The Other Side of the Conversation
How many of you get those right wing “viral emails” from family and friends who are politically uninformed, raise your hand.
That’s what I thought. Invariably, almost everyone has a coworker, uncle, mother-in-law, or ex-roommate who habitually blankets their entire contact list with these emails, usually about President Obama or the First Lady, with tales of secret college papers, birth certificate forgery, lavish White House redecorating, or some other horror du jour. They’ve gotten this email from someone they trust. This email is from a soldier, or someone who knew Barry in grade school. They’re doing it for our own good, they say. They just want us to know the real story, because if we knew, we’d change our minds and stop being a loony liberal.
And then, like the good, dutiful researchers we are, we look things up, and find sources, and debunk the email point by point, and hit “reply all,” and ask ourselves why we’ve just spent an hour and a half just to prove that Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign was not, in fact, funded by Hugo Chavez. Maybe whomever wrote that email in the first place had just that in mind… We’ll never respond again, we promise ourselves.
And then, a week later, there’s another one. Did you know that Barack Obama is on a secret speaking tour of muslim colleges around the world, apologizing for our freedoms, making fun of our wounded soldiers, and sending his and Michelle’s condolences on the loss of their beloved leader Osama Bin Laden? Well, it came from a trustworthy source, AND there’s photographic evidence.
As any of you who are my Facebook friends will know, I occasionally pop in at a local breakfast shop where a congregation of grumpy, outspoken conservative seniors gather every day to chat, and fuel up on eggs and hash browns and coffee. Each day it’s a slightly different assortment of mostly men, in mostly Carhartt jackets, and all in baseball caps with logos of heavy equipment manufacturers, or tackle shops, or flags. I sip my coffee, and get some work done, and when some memorable bit of conversation wafts over from the next table, I furiously type it down, and share it. It’s good to pay attention to those not normally in your circle of people, and this group fascinates me. Today, they were in rare form. And they actually have provided all of us who ask, “Why? Why does Uncle Jerry keep sending me this crap? What is he thinking?” with at least some kind of answer.
Welcome to the other side of the conversation. This is what your dad is doing before he clicks send. I’ll let it speak for itself.
Man 1: I got an email back from my niece about the one I sent her the other day – the one Obama’s college.
Man 2: The one that tells he didn’t go to that college he said he did?
Man 1: Yup. That’s the one. Turns out, she put it through the Snopes and found out it wasn’t true.
Man 2: There’s other ones, though.
Man 1: Yeah.
Man 3: Well, he smoked dope. Said so himself. They put in snippets of him reading the audio book he co-wrote with someone else… obviously. And it talked about him smoking dope in Hawaii, and doing cocaine, and nobody cares!
Man 2: Did you read the article about him disrespecting the troops? I sent it to my brothers kids. I send ‘em articles like that. They’re democrats – all of ‘em. And they won’t even read ‘em! They don’t care. They just throw ‘em out! True Story.
Man 3: I know it.
Man 2: You can tell he’s a communist, muslim, socialist dipshit, and they don’t believe it. I guess that’s what they want. They want to live in concentration camps.
Man 1: Well, he’s gonna dissolve the Constitution so there’s no Constitution any more. That’s what he wants.
Man 4: You know, the devil’s on this earth right now. That’s why everything’s corrupt. All God has to do is reveal him, and then… we got him! And that’s the truth.
Man 2: Well, I think he’s revealed him. But nobody cares.
This properly belongs on the open thread, but everyone (except me) seems to have abandoned it, and I want this to be seen, read, and passed on to others:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/30/1125935/-LYIN-RYAN-ALL-THE-MEDIA-PUSHBACK?detail=hide
Thank you. It will take awhile to read all of these, but I will . Also will pass them on.
After what I heard tonight, coming out of Rommney’s mouth—–another list will have to be passed around. That man insulted our military men and women in service. And apparently he doens’t know that Russia has Nukes and we are at peace with Russia. He also doesn’t seem to know that our President has done more for Israel than any other president.
For a man who spent his time in France to get out of service during the Viet Nam War, he doesn’t seem to worry about starting another War.
my friend sends me that stuff because she wants me to know what’s out there being said. so, although she knows it bugs me, she sends stuff. so i started telling her things like “did you notice that not one thing in this post is a fact; it’s all opinion?” or ” so, what do you think is the alternative?”. Finally, I just told her that I’m voting for Obama, but even that didn’t stop her from sending the stuff.
sigh.
when i sent her the list of Mr. Obama’s accomplishments, she wrote back that she didn’t take time to read it.
ha ha ha.
