a note to me from a facebook friend.

[barbtries]

i grew up next door to this man. he's a mormon right winger. he left this on my wall this morning.

You know I am way conservative but having you on as my friend makes me think more and do more reasoning and figuring before I decide where I stand on an issue. Thanks

i have to add that my conservative sister asked me to get the politics off my facebook and i said, "no way! i'm trying to raise consciousness."

it is gratifying to know that it's working.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. It is no small thing to get someone whose mind is normally closed to think rationally.

Congrats!

[barbtries]

2. thank you

i don't interact with him much, he's many states away, but from my chats with his sister i know he's generally reactionary.
what i post is a lot of reports from kos, think progress, NC democrats, occupy, bill moyers, etc. a couple other people, most notably my sister's two stepdaughters, have unfriended me and i believe that is why though there was not communication when it happened. it's good for me to know that there are some conservatives out there still willing to think. if i can break through the fox-washed brain of my oldest brother that will be a real triumph.

[gateley]

3. How nice! Good for you AND your friend! Send your sister a puppy picture. :-)

[barbtries]

8. thanks gately!

i'll do that.

[jonthebru]

48. No!, A cute kitty picture!

Or maybe and mamma bird feeding her baby bird in the nest...

Just kidding I run into that also.
I have unfriended people for their incessant religious or right wing of conspiratorial views... It just gets old.

[pinboy3niner]

4. That's a big deal

If you're making him think, you're doing it right.

[barbtries]

9. thanks pinboy3niner

what's your screen name about? my first guess was a cb handle. lol

[pinboy3niner]

13. It was my last radio callsign in Vietnam

You were very close.

[barbtries]

18. okay,

now that you responded i think i may have seen that explanation before.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. That's great.

I just kicked an asshole RWNJ off my page. I'm glad someone is having better luck. LOL

[barbtries]

10. lol

i'm just persistent.
fb has this hide feature so if i see something that offends me and i don't want to cut ties (most of my fb friends are extended family), i just hide and move on.

[Heather MC]

6. Your sister is funny, does she post conservative stuff.

[barbtries]

12. not much

she mostly just posts cheers for her kids and grandkids, and invites me to played bejeweled blitz or somesuch. i don't know but believe it's possible that one or both of her stepdaughters complained about me to her. oh well. sometimes the truth hurts.

[Heather MC]

29. Where would we be without a complaint department?

[Myrina]

7. Make your sis a Facebook 'group' so she only sees the stuff you post that applies to her ...

.... I had to do that because a bunch of my relatives are Jesus freaks and I'm basically a Pagan hippie.
I don't want to see their Bible/Obama is Satan crap, and I don't want them pissing in my Wheaties, either.

[Posteritatis]

11. Custom Facebook filters are a gift from the gods to people who like their sanity

I've only got a couple ("everyone except people who repost image macros all day" and "people who do nothing but overshare posts about their babies&quot , but I've got friends who are, e.g., recently escaped from nasty religious environments or the like who have a big interest in controlling who can see what things they're saying.

[barbtries]

15. no way

as i said, i'm trying to raise consciousness. i'm getting to her, too. once on the phone she said to me, "we really aren't that different." though i hate to admit it i may be the ideologue of the two of us. it's just that my ideology is liberal, ergo correct.

[southern_belle]

73. are we long lost siblings?

Sounds EXACTLY like my family!

[Schema Thing]

14. That's creepy! He snuck into your house???

[barbtries]

16. only through the innertubes

[Raine1967]

17. I've gotten messages like this on my page and sometimes in PM's.

One friend (from High School) has done an almost complete turnaround. A few months ago she pm'd me to say thank you -- she now have a very different worldview.

It does feel good.

You DU mane is fitting.

[barbtries]

20. lol thanks

the way i got it is by failing to get so many "barb" names i just got frustrated and put in "barbtries" as in "barbara tries every frickin' barb screen name she can imagine and is too late on them all"

that was i don't know, maybe 15 years ago? now if you see a barbtries on the internet, it's likely to be me.

[Raine1967]

22. Oh I hear that!

Mine was due to the other "Raine" 's here and in other places.

so it's the same for me, I'm Raine or Raine1967 -- It's most likely me.

I do have an unfortunate last name tho -- Pronounced very differently from a couple of squalid brothers..

[pinboy3niner]

25. Raine Col-BERT?

[Raine1967]

35. Oh I wish!

The ones I Am speaking of have been known to try to buy elections....

I AM OF NO RELATION THO!

