The Propagandist's Agenda

YESTERDAY I POSTED THE FIRST part of a particularly vile propaganda email that's making the rounds through the right-wing forwarding network.

In that post, I pointed out that the charges which that email either made or implied were all lies.

1. The stamp, which readers of the email were supposed to get all worked up about, was not produced by the United States Government, but by an online site called Zazzle.com (it's even printed on the stamp!) which will put anything on a stamp for a fee.
2. The stamp is not on sale at your local post office. You have to purposely go to Zazzle.com to get it.
3. The government is not trying to trick anyone into using this stamp on Valentine's Day.
4. There's no liberal plot of the Obama administration involved.
5. The real USPS stamp celebrating Muslim holidays was issued under the conservative Bush administration, and promoted on the Bush White House web site. It was a specialty item, which you would have to specifically ask for, if you wanted to buy it from the Post Office.

So why would a propagandist go to so much trouble to make people believe such a strange set of lies?

The answer becomes clear in the next line of the email:

All you have to say is "No thank you, I do not want that Muslim Stamp on my letters!"

The email isn't really about the stamp at all—the lies about a trick stamp being jammed down our throats by this administration is just a way to tap into conservative emotions.

The plan is to get us all worked up about the "trick" this "liberal" government is playing on us, and then, when we're hopping mad, redirect all that anger and rebellion toward a religious group.

It's a carefully designed manipulation to create religious prejudice and hatred.

Then, quickly, before we have a chance for a rational thought, the email makes it an issue of "patriotism":

To use this stamp would be a slap in the face to all those AMERICANS who died at the hands of those whom this stamp honors.

Get it? Suddenly hating Muslims is now our patriotic duty.

Using "Muslim" as a derogatory term is supposed to be a patriotic act.

And notice the message buried in the subtext: it's now all Muslims whom those Americans died at the hands of? Really?

Okay. Back up for a moment.

Remember that no one is trying to get anyone to use this stamp.

All that anger is based on outright lies in the first place.

1. Never mind that most of the victims of al Qaeda terrorists are Muslims.
   
   (Al Qaeda is very active in Muslim countries, where they attack Muslims who don't agree with them, just as they attack America.)
2. Never mind that America has countless patriotic citizens...
   1. who are Muslims,
   2. who never so much as contemplated a terrorist act in their lives, and
   3. who are just as shocked and fearful of terrorists as anyone else.
3. Never mind that this is like attacking Irish Catholics because Timothy McVeigh bombed the Federal Building.

This email is, itself, a slap in the face to countless patriotic Americans who are Muslims.

But it doesn't stop there—it gets worse.

I'll take that up next time...