They seek companionship in those who they feel can relate but they are far and few in-between. They are lonely and battered souls in search of each other.  They seek someone’s who’s story is as interesting and gut wrenching as their own.

But can two tortured souls mend one another? Although one can find empathy in someone who has gone through similar trials in life, can they find healing or comfort? Or are they just setting themselves up for more trials and devastation?

If they seek out someone who has never endured hardship they tend to find sympathy, but it’s not sympathy they seek as they’re looked upon as abnormal in the eyes of the “normal”.

They have never felt as though they fitted in. No matter how hard they try they always feel alone in a crowd, they feel as if “normal people” who have never endured harsh trauma can see right through them or not see them at all.

With tattered hearts and tormented memories that haunt them they are condemned to relive their agony alone. They want it no other way as they do not wish their pain upon others.

They’re asked to bury their past and just walk away.

So where do these people fit? How do they blend, how do they get others to convey empathy without drawing sympathy?

What was never their fault in the beginning; they are now blamed for not letting go of the very thing that made them who they are. Even if they are the most loyal and compassionate people anyone has ever known. They are condemned not only by their past but also by the people in their present.

If only “normal” people could all  understand that venting is natural even if it’s recurring like a volcano

And seems to last forever like smothering lava

Something beautiful can come from it if we allow nature to take it’s course

Life starts out very similar for most of us, not the same, just similar.

Life is a path, a path we all must walk. Even if someone refuses to walk the path, the distance between the starting point and the ending point does not change.

We start out walking through a narrow hallway with very few if any doors on either side. The only difference is that we may start out walking that hallway with a different amount of people along side of us helping us to maintain our balance and perhaps guiding us through the mazes that come about as we walk through the hall. Meantime others are either dragged through the maze or have no one there to guide them. Within that long hall there are doors and corridors that may delay or shift our course but in any event there is a double wide door at the end of that hallway.

Once we reach that double door we either open it or someone pushes us out into the broad wide open space. Similar to the hall that we had just left we find the path somewhat narrow at first with a cliff to tall to climb  to one side and a deep ditch to our other side, so our path is still just a bit limited. But as time goes on we find more and more crossroads and paths that look safe. Again some of us have family and or friends with us to suggest our course, many of whom had been with us all along even in the hallway, while others have remain or chosen to be alone and still others find new guides.

Near the end of our journey we find ourselves back in a hallway, an hallway that instead of expanding like the first one did, it begins to narrow with far less doors and corridors to detour us now that we’re wise enough to choose for ourselves.

I see far too many people who believe with all their heart and soul that we have the same choices. Of course we do have similar choices, but none are ever the exact same. Unless you have waked through ever hallway, opened ever door, picked the very same roads and walked with the very same people, you did not have the same choice as I or visa versa.

Then we must weigh in life circumstances along with a persons physical and mostly mental makeup in order for one person to explain to another their mental or finical circumstances.

The very most we can do is learn from one another, allow each other to tell us of their path and choices. But when I see people condemning others for choices that they don’t fully understand or for paths not chosen I have to shake my head. I have seen people compare the lost of a distance relative to the lost of someone’s sibling or child. It upsets me to see that. But as I said we must listen and learn. There is something to learn with these folks beyond their ignorant comparisons. There is a shadow of truth in their hollow words of misguided advice.

When I’m listening to someone give advice that they themselves do not comprehend I take away something other than the speaker or author meant to convey, because as I said there is always a shadow of truth in misguided wisdom, all you have to do is look for it.

Let’s say you’re a 20 year old twin and your twin dies. Something inside you wants to make that twin live, so you highlight all the great achievements and attributes of your twin. You carry those with you telling everyone of your twins life. To you this keeps their memory alive, but to others they may see it as you reliving pain over and over again.

You see, it’s all about perspective. And as I said there is a shadow of truth that comes from your critics. You may very well be carrying on the memory of your lost sibling but in doing so you have lost some of your own identity.   Or who knows? Perhaps you were meant to carry that burden. Others may see it as pain but you see it as comfort because you’re keeping them close to you.

It’s a matter of perspective.

