It is going to be a long election season

It started innocently enough. With an email from my aunt…but it has ignited an internet shit storm in the family, particularly with my cousin, Bob.

It started like this:

Please take a few minutes and watch this video. It's hard to believe that this is the man that could potentially run our country! Linda

And then it included a YouTube link from group that thinks that Senator Obama wants to take our children back behind the woodshed and cut them into tiny pieces at least based on an obscure piece of legislation from several years ago. I am not going to include the link… because if you haven’t seen it yet, some crazed member of your family will send it to you.

Now being a resident of the State of Illinois talking when Senator Obama was a State Senator from the State of Illinois should make me uniquely qualified to comment on such a thing. But not according to my family in New York, Pennsylvania and California. See, at 42 years old, I am still not quite capable of understanding things going on in my own backyard… at least without the wise assistance of my family.

As it turned out, one of my Aunt’s friends started off the commentary:

Barrack Obama supports death to children in child-birth. Enough said.

Enough said. Like our world is black and white. No shades of gray? So I responded:

Is it really that simple?

What about all the children that are left in squalor because of McCain pro-Bush policies. No abortion rights, no birth control, no Head Start, no decent public education, no public investment in infrastructure or jobs assistance, cuts in food stamps and heating assistance, increased food and energy costs... I think I would rather be the dying fetus than a living child on the South Side of Chicago.

But then, let me guess, you live in some lily white suburb where you try to get away from "those people". You have the privilege to be on your moral high horse while people in our inner cities die from neglect and then feel superior to them because you got privileges that they didn't and couldn't work hard enough to over come.

Oh... and let me guess. you consider yourself a "Christian" too....

May your god help us all...

Add to this I got ridiculous foolishness from my cousin Bob who believes that every word leaving his mouth is by definition “THE TRUTH” , it has been a crazy couple of days.

Just my family crap, as I would normally phrase it.. except that today on Salon, I saw the article:

Antiabortion 527 group attacks Obama

And I realized that this was an organized attack. After a bit of research I have learned that this effort is organized by a 527 Group. Organized by a woman who is on a campaign to stop ALL choice in this country. See, even though the situation mentioned in her video is sensational.. it isn’t common. And the legislation that she complains that Sen. Obama didn’t support was overwhelmingly rejected by legislators in the State of Illinois because it was seen as an opportunistic attempt to create a endrun to ban all choice in the State. And it was. I remember the stories about this. Everyone could see it was a blatant attempt to change the status quo in Illinois and add additional layers of difficulty into the abortion process.

So I have decided that whenever I get emails like this… and frankly I will get this one six more times… I am not just going to hit delete and write it off to my crazy family. I am going to fight. I am going to answer back and respond to the lies and omissions.

That unfortunately means that Bob is going to have to deal with me in his face. You want to talk to me about politics. Bring facts. Real facts. No anonymous emails or from anonymous 527s. No rumors repeated on Fox News to give it the merest shine of truth. Information that can verified at least one non-partisan website or without a notation on Wikipedia that indicates it is in dispute. Anything less is unacceptable to me. And it should be to you.

Join me in refuting the innuendo that has infiltrated our campaign system. Because you don’t want me to join the ranks of the slugs spitting out lies. I am good at it. Last spring I managed to convince Bob’s wife that McCain (or Gramps McNasty as I am now calling him in response to my cousin referring to Sen. Obama as B.O.) had a black baby and wasn’t a US citizen without even trying… Imagine what I could do if I worked at it a little.

Democrats have been too polite when it comes to these kinds of tactics. Let’s not make it be to our detriment.