A Clear and Present Danger

Heh heh heh... I love that image right there.

Classical music has been my savior of late.  For some reason, the depressing facts of our latest Presidential election are eased a bit by music that touches my heart and soul like no other. Classical music can be both inspiring and calming at the same time, no small feat.

Now that we've lost our collective minds and elected Donald J. Trump as the President of The United States, I feel compelled to make my position on this result crystal clear: 

I will offer to the Trump Administration the same level of respect, consideration and support that the GOP, Congressional Republicans and conservative Amerikkans have given to Barack Obama since the day he was elected in 2008.

In other words, less than zero.

IMHO, based on the record, Donald Trump is a racist, a bigot, a misogynist (go look it up), a fascist, a pathological liar, a self-professed sexual predator, a tax cheat, a climate change denier, an intemperate man-child, and a pathetic excuse for a human being.

He was a scumbag before he became POTUS, and he's still one today… the election changed nothing. That so many of our citizens saw this with their own eyes and decided to choose him anyway is just madness. How anyone would consciously make such a willfully ignorant decision forces me to question every relationship I have with those who did so. 

It’s become painful to realize that yes, some of my family and friends are also racists. Perhaps not outwardly, but it’s there, and I can no longer deny it. They saw his horrible natures and voted for him anyway, and somehow I’m gonna have to figure out how to move forward from that startling realization.

Many of our semi-intelligent leaders have accused Barack Obama of dividing our country, but that's a childlike interpretation of the actual facts. Our nation is chock-full or racism, and has been since the beginning. While it's never been eradicated or eliminated, it was kept under wraps, shrouded by fake smiles and words and the notion that overt racism is only for troglodytes and mouth-breathing morons, an example of their latent ignorance.

No longer.

Even before Barack The Kenyan Usurper became POTUS in January 2009, the Proud Amerikkan Racist Underbelly turned sunny-side up and started belching out hate and anger and ugliness and it never stopped, never relented, never lessened for the entire time he's been in office. Yes, we became a divided nation because the racism was normalized, flaunted and highlighted by those fuckers in the GOP and the idiots that let them get away with it. 

Remember:  Donald Trump glorified and promoted the 'birther' movement, claimed over and over that BTKU wasn't a citizen, was hiding his true identity, and should never have been allowed to run for office.

Many people believed him because they are Proud Amerikkan Racists. And here we are.

If your guy is roundly cheered and wholly supported by the KKK, white supremacists and neo-Nazis, that should make you question your choice a bit, si?

I said before the election that no matter what happened, I would accept the outcome, and I have.  However, unlike the Trumpanzees who were threatening violence and bloodshed if he didn’t win (even before the first vote was cast), I'd never resort to or condone violence. Only cretins and morons use threats of violence against others in a representative democracy like ours, and I feel so sad for them. I can only hope that Mr. Trump is able to figure out WTF he’s doing and not damage our nation beyond repair.

I will never offer my support for Donald Trump in any way, shape or form, as I hold him and his philosophy in contempt as antithetical to the progressive foundations of our country. He may be my President, but he does not represent me, my ideals, my view of America or the things I hold closest to my patriotic heart.

What goes around... comes around.

I will not wish for Trump's failure as so many have done against Barack Obama. Trump’s success will be our success, but I totally believe he will instead tear down our collective values and the result will be a reflection of his stunted, sick and selfish ideals, which I will never accept.

If these statements upset or anger you, that's your problem, not mine.  Block my Facebook feed, unfriend me, delete my number from your smart (stupid) phone and my presence from your life if you cannot accept my disagreement with your choice for POTUS. I choose not to endorse or normalize the sickening behavior that Mr. Trump displays with seeming impunity, and I will continue to speak out and protest against his disgusting persona and complete lack of compassion or consideration for anyone but himself. 

As a newly-unchained Radical Progressive Liberal DemocRat, I hereby state my belief that Donald J. Trump is a Clear and Present Danger to the progressive American way of life.

