I really should move on, but I can't get over my irritation at my mother from the other day. I suppose that means that even at 55-years-old, one can still be immature!
It doesn't help that I STILL have to go into her her flat several times a day and watch the hideous FAUX news channel, which seems to be obsessed with Caribou Barbie. Yesterday, for example, they were showing the cover of NEWSWEEK when I was there and literally GUSHING over how gorgeous Palin was! And, this, I wondered, is news?
I keep wanting to engage my mother in a more intelligent debate on the subject, particularly the lies, but I have to hold myself back because I know that realistically it will accomplish nothing except to make me feel angry and ill.
So, then I leave, but I still feel tense inside and wind up dwelling on all the things I want to say but can't. So, I'm saying them here. I know that if I at least write them down I can get them out of my system.
Right now the thing that bothers me most is the constant association of Obama with a "domestic terrorist." If guilt by association is now a crime, even when the supposed bad deed occurred 40 years in the past, then who amongst us is innocent?
My father was in the women's clothing business. For most of the 60s, and until his death in 1973, he and his partners (his brothers) had an office on 7th Avenue in New York. At that time, the Mob was very heavily involved in the clothing industry.
My father actually loved that whole Mob connection thing, and when my mother would head up to NYC from Philly, she and my Dad were wined and dined by known mobsters! I know this for a fact, because I have clear memories of being told to be very polite to certain people who would call on the phone and my mother told me stories about things that happened at those dinners.
So, what I want to say to my mother is: "You used to hang out with the Mafia. You KNEW they were the Mob but you still allowed them to take you out for dinner and benefited from the relationship. I guess that according to your attitude about Obama and his associations, that makes YOU a Mobster!"
Does that make me petty? I don't know. I wonder if saying it would make a difference. Probably not. I don't even care if I change her vote, what I care about is making her see that her beliefs and attitudes are wrong and damaging.
I know it won't happen and if I try I'll only get the Gollum look again and then I'll have to swallow my anger and pretend not to be bothered. But I can dream.