Yesterday, I received the one about the terrorists striking the malls on Halloween, insinuating that we should remain away from shopping centers on October 31. This e-mail had the usual language that had been forwarded a bunch of times “don't know if this is true…./one day away from the malls couldn't hurt…/I don’t send out hoaxes, so this one is real.” You know what? If you don't know if it’s true, don't f’n send the damn thing out before investigating it. It takes about 30 seconds to run a check on the Internet, about as long as it takes you to go into your address book to pick out all the people you choose to forward the e-mail to.
I'm sure, like me, you've gotten other similar e-mails. You know what I'm talking about - the woman who was told by her middle eastern boyfriend not to take any commercial flights on September 11th, the picture of the tourist at the top of the WTC as the plane is heading into the building, the Nostradamus prophesy about the fall of “two brothers,” the man riding the debris of the WTC all the way down to safety, the supposed flight number “Q33NY” that when turned into Wingding font has a message, the “fact” that four thousand Jews took the day off of working at the WTC on September 11, the Klingerman virus that is to be found in our mailboxes, and many more.
People may think that these e-mails are harmless or even funny in some way. But they're not. With regard to the one I got yesterday about staying away from the malls, our nation is teetering on the brink of recession. Jobless claims are the highest in over a decade. Unemployment has gone through the roof just since September 11 (over a quarter million layoffs since that time www.wsj.com). Retail sales dropped the most in any one month in nine years. To encourage people to stay away from our shopping malls is the same as calling for a boycott, but just using fear as the motivator. It could and would further hurt our shaky economy. If you argue, “oh, its only one day,” I say just look at what one night out to eat could do for our country's relief efforts last night. To encourage the further weakening of our country as our retailers struggle for existence, our citizens struggle to gain employment, and our retirees struggle for financial security is obscene.
To insinuate that over 4,000 Jews failed to go to work on September 11 continues the stereotype of the Jewish conspiracy against the world. Sure, were so f’n sophisticated that over 4,000 people knew about it and didn't tell anyone. That disgraces the hundreds of Jews (not to mention everyone else) who died at the expense of terrorists who despise not only Jews but also all other Americans and supporters of Western democracies. Funny how there seems to be a Nostradamus prophesy about everything….just after the fact. I could go on about each of these false rumors, as Exodus 20:16 comes to mind, but as most of you know, I'm about the most non-religious religious person that exists, and I'm probably misinterpreting it. The point is, there's just something wrong about passing these messages on, as these messages heighten panic and continue to keep us away from what President Harding called “a return to normalcy.”
I encourage anyone who receives these e-mails to go to www.urbanlegends.com or www.snopes2.com to verify these insane stories before deciding whether or not to continue to send false rumors. Thousands of our citizens and other innocent people have died as a result of the worst outside attack on our nation in its history. Many more will likely die as the fight continues overseas. To create urban legends, falsify deaths, or to attempt to profit from this tragedy is profane. Rather than sending out these insane e-mails, people should be discussing the policy decisions that are being debated by our lawmakers and what ramifications those decisions will have on the rest of our lives. Will the 4th Amendment be repealed? Probably not in fact but in substance. What additional freedoms will we all lose as a result of this action? This week, the Bush administration arguably asked the news media to begin censoring their coverage (link 1) (link 2) of the Taliban. People should be rallying behind our elected leaders and our military, but at the same time our citizenry should be fighting to continue the liberties upon which this country was founded. Once liberties are taken away in the name of a war effort, they are NEVER given back. We must hold steadfast to the principles that have made and continue to make this country the greatest in the history of the world. Carelessly sending out e-mails full of false information and lies that were created by what I would call sick people in the aftermath of this tragedy fails to achieve that end.
As somebody once said....Take care of yourself and each other.
-David