Dove foundation astroturf!

So, a while back, I wrote about the lying telemarketers at the Dove Foundation. According to some of the comments, people who have talked to them have found out that, in fact, the alleged operator is just a set of recordings being played back in vague relation to what you say.

The Dove Foundation is one of those entities whose underlying “mission” is stated so dishonestly that it makes peoples’ skin crawl. They claim to be “protecting children” from “bad media”. Of course, their definition of bad is based on a sort of whited-sepulchre version of Christianity, where the triumphalist theological masturbation of Left Behind, complete with self-righteous delight at the suffering of non-Christians, is upheld as a moral virtue. By contrast, anything that has any hint of “occultism” (by which they mean “magic that isn’t performed by Protestants”) in it is condemned. Violence is totally acceptable, as long as it’s based entirely on religion, but any other violence is vehemently rejected.

I oversimplify a little, but frankly, I only wish the above were just empty hyperbole.

Anyway, I’ve had a lot of interesting comments on that piece, but the two newest really highlight just how ethically empty these people are.

Our first exhibit, posted just two days short of ten full months after the original post:

Idiots!!!! The Dove Foundation is just trying to protect your children!!! Or have you already murdered(aborted) them. You liberal dyke hags sicken me!! Go to hell!!!

The Gospel According to St. Matthew, Chapter 5, Verse 22
\ But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

Consider the tone and language of this comment. It’s amazing, isn’t it? Can you feel the love? I sure can’t.

But what’s most interesting here isn’t the venemous tone. I mean, we’re all used to people who are very proud of how Christian they are being unrepentant assholes to everyone else. We’re used to people who would rather wish us to hell than pray for our souls. That’s sorta normal these days.

What’s interesting is the unqualified, unsupported, assertion that the Dove foundation scammers are “protecting children”. From what, exactly? I don’t have any kids of my own, yet, but I certainly have kids around me. (Fewer than I used to. Given our correspondent’s tone, I assume the offense was intentional.) You may rest assured that we take every step possible to protect those kids. When Michael walks around playing superheroes, and saying he’s “breaking the bad people”, I tell him he shouldn’t break anything he can’t fix. It’s a heavy concept for a four-year-old, but unlike the Dove people, I’m willing to talk to him about the real issues, not pretend that hiding body parts from him will make him holy.

But hey. There’s more. A mere six hours and twenty minutes after the first one, we get another:

Oh, my gosh. That's horrible! An organization that wants to protect children from the crap on TV. Even worst, they understand the importance of families? Who do they think they are? What gives them the right to care? Those bastards. lol

If I were them I would keep calling on speed dial, just because any adult that thinks their entertainment is more important than the health and welfare of child, deserves a lot worst than a call.

Get a life!

Idiots.

So. Isn’t it interesting how similar the terminology is? Both of them call us “idiots”. In a language with as rich a supply of rhetorical invective as English, that’s sort of unusual already. But the talk about protecting children… Interesting, no?

To claim that the Dove Foundation “understands the importance of families” is so insipid as to be laughable. As to protecting kids from crap on TV, well, that’s an interesting way to spin it.

In the end, I think these two people show exactly why organizations like Dove are dangerous. They promote a kind of willful rejection of considered thought and dependence on external validation. Our correspondents show that they have no interest in raising their own kids; someone else has to do it for them. They can’t be bothered to make their own choices about television, so they want someone else to make ours, too.

The speed dial comment, I think, summarizes it. These people cannot conceive of an alternative to their own desires. They can’t imagine people who are trying to raise children to be adults, not just to be bigger, hairier, babies. And so they advocate harassment in the pursuit of a good cause, just as they advocate murder in pursuit of a good cause; the promotion of their particular exceptionally narrowly-defined view of Christianity.

Right and wrong, it turns out, are nothing more than team jerseys to these people. They’re just words for “us” and “them”. Cruelty isn’t the problem; differences in taste are.

Anyway, thanks as always for the comments. They were enlightening, and certainly helped explain certain things.

Comments [archived]

From: Valerie
Date: 2007-04-19 09:15:49 -0500

I got a call from Dove about a month ago asking for the head of the household and before I could say myself (I’m a she) they hung up).

They called again last night, saying the same thing, and this time I caught them just in time, and said haughtily, “I am the head of the household”. She apolologized, gave me her spiel about parents and grandparents of children who are worried that there are too many adult content t.v. and movies and that Hollywood needs to censor itself.

So I (A Liberal New York Woman who never wanted children and who has had 2 abortions, who is an athiest) told this woman from DOVE that I was a Grandmother of Three, with 2 grandchildren. And with every argument she put to me I argued against it. Saying such things as “I raised my children with good common sense, and I made sure to keep a good eye on them and what they watched on TV and what movies they went to etc.

