What Has Happened to My Country?

It can’t be that I went to sleep one night having spent the day talking to some reasonably intelligent people at the bus stop, at the store, along the street, then I wake up the next morning and seem to be surrounded by either drug addicts or people with trumpian brains (the ‘lack of’ sort). I live in San Francisco. This is my spiritual home, has been since I was 16 years old. I moved here for not only the lovely cool weather, but also for the cool people… the liberal, charming, kind and intelligent people I met over the years I visited, hoping to move here. Thrity-five years ago, even though my husband had stolen all the money I had saved to buy a home here, I came to live perhaps in less comfortable circumstances than I had hoped, found a tiny apartment in the Mission, the only place I could afford, worked at temp jobs until age sixty-five. Sadly all the rest of my IRA went to replace a knee so that I could still keep walking… that was done before, then after I hit sixty-five, I had the other done. So one knee ate up the whole of my savings, then Medicare gave me the other. With enormous luck I managed to get a low number in a low-income drawing and now have a home in the Mission for life, and have learned how to ‘live poor.’ A necessary evil, as Social Security seems to think that a cost of living raise means around $5 or 6 a month. Guess they haven’t bought bread and almond milk lately. Then came the day when, in spite of my vote and all the others in CA., we have a ‘leader,’ a man who is called our ‘president’ in spite of the fact he got millions of votes LESS than his opponent, who is trying to split our country in two. He lies and cheats and claims ‘the other side’ is so unpatriotic… that we all were not supporting our wonderful fighting men… etc., etc., and yet he avoided serving the country during the Vietnam war on the flimsiest of excuses, a ‘bone spur’ in his foot. Hey… I had one of those and my foot doctor gave me a simple shot in the heel… I’ve never felt pain of any unease since, and it’s been years. This man simply REFUSED to serve his country and went back to his slimy cheating and stealing and running after women he could ‘get’ because he had some pocket money from his daddy. I’m sick & tired of hearing how patriotic that bum in the White House is when NO ONE in his family has ever served our country - he is not serving it now but is deliberately dividing it. He has done nothing for, nor does he even notice the enormous number of homeless, almost crowding us out with their tents in my city. He speaks only to the smaller and smaller groups of his old white men who are the only ones who really support him and his views. The young people who need help, the troubled, the jobless young and old black men, those before mentioned hopeless tent dwellers are all ignored in the money raising yells organized constantly by the trumpian horde. And of whom do they complain? The players in the NFL. He has decided to twist their simple way of showing their wish to protest the lack of understanding of the treatment of just the people I mentioned above into some crazy notion of lack of patriotism by the players. This from a man who is really unpatriotic, who has never done anything for our country. If he has, I’d like to know about it. Colin Kaepernik, and all the other brave protesters… be it known that I am with you. I fear for my country, for it is being taken over by the wealthiest people in the world. They are trying to separate us into groups to fight each other and distract us all, so that they can retain the ‘top,’ keep all of their money and add to it, making sure they can leave it to their children in toto and also keep all of the power of governance. In this way they can let us fight and they can clean up for good and take their money out of the country and educate their children in better private schools, set up by dear Betsy so the government pays for them, while their so-called ‘experts’ ruin the public schools for the rest of our poor children. Fight on, oh wonderful athletes and I guess all you 'Millenials'. You became strong in body and worked your way up to an important ‘place’ in the country, struggling to make a good living to care for your family in the few years you remain in such good shape. Just remember to keep your family close, save your money and put your children in good schools to learn how to invest it well. And above all, help your community to grow and learn how to do good like the Kaepernik kid is doing. He’s on his way to becoming a strong, good and kind leader of the sort we need to defeat the lying, cheating and double dealing of the sort trump and his badly chosen cabinet of billionaires are doing now. Go, go, go kids… this old crone is with you all the way!! With love to all…. Peggy Cartwright