Exit this Roman shell

[imomus]

For those of you thinking of leaving America today -- and there are many, I'm sure -- I'd say just do it. Walk away. Leaving Britain is the best thing I ever did. I lived for years there feeling like a political and cultural exile, trying to fight back with satire and a thousand subtle forms of stubbornness and resistance. But being an 'internal exile' is not good for the soul. My struggle with attitudes which seemed toxic to me started making me as hard, cynical and corrupt as the people and the attitudes I was fighting.

Soon I realised that British people were not going to change. At least not in my short lifetime. My contribution was never going to be accepted in that country. It was much easier to get up and go. You can change the world around you by simply getting on a plane and going to the place where they think like you, even if they don't speak the same language you speak. So I went to live in France. In Germany. In Japan. I became a world citizen.

I started to think in terms of cities, and even districts of cities, rather than nations. I made my own cut and paste environment, a place where I felt comfortable and valued. I selected its elements from the internet and the parts of the cities I loved and went to live in. I count the moment I left my incorrigible homeland as the moment my adult life really began. I am now a much happier and better adjusted person.

So just leave. America doesn't deserve you. Walk away. America doesn't need your talent, your creativity and your intelligence. Or rather, it needs them desperately, but it will never acknowledge that. It's too stupid to understand that. If it calls for you, it will call for you for the wrong reasons. It will call you up as a soldier. It will call for you as canon-fodder in some spurious and unnecessary war that serves the interests of 1% of its population and an even smaller percentage of the world's population. Even if it lets you live in relative peace as a mere civilian, it will force you to live in ways that destroy the world's weather systems and its environment. It will use your tax to fund pre-emptive wars of aggressive imperialism against impoverished nations with energy resources.

Leave while you still can. Leave as a civilian, not a soldier. Leave and lead the life you were born to lead. Your absence will hurt America economically, but it deserves that. And it doesn't deserve you.

Get a passport, get a visa. Work a job, save some money. Come to Europe, come to Japan. Life is more civilised here. Come as you are, come to work, come to play, come to stay. Make love to foreigners, not Americans. Make non-American babies. Make your children world citizens, as you make yourself one.

Then you know in your brain
Leave the capitol!
Exit this roman shell!
Then you know you must leave the capitol

Leave the capitol!
Exit this roman shell!

It will not drag me down
I will leave this ten times town
I will leave this fucking dump
One room, one room

(The Fall, 'Leave The Capitol')

Comments

[tick-tick.livejournal.com]

As a silent member of your list [though a frequent reader] I just wanted to say thank you for writing this.
I have never felt so frustrated nor so powerless in my life. I spent today as a zombie, completely lost and devastated.
My first reaction to your entry was it's not that simple. This is far too idealistic.
But it's really that simple. Things are not going well here. Things to do not look to be shaping up anytime soon [the soon to be appointed Conservative Supreme Court Justices, for example]
I am tired of feeling sickened by my fellow countrymen. I feel as though I cannot call my country my own, because I just don't belong here. Not when I don't agree with a single decision being made.
I apologize for taking up space. I just want to say thank you again, and how comforting I find this small pocket of rational intellectualism fostered by your writing and the people who read and comment.

[(Anonymous)]

As a 26 year old semi conservative black man living in the midwest, I feel that the best way to make any kind of a difference is to stay and fight. I mean, one thing I learned when I was young was this-children run away from their problems, adults stay the course and work to solve them, no matter what it takes. I mean, what if every Negro decided to just up and leave this country during the civil rights movement?..Just what would we have accomplished? Would our quality of life be any better than it is now?.....What we need is to stick to our guns and fight by living fearlessly and intelligently and not backing down from our beliefs no matter what they are. What we need is to divert our intellectual and spiritual energies towards a change at home first before we can hope to influence the world. Just because you run doesn't mean the problem or the enemy is going to go away...And believe me when I say this, the grass isnt always greener on the other side.....

[tick-tick.livejournal.com]

While I understand your point, and agree, I have to think that at some point there comes a time, not to give up, but to realize you're fighting a monster that has become too large.
I still have hope--we elected Clinton, after all. But at the same time I feel that despite its selfishness, there's nothing wrong in wanting to find happiness. And of course I realize every nation has its problem, I merely want to make a home some place that has a greater respect for civil and human rights.