My family is majorly pro-war. I'm tired of hiding my true feelings from them.

If I were you, I would ease into it. Mabey wearing a peace sighn around your neck or something of that nature. Leave little hints and pick your battles.

 

Let us know what route you choose and how it goes! I know that confronting differing opinions and such is really not easy at ALL... So like others have been saying you might not want to call a family meeting and say "I have to tell you all something... I... am a pacifist!" then your parents are like "Oh no! Where did we go wrong? You try to raise your kids beleiveing that violence is the answer to all our problems, and they turn out to be peaceful? Was it that darned MTV? Music Television my ASS!!! They taught you to love others didn't they... DIDN'T THEY?!" Because that would be awkward... and I really hope it wouldn't go down like that, hahaha... That would be kind of sad...

Anyways, back to a topic that makes sense: I would ease into it and maybe don't fuss about DISagreeing with them when they say something about the war or something, but just either remain silent or just ignore it... Wear a peace sign or something like that... incorperate peace into things like school projects, drawings and such and maybe through all that stuff they might get the picture. I am sure your hippie-ness might give that impression along with everything else, then they might more easilly accept it if they are exposed to it in small doses. I don't know if this agrees or disagrees with my last post, because I honestly don't wanna go back and read it... I might have just repeated myself... I am not sure... Did I even mention the topic in that post? NO, I am not drunk or high, I just have a lot of adrenaline in my system now, so maybe I can't think straight because of that...

 

Apathy and silence are akin to approval. What's the point of being a CO if your not going to speak out or try to educate others? Peace signs are a fashion fad that carries connotations of much more than pacifism. Too many kids these days just want to sit around and bitch bitch bitch about things without doing anything about it......activism SHOULD be interpreted as a verb.

 

I agree... on a bigger political level I agree. However, being on a family level, and 15 years old... It isn't too good of an idea to be a bitch about it all the time. I grew up with republicans... I know that if you are more passive about your beleifs, they can accept them easier than if you come out of the closet full force and say "YOU ARE WRONG!!!". Actions speak louder than words anyway. I am not saying that she shouldn't live peacefully, I am just saying she should introduce her family to it lightly, because otherwise, she is liable to be shunned out or something.

 

Heh........ok I can dig ya here. She is still wicked young. I think you just explained why I'm a pariah in my family, lol.

 

I really want to tell them, I'm just afraid, so afraid. My mom is very into politics and I'm afraid I won't be able to defend my opinion well enough. Hmmm...

 

Well, not agreeing with War is hardly something to be ashamed of, this war in particular , it's not the least bit uncommon. I think you need to ask yourself WHY you object in the first place..............obviously your into the whole peace/love philosophy and that's most likely the core of your reasoning and that's great, as a stepping stone. You don't necessarily have to defend YOUR opinion to your mother..........you owe her NO explanation whatsoever for your beliefs, ya they gave you life but they do not OWN it. Just educate yourself, formulate concise, informed opinions, and grow.......in every way. If they say something regarding the war or neo-con rhetoric in front of you, politely ask them if they could not talk about it in front of you because it upsets you.

 

Well I would suggest educate educate educate!!! See youy have an advantage over her, if you play your cards right. You know how the conservatives think. She doesn't know how the liberals think though, because she has never been one! You on the other hand, HAVE been both! You already know a lot of the arguements she will use but she probably doesn't know all of yours! As long as you educate yourself well on the subject, then you might have a good chance of at least holding your own!

Also, is your family religious/spiritual/have faith? If they are christians, ask her to explain why jesus told us to turn the other cheek and why he is the prince of peace, yet so many of his "disciples" support war! Find some awesome tactics! However, make sure if there is a big debate (although I would say TRY to avoid that at all costs) you have the right mentality. Most republicans don't "discuss" politics very well, and there is a reason. There is a book called "Banana Republicans" that outlines that conservatives are trained to think of politics in and of themselves as an all out war they HAVE to win, whereas liberals see politics generally as opinionated and they can discuss things and think of them as just a discussion or opinion. This is why a lot of times republicans can beat the liberals in arguements: the overall mentality. I would say be deffensive, but not offensive. Don't yell... Don't smart off... if it turns into any of those things, make sure SHE is the one doing all the yelling/smart ass comments, this can make her look rather foolish, wouldn't you agree? If you are calmly discussing and she is yelling her head off...

 

Whoah, GREAT advice! That sends a very firm message, while not blowing anything out of proportion!

 

Careful, you're playing with fire.

Politics is sex by other means.

Through politics, business and religion, we express our repressed sexual anxieties.

Remember, sex is the foundation of our identity, and to question someone's political identity is to threaten their sexual identity.

Threaten one's sexual identity and their Ego will automatically compensate by identifying ever more desperately to Race, Class, Church, Nationality, Flag, ect, ect,, .

Occupied and savagely colonized by Caucazoids since the 19th century, the Vietnamese felt symbolically raped and dominated.

Occupied and brutally exploited by the West since 1918, Iraqi Arab identity became increasingly desperate by our continuing domination, thus creating twisted victims like Sadam Hussein with his hateful nationalism.

Sexual insecurities, our sexual insecurities motivate our continuous need to compensate through domination.

The Black experience in the Conservative White South was and is the savage frustration of repressed White Male sexual insecurity.

The Conservative impulse is a grasping anal-retentive impulse of fear that drives men to seek security and obey authority.

Conservative anal-retentiveness motivates a powerful latent homo-sexuality.

A latent homo-sexuality that we see revealed in all the Conservative Churches as they attack Open homo-sexuals as a way to both express their own subconscious self-loathing, and to desperately avert any suspicion from themselves.

So you see, it's a huge nasty can of worms you would be opening.

Not something to be taken lightly, and the more Conservative it is, the more serious it is.

But you've got your poetry, and poetry as powerful and beautiful as yours can lift you far above the pathos that trap those around you.

 

yeah the original hippies wore those signs for the same reason as you would do, to show their opinion about things, state of mind

 

It's people killing other people. Taking eachother's lives. The thought makes me sad and angry. Shouldn't that be reason enough? It's wrong, it feels wrong.

 

Ok, that's what I suspected.....now use that as a jumping off point, learn more facts to support your position, learn more consequences besides human life. War is an infinite headed beast, you can already see one of those heads, but the rest are still hiding in the smoke. I nor anyone else has the right to judge or analyze your personal reasons for opposition, and you are right, it IS wrong, and it costs so much more than immediate casualties, thier are literally inexplicable amounts of compounding economic, sociologic, religious, health, and many other factors negatively impacted by war, sometimes irrevocably.

 

Power is nothing more than a mindless potential that only gains social or personal significance when shaped by our primary primate motives of survival and reproduction.

Sex and death are the motivating impulses behind any show of power.

This is illustrated by the last ten millenia of our psycho-sexual dynamic which has been characterized by the power of patriarchal institutions.

Patriarchyal power is the neurotic fear-driven impulse of male sexual inadequacy that must constantly compensate for its inadequacy by tightly controlling woman's sexuality through patriarchal institutions.

And patriarchy is the social fabric most desperately clung to by Conservatives to hide their naked sense of sexual inadequacy.

 

It's nice to know that I am not the only one who believes this.

 

My mom has a six-foot-tall cardboard cut-out of George Bush in her living room. That's what I meant by wacko. She worships the guy! It's scary!

 

Bush doesn't look 6 foot tall on TV...

 

With the way he acts, you'd think he was compensating for something...

 

You should have a very long and honest talk with your parents. Hopefully they'd convert you!