It feels really hard to celebrate my country right now.

[beachbum@mastodon.sdf.org]

@RickiTarr It’s very difficult to navigate from hour to hour as we watch this regime dismantle our constitutional republic. I just keep remember Benjamin Franklin telling the woman in Philadelphia. “a republic if you can keep it“. Many people denied that Project 2025 was real. It’s very real.

[ravelin@mindly.social]

@RickiTarr I've felt this way about the 4th for a long lime. I usually find ways to appreciate the part of the celebration that it about being with friends, and fume silently about the rest.

[hopeward@sunny.garden]

@RickiTarr

[holberg@mstdn.social]

@RickiTarr I’ve always been pretty indifferent—and thought it strange when anyone anywhere whenever has made an identity of the accident of birth within ephemeral political borders.

I’ve also seen pros (my privilege, good we’ve done, etc) while being keenly aware of cons for less privileged Americans—and global communities harmed by our self-serving policies.

If not for Trump’s co-opting of 250, I could genially acknowledge the positives. But now think it just memorializes a failed experiment.

[lperry2@mastodon.social]

@Html_Entities @RickiTarr In 1976 we had something to celebrate. We had survived a corrupt president who tried to overthrow free elections. We were a little closer to the promises of the Declaration, having passed the Civil Rights Act. Roe v. Wade legalized a woman's right to choose. We were, for a brief period, not engaged in a war.
Now look at us.

[myrddinemerys@ohai.social]

@RickiTarr to me, there is nothing to celebrate right now. It’s getting so bad I’m actively considering getting my Canadian citizenship after a law change and being dual to have an escape route for my family. It doesn’t matter if we flip anything, it’s going to take years to fix this mess. And the hopelessness one feels is enough to kill any even little bit of excitement for the celebration.

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@RickiTarr

there were darker eras. there will be yet darker times still

we do what anyone does in such times

we persist and resist

it doesn't have to be full-throated. something like your post as a clarion call of sanity is enough. muster the grace that we can, as you are doing now

the ideal of course is we coalesce some sort of means to not only fight back but win

we don't have to be desperate about it. we don't need anxiety. we simply smile and carry on and then discover stronger means

[snerkbleat@mastodon.social]

@RickiTarr Yeah, I'm skipping the 4th this year.

[cobalt123@beige.party]

@benroyce @RickiTarr Good on you both Ricki and Ben!

[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.