America – The Grim Truth
escape from the prison you call home
Americans, I have some bad news for you:
You have the worst quality of life in the developed world – by a wide margin.
If you had any idea of how people really lived in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many parts of Asia, you’d be rioting in the streets calling for a better life. In fact, the average Australian or Singaporean taxi driver has a much better standard of living than the typical American white-collar worker.
I know this because I am an American, and I escaped from the prison you call home.
I have lived all around the world, in wealthy countries and poor ones, and there is only one country I would never consider living in again: The United States of America. The mere thought of it fills me with dread.
Consider this, you are the only people in the developed world without a single-payer health system. Everyone in Western Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand has a single-payer system. If they get sick, they can devote all their energies to getting well. If you get sick, you have to battle two things at once, your illness and the fear of financial ruin. Millions of Americans go bankrupt every year due to medical bills, and tens of thousands die each year because they have no insurance or insufficient insurance. And don’t believe for a second that rot about America having the world’s best medical care or the shortest waiting lists: I’ve been to hospitals in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Singapore, and Thailand, and every one was better than the “good” hospital I used to go to back home. The waits were shorter, the facilities more comfortable, and the doctors just as good.
This is ironic, because you need a good health system more than anyone else in the world. Why? Because your lifestyle is almost designed to make you sick.
Let’s start with your diet: Much of the beef you eat has been exposed to fecal matter in processing. Your chicken is contaminated with salmonella. Your stock animals and poultry are pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics. In most other countries, the government would act to protect consumers from this sort of thing; in the United States, the government is bought off by industry to prevent any effective regulations or inspections. In a few years, the majority of all the produce for sale in the United States will be from genetically modified crops, thanks to the cozy relationship between Monsanto Corporation and the United States government. Worse still, due to the vast quantities of high-fructose corn syrup Americans consume, fully one-third of children born in the United States today will be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes at some point in their lives.
Of course, it’s not just the food that’s killing you, it’s the drugs. If you show any sign of life when you’re young, they’ll put you on Ritalin. Then, when you get old enough to take a good look around, you’ll get depressed, so they’ll give you Prozac. If you’re a man, this will render you chemically impotent, so you’ll need Viagra to get it up. Meanwhile, your steady diet of trans-fat-laden food is guaranteed to give you high cholesterol, so you’ll get a prescription for Lipitor. Finally, at the end of the day, you’ll lay awake at night worrying about losing your health plan, so you’ll need Lunesta to go to sleep.
With a diet guaranteed to make you sick and a health system designed to make sure you stay that way, what you really need is a long vacation somewhere. Unfortunately, you probably can’t take one. I’ll let you in on little secret: if you go to the beaches of Thailand, the mountains of Nepal, or the coral reefs of Australia, you’ll probably be the only American in sight. And you’ll be surrounded crowds of happy Germans, French, Italians, Israelis, Scandinavians and wealthy Asians. Why? Because they’re paid well enough to afford to visit these places AND they can take vacations long enough to do so. Even if you could scrape together enough money to go to one of these incredible places, by the time you recovered from your jetlag, it would time to get on a plane and rush back to your job.
If you think I’m making this up, check the stats on average annual vacation days by country:
Finland: 44
Italy: 42
France: 39
Germany: 35
UK: 25
Japan: 18
USA: 12
The fact is, they work you like dogs in the United States. This should come as no surprise: the United States never got away from the plantation/sweat shop labor model and any real labor movement was brutally suppressed. Unless you happen to be a member of the ownership class, your options are pretty much limited to barely surviving on service-sector wages or playing musical chairs for a spot in a cubicle (a spot that will be outsourced to India next week anyway). The very best you can hope for is to get a professional degree and then milk the system for a slice of the middle-class pie. And even those who claw their way into the middle class are but one illness or job loss away from poverty. Your jobs aren’t secure. Your company has no loyalty to you. They’ll play you off against your coworkers for as long as it suits them, then they’ll get rid of you.
