The other day, sitting at the kitchen table, I looked up from Facebook on my computer and said to Todd, ”
“You’re not going to believe this but ______ is voting for _______.”
He looked up from buttering his toast with a perplexed expression. It didn’t make sense to either of us. She is not conservative. I don’t know her family’s personal finances, but I’m guessing she’s not part of the 1%.
All day it kept coming back to me.
I could have sworn she voted for Obama in the last election.
That night, she sent out an update, saying her Facebook account had been hacked. One of her friends left a comment saying hers had been hacked as well. My friend was angry and questioned why this happened to her in this very important state of Ohio, and not to her friends in other parts of the country where the stakes are not so high.
It’s disgusting. Dirty, dirty politics.
It does make me feel better to think of women being hacked, rather than actually “liking” that candidate. Another women I know, a young one, also “liked” _____ on FB the other day. It confused me at the time, but maybe she’s been hacked too. She’s just graduating college and starting off on a promising new career. She certainly would like to make as much money as her male counterparts throughout her career, wouldn’t she? She uses birth control, so it’s not like she’d want to deny it to anyone else, would she? She’s not religious, so I doubt abortion is the reason. Yes, she likely has ambitions to one day make oodles of dough, but does she realize what she’s doing?
Another sweet woman in my life, almost retirement age, a lover of peace and Jimmy Carter…… over the last several years appears to have changed her tune about politics. She’s quoting Ronald Regan and recently posted something on Facebook comparing President Obama to Hitler. It broke my heart.
Sadly, she too has been hacked, but doesn’t even realize it.
That’s what Fox News, and the Rush Limbaughs and Ann Coulters of the world have done. They’ve hacked into good people and changed the wiring of their minds. I used to work at a radio station that played Rush Limbaugh and that’s what it does. It brainwashes you when you listen to it day after day after day. He gives you little quips and soon you think they are your own ideas. And if you repeat them, you kinda sorta sound smart. And that feels really good. But what you really are is a regurgitator of hate and not a very critical thinker at all. I’m not saying there aren’t smart Republicans. I’m saying if they get their info only from Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, they aren’t. If they claim to be for God, but are fed hate, hate, hate, to the point where they spew hate, hate, hate, they are lost. They’ve been hacked.
Because really, any woman who isn’t part of the super wealthy 1 %, and isn’t uber religious and voting straight down the anti-abortion line? Any women who would deny health care to someone with a pre-exisiting condition(say autism, or breast cancer perhaps)? Any woman willing to piss away the basic rights of her daughters and grandaughters to have access to reproductive health care? Birth control? Pap smears? Breast exams? The rights generations of women before her worked so hard to obtain? Well, something in her has been hacked. Maybe her conscience. Maybe her sense of justice. Maybe her knowledge of women’s history. Maybe just her Facebook account, but something, (hopefully not her very soul), has been hacked.
What’s sad is she wouldn’t even have the right to vote for the men who plan to disempower her if a lot of brave women hadn’t had their heads busted open to give her the privilege.
Perhaps that information has been removed from her memory.
Hackers do shit like that.
I admire your control, here, and everything single thing you say.
They have been hacked, all right, but some of them allowed it. As for me, I’m just hacked off!
I hate politics in this country at this time. Critical thinking seems to have been suspended. Thanks for the post.
You’re preachin’ to the choir.
As someone who’s been hacked twice (although not for political reasons), I completely agree!
AMEN, Sistah!
So freaking sad.
Love it!!!
Very nice writing. Very sad content. That piece deserves to be published in a wider forum — are you sending it out anywhere? One of the big Cleveland papers, maybe?
— L
I’m catching up on my blog reading so I’m a few days behind on this but let me just say “A-freakin-MEN! Also, thanks to you guys in Ohio 🙂 I don’t live in a swing state so we really needed you guys to pull through for us and you did.
We’re in MN. Last night my daughter called down from her room asking why she just heard fire works. I suggested that maybe they had just called Ohio. Yes indeedy they had! So thanks for that Michelle!
I’m wondering how long it is proper to leave my VOTE NO on the marriage amendment signs in the yard. Christmas?