Featured Post

Another New Book Available: States of the Union, The History of the United States through Presidential Addresses, 1789-2023

Mount Greylock Books LLC has published States of the Union: The History of the United States through Presidential Addresses, 1789-2023.   St...

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Fradulent Email

An email is circulating around the net which begins as follows:

David Kaiser Location: Jamestown , Rhode Island , United States
For the past thirty years I have been a historian of international and domestic politics, as well as an authority on some of the more famous criminal cases in American history. For the past four years I have been commenting on current events.

History Unfolding

I am a student of history. Professionally, I have written 15 books in six languages, and have studied it all my life. I think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is just a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes these exist, but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus.



[The email then continues for several pages.]

The first two sentences, beginning, "For the past thirty years," were of course written by me; the rest of the email was not written by me. Its views are in many ways the opposite of my own. It is apparently some sort of conservative disinformation campaign, quite possibly the work of a single individual, designed to muddy the political waters by falsely attributing views to others. I obviously regret the deception.

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

Today I received the fraudulent one from a friend. Since I am of a skeptical turn of mind, and being unfamiliar with the "author," I hunted about, found the disclaimer, and sent it to my friend with the adjuration to broadcast it wherever the original went I may now carve time out of my schedule to keep up with all of your entries. Nice to meet you!

Lana said...

I received that email today by a very conservative friend. She thought it was great and did not check her sources. I did...it sounded like it was from a right wing kook...Saying that, I confess that I am conservative but mostly middle of the road, hoping for unity in our government. Your original blog post made a lot more sense. I'll bookmark your blog and check back...Thank-you, Lana

Normodamus said...

I also received the fraudulent article from a very right wing friend and also tried to track down the source. I usually go to snopes but this time I didn't. I have read several posts on this blog and they seem fair and balanced and really try to address topics from an historical perspective. I certainly will return and look forward to future posts.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

Recieved the fraudulent email from a friend, and afterwards got forwarded the link. I am glad to hear you don't share that viewpoint. It is interesting to see that within 4 comments to this post people already are getting to the bashing. Perhaps this is a good example of why mass emailing is a bad habit in general...

pbrower2a said...

I recognized it almost instantly as a forgery -- and we need to remember that a forgery is above all else a misrepresentation of its origin -- for instance, that a gift certificate is in fact from the entity at which it is presented.

As it purports to come from a college professor, it strangely uses language that one expects in an X-Files screenplay. Only rarely does reality look like a conspiracy theory whose realities are to be known to initiates who could be anyone willing to believe.

Obama=Hitler? Ludicrous! The opposition Party hasn't been shut down, and FoX "News" should give people confidence that excoriation of Obama does not lead to a concentration camp, a torture chamber, or even unemployment. Coulter still publishes, and Limbaugh is still on the air. We have no political lockstep, and young thugs do not patrol the street for dissidents and backsliders to be beaten up.

As I see it, if Obama uses the techniques of any politician that American conservatives should remember (because few conservatives are not old enough to not remember)...Ronald Reagan. The agenda may be different, but both were or are smooth, confident (for the time) communicators who meant what they said. Both faced economic distress that demanded change. Like Reagan, Obama has his opponents put up or shut up. Both have or had ideological detractors who assume failure for ideological grounds.

Anonymous said...

I was about to forward "History Unfolding" to everyone I know, as I am truly disturbed about the direction our nation is headed but for some reason I wanted to learn more about the author. I went on line to check it out and viola - my hunch was once again right. I forwarded the disclaimer to the sender of said e-mail.

JEJ

Anonymous said...

The original writer was TPS (we do not know who that is). However, he/she did not compare Obama to Hitler (read it more carefully). He compared ruling styles (statists) and general thugs (which I believe Obama generally is when you actually study his background (I am from a Chicago suburb and know a lot about him).

Given the fact that this first appeared about a week after the election, and knowing that Obama is governing very hard left on all domestic issues (taking over industries, targeting people he disagrees with personally (AIG, Limbaugh, etc.), disregarding secured bond holders, etc., I think the writer was damn prescient in many regards.

I wish he/she would write more.

Daniel

(And as I will be slammed by some for actually daring to speak out and agree that our emperor has no clothes, I hold a BA in American History (honors), a Masters in American history (European minor), anda JD from the University of Iowa, with honors. So I am not some fool without an education.)

Cicero said...

Daniel, Daniel,

Your post makes some very substantial accusations (The President as Thug, for example). Do your academic training proud and try providing some factual basis for your conclusions with a source trail those of us in the great unwashed middle can follow and make judgement on. Your post appears to contribute little to the rational discussion we need! Be a patriot, not a James T. Callender.

Anonymous said...

"So I am not some fool without an education.)"

Right, you're a fool with an education.

"Rush Limbaugh: Target"! I love it!

Anonymous said...

The liberals love obama.He can't do wrong.
He has been given a free pass from the media since he is of the right ethnic group . It is not polite or fashionable to criticize a member of a minority whose people were enslaved unjustly by Americans.
He is working on socializing this country..."Spread the wealth"
I hope Americans wake up before Obama achieves "total change" and terminally weakens our country.
It would be a shame as this is a blessed country.
We have too much at stake and too much to lose.

Paul Everitt said...

I would like to ask the good professor to answer two questions: one historical, one legal.

