[GCFL-discuss] Tearjerker story

[gcfl-discuss at gcfl.net]

On Mon, 30 Aug 2004 22:00:48 -0700 gcfl-discuss at gcfl.net writes:
>Only YOU could distroy such a tearjerker. Using your "friend", whether 
>or not they truly exist, as an example of why we can't believe this
story 
>is absurd. (Sorry Frank I know you said no replies to personal
comments.) 
>I don't think you could honestly say either front runners for Presidency
>are going to do any of us any good. And honestly if I had to guess, 
>I'd bet in the end both have nearly the same outcomes. No matter WHO's
in 
>the Presidency. Both are spoiled rich brats who only have their sponors
in
>mind. Only YOU Siarlys would be willing to destroy anyone's happiness.
>
>God bless,
>Ben

HAPPINESS? WHAT HAPPINESS? I thought Frank was offering a story to
explain what is going on in the world. Either its a reasonably accurate
explanation, or its not. The fact that it was first told in good faith to
a trusting child to answer a question says nothing about whether we
should all applaud. I applaud the parents' love for their child and vice
versa. My applause ends there. Do you think the child in the starring
role (assuming there is such a child) is going to read my email and break
down in tears? Either he trusts his daddy's story, in which case nothing
could assail his confidence, or he doesn't. He probably does. But I find
it very unconvincing, and said so.

(Now Carla had a proper response. She loves George Bush, she loves the
story because it is favorable to the president she loves, and she
cheered. I have nothing more to say about that. She has her opinion, I
have mine, we both sound off.)

For comparison, I will offer brief reference to a tear-jerker I swallowed
whole. There is a movie, I can't remember the name, about a man with
severe cognitive disabilities, who fathered a child. On departure from
the hospital, the child's mother (a homeless woman with no great
self-esteem) ran away, leaving him with the baby. For the rest of the
movie, this man raises his daughter, who has perfectly normal ability to
learn. He gets her through trying NOT to advance because she wants to
remain at his level, insisting he is counting on her to do the best she
can. He fights off atrocious intervention by social workers, would-be
adoptive parents, wins over a high-flying lawyer who at first didn't have
the time of day for representing him, and in the end everyone recognizes
the girl belongs with her father.

Why do I not dissect that one? Mostly, because nobody offered it as an
analogy of national foreign policy, the merits of competing politicans,
or anything else. It is a pure tear-jerker about two people who love each
other (no sex, this is father and daughter, and it is pure). Maybe also
because I was raised to despise a large part of what the social work
profession gets itself into, and the pompous way everyone with a new
social theory believes they can make everyone else's life better, one
size fits all. But mostly, it was just a great story, very well
presented, with no subtle insinuations or overtones or implications. It
was all good.

Siarlys

P.S. I mostly think you are right that neither candidate will do us a
whole lot of good. In 2000 I didn't bother to vote, because the election
was, in the style of 60s Japanese horror movies "Anti-Christ (GWB) vs.
The Blob (Al G.). I didn't expect it to make much difference. But the
damage our current president has done, and the way he is so oblivious to
it all, has really scared me. I picked up a man in a wheelchair at a
veterans club last week, who said he really like the job Ronald Reagan
did as president, because he didn't do much at all. If John Kerry doesn't
do much at all, we will be in less danger. But I believe he will focus
our military and intelligence back on al Qaeda, not on wishful thinking
about other adventures in nations that, like many of our allies and
adversaries around the world, have rather nasty governments.


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