Carlsbad, CA
November 9, 2016
by Rich Scheck
I accept your invitation to help you get through the crisis you are experiencing in
the wake of Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump in the presidential election.
I will do my best to be gracious and humble……….despite the sense of anger
I continue to feel having known you since the Kucinich campaign in 2003.
You are a very intelligent and hard-working fellow, Mr. Dinan. You are
well-intentioned with your spiritual agenda and hopes for a better world.
The thing that sticks out to me is how you and so many other so-called
progressives were always insensitive to what others who disagreed with
you were saying, being so quick to dismiss their views as those you were
working against.
So if I questioned your support of Hillary you immediately assumed I was in
favor of Trump which was never true……….until recently when I saw how
much he had grown during the campaign.
You never considered that there were other options besides Coke and Pepsi,
besides Hillary and The Donald, such as Jill Stein or Gary Johnson or working to
build a brand new party dedicated to peace: https://stateofthenation2012.com/?p=32281
More than anything, it was not your opposition to Trump that bothered me:
it was your support for Mrs. Clinton! It is virtually impossible for someone
like me to understand how someone as smart as you and others who
backed her, could say yes to a person as obviously corrupt as she.
Why on earth would anyone waste their valuable time and money promoting
a person with such a tainted record in public service who had clearly benefitted
financially from holding office rather than earning it like most of us are required to do?
This is what is at the heart of everything that disgusts decent people around
the country who loathe the special treatment and abuse of the political elite.
Yet somehow you could not see it! Why, Steve?
The unwillingness of the Left to look beyond the easy labeling of Trump
supporters as “deplorables” and “racists” was what did you in. Had Bernie
Sanders been truly courageous and taken on Hillary from the start rather
than cavalierly dismissing her lawlessness regarding her e-mails in the
first primary debate, perhaps he would be on his way to the White House
instead of Trump.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/deplorables-rise-up-to-reshape-america-1478678037
For me, it was the complete failure of liberals and progressives to challenge
the Washington Consensus regarding foreign policy and our unending imperial
wars of aggression that left me deeply saddened. The costs in lives, treasure
and good will our country has caused—and suffered—is incalculable!
https://stateofthenation2012.com/?p=46713
Yes, you were concerned about the environment and gays and other abused
groups. But somehow you failed to see that countless millions were being
killed, wounded, psychological scarred and/or displaced by illegal wars of
aggression in violation of the Nuremberg mandate that followed WWII.
Please ask yourself why, Steve. Please.
And somehow you failed to see that Mrs. Clinton was as guilty as any Neocon
or hawk that constituted the Military Industrial Complex which lay at the heart of
what ails our society as Ike warned it very well might over 50 years ago.
So I will end my very imperfect effort at compassion by suggesting the following:
please reread your new book, the parts that talk about having greater sensitivity
to those with different views.
http://www.booksinc.net/event/stephen-dinan-books-inc-opera-plaza
Re-evaluate your responsibility for not being a better listener to those you disagree with.
See how by supporting Hillary Clinton you were being too lazy to do the hard work of starting from the ground up and building a true movement of love and peace and cooperation rather than endorsing someone smeared with the excrement of Wall Street excess and corruption that she represented to countless millions……..the very voters who rejected her last night and sent you reeling into your current funk.
After you indulge in that period of introspection, I invite you to come back and
have a truly open discussion with those of us who have worked hard to build
a better future……one free of the likes of Hillary and filled with the very values
so beautifully articulated in your book and by the speakers you present to
the public. http://beingjackbutler.com/jack-butler-interviews-stephen-dinan-on-creating-a-world-which-works-for-all/
I look forward to that moment and the conversation that will follow as well as
applauding your efforts to promote a Day of Healing and Reconciliation:
http://dayofhealing.us/
Wishing you all the best, Rich Scheck