I’ve been thinking about this country’s upcoming 250th birthday.
The last time I remember being noticeably proud of my country was in 2021, when Deb Haaland was confirmed as the first Indigenous person to serve as US Secretary of the Interior, responsible for not only all federal lands but also the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a moment far too long in the making. With literal tears in my eyes, I saw, ever so briefly, the chance for my country to move forward in attempting to heal our dark history of racism, colonialism, and genocide and give back some control over the land we stole at gunpoint.
Why should I celebrate now? How can anyone with a grain of conscience celebrate this wretched and corrupt polity as it stands today? A “great” country that spits on the vulnerable and needy, both here and around the globe? An administration that has gutted nearly every good thing our government was doing at the eventual cost of millions of lives, including tens of thousands of children so far who have starved to death or fallen victim to preventable diseases because Trump and Musk eviscerated USAID? A greedy anti-intellectualism that is willing to trade our only planetary home for short-term shareholder returns and kleptocratic executive pay? A sexual predator for a president who has likely assaulted children and is actively protecting those who do the same?
God damn it, I grew up Christian, and it meant something to me! I firmly believed (and still do!) that one of humanity’s most sacred duties is to love one another as we love ourselves. Perhaps the greatest moral exercise of my life has been thinking through this idea and how to apply it. How do those of us who have enough love ourselves? We eat nutritious food when we are hungry; we shelter ourselves from the elements and seasons; we provide ourselves with clean water to drink; we get ourselves an education if we want one; we try our best to insure ourselves against sickness, old age, and calamity; we get ourselves medical attention when necessary; we fight against discrimination and oppression… In a just society, we do these things for one another, not as privileges to be earned and paid for but as the basic rights of human dignity (formed, I was told, in the very image of God), whether our sense justice is more rooted in the words of Jesus or John Rawls. I still believe this, but the American government doesn’t even pretend anymore. No, instead it’s, “All hail the almighty dollar, white supremacy, and unbridled self-interest!”
I am disgusted by the United States of America. Not because I want it to fail or think that it’s pure evil, but because my heart is broken by its consistent refusal to live up to the principles it has claimed and ignored so loudly these past 250 years. To quote a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. that white people should pay a lot more attention to,
"All we say to America is to be true to what you said on paper. If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand some of these illegal injunctions. Maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they haven't committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right. And so just as I say we aren't going to let any dogs or water hoses turn us around, we aren't going to let any injunction turn us around."
I don’t care about the fate of nation-states; I care about us together reaching the promised land King saw before he was so cruelly stolen from a world in need of moral courage.
The God of the Abrahamic faiths is quoted by the Jewish prophet, Amos, as saying,
"I hate, I despise your festivals,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them,
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
I will not look upon.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like water
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."
(Amos 5:21-24, according to the Protestant Christian way of numbering the verses of text, NRSVUE)
Let justice roll down like water, and I will celebrate like a recipient of rain after a long and deadly drought. Until then, you can fuck right off with your noisy patriotism. At this point, quite frankly, it’s just licking the boot that’s standing on your neck.
