Who here works with/lives with Kerry bashers?

[CBHagman]

Last night I stayed late at work to cover the Condoleezza Rice hearings, and I got an earful from two of the Kerry-bashers in my office -- lots of cheap shots about his attendance record at the Foreign Relations hearings, etc. (This from a co-worker who didn't vote in one election because the polling place was "too hard to find.") :eyes:

Generally speaking, I try to confine my political chat at work to private talks with like-minded people. I have been burned once too often for making comments or even joking about the veracity of the Washington Times' coverage. :eyes: Naturally, I didn't tell everybody that I spent my vacation in Pennsylvania as a swing state volunteer.

So share your experiences. How do you cope with anti-Kerry aggressors? Feel free to vent or share tactics.

[WildEyedLiberal]

1. I almost lost a friend over this

My friend actually believed the Swift Boat shit. I had a falling out with her for two months after the election, after I discovered she had voted for *. She talked to me again recently, and I told her how betrayed I felt, and she apologized, said that she didn't mean to mislead me (she never told me she supported *). Then the Swift Boat lies came up and she said she still believed that. I told her my respect for her hinged on whether she renounced those lies or not - I think I finally convinced her. I will keep on her, however, just to ensure that she does not relapse. Because I wasn't joking - I can't be friends with someone who believes the SBVT maggots.

[CBHagman]

2. I have to compliment your powers of persuasion.

Frankly, with most people I avoid the subject of politics unless I feel we can discuss things as equals. Then I approach things gingerly, for the most part.

The sad thing is that most people who bash Kerry simply parrot what appeared in the Bush ads/campaign speeches, plus the corporate media's usual twaddle. I don't think we can underestimate the power of the corporate media to create negative impressions. One of my dearest friends, a big fan of John Edwards, told me that she had heard nothing but negative stories about Teresa Heinz Kerry. And she's someone who doesn't follow the pundit shows and reads strictly mainstream newspapers.

But with these people at the office, I fear a conflagration. They're pretty hard-nosed and have been so for years. I'll never forget the look on my supervisor's face when I mentioned that the Reagan administration had set records for indictments of former officials.

By the way, some of the BIGGEST critics of Bush in my office are two former servicemen, both of whom served during the Cold War, and one of whom is a Republican.

[TayTay]

4. I get this all the time from family

I was not in favor of the Iraqi war. (Duh!) My brother was. So was my sister-in-law. I started trying to converse with my sister-in-law to get her to change her opinion. I was having some effect. So my own borther sent me this e-mail: Written in April 2003.

hey lefty this is Sam Eagle (RealName deleted due to embarassment) what are you trying to do to XXX.
It has taken me 25 years to train her to be a right wing conservative republican.
I have had blinders on her that do not allow her to look left, not even forward only to the right. Just wanted you to know we just changed ALL OUR MENUS FROM FRENCH FRIES TO FREEDOM FRIES. I moved my personalized letter to me from George Bush thanking me for my support to the Center of our entry way. Watched the news last night with XXX and I think I have her back on the right and narrow.
Thank God.
Watched some real TV journalism last night without clintonisque bubba beanny in the oval office spins on Fox with Bill OReilly.
You should try getting out of the liberal bubble and watch this show you might be enlightened. They spoke of the winners and losers of the war
Winners George Commander in chief Bush sure to go down in history as a tremendous leader The president who restored honor dignity and credibility after bubba and his liberal crew of hollywood no mind actors get paid way to much for nothing acvtors have left.
Losers All liberal Democrats Dean of Vermont no credibility left. Kerry from Mass. Living proof that indians still do buffalo. Liberal papers like the New York crunchy, save the planet ot the cost of the tax paying hard working americans Times and the Los Angelos Times from the heart of liberal land now must but wont admit like you we have freed the people of Iraq from a regime that made Hitler look like a Girl Scout.
Have a nice day
Love your Brother Sam.