I told her in no uncertain terms, that “Some things are for children and some things are for adults.

P.S. Their phone number 616-361-2855, came up on my caller i.d. so I called them back to complain about their quickness to hang up when a woman answers the phone, after asking “is the head of household in?"

From: Demiurgic Williams
Date: 2007-06-12 09:09:24 -0500

Interesting. I took the day off and hoped to sleep in, but the Dove Foundation just called and specifically asked for the female head of the household. The caller – a recording? – assured me that this was not a solicitation call, then began her spiel about liberal Hollywood controlling what our children see. But the Dove Foundation is doing something about that! She asked if I agreed that liberal Hollywood produces trash that is harmful to our children – or something along those lines – and I said “No.” Then the recording switched to a description of how the foundation produces family-friendly entertainment and began a lecture on what the Foundation considers to be appropriate “edutainment” for kids.

I said something along the lines of “as a parent, I monitor what my children watch. Let me make sure you heard me: I do. Not you. And I don’t want the values of any organization that supports censorship and insists on a milque-toast Puritanical view of the world dictating what my children can and cannot watch."

Then the recording said “Now we don’t believe in censorship….,” to which I said something along the lines of “Um, hon, what you’re describing IS censorship. Your organization wants to control what art is produced and works to force a Puritanical view on us all. Stating that you don’t support censorship, then, is just a lie.

Yes, your president is a master of this communication ploy – does “we do not torture prisoners?” ring any bells? – and, yes, your evangelical friends probably insist that the natural world does not really follow natural laws that your mythologies just can’t get past. And maybe you’ve even convinced yourself that saying you don’t believe in censorship or evolution can fool folks, but you’re stating lies and promoting ignorance and holding up a false representation of the real world and insisting that we all pretend that your mythology is reality.

What’s your definition of family, anyway? I hope you plan to produce “Heather Has Two Mommies” as a family-friendly film, because there are alot of us out here raising kids without any of the rights and protections that our laws extends to your milquetoast version of a family and we ain’t going away."

Then the damn person/recording started another descriptive loop, so I just said “hon, I know you have to read that statement – or maybe you’re just going to continue looping with your lies and hoping I stay on the line, but you are wasting your time with this household and we will never agree with you.” And I hung up.

We do a disservice to young minds everywhere when we allow these people to home-school their children and fill their heads with pseudoscience about dinosaurs floating on arks and so-called good Christian soldiers taking up arms against abortionists and we do a disservice to young minds when we let such a biased organization try to dictate such a skewed version of reality as real.

From: Demiurgic Williams
Date: 2007-06-12 09:09:38 -0500

Interesting. I took the day off and hoped to sleep in, but the Dove Foundation just called and specifically asked for the female head of the household. The caller – a recording? – assured me that this was not a solicitation call, then began her spiel about liberal Hollywood controlling what our children see. But the Dove Foundation is doing something about that! She asked if I agreed that liberal Hollywood produces trash that is harmful to our children – or something along those lines – and I said “No.” Then the recording switched to a description of how the foundation produces family-friendly entertainment and began a lecture on what the Foundation considers to be appropriate “edutainment” for kids.

I said something along the lines of “as a parent, I monitor what my children watch. Let me make sure you heard me: I do. Not you. And I don’t want the values of any organization that supports censorship and insists on a milque-toast Puritanical view of the world dictating what my children can and cannot watch."

Then the recording said “Now we don’t believe in censorship….,” to which I said something along the lines of “Um, hon, what you’re describing IS censorship. Your organization wants to control what art is produced and works to force a Puritanical view on us all. Stating that you don’t support censorship, then, is just a lie.

Yes, your president is a master of this communication ploy – does “we do not torture prisoners?” ring any bells? – and, yes, your evangelical friends probably insist that the natural world does not really follow natural laws that your mythologies just can’t get past. And maybe you’ve even convinced yourself that saying you don’t believe in censorship or evolution can fool folks, but you’re stating lies and promoting ignorance and holding up a false representation of the real world and insisting that we all pretend that your mythology is reality.

What’s your definition of family, anyway? I hope you plan to produce “Heather Has Two Mommies” as a family-friendly film, because there are alot of us out here raising kids without any of the rights and protections that our laws extends to your milquetoast version of a family and we ain’t going away."

Then the damn person/recording started another descriptive loop, so I just said “hon, I know you have to read that statement – or maybe you’re just going to continue looping with your lies and hoping I stay on the line, but you are wasting your time with this household and we will never agree with you.” And I hung up.

We do a disservice to young minds everywhere when we allow these people to home-school their children and fill their heads with pseudoscience about dinosaurs floating on arks and so-called good Christian soldiers taking up arms against abortionists and we do a disservice to young minds when we let such a biased organization try to dictate such a skewed version of reality as real.