1. United States
2. Letter

I don't want to be known for the world's fiercest fighting force. We have never known peacetime in any real way historically. I want education and housing and healthcare and environmental sustainability and a better brighter future because of what we build, not based on our capacity to destroy. I'm rejecting Trump because he is a power hungry bully, but I don't want any part in bombing Palestine or in training civilian police to brutalize my BIPOC neighbors. We are no better than Netanyahu at this point, and based on our history as a nation I'm not sure we ever have been. What will it take to admit our mistakes and faults and have the courage to say on a national level that when we know better we choose to do better? There's nothing wrong with changing positions when given new information, and nobody can know everything. Democracy only works of we actually learn from one another and honor our differences. America would rather arm teachers than do anything to keep guns out of schools, despite parents and teachers absorbing PTSD on the level of soldiers in armed combat. By prioritizing war zones we are becoming a national war zone and it is not sustainable or livable or desirable to have to hide behind or from guns everywhere we turn. Having the strongest fighting force means we have the most fear and destructive power without self awareness or the wisdom of our elders to teach us any better. This combination rains terror around the globe and must not be our legacy. One hundred fifty years since the Civil War and we are still seething and festering and taking it out on the rest of the world lest we face our own sins. We don't need more police, locally or globally. We need universal basic income. We need fully supported parental leave. We need universal healthcare. We need drinkable water everywhere. We need renewable energy. We need to grieve our losses and respect those struggling with long COVID. We don't need a smiling tyrant any more than an orange one. Stop funding Netanyahu and his genocide of Palestine. What good are polio vaccines for children who will die by starvation and more bombings in a week? What good is a hostage swap when there is no ceasefire? What good is a military without mental health care for all who carry carnage on their conscience? What good is any talk of an American Dream when we rain down nightmares across the globe? Why bother with a federal minimum wage when nobody in the country can survive by it? Yes we need joy and hope but without actual policy change it's just gaslighting.