they tend 
>to forward them on with all the appropriate howls of outrage to all of 
>their friends and family. There are also probably a dozen different 
>variations of the "Christian Nation" email that is forwarded among the 
>same people, complete with a dozen or so fake quotations allegedly from 
>the founding fathers and lots of historical ignorance.
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