All's Fair In The Love of War

Where do I begin?  Love sinks to the bottom of the love pile where war is concerned, or maybe just the opposite, love rises to the top of the contaminated brackish water of greed.  There are all forms of love, and the clincher is, where do you begin to tell the difference between good and bad love, between evil and the goodness that love for humanity is lacking in today’s world?  How do we apply the word Love?

Is the major problem, the bottom line, greed?  Is it the need for acceptance?  Or maybe it’s jealousy?  Or maybe it’s the craving for a LOVE like no other?...or just maybe it’s all of the above.  Has it always been there - the profits that men make off of human lives being more acceptable than being humane? Cane wins out in the end.  

"Cain committed the first murder by killing Abel. Interpretations of Genesis 4 by ancient and modern commentators have typically assumed that the motives were jealousy and anger.  The story of Cain and Abel is found in the Christian Bible, Genesis 4:1–8, Jewish Torah and Muslim Quran."  

War is a money maker for the US, ah, the love of money!  People confuse “the love of money”, with just the word “money”...it’s pure and simple that “the love of money” is what rings true; urges the greedy to move forward, propelling the bastardized form of love into the hearts of man...I know this first hand, that our government sells airplanes to foreign countries.  We need to make money!  It’s Capitalism in its purist form.  

These foreign pilots also have to be trained...more money for the US...their pilots can't fly and crash their planes...more planes are made and sold, more killing and lives are lost...lives are dispensable, replaceable..always another to take their place... and more money for the US - we can always build another plane...another bomb, another gun...and innocent people in these wars are caught in the middle and killed because war is what thrills the life out of the money hungry. It’s a game of how fast machine and life can be replaced and how much profit can be had in the process….I don't think even Bernie Sanders can scrape away this bottom line.

The Game Changers

I can't help it...and I'm shaking my head as I say this...I used to hate political science in school, never a teacher who could make it interesting for me, but I think now that I'm older, and hopefully wiser as I've broadened my views a little more since then, I can see the world on a different plain and dimension, one that it is wider, broader and deeper.

I don't profess to know even a tenth of what I should know, but what I have learned is to stop, listen, compare and participate...Until you see how something affects you and others, you'll never see the other side of the subject, and it doesn't matter what that subject is.

Politics, all aspects of it from towns and cities, from states to Washington DC, and even all countries, runs the gamut of intervening in our lives...and there's the crux of the issue.  

Our income, from our workplace to retirement, our housing and property, our healthcare, from meds to doctors, and everything from retail to wholesale, it's a world-wide game of political manipulation. And unless you participate in active listening, discussing, and acting on your beliefs, your life will be bought, paid for, owned and manipulated by the game players called politicians.

Another Day in History - Defending The Innocent

This day started out like most ordinary winter days in Southern California, blue skies and a warming sun, a beautiful day….but unknown to me, violence was happening across a few short miles in the next county...not country, but county; in my backyard the shooting began, shots fired, one after another, until fourteen people lie dead, and seventeen lie bleeding, and thousands stand in shock...  Is it just another day, another shooting?  When does complacency change to action?

We wonder how many more people will die before these occurrences are taken seriously, and not become just another day in our lives.  Our POTUS says he’s sorry and something needs to be done along the lines of gun control, but the truth of the matter is, we have no control over the people who hold the power to control guns. 

The National Rifle association runs our government with money, and the firearms are held in their hands, just as if they are the shooters, themselves.  I simplify, but that’s the bottom line.  Where do you go when the obvious speaks louder than words, speaks with the ring of a bullet hitting a target, only the target is a human life?  No other country has this accuracy; no other country has this ignorance, people who want to defend these representatives, thinking with blinders on that guns are the answer to all evil, when just the opposite is true; it is the love and worship of these weapons that blinds the eyes.

The argument begins---  It is the people who hold these guns that is the problem.  A good argument, according to the NRA defenders.  The crazies, the insane, the mentally deficient….and just who hands them this gun to do the deed?  Laws are useless unless enforced.  Laws are useless unless defended.  