Of course, you don’t have any choice in the matter: the system is designed this way. In most countries in the developed world, higher education is either free or heavily subsidized; in the United States, a university degree can set you back over US$100,000. Thus, you enter the working world with a crushing debt. Forget about taking a year off to travel the world and find yourself – you’ve got to start working or watch your credit rating plummet.
If you’re “lucky,” you might even land a job good enough to qualify you for a home loan. And then you’ll spend half your working life just paying the interest on the loan – welcome to the world of American debt slavery. America has the illusion of great wealth because there’s a lot of “stuff” around, but who really owns it? In real terms, the average American is poorer than the poorest ghetto dweller in Manila, because at least they have no debts. If they want to pack up and leave, they can; if you want to leave, you can’t, because you’ve got debts to pay.
All this begs the question: Why would anyone put up with this? Ask any American and you’ll get the same answer: because America is the freest country on earth. If you believe this, I’ve got some more bad news for you: America is actually among the least free countries on earth. Your piss is tested, your emails and phone calls are monitored, your medical records are gathered, and you are never more than one stray comment away from writhing on the ground with two Taser prongs in your ass.
And that’s just physical freedom. Mentally, you are truly imprisoned. You don’t even know the degree to which you are tormented by fears of medical bankruptcy, job loss, homelessness and violent crime because you’ve never lived in a country where there is no need to worry about such things.
But it goes much deeper than mere surveillance and anxiety. The fact is, you are not free because your country has been taken over and occupied by another government. Fully 70% of your tax dollars go to the Pentagon, and the Pentagon is the real government of the United States. You are required under pain of death to pay taxes to this occupying government. If you’re from the less fortunate classes, you are also required to serve and die in their endless wars, or send your sons and daughters to do so. You have no choice in the matter: there is a socio-economic draft system in the United States that provides a steady stream of cannon fodder for the military.
If you call a life of surveillance, anxiety and ceaseless toil in the service of a government you didn’t elect “freedom,” then you and I have a very different idea of what that word means.
If there was some chance that the country could be changed, there might be reason for hope. But can you honestly look around and conclude that anything is going to change? Where would the change come from? The people? Take a good look at your compatriots: the working class in the United States has been brutally propagandized by jackals like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. Members of the working class have been taught to lick the boots of their masters and then bend over for another kick in the ass. They’ve got these people so well trained that they’ll take up arms against the other half of the working class as soon as their masters give the word.
If the people cannot make a change, how about the media? Not a chance. From Fox News to the New York Times, the mass media in the United States is nothing but the public relations wing of the corporatocracy, primarily the military industrial complex. At least the citizens of the former Soviet Union knew that their news was bullshit. In America, you grow up thinking you’ve got a free media, which makes the propaganda doubly effective. If you don’t think American media is mere corporate propaganda, ask yourself the following question: have you ever heard a major American news outlet suggest that the country could fund a single-payer health system by cutting military spending?
If change can’t come from the people or the media, the only other potential source of change would be the politicians. Unfortunately, the American political process is among the most corrupt in the world. In every country on earth, one expects politicians to take bribes from the rich. But this generally happens in secret, behind the closed doors of their elite clubs. In the United States, this sort of political corruption is done in broad daylight, as part of legal, accepted, standard operating procedure. In the United States, they merely call these bribes campaign donations, political action committees and lobbyists. One can no more expect the politicians to change this system than one can expect a man to take an axe and chop his own legs out from underneath him.
No, the United States of America is not going to change for the better. The only change will be for the worse. And when I say worse, I mean much worse. As we speak, the economic system that sustained the country during the post-war years is collapsing. The United States maxed out its “credit card” sometime in 2008 and now its lenders, starting with China, are in the process of laying the foundations for a new monetary system to replace the Anglo-American “petro-dollar” system. As soon as there is a viable alternative to the US dollar, the greenback will sink like a stone.
While the United States was running up crushing levels of debt, it was also busy shipping its manufacturing jobs and white-collar jobs overseas, and letting its infrastructure fall to pieces. Meanwhile, Asian and European countries were investing in education, infrastructure and raw materials. Even if the United States tried to rebuild a real economy (as opposed to a service/financial economy) do think American workers would ever be able to compete with the workers of China or Europe? Have you ever seen a Japanese or German factory? Have you ever met a Singaporean or Chinese worker?