"The true civilization is where every man gives to every other man, every right that he claims for himself." -- Robert Ingersoll, political leader, orator (1833-1899)

Lead image, Muchismas Gracias de sidschwab.blogspot.com; Samuel Barber's 'Adagio For Strings' video, Muchismas Gracias de youtube.com; Fuck Donald 'Cheeto Jesus' Trump and the horse he road in on; RESIST!!!!

Donald Trump Is A Good American

"If a nation expects to be both ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be." -- Thomas Jefferson

I'm not surprised that The Donald has risen so far so fast to become the Republican nominee for President of the United States.

Will he succeed?  After all that's happened over the last few weeks, from pussy-grabbing commentary to rejecting possible election outcomes to debate performances worthy of unending derision and pity to a refusal to release his tax returns, my gut says NO, but these are Strange Days indeed and anything is possible.

When he descended that gilt escalator in Trump Towers in the summer of 2015 and announced his candidacy while savaging Mexican immigrants as rapists, murderers and criminals, I knew he would strike a chord a certain voter demographic.

My initial reaction was to laugh out loud and view him as a ridiculous figure, but I immediately began to think about who exactly he was speaking to.

Then I knew. This was no joke. 

After the last eight years of GOP-enabled and supported racism, bigotry and hatred against Barack HUSSEIN Secret Commie Muslim Anti-Christ (black guy) Obama, coupled with the generalized stupidization of so many willfully-ignorant Amerikkans, seeing Donald's puckered visage so close to the highest office in the land fills me with a combination of mirth and dread, coated in anxiety, powdered with disbelief and sprinkled heavily with pathos and black humor.

As true as all that may be, I still feel that no matter how corroded and corrupted his soul and brain may be, I firmly believe Donald J. Trump is the epitome of what many would consider as a Good American.

Not me, of course. But this essay isn't about me.

It's a simple reality that drives many Liberals (and lots of Conservatives as well!) completely bonkers, but it really shouldn't.  All you have to do is take a good hard look to see how easy it was for The Donald to bully, insult and bum-rush his GOP competitors, the same way he's operated his far-flung business dealings over the last several decades.

He's the Stuff of The American Dream.

Think about it: born into a wealthy family, raised with every benefit and entitlement a human could want, schooled at the most prestigious facilities money could buy, fronted with millions of dollars by his Father to start his business at the highest level, married to supermodels, living a Large Life and being answerable to no other human being.

I mean... COME ON. Who wouldn't want to have all that?

Many people slave away their whole lives seeking a whiff, a taste, the tiniest morsel of the life that Donald Trump has lived. Yet no matter how hard they try, how hard they work and sacrifice, they end their lives broken and wanting, never having achieved that which they sought: The American Dream according to Donald Trump.

The American Dream is all about he Benjamins, doncha know? It's all about the Moolah... the Dough... the Scratch... the Samolians... the Sheckels... the Grease. Don't laugh... you know it's true.

But this whole politics thing... it just doesn't seem to make sense as to why someone like Donald J. Trump would bother with it all. I mean, the guy is 70 years old, claims to be worth billions of dollars, has all the power and fame and notoriety he could want.  Why run for a thankless job like being POTUS?

Revenge is what's at play here. Donald Trump ALWAYS seeks revenge for those who he thinks have wronged him.

Remember, he's a self-professed counter-puncher, and he exacts his own brand of revenge on whomever he trains his sights on. It's his signature modus operandi, and has played out in the media during the entire campaign.

Revenge for being humiliated at the 2011 Annual Correspondents Banquet by none other than the Kenyan Muslim Usurper hisownself, Barack Hussein Obama. Because if there's one thing that DJT simply cannot tolerate, it's humiliation and embarrassment.

