I hate America at this moment.

I'm American. I live a couple miles from Washington DC. I'm a minority, although I pass for white. I'm a life long Democrat. I no longer live in the America I grew up with.

I now live in an America that values are political issues, not family issues.

I now live in America that has cares more about the industry than it does the workers. I live in an America where its cool to stand in line rather than to stand apart. When I was young I always wanted to be different, as I got older I just wanted to fit in more, now I don't have a choice.

Religious freedom was just that, now it's freedom for the religious, or at least those that act religious, or maybe that it's freedom for those that have a lot of money and power.

Instead of overall acceptance, we get division as our national feel good motto. "Don't give us your huddle masses unless they are like us". Every issue black or white, right or wrong, for or against. Being smart, questioning authority, making good judgements based on facts instead of faith...all over looked now. Wrong side of the tracks.

I grew up learning to experience things for myself, now people are taught whats right or wrong. Maybe I was just a product of parents who had their heyday in the 60's and 70's. Maybe I just grew up. In either case I don't like what America has become. It just doesn't "feel" right anymore. the list could go on for days...

"I loved the way it was, hate the way it is...now" - Richard Ashcroft, The Verve


please let this sink into the abyss of posts...I just needed to say something.

I happen to feel the same way.

This is not the country into which I was born. There was promise back then, and hope.

Now there seems to be none.

criminals who are holding America hostage.

on this thread.

these days are not unlike the period befor the civil war. divided on on issues of right and wrong.
we need to stick to our constitution and fight for that. i also hate what our country has become and the things our leaders do in our name.
george said "your are either with us or you are the enemy" i be the enemy i guess

My partner and I are still seriously considering and exploring our options for renouncing our American citizenship and becoming Canadian.

for the country I originally grew up in. With respect to the Neocons and Chimp supporters,

I agree we have mutated into a country I can no longer support.

Guess who is more patriotic ?

every time I see a flag or cross I cringe......

He has taken anything remotely patriotic and conscripted it to be his own (and the neoCon, BushCo folks' own). I cringe at the word 'patriotic' itself anymore, it smacks of Chimpy-love.

is to destroy the positive feelings we had for our country,
religion, friends, family, and community. All of us sold down
the river for their desire to become wealthy. This chills me to the bone.

I was a teenager in the 1970's, and this isn't the country that I expected to spend my life in. I feel gyped.

But could you please use a word that's not quite as bigotted as "gyped?" "Cheated" would work just as well without reinforcing nasty stereotypes.

I didn't mean to offend anyone.

when I think about how it used to be. Of course, I guess all through our history there have been times like these when people have had to fight to preserve and expand our rights. From the Civil war to McCarthyism and beyond. I'm sure the people fighting for these causes felt the same as we do now but we can't give up on trying to wake up those Americans that we can reach.

There are lots of times I just want to say what's the use and give up but than I think of my kids and I just can't do that to them.

Do you think it can be saved?

If you do, then you gotta fight to save it.

If you dont. Hunker in for the apocalypse ;) My generation, Im 26, got their entry into this world on the crest of the 60s and 70s. They never really taught us how to fight.

I've always wondered where the MLK is of this era. Where are the organizers... the grave diggers.. the communes? Renouncing the system. Where the hell is all that stuff?

It's too comfortable for change.

What goes around, comes around.

I still love the US, but as a patriot it is my duty to dissent with the radical RW.

america is largely a myth.

but can't give up.

BTW, how do you pass?

I'm a fair-complected, straight-haired black woman. I blend easily though I'm not sure I could truly pass since people often think I'm from the middle east (yikes, considering the attitude toward anyone from that region). But my maiden surname which I use professionally name is Irish so they'll ask me where I'm from and I always smile and say USA. Some whites will say the darnedest things (ain't that a euphemism) in my presence (liberals, too) and then after they've dug their graves with their tongues, I let 'em have it.

If you really pass, you have to keep it all in and, I daresay, likely hide some of your family. That was something parts of my family did "back in the day" meaning the bad ole days of segregation where light, bright, damn-near-white meant jobs, opportunities greater freedom... I don't even know portions of my Dad's family because they passed and disappeared (so to speak) into an entirely white world. But now? How do you do it and stay sane? Why do you do it? Just curious, not accusing.