More Healing

It is always difficult for me to listen to what the right wing media has to say about anything. I find their commentary to be full of such ridiculous nonsense, that I get angry and change the channel.

Ditto for reading comments in response to articles or YouTube vids. If the comment it too racist or too negative, I just ignore it.

But after Hillary's concession speech, I noticed that lots of Barack supports were still arguing the logic of HRC supporters who don't yet want to support our guy. So I posted the following in the middle of one of those exchanges:

I'm an Obama supporter. But I need to say, thank you Senator Clinton. You fought a hard fight. You did so with grit and determination and at significant personal financial cost. You brought millions of people to the party who did not previously care about politics.

I am very happy to see you support our party's nominee. It shows that your love of country trumps personal ambition. That is the mark of being a true patriot.

And you ma'am, are a true patriot.

Thank You!

Yeah, it's a little mushy. It ignores alot of the bad things that came from the campaign. But if we want to see Barack in the White House, we need those 18 million people who voted for Hillary to come back out in November and vote for Obama. We already know all he reasons why we think that they should, but some of them don't. It's our job to teach em.

As the old saying goes, it's easier to attract flies with honey than with vinegar. So be nice to Hillary and her supporters. Explain, gently, why Obama is so much better than whatever the Republicans can come up with (and certainly better than McCain). Together, we're gonna make history.

Let the Healing Begin

I WROTE THIS POST BEFORE SEN CLINTON CONCEEDED. IT MAKES EVEN MORE SENSE NOW.

I admit that a large portion of the news that I get comes from The Daily Show. I'll pause for a minute while you laugh at me for that. But at least I know that my fake news is fake.

Even though the news is fake, and the interviews are edited for comedy rather than enlightenment, I saw one yesterday that really hit the nail on the head. There was a Hillary supporter who self described as "gay as the day is long." He looked to be under 30 and said he is New York City resident. He claimed that if Hillary didn't get the nomination he'd vote for McCain. He even pointed out the issues where that was against his personal bet interest (gay marriage for one).

Now that's just silly. But it's easy for me to say that because my candidate won. So even though I think that the other candidate used dirty tricks and did things contrary to the rules, my candidate won. So I'm not bitter.

If the shoe where on the other foot though, how would I feel? If, inside the bubble of my own beliefs, it seemed that Hillary had stolen the election, how would I react. Would I, just hours after Hillary had claimed her stolen prize, be able to walk away from my anger and say, OK, now I'll support her?

No.

In fact, Hell NO! I'd be up in arms. If it felt to me that the election had been stolen, that rules had been broken or changed after the contest began, that my candidate had been unfairly denied his rights and my vote hadn't been counted, I'd be hopping mad. I'd be ready to start a 3rd party and say "to hell with the Democrats."

But that didn't happen. So far, it seems to me that in spite of some efforts to the contrary, my candidate won fair and square, and is going to get the nomination. My only point is that I understand that anger. I understand that when you're inside the echo chamber of supporters, your views get amplified, and information contrary to your view getrs minimized.

So give Hillary's supporters a little time. Give them a few days to grieve the fact that all of the work that they did, and the money that they contribute, went to an end result that is not the one that they had wanted. That effort and energy was not in vain mind you, but the outcome was not what had originally been desired.

So Hillary supporters, take some time. Have a break from the media. Take a deep breath.

But know this, the Democratic party needs you. We need your energy. We need votes. We need your