President Obama never claimed to be a liberal, heck he’s barely a Democrat. He ran on Hillary’s platform, you could barely tell the two apart. It was all strategy to win. Far left Liberals assumed he was one of them because he’s biracial. And they called Democrats in the Midwest racist because we wanted to vote for Edwards or Hillary?!

There are two sides of racism; there are those who are racist and those who think they understand it that they overcompensate so much that it is down right patronizing and the victims of racism feel insulted, belittled and far less than equal.

Make no mistake racism is alive and thriving in the country and I do believe it has found a home in the ranks of the hard right wing. I’m a little surprised and disappointed with the true Libertarians who have allowed their platform to be high jacked by racist, but I can understand it to a degree. I mean their platform is very liberal and allows the ideas of all to be expressed and protected. But I do wish they would formally denounce those hard right racist groups once and for all instead of muddying the waters by agreeing with them while standing next to them.

Republicans

Get your heads out of your asses. All this “They did it therefore we will too” is just stupid. You can’t call Obama Hitler just because the left called Bush Hitler. You have to have a valid reason. Bush earned that name by signing the patriot act, suspending habeas corpus and invading a country that posed no threat to the U.S. You have to come up with your own real complaints, not made up ones. Identify and throw the racist out of your party. Clean up your own party and stop reversing the blame. What the hell is your problem with Obama? He is more of a conservative than Bush or McCain. You have become brainless zombies of the hard right neoconservative media. You believe that all media besides Fox (TV) and Clear channel (Radio) is liberal? Do you realize how that sounds?

Democrats

Stop wasting time fighting distractions. Yes most of the right wing protesters that get a camera pointed at them is racist bastards. You’re not going to change that. We have real problems. We have a Democrat that we elected who is acting like a neoconservative. Yes he has a big mess to clean up. Yes he is historical. But if you don’t want his presidency to be a joke you need to tell him what you want. He can’t hear you over the tea baggers, talking heads and lobbyist. This isn’t just about a historical election. This is about undoing what Bush had done and restoring the Democratic platform. Stop trying to protect him at all cost, stop overcompensating just because he’s black.

I’ve said it a hundred times and I’ll say it again; this party over country stuff makes me sick.

We all have heard that American’s whine too much about their way of life. Other countries really do have it much worse than we do. Our ghettos look like hotels compared to many third world counties slums. In America we really do have choices and a way out of poverty. So many of us have come from impoverish backgrounds and have climbed the ladder of success, but many of us have fallen from that ladder time and again. There always seems to be a safety net here in America that will stop us from falling completely into the bowels of poverty that so many in other countries have. Far too often what isn’t really considered by many in this country is the fact that some are just too physically or mentally handicapped to climb back up that ladder.

Some of what we here in America see is people who have had so many traumas in their life that they never seem to recover from them. We can send money to Ethiopia all day long to feed the poor and tell our children how much better off they have it than children in third world countries. But try telling that to a little girl whose mother burns her with cigarettes when the child’s playful yells get too loud. Or the girl whose mother traded her daughters virginity for another hit on a crack pipe. Tell that to the boy whose father beats him with anything he can get his hands on just to get out the bitterness he has for his own life. Or the kid who keeps running away from abusive foster and group homes because he feels safer in the parks and streets.

Children really do still go hungry in this country. Not only do their bellies hurt from not having enough to eat but their hearts beat for someone to love them the way they know is right. Their minds hunger for a balance life style and their little souls thirst for understanding and compassion, not just for them but for all who they care about. Tell them they have it better than other children in third world countries and they will try to help because they know all to well how it feels.

The biggest shame here isn’t just on the parents of these children because many are mentally ill. The most horrifying thing to me is that this happens in a country that claims to be better than other countries. This happens in a nation of so called liberals who claim to care about everyone but can’t see past their own prejudices. A republic where so called conservatives who claim to love God and family values turn the other way because they believe it’s none of their business.

I will never tell my children that we have it better than other countries because it’s not all about where you lay your head or how much you have eaten. It’s about having a voice that is fair and just, a voice that is all about reasoning and considers all elements.

If we want to help others we must first help our own children. Visit an inner city ghetto; take a trip to a holier. Go visit the welfare office or a group home and listen. Spend a day in family court and watch silently with an open mind. Look into the eyes of the abused and neglected right here under your nose before you pat yourself on the back for sending a dollar a day to other children in countries. Do things here at home before you get yourself fitted for your halo. Keep teachers happy, help the mentally and physically disabled without judgment and talk to a child and listen, really listen. Most of all be a friend to a family in need.

