Urban Myths that Never Died
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Thu Sep 13, 2012 at 02:03:18 PM EST
Rick Scarborough is leading a breakout session at the 2012 Voter Values Summit.  He will retell his more than a decade old story of how he had an impact at Pearland, Texas.  Rick is to lead a session named, "Debunking the Myth of Separation."  Scarborough's legendary story of his activism in Texas has been shared from coast to coast.  I have heard it over three times myself.  According to the legend, Rick turned the tide and changed the region as Tom DeLay used to say.
     Truth is most of the influence Scarborough is supposed to have possessed would be hard to find.  Few if any councilmen in the town probably even remember the story.  Rick won't mention in his dramatic presentation the torn up church, divided city, deacon suicide nor his loss of political clout over his abuse of influence.  He won't' mention the headline story in the Houston Chronicle about alleged corruption that resulted from the linking of First Baptist Pearland with the city council.  The myth that Rick is the highly esteemed champion of values in the city just never seems to die.  Voter Summits and the like keep repeating it.

      Star Parker is onboard as a sponsor.  Star likes to promote her version of American history that LBJ harmed Black people with his Great Society.  Other Black leaders like Star suggest the entire movement might have been intended to harm black people.  
     Glenn Beck, the chief spokesperson for urban myths, will be there to spin his tales of government conspiracies.  Tim Wildemon will add his portion to the movement with is views that FDR was a socialist.    Liberty University is in the house.  Their history as a university headed by a man who claimed government 501c3 was a mere attempt to silence pastors makes them a good fit. Liberty would like Scarborough's conspiracy theory that Christians are being banned from the public square.  One of the larger Baptist churches in our own area sent us a recent letter warning that if we do not take a stand in this election we might be cast into jail in the near future.
     The documentary, 2016 Obama's America, rehashes some of these old Obama theories about his true vision for America.  Dinesh D'souza has created a film that is now being viewed by millions and it is challenging box office smashes for tickets purchased by movie goers.  The Los Angeles Times claims the work is short on facts but long on opinions.  The Washington Post commented on the film noting the view of the producer concerning the President is; "...by stripping wealth from the upper classes, bankrupting the country so it can be remade into a socialist state, depleting America's necular warheads and permitting a United States of Islam to align between Morocco and Pakistan and squelch Israel."  D'souza is not as epic as the latest Obama scare in our region that states Obama is bringing in 100 million Muslims illegally into the nation to make this a Muslim country.
     It takes a creative mind to conjure up urban myths.  I was in my home state last week and heard a legendary story about catfish so large at the Oklahoma dams that they were eating divers.  There are no real facts to back up these stories but it didn't stop River Monsters of the Animal Planet from running a series on it.  It's almost as if society needs these myths to give us fodder for gossip.
     Jackie Robinson was brought before Congress to response to the rumors that Blacks would not defend America if the Soviet Union attacked us.  Southern culture still holds that King was a secret Communist.  Jesse Helms, once granted a statesman of the year award by Southern Baptists, was the hold out for allowing the King national holiday. "Reliable sources " had confirmed that King was associated with known radicals and Communists.  We ought not to be surprised when the Black President keeps being accused of these leanings, it goes with the myths.
     Matt Taibbi wrote about these myths.  Particularly the Truthers who believe 911 was orchestrated by the government.    Truthers believe that the government secretly dropped portions of an old cargo jet in strategic places to make it appear as if a plane, not a missile, hit the Pentagon.  This happened in front of workers, reporters and government workers and they never noticed.  How can you ever use any logic with folks like this?
     As Earl P. Holt III recently wrote about the Democratic Party in the Citizen s Informer, "In any event, this is an appropriate and fitting denouement for a party that has displaced the Communist Party of the United States as the most leftist, destructive and anti-American political party in our history, and the greatest obstacle to good government in more than a century."     Earl and his crowd note this election is a mandate for the country to beware.  As martial art king Church Norris,( imminent historian that he is) remarked, if Obama wins this will mean the loss of our civilization for the next 1,000 years.  To these folks voting for the Democrat is as foolish as swimming next to the dam in an Oklahoma lake.




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Do people really believe the myths, or do they just wish the myths were true, in order to justify their political and social preferences?

by NancyP on Fri Sep 14, 2012 at 03:11:23 PM EST

The wacko repubs are at it again. Odd thing is when you ask any one of them for some evidence to back up their laughable claims they can't . They'll say, "Uhhh . . . I don't have all the facts yet but I just know it is true. I Just know it." It's similar to their evidence that President Obama is going to take all their guns. The evidence? He hasn't said anything about it so that proves it. This little morsel comes from the head of the NRA, an organization I was once a member of but now deny having ever heard of them. Personally, I require a bit more than, "I just know it's true" to jeopardize the future of my children and the future of my nation. The real tragedy here is the repubs war on education, started by their sainted raygun, is working. What reasonably intelligent educated person would begin to believe the hogwash conservatives put forward as fact? President Obama is going to bring in 100 million muslims to take over the country? Do these people even consider the logistics of moving that many people across first a continent and then an ocean? Just to hear it said sounds stupid. Even worse, these people are proud to be stupid. They wear their ignorance on their sleeve like it's a badge of honor. The only badge I see is the badge that marks them as suckers. The repub party denounced critical thinking skills and they are winning with the low information voters. A lack of education, a lack of a basic understanding of how the Fed Gov't works, and pervasive racism is all it takes to light the fires of ignorance. None of this is new. I read it all under the original title, "1984", by George Orwell. Repubs are using that for their playbook. The crap they come up with is so absolutely stupid I don't know if there is even a way to respond to it. Take the advice of our third president when it comes to such ridiculous tales. This quote is specific for the three-in-one christian god but the general argument still fits and works: "Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus." ----- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp July 30, 1816

by Bodine666 on Fri Sep 14, 2012 at 06:48:25 PM EST

History repeats itself

by wilkyjr on Sun Sep 16, 2012 at 10:51:36 AM EST

Sure, there are two of these catfish. One is named Jonas and the other is named Sedna.

by Rey Mohammed on Sun Sep 16, 2012 at 07:55:01 PM EST

There is a market for this nonsense in a sizeable swath of the U.S. population & electorate who are baited FOR & WITH bully-pulpit threats and reinforcements weekly at their so-called churches.  As for manufacting his own data & questionable veiled analogies, just look to yesterday morning's Sunday political talkshows and the propoganda  seized-for-the-moment by Benjamin Netanyahu in which laws were certainly broken in "takes plea directly to U.S. voters" [A.P.], a rail against Obama & Romney endorsement, hoping for military action against Iran [CNN 'State of the Union' & Fox News Sunday]. Hs illegal house-building in settlement areas where there are disputes with Palestinians over land goes on: doing what he can get away with, calculating the odds in his favor: law be damned. This should disqualify U.S. aid of $1.5 billion annually, but not with Congressional lobby influence the way it is. Urban myths prevail in the face of reason and evidence.

by achbird65 on Mon Sep 17, 2012 at 11:38:00 AM EST


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