It’s a dark and depressing time. I have a talented, gorgeous partner, five kids who are brilliant and happy, plenty of money. So, you can see my problem.
Ridiculous, right?
Maybe I’m a little depressed. Why, in view of everything I have, would that be? Could be wonky brain chemicals, I suppose, but they’ve been in there a long time without causing (too much) trouble. There’s no reason for them to be acting up now.
I think my problem is that I can’t ignore the suffering of others. Every day I have to metaphorically step over a drug addict out cold on the sidewalk or pass by a woman begging with her child on the blanket beside her. Every day I read the news about the millions of people suffering in the most barbaric conditions. Every day I read about the god-fearing politicians who say those poor suffering souls need to work harder, or stay in their own country and not spoil the blood of ours. You want medical care, prove to us you are working or go off and die, preferably out of sight, like an animal in a dark corner under the wisteria blooming porch of a mansion.
Ukraine is losing to Russia? What do we care? Migrants are drowning and bleeding from the cuts of concertina wire laid out in the Rio Grande? We don’t want people like them in our country, even though we all are descended from people like them, people who came here to try to build better lives for themselves and their children. It’s time to pull up the ladder now. No more room in the treehouse.
But there is plenty of room. In fact, to dwell on immigration for a moment, we all are made better off by it. Economically and culturally.
What we are doing now is selfish and mean. We have to do it, we are told. If Donald Trump, the cheerleader-in-chief for sociopathic behavior, isn’t elected, there will be a bloodbath. That’s what he tells us. That’s what his people hear.
“Sir, yes sir!”
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