America, the beautiful, is a deserted strip mall.
School is about to start for kids across the country, against the backdrop of Trump and his cabinet of hustlers dismantling the Department of Education. With that in mind, I took my son to look for a few new clothes for school. We hit a local Marshall’s and as we were leaving, I noticed the strip mall where it’s located is dying. Stores that had many years of history evaporated, and nothing is moving in to replace them. Across the street, a new strip mall was built, next to another mostly empty strip mall. There are five in very close proximity.
Above them all, American flags.
What is this, our strange idolatry of a flag while we actively watch our fellow humans harmed and arrested under the umbrella of America?
It’s more than clear that the reason this scene was so striking to me is that we’re living at the end of the largest capitalist empire ever. The death of America is not the slow decay that we’ve seen over the last 30 years.
What we’re about to witness with funding for businesses, nonprofits, and programs that help Americans, cut by greedy billionaires wanting to build concentration camps, will be coming at breakneck speed.
The evidence of the slow decline is everywhere we look. Bridges that collapse, travel systems outdated, the Army fighting its people in the streets, and the consolidation of power under a show clown who we’re not sure remembers what he’s doing from one day to the next. Bolstered by a cabinet of people who are tasked to help him, who are both active and ex-addicts. It’s so much worse than “Idiocracy” ever was.
America is a dying nation.
I have seen what functioning societies look like, and even in the midst of their own brands of corruption, some basic things were true. The people have healthcare, services, even as folks age, they are offered ways to remain viable and productive. The food is healthier, the transportation is efficient, etc…etc….etc…
Instead of blaming the misfortunes of the United States on foreigners, we really should be pointing our fingers at those we elected — The elite who spend more time concerned about women’s vaginas, book banning, and tariffs that we’ll have to pay.
It’s a dead horse, and I keep hoping that one day, we’ll all get to stop beating it. But here we are.
America’s game of three-card monte continues to find more fools, and the more one hopes that Americans will wake up, the more it seems that they will endlessly search for the card they will never find.
How much longer do we keep reading these stories?
*Children starve in the richest nation on earth, in counties that voted Republican.
It’s going to get worse with the loss of Department of Education funds to feed children during school. Hungry kids don’t learn.
*Crimes in impoverished areas increase after funding for youth and art programs is cut.
Sigh, look at what we’re facing locally. I wrote about it here.
*Teachers buy supplies for classrooms out of their pockets.
All while “WrestleMania” McMahon dismantles the Department of Education removing the tiny bit of funding teachers get.
And despite the evidence all around us, there are too many Americans who refuse to admit that this place is diseased and the options we have to save it are quickly evaporating.
But we get to keep our guns.
