Okay, folks... before you flame me, please read to the end.

I have a friend from forty-odd years ago who's a Rep and occasionally forwards emails to me that he gets from somebody else. Most of them are jokes (non-political and often hilarious), but now and then he sends a political commentary. I'm about to ask him to stop these, but, in reality, I'm fascinated by the content and the arguments put forward. I posted one of them here a week or two ago and asked for your opinion, and my post was deleted and later re-instated.

A couple of days ago he sent one with snippets from a former Secret Service agent's book basically praising the Reps and bashing the Dems. By the time I got to the bottom, it was obvious that the email's content was very selectively edited. I even considered getting the book, reading it through, and sending my friend an email back, pointing out things the author said against the Rep presidents.

So here's the thing. I refuse to lump all Reps into one box. There have been threads here about why people vote Rep "in spite of," and some responses made perfect sense. But there are those, as has been noted here, who apparently only get their news from one or two sources: Fox, Breitbart, and the like. They don't go anywhere else and seem to only focus on the messages put forth there: Hillary is evil, they want to take away our guns, and so on.

So how do we (as in we) get through to those specific people and get them to see that there's another side to the coin? How do we get them to start questioning the material they've been getting fed? The MSM won't do it; it's not their style, and, besides, many conservatives won't go to other-than-RW media.

Please don't say "we can't." If Washington, Churchill, Eisenhower, MLK Jr, and many others had said "we can't," the world would be a whole different place today. This is a war for survival.

I'm sure I won't see it, but I believe that thirty or forty years from now, when the dust settles, somebody is going to do a study on what happened here over the past few years and write a book about it. "The Brainwashing of America," or something similar. And he or she is going to compare and contrast it to what happened in Germany and other countries.

The book will probably start with a study of all the negative comments made about Obama by Congress and the conservative media, and spend some pages on the controversy over his place of birth. Then it'll move on to Hillary and all the negativism piled on her even today. Then it'll probably come to the conclusion that it was all a very simple message right from the start: "These people are bad" -- a message that was repeated over and over until it grabbed a hold in the minds of many people.

A few things have already been written on this topic (check online), but I really think this book will focus on how simple that message was and how effective it was to repeat it so often.

Then the kicker: the book will examine how so many people were sucked into this message because that's all they were hearing -- because they weren't bothering to look elsewhere and learn about the issues facing the country. All they knew was the invective. Even today I see and hear conservatives bashing liberals because liberals are bad (DJT is still bashing Hillary et al whenever he gets a chance), but without actually mentioning the issues involved.

I first started to notice this approach back in my very early twenties when Ted Kennedy was running for President. and most of what came out of his mouth was about how awful his opponent was. I remember yelling at my TV one time, "Knock that shit off, asshole, just tell us what YOU'RE going to do for us!" or words to that effect. That was when I first began to detest politicians, but that's another story.

I've been keeping mostly away from DU and politics for the past month or so. What's happening to our nation is just too depressing. But in light of several emails I've received from an old friend (who's a Republican) recently, and the content of those emails, I have to wonder about something.

And please read this all the way before you respond.

Just this morning I received an email from him with excerpts from a book written by a former Secret Service agent, In the President's Secret Service (2009). The clips were about the presidents themselves, and how -- of course -- the Democrats were awful people and the Republicans were mostly great people. It's like my friend (or his source) reduced the entire 285-page book to a few anecdotes for the explicit purpose of bashing Democrats.

It seems to me that a lot of the Republican rhetoric I've seen recently focuses around bashing Democrats, either individually or the party itself. But it's not about the issues: it's not about arguing for what the administration is doing or not doing, or about whether it's good for the nation or not. Which makes me wonder if it's all focused on "party over country."

Has anyone else noticed this, or am I just not reading enough?

Last week I posted an email a friend of mine (who's a Republican) sent me, which he probably got from someone else. Before block-quoting the email, I indicated that I had several issues with it, and that I wanted to scream at him on a couple of points. Then I asked for your take on it. His email had to do with immigration issues.

Out of 18 responses, most of them focused on the immigration issues, but a couple attacked me for spreading Republican messages. Later that day I received a PM indicating my post had been removed for breaking one of the rules.

I appealed it.

Yesterday I received another PM telling me that the admins had agreed I was not breaking a rule, and re-instated my post. To them I say thank you for taking the time to consider my appeal.

