My response to conservative E-mails

[angrycarpenter]

What if the liberals are right?

What if Bush really did steal the elections?

What if they really did lie us into a ruinous war?

What if they did record every single phone call and E-mail for blackmail purposes?

What if they allowed 9/11 to happen?

What if their first thought after 9/11 was "how can we use this to our advantage?"

What if Karl rove did indeed turn our justice dept. into a political tool?

What if they intentionally tortured people who they knew did nothing wrong?

What if they came into office with the purpose of finding a way around every law that makes our leaders accountable to us?

What if they came into office with the aim of making the rich richer at the expense of the rest of us?

What if Iran is really no great threat to us and they attack them anyway?

What if in spite of your unflagging support they have made fools of you?

What if a president McCain really does start WWIII?

What if the answer to just one of these questions is yes?

Is the thought of a president Obama so frightening that you want at least 4 more years of this?

Open your eyes and vote with the courage and optimism that Americans used to be famous for, we have seen what voting out fear has done to us.

[DU9598]

1. Wonderful

Well done - recommended!

[NanceGreggs]

2. Excellent!

[tularetom]

3. You are attempting to reason with idiots

I think I'd rather

Print a copy of their email of very soft absorbent paper.

Wipe my ass on the copy.

Place it in an envelope and snail mail it back to them.

Juvenile? Hell yes but this is the level of discourse they understand.

[gateley]

4. K&R! nt

[silverweb]

I like it!

[TuxedoKat]

5. Wow! That's great -- Is it okay to use this? nt

[angrycarpenter]

6. Yes, please do

I have only gotten one right wing e-mail but for some it seems to be a real everyday annoyance.

[livetohike]

7. I'm asking for permission to use this too please

I get right wing e-mails everyday . My response has been to refute the b.s. with links and quotes but I really like your response .

[angrycarpenter]

9. I posted this in the hope that many would use it.

Because it is what I have to say to the fearmongers in a nutshell.

I am thinking of writing one of these every day until the election

[SpiralHawk]

8. The k and the r

Powerfully said. Hope it goes viral in the e-mail realms.

[bdf]

10. Great post but

It was a MIHOP not a LIHOP. But you'd never be able to persuade a Bushevik that it was even a LIHOP.

Hell, the hard-core Busheviks think that no president in US history could have handled things any better that day and would actually have done worse. They also think that their opinion counts twice as much as yours because their mother and father are also brother and sister.

[angrycarpenter]

11. I wanted it to be reasonable

There is much available evidence of LIHOP, not nearly as much for MIHOP.

BTW I had to look up LIHOP-MIHOP. I was familiar with the concept but not the acronym.

[bdf]

12. The evidence for MIHOP

amounts to a signed confession.

Ummm, 1:30 in the morning here and I have to work tomorrow. I'd be happy to discuss it with you in-thread, by DU e-mail or by other means.

If board restrictions prevent you using board e-mail, then bdf at sktb dot net works.

Brief summary: Cheney was not only intimately involved in the planning of 9-11, he was also intimately involved in its execution. If you wish to ignore me as a wearer of tinfoil helmets I shall understand, but I can produce incontrovertible evidence to back my claims (but all tinfoil helmet-wearers say that).

[angrycarpenter]

13. I belive they did it too

But I didn't want to state anything that has not been reported in the MSM.

[bdf]

29. The brief summary...

1992. Cheney is SecDef, asks Asst SecDef for policy Wolfowitz to draft a strategy policy. Policy says (when military and political euphemisms are translated into plain English "We're the only superpower so nobody to stop us doing what we want. Let's invade Iraq and steal its oil. We can use it as a forward base to invade surrounding countries and steal their oil."

Said policy was leaked to the NYT. There was an outrage. Cheney and the wolfman say they were joking and that they'd never ever do anything like that.

1997. Project for a New American Century (PNAC) formed. Founding members were key players in, or key advisors to, the first Bush maladministration. Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Rumsfeld, Feith, Zalmay M Khalilzad (former consultant to Unocal over the trans-Afghan pipeline they were negotiating with the Taleban, former Bush special envoy to Afghanistan, Bush special envoy to Iraq) and James Ellis Bush (aka "JEB"). Their own name for themselves was "Vulcans" (after the god of volcanoes and war) but most Washington insiders, even in their own party, referred to them as the "crazies."

1998. PNAC (which includes Cheney as a founding member) writes letter to Clinton begging him to invade Iraq and steal its oil. Clinton declines.

1999. Cheney gives a speech to the Institute of Petroleum in London. His talk is pretty much about Peak Oil, although he doesn't use that term. In it he says:

Governments and the national oil companies are obviously controlling about ninety per cent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies, even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow.

2000 PNAC (which includes Cheney as a founding member) publishes a strategy policy. It's pretty much a revamp of the 1992 Wolfowitz policy except it's been expanded to include the whole world and any essential resources (but oil still gets a special mention). It talks of the transformation of the US military into a bunch of marauding thugs and says of that transformation:

the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor.

