Some people see out of only one side of their noses — I mean, gnosis. What they already know blocks their view of what they don’t know. Maybe you know who I mean. They don’t really see us at all. Everyone they see is a phantom of their perfect world or else only a bad ghost, an imperfect liberal and likely a socialist. Let a bad ghost try to communicate with them all they read or hear is death to them. There’s no common ground, you’re either red-blooded or blue-faced with corpse-like qualities that make them shudder and recoil. Real discourse is out of the question. A ghost’s genuine effort at mutuality is taken as insult. Intercommunication is like visual art. The first step, or offering, is only a sketch, an imperfectly informed image. The Red-type takes it as finished work to which he cannot contribute improvement that might strengthen the work or give life to a ghost in the mirror. Put on the party eye-patch and don’t look.
Recently, as some of you know, in an open letter to a couple of local Republicans, I tried to start an exchange toward better understanding between political opponents. Using what little information I had gleaned from their writings, I presented my view of each of them, assuming they would understand a biographic sketch as my impression to that date, not a finished portrait or judgment. Boy, was I wrong. They took it as an attack. One fellow, who had not been addressed or mentioned, jumped in to accuse me of cowardice. Why? I can only guess it was because I’d used email instead of addressing each one, face to face on his doorstep. (I thought he was ridiculous, but what do I know?) This is a standard ploy of these Red folks. One who disagrees or talks back is either cowardly or crazy. Among their comments to my early blog entries were suggestions that I was disbalanced and needed counseling. One of them just offered to pay for my visits to a professional he would recommend. I thought that was remarkably generous, but that he was projecting his own need, from living in shadowland.
I assume they all have too much to hide to let anything be exposed in a virtual forum, rather than on the responsibly edited, Benicia Herald’s Forum page. All three have retreated in a huff, insisting they will block my future email input to them. This is not what I sought, but will be quite all right. It relieves me of feeling responsible for seeking rapproachment with them or genuinely mutual understanding. They are content to see me as only a bad ghost to whom they can attribute any content or motive they wish. After all, they already know everything important about everything and their opinions are totally factual. Right? Do they get their facts and opinions straight from their web cronies who get them from Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh and Faux News allies? How could anyone improve on that? Actually, I think they’re too lazy for deep thinking on their own or making real effort to win anyone over to a better understanding of reality. They work with “received” views on which they elaborate, religiously.
No matter. I predict that Obama will take Ohio and thereby win even without Florida. No matter all the money in health insurance and pharmaceutical companies, or how much they donate, the U.S. in the coming decade will gain Single Payer Health coverage and join the civilized world in taming the greedy bastards and corporate vampires.
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