No sooner than the news was announced, a republican friend, whom I’ve known since grade school, quickly wheeled up his barrow of sour apples to my Facebook page to argue his points, which I’m not going to copy here.
I hate having to defend my political position but I will not back down when men try and browbeat me with their logic and “reason.” I think they expect me to back down. If anything, it’s Game on, hold my beer. As Tad Alford found out when he insisted that the AntiFa were behind all the rioting—on my Facebook page. I took him on, post after post. We unfriended each other.
But I usually go to great lengths to work with dissenting friends, rather than unfriend them. Too easy. It took all the cool I had not to unfriend these two blokes. My other like-minded liberal friends were puzzled as to why I even gave these guys airtime. I said, because I need to know how the other side thinks. They push and stretch me beyond my comfort zone, and make me take a stand and to define with words, what I’m feeling. The writer’s job.
I’m recording my half of the dialogue here because we are living in such extraordinary, virulent times. It is all part of bearing witness, as Carolyn Forché once said. When I first began this blog, I didn’t think to use it like a journal to recorded my daily thoughts. I thought it too mundane, not worthy. A mistake. Not art. Then I realized we can’t segment and sequester entire factions of our persona for art’s sake. It is all part of the milieu. (added 12/16/20).
Transcript:
Jeff, We are all in such grief one way or another. Please don’t be slinging stones. Now is not the time. We need to all work together, shoulder to shoulder. This finger-pointing has got to stop. Or we will never survive. We need to be better angels than this.
Then he accused me of gloating. I said, I am hardly gloating. I am relieved because now there’s a chance for doing the good work. And if you perceive that I’m gloating, then perhaps it’s time to part ways because there is never any way to achieve anything at all. I thought you knew me better than that. I am sorely disappointed and greatly saddened.
I also think your timing was unfortunate. Too soon. Right now, for most of America, a huge yoke of oppression and grief has been lifted—this current government has been a living nightmare for far too many people. We may disagree politically, but living under .45 has been an absolute nightmare for me, as I am an independent contractor, no umbrella. No cushy middle class job with benefits.
So please understand that your working view of .45 does not hold for far too many of us—too many of us are disenfranchised by this regime. A president is supposed to represent the United States, not one segment of the population. A president is supposed to unite the people of the United States, not divide a nation.
And I might add that your perception of .45 is just that, your perception. As is mine. Please don’t make the (unintended) assumption that you know the bigger picture, and that I am somehow, sadly misinformed. That I don’t see the bigger picture. That you shed light.
You’re right, in that if we were talking in person there would be more give and take in this conversation. But I (perhaps mistakenly) perceived a pejorative tone that I now see was directed at a friend, Terra Firma, not me—nonetheless, I cannot abide what I perceive as an attempt to foist one’s own opinion at the cost of another’s dissenting voice.
He doubled down his efforts to either convince me or air out his griefs.
I said, Jeff Sousa Sorry, some of your stories do not add up. I could easily look them up and refute them. I have in the past double-checked some of your facts and have found that with any story, there is a kernel of truth in them but there is also a healthy accretion of secondary interpretation and hyperbole too. You are defending someone who was unfit to be president and did more harm than good, and he must be held accountable for his criminal actions. You were associated the health profession realm. How can you continue to defend someone who did not have the nation’s own health at heart. He didn’t have our backs. Ever.
Then Robert Campbell piped in, and said, You have been fooled by he corrupt media. Biden is the bad guy. President Trump got 80% of the legal votes. Trump is not a racist. He is taking no salary as President. He is doing this for the people.
I completely lost it. After all this was my Hallelujah Facebook post, and they seemed to be determined to undermine it. I said, You may rationalize any way you want, you’re entitled to your opinion, this is still America, but .45 was NOT good for this country, he divided us, made racism ok, made a schism that will be hard, if not impossible to heal. He was no leader. And you’re making a huge assumption that I’m paying attention to mainstream media. Actions speak louder than words, and certainly louder than the media...and by his own agencies, he was found wanting.
How do you even begin to rationalize fascism? You claim that he took “no salary” but he took innumerable trips to the golf course at taxpayer expense, racking up a bill higher than his salary, he padded the wallets of his friends, practiced nepotism, cronyism, broke more laws than one can count, not to mention the litany of daily lies, he destroyed critical infrastructure, like the CDC, I won’t even mention the deliberate attempt to destroy the USPO. We are now more in debt than we ever have been since this nation was founded, he was vindictive and abusive, in short, a bad president and he will go down in history as such, the man who nearly foundered America. How could anyone with a conscience or moral compass, possibly support him?
Robert, I love your photography, but not your political world view, and your attempt to “guide” the somehow “misinformed” me. I don’t mind your playing the court jester, which I perceive is behind many of your political comments. But I am hardly “misinformed.” You’re entitled to your opinion, but you’re not entitled to try and foist yours atop of mine as the correct world view. Your strongest world view is up there in the skies with the clouds and the land, not in the political arena. Pax out.
from Facebook posts—you can read Jeff’s arguments here.
No comments:
Post a Comment