Go look it up if you don't believe me. After months and months of being the progenitor of the 'birther' movement, demanding BHO's birth certificate and claiming that BHO simply wasn't an American citizen, Don got a faceful of diss from Barry in front of the assembled banquet crowd, with the sharpest barbs played endlessly on the teevee for days afterwards.

There he sat, Mr. Donald J. Trump, (alleged) Billionaire, who (supposedly) owns many mansions and many yachts, forcing himself to remain emotionless while his nemesis, that Black Guy, roasted his ass with a smile and one sharp joke after another, all at Don's expense. Those in attendance said that you could practically hear Donald grinding his teeth while Barry sliced him up with a smile. And it was that single evening, say those who know things, that convinced Donald to eventually run for the POTUS job to teach that uppity Black Man a lesson.

Amerikkans know about revenge.

I'm sure there's lots of other reasons for his seemingly ill-fated attempt to move into far less gilt-laden digs at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Power... (more) Fame... Personal Enrichment (his over-arching motivator)... all the things he's lived his singular life to achieve via ruthless ambition and wealth and endless White Privilege.

But the truth is, regardless of how much I personally reject everything that Donald Trump is, says, does and (allegedly) stands for, I have an admiration for him that is undeniable. It doesn't matter that he was personally broke and in debt to his eyeballs when 'The Apprentice' fell into his lap and helped him to re-establish his brand as the gold-covered standard for American Excess.

It doesn't matter that he started his rise to worldwide fame and fortune halfway between third base and Home plate, because the end result is what some of our citizens yearn and strive for, so they accept him as who they perceive him to be.

It doesn't matter that he refuses to release his tax returns, because we have a strong anti-tax bias among our citizenry that cheers him on for sticking it to The Man, even though, as Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, "I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization."

It doesn't matter that he proudly waves his freak flags of racism, bigotry, misogyny, hatred of The Other and willful ignorance of the reality we all share, because many Amerikkans feel the same way and cheer him on for exactly those reasons.

To those among us who applaud and support and defend Donald Trump's regressive ideology and self-professed Awesomeness, he is the quintessential Good American.

I can't argue with that.

I can totally disagree with his world view, offer verifiable and substantiated reasons why he's wholly unsuited for government office, cite documented evidence of his financial misdeeds, racist tendencies and predatory sexual behavior, but NONE OF THAT MATTERS to his acolytes.

They love that he's an inflamed, bloated, narcissistic asshole who could give less than a fuck about what anyone he doesn't like thinks about him.  It's how he's led his entire life, because he was born into the life he lives. To a not-insignificant portion of our country, that's what The American Dream means to them. They wanna be like Trump.

And who the hell am I to deny them that dream?

I have many family members and friends who I love and respect and cherish who are 100% supportive of Donald's insane view of the world. I can offer them factual information about his insanity all day long but it doesn't make a single iota of difference to them. They love him, they believe him, and that's all they need to know, case closed, don't bother to try and dissuade them.

Facts?  They don't need no stinking facts, because they're all lies anyway and the vote is rigged and the government is rigged and it's all a giant conspiracy to prevent True Patriots from gaining the power they feel has been lost to them.

I know many of these people have almost no understanding or knowledge of how government works, how politics works, how the economy works, what really happened in Benghazi, why Hillary's e-mails are a non-story, that voter fraud is non-existent, that Congressional Republicans have been sabotaging the Federal Government for the last eight years, that climate change is real, that racial equality is a necessity, that LBGT people need their civil rights protected, that women should be in charge of their own uteri.

I know all of this, and it sometimes makes me crazy to figure out how they manage to get through their days with so much of the world around them out of their understanding's grasp.

But then I remember:  MANY Amerikkans live their lives that way.  They have too much to deal with... spouses, kids, mortgages, taxes, dead-end jobs, poor health, never enough shekels in the bank.  It can be daunting to deal with all of that AND try to have an educated world view, so that expanded world view gets left behind.

