Anne Landman's News Articles

A year-old, anti-Muslim email has resurfaced and is curculating once again, riding the latest wave of U.S. anti-Muslim bigotry. The email urges people to boycott a U.S. postage stamp that recognizes the Islamic holiday of Eid. The stamp, which rumor-mongers mistakenly refer to as a "Muslim Christmas Stamp," was first issued about ten years ago, and is one of six seasonal postage stamps the United States Postal Service sells that commemorate Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Eid, snowmen and music makers. The email was first sent around a year ago by John Piper, the mayor of Clarksville, Tennessee. In it, Piper urged "all patriotic Americans" to protest a U.S. postage stamp commemorating the Islamic holiday of Eid. Piper accused "Muslim Communist" President Obama of ordering the stamp's creation. The stamp was, in fact, created during the George W. Bush administration. A similar stamp, sort of an Arabic Valentine's Day stamp with hearts and a butterfly on it, is also mentioned in the email. That stamp was created on a Web site called Zazzle, that lets people create their own custom stamps, and is not issued by the USPS. Snopes.com recently updated its page debunking this rumor. The USPS's holiday stamps are available here.

The grassroots pressure group Americans for Prosperity (AFP), that actively fought health care reform, boasts "our citizen activists" are "the heart and soul" of the organization. So AFP wants the public and the media to believe. But an exhaustive report in the August 30, 2010 issue of The New Yorker magazine, shows that the heart and soul behind AFP are really the oil billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch of Koch Industries, whose privately-owned oil enterprise has made them among the richest men in America. In addition to petroleum interests, the Kochs also own a host of familiar products like Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber, Stainmaster carpet and Lycra. Their massive combined wealth makes them the third richest people in the country, behind only Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, who are better known to the public. The Kochs have intentionally obscured their involvement on the American political scene through the creation of an elaborate network of front groups, think tanks, foundations and astroturf organizations, but the public is quickly getting to know the Koch brothers better. Given their extreme wealth and pervasive efforts to manipulate the American public, it is a name everyone should get to know very, very well.

The front page of USA Today August 13 was consumed with an extensive article titled "Faces of the Tea Party: Tea Party members offer ground-level view," which featured anecdotal interviews with ordinary people who agree with the movement. But the article offered no information putting the Tea Party movement in the context of the larger political picture in the U.S. For example, it points out that Tea Party candidates were victorious in primary elections in Colorado, Kentucky, Nevada and Utah, and, while it questions the ability of the candidates to win in the general election in November, it fails to mention that these candidates' victories boost the possibilities that Democrats will prevail in these states. Another significant omission is that article also fails to mention how remarkably far out of the mainstream the many Tea Party candidates' views are. Nevada's victorious Tea Party Senate candidate, Sharron Angle, seeks to dismantle Medicare and Social Security and hand their functions to the private sector. Kentucky's Tea Party Senate candidate, Rand Paul, belongs to a group of physicians who deny the link between HIV and AIDS and argue that Barack Obama controls his audiences through a covert form of hypnosis. Colorado's victorious gubernatorial Tea Party candidate, Dan Maes, told a crowd of supporters that Denver's new bicycle sharing program is really part of a hidden United Nations plot to "rein in American cities," put the environment above citizens' rights, and curtail personal freedoms.

An organization called the "Save America Foundation" is putting on conferences around the country that it promotes to host communities as "Constitutional Conventions." John Michael Chambers, the Save America Foundation's founder and spokesman, is telling local press that these events are intended to "stress the Constitution, not current politics," but Chambers is stingy on the details. He doesn't say exactly how these gatherings will "stress the Constitution," or describe specific goals the gatherings hope to achieve.

Investigation reveals that these so-called "Constitutional Conventions" are part of a wave of hysterical fear and scapegoating currently sweeping the country, and that the "Save America Foundation" has overtones of an apocalyptic cult that relies on fear to motivate susceptible audiences. John Michael Chambers, the Clearwater, Florida radio talk show host and financial planner who founded the group, believes the United States is being overtaken by a "New World Order" perpetrated by "elitists." He writes on the organization's Web site that: