Today, my 81 year old mother was brought to tears....

[mrmpa]

I've posted a couple of times about my mom. She's a retired postal worker, widow and life-long democrat. Last week we asked the question of each other, how had 9-11 changed us. We both concluded that we had become more liberal.

She doesn't log onto the computer, but reads the paper, watches the news, and Keith Olberman, Lawrence O'Donnell (11 pm repeat) and Rachel Maddow. She also listens to what I've learned from this site and others.

A little while ago, I told her about Wolf Blitzer's question last night and the response from the audience. She began to cry. I further added Pat Robertson's comment about the woman with Alzheimer disease. She cried even more. She asked, "what is wrong with these people?" I have no answer.

[RKP5637]

1. They are like a disease. n/t

[Ineeda]

4. Yes, a vile, communicable disease that has no treatment or cure

except to work our as*es off to vote them out if already in office or to prevent them from attaining any position of responsibility.

[roguevalley]

10. please hug your sweet sweet mama. Tell her someone in Alaska

loves her. My mama, Dorothy Jeanne would be 80 this October if she had made it.

[RKP5637]

28. Hi, I think you meant this for the OP, not me. n/t

[roguevalley]

29. oops, yes. :0) Uh, hug your mama too. Same thing applies. LOL!

[RKP5637]

37. Will do!!! Thanks!!! n/t

[HockeyMom]

2. Republicans don't care about anybody but themselves

and those who are young, rich, own their own for profit businesses, and are WASP. If you don't meet those criteria, you are a leech on society, which includes so many of those who actually vote for them, and will cut off their noses to spit their faces because Democrats are for "those" people.

I have been married to a Republican for 37 years and I know this. I am so OUT of here. At least our children KNOW. I am grateful for that much.

I hate to say this but, I think we are witnessing the desmiss of America. Sometimes I am so sorry I brought children into this world.

[RKP5637]

8. I know a couple like that. She is a democrat and he is a teabagger, thinks

Perry is great, best that could be for America, also thought Bush was great, still does. And he's not stupid either. I just don't get it, I really don't.

I think similar, that "we are witnessing the demise of America." Frankly, I'm scared by it all because, for the most part, from the mega-conglomerated M$M there is no effective push back. M$M loves the divided country, it feeds their profit machine. Dissension and hatefulness are good for them, it attracts viewers.

I think we've become an unhealthy country. In many ways it's starting to remind me of pre-war Germany.

[Auntie Bush]

34. I don't know how any Dem can stay married to a tea bagger.

We'd have too many arguments and I don't like the basic selfish nature of Tbaggers.

[RKP5637]

38. I sure couldn't do it. The baggers are way tooooo selfish for me. n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. They are fascists.

Your mother will get it.

[RKP5637]

5. They are, aren't they, exactly. I would also add terrorists to that too, that's their

modus operandi IMO.

[kiranon]

19. In the 60s when I lived in Germany, I met a college professor and his poet wife who had

been in a retraining camp for Nazis after WWII. On the surface they appeared kind and compassionate but after knowing them for a month they took me aside and told me they were still the same Nazis they had always been. It was a shocking experience as I was still a teenager at the time and had no idea that such things could exist - an educated, cultured person who was a die hard Nazi through and through. I never forgot that experience and do not look to anyone's nice exterior or trappings to tell me who they really are. It is what is in one's heart that matters and the Tea Partiers seem like fascists to me through and through no matter how "Christian" or "patriotic" they claim to be. They are neither Christian nor patriotic. They are scary and I do not expect them ever to change. It is just now they feel free to express who they really are.

[uponit7771]

6. They are not listening to themselves, if the heard themselves talk they would be different

[Brigid]

36. No they wouldn't.

They know exactly what they are saying. They are just bold enough to actually say it aloud nowadays.

[Riley18]

7. They are anti-American, treasonous bastards who want

to take our country back to the days before Roosevelt's New Deal. They lament the fact that everyone has rights because they only think they should be treated fairly. This has been brewing for decades.

[dixiegrrrrl]

16. I must respectfully correct part of your statement.

They want to go much further back than the New Deal.
Try the 1880s era of the Robber Barons.

[MadMaddie]

39. I will add that they want to go back to the day when specifically

uppity blacks could attain no status in society. No voting, no interacial marriage, no rights...

The TeaParty exists because the Republicans need their "brown shirts" to do the dirty work. I am not fooled....never have been..

[MoonRiver]

9. It's almost like you have to protect your loved ones from these freaks of nature.

I shudder to think of the young people who listened to that crowd last night cheer the prospect of a young man dying because he didn't have insurance.

[RKP5637]

12. It's like each one has to try to outdo the other by coming up with even more

despicable vile hateful remarks and policies. And the crowd cheers them on like raged hateful spectators at some ghastly spectacle of an event.

