I fell asleep just before 5 pm so I’m wide awake now, seven hours later. May as well jot down some thoughts as they come up since there’s nothing else that I feel like doing right now.
I’m not going to be pulling many punches tonight. I’m going to discuss what I believe has gone wrong in the USA and how to make it right again.
By way of introduction…
My older sister Laurel emailed me yesterday letting me know she got my birthday greetings, so I have her email address again. Hurray!
She asked me to send my holiday newsletter to her, which I did. I also said she could catch up with my doings here in Costa Rica by reading my blog posts since September 4th. I gave her the URL for that.
Jackie, my younger sister, hasn’t been in touch at all except to respond to an email I sent her with some important information. She wrote one line, as I recall, and then put “love you” at the end.
I didn’t write back, or say I love you in my earlier email to her, because (it hurts to admit this) saying the words didn’t feel REAL or genuine, so why lie?
I haven’t loved her for a very long time, maybe never. (I’m pretty sure the feeling is mutual.) She’s always been a bully — even as a kid — and has admitted being unkind. So, what’s there to love — except perhaps as a fantasy about what could have been?
Perhaps what’s lovable about her is her undamaged essence, the weeks and months before she was thoughtlessly wounded and started building walls to separate herself from further injury. Her walls (and mine) may have been necessary for survival as children, but they’re just ugly obstructions now. There’s no legitimate purpose for them these days. The truth is visible, obvious, and it hasn’t killed either of us. We just have nothing in common other than our DNA. We’re polar opposites.
VALUES MATTER
Oddly enough, I don’t feel quite as estranged from Laurel, as you could tell by reading the December 9th blog post. I think our values align better. We’re both educated, largely unbiased, accepting of neurodiversity, LGBTQIA+ legitimacy and human rights, etc. Values matter!
Jackie, for all her religiosity, is not a mirror or emulator of Christ. Her preeminent savior/idol is the Wounding T-Wrecks, not the wounded Christ.
I can’t square that circle
I can’t make sense of a self-proclaimed, striving “Christian” worshipping a person so vile that he mirrors the Anti-Christ. It just blows my mind that she doesn’t immediately see the contradiction in that.
Hell, I’M a better Christian (Christ follower, values-wise) than Jackie is, and I’m no longer even a Christian (as Christianity is defined). By that, I mean that I don’t believe Jesus was any more (or less!) divine (a child of God/Source/Spirit/Universe/Stardust) than you or I. He was (reputedly) a wiser man than many, a kinder man than many, and a wonderful role model as far as how to treat others (petitioners and Pharisees!), but that’s as far as I can go with regard to his legacy.
So, by “Jesus standards” I see ZERO redeeming features or characteristics in T-Wrecks or his crusty Christians, who use fear, intimidation and other scare tactics to frighten people into what they consider the “straight and narrow” — white, male supremacist, xenophobic, misogynistic, homophobic straitjackets that deny other human beings their equal rights, justice and liberty. To my mind, they’re just a bunch of bullies who insist on “my way or the highway.”
“What a hell of a heaven it’s going to be
when all those hypocrites assemble there!”
— Mark Twain
Christ will be nowhere among them, that’s for sure!
(To be clear: I don’t believe in heaven or hell except for the ones we create right here on earth while we’re alive.)
It gives me no pleasure to say any of the above
As with T-Wrecks, I would feel (and DO feel) sorry for Jackie and for anyone else so wounded by life that it turned them into bullies and misguided misanthropes. By this, I mean that their innate potential for true, unfeigned kindness and empathy was squashed at a very young age in some way, UNLESS they were just wired that way from the get-go (by nature, not nurture), which I find almost impossible to believe.
Jackie isn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, a malignant narcissist like T-Wrecks, or sociopathic/psychopathic, but she’s not empathetic, sympathetic, or teachable. She believes she’s RIGHT. (We all believe we’re right, or else we’re working on ourselves to become better and more right as a result of our efforts.)
She considers herself “better than” poor/marginalized/neurodiverse/LGBTQIA+/servant-type individuals. Part of her identity revolves around portraying herself as better than others. You can see it in the way that she treats service people like takeout customer service workers of color.
Even her charitable endeavors elicit responses from her like, “Some of these (school-designated) poor people have better smartphones than I have!”
In sharp contrast, my take on the matter would be, “Some poor people have loved ones and more well off beneficiaries who make sure they have what they need to stay safe/employed/employable/in the loop with what’s happening around them even if they’re living in their cars or in shelters.”
See the difference? Understanding versus judgment, negative speculation, or jealousy/envy.
I just don’t understand how her empathy switch got turned off. Mine sure didn’t, and we grew up in the same home.
A possible reason for the Difference in Our Mindsets
I was an eager student (Jackie hated school and had to be threatened to finish high school) and I’ve read probably 10,000 books and countless articles. As a happy, helpful, and healthy result, I’ve vicariously lived thousands of different lives.
