Oh, Look! It's the Tea Party Comrades...

I love the far right emails that litter inboxes like dandruff and get (cackled at/hollered at/righteously indignated at) brushed off and forwarded with the speed of light- most of the time without being read any farther than the subject line, and almost assuredly without
a) Fact checking

b) Evaluating their own reactions

c) Actually thinking about what the hell they're agreeing with.

Example

Russian President Vladimir Putin has allegedly said that "negotiating with Obama is like playing chess with a pigeon. The pigeon knocks over all the pieces, craps on the board, then struts around like it won the game."
Read more at http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/pigeonchess.asp#KXTMUCjOjrOvGpfl.99

a) He never said that. I've heard it for years attributed to all different people, but as Snopes points out the first recorded place was talking about creationists. Nice. And fitting.

b) The people who forward this LOVE it- anything that makes the President look like a pompous fool is always welcome in their camp, whether or not it makes any damn sense at all considering Putin is proudly pompous and notoriously non-negotiating of nature, oh and by the way

c) he's sort of a Communist...using the definition ya'll give Communism, which is WRONG but it's the one you've always used so we'll go with that. You're agreeing with a Communist. You hate Obama with a red-hot hatred because he's "turning 'Merika into a Socialist Muslim Communist country" and you're agreeing with the leader of the biggest freaking Communist country ever known to mankind. Here's where you scream and chortle and say, "HAH! There's where you're WRONG! Putin is NOT Communist- he's a member of the United Russia party which is NATIONALIST, not COMMUNIST!" If you can call Obama a Socialist Muslim Kenyan, I can call Putin a Communist. At the very least he's a URINO...and I love the sound of that. And I love that I just made that up. Before coffee.

Example

"Unless the Muslims knock off fucking with Russia and the area around the Olympics in particular, Putin will nuke Mecca"

a) This one is hard to verify. Go ahead, google it. There was one article in Time that stated that there would be 'stern retribution' and then page after page of rightwing echo chamber blogs and shit that use the 'nuke Mecca' line...followed by unanimous cheering and "HELL! I'll go with 'em!" sort of posturing. Almost pigeon-like. Coo coo cachew.

b) I actually love the image of the Tea Party and other right-wingers marching side by side with the Ruskies. Joe McCarthy would be so proud of ya'll. Really.

c) Of course you must realize that if anyone were to actually nuke Mecca it would not eliminate the 'Islamic Threat', because Islam is the second largest religion in the world and very few Muslims live in Mecca. You want the actual, for realsies end of the world? Shit. Never mind. Of course ya'll do. You have all those guns and MRE's and Survival Seeds to use up.

So lets recap.

You LOVE Putin because he's an arrogant, well-educated politician who is pushy and brash but who does what (he thinks) needs to be done no matter how unpopular it is to his actual people who live in his actual country. He also looks completely badass shirtless riding a prancing steed, which proves he's a real man's man who does what he wants, when he wants and fuck everyone else.

You HATE Obama because he's an arrogant, well-educated politician who (you feel) is pushy and is doing what (he thinks) needs to be done no matter how unpopular it is to you- who even I admit are actual people who live in this actual country. He also looks completely badass shirtless at the beach, which proves he spends time with his family and absolutely no time at the office and is a total leach on the taxpayers.

Putin spent sixteen years as an officer in the KGB so that proves he's savvy and ruthless and (maybe just a little Communist).

Obama was a COMMUNITY ORGANIZER for three years acting as director for a small Catholic (less than 20 employees) foundation with a budget of under $500,000 and that focused on tenant rights, job training and college prep. The horror.

But we all know what being a COMMUNITY ORGANIZER leads to.

Just ask humanity's most successful Community Organizer...Jesus.

***Note- I am NOT comparing Obama with Jesus, so simmer down. All ya'll Christians can put down those Bibles you were fixin' to thump me with and all ya'll Tea Partiers can put away that cross you just built with alacrity.

***Additional Note for the Tea Partiers- alacrity is not a brand of glue or a type of lumber. Look it up.

Fwd:Fwd:Fwd:EVERY AMERICAN NEEDS TO KNOW THIS

Dear (Huge block of names and email addresses I've never heard of and one at the very tippy top who I think I recognize),

Thank you for caring about me so much that you have added me to your blindly-generated email list of people you consider your closest of friends.

Unfortunately, you don't know me well enough to understand that my political views and yours are wildly different. Wildly. Different.

Maybe you do know that and are just trying, tenderly and lovingly, to bring me around to the Right way of thinking (pun intended- although there's no emoticon or LOL after it to assure you understand that).

My views are such that I respect yours. I will not call you a small-minded, ignorant, dangerous puppet of the Machine. Please refrain from calling me or anyone who thinks like me a commie, socialist, America-hating abomination. (And if you do- please take note of the spelling of "abomination").

I believe in your right to your own beliefs- political or religious. Please do the same.

I believe that what I believe in is what's best for my own family and the direction I'd like to see America (a country I'm actually very fond of) travel in- both for our citizens, and for our place as a member of the planet- one of many members, also known as "countries" or "nations" who are all really actual places with their own to-be-respected beliefs and dreams, not just little islands of putty full of throngs of people breathlessly and eagerly waiting for the day when they can be just like US (again- pun in the capitalization intended).

But here's the thing.

While I respect your right to believe what you like, I must make one request.

Just one.

Before you forward anything- to me, or anyone else- take FIVE MINUTES and check to be sure that what you are forwarding is true. Don't assume it is because it's

"been around the globe 3 times- don't stop it now"
"comes from (fill in the name of any organization or group or government department)"
"as seen on TV or website"

Actually, now it may take seven or eight minutes to verify the truth of something, since people are getting wise to the fact that it's very easy to go to Snopes and find out if what's being forwarded is true, or a steaming pile of shit.

I received an email last week that had had the Snopes logo pasted at the top, with a link posted that had the word "snopes" in it.

The link did NOT go to Snopes but directly to a racially charged site. Lovely.
A direct trip and search to Snopes did show that the original tidbit was true, but the email had "cut and pasted from Snopes" and then totally corrupted what followed- not surprisingly in a way that lined it up with the hateful message in the racially charged website.

If what you send me (and 1,000 of your other closest friends) is true- and you verify that, I'll be happy to look at it.

If you are passing on hate-mongering, fear-inducing bullshit, I'm going to have to assume you are a small-minded, ignorant, dangerous puppet of the Machine.

Have a nice day, may the god of your choice bless you and keep you, be proud to be an American, and go kiss your kids and dogs.

(smiley face, hearts, flowers, thumbs up)

sheri