I love this country (10/15/2020)

I really do love this country.  Otherwise I would have never changed my citizenship.  This is why that over the past four years I have been relatively vocal about our political leaders or those people that claim to be our leaders.  I have also continued raising the alarm about our environment locally, nationally, but also globally, because we simply do not live in a bubble.  I really prefer to write about my life, my travels around the state (pre-COVID), and the nature around me; however, it is important to lend a voice to this important cause.  

I much rather write about my walks in the woods and exploration than raising the alarm.  I love to describe what see, like these two gorgeous little guys.

It feels that our current so called leaders want us to live in isolation and as you know from my posts, I have not only lived in many regions in this country, but also in many countries on this blue marble floating in space.  The U.S.A. was respected world-wide in the old days.  From what I hear, that is no longer the case.  It always amazed me when I entered a hut in Uganda, in the late 1970s and saw a picture either of president Kennedy or sometimes even of president Carter on a wall, often together with the obligatory picture of Idi Amin.  If you did not have Amin on your wall, you were a dead person for sure, or at least potentially dead.  I would not be surprised if Obama showed up in the past 12 years or so.

The problem is that this term "Make America Great Again" does not hark back to the time that the U.S.A. was respected abroad, because we were respected under Obama and the last president Bush.  This MAGA slogan is isolationist and for the largest part a racist slogan.  That bothers me.  However, for example, when I try to set people straight about the black lives matter movement and tell conservative acquaintances about its deep roots, I am being made fun off by those MAGA few and told I that I miss the boat and need an education.  In fact it is they who need one, but at one point I feel like giving up and withdrawing into my peer group, my safety net.  What is the use trying to educate them and potentially alienating them.  I am not sure that I have the story completely straight and can defend myself through thick and thin without loosing my temper.

Am I hiding and avoiding confrontation?  I am afraid so; at times I do have the guts, at other times I just avoid it.  Should I always stand up for what I believe, defend it and try to work for what I believe is a more perfect country?  I am often at a loss and not sure if I make the right decision.  Should I react with my brain of my heart? 

I learned that liberal vs. conservative or democrate vs. republican is becoming almost more ideologic or religious and that the divide is becoming so sharp that they can almost be called battle lines.  This is scary, I have seen tribal wars in Africa and in Yemen.  In Yemen they ended up becoming a war between religious sects.  In Nepal, I saw what happens when a cast system (or a class system) puts its stamp on society.  A bloody civil was followed there as well.  I am in fact fearful of what will happen after the election.  

All I can say is that it is important to vote and the closer the outcome of the election is the likelier it will be that there will be trouble in this country that I chose to move to, live in and love.  I would really hate to see that happen.