New Hampshire, Honestly.
Now, I ask you, does that even sound sane? At least the DU-ers are Dems, even if they are wildly independent and critical of other Dems. At least they don't send me weird letters with strange Faux Awful News points in it. And they occasionally write in complete sentences.

[vinessa4freedom]

5. oh my God, TayTay

You have my deepest sympathy. My sister drives me nuts at times, but she is liberal, and has always been so. She must have been so frustrated with me when I refused to participate in political discussions. I'm so glad no one in my actual family sounds like that. My neighbors come pretty close, but I don't have to share family reunions with them. Let me know next time you have to be in the same room with him. I'll send all the positive, liberal vibes I can muster.

[TayTay]

6. I grew up with this. Daily.

My father used to make me debate with all six of my brothers when I was a kid. At first, I was Daddy's little girl and I looked to him to bail me out when the going got rough. Then my father gave me the best advice ever, "When you open your mouth, your brain falls out. I'm not going to help you out any more, do it on your own, sink or swim." I learned to swim. I am not afraid of debate, idiots don't bother me anymore and I have learned to construct a better argument. I am not afraid of this, it strengthens me.

Hey, strong opinionated women rock!

[vinessa4freedom]

7. If that letter was the best he could do

I bet he didn't come close in your debates. :) I'm not afraid either. Never been afraid to express my opinions, but never had the political expertise to truly debate effectively. An opinion without the evidentiary support isn't much more than blowing steam. I'm learning. Especially thanks to this board, and the links and research everyone does. It's like the John Kerry database around here, I love it!

[whometense]

11. Well you certainly were

raised with tough love. I grew up in a female-centric family where argument of any kind was frowned upon. As a result, I suck as a debater and it's taken me years to claim the courage of my convictions.

My husband's one of seven - just one girl in the bunch - and all conversations devolve into arguments, often heated.

But fortunately all of them are liberals - except for the moved-to-Israel contingent, and I wouldn't know how to begin to explain their politics.

[LittleClarkie]

13. Your brother came very close to speaking in tongues

Is he also evangelical.

That came very close to being almost incoherent. I will admit when my Fox watching, Rush listening brother started regurgitating SBVT crap, saying he was only telling me the truth (other truths included telling me that only Dems were stealing yard signs), I called him a mother fucker and started crying.

He said we weren't to talk about politics anymore if I was going to go ballistic like that.

Imagine my utter shock when it turned out he voted for Kerry. Split his vote: Dem prez, Repub everything else, but still. He recognises that Bush is an idiot. So I guess that outweighed what he thought of Kerry.

Regardless, you have my sympathy. I hope he was joking when he said he had his wife only looking right. Please tell me he was joking.

A guy I know said, as I started talking to his wife (he was an asshat all though the campaign, no class, making fun of purple hearts and all) that his wife was a Bush supporter too, and that she wasn't corruptable. I wanted so badly to answer "Oh, so you've trained her not to think either?" Sigh. I live in Freeperville. It sucks.

[TayTay]

17. Sort of joking, sort of not.

He is actually pretty strange in his politics. He once told me that he favors Gay Marriage because, it keeps the gays from going after the young kids. (You can't make this shit up.) He only watches Faux News, so he regurgitates what he sees.

My sister-in-law is very RW as well. The comments about keeping her on the right and narrow are probably more on target than not. But part of that is because he has the stronger and more dominant personality in that relationship, so it could be because of that.

Other than that, they are fine company. They are both chefs and host the annual Christmas Dinner, which is awesome. This year they made a point of showing me the Rethug swag that The Idiot had sent them after the theft of the election. However, I was specifically told I couldn't touch the Christmas Card, the Calendar (Great moments in Rethuggery in History) or the glossy 5x7 pic. I would get liberal cooties all over them. (Like I would ever touch Rethug swag. I'd have to use industrial strength Evil-Be-Gone to get rid of the odiousness of it all.)

Sigh! Family, can't live with 'em, can't get 'em deprogrammed.

