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

[jimyojimbo.livejournal.com]

I can't understand it either. But it appears as if Bush did get the majority (just) of the popular vote, which means that (in the unlikely event of absolutely massive fraud) over half the American voting public want him back.

Like many people here have said, these means that over half the American people aren't "us". I keep trying to put it together in my head, what does that mean? "We" are the ones that support liberal values, accept (as opposed to its weaker cousin, tolerate) homosexuality and abortion. We will argue that, even considering the vengeful and inexcusable violent acts perpetrated by extremist groups, it is in part the collective responsibility of nations on "our side of the world" with regards to the causes of such extremism. And it is obvious that half the American voting population don't agree with "us".

It also means we don't agree with them. This is surely the problem. We are all, by and large, diametrically opposed. I can't accept their values, they can't accept mine. It is a battlefield, where we want to destroy the others, as much as they want to destroy us. We, the liberals, want to destroy their objections to our causes, just as much as they want to destroy our objections to theirs. It seems oddly intractible. No matter how much we think we are right, they will think they are right to the same degree. We are at war, between ourselves, to some degree.

I write this as British, yet equally as depressed about the result of the US election as anyone of "us". This was the election I cared about, as for me our political debate seems non-existant. As far as I'm concerned, we actually have no choice. To us in the UK, Blair is actually the closest we will get to a liberal state. It's depressing that the party closest to my beliefs is endorsing Bush. We actually have no political dialogue that can persuade me that the bollock in power at the moment isn't the best. We seriously have nothing else. This is the scary thought.

All I keep thinking is that I am of the generation that is being increasingly ignored. I know that my parents' generation voted for Thatcher. We have not fully gone through the loop yet. Dammit, I'm now 24, and I'm worried that my vote will count for an argument that is irrelevant.

[starofpersia.livejournal.com]

The thing is, I am able to accept the fact that they dont approve of gay marriage, abortion, whatever, but I cannot accept that they wish to make/keep these things illegal. They do lots of things that I dont approve of, but I dont make laws against them doing it, I just choose not to do it myself.