I was just walking through ...

[BlueStreak]

10. Well done. We must challenge ignorance at every step

The last two days my email has been flooded with two different right-wing-hysteria-of-the-day waves.

The first one was a flood of emails, all of which said that the government is propping up GM, and we know that because the latest money sales were 79% to the Government. No, that's is simply not true. In fact, anybody who knows anything about our economy knows that would be mathematically impossible. The Government simply couldn't buy enough vehicles to do that. In 10 seconds, I found the genesis of this crap. The July sales results for GM showed that their July sales to government were up BY 79%, but the government sales were still a small slice of the total.

I responded to every one of those posts with a firm, but cordial correction of the facts. Several of these came from people who really, really should have known better, and they are apparently to embarrassed to reply to me. If they are sufficiently embarrassed, then maybe they will take the 10 seconds to research the next one themselves.

Then after that wave, I started getting the hysterical email described here. http://www.snopes.com/rumors/photos/martyr.asp Similar emails came from 3 different people. In one case, I was really surprised because I never thought of this guy as being a racist and a hater. Again, I responded to each of these, including all the strangers I saw on their CC lists. In this case, one of the strangers came back with, "well, one of the 911 terrorists probably changed his name. besides, what pissed me off was the sign. They had no right."

So I responded to this gentleman with, "As far as I know, it is perfectly legal for a retail shop to set their own hours. I don't take offense when a store posts a sign saying they will be closed for Christmas. Why should you take offense when this particular owner decides to give up a day's business in order to observe an event important to his religion? Surely that is allowed in in America, or is "freedom" only for certain people?"

I don't expect I will turn this guy around, as he is clearly a hater. But it is important for these haters to know that we have our eyes on them and we aren't going to let their bullshit go unchallenged.

We can all step up, just as you did. Every little bit helps and collectively it will make a big difference. If we lose a few friends in the process, so be it. Maybe these aren't people we should have as friends in the first place.