I don't normally use this blog to spout about things I personally believe. Usually I just blog about football, baseball, or random weirdness. This time, however, I must speak about something that has gotten more and common as life plays out for me. And that is: The gross amount of bullshit videos that circulate the web that are no more than blatant attempts at propaganda.
I was on MySpace today, just checking my messages, when I glanced upon this bulletin:
OPRAH IS EVIL
This was posted by a friend of mine from school. I like this guy. We talk in the halls or whenever we're in classes together and we always get along well. I know he's a Christian only from conversations we have had and the fact that we have some mutual friends that are also Christian. I'm cool with that. Hell, everyone in my band is Christian. I've had some of the most interesting, logical, intriguing conversations with each of these people.
Now this guy is pretty conservative. I found this out not from conversation, but from his numerous postings on MySpace railing against Obama during the 2008 election. I commented on a few of his self-written posts. Nothing mean-spirited, just logical points. He responded in kind, with his own equally logical points to which i just didn't agree. That's fine. Disagreements make the world go 'round.
The thing I have no stomach for, however, is when he would post links to YouTube videos as his only comment. No text below the video explaining his feelings, no original input from his own mind.
Just a video, and that's it.
This should be a red flag from the start. This video, made by someone you don't know, totally encompasses your feeling on the matter? Seriously? Well, probably not. Since I know this guy, I can almost guarantee that if I brought this video's contents up to him he would probably have some supportive things to say, but would falter on some points, forget others, and just plain disagree with a few. Yet, there is no attempt to actually speak out on the matter in his own words. What drives this? In my opinion, it's fucking lemming mentality. The video was cool, so I'll just post it so everyone else can see it like I did.
Never mind that you're infecting other, clearer, minds with the viewpoints of others outside of your reach. Never mind the fact that you are taking it upon yourself to somehow "illuminate" those friends of yours that don't share your beliefs. Never mind that you are contributing to this fucking blog.
Just post the video. Just post the video. "Illuminate" some poor soul that hasn't had the pleasure of experiencing the message which you are now bestowing upon them.
So, now. The video in question. The only reason I am going to re-post this garbage is because is serves to illustrate the point. Watch 6 minutes of this crap if you can get through it and meet me on the other side of sanity.
How about that, huh? The Church of Oprah? How will she be stopped? How can we good Christians just sit by and let this happen? Oh, and she supports Obama and some crazy lady who wants peace? Are you kidding me? Tolerance? What the fuck is that?
This video is hilarious. They have the nerve to cut Oprah completely out of context, turning a conversation on tolerating other people's views into an attack on poor, poor Jesus. I have a question for any level headed Christian that just watched that video. Does that portray you or your religion in a good light? Are you proud of what your honest belief system can be turned into when someone with too much time and a strong case of megalomania decides to make a video "spreading the word"?
Fuck no. Well, at least I hope to hell it doesn't. That video is an obvious attempt to scare and repress those that view it. All it takes is someone who feels strongly about their religion and happens to be a little naive to watch the video and BOOM! A delusional work of art becomes a viral video re posted by those too scared and ignorant to think for themselves.
That guy from my school would have never come to the conclusions put forth in that "film" on his own, from his own experience. He would have just lived his life, going about his day without ever worrying about "Oprah's Evil Church". But now that he put on his Lemming hat and decided to re post this gross misappropriation time and energy, I am thinking about it. I can't stop. Every time something starts to pull me away my mind just snaps back like a rubber band. Fucking ignorance. Fucking mindless ignorance.
At the end, they push their cure all solution "Don't Drink the Kool-Aid" by someone or another. On the cover, like a fucking children's book, they put it altogether: Oprah, Obama, and The Occult. The source of all evil. Loosely translated they equate to: Tolerance, Hope, and Everything That is Not Christian. The sheer heavy-handedness of it makes me fucking sick. Don't drink the fucking Kool-Aid? Can you not see the fucking irony? I think there were Nazi propaganda with less obvious hatred outwardly apparent. Ugh. How do real Christians tolerate this much less RE-POST THE FUCKING THING.
So, in closing, I can't really think of what to do next. I feel horrible for even re-posting this shit myself. I hope that eventually people will start to see what this kind of media can do to others and stop drinking the Kool-Aid themselves by sending ignorance like this, unrequested, to their family and friends.
Who am I kidding? It won't stop. It's the other side of free speech; the ability to harm the very foundations of freedom using that very freedom as the tool.
