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

[starofpersia.livejournal.com]

I would like to believe that most Europeans are capable of making the distinction, unfortunately it is the ones that can't that linger in my memory. I remember the anger I felt when a Swedish girl said "America is horrible-I'm so glad I've never been there" and I replied "How can you hate what you do not know first hand?" A year later she was close friends with me and several other Americans and she was able to admit that not all Americans were evil bastards.

Part of a comment that an Italian/Greek friend of mine left in my journal yesterday:
When I say to people anywhere in the world that I have friends that are Americans they behave like you are either retarded or a God fearing, anti-abortion, gay hater arrogant sad bastard, I feel like I said that I am homies with Adolf Hitler. TheI can't believe that I have to explain to people that not everyone is a republican and they are thinking young Americans, that they *DO* exists.

I have friends who lie and pretend to be Canadians while overseas, but if I can make even a few people understand that we're not all neanderthals, it's worth the automatic prejudice I may face in the process.

[matazone.livejournal.com]

It's sad that it's come to such a situation.

I've always known that America is just like everywhere else, there are people of all types there, but even with this attitude it was very refreshing when I first visited five years ago to hear Americans speaking fluently and incisively about politics and the world.

There is one difference that I've noticed about America though, those that know less feel that they are having their rights infringed if they have to admit that they have little-to-no knowledge of a given subject. In this situation there seems to be a tendancy to shout louder than opponents. Of course, this makes good television and as such it is often these people that shape the views of the world about Americans.

Last night I was discussing the election with a fervent Bush supporter, and she was of the belief that the Swift Boat Veterans were telling the absolute truth. I figured that this was going to be the easiest of her claims to disprove and hopefully sow a seed of doubt that might lead her to research the issues further. I found a link to the NY Times article which reported that the veteran's stories didn't match up with their own previous testimonies or military records. I was then told by her that the NY Times is a 'rag' and that it is all 'propaganda'. So I found the same information on Factcheck.org (a non-party-affiliated website with interests only in accuracy), MSNBC, and the BBC. I was then told b her that apparently all of these are lying, I should never trust the media, and that I should use 'more diverse sources'. When questioned about what sources I should be looking at that were not part of the media and that would reveal that she was correct, she never responded.

When the people who shout the loudest about issues such as the election then display such an absolute lack of substantiation for their claims it does tend to give many a very negative view of Americans. The quieter people never get their views heard. For all I know, there may be many very good reasons to support Bush, but I've only encountered near-rabid believers who have been unable to provide me with any logical arguments for his superiority, and as such it really does no favours for the reputation of the country that has voted for him.

As I said before, this sort of behaviour does seem to be construed as a personal right. I guess it is seen as an extension of the right to free speech, but it has been twisted so that people who have nothing to say compensate by saying what they think louder than everyone else, as if that makes them right. Unfortunately, I suspect that this attitude is beginning to spread to the UK.

Oh well, another day has passed and no further wars have been declared yet...