1. What is the difference between the German invasion of Poland in 1939 and the US invasion of Iraq in 2003?

2. How can I as a US citizen arrest or have arrested George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz for violationg the first two Nuremburg Tribunal protocols?

Anonymous said...

My Dear sir,
My apologies for being duped by the fraudulent e-missive masquerading as your observations on the events unfolding presently. I should have known better, as I'm from Rhode Island myself and am quite familiar with the open and free discussion of opposing ideas prevalent at her institutions of higher learning (Brown and R.I.S.D.I. come to mind). I, fortunately, escaped at an early age, yet, while shuttling back and forth three times to California with my parents, I managed to escape the "All Democrat-Controlled Government Is Good" mentality so prevalent in both California and the Northeast. Now, if I may ask: What exactly are your observations regarding the questions raised in the fraudulent misuse of your article and/or name? Please sir, set the record straight for we, "the great unwashed". < myronj.poltroonian.blogspot.com >

Gideon said...

I received this from my Grandmother who thought it interesting if misguided. I didn't even find it interesting, it was too blatant and sounded like those hillbillies who present fox news. Absurd. It's unfortunate that you were the victim of this (though I cannot say that I knew of you so I had to look it all up).

Good luck old chap.

Anonymous said...

i received this email moments ago and as I anm an academic (hih school teacher) I immediately googled the author's name as I too was suspicious. Obama? Gee I have the guy's picture on the wall in my classroom and we are Canadian?!! (By the wawy the stats are that if Canadians would have had been allowed to vote in the last election 80% would have voted for Obama. LOL. ...and Lord knows the man is attractive!! (More) LOL. Sorry Michelle!

On a more serious note. This letter is being transmittted to the highly religious and regular churchgoers as a tactic and the author was smart enough to circulate it in "the bible belt" of the Southern States. Mine came from central Florida. Where are the others getting sent to? From? Also Hilter especially found support among the agarian people (farmers, largely uneducated and in dire need of guidance and willing to support a "scapegoat" for the rsuffering : the "rich Jewish people." I will re-read the letter again and find more "flaws" in the theory. Interesting though. Ridiculous. The "fun" will be for we "geeks" of getting to the original source of the letter and would this not be a great libel case for President Obama. The USA has different laws than in Canada and we are viewed as "wimps" more often than not than our "big brother" next door and to the south. Can't some lawyers and computer nerds get on this and "smoke the bastard out" somehow?! Lord, forgive them for they do not know what they do. That dude/chick is cruisin' for a bruisin'. LOL (a fierce vengenace like LOL) Bye y'all. -Cory RR

Anonymous said...

I believe you,Sir: first thought after reading about the following:
<>.
I realized you must be one of them, the Eastern establishment knowing it all!So you could NOT have made the assertions of a conservative.
What loans from the Fed ?You mean the Federal Reserve window discount?Do you know about the function of a National Bank?
Do you know the overall bill of the Obama health care?
If true, you apparently agree to have laws that prohibit aliens from entering illegally and,yet,laws that grant them free healthcare?
Where is the logic of it?
What do you know about ACORN?
I would be honored to exchange emails with you...because there is truth in the assertion about the media...remember old Vietnam days?
Noooo, I would not ask you what you believe about Nazi Germany and the role of the media,as I would not ask what you believe about the Kennedy clan!Not my problem!It is groovy to think one of the few Nazi leaders treasured art more than millions of human beings...

Anonymous said...

Maybe instead of being skeptical, conservative or liberal, we should all ask ourselves, "Will be ever have life as good as it has been in our pasts?"

I think not, we have lived our most affluent lifestyles, paid the least taxes, and if we live long enough, will see that the meat of this article, has a lot of validity.

Anonymous said...

I checked into this whole thing for one reason, I could NOT imagine a PHD in anything speaking or writing anything in such an UNEDUCATED way. Just look at the verbiage, the incorrect sentences and the very poor punctuation. And I am not an educated person, but that was the first thing I saw. Imagine.....

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Maggie said...

I'm commenting on July 18, 2009 on your post from March, 2009. It's still circulating. I got here by way of Snopes.

David Kaiser said...

You're commenting on July 18, 2011! I know it's still circulating. Any time politics heats up, during an election or controversy in DC, it circulates more heavily. It will never stop.
Please pass the word.

DK

HeatherK said...

Just got this from my mom, who should know better than to send it to me. It's September 10, 2011. I'm so sorry this is going out in your name. I checked Snopes. Unfortunately, neither my mom nor the Polish woman who sent it to her (who was forced to be in a Youth Camp in Poland) bothered to check. The fact that there are only 21 comments in two years on your original post about this being fraudulent saddens me. Not enough people checking their sources.

David Kaiser said...

Heather, I'm curious. Was the Polish woman actually still in Poland, or in the US now?

I'm sure at least a million people have received it by now.

Unknown said...

I received the e-mail today Sep 4, 2012. Sent to me from a neighbor who believes Fox news as the go to source. Sorry that he wont believe this is a Hoax unless Fox tells him .
What a shame he was a educator.

Andante said...

I received that fraudulent email today and immediately did my research online regarding the statement. I am german, living in the United States since a few years, and could not believe, that an email filled with so much propaganda and wrong facts ( Hitler was not elected, he has been appointed by President Paul v. Hindenburg...) could possibly be written by a historian.
Still shaking my head and feel deeply sorry that your name and reputation has been misused in such way.