Prejudice…and Pass It Along to All Your Friends

"Jane, do you see any old cars here?" Jane answers, "No, I'm stunned". The two are driving around a housing development in Salishan, a district of Tacoma Washington, with a camera pointed out the windshield, and both are astonished that this community of 1,325 houses has been built for immigrants.

It’s a video on YouTube (click the image to watch) in which the man goes on to tell us:

"What you are about to see is about ... how your money as an American citizen is going to pay for welfare housing. What you're looking at is a 225 million dollar complex of housing out of the Social Security budget — all welfare housing, all Social Security housing for foreigners who get $2,642 a month.

The male voice is that of Dr. William Mount, who at his YouTube based "channel" says he was a "Forest Ranger, U.S. Army" and a captain, but with no authentication or mention of what sort of doctor, if any.

If you choose to watch that video, the good doctor appears wearing his American flag tie and very early on tells us, "what you are about to hear, like most of my broadcasts, are [sic] not meant for the general public, they're meant for the world's leaders". At that, we decided to go no further into the twilight zone with the doctor. Back to the Salishan car ride in which Mount continues with:

"When President Obama took office we had about 25 million foreigners ... now we're up to 45 million foreigners ... collecting $2,642 a month, plus free housing, plus free medical...they mollycoddle these foreigners who come across the border illegally, and look at their cars and they don't pay taxes."

...and so on, in which he has invented his own fanciful immigrant counts and calls the $2,642 a month “Social Security refugee pay”. If you have doubts that refugees are awarded Social Security payments, if by now you sense you are in the presence of barking mad delirium, you are of course correct. Everything about the video is preposterous, starting with the notion that the Social Security Administration funds housing developments.

So why are we bothering with this?

If you have a friend whose mind resides somewhere beyond the fringe, you probably periodically receive a number of e-mailed screeds that purport to “bring you the truth that the mainstream media doesn't want you to know” ... and which urge you to “pass this on to all your friends before it's too late”. We've got one of those "friends". She provides a useful window into the minds that harbor such dementia as well as exposure to the viral fiction and propaganda that they prefer to believe. We say that because virtually everything sent us can easily be proven false with a little research.

We thought we'd take up this particular example to make the point. The video is apparently quite new. We called the Tacoma Housing Authority. They pointed us to these web pages about the Salishan project. It's unquestionably the same project — $220 million and the 1325 units the film narrator cites.

Whaddya know, it was of course not built for “Dr” Mount’s “foreigners who come across the border illegally”. It is not even public housing — it is to replace public housing — built 70 years ago for World War II defense plant workers. The houses are for anyone. They are for sale and for rent, and to a mix of incomes. As for the Social Security financing?:

This is the downside of the Internet. It gives voice to those who in earlier days had only a local soapbox but who now are able find each other nationwide and beyond to fabricate alternate realities that confirm and fortify their preconceived beliefs and prejudices. Organizations like Snopes and Factcheck do valiant work trying to keep up with the onslaught and substitute facts for lies. But the sort that trade in these e-mail rants want to believe them and dismiss fact-checking groups as if they are in on the conspiracy. So viewers who have no clue as to who is someone named Dr William Mount (who in a comment he added to his own video signed himself a “Knight of Malta”) blindly assume everything said is true. It seems not to occur to them to use the miracle of the Internet to find out if a story is authentic because they’re not interested in truth.

Which is what the comments stream in response to the video will tell you. Here (uncorrected) are the ones that had just come in as this is written:

S.S. People on SS can't get a raise for 2 years? now, because there is no money is in the fund. Obama has got to go!!!!!!!!!!! No if and or buts about it. And if it were up to me, I'd outlaw the democratic party!. American for Americans! If you want to live here, come here legally, become a citizen and pay taxes like the rest of us

F*** the leeches! Make welfare illegal, and force them to work to pay off all their stolen money.

This is the most disgusting display of American taxpayer rape I have ever seen. Who is the Washington Legislator that spearheaded ths travesty? We in Arizona know well how it feels to mollycoddle the likes of the trash that steal into our country and when we try to stop it, Obama's Bandits sue us. I just don't know how anyone? can allow this illegal in the Whitehouse to continue to destroy or country by siding with him or voting for anyone in the Democratic party.

Has this been forwarded to our Congress? for an explanation???..if not ....why not???

Occasionally, a sensible writer enters the stream to correct the lies, but the haters are undeterred. Paying no attention, they keep right on coming:

They robb we old folks of our prepaid? social security fund in order to buy crooked votes, We live in a big nest of Liberalsl May the Real God damn them all.

This is totally unbelievable! And BO wants to cut our social security while we lose our homes and jobs! I am appalled at what is being done to the citizens of the United States of America! We give EVERYTHING TO everyone else, but screw U.S. citizens.

It's so discouraging and disheartening.

It's not lies they just don;t want the America people to know the truth.

IF THIS IS LOW INCOME HOUSING? then I want to live like this.I don't live in nothing this nice.

So sad that our own military personnel don't get squat compared to this and they are working everyday either protecting our country or maintaining it state side. My kids are living below poverty level barely getting by on military pay. They live in a dumpy apt complex and drive a beater. They get by but not in any comfort like we provide these people.

This is sickening

One has to wonder how Americans can ever come together again short of some national calamity. Broad sub-cultures, facilitated by the Internet, have come into being that have no interest in learning what is true and less interest in working with others for the betterment of the nation. They prefer swapping among themselves the viral pollution that is poisoning American discourse. We just might be stranded across these great divides — for good.

Oh, by the way, would you please pass this article on to everyone you know?

Update: When this was written, if memory serves, the number who had viewed the video was around 38,000. Current count: 861,000 have now seen this slime, and, as comments reveal, most of them witlessly think it's true.