#like i'm all for stores in real life closing early power to the worker but this is a video game what the fuck else does timmy have going on

[projectcatzo]

Shop owners on the New Leaf Main Street the second the clock hits 8pm

[teeg]

I'm not sure America is America anymore (or if it ever was…I think America was a lie we were all fed when we were young and we bought into it, and by we, I'm including the whole entire world).

"This is America, the greatest country on God's green earth." Except it wasn't, even as it slipped past the lips of all the people who believed the lies and helped to propagate them.

It wasn't for my grandparents who worked the tobacco fields, earning a living for someone else, or for anyone else who's had to eke out a living, getting by on pennies while someone else profits from the dollars your labor brings in.

It wasn't for anyone of a different skin color or with an accent. It wasn't for anyone with a disability, even if they'd received that disability in serving their country, or anyone who believed differently or worshipped differently, and it sure as hell wasn't for anyone who romanced differently.

And it still isn't. It isn't for anyone who struggles to afford each round of chemo they need for their cancer treatments, knowing that there's no country benefits to help them, so they ask over and over, afraid they'll sound like a broken record, but with no better alternative, for someone, anyone, to help with their Go Fund Me. It isn't for the people who lost their jobs in the quarantine and haven't been able to find another even though the news says that employers are desperate for employees, even though stores are closing early rather than actually bringing in people who need the job.

And most likely, it isn't for you and for me, because what they don't tell you when they stand your class up to put their hand over their heart and say the Pledge of Allegiance is that the only way to become a "successful" person in America is by walking on the backs of others, and if you're in public school, you've already been chosen to be one of the ones who have their backs broken, the ones being trod upon.

I'll end with Langston Hughes poem, Let America Be America Again, so that this ends with hope instead of discouragement.

Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be. Let it be the pioneer on the plain Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed— Let it be that great strong land of love Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me, Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars. I am the red man driven from the land, I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek— And finding only the same old stupid plan Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope, Tangled in that ancient endless chain Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land! Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need! Of work the men! Of take the pay! Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil. I am the worker sold to the machine. I am the Negro, servant to you all. I am the people, humble, hungry, mean— Hungry yet today despite the dream. Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers! I am the man who never got ahead, The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream In the Old World while still a serf of kings, Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true, That even yet its mighty daring sings In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned That’s made America the land it has become. O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas In search of what I meant to be my home— For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore, And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea, And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free? Not me? Surely not me? The millions on relief today? The millions shot down when we strike? The millions who have nothing for our pay? For all the dreams we’ve dreamed And all the songs we’ve sung And all the hopes we’ve held And all the flags we’ve hung, The millions who have nothing for our pay— Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let America be America again— The land that never has been yet— And yet must be—the land where every man is free. The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME— Who made America, Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose— The steel of freedom does not stain. From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives, We must take back our land again, America!

O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath— America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, We, the people, must redeem The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. The mountains and the endless plain— All, all the stretch of these great green states— And make America again!