I just hung up from an infuriating call with my mother

[neebob]

in which she mindlessly defended ... oh, I don't know - maybe half the big-name conservative assholes on the planet - and spewed too many stupid wingnut bullshit lines to report. Imagine how many big-name conservative assholes can be mindlessly defended and how many stupid wingnut bullshit lines can be spewed by one woman in two hours. And while she was at it, she villified John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Michael Moore (whose work she has never bothered to look at), Al Franken, and both Clintons. Ugh! Why, oh, why did I take the bait. We were doing so well - first time in months I'd been sucked into an argument. She saw that horrible monster John Kerry on "her Fox News" - it's fair and balanced, don'tcha know - and just couldn't resist saying she hopes he doesn't win. If he gets in, she'll ... I forget what. And she said I started it.

She makes no sense whatsoever - she just repeats talking points like some kind of automated simpleton and pooh-poohs or refuses to accept any reasonable argument or fact. She's fully Hannitized and completely irrational.

She even said Arnold Schwarzenegger is a good man, when just a few months ago he was a creep and a skirt chaser and not her kind of Republican. He's still a skirt chaser, but now he's a good man instead of a creep. Why? Because he loves his wife.

Maybe my mind has been poisoned, but at least it works. So it's back to "uh-huh ... uh-huh ... uh-huh" for me - when I feel like talking again, that is. It's just not worth having to mentally screen everything I might say for its potential to send the conversation careening off into the Mormon sector of the wacky FoxNewsWorld where my mother lives.

[Tom Kitten]

1. What a drag

sometimes it better to stop such topics from being discussed before they get warmed up...my sister gave my Dad 2 Bill O'Reilly books for Father's Day, now my Mom is reading them, they don't even say anything about them when I'm around...My Dad can't stand Bush but think O'Reilly and Pat Buchanan are two of the greatest men around!

[physioex]

2. Hmmm...

That is a contradiction. Pat Buchanan is against the war and the foregin policies of this country...

[Tom Kitten]

5. Beats me, too!

He likes Buchanan and he thinks most of the US's problems are because we let too many immigrants into the country (he thinks they ruined California) and he doesn't like Bush because he allowed himself to be told what to do by his neocon advisors (he read that Time article)...plus he's a vet and thinks the war is a waste and the vets always end up getting the shaft...So there is a kind of consistancy there, how O'Reilly enters into it I have no idea...He doesn't get cable so I don't think he's ever seen him on TV since he was a news anchor here in the 80s...
I'm going to ask him to go see Fahrenheit 9/11 with me this weekend...

[physioex]

7. Take him to see the movie if he will go...

Don't soo worked up with the topic that it causes many arguements, it's just not worth it....

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

16. hey, countfloyd,

here's an argument in favor of immigration-ask your dad if he's 100% Native American. Unless he is, ask him where he'd be if his ancestors had been turned back at the port.

[physioex]

3. Ain't family problems a bummer....

Youre not alone in this world....

[neebob]

6. I know I'm not alone

and I know it's better to stop it before it starts. I guess I was hoping she'd have come around a bit in the time I managed to stick to the uh-huhs - but no, she just gets worse.

[physioex]

9. LOL...

I try the uh-huh..myself but sometimes it just don't work...

[alittlelark]

4. Your call to your mother sound just like one to mine.

W/O the Fundamentalist 'end of times' BS I always get.

I know I have to talk to her 4-5 times a year..........but, damn people like that are just TOXIC.

Uh, yeah, she's my mom.:-(

[neebob]

8. Oh, I get the end of times BS, too

It just has a different name. Never mind that those beliefs are opposed to the belief that wonderful George W. Goodpersonbush is going to fix everything.

[alittlelark]

12. I accepted about a year ago that she was lost

and it has helped. She was realistically 'lost' by my 10th birthday, but I kept hoping.

Now I understand that she is deluded (she used to believe I had demons living inside of me).

For some, there is no hope

And I have been hoping against hope and finding only disappointment

[Ore]

10. We all have times

where we think our families are insane. It happens.

*shrug*

[Ore]

14. not bragging but..

it seems most of the family here are Dems, or at the very least Anti-W.

*dances* ;)

[AlFrankenFan]

11. I know how you feel

I recently discovered my grandmother whom lives in Massachusetts is a republican...

