NEWSPAPER SPAM

Listed as an advertising supplement to Sunday’s paper was a video disk labeled “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West”.

It was distributed by someone called the Clarion Group. Researching that name yielded very little information other than that it is a 501(c)3 corporation whose "mission is to educate Americans about issues of national security."

Reading the list of papers to which it was distributed reveals that it went to those states considered swing states in the upcoming national election.

The group’s spokesman, Gregory Ross, says the film was financed by “a concerned citizen” who has long been connected with the group, but offers no further explanation. The group’s website offers nothing related to its board of directors or financers, but I did find out that its founder is a Canadian-Israeli named Raphael Shore. Wikipedia described him as a pro-Israeli who claims the press is anti-Israeli.

The group hosts a website at www.radicalislam.org which recently posted an article in support of John McCain. The article was removed, however, because, according to Ross it had “crossed the line.” That is a reference to the fact that 501(c)3 corporations are barred by law from supporting political candidates. In spite of that, however, it is painfully clear that the DVD is intended to spread fear and foment continued war in the Middle-East as well as to generate votes for the McCain ticket whose support for continuing the war is well known.

It seems that the only place this group has stuck up its head was an interview Wayne Kopping, writer, director and editor of the film had with that famously fair and balanced comedian, Rush Limbaugh, who rabidly proclaims the value of this film while damning the efforts of Michael Moore and Al Gore as laughably biased.

This effort is clearly the kind of tactic for which Karl Rove and his ilk – read Swiftboaters – have become notorious, and it should be dismissed for what it is – a campaign designed to spread hate and fear and to keep the drums of war pounding. It’s depiction of Muslims as, by definition, dangerous is the kind of stuff Hitler’s Nazis used to spread about the Jews.

It is too bad that the owners of our local paper care more about making a little money than about the harm that can come from spreading this kind of hateful propaganda.

“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” – Patrick Henry


Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi

The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle

Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR