Obama “In His Own Words”: Four Clues To Recognize Propaganda

“Propaganda is to democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.” -Noam Chomsky

During the 2008 presidential campaign, I received the following ridiculous email:

Subject Line: Obama Quotes From His Books — In HIS Own Words!

Text:

Check out these quotes from his books yourself. FORWARD TO ALL YOU CAN.

From Dreams of My Father: “I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites.”

From Dreams of My Father: “I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother’s race.”

From Dreams of My Father: “There was something about him that made me wary, a little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.”

From Dreams of My Father: “It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.”

From Dreams of My Father: “I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn’t speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa , that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.”

And FINALLY the Most Damning one of ALL of them!!!

From Audacity of Hope: “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”

If you have never forwarded an e-mail, now is the time to Do so!!! We CANNOT have someone with this type of mentality running our GREAT nation!! I don’t care whether you are a Democrat or Republican, or a Conservative. We CANNOT turn ourselves over to this type of character in a President. PLEASE help spread the word.

P.S. At a recent political rally (media did not report, of course), Obama referenced our “57 states.” Of course we only have 50 states, HOWEVER, there are 57 Muslim controlled countries!!!!

Obama was certainly not my choice for President, but integrity and good judgment dictate that I take a stand against mean-spirited and deceptive propaganda, regardless of the target.

Well-intentioned though the passion may be, this email was a misguided, propagandized, and highly inappropriate smear campaign. It was based in fear and only perpetuates fear.

Four Clues To Recognize — And Reject — Propaganda From Any Source

More than just condemning the email, however, I want to offer the following four clues for seeing through any mass email and/or advertisement, political or otherwise:

1. Excessive Use of Exclamation Points & Capitalized Letters

Fourteen exclamation points in a 291-word email is a glaring red flag for any message.

And any sentence ending in more than one consecutive exclamation point should be immediate cause for deleting the email without further consideration.

Anything more than three consecutive exclamation points is just laughable.

Exclamation points and scattering capitalized letters are like indiscriminate vulgarity: “The weak attempt of a feeble mind to express itself forcefully,” in the immortal words of an old friend.

2. Quotes Taken Out of Context

Taking quotes out of context is the worst, most damaging kind of lie.

I sympathize with Barack’s words, which obviously speak of the confusion of choosing between races in a world where race is still a charged issue. His words speak of the difficult journey of a youth; not the political mind of an adult.

I find nothing unreasonable or objectionable in the referenced quotes; they are perfectly understandable and justifiable in a nation whose original Constitution referenced African-American individuals as being three-fifths of a person.

Snopes published this excellent article that illustrates the true context of each quote.

3. Bald-Faced Lies

The “most damning” quote is an outright misrepresentation — to put it plainly, a bald-faced lie:

“I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”

I’ve checked out several sources to verify the true statement, which is as follows:

“Of course, not all my conversations in immigrant communities follow this easy pattern. In the wake of 9/11, my meetings with Arab and Pakistani Americans, for example, have a more urgent quality, for the stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their sense of security and belonging. They have been reminded that the history of immigration in this country has a dark underbelly; they need specific assurances that their citizenship really means something, that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during World War II, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”

In my view, Obama could not be any more right on in this area. I stand fully behind him in relation to this quote.

It seems that one of the casualties of the War on Terror is common decency. Every freedom-loving American should hope and pray that we get a President this wise as regards this particular issue.

And who are “the Muslims” anyway? Is that like the “Catholics” or the “Protestants?” Why are we supposed to be so afraid of a person who vows to stand behind “the Muslims?”

4. Anecdotal Inferences With No Proof

I found the “P.S.” to be particularly laughable:

“At a recent political rally (media did not report, of course), Obama referenced our “57 states.” Of course we only have 50 states, HOWEVER, there are 57 Muslim controlled countries!!!!”

First of all, we’re given zero proof that this ever happened — in fact, the writer negates our ability to prove or disprove it with the insertion that the “media did not report.”

Ah, of course — we’re in the Information Age nine days away from one of the most critical presidential elections in history and not a single media outlet saw fit to report such a blunder, even if just for laughs.

Secondly, even if it did happen, there are infinite possibilities to explain it, other than the bizarre inference.

I’d love to question the person who wrote this, as well as anyone who has forwarded it, if they have ever misspoken in their lives.

If so, then they are obviously America/whites/Christian-hating, Muslim-loving, power-mongers who are out to ruin the country. It really is that preposterous.

And may fellow Americans have mercy on the person who ever runs for political office and who has participated in such smear campaigns.

Conclusion

This article is more than an analysis of one petty email; it’s a plea to every reader.

Make your judgments of political candidates based on fact, not hearsay and propaganda.

Give candidates the benefit of the doubt — they may disagree with you and they may even be wrong, but I believe every one of them are sincerely doing what they feel is best to help America.

Nobody, no matter how opposed their views are to ours, deserves the kind of treatment Barack Obama received in this email.

Frankly, I’d rather live in a nation run by Barack Obama than by those who write and spread this kind of deceptive propaganda against him.

We have far more to fear from harbingers of propaganda, no matter how “conservative” they may be, than from the likes of Barack Obama.

Make your vote about what you believe in, not about what you’re opposed to.

Forget about fighting against Barack Obama or any other candidate and start fighting for your preferred candidate, values, and platform.

And never, ever spread propaganda of any form; doing so only makes us become what we’re fighting against.

The moral high ground is the most crucial real estate to maintain in any cause or political campaign. If one’s cause is just, there is never a need for deception.

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Stephen Palmer is a book writer for mission-driven leaders, a small business lead generation website design architect and persuasive website copywriter, a co-founder of The Center for Social Leadership, and the author of Uncommon Sense: A Common Citizen’s Guide to Rebuilding America.

He co-authored the New York Times bestseller Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths that are Destroying Your Prosperity, as well as Hub Mentality: Shifting from Business Transactions to Community Interaction.

He is a liberal-arts graduate of George Wythe University and a graduate and faculty member of the “non-traditional business school” Wizard Academy.

Stephen resides in Round Rock, Texas with his gorgeous wife Karina, awesome son Alex, and princess daughters Libby, Avery, and Laela.

Subscribe to Stephen’s blog and contact him at stephen [at] leadershipwriter [dot] com.