BLOGGING TOWARD SUNDAY…

Taken as a whole, I really enjoyed my Memorial Day…particularly the annual concert from Washington, DC, presented by Public TV. But my day did not start off well…in fact, it started off with my being about as angry as I ever get. About 9:00 am, when I opened my email, I had one from a relative I had not heard from in a while. The subject line read, “The Crotch Salute Returns to Fort Hood.” The first line said, “Folks, what you are about to see is truly disgusting. There are no words to describe this scenario.”

That, of course, caught my attention, so I scrolled on down the page. On it was a picture of our President, Barack Obama, standing on a flag-draped stage, surrounded by military officials, all of whom were saluting, while the President stood with his hands together in front of him. The sender intended to imply that President Obama was standing idly by while everyone else was saluting the flag as the National Anthem was played by the band. In fact, the text below the picture said, “I’m sorry folks, but is this the turkey that was elected President of our country? You know, the United States of America ? I do believe that saluting the flag goes with that, and also to honor the servicemen who died, or is he above that? Shower us all with flowery words and dazzle us with B.S. but actions speak louder. This stinks.”

The last two words were exactly right. Tactics such as this do stink, because they are dishonest and misleading, and far too many people take this kind of email as fact, without ever bothering to see if it is truthful. I knew as soon as I saw it that it was a lie, and it took me all of two minutes to prove it. I found a CNN video of the event. The picture was taken just after the President took the stage. The military officers were saluting him as the band played “Hail to the Chief.”

This kind of falsehood and deliberate distortion simply cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. As followers of Christ, no matter our political persuasion, we have a duty and an obligation to truth, and this kind of stuff ought to rile up Republicans and Democrats alike. If we are going to fight each other, let the fight be over principles and ideas, not over lies and innuendo.

So let me challenge you: when you receive emails with content similar to the above (from either side of the political debate), don’t just pass them on. Check them out for veracity. There are several places on the internet devoted to checking out internet rumors: www.snopes.com, www.urbanlegends.com, and www.factcheck.org. We owe it to ourselves, our friends, and our Lord to be seekers, and purveryors of the truth…and that takes a little effort.

Filed under: Blogging Toward Sunday