Yesterday, I received the note that was sent out to Kerry volunteers from Kerry. He stated the following:

“I'll never forget the wonderful people who came to our rallies, who stood in our rope lines, who put their hopes in our hands, who invested in each and every one of us. I saw in them the truth that America is not only great, but it is good.”

I suppose I have a different take. I don’t think “America” is good anymore. I think there are good folks in America (49% to be exact), but America in general and what it stands for is corrupt and horrid and has no heart.

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When I went to my Southern Baptist Church in Midwest City, Oklahoma, back in the ‘50’s, I was sorely aware of the civil rights movement, as Arkansas was our neighboring state, and there was a big hubub in Little Rock about school integration. I had been taught to “Love my neighbor as myself,” as the gospels say, and I couldn’t reconcile what those gospels said with how my church was acting in the midst of the challenge to be inclusive of everyone. Our Black janitor, whom I admired dearly, was discouraged to attend our white church because, as I was told, “those folks have churches of their own. Why would they want to attend ours?”

I left the church when I graduated from high school and moved on to college. I was in search of a church that put its principles into practice. Were the people in that Baptist church individually mean spirited? No, not individually. But these were folks who as a group discriminated against Blacks, native Americans, and gays out of fear of difference and then justified their choices in some manner that made no sense. They compromised their principles, and that was corrupt, and horrid, and lacked Christian compassion.

So, now my country has once again followed the same path of that Baptist church. Protections granted under our Constitution and Bill of Rights are being eroded. Greed has spread across the land, and stewardship for our resources has been lost. America is corrupt, and horrid, and has no heart. America voted out of fear of difference. Bush didn’t get in by any Supreme Court shenanigans this time. America elected him.

Now I have to figure out what to do. Should I leave, as I left the church of my childhood? Should I stay and become part of the resistance to the status quo, building community with like-minded souls who want to remind folks that there is another way?

I think this time, I might not leave. I’m getting old, after all. I do have thoughts, though, that if my daughter and her family and my partner and I would choose where to go in Canada together, then we’d at last be geographically close to one another. That would be wonderful.

However, America is a mess. I think since I am a citizen of this country, I have an obligation to stay around and help remind folks that there are other choices than the one we took on Tuesday. For now, I choose to resist complicity with the corporations, neo-cons and rabid right, and not emigrate to another land with other issues.

I want to hold tight to those of you I consider my community. Hard times are a’comin’, and we will need each of us working with one another to make it through.

Denise Walderich