[barbtries]

42. that was my guess! lol

[barbtries]

33. now i'm guessing

a couple of squalid brothers...hmmmmm

[Courtesy Flush]

72. That's how it works

Years ago, I came to DU as a conservative who wanted to see just how crazy these damn libs really are. I knew very few of them, living in South Louisiana. I had learned from the RW noise machine exactly "what liberals really believe" and wanted to see the craziness first hand. The rest is history. Now I'm the most liberal person I know (Red state, so that's not as extreme as it sounds).

I noticed that in my RW days I could never find the facts to back up my claims. Now I'm well armed in any argument. It's amazing now, to see conservatives cling to shreds of misinformation -- trying to make mismatched puzzle pieces fit together.

[bluemarkers]

19. glad it is working for you,

I got called a liberal, a pansy, And a moron today! lol The idiot is going to be son's father in law soon. His daughter is very liberal, but I still have to keep my mouth shut and my fingers still.

and that darned Obama.... Glen Beck is gonna get details tomorrow on the conspiracy.... stayed tuned.

barf

[barbtries]

21. anyone who listens to glenn beck is probably beyond redemption.

that dude is sick. my DIL's mother's been posting alex jones clips and adding, please read! please read! so i know where her mind is wandering. ill just keep doing what i do and hope someone out there's paying attention. it was just very heartening to get this message today. i never would have expected it from this person.

[OneGrassRoot]

23. EXCELLENT! I've had a few of those, although privately...

with people not ready to admit publicly that they actually take to heart what this liberal heathen has to say.




Good on you, and your friend!

[barbtries]

27. thank you

sometimes, it's your posts i'm sharing.

[OneGrassRoot]

31. ...

[malaise]

24. Nice

Rec

[DrewFlorida]

26. Good job, I fight the republican misinformation machine on Facebook as well.

I see Facebook as an important arena for correcting all of the misinformation being peddled by republicans. I don't ever expect to change the minds of republicans, my goal is to keep open minded people from believing the lies that flood society.

[barbtries]

34. exactly,.

i HAVE to keep posting as i do because there is just so much BULLSHIT out there.

i never expect to change a mind but have to say i feel very happy that i opened up this one up at least a little bit.

[shenmue]

28. Wow!

Good going.

[barbtries]

36. thanks shenmue!

[brewens]

30. I wouldn't think that guy is a real teabagger type. That's the last thing any

of those idiots would admit to. If they let on that your logic even phased them, it would upset their whole echo-chamber.

I also know a few that you seem to get through to at times but then it's right back to the FOX "News" and hate radio. The next time you talk to them, it's like the previous conversation never happened.

[barbtries]

40. time will tell about that.

it could certainly happen. he's in an area of the country where there is probably a large, loud, right wing echo chamber. guns baby guns drill baby drill if you're a liberal you're going to hell...and they really believe there's a hell. all that.

[SylviaD]

32. My brother is as right wing as they come but I still love him and he loves me. n/t

[barbtries]

38. well, yeah.

i love my brother too, very much. i just can't stand to have a conversation with him very often.

[ChangeUp106]

37. We are on the right side of history...

...and reason. Keep up the fight!

[barbtries]

39. yes we are.

and history's happening fast.

[Dan Ken]

41. Congratulations on your influence! I bet we all should..

try to convince our right wing nut job sheeple friends from days gone by that there is another way of thinking about the world, than from closed-mindedness, another way than outright bigotry, another way than bowing down to self-defeating ancient religious traditions.

I think some of us learned our lessons from black folks in the fifties and sixties, from women in the sixties and seventies, some of us learned it from people we knew and loved who "came out" as gay in the 80's and 90's and even today.


The lesson for all of us from this: be yourself, state your beliefs and position in our world, be who you are, proclaim it to your friends and your not-so-much friends. Be willing to stand up, be willing to be challenged yourselves / ourselves, and learn, here on DU, and elsewhere. None of us is all-knowing or perfect, all of us can learn more, even those among our friends and family and acquaintances that often refuse to learn. We have a lot to contribute to our world, from our own personal walk in life, and we all deserve to be heard.

Thank you for this inspirational thread.

[barbtries]

44. thank you Dan Ken

and thank you for your thoughtful response.

[Dan Ken]

56. No, YOU are the thoughtful one.. you are living it.

I went to high school and college with 3-4 people who I really was close-to back then, 45-50 years ago.

I don't send them birthday cards, nor Christmas cards, but they showed up on my Facebook or Twitter, wanting to be friends.

I'm a friendly guy, sure, why not?

