Time to dust off the ol' blog!

WOW! 

WTF are we living through at this moment? 

I don't know about you, but this is a life changing event. 

Novel coronavirus or Covid-19 whatever you want to call it has taken up so much of my head space I just don't know what to make of it anymore.

To begin with, I am not the type of person to stress out very frequently. I am for the most part pretty chill, let things roll as they will...but this really has me rankled. 

Anyone else?

Does anyone still read this shit?

#coronavirus #WTF #isanyoneoutthere

Just my random thoughts for today

August 3rd, 2019 - two shootings in America.

El Paso, Texas - 22 people dead and 2 dozen injured.

Dayton, Ohio - 9 people dead many more injured.

A President who is using these horrible incidents to blame people with mental illness, a Republican Senator who refuses to let gun control issues a vote.

Hearts that are broken, lives that are lost....innocent lives.

Racism?

Anger?

Who to blame?

Home grown terrorism.  That is who to blame.

Racism has always been in America, we cannot wipe it clean from our history or our present. There are very few people who can honestly said they are not racists in one form or another, but it is how you process that racism that defines us.

I am a white girl, living in a predominately white world. I have not experienced racism, but I have experienced discrimination based on the religion I was brought up on, which was Catholic. We moved to a 90% Methodist neighborhood when I was 5 and I didn't understand why some of the kids wouldn't play with me. It was only because I didn't go to their church.

Exclusivity - is that even a word? I am not really sure. We exclude people in our lives for so many different reasons. Their hair, their skin, their clothes, the way they talk, the way they walk, who they hang out with, their opinions, who they love, who they don't love, who they vote for, cat lovers vs. dog lovers....so many stupid reasons really.  We all do it.

Each

And

Every

One

Of

Us

I am trying to wrap my head around the shootings, the reasons, the aftermath, the fighting, the name calling....

I can't.

I cannot fathom losing someone in my life who has been killed in a random act of violence.  I cannot fathom what has pushed someone so over the edge that they felt the need to open fire at innocent people....because of what?  What?  What can make you so mad at the world that you would take so many lives? 

It hurts me to my core.

I just don't understand.

It is not mental illness, it is hatred...pure hatred that makes someone kill someone else without feeling that what they have done is wrong.  When did we become this nation of hate? Can I point the blame at one person? I wish I could, but it's been there...stewing beneath the surface for a long time and the current climate has brought it out...front and center to reveal the ugly true of what our nation is. 

We don't want to become a nation that is all inclusive to all people.

We don't want to protect our citizens from harm.

We don't want to welcome people who are fighting the horrors from other countries, especially if their skin is a different color other than white.

We thrive on divisiveness.  Look at our history.  We WANT conflict.  It's in the very nature of the history of our nation.

We are a nation of outcasts.  People who fled to find freedom.  Think about that for a second.

Our very nation has been built on the backs of immigrants who came here looking for a better future and who were willing to break their backs and work harder than anyone else so that they could come to the land of freedom.

And we stick them in cages...no...I am sorry...we stick their CHILDREN in cages.

Then we shoot at them.

We shoot ourselves.

We are stuck in this horrible loop.

Fighting...shooting,...killing for no real fucking reason at all.


No...real...fucking reason at all.

Seriously...give me a real reason.

Anyone?

Where am I?

Hello world - 

A lot has happened since I posted.  Mostly it's been Donald Trump winning the election as President of the United States.

How the fuck did this happen? We can blame it on so many things, but I blame it on fear.  Fear and deep rooted hatred has taken over this country.  We've allowed a narcissistic jackass to rule over the greatest country on earth and he is breaking it down to it's knees.  He incites violence, racism, antisemitism, anti- equality.....anti anything that isn't about making money and ruining our natural resources.

Even larger than that...the Republican party has become the party of greed.  The party of "What is mine is mine and I will not share with my fellow Americans". They want to deregulate and ruin our natural resources.  They want to strip away Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to hurt some of the most vulnerable people - the poor, the elderly and the sick.  They call these programs "entitlements".  They are not.  How about we get rid of your healthcare and salary once you leave or are voted out of office?  I think that would improve some deficit issues.

:::sigh:::

I sit here some nights and I just wonder what has happened to a country who used to pride itself on helping others.  Now we are turning people away.

We are a nation of immigrants and on their backs we built this country.  Without them we do not exist.

From the arms of one of our most cherished icons is this:

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Now we push them away.  We tell them they are not wanted, not needed.  We feel threatened by their presence.

My Grandparents experienced signs like these: 

I thought we had come so far.  I had hope with President Obama, but I also had dread.  I heard the "Monkey in the White House" jokes and heard the "N" word for the first time in so many years.  

I remember a conversation with someone who said to me, very honestly: "Do you think this country is ready for a black man as the President?"  

My answer was, probably very naively:  "Yes...absolutely! Why not?"

He shook his head and just said to me that there were too many people who don't like it at all.

That was in 2008, ten years later we have fallen farther backwards then we have ever fallen before.

Please tell me there is hope for a better America.  An America that I grew up with that believed in taking care of each other and that we were all created equal and that if there is someone who is struggling....help them.  

Please...let me know this America still exists.