I really do not know what to say, but I am going to try

There is a purring cat on my lap, so that’s good. Hello! I know many of you thought the blog was dead, since my last very brief post (a year ago!) was about trying to cancel my contract. Well, it’s still here and I have not been writing. The reasons I have not been writing are two-fold. The first is busyness and too much computer time already. The second is the state of the U.S. government and how awful its actions are. I have not been comfortable with writing a “Hi, here’s the cool stuff going on my life” post without addressing the elephant in the room. It turns out that elephant is very large and doing a lot of damage, and it is very difficult to see around it. So here I am making the time for a brief missive before getting back to work. And I mean that word in so many ways.

There is so much wrong and so much damage being done and it is purposely coming at firehose rate. It’s impossible to address any one thing, and thus it becomes overwhelming and “we” don’t address any of it. But many of you are, and I thank you! I’m definitely not here to argue any one point with those that disagree with me, because that is certainly fruitless. I’ll pick a few key items that I can’t imagine anyone supporting, though I know people do. Masked armed goons illegally knocking down doors and abducting people without warrents (hence the illegal part), using violence and illegal arrests to intimidate those brave enough to speak out against them, and, of course, most recently and notoriously killing a woman in broad daylight. If your immediate reaction to any of that was “but…” anything, your moral compass is broken. And if you truly believe that most of the people being arrested are dangerous criminals, that our government isn’t trying to intimidate legal and peaceful dissent, and that government actors ever have the right to shoot an unarmed person your news source is broken.

I have tried so hard to understand. What I do understand is how if you only watch Fox (who defended themselves in court by stating that they are not news) and random (mostly) men on the internet, I understand how you could come to think these things. But what I don’t understand is how once so many people have told you that what you watching is usually not true, you don’t go out and seek alternate sources of news, for comparison if nothing else. Don’t you just maybe want to know if you are being fed a line by people with billions of dollars more than you? People have no interest in your well being whatsoever?

What else? Illegally bombing ships in the ocean all as a lead up to invading a foreign country and kidnapping their leader. Look I’m not pretending Maduro is a good guy; that’s not the point. Do you really want to live in a devolving world order where countries just start invading each other on the regular again? If you support Trump, wasn’t part of the appeal for you his America First isolationism? How are any of his current actions on the world stage helping you? Helpng any of us? Or maybe we should consider how you thought the “checks and balances would hold” and wanted Trump to shake things up a bit. THE SYSTEMS ARE NOT HOLDING. His government has been ignoring court orders (often by Republican appointed judges, if that matters to you) to release the massive amount of remaining Epstein files and breaking the laws in too many ways to count. This is why I didn’t even want to start writing this because where do you stop? I have work to do.

So I’ll get to my main point. If you are not ok with this, what are you doing about it? Because this is not a drill. This is fascism and that is not hyperbole. Surely you’ve watched enough WWII History Channel to see that? Do we want to keep a democracy* (which, yep, had major huge flaws) or are we really going to accept an authoritarian government? What are you doing to stop it? When’s the last time you at least wrote/called your representative to tell them to stand firm against authoritarian creep and illegal action? Or encouraged your represenative to show up and do their job. To be an actual branch of government, not a pawn? Because writing your rep is about the lowest bar “doing something” out there, but it IS something. And if you did vote for a Republican this last round and are unhappy with what is happening, it is especially important for you to let your reps know that and that you will not be voting for them again. Because without massive pressure from the people they will not stand up.

I’ll tell you what I’ve been doing: trying to get food to those who are afraid to come out of their homes because an under-trained masked man with a huge gun and his face covered might swoop in with an SUV with tinted windows and no plates and tear their family apart forever (how are we even supposed to know if they are actually government representatives or the random racist down the street?). Do you not understand facism? It starts with “others” but it WILL eventually come for you. And you. And you. I’m also attending and sometimes helping organize protests on the side of the street here in this MAGA thick area where I live. Yes, there is risk in that (sorry mom). They threaten us with their vehicles and they gather on the other side of the street with their guns and I will NOT stand down beacuse I don’t want to live in a country that targets the weak, the poor, the different. I am well aware that it only takes one 20 year old white male to cross over that very fuzzy line in his mind and start shooting all of us “domestic terrorists” standing there peacefully on the side of the road. Again, I ask: What are you doing? The highest people in our government are literally using Nazi wording. It’s not going to fix iteself.

So, I needed to say that (at a minimum). Does this mean I am living a joy free life? Nope. As far as I know I only get one of these and Jesse and I continue to ride bikes, play outside, and build friendships. We dance and we cry and we get on with it — both the fun and the fight. Our garden was obscenely successful this summer (I’m still in recovery) and we continue to make improvements to our house. I am also working a lot with online teaching for my previous college in CA and my body will not allow for extra computer time as recreation, hence the lack of blog posts. In addition to the Nutrition class I have been teaching for over a year now, I am also starting to teach Anatomy online, as well. Class starts in 1.5 weeks and I still have so much prep to do for that class. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go rework part of my Nutrition class because our unqualified Secretary of Health and Human Services has decided to rewrite our food recommendations and encourage the eating of large quantities of saturated fat all in the search of some glorified bro-dude quest for excessive protein intake.’

And finally the fact that I have to worry that the government may target me physically or financially for writing this (no we are not quite there yet, but that is only because I am not famous enough nor brown enough, we are on our way) or if I travel internationally may mistreat me at the border if I try and return to my home and family, the fact that this even crosses my mind at all should tell you everything you need to know about where we are and where we are going. What are you doing to stop it? The only power is with us, the people.

*Those of you that want to come at me from the left, really, you don’t need to. I get it. I see it; the massive amount of harm this country has always done, but we have zero hope of make amends and improving on this current track.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
― George Orwell, 1984