I don’t know how much more I can take. I’m frightened. I’m sad. I’m watching the deterioration of this country in real time.
For the last 7 years, it’s been wall to wall (40ish years really, but...). Mass shootings, civil rights rollbacks, voting restrictions, blatant disregard for truth or common sense, Roe v Wade overturned, Citizens United, virtually unlimited access to guns, the return of right-wing authoritarianism, the gleefulness with which an entire third of this nation's people are willingly giving up their rights in exchange for “owning the libs”.
My daughter is transgender. There has been a full court press on transgender kids. I send her to school every day wondering if she is going to come home. Mental health services are overwhelmed and we’re on several wait lists for her. She won’t be able to get the care she needs because some billionaire or evangelical has decided that she can’t have it. My son is autistic. I’ve seen him struggle through school days, missed IEP requirements, and peer bullying. The districts solution was to put him in a program reserved for kids that are one more discipline violation away from being expelled. I’m sending my youngest daughter to kindergarten in August. I’m worried that she’ll end up as a name in a news story; another sacrifice to the AR-15 cult. I’ll be accused of being a crisis actor when I’m morning like so many others. All of my children have almost no chance of owing a home and have a good chance of food insecurity or being saddled with crippling debt just to get an education. Or heaven forbid they get hurt or sick and now have a mountain of bills they can pay.
24/7 coverage of Trump and RWNJ. Fundamental misunderstandings of the Constitution. Willful ignorance of basic concepts of empathy, logic, and compassion. Being shot and killed for turning around in a driveway. FBI commercials showing how to survive an active shooter.
I just can’t handle the thought that they are going to suffer so much. That the ignorant and corrupt are celebrated now. That it’s not going to get better. That this country is bought and paid for and the system is broken.
What of the pious, the pure of heart, the peaceful?
What of the meek, the mourning, and the merciful?
What of the righteous?
What of the charitable?
What of the truthful, the dutiful, the decent?
Doomed are the poor
Doomed are the peaceful
Doomed are the meek
Doomed are the merciful
For the word is now death
And the word is now without light
The new beatitude
F**k the doomed, you're on your own
-A Perfect Circle, “The Doomed”
I want to leave this country. I want to run from the insanity that the American Dream has become. How does one emigrate? How do you get started? I’ve been looking at Canada, or in my wildest dreams, Finland.