[Vektor]

14. HO- LY SHIT!!

I'm sorry, to say this but your brother sounds a little off his rocker.
I feel for your sister in law. His controlling nature is not healthy.
I am SO sorry.
and:
"Kerry from Mass. Living proof that indians still do buffalo. "
What the hell does that even MEAN????!?!!?!?!?!

[TayTay]

16. I have no freekin clue

what my brother meant. I was having this nice little discussion with his wife about how our President was a possible baby-killing, warmongering, piece of shit bastard, and I got this. I ask you, what did I do to deserve that. My sister-in-law is not a bad person, until you hit one of those buttons that have been pre-programmed by right-wing TV. Then she sounds like a freeper Stepford Wife. Sad.

(I have no clue whatsoever what the comment about Kerry was supposed to mean. I figured it was just freeper brain-damage and left it at that. Also, this was one of the nicer letters he sent me. You should have seen what I got after I told him that I protested the war. That was really, really vile. He basically called me a commie-loving, protestor-sucking, whiny feminazi unAmerican lefty piece of shit bitch. And then he got mean.)

Like I said, I am used to this. Maybe that's why the other forum's don't bother me. At least they write in mostly coherent sentences and even their insults sort of make sense.

BTW, I went with my Rethug sister-in-law to NYC last year to check out colleges for my daughter. She just wanted to tag alone. (despite her Rethug tendencies, she's okay.) We got into a huge fight in The Carnagie Deli with the waitor after she revealed that she had voted for The Idiot in the NH primary. Her especial hatred was reserved for John Edwards because she thought the Two Americas speech was Class Warfare. (Bitch.) That was hilarious. People were coming out of the kitchen to argue with her. Good times.

[Vektor]

18. I'm going to be honest with you.

From what you are telling me, your brother has serious disorders. Rage issues, severe misogyny, control issues, and the way he speaks to you and his wife is beyond acceptable -- it's abuse. I would not be at all surprised to learn that he physically abuses his wife.

I would suggest to him he get treatment, and disown him entirely.

You may not agree, but I have seen enough of these cases to recognize the classic symptoms. I have seen enough of them end in tragedy to be anything less than blunt, as well.

[TayTay]

20. No, no, no

He just lets it all rip. Absolutely not violent, but verbally out-there. There is a post-script. Last March my sister-in-law called me in tears. She just found out she is going to be a grandmother. Her 18 year old son and his 16 year old girlfriend (15 at the time she got preggers) were going to have a baby.

I was the first one in the extended family who got called. Why? Because she knows that it is against my moral code to make judgements after the fact on her son. Can't do it, it violates principle. My brother and sister-in-law know this, that's why they called me. I was supposed to gird for in-family battle and make sure that the kids involved were not pistol-whipped for being so stupid and to make sure the focus stays on the welfare of all concerned. They instinctively knew I would do this and not give them grief for moral values failure. They were right.

We may battle over politics, but there are certain innate qualities we look for and appreciate in each other. I get the compassion tag and the need to get people looking forward and the reminder that to 'err is human, to forgive divine.' They get the rock-steady tag, and the 'hard work is valuable' tag. This is laudable. The 'anti-immigrant', 'they get what they don't work for' argument is also there and I fight that.
Do you see what I mean. They may have nasty arguments with me, but they also see that liberalism is compassion, help for the needy and the knowledge that human beings falter some times and need help. That is also there. It just shouldn't get in the way of a good argument, even if that argument is not based on anything resembling our earth logic.

[WildEyedLiberal]

21. So I don't get it

He recognizes that liberals stand for compassion, forgiveness, and kindness, but berates you and calls you an evil commie traitor bitch when he doesn't immediately need your help with something?

:shrug:

Sounds like typical repuke hypocrisy and abuse to me.

[TayTay]

23. Yup

You nailed it. I cannot be trapped into defending what I don't believe in. I am still in there trying to get him to think logically, but deprogramming is hard.

[Vektor]

22. Well, ok....

I hope everything works out alright.