There are only two possible futures facing the United States, and neither one is pretty. The best case is a slow but orderly decline – essentially a continuation of what’s been happening for the last two decades. Wages will drop, unemployment will rise, Medicare and Social Security benefits will be slashed, the currency will decline in value, and the disparity of wealth will spiral out of control until the United States starts to resemble Mexico or the Philippines – tiny islands of wealth surrounded by great poverty (the country is already halfway there).
Equally likely is a sudden collapse, perhaps brought about by a rapid flight from the US dollar by creditor nations like China, Japan, Korea and the OPEC nations. A related possibility would be a default by the United States government on its vast debt. One look at the financial balance sheet of the US government should convince you how likely this is: governmental spending is skyrocketing and tax receipts are plummeting – something has to give. If either of these scenarios plays out, the resulting depression will make the present recession look like a walk in the park.
Whether the collapse is gradual or gut-wrenchingly sudden, the results will be chaos, civil strife and fascism. Let’s face it: the United States is like the former Yugoslavia – a collection of mutually antagonistic cultures united in name only. You’ve got your own version of the Taliban: right-wing Christian fundamentalists who actively loathe the idea of secular Constitutional government. You’ve got a vast intellectual underclass that has spent the last few decades soaking up Fox News and talk radio propaganda, eager to blame the collapse on Democrats, gays and immigrants. You’ve got a ruthless ownership class that will use all the means at its disposal to protect its wealth from the starving masses.
On top of all that you’ve got vast factory farms, sprawling suburbs and a truck-based shipping system, all of it entirely dependent on oil that is about to become completely unaffordable. And you’ve got guns. Lots of guns. In short: the United States is about to become a very unwholesome place to be.
Right now, the government is building fences and walls along its northern and southern borders. Right now, the government is working on a national ID system (soon to be fitted with biometric features). Right now, the government is building a surveillance state so extensive that they will be able to follow your every move, online, in the street and across borders. If you think this is just to protect you from “terrorists,” then you’re sadly mistaken. Once the shit really hits the fan, do you really think you’ll just be able to jump into the old station wagon, drive across the Canadian border and spend the rest of your days fishing and drinking Molson? No, the government is going to lock the place down. They don’t want their tax base escaping. They don’t want their “recruits” escaping. They don’t want YOU escaping.
I am not writing this to scare you. I write this to you as a friend. If you are able to read and understand what I’ve written here, then you are a member of a small minority in the United States. You are a minority in a country that has no place for you.
So what should you do?
You should leave the United States of America.
If you’re young, you’ve got plenty of choices. You can teach English in the Middle East, Asia or Europe. Or you can go to university or graduate school abroad and start building skills that will qualify you for a work visa. If you’ve already got some real work skills, you can apply to emigrate to any number of countries as a skilled immigrant. If you are older and you’ve got some savings, you can retire to a place like Costa Rica or the Philippines. If you can’t qualify for a work, student or retirement visa, don’t let that stop you – travel on a tourist visa to a country that appeals to you and talk to the expats you meet there. Whatever you do, go speak to an immigration lawyer as soon as you can. Find out exactly how to get on a path that will lead to permanent residence and eventually citizenship in the country of your choice.
You will not be alone. There are millions of Americans just like me living outside the United States. Living lives much more fulfilling, peaceful, free and abundant than we ever could have attained back home. Some of us happened upon these lives by accident – we tried a year abroad and found that we liked it – others made a conscious decision to pack up and leave for good. You’ll find us in Canada, all over Europe, in many parts of Asia, in Australia and New Zealand, and in most other countries of the globe. Do we miss our friends and family? Yes. Do we occasionally miss aspects of our former country? Yes. Do we plan on ever living again in the United States? Never. And those of us with permanent residence or citizenship can sponsor family members from back home for long-term visas in our adopted countries.
In closing, I want to remind you of something – unless you are an American Indian or a descendant of slaves, at some point your ancestors chose to leave their homeland in search of a better life. They weren’t traitors and they weren’t bad people, they just wanted a better life for themselves and their families. Isn’t it time that you continue their journey?
