The Budweiser Story (not a joke) This is TRUE! (original mail is below, followed by my response)

How Budweiser handled those who laughed at those who died on the 11th of September, 2001...Thought you might like to know what happened in a little town north of Bakersfield, California.

After you finish reading this, please forward this story on to others so that our nation and people around the world will know about those who laughed when they found out about the tragic events in New York, Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon.

On September 11th, a Budweiser employee was making a delivery to a convenience store in a California town named McFarland. He knew of the tragedy that had occurred in New York when he entered the business to find the two Arabs, who owned the business, whooping and hollering to show their approval and support of this treacherous attack.

The Budweiser employee went to his truck, called his boss and told him of the very upsetting event! He didn't feel he could be in that store with those horrible people. His boss asked him, "Do you think you could go in there long enough to pull every Budweiser product and item our beverage company sells there? We'll never deliver to them again." The employee walked in, proceeded to pull every single product his beverage company provided and left with an incredible grin on his face. He told them never to bother to call for a delivery again.
Budweiser happens to be the beer of choice for that community. Just letting you know how Kern County handled this situation.

And Now The Rest Of The Story:

It seems that the Bud driver and the Pepsi man are neighbors. Bud called Pepsi and told him. Pepsi called his boss who told him to pull all Pepsi products as well!!! That would include Frito Lay, etc. Furthermore, word spread and all vendors followed suit! At last report, the store was closed indefinitely. Good old American Passive-Aggressive A$$ Whoopin!

Pass this along, America needs to know that we're all working together!

If you can read this...Thank a teacher... If you are reading it in English....THANK A SOLDIER!!! God Bless America !! If you do not send this you have no soul!!!!

---------------------- my response is below ---------------------------------
As I was reading this, it smelled like horseshit. Why? First, the story had corporations like Budweiser and PepsiCo putting patriotism over profits. I'd never buy that. Second, the story seemed designed to play on racist stereotypes many have of Arab-Americans. Nothing will anger your average Joe Six-pack American (who lacks an understanding of the full context of and the history that preceded the 9/11 attacks) more than a story about Arabs celebrating the tragedy of 9/11.

Those of us who bother to step away from Fox News, CNN and Oxycontin Rush so we can really learn about current events discovered that, apart from some extremist pockets outside of America, most people (including Arabs) in the world felt terrible about the events of 9/11. Countless Americans who were outside of the country reported that people of all ethnic and religious backgrounds expressed their condolences to them. Strangers walked up to them and said things like "We know how you feel," because THEY had been dealing with terrorism for decades, and have known the pain and misery that terrorism brings--and we Americans just got our first big taste of it.

One of Bush's (countless) mistakes was that he missed a real opportunity. There was so much sympathy and good will toward America after the attacks. He could have used that to do something to effectively fight terrorism. He could have built an international anti-terrorist police force (terrorism requires police work, not a military response as the alleged foiled plot in Britain just showed us). He could have at least acknowledged WHY America became a target of terrorists (our brutal, deadly foreign policy over the past 100 years, our ruthless quest to dominate oil and other resources that don't belong to us) and reached out to the rest of the world and say, "We are going to eliminate the roots of terrorism but finally being a good citizen of the world. Instead of using our military, we are going to seek peace. Instead of fighting the rest of the world for oil, we're going to commit to an Apollo-style program to create clean, renewable energy sources by the end of this decade." But no! That fucker just had to invade Iraq. He just had to go for the oil. He had to give no-bid contracts to his buddies like Cheney's Halliburton. He did everything wrong he possibly could have. Five years after 9/11, we could have had a better world with less war and pollution and a great economy. But he chose to plunge us into dirt, debt, darkness and the endless death.

Arab-Americans were just as saddened as any Americans. Why? Because THEY ALSO are Americans! And on top of that, they had to put up with an anti-Arab backlash, in which ignorant, hostile Americans mocked their dress and culture, made death threats, attacked mosques, etc.. Exactly what did they have to celebrate about 9/11 and its aftermath? Duh.

Anyway, I did a Google search and in a matter of seconds found out that it wasn't true. Not even a little bit: http://www.snopes.com/rumors/budweiser.asp. Meanwhile, thousands of people have been mindlessly circulating this, feeding off of anti-Arab sentiment. And in the time it took for people to add recipients to their forward list, they could have spent less than a minute to see if it was true. No one bothered to check, so the ignorance and prejudice continues to fly around the world.

Also, I love how these people end their emails. Whenever I get a forwarded email that expresses a right-wing point of view, the fascist who wrote it either has to order us how to handle the email or demeans those of us who don't agree with their message. You've probably seen the one that says, "If you agree with this, pass it on. If you don't, just delete it." In other words, people like me are being ordered to not respond; to not give our opinions back. They can spew their hatred and ignorance all they want, but they are commanding me not to respond back to them and give my opinion. They insist on a one-sided conversation. They don't want to hear any different viewpoints. They're good little dittoheads, aren't they?

At the end of this email the author says that those who don't forward this "have no souls." Really? I don't have a soul but he, a hateful and ignorant shithead, DOES?!?!? It's a deliberate attempt to de-humanize those who don't agree with him. Hmmm..., didn't the Nazis say things like that about the Jews during their rallies, so that their followers wouldn't feel so bad about committing genocide? Their message was, this group of people is worthless, so it's okay to treat them terribly. Zeig Heil!

Just some thoughts from a guy who bothers to think!