I mean by struggle that I vacillate between "no standing military!" versus "the VA should be funded to infinity and beyond". I struggle to think about the actions of Americans in southeast Asia and Vietnam versus loving my family members that were there doing some things that they can't talk about to anyone because war never changes.
I don't want to see another family member broken by war. And then I've got family that thinks war is what we need.
That makes it harder to appreciate the day we set aside for honor and sacrifice of veterans of wars. I had never wished any of them to go, and I still believe we need all of those people here at home.
But what I try to use is compassion and sensitivity to imagine how scared I would be to be shot at, bombed, stalked by another human with a gun. The misery of digging holes in the snow with a shorthanded shovel hungry and cold, and losing those that one relies upon over and over again.
None of that makes any sense to me. If I were alone dying bleeding out in a muddy field, gutshot, I would call for my mom not for a holiday.
mine isn't a brain fog but COVID and a trump presidency made me not trust humans at all.
i no longer trust friends, family, neighbors, governments, leaders, police, doctors, businesses. none of them maintained trust during the Trump presidency and the pandemic.
but i still vote straight ticket democrat. because their platform doesn't include NAZI-ism
The playbook for transforming a democracy into a soft autocracy was clear: Win power with a populist message against elites. Redraw parliamentary districts. Change voting laws. Harass civil society. Pack courts with judges willing to support power grabs. Enrich cronies through corruption. Buy up newspapers and television stations and turn them into right-wing propaganda. Use social media to energize supporters. Wrap it up in an Us versus Them message: Us, the “real” Russians or Hungarians or Americans, against a rotating cast of Them: the migrants, the Muslims, the liberals, the gays, George Soros and on and on.
that's just your hypotenuse