Details Shmetails!!!!!!

A couple of days ago, I received an e-mail from a woman who has been part of my life since I was 12. She is the mother of a friend I had in Junior High & High School. She was like a mother to me and although the friend died tragically many years ago, I have remained connected to this woman.

The e-mail she forwarded to me was an old one that many of you have probably seen. It was about a campaign to boycott Starbucks because of their opposition to the war and for refusing to send the troops boat loads of coffee. The story behind the e-mail is as false today as it was two years ago when I first saw it. I spent 20 seconds looking the item up on snopes.com and forwarded the page dealing with the Starbucks myth to my friend.

The very next day I received another piece of e-mail from this same person. This e-mail contained the dire warning that in a matter of days our cell phone numbers were going to be published and we would soon be plagued by telemarketing calls and to prevent this I must act immediately to protect myself or be robbed of my cell phone minutes by predatory telemarketers. Once again - the story is as false today as it was two years ago when the e-mail first made the rounds. I found the story on snopes.com and just as I did the day before, I replied to the e-mail with copy of the web page which outlined the ‘facts’ , No editorializing - just the facts.

Today I awoke to find an e-mail from this person which in its entirety says
So you know everything. I don't think it matters to be safe. Even urban legends sometimes have some truth in their origins, My last e-mail to you.
No ‘Dear Beth’. No, ‘Love, S’. No ‘Sincerely, S’. Odd I thought.

I was initially very confused by her response because I can’t for the life of me figure out why in the world someone would be resistant to the idea of spending 20 to verify the accuracy of something before dispatching it around the globe as fact. Why would any thinking, fair minded person want to be a part of advocating the boycott of a business based on a lie? WHY?

There is something else about this woman which makes this story an object lesson of sorts. This woman is also a diehard, till death do us part Republican. In the past she has sent me mailings filled with baseless “facts” (lies) about Bill Clinton, rankings which accused those who did not support war with Iraq of being un-American and/or unpatriotic, racists anti-immigration and anti-poor folks rants. I had exchanged a few e-mails in the past with her making it clear where I stood on these issues - yet she continued to send them knowing I rejected the politics of the right. Today, as I recalled these things about her - her reaction to my sending her pages from snopes.com suddenly made perfect sense to me.

She is part of the class of people who simply don’t want to be bothered with the details. They don’t want to consider the facts. Even if they politely listen - they will never consider the facts because they don’t want the facts to get in the way of their view of the world. These are the people George Bush directs his repetitive slogans towards, the ones the news media caters to, the ones who keep tele marketers and scam artists in business and the 39% of the population who think Bush is doing a good job.

I am saddened that my dear old friend seems to be threatened by the truth and by those who are curious enough to challenge the facts they are fed - BUT, that’s the difference between liberals and conservatives. eaprez