Worse and Worse

(Click on the above image for an expanded view if you can't read it.)

When I was a kid, this was the kind of thing that showed up in the comics I was reading.  Yes, there was apparently a need for Superman to remind people to have more empathy for refugees.  But the kids he was lecturing to were appalled at the conditions of the refugee camp.  As anyone would have been, a mere 15-20 years after World War II.

That America is dead.

Despite all the grief Baby Boomers are getting, most of us, I think, are horrified by the very idea of putting people into camps, of ripping children from families at our borders, and of pathetically attempting to justify this behavior with selective quotations from the Bible.

This is not who we were.  It shouldn't be who we are.  We never used to be a nation that reveled in Nazi rallies, or that chanted things like "Build a wall!" and "Lock her up!"

But we are now.  And it's disgusting.  I can only imagine all the people sneering now at a sentiment like, "You can help too, by being friendly...."

Instead we have a president who admires a foreign dictator's ability to make his people sit up at attention.  Who wishes he could make his people do that.  We have citizens who don't care what their demagogue burns down, because it's worth it to them to see how upset it makes "elitist liberals."  Because cutting off your nose to spite your own face is now seen as a good thing.

People -- this is NOT OK.

This is not going to change unless we step up to change it.  We have to throw these monsters out.  For the love of what this country used to be, and could be again, register to vote, NOW, and vote against them in November.  This is no longer about party.  This is about who we are, who we want to be, who we could be again.  The Republican party has shown zero interest or ability to check abuses and stand up for what is right and decent.  They need to go.  Screw "#NotAllRepublicans."  They have had numerous chances to say, "No, you can't do that, not here," and have declined to do so, in the interest of keeping their jobs.  Our politicians have not had much interest in representing us.  Their job is no longer serving people, their job is to get re-elected to their jobs.  Every two years we have the opportunity to send the entire House of Representatives packing, along with a third of the Senate, and we always fail to do so.  That needs to change.

We used to think we were the greatest country in the world.  We are not.  Probably we never were.  But as we turn our backs on former allies, insult our neighbors, start trade wars and close our borders, we diminish ourselves to everyone.  More and more of us are ashamed to be American.  And we are right to feel that way, as long as nothing is done to check the abuses inflicted by our current government.  As long as those abuses continue, America will continue to be nothing more than a blot on the world landscape.

There.

I said it.

Come at me.