[MoonRiver]

20. Humans are really very primitive.

We think that the days of spectators cheering people being torn apart by lions in Rome is long gone, but the same thing happened in the South with lynchings. Now, enter the Tea Baggers. :puke:

[RKP5637]

21. Yeah, same personality types, many countries, they never went away, just quieted

for awhile and now back with different faces, but same old thing. And now right-wing extremism is on the surge in some rural areas of Germany. At one time I thought humans collectively were maturing ... I guess that's a faded thought, anymore. As you say, "Now, enter the Tea Baggers." :puke:

[Tsiyu]

11. True colors are shining through - and not in a good way

as in the song...What we have here is all the Repukes falling all over each other in order to prove - to the most radical of Teabaggers - that each is more hardcore, hardline, and lacking in compassion than the other guy. It's like a bunch of high school guys bragging about how many women they've beat up, hoping some nearby woman will be impressed and wooed by the manly talk.*

Except only a very damaged woman would be seduced by such blather. And only the most deranged sociopaths in our society are impressed with the Repuke's attitude toward human life.

This is nothing new in their attitude except their honesty about it. Humans can be ugly and cruel, and our society was built over the corpses of the victims of those who don't see each human as "fully human."

What we need to remember is that this will backfire on the Repukes - very, very badly - and that's a good thing. And secondly, no matter how low you've been brought by the current situation, DO NOT let any politician, corporation or anyone else tell you you don't matter.

YOU MATTER.

Don't take their words personally - as heartbreaking as they sound to the ears of decent people. Remember that most Americans care very much about one another and about taking care of the least of these.

And give that beautiful woman a virtual hug from me. :hug:

*(I'm only using this as a hypothetical example, not as a statement about one gender or another.)

[grasswire]

14. a few weeks ago my teabagger sister told me to sell a kidney..

..when I was talking about how another family member needs help very badly. My suburban, retired, Christian teabagger sister.

[markpkessinger]

32. Ask her if she knows that is illegal in this country

I can relate. I have a sibling who seems to have gone over the Tea Party cliff as well.

[grasswire]

40. I would, but I hung up on her.

That was a real brave thing for me to do, considering that she recently joined the NRA.

[mrmpa]

17. virtual hug delivered!! eom

[Maccagirl]

13. Your mother remembers a different America

Not perfect by any means, but compassion and reason were actually winning in the public discourse (can you imagine a "Harvest of Shame" doc by our corporate media now? Heartless bastards didn't use to get rewarded.

[mrmpa]

26. She talks quite a bit about growing up, we're big on telling

stories. Her father was born in 1887 in Poland and came here with his mom when he was 2. He was all for unions, and had several different jobs. Her mother always worked, her first job was when she was 10, in 1905 working at a candy factory. She talks about what it was like in the 1930's, when they'd sit around the coal stove, that they had thrown potatoes in and would listen to the radio. How her mom would feed her own 6 kids and 3 brothers-in-law who had stopped by, with soup and bread. How good the neighbors were.

Mom's grandkids hear these stories too. Their knowledge of the family goes beyond one generation. Knowing where they came from, I think has helped them become the good kids they are.

[markpkessinger]

35. I come from a family that told (and tells) stories, too!

And i believe you are correct that it is a good, and very grounding thing to grow up with.

My parents and grandparents are all gone now, so it now falls to me and my siblings to tell many of the same stories (plus a few of our own that we have now added to the family lore). My nieces and nephews are almost all grown now and most have started families of their own. It's fun to watch them as parents. As kids, they would roll their eyes whenever one of the old family stories was retold for the zillionth time; but now, as parents themselves, they have begun regaling their own kids with many of the same stories, adding, just as my generation did, a few of their own. ;)

I wish I could offer some words of comfort and solace for your mother. But the truth is, I've been struggling almost as much with this issue of what have we become.

[malaise]

15. They are fascists who lack empathy

It's sickening - hug you rmom.

[mrmpa]

18. Hug delivered............

Malaise, you've read a few of my posts and sent hugs to mom before. She will be glad to get it. Thanks!

[in_cog_ni_to]

22. I missed Pat Robertson's comment about the woman with Alzheimer Disease...WTF did he say?

:grr:

[mrmpa]

23. He made a comment to a question posed to him, that went..

as follows: my friends wife has alzheimers, what should he do? Robertson responded that the man should divorce her "because with alzheimers, she's already dead."

[in_cog_ni_to]

24. OMFG.

I cry with your mom. This country is lost. Gone.

[markpkessinger]

30. I'll second the OMFG!! n/t

[southernyankeebelle]

25. And these people think they are christains. I think god is punishing us because of

the tea party republicans. They think god is on their side when really he isn't. Look at Perry always bringing up god and prayer yet god hasn't helped TX. Shame on these people. I was very shocked just like your mother. Thank god we have liberals.

[Ilsa]

27. Your misspelling of Christians into Christains seems appropriate.

I think of them as stains on humanity and Christiandom.

[unkachuck]

31. "what is wrong with these people?"

....at the risk of sounding fascist-like, I consider these people sub-human scum....

....I'm sorry, I can not have compassion or tolerance for the compassion-less; they continually drag down humanity and cause untold suffering and misery....

[Brigid]

33. Rachel Maddow said it best:

Dealing with these people is like dealing with people who insist on believing the world is flat just because you say it's round; never mind that you have the facts on your side. How on earth are you supposed to come to an agreement on anything with somebody like that?

[Liberty Belle]

41. I missed Robertson's comment. What did he say about Alzheimer's?

[CaliforniaPeggy]

42. Read post #23...it's there.