Giving Peace A Chance

MY UNCLE BOB, who is 93 years old and so vigorous he retired last year and regrets it, and after whom I am named, gave me some cogent advice about this website. Rock on, Uncle Bob. He suggested that I turn it into an instrument of healing, of national reconciliation. He also said that by so doing I might be able to score some serious jack (money). He thinks it would be a valuable service, that reconciliation is a virtue with a virtually untapped american market, and he's thinking about doing it himself. I told him I liked the idea, although I'm not so sure about the money. I also reminded him that the word "reconciler" is part of this website's title, so, should probably be part of its purpose. So here goes: excessive patriotism is a mental disease which badly influences human behavior and, as Goethe artfully put it, "corrupts history". Calm, quiet love of one's country will do quite nicely. So let's not unite America around Trump, or anybody else, uber patriotically, as in NAZI Germany. Let's unite it step by step, unhisterically, with baby steps. Let's stop the social media civil war, or, if nothing else, slow it down a tad. If we must argue, let us at least be brave enough to do so face to face, out in the streets. I never met a protest march I didn't like, including the Klan. Long live the exercise of free speech by the far right. Let the fools expose themselves, that we might truly know them. Le's shine the light on us all. If you happen to think that liberals are idiots, encourage them to speak. They'll show you who they are. I don't expect my uncle Bob to start a new reconciliation website; he's more the face to face ministerial alliance type. But his online reconciliation project is still a great idea, if only somebody will give it a try.