I’m referring to the Obama hate emails. It appears that I have more and more conservative family and friends who have no problems sending me their trash emails and it’s driving me crazy! I’m not one for forwarding “funny” emails and definitely not political emails.

I’m mostly getting these emails from 2 sources, my sister and my neighbor. My sister sends the supposedly “real” messages ones that include some shred of truth (usually about McCain) that I can easily reply to all and point out all of the inaccuracies. My neighbor though is sending the pure on Obama hate emails. The Fox News bs where the pronounce Obama’s name wrong, on purpose, and ones with “jokes” where the punch line is that Obama has been assassinated.

My sister and I don’t really get along so it’s very easy for me to blast an email right back at her essentially pointing out how ignorant she is by believing (the same person who was sure that Bill Gates was going to send her a check for forwarding an email!) and forwarding the emails, but it’s tougher with my neighbor. We see him every day and he helps us with some of the upkeep on our house.

So far I’ve just been ignoring and deleting them, but it’s beginning to be a bit much. Maybe I just needed to vent. Are there any McCain hating email? I need to get on that list!

Train outlook to delete them before you see them? That's what my spouse and I have done with forwards from family members.

Venting is good too though.

Hmm.. we don't usually write hate email on the left. I guess some crazy somewhere probably has. But that seems too much like lowering our own standards down to theirs. I'm not about that.

Does your neighbor know you support Obama and this is their attempt to change your mind? Or do they just not know?

I'd do what McG said if you have Yahoo you can mark his email as SPAM and it wont go through to your inbox.

I wouldn't talk to your neighbor about this though. I know that it's really tempting to show him the error of his thought but you guys are in too close proximity.

Do you have an Obama bumper sticker? Getting one might stop the emails too. Your neighbor probably assumes that you feel the same.

I get that kinda shit from my mother-including religious and pro military ones. I used to flame back at her-but I finally figured out how exhausting it was and decided to bluntly tell her to stop sending me her propaganda. She still does it every so often, but I just reminder that those subjects are no-no's for us if we are to continue to be on speaking terms. (there is a long, long history of issues between us) It seems to have helped a little. My in-laws send stuff to Jimbo all the time that gets him all fired up. Thankfully they don't have me email address.

For some particularly egregious forwarded e-mails, I got to www.snopes.com and look to see what the verdict is on the truthfulness of the claim. Usually, the e-mails are full of crap. I copy and paste the link to the article (snopes provides this at the bottom) and then do a "reply all". So basically, I debunk the e-mail to the sender and their sendees.

This also serves to remind them to verify the stuff that they send along and I've noticed a reduction of this type of e-mail. I'd like to think this means they are doing their homework before disseminating falsehoods, but really I think they've just taken me off their distribution list.

Either way, my inbox has less crap in it.

Not to offend those in the military...she is too. I just don't need an inbox full of that stuff.

Kat, I used to do that until I sent an email with the snopes link debunking the forward to my brother-in-law and he replied that he thought it might be fake, but he was going to send it along anyway. Sigh.

Before my grandma died this spring, she used to regularly send me hate email about Mexican immigrants. I don't think she died knowing that her great grandchildren are descendants of Mexican immigrants. It might have made me feel better to slam her back for it. But I just hit delete every time.

I would reply to one of his emails with a simple statement that you and he differ on your political perspectives, and in the interest of neighborly harmony and your blood pressure, you would appreciate it if he would refrain from sending you such emails in the future.

Really. Otherwise, he's just going to keep sending them. Remember, he's already shown he's not the brightest candle on the birthday cake. I doubt you'll recruit him to our jihadi lifestyle, so just make it clear to him that he also has no chance of swinging you in his direction either.

Of course if he's totally thick and doesn't take the meaning of your polite message, mark him as spam and relegate his every missive to the dung heap of your digital world.

I do the snopes thing too. And I remind the person to not forward lies because it makes them look stupid. If they have sent out a blanket email, I do a 'reply all' so everyone else gets the link too.

There's a great website called My Right Wing Dad. We have the same problem in my house. I just delete them.

I too do the Snopes thing. I have a conspiracy theorist co-worker who sends every The Sky is Falling email he gets.

kat- i don't know how many times i have had to send snopes links to people that send me stupid emails. my mom has learned to check snopes now when she gets questionable emails, but my MIL is thick and doesn't quite get it. fortunately, she's also on the left so i don't get obama hate mail from her. well, i did once, way back in the beginning of the campaigns, so i sent her the link and she sent everyone a another email saying "smopes says this is wrong". yes, smopes.

