Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Pot, Kettle & The Moron Masses

With all of the crazy, slimy, slanderous lies that the right-wing smear machine is saying about Obama, I've often thought to myself that this shit is just too unbelievable for anyone to buy.

Then I spoke to my mother today.

A card carrying member of the moron masses, my mother is exactly the kind of red state (Florida) dimwit that the right-lunatic fringe is counting on to sway the election with their lies and distortions.

And it appears to be working.

My mother called me today to ask about my wife's OB appointment yesterday (the downside of breeding, I have to talk to my mother a hell of a lot more often) and somehow the conversation turned to my brother and his new job or something.

My brother is a bible-thumping, born-again (like our mother), free market Republican with a big house and four kids in the upper limits of rural northern Illinois. He's a guy who completely believes that the bible is the "truth" (he actually said it that way to me one time), gets his news from FOX, thinks Ronald Reagan is the greatest person who ever lived and parrots silly GOP talking points about things like socialized medicine. He once told me that it was a "fact" that all the rich people in England come to the U.S. for their health care and that people are dying in the streets of countries with national health care.

In other words, he's a huge ass hole.

Anyway, I said something to my mother about wondering how much he'll like it when McCain starts taxing his health care insurance for his family of six (that's got to have a value of over $20,000).

My mother said, "And Obama's plan isn't any better. Let me tell ya, this election is just choosing between two bad candidates."

Oh brother.

I tried to tell her that there was a big difference between the lying, crazy, right-wing agenda of McCain-Palin and Obama.

My mother said, "that guy (Obama) talks out both sides of his mouth" and brought up Reverend Wright.

"Don't tell me he sat in that church for 20 years with that racist preacher and doesn't agree with him."

She claimed to have heard the tapes herself where he (Wright) made racist comments.

And this is where the bigots on the right have become successful in calling Wright, and by extension Obama, a bigot. My mother didn't hear racist comments. She heard some snippets of something that sounded provocative and then a commentator proclaimed them to be racist.

The conservatives, creators of the"southern strategy," have the stones to accuse Obama of being a racist.

And unfortunately, there are people out there like my mother, soft racists who "have lots of black friends" (meaning a guy they work with) and are looking for a reason to vote against Obama so they can tell themselves its not because they are racist.

So my my mother, who once referred to Martin Luther King as an ass hole, can claim she doesn't trust Barack Obama because he's a bigot.

I thought we were done with this not trusting Obama thing after my sister spent a good hour or so explaining to our mother that Obama was not a Muslim, which she was convinced was true.

Why does it always come to this? Why does the direction of this country always get decided by several idiots in a just a few places?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have to think the answer to your questions is faith. Faith that those the MMs (Moron Masses) see as people of Christ - who have hijaked moratilty as something only they possess - could not possibly lie to them, so it must be the truth.

I could very well catch some flak for this, but they are conditioned, in a way, to take things on faith and not to question no matter how illogical it may be.

How else could ANYONE in thier right minds believe that ANY politician would promote sex-ed for kindergarteners?

JJisafool said...

I'll be having similar conversation while my mother visits from Virginny this weekend. Cheers.

Anonymous said...

fyi, it seems yer button has upset some peoples in the carolinas.

dems demote christ

but don't worry, this gentleman does not speak for all human beings in the carolinas. just most of them. sigh.

however, i'm still naively convinced there must be some way to have a conversation with people of differing views...however my sarcasm and your name-calling aren't overly enticing methinks.

suggestions anyone? it's ok, i already know the answer.

Deni said...

I don't have a suggestion, mostly because I'm not sure that it is possible.

Unfortunately, I know these people too well, being related to so many of them. You show them undisputed facts and they still refuse to believe their pre-conceived notion about something (or their faith about it, as sleepyjer put it so well)

In my entire extended family, my sister is the only other one who uses her brain for reason and logic, but we are fighting against a tidal wave of unreason and anti-itellectualism with our relatives.

How do you reason with someone who believes that Noah's ark was real and that some guy was able to part an entire sea?

anna said...

One doesn't have to love Jeebus to fall for the GOP bullpucky. I happen to have exactly one friend of the Republican persuasion who often tells his Obama-leaning buddies, "Enjoy your tax increase!" This, even after I've pointed out to him that O's tax plan actually gives the masses of us some relief. Too many of us accept what we hear and read from our chosen media outlets as "the facts" without doing some extra research.

The only consolation I have? He won't vote McCain this fall, because he felt the Palin-for-veep choice was a sham.

Anonymous said...

holy mamaroni, this sounds exactly like my mum--except the bible-thumping.

the unfortunate thing is that there aren't just a few people who think like this; I would safely say a small majority exists.

remember? they all came out to vote (the evangelicals) in '04 and effectively negated the youth vote.

Anonymous said...

This doesn't exactly fit in this talkback but I have no where else to reply to momentofchoices "dems demote christ" article, (am I going to hell because I did not capitalize "christ" and give him his full due?) which I replied to if you are interested at all (of course the blogmaster has to approve it first).

Anyway, I followed a link to rightpudits.com (http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=2027) and OMG! I thought the "community organizer" scoffing had a slight tinge of predjudice to it but now . . .
"Growing up in Illinois I am well familiar with this time honored tradition of community organizing. We had another name for it, professional rabble rousing. Christ’s message was one of turn the other cheek, forgiveness, love thy neighbor. Let us not confuse community organizing with charity for thy brother, the two are not the same thing. Community organizing is often times very confrontational, but more importantly it is concerned with “what can we get for our group” to the exclusion of other groups. You had different groups essentially competing for limited services and goods (namely government subsidies) and this often leads to other then Christ-like behavior."

Anonymous said...

deni, i hear you.

sleepyjer, we're already in hell. :)

and it looks like the blog owner allowed your response to go through.

yes, lots of interesting perspectives out there.

anna, there's a friend who commented on my latest post about healthcare, and she talks about her manager who has no interest in voting, and asked my friend why she wanted some 'N-word' Muslim running this country. i too appreciate that this person won't be voting.

i am amazed daily by human beings.