Under Siege 💔

This isn’t my country. This isn’t the country my father and many, many others fought and died for. And I’m angry and sad. I’ve been crying off and on all afternoon. Angry because my country has been taken away from me. It is not right or fair. I’m weary of hearing people say they’ve never seen anything like what has been happening, ever. I feel sure everyone has seen a spoiled rotten brat throw a temper-tantrum when they didn’t get what they wanted. Throwing themselves on the floor kicking and screaming or holding their breath until they turned blue. If you were the parent and allowed this behavior then you are just as, if not more than, responsible for your child’s ill-manners.

     I can disagree with you. I can have a different opinion or viewpoint. It does NOT mean I hate you. It does NOT mean I wish you dead or sick or maimed or bankrupt or wish for nothing but bad things to happen in your life. I didn’t feel the need to resort to calling you a derogatory name. I respect your right to think and express a contradictory perspective. Can you respect my right to the same thing? 

     Disenfranchisement means to deprive of a franchise, privilege, or right. It’s a term I’ve come to be very weary of hearing. As a woman, I’ve been disenfranchised my entire life just by the nature of being female. I’m rarely heard. Rarely taken seriously. Rarely given credit for knowing anything. Rarely treated as if I were competent to run my own life. Never did I feel the urge to go storm the capitol, destroy property or infringe on any one else’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

     Before you go criticizing the new administration for not doing very much remember today, January 6th, when our capitol was placed under siege. Property was damaged, offices were looted and vandalized. A woman lost her life. Remember it for it’s appalling nature but keep it in your memory as it was indicative of the four years preceding it. Four years of chaos, constant misrepresentation of facts, indifference instead of kindness, cold-hearted responses to death and violence, support for those who perpetrate violence for racist, homophobic and theological reasons. There is a lot in our country that needs repair. Our country still doesn’t have equality between races, genders, religions. We don’t have pay equity. Our infrastructures are crumbling. So many international bridges need to be rebuilt. Climate concerns that must be addressed if our planet is to survive. Civility, honesty, integrity, responsibility and humanity must be restored. And primarily, the disordered response to the pandemic. Slow inoculation rates, low vaccine amounts in the face of rising death rates. Unlike others, I don’t feel that “ it is what it is”. Too many people have died or lost loved family members and if this pandemic been handled intelligently, effectively, these families wouldn’t be grieving today. It has to be fixed, immediately.

     I’ve found myself thinking that maybe this country needed someone like the current president to wake us up. The last four years has brought us Me Too! Black Lives Matter! Issues that have been brought up before but have gone nowhere. Maybe it took a misogynistic, sociopathic compulsive liar to make things change! We have to change what we feel about climate and realize scientists, through years of study, know what they are talking about. We need to be informed about who we elect to public office. It’s not enough to vote for the party of your parents or friends or who’s trending. We need to make enlightened choices then hold those persons’ feet to the fire. We must uphold integrity, honesty, principles, decency; ideas that seem to have been lost and forgotten the last four years. I have no respect for nearly everyone. Not just in Washington but throughout this country because we seem to have lost what I loved most. When we elected a black man as president, I believed we were growing up as a nation. Real equality was happening. Equal treatment for women and LGBTQ persons. Then all hell broke loose. I can only hope the Phoenix will rise from the ashes of the last four years and fly into a beautiful new future.