The children don’t always want to be taken from their parents. They want their parents to be fixed, to be happy. The system truly is broke and throwing money at it isn’t the only answer. Too much gets lost in the bureaucracy of it all and the children suffer because of it. Too many case workers have grown insensitive to the family needs and paint all with a bias and broad brush. So before you shake the hand of a child protective service case worker speak to his or her clients.

You want a better America? Do you really want to make a better future for our children? Then you should support our greatest resource, our very own children.

After listening to Rush Limbaugh for a short time today I realized a couple of things. The first thing that is very clear is the Republican party is really confused. They are so paranoid that everyone is out to get them that they are like a rat trapped in a corner lashing out at anyone who wants to give them advice. They just don’t seem to get that Bush really messed things up for them. So they are suspicious of even those in their own party who doesn’t agree 100 percent with Rush. If they continue to follow this blow hard they will not have power for a long time unless….

Unless the Democrats explode and that’s just what might happen. The Democrats are in nearly as much disarray as the Republicans. We are now seeing a split in the left side of the aisle. Conservative minded Democrats against Liberal minded Democrats seems to be the show to watch now while the Republicans are being dismissed as radicals and all of this in a rocky economy.

If this sounds familiar to you it’s because it is. In the late 70’s the Democrats had a filibuster proof congress but that congress was hostile towards Carter as was the media. Unlike the Republican party the Democrats has layers and it’s those layers that may give way and cause another upset like that of 1980 when Ted Kennedy a Democrat ran against a sitting Democrat president. This was just four years after Gerald Ford the appointed president – predecessor of Richard Nixon felt the backlash of Watergate. It also may be worthy to note that the Republicans were seen as radicals back then too. Of course I‘m not saying that the very same thing will happen, another democrat will not run against Obama, but the Democrats are growing further apart just as they did then.

After the fallout of the Democrat meltdown the Republicans enjoyed 12 straight years of power. The way I see it is the Republicans know they’re in trouble right now, but the Democrats seem to be oblivious to any problems on the horizon. If they don’t get their act together soon the Republicans will reform themselves before the Democrats even know what hit them. On the other hand this would be a perfect time for a third party similar to the Reform party that was headed by Ross Perot in 1992 to take control for the first time in over a century and a half. But that is unlikely, what is likely is that the Republicans will take control without really reforming.

The Democrats didn’t win this past election as much as the Republicans lost it. Let’s face it, from 2004 to 2008 Bush was the best thing to happen to the Democrats since Ross Perot. Both wings of the Democrat party needs to realize this and come to some common ground before putting bills up for a vote. The witch hunt for those who disagree with the far left needs to stop, and those on the right side of the Democrat wing need to take their position to the public and explain themselves. Or this sibling rivalry will end badly for them all.

A lot of people are upset about several different things and I have to admit I’m a bit confused myself. I thought for sure that the patriot act would have been repealed by now. The homeless rate is rising with the all time high foreclosure rate and the unemployment rate. The banks are still being bailed out and talk about infrastructure is non existing. If I didn’t know better I would say that George W. Bush was still running things which is why I can’t understand why the right wing is upset. Obama is doing everything that Bush did or maybe I should say Obama is keeping things the same as they were. I am still holding out hope that he and other Democrats will stop caving to Republican rhetoric. I believe we will all know for sure where Obama stands when he selects a supreme court justice to replace David Soute.

Since the dawn of time mankind has feared for it’s own survival. In the time since record keeping it has been man himself that other men have feared and when there were no men to fear we created Gods and demons to feed our need for the adrenaline rush that the emotion of fear brings on. It was discovered thousands of years ago that fear can control man. So those in power have used fear to control the masses and those without power. But old writings tell us that a handful of men in history have used fear to get what they wanted from kings and pharaohs.

More recently different societies have used fear to control and get what is desired by the perpetrator of fear. Such was the case with the American Indians and the settlers . The settlers feared the Indians as ignorant savages, but little thought was given to how the American Indian felt or feared about the settlers. The fear of the American Indians was so great that nearly the entire race was exterminated.