The sickness is in the skewed thinkers that guns solve the problem; guns on campuses, guns given to teachers and incompetent, irrational thinkers who are not trained to defend with a gun; teachers who should be using and teaching with words or rational thinking, not defending violence with violence.  You can’t defend and justify “no hitting” when you hit someone.  

In some states, the people in law enforcement aren’t always on the same page, where they ignore the gun laws, no background checks to expedite licensing with less paperwork. The laziness of the ignorant.

These killers, the representatives of the insane NRA, held assault weapons in their hands,  an object to mass murder; an object that has only one meaning, one intention - to kill innocent people, to slaughter people as if they had no meaning, no reason to live another day here on this beautiful earth, on this beautiful day. 

  

One Way Or Another....

History Repeats Itself

Beliefs run deep and change takes an enormous amount of time.  Hate is hate the world over, and continues to breed violence in the process. Our own US history is proof..We are no different.

We now talk about terrorist groups, and want them to go away, one way or another, fast!  Impatience develops into anger, then festers into violence.  I don't know how to take the pressure off, except to advocate stepping back and listening to reason and common sense.

Unfortunately, our POTUS has advocated this, and failed, appearing to stir the anger even more...no pleasing the "enemy" at this point, and drawing pictures with details may be the only way to curb this, as we come up against dealing with ignorance and bigotry.

I use the word "ignorance" over and over, as closed minds are put in this category. The GOP candidates don't have a solution, and would rather condemn and play the blame game, spewing venomous remarks which only insights more anger, rather than give reasonable solutions.  I continue to use the word, ignorance, as that is how I see people who make no room in their lives for reasonability.

Hate, I reiterate, is bred into an individual, not born.  It starts hidden and festers like a disease in private lives, and the sooner we find the links to these breeders, the sooner we can remove the source.

A Country Without Compassion, Is A Country Without Freedom

Repeating war crimes in history is not acceptable!  Have we not learned from this past?  The Bible is a prime written example of lessons to be learned from these past atrocities!  Over and over men have ignored these lessons, and it is past the time to STOP repeating hate!
It astounds me to hear the confusion and fear that is generated out of ignorance, a fear that is simply not warranted. People without compassion wanting to hear what they want to hear, and this is where falsehoods derive; hate develops into anger and fighting, and then all-out war and genocides. You cannot talk to, let alone discuss in a sensible manner, anything with anyone who has their mind made up and ears closed to the truth.  

You may ask, what is the truth? I say, look at history; weigh the issues; fill your heart with compassion; think about how it feels to be turned away and put back into the hands of those who want to either kill you or limit your goodness and freedom.

We are a country that professes to be free, and yet there are many who want to stomp that freedom into the ground, limiting all walks of life to live freely amongst one another without fear.

A country and a religion should never define a person; we should never put a person in a box, whether to identify or condemn a person, which seems to be what these blasphemous so-called political party representatives are perpetuating.

Robert Reich writes:

Donald Trump said tonight he’d implement a database system tracking all Muslims in the United States – including Americans of Muslim faith. All Muslims in the U.S. would be legally obligated to register "at different places" around the country, putting their personal tracking information into the database. When asked how his idea differed from what the Nazi’s required of Jews, Trump responded, four times, “you tell me.”

I find it less surprising that Donald Trump is now mimicking Nazi Germany than that no current or former Republican leader has yet denounced Trump's shameless bigotry. Nor, for that matter, has any current or former Democratic leader. It is necessary that Barack Obama, along with all living former presidents, leaders of the clergy, university presidents, heads of every large philanthropy, and editors-in-chief of every major newspaper, condemn this hateful venom from the leading Republican candidate for president of the United States. Every hour it stands without rebuke is more poison leeching into the bedrock of America.

What do you think?

George Takei wrote this on Donald Trump’s Facebook wall:

In an interview, Donald Trump refused to rule out requiring all Muslims to carry special religious identification, or to rule out warrantless searches of their homes and places of worship. Said Trump, "We’re going to have to do things that we never did before….we’re going to have to do certain things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago." Many recall, with horror, how Jews were forced to wear special religious identification in Nazi Germany--a yellow star of David. In the U.S., my own family, and over a hundred thousand other Japanese Americans, were tagged like mere pieces of luggage, with no charges, with no trial, with no due process, before they shipped us off to prison camps.

