I have lived in the USA for close to fifty years. (On August 13, it will be exactly 50.) You must believe me when I say: in retrospect, they were 50 totally awesome years.
Well, actually, not all of them; some of them were hard, some because of things I did; some nobody's fault. Lots of things that go wrong are nobody's fault.
Compared, however, to the horror stories I'm reading in the news and the popular media, I have led a wonderful life. I have had excellent friends, who have looked out for my family and me for all these 50 years. I was married twice, and both ladies with whom I was married were (and are) exceptional people. I have a child (who I obviously think is wonderful) who has a number of friends who think the world of my child; I worked a single job the entire time I was employed full-time, and now I'm retired, with a reasonable retirement plan, perhaps not the sort of retirement most people dream about, but comfortable for myself and my wife, in a small home—or maybe medium- sized home, in a blue-collar neighbor-hood that's staring down the barrel of gentrification.
But great numbers of US citizens are living with great uncertainty; people off all classes are deeply unhappy with the way things are. We're all unhappy with the way things are being run by the trigger-happy ex-Fox News types in the White House, and the way they've derailed the technology that previous administrations had aimed against climate change.
But I'm still convinced that life has been good to us; though I feel guilty that there are so many others who have been—and are—miserable. Some of whom are better off than we are.
There are some wonderful people in America. There are also really terrible people here.
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