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

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I do think you've outlined quite a valid alternative solution to the problem, one just as radical as mine. Instead of leaving the country, all the liberals must actually get up and move to the red states. The thing is, they might start drifting right in that environment. Or get lynched. And even if they didn't think like the red state republicans, they'd probably need an SUV or a pickup truck if they were in a rural area. They'd slowly start to resemble the enemy.

[thevulgartrade.livejournal.com]

I'm not so sure migrating to Zell Miller territory is necessarily a great option. What I'm suggesting is more that the Democrats are in dire need of ways to articulate that their message really does benefit those who vote Republican.

For my entire life, my grandfather lived in a small town in Tennessee. Once Wal-Mart moved in, all the small businesses owned by people who'd lived in that town for 80 years started to go bust. When I'd visit, two things would happen on Sunday. First, the entire town would go to church. Then they would go to Wal-Mart. It was disgusting. If you explain to small-town farmers that their old friends can keep their own businesses instead of ending up as minimum wage greeters, they might start swinging Democrat.

My father's a minister, and simultaneously the brother of two gay men. He wrote a very nice essay about the religious issues related to gay marriage. The conclusion he came to is that if you think gay marriage isn't meant to be sanctioned by God, then don't perform gay marriages in your church. However, it is the duty of Christians everywhere to campaign for secular unions between monogamous gay couples on the basis of civil rights. (If you're interested, you can read the essay here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/insidiouswanker/294739.html))

What I'm saying is that Democratic policy works. But for some reason, Democrats are too dumb to say why. Although he was running against a dunce known as Alan Keyes, my own new Senator Elect Barack Obama was spectacular at getting this point across, which is why he won with about a fifty point spread.

John Kerry came so close because his supporters are in the most populous states, with the most electoral votes. I think it would be disastrous to give up those states in a blind hope that we can pack Wyoming with enough liberals to take their three electoral votes. I remain convinced, though, that we can speak in the language of rural America without sacrificing an iota of our values.