I grew up in the 70's and was proud of my country. We had great schools, we went to the moon, we had RIGHTS. More than any other country in the world we had rights.
I had not realized until recently how much those rights had eroded.
My husband and I adopted a daughter from Russia and a son from Guatemala hoping to give them a bettter life than they would have had, and of course to enjoy the dream of having a family. His income was solid enough almost 10 years ago for me to be a stay at home mom.
But then everything crashed. The costs of everything went up while our home value plummetted. And then he had a stoke putting our ability to ever have health insurace in question, and whether of not we can keep our underwater home.
The kids have been so resilient. Our daughter had been in school throughout most of the hospitalization, but my five year old son squeezed into my husband's hospital bed, trying to help him pronounce the words the speech therapist was showing him on flash cards as I stood catotonically unbelieving that he could not say such simple things anymore.
Our son used to follow my husband around with his play lawnmower when my husband was healthy enough to mow the lawn, and helped him with shoveling. Now he follows him around with a writing pad trying to mimic my husbands attemps to regain what his brain had lost in the horrible stroke that had happened to him that I strongly believe was due to medical malpractice.
My son is a precious gift. My daughter, too in her own way but I am amazed at how precious our sweet Guatemalan boy is. He never ceases to amaze me with his resilience, his sensitivity, and his practical way of knowing what is needed and doing it.
So I tink he deserves better. This may not be Guatemala but it is pretty close to a third world country at this point, with the income inequality and the lack of universal health care. My children deserve to live in a country where they can get medical care when they are sick even if they are in between jobs. My children deserve for that care to be quality care because doctors should be able to be held accountable for their negligence.
They also deserve the right to protest, the right to have a decent education and the right to be free of prejudice. One is brown, the other female. Two groups under attack in this country now.
I do not know if we will be able to leave this country, but I will try to get my children in a foreign exchange student program if we are not. Maybe they will be able to escape America.
Yes, I said it. While countless immigrants are trying to get into this country I want to escape it. I want to escape the Rush Limbaughs, the ALECs, the Palins, the propaganda media, (my daughter's friend cannot even watch Spongebob her mom is such a republican).
Originally I thought this was a fight I wanted to have becasue this is MY country too and I loved the America that was. But I realize now the right wing has been waging this war for a decade and they are never going to back down. There is a mean hateful greedy group that holds power here that will neve stop until they win everything.
The fact that we are even discusising whether or not women should have the right to use birth control sickens me. Ths is not going to end soon, at least not peacefully