It was a rather interesting thing to be in Massachusetts. I figured in this town, North Adams, that she lives in, is probably 80% Democratic because it's a pretty much lower-middle class town from what I saw. Her home she lives in is over 50 years old and in desperate need of repair. I figured she was a Democrat, for let's say four years, since I got into the whole political "game". So we're sitting around an island in my aunt's kitchen and the news that another man had been beheaded had just reached us.
"It's really a shame," she said. "You know, how they're going to make this political and such. A shame. Especially John Kerry."
I took a double take and stupidly said, "Wha?"
"Yeah," my step-mother joined in. "I mean, of all the people those lousy Democrats could've chosen, they chose him."
I was mumbling..."Well there's a lousy Democrat sitting across the way from ya, hon."
"Yeah what about that attractive fellow, um..." my grandmother trailed off.
"John Edwards?" I offered.
"Yeah him," she said.
"If there was anyone who could've beaten the President it would have been him," my step-mom said. "And they chose Kerry. I mean, if this man is the best they can do they deserve to be beaten."
"I know, I so agree." my grandmother said.
Not meaning to sound rash, I said, getting up from the chair, "For godsakes he's your senator!" and excused myself from the island and went downstairs. See, I can't get into a political argument with these people cause they just don't listen, so I left it at that.

I told my mom this, and she said she wasn't surprised. It's mostly because my father has so much control over her that she can't make her mind up for herself.

[GalleryGod]

13. My condolences..My Mom Was a Yellow Dog Dem til the Day she Died!

Voted for Clinton in 1992 by absentee..then passed on before Election Day!

[lojasmo]

15. Click*

Bzzzzzzzzz.

[matcom]

17. do a search - Term: "Dadcom"

it works :)

[neebob]

19. I've seen your posts about Dadcom

If only Neebomom were as reasonable. Alas, she's completely brainwashed and it'll never happen. She'd have to be kidnapped and professionally deprogrammed.

[radwriter0555]

18. If you MUST talk to her, YOU need to control the conversation. Redirect it

towards things YOU choose to talk about. Be passive. Don't respond to wild silly things. Just change the subject.

[neebob]

20. Truthfully,

there isn't anything I want to talk about. Not that I don't want to talk to my mom - I just don't want to talk about anything because there's so little safe subject matter. If it doesn't lead to a political or religious argument, it aggravates my dad issues and I wind up feeling icky. It just isn't worth it. My mother simply is not interested in anything I care about. So listening and saying "uh-huh" is really the only way to go.

[fudge stripe cookays]

21. Wait til F911

comes out on DVD, tie her physically to a chair, prop her eyelids open like they did to Malcolm McDowell in Clockwork Orange, and maybe SOMETHING will penetrate.

My condolences. My mom used to be a Repug, but she woke up and I got her converted to Dean.

This is a woman who used to use the N word without even thinking about it, and still is very uncomfortable with gays, but she was sitting shoulder to shoulder with them at meetups and getting used to them.

When she told me last year how proud she was of me, and how she thought my dad would be too if he was still around, I thought, "Okay, if I die now, I'll know that I did some good work in my lifetime."

[neebob]

22. Well, it's an entertaining picture

but I'd have to tie her hands, too, and cover her mouth so she couldn't plug her ears and go la-la-la. Seriously, there's no hope short of Bush himself being arrested for murder or rape or something, and then my mother would probably say he was framed by the Clintons.

Congrats on converting your mom. I really don't need to convert mine or even have her agree with me. My main struggle is with not wanting to talk to her at all because her beliefs interfere with everything and make it a toxic experience.

[Radical Activist]

23. If she's Mormon just reminder her that Jospeh Smith was a socialist

and that Utah was founded as a socialist theocracy that voted for liberals until everyone got wealthy and pridefull, just like the people in the Book for Moromon who strayed from God.

Also reminder her that James Faust is a Democrat. All that will only piss her off, but that's my two cents.

[neebob]

25. Sure, that's a good idea

like the time I said Joseph Smith was a common con man.

[Radical Activist]

27. Now that's just insulting

But Joseph Smith did in fact set up a socialist communal society. She might not like it, but its something most any Mormon history book will confirm.

[newsguyatl]

24. your mom is dumb

no offense :hi:

mine is crazy though. :D

[Sweetpea]

26. Hey....you got some scotch.