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My condolences, America

17:56 / 03.11.04

Seriously, anyone who's interested in coming Canada-way, I'm certain that plentiful couch space can be located.

[sigh]

This is one of the inevitable issues with democracy, I suppose. Fifty percent of people are stupider than average.

Anyway, I just wanted to say I felt bad for you, and I'm sure there are plenty of others who share my sentiment.

18:11 / 03.11.04

Much appreciated!

And, on my part, politely declined...

Despite spending a lot of time this morning checking out real estate in the Vancouver area and fiddling with emigration law websites... I think I'm staying.

I'm scared, and worried, and upset. But... if everyone just buggers off to other countries, and abandons the U.S. in her time of need, who will fight back? Who will stand up and speak out against this administration?

This is my home.

I want to try to save it.

18:20 / 03.11.04

Right on Sekhmet! Fight the good fight, we've got your back if you need us.

18:22 / 03.11.04

I actually agree, I might joke about moving to Canada/England/Italy, but I'm staying right here. This is a country I love and I'm gonna stay.

If Bush reaches full Nazi Germany levels (and I know he's one quarter of the way there already), THEN I might seriously leave.

18:28 / 03.11.04

well, i'm gravely dissapointed, and almost sick with terror, but I'm up for a post or two. not that I've been bothered for a few years. but hey old haunts eh?

anyway. the stick it out and fight strategy has rarely worked in history so far as i know. at the end of the day, it's mob rule. and whoever rules the mob, rules period.

the idea of america is a beautiful one, but the reality is deeply disturbing. wouldn't it be nice if the richest, smartest most civilised americans went expatirate? sounds like good fun to me. vancouver can be the new sanfrancisco.

not to be a doomsayer, but once you factor in things like

a) the slow march to concentration camps for gays and lesbians

b) the 'war' on 'terror' without end. (heinlein would be proud.)

c) the overwhelming liklihood of a military draft. what the hell makes you think he wouldn't lie again, and he's certainly got the support now dunnit he?

d) the real estate bubble about to burst

c) the absolutely unprecidented debt iceberg in the path of the u.s.

d) skyrocketing oil prices for the worlds leading energy glutton.

e) shocking decline in grain production, and horrible drawdowns in surpluses

f) a state of civil strife in the popular discourse unlikely to heal soon.

get out while you can.

18:28 / 03.11.04

America is a great place and I plan on remaining a citizen for life, but I'm still looking at just how long my college will allow me to study abroad...

18:29 / 03.11.04

My comment was partly tongue in cheek. Partly. Honestly, I like America and Americans a great deal, too much to see the whole she-bang slide into the shitter on account of leftist defeatism or apathy. You guys have a hell of an uphill battle coming though. So I amend my comment to:

"Chin up. And when you need a rest, we're just a plane ticket away."

Sean the frumious Bandersnatch

18:35 / 03.11.04

How absurd would it be to suggest that, when many angry voters leave the states, america would be even more conservative?

Cheney/Bush 2008. It could happen.

19:47 / 03.11.04

at the end of the day, it's mob rule. and whoever rules the mob, rules period.

We'll just have to become the mob, then, won't we?

Time for the Revolution...

The Prince of All Lies

19:53 / 03.11.04

The one thing I know is that when someone from the US asks me "Why does the rest of the world hate us?", I'll just say..
Because you're the richest and yet the stupidest people in the world.
Seriously. Al Qaeda should bomb the Bible Belt and then the US would be an almost stupid-free country..

20:01 / 03.11.04

I'll just say, "we hate your freedom - your freedom to fuck us all over".

20:40 / 03.11.04

My boyfriend and I were discussing a move to Canada today, but I know from a friend of mine it's hard to stay there for more than a year. He suggested the UK, but that's assuming we could even get there, when the reality is I don't know how I'm going to buy groceries this week. I tried to push for Mexico, buy my bf thinks we'll be robbed and killed because we're American.

Politics are one thing, but I don't want to be a part of this culture war. I don't want to stand here and fight people whose reponse is going to be BURN IN HELL YOU EVIL SINNER or GET OUT OF OUR COUNTRY IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT. Call me weak, I can't take it.

And yet I will, because I'm dead broke. Thanks Middle America, all your hatred for us stinking East Coast liberal intellectuals has paid off.

06:13 / 04.11.04

About 5 years ago, I was in an appointment with a therapist, and I was basically saying how tired I had gotten about the rabid anti-gay hatred in America. Yes, I know it exists elsewhere, but when I descrobe my partner and my experiences over here to friends in the UK, they are quite frankly shocked. She asked me, "Well, if you hate it here so much, why don't you leave?" Her question wasn't along the lines of "America, Love it or Leave It". I suspect it was along the lines of, "We both know you don't want to go, why not be more positive?" I'll never forget the shock on her face when IK replied, "Actually, I'm seriously considering emmigration." I'm sick of the hate. I'm sick of the violence. I watched my partner at the time, who was dying of cancer get spit on by a group of laughing boys. I myself was attacked on the street and almost beaten to death. Just today, a neighbor said to me as I walked past her house, "Keep walking you *explitive* freak. We're going to kill all you *explitives*" I can't help but wonder if she was emboldened by the Bush victory. I'm sick of the American arrogance that says we are so great, and yet we are one of the most violent societies in the "civilized" world,(whatever the hell that means). Someone in another thread said that they would make a bed for us when we come fleeing over, (yes, figuratively, I know). Personally, I like the UK. I may just take you up on that. Of course, I don't really know how to emmigrate, and I'm not even sure if you'd take us. Wouldn't blame ya if you didn't.