Come to find out, some of these guys deny where they were in 1966, 1970, etc. They did 3-4 months in Vietnam, got air-lifted home with Malaria, or some other tropical disease, never went back, were re-assigned, finished out their 3 yrs, and now want to be Vietnam heroes.

I lived through those days when we had 1.2 million active duty soldiers, in all branches, built an extra 100 ships in 5 years, an extra 4000 helicopters, 1000 bombers, 100 transport planes. We went from peacetime deployment to wartime deployment from 1962 to 1966, and doubled that by 1970.. three times the firepower and non-nuclear bombing power of 1960.

In the 1960's, America changed from becommng a defender of liberty, to an aggressive nation.......study the period from 1960-1970....find out how we became a nation, most prominent in the world, who somehow found a few million people in some remote area of southern asia, jungle village people, men, women, and children, living is tents or huts in the forests, 6000 miles away, a threat to America's democratic values.

[barbtries]

57. yeah.

i had a boyfriend back then who'd been there, and i still remember him lecturing me on "stepping stones." i was 16 at the time, not convinced then and definitely a peacenik now.

[SwissTony]

43. Well done. Every little bit counts. n/t

[barbtries]

45. thanks SwissTony!

[11 Bravo]

46. You must be doing it right.

When I get into discussions of that type, I tend to become ... shall we say .. somewhat abrasive? I need to be more like you. Good job!

[barbtries]

47. usually all i do

is share posts. sometimes i add some commentary but just as often all i do is share a link. my issues are all over the map but always on the liberal side.

[blue sky at night]

49. mindfulness!

Wow, once again I see how slowing down and thinking about something...really paying attention to it instead of a knee-jerk is working. What you are doing is teaching mindfulness....thanks for being there.

Namaste!

[barbtries]

51. thank you blue sky at night

namaste

[ProudProgressiveNow]

50. K&R nt

[LeftishBrit]

52. Well done!

[barbtries]

54. thank you LeftishBrit

[hopemountain]

53. keep on keepin' on!

Last edited Sun Apr 21, 2013, 04:03 PM - Edit history (1)

i'm right there beside you... one thing i have noticed is - across the board - my fb friends agree with me on the fight against gmo's and now some on safer gun laws ... but the conspiracy and obama hate bs is visceral for them. i wish there was an antidote for lies.

[barbtries]

55. there is,

it's the truth. too bad so many don't want to see or hear.

[NRaleighLiberal]

58. Baby steps...improving the world one person at a time. good stuff!

[barbtries]

66. thank you!

[Mopar151]

59. Rachel Maddow has praised "small c conservatives" on her show

Frugal, careful, fair-minded, practical - none of these are Republican core values anymore.

[SeattleVet]

60. I just had the opposite experience...

a guy I was stationed with in the Air Force back in the mid-70's just unfriended me. We just reconnected on Facebook after 40 years or so, them met up in Spokane and had a very amiable lunch.

I got a message from him 2 days ago:

I'm sorry (myname). I'm tired of the anti religious and anti Conservative Posts. Have a good liberal life. I'm unfriending you because I belong to Jesus 100% of the time. I will dwell with believers for the rest of eternity. Good luck with your worldly life. Live long and prosper.

I think he got a little ticked off when I 'liked' some of the posts from here:

https://www.facebook.com/TheAdventuresOfMrsJesus

and some of the American Atheists posts.

I'm putting together a message back to him to say that I'm sorry, too, and that I have a lot of conservative and religious friends that post tons of anti-Obama, Tea-party, and religious messages, but I have not felt the need to unfriend them. I guess we liberal Atheists are just a little more tolerant of being exposed to different worldviews...

[barbtries]

64. it's interesting

that the religious feel the need to erase you. they're afraid they'll start thinking too then suddenly they become aware of shades of grey. it upsets them to have to think. how was your Air Force experience? it seems that of all the services the AF has really gone furthest to become a religious institution.
i have many religious friends but only one who is evangelical/fundamentalist. haven't spoken to her in over a year and i think that's why. one of our last conversations was about gay rights and she just didn't have a comeback for me when i said they just want the rights we all have. i asked her why she was voting for prop H8 (so that's how long ago it was) and she said, "they just make so much noise." i said sandy if women didn't make so much noise you and I would still not even be able to vote. if civil rights activists hadn't made so much noise there would still be slavery in this country.
so we don't talk much. she's been one of my closest friends for over 40 years.

