I apologize in advance for the length of this diary. I hope that you find it worth reading, as I have to get this off of my chest, and try to channel the anger out of my body and soul and into these words on this screen.
I haven't quite seen thirty years of this life yet, even if that day is coming up a little sooner than I'd like. I was born in Sierra Vista Hospital in San Luis Obispo, CA in 1981. And because life's little lottery (or the deity of your choice) had me born there, I am a natural-born citizen of the United States of America.
Logically, pride in the place that you were born isn't exactly something to, well, be that proud over. After all, I didn't earn citizenship. My parents didn't go through trials and tribulations to leave the squalor of the Old World. The most recent immigrant in my lineage was my maternal grandmother...from Canada. A few generations up there's some Russian emigrants, but on my mother's side, we can trace our lineage here to well before the American Revolution. Bennett Goodrum, an ancestor of mine, wintered in Valley Forge with George Washington.
And there is some pride in that, in things people better than I did before I was a twinkle in my eyes of my parents, and in the legacy that represents. Military service runs strong in my family. I was raised, and still consider myself, fiercely American. I was taught that this was a land where if you worked hard enough, and took advantage of opportunity, that you could live a wonderful life here. I was also taught that were I to become a success, that it was my responsibility to help those that were not as successful as I. And I was taught these values and other that have guided my life. And I was taught these values with the understanding that these were American values.
Maybe these values at one point were American values. After all, when I was born, Reagan had only been in office a year. There had not been 30 years of slow poisoning of the idea Americans were not just responsible for their own prosperity, but responsible for assisting those less fortunate than them should opportunity not knock at their door, or should ill health and the worst sort of luck befall them.
Once, I was proud to be an American. Even recently, this was the case, especially in November of 2008, when I saw a man with the color of skin that was once enslaved in this nation elected its leader, on a promise that yes, America is still great, that Americans should have health care, that yes, America, as great as it was, still had greater days ahead...
That yes, we could, and yes, we did.
And now, I sit here in my comfortable apartment that I've earned through a combination of busting my ass and wealth of opportunity that I have been able to take advantage of. I make a low six-figure salary, and my spouse makes a third of what I do. I will be able to retire comfortably. I can afford health care. In fact, my health care plan probably qualifies as "Cadillac". Mind you, I don't say this to brag, but to drive home the point that as far as finances go, I am truly blessed.
I got paid Friday, which is a feeling that 10% of the citizens in this country that want a job can't say that they've had, and I look at the numbers that are taken away from my earnings in the form of taxes, both state and federal. I do not cringe.
I'm proud to pay them. More, if needed. After all, that money goes towards the institutions that keep this nation great, and to pay for programs to assist my fellow citizens that were not presented with the opportunities that I have been. That money is the price I pay for opportunity, for a secure place to live, with police and firemen.
And I feel alone. in a sense. Sadly alone. Because I am fortunate enough to be in the top 10% of earners in this nation (as calculated by household income), and there are precious few of us that apparently give a damn about our fellow citizens.
I see articles like this, where the people that are supposed to be leading this nation and making it so that Americans do not suffer more than needed want to slash the programs that assist Americans who may be going through difficult times, or who have reached an age where they have earned a well-deserved rest without having to make a decision between food and medication.
I see people as blessed or more so than myself whining about having to pay their fair share of taxes, and even going out and protesting against it, calling themselves members of a Tea Party. I watch talking heads bloviate on end about how helping those less fortunate than us is Socialist, or not American.
I see old men, their skin pasty white, same as mine, with money like I have and more, saying that more taxes would be hardship. That instead, we have to cut funding for AIDS medication for the poorest sufferers of it, like Texas' legislature attempted to do recently.
I see those same men, pushing through legislation like this, as if citizens with a different lifestyle than them were some Other to be reviled, rather than a fellow American to be accepted as an equal, no matter what their race, creed, religion, gender, or sexuality is.
And they all have one thing in common. They're Republican.
Perhaps it's naivete that I had such pride in America for so long. I've never been mistreated due to the color of my skin, and I've never had designs on a career where my (lack of) religious beliefs would be hinder me. After while, while my personal beliefs have always leaned pretty strongly liberal, I had always appreciated having conservatives around. Having an opposition to challenge ideas and ideals refines them, makes them stronger. I may have disagreed with how they were going about things, but I never before doubted the fact that they actually thought they were doing what was best for the country, even if they actually weren't.
It's like they aren't even trying to hide the fact that they aren't doing anything more than attempting to shove more money into the corporations/wealthy individuals that paid good money to get them elected, and that they're doing it from the mouths and pockets of the least fortunate in this country.
