Every which way
The United States really came after me today
Without a doubt, these are some crazy times we’re living through. I’ve been an American all my life, and up until last November I was proud of this fact. There were times when America let me down severely, particularly when George W. Bush invaded Iraq and was somehow re-elected after doing so, but for the most part my pride in this country remained strong, until……
November 5 of last year was really a watershed moment for me. My home state of Illinois voted for Kamala Harris, and has been a blue state since the latter years of the 20th century, nothwithstanding a few years of a Republican governor after Rod Blagojevich screwed up so badly. My allegiance to my home state, then, has remained steady while my affinity with the U.S. of A. has fallen off a cliff. As I said, these are crazy times we’re living in.
Today feels like the culmination of this process. The state where I was born at the tail end of the 1960s, and have called my home every day since then, was sued by the U.S.A. over immigration law and whether or not the people who come to this state should be viewed as neighbors or as criminals.
Every one of my ancestors who came to this state, from the 1830s onward, was allowed to make their home here, and I’m grateful for that. And I honor this welcome which was extended to them by continuing to support it being made available to those who come here today, from whatever point of origin. Anyone who wants to come here to work hard and make a life for themselves and their families should not need to be constantly looking over their shoulders, afraid that someone will round them up and send them off to someplace they were trying to escape from to begin with. That’s not the nation I want to live in, and fortunately the state I’ve lived in all my life does not want to be that way, either.
I came to live in Cook County so long ago that the Chicago Bears were Super Bowl champs at the time (and that was quite a long time ago, by now). I moved into Chicago at the beginning of the 1990s, so it can be said that this entire century so far has seen me living in a city, and a county, and a state that Donald Trump and his legal minions saw fit to file suit against today. Fine. It almost feels like a badge of honor to have even a nickel of the taxes I’ll be paying in the coming years be directed to fighting back against this imperious overreach of executive power. Bring it on, I say.
A part of me wanted to sell everything I own and move to Portugal or some other place with a different form of government after the November election results became known. And, given the crazy declaration that the Gaza strip is now being viewed as a Middle-eastern resort project in waiting, that still isn’t out of the question. But if my native country wants to bring a fight to me over immigration, on a variety of levels where my affinity bonds have grown stronger over the past three months instead of weaker during that same time period, it makes me want to stick around and see how it will play itself out.