I know this is late. I almost didn’t post it because it is kind of a screed – like when you’re mad at your X so you write a long email about all the things that they did wrong. But then you delete it because you really just needed to put words to feelings. That, and frankly I’m a little worried about putting my feelings into the ether, (I know – only three people are going to read this). But then I read an article in the New York Times about the firings at the forest service and decided I’d rather put my tiny voice next to those guys than not at all and risk having someone else decide what I think for me. So here it is.
Lately, every time I open a news app, I hear a young Spock standing up to the three bullies trying to provoke him to show emotion.
So much is happening at once, it’s hard to know what to pay attention to first. Although, I think that’s the goal, to keep us confused and teetering – make sure all of us are struggling just to keep up. Insult us, assault our sense of decency every moment of every day. “They” frighten us with images of “gangs” being chained up and loaded onto airplanes (when will that go from immigrants to “enemies”?) and shame us in front of the whole world by turning our backs on our friends, blaming them for the actions of our enemies.
The sheer stupidity coming from the mouths of so many of our leaders is breathtaking. How are mature adults spewing this stuff?
- Ukraine started the war of Russia’s aggression.
- Immigrants are dangerous criminals and require shackles.
- Vaccines kill people and raw milk is good for you.
- Scientists are greedy crooks who just want your tax dollars.
- The US can have Gaza and Canada and Greenland, “we can just have it”.
- Empathy for people who aren’t from your country is unchristian.
- Women shouldn’t be allowed to vote.
- Women lower the standards of the military.
- We need to fire critical people from the Forrest Service to Nuclear Engineers at the DOE.
All this and more, in the space of a few months.
I feel like I woke up in Opposite Land.
It’s as if all the nefarious villains in the universe came together and formed a coalition – a temporary détente if you will – to take over the world. If I wasn’t in the middle of it, I might pour a glass of wine and sit back and enjoy the spectacle. It’ll be especially entertaining when they inevitably turn on each other.
I keep fantasizing about running away to Costa Rica, or Portugal or Uruguay. But then I get angry. Angry that I’m being made to feel like this isn’t my country anymore (is that patriotism?). Angry that because of a long list of things that make me different from one of them, I’m not considered a “true American”.
The hardest part is the inability to do anything about it. Sure, I can post on social media, or rant here on my blog, but what good will that do? I ask myself that and when the answer is “nothing”, I go back to imagining myself with a thick juice cocktail sporting a little umbrella – lounging on a sandy beach in a plastic blue reclining chair under a big striped, red-and-blue umbrella, watching kids build sandcastles while young lovers splash in the water.
I don’t think it takes a prophet to see where all this leads. Power makes humans horrible. They don’t know what to do with it – they always use it to break things. I’m trying to remember in all of human history if there is someone with the power and money our current leaders have that didn’t break things and I can’t.
We have so many people – each of us living in our own heads. Imagine a billion bees who suddenly become individuals with free will instead of a hive mind (no, I do not want to be in a hive mind – but wouldn’t cooperation be nice?).
Instead of ten billion people getting on the same page and fixing our problems, we have billions of people who – if they are even paying attention – have billions of opinions about what’s wrong, let alone a desire to fix ‘it’. And by ‘it’ I mean everything, climate change, justice, dictators, genocide.
Am I patriotic? Loyal to my country? I don’t know anymore. I love the United States and the Freedom I believed in but I don’t know if that country exists anymore. Is it still the United States if Freedom is gone? Is it still the United States if I have to show my papers to go to Montana?
I’m supposed to end these essays on a hopeful note so here it is. Those old guys will die soonish so if our kids and grandkids are paying attention they’ll at least know what not to do for next time.
Tuesday Kuykendall 