Friends and Viewpoints

I recently ran into an old friend and politics came into the conversation. This fella was pretty anti-war and anti-Bush. We exchanged emails and we began an email tennis match, if you will, of selected opinion pieces. After a few days of this I noticed that all of his columns were coming from one site, CommonDreams.org (and no, I will only link to them when I want to direct someone to a particular story). I always felt ickey reading their stuff, but did so to combat the misinformation and wrong assertions to my friend.

In this process, I made a conscious effort to send him not only columns from different sources, but from different partisan leanings as well. Thank you Hitch.

That night he claimed Libertarian as the closest party affiliation that described him....well, he is dreaming.

This Common Dreams site is a far, far Leftey whacked-out site. Noam Chomsky is listed under their 'View Points' and there are direct links to ACCORN, IndyMedia and Rethinking Marxism (I DID NOT make that one up folks).

So after a week or so of providing raw data, many, many columns and Blog posts from various sites, I've come to the realization that I'm in the middle of a disturbing situation.

Do I actually know someone who agrees with looney sites/people, ie, the Real America Haters? It is a bizarre situation.

I've challenged my friend in an email on 1) Did he realize these folks are supported by the one site he apparently reads? and 2) Does he agree with Chomsky and these other radical groups?

Well, as I await my answer I will definitely let you all know his reply and mean time, I'll be taking a hot, scalding shower.