Phil: I follow what you are saying. I try to listen. I tell people in my silo to be quiet and to listen, too. I won’t watch left-wing propaganda stations. The failure of both sides of the divide to take seriously the concerns of the other side is tragic. I am tired of the arguments. The right wing keeps seeing “Antifa” under every bed —“Antifa”??? And “furries” using kiddie litter in pre-schools? Damn! What’s that about, I wonder. I want to understand the depth of despair and alienation that drives such perceptions, such terror. Phil, there was Russian collusion in the 2020 election. Look at the Mueller report. Look at the findings. Look at the guilty pleas and convictions…. There were FBI fuckups. The Durham report found them. Read the two reports together. It’s Trump disinformation and distortion to say that he was exonerated. Only “dirty tricks paid for by Clinton…”? Huh? Again, take a look at the Mueller Report and the guilty pleas and convictions. (Have people forgotten the basis for his First Impeachment?) The Durham report does not represent an attempt to find a level field. Can I remind you about the Benghazi Investigation and Hillary Clinton? Or the investigation into her emails? Or Comey’s bombshell press conference announcement mere days before the election in which he announced he was reopening the investigation? How on earth can anyone think that Clinton got an easy ride? You ask "how much more of an obstruction"? How about a candidate and his supporters who continue to deny democracy, trumpet lie after lie and gather increasing momentum on their way to another term in the White House? Is there a greater obstruction than lies wiping out truth? Mobs storming the Capital? Calling thugs patriots? Dan > On May 17, 2023, at 11:49 AM, Philip Brownell <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > Dan, > And so here we are again. The divide in our country has only deepened. And yet, occasionally, there is light shining through a spot in the clouds—as when Jake Tapper admitted that the report did exonerate Trump. There was no Russian collusion—only dirty tricks paid for by Clinton that got picked up by the FBI and the congress, who had confirmation bias (which is, frankly, if you really understand what confirmation bias is, synonymous in that context to political preference). I think one person put it well, saying that if you really believe Trump to be the devil incarnate, a new-Hitler, someone who would turn our country over to the Russians, then you have to stop him at all cost. The RIGHT thing to do is to stop him. Whatever it takes. So, a peaceful transition of power? There was not one. It was an active resistance that dominated the attention of the country and usurped the energies of the new administration. > > Trump is an obnoxious, narcissistic person (I refrain from diagnosing with a personality disorder because I have not met him). I don’t like the direction I sense he would take the country with regards to Ukraine (nor DeSantis for that matter). I don’t want him to be president and send us into another four years of drama. I prefer many of his admin’s policies, and I think we were in better shape as a country during his presidency, but I don’t want him. But that is not the issue that is presented in the Durham report. It’s not about Trump, for me, because it is about the way government operates, and by government I include the unelected people who actually do run the government and the enablement of the popular, left leaning and complicit media. > > Dan, I don’t expect you or anyone else here to understand, but it would be nice to experience more of our gestalt community, who have lauded dialogue for so many years, to consider what it’s like for people who lean to the right. The Durham report is not a nothing burger. An unbiased reading reveals some deep problems. Or else why would the FBI itself admit that before the report came out it had attempted to correct the mess the resulted in a constant harassment of a sitting president and an entrenched and active resistance? The report identified an uneven playing field in which people associated with Clinton were not prosecuted and people associated with Trump were. How much more of an obstruction can you get than scrubbing the servers and smashing the phones with a hammer? > > Phil > >> On May 17, 2023, at 8:02 AM, Dan Bloom <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote: >> >> https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/17/us/politics/durham-report-trump-russia.html >>> On May 16, 2023, at 3:29 AM, [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote: >>> >>> https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/15/probe-of-fbis-handling-of-trump-russia-investigation-ends?traffic_source=KeepReading >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> ______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives. >> >> ______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives. > > ______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives. ______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.