I can’t believe this hypocrisy…
An employer at a local company forwards propaganda emails to his staff every morning. Before the 2004 election, those emails centered around lies smearing John Kerry, John Edwards, their wives, and their political histories. The staff of this company received emails straight from the CEO instructing them to vote for George Bush and painting Kerry as a traitor.
[Hypocrisy #1: Kerry was a decorated veteran who served in Vietnam, while Bush ditched his military service.]
After the election, the CEO’s (almost daily) emails took a less political and more racial tone. They painted a picture of all Arabs and Muslims as gun-waiving, terrorists. Sometimes they included anecdotes and jokes mocking “towel-heads” and cheering for their destruction at the hands of our military. Often, the message was “let’s just blow all of those Jesus-haters up and take all their oil so I don’t have to pay so much for gas.
[Hypocrisy #2: As a Jewish man, one would expect this CEO to be far more sensitive to racism and religious persecution.]
At times, some of the employees would forward similar emails to each other, with the implied understanding that by sending out political opinions by email the CEO must be endorsing such behavior. Most of these employees chose to forward stories from CNN, MSNBC, and other news sources, in the spirit of passing on information regarded as fact rather than imposing political opinions that could lead to an unfriendly atmosphere at work. After only about one week, the CEO put an end to that, sending out a company policy email that went something like this:
CAN WE STOP THE BUSH BASHING PLEASE.
I THINK WE HAVE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO DEAL WITH.
HE IS ALSO YOUR PRESIDENT, DISAGREE WITH HIM OR NOT HE DESERVES OUR RESPECT.
[Hypocrisy #3: He can send his extreme political opinions based on little or no fact to the entire company (with the weight of the CEO's name on the email, mind you) but a handful of people who forward news articles to each other are accused of "Bush bashing" and must be silenced.]
Almost two months after this CEO put an end to any sharing of facts which paint the Administration in a bad light, this CEO continues to forward conservative propaganda, Republican talking points, and stories encouraging racist, religious, and political discrimination to his employees. Emails containing derrogatory messages about Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Jesse Jackson, the French, Iraqis, and so on.
[Hypocrisy #4: This hypocrite tells his employees they should respect the President and then follows that by disrespecting President Bill Clinton.]
This week, the hypocrite gave a copy of Bernard Goldberg’s 100 People Who Are Ruining America to one of the employees who was accused of “Bush bashing”. Give me a break, man. This guy is clearly trying to use his authority over his employees to force his political belief onto them. This is morally reproachable, and it’s just another example of how the right-wing operates: as bullies.
