My mother, 74 years young, has a computer which she uses to manage her finances, send e-mail, read the New York Times on-line, and play Scrabble. She'll often forward me e-mails from her friends about PC viruses, cautionary tales about travelling alone at night, and inspirational "to my daughter" or "things my mother taught me" compositions. (I usually point her at Snopes.com for the first two.)
But lately, she's been forwarding me political propaganda.
The first forward was "BARACK OBAMA - Amazing photos" - which had an assortment of photos and claims about Obama's father, Kenyan half-brother, the president of Kenya Raila Odinga, and more. It pretty much tried to bring down Obama by association.
My reply:
Are the details of Obama's parents' marriages, or his brother's religion, really relevent? Jimmy Carter and George Bush have brothers (Billy C. and Neil B.) who are no prizes either; but no one argued that they it made them unsuitable presidential candidates.
Of the 6 billion people in the world, 1.4 billion are Muslim. The vast majority of them are not extremists intending to blow up the world or force their religion on everyone else.
Some people believe there's a "secret Jewish plot to take over the world", too.
(My family is Jewish — if there's secret Jewish plot to take over the world, no one's been cc'ing us on the memos :)
The next forwarded message was the "Beware Charismatic Men Who Preach 'Change'" e-mail -- written by a Cuban ex-patriot who compared Obama to Castro.
My initial reply was:
Honestly, Mom .... do you forward this stuff because you believe it, or because you'd like me to refute it?
Castro was not a candidate persuading people to elect him president, but leader of a popular revolutionary group fighting to overthrow Batista's government.
Pre-revolution Cuba had a corrupt government run by Batista, who took power via military coups, and held "elections" in which he ran unopposed. "Under Batista, Cuba became profitable for American business and organized crime. Havana became the "Latin Las Vegas," a playground of choice for wealthy gamblers, and very little was said about democracy, or the rights of the average Cuban. Opposition was swiftly and violently crushed, and many began to fear the new government." http://www.historyofcuba.com/...
Her response:
I think the point of this message is that we have a candidate who promises 'change', but we really don't hear from him what the 'changes' will be. Do you know what any of his promises are?
I find Obama charismatic, but down deep I have some doubts about him in many ways.
Now here was a great teachable moment! I wrote back:
He gives tons of speeches on what he plans to do, but the news channels don't relay them. Instead, you hear the talking heads saying "he isn't telling us any details", and most Americans believe them. His detailed approaches to over 20 domestic and foreign issues are on-line at http://www.barackobama.com/... (Feel free to forward that to your friends as a follow up to the "he doesn't say how he'll carry out change" e-mail.)
By the way, that's a webpage I didn't have on-hand, but was able to find in 10 seconds by searching. The Internet is a wonderful place -- it's those darn chain e-mails that get me so steamed.
During the Democratic Convention, we were talking on the phone about Michelle Obama. She wasn't sure if she liked her -- what did she stand for?
"She's speaking tonight, Mom," I said, "watch her!"
After watching Michelle's wonderful speech, I sent an e-mail:
I hope you had a chance to watch Michelle Obama's speech, and the introductory video they showed before that. Her mom spoke about how they raised her and her brother in a working class family, scrimped to send them to college, and how she came back with her law degree to do lots of local work in the community. It sounds like she has been doing the kind of work with non-profits and young people you come to expect First Ladies to do.
I thought her speech was inspirational and moving. She's a great speaker!
There's info about her background and career up at http://www.barackobama.com/... I found a link to the introductory video at http://my.barackobama.com/.... Her speech will probably end up on YouTube soon, too.
She had watched, and told me:
Yes, I did watch Michelle Obama's speech last night. I also thought she was a great speaker. I didn't know until I just saw this morning's paper that she is a Princeton graduate. Her senior thesis (20 years ago) says she never felt accepted because she was black.
I also loved when their two little girls came out and talked to their "daddy" on the big screen. She was a much better speaker than Caroline Kennedy.
