So, that thing happened...

[tielan]

1. This is going to be a rough time for many of you: worried about your health coverage, about your lives, about your right to be yourself and be considered a person with rights, and having to deal with the people who voted for Trump lording it over you, telling you 'where you belong', and other crappy things. Take care of yourself.

2. Have you seen the posts on coping mechanisms for stress and anxiety?

3. Skilled Occupations List for migrations to Australia, 2016-17: it's a limited list, I'm afraid, and I don't generally support fleeing the country, but I appreciate that non-whites and Muslims in particular are looking at increased hate crimes against them, so I'm offering this for consideration. (No guarantees that we don't go the way of America: right wing extremism is rising here, too.)

4. I'm here. We're here together. We're in this together.

Comments

[thothmes]

You know, having a grandfather who was born and raised in Canada, having second cousins who could and would vouch for me, and a physician for a husband, I probably could work myself towards the beginning of the line to become a landed immigrant there.

This is our country. It has been since my family were early settlers of Virginia. Since the first days of New York when it was New Amsterdam. Since they came on the Mayflower. If we leave it, that is not patriotism. Patriotism is staying and fighting to get our country what it needs.

I'm very impatient now with all those people who confuse the correct attitude towards the flag with patriotism. No. Patriotism is doing the hard thing, because that will make our country better, when doing the easy thing is right there to hand.

I feel a little bitter, but that will pass in time.

You have helped. Thank you.

[tielan]

I think it's a valid choice for some people who are going to see a rise in hate crimes against them - particularly people who are visibly different. They're scared for their lives and their children's lives, and they're likely to be targeted in the rise of casual right-wing white extremism. It's not wrong for them to want to find somewhere where they can grow their kids without being targeted.

Previous American generations considered patriotism worth dying for; their country had given them much, including an identity to cling to in that patriotism. To people who feel like their country has marginalised them in social law and legal law and been unable to accept them, they cling to the identity that they have, and if that identity will be accepted elsewhere, they will go without particularly caring which country it is so long as they can live in peace, love, and bring up their children without fear.

[thothmes]

I completely understand, and utterly support the decisions of others to go. I do not stand in their shoes. I do not face what they face, nor is prudence in the face of danger, especially danger to all one loves, a lack of patriotism.

Sorry if I gave the impression that I thought that. My reaction was in part because 1. I had been talking with right wing friends who were having a freak out about Black Lives Matter and flag salutes, and 2. I had to talk down my two youngest, who were sure that the sky had fallen, and Canada was the only good alternative.

[tielan]

Ah, gotcha.

*hugs* for managing the family and yourself.

[monanotlisa]

Thank you for this post; it brings relief (I checked that list last night...my type of professional is not among them, unfortunately.)

<3

[tielan]

It's a very small and limited list, and there's a part of me that fears that the people who most need 'asylum' are not those who will qualify, or those who the government (right-wing conservative) would rather keep out.

But if there's a chance, there's hope.

*hugs*

[retsuko]

Maybe I should become a ship's master! ;)

Ha ha, not really, but those are some very interesting categories. Thank you for sharing them.

I'm trying to get to a better mental place about the whole thing, but it is *hard*.

[tielan]

Everyone's still reeling. Some people are trying to be positive about it, but they're looking at it from an international perspective: and the US might start WWIII but it's a different world to the one in WWII and after Iraq and Afghanistan it won't be so easy to divide the world into 'good' and 'bad'.

What they're not seeing is the very human effects on people. Shit stains, shit stinks, shit spreads. And DT is shit, through to the bone. That's gonna stick on everyone...