Remember, though, that to just say you’re voting for Obama is the direct equivalent of those who don’t question the lies saying they’re voting for Romeny. It implies it doesn’t matter what the truth is or who’s lying. I think it really is important to make *some* attempt to say that it really does matter what the truth is, BEFORE one chooses whom to vote for. This is what seems to be missing for so many people, that their minds are made up without letting any facts in.
I’m not implying that one should spend hours and hours trying to open minds that are closed, but at least pointing out the rusted hinges on some of these crania makes some attempt. Most attempts are fruitless, but at least one tries o raise the level of discussion, rather than joining the pissing match in basement.
AKM,
Please do keep sharing these little nuggets of info from your coffee ‘group’. It helps me to remember there are people who will never be able to look at subjects from both sides no matter what is presented to them.
In watching the R convention the last two evenings, not full time but for some of the major presentations I am amazed by the comments made by some of the delegates. Narrow minded and down righted bigoted.
It does also give me my chuckles in the morning.
I too have been watching the R convention—not all , but the major speeches. But so far I have not heard a word about the War. Have they forgotten that we still have Men and Women in Afghanistan?
They keep talking about the debt, but not a word about the cost of these wars that the Reps. did not pay for. If I remember correctly, it is still costing $2 Billion a WEEK!!!!!!!!!
And it is going to costs billions to get our men and women and equipment back home.
But I do hear all about entitlements. Wow! feeding the poor is breaking the country?
And they are still hell bent in giving vochers to seniors for their health care.
And if I heard correctly—-Ms Rice almost took credit for the killing of Ben Ladin. WOW!
I don’t know if I can stand what Mitt will say tomorrow night!
I can’t wait for the debates!
Thanks for bringing that up. I find it interesting when people claim to support our troops, but then, instead of talking about how to get them out of wars and home safely, they go on to talk about the next war they think we should be in. Then they scream about the rising deficit. There is such a disconnect, but they haven’t the cognition to feel the dissonance.
The conversation overheard in a Wasilla restaurant the other night was all about Obama’s missing birth certificate, how he couldn’t be a citizen (the speaker clearly was not familiar with citizenship requirements), that he was the anti-Christ, that FLOTUS had been on so many million dollar vacations, and a slew of other FOX News and viral email claims that have been completely debunked. The best part was when the speaker was complaining about how misinformed other people were.
At least they thought voting for Romney/Ryan was a bad idea. (It was a Ron Paul fan.) I really wished I could have had a conversation with this person about the issues. I suspect we would agree on many of them, but as fueled with misinformation and labels as they were, they will go vote against their own and the country’s best interests while patting themselves on the back about how patriotic they are. I wished I had had a wallet card with issues on which we would likely agree showing how Obama/Biden supports and Romney/Ryan opposes them that I could have dropped on the table on my way out.
I occasionally get this sh*t from a friend in the Four Corners. I’ve asked repeatedly (after debunking said sh*t) that she never again sully my inbox; that personal or spiritual communication is fine, but I find her political views offensive.
Earlier this month, she included me on one of “those emails.” I replied, gently but firmly, that she was ruining our friendship. She apologized, and said she sent it by accident; that it wouldn’t happen again.
We’ll see.
It baffles me that if a person *knows* not to forward any given email to a particular someone because that particular someone *will* debunk it with facts that can be independently verfied, why, then, they think it’s OK to forward it to anyone! The answer to that bafflement truly has me stumped. It’s a real puzzlement. beth.
That’s it in a nutshell, Beth.
If it isn’t okay to send it to one person because it isn’t true, it isn’t okay to send to anybody. My Bible still includes the Commandment against bearing false witness. Think it would help if we sent them the chapter and verse reference?
Clearly I haven’t figured out how to do this tactfully. After one debunking, a friend told me she and her husband were so offended they were removing me from their email list. I had been trying for some time to get her to stop clogging my inbox with that garbage. I can’t say I miss it one whit, but sadly, I’m sure she’s still sending this out to the believers on her list.
Your “friend” must be related to my friend. I told her the same thing—-“don’t send anymore of the BS”.
When I do get something, she also said she didn’t mean to have my name on the list.
I don’t ever remember so much offensive e-mails in past elections, as I have received since Pres. Obama was running and then elected.
And the biggest fights between us, is over the Bishops (catholic) , when I tell her that hiding documents about the priests that rape little children should go to prison .
I wonder sometimes, if it is because she doesn’t have children. I am a Mother and Grandmother, and I am all for hanging these people in the public square.
