Wow, 700+ followers! Finally reaching 600 was just over three weeks ago, and getting there from 500 took months! What a rush! In all honesty most of my followers are people with nothing posted whose names end in numbers and who joined in the last month... probably not bots, right? LOL. But humor aside, I'm incredibly grateful to everyone so much. I really appreciate that anyone cares enough to click that button, especially now, when things are so rough.
Tomorrow is a big anniversary for America... but this time in America is not one I can love. When cruelty towards immigrants is celebrated, when LGBTQIA+ people are marginalized and erased, when women's rights are clawed back after decades of fighting and struggle, and when the right to vote for people of color has all but been reduced to symbolism by a radical supreme court who gutted the voting rights act in their hellbent and hell-bound crusade enacting a fascist and cruel agenda. I feel ashamed of my country, and fearful of my fellow citizen's mindless, cruel rage. While I celebrate a dream of America on its anniversary, too, it is a dream of America's spirit; revolution, standing against tyranny, and being free to speak, worship (or NOT!) and live and love as one chooses, and still be shown the same respect and granted the same rights, while also being held to the same standards and laws of fairness as everyone else.
The party ruling America now believes some people are worth more than others, that some are welcome here, and some are not. I welcome anyone but those who hate, harm, or seek to control others, in short... I reject them as they have rejected me. On the anniversary of the founding of my country, I celebrate the dream of freedom, not the fascists trying to take it away from us. Who can look to the harm, suffering, warmongering, "one big beautiful bill" that increases our national debt by trillions while giving the wealthy more than in all of history and the working people who make this country function less than ever before, and say this is what they wanted, simply because it allows them to feel better than someone else who is made to be even more miserable? Those people are not my countryfolks.
My song this week is a song not of pretty rhetoric nobody believes anymore, it is a cry of freedom in a very dark night; a lone wolf's howl into the silence... and it is answered by others. And the men, hiding from the world in their castles, will hear us, and know we are more, and greater, and freer than they shall ever be. Reject fascism and embrace Freedom. Reject the comfortable wool of the sheep, and embrace the rough and wild fur of the Wolf.
Because the bad things happening now will come for you next, even if you think your are safe. It was us in the LGBTQIA+ community first, always the easiest to blame with the least willing to stand up for us, then it was the immigrants and their rights to live here, and women's reproductive rights and rights to choose what is best for themselves, now people of color's very rights to vote... A monster like the conservative furor gripping this country cannot be sated, it will consume us all, and then itself, and then America will end, if we do not cast it out as the cancer it is. We must seek compassion for all persons, even those we disagree with, the reason of science and real proof over dogma and prejudice, freedom for all who come seeking it honestly, and genuine respect for our allied nations again, and a firm stance against those enemy nations whose people are not free, no matter how rich they are.
I believe in respect and room for everyone, even those we disagree with, as long as we are equally fair and free. I believe in nonviolent resistance and the right to protest peacefully. I believe the right to vote and choose our own future. And I believe there are more good people than vile ones and we can win this war on our freedoms that was launched from within.
Thank you for following me, and for listening to my music and reading this now. I do not love this current administration, but I love my siblings in this country, and all across the world in our shared spirit. Human Rights are never "politics", they are, as was once said but not as much meant, inherent, and, unalienable.
I wish all of us Independence from tyranny, and the strength and solidarity to make that happen for ourselves and future generations. Blessed be.