It has been circulated via chain emails. Is the picture real or photoshopped? There hasn't been a conclusive answer as far as I can tell. One thing that has been demonstrated is that the the caption ("Picture taken by one of my friends in Phoenix yesterday ...") is untrue because the background is the LA Times complex, so whoever added "Picture taken by one of my friends in Phoenix yesterday ..." was lying. This is a pattern I've often noticed with anonymous chain emails. If a picture, or story gets wide circulation, and succeeds in working a lot of people up, then it will get reused, with whatever changes are necessary, the next time there is a news event which it can be fitted to.
It is part of a very big phenomenon I described in My Not-really-right-wing Mom and her adventures in Email-Land. There is also a web site called "My Right Wing Dad" devoted to simply collecting thousands of such emails.
The picture by itself means little or nothing. The signholder could be as uniquely crazy as Jared Loughton (see "Crosshairs, Blood Libel, and Rabid Partisans"); for that matter, it could be a liberal-baiter who wrote the sign himself. The sign-holder looks like he's talking with someone, maybe the photographer ("OK you want me to hold it a little higher?"). The sign itself reads like a parody in my opinion, but consider this: if the sign holder was truly one of the protesters, and spent any amount of time displaying it (as opposed to posing once for the picture), why haven't multiple pictures of this outrageous sign appeared?. If the sign represents the views of the marchers, are there pictures of any others with similar messages?
Why does is matter? Why are millions of people passing this stuff around? As to what motivates it, I believe the philosophy goes back at least 30 years to what Terry Dolan, one of the founders of NCPAC, said of their strategy:
"A group like ours could lie through its teeth, and the candidate it helps stays clean.". Washington Post, August 10, 1980 (quoted by Wikipedia).The power of PACs, and of skunkworks of "dirty tricksters" is truly wondrous.
An indispensable element of these emails, which I've been studying for a couple of years, is the phony folksy lead-in which gives the impression this was just passed along by a "concerned" friend of a friend, not from some junior Machiavelli in a boiler room somewhere.
Various tricks are used to "prove" authenticity, not the least of which is the manufactured outrage -- as in another of the variations cited by http://www.snopes.com/photos/politics/azprotest.asp:
I know john personally! THIS IS LEGIT!
The photo was taken at a protest 5/1/10 in Phoenix!
(as noted, the backdrop is the LA Times bldg which is NOT in Phoenix)
I for one am OUTRAGED by this photo, taken the next day after a Pinal County Sheriffs Deputy was shot by Mexican Drug Runners with an AK-47 just a few miles from my home. THIS CRAP IS TAKING PLACE "IN MY BACKYARD"! YOU PEOPLE in other states Need to shut the hell up, and actually READ THE PROPOSED LAW for yourselves, and NOT LISTEN TO THE RACEBAITERS like Sharpton and OBAMA!
READ IT FOR YOURSELF THEN DECIDE IF IT IS RIGHT OR WRONG!!!!Why do I say "manufactured" outrage? In this case, there is the lie of personal knowledge that the photo was taken in Phoenix when in fact the scene is Los Angeles.
I have about had enough.
If you are not one of the people who swallows this sort of thing whole, let me just say that these things are effective. They get past peoples skepticism because they seem so amateurish, like somebody just got fed up and in impotent rage, put it all together and sent it out to his or her little informal club of people who exchange interesting emails. But when most of the emails like this I've seen contain elaborate deceptions (See "My Not-really-right-wing Mom and her adventures in Email-Land") it makes more sense to think the composer was interested in changing public opinion for a certain political result, not in sharing their genuine personal outrage as they claim.
What does it mean that this book is #8 Amazon bestseller today 2/18/2011?
You challenged, "Find me an example of that sort of talk that isn't in a right wing essay telling us what liberals or illegal aliens supposedly think."
ReplyDeleteHere are a few.
Certain Mexican nationalists strongly believe a separate country called Aztlan will be carved out of the United States and "reconquered." Mexicans refer to it as "la reconquista." They want more and more illegals to populate the U.S. - and be given amnesty and citizenship - to make their plans easier to implement.
"Demographically, socially and culturally, the reconquista of the Southwest United States by Mexico is well under way," Harvard University professor Samuel P. Huntington said. "No other immigrant group in U.S. history has asserted or could assert a historical claim to U.S. territory. Mexicans and Mexican-Americans can and do make that claim," he said.
Jose Angel Gutierrez, political science professor at the University of Texas at Arlington said, "We are millions. We just have to survive. We have an aging white America. They are not making babies. They are dying. It's a matter of time. The explosion is in our population."
Professor Charles Truxillo of the University of New Mexico says that an effort is under way to form a sovereign Hispanic nation called the Republica del Norte that would encompass Northern Mexico, Baja California, California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
Then there are the well-known incidences where Mexican-born students wanted to fly the Mexican flag above or higher than the US flag.
Then there was the incident where Mexican-born students threatened US-born children for wearing USA shirts on Cinco De Mayo. Do a Google search - it's easy to find.
As a related aside, one survey shows that 53 percent of Hispanic households in the U.S. prefer to speak Spanish at all times and only 50 percent were even concerned at all with fitting into American society. That's different than past waves of immigration - legal immigration I might add.
To Cliff Barnes,
ReplyDeleteOK, I quoted from the sign: "Give us Free Health Care Jobs, No Taxes House Food. You owe us, America".
and said "Find me an example of that sort of talk that isn't in a right wing essay telling us what liberals or illegal aliens supposedly think."
and this is what you say you're responding to? No, you haven't found me any writing as stupid as
"Give us Free Health Care Jobs, No Taxes House Food. You owe us, America"
You miss the point. Are there some Mexicans who imagine reconquering a third of America. Of course there are, just as there were and maybe still are some KKK-ers who dreamed of ressurecting the Confederacy. You give vague examples of Mexican-born students wanting to fly the Mexican flag above the U.S. flag, or "the incident" (apparently just one) where they threatened US-born children for wearing USA shirts on Cinco de Mayo.
You say "one survey shows that 53 percent of Hispanic households in the U.S. prefer to speak Spanish at all times and only 50 percent were even concerned at all with fitting into American society. That's different than past waves of immigration".
Excuse me but why where there Yiddish theaters and newspapers in NY for decades? Why did Abraham Lincoln purchase a German language newspaper in order to reach people whom he apparently wanted to vote for him? Immigrants being slow to adapt their ways is nothing new.
Hispanic speakers are not going to unite to conquer America. My wife teaches them English. Different Latino nationalities have all sorts of stereotypes about eachother, and of all nationalities probably look down on Mexicans the most. And all these people came here to escape their dysfunctional governments, not to scheme to turn the US into Mexico.
Anyway, my point was, nobody makes demands as stupidly as this: "Give us Free Health Care Jobs, No Taxes House Food. You owe us, America". I just say it doesn't ring true. If you think that's how people talk, I probably can't convince you otherwise.
A person inhibited, "Discover myself a good example of that kind associated with discuss that's not inside a right article showing us all just what liberals or perhaps against the law aliens supposedly think."
ReplyDeleteHere are some.
Particular Asian nationalists highly feel a different region referred to as Aztlan will probably be designed out from the Usa as well as "reconquered." People in mexico think of it as "los angeles reconquista." They desire a growing number of illegals in order to dwell the particular You.Azines. - and become provided free pardon as well as citizenship - to produce their own ideas better to apply.
regards,
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