Mr. Trump, unto my last dying breath, I shall oppose this madness. I shall continue to speak out, whether on social media or from our stage in Allegiance on Bway, against the dangers of racial or religious profiling and its dehumanizing effect. Yours is the first step toward the destruction of all we hold dear, and to that I and all good people must say, "Never again, never again, never, never, never again.”

Washington Week:

Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson compared potential‪#‎SyrianRefugees‬ to "rabid dogs" while continuing to campaign against allowing any Syrian refugees to enter the United States because of the possibility of ‪#‎ISIS‬ terrorists posing as refugees. "We must balance safety against just being a humanitarian," Carson said during a campaign appearance in Alabama. "For example, if there is a rabid dog running around the neighborhood, you're probably not going to assume something good about that dog, and you're going to put your children out of the way. That doesn't mean that you hate all dogs."

A beautiful example, here in this article, of what America stands for!

All comments are more than welcome.
Peace and love to each and every one of you.

Today's World of People and Politics

My personal comments of the day, concerning the political arena, the news media, and the general populous---

I would dearly love for the news media to "feed off of" the truth and the understated states-men and women who we want to lead this country, instead of the hype of negativity and lies flowing out of mouths of people not capable of leading a country in a positive way - in-turn feeds all of this crap to the public.

It's obvious (at least to me as I watch and listen to all of these people, both public and political), the general uneducated public following Trump are fueled by their emotions and party, and are not able to discern between the truth in words that should be spoken, and the understanding of the moral line of right from wrong.

Bernie Sanders is moving ahead for positive reasons, also obvious to me. He has the incentive AND the drive, And the momentum, which only comes from speaking what weighs on one's heart. He believes in man and womankind. He doesn't segregate, separate or eliminate. Equality is his priority, and living the Golden Rule. 

You can attach and attack him with names, but his platform is speaking the truth, and for some reason this seems to sound hurtful to people who want to deny his sincerity. If you can't see that he is sincere, you need to look into your own self and see who represents you as a person.

Live and Let Live

I generally try to stay neutral in areas of news that speaks of so much controversy, such as the Sandra Bland death.  I wait for Information to trickle in daily, once the first videos and widespread shock and informative headlines appear and then fade.  

I read this article , this morning, “Inside the Struggle for Justice at the Texas Jailhouse Where Sandra Bland Died”, and see the blatant racial hatred that emanates from this Texas community.  This issue needs to be addressed now. 

The Sheriff, R. Glenn Smith, in this article,   “Sheriff taunts clergy keeping vigil at jail where Sandra Bland died: ‘Go back to the church of Satan’”, pretty much gives it from the horse's mouth. Taunting and pursuing and threats seem to be the name of this Sheriff’s game.

In these notes, the one shade tree is cut down, where the vigil for Sandra Bland’s death continues. Cutting down a beautiful tree to frustrate, and again, taunt these people.  The racism continues in quotes by former Judge DeWayne Charleston--”You’ve got racism from the cradle to the grave.”

 Another incidence where Sheriff Glenn shows his colors, to make note, “Hempstead police chief disciplined in racially charged arrest.”  When you have people like Sheriff Glenn in office, returning like a bad penny, when will racism end?  

Do you think it is time for Texas’ new governor, Gregory Wayne Abbott, to start his job, that is if he can tear himself away from sueing people?  He’s quoted:  "I go into the office in the morning, I sue Barack Obama, and then I go home."  Abbott has filed suit against various U.S. agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Health and Human Services (including challenges to Obamacare), and the Department of Education, among many others.

We all are responsible for what happens in the world of injustice. All lives matter, no matter the color of the skin or the religion.  

Resolutions, in the case of racism, is slow.  I see hate continuing all over the world, and I wonder, will it ever end? Thousands of years later, and now in this 21st century, I think it should end.  But, and there is always a “but”, because as long as you have points of views that are self-centered, concerns for these injustices to be righted, to man and womankind, it will never end.  