This article first appeared on Information Clearing House and has been reporoduced with their kind permission
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There is no saying that a neighborhood is bad or a certain part of a city is bad without automatically saying the people there are bad. The only reason any neighborhood is bad is because the people living there make it so. In america the people are bad. The american lower socio-economic class isn’t just monetarily poor but poor in ethics, morals, intelligence and basic humanity.
The united states is a crime ridden nation full of disgusting gang members and junkies who all too often get away with most anything. The middle socio-economic class is just as bad in it’s own special way. Apathetic and generally clueless, these sick, sadistic amerisheeple will never care about anything going on around them unless it directly affects them in one way or another.
The song lyrics to “Piggies” by the Beatles are perfectly applicable to present day america. Much more so now in fact than when it first came out. It’s a nation full of sick, sadistic, selfish, apathetic, barbaric and most of all deviant, derelict, degenerate, depraved CRIMINAL mindless sheeple dirt bags. The americans make me sick (for one reason among many others) because they are so TOTALLY phony and deceptive!
They’re a bunch of clicky (as in clique) conformist pig sheep who conduct themselves in a manner that is anything BUT what their goodfella politicians say that they are. All of these pigs put their hands on their miniscule rotten hearts and mumble the words “with liberty and justice for all” and will NEVER in their destructive and wicked lives live up to those words for even one day.
They can’t even keep their pledge to this country and what it means and yet are still so idiotic that they expect one another to be able to keep their wedding vows. They idolize criminals and mafia members and they are perpetually fascinated with serial killers and abominable fiends. They have turned
this place into a giant “bad neighborhood” where anything goes which then enables the “bigger piggies”
to turn this place into a giant prison where anything still goes.
Their elected politicians and senators who themselves are nothing more than a bunch of mafia members group of all of them together as “the american people” saying what good little silent lambs they are. How much they care about freedom and justice and liberty and rrraaaalph. Nothing could be further from the truth. I don’t even know these creeple anymore. They’ve become nothing more than a bunch of corrupt and evil frauds who are perfectly comfortable with being as phony as you can possibly imagine and constantly living a lie and perpetrating lies.
I realized that I’m not the real or true american here but that they are. That they’ve always been the real and true americans here. Lie, steal, kill, rob, cheat, swindle, violate, harass, trespass, intrude, destroy, wreck, ruin, defraud, vandalize, alienate, isolate, subtract, divide, raid, pillage, decimate. That’s a real american right there. This country is bad because it’s full of very bad people. The americans are total phonies and they make me sick.
The article was very good and presented a real understanding of what is going on here. This place is full of degenerate derelict sewage whose lives are anything except for what the founding documents of this country say they’re SUPPOSED to be. “a collection of mutually antagonistic cultures united in name only.” Eloquently put!
They’re all so fake and they’re all comfortable somehow with posing as something other than that. Standing together with fake moronic smiles and with their filthy pig hooves held over their rotten, demonic, plastic chicken hearts while a song plays that half of them don’t even know the words to anyways. Not that it would matter if they did for they will never be able to live up to what this country was SUPPOSED to be about or stand for.
In India they have a saying in regards to americans. “35=10″ Meaning that if an american is thirty five years old that he will have the mentality of a ten year old. In my experience this is absolutely true. This is how they keep their tempers with americans when they get berated and yelled at over the telephone. By being mindful of the fact that they’re being mistreated by a spoiled rotten overgrown infant.
PROVING that the majority of them don’t really care about this country at all but they will lie and say they do from behind their phony red, white and blue masks. I think that americans are total scum bags both figuratively and literally. It’s never the place it’s the people. These people here are apathetic, barbaric, low class, sick, sadistic, criminal dirt bags.
It sounds like you really hate America.
I think it’s time for you to leave.
NOW.
We don’t need your ilk here to make things better.
Lets give the above poster some slack, that is one of our problems as Americans, we are so quick to jump on anyone that has a negative view of our country and want them to just get the hell out and yet we sopoused to stand for freedom and liberty, that includes one to freely express their opinion.
