If you really knew me...

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I'm what you'd call a highly emotional person. I guess for a guy that's a bit rare. I feel deeply. I weep. I sob. I convulse. I grieve. I lose sleep.

The election results had me stressed for a week. Just when I was getting back to normal, understanding we all just have to deal with it and accept the loss of hope for the immediate future, I got a call from a dear friend, one like a brother. We can argue from both sides and not feel personally attacked.

But here I am weepy again...losing sleep...

I have friends from the LGBTQ and other minority communities and they're dear to my heart as any and all friends are, though in my opinion they face different challenges navigating from the fringes of this evolving society we're creating as we go. And let us not forget the women and their underpaid, under appreciated stance in this culture of white guys in ties making the decisions for everybody.

The stories shared with me recently of the backlash they're confronted with from the arrogant and ignorant opposition is indeed heart wrenching. No one deserves to be mistreated, disrespected or served up a pie of inequality. NO ONE!

They've had racial slurs thrown at them in public. They've had homophobic gestures, death threats and even property damage cast upon them like they're the scourge of the earth. Like they're lower than human. They are highly educated and highly productive citizens. How can this be in this day and age? Their pain is real and their fear is understandable and valid. I can't help but feel that pain and fear. It is a regression, not a progression.

If my friend like a brother, could witness the love they share as I have, maybe his view would be different. As it stands, he claims he does not care who does what to whom, he just doesn't want to see it. He's, a very non religious person, but spouts the religious right's claim that "union" is okay, but not marriage. Marriage is between a man and a woman. Too much Fox News I'd say.

Call it a union, a partnership, whatever, now we're just down to semantics, but the baseline problem still exists. That people tend to reject what is unlike them. What they don't understand. And rather than try to understand it they just reject it. At the cost of growing, evolving and learning to love and accept while building a calmer, more peaceful society.

IMAGINE

The term marriage is not exclusive to the bible or any religion or any gender for that matter. Hell I can marry a nut and bolt together. To marry, or to join.

Calling two consenting adults in love and choosing to spend life together anything other than married is divisive. It is casting them into the pits of hell fire in a rage that demeans them as sub, unworthy, unequal, less than, stay on the fringe, you're not welcome here and maintains what society and millions of humans, millions of the so called "god's children" have worked to over come.

But the system has selected to regress. Like people of color have had to create their own television network, I'd imagine one for the gays will have to appear as well.  I must admit that I love Shonda Rhimes' TV shows. They challenge me. They make me uncomfortable. They stand for equality while presenting the injustice. They present what is real in society, even if I don't witness it daily.

Let me go further here to say that when I see two men kissing, I'm a bit uncomfortable. Not as much as I used to be but still uncomfortable. It doesn't bother me a bit to see two women kissing. I'm programmed. I need to be de-programmed. I need to be uncomfortable and accept what is real. Love is love is love is love. I admire so very much my friends Dave and Tony who have been a couple for 33 years as well as other gay and lesbian couples I have come to know and love and share life with.

Inclusion not Exclusion. Appreciation and Reciprocation. Acceptance and Equality.

IMAGINE

Another dear friend, like a sister, is pro gun and pro life. me too. But we differ significantly.
As to guns, I support the constitutional right to own guns, but in my opinion, not without limits. No one needs a bazooka.

As to life, I am not for abortions. My first wife aborted our second child. It hurt. It hurt like hell. But I support her constitutional right to choose. If we value life, then we must see that everything is living. We kill and eat living things in order to live. Now if you value humans over all other species, as though their life and plight is any different or came from some other place, than all the other life forces that breathe the same air, whose hearts pump the same blood through similar bodily systems, then you elevate your self to the authority to decide when life begins and who does and does not have the right to their own bodies.

I can understand wanting to be a voice, a champion for the weak, the unborn in this case. But to then be pro death penalty, pro war, anti welfare, anti birth control etc, is not respecting human life one bit. It is an attempt to legislate from a religious bent and unconstitutional.

IMAGINE


Maslow's Hierarchy of needs demonstrates that a healthy growth/evolution of self will become empathetic to the plight of others, especially the less fortunate.

Democracy is not perfect but it's great. I hold on to belief and hope that we will evolve. As the establishment crumbles it will strain to maintain power and control but change is inevitable. Change is good and evolution will bring equality.

After telling my friend like a brother that I'd be fine financially and as a white guy and a disabled veteran I'm not going to be the recipient of any discrimination or hate. I'm as privileged as it gets. But I told him, it's for the women and the minorities and the communities on the fringes that I worry and feel bad for. He asked, "why is that? Why should I give a crap?"

Being asked that, by someone I love and have known for fifty years, hurts. It means they don't really know me... at all.

