It's about the shame.

I was never foolish enough to think my country did nothing but good. Despite the high praise I heard in history classes, I knew my country had done things on the down low (and sometimes not so secretly) that were far from honorable.

But when Clinton was in office, I felt that, while we weren't as pure as the driven snow even then, there was at least a sense of human decency in our dealings with the world. We were moving into the 21st century, and despite the ever-growing chorus of frothing at the mouth mental midgets on the hate-filled right, I felt we were evolving and I was so hopeful for the 21st century. Maybe it would be the time America would truly become a beacon of hope and freedom, both in words AND in deeds. Maybe it would be a time of expanding consciousness of the world around us, an awareness that there are millions of people in the world who don't even have clean water to drink. A sharing of the wealth. A true time of goodness.

Not only did all of that not happen at the beginning of the 21st century, but I have watched us slip slide rapidly backwards into places America hadn't even been in my lifetime, or even my parent's lifetime.

I had a dream early this morning. I was in Iraq. I found a child, fallen, in the street, alone. The area was deserted. She was bleeding, gasping for air. I pulled a giant American flag out of my bag, pressed it against her wounds, picked her up, rocked her in my arms. She was the same heft and weight as my own daughter. Her hair was as soft. I shushed her, she died. I soaked up her blood with that flag. Then I screamed in agony and horror and woke up.

What has he wrought? This shame, this murder is not being done in my name. No matter what, I want the world to know, this is not being done in my name. I have never been so ashamed of my country. I have to remind myself a lot nowdays that America is still just a place, a country, and it is the people ramming her onto the rocky shores of fascism and hate that I am ashamed of and enraged at.


"America never was America to me..." Langston Hughes

Your first post on my thread, how thrilling!

:hi:

Welcome to DU!! :toast: