Partnership for a McCain-free White House

[prog]

Hee hee hee. (Teh funny is fuller if you grew up in the U.S. while watchin TV over the last few decades.)

I like the practical message, too. As a commenter on another LJ said, this rather justifies moveon.org's existence.

(I've written off my own parents as being completely irrational due to deep-seated swarthiphobia (literally - they are so, so scared), but I know at least one person close to me whose parents live in a swing state and are still undecided, and their education is an ongoing project...)

(My mom was telling me how she and dad went to a Todd Palin rally in Newport last weekend. He's a rather soft-spoken man, apparently, and they had to strain to hear him.)

Comments

[radtea.livejournal.com]

Too funny! I love how they have the hot blond chick at the end say, "Just call me, I'll pick you up." This not-so-subliminal pitch might actually work on the men in their target audience...

[kahuna-burger.livejournal.com]

That is completely and totally made of awesome. So much giggling.

[rikchik.livejournal.com]

Wa-ha-ha-ha.

[jadelennox]

Do they understand it's swarthiphobia, or do they actually believe he is a Muslim, by which I mean a terrorist, by which I mean a weatherman, by which I mean a meteorologist?

[prog.livejournal.com]

I have lately avoided any political discussion with them, and they've been extending the same attitude to me. My mom described the Palin rally as if it were a day in the country, just an interesting thing they did with their weekend, not getting at all into the message. Which I didn't ask her about.

And yet, since writing this, I've been thinking of ways to talk to them anyway. I've realized I may not be ready to write them off so quickly.

So, I don't know my parents' current standings on all these beliefs. Here's the current overall situation:

My mom is scared of "the blacks" taking over, full stop. So this is rather a basic but high hurdle.

My dad, first and foremost, thinks that Democrats suck; however, he didn't really like any of the Republicans this time around either. In fact, he liked John Edwards best. (So did mom.) He's also rather racist and xenophobic, though not nearly as batty as my mom about it.

And there's also my brothers, I now realize...

Ricky is scared of "the Arabs" taking over. Unlike my mom, Ricky is not a bigot; what he calls "the Arabs" is the same specter that many Americans used to call "the Communists", when he was a child: an invisible taint that could be within anyone, making them a crypto-monster, waiting for the secret signal. Anyway, he's exposed to a lot of fear that Obama may be an "Arab" and so this makes him afraid too. This all appeals quite strongly to his clinical paranoia, so talking him in another direction would be a special challenge.

Peter is just kind of dumb, and votes Republican over and over for the same reason he would vote for the Red Sox if he could. I had a shouting match about this with him when I lived with him 13 years ago, and I doubt he's changed. On the other hand, I have changed...

I have no idea what Peter's wife's beliefs are. I don't see or talk to her often. (Because I don't see or talk to Peter often, really.)

[jadelennox]

you know, I wonder if your mother being scared of "the blacks" could actually give you an in. A lot of people -- is your mother one of them? -- justify their racism by framing it in terms of culture. "It's not that I don't like them because they have black skin, it's that I don't like them because they have that gangsta rap and all that crime and they talk funny." If your mother rationalizes in this way, then possibly you could use that self identification as your entry point, pointing out that -- well, to quote Biden's horrific statement -- Obama is clean and well spoken and articulate and isn't like all those other black people she is scared of. Of course, in order to do this you will have to participate on the playing field that accepts the underlying assumption that most black people(the ones who didn't go to Harvard and Columbia) actually *are* that scary boogeyman that frightens her, but still, it's a start.

And maybe after four years of our Obama presidency, when she sees that Teh Scary Black People haven't actually taken over the world, maybe then it will start to be a crack in the façade.

[prog.livejournal.com]

OMG I totally forgot it was Biden who made those comments!! That's such an obvious hey-interesting hook on Obama's decision for his running mate, that I wonder how it is I didn't hear anyone bring that up since. (Eh, probably because the RNC came right after.)

I thought of the after-the-fact defense too, since it's what people have been (correctly, I feel) offering about why the national resistance to same-sex marriage is destined to dissolve. But I predict plenty "THERE! YOU SEE?!" reactions any time, say, an African-American cabinet member is appointed, or SCOTUS justice is tapped, or new Mos Def movie hits theaters, etc.

[radtea.livejournal.com]

He's a radical Muslim whose evangelical Christian pastor hates America.

[in-parentheses.livejournal.com]

Geeenius. Man, I wish I could send this to my students. But I suppose that would be "inappropriate." *sigh*