06:58 / 04.11.04

Fairly decent post off the front page of Fearbush.com:

"The terrorists have won. By turning this race into a contest of fear, Bush and his handlers have managed to frighten the fuck out of the populace into an easy win. The Democratic Party is no more. They should have known better. Trying to "out fear" a fear-inducing warmonger is no way to win an election. Democrats have failed to provide any real alternative. Given a choice between a Republican and a wannabe Republican, the people will choose the real one every time. The Democrats have lost their way and they can't blame Nader this time. They need to concede that and step aside. It's up to the grassroots activists, the anti-warriors, those that can envision a world without hate, without greed, to take responsibility. The Democrats have failed us. Let's take a deep breath and look within.

It's time to build an alternative to the one-party system. It's time for all concerned citizens to rise up and call BULLSHIT. Call bullshit on greed, call bullshit on corporate rule over our culture, call bullshit on fearmongering, call bullshit on divisive tactics, call bullshit on media consolidation, call bullshit on war, call bullshit on human suffering and inequality. Let's look inward, figure out who we really are. What are our values as people? What do want for ourselves, our family and our friends? Once we have those answers, the rest will be easy."

12:25 / 04.11.04

Canada warns Americans we'll get no special priveleges. The Canadian government released a statement yesterday reminding Americans who might want to flee BushAmerica that they'll have to file for visas and wait in a year-long line like everyone else.

20:01 / 04.11.04

they'll have to file for visas and wait in a year-long line like everyone else.

Boy and I are getting in it in a couple months. I always wanted to live not-here for a while and get some perspective on the world outside what a long vacation can do for me, and he's spent a third of his life overseas anyhow. I just didn't want to start now, or for these reasons. Love the land and a lot of the people; will come back if the place is ever sane again.

20:23 / 04.11.04

Harper's Magazine has a guide to expatriating up on their site.

10:47 / 05.11.04

Of course, there's always the "marry your Green Card" approach:

www.marryanamerican.ca

The site is intended as a joke right now; I suspect that it may not stay that way if a draft comes into play.

12:47 / 05.11.04

A message of hope, courtesy of a friend of mine, and coming soon to a Cafe Press T-shirt near you:

13:02 / 05.11.04

Yeah, but really--who did Obama beat? Alan fucking Keyes? Dude, that's like me beating Stephen Hawking at arm-wrestling. Keyes is crazy as a shit-house rat--so extreme, and so consistent in his extremity, that he shoots himself in the foot whever he opens his mouth. He's got no filters, and is entirely incapable of hiding the hatefulness of his ideas in euphemism, the way the rest of the Right does. He was never a serious contender.

The Republican Party regards Keyes as an occasionally-useful village idiot. They knew Obama was a lock: that's why they didn't bother drafting a real candidate to oppose him. Instead they put him in as a sacrificial lamb, simply to minimize the damage to the Party's reputation by preventing Obama from playing the race card.

Of course, as a columnist from the New Republic pointed out, all Obama really had to do to beat Keyes was to play the Earthling card.

13:26 / 05.11.04

Actually, I think the Republicans were pretty smart about throwing Keyes into the mix in Illinois - he might have lost, but he still got 1.3 million people to vote for him, and he's sticking around to continue attacking Obama's moral right to leadership:

"We are going to be working with folks who have worked with us in the course of this campaign, in order ... to speak to the true priority of the heart of the people of Illinois and elsewhere. That is a moral priority," Keyes said.

A lot of Democrats see Obama as a shining hope for the future; the Republicans know that, and are going after him now. I suspect that might well be the long-term point of using Keyes in Ilinois: the Republicans are vaguely denying him, in the same way that Bush vaguely denied the Swift Boat Veterans, while reaping the benefits of his lies and insanity within that far right, morality-driven voter base that they used to win this last election. Obama is a lock now, but he might not be after four years of Keyes stirring up the shit around him.

Republicans are not stupid. No matter how bat-shit crazy they might sound, they clearly know how to play their audience - and dismissing people like Keyes, and the function they play in attaining the party's overall goals, is part of what cost the Democrats this election (imo, of course).

Sorry for the thread derail. Um, if you're coming to Canada, I've got a spare couch, but you'll have to bring your own parka.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

14:30 / 05.11.04

Come to England. Obviously I can't marry any more of you personally, but I'm sure we've got sofas.

17:56 / 05.11.04

Does anyone know anything about Gibraltar? It seems like the climate might agree with me.

Not ready to go anywhere yet, but it does seem like a good place to raise children for a few years.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

14:33 / 07.11.04

Gibraltar is sort of like a sunnier version of Northern Ireland. We know we should give it back to the people who own it but the inhabitants won't play ball because they're convinced they're part of an empire that doesn't exist any more.

09:39 / 08.11.04

I'd recommend Amsterdam, but the recent murder of a local shit-stirrer is raw meat for the right-wing government here. They're also trying to strip away the last of the rent controls so they can rent the city to yuppies (on their way to the suburbs) and tourists (on their way to everywhere elese).

But screw it, come here anyway, just for the different perspective. They tend not to get over-excited about anything. 1940: Germans bomb Rotterdam and overrun the Dutch Army in a week. Da's jammer (that means "too bad").

09:42 / 08.11.04

As for the Illinois election, Keyes could easily have won in a more conservative state, though more likely in a Congressional than Senate race. Bigger bastards than him have won in other states.

10:59 / 08.11.04

Grant - if its warmer British territory you are looking for then maybe Monserrat would suit - you'd be exchanging hurricanes for the occasional volcanic erruption, but hey...

Or you could go for Pitcairn island but recent recent revelations about local attitudes to underage sex and widespread rape may put you off moving your family there...