Sunday, October 16, 2016

Where Have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio?


Those were the days, my friend. When great men set records that haven't been broken, and boys dreamed the dream of owning the moon. Days that morphed into the dark fog of night, when men in white sheets would kick your door down. Long silent nights that muffled the screams of a pig-tailed black girl as her daddy was hung. Darkness that fell to the dawn of the brave, trading limb, and then life, for the freedom of love... it was indeed the best of times. It was no doubt the worst of times. But there was always a morning after. There was always morning in America.

So there I was, sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon, going to the candidates' debate. On my virtual way there, I decided to first stop by Wikileaks. Because that's what Jolting Joe would do. Because good friends I respect, right of center, were telling me that’s where the smoking gun was. The scene of the crime, for the whole world to see. Well, I have a bone to pick with my friends: there was a smoking gun alright, but it didn't have Clinton's fingerprints on it. It had the American voter's paws all over it.

I suspect that like 99.9% of Americans, my friends had not visited Wikileaks, never mind read through the un-pundited documents. Hell, I would bet an autographed "Make America Great Again" ball cap that the 99.9% don't have a clue who Podesta is. So I have a challenge for them: read the damn emails. Not Assange's spin on them, and for the love of Jefferson, not CNN's, NYT's, FOX, Drudge Report or Huffington Post. Use your own noodle for heaven's sake.

What I found perusing through the Podesta emails was that the majority of US voters will vote for a political machinist in November, not any different than Obama, Bush Jr., WJ Clinton, Bush Sr., and Reagan. All the way back to POTUS Three. POTUS Two actually strongly opposed the creation of political parties, making him my favorite founding father. Can we all agree now that John Adams was right? No, of course we can't. We're addicted to the crack of character assassination, no time for rational thought. 

So back to the smoking gun and the race for POTUS Forty-Five: in just a few weeks the majority of voters will elect her at gun point, gun pointed at their own feet. Mind you, the alternative was to point the guns at their heads. Given the alternative, I might also risk a foot.

To my friends left of center, half of you certainly have the right to see Clinton as an honest and caring public servant. But stop getting annoyed when 75% of the country thinks you're addicted to KoolAid. When you defend machine politics blindly, you've given up your spot at the higher moral ground.

As for the shooter with the smoking gun: vote away, with a vengeance if you must. Just one question for you: what do you think would happen if you put your gun down and pick up a good history book? Why don’t you try sources of information beyond your comfort zone? You know, like they do in a court of law. We give one side a chance to present their case, and we listen to them. Then we extend the exact same courtesy to the other side. Only then we decide, even if the judgment was not what we thought at first. If you think you have already listened to them, but you can't really feel their pain, you have failed. You’re not listening, because you're busy shooting your gun and pretending it's a vote for truth and justice.

Justice is blind, not because it doesn't care if you're rich or poor, black or white: it is blind because it doesn't always know where the truth is, but hungers for it relentlessly. True justice is not always found in a court of human law. True justice is its own reward.

No such reward for you, my fellow partisan voters. You read and listen to all the same pundits. You "like" and share partisan sources of aggregate, clickbait opinion dungeons, embarrassingly taking them for sources of news. You're desperately looking for self-fulfilling validation. You're living in a world run by kangaroo courts. Good luck with that.


To my fellow independents, stay focused: our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.



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"Mrs. Robinson" by The Lemmonheads



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