I became chair of the Florence Area Democratic Club in January 2007. I had sensed that I would be asked because I knew that nobody wanted the responsibility and, having been club secretary for three years,I would be approached. Two years earlier the person chosen to recruit candidates had not been able to find anybody amenable and had chosen herself to serve the two-year term. So, I thought, are you up to it? Do you feel qualified? I believed that I was. I had learned a lot about what the job entailed through observation. I had my opinions about what I would want to try to accomplish and I had thoughts about how I wanted to conduct meetings. I had been a school teacher for 32 years. I would not be the first person asked, but I was okay with that. I would serve as chair for only 2 years, I assured myself. Thereafter, somebody else would have to do it.
Several days after my first club meeting I had a heart incident that put me in the hospital for several days. Two stents were put in one of my heart arteries. So, maybe your tenure as chair might be shorter than you had thought, passed through my mind. However, I chaired what I considered a very successful February meeting of what became a very active month.
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Too many registered Republicans eat up information they receive on the internet that they want to believe is fact. Here are a few excerpts from an article about intentional GOP internet misinformation.
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Not all of the misinformation being passed along online is complete fiction, though some of it is. Snopes.com has been exposing false viral claims since the mid 1990s, whether that’s fabricated messages, distortions containing bits of truth and everything in between. Founder David Mikkelson warned in a Nov. 17 article not to lump everything into the “fake news” category. “The fictions and fabrications that comprise fake news are but a subset of the larger bad news phenomenon, which also encompasses many forms of shoddy, unresearched, error-filled, and deliberately misleading reporting that do a disservice to everyone,” he wrote.
A lot of these viral claims aren’t “news” at all, but fiction, satire and efforts to fool readers into thinking they’re for real.
We’ve long encouraged readers to be skeptical of viral claims, and make good use of the delete key when a chain email hits their inboxes. In December 2007, we launched our Ask FactCheck feature, where we answer readers’ questions, the vast majority of which concern viral emails, social media memes and the like. Our first story was about a made-up email that claimed then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wanted to put a “windfall” tax on all stock profits of 100 percent and give the money to, the email claimed, “the 12 Million Illegal Immigrants and other unemployed minorities.” We called it “a malicious fabrication” — that’s “fake news” in today’s parlance.
In 2008, we tried to get readers to rid their inboxes of this kind of garbage. We described a list of red flags — we called them Key Characteristics of Bogusness— that were clear tip-offs that a chain email wasn’t legitimate. Among them: an anonymous author; excessive exclamation points, capital letters and misspellings; entreaties that “This is NOT a hoax!”; and links to sourcing that does not support or completely contradicts the claims being made.
Those all still hold true, but fake stories — as in, completely made-up “news” — have grown more sophisticated, often presented on a site designed to look (sort of) like a legitimate news organization. Still, we find it’s easy to figure out what’s real and what’s imaginary if you’re armed with some critical thinking and fact-checking tools of the trade (Kiely and Robertson 1-2).
Work Cited:
Kiely, Eugene and Robertson, Lori. “How To Spot Fake News.” FactCheck.Org, November 18, 2016. Net. https://www.factcheck.org/2016/11/how-to-spot-fake-news/
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Here is a letter to the editor of the Siuslaw News written by a prominent local Republican that incorporated misinformation that the writer had garnered from such an e-mail chain message.
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I received this e-mail shortly after 9/11 and I think it’s timely to share it again, as we seem to forget so quickly.
Anyone remember this? It was 1987.
At a lecture they were playing an old news video of Lt. Col. Oliver North testifying at the Iran-Contra hearings during the Reagan Administration. There was Ollie in front of God and country getting the third degree, but what he said was stunning! He was being drilled by some senator.
“Did you not recently spend close to $60,000 for a home security system?”
Ollie replied, “Yes, I did Sir.”
The senator continued, trying to get a laugh out of the audience. “Isn’t that just a little excessive?”
“No, sir,” continued Ollie.
“No? And why not?” the senator asked.
“Because the lives of my family and I were threatened, sir.”
“Threatened? By whom?” the senator questioned.
“By a terrorist, sir,” Ollie answered.
“Terrorist? What terrorist could possibly scare you that much?”
“His name is Osama bin Laden, sir,” Ollie replied.
At this point the senator tried to repeat the name, but couldn’t pronounce it, which most people back then probably couldn’t. A couple of people laughed at the attempt. Then the senator continued. “Why are you so afraid of this man?” the senator asked.
“Because, sir, he is the most evil person alive that I know of,” Ollie answered.
“And what do you recommend we do about him?” asked the senator.
“Well, sir, if it were up to me, I would recommend that an assassin team be formed to eliminate him and his men from the face of the earth.”
The senator disagreed with this approach, and that was all that was shown of the clip. The senator was Al Gore.
Von Goethe said, “There’s nothing more terrifying than ignorance in action.”
