General Chat

Yeah, eh, Irene?

What it all is, unfortunately, is *insidious*.

All these things are written as if it were the voice of reason speaking. It's written to draw you in, to leave you with nothing to *disagree* with. But when it isn't lies, it's pure hate. And there really are reasons why people tell those lies and incite that hate.

It's particularly galling when it's Canadians perverting our own Canadian reality by adopting the crud that originates in the United States. This was a particularly amusing one:

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Wilfrid Laurier ideas on Immigrants and being an Canadian in 1907.

'In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes a Canadian and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man be cause of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet a Canadian, and nothing but an Canadian...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is a Canadian, but something else also, isn't an Canadian at all. We have room for but one flag, the Canadian flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language.. And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the Canadian people.'
Wilfrid Laurier 1907

Every Canadian citizen needs to read this!

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The funny part is ... Wilfrid Laurier was a French Canadian. (Prime Minister, 1896-1911.)

So yes, of course, he said "We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language".

How stupid are bigots anyway??

Really stupid.

A quick google found me the truth -- at a Canadian army discussion board, of all places.

"Just thought you'd want to know before passing it along, though, that this is word-for-word (except for "Canadian" instead of "American") from a letter to the editor Teddy Roosevelt wrote in 1919."

Teddy Roosevelt wasn't the good Roosevelt. That was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt was the war-mongerer ...

COR THIS TOOK SOME READING

I STILL DONT UNDERSTAND IT ALL

SO CONFUSED AS USUAL .COM IS ME

Janey

Am totally "gob smacked" by that example - it is all totally beyond
my comprehension - I have never read or even seen an email of that ilk

I think once again I am at the back of the queue - blissfully unaware what is happening at the front -

And - I am extremely sad to say this

Renes

The woman who sends the trash is a friend. My mother is not someone who "gives offence" lightly, and telling someone who is a friend that she is a disgusting bigot isn't something most people would do.

What I don't understand is how a decent person could send/forward the things she and her own friends circulate.

Actually, she is a former executive of the local International Order of the Daughters of the Empire. Classy, eh?


I'm going to give an example. This is just one example. I think everybody here has seen the same, or worse.

The really cute part is that you can actually see, in numerous of these things, where someone has deleted "America" and replaced it with "Canada". This was one.

I gather that Maxine is some sort of cartoon grouch. I actually doubt that the real Maxine character had anything to do with this.

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Leave it to Maxine to come up with a solution for the economic mess that Canada is now in.


I bought a bird feeder. I hung it on my back porch and filled it with seed. What a beauty of a bird feeder it was, as I filled it lovingly with seed. Within a week we had hundreds of birds taking advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food.

But then the birds started building nests in the boards of the patio, above the table, and next to the barbecue.

Then came the poop. It was everywhere: on the patio tile, the chairs, the table .. Everywhere!

Then some of the birds turned mean. They would dive bomb me and try to peck me even though I had fed them out of my own pocket.

And other birds were boisterous and loud. They sat on the feeder and squawked and screamed at all hours of the day and night and demanded that I fill it when it got low on food.

After a while, I couldn't even sit on my own back porch anymore. So I took down the bird feeder and in three days the birds were gone. I cleaned up their mess and took down the many nests they had built all over the patio.

Soon, the back yard was like it used to be .... Quiet, serene.... And no one demanding their rights to a free meal.

Now let's see.

Our government gives out free food, subsidized housing, free medical care and free education, and allows anyone born here to be an automatic citizen.

Then the illegals came by the tens of thousands. Suddenly our taxes went up to pay for free services; small apartments are housing 5 families; you have to wait 6 hours to be seen by an emergency room doctor. Your child's second grade class is behind other schools because over half the class doesn't speak English.
[We don't have "second grade" in Canada. We have Grade 2 -- JC]

Corn Flakes now come in a bilingual box; I have to 'press one ' to hear my bank talk to me in English, and people waving flags other than 'The Maple Leaf' are squawking and screaming in the streets, demanding more rights and free liberties.
[Corn Flakes come in a bilingual box in Canada, and banks offer messages in two languages, because Canada is a bilingual country: French and English. The original this is copied from refers to Spanish in the US, and the original didn't say "The Maple Leaf", it said "The Stars and Stripes" -- JC]

Just my opinion, but maybe it's time for the government to take down the bird feeder.

If you agree, pass it on; if not, Just continue cleaning up the poop .

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How about option 3?

If you don't agree, try to hold your breakfast down while you think about the fact that someone actualy wrote this about other human beings, and someone you know saw fit to spread it around.

Talk about poop.

But there's no way of cleaning this kind up, unfortunately.

Janey

Just a general question on distressing emails received by your mother - is it possible for you to set her email account to receive all emails from an "unknown" ( by her contact list ) source - in to her Trash inbox

And then set her "Trash " to delete contents automatically

In this manner she may avoid seeing the unsolicited emails

Renes

Ordinary people don't care? That's a little hard Janey. Most likely they see a lot of these emails as jokes and don't actually believe them and pass them on for a laugh. Okay - you're going to say that that's totally irresponsible and it is. We should always vet what we read and what we pass on. However I repeat that passing on these comments and articles is generally done without malice. I know what you're going to say about that comment too:-)))

S

The "compensation culture" cases?

But the McDonalds coffee case is the grandmammy of that supposed culture. It's the first one trotted out whenever anyone wants to bemoan the loss of common sense and "responsibility" in our modern world.

How many of the other so-called cases are like it? How many are valid claims by people who have been genuinely harmed by someone else's actions, but are being misrepresented as someone trying to get something for nothing, by shifting responsibility for their own actions onto someone else?

