~ The Width & Breadth of Acceptance Found in America ~

[Hobbes' Choice]

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.................................... Mike Pence refuses to call David Duke 'deplorable'


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Pence refuses because Pence is a closet KKK queen.
This is not about tolerance. This is birds of a feather.

I feel very sorry for you.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Bill,

These people are you enemy.
And the enemy of every hard working American.

Stop being a toad.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

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.................................... Mike Pence refuses to call David Duke 'deplorable'


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Pence refuses because Pence is a closet KKK queen.
This is not about tolerance. This is birds of a feather.

I feel very sorry for you.

So true. I can't wait for the first sex scandal.

[Hobbes' Choice]

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.................................... Mike Pence refuses to call David Duke 'deplorable'


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Pence refuses because Pence is a closet KKK queen.
This is not about tolerance. This is birds of a feather.

I feel very sorry for you.

So true. I can't wait for the first sex scandal.

Seriously. I am genuinely sorry for Bill's volteface. His (my country right or wrong) blindness is shocking. There is no hope for the world with these sort of attitudes.

[Bill Wiltrack]

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This is my country.

As I stated before, I have been hammering my head against the wall for over thirty years, fighting for something I believe-in. Organized Labor.

I've watched as my ideals and my reality moved farther & farther away.


Won't go into details but over the past few years of late I've been broken. Miserable. And what does it change?

I can't change reality. I can only adapt to reality.


Donald Trump and his team fought hard for what they believe in. They won. They, to a degree, will reshape what the world will see as a new morality.


I can refocus my attention back into myself. I can work to be more empathetic, accepting, and hopefully more comforting to those around me before I die.


When we are gone everything that we worked for, everything that we thought we stood for, soon vanishes. Most people don't have the luxury of seeing that their outer life is actually meaningless.

Over the past few years I have witnessed the unraveling of my life. The meaninglessness of my life. It is sobering and deeply painful...and I cannot escape it.

Somehow I must hold these wordless icy moments as a gift. That is all I have left.

I must somehow work to become the water that washes over and erases the sand that is my life.





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[FlashDangerpants]

Seriously. I am genuinely sorry for Bill's volteface. His (my country right or wrong) blindness is shocking. There is no hope for the world with these sort of attitudes.

Wait till he snaps out of it. He's going to become unusually unbearable.

[Lacewing]

I must somehow work to become the water that washes over and erases the sand that is my life.

I suggest... it doesn't take "work", but rather "getting your ego out of the way". The ego insists on what it is and what it has done. It is extreme and dramatic and controlling. It will even re-invent itself to stay "valid" and "on top". And lament the wasted glorious efforts of its identity.

Worst of all, from my perspective, the ego forgets to love! It is too busy protecting and projecting itself.

I'm sure you know all of this, Bill, from your paths of soul-searching. But perhaps you have forgotten what it's like to relax into simply being part of all-that-is. You speak of adapting, which actually suggests you're still scrambling and controlling your idea of yourself and how you "fit". You don't need to fit. You don't need to rewrite anything. You can love it all: love where you've been... love where you are... without clinging to any of it. Only the ego needs to be proven right or good or important.

From my perspective... strong ideas of "country", "self", affiliation, principles, etc... are all manufactured with ego in mind. Why should we make a big deal about such things? We're all HUMAN BEINGS on this planet, living within imaginary borders. WE make up the "rules"! It's ALL MADE-UP. Then we get all twisted up over what we've made-up. And we scramble to remain ultimately relevant.

Therefore, we create most of our own (and others') suffering. We hold and force ourselves and others to unnatural standards. We insist on "what must be"... rather than being loving.

[Lacewing]

I imagine you are young...that is god's greatest gift.

See, Bill... you've completely made this up. You don't know "god's greatest gift". If someone had asked you when you were young, what "god's greatest gift" was, you surely would have thought it was something else. Seriously... you torture yourself with the shit you make up.

When someone points out something as a gift from god, I always want to ask, "If you believe in a god that created ALL of it, isn't it ALL a gift?" Humans are the ones who separate things out and judge and rank them... and that's made-up. A god wouldn't need humans to do that. I think, instead, it's a matter of humans forgetting what they saw/realized as young children... that it's a wondrous manifestation to play with. We start feeding our egos and forget that we're playing... and that makes it not very fun.

[Hobbes' Choice]

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This is my country.

