What America Has Become:

I have lived through more than six decades. I remember America from the late 1950s, the 1960s and onward. The America in which I find myself today is not the America of the past.  It is not the America in which I want to live. 

Yes, we have made strides in women's rights ... until the current administration came along. Things are better (although not always so great) for minorities. We have improved (until the current administration came along) efforts to protect our land, air, water and wildlife. Medical advances abound, although many are not affordable by all Americans.

Despite these advances, however, a quick glance at the news shows the following recent developments, none of them positive:

• Our freedom of speech is under attack:  A Catholic high school in Kentucky banned graduation speeches by its valedictorian and salutatorian because it didn’t like their content (speeches had to be approved in advance.) 
• Our freedom to peacefully protest is under attack, with protesters who are breaking no laws being arrested.
• There has been an increase in racist taunts and actions: A so-called comedian blamed Ambien for her racist tweet. Two black men in a Starbucks were arrested for failing to order drinks as they waited for a business partner to arrive. Another black man had the police called by a bank teller when he tried to deposit a large check in a bank where he had had an account for the past two years.
• A Tennessee lawmaker claimed porn is the root cause of school shootings. I guess that's easier than admitting that not everybody should have access to guns.
• An independent running for Congress is an admitted pedophile.
• In California and in Illinois, Nazi sympathizers are running as Republicans for seats in Congress.
• The Department of Education chief wants Christianity to be part of the public school curriculum (forget about separation of church and state). And which version of Christianity should be taught -- Protestant, Catholic, evangelical? Why, hers, of course.
• The president continues his attacks on the news media. Any story that tells the truth about him, or that he doesn't like, is called 'fake news.'
• The president repeatedly attacks the FBI, CIA and various intelligence agencies because these agencies refuse to serve him rather than the people of this country.
• The administration is moving ahead with plans to allow the 'hunting' of hibernating bears and denning wolves in Alaska.
• Plans were recently unveiled to merge the Department of Education and the Department of Labor. Is there also a plan to return to the days of child labor?
• The Department of the Interior is considering plans to allow the shooting of the very endangered red wolf in North Carolina, a population considered 'non-essential' and 'experimental.' 
• After several 'adults' made threatening comments on Facebook about a 12-year-old transgender child, authorities closed a rural Oklahoma school system for two days 
• The president of the United States, who apparently got his feelings hurt, called an African-American critic a "dog." This was after he hired her because she "said nice things" about him.
• The president also refused to call on a female reporter, claiming that she “doesn’t think.”
• Citizens of other, primarily Latino, countries seeking asylum in the United States are locked up and separated from their children, who are kept in cages. In some cases, the parents have been deported while their minor children remain in custody in the United States.
• The government has no idea where the parents of some of the incarcerated children are. In other cases, the government has no idea where the children, many of whom have been moved, are currently located.
• The president, much as Hitler did, denounces the news media as the "enemy of the people" and as the "opposition."
• The father of a student killed in a mass shooting at a high school, the invited guest of the Speaker of the House, was removed from the state of the union speech because he spoke out against the president's vow to protect gun rights. Dissent was forbidden in Nazi Germany, too.
• After a march in Virginia resulted in the death of a counter-protester, the president declared that "there are fine people on both sides." So neo-Nazis and members of the KKK are now "fine people." 
• Trump wants to give federal tax money to private, religion-based schools.
• He wants to brings prayer back into public education.

So-called Christians speak and act in totally unchristian ways. One evangelical pastor is asking his followers to buy him a $54 million private jet so he can spread the Gospel everywhere while stopping to refuel his luxury airplane only once. How many hungry, how many poor people, how many homeless or sick people could be helped with that $54 million? 

Hypocrisy among politicians, particularly among Republican politicians, is rampant. Franklin Graham, a supposed Christian evangelical, berated former president Bill Clinton for his sexual relationship with an intern, stating that his behavior impacted everybody in America. But when the current president was accused of having had sex with a porn star, Graham said it was simply an issue between the president and his wife, and was nobody else's business.  

Republicans applauded a court decision that permitted the owner of a bakery to refuse to make a wedding cake for a gay couple, but were incensed when the owner of a restaurant refused to serve a high-ranking member of the current administration because she found the other's behavior to be objectionable.

It seems that lots of Americans are perfectly fine with letting private organizations regulate free speech as long as the employees are saying or doing or things with which they agree. But if someone with a different point of view attempts to exercise his/her free speech, they want the rules changed.

Welcome to the new America, folks.

If you, like I amd millions of other Americans, are dismayed by what America has become, get involved. Make sure you are registered to vote (Republicans are purging millions from voter rolls). Most importantly, show up to vote in November. We must throw out all the corrupt politicians who support our decline into autocracy while we still can.