Urban legends: Weapons of war?

A few days back, my lady heard from an old friend who had read a disturbing email. Apparently, a marine in Iraq had asked Starbucks to send some coffee (unbrewed coffee, I presume!), only to be told -- in a very insulting fashion -- that the company did not support either the war or the troops.

"Is it true?" the friend asked. Perhpas the matter was worth discussing on my blog.

The story struck me as fishier than a can of jack mackerel. No representative of any sizable business enterprise would ever commit an anti-troops sentimant to paper, even if the CEO held such opinions.

I have no idea if the folks who run Starbucks vote Democratic or Republican, but I do know that lefties have consistently said they do appreciate and support the people in our military. We support them so much that we (most of us, at least) would prefer for them to come right home.

Of course, the right-wing propaganda machine very much wants you to believe otherwise. They want you to believe that we lefites instinctively hate everyone in the services. And that liberals burn flags and sacrifice babies to the dark god Moloch.

So I checked out this yarn.

Naturally, the whole concoction is pure myth, and was exposed as such months ago. Exposure hasn't stopped the lie from spreading. For a full report, go here.

In this case, the legend can be traced to one individual -- Sergeant Howard C. Wright of the 1st Force Recon Co., who, much to his credit, promptly issued a correction and an apology when he learned the truth. Wright may have been the first to put this myth into email form, but the legend appears to have originated with someone else. No one knows who started it.

Do Rovian manipulators intentionally spread political urban legends in order to spread certain ideas? I strongly suspect that the answer is yes.

Consider the urban legend as a form of psychological warfare. Consider the fact that the vast majority of politically-tinged rumors on Snopes and cognate sites tend to buttress far-right beliefs.

During the Clinton era, many a cyber-mailbox filled with ghastly -- and bogus -- tales of Clintonian perfidy. I recall many examples of the genre.

Most of them, alas, are not warehoused by the Snopes folk. You may scope out their selection here. Visitors will encounter a few classics of venality, such as the story that the post-presidency Clintons are charging the Secret Service rent equal to the Clintons' own mortgage payment. You will also learn of the day when that awful, awful Hillary snubbed the Gold Star mothers, a group of mothers whose sons were killed in combat.

David Emery has a wider collection of the type of fables I'm talking about. Here is his page devoted to the widely-circulated email -- I recall it well! -- which purported to prove that Hillary Clinton, while a student at Yale, functioned as a chief apologist for the Black Panthers.

Emery gives this yarn the correct label: Not rumor, not mistake, not legend, but "McCarthyism Redux."

"Urban legend" may be a misnomer. Legends make themselves. They are accidents.

The politically-charged emails described above should not be considered close kin to folkloric yarns about hitchhiking ghosts or the lady who sold the Cadillac for $50. These emails do not record yarns which grew as they passed from person to person. These texts did not arise from honest error. Most of them are not misunderstood attempts at satire. (In truth, a few of these political scare-stories did originate on humorous web sites, but most did not.)

Let's not be naive. The texts under discussion here were created deliberately, by skilled writers who hoped to use lies to change votes.

Look at the wording of the "Gold Star Mothers" hoax:

Bet this never hits the TV news!

Gold Star Mothers is an organization made up of women whose sons were killed in military combat during service in the United States Armed Forces. Recently a delegation of New York State Gold Star Mothers made a trip to Washington, DC to discuss various concerns with their elected representatives. According to NewsMax.com there was only one politician in DC who refused to meet with these ladies. Can you guess which politician that might be?

Was it New York Senator Charles Schumer? Nope, he met with them. Try again. Do you know anyone serving in the Senate who has never showed anything but contempt for our military? Do you happen to know the name of any politician in Washington whose husband once wrote of his loathing of the military?

Now you're getting warm! None other than the Queen herself - the Hildebeast, Hillary Clinton. She refused repeated requests to meet with the Gold Star Mothers.

Now - please don't tell me you're surprised. This woman wants to be president of the United States - and there is a huge percentage of the voters who are anxious to help her achieve that.

No author is listed. That's a key point.

Think about it. In your experience, how many non-professional writers could create a text of this sort? The style is punchy. Very readable. No obvious errors of spelling or punctuation. What amateur would cobble together such a piece and then refuse to sign it with either a real name or a nomme de net? Most unpaid, unpublished writers are quick to take credit for a literary accomplishment. So are most writers who do get paid and published.

Many such texts circulated during the Clinton years. Similar texts circulated during the campaign, and most of them spread nonsense about John Kerry. I quite enjoyed the fake newsclip of Kerry shaking hands with Anton LaVey, although I bet I could have done a better job on that photo.

Here's one in which Al Gore is alleged -- falsely -- to have denounced Christianity as a blight on the environment.

In recent days, I have encountered a few -- some might say too few -- texts targeting George W. Bush and his supporters. I must confess that I once fell for one of these falsehoods, and even helped to spread it -- quite unintentionally.

Which brings us to today's question of morality: May we fight fire with fire? Should we counter pro-Republican "urban legends" with pro-Dem counterpart legends? Or should we disdain the tactics of the enemy?

I vote for the truth.

We all make mistakes, of course, and even the best of us may be gulled by a skillful fake or a widely-circulated rumor. As noted above, I've made such mistakes, and probably will do so again. So will you.

But the country is finally learning -- I hope -- to distinguish between those who cop to their fallibilites and those who refuse to admit even the most obvious errors. Let's hope the average person will also learn to spot the work of those professional liars who have turned our political life into a surrealist nightmare.