My brief, brutal, two-pronged argument with my Navy freeper brother:

[LowerManhattanite]

He's a Chief Petty Officer in the Navy (went in a month after his 18th birthday, 22 years later is a Navy lifer who went from left to hard right). Routinely, he'll call me to pull a "gotcha" routine with some half-baked Rovian talking point he's gleefully half-read only to see it shot down with raw facts.

He's in town (NY) this weekend for a family visit and we were listening to the Met game. An announcer talked about the Toronto Blue Jay manager getting fired after the Yankee game, which prompted my brother to bitch about the Blue Jays slugger Carlos Delgado's silent protest against the Iraq war (he refuses to stand up during the playing of "God Bless America" during the 7th inning stretch).

"Delgado's the one who shoullda been fired. F*cking liberal ingrate!"

"Well" I said, "I suppose his replacement could join the 32,000 folks who got jobs last month. Help the president's numbers out a little."

"Those numbers were bogus!" he railed. "The unemployment rate went down! The household survey showed a lot more jobs than that were made and they're going with an outdated way of measuring jobs!"

"Okay" I said. "Then why did you call me in May and leave a message about the great job creation numbers when they made Bush look good? Those numbers were based on the system you're telling me now is bogus."

"Look," he snapped, "when a situation changes and something is evidently wrong with it, you gotta look at it differently--make changes! The economy is different than when the first system was created and the household numbers reflect the "new" economy! So that's why that 32,000 number can't be trusted!"

"That's not very...resolute." i replied.

"What the f*ck does "resolute" have to do with it?", he said.

"Well," I said, "You yelled at me a week ago about the president's having to be 'resolute' in staying in Iraq even though the whole WMDs thing turned out to be wrong. Didn't that situation change?"

His mouth opened to say something and no sound came out. He gripped his chair, quickly stood up and went to his car and drove off--ostensibly to get some beer according to his wife. I waited an hour.

He didn't come back.

What'd I say that made him so mad? :)

[Vickers]

1. "What'd I say that made him so mad?" Um...the truth?

What'd I win, what'd I win?

[Cha]

2. I guess he's going to be bummed when

bush loses to a real navy man.

[glitch]

12. This needs to be stressed - Kerry the genuine navy guy vs *

you made him mad by repeating his words back to him. They hate that. But you know what - he sounds like he's at the point where he's ready to listen.
Keep the lines open, you're doing good work!

[richmwill]

3. Oh boy

You insulted his favorite chimp! That's why he got so mad! :)

[Terran]

4. He handed you the best rebuttal for Kerry being a flip-flopper.

"Look," he snapped, "when a situation changes and something is evidently wrong with it, you gotta look at it differently--make changes!..."

He's correct, actually, although I don't know about this particular situation. But that's exactly what I say when anyone tells me Kerry flip-flopped on Iraq. Clearly he's saying that because it sounds good for his argument; but he just dug a hole on the flip-flop non-issue. Kerry voted to give Bush war powers (he didn't vote "for the war") and then when he saw it for the disaster that it is, he refused to back Bush's war plans further (the $87 billion vote).

Dirk

[nini]

5. yeah.. you made him mad..

GOOD JOB :thumbsup:

[Zynx]

6. The Household survey is USELESS.

Absolutely fucking useless. It surveys only 35,000 households out of 134 million while the real number, the establishment number, surveys over 300,000 employers. Needless to say, the establishment number is a lot better at picking these things up.

[PsN2Wind]

7. Do like I do

I always try to implant the thought in these types that, Hey I heard that they are going to start calling up a lot of retirees from the Navy, Air Force, Army, Marines because we've stretched the military too thin and need immediate all-ready trained replacements and figure since they are drawing a sizable portion of their active base pay that's the cheapest way to go. And actually, sorry BossHog, it seems like a helluva idea.

[SidDithers]

8. Great job, really, really minor point tho...

Delgado is Puerto Rican, and protests the US National Anthem because of Vicques (sp?), not Iraq.

:toast:

Sid

[LowerManhattanite]

10. Thanks Sid! I knew that (the Times had a great article on him).

I opted not to correct him on that so I could get the jobs numbers dig in on him.

But a more important issue is this...

"Did ye drive or did ye flew?" :)

[AussieInCA]

9. household survey is for the ignorant...Greenspan has pointed this out

multiple times.

a sample of 60k household in the US is next to useless and has been pointed out multiple times by non-partisans like greenspan.

Oh, ask him if the household rate is what it's all about then why did the stock market tank on friday. Oh yeah, I'm sure it is all those wealthy liberals right..selling off.

Tell your bro to stop listening to druggies like limbaugh for his information, he's hurting himself, his family and his friends by being such a sheep to the cronnies.

[DrBB]

11. Yes--to quote Greenspan

“Having looked at both sets of data … it’s our judgment that as much as we would like the household data to be the more accurate, regrettably that turns out not to be the case.”

Quoted on Billmon's site, from Greenspan's Congressional testimony last February. I'm sure the original transcript can be googled up somehwere.

[LowerManhattanite]

14. Aaaaah, he's hopeless. :(

They got to him young and twisted him around for 22 years. He has bitched about some splits among his fellow Navy buddies insofar as a bunch of 'em are down with their fellow "Shellback" (navy term for a sailor who's crossed the equator) while the freeper crowd in the Navy is p*ssed with that other bunch.

Here's to eight years of p*ssed-off ness by him and his co-horts.

[Norquist Nemesis]

13. Well, good luck

on your relationship. I'm having similar problems with my Dad. He forwards right wing email shit that's unsubstantiated, doesn't tell the whole truth, and is outright lies. Yet when I call him on it, he spews some comment back like "Well, maybe what I sent was incorrect but it still shows Kerry's do-nothing record." Or something to slip in the "most-liberal" "flip-flopper" and every other right wing talking point. I don't think he does it on purpose...he just doesn't realize how brainwashed he is.

I'm sure looking forward to Nov. 2nd. :)

[WLKjr]

15. Hurl my post at them, and watch as their heads explode

trust me, just go and read it:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=2172523&mesg_id=2172523&page=

and pass the word around about it.