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jStarsinger

On Gratitude for a Tyrant



It is impossible to balance in the middle while clinging to one side. When sinking to one side one must reach across to the other side to find the middle. The blame game we play with our insane clown president is not helping. The best thing we can do with this miasm is to find the gold nugget. And I know, it’s gross to dig around inside this blob of a humun, but there is always a nugget in every situation if you are willing to get dirty while digging it out.


When I write this topic on Facebook (Responsibility Not Blame Page), there are always a few people who get it, but mostly not. Mostly, people blame the pustule instead of the disease — the pimple instead of the cake and bacon — hate the blemish but continue to eat the cake and bacon while chiding the blemish. “Buy a product that promises to remove it,” but it never does. We prefer to rant about the blemishes. This short sighted and thin skinned knee-jerkism, here in the land of plenty, works to our detriment, and we have a bad habit of throwing the gold nugget out with the bathwater.


It is okay to see the full perspective of a situation without adopting the entire agenda, but if you can’t even sort out your own failings, than what kind of analyst are you? How does one improve a problem without assessing the entire situation? If you cannot find advantages in a rotten situation then you are beaten. When you push a bully the bully hits back, and hard!

Why is it so hard to take stock of America without attacks from the extremes of society, and why do we grant the extremes any credibility at all? And how do all these questions relate to the major issue of our time — extreme income inequality?


How do we Modernians (from the land of Modernia) beat ourselves? For one thing, we drink the corporate cool-aide delivered to us via TV personalities who read from teleprompters. We suck it down with fat turtle-stabbing straws until we are bloated.


Why do we believe IN talking faces making the small mouth sounds designed by wealthy advertising conglomerates? IN is IN. Believing IN puts us INside the protected space. If we believe hard enough IN, then we will be the last ones herded INto the camps. Or so we hope. Don’t be out. Only be IN. Except most of us are out these days, so what’s up with that? Cool-aide. We believe the stuff they tell us. Like “Work hard and you can be IN.” “This is a great economy!” “Poison is your friend. You should put it in your yard on the the green plants you don’t want growing there. It won’t hurt a bee or a bird.” Why do we believe IN obvious lies? As long as those lies allow us to abdicate responsibility, we will believe IN them.


Progressives don’t want to see their images reflected in this man, and yet our violent progressive hate for him, proves that we do see our evil twin staring back, so we close our eyes tight and toss a tomato in that direction. Yes, he is a terrible role model, but why do 40% still approve of him? Four out of ten people see him and identify with him in some way. What do they see? What’s to like about this dude? Or are they simply temporarily embarrassed millionaires hoping to get INto his club? In psychological terms, we reject the parts of others that we reject in ourselves. Can you see the Jabba the Hut within yourself? ugh.


The gift of TOTUS would be more valuable if we progressives would stop our hate talk and dig into real the issues that he exposes daily. Yes, we can hate the guy yet still see how his folly is prophetic. Gratitude doesn’t mean you like him or approve of his edicts. Gratitude will not excuse his evil deeds.


But hate is not helpful or proactive. Hate is a rotten tomato splashing down on a passing limousine. A bit messy, but the servants will take care of it later. Gratitude is sticky, though. Gratitude is smart and it is sticky. Gratitude is for the giver of it, not the receiver. Have gratitude for your own ability to see past a disaster to a better outcome. Have gratitude that you now have a common cause. Be grateful that your path is obvious, not hidden away behind closed doors as it was with past presidents.


The following posts are about the topic of gratitude for a tyrant. I’ve been writing about this problem since the awful day he raised his hand to swear to god as his creepy wife glared at him.

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