IMHO, left behind at their own peril, but that's only my opinion, and opinions are like assholes because everyone has one, right?

So.  There it is.  Donald J. Trump is indeed a Good American.  I don't have to like it, but I accept that reality and don't hold anything against him because he's a genuine individual with a highly-visible status and millions of fans.

Will he win in the upcoming election? My visceral reaction to that thought turns my stomach, but unlike his rabid fans who are already threatening to start shooting up the place if he doesn't, I'm a Big Boy and can handle defeat without resorting to mindless violence because I too am a Good American.

I'm voting for Hillary Clinton, and I think she'll make an excellent President. If you're voting for Donald Trump, and you accept and support his ideology and worldview, well... that's what elections are for, and that makes this already-great country even greater.

"Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt



Lead image, gracias de cnn.com; 'Donald Trump is a Dinosaur;' video, muchismas gracias de youtube.com; GO HILLARY!!!!.

Digital Insanity

This here is a rant, so please understand that it's a rant and not a foot-noted, referenced, scholastically-rooted analysis submitted for your approval. This is my personal opinion, so I dinna care if you agree or not because you know what they say about opinions.

Soooo… you think the world is coming apart all around you, that we’re all doomed?

Everything sucks, right?  Everything is worse now than ever, right? Nothing good is happening around us and it's all going into the dumper, right?  

Too much racism and bigotry and needless bloodshed and insanity from all sides, everywhere? Too much death and destruction? Too much political divisiveness? 

Here’s a flash for you:  It’s ALWAYS been this way in our modern world.  

Police have been murdering people of color without recourse for a century. Racists and bigots have ALWAYS been right there, spewing hatred and threatening violence because they simply don’t like you or the color of your skin or the faith you follow or the clothes you wear or the company you keep. We’ve been drenched in gun-related deaths for as long as I can remember, and I’m pretty old. Politics has always been a venal, vicious enterprise. 

The difference now is that we’re all walking around with our eyes glued to our smart phones/handheld computers/digital overlords, enslaved and inflamed and manipulated by every single thing that happens in our city, our country, our world, 24/7, without pause, relentlessly.

This has happened because NO ONE will put down or turn off their fucking smart (stupid) phones, lift their heads and actually SEE what's happening around them.

We've done this to ourselves... we have no one to blame except US.

Every single person now has the ability to digitally see, ingest and spew their own and everyone else’s stupidity, hatred, fear, violence and insanity, then it’s all whizzed together with everything else and becomes a frothy toxic cocktail of sensory and information overload. 

Humans can only absorb so much before it becomes poisonous and they begin to implode and explode.

The Red Mist.

It doesn’t matter that statistically, crime is down, homicides are down, more people have more jobs, fewer people are losing their homes because of skyrocketing medical bills, fewer American soldiers are dying in stupid wars, gasoline is cheaper than it has been in a decade, more people have access to healthcare, the deficit has been cut by 75%, the economy is generally booming, the housing industry is generally booming, yatta yatta yatta.

None of that matters when you've gone digitally insane, especially if you get all your news, all your input, all your teeth-clenching editorial from one or two very specific sources on a tiny screen that has turned you into a digital junkie... an infotainment addict.

You know what I'm talking about, don't you?

We’re killing ourselves with information overload. We’re slowly dying inside from poisonous inter-connectivity. It affects your waking and sleeping hours, it demands your constant vigilance, it leaves you breathless, gasping for an untended minute or hour or day without the constant immersion in the digital hurricane that we have created.

There is a solution. 

Put down the fucking smart (stupid) phone.

Prayer and $5 will get you a Grande Latte'... only action works. 

Our parents were right. Watching too much TV will make you stupid, so why in the hell are you walking around with your head down, neck bent, eyeballs glued to that tiny screen, all day all night every day non-stop?