[SeattleVet]

76. My Air Force experience was fine.

Other than in Basic Training (1972), where we were told that there were no Atheists and we all had to attend a religious service (the first week or two - after that we were given the 'option' of attending a service or cleaning to barracks) so I remained a 'Roman Catholic' for the remainder of training.

At my first permanent base I headed for the personnel office and asked for new dogtags. The closest available option at the time was 'No Preference' for religion. They didn't care too much for it when I told them I really *did* have a preference but it wasn't one of their available, approved options, so I opted to declare as 'No Preference' for the next couple of years.

When I was in Germany a few years later I saw a news article about a young Seaman that had successfully gotten 'Atheist' instead of 'No Preference' on his dogtags after a big legal battle. I headed straight to the base personnel office and demanded the same. It took some time and research on their part, but as far as I know I was one of the first in the USAF to have official, approved 'Atheist' dogtags made.

It breaks my heart to see what the Air Force Academy has become with the full religious indoctrination programs.

[barbtries]

77. good on you.

yeah, it's pretty sickening, given that it's government and all that.

[LaydeeBug]

74. I realize that you are atheist, but please consider mentioning the fact that

Jesus was a liberal jew!!! Also, if symbolism means anything to your former friend, did he bother to consider that Pontius Pilate rose the elephant and Jesus rode the mule?

Please inform your friend that you have another friend (me) who frets over his immortal soul while he placate the thieves in the den.

[Iwillnevergiveup]

61. Well, this is very interesting

because it demonstrates that it's ok to put your views out there in a respectful way. And good on you barbtries, for doing it.

Just last night I had a heart-breaking, but very candid discussion with my 3rd cousin back in Wisconsin. His grand daughter (29 years old) with 2 little kids and a gone husband has had numerous drug-related incidents the past few months. She was arrested and spent 5 days in jail, and cannot seem to get help. They live in a small town, and he said all the reasonably nearby treatment centers are closed. I asked him why, and he said, "It's that dictator governor we have - he's ruining our whole state."

All during the upheaval that winter in Wisconsin, I avoided bringing anything up with anyone in this family. When they never commented on the massive demonstrations, I figured they must all support Walker. So, after his comment, I told him I had followed all of that closely and sent in some money for pizzas for the demonstrators. He did not know that had been organized, but thanked me and said he wished he knew about it. He had wanted to go to Madison, but arthritis kept him homebound.

I was very happy to discover this liberal wing of my family, and a member who turns out, LOVES to talk politics.

[LaydeeBug]

62. Oh, it is truly awesome when someone flips. Great Job!

Keep it up, and don't be afraid to ask here. Lord knows we can't keep up with *all* of their stupidity, but we can try to disseminate some of it.

Thank you for sharing this.

[davidpdx]

63. Yeah I have had some people on my Facebook list get tired of politics

Mostly because I post so much about it. I had to dump three people off Facebook after the election. One was a long time friend of 20 years who I've never met, but I've known back with BBSs existed (when the internet was still very crude). The second person was a friend of that person who I'd had as a Facebook friend for a couple of years and was a libertarian. The third person was someone I knew from HS and happened to find me through another friend and is one of those "I have second amendment rights the government won't take my guns away" people. The other two were just crapping on Obama after he won reelection and I just said enough is enough.

[barbtries]

65. i just hide the posts and keep on posting what i believe in.

i don't engage usually, unless it's someone who isn't family or close friend. i'll post something that directly contradicts what they posted. one meme recently was that people on welfare shouldn't be able to get a tattoo or a pack of cigarettes or apparently anything that raises their lives above the level of mere subsistence. i did comment on that. i have been poor. it's a hard life. people deserve some joy amid the hardship and how can anybody begrudge that. it shows how mean that attitude is and to my knowledge i have never been challenged after posting to that effect.

[davidpdx]

67. The problem is I'm not the type to hold my tongue

I'll go after someone for picking on poor people. It really pisses me off when people complain about people that get food stamps. The Libertarian friend use to do that all the time. I'll give you her name and you can add her. Her husband is a REAL gun nut. What a pair they are.

[barbtries]

68. no thanks

lol.

[Scuba]

69. One mind at a time. Nice work!

[barbtries]

70. thanks Scuba!

[NewJeffCT]

71. good job

It's why I always tell people to write their Congressional Rep or respond/debunk that RW chain email or FB post- just to see if you can influence one person.

[duhneece]

75. Thank you for planting seeds

You obviously are able to be civil and rational and I appreciate what you're doing. It has taken me years of knotted stomach, clenched shoulders before I realized that 'planting seeds' is my job, not changing their mind right then & there.