The Nazi’s had such a great irrational fear of the Jewish people destroying their country that the German Nazi’s intentional set out to exterminate the Jewish race. Not once did the Nazi’s consider the fear the Jewish people must have had about them.

After world war 2 the western world had a fear of eastern nations. Bomb shelters were built and bomb drills were the norm in elementary schools in the U.S. 2nd graders practicing duck & cover in schools all over the land. Not once did we consider that somewhere in the U.S.S.R. there was a 8 year old child doing the same thing out of fear for us.

Most recently we have feared nuclear bombs, chemical warfare and terrorist attacks.
Extreme and obscene amounts of money have been spent on false securities.

We have proven to our enemies and our government that we will sacrifice anything to be unafraid.

We have scared our children for many years with the bomb drills, duct tape and the color coded images on television.

Have we ever taken the time to think that they fear us too? Do we ever consider why they fear us? Couldn’t we educate them? Or is it just easier to believe them to be ignorant savages? We have always feared a boogyman, but have we ever considered that we are someone else’s boogieman? Those in third world counties have injected fear into the mightiest country in the world and we have responded with fear. Have we ever thought that maybe that’s what they wanted us to do?

The boogyman cometh alright, but it depends on who you are as to who that boogyman is. Consider this. If we don’t condemn ourselves for torturing, someone else will.

I have always been able to relate the ideologies of both main political parties. I haven’t always agreed with either side, but I have been able to understand how either side arrived at the conclusion that they did. There is an old saying that says we all become more conservative as we grow older. I believe that to be true even still today. But some of the issues that have been in the forefront recently haven’t been about liberal or conservative. It appears that we have crossed the line and perhaps even blurred the lines of what is conservative and what is liberal. Now it’s more about what is moral and what is immoral.

The Republicans (not conservatives‘) say gay marriage is immoral. I frankly don’t care who marries whom. But I understand that they are trying to follow the word of the Bible.
The Democrats (some) support partial birth abortions. I do not. I believe that once they enter the third trimester then they must follow through unless the life of the mother is in danger. My position isn’t based on religion, it’s based on human rights.
The Republicans believe in helping the rich because they are the ones who create the jobs. I can understand their thought progress, but I strongly disagree. I believe if the poor and middle class get more help they can be in a position to create jobs.

I could go on and on with examples like this, but the deal breaker for me understanding the republican position came this past week when many of them either defended using torture or said water boarding wasn’t torture. To me this is a clear case of delusion with no explanation to it. Waterboarding is torture and we were wrong in participating in it. It’s time to own up to the fact that the Bush administration was wrong and someone needs to go to jail. This has nothing to do with politics, it has everything to do with morals and human rights.

Make no mistake about it my friends we are living in historical times. Future generations will look back on us and wonder what the heck were we thinking. This is a bipartisan issue, it’s not about Democrat or Republican, Conservative or Liberal, race or religion. It’s about your civic duty. if there is one thing we as Americans should be able to agree on is our rights.

October 26 2001 is a day that should be etched in all our memories because you can bet your last dollar it will be etched in our grandchildren’s memories as the day we allowed the bill of rights to be null and void. Destiny has been thrush upon us much like past generation such as those of 1776, 1860’s and 1940’s had it thrush onto them. Will we rise to the challenge as they did and be labeled a great generation or will we be the first generation of Americans who will be labeled a failed generation?

The enemy we face is unlike any before it because it comes from within our own government. We must be the first in history to demand our bill of rights to be restored. Unlike the civil war or the civil rights movement we are all in a fight for our freedom. We cannot be distracted by well thought out catch phrases  by corporate mouth pieces using wedge issues. We must stand up with one voice and demand that the patriot act be repealed. We cannot become complacent and accept people who say “give it time“… NO! The time is now. They took no time in writing, passing and signing the patriot act and there should be no haste in
reversing it.

Yes they have a lot on their plate and yes terrorism is real. but so is the fact that the bill of rights has been voided and it happened on our watch. That’s right, our watch. This country is handed to each one of us by the  generation before us. They have pass the baton to us and we have stumbled but we haven’t fallen yet. We hear all the time about the greatest generation, those who lived through the great depression, pearl harbor and world war II. Wouldn’t it be great if our grandchildren could see us that way?