I learned a very important lesson in grade school: NEVER try to walk and read a book at the same time because STUPID. But I see people every single day walking and driving and shopping and doing things that require full and complete attention, but their attention is sucked down into their tiny screens and they seem oblivious to the rest of the world. 

Put down the fucking smart (stupid) phone. 

Put it down and take a walk outside and look around you at the birds and clouds and trees and grass, then breathe in deeply and keep walking. 

Don't take that smart (stupid) phone with you. Leave it off and away from your bad self.

Put it down and hug your kids and neighbors and friends and co-workers and tell them how much you love them, how much they mean to you.... and don't think that texting it will be the same. It isn't the same, OK?

Don't leave your interpersonal relationships to the cold dead sterility of texting and messaging. Stop isolating yourself because it's soooo much easier to drop a text than to (ugh!) make a phone call or, you know... actually go TALK to them.

Put it down when you sit down to eat. Put it down when you go shopping. Put it down when you go to the movies (please!). Put it down when you go watch your kids play at the park.  Put it down when you're supposed to be interacting with your spouse/boss/wife/probation officer/dominatrix/manga doppelganger. Put it down when you're hurtling down the freeway at 80mph. Put it down when you know you're not supposed to be looking down at that tiny screen.

"DROP THAT SMART PHONE RIGHT NOW, PARDNER."

I know what you're gonna say: "What?!?! How the hell am I gonna stay in touch with my family and friends and check my work e-mail and personal e-mail and my FecesBook and Twatter and SnapCrap and InstaPuke pages? How will I know what's going on everywhere all at once right now at the tips of my swiping fingers through this tiny digital teevee screen that is on 24 hours a day?!"

Turn it off and put it down... for an hour, a day, a whole weekend.

Put it down to regain your humaneness and compassion and personal connection and love for others, devoid of sectarian religious bullshit and racial animosity and the fear of others you were taught by your parents who were too dense to know better. 

Put it down.  Take a digital vacation. Take a breather.

Now, I'm not saying to ignore the digital world completely, because that would be dumb. Maybe get your information from somewhere that isn't using you for clickbait or marketing metrics, like, say, I don't know... how about a newspaper? You remember those, right? Or a non-fiction book about current events that you have to actually read and digest, no swiping necessary.

Or howzabout this: use several different sources of information to get your news and information instead of the limited ones you use now (you know I'm right, right?) Watch the local and network news, but check out BBC World News too for a truly global perspective. Listen to both RW and progressive talk radio to get a better understanding of issues that we all care about. Sit down with the people you love and respect and know and trust and talk about the stuff you care about.  You know, human interaction. Try it... you'll like it!

Only you can do this… no one else can pull that phone away from your eyes except you.  

Do it… I dare you. 

It will change you. The first step is admitting you have an addiction to your digital overlord, and only then will you understand how much it has enslaved you, how much it has inserted itself into your life... with your total acceptance and approval.

Put it down.

You’ll never know until you try.

Start a trend. Be an early adopter of less technology, not more. Prove to yourself that you can indeed disengage from the digital insanity that surrounds us all like a stinky brown fart. Clear the airspace in your mind of the incessant noise that we've accepted as the cost of our modern world.

If you don’t… if we don’t… the artificial perception of our world as Planet Shitstorm will be the only reality we have, pulling our eyes right out of our fucking heads so we can accidentally stomp them into a red mush. 

DO. IT. NOW. 

You’re welcome. 

Now... go clean the bathroom. CHOP CHOP.

Lead image, gracias de beyondthefear.com; Devo 'Freedom of Choice' video, muchismas gracias de youtube.com; Use your freedom of choice, goddammit!!!

Let It Go

As I lean into the reality of achieving 60 years on this planet, an epiphany has struck me that simply won’t let go:  

The act of forgiveness has become a scarce commodity in this modern world.

Forgiveness is an emotional tool that many people have simply forgotten how to implement. For some reason, we’ve lost the ability to forgive the transgressions of others, choosing instead to cling to the venal anger and hatred that comes with not forgiving another human being for something they did or said or didn’t do or didn’t say that was ether bad or wrong or stupid or misdirected or just plain dumb. 