So much tragedy and terror could have been avoided if it were not for complete ignorance. Now everyone wants to whine and cry because George Bush, our current President, can’t fix all the world’s problems. Call on Al Gore!
When I read the weekly letters to the editor, I say God help us all.
Donna Dobson (Co-Chair of the West Lane Republicans)
Printed February 14, 2007, in the Siuslaw News
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I had to respond.
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West Lane Republicans Co-Chair Donna Dobson (letters Feb. 14) claims that Al Gore, questioning Oliver North during the Iran-Contra hearing in 1987, discounted the threat of Osama bin Laden.
Not so. What she quoted is a hoax. (See (http://hoaxbusters,ciac.org/HBHackedHistory.shtml)
North himself has refuted the account. The individual questioning North was Committee Counsel John Nields, not “a senator.” The security system that North installed cost $16K, not $60K. The terrorist North referred to was not bin Laden but Abu Nidal.
Mrs. Dobson made it seem that the quoted account eventually identified Al Gore. The hoax identified no specific senator.
Mrs. Dobson quoted Von Goethe: “There’s nothing more terrifying than ignorance in action.” How true. She ascribes that characteristic to Gore, not The Present Occupant, complaining that “everyone wants to whine and cry because George Bush … can’t fix all the world’s problems.”
Who ignored absolutely the Clinton administration’s emphatic warnings during the 2000 transition that al Qaeda was the greatest threat to our nation’s security?
Who abandoned the pursuit of bin Laden and, lying flagrantly, sold a majority of the public a bogus rational for invading Iraq?
Who now wants to bomb Iran?
God definitely didn’t help us when the Supreme Court selected George Bush! Think about it. Al Gore our president. The 9/11 attack probably thwarted. No war in Iraq. International respect. An earlier heightened awareness of global warming. Progressive taxation. A curb on social and economic injustice.
The list goes on and on.
Printed February 17, 2007, in the Siuslaw News
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The following ad appeared in the 2007 Non-Profit Organizations supplement of the February 28 Siuslaw News. As Chair of the Florence Area Democratic Club, I had the responsibility of putting the ad together.
“Whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, the people, if well informed, may be relied on to set them to rights.” -- Thomas Jefferson
The Florence Area Democratic Club
Hear Our Voices, Heed Our Concerns
“At its most basic level the Democratic Party stands for two things: the goal of securing the well being, the rights, and the access to equal opportunity of everycitizen and the belief that government has a responsibility to foster it.” George Myers
“We believe that elemental human rights should not be held as chattel by the economically advantaged and the power elite.” – Hugh Schneider
“I have chosen to be near people who are tolerant of others, who will not write laws that affect my choices for my own body, who will help me take care of this planet, who will work to have an open, clean government, and who will work to educate our children to give them opportunities to do better than their parents.” – Nancy Rickard
“It takes a village to raise a child; it takes all of us to care for each other.” – Karin Radtke
“I believe that children, the disabled, and the elderly need special protection to ensure that they thrive in our society.” – Betty Uchytil
“People of all faiths, races, and sexual orientation have the right to a dignified place in society.” -- Lu Herr
“Democrats are more apt to go to work for this country, to secure strong armed forces ready to serve when called upon but never to achieve selfish motives.” – Wende Jarman
“Freedom of speech, equal rights, balanced courts.” -- Jenny Velinty
“It is moral to provide our veterans with superior medical care.” – Lu Herr
“America needs a foreign policy that is mindful of history, respectful of other societies’ cultures, pragmatic in approach, and supportive of peace.” – Harold Titus
“We support the rights of Americans to make health care decisions with dignity and privacy, whether at the beginning or the end of life.” – Lu Herr
“I believe America deserves a comprehensive, single payer health care system that serves every American.” – Betty Uchytil
“Taxes should be based on ability to pay and be levied fairly on individuals and corporations alike. They should be adequate to meet the legitimate needs of all our people with private supplements welcome from generous individuals, religious groups, and others.” – Betty Crooks
“Working men and women deserve fair working conditions and a living wage.” – Betty Uchytil
“We must have an electoral process that is funded by public money, is uniform in regulation and procedure, is inclusive of voters, is impartially supervised, and employs individually marked, hand or optical screen-counted ballots.” – Harold Titus
“I believe politics is too important to leave only to those who can afford to control the process. Because the Democratic Party comes closest to being ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people,’ I am glad to call myself a Democrat.” – Wilbur Patterson
“Go forth in love and peace – be kind to dogs – and vote Democratic.”
-- Thomas Eagleton (1929-2007)
As I type this (September 28, 2021), most of these people quoted above are gone now, having moved away or being deceased. Wende, Nancy, Hugh, and Karin thankfully remain. I was so fortunate to have met all of these special people and to have served as their chair in 2007 and the years that followed.
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