First Leonard Peltier is out of prison and finally HOME!
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To welcome Leonard Peltier back to his homelands after 49 years of wrongful incarceration, NDN Collective will host a celebratory event and community feed at the Sky Dancer Event Center in Belcourt, North Dakota on Wednesday, February 19, 2025 at 12pm CST. The event will also be live-streamed on NDN Collective’s Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn accounts. (source)Betcha you can guess what I'll be doing today at noon.
Back to my regular kvetching though…
I’m really sick of the posts from fellow Americans saying that we should all escape—find another country to live in.
Right, like that’s oh so easy, affordable and morally brave.
A) I’m disabled now. I have a rare neurologic disorder and the docs doing the big research on it are here in Boston. My meds (some experimental) are myriad and pricey. Most countries with great healthcare systems (e.g. Iceland) won’t take me because I would be a burden on their systems.
C) I’m deaf. Sure, I’d want to learn my new country’s language but that’s gonna take a lot of time and a special teacher. I’d need to learn, fer instance both Icelandic AND Icelandic Sign Language. Tech workarounds are great BUT not foolproof. Also, they tend to be reliant on WiFi.
I have friends who’ve gone ex-pat (pre trump/musk). Couple number one moved to rural France. They had money. The husband grew up here in the US but had dual US/French citizenship and was fluent in French. His wife has hearing as well as a talent for learning new languages. The second couple were both fluent in Italian. Plus, the husband, born and raised in Rome, was already an Italian citizen. They too had the financial wherewithal and reasonably good health to make the jump to Italia.
Jealous? Who me?
IF I had the bucks, health, and hearing would I decamp for Iceland or the Scottish Highlands, Ireland or Italy? Tempting, awfully tempting. I don’t know. Could I take Ten, Jen, Oni, his brother Kevin, and all the cats with me? That’s a supreme dealbreaker. Why would I leave if I can’t take my family with me?
Realistically, I don't have a choice. Also too, I want to stay here and fight. This is my home, my country. Yes, it has always been deeply flawed and we’re now in a mondo tailspin. I may not survive this. Still, this is home and it’s worth fighting for.
On the deeply flawed front, this morning on Bluesky I saw a post (with a LOT of comments) going off about how at least people in their 60s and older have memories of living here when life was good.
How astoundingly fucking privileged and insular can you be?! You’d have to be a complete douchebag fantasist to overlook the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, the Poor People’s Campaign, Reagan’s obscene non-response to the AIDS epidemic, women’s ongoing battle for equality, and on and on. Tell me WHEN has life ever been peaceful, sublime, and equitable, hmmmmm? Nostalgia is a toxic quicksand of ignored reality.
I suppose if you grew up in a financially and emotionally stable, healthy, well-positioned family, if you were white and male, yes, you’d have memories of a better America.
In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine.
~ Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being