Take your eyes and your views off of yourself and seriously look at your neighbor.  Talk to your neighbor, but most of all listen to your neighbor. 

The word “Neighbor” refers not only to the person who lives next door, but especially to someone different than yourself, someone who not only looks different, but speaks in a language that is different; who worships a God they call by a different name; a person whose insights into life may vary from yours.

There will always be differences, that’s a given, but try to understand those differences, by talking about those differences, and agree to disagree if need be;  the end result should always be understanding and acceptance.  

Hate only culminates out of misunderstandings and failure to accept these differences.  You don't have to like these differences, just let your neighbor have the same rights as you think you are entitled - Kindness - to live and let live in peace.  

A Review -"Go Set A Watchman" by Harper Lee

Harper Lee's Bio

I have profound feelings that I just read something that sets me right in the middle of today's 21st century, not something that was written in the mid-1950's, but yet seeing the definite mindset of the 50's in the south; the sameness and the sadness of the direction of meaning and passion that troubles the south, and how it reflects in all of us today. Harper Lee writes that passion within her story.

I saw the returning 26 year old Jean Louise incorporated into the child, Scout, growing up in her “color blindness”. She returns to see that nothing, and everything, has changed, including herself.  This story takes you from present to past in anecdotal mind wandering recollections...some exceedingly funny, some contemplative and mind shaping, some tearful, some questioning with face to face mood-swinging combativeness.  Jean Louise, aka Scout, comes back home and grapples with her own demons in a town called Maycomb, aka home.

Lee touches my nerves, and questions me in her writing...”Do you see what I see?”... “Can you answer those questions for me?” ...“Am I right or am I wrong?”  I don’t have to look far to find the answers, as Jean Louise paints her story in honest black and white; all the while the world of Scout is now in living color...finding a colorful and color filled world of contradictions.

After reading this story, I went to B&N to check out the reviews, just to see the overall number of reviews and how many total stars it received.  Five is the maximum per review.  I don’t usually read reviews in their entirety, for fear of receiving too much information about the storyline, but I do like to know if a reader likes the story or doesn’t, and a brief reason why. I did read the one reviewer who gave Lee’s story a one (1) star, these are the reviews I look at a little bit closer.  This particular reviewer felt as though Harper Lee did NOT write this story entirely, as if it was somehow altered in some way, to reflect today’s civil rights issues.  Your guess is as good as mine!

Harper Lee has always been a person of her own mind, although, as of late, not well, but I doubt anyone can tell her what to do. I do see a possibility as to why she was asked for GSAW not to be published at first submission in 1957;  my assumption would be that with the heated civil unrest in the late 1950s and 60’s - this story (GTAW) would not receive the same welcome as the "second" novel she chose to write and submit instead - “To Kill A Mockingbird”, as a child's non threatening look at the world she chose to make of it.  

I don’t know what transpired after TKAM was written to make her set this story aside for so long, and apparently forgotten and lost for so many years.  I knew Lee was not fond of being in the public eye, very rarely gave interviews, and receiving more publicity over another book was probably the last thing she wanted. Here is a little more insight into Ms. Lee’s life….and a background on Lee’s lawyer, Tonja Carter, who presumably found this manuscript - more unanswered questions arising.

I also came across this statement by Toni Morrison on GSAW:  

“In an interview earlier this year, Nobel laureate Toni Morrison called it a 'white savior' narrative, 'one of those' that reduced black people to onlookers in their own struggle for equal rights.”   Read more

I don’t imagine a black woman, especially a writer, would find this novel an honest, current, and enjoyable read, but it wasn’t written by a black writer.  I, myself, have read many wonderful novels, deliberately, by black women, I wanted to see the differences in each race presentation.  I saw what I was looking for, just as Toni Morrison didn’t see what she wanted to see in Harper Lee’s GSAW.

I’ve alway thought of myself as “color blind”.  I like to say I see black people just as I see everyone else.  How neive both Scout and myself are in our views.  I see a lot differently, now, after reading this novel.