.... when did you become so avid and knowledgeable about politics?
I answered: "I think I did it out of self-defense after Bush was elected (and re-elected). I started watching the Daily Show so I could laugh about things instead of crying."
Today's e-mail was interesting, I suspect she cut and pasted from an on-line newspaper, rather than getting it as a forwarded e-mail:
"Sarah Palin: wrong woman, wrong message"
Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.
By Gloria Steinem
.....
and she asked me for my thoughts on it.
I had fun composing this one!
Mom,
I have quite a lot of thoughts on Palin's candidacy. Grab a cup of coffee, this will take a while. :)
I agree with Gloria Steinem. The choice was transparently, "Hey, vote for us, we've got a woman on the ticket!" as if any woman candidate is as qualified as any other -- and they passed over several experienced Republican female potential candidates to get to Palin. Given McCain's age and health issues, his Vice President has a pretty good shot of assuming the presidency in the next 4 years, and she is just not the person to do it.
Republicans argue that she has foreign policy experience because Alaska is next to Russia. That she has command experience because all governors are "Commanders-in-Chief" of their National Guards - but she's never actually had to command them to do anything.
They argue that she has executive experience because she is a Governor and was a Mayor. While she campaigned for Mayor as a "fiscal conservative", she left her town of 9000 people $20 million in debt at the end of her two terms. She increased general government expenditures by over 33%, and while she reduced property taxes, she increased a sales tax which taxed even food.
The Anchorage Daily News reported, "When she became mayor, she asked for resignation letters from six top department heads, saying they'd signed a letter supporting their former boss. When the local newspaper asked how she would run the city without experienced department heads, she made the job sound like no big deal: 'It's not rocket science. It's $6 million and 53 employees.' " Even so, most of the actual work of running the city was turned over to an administrator.
When McCain introduced Palin as his running mate, she said she "championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending." During her second term as mayor, she hired a lobbying firm to get $27 million in earmarks for town projects. As Governor, this year she asked for almost $300 in earmarks per person in Alaska -- #1 per capita in the nation (on average, other states got just $34 in earmarks per person). I guess McCain thinks she "championed reform" by comparing this to her first year as Governor, when the state government's earmark requests to Congress exceeded $550 million (more than $800 per resident).
Palin holds many views that I see as extremist. She is in favor of abstinence-only sex education, but you can see how effective that was in her own daughter's case. She says she and her husband are proud of their daughter's decision to have her baby, but meanwhile, she is in favor of laws that would take away any other woman's right to be able to make a decision in that situation.
I think the whole point of having a woman candidate would be to help advance women's rights and standing in this country, but she would only set them back. Eleanor Smeal, president of the nonprofit Feminist Majority Foundation, said: "Sarah Palin strongly opposes women's abortion and family planning rights. She is a proponent of teaching creationism in schools; a global warming skeptic, and an opponent on key environmental issues, such as protecting the polar bear in Alaska, and is for oil and natural gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Sarah Palin stands with John McCain, who is opposed to affirmative action for women in public employment, public education and public contracting, is opposed to legislation fighting wage discrimination for women, is opposed to the Violence Against Women Act, authored by Senator Joe Biden, and has a zero rating with women's rights groups."
and I ended with:
As Hillary said, "No way, No how, No McCain" -- and no Palin.
My mother's follow-up was Maureen Dowd's NYT Op/Ed article from 9/2, which begins:
For many years, reality was out of vogue with Republicans. They ignored the reality of Iraq and Katrina, of Pakistan and Osama bin Laden.
...
Now reality, in all its messy, crazy, funky glory, has flooded the party, in the comely, crackling form of Sarah Palin.
And a compliment from my mother on my previous e-mail:
I liked your knowledgeable response....Mom
I'm glad to be able to engage (civilly!) in discussions about politics with my mother, and I hope to convince her to vote for Obama/Biden, along with me.
And even at 47 years of age, it still gives me a warm feeling when I can make my mother proud of me.