Like it says in ‘The Invisible Sky Wizard Explains How To Live Your Life’:

“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned.  Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” – Luke 6:37

Now… don’t get me wrong here. I’m not a religious person or a believer, and I hold all religions in contempt for the brainwashing and manipulation of so many mentally enslaved people on this planet. But we humans are prone to being brainwashed and manipulated, so I forgive those humans because of their human-ness.  As for the myriad superstition-based religions that seek to ensnare and enslave malleable minds… well, whatever, they have no bearing on my life and I can ignore them with no effort whatsoever. 

Forgiveness has nothing to do with religion, and it seems religious folk are the ones who are the least forgiving among us. But we as a species definitely need to re-learn about forgiveness in order to keep our world spinning in the right direction. 

Here’s a few notable examples of my efforts to forgive.

I forgive George W. Bush.

I forgive him for being the absolute worst U.S President in my lifetime.

No… really. As much as I despised his smirking stupidity, his vapid incuriousness, his destruction of our economy and of countless American and Iraqi and Afghani lives… I forgive him. Viewed now through the lens of time and space, it’s easy for me to chalk up his disastrous tenure at the head of our nation as just… well… he did the best that he could, that’s all.

I forgive him because he’s a human being, and all human beings are flawed.  None of us are perfect, or even near-perfect, with the notable exception of The Artist to whom I am married because she is AWESOME (nice save, eh?).

It’s a funny thing, forgiveness. We have it at our disposal to allocate and use as we see fit, yet somehow we simply refuse to do so because we're dicks. Here are two words that demonstrate this concept perfectly:

I  forgive Jane Fonda.

There's an entire demographic of mostly-older While males whom, upon hearing those two words, will fly into a blinding ranting rage of hatred and disgust and cursing against ‘Hanoi Jane’ because of an ill-timed photo and film taken of her during the final day of an arduous trip to Vietnam in 1972 for which she has apologized literally thousands of times.

They have no forgiveness for Jane Fonda, even after all these years. They don’t care about the situation she was in, nor her countless apologies, nor the fact that lots of things happened during that ridiculous war that were far and away more egregious and deserving of their venom than an image of her sitting on an anti-aircraft gun in some nondescript rice paddy.

They want to preserve the hate and anger and hostility. They desire to maintain the jagged little pill of blackness in their hearts, which they don’t realize has rotted out their human-ness.  They refuse to forgive, and it will gnaw at them for the rest of their lives.  They’ve chosen that path because they simply cannot find the human emotional capacity within themselves to forgive her, and it will haunt them right into the Dirt Nap.

I forgive my ex-wife.

We weren’t meant to be a couple, which became evident almost immediately after we met and got pregnant and then married, all in rapid succession.  Our marriage was a rolling disaster, and the divorce was tragic and ugly and she made damned sure I always knew how pissed off she was by feeding our daughter a constant stream of negativity towards me that took decades to overcome. But guess what?  Eventually, we became friends again, and she even admitted to my stupid face that I was a Good Father and a Good Person and she had actually forgotten why she stayed mad at me for so many years.

I had forgiven her a loooong time before that, but she finally figured out that forgiveness is better than wretched anger and unreasonable hatred. The Artist had a hard time understanding my decision to let it go way back when, but women look at things differently than men, amirite?

Now… when I say that forgiveness is an important emotional quality to have, I certainly don’t mean I should also forget.  That would be dumb, because how in the hell does a human being learn things if they forget everything that happened to them? As I grow older and shorter, I realize that I’ve always admired Gray Panthers because they've LIVED THEIR LIVES, learned from their mistakes (mostly) and use that knowledge to whip up a frothy cocktail of wisdom and pathos and humor to sip on for the remainder of their conscious lives. 