2001. Cheney holds his ultra-secret energy policy meetings. Only one sheet of paper has escaped that secrecy: a map of Iraq showing the oilfields divvied up between US oil giants.

2001, Sept 11th. Two military exercises normally held months apart are held together on this day. Operation Northern Vigilance put half the USAF in Canada and Alaska dealing with a simulated Russian attack over the North Pole. Some in the media commented that there weren't enough planes that day but attributed it to military cutbacks. Operation Vigilant Guardian simulated planes being hijacked and used as missiles—the thing Condi Lies 'R' Us claimed that nobody could have conceived of. That second exercise meant that initially Air Traffic Control and Norad and the USAF thought the terraist hijackings were part of the exercise. Even when they realized otherwise they couldn't tell the simulated hijackings apart from the real hijackins because the exercise continued running. And even when they managed to figure out which was which they didn't have nearby fighters to cope because they were in Canada. Those planes gallivanted all over the sky, one for over an hour, and should have been intercepted and shot down long before they eventually got close to their targets, but Osama got away with it because of those military exercises.

Who was in control of those exercises? You'd expect USAF generals. It wasn't. Above the AF geberals are the joint chiefs of staff, but it wasn't them either. Rumsfeld was the SecDef who gained a reputation for micro-management of the first phase of the Iraq war, but it wasn't him. Above Rumsfeld is Dubya, and he loves to play dress-up, but it wasn't him either. The man running both those exercises was Richard B Cheney. I'd say that puts the clincher on it.

You can google all this stuff and find reputable sources for all of it (DU's own Bernard Weiner put most of it except the Institute of Petroleum incident and the war games stuff into an excellent PNAC Primer, although it doesn't list sources so you'll still have to google).

OK, it might not meet the standard of proof necessary to find the Darth Cheney guilty, but it's more than enough to start an indictment and to have prosecutors get search warrants to go digging for more. And it's more than enough to convince me that Cheney was intimately involved in both the planning and the execution of 9/11, and that most of the founding members of PNAC are co-conspirators.

[SpiralHawk]

14. The OP doesn't try to convince of anything, or start an argument.

All it does is raise questions. A person who reads it -- no matter their beliefs, has no need to get reactively defensive. There is nothing to defend, nothing to refute. The only possible response is to consider the questions. But that is ever so important.

No arguments. Just consider the questions and come to your own conclusions.

Well done.

[IDemo]

15. Good job, and in the bullet point format they can understand

I think the end of the last line should read "voting out of fear", correct?

[angrycarpenter]

17. Thank you

I can't believe I missed that one. I usually proofread to the point of obsession.

[DailyGrind51]

16. I've given up trying to reason with them!

It's like attempting to deprogram a "Moonie"!

[Pushed To The Left]

18. Excellent! K&R

[Stevepol]

19. Don't forget the American people never elected Bush either time.

It's good to call for votes for Obama, but we shouldn't ever forget that both the last national elections were stolen. The evidence is overwhelming IMO.

I always cringe when people seem to blame the American people. All the people can do is cast their vote and the majority voted for Gore and Kerry. The problem is with our leaders and the press, not with the American people.

[KarenS]

20. ohhhh cut-paste-save !! K&R

ThankYou.

[callous taoboy]

21. My dad would be reaching for blood pressure meds by the 2nd item...

[Mad_Dem_X]

22. Brilliant! nt

[treestar]

23. What if he really did start WWIII is a good one to harp on

If McWar wants to scare people about Obama, he's got nothing on what can be done against him. His temper adds to that.

[raccoon]

24. Love it. At the very least, maybe they'll remove you from their lists. Rec.d. nt

[JHB]

25. What if pigs had wings? What if we clap hard enough to save Tinkerbell?

What if houses were made from gumdrops?
(end simulated conservative mocking of above questions)


I don't know about the conservatives you come into contact with, but for the ones I do?
It would just bounce off of about 2/3 to 3/4 of them, and the rest would bust a gut laughing.


You need to (or at least, I would need to) back every question up with the tightest supporting information available, from sources they won't just dismiss out of hand (because dismissing out of hand is one thing they're very well practiced at).

If you get a response, great, but don't hold your breath.

[angrycarpenter]

26. My response to conservative E-mails with links

what if the liberals are right?

what if Bush really did steal the elections?

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0813-29.htm
Election Fraud Continues in the US

what if they really did lie us into a ruinous war?

http://projects.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/?gclid=CKv1...
Iraq: The War Card - The Center for Public Integrity

What if they did record every single phone call and E-mail for blackmail purposes?

http://www.militarytimes.com/forum/showthread.php?t=156...
Ellsberg Says FISA Bill Means Blackmail of Congress - MilitaryTimes.com Forums

What if they allowed 9/11 to happen?

http://shoes4industry.blogspot.com/2007/08/pre-911-inte...
Shoes4Industry: Pre-9/11 Intelligence Ignored

What if their first thought after 9/11 was "How can we use this to our advantage?"

