By Cernig
Earlier today, some extreme rightwing blogs went into outrage overdrive as someone "discovered" an anti-semitic blog over at the open-registration "community blog" my.barrackobama.com. Israel Matzav declared �Barack Obama Explains how the Jewish Lobby Works.� Doug Ross was a little better off with the �Official Obama Blog.� LGF, in a classic pot-calling, said that there was "something deeply wrong with a presidential candidate who attracts so many of these hateful psychotics."
Kyle and Matt over at Comments From Left Field, however, would like to point out that - as usual - the outrage is entirely manufactured. The truth is that it's a "ratfuck" operation, reminsicent of Roger Stone's infamous "Socialists for McCloskey" scam in 1972.
How? Matt explains:
- The original �Jewish Lobby� post, copy-pasted to my.barack.com by a �Juan Carlos�, appeared in April in on a site called �Real Jew News�, run by anti-semite nutcase �Brother Nathaenal�.
- All anti-semitic comments originally appeared on the Real Jew News post, with corresponding timestamps. For some reason the comments at my.barack.com have my.barack urls, even though they appear to have been directly copy pasted from Real Jew News.
It appears whoever did the copy-paste job also changed each individual comment URL from a Real Jew News address to a my.barack address, eg, the URL for the comment from �Brenda� on April 14, 2008 @ 4:56 pm at Real Jew News, http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=185#comment-1840 becomes http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/juancarloscruz/gG5BSr/commentary#comment-1840 at my.barack.com on April 14, 2008 @ 4:56 pm (note that both comments are number 1840). Also, if you scroll down to the very bottom of the cached my.barack.com post, you can see the only two comments from actual my.barack.com members, complaining about the length of the post. All anti-semitic comments appear in the body of the post.
Let's repeat that for the hard of understanding : The anti-semitic post and its hateful comments were ported directly over from the rightwing Real Jew News site; the names and time stamps weren�t even changed to protect the innocent. Only two comments were made on the actual Obama site - and they were both complaints about the post.
Kyle takes up the story:
considering that posts on MyBO often go over a thousand, the fact that this had only two comments before it was filed in the circular filing cabinet points to the fact that it was scrubbed likely at a suitably rapid pace.
Again, MyBO is open. Anyone, say a rabid rightwing nutjob, or a radical commie, or anyone with a mental disorder and access to the internet can post on Obama�s page. Thus, trash is likely to spring up from time to time, just as it did now. And, as would be expected, it was rightfully binned.
But hey guys, you keep working on it, �kay? Don�t try to, you know, say anything nice about McCain, we know that�s a little tough for EVERYONE involved.
Indeed, posts like this one at his home site from the author of the piece on MyBO, Brother Nathanael Kapner, suggest that he's not an Obama supporter at all. He calls Obama a 'patsy cabdidate" for the AIPAC lobby. If anything, he appears to be a Ron paul supporter, with catagory titles on his home site like "Is Ron Paul Too 'American' For The Jews?", "Will Jew-Owned Fed Reserve Bank Kill Ron Paul?" and "The Jewish Media Blackout Of Ron Paul's Campaign" The author hates George Soros, loves Billy Graham and thinks homosexuality is a Jewish conspiracy. He doesn't sound like an Obama supporter, or even a socialist, to me.
Pass it along, or this particular ratty little smear will end up a rightwing meme too, along with "Muslim Barrack".
Update: The Ron Paul campaign committee paid someone called Milton Kapner - the real name of "Brother Nathanael" - $1,200 in March of this year. Brother Nathanael seems to be a popular fellow in his home town - someone took a pot-shot at him in January 2007. Here's his other website from back in December 2006 - in which he rants about the War against Christmas and is pictured in a photomontage alongside people holding homophobic placards, "Stop the ACLU" signs and a well-placed "No Left Turn" streetsign. The former psychaedelic rocker and Pittsburg paint salesman certainly isn't any kind of liberal.
"Brother Nathanael" Kapner appears to be a convert from Judaism to some variant of fundamentalist Christianity.
ReplyDeleteIt is possible that Kapner himself posted it to attack Obama for his support of Israel. I agree, judging from the pasting of the comments, that it was probably posted by another right-wing anti-Obama individual who found Kapner's rant when searching for anti-Semitic propaganda, and posted it on the open Obama site in order to make it appear that anti-Semitic nuts support Obama.
LGF has included other stuff that is clearly fake and probably created by right-wing hoaxers(like "Jemaah Islamiyah for Obama") as part of its attack on Obama. One wonders whether the hoaxers might have been part of the LGF community.
Knowing how things can go viral, this incident highlights the need for a snopes.com that specifically targets myths, hoaxes and dirty tricks efforts launched by GOP operatives, mouthpieces and solo trolls.
ReplyDeleteA fast debunker site, that offers both correct info and suggests ways to counter individuals and orgs involved in creating and developing hoaxes would be great.
Great post, I was going to write something similar myself - it was clear that this was a deliberate attempt to paint Obama supporters (and Obama) as antisemitic. I was shocked to see a myBO blog post on memeorandum, but it made sense when I saw how many right wing blogs caught wind of this story so quickly. Either right wing bloggers spend hours scouring myBO blogs, or whomever posted the offensive piece sent the info immediately to his favorite bloggers (likely). I flagged it as objectionable as soon as I read and the post was gone and Juan Carlos' account deleted within minutes. I commend myBO for staying on top of things.
ReplyDeleteNice work on the Ron Paul info, I had no idea this but was an RP supporter
"Brother" Nathanael is a certifiable nut case who promotes hatred in the name of religion. He poses as an Orthodox monk, has "fans", and attempts to "save" people by confronting them, hurling invectives at them, and by wishing them misfortune and damnation. He's usually seen (when not yelling at people) dancing and grinning while holding crosses, signs, and American flags. He loves to be photographed, and has several web sites with which he promotes himself and his fanatical agenda of hatred shamelessly. People like this him give religion a bad name. He is not a quaint eccentric: countless numbers of people have suffered and died because of intolerant morons like him. He has a "right" to express his "religion" of course, but people also have a right to confront his venom at every turn. A warped, self loathing, twisted man who seeks to cover his personal problems and shortcomings with a mantel of fanatical and paranoid religiosity.
ReplyDelete