I received an email from a coworker Friday afternoon.
On checking the block of addresses it went to, I was mortified to discover that other recipients included many people in my industry, some of them that I know quite well and have or have had productive relationships with.
And therefore, every one of those people could just as easily see that I had received the same email.
No way could I allow that to pass unchallenged. Obvious fraud or not, it to me represented an insult to the intelligence of all those who received it, and a serious breach of personal integrity on the part of the sender.
And so, I responded.
Decisively.
It's on the jump.
About the only thing factually correct in this pile of garbage is the first sentence.
-------Original Message-------From: H Neil Pangrazzi
Date: 05/24/07 12:05:21
To: H Neil Pangrazzi
Subject: amazingYou aren't going to believe this.
Madam speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to put a Windfall tax on all stock market
profits (including Retirement fund, 401K's and Mutual Funds! alas it is true. all to help the 12 Million Illegal Immigrants and other unemployed
Minorities!Boy, are we in trouble... This woman is frightening. Take special note of the last paragraph. Is she really this whacked out? Nancy Pelosi condemned the new record highs of the stock market as "just another example of Bush policies helping the rich get richer".
"First Bush cut taxes for the rich and the economy has rebounded with new record low unemployment rates, which only means wealthy employers are getting even wealthier at the expense of the underpaid working class".
She went on to say "Despite the billions of dollars being spent in Iraq, our economy is still strong and government tax revenues are at all time highs. What this really means is that business is exploiting the war effort and working Americans, just to put money in their own pockets". When questioned about recent stock market highs she responded "Only
the rich benefit from these record highs. Working Americans, welfare recipients, the unemployed and minorities are not sharing in these obscene record
highs".
"There is no question these windfall profits and income created by the Bush administration need to be taxed at 100% rate and those dollars redistributed to the poor and working class". "Profits from the stock market do not reward the hard work of our working class who, by their hard
work, are responsible for generating these corporate profits that create stock market profits for the rich. We in congress will need to address this issue to either tax these profits or to control the stock market to prevent this unearned income to flow to the rich."When asked about the fact that over 80% of all Americans have investments in mutual funds, retirement funds, 401K's, and the stockmarket she replied "That may be true, but probably only 5% account for 90% of all these investment dollars. That's just more "trickle down" economics
claiming that if a corporation is successful that everyone from the CEO to the floor sweeper benefit from higher wages and job security which is ridiculous".
"How much of this 'trickle down' ever get to the unemployed and minorities in our county? None, and that's the tragedy of these stock market highs."
"We democrats are going to address this issue after the election when we take control of the congress. We will return to the 60% to 80% tax rates on the rich and we will be able to take at least 30% of all current lower Federal Income Tax tax payers off the roles and increase government income substantially. We need to work toward the goal of equalizing income in our
country and at the same time limiting the amount the rich can invest."
When asked how these new tax dollars would be spent, she replied ;
"We need to raise the standard of living of our poor, unemployed and minorities. For example, we have an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in our country who need our help along with millions of unemployed minorities. Stock market windfall profits taxes could go a long ways to guarantee these people the standard of living they would like to have as "Americans"."Send it on to your brilliant friends. I just did!!
"Send it on to your brilliant friends."
One of these days, I'm gonna get something like this in my email and not be so blinded by immediate and consuming RAGE that I remember to check Snopes. That came later, with a little prompting (ok, a link. Someone did for me what i should have done myself.) from another blogger.
However, a response I got from still ANOTHER blogger formed part of the second of three responses I sent out to the email group that received the nonsensical garbage above. Relax, we'll get there. That one's worth the wait.
My first response, written in a fit of white-hot anger:
A load of crap.
First, if you want to make an assertion that 80% of Americans have retirement funds, I'd need to see some proof of that.
Second of all, what i hear here is a bunch of rich people whining that they can't continue to use the underclass as easily to amass more wealth now that the party that cares about PEOPLE a little more than MONEY has a voice.
all to help the 12 Million Illegal Immigrants and other unemployedMinorities!
Racist much?
Thank you very much for underscoring why I hope the momentum continues as it is and the Republican party deservedly joins the Whigs in the dustbin of history.
A President who lied us into an illegal and unjust war that has become an occupation, who compromises our civil iberties and wounds the Constitution at every opportunity, and who cut taxes to the richest IN TIME OF MILITARY CONFLICT that costs $110 million dollars a DAY and now over 3500 American lives in Iraq alone, while at home, the military families have to go to food banks, and the Bushies call a 3.5% increase in miltary pay excessive?
