Not Going Back
Yeah, I'm tired of bitching and writing letters and signing petitions.
Yeah, it's tempting to just shrug and say "You can't fight Trump Tower" and stop trying to swim upstream.
America is going to change. By next Christmas, while the beer commercials and traffic snarls will look the same, at it's core, America will not be the same country it has been in my lifetime. It would be easier to just accept that, deal with it and move on.
Here's why I don't.
I'm listening to the audiobook of All The Light We cannot See (which I highly recommend, though in the current climate its depressing as hell)
And we see with life in occupied France, it's about making little concessions… and a few more and a few more.
And the attitude of those around you is:
"My goodness, they're only asking for an inch. Why can't you just step back?
What will it hurt? Don't cause trouble. Are you so proud you can't just
step back one little inch?"
And an inch doesn't seem like much in the name of social order… until you are 20 feet back.
Even an inch is too much to give when you are already standing at the line of what is right and what is wrong.
When you are already backed up against the boundary of what is just and what is immoral, stepping back even a little bit is too far to go.
It's not about having your way. I don't honestly care how they live their lives (insofar as it doesn't impact others). I'm not trying to run anyone's life or say what they can believe for themselves.
And if they really want to live in a country where the authoritarian government tells everyone what they can and cannot do and say and watch and worship and be in the name of purity and strength… they can find a country where that's how it works and move there.
(I would suggest North Korea but I don't think they're "pure" enough to be allowed in, and anyway, Freedom fries and beer are in short supply there.)
But it's not just that I want America to be a different kind of place: where the minorities are protected and diversity is respected the press is allowed to criticize the government and brute force isn't substituted for strength– it's that the Founding Fathers wanted that for us too.
It's right there in that Constitution thing they're always bleating about (and now letting Trump wipe his ass with)!
So even though America has never been as good as her promises and ideals, we have fought like HELL to get her this close to them.
And I, for one, am NOT going back!
Not .One. Step. Back.
Tracy Meisky is a poet, writer, singer, songwriter and all-around boat rocker from way back. Feel free to look around, but if you break it, you bought it.