As I am white, and try to understand these differences, I’ve been accused, by black women, of being from another world and would never understand them.  These words make me angry, and no matter how hard I try I don’t seem to be able to change the world’s thinking to resemble mine.  I am different, and I write about it here, and I try to live with the fact that I’m just one person who can’t do the living for anybody but myself. My support is always for equality, but I now see the struggles in both the black and the white communities trying to come together, still, in the 21st century.

Prejudice is not a word singled out to be used against just black people or white people, it’s a word used worldwide by every known human being who doesn’t like something or someone.  Knowing these differences, set them aside, and make the best of both worlds.  Jean Louise is a work in progress, just as the rest of us are.

I read a letter from Lee to Oprah, in Oprah’s O magazine.  Here is her letter - she talks about books and reading:

May 7, 2006

Dear Oprah,

Do you remember when you learned to read, or like me, can you not even remember a time when you didn’t know how? I must have learned from having been read to by my family. My sisters and brother, much older, read aloud to keep me from pestering them; my mother read me a story every day, usually a children’s classic, and my father read from the four newspapers he got through every evening. Then, of course, it was Uncle Wiggily at bedtime.

So I arrived in the first grade, literate, with a curious cultural assimilation of American history, romance, the Rover Boys, Rapunzel, and The Mobile Press. Early signs of genius? Far from it. Reading was an accomplishment I shared with several local contemporaries. Why this endemic precocity? Because in my hometown, a remote village in the early 1930s, youngsters had little to do but read. A movie? Not often — movies weren’t for small children. A park for games? Not a hope. We’re talking unpaved streets here, and the Depression.

Books were scarce. There was nothing you could call a public library, we were a hundred miles away from a department store’s books section, so we children began to circulate reading material among ourselves until each child had read another’s entire stock. There were long dry spells broken by the new Christmas books, which started the rounds again.

As we grew older, we began to realize what our books were worth: Anne of Green Gables was worth two Bobbsey Twins; two Rover Boys were an even swap for two Tom Swifts. Aesthetic frissons ran a poor second to the thrills of acquisition. The goal, a full set of a series, was attained only once by an individual of exceptional greed — he swapped his sister’s doll buggy.

We were privileged. There were children, mostly from rural areas, who had never looked into a book until they went to school. They had to be taught to read in the first grade, and we were impatient with them for having to catch up. We ignored them.

And it wasn’t until we were grown, some of us, that we discovered what had befallen the children of our African-American servants. In some of their schools, pupils learned to read three-to-one — three children to one book, which was more than likely a cast-off primer from a white grammar school. We seldom saw them until, older, they came to work for us.

Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books. Instant information is not for me. I prefer to search library stacks because when I work to learn something, I remember it.

And, Oprah, can you imagine curling up in bed to read a computer? Weeping for Anna Karenina and being terrified by Hannibal Lecter, entering the heart of darkness with Mistah Kurtz, having Holden Caulfield ring you up — some things should happen on soft pages, not cold metal.

The village of my childhood is gone, with it most of the book collectors, including the dodgy one who swapped his complete set of Seckatary Hawkinses for a shotgun and kept it until it was retrieved by an irate parent.

Now we are three in number and live hundreds of miles away from each other. We still keep in touch by telephone conversations of recurrent theme: “What is your name again?” followed by “What are you reading?” We don’t always remember.

Much love,

Harper

Review: The Secret Keeper, a novel by Kate Morton

The Secret Keeper

Getting down to the last one hundred pages of Kate Morton's "the Secret Keeper"...As much as I love her writing, this story of 481 pages has been an uphill climb...climbing over her exquisite descriptive language is wearing..bouncing me from present to past, between two characters, then three, then four... better keep up! I put her writing in the class of old English mystery novelists... I used to read them when I was young...when I had stamina! I'd always say, you have to read at least halfway through before you get to the plot-point-subject. This one would be worth reading twice, as there are so many details I feel I overlooked and slept through!

Finished.  Kate Morton is indeed a worthwhile novelist to read, but this book is not one you want to set down for any length of time unless you have a good memory, which I don’t.  Many Time changes, Character changes, all in the telling of this story that starts out in 1941 London during the war, to present 2011, and ends when Laurel glances back to her own childhood...and ends on a shocking revelation.  

