A letter to my "Born Again" freeper brother

[Boxerfan]

I have long had a hard time understanding how my Brother who proclaimed himself a christian could be such an Ass! Well, now it's obvious! He's a true Republican!.

I haven't spoken to him since before the elections but the Abu Garaib round 2 details were too much to bear without letting off some steam.I can no longer tolerate anyone who defends this administration & I wanted to give him one last chance to get off the train. But he won't.
(edited to remove name-replaced with ////)
"Dear ////,
Oy!
I have been very busy as of late,having 2 jobs now (how uniquely American eh?) but at least I'm having fun & the family is doing very well.

I haven't written for obvious reasons but I was prepared to wait till the house of Bush crumbles. Well the facade shows some healthy cracks & the inspectors say the house is rotten to the core. That much is obvious to any casual observer.

Why did I write now?. Well, partly out of anger-pent up at that- but mostly because I hope you don't ride this trainwreck to it's conclusion.

Do you really want details & play ditto-head dumb? don't do that,I will nail you to your own cross. It's far too easy ////. You see there will be a release of the second set of Abu Garaib photo's & this time video's. All of the Senate has seen this evidence & those who have spoken of them are digusted beyond belief.

They show the rape of an 10 year old Iraqi boy. They have a "childrens prison" ////. They show the beating of a 8 year old girl for "interogation". Do you really want to go further?These were not some renagade offenses it was endemic to all US operated detention centers & cleared by Sock puppet hisself & Gonzalez. Rummy knew all along of course.

This is just the tippity tip of the iceberg ////. Outing a Cia agent & undoing THE most important undercover organization the CIA had( Brewster & Jennings) is treason plain & simple,can't be defended. The fact it was to bring us into a war on cooked intelligence (as documented by the Downing street minutes) is all part of this. A war based on lies. A war that has cost countless innocent Iraqi & almost 1780 American lives.

At least the economic side of this can't be lost on you can it ////?. The war has drained all our resources & then some. Our trade imbalance can't be hidden much longer & there are multiple financial bubbles ready to burst. This is about us & them. The Corporations & the fabulously wealthy have never had it better. But the American citizen has never had it worse.

Fight them over there so we don't fight them here? Gadz,how many ways is that just plain wrong. Unfortunately now it's PROVEN wrong & Iraq is a breeding ground for terrorists & plain justification for the rest of the world to hate us.

What is ironic is I now devote as much energy as possible helping spread the truth about what has happened to America,basically helping as many people as I can. While your party boils evil on the world & uses what should be good Christians like you to do his bidding & keep his evil in power. How ironic (as I am not a religous person)eh?

I will leave you with a poem I wrote. Take it to heart ////. It's all true I'm afraid.

Ode to Republicans
Oh! Where are your values,of a governemnt small.
Of a constitution held true!,and Tax cuts for all.
Long gone don't you see,all squandered for naught.
Bill Of Rights?..Sold for trinkets,to bandits yet caught.
Who has raped Lady Liberty,and left her for dead?.
Not Bin Laden-a pawn,t'was your leaders instead.
They planned it all,in the dark of the day.
When there were questions,that would not go away.
His Florida win,was exposed as a lie.
And public aclaim,it was starting to die.
So they acted on plans,from the P.N.A.C.
And sent planes to die,for the whole world to see.
In a ball of great flames,Americans died.
What hurt most of all,were the bombs set inside.
T'was Cheney and Rove,who pulled all the strings.
They stayed deep in bunkers,and metered the stings.
The President sat,looking remote.
Reading a book,T'was called "My Pet Goat".
He sat as he KNEW,the plan had been played.
The bombs they had set,would explode that same day.
But we were all told a lie,and the brave sent to die.
In the sands of Iraq,far away.

T'was all wrong,now were told.
Bin Ladens trail cold,Now "It's for freedom" they say.
Our jobs sold away,the budget in shatters.
For oil far away,Was that all that mattered?.
So remember Republicans,It's your party to take.
You are the ones,who can put on the brakes.
Take back your party!,leave me to mine.
There's a VOTE in 06!,AND IT"S A$$ KICKING TIME!!!!!!.

With Peace & Love (really!)your brother.

[wake.up.america]

1. Love goes a long away.

[MsTryska]

2. what's your goal with this letter? nt

nt

[JRob]

3. good luck on that. most of my family is the same, hopeless and uninformed

[graywarrior]

4. My born-again, freeper sister finally called me after

a long separation due to my vote for Kerry. She reached out first. I want my sister back in my life more than I need to screech politics.

Hope things work out for you.

[Jacobin]

5. When your mantra is "my country right or wrong" and politics

becomes like cheering for your favorite NFL team, and you completely ignore reality to cheer your team on....then you get a fucked up country.

This isn't about rational debate and discussion about serious policy issues. This is about tribalism

(not you and your brother, specifically, but the whole attempt at having discourse with tribalists)

[fudge stripe cookays]

6. While I am all for trying to educate the sheeple.

your superior-sounding tone in the letter may defeat what you're trying to accomplish. It's part of the reason they hate us so much: we're elitist liberals.

Try reading "What's the Matter With Kansas," before sending it, to approach these topics in a way that the "born again" can relate to.

I hate to see you do irreparable damage to your relationship, although I know you're not the only one that's dealing with this right now.

