Right on the heels of that dreadful Washington ComPost "Conservative rumour mill" chain letter, and just in time for the US Thanksgiving 2011 came another chain post - this one from Politifact and NPR. Titled "For Thanksgiving Debunk Your Family's Chain-emails", it has become a chain letter that advertises Politifact and their pages.
Politifact Rhode Island Politifact Oregon Politifact Ohio
More replications via reposting the article in full or in part, or by linking to it are found on:
kunc.org, northcountrypublicradio.org, vpr.net, ideastream.org, news.opb.org, news.providencejournal.com, wbur.org, allvoices.com, twabble.com, topix.com, i4u.com, tampabay.com, onelineheadline.com, macombpolitics.blogspot.com, kaiserhealthnews.org, silobreaker.com, topics.dallasnews.com, kqed.org, jaketoday.blogspot.com, queenofspainblog.com, blackamericans.com, www6.lexisnexis.com, www6.lexisnexis.com again, cleveland.com, and more.
Of course, the Occupy millionaires Facebook chain got a "half true" while all the conservative chain emails cherry-picked for most dishonest content to be shown in the links were of the "Pants on fire" variety. In addition, the article opened with a description of the sorts of chain emails your uncle is likely to send you, making sure to mention the worst of the worst on the conservative chain letter stupidity scale. "Obama the antiChrist" indeed. I'm sure the majority of the non-left do not actually believe that tripe.
Before I get into the mangle, it is with great gladness that I bring you an article by Pastor Tom Cook, who quotes a couple of little bits and pieces of the Politifact article for inclusion in his own article on combatting false chain emails, without including the promotion for Politifact. In addition, he includes an excellent scripture verse to help people reconsider before blindly passing along that meme.
“Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body.” Ephesians 4:25.
You can read his article here.
Now, to the meme-mangle.
🦃💩Politifact Meme: Here's what to say to your uncle -- or any other relative -- who mentions those wacky chain e-mails at the dinner table.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: And if this uncle holds the same opinion as me, that these wacky chain emails and social network re-shares are the same as the mainstream media, wacky and annoying as all heck?
Actually, I've never talked to an uncle about email, and the subject rarely comes up at any family gatherings. I like it that way. It's bad enough everybody's in love with those stupid Youtube viral videos and blindly following the mainstream media in their favourite hobby since 2016, Trump-bashing. I was never a Trump fan, but better him in office minus those horrible social justice agendas than Hillary, who would have taken western society down much further with those, carrying on what damage was done under Obama. Nobody seems to see that.
🦃💩Meme: At Thanksgiving dinner, there's probably a good chance you'll end up sitting beside your uncle.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Not even close. None of my uncles and aunts live near me and they have their own immediate families to share TG dinner with.
🦃💩Meme: You love your uncle,
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Erm, you assume way too much.
🦃💩Meme: but you could do without all those chain e-mails that he forwards to you,
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: No uncle forwards me chain email, but I wish friends and acquaintences/list-members, blog and forum discussion posters, aunts and cousins would stop it, and I don't mean just not sending them to me, I mean, they need to kick the forwarding habit completely.
You also need to ditch that "crazy uncle" anti-chain. It's really very stale and un-funny. Actually, you shouldn't have written this tripe at all.
🦃💩Meme: the ones that claim the government is forcing you to get rid of your light bulbs, that "Obamacare" is going to put a tax on home sales and that President Barack Obama fits the biblical description of the Antichrist.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: *Rolling eyes* Oh, right, the Obama thing again. That's finally over. Now it's become clear just how loony the left has gotten and you still stick your heads in the sand. When Obama was in office, all you media hounds just hammered away at how stupid you thought conservatives, republicans, and the far-right were for doing stupid memes. You just called that lies, bigotry, "crazy uncle" etc. while allowing actual bigotry like feminism and BLM to get blasted over the media, unchecked so long as they could spin it as a victim narrative.
But you really don't want it being pointed out that when Clinton lost in 2016, your side went absolutely ape-crap bonkers! They didn't just spread stupid memes, they got violent...
So, back to the subject of memes... I suppose it's a bit less wacky to repost blogger awards, Feng Shui Hooey Fooey Funny money bags hoaxes, memes with sappy sayings and stories that claim to be true and aren't, say they're written by some fictitious dying kid? Is the death-chain any less egregious considering the psych out number it does on little kids? How about those Tamara Martin hoaxes that lie about charities and guilt-trip people into thinking they're horrible human beings for not spreading these hoaxes? How about the chain email lie claiming Tommy Hilfiger is a racist? I suppose all of those are just a bit less of a sin because they're not bashing the Obamas or the Clintons.
Yeah, I put all of them in the same category of junk and am more than a little sick of tirades against memes almost always coming from left-leaners.
🦃💩Meme: (Note to uncles: We're not really singling you out. Chain e-mails get forwarded by aunts, grandparents and plenty of other relatives.)
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: No, duh!
