my teaparty sister threatened me last week [View all]

[magical thyme]

I tend to avoid her phone calls because I've learned that when she calls she really is just looking for a fight, or looking to disrupt my life and hurt me somehow. But sooner or later, I have figured I just have to take the call and get through it.

For example, a year ago she called me just ahead of a week of finals for the Med Lab Tech program I was in. The first thing I told her was that I had just learned the night before that after 2 years in a nursing home, my SO of nearly 30 years had just died of early onset Alzheimers. She offered condolences and then really really quickly moved on to the point of her call, which was to yell teaparty political nonsense at me for 2 hours while I begged her to let me go. I had a headache and needed to study for finals. She claimed she was trying to help me, that this would make me "feel better."

She is nuts, however, basically all this was also just a couple months ahead of the teaparty idjits holding congress hostage and causing the US credit rating downgrade. And although she wasn't specific in her claims during that call, in hindsight it became clear that was the government takeover she was yelling was going to happen.

I have learned to tread very carefully around her because she will do anything to cause disruption. Basically, 65 years old and emotionally stuck at toddler age. So last week's call started out with her taking little personal digs and me just laughing about them and moving on, until we both were laughing and having a normal conversation. And then suddenly she started ranting about the poor Catholic Church, and I said I just think all churches should pay taxes and then they can do what they want. And then she started ranting about something else, and I said I thought the root of the problem was that we had been in a "sweet spot" for a couple hundred years, with unlimited resources and exceptionally good climate. But that we were running up against limits in both resources and climate.

And then she threatened me, snarling viciously that "as long as you believe that, you will lose everything and you will never have a nice life." Her tone wasn't concern about me making what she thought were choices based on bad info. Her tone was seriously threatening.

I was incredulous, repeated back to her in my own words what she had said, eg "Are you saying that when I walk out my door and am covered with ticks that 10 years ago we didn't have, when I walk into my garden and plants are growing that never lived this far north, when we have patients with tropical diseases at our hospital...and I believe it's cause by climate change, that I believe what I am seeing with my own eyes, is a changing climate...that will cause me to lose everything and not have a nice life?!?!"

"That's right. and....." again in a vicious, snarling, attacking tone.

Rinse, repeat. For the first time in my life, I ceased to accommodate her insanity and yelled at her, then slammed down the phone. I don't know exactly how she meant that my beliefs would cause me to "lose everything" but it was clear that she was threatening me with....something.

Needless to say, I will not take her calls any more, should any come. She claimed to have sent me a letter, but a week later nothing has arrived (probably not capable of addressing it correctly...) But that is not the reason for this post.

I've had a week to process this latest development in her behavior. I think the teaparty nuts are planning more insanity, something big. They really are trying to take the country down. Their way, period, and it's all out war. That's what's putting her so much on the offensive.

They are at war with the rest of us. They will sink to any level, as evidenced by my sister's attack ahead of finals week, trying to cause me to fail at a critical juncture. They are the minority and they cannot win, but that doesn't mean they can't inflict damage, and that they will continue trying to inflict damage over and over.

They don't expect to win in a knockout blow. They are trying to kill us with the death of a thousand cuts. And they undoubtedly have a shitstorm of some type planned for the elections. It's a critical juncture...