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All the elements for conspiracy were there — innocent victims, massive destruction and no clear culprit. Perfect.
So some jokester with a few computer skills jerry-rigged a bogus version of a news Web page and sent it off into the vast reaches of the Internet. The made-up headline — “Separatists claim responsibility for California Wildfires” — was posted on a site that looked seriously like CNN.com.
Listed in a “Story Highlights” sidebar were these items:
Mexican separatists claim California stolen from Mexico.
Blaze was started with simple “Molotov cocktails.”
FBI, ATF, local fire and law officials investigating.
Gov. Schwarzenegger: This is “an unforgivable act of inhumanity.”
The hoax spread quickly — a little like a wildfire, you might say. Somebody forwarded me an e-mail with an imbedded link to the fake news story. Blaring at the top of the e-mail was this message:
RACE WAR! HISPANICS CLAIM RESPONSIBILITY FOR STARTING CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES TO BURN WHITE PEOPLE OUT!
It didn’t take much effort to figure out that the Web page was phony. The misspelled words were the first clue. CNN was alerted. The network traced the page to Nashville, Tenn., and forced the hosting Internet service provider to yank the page.
Even a few of the ultra-patriot blogs that fell for the hoax grudgingly acknowledged it as such — but not, however, until after their faithful readers were allowed their daily rant.
“If this story is correct, the cry ‘death to illegal aliens’ must be heard across America,” someone wrote in one such blog.
See, that’s the thing about rumors, twisted facts and outright fabrications. Left unchallenged, they begin to pollute honest conversation and thought. Thanks to its sheer audacity, this particular hoax attracted attention and got debunked.
But it echoed a number of myths and fallacies held dear by the Minutemen and other groups opposed to sensible immigration reform. And when there isn’t a clever forgery to momentarily shine light on these falsehoods, they don’t get challenged but fester and propagate.
Foremost among these myths is the idea that Mexican immigrants arrive bent on destruction and “reconquest” of American territory. According to the hoax, the fires were set by the “radical Hispanic separatist organization” called MEChA. The story even quotes a purported manifesto claiming that the fires were part of the group’s campaign to reclaim “Aztlan,” the mythical Aztec homeland held by some to incorporate California and other parts of the southwestern United States.
A group named MEChA does exist — the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan — and it is active at many high schools and colleges in the United States. It has some ’60s-era radical language about “liberation” in its charter, but MEChA chapters today focus on graduating Latinos from high school and getting them through college. They study for the ACT and SAT tests, not revolution.
Spend a few minutes surfing on right-wing Web sites and you will find numerous variations on a theme: that the influx of Mexican immigrants is an organized movement, an invasion to usurp the sovereignty of the United States. That groups like MEChA and the National Council of La Raza are the agents of this plot.
Some of these conspiracy theories would be comical if they weren’t so menacing.
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