It's July 4, but I'm not celebrating our country these days. Trump's crowing over his Big Beautiful Bill just about drowned out the chorus of birdsong this morning. And what did all those birds have to sing about, anyway, given the cuts in support of alternative energy and other mitigations to global warming in the BBB?
And that was only one of many abominations in the bill. Good for the Democratic senators who yelled "Shame!" to the Republican colleagues voting "aye."
Thank goodness the Senate took the sell-off of public lands out of the bill. That was a close one.
Most abominations remained, though. I worry about the cuts in Medicare. I worry about people who identify as trans and other sexualities outside the straight-and-increasingly-narrower heterosexual-marriage one. And I especially worry about immigrants. I worry about separating children and parents; I worry about depositing people in detention centers, and isn't that just another name for concentration camps and haven't "immigrants" become today's Jews? We said, "Never again," but I'm very much afraid it is happening again.
I have a friend from Europe who has lived in this country for decades. She isn't a citizen but has permanent status. She is worried, but I don't think she needs to be, not because of her "permanent" status but because I don't think it is European immigrants Trump wants to deport. (Look for instance, at his welcome to white South Africans to immigrate here.)
In her July 3 column, Heather Cox Richardson, who is good at giving historical context to contemporary issues, reminded us that the Declaration of Independence formed a nation based on the idea of human equality and that the Civil War was a test whether that concept could hold. Then she says, "It did, of course. …But…we are once again facing a rebellion against our founding principle as a few people seek to reshape America into a nation in which certain people are better than others."
It's July 4. The birds are singing as beautifully as they did yesterday. I hope they can continue to sing, day after day. I hope we can continue to honor, or learn to honor, the birds and all living beings in our country. It's not too late.