I am a
man. Men don't often open their hearts and feeling to anyone unless
they are extremely psychologically wounded. But I will in this
article, at the risk of others seeing “weakness” in doing so.
I have
chosen to be a non-Republican over the years. This started with the
attack and eventual impeachment of Bill Clinton by Republicans,
continued by the theft of the 2000 election by GW Bush and solidified
with the total obstruction of the Obama presidency that started in
clandestine meeting between top Republicans BEFORE Obama was even
inaugurated.
This is
what made me a non-Republican. What made me a Progressive Liberal are
the opinions, feelings and morality my Mother, a single mother
instilled in me and those I have developed over the years. My Mother,
who I still worship today after she died almost 25 years ago, was a
bigot and what is now called a Conservative. She was not a hater of
Blacks, she felt she disliked (she never used the word “hate”) Jews,
intensely. My older brothers were not really bigoted. They felt that "Black people were great and everyone should own a few"..... that overt/covert white suburban bigotry that persists to this day.
So did my Father who I never met. He was even worse,
forcing my eldest sister to stop seeing a man she loved, because his
skin was too dark. He was of Mediterranean descent and olive-skinned.
Publicly,
he never showed this prejudice I am told, he died when I was just
over a year old, but my sister and my Mother made his feelings
abundantly clear through their recounting of his actions and words.
My Mother however, never quite explained her dislike for Jews. She
had a story, told to her by her Mother, that took place during one of
the 19th century European “purges” of Jews during the
Franco-Prussian war. It is a long story, but the take-away I got from
it, was that my Great-Grandmother was Jewish. Judaism runs down the
maternal line, similar to the way Islam runs down paternal lines,
thus making Barack Obama, in fact, a Muslim in the eyes of Islam, but
not America where we accept one's faith by declaration. This “lineage
religious identity” also made my Mother one-quarter Jewish and
myself one-eight Jewish, still a Jew in the eyes of the Talmud, IF,
my interpretation of the story is correct!
Since
1890's America was overtly anti-Semitic, I can see how through three
generations, my Mother would develop these feelings, particularly
since she was a young woman during the rise of Hitler. I don't agree
with these feelings, but I can understand them.
So I
should be an avid supporter of the Republicans. I should be out there
waving “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” banners, due to my upbringing!
What happened? David Canada happened. Here is the story:
I did
very well in the retail automobile business, rising to become a
General Manager of a Houston car dealership by age 30. I still made
the deals, hired & fired and ordered cars as a GM. While still a
salesman, I disagreed with how the dealership was being run. One
thing led to another and I quit, going to work immediately for a
competitor as their sales manager. There, I “inherited” a couple
salesmen. One was a young Black man. This guy was big, he was black,
he used “Afro-sheen”, he had extremely long thumbnails, a sign of
a street fighter, spoke with the unmistakable accent of a
non-college-educated Black man. In short, he was everything I was
raised to dislike. But he sold cars and he LISTENED to everything I
said about selling.
My old
dealership was ordered to turn their sales around and it was “strongly
suggested” that they bring me back, as General Manager, or lose the
franchise. They made me a lucrative deal and I went back. A couple
days later, my “midnight-alleyway nightmare”, David, showed up
dressed in a $500 suit, asking for a job. I needed two salesmen, but
not “him”, so I sent him away. Once a month for five months,
David showed up smiling and asking for a job, every time, I had “no
opening”.
It was
June, Summer now in Houston, 95 degrees and 95% humidity. David
showed up again, wearing the $500 suit. But this time, the suit was
soaked through with perspiration as if a hose had been turned on him.
He was flushed, hot & thirsty. I asked him what happened. “It
is really hot out there,” David started, “Walking 23 miles up
here I worked up a sweat.”
This
man, unemployed, living in his Mother's house with a wife and two
small children had WALKED FORTY-SIX miles once a month to ask me for
a job. I asked him why he wanted to work for me so badly and why he
didn't hitchhike. “I want to learn from the best. You are the best
I ever saw,” he started, “.... and here in Houston, Black men
don't hitchhike!”
Once
recovered, David left me with a new job, a “demo” car, a $300
advance and the respect he deserved, but was forced to earn. He was
my best salesman ever. One day a huge redneck farmer came in, angry
that he felt he was charged too much for his new truck and screamed
he wanted to “kick the sales manager's ass”. I came out from the
office, expecting a fight. As he approached me, the world went dark
and I heard that familiar “street Black” accent say, “You can
kick his ass, right after you kick mine!”
David
had put himself between us and was glaring DOWN at this redneck who
lost his nerve and silently left. I told him I had it under control
and the man would not have succeeded. “I know that, but he didn't!
You are my friend, so I helped!”
Last I
heard of David was over 20 years ago. He was a sales manager at a
Ford dealership in Houston, still crediting me with his success.
I wan
never sure why I needed to dislike those not “like me” anyway,
but David cured me forever and I now look for the best in everyone
and most often find it. But he did much more that I can never thank
him enough for! David quietly made me climb out of the “box” I
lived in and look down at it. He made me question everything I
believed and reexamine my “soul”.
No man
and no woman has the right to dictate what another thinks or does, so
long as their actions do not affect the lives of others, PERIOD! Your
“right” to swing your arms, ends where my nose begins. Literally
and metaphorically. No one has the right to hold back another based
on perception of appearance. Everyone has the moral obligation to
lift up those in need and in pain and to leave the world a better
place for Humanity in general, not just those in Humanity with the
same skin color or deity.