I couldn’t put the last hundred pages down.  I never suspect or guess anything, but then Kate doesn’t give anything away to the reader so you can, she keeps her story only to herself until the final act, I mean chapter.  

Kate Morton is a detailed writer, descriptive to the enth degree, both with her surroundings, actions, and characters, almost, for this reader, to distraction.  I’ve read all of her books, as of this date, and there is a compelling desire I have to both rest now, and then read something more along the lines of a simple plot line. 

This story left me not particularly sad, but with a melancholy that I knew would bring tears to my eyes.  Kate takes you so deep into her characters, you may ask yourself if these people could possibly be your relatives...the good ones, of course.

I will definitely be reading her next novel, The Lake House, which comes out this October, 2015, but will wait, and rest, another year before I take it on.  
Here is a bit about this new novel from Kate’s web page, and a link where you can read a little of the beginning. Enjoy!

http://katemorton.com/books/the-lake-house/

                                                     The Lake House

Can We Implement Change in History?

The problem is, we stand scratching our heads while saying "we need tighter gun control and better education", just to name a couple of needs.  We shouldn't ignore these important things, and I don't think we are, but sometimes you have to take the long route to get to the source of the problem before real education begins.  First you have to gather enough people together to agree to disagree, or if you’re lucky, agree.…

Flying The  Confederate War Flag, (symbolically represented) is acknowledging a reality that there has been, and is, a division of people.

If bigotry and racism exist:  Can we then figure out how to come together to form an agreement?  It does exist!  As with any change, we see a problem but don't know how to get to the cause and make it appear, clear enough for all parties to see it, and see it long enough to understand and implement change.

I had a teacher who once said, you can't cure cancer (symbolically) with an aspirin, this was in response to the death penalty.  Killing people doesn't solve the problem.  These people who hold onto their guns like it's a symbol of freedom, they don't understand that it's their voice that is the real weapon, but guns are a symbol of the problem.

Taking one’s Life:  “Rev. Charles R. Moore, 79, a retired United Methodist pastor, set himself on fire in June, 2015. In his suicide note, he revealed he was 'haunted' by racism and hoped his death would inspire social reform. A Texas pastor who spent his life fighting against racial discrimination hoped his death might advance the cause.”

Texas pastor who set self on fire 'haunted' by lynchings, hoped suicide would inspire justice

Spending a lifetime trying to understand how relationships work, and finding out just how very complex the problem of human nature is, and the formula for understanding this is getting to the guts of the issue/problem, I do understand what depression is and how it can affect anyone.

The sanest of people can go through periods of extreme thinking, and doing, until they lose perspective. I'm referring to the minister who set himself on fire, his symbolism for moral justice.  Some see this as noble, but I see it as losing perspective on what life is teaching, and how to use that teaching to reverse the problem. One pressure trigger after another is never healthy. You also see the extremists of these religious cults, and you see what they can do. It happens when their focus is unchanged, targeting the negative, instead of seeing the positive, until your mind becomes unhinged.  

I honestly don't know what will become of this man, now in death, not life. To not forget someone like this, as a Nation, you have to see what he stood for, and this is going to fade unless people want to use him as a martyr, and I don’t see this happening in today’s world of radicals running rampant. How do you want to keep his memory alive? What does he stand for to you? I won't tell you I respect or disrespect what he did, because I don't feel he was in a "good place" when he took his last stance. I'm just saddened that he thought he had to kill himself to become a voice to these issues he stood for....suicide, for any reason, is not a healthy choice.

Gone With The Wind and the Southern Flag:

I'm pretty burnt out on people hating this, that, and the other thing, especially the hate for everything that is labeled "Republican" or “The South”. I love it when extreme religious frauds  can happily lump everyone in society into groups to dislike....it makes it so much easier to swallow [for them], and in this process they can ignore the details so they don’t have to see themselves as the instigator of that hate and prejudice..