Anyone who uses the word “sheeple” is a moron. Even worse is the asshole who wrote the term, “amerisheeple,” and doubtlessly considers himself especially clever. Words can’t express my hate for this person.
Lance,
In response to your article, we are feeling the same way as you. My husband and I served in the US military and stayed for over 20 years to earn a retirement income. We feel that now IS the time to leave America, not because we hate it, but because we don’t like the way the US is conducting business. It is a war against the middle class and the poor. It is a war against the unions. it is a war against getting a decent education-without going bankrupt to do so We are leaving so we can save ourselves and save what little we have left to survive.
We are very active in trying to prevent a total downslide in this country, but our elected officials have other ideas and are not listening to the voice of the people. They continue to bail out the “too big to fail”, starting so called “wars on terrorism”, a huge military industrial war machine that just won’t stop, destroying and busting up unions, not helping public schools and not really teaching our kids anything but to take standardized tests, our infrastrusture is collapsing, and much, much more.
Read the book: Third World America by Arianna Huffington-awesome and true.
Most people in this country have no idea about how our monetary system works, nor do they know that the Federal Reserve is not part of our government. The Board of Govenors to the Fed is appointed by the president of the US but the Federal Reserve is a private banking cartel. They answer to no one and that is a huge problem. The people of the US are paying back interest only on the money our government is borrowing and we will never be out of debt-ever.Until we, the people, take back our monetary system just like JFK tried to do, we will be stuck,
http://www.endthefed.com
As the saying goes-”He who has the gold–RULES” and the eltie have all the power in this country. Our elected officials are very beholding to the corperations that donated to their campaigns, and that includes Obama. My husband and I figured out that it doesn’t matter which party is in power, Republican or Democrats, our country is being run by the bankers, corperations, and the elite. Period.
We are moveing to either Panama or Ecuador, but are leaning towards Panama since they have a very good infrastructure, great health care facilities, affordable homes for rent (furnished) for $500 a month, cheap food, public transportation that allows you not to have a car, and the weather is paradise. Why not?
We are leaving in August or Sept. 2011 from Fort Worth,TX. We plan to sell all our things and go.
Maybe one day, I hope, the US will be better for all peoples, but we feel that we have done all we can, except fight in a revolution, which will come some day, soon we hope.
Link to End The Fed
http://endthefedusa.ning.com/
Hope you will have a better life there Debbie.I am from Belgium, but I follow the ugly US-banksters politics on their heels,and I don’t like it what I see coming on us all,people of the world.Have a good life-Willie
A stunning reality of life in America!
Being a Brit married to an American and being a regular visitor to family and people that actually live there I can see some of the points you are making, but please do not go down the route of a National Health Service like here in Britain because it’s quite frankly crap, you need health insurance as WELL to make sure you get a good standard of care. I don’t know about other systems in the other parts of the world, but don’t let it be run by government please.
I think you should look up John James Cowperthwaite, a British civlil servant sent to run HonKong back in the 60′s who is now a hero for most of China and Asia in the way he did things. This is the way the US, UK and all the west should be heading, not your ‘workers revolutions’ and such nonsense, let all people have all their own money and decide their own lives. Please google him and research and stop moaning as you still have a much freer country than anywhere in Europe with the eu trying to control everything.
SO STOP MOANING AND DO SOME RESEARCH AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
future expat,
you’re right. we have been living a bullshit lie for decades.
I remember what a british lady visiting here in virginia told me one time. she said, “why do americans all look so sad”? this was so telling, because we are. why? because we are living a lie.
lance freeman, the writier of this article, is correct. you go to places across the world, and you won’t see americans in the happy resorts of the world. how ironic…….
i lived in germany for two years in the military, and was happier than ever. i didn’t want to go back to the states. it was like having to go back into a gang, and when you do, they kill you for leaving.
we are the most brainwashed people in the world. i’ve always thought that, and i was right…..