As I stated before, I have been hammering my head against the wall for over thirty years, fighting for something I believe-in. Organized Labor.
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Then you should be holding your head in shame at the election of Trump.
I am sorry this has happened.
Bernie was your only hope. Things are going to get very bad for you.

[Bill Wiltrack]

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I am holding my head in shame - NOT because President Trump was elected but because of my actions leading-up to the election. I am ashamed of me.

Haven't felt this bad in over ten years...And I can't hide from it. The grief is with me at all times.



For the poster that posted the two posts above in sequence - I appreciate your insight. That was thoughtful and written in a way that allowed me to take it in without having my sensitive ego kick-in.

Appreciated.






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[vegetariantaxidermy]

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I am holding my head in shame - NOT because President Trump was elected but because of my actions leading-up to the election. I am ashamed of me.

Haven't felt this bad in over ten years...And I can't hide from it. The grief is with me at all times.



For the poster that posted the two posts above in sequence - I appreciate your insight. That was thoughtful and written in a way that allowed me to take it in without having my sensitive ego kick-in.

Appreciated.






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You are so full of shit.

[Hobbes' Choice]

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I am holding my head in shame - NOT because President Trump was elected but because of my actions leading-up to the election. I am ashamed of me.

Haven't felt this bad in over ten years...And I can't hide from it. The grief is with me at all times.
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Why have you been eulogising Trump?

[Bill Wiltrack]

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I’ve been on this forum for over ten years.


Been called dickhead, asshole and volteface.


NO MATTER WHAT POSITION I TAKE.


So, I can say with confidence, that whatever you choose to call me right now isn't going to matter to me that much.


But what I can say is that both inside and outside of this forum, name-calling in general does not help. It’s not helping.


I live in America. What I see now are people calling each other derogatory names and, in a growing concern, taking violent actions against each other - on both sides.


That’s wrong. And I got caught-up in that too. We’re all on the same team.


We’re all Americans.


We got to work to stay together right now.


Perhaps Donald Trump will be the uniting factor for all of us? He has a tremendous opportunity.


I will give him a chance. He definitely deserves that.




And actually, although I have not been following things all that much, I like what I hear from the Trump campaign lately.





Throughout my life, I LOVED the concept of Organized Labor. I've repeated that here ad nauseam But, over the last thirty years of my life I’ve seen Organized Labor diminish. Not only in my country but throughout the world.


Articulating my thoughts here has forced me to question my deepest beliefs. Those deepest beliefs.


I am forced to ask myself, Perhaps I am wrong? Right for me, but wrong headed when it comes to relating to this outside world.






Looking at the outcome of this latest Presidential election in 2016 is again, forcing me to look at my deepest convictions.




I have friends and family who are in the medical industry, very accomplished in the medical industry - and they are genuinely good people. I love them & respect them AND they are totally against Obamacare! I don’t know why they are against it, but they are. So they should know what’s going on.


So, perhaps I need to open myself more? Perhaps I need to make an effort to listen better?




I grew-up believing that America stood for total freedom. Total freedom of religion. Freedom of race or creed.


Now America seems to have stated, perhaps we were too open? Too accepting?


Perhaps now, in this moment in time, as a nation, we are saying, Hold-up. Let’s look at what’s going on. Let’s redefine who we actually are.

And I missed that message.

I mean - I don't get out that much anymore - I am retired. So there's that.


I immediately over reacted when one of the pillars that I grew-up with, the conceptual image of unlimited freedom, seemed to have disappeared. It was inwardly disruptive. Painful. Still is.


But we are going through a disruptive era throughout the world. VERY disruptive. This I know.


So, perhaps America needs a strong authority figure to get through this time. Perhaps Donald J Trump is the perfect person in this very specific point-in-time. He projects stability. Has projected stability solidly throughout his entire presidential campaign.


He early-on defined a tagline & stuck with it. REPEATED it over & over again...and again. Make America Great Again.


He instinctively knew what he was doing. And DID IT.


And he fought ALL the odds - and won.


Can’t say that about myself.


Whatever he has learned, however he learned it. I’ve never been able to pick up those communication tools.


I’ve never been able to influence anyone. Even here.


So.




So, Make America Great Again is something I can conform to because what I have conformed myself to in the past - doesn’t seem like it has worked out at all.






