Change. Now!

Everyone is shocked and horrified at the terrible realities taking place in Charlottesville, North Carolina. Yes, people are actually defending a statue of Robert E. Lee which is being moved, not destroyed, to a location which no longer endorses our nations Antebellum slavery past. People are actually marching in KKK rallies, openly. And our president is actually being mute on how wrong all this is.

And yes, these neo-Nazis have just killed a counter-protester with a vehicle. Yes, Nazis have just killed an American on American soil.

In the midst of this is Peter Cvjetanovic, an undergraduate student at the University of Nevada, Reno, who got identified as one of the attendees there.

"I am not the racist you see in the images," he is telling the world. After all, he wants the world to know that just because he marched and yelled and screamed racist shit, that doesn't mean he's a racist.

No, really.

Well, here's a thought, Peter. You're trying to put your ideas out there, and are frustrated that people won't listen. You want the world to understand your point of view, but people just aren't interested in seeing your side of things.

Frustrating, isn't it?

And maybe this underscores what I've been saying for years, that when one is confronted with contrary evidence, the thing to do is change one's own position first. Don't like that the overwhelming majority hates you? Maybe the overwhelming majority is right, for once!

Maybe, the person whose mind needs changing is you!

Don't get me wrong, it's hard to change one's ways, believe me, I know. I lost everything when I gave up my faith in Christianity. My career, my circle of friends, my standing among those in my community. It was a rough patch. So I can relate to you feeling daunted about the prospect of you giving up your bigotry. I can understand how you might pale (pardon the pun) at possibly losing your fellow David-Duke-supporting friends. I can see why you would want to retain your rank as a junior lieutenant in a small (very small!) army, rather than become a mere private in the army of what you mistakenly presume to be your (much larger!) enemy. Yeah, I get why you hesitate to throw that away.

But likewise, I can also not understand why you don't! I did it, and I'm a wuss. What the hell's your excuse?

However, I'm not just talking about you. I'm talking about everyone. Yes, everyone. We all, ALL, hold onto beliefs which we shouldn't, myself included. (Okay, I've gotten the major ones out of the way, but the minor ones I'm still working on.) We all do stupid shit, like mistake real news for fake, listen to Alex Jones (instead of me!), prefer the evil to the good, and attack people for exercising their own private freedom in a way that we don't like, as if that were at all our business. We all have our pet demons.

Well, I say kill your pet. Because it's not a pet, it's a leech. And it's sucking your brain dry.

This doesn't excuse you. Just because we're all in the same boat doesn't mean you and your misguided buddies aren't drilling holes in the bottom.

Knock it off!


Eric

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What About The REAL Thieves?

Many people are glad at the recent news story that Special Prosecutor Mueller brought in a grand jury several weeks ago as art of his Investigations into Russia hacking the 2016 presidential election. It shows that Mueller will not be gotten rid of easily, and that's a good thing. But in this development, I wonder, is anyone really going to go after the REAL election thieves?

Is anyone going to hold the media accountable?

Don't get me wrong. The Russia-Trump connection is huge. A foreign power attempting to interfere with our election process is something we can never tolerate. But Russia didn't cost us the election. Russia didn't give us Trump. No, Hillary had it in the bag 12 days out, so much so that Republicans feared losing the House and Senate.

Then the James Comey non-scandal hit.

The media, like a cat with a laser pointer, pounced upon thin air. The mouse, which was the reality that Huma Abedin, not Hillary Clinton, was the one in trouble, went unreported. To this day, I believe this fucking blog was the only news outlet to point this out! The media reported that the FBI was re-opening its investigation into Hillary's emails, even though this was not quite true. And then, three days out, Hillary was cleared again. But that's not how the media reported it, either. Instead, they reported, "Hillary cleared, but is it too late?" Well, fuck, it is if you report it like that! Seriously?

And the conservative media machine saw its chance. They kept up their ads which said Hillary was being re-investigated. This was where the media had a moral obligation to report this as flat-out lying! But they kept quiet. The public was fooled. The pro-Hillary bounce which should have happened, never came.

And where is our Special Prosecutor for this? Who will hold the media accountable for putting a headline-generating photo-finish ahead of the will and betterment of the American people?

Who watches the Watchmen?

Th Russia connection will eventually take Trump down. But let's not forget who the real thieves were. It wasn't Putin and his cronies. It is everyone from Hannity to Maddow who just plain dropped the ball. Then picked up the bat and hit us over the head with it!

Let's not get fooled next time.

Eric

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