What's Waiting in America

Today is Election Day.  The polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., so make sure you don't have to work late, and that there is no traffic, that you don't work a 12-hour nursing shift, or that your kid has a soccer game.  Because you might miss it.  And you only get one shot---the U.S., beacon and purveyor of modern democracy, considers Columbus Day more important than Election Day.  And unlike Afghanistan or Iraq, there are no runoff votes.

I miss the hell out of my country.  I miss my friends and family, my cities, my car.  I have been reading political news every day because I have to know what's going on, even when it makes me angry or sad.  (It mostly does both.)  But what, exactly, is waiting for me in America?

News outlets tout the Unemployment rate at a little over 9%---but this figure only counts those receiving unemployment benefits.  A division of the U.S. Department of Labor says real unemployment (all those who are actually out of work, not just getting checks) is 16.6%.  Count the underemployed, and you're probably over 20%.  Average student loan debt is $30K (according to The Atlanta Post, student debt in the U.S. is higher than credit card debt)---my own is around $60K.  Despite "Obamacare" and its good intentions, the health care system is still run by inefficient corporations---and I'll be kicked off my parents' insurance again come June.  I guess, if I wanted to, I could sell my care for $800 and buy a house in Detroit.  The American Dream.

It's Election Day, and it doesn't matter that the House will fall into conservative hands.  Conservatives in both parties have thwarted progress for the last two years, and we have a President who thinks himself into a coma.  (Yes, that's preferable to a President who does not think at all.)  After January, absolutely nothing will be accomplished in the American legislative system.  It will be deadlocked, just as wealth disparity grows and people's houses continue to be stolen by CitiGroup and Bank of America, as the education system turns increasingly to robo-testing over real education, as the wars continue endlessly, and the fundraisers for the Democratic and Republican parties keep reeling in tons and tons of cash-money. 

Why would I want to go back?

Full disclosure, I am not voting.  My absentee ballot didn't arrive before I left PA, and I don't have a permanent address here, or a mailbox.  My ballot is in a little basket in my parents' foyer, and Dino Rossi---who failed to unseat Governor Gregoire 2 years ago---may very well win the Washington senate seat.  If Patty Murray loses, it will be my vote that cost her (and the vote of every other progressive who sits this one out because we had better things to do).  Though with Boeing and several private insurance groups on her fundraising list, what would her win really do?

Forget the Tea Party---there are fewer Tea Partiers in the U.S. than there are atheists or Xbox owners.  But they yell a lot and wear old-timey costumes, so they make for good TV.  Forget all the people, from Glenn Beck to Barack Obama, who are Hitler.  It's wrong for people to be forced to live in their cars when so many houses are vacant.  It's wrong for sick people to be denied medical care because they can't afford it.  It's wrong for students to be yoked with $30K or more of crippling debt simply because they chose to get an education.  It's wrong for the rich to keep getting richer while the poor lose their home to banks and their sons to wars.  Everyone, even conservatives, can agree that these things are wrong.

I am afraid of the America I will be coming home to.  Because even as we agree on the problems, everyone is too busy yelling to do anything about it.  (Thanks, Jon Stewart, for trying to convince the country to take it down a notch.)  Meanwhile, candidates for the U.S. Congress are considering "2nd amendment remedies" to a progressive government and asserting "violent revolution is on the table."  I know that's fearmongering and bullshit, but I don't have a gun.  I have considered acquiring one to stave off the living dead in the event of a Zombie Apocalypse but I'm not prepared for American civil war.

To crack wise, I was going to say something about Canadian immigration & naturalization---but I know I don't want that.  I want my country.  America, you can be a great place.  When you aren't fucking crazy.