Middle America - both figuratively and map-wise the middle of the country - literally felt that the system is broken so they blew it up.


And maybe they were right.


It happened quickly. And I was slow to pick-up on it. But now I am.


Two years ago I openly verbalized that for the first time in my life I may not be voting in a presidential election.


Because I felt that ALL politicians were not speaking honestly. Politics came down to a point in America that ALL politicians would speak their message - the message that they wanted to get out in any one particular interview - NO MATTER WHAT QUESTION THEY WERE ASKED.


It was stifling - and they all did it!




I remember, over a year & a half ago, the first time I saw Donald J Trump, I said to a couple of guys I know, Donald Trump is going to be the next President of the United States. And they laughed at me.


From that point on Donald Trump sucked the air out of the room - ALL the air. Myself & the rest of the country was glued to him. He was THE ONLY reason to be interested in the 2016 campaigns. & most of the time you didn’t know what to make out him. He was brash, he was loud, he was confident, he was politically incorrect and he was ALWAYS captivating.


Now he’s President. I don’t know why but I feels like it’s a good thing.


And I still can’t explain it. It’s exactly like his campaign.


I’ve talked about The Digital Revolution. How it’s going to be tremendously disruptive.


Experiencing this Digital Revolution; This Third Industrial Revolution is way different than writing about it.


It is a disruptive time. There is a lot of anxiety for almost everyone here in America.


It’s unsettling, but I feel strangely excited and hopeful about America, The Third Industrial Revolution, and the influx of Donald Trump, even though I am wretchingly uncomfortable looking at myself and being within my own skin.






.

[Lacewing]

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Perhaps Donald Trump will be the uniting factor for all of us?

DESPITE HIMSELF, maybe... and with no credit going to himself!

He has shown repeatedly how divisive and hateful he is. I don't see him leading us to greater awareness... I see him serving as an example (too outrageous to ignore) of the mentality to propel ourselves away from. That is the ROLE he may play in putting our evolution on the fast track.

DON'T GIVE HIM CREDIT FOR THAT. Don't turn him into a savior.

Would you worship a plague for reducing over-population? It's a side-effect. It was not the plague's agenda.

But the end result... after all the chaos... could be a whole new breath of fresh air for humankind... and we can be grateful for however that comes.

The way I see it: Donald is a TOOL of a greater flow that seeks to PURGE ITSELF. He's the poison that makes the system throw up. We are ALL TOOLS. He remains the psychotic clown he has shown himself to be... and he is being carried along on a giant wave of the greater flow. (If anything, I feel sorry for him... as I think he is in completely over his head, and he and others may be sacrificed in a cosmic "weeding out" process.) But, that GREATER PURGING PROCESS of humanity is what is natural and restorative. That's the inspiring part. Don't make false idols out of it.

Just my impression.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

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Perhaps Donald Trump will be the uniting factor for all of us?

DESPITE HIMSELF, maybe... and with no credit going to himself!

He has shown repeatedly how divisive and hateful he is. I don't see him leading us to greater awareness... I see him serving as an example (too outrageous to ignore) of the mentality to propel ourselves away from. That is the ROLE he may play in putting our evolution on the fast track.

DON'T GIVE HIM CREDIT FOR THAT. Don't turn him into a savior.

Would you worship a plague for reducing over-population? It's a side-effect. It was not the plague's agenda.

But the end result... after all the chaos... could be a whole new breath of fresh air for humankind... and we can be grateful for however that comes.

The way I see it: Donald is a TOOL of a greater flow that seeks to PURGE ITSELF. He's the poison that makes the system throw up. We are ALL TOOLS. He remains the psychotic clown he has shown himself to be... and he is being carried along on a giant wave of the greater flow. (If anything, I feel sorry for him... as I think he is in completely over his head, and he and others may be sacrificed in a cosmic "weeding out" process.) But, that GREATER PURGING PROCESS of humanity is what is natural and restorative. That's the inspiring part. Don't make false idols out of it.

Just my impression.

You are being a bit dramatic aren't you? Trump isn't an 'anything'. He just said the things he knew would win votes. Since the election he's like a bag of stewed prunes that's been vacuum-pumped --all the air sucked out and ready for the freezer. Pence is BY FAR the more dangerous beast! You don't mind that you have a Govt. full of creationists, misogynists, global-warming deniers, David Duke admirers..? In the highest places??