fear mongering through hate.

last night, i was sifting through the mail i'd received over the weekend, and came across a dvd that had been mailed to me called "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West." it was housed in a cardboard mailing sleeve hailing the film as a "must-watch" and an "eye-opener." it was also not mailed to "resident," but actually addressed to me personally.

i immediately threw it on the discard pile, and wondered out loud how those people got my name and address, seeing as i wasn't remotely interested in viewing or sharing their hate-mongering trash. the incident sparked an ugly fight with the boy about all sorts of things, but one claim was that by assuming the dvd was hate propoganda - without actually watching it - i was being as ignorant as the people i write off, who make assumptions about people / ideas / etc without having good (or any) facts to base their assumptions on.

here's my thing. everyone - including (and especially) muslim people - agrees that radical islam is not something to hold up as a shining example. no one rationally promotes suicide bombings and attacks on innocent civilians as a good thing.* so if i receive a dvd begging me to watch the "real" story behind how radical islam is destroying the west? i'm going to go ahead and assume there's another agenda there, either insinuating that islam itself is dangerous, or that muslim people can't be trusted, or that the "real" american way of life needs to remain solidly rooted in christianity, because hey! that's what's right!

and i refuse to have any part of that sort of thinking. i will not watch it, i will not pass it on, and i will not even give them a chance to explain that that's not "really" what they're trying to say. the boy felt that i was being ridiculous by refusing to give him the dvd, if he wanted to watch it out of interest. i told him he had the name of the organization and that he could look the video up on youtube, from his iphone, while we were both standing there in the same room... but i would not play a part in distributing the dvd myself, not to anyone. period.

no one would take the time and money to produce a dvd and mail out 28 million copies with the message that terrorism is bad. we all KNOW terrorism is bad. the only reason someone would feel compelled to produce and desperately want me to watch a dvd about terrorism being a bad thing is if they have another message they're REALLY trying to promote, like maybe "terrorism is bad.... which is why we should kick all the muslims out of our country. make sure you don't vote for obama - his middle name is hussein!"

there's just not any dissent that radical islam is dangerous. so there is no need to send me a dvd to "convince" me of that fact.... unless there are other "facts" you ACTUALLY want to convince me of.

i looked up the organization today. it's pretty clear that it's a shady, pro-mccain organization that is doing its best to scare voters - only in swing states, you'll note - to vote based on suspicion, fear, and hate. i will not link to them, but you can obviously look them up on your own if you like.

i believe in personal freedoms, so i wouldn't stop anyone from looking up the movie and watching it if they wanted to. but i sure as fuck will not help spread that bile around.

*unless they're iraqis, of course. HAR HAR. it's ok when christian americans do it, obvs.**
**i can't believe i even feel the need to write this disclaimer, but obviously that was sarcastic.