FSC

[JohnnyBoots]

9. Great book

[joeprogressive]

7. I understand your anger

I wrote a similar letter to my mother who sold out all her ideals because my father told her it meant a little more money in her pocket if she voted for Bush and his devastating tax cuts. I never sent the letter but told her she sold out. I have forgiven but I will never forget. My once close relationship with my mother has been shattered. Her slow transformation to the other side coincides with a regression into ignorance. She used to follow the issues, now she lets my dad keep her up to speed on things.

I truly believe that millions of Bush voters will wake up one day and feel like dirty whores. Selling principle for money means you are a whore. The funny thing is a vast majority don't even realize that they are actually voting against their own self interest while destroying the country and world in the meantime.

[Patchuli]

8. I relate to you

as my sister too, is a born-again Christian and a Republican.

On the other hand, I too am a born-again Christian. I am also a Democrat, a activist for MoveOn, a precinct-walker and telephone-bank worker for the Democratic party and a loudly-professed critic of Bush and all his neo-con crew.

My sister has come around because she is a true Christian; she walks her faith and she sees what the Bush Admin. has done to this country. Those freepers who profess their faith on Sunday and wear it like a badge when it is convenient do NOT live it outside of church on Sunday morning.

Don't get me wrong, I am not a perfect Christian. I forget sometimes when I am angered by someone to take a deep breath and think before I speak. I don't lie, steal, cheat, kill or do any serious sinning, but I can be mean and nasty on occasion and I regret it later. My pastor, this morning, told us how he can be sarcastic when someone does him wrong and how he too, struggles to do the right thing.

Please, I beg of you, stop lumping all Christians into one barrel. We are not all phoney baloney talkers and we are definitely not all freepers!!!! If those people truly were Christian, they would not only walk their talk, they would WALK HIS WALK. Christianity and freeperism do not walk hand-in-hand no matter what the hypocrites say and I can guarantee 100%! that Jesus does not approve of what these folks are doing.

Great poem, BTW. I agree with you that Abu Graib Part 2 should open some fools' eyes. Too bad it takes the worst extremes to do it!

[PsycheCC]

11. After much effort trying to figure it out, I'm asking the dumb question.

What the heck is a "freeper"? Wish I knew how stupid to feel in advance. In my defense, I figured out "fundy" on my own. DU needs some kind of directory for all these terms!

[HeatherG.]

12. A Freeper Is

A freeper is someone who posts on the website Free Republic, or someone who thinks like the posters on that site.

[earth mom]

13. A freeper is a rabid rethug who posts at DUs arch enemy, the Free Republic

website. They like to come over and wreak havoc for sport-so keep your eyes out for odd posts and alert the mods on them-located at the bottom left side of their posts. I think the alerts help to get rid of them, but who knows...they keep coming back just like the cockroaches they are. :shrug:

p.s. Welcome to DU. :hi:

[PsycheCC]

16. Thanks for the welcome and the info.

:hi:

[Patchuli]

18. Well I see other DUers have defined freeper

so I'll just say 'Welcome to DU!' :hi: Just ask if you want any other translations!

[Vinca]

10. Holy moley, I'm glad my clan are Buddhists, atheists and

ne'er-do-wells. Oh yeah, and Democrats!

[Mabel Dodge]

14. Thank god for ne'er-do-wells...

:rofl: You're post made me choke on my diet coke.

[Vinca]

17. Thanks for posting that, Mabel.

It makes my day to know I made someone laugh. I got my husband laughing till tears ran down his cheeks, too, so I'm on a roll.

[calimary]

15. Welcome to DU! The poem is GREAT!

You're among friends and - well - family members here.

I've found that many of those who voted for bush, when they're willing to admit it, do so with a bit of sheepishness in their voices. Or, they're firmly cemented into denial. It takes a mighty big person to be able to admit that he or she has been had. Nobody wants to be a sucker or a dupe, to admit that they were played like a bunch of violins. To save face, they'd rather go down with the ship, insisting they did the correct thing and that they sided with the correct side. And sometimes you just have to let them. For those who allowed themselves to be waltzed down the garden path, and signed the contract without reading the fine print, maybe they deserve to sink with their precious "leader" and all his "moral rectitude."

But there will come a day when most of them will come in from the cold, too. Just like with Nixon. He got a LOT of votes, alright, in that last election of his. But come Watergate time, you couldn't find half-a-dozen people in an entire city who'd admit they'd voted for Nixon. It was "Nixon WHO? Naaa, I always knew he was a bad apple..." (yeah, SURE you did...)

Sorry if this seems a bit cold. I myself have sort of washed my hands of people I know who willfully choose to remain ignorant.

A fellow artist I know (knew) was SO smug immediately after Selection 2000. She was just SURE that "he's going to unite everyone" in America. She had some of that knee-jerk hatred of all things Clinton. I was shocked enough by that alone. But then, she later started in about this party to which she and her husband were invited, which she knew would be packed with Gore supporters. She said she planned to go that party wearing her cowboy hat and boots, and she was going to gloat. Those of us who were mourning the theft of that election were already hurting, thank you very much. I couldn't believe how nasty she was, having never heard her talk that way before. But she was incredibly nasty - a sore winnerman if ever there was one. It was then and there that I resolved NEVER to buy any of her watercolors or paintings OR ANYTHING ELSE, EVER. I believe in supporting my fellow artists, and I always do. But she just absolutely froze me away. It's too bad, too, because her work is quite nice, although WAY overpriced. But still, knowing the kind of person who created it, I could not have it in my home.