Many years ago the movie Network challenged us to announce to the world "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore." Now in 2016,
we've finally accepted that challenge. Middle class white men, like myself, have gotten mad as hell and announced it by voting for Donald Trump.
Of course, this makes absoulutely no sense. If you are mad at billionaires for making more money than you, why would you vote for one? But then,
anger is never logical.
From the beginning of recorded history whenever anger has been used as the catalyst for action inevitably bad things happen. Murder, riots, war,
genocide can all be traced to people getting angry and taking irrational action and then justifying it because of "righteous anger." The truly
sad thing is anger tends to escalate and reignite. The 100 year war, centuries of violence in Ireland, the never ending acts of terror in the middle east
all due to rage that could not be forgotten and constant new acts of violence to reignite it.
Responding to anger and violence with more anger and violence is not the answer. I hope enough people in this country realize that. I hope that
our natural compassion and the history of fair play in this country will overcome our equally long history of intolerance. We will see in a
few months. In the meantime, if you are feeling mad as hell, ask yourself why and then instead of being angry take a deep breath and go hug
someone you love, or better yet, someone you think you are angry at.
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