I agree with much of what you say except for the part about education. In countries with free university education you only go to college if you are selected to do so. By the teenage years you will be tracked into either college bound or be destined for the trades. This leaves a lot of late bloomers out in the cold. In the US you can go to college at any age. So if you don’t get your act together and figure out what you want to do until you are 30 or even later you can still have a professional career. My ex is in law school at 59!
Good luck. IF your husband can get a decent job in law and IF he didn’t have to rely on student loans, good luck in going for the lost American Dream. But if — like many in middle class America who were trying to better themselves and our society — he had to rely on student loans for that education, you may find yourself considering the only options available for those who cannot pay: suicide or leaving the country. I’m going for the latter. I’m going where my mind and my contributions are valued … and rewarded. Sadly, that is not in the U.S. any longer.
Leaving is a good idea. However, why leave when what this country truly needs is a second Revolution?
They the elite controllers are way ahead of you on that idea my friend, a revolution (if you are talking about taking up arms) will not work this time, you will be out gunned, and it would be the perfect excuse for the elite to wipe you folks off the map, lock this nation down even tighter. The American people as a whole dont have any fight in them, best thing to do is save yourself and those that are willing to be saved. Chow my friend.
Obama and his bankster masters have put the US on the fast track to destruction. What’s next? A “crisis created’ Enabling Act to give the executive branch & co complete control? Doesn’t look good for anyone who wants independence. Panama here we come.
Lance,
I’m 33 and an American. I’ve perceived the hypocrisies of America for most of my adult life and know that it is an empire on the brink of collapse.
However, I don’t understand why you advise young people to relocate to other countries when skyrocketing oil prices, a plummeting dollar, and uncontrollable debt will bring down the entire industrial economy, not just that of the US.
I have little money saved, mainly because I’ve chosen not to participate in the global industrial economy, which is killing the planet at staggering rates.
That said, I have a superb liberal-arts education and a sound mathematical education. I want to move abroad, but won’t the chaos that forms the death knell to the US spread rapidly to other Western countries, all of which are closely tied to the US economically?
If anyone else has insight, please let me know. I am actively looking for a way to live peacefully and frugally abroad. Buying property is probably not an option. If your suggestion is to teach English, please say why you think the country you recommend won’t be pulled into the abyss into which the US is forging headlong.
Without a doubt, the US has enormous problems. With the value of assets owned by the US populace being siphoned off by banking interests who climb on the shoulders of US citizens in order to hold their thieving noses above water, no one can deny that the standard of living in the US has not only taken a hit but is likely to be lower for decades to come. But let’s be clear — Europe East and West and all other developed economies are takiing — or will take — a hit too. And the amenities you describe such as one-payer health care systems, must be paid for by someone. In economies other than the US, who is it that pays? The Rich. I doubt it. The Poor. Nope. The Middle Class? If countries other than the US have healthy economies, I’ll chew off my own right hand. Someone has to pay for all those amenities, joker. I don’t know where the money’s coming from, but I’ll bet things aren’t very rosy right now in Europe or anywhere else people who read this article are heading or have headed. There are no panaceas for anyone that devolve from the swindle(s) that have been going on and apparenly are going to continue.
It might be better to be someplace less populated that offers opportunities to grow one’s own food year round or gather what’s supplied by nature, but all places not only have their problems right now but likely will develop more problems as the slow-motion train wreck continues to unwind. Until the fiat currency problem is solved that’s the way it’s going to be: debt everywhere, menial AND professional jobs disappearing, and the possibility of sovereign nations’ foundations collapsing. The fiat-currency-backed party’s over, and so are its “benefits”. Now come the inevitable consequences. It’s a very big shit sandwich; eat up.
I agree with most of what you say 100 percent. But getting out of here is difficult, especially if, like me, you’ve been laid off three times in the past two years due to corporate downsizing and outsourcing, and can barely meet your expenses. Most countries require you to have a good chunk of change saved to emigrate in. In addition there is anti-immigration sentiment throughout much of the world right now that is making it harder and harder to re-locate. As I’ve investigated getting out, I find it is very difficult unless you are, 1. at least relatively wealthy, and/or 2. young, and/or 3. a computer expert, which is where most of the jobs for foreigners seem to be. I’d get out of this right-wing prison in a heart beat if I could, but it’s very hard, and the last thing I want to do is move someplace improperly and wind up in legal trouble in a foreign country.