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO408A.html
Fabricating Intelligence for Political Gain

What if Karl Rove did indeed turn our justice dept. into a political tool?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/20...
U.S. Attorney Firings Investigation - washingtonpost.com

What if they intentionally tortured people they knew did nothing wrong?

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/04/10/they-knew /
Crooks and Liars » They Knew

What if they came into office with the purpose of finding a way around every law that that makes our leaders accountable to us?

http://www.mcwdn.org/GOVERNMENT/ChecksBalances.html
Checks and Balances

http://hnn.us/articles/23297.html
The Founders Never Imagined a Bush Administration

What if they came into office with the aim of making the rich richer?

http://money.cnn.com/2006/04/05/news/tax_cuts/index.htm
Report: Tax cuts on investment income a windfall for rich - Apr. 5, 2006

http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0303-01.htm
Poor, Poorer, Poorest: The Politics of Poverty

what if Iran is really not great threat to us and they attack them anyway?

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/08/4404 /
The Big Lie: ‘Iran Is a Threat’ - CommonDreams.org

What if in spite of your unflagging support they have made fools of you?

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bush_lies_an...
Bush lies and deceptions - SourceWatch

What if a president McCain really does start WWIII?

http://blog.case.edu/conservativemovement/2008/01/29/jo...
College Conservative Movement: John McCain's top ten temper explosions

What if the answer to just one of these questions is Yes?

Is the thought of a president Obama so frightening that you want at least 4 more years of this?

Open your eyes and vote with the courage and optimism that Americans used to be famous for, we have seen what voting out of fear has done to us.

http://www.barackobama.com/index.php
Barack Obama | Change We Can Believe In | Home

[angrycarpenter]

27. I search google so you don't have to. nt

[Flying Dream Blues]

28. That's great...nt

[liberalla]

30. that's really good!

If you don't mind, I'll borrow that.

[CitizenPatriot]

31. talking with sheep

Your email was great!

After studying the problem of trying to communicate with the indoctrinated and illogical, here's what I've come up with. I know it seems hateful but there just isn't time to deal with their racism, homophobia, misogyny, etc directly. Here's some zen fun: Ride their resistance until the wave overtakes them. they are like the people in a cult. They can't hear reason.

ZEN FUN EXAMPLES:

"But I thought you were a patriot! I can't believe this! Does your momma/daddy know you don't believe in the constitution?" Cross your hand over your heart and look deeply concerned. This can be in response to anything they throw at you re Obama. Remember, it doesn't need to make sense! It has to distract and accuse of things they are deeply afraid of being ided with.

"I'm sure you did believe that about Obama back then, well, everyone did...but then I know you were the first to change your vote this week! I guess you and I would rather have a real Christian in office. Thank the good lord we're not hicks that can't see past his color." Refuse to discuss it further, on the grounds that you weren't raised to talk badly about anyone.

"Poor John McCain he was in a hole for five years. I just know I couldn't survive that in tact. I wouldn't want to say anything against the guy, but you know.....my son/daughter is draft age. Yours?" Watch pupils dilate. then you can add, "well, I'm sure most of them come home. It's just, I only have the two." Purse your lips- you're a patriot and you won't speak badly about the war, but shame on those men. Shake your head, indicating they are losing your support, but again, you say nothing out loud.

"I thought McCain was one of us...but we don't know what side he's on from day to day!" They will be shocked to hear this from you, and then you refuse to talk about it anymore. Mutter things about taxes, social security, and his country club lifestyle but nothing articulate.

"I'm sure I couldn't say, but 500 dollars on a pair of shoes...I don't know of any men who care that much about their shoes..." meaningful pause. They are the "cowboy" party, and this is humiliating to them. If they are getting red in the face, point down to their shoes and ask them how much they cost. If they were cheap, breathe a vivid sigh of relief. If they were expensive, shake your head and wander away. Make sure they see you pointing to their shoes later in the day while talking to others. If they get upset, accuse them off being sensitive. Announce to everyone, "Hey, y'all, Bob here spent 500 dollars on his shoes, too! Ha ha....Guess you're too good for us, Bob. No more beers at the pub with us regular guys, huh? Bob's gonna go hang with his new friend, McCain and they gonna talk shoes like a couple of ladies!" hardie har har.

Just sayin'.... And I hope y'all take this in the spirit it is intended. I know we can win on the issues, but no one is listening! Try this stuff. History has proven it effective in the right venue with the right crowd.

P.S. Can anyone photoshop McCain looking effeminate in silk drawers and 500 dollar shoes and with his new hairline plugs? youtube it! Oh, yes I did.

[Lochloosa]

32. Perfect

Thanks