Dear Editor:
Regarding the letter ostensibly from Joyce Croul which appeared
in the March 12 issue of The Dispatch, readers should be aware that
she is not the author — she merely lifted it verbatim from a
particularly vicious bit of screed currently circulating like
sewage around a drain on the mass-forwarded e-mail system so many
people like to employ these days.
Dear Editor:
Regarding the letter ostensibly from Joyce Croul which appeared in the March 12 issue of The Dispatch, readers should be aware that she is not the author — she merely lifted it verbatim from a particularly vicious bit of screed currently circulating like sewage around a drain on the mass-forwarded e-mail system so many people like to employ these days. One person receives something cute or precious or, as in this case, spectacularly vile, and they just have to immediately with the press of a key diffuse it to everyone on their list.
The process is then repeated so that the most insignificant crumb of drivel grows exponentially to acquire more readers, albeit involuntary ones.
To refresh memories, the ersatz letter/plagiarized e-rant conerns the evil doings of MUSLIMS; numerous terrible acts are cited committed by MUSLIMS, almost all of which were committed by Al Qeida (an organization believed to contain fewer than 5,000 members worldwide), one of which the Libyan government has just owned up to, and the remaining two of which were probably the work of Hamas, another small group. For these things a religion of 900 million adherents is enthusiastically vilified; all patriotic Americans are supposed to boycott a postage stamp referring to a MUSLIM holiday. One cannot help but wonder, should the boycott also be expected to include all patriotic MUSLIM Americans?
I must say how impressed I am by the sheer sweep of the mindless bigotry expressed in the Croul not-really-a-letter. The completely over-the-top xenophobia, the clarion call for undisguised religious persecution, the wholesale annihilation of the very concept of freedom of religion, the almost gleeful assignment of guilt by association — there is a certain grandeur in the depth of it’s perversion of civilized discourse that should give everyone pause while they ask themselves the question, “Is this what we’re turning into?”
Robert Mitchell, Gilroy
Submitted Thursday, March 13 to ed****@****ic.com
Editor’s note: We were unfortunately unaware this was material wasn’t original. Ms. Croul has “written” letters previously. Our apologies for the miss.
