I hate the circadian cycle I’m suck in. it’s 3:46 PM and I’m just now starting to write. I found myself awake at 2:30 last night for no good reason. I woke up at 6:30, went to the bathroom and back to bed. My alarm woke me at 8:30, I got out of bed, but was asleep again by 9:30. I need to get into a regular sleep cycle, this is ridiculous.
I watched the World Series last night; I like when I’m doing what I think I should be doing. I love baseball and I chose my team, the Dodgers. I had conflict choosing them. One of my rules is root for the team that plays in the league of Real Baseball, the one without a DH, the NL. Another is to root for the best team. I hate when a team that has been intelligently constructed, with the best players, loses because of some bad luck in a short series. The fact that announcers, many writers, and fans don’t realize that it’s luck makes me root even more. The Dodgers should have won last year when they were the best team and didn’t. That might be biasing me towards them. I have more friends rooting for Boston and that’s pulling me in that direction. I wouldn’t be shocked if I switched allegiances. I certainly won’t feel bad about the 108-win Red Sox taking home the title. Just saying that makes me root for them.
My plan for today was to write about my evangelical streak, I have a strong desire to preach my gospel. My gospel is not religious; part of it is atheism, more of it political, and the largest part artistic. But events in the real world are forcing my hand to preach, not discuss preaching.
There has been a spate of bombings targeting people and institutions that Trump has vilified; George Soros, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, CNN, Eric Holder, Maxine Waters, and John Brennan. Fortunately none of these hurt their targets This has my thoughts racing in so many directions. That’s not good for writing. I’ll choose just one thread, one I’ve often written about because it’s so important; the need to emulate Gandhi, MLK, and Mr. Spock. I did well in choosing heroes as an adolescent. I just realized that my heroes were brown, black, and green; I’m patting adolescent me on the head.
America is more polarized now than any time since my adolescence; it’s no coincidence that my thoughts are going back to then. I lived through the assassinations of JFK, MLK, and RFK, those weren’t just attempts, they succeeded, so things are not as bad as then. The difference now is that we have leaders who are working to divide not unite us. A day does not go by that I’m not furious at Trump or the Republican congress. It’s so easy to feel that we are under assault, because we are under assault. But so were Gandhi and King. When faced with violence they did not respond with violence, and neither should we. We shouldn’t even respond with verbal violence, and we should never react to hate with hate.
After the Kavanaugh hearings many responded with verbal assaults on Republican senators. They were confronted in restaurants and elevators. I understand the anger. I feel the anger. I also know the result of that. The Republican’s position in the senatorial races improved. The attempts to energize the left energized the right even more. Those sitting on the fence were fell over to the right. It felt good but following passions hurt our cause. This is where we have to be like Mr. Spock, and not be ruled by emotions, but logic. I cannot understand how people don’t consider how efforts to energize their side also energize the other. My guess is that it’s because they aren’t considering anything, they are looking for rationalizations for acting on their emotions.
These bombings will help the left politically. That will lead some on the right to say that it was a plot by the left. That’s where we are now. Everything is thought of as a conspiracy. You know that some will blame Soros. Soros is such an easy target, he’s foreign, he’s rich, and most of all he’s Jewish. Hell I’ve seen “progressives” attack him because he’s rich and to them rich=evil, especially when Jewish.
Many want to fan the flames, I see friends calling for people to be armed. What happened to being against the proliferation of guns? That only applies to other people. Violence is wrong, by other people. So far on the left it’s stayed on the fringes, not the centers of power, not the president. But it’s from people I care about so it hurts. It’s why I write about it. We see that it’s wrong for Trump to fan the flames of fear and hatred. Why can’t some see that it’s wrong for us too. Social wars are the wellsprings of the worst governments, both Nazis and Communists. People accept extreme measure to fight extreme measures. We shouldn’t be going down that path.
When I started this I had no idea where it was going, but once I arrived I knew what I needed to finish it with. I searched YouTube for Gandhi salt tax, and found exactly what was needed.
Make salt not war.
Wise Madness 