Then there's the cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, LIHEAP?
You know what?
If you don't want to hear my mouth don't send me bullshit like this, especially when it's loaded with racist innuendo and ad hominem against a political leader you don't happen to like simply because she is a Democrat.
This kind of crap is why you people lost in November, and mark my words, you keep this shit up, you will continue to lose.
Not counting the time it took to run that link down, that took about as long to write as it took you to read it.
The next morning, still livid over not just the content of the email itself, but over who it was sent to, I decided to continue the ass-handing.
I apologize that this was made necessary, but I cannot and will not allow this kind of mendacious propaganda to pass unchallenged. I personally receive the left-end equivalent of that Pelosi hit piece in copious amounts on a daily basis. They are immediately ignored and never forwarded. Many on the right would do well to hold themselves to the same standard.
Some parents break a child of bedwetting by hanging their urine stained sheets in the front yard for all their friends to see. While I would never, never advocate this as a child-rearing tactic, I do not hesitate in applying the same principle to the conduct of responsible adults.
Monday morning, I will contact Brendan Daly in Nancy Pelosi's office and attempt to secure an on-the-record response to the "Amazing" email forwarded to you by (redacted).
In the meantime, here is one (admittedly emotional) response from a friend of mine...I must redact his identity.
As well as his....uh.....colorful use of speech.........
The wiki link was added by me.(Now here, I will, rather than use the censored version I sent out to the email group, reproduce the original, with each and every bit of profanity intact.
You think I was hot.......woooooo. oooooh boy.)
Hello!!!!!!!!!!!!1Can we just start counting all the fucking lies in this bullshit?
Who the fuck says "redistributed." That is just one more neo-commie bashing shibbolethic buzzword. It is a classic tip-off of agenda over truth. "100%" - I'll give you 100% of my comic book collection is you can show me ANY Democrat proposing 100% taxes. And how about "income created by the Bush administration" - that's the biggest lie of them all.
Actually, "lies" is too kind as word for this bozo. Pangrazzi, or whoever farted this cartoonish propaganda, is just making shit up maliciously. The only purpose of this cartoonish liberal'ysteria is to incite the frothfull wrath of troglodytes who will believe any myth pulled straight out of the asshole of a walking conservative brain injury.
Crap like this is the reason we should never waste our time debunking facially pathetic lies for the benefit of those 30% who will believe any lie served to them on a plate of GOP faith-based-hate & self-loathing.
As driftglass put so well, liberals too often make the mistake of "play[ing] fair and square with True Believers. And were nearly too late in coming to terms with how intractably Archie Bunkerish millions of Americans really are." http://driftglass.bl... (see comments).
Instead, we need to just attack attack attack these bozos. Let's stop methodically explaining away and treating their filth as "quaintly innocent and naively misguided apprehensions." Liberals need to trivialize, marginalize, and belittle their political religious & cultural beliefs. Just shit on them maliciously until potatoes grow on top of their heads.
Fuck them. Make them fight our words on their terms and tie themselves in knots for a change. Let them waste their genetically diluted giz trying to counter attacks dropped on their flat heads rather then offering them polite new fodder to distort and mendaciously propagandize.
The sooner these morons are laughed at rather than asked to come around to our way of seeing things, (or feebly asked to civilly learn how to "agree to disagree" - yeah right!) the sooner our leaders and our media (some at least) will be unshackled from their self-imposed (and D.C. consultant reinforced) fear of offending the sensibilities of those spastically circle-jerking themselves in Darwin's waiting room.
Whatever.
cl
ps. Kestrel. Snot on you for blowing my blood pressure this early on a Saturday.
Arrrrrrggggghhhhhh
And I thought I was good for a rant.....>;)
Finally, step three:
No need to contact the Speaker's office, this one has been floating around for a while and has been debunked.If the Republicans stop telling lies about us, we will stop
telling the truth about them. -Adlai Stevenson
Briefly segueing to another subject, you may be aware that Steve Gilliard has passed away at the age of 41. There, naturally, are a number of tribute pieces to this awesome pitbull of a hardblogger available at Daily Kos.
PsiFighter37 did one such piece, and reproduced Steve's brillant piece titled, "I'm a Fighting Liberal." It's a great read, check it out.
In the final graf of the piece, Steve does what he always did: tells it like it is.
It is time to stop looking for an accomodation with the right. They want none for us. They want to win, at any price. So, you have a choice: be a fighting liberal or sit quietly. I know what I am, what are you?
I can add nothing to this.
Thank you, Steve.
And we fight on.
Good night, and good luck.