What EFA needs is practical, nuts-and-bolts information for the many of us readers who aren’t wealthy execs just looking to avoid taxes. Where are there ex-pat communities that will help working-class Americans get on their feet? How do we find jobs? (Most of the ones listed on this newsletter are either bogus or just sales pitches for some investment scheme). Maybe ex-pat organizations exist which, for a small fee, will help you get re-located, offer temporary housing for instance and support. If not, there should be. My kids and I dream of escaping from corporate America. I’m 54 but I can still work and I’m willing to work my tail off if I can just get something to show for it, which will never happen here. But I fear I will die a pauper in cut-throat America unless one of us wins the lottery. When your job keeps getting eliminated, how do you come up with the funds to go anywhere?
I hear so much hate directed towards us Americans, but to categorize all Americans based of the Sheeple masses is not only ignorant but betrays the values your trying to hold dear. Saying were all crap because so many are bad is funny, because it makes you sound like one of the sheepled Americans. Like Michel above I have been beating my head against the wall, trying to figure a logical and legal way out of the country. I love what this country should of stood for, and what it used to stand for, but when i look around, no one gives a rats ass about anything going on around them unless it directly intervenes with there shiny plastic bubble of an existence.
There is a minority that cares, you’ve seen them. They usually have dreds and sing songs and get harassed by others based merely of appearances, and others who have conformed to the sheeple to provide for their family, but are all aware of whats really happening around us. How the elites are ruling everything and how our voices in such small numbers are not being heard. But that’s the game. Don’t any of you realize they want you to feel defeated? They want you to think there’s nothing you could possibly do to make a difference? what could one person do? what did one person ever do? Forget Rosa parks, Martin Luther King, or any of the other true heroes in history, in our country or even heroes around the world, that against so many, stood against the wave of tyranny.
A simple Landslide starts with but one pebble.
I’ve read several treatises similar to this one, but Lance’s analysis, bland and bluntly direct, is one of the best because I found myself not just reading it, but internalizing it as one directly affected by the dire news he presents which is all too true.
But the most timely information came from one of the responders. Most of you recognize all too well the predicaments we are in as Americans. Some seem to still be in the docile fog the ruling classes want to keep you in. Laura Rice is indeed right in her assertion about free university education in European countries (I don’t know about Canada, Australia or New Zealand). In their systems, only the elite can go or at least only the brilliant. It no longer takes much intellectual bravado to go to uni in the States. It just takes money. And Skenner was right about in questioning how your husband is managing the costs. Sure, it’s great that he can go to law school at 59, but who’s paying for it? If he is, great. If he’s on student loans … how many years does he have left to get a return on that investment? In any case, good luck getting a good job past 60.
JC, we can already see from examples in England, Greece and Spain what may happen if/when the rest of the developed world sinks as low as we have. They won’t end up living in slavery as we do because the people won’t let it happen. They’ll be out in the streets by the tens of thousands, possibly the millions by the time the shit really hits the fan. In other countries, people get out in the streets when they’re kicked; Americans do not — or at least don’t anymore. The working classes in other countries fight directly with the powerful who kick them; the American working classes (the disappearing middle class included) fight only each other or those below them. As other responders said, they have been very well taught by their masters who to blame.
As for the first responder, I don’t have anything to say except to reiterate what Kevin said about freedom of expression. We’re losing that, too, remember. And Charles Dunbar, hate is exactly what our masters want us to do — with each other. That way we won’t point our fingers toward them.
But the response that resonated with me was the one that actually had an idea. Michael Passe, how many more working-class Americans are there like you who would dearly love to leave this country and settle elsewhere, legally, and be able to earn a living? I’ll hazard the number is close to a million and quite possibly many more. But you are the first one I’ve read about who suggests not only that EFA try to find information for us and not just those with assets, but that there be an expat organization designed to help us.
It could be along the lines of our settlement houses of old, where new immigrants came when they arrived for shelter, food, contacts and job assistance. They don’t exist anymore here, of