It feels really hard to celebrate my country right now.

[cordiallychloe@tech.lgbt]

@RickiTarr I'm struggling super hard to be proud of this country.

The supreme Court all-but said that people like me aren't protected by the constitution 2 days ago. So what is there for me to celebrate? I have to cross my fingers I don't get into any legal issues or get assaulted on the street, or worse. Because the law doesn't protect me. And a scotus justice spewed straight-up hate speech about people like me after the rulings. Because that's the country we live in now.

I'm not free. I'm a slave to a job I don't like, and I have no safe way to find another because AI has ruined the job application process, not to mention the workforce itself.

The gestapo is showing up at people's doors in my city and telling them to stop posting about them, with threat of punishment. So free speech is just toilet paper now.

Like what are we actually celebrating? White supremacy? Nazis? Fascism? Authoritarianism?

I'm so tired. And yet I still have to go to work every day and pretend to be ok. And I'm just not.

[rickitarr@beige.party]

@Html_Entities I usually love celebrating stuff, this just feels overwhelming

[rickitarr@beige.party]

@CordiallyChloe Right, you still have to live in these times, and survive, it's so ugly

[tpushic@beige.party]

@RickiTarr it’s completely ok to give yourself a mental reprieve and enjoy a day in the way you see fit. We can’t battle everyday.

[html_entities@mastodon.social]

@RickiTarr now I have to add that some of this is inevitably the viewpoint of a child vs an adult, but it also is objectively a grim time

[t_robinart@mastodon.art]

@RickiTarr
I get it. We don't have the kinds of celebration that the USA has on July 4th, but last weekend, when the heatwave was over europe I felt a special kind of trapped. Trapped in a country with a lot of power and influence, that pats itself on the shoulder for being democratic, but nothing the authorities do reflects that. And as an unemployed person with ptsd I can only sit here and be glad that it isn't worse for me, though all signs point in the wrongest directions.
1/2

[t_robinart@mastodon.art]

@RickiTarr
Doesn't democracy mean I, as a citizen, have the power to change things? So why do I have so little power? I think we reached a point in time, where we become more and more aware of the injustice of leaderships around the world and how we are just play pieces in their games. But it will take some more generations to start the revolution, because we are also trained to distract ourselves. And that sucks big time.
2/2

[cordiallychloe@tech.lgbt]

@RickiTarr and what's worse is, I hear people constantly say "but the midterms!" And like, the midterms what? They stop the bleeding *a little*?

They're not gonna reverse the court cases. They're not gonna replace the judges. They're not gonna shore up the red states that queer people are fleeing from. They're not gonna reduce the violence or the rhetoric. They won't remove the president.

All the midterms do is make sure the laws don't get worse and take us a step forward for the next election, and the next, and the next.

This doesn't go away in 6 months, or 2 years. The damage in this country will take *decades* to fix.

And this isn't me being a doomer. That's probably optimistic, honestly.

I may never actually see trans people treated as equals again *in my lifetime.*

Especially with the silence I'm seeing/hearing from liberals right now. I should hear screaming. But I could hear a pin drop instead.

[t_robinart@mastodon.art]

@RickiTarr
Is it obvious I watched "The Hunger Games-Mockingjay" yesterday?

[franceskamann@freeradical.zone]

@RickiTarr

I am not celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States. I am grieving that we never attained the ideals we were founded on. But I am hopeful that we will. Even now.

[fourt4@mastodonapp.uk]

@RickiTarr this too shall pass!

[tanyakaroli@expressional.social]

@RickiTarr I think so much of all my American friends these days and how horrible it is that you have to celebrate the quadricentennial under such an awful president! It saddens me no end to think of what could have been. Now, we just have this tacky, gilded, narrow-minded charade.
I feel with you, I really do!
(But you know what? We will celebrate that much more when this nightmare is over! 🥳)

[yakyunightowl@mastodon.world]

@RickiTarr You're not alone.

Gotta hunch that no Revolutionary War veteran would have wanted fireworks before the term PTSD was a thing.

It's not easy to celebrate 250 years of occupation on Indigenous land, and especially when the Declaration singled them out on the list of grievances.

[nazokiyoubinbou@mastodon.social]

@RickiTarr I legitimately feel like this is the worst year in America's history since the Civil War. *So far...* If this doesn't all stop, it will be the end of America even...

What is there to celebrate about that?

I mean, we've had lots of bad ones just all around. Heck, it's a terrible country in a lot of ways. But turning into a fascist nazi dictatorship is literally going to destroy America (and possibly the rest of the world.)

I will not be celebrating that.

[pattykimura@beige.party]

@RickiTarr We have an obligation to see the world as it is without colluding in its deliberate wearing destruction of our mental health, strength, and resilience to fight back. That means we need to pause to refuel and recenter and heal but never give up.

My gentle courtly friend who fought in WW2, was forever tormented by the fear he (a radio/code Signals sargeant) had killed another human being, a Nazi sniper in a bell tower, in a random "lucky" shot, as he was by witnessing a friend killed by the Nazis whose dead body was rolled over by trucks and tanks in the mud, as his platoon watched unable to recover his body. He found solace in nature, while remaining fully committed to oppose wars. (He became the 2nd Poet Laureate of the United States, and before he died, he fully opposed Trump in 2016.)

You are not alone.

[riaresists@mastodon.social]

@RickiTarr I’m disgusted. We should be having a massive funeral for this flawed, murderous, lie of a democracy.

[tpushic@beige.party]

@RickiTarr it’s completely ok to give yourself a mental reprieve and enjoy a day in the way you see fit. We can’t battle everyday.

[mxsparks@social.treehouse.systems]

@RickiTarr it’s, bad right now. and yet we persist. not everything worth doing is always worth a celebration?

[hopeward@sunny.garden]

@RickiTarr
I think our country has always been a bizarre mutation. There have always been awful things going on here, and also wonderful things.

This is to say that celebrating the 4th has always been somewhat fraught for me, but I can’t deny that I’ve also always really loved some of what it is to be American.

Right now we have a kind of cancer, and I’m doing what I can to see that we survive that. And I see the others doing the same (that you mentioned), and I’ll always be grateful for people here trying to make things better.

And any point on a journey is just one of many steps. So the big numbers are curious to note, but not of great importance to me, either.

I guess my big point is: I hope you have a good weekend!

[skleefeld@retro.pizza]

@RickiTarr Last night, I was noting how un-celebratory the neighborhood looked while I was walking the dog. A handful of flags, but barely more than are just up all year anyway. Seems like fewer than a 'regular' Independence Day... FAR fewer than what should arguably be a bigger celebration.

It feels considerably less celebratory than the 200th anniversary in 1976, which itself was in the midst of a recession and only about 18 months removed from Nixon resigning.