SP- if you don't feel comfortable sending him a polite letter about how your political views differ, i would follow the "junk mail" advice. i know how frustrating it is when the right-wingnuts get on their hate mongering high horse. hopefully they will just self destruct by november. at least we know it is not mccain himself writing these, as it has been noted that he doesn't even know how to use a computer. great, he wants to lead the free world, and he can't even use a 'puter. what.an.idiot.

Yeah, I do the Snopes reply to all thing as well. If he has a brain, he should stop. Or maybe realize that not everything he gets in email is the truth. Imagine.
Also, there was the Obama debunking myth part of his website up that someone had up here the other day. Maybe check that one, too.

I do snopes, and finally, when my Stepsister-in-law sent me over the edge by sending me an anti-illegal immigrant email (it was supposed to be funny, but contained all of the idiot stereotypes...illegals come to get welfare and food stamps and free health care because WHEE! they don't have to pay! Free tickets! No taxes! Suck the government dry!) and I told her to STFU because my husband was illegal until Clinton passed 245-i, and we never used ANY government services, unlike several citizens I knew. She stopped sending me crap like that and instead sent me the "do you love Jesus? And our soldiers?" emails. I've been dying to tell her I'm a big evil pagan.

Sorry, accidentally hit tab. I would say for your sister, just politely tell her you don't feel the same way about Obama, and send her some snopes articles. It's hard when it's family. I'm not sure about the neighbor.

Thanks for all of the suggestions! I definately do the snopes.com thing and it can my work. My FIL used to send all of the veterans/ conservative stuff, and I would very politely send him the link to snopes. Sometimes he'll email me stories asking if I think they're real or if snopes says they're real.

My sister's emails have slowed down since I replied to all asking her how the actions of a fellow POW had any bearing on McCain's qualifications. Hopefully she's beginning to learn.

My neighbor though is tougher. I doubt that he know my political views. Although, as we get closer to the election a yard sign might become necessary. I don't want to mark his emails as junk, because occassionally he sends me 'real' emails, that I want to make sure I get. The ones that I can reply to with snopes I probably will. The others I'll just have to delete and move on.

Thanks again for all or you suggestions! I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one dealing with this!

Aren't religion and politics the two things you should never discuss? At least, with strangers. And if my MIL ain't strange, I don't know who is.

My sister just sent me the "go outside naked on such-and-such date because Muslim men are supposed to kill themselves if they see a naked woman other than their wife so we'll all be patriotic and declare our anti-Muslim status by ridding our country of terrorists" email. I was so shocked.

I responded to her right away that I was disappointed in her (yeah, I'm a big sister). But she's a little slow on following current events and such. She has even sent me anti-immigration emails, and her husband is Columbian.

side note- the thing that really gets me about all the illegal immigration stuff is, UNLESS YOU ARE NATIVE AMERICAN, YOUR ANCESTORS WERE IMMIGRANTS TOO! it's like people just don't fucking get it. we came over, shot and killed the people here first, and then declared we are native!! these people really need to see the movie "a day without a mexican". it really puts into focus how much we RELY on people from other countries, especially mexico.

Andromeda - I know, I love the irony. The non-Native American blood in my family comes from the ancestors from Scotland who were Sooners. That's right. We stole our land fair and square. And then we defended it to the death while riding stolen horses. I'm really not making this up. The redneckery runs deep and wide.

If you have outlook you can train it to only delete spam forwards from people but to keep real emails. It's terrific.

My dad's cousin used to send me those sorts of emails. Usually the "pro-life" ones, but I put a stop to it by forwarding my NARAL and Planned Parenthood stuff and then politely asking her not to send me messages unless she had something specific to say to me. I haven't gotten a message from her in a couple of years now.

I've been known to hit "REPLY ALL" and point out the lack of truth about the email, to be sure that all the sender's friends know that the email was wrong and ignorant.

I am actually the chairperson of my County's Democratic Committee and figure that Obama haters (or other racist/ignorant type emails) who email me do so at their own risk.

It sounds like you're dealing with your sisters' emails pretty well. With your neighbor, maybe you could just tell him (or email him) that you're overwhelmed with your email, so if he could just only send messages specific to you, that'd be great?

Maybe that's a little wimpy. But I did that with a friend of mine from high school, and it worked out. She stopped sending me the crazy junk and no feelings were hurt.

Another great resource is Media Matters - www.mediamatters.org

The intent is to note media bias and misrepresentations of the truth in the media, but their comments of facts to back up the accusations of bias are really good.

Obama has his own "snopes"esque Web site to address the rumors:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/fightthesmearshome/