🦃💩Meme: So as part of our Message Machine partnership with NPR,
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: NPR? Really? Um… Not biased... AT ALL! *Rolling eyes*
🦃💩Meme: PolitiFact has put together this handy guide to chain e-mails and other viral messages.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: All memes are chain letters, including this article, which is why it's getting mangled., along with the other crazy left-wing chain letters I have managed to find. Chain letters you couldn't be bothered to "fact-check" with the same zeal as you treat any political memes coming from the right.
🦃💩Meme: Hide it under the green bean casserole and you can pull it out if your uncle brings up the chain e-mails.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Bleck. Besides, that doesn't work with the way food gets passed around at our table.
🦃💩Meme: You should start by telling tell him that the e-mails are nearly always wrong.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I do whenever the opportunity presents itself… No matter which side of the political aisle. Anyone can fall for that popping corn with a cell phone hoax.
🦃💩Meme: PolitiFact has checked 104 claims from e-mails and rated 80 percent of them False or Pants of Fire. Only 4 percent of the claims have earned a True.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: *Yawn* I've figured out a long time ago that the vast majority are false, and that ratio of false to true is probably even higher when you count more than just the political chains. Every anti-chain letter is false because it's an attempt at humor and usually tells a crazy story that never happened to exaggerate the ridiculousness of chain letters in general. Then there are the photoshopped pictures and the animations, the charity hoaxes, the gang initiation forwards, the health warning hoaxes, the left-wing memes, shall I go on?
🦃💩Meme: The e-mails, heavy on exclamation points and ALL-CAPITAL LETTERS,
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Just like those Myspace bulletins. Money Bags, Money Angel, Kissed On The Nearest Friday/Your crush's name will appear in big letters on the screen, video popup hoaxes, forward-or-die, and wishing chain letters hoaxes that tend to reel in the teenaged crowd, including those with a liberal point of view.
🦃💩Meme: are typically sent by conservatives who dislike Obama.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Correction. Now it's liberals who hate Trump.
Still, don't leave out the teenage demographic I mentioned above... Let's not exclude all the gender-related chain letters too. Most of them are feminist, which is to the left.
🦃💩Meme: Lately, though, we have seen a new phenomenon on Facebook, where liberal supporters of the Occupy Wall Street movement have been spreading messages, some of which aren't accurate.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Yes! Not just some. Most, if not all, are inaccurate. And by the way, that whole Occupy movement was a gigantic left-wing chain letter, having spread everywhere. Yes, liberals do spread memes, chain letters, which are just as false and annoying as any others… But that's probably not considered quite as worth noting or laughing over because it's not anything negative about the great Obama then, or the Clintons now, and the last thing the left wants is to have their hypocrisy and dishonesty pointed out. "Ha ha ha lulz lulz, look at the silly conservatives and their crazy chain letters!"
Uh, no...!
Look at the left-wingers and their own crazy chain emails just as much, preferably more, since sites have been incredibly lazy and sloppy on that front because of their own political biases.
🦃💩Meme: (More about them in a moment.)
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Right, you don't want to dwell on that too much at all…
🦃💩Meme: The chain e-mails fall into a few broad themes:
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Counting the non-political memes, the themes vary widely and cover everything from love to fear.
🦃💩Meme: Obama is unpatriotic! E-mails have said Obama complained that the troops were whiners (Pants on Fire), that he refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance (False) and that he wants soldiers to take a loyalty oath to him rather than the Constitution (Pants on Fire).
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Yeah, rubbish. Duh. I think the one about Glenn Beck raping and murdering a young girl really takes the cake for egregious falsehood. So where's your outrage and urgency in getting to the truth on that one?
The one about Trump being a supporter of white nationalists is pants on fire as well. So are the memes that go "Trump = make America white again". or "make America hate again". So is "Love Trumps hate". which makes no dang sense.
🦃💩Meme: Democrats have passed a secret tax! Some recent e-mails claim that because of "Obamacare," monthly Medicare premiums will more than double by 2014 (Pants on Fire) and that home sales will be taxed 3.8 percent (Pants on Fire) to pay for the new health care law. Another one in this genre says Obama's finance team is seeking a 1 percent tax on all financial transactions (Pants on Fire).
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Yadda, yadda, yadda, blah, blah, blah. if you were at a theatre, giving a presentation, I'd be walking out right about now. Oh, and you do realize that George Bush didn't cause 9-11, right?
Obama's history. So where's your outrage over the memes that bash Trump? Not saying he's a great guy, but you trip all over yourself to defend Obama or a Clinton, but you go quiet when memes bash and lie about people on the other side of the aisle.
🦃💩Meme: Perks of office. Another theme in the e-mails is that members of Congress get excessive perks. The e-mails say members of Congress get full retirement pay after one term (Pants on Fire) and that congressional staffers and members don't have to repay their student loans (Pants on Fire).
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Yeah, yeah, you're boring me to tears. You do realize that a Trump presidency isn't ushering in a zombie apocalypse, right?