And it tastes goooood.

I forgive Donald Drumpf for being a Major League Asshole.

Poor Donald... he doesn't even realize why he's such an inflamed, bloated, stinking, reeking asshole. His life of unparalleled privilege has accorded him the ability to say and do whatever the fuck he wants, and NO ONE has ever had the nerve to tell him NO. That's what unearned inherited wealth and power and celebrity can do, but... it's not really his fault.

He was born into an extremely wealthy family, had every possible benefit accorded to him because of his birthright, attended the best schools, never wanted for anything, and was fronted a million bucks by his Nazi-sympathizing Father to get his business career started.  He's been the Captain of his own ship since the beginning and has never even once had to swab decks or peel potatoes or scrape paint or any of the myriad grunt-work jobs the rest of us enlisted slobs have to endure. 

Therefore, it should be no surprise that he acts and talks as if he is simply owed the right to be President of this-here United States on HIS terms and NO ONE is gonna question him because he's DONALD TRUMP. He simply doesn't know any other way to be. He's the poster child for and the very definition of Affluenza.

I forgive him for that, and I'm certain it matters not to him because that forgiveness is for my benefit, not his.

See what I'm getting at?

Everywhere you look, there is seething anger and rage, hatred and angst, rancor and animosity... and all because nowadays no one will give an inch, a millimeter, an iota towards deference or compromise or forgiveness. I can have a FecesBook conversation with someone whom I vehemently disagree with, but I don't hold their ignorant and uninformed opinions against them because they arrived at those ignorant and uninformed opinions via some mechanism that I can't begin to comprehend, so why should I blame them for that? I'm not them and don't pretend to know what's inside their head.

I forgive the long-dead relative who repeatedly sexually abused me as a child.

No… REALLY… I forgive him, and not just because he’s dead. I’m lucky that the abuse happened when I was still young, and although I knew at the time what he was doing to me wasn’t right, he never actually hurt me either physically or emotionally. In fact, he provided me with an early window into my own blossoming maleness and appreciation for why girls were just so darned cute and special and fun to be around… and this was in grade school. Well, that and the hush money he’d give me that would be spent on Orange Crush and Look bars and MAD Magazines.

He grew up in a family environment where sexual abuse, while not necessarily condoned, was a fact of life and just happened. It’s not an uncommon thing, no matter what anyone says, and there are many people who suffer their whole lives with the self-imposed shame of having been sexually or physically abused but never EVER admit or speak or think of it lest they open themselves up to more shame and scorn and ridicule. I’m pretty sure that same internal shame is what caused my younger brother to live his life inside a bottle until he wasn’t living any more.

I forgive the Barack and Hillary Haters.

Think about it:  why do some folks hate Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton so much? These two amazing and dynamic people, who have given a majority of their adult lives towards the betterment of all Americans, are roundly vilified and derided, hated and accused of being any number of terrible things.  Why is that?

Could it be that as a strong and visible politically liberal people, it's very easy to accuse them of wrongdoing and malfeasance without a shred of evidence, yet have those accusations given legitimacy and validation by a media machine that is always taking out the long knives and slicing for no reason other than they can?

After years of negativity and lies and hatred and animosity towards them by a ratings-addicted media, people who simply won't educate themselves are brainwashed and convinced that Barry and Hilz are inherently evil, which is painfully obvious by asking the haters a few simple questions about why they hate them. 

I forgive those haters because of their ignorance... they really DON'T know anything. They simply parrot what they think they know because they only know what they've been told. It happens over and over again to the point of absurdity, but that's the result when someone's been wrongfully vilified for years and even decades.  It becomes a given truth, and unless one is compelled to investigate further, that given truth is all they have.

I forgive the Boss who cursed me out to my face numerous times.

