Restoring Truthiness

In lieu of my internet post today, here is an interesting post:

Friends and Family,

You may have seen, or heard about some of those right wing conservative wingnut chain emails that talk about Obama's secret prison camps for white people, or how federal agents will sterilize you if you refuse to buy health insurance. Well, this email is the ideological opposite of those emails - a bleeding heart liberal email which aims to tug at your pocketbooks as well as your emotions.

Recall that Glenn Beck gave a speech a couple of weeks ago from the Lincoln Memorial - stating how we need to restore America to its "Christian roots." Aside from the utter failure to consider any documented history of the American religious landscape from 1776 to present, Beck was purposefully playing off recent polls that show a staggering 50% of Republicans think President Obama is a Muslim. We call this "race baiting" and it is a terrible display of fear and xenophobia that has no place in grown up politics.

There has been a movement in several online communities to get Stephen Colbert on the same steps to give a speech in character - to demonstrate to everyone just how silly Beck and his followers really are. While this movement may have started out of simple disdain for the "Tea Party" and a desire to mock Glenn Beck, it has turned into something much more worthwhile. While discussing how to get Colbert's attention, the idea was raised that the collective online hive mind should work together towards a unified show of charitable support. Thus, the "Restoring Truthiness" movement was founded.

Stephen Colbert has been an ardent supporter of the website "Donorschoose.org" - a site where teachers can post projects for which they need funding, and donors can choose to give money to the program(s) they admire the most. This is a great concept, and through the efforts of this online community the website has raised over $115,000 in Colbert's name in less than 24 hours - helping over 30,000 students get the books and school supplies they need for a quality education. Here is the "Restoring Truthiness" page on Donorschoose:
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/viewChallenge.html?page=1&id=39361&category=80&max=50

Sure, this may have started as a ruse to get the attention of Colbert, but it has turned into the largest fundraising drives that the website has ever seen. With such overwhelming success, we are now reaching out to people in "the real world" to support our cause as well, so we can continue to show that compassion and charity can trump hatred and fear-mongering.

I ask all of you to "reach deep." Your show of support is not only a rejection of the type of Politics played by Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, but is an investment in the type of education that will produce informed, rational citizens who can themselves reject the mindless nonsense of TV "news" reporters and corrupt politicians.

I dontated myself, and now I am trying to get the message out to others, so that we can show Beck, Palin, Hannity, Limbaugh and the likes that we are above preaching hatred from the steps of the capital - That we are more interested in helping people than creating class and racial animosity within our own country.

Please donate, and please send this email to anyone who you think will listen; and let's do some good in the world.

[Written by someone on Reddit]

 - Fuck, Reddit's awesome. I've been following this since it started and damn, I would never have imagined that something like this was possible.

Spread the word. This shit needs to get done.