It feels really hard to celebrate my country right now.

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@cobalt123 @RickiTarr

good on you cobalt. good on all of us. witnessing and persisting. we will find the will and the means to do even more. a seed to grow a tree from

[sea1am@mastodon.social]

@Beachbum @RickiTarr

The rich will own everything, and you will not be happy.

[twotired@universeodon.com]

@RickiTarr Thank you for verbalizing what so many of us are feeling.

[cobalt123@beige.party]

@RickiTarr We have not “celebrated” this holiday for several years, likely since 2001- introduction of Homeland Security, NSA, Patriot Act, Guantanamo, and slowly more and more of the authoritarian and less less of democracy.

This year in particular, I cannot stomach or witness the perversion of an America 250 celebration to a Trump and MAGA Freedom 250 celebration of White Power and Christian Nationalists. And praise to the almighty Orange Guy is mandatory in all the events. Can’t do it. Shocking displays that all around the world people laugh at this Emperor. No Kings?

[rasterweb@mastodon.social]

@RickiTarr I try to celebrate family, friends, and community. The things in life that tend to have the most impact on my daily life, and which I can try to affect positive change.

[bouriquet@mastodon.social]

@MyrddinEmerys It may take a generation to fix this.
Not only in rebuilding government agencies, expertise in them, scientific research etc but also in changing the mentality of about 30% of the population who still believe the lies. They will still be there in the shadows.
I won’t even touch on what has happened to the corporate world. That may take a really long time, needing a lot of laws and even regulation to get the evil demons back into Pandora’s box that Trump opened.

[senchawizard@dillyofapickle.com]

@RickiTarr we will be celebrating the birth of my home country and my children's home country and the country my wife adopted intentionally outside of it

[mattsdspatch@mastodon.social]

@RickiTarr

my oldest friend's personal motto was 'Endeavor to Persevere'

when the black dog of depression has latched on , it's my mantra . and I find myself repeating it often of late

[iamnotu@mastodon.social]

@RickiTarr regardless of what goes on in the world, or in this country, you still have a life to live. your life. don't lose yourself in the slime. you should come first in your mind. if you don't what good are you to others anyway? get yourself together 1st.

[guillotine_jones@beige.party]

@RickiTarr
Love YOU, too, Ricki.
I have similar mixed feelings about celebrating the birth of the US under the conditions we're currently going through.
On the subject of fireworks, I just wish more people would stop to consider their negative effects on veterans with PTSD and domestic pets and other animals. In drought and temperatures like those prevalent in many places, fireworks present a real risk of unwanted and dangerous fires as well.

[realtegan@wandering.shop]

@RickiTarr
I cannot celebrate, since the America we were striving for never came to pass and the efforts we were making toward it were strangled by rich men filled with hate.

Every year we re-watch 1776 and marvel that the country even managed to happen.

This year is a year of mourning, not celebration.

[edgeofeurope@mastodon.social]

@RickiTarr I don't celebrate countries. What is there to celebrate? Citizenship is just administrative. If I'd been born 100-150 miles from where I came into the world, I'd been British, Belgian, French or German.
Which would've hardly made any difference.

[rickitarr@beige.party]

@Mattsdspatch ️

[lanaehforaday@universeodon.com]

@RickiTarr

My thought is that we did NOT make it 250 years in this Democracy. Trump broke that streak. There is NOTHING to celebrate. WE DID NOT MAKE IT.

That doesnt mean we cant recover what Trump took. It just means that we are not 250 years of a SUCCESS STORY.

WE FAILED.

That failure is what needs to be understood on the most deep and basic level so it doesnt happen again.

We are not a WHITE Country founded by WHITE people only doing WHITE things that are purely WHITE when "others" invaded us and sullied our WHITENESS. We are not a country of the WHITE GOD that looks over only WHITE PEOPLE and only allows the WHITES TO LIVE HAPPY when all those "others" tried to also worship OUR WHITES ONLY GOD. Which is what Trump and his ilk want the world to now all the sudden believe.

We
failed.

There is NOTHING to celebrate. STAY HOME. Do not celebrate THIS. We did not make it 250 years. This FOURTH OF JULY, Trump will be forcing everyone to praise THE BOMBS BURSTING IN AIR, because he is a warmonging piece of shit that DESTROYED OUR FREEDOM AND OUR DEMOCRACY.

No one should be celebrating this weekend. To do so states that YOU BELIEVE TRUMP IS RIGHT and our country is a WHITE NATION with an immigration problem.

We did not make it 250 years with this Democracy experiment. You feel crappy BECAUSE WE FAILED.

[franceskamann@freeradical.zone]

@Benhm3 @RickiTarr

that's the part we need to get rid of.

The United States is supposed to be a multicultural melting pot of diversity and freedom. Those are the ideals. This capitalist **** is not worth celebrating.

[lanaehforaday@universeodon.com]

Blessed are the flexible for they can not be bent out of shape

@Mattsdspatch @RickiTarr

[dnkboston@apobangpo.space]

@RickiTarr Sorry your mental health is suffering now, but also, OF COURSE IT IS. Being compassionate and living among monsters makes for insanity.

I haven't been enthused about "the fourth" for a while. Same with Thanksgiving. I observe it with my family because that's when certain relatives are in town, and between children and a disabled relative, it seems unfair to deprive them of that time.

Focusing on what/how I want to rebuild.

Maybe this is *not* a good time to leave fireworks around.

[lanaehforaday@universeodon.com]

Me too. The thing I find abhorent about celebrating the Fourth of July is the fireworks. We literally stand and look up ooing at ahhing at something that is supposed to represent --The rockets red glare, the BOMBS bursting in air. I dont celebrate with BOMBS. Bombs are bad in my mind. Fireworks specifically on the 4th of July are bad in my mind because they represent death to humans so that others could be free. This in not something I deem worthy of celebrating in this way

@ravelin @RickiTarr

[em_and_future_cats@mastodon.social]

@RickiTarr If it’s any consolation, I feel exactly the same way about… waves hands widely… all of this
I made a comment to my husband earlier “I’m more interested in celebrating the 200th”
To which he said “you’ll be over 80 then.”
My response :
“EVEN MORE REASON TO CELEBRATE!”
I don’t know if that helps
Maybe we can celebrate 175 together with a better country and all of this horribleness behind us (and learned from!) (doesn’t mean it’s a guarantee but one can hope!)

[lanaehforaday@universeodon.com]

If you are a Trumper, you spell that Freeedom.

@RiaResists @Mwritter @RickiTarr