Although he's now retired to play golf and goof off, I was subjected to numerous curse-filled, spittle-flecked, raging rants from a guy who I worked under for 10 long years. His normally semi-snarky attitude was easy enough to handle, but his ability to fly into a screaming "FUCK YOU, MOTHERFUCKER!!!" rant without warning kept me off-balance for many years until I finally figured out where his simmering rage came from.  Once I understood his motivation, I learned how NOT to take it personally.

The Artist isn't quite so forgiving towards him, and of course I love her for that.

People who are prone to such outbursts of anger and hostility are usually marinating in it 24/7 for one or many reasons, but they're well-pickled and can squirt out the Hate Juice with a viciousness that is almost breathtaking. I was known to have a quick temper that dated back to my youth, but I've learned how to resolve those tendencies and rarely (if ever) slip back into that mindset. I know how it feels to be both a giver and receiver of that unleashed anger, so I'm tuned to the wavelength that keeps it at bay. 

Mostly. I'm human, too.

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During the final few months of my first marriage, we had decided to try counseling to see if the union could be salvaged (it couldn't), but after only two sessions she announced SHE was done with counseling because the problems we were having were MY fault, so it was up to me to get right. Nice.

I continued the counseling sessions for another few months, which turned out to be a watershed moment in time.  Counselor Donna helped me to see where I was at, where I wanted to go and how to get there.  She also introduced me to a phenomenon that often caused marital problems called 'gunnysacking'.

'Gunnysacking' is something people in troubled relationships do when they would rather not discuss or fight about a particular issue. Instead of hashing things out, they take their anger and stick it inside an emotional gunnysack that's always slung over their shoulder. Time after time, it seems easier to stick one argument after another into the gunnysack instead of dealing with the problems at hand.

Eventually, that sack gets loaded down with anger and issues and deferred hostility until one day, usually the result of a minor squabble, one or both parties take their sacks filled with emotional crap and dump it out all at once, which can lead to severe chaos and unintended consequences. Relationships end over this kind of emotional violence.

Donna helped me to understand that my troubled marriage was like me clinging to a slippery rock in the middle of a swollen and raging river, weighted down with a sack loaded to the brim with unresolved emotional crap.  Letting go of the crap-filled sack (forgiveness, no matter what) was the first important step, but I still clung to the rock, afraid of what would happen if I let go (divorce). I could cling to the rock and take what I could get (unhappy marriage), or let go of the rock and swim like hell to try and reach the shore (destination unknown).

Letting go of the rock and making a break for the shore meant I might actually drown in the process, but as R.P. McMurphy said when he simply couldn't budge the massive water station in 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest': "Well I tried, dammit! At least I tried!!"

"There are no guarantees", Donna told me... "but at least you'll know you're going somewhere, and if you try hard enough, you'll reach dry land and the chance to start your life again."

BOOM.

Donna saved my life and taught me a valuable lesson that I still use today. Sure, sometimes I get angry about things that I can and can't control, but I don't stay angry. I let that anger rise, internalize my understanding of it and then Let... It... Go. If someone does me wrong or something riles me up, I let through a flash of anger (because it's a solid and honest emotion) and then immediately forgive. I refuse to drop anything into my gunnysack, because life is hard enough to navigate without the extra weight of needless emotional bullshit.

Did I mention The Artist and I have now been together for 34 years?

"Forgiveness liberates the soul. That is why it is such a powerful weapon."

Nelson Mandela knew it. I do too, and so can you.



Mandela image, gracias de static1.squarespace.com; GWB image, gracias de gannett-cdn.com; Fonda image, gracias de static.guim.uk; Flo image, gracias de groundfloormedia.com; Drumpf image, gracias de answerguy.com; Molester image, gracias de dailymail.co.uk; Mob image, gracias de michaelshannon.files.wordpress.com; Boss image, gracias de rawstory.com; Marshall Crenshaw 'Walkin' Around' video, gracias de youtube.com; Fuck Donald Drumpf, I'm With Hillary and I forgive Bill Clinton too.