Human Kindness is Not Overflowing

                       card by HatWigGlove.Com

Let's go from the ridiculous to the truly terrifying. 

When you look at our president, what do you see? What’s the first thing that comes to your mind?

Are you married? Does it occur to you that he is too? That he has a wife who loves him?

Do you have kids? If not, are you someone else’s kid? Do you ever think of him as the father of two girls who love him as much as you love or loved your father? Have you lost your father? Do you remember what that felt like?

Do you ever, for just a second, remember that above all else, he’s a person with a family, just like you are? Or are you unable to see this?

I’m gravely concerned about how some people see things when it comes to Barack Obama, especially lately. 

As soon as the jobs number came out this morning at under 8%, the cretin Jack Welch nominated himself as the first numbers truther by accusing President Obama of manipulating the numbers. You know, since he’s from Chicago and all.

Mr. Welch knows from manipulation. Just ask his ex-wives. If you aren’t familiar with His Jackness, because you’re too busy actually working and taking care of your family to read his buzzword-laden books, have a look at what he has to say to women.

Well, he says this indirectly to women, because he’s speaking to men at seminars built around cocktail parties and golf tournaments. How lucky for them to have that kind of time. Not many women I know would pay to go hear Jack.

Jack Welch and Donald Trump’s kind of idiocy is easily dismissible. And it’s just politics, which by its very nature is a stupid game.

But the vitriol and fear-based hatred directed at this president AND his family by those who oppose him is not so easy to ignore.

It’s positively horrifying and absolutely repulsive.

Think I’m exaggerating? I’ll give you some concrete examples and you can decide.

Check out this Facebook group. Calling for the death of the president? Ohhh, it’s a joke. Right. I can only imagine the things people who publicly belong to this group say in private. I wonder how they’d respond if a group on Facebook suggested their fathers would be better off dead.

That’s hardly the worst group of its kind on Facebook. It’s just the only one I’ve discovered, since some people I unfriended know joined it. I don’t go looking for them.

And to those of you who read the Drudge Report -- ha ha, that’s a little joke since I doubt anyone who reads the Drudge Report is still reading this -- do you also read the vile comments on that site directed at Michelle Obama? She seems to be the recipient of the most deep-seated hatred. Being both a woman and being black brings a special kind of venom out in some Americans.

Then there’s the thinly-veiled hatred and racism brought forth for public consumption in gems like Newt Gingrich’s “Kenyan anti-colonial behavior” comment. Even some conservatives took offense to this one.

Oh, hai, people: President Obama wasn’t raised by his father in Kenya. In all his life, which has taken up half a century, he spent one month with his father. The McCain-Palin bunch came up with this method of feeding ignorance to the stupid as a means to create a movement.

It worked in some circles. Hank Williams Jr. in particular seems convinced.

Whoever used to be tweeting for Kitchen Aid was too. 

During the convention, a misguided teenage girl tweeted that she hoped someone would assassinate the president. She was immediately called out and reported. She was the beneficiary of what must have been an eye-opening visit from the Secret Service. She’s just a kid. This kind of hatred is learned; kids aren’t born with it.

So what’s it going to be? What are you teaching your kids?

Who cares what side you’re on? We’re all human beings.

My terror is increasing by the day. Fingers crossed, we’ll all make it safely through this election season and beyond.

I'm begging us all to be on our best behavior.