IMAGINE

IMAGINE

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In Poker, there's always a tell...

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This election has upset a lot of people. Not only the majority in the U.S. but around the world as well. I've thought long and hard and will continue to contemplate the "WHY." But I find it less and less important as the days go by.

The implication, the aftermath, what we'll deal with in the near and long lasting future takes up more of my head space. I'm a bleeding heart Liberal. I'm a natural born white male United State citizen who also happens to be a Disabled Veteran. It hardly gets any more privileged than that. And I have never in my life, even after crawling through muck in Marine Corps Training have I ever felt the need to take a shower and just linger to wash the muck away than I have with the recent election results.

Okay, so I'm an optimist. One of the things that my wife admires about me most. I watched the press conference of the post President Obama and President Elect Trump meeting. Typically, The President was his classy self and most interested in what's best for the country. Trump was cordial, impressed and obviously over his head. But I believe all men who have entered the Oval Office for the first time knowing they will be at the Helm, have had that feeling. Especially an outsider to the Political realm.

(I hope one day in my life time, a woman gets to experience the same feeling.)

So Trump commented that President Obama was a good man. He was impressed. He stated that the President had shared with him vital, helpful information and some of the "high flying perks."

And there's the tell. I didn't see it at the time. I was impressed that Trump was outclassed and rather humble about it. That he acknowledged feeling appreciative of the President's helpfulness, albeit in the interest of the Country. And that Trump clearly stated he looked forward to "hopefully" many more meetings to learn the ropes of being an "insider" and as counsel. That last one really got me. I mean wow. Trump is interested in help from any direction, even from the perceived enemy.

The Tell...

Today I see in the news that Governor/Vice President Elect Pence has been named by Trump to be the transition coordinator or some such title, replacing the formerly named Governor from New Jersey Chris Christie. (can I roll my eyes at that selection now?... Thanks)

So back to the Tell... When I watched the Presidential Nominee's debates there was a Tell. When Trump stated that Secretary Clinton was a "such a nasty woman," in the immediate moment afterward, he smugly smiled. I could see the satisfaction in his face and it was disturbing. Then he straightened up and went back to the interested squint because Hillary didn't skip a beat and continued with her points.

With the assignment of Pence as the "Transition Grand Poo Bah," and Trump's same smug little satisfactory look after the "high flying perks" remark, I'm feeling as though Trump was as I first assumed" not really interested in governing in the first place but more interested in the power, the prestige, the perks and the ability to continue his life style at the expense of the tax payer. Not that he's ever paid his fair share as he's admitted and blamed the ability on Hillary. I'm absolutely sure he'll close those loop holes. NOT!!!! He'll be planning golf outings and various other outings with whom can tolerate him to gallivant the globe..

Pence is a religious lunatic of the most extreme measure. Anyone who would embrace "conversion therapy is truly out of touch, other worldly, fantasizing about some mythological deity and it's idea of human life. And the sickest person is the one who doesn't know they're sick. As Dr. Phil states, you can't fix what you won't acknowledge.

Note to those who voted for the "outsider." Game over! The ultimate insider has just been assigned! In two years when your asses are puckering from the growing national debt and higher taxes, remember I said this... "Rectum? Hell it nearly Killed em!" Bend over and say "Thank you sir, may I have another."

While I hurt for the fringes of our society in both the short and long term, I'm hoping and realizing that Trump can't deliver on his promises. As President Obama stated, the Presidency "amplifies" you. I have zero expectation that the office will change Trump. Pence has made it to the top of the totem pole and will be dancing on the streets of gold with jewels in his crown one day in his fantasy.

The evolution of our society will continue slowly but surely. Hillary won the popular vote and still lost. It's happened four times before and might happen again. I'm hoping Trump pulls the Rethuglican party down with him. That there is a mid term progress in 2018 for the liberals in both houses and that somebody has enough capitalistic sense to make Trump and Pence Voodoo dolls and offer them from an Etsy store, appear on Shark Tank and make it to QVC and HSN and become an over night multi millionaire!

I almost titled this post, "I'm mad as Hell and I'm not going to take it any more!" But all of us are going to take it. Right up the wazoo. Some will like it but many more will not. I'm sad, I'm hurt and I'm angry. But I have zero worries about me, but for the society I live in. I know, in time, we will continue to evolve beyond this set back. It is inevitable. You and I must believe this. The constitutional equality promised long ago will come. It will come either by peace or violence but it will come.  Likely by a little of both. Keep your head down and as a wise old sage of a write Tommy Tomlinson wrote, "we still have to go rake the leaves" and as the best blogger I've ever read, Jim Wright of Stonekettle Station writes, "it doesn't matter why, it matters what you're going to do about it."



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