That is
a lot to learn from a Black man walking through the hot streets of
Houston!
I was
wrong then and in many other cases since. But I have done my best to
learn from each occasion and David always comes to mind when faced
with a crisis or decision.
So how
does all of this tie into this contentious Presidential election?
I have
had not only the experience of being a bigot and liberated from it,
but also of being both rich and poor...... several times. I have been
a parent. I have had failed relationships. I have fought in the
streets and worse. My friends over these nearly 64 years have
included surgeons, lawyers, truck drivers, underground miners, the
CEO of Ford Motor Company, even a murderer...... or several. I have
spent a few days in local jails, learning enough from those
experiences that I NEVER wanted to see more than that and mended my
ways fast! I once formally debated a Catholic Archbishop who later
became a Cardinal, TWICE, to a draw both times. I also “debated”
an ex-con boxer in a sleazy bar to a bloody victory he never recovered from.
I have
been blessed or cursed, depending on your point of view, to have seen
more of Life that most and I have to admit, that was my goal! I have
talked to countless men and women from more walks of life than the
majority of people will ever see and had inebriated “discussions”
with other men from seminarians, to Congressmen, to actors, to
murderers, to actors who murder their craft and I NEVER, EVER even
ONCE heard a man or boy admit to any form of sexual assault. NEVER,
has a single male human I spoke with say they grabbed random women by
the crotch and kissed them!
I have
met men, most men, who claim to have gigantic genitals, even claiming
that myself on occasion. I have met men who claim to have had
CONCENTUAL sex with every women they have ever seen. I have met men
who describe their sexual antics as more intense than ANY “X”
rated movie ever produced...... liars, all of us of course, but NEVER
one admitting to sexual assault! Oh and I have been in more than a few
“locker rooms” during these discussions!
What
kind of a man admits to, even in private untaped conversation, just
walking up to any woman he pleases and start kissing and groping
them? In all the men I have met, I never met one! My very limited
time in local jails has, however, shown me how men incarcerated for
these crimes are treated! I don't think I need to describe the
reception they get at night from fellow inmates!
In my
bigot days, in my young Republican days.....where I once sat with
then Vice-President George HW Bush at a “Young Republican” event
in Houston, in my remote mining camp days, my truck driving days, my
Sales Manager days, my unemployed days and my few days in a County
Jail, I NEVER EVER, said or heard another man say he was a sexual
predator and then describe his offenses. This is NOT “locker room
talk”. This is mentally disturbed individual talk! It, when taken
in context and with all the other talk we have heard from the mouth
and thus the heart of the person (cannot call him a man) who
manipulated the Republican Party into allowing the corporate take
over of it and his subsequent Presidential nomination, MUST be considered
fit for only one job in this country: making license plates.
I am NOT
writing this as a Democrat, I am not one. I am an Independent voter. I am
not writing this from a perceived position of superiority, I am
highly flawed! I am not even writing this as an American, though I am
an American patriot! I am writing this as a MAN. I am writing this
and sharing these deep secrets, feelings and emotions as a man who
revers women, children and the society we have built. I am writing
this in hopes we all realize that as flawed as Hillary Clinton is and
has been, there is but one choice that can win this election, protect
our society, protect our wives and children and our way of life from
those who would use it for profit, control and power and would think
NOTHING about preying on our daughters and wives and she is the one
who has dedicated her adult life to doing just this...... whatever
other flaws she has.
To those
Conservatives out there who would vote for this predator to “preserve
the Supreme Court” or to return us to being the only First World
country with no national health care plan to improve on and tweak to
American excellence, I say this:
No
matter who is appointed to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court will
never force YOUR women to get an abortion. It will never force your
sons to marry another man. These things are OUR choices and wholly
dependent on YOUR influence and on YOUR version of Faith. The Supreme
Court will never allow the reversal of the Second Amendment.
Constitutional Amendments require 2/3 majorities at both the Federal
AND State levels and a lot of us Liberals would never allow that!
To those
who get their news from Alex Jones, Breitbart and the like: WE, WE
are the Government, WE will NEVER allow ourselves, through the
military, to come to your house and “take” your guns, let alone
fire upon you. The very thought is ludicrous!
Wal-Marts
are stores, not staging areas for an assault on your trailer! YOU
KNOW THIS, really you do. I get your thoughts, I understand your
fears, but do you really want “one of you” sitting in the Oval
Office with nuclear codes? I have been where you are a few times in
my life, unhappy with “the way life has treated me”, blaming
everyone BUT me for my failure and listening to Coast-To-Coast AM,
INQUISITR, BEFORE ITS NEWS and Alex Jones, desperately wanting a
change! But the cause of your, our problems...... is US and we must change
us, not destroy America's political system. I had to realize what you
all need to realize before becoming at peace with myself! You must too! You must stop making Jones and the like
wealthy off your misery: “Wherever you go, there you are!” We are
the source of our success and our failures. No matter how far we run,
we catch ourselves.
Donald
Trump is an admitted sexual predator or worse: he WANTS to be one.
Don't give him any more opportunity than his Father's money already
has! ! I know disturbed thinking and his is disturbed!
Put
Hillary Clinton and sanity in the White House and if you are unhappy,
plan and work for 2020. At least with Hillary Clinton as President, we can be
fairly certain we will see 2020!
(You
have my permission to share and cross-post this as you wish. My only
request is that you leave my name and contact info on the share)