The reason I'm writing this, however, is just to point out that only one of the 18 responses picked up on the hypocrisy of the message in the email, and none picked up on the last paragraph, which read:

This one story illustrates how important it is for us to do our research regarding today’s headlines. The Corporate Media either refuses to do the research, is incapable of doing the research or has done the research and decided to lie to you about its findings. Either way, this would make the Corporate Media lazy, incompetent or just plain deceptive. Liars, if you will.

This was one of the points I wanted to scream at my friend about. The original writer appears to have forgotten that Fox, and several other conservative outlets, are part of "The Corporate Media," and that they are doing exactly what he is describing.

I wrote another post a few weeks ago about people nowadays, in so many cases, not bothering to read: they just glance at something, form an opinion, and proceed to defend that opinion. Several responses agreed and a couple went into some detail. I feel this is really a problem. We are at a point right now where it is critical to get our facts straight and to not get into fights with each other because we didn't bother to read or to listen.

Recently I've cut down my presence here in DU -- it's just too depressing. Not the posts: the subject matter.

But just now I got an email from a loooong-time friend who happens to be a Rep. He's actually a very nice guy and I like him a lot, but I refuse to talk politics with him. There wouldn't be any point in it. So here's the email. I don't have a clue what the source was, but I can see several holes in the argument and a couple places where I want to YELL and SCREAM at my friend. What do you think?

“In March of 1993, The United States Supreme Court issued a ruling in Reno v Flores. (Yes, “That” Reno. Janet Reno, Bill Clinton’s first Attorney General who ordered that young Elian Gonzalez be torn from his family’s arms while hiding in a Miami closet. You might remember the iconic photograph.)

The Court in Flores decided that minors could not be incarcerated with the adults accompanying them across the United States border illegally. The decision was the result of a long dispute in how to best care for these children while the adults were detained for criminal proceedings.

You see, when aliens cross the border illegally, they are incarcerated until their criminal case is decided. The understandable argument at the time was “why should children be incarcerated while their parents are in jail?” It seemed a fundamental violation of international human rights. Makes sense, right?

As a result, The Flores case drew a line in the sand. Children could not be incarcerated with their parents or accompanying adult while being held for illegal immigration violations. And a subsequent 1997 agreement stipulated that children must be placed in a safer environment where they could enjoy certain privileges, including education, a clean, safe environment and other normal life cycle amenities that incarcerated individuals do not enjoy.

It was considered a “victory” for human rights. By separating adult and child, we protected the children, reducing any harm done to them for their parent’s or accompanying adult’s decisions.

A lot has happened since then. However; bottom line, these juvenile, shelters have been operating in accordance with the law, and overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services to protect those children from the hazards of parental incarceration since 1997.

So, since Donald Trump was running his real estate empire, selling wine and casinos in 1993, we are left to determine just how he managed to orchestrate this cruel “separation of immigrant parent and child” 25 years BEFORE he was President of the United States. The obvious answer is, he didn’t. He had nothing to do with establishing this United States immigration policy. Today, he simply enforces it.

This one story illustrates how important it is for us to do our research regarding today’s headlines. The Corporate Media either refuses to do the research, is incapable of doing the research or has done the research and decided to lie to you about its findings. Either way, this would make the Corporate Media lazy, incompetent or just plain deceptive. Liars, if you will.”

This is in reference to the other thread about people here bashing the Democratic party over the last couple of weeks.

Those trolls want attention, and arguing about their posts just gives them power over us. Got that? Gives them power over us.

We don't have to blindly swallow the bait. JUST IGNORE THEM!

my bones but names will never hurt me?"

We used to say this all the time in grammar school to shut bullies up (and it worked, which is why we did it), but it seems nowadays people are so sensitive, or so angry, that they can't avoid falling for the bait. I'm talking specifically about all the name-calling and labeling right here on DU. There have been countless threads about labels and labellers here, and it's pointless.

Geez, people, we have far more important things to talk about -- like taking Congress back and undoing all the damage -- than getting into silly arguments about labels. That's just a distraction from the real issues.

I'm still here and I'll stick around, but I'm avoiding any threads that feature a label. It doesn't cost me anything and it keeps the blood pressure down.

I've been looking for an activist group to join but don't seem to be getting anywhere. I wrote my two local Indivisible groups a couple of weeks ago and have received no response, and the local Dem groups basically just seem to want money. I could spend hours going thru Google pages, but wanted to see if any of you know of a good, active group. Online is fine if that's all there is. Thanks.