When then senator Obama voted for FISA in late June of 2008 he sent a message to the corporations that he was as much on their side as his opponent McCain. There was no other reason for his vote but to send that message. The nomination was wrapped up and his supporters were asking him to vote no. His vote wouldn’t have changed anything, but it would prove his loyalty. It is now time for Obama to prove his loyalty to the bill of rights, the U.S. constitution and the American people by asking congress to repeal the patriot act.

Put pressure on your representatives to ensure that America will remain free for future generations. Past generation stood up for you, now it’s your turn. Democrats and Republicans alike worked together to make this bill law now it’s time to work together and kill it. Our forefathers picked up pens and put their names on paper that could get them killed. Our great grandfathers and grandfathers picked up guns to fight for our freedom and even fought one another for what was right. Our fathers and mothers picked up picket signs and faced prison. All you have to do is click here to be remembered as a great American. It may not sound like much but it will do so very much. We can’t rely on someone else doing it. As the Obama campaign used to say “We are the ones we have been waiting for” Now is the time to prove it.

Welfare recipients have been blamed for everything from the decline of morals in our society to the economic breakdown. Meanwhile hardly anyone from the right side of the aisle blame corporate welfare for anything even though we have seen billions handed to them in the past 6 months. Those on the right seem to focus only on the bottom number. They see around one trillion allotted to social programs. But they never seem to take into account that within that dollar figure lays millions of jobs like, caseworkers, health care professionals, Teachers, Schools, school bus divers, construction workers,  administrative cost . And not all social programs are for well or otherwise healthy people. Social Security Income for the disabled, housing and many more things are defined under the allotted money for social programs that also employ many people. I wonder if they consider who built those communities and perform the upkeep on the buildings?

Then we must consider the recipients themselves. If they are healthy individuals they are required to work 35 hours a week. In order to receive their checks and food stamps. In one community in southern Ohio that I lived in the welfare department has subsidized employment. They have done this by forcing the welfare recipients to work 35 hours a week at such places as Goodwill, as well as other places. They give these business $350.00 per month to employ the welfare recipients who receive around $250.00 per month from the welfare department. So when you hear that recipients in Ohio get $600.00 per month, it’s not that they get it, the government gives money to the businesses and call it training, I call it slave labor.

One may wonder why these recipients don’t just find a job instead of working for this slave labor pay. But many jobs in small towns are being subsidized by the welfare department which leaves little to no choices for a job seeker. Why would a business hire people when they can be paid to participate in this program?

I would give you a dollar amount on how much we pay out for corporate welfare but the fact is those numbers are hard to come by. Most are hidden in tax breaks, over pricing to our own government, etc. We’ve all heard the stories of selling our government a $10 dollar hammer for $300 dollar. But as far as I know no one has sat down to add it all up. The last I seen of the two comparison was Michael Moore’s Downsize this. No matter what you may think of Mr Moore we must agree that he makes some good points.

Here is what Moore said in the mind 90’s:
Corporations snagged up 170 Billion in tax funded handouts for things they could have bought or paid for themselves and that doesn’t count all the corporate welfare they get from state and local government. That’s $1,388 a year from each of us to provide welfare for the rich. By contrast all of our social programs combined from aid to families with dependent children (ADFC) to school lunches to housing amount to $50 billion a year. That breaks down to $415 a year or $1.14 a day from each one of us.

When a social welfare receipt takes money and misuses it then gets caught doing so (which is usually a few hundred dollars) he is made to pay it back or go to jail, There is no other option. But as we have seen recently with the corporate welfare receipts (who have taken millions) they are asked nicely to give the money back and thus far most have opted not to.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure this stuff out. Handing the rich money so they can buy their second or third dream home is wrong. And people like Rush Limbaugh who is paid by the corporations or the media who is owned by huge corporations aren’t going to tell you the truth, Helping someone buy their kids supper isn’t what’s hurting us. Turning those people into corporate slaves and turning us into the mouth pieces for the corporate giants are what’s hurting us. It’s time to start thinking for ourselves and turn the corporate media off. Let the fat cats fail and lets start helping one another instead of blaming each other because not one of you are a year away from working at Goodwill for $2.75 an hour.