A Philadelphia Anectdote

The Holy One Blessed be He cries over anyone 

who is capable of understanding the truth and does not.

הקדוש ברוך הוא בוכה על כל מי שאפשר לו לעסוק בתורה ואינו עוסק

I came to this fool's task of attempting to mirror Donald Trump's cavalier and -- humorously-sometimes and viciously-sometimes --  negative style out of concern for positions that seemed destructive to Worlds and a Planet and a Planet's Population that would likely be put at risk by his presidency. I had rather quickly joined a group that sought to bring together those interested in talking about Trumpism -- Strong-Man Politics. I was escorted out of the group with a call from the Web-Meister who called from Minneapolis to tell me that my thinking was no longer welcome in the Group. He designed the group to live within the Goldwater Rule that prevented psycho-clinicians from commenting on an individual's suitability for holding the office of President. I was arguing that the Tarasoff Rule which required psycho-clinicians to report someone who was an imminent danger to self or others. Any case, I was expelled with a civil but fixed-belief call.

So back to my motives and a concern. On many levels, I was concerned about DJT's ability as a 70 year old man to learn what was necessary to change from his apparently -- and I stress that for I cannot, as the Goldwater Rule implies,  know with any certainty what another's diagnosis is (whatever that means) without meeting with them and without their informed consent -- to change from his apparently dangerous styles of engagement with the World.

Johnson, similarly although in a younger man, comes up short on his knowledge of important issues, sometimes as if he were in the Palin class of poseurs and I cannot say that I was impressed with Stein's ability to walk her way through complex ideas, except on Global Warming. Additionally, I saw her as willing to risk the catastrophe that I thought was the obvious precipitate of a loss in the election to the Trumps. 

I was a Sen. Sanders supporter and I find myself still in agreement with his idealistic pragmatism. I worry, though, about the angerthat is sometimes apparent between those who support Stein and those who support Sen. Clinton. Who, I found myself thinking, is stoking those fires and why?

So, before I take my weekend off, a memory.

In the mid-70's it fell upon me to run a school in the Inner City of Philadelphia for disturbed and delinquently disturbed adolescents. The school was in one of the Whitetowns of the USA (Peter Binzen). Next to it was a Barrio and next to that in a parallel strip -- a parallel universe -- was a Black Ghetto. The poor of the city needed a new school as the old one was crumbling ... really ... crumbling. The animosity between the communities prevented the choice of which sacred ground would house the new school. I came to wonder: Who was benefitting from this split? I developed what I came to call in myself my paranoid theory of politics. An autocracy was in place that needed the poor to be trifurcated and thus made impotent ... Galia (how do you spell Gaul in Latin?) in tres partes divisa est. 

Any case .... I refuse to be part of this trifurcation, Only Clinton, Only Bernie or the Jill Stein Groups. Alienation in these groups will destroy a World, I fear, that my five grand-daughters and one grandson need.

My grandchildren deserve a bit of the optimism that was apparent in the preponderance of groups during the Civil Rights and Anti-Viet-Nam-War movements. The radicals like the Students Against War and Fascism didn't accomplish much, in my estimation. Reagan was smart enough to put together a coalition ... we should be equally strategic.

Still ... what to say ... animosity between these groups can only work against our shared goals. All this to say? Time to stop calling each other evil fucktards and the like. While I strongly disagree with the Stein supporters, I see no gain in being nasty and see the vitriol and venom cast about as a danger as lethal as a Trump Monarchy.

Amen ....