Carpets.
Carpets have a fringe.
A fancy decorative edge.
A flash, a glint there to catch the eye.
The broad weave of the carpet the dull, boring part in the middle is usually not as attractive as the golden edge.
The center of the carpet is where you stand.
The fringe has an appeal in the beginning.
Look what I have bought into.
But it soon gets old.
You walk into your room, and the fringe trips you up.
What was once a feature is now a distraction.
It catches the dirt.
You can't get it clean.
Its only purpose was to draw attention.
Maybe I spent too much?
The broad weave of the carpet does the real work.
It keeps your feet warm when you walk across the hard cold floor.
The fringe can't do that.
Now the fringe has tripped you up once too often.
It's time to trim the fringe back.
Maybe cut it off entirely.
Once free of the fringe your carpet has a new life.
It no longer serves two purposes.
It can fulfill its reason why you bought it in the first place.
It can do the real work.
Fringe.
Political movements.
Movements have their fancy edges also.
They throw out flashy objects into social media to draw attention.
They stir the pot, get people talking.
But do they put feet into motion?
When the world is cold and hard, are they there to give comfort and compassion?
Or do they only think of themselves?
Often the political fringe will trip up a given society.
Will cause self-destruction of the individual.
The political and social fringe can draw attention, but when it comes down to doing the real work, they trip up the body.
Fringes, political, and social fringes are out only for themselves.
Like the social media poster who sets out a sympathy trap, they bait for clicks only to raise their following number.
They're not there for the children.
They're not there for the person who has done there time and needs a job.
They're not there for those who have lost the people they love through addiction.
They're not there to feed the poor, clothe the naked and give comfort to those that despair.
No.
No, they are there only for themselves.
Right or left self-interest does not discriminate.
On the contrary, self-interest is an equal opportunist willing to take advantage of the compassionate as well as the racist.
It's not just those who want to save the turtles that get taken advantage of.
The hardcore racist gets taken advantage of too.
People like the President tell them things that they have long believed to be true about non-white races.
He makes a pact with them that he can change the movement of time and restore the past.
They want to believe in their racist Santa Clause and will follow him over a cliff to their own economic and social doom only to make it all come true.
The fringe.
But remember the fringe is not the broad weave of the American society.
The heart of America is where the real work is done.
The fringe, all fringe wants you and I to believe they are there for us, but they are not.
The pitchman who wants to sell you the greatest frying pan ever made will not be there to comfort you when your job goes away.
He won't be there when you can't pay for the medicine you need.
He won't hang with you at the time of your despair.
Our attention should be on the broad weave of our Republic.
Let the voices of intolerance, of racism, of hate, be as so much fringe.
Like a crow at the top of a tree that squawks don't let it distract from our true purpose.
Our purpose is to give warmth and compassion to each other in this cold hard world.
To give a place for each of us to stand upon the earth.
To realize each one of us our truth, our purpose, and to reach for and obtain that purpose.
We are all here to embrace not pull apart.
We are here to bring together, not separate.
We are here to love not to hate.
Peace
DFrey
