PRESTOPUNDIT

Posted at the LiveJournal Anti-War Community blogsite:

MORE QUESTION-MARKS, FEWER EXCLAMATION POINTS
a strategy for "reaching the lost" in our beleaguered nation

Last night I was .. ambling around the politico-blogosphere and .. I spent about an hour on a couple of ultra-conservative blogs .. [At last] I finally found something I can do [to end the war] .. For a certain time slot every day .. I'm going to completely forget Alternet, Buzzflash, DemocraticUnderground.com .. And spend an hour on conservative weblogs, reading and responding to their audiences ..

.. you need a different approach to befriend a neocon than you need to engage him or her in debate. The way to do this is ASKING QUESTIONS .. [But they] have to be questions of the type not designed to force them to confront their error, but instead to just talk honestly about why they think the way they do. Start with the blogs, then see if you can get some of them to exchange email which will be unseen by their conservative blog-buddies and thus give them more space for honesty ..

4. Gates to start your journey: A good place to start: http://polipundit.com. THIS MAY HURT YOUR BRAIN TO LOOK AT but put on the armor and venture into this hostile territory anyway because it's just too important not to. Sidebar on /prestopundit/ is good for links to branch out, and worthless in every other way, since it doesn't have comments enabled (cowards!)

These blogs should give you more maps to other "enemy" camps than you should ever care to see. It does show the depth of their entrenchment, though - if you live in California - ESPECIALLY in Berkeley or San Francisco, or in any other ["leftist"] stronghold (SeaTac comes to mind, there are others) you forget we are in a DIFFERENT COUNTRY ALTOGETHER than these people live in.

5. What you see on these pages will frustrate you. It will make you sad, angry, and most of all FEEL HELPLESS. Do not allow the emotions to guide you in these lands or you will fall flat down before you even get your bearings.

6. Repeat: ARMOR yourself. You are entering these places as essentially an ambassador from [Leftistan] and will likely be shot on sight as soon as your colouring shows, before anyone realizes you're there to help those among them who might be hurting .. You are there to offer something to those who would want it and when you first engage them, that thing is two ears and a brain, NOTHING more ..

I have said enough now. I would like to hear any "field reports" you care to send me. My @ddress is monde@*****.org. That's the name I go by - Monde, which means 'World' in French. (And yes, it was my name before all the French-hating, and I know this is a liability for me in their lands, but I care about being honest with them so I decided to stop using the aliases.)

Wishing you the best of luck and love,
Monde