I talked to my fundie biological mom for the first time since the election [View All]

A little background - I was adopted as an infant and raised by very bright parents, and religion was NOT a part of my upbringing. I was quite satisfied with that, but my wife convinced me to sign up with a registry to reunite with my birth mom. At age 25, I finally got to correspond with her, and met her a couple years after that. She is a kind, decent person, but also a rural person and a fundamentalist christian whose way of thinking is incomprehensible to me. Anyway, we've had cordial relations over the years, though I kind of avoid contact with her because I find her conversations so boring and her thinking to be so backward. We don't talk much about politics because I know her politics are more determined by her religion than logic, that and the fact that she works for a WMD maker -let's say "General Dynamics" (it's actually another WMD company).

Today, we talked on the phone and she asked if we weren't too disappointed about the election. I said that we certainly were, and after a little more discussion, I asked her if she was at all enjoying or making use of the subscription to "The American Prospect" I got her last Xmas. I thought it might be a good way for her to get both sides of the story (especially since she lives in Mississippi.) She said "well, Honey, I don't have a lot of time to read, but I get both sides of the issues because I WATCH FOX NEWS."

(primal scream)

I tried to tell her that Fox was an extreme right-wing outfit, and the other cable channels were not much better, so she mentioned that she likes Carville and Tucker.

She also mentioned that she couldn't have voted for someone with a wife that tells people to "Shove it": (which I said was a major problem with the media -focusing on irrelevant trivialties) and that Kerry never really laid out his vision and what he really stood for, except that he was against Bush. This I couldn't argue much with because it's 100% true. Kerry did a horrible job of laying out a vision, an agenda and a progressive, populist campaign. He was NOT going to end the war, nor would he have changed our trade policies. The best we would have gotten is to have saved Social Security a bit longer and revoked some of the rich folks' tax cuts.

On one level, I was happy that we could talk, without rancor - I actually felt she was listening and respecting my viewpoint, and I tried to be respectful of hers (though I truly find it incomprehensible)

But I was also left pretty dispirited that I can't reach this person, as long as she thinks that getting 5 minutes a night of news sandwiched between 25 minutes of Scott Peterson and commercials will make here an informed person, I don't see how I could possibly get through to her.

(sigh)