Seeing more than one side to religions:  Christian Evangelical: I'm Deeply Ashamed of the Right-Wing Demagogues Who Call Themselves Christians

We all want to think how noble we are..traditions are fine...history heritage...that's fine...ancestry, that's all well and good, but as far as I can see, what the South fought for wasn't exactly what I would be expousing as any of these things to be proud of...because it’s all for the wrong reasons.

A posed question:  Why didn't we just leave the slaves alone, before and during the emancipation....let them fight their own battles by themselves...why did we step in and want to free them, because we think of ourselves as "Christians” with morals and noble virtues?...Wars are immoral...but we end up fighting with and for people because we think our cause is more righteous, better or just?  I WILL fight if someone threatens my family, livelihood, and I will stand against the killing of innocent people...Is there a justification for fighting for a cause and killing someone?  We are a civilized Christian society and killing is wrong…Now, isn't that a contradiction of what I just said? Always a justification for everything.

A Quote:  "The ever-popular film [Gone With The Wind] has also had its share of detractors, for its benign antebellum Southern racial stereotypes (of happy slaves living on the plantation) - its overall portrayal of slavery and race. Many forget that Hattie McDaniel and other black cast members were not allowed to attend the premiere of the film in racially-segregated Atlanta in mid-December 1939. There were protests and boycotts by African-Americans when the film opened in major cities.

Has anyone learned from this film in our American history?

"The fanciful, introductory foreword to the film explains:

There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the Old South. Here in this pretty world, Gallantry took its last bow. Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave. Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a Civilization gone with the wind..."

Onward, in feudal dominance as a contradiction in morals develops here...I'm more and more finding these contradictions coming out of dissenters' mouths on all equal rights and racial subjects.  To someone with logical thinking, it really becomes insane.

We deal with the NOW, the present, not go back and try to eradicate the past, the history for which these lives are based, because all that does is cause dissension, division, and confusion about freedom of speech and banning words that were once used in a culture. The flag is obviously part of that history, no matter where it originated. I've read many, many posts and discussions on this, and even the people talking about it are not certain of its origin.

This is the confusion I'm talking about, so let's deal with the present and just take the flag down because it's a reminder of hate in a past filled with war; a period of time which originated because of cultural dominance and superiority, a cruel paste will with separation of rights and injustices to the human spirit.  Racial bigotry was born, again….we don't need reminders like that divisional flag flying over state buildings, we need only one flag, a flag reflecting a history that reminds us to hold onto unity - And dating back to a Biblical time in history, Matthew 12:25:  "...And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand".

When any group or country becomes strong with unity, like our country once was, and can be again,  it's always a matter of learning to live with each other, no matter the race, the color, the religion, the sex, the gender, and have your focus directed on “love one another”.  It sounds too easy...But when you feel love for your friends and neighbors, it blocks out the negative emotions, and it allows one’s eyes to see and forces on positive goals.

Change is never easy:  Unfortunately, and sadly, the human race still hasn't figured their way through it.  Marriage between whomever, I'm hoping this is a step forward with showing that inclusive love for the other person in these marriage vows,  will lead the way into the future.

The majority or the minority?...what are we if we call ourselves The United States?  Are we tired of being pushed around, manipulated?  The long problem with any of us is, we've been manipulated and lead around by the nose for so long, we've become complacent, and with that, you begin to wonder if you even have a voice in our government any more.

In my thinking of the word "marriage":

The traditionalist symbolize this word, as to represent something a man and a woman do to seal their union, a ceremonial vow no matter the religion.  With this seal it guarantees each to be a person of equality, except in history, in the eyes of the law and man, it had not always been equal between man and woman. But through a long and arduous evolutionary process, understanding developed, out of which a true equality in marriage, and in life, developed and has become what it is today.  

The LGBTQ community, having been oppressed for millenniums, is now having a voice of their own, no longer standing by idly waiting to be abused, hated and shunned forever more in future generations.  Liberating human beings; liberating human dignity; liberating equality, and liberating the rights of another human being to be able to live, love, and let be in the eyes of the law and human kindness, and leaving the religious voice out if necessary....  There is nothing more important than the recognition and maintenance of human dignity, held together with love for another human being. All issues in the populous of the world are based on this, and if more people can realize this, the world would become a better place.