[CBHagman]

25. Oy, the class warfare thing.

I think it's time for a little George Lakoff reframing device for sister-in-law. The other side has so perverted the American dream that they kick the boot-strappers in the teeth and glorify those with no talent but lots of money and the right last name.

Such jackassery, for example, is displayed by my supervisor at work, who likes to say that Hillary Clinton stayed in her marriage for power. Heck, I can make a much better argument that Laura Bush, Andrew Cuomo, or Arnold Schwarzenegger married for power. If I wanted clout, surely I'd marry the son of a divorced nurse from Hot Springs, Arkansas, right? You know how ruthless nurses are. :-)

And with the John Edwards thing, ask her if she knows what the tax rates were when, say, Nixon and Eisenhower were in office, and ask if that was class warfare then. Ask how she'd feel if a member of her family died or was permanently disabled due to corporate negligence and whether it's a "junk lawsuit" to hold the company responsible.

Ask her if Bush, with his record in business (abysmal, despite all the money pumped into it) and source of his wealth (selling his share in the Texas Rangers after the taxpayers funded the stadium), would be president today if his last name had been something other than Bush. Would a failed businessman named Anderson, Harris or Wadowski sit in the Oval Office after essentially mucking things up for 20 years?

I know, I know; these people don't handle logic very well. But maybe we can drip, drip, drip reality on their little fairy tales and cast some doubt in their pretty little minds.

By the way, the current political climate almost makes me long for the dinner table fights my family had during the Johnson and Nixon administrations.

[TayTay]

26. Thanks, this was great

BTW, I come from a huge family. 4 voted for Kerry. (I got my Navy vet brother a Vets for Kerry sticker and he proudly put it on the back of the pickup.)

3 voted for the Evil Empire and one grumped about it not meaning anything. I personally swung two votes to Kerry. I was never going to get the others. Cie la vie!

[vinessa4freedom]

3. My neighbors and people who have been as close

as family for my entire life are now dissing me. They are becoming increasingly neocon, and I represent the voice of...you know who :evilfrown: They think of JK as the antithesis of their beliefs, and they think I am on a course of evil pursuits, as I have gotten more and more active, and John is my hero. It's not John, they don't really know him, it's that they think * is the one that will put their religious beliefs into every facet of life. Equal rights mean little, the Bible means everything. They are pathetically ignorant, and I have little patience for them anymore. It's sad, really because at one time they were normal, and now...well, it feels like I lost parents. I'm kind of feeling like a blue and gray situation there. I'm beginning to understand how the civil war affected people.

[CBHagman]

8. What's a shame is that people are ignoring the Bible.

If we listened only to the likes of the Christian Coalition, George W. Bush, Falwell and his ilk, and others of that stripe, one would think the Old and New Testaments consisted of 20 percent essays in support of supply-side economics, 20 percent on going around bragging about your own righteousness (if you are a right-winger, that is), 20 percent war-mongering, 20 percent on anti-gay themes, and 20 percent on why abortion is wrong.

People are taking what's familiar in our society (the strict father model, policies favoring the wealthiest and most powerful, etc.) and mistaking it for the Gospel.

[TayTay]

9. Yes, we need to bring this out more

The Bible and the Christian tradition of empowering the poor is what gave a moral floor to the civil rights movement in the 1960's. This cuts both ways. This moral tradition is also OUR tradition and we need to emphasize this.

[elshiva]

10. I am the lucky one,

everyone I live with voted for Kerry and still supports him. No one in my house says anything disrespectful about him at all, but a lot good critism of Bush's election fraud goes on here.

[sandnsea]

12. Mine either

Or they wouldn't have a home to live in!!! :)

[Vektor]

15. I'm so happy to say....

my family are staunch Dems, my co-workers learned REALLY quickly not to fuck with me, and no Kerry basher will ever be able to call them self my friend.

[WildEyedLiberal]

19. Ditto, ditto

My friend learned that shit real fast.

[Vektor]

24. Gotta school the mutha fuckahs!

Let them know your boundaries real quick, and they find a new victim. They thrive on weakness, and if you have none, they starve.