Randy Cassingham's Blog

Posted by Charles, McKinney TX on January 4, 2010:

Right On!, Brother Randy. I am so sick and tired of receiving bogus crap (hate mail) about what the President has done to desecrate this country. I enjoy good political banter about the State of the Union, but poisonous garbage regurgitated without basis of fact is worse than Communist propaganda. It smacks of McCarthy-ism at the least, and seeks to incite a riot amongst the mindless sheep that call themselves Americans. I voted for the other guy this last election, but the purely malicious tones from my radical Right friends and relatives really disgusts me. "Thou shall not bear false witness..." is #9 on "The List". Maybe those hate-mongers need to read to the end of that list.

Posted by Steve, Houston,TX on January 4, 2010:

THANK YOU for using your bully pulpit to push back on this. I am so sorry to see how many people in our country have decided to trade truth for ideology, no matter which side of the aisle they are on. Thanks for pushing back when you get these -- I will keep doing so when I get them, too.

Posted by Jorn, DE on January 4, 2010:

Wow. I thought by now everybody knew that any chain email forward is farce - I generally expect anything with more than two previous senders is a joke, either because it's something funny, or it's a farce like this one. I didn't think anyone actually believed anything in those random emails these days.

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They absolutely do -- "My friend wouldn't have sent it to me if it's not true!" But as you have realized, more often than not it's not true. -rc

Posted by Nick in the UK on January 5, 2010:

I am surprised that you think it is racism. I may be naive but I see those despicable attempts at using a war hero for somebody's own agenda more as an attack on the celebrity worshiping cult that "the media" (whomever that is) truly seems to be participating in. Now, I don't know the amount of media coverage that Ed Freeman's death got but I bet it is a whole lot less than Chris Brown or Michael Jackson.

By the way, was Ed Freeman and his actions not the inspiration for the helicopter pilot in We Were Soldiers?

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I didn't see the movie, but I do recall that tie-in. As for racism, I'm seeing too many "coincidences" to believe it's random. -rc

Posted by Chris, OHIO on January 5, 2010:

If it is alright with you, I would like to forward this to all of the people in my family that get sucked into the propaganda news distribution.

I feel like I am banging my head into a wall when I try to have a FACTUAL conversation with many that I am surrounded by.

Randy....you rock.

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It's fine to send the URL to this page, to my Spam Primer, to Snopes, to FactCheck, or any other good source of information to educate people. The URL, not the articles. I realize you may have been joking, but as we've seen, the gullible are willing to believe anything, and I want to be clear. -rc

Posted by Rene (Austria) on January 5, 2010:

At first, when I read the above in the True Mailing, I wasn't so sure about your interpretation. Not having known the original mail, I thought of many (not so dissimilar) chain-mails, that were so clumsily written, that I think they might have been kids' jokes.

But after reading the original here, I must say, that this is a very professionally written piece of disinformation. It also is a very nice piece of psychological manipulation, asking the reader to mentally take the place of one of the rescued soldiers. Such mails are actually much more dangerous than open racism...

Posted by John, Lexington, MA on January 5, 2010:

I cannot tell you the number of politically motivated "stories" I have rebutted by using snopes.com. It didn't take me long, however, to realize that, once talking to several of the people who were sending out anti-Obama rants, that they were not at all interested in the truth. What do you do when every fact you counter is defined as part of a conspiracy? I now just hit the "del" button and move on. The ~10% of Americans who are birthers are not going to let facts stand in their way. Racist? Most likely. Just plain dumb? Absolutely.

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For the record, a "birther" is someone who has believed the disinformation campaign and actually thinks Obama was not born in the U.S., despite the fact that Obama's birth certificate from Hawaii has been released to the public. -rc

Posted by Joe (Chantilly, VA) on January 5, 2010:

blog.fr

Performing in Kid Boots in Chicago, Eddie Cantor received a 12-page telegram from Florenz Ziegfeld with suggestions for improving the show. "The whole message [was] such a jumble of ideas" that Cantor simply responded:

YES.

Ziegfeld wrote back:

WHAT DO YOU MEAN YES? DO YOU MEAN YES YOU WILL TAKE OUT THE SONG OR YES YOU WILL PUT IN THE LINES OR YES YOU WILL FIX THAT SCENE OR YES YOU HAVE TALKED TO THOSE ACTORS?

Cantor responded:

NO.

I don't see the "racial" component in the email you presented. Sure Michael Jackson was of African descent, and Ed Freeman was not -- but that didn't seem to have anything to do with what the writer was saying. I think the point of the email was that we tend to get overly excited about what happens to our pop celebrities and overlook the tremendous contributions of our real heroes. I think most people can agree with that sentiment; it is a sentiment that fits hand-in-glove with your wonderful "HeroicStories" periodical.

If there was anything "political" in the piece you presented, it was the implication that Americans do not do enough to recognize the contributions and sacrifices of our Military personnel, and that is a "political statement" that I, personally, heartily endorse.

Now, perhaps there were other variations of the email that turned it into a "racial" thing, but given what you presented, Randy, I don't think you "made your case."

For what it's worth, I haven't gone to Snopes to do further research on this (nor do I plan to), because I no longer trust Barbara's objectivity since she has begun to let her own personal beliefs color her analysis.

Oh -- and I don't think I missed your point that it is plainly WRONG to distort the facts (such as the day of Ed Freeman's death) to support a statement. And it is also ludicrous to believe that God is on our side simply because we are...well, us. I hate these emails just as much as you do. But we already have enough problems with racial animosity in this country; I'm not going to make things worse by jumping to the inflammatory conclusion that the email in question had any racial component whatsoever.

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It's not just that MJ is black. It's that I see a pattern in these e-mails. Even in this single one, first it was Chris Brown (black entertainer) and, since that didn't work too well, another black entertainer was substituted -- and then it went viral. And the exact same schemes are repeated again and again ...and the target just coincidentally happens to be black? I don't think so.

The supreme irony was this morning, when a neighbor who happens to be a very conservative Republican sent me 20 mug shots -- all of which were of black people, and all of which were wearing Obama shirts. Here's the message's conclusion: "Did you ever see anyone arrested wearing a Bush T-shirt, or for you older guys, an Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, or even Nixon, or Bob Dole shirt? There MUST be a message here, but I can't quite grasp it. Maybe you can help me out here." Yeah: I get the message all right. -rc

Posted by Ken in Garland, TX on January 5, 2010:

Sounds like we need a new newsletter, Randy. (You're probably thinking "Like I need another hole in my head!"), sort of like True Stella, but for sham emails. You could just limit it to ones that are sent you. :->

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I'm trying to reduce my work week. Got it down to 50-60 by hiring an assistant.... -rc

Posted by Steve, Houston, TX on January 5, 2010:

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." -Voltaire

That sure seems to be the agenda of those who write these emails, and that seems VERY un-American to me.