A whole lot of them, is what I think.

As for the question of who gets sent these things by whom -- actually, the real problem is when they are sent to people who *do* share the political leanings of the material and its sender.

They go round and round the world, reinforcing all their nasty views about the people they share this planet with -- based on lies.

I very seldom get things like this (except that my mum sends me hers, because she knows instinctively that they're lies, she just doesn't know how to find the truth about the lies). I make it clear to anyone who tries it on that it had better be the last time, because I don't share the nasty views in question, and anyone who does, let alone who circulates the lies, is no friend of mine.

The things I get via my mother actually turn my stomach. As they do hers. They cause her real distress. And the idea that anyone actually finds them amusing or interesting or in any other way worthwhile just squares the distress.

Senator Al Franken, in the US, wrote a book a few years ago called Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them.

That is the real problem with the world today. Not the "compensation culture" or the death of common sense or the absence of personal responsibility. The fact that it is acceptable to tell lies, and that ordinary people just not only don't care that they're being lied to, they repeat the lies to anyone whose email address they have.

Good points Rose. I think that what Janey is saying is that these emails/comments etc. *are* passed on without "real forethought". Actually I very rarely get emails like that - maybe because I've discouraged them in the past. Same as the "best friends" emails etc. I never forward them on either. I tend to be a little cynical.

S

Sounds like its just another of those urban legends/old wifes that used to do the round by word & mouth. But in this day & age its now done by e-mail..........Or as millions of others do, you can buy the Sun, Daily Mirror, Mail or better still the Sunday Sport. lol :o))))

I think we can all accept that Catherine did not post the original with any 'malice aforethought' towards the poor woman who was scalded.

I hadn't actually heard / read the origin of this particular email before so thanks Janey for that... so on the face of it, along with the 'compensation culture ' cases ( ok ok I know that's a 'sound bite phrase) that i know of, I MIGHT have taken it as a case where common sense was lacking on all sides...seller and buyer.

If we could widen this thread out a bit it is interesting I think, before the internet / emails you might verbally pass on to one or two friends something you had heard or read in the papers..but you would almost certainly have chosen those people who you knew were likely to share your point of view on the topic, whatever it happened to be.

Now i receive lots of forwarded emails, sent I believe with no malicious intent...or even real forethought...they strike the sender as funny or politically pertinent perhaps , but the sender does not stop to think 'is that something Rose will find funny or akin to her own political leanings ?' ...it is the nature of the forwarded email i think that the sender just doesn't consider the recipients as individuals anymore . ( that's a generalisation of course).

The internet can be a great force for good...it is also the quickest way of spreading lies or dissent than could have been imagined even a decade or so ago.

Can't totally agree with you on that Amy - but I do see your point. A lot of people use this board to air their thoughts, state their opinions or have a laugh. Within reason there's nothing wrong with that.

S

I know exactly what your thread is about - it is about all the reasons you have stated. You have made some very valid points. How do we know the difference between deliberate lies, misinterpretation and good solid information?

S

Yes I agree with you Janey, I doubt that much on this site is posted using common sense .. it is more likely to be posted for impact .

We do indeed. It's the spin-doctors' job to do just that. For reasons we should be able to figure out if we think about it.

I didn't ask for anything from Catherine.

Just because some people think that everything is personal, that doesn't mean that anything I say is.

Once again:

This thread is about a lie that has circulated in the real world and the cyberworld for 15 years. It was posted at this board today. It is for the benefit of anyone who ever has or ever might be taken in by that lie.

And it is an attempt to persuade people to think about what they read, be it in their email, on an internet site, or in their daily newspaper.

And it is a call to decent people to stop being taken in by liars and letting themselves be used for their indecent purposes.

I agree with what Janey is saying - it has made me think twice about what I read in emails although I don't often get these or pass them on. I also don't see why Janey should delete - she is stating her opinion as do most of us.

However........Janey I think you are being hard on Catherine. I know you feel strongly about injustice and I agree with you but we all get taken in by spin-doctors at some time or another.

S

What. E. Ver, folks.

This thread debunks a particular lie that has been circulating for over 15 years now. I might think people would actually be glad to hear THE TRUTH, because I'm very sure everyone who sees this has heard the lie.

II didn't ask for anyone to apologize or explain.

It also asks why people feel compelled to forward lies they receive by email, without doing one thing to learn whether they're true or not.

If the things in those emails were being said about us, or our friends, or even just people we know, would we do that?

We ourselves would never make up lies, even about people we don't know at all, and send them all over cyberspace ... or tell them at the pub. And yet so many of us just blithely click "forward" when we get them by email.

sparklingAnninGlos, I am not taking anything out on anyone, so please stop making things up.

One cyberfalsehood is the same as the next, and they're all horrible.

Janey, please let it go now. I can see what you are saying, I don't think i have actually had any e mails like that but I agree they are distasteful but Catherine has apologised and removed the thread and doesn't deserve to be pilloried for all the rotten e mails that have upset you in the past. Yes you feel strongly about it but you have put your views very forcefully please be upset with your Mother's elderly lady friends, don't take it out on us.

Quite agree, Cath. Please don't get upset about it. Wendy x

Well, IIB, I didn't name anyone when I posted this. The person who had posted the original thread chose to identify herself.

This thread is debunking nonsense.

And forgive me, Catherine2010, but

"Im sorry if you were offended"
and
"I deleted because I didnt want to upset anyone else."

are *not* taking responsibility and apologizing.

Apologizing "if" someone was "offended" is *not* an apology for doing something that one should not have done.

If you were taken in by falsehoods and spin, well, that happens.

All one has to do is apologize for repeating something that was false.

you dont have to say anything catherine nothing at all