🦃💩Meme: The government is coming for your guns/health data/light bulbs! Some of the conspiracy theories are truly wacky. During the health care debate, one claimed that under the public option for health care coverage, people would be implanted with data-storing microchips (Pants on Fire). A more recent e-mail claimed the government was mandating that everyone get rid of their existing light bulbs (Pants on Fire). Another e-mail said you must list your guns on your tax return (Pants on Fire).
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Yeah um, you also know the one about dihydrogen monoxide being something to avoid at all costs is also pants on fire, and so is the one about the grateful shark, the teddybear cloud, the one about onions preventing the flu, George Bush as Walking Eagle, and the Debbie Schwartz hardluck tale… And the one that claims Trump will deport every "brown-skinned" or muslim out of America. All pants on fire.
🦃💩Meme: We're not sociologists, so we don't speculate why conservatives have been spreading most of the chain e-mails
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: You forgot to include the words 'liberals' and 'political' before 'chain emails'... Counting the non-political chain emails, the number of liberals spreading chain emails should be considerable. Liberals do spread just as many political chain letters, they just don't call them 'chain letters' they call them 'essays' or 'action alerts' or even 'news'. But that's only dealing with the viral espousing politics liberals actually believe.
At least some chain emails designed to dupe conservatives, have actually been created by liberals as a means of some really cheap entertainment at the expense of the non-left.
🦃💩Meme: -- or why liberals have recently adopted a similar technique on Facebook for messages supporting Occupy Wall Street.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Because everyone's into Facebook, statuses, and chain letters have gone from email to status reposting schemes, and liberals want to get their political messages out just as much as conservatives do, true or not. They've always spread chain letters. Supposed fact-checking and 'debunking' sites have been too bias and lazy to bother giving them half the scrutiny they give to viral spread by conservatives.
🦃💩Meme: This week, we checked a widely circulated Facebook post that said 1 percent of Americans are millionaires compared with 47 percent of House members and 56 percent of senators. We found the numbers were off, particularly for the share of Americans who are millionaires (actually 9 percent), so we rated it Half True.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: You should have rated it pants on fire unless there actually were numbers that lined up somewhere.
🦃💩Meme: Likewise, many people were posting a message that said Republicans in Congress have introduced dozens of bills on religion, marriage, abortion and gun control, but zero bills on job creation. We found that was ridiculously false because the blog post it was based on included bills from both parties and there was no category for job creation. We rated it Pants on Fire.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Hurrah! You got that one right! Now you need to debunk the meme that says Trump supports and is responsible for a supposed rise in bullying in schools and cyber bullying. Nevermind, I'll do that for you. Trump and his supporters aren't responsible for more bullying. The left-wing anti-Trump contingent is. The way the liberals went absolutely bonkers at Trump's win proves it. Even before the election, the Hillarites were trying everything they could to bully and fear-monger people into voting for Hillary Clinton. They did it by saying over and over "Trump is racist!" hoping to coerce and scare people off voting for him. The people had enough of that and voted with common sense, and the social cleansing warriors on the left had a massive mental meltdown all across America when things didn't go their way. Miley Cyrus cried crocodile tears, and CNN's Van Jones, in a racist tantrum, called the election results a "Whitelash". Yes, there is video to back this up. And that's just the tip of their ugly iceberg.
">Whitelash SJWs And Their Causes Are Not About Justice.
When Nasty Is Considered Heroic
A year after the 2016 election loss for the left, their defeated hero Hillary was still whinging about it, in a book, in interviews, just to whoever would listen, especially if there might be any money involved.
Hillary's Horrendous Harangue Happened - Youtube
Hillary's Horrendous Harangue Happened - Vid.me
And here's something else that's a hoot considering your huge whinge about memes and the non-left.
Nancy Pelosi read an inaccurate old chain letter email meme called "The Price They Paid" at her press conference in July 2017.
Here's Truthorfiction.com's debunk.
🦃💩Meme: The Facebook messages and the chain e-mails have this in common: they are spread by people who are passionate about their political beliefs.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Not all of them, there are lots and lots of non-political chain emails and FB reposts, spread by people of varying political beliefs. Where would the Fruitcake Friendship chain fall in the political spectrum? It's something both republicans and democrats are likely to repost if they're into that sort of sucralose drip.
🦃💩Meme: That's not a new phenomenon, of course, but what's different today is that people can spread their passion so quickly, to so many people, through e-mails and Facebook. They impulsively forward the e-mails and postings without bothering to see if they are accurate.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Of course, that's what chain letters are all about, as I have said again and again. Chain originators want people spreading their stuff as far and wide as possible, and they play on every human emotion to get that going.
🦃💩Meme: So tell your uncle to stop passing along the false e-mails -- or to check PolitiFact first.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Erm, I'll take option A, and keep referring people to real resources for myth-busting. Notice, you're excluded.
Nice try, but I'm not going to start distributing Politifact advertisements.
Instead, I'll just keep trying to show them those political memes are the same as all other meme hoaxes and why they are so bad.
🦃💩Meme: But it would be great if he could just pass the mashed potatoes.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Can't. They're long gone.
Over and out!
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