[Cin]

Originally Posted by GeorgiaMa'am

Disheartened and sickened. I really, really want to believe that this is not what most Americans are like. I really want to believe that most Americans are not sheeple, who will go along with T***p's Hitleresque propaganda. I really want to believe that America is a great experiment where with hard work, though not perfect and not played out yet, and though unfortunately with a lot of blood and grief, people are learning to live together happily and productively in one multicultural society.

I could adopt a more cynical viewpoint, and I do at times. But it makes me feel hopeless and sad about the world. I can't go through life in despair. So I'll keep taking my antidepressants, striving to live with compassion, looking at all sides of the situation as much as possible. I need the inspiration of people like Martin Luther King, Jr., the Buddha, Gandhi, and Jesus of Nazareth in my life. Because I simply can not live like this, with the crappiness of what we have been through for the past day (or the past 500 years of America).

I'm reminded of these lyrics from a song by Nancy Griffith. I suppose you might take them with a grain of salt.

"I was a child in the sixties
when dreams could be had through TV
With Disney, and Cronkite, and Martin Luther
And I believed, I believed, oh I believed.

". . . It's a hard life wherever you go
And if we poison our children with hatred
Then, a hard life is all that they'll know."

I totally get where you are coming from. And I too have hopes and dreams for my country. I agree with what you are saying and the words to that song are meaningful. It is always best to keep a positive attitude.

However in some cases if you don't drag certain things out into the light they slither around in the dark and their power grows and grows. You can't defeat something you can't see. White supremacy is woven deeply into the fabric of the US. It's in our DNA. Systemic racism is the other side of that coin. There is a great deal invested in keeping this status quo. There always has been. A black Metro D.C. police officer who was on duty yesterday said in a public Facebook post that off-duty police officers and members of the military, who were among the rioters, flashed their badges and I.D. cards as they attempted to overrun the building. “If these people can storm the Capitol building with no regard to punishment, you have to wonder how much they abuse their powers when they put on their uniforms,” the officer wrote.

In a poll released by YouGov this morning, almost half of Republicans support the pro-Trump protesters who stormed the Capitol. A lot of these people who are Trump supporters are police, retired police, ex military. Which explains why over and over you hear witnesses of yesterday's debacle marvel how these terrorists were not at all afraid of the police. How can we expect any change when law enforcement is so invested in maintaining a white supremacist ideology unless we shine a light in the dark. How can we really change if we never even examine the truth of who we are because it makes us feel uncomfortable. You have to start from where you are at. Otherwise it's just more lies and God knows we have enough of those. It's better to look at the truth painful as it is because the truth has the potential to set you free.