Hanging? I’ll help! I’m a sailor, and I tie great knots.
My spouse and I don’t have kids, in the sense of raising them from birth until…, but we are with you on hanging them in the town square, and those who hide those who hide, along with them!
I have little patience for teh chain-mails that get forwarded by otherwise reasonable and lovely family and folk. <> helps save me some semblance of sanity.
DH Happy, on the other hand, is a Veteran (US Army) with a twisted sense of humor and often engages our fathers, er, our senders, with questions or ideas they haven’t considered about guns,God, and gringos.
Like:
The President is not coming for my guns. Your guns? Could be.
Like:
If Willard Mitt rMoney is elected, will he be sworn in on the Book of Mormon instead of a Bible?
Like:
Is W Mitt an anchor baby since his daddy was born in Mexico? and how many grandmothers does he have?
Like:
“Respect the office, if not the man?” Want to borrow our Dixie Chicks cds?
Happy’s so-right-he’s-wrong daddy has come around and says he’s voting for President Obama in November. Gobsmacked!!! He didn’t vote for McCain because “Sarah Palin is so stupid,” but he couldn’t bring himself to vote for That One, either. He’s 80-something and shedding a lifetime of bigotry.
This is the man who refused to come to our wedding because I am *gasp* a Jewess, not to mention a union thug. Who refused to acknowledge our daughter until after her bat mitzvah, and then only because Happy took littlebird to meet grandpa after grandma died. (Grandpa ran out on grandma when Happy was a little boy, but if Happy can forgive him, who am I to stand in the way?) This is the man who now eats lunch at a soul-food restaurant where the sisters have “adopted” the old coot, packing him supper to go, with extra meals for the weekends. Grandpa sees the person now, and not just the Label. How cool is that?
The Jews. The Blacks. The Unions. The Lefty-Liberals. The Veterans. The Right wing Christians.
E Pluribus Unum.
We, The People.
He’s come a long way, my FIL, and I admire him for that. It gives me hope, also, too, for my dear old daddy, bless his heart. Thanks for trying, Happy. I’ll take a high school full of teenagers any day. 🙂
Isaac has been kind to the forest here, though school’s been closed all week.
(I still argue that school should start after Labor Day.)
Cool and breezy now, between rain bands. We weathered Ivan here in the forest, so have done our due diligence. Thoughts and prayers for all who find themselves in harm’s way.
thatcrowwoman
Thanks for this. It gives me hope that with patience, persistence and compassion, sooner or later, truth shines through.
I’m with you on the post-Labor Day thoughts, TCW — “school begins the first Monday after Labor Day” was an annual, set, permanent ‘appointment’ for kids (and their families) and, for me, at least, marked the yearly transition from lazy, wonderful, perfect-but-I’m-now-getting-bored-to-death summer, to vibrant, wonderful, eager-to-get-back-into-a-routine, ready-to-pay-attention fall.
It was a national event — folks looked forward to, dreaded, or had mixed feelings about the specific day and its ‘premier’ event, but it was one we all, as a nation, shared. Didn’t matter who you were or where you lived, if you went to an American school, that’s when classes started. Period. Like clockwork, every year. I liked that.
‘course, I’m just an old coot who, for decades, now, has firmly believed this notion that kids have to be in school for longer and longer periods so they “don’t forget what they’ve learned” and have to start their structured education beginning at younger and younger ages, is doing our children -and nation- a Great! disservice.
Not even going into the scientific support for my old-phart crotchety grumbles on the issue, I adamantly believe that *Before* a child’s brain can be receptive to *any* [new] information/’learning’, that child Must be allower to get sooooooo utterly bored, that they start using their brain –on their own!– to explore, imagine, and create. On . their . own! It’s *that* process, *that* force of physical change made –solely BY the child– within the brain, that allows the child to then move on to the next stage(s) of ‘learning’ new things.
The whole idea that we can, somehow, ‘force’ that maturity, that physical growth within the brain, through longer hours in school and starting at an ever-earlier age, just does not pan out…as evidenced by our today’s kids who are caught in the closed circle of the process and who are, if test scores and scientific studiess are to be believed, regressing, rather than progressing [to/at a measure commensurate with the hours spent in school].
I do feel sorry for today’s kids…not ever allowed time to let nature ‘do its thing’ and grow the brain processes so incredibly essential and vital to their learning. [/rant] beth.
Thanks for sharing this. It brought tears to my eyes.
You can’t talk someone out of something they weren’t talked into in the first place.
