So occassionally a few members of my family (since my family is huge and most of them cant stand eachother) get together on sunday mornings and eat a meal at my grammas house.

This sunday breakfast included:

me and my kids, most of you probably have a pretty good idea of me

my parents, the LIMBAUGHS! - yes, of the rush clan.. and theyre mormons

gramma - think rabbit from winnie the pooh, tiny old nervous and watches nothing but fox news and pat robertson. but boy is she cute and sweet. seriously, my grammas awesome. i will punch you if you say otherwise. 

my oldest sister, well call her courtney and her husband jason - courtney is a hair stylists for dallas's super super rich. think big big texas hair, oil money housewives. last i hear her cuts were up to $175 a pop. jason is career airforce,  thai, wierd, pretty and keeps his balls tucked away safely in courtneys purse. courtney is beyond description. but she spent jr high through high school in mental institutions and drug rehabs and totally got cheated out of an education, is bisexual, bipolar, racist, loud, completely off the wall, and also generous beyond belief.

breakfast is nice.  after were all done courtney starts to tell us the fucked up new thing she just heard from glenn beck. something about how obama's best friend forever is a "communistic, socialistic, black power revolutionary" and he wrote the stimulus bill and now all the stimulus money is going to islamic fundamentalists groups and theyre driving around the country in buses presumably brainwashing people. its true too, she saw the buses in dallas.  obama's objective is to destroy capitalism and hes giving all his "communistic, socialistic" friends the power to write legislation (apparently). and theyre all affliated with reverend wright. 

at this point i politely leave the table and do the dishes. it does me no good to argue with these people. they all think this way. and since im the youngest of 7 im not in fact a 26 year old grow up but still an 8 year old little girl and noone needs my 2 cents. so im cleaning the kitchen, cringing and taking it all in. i make my kids go away and play somewhere so they dont get poisoned by this nonsense.

my parents are of course agreeing with her and telling her more bizarriaties they got from god knows where, im sure a mixture of their religion and limbaughness and their love of fox news.

 then the conversation delved into the apocalypse. im not sure if everyone is aware of this or not, but mormons believe that the mayans were the people of the book of mormon and that they were actually disciples of christ. sooo... now the conversation turns to the mayan calendar and 2012 and my parents think  that according the mayan calendar it is actually not 2009 but  probably really more like 2011 and that the apocalypse is  only a year away. eminent! obama and his "communistic, socialistic, black power" henchmen are really some of the horseman.

so... i know my family is completely bat shit insane. and i know they are certainly leaning more to the extreme side. but, im sharing this as a personal illustration of how dangerous media sponsored lies manipulation and misinformation can be. this is actually what some people are hearing when they hear glenn beck and the lot make inflammatory baseless statements. and then go out and share it with their families and friends because they are scared. and how scary the world must be when you don't think a television network that plays to your conservative mindset would ever lie to you or mislead you. they believe glenn beck is a journalist and bound to principles of journalistic integrity. and is only warning them of things to come so they can do what they can to make a difference. not lying to their eager minds for profit and ratings.

my heart hurts.