They've stopped even trying to dress it up as fiscal responsibility, or trying to reduce debt. If they were serious, they'd actually include some new taxation to raise rates on the historically low taxes we have now in additional to the cuts on social services that end up doing fuck all to actually reduce spending in a meaningful manner.
Maybe they'd actually take some of the Pentagon's bloated budget. Fuck, there's plenty of waste that can be cut out of the military budget without actually touching the size or equipment of the forces themselves. And hell, that could use some trimming as well.
Maybe they should talk about reinstating some of the tariffs that originally funded the government before the days of the income tax instead of promoting "free" trade and rewarding companies for shipping production and employment overseas. Maybe they should look at fixing the corporate tax code so that the dollar in my pocket isn't more money than GE, ExxonMobil, Citibank, and Bank of America paid in taxes combined this past year. What are they going to do, up and leave to another country? Yeah, conservatives made a big deal about how all these US corporations were going to move their headquarters to Ireland, and provide good Irish jobs, because they spoke English and had a lower tax rate.
Look how that turned out, conservatives. None did, but those reduced taxes sure as fuck did bankrupt Ireland, while introducing such awesome terms as the Double Irish to the realm of corporate finance...and now conservatives want to do the same thing here by cutting taxes further during a revenue crisis.
Maybe they should ask people in this country to sacrifice that aren't the ones that have the least already. Oh hey, we're in a recession, and damn, people are out of work, and have lost health insurance, and need help...so let's cut food stamps, try to cut funding for medication for AIDS patients like Texas tried to, reduce MediCare and MedicAid benefits...
No. God forbid we do something like remove the cap on payroll taxes so that people that make over $106,400 pay a smaller percentage of payroll tax out of their check than a person making minimum wage. God forbid that we ask the people who are fortunate enough to have become prosperous thanks to this great nation and the opportunities it provides to pay an extra two or three pennies on the dollar to help their countrymen that aren't as fortunate. Trust me, we can afford it. God forbid that we require the most profitable corporations in the world to pay for the privilege of accessing the most desired consumer market in the world, instead of paying them subsidies.
But that would require serious leadership, actually possessing a moral compass rather than an orange glow, a spine instead of the hand of greedy men and women up one's ass making them stand straight, and exercising actual power rather than begging for wealth and respect from those who truly hold it now by promising them more money in their pockets.
Instead, we're left with the sorry state of affairs we have now. And I have never in my life been sadder to be an American. I should be proud to be one. Proud to be a citizen of the most prosperous nation in the history of the world. Proud to be a citizen of the nation that decided that their elderly would no longer wallow in destitution and disease. Proud to be citizen of a nation that many, many times, has realized that we are all in this together, and have shared sacrifice to do what has needed to be done, and come out stronger than before. Proud to be a citizen of the nation which was so great, so free, so prosperous that people wanted to come here so badly that they would be willing to risk their lives to get here. Proud to be a citizen of the nation that my family helped to defend through multiple generations.
Instead, I am left a citizen of a country where the wealthy and powerful no longer feel common ground with their less fortunate fellows. Where the idea that the wealthiest nation in the world has a responsibility to assist the less fortunate citizens in it is decried as socialism, and is something to be sacrificed on the altar of reduced taxes, taxes that are already lower than those that existed during our most prosperous times.
I am left a citizen of a nation where cooperating with your coworkers in order to negotiate better salary and benefits, to try to level the playing field so that negotiations aren't solely one-sided is something to be derided and outlawed, rather than held up as a model of engaged citizenship as in days past.
I am left a citizen of a nation where being a citizen of that nation means absolutely nothing, because so many of those citizens don't give a rat's ass about each other. Where sacrifice is something no longer needing to be shared. Where people have grown so used to the benefits of the nation working together as a collective that they believe the collective is holding them back, and damn everyone else in the name of some "conservatism" that couldn't even EXIST without the collectivism that came before it.
And where, God forbid, someone may believe something different than what is "tradition", or still feel that America is still a place of opportunity and are willing to risk their lives to come here and bring their families here to a nation ran by old white men who call them criminals, and because of this, they should be treated as something less than American -- less than human!
And that, my fellow Americans, is a goddamn shame.
I never thought I would be ashamed of being successful. And I am, because I don't want to be associated with the type of people that come to mind when I think of those that have found success and wealth in this country.
I never thought I would be ashamed to be an American.
And today, I think I am.Updated by Explodingkitchen at Sun Apr 03, 2011 at 01:54 PM PDT
Update: Well, didn't expect this rant to be on the RecList when I woke up today. Thank you for reading, and for giving me hope for this country.