Actually, maybe I got that saying wrong. It goes something like,.”You can’t reason someone out of something they weren’t reasoned into in the first place.” Or something like that…
More to the point: “You can lead a man to knowledge, but you can’t make him think.”
(A variation on the “You can lead a horse to water…” saying)
Some people just won’t listen no matter what facts you put in front of them. Heck, God has thrown a hurricane at this Republican convention and the Republican convention four years ago, but they won’t even listen to Him.
Some people are incapable of responding to logic, they just have their beliefs. They start with a belief, and then they seek out and sift through materials to find “facts” to support those beliefs. As to the basis for the mentality that is at the core of this post about fear-mongering, if you have not heard about the book “The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Don’t Believe in Science.” Interesting article about it in Mother Jones. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/03/chris-mooney-republican-brain-science-denial
Comment du jour from Brad DeLong’s blog:
“You libruls just don’t get it. Romney just wants a level playing field. He wants Obama to stop telling the truth about him. After all, he had never told the truth about Obama.”
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/08/greg-sargent-republicans-lie-all-the-time-about-everything.html#comments
Did I raise my hand? Yes, both of them and both feet also! I still don’t understand, notwithstanding your post, why people pass on lies. I do the research (sometimes I’ve already done it) and send the lies back to them. I’ve posted things on facebook calling out the lies. I have a couple friends that, in other circumstances, are questioning scientists in the best sense, but when it comes to something bad about Obama – wow, they’re right on it, it must be true! Even when given contradicting evidence, it doesn’t slow them down for long. doing a little research on a story doesn’t take much with today’s internet, but they slaver over the offending lie and pass it on. I can’t say they’re racist (one has African children) but damn! I get tired of refuting lies. I’ll just keep doing it. On occasions, depending on who sent the shit, I send back Bible verses. “He who conceals hatred [has] lying lips, And he who spreads slander is a fool.”Proverbs 10:18 (New American Standard Bible. And
Exodus 20:16 “Neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbour.” that’s #9 of the Big 10.
King James version of the Bible.
They don’t want to be contradicted. They want their bigotry and ignorance validated. Hence they keep polishing whatever they pull out of th……uh…thin air.
Pretty typical behavior, I’m guessing, from people who’ve been treated like dopes their whole lives, from grade school on. Our brains tell us we’re all geniuses, and so they just have to conclude that everyone else who thinks anything different from them is wrong, despite all evidence that they are, in fact, ignorant dopes just like everyone else keeps telling them.
So someone like Limbaugh and GOP propagandists come along, and it’s like they’re distributing crack for people who believe, “I are, too, smart!” Validation! The world’s most addicting drug!
My brother just quit sending me emails because i would “Snopes ’em,” and send them right back with a snarky comment. Other siblings are still on his list and getting the emails, so, yeah, he doesn’t really care about the truth – just spreading the DRAMA.
I used to send my brother replies with links to Snopes, but now he insists that Snopes is a liberal organization because they debunk the lies that he spreads. He is so sure that the crap he sends is gospel that he refuses to hear that it’s just crap.
I’ve been running into that same response. I guess the truth really does have a liberal bias! 🙂
What chuckles me (and frustrates the L out of me), is that if there’s even the teeniest, tiniest nugget of truth in one of these emails, the Fowarder believes –and will swear– the *entire* package of ‘information’ is automatically true.
I’ve also noticed they pretty much have an intense Love-Hate relationship with Snopes — if the email they send (or forward) is about, say, an actual computer virus everyone should be on the lookout for, they’ll invariably write something like: “This is a dangerous virus — even Snopes says so [and they’ll add the link to the Snopes page].” If, on the other hand, you share with them a Snopes page (or two…or three!) totally debunking the contents of an email they’ve sent you, their response will invariably be something like: “You really believe that garbage? Snopes can’t be trusted to tell the truth about anything — they’re nothing but die-hard liberals with a biased agenda funded by the Dems.”
Can’t win for losing, with some folks. Bless their little hearts. beth.
Yes, I am one who gets all of these e-mails. My delete button is worn out.
It is hard to believe that so-called educated people can stoop this low.
I am at odds with my church–Catholic. But support the nuns who have been chaffted by the church.
I resent the Bishops war on women and the Obama admin.
I believe in separation of church and State
I don’t know who will win this election, as I expect it to be a close one.
But I do know, if Rommney wins, it may wake-up all those people who worked so hard to deny Obama a second term.
As the old saying goes—–they will know it when it hit’s them in the Ass!
Or- becareful what you wish for…
Did the resulting bs from the elections in 2010 wake them up?