I’ve put myself in the shoes of black people, brown people, Asian people, rich people, poor people, sharecroppers, and countless other individuals as much as humanly possible so I could make sense of the sensibilities and experiences of the people around me. Folks fascinate me; they don’t scare me. I love diversity, cultures, differences.
MY GOD! I’D GO BATSHIT CRAZY
…if everyone around me was just like me (except ethically)! I be bored to tears!
So, I just can’t get there. That’s because I don’t want to go where Jackie is, where T-Wrecks is, where MAGA is. It’s a maddening mindset. It’s anti-civilization (un-civil). It’s cruel and bullying.
In a word, it’s juvenile.
Jesus was an enlightened adult
Jackie studies the Bible every day but doesn’t seem to recognize that Jesus was the polar opposite of T-Wrecks. Oh, the remaining GOP sycophants/politicians in power say all the right things, but they vote for policies that destroy people’s lives and fortunes (unless they’re already rich) — even Jackie’s and Phil’s, neither of whom are exactly rolling in dough!!
Their support of him and their advocacy of today’s GOP’s policies seems INSANE to me.
These people and people like them are, in my view, walking toward self and national destruction with their eyes and ears slammed shut. Deluded. Misinformed. No, calculatedly DISinformed by their handlers/”leaders.”
It’s a crying shame. I’m horrified on their behalf. I feel sorry for them, but they keep hurting the rest of us and don’t appear to care — so that makes me kinda pissed off at them, too. I keep thinking they should know better. But their far right algorithm keep innoculating them with fear against any other viewpoint or perspective, so they’re trapped in the mire of their overlords’ making.
My bottom line is this:
Is it kind? Do it!
Is it helpful? Do it!
Is it cruel? Don’t do it!
(Some truth sounds cruel, but truth sets us free if/when we’re willing to hear it!)
Is it unhelpful? Don’t do it!
LIVE AND LET LIVE.
THRIVE AND LET THRIVE.
SURVIVE AND LET SURVIVE.
My neighbors aren’t expendable. Neither are yours.
Why is the above controversial?
That’s the $64,000 question!
I don’t have an answer, other than “Fearmongers thrive on creating the illusion that some people/beings are less crucial and safe to be around than others, so they can exploit their feelings of supremacy and fear to achieve their own selfish ends.”
We’re all in this together. Only by working together can be all get somewhere better.
This is what I’m feeling tonight. Wonderment.
It shouldn’t be as hard to live in the U.S. as it is. For anyone! It certainly isn’t hard to be decent to each other here in Costa Rica and much of Europe and other places.
There’s a rot that has happened to the U.S. since about 1980. Many millions of people haven’t lived long enough or read enough to have known/learned about anything better. The rot is the norm for these people, so they simply don’t smell it.
Both sisters were very concerned to learn that I was moving to Costa Rica
Fears were expressed: I might “disappear” because of some Tico’s anti-gringo displeasure. (It’s far more likely I would disappear in the U.S. these days under the current regime because I’m neurodiverse and trans!)
I’M concerned that my sisters are where they are!
They’re both women, after all. Their voting and other rights are on the Project 2025 agenda as something to get rid of! Their bodily autonomy has already been crippled by the overturning of Roe V Wade.
I feel completely safe here in Costa Rica
The graphic outside the immigracion building in San Jose
My gut was always knotted up in the States with T-Wrecks in office, waiting for the next shoe to drop.
The difference is day and night.
LOVE LIVES HERE
Diversity lives here. Life is good here. Even the sanitation workers are feted, given GRAND MARSHALL status.
Everyone is appreciated, assisted, and affirmed.
It IS achievable. It is NOT a pipe dream.
People create their cultures. Policies reflect those cultures.
Which U.S. policies need to change to create a thriving “nation of immigrants”?
Look around you, USA! Who’s doing better for its entire population than you are?
You won’t have to look far. Start with looking north and south, then to Europe!
Most developed (and developing) countries have universal health care, free primary and secondary education and free or affordable colleges and universities, generous vacation packages, shorter work hours, higher minimum wages, taxes that benefit the taxpayers instead of subsidies for corporations that often pay zero federal taxes and so-called foreign — and now DOMESTIC — wars on (trumped-up) “terror” …
I could go on, but I won’t.
THE ROT IS AT THE TOP
Stop being saps, voters. And you non-voters: REGISTER TO VOTE!
No one is safe, now that the regime’s purges have begun. Not even you. White midwestern grandmothers are being arrested merely for inquiring why a brown neighbor is being pushed into an ICE vehicle without due process or an arrest warrant.
Your roofers, groundskeepers and janitors, and your lesbian granddaughter and best friend’s trans brother could be next.
Will you be too cowed to stand up for their rights?
Probably!
But what would Jesus do?
You can still choose to live a better life.
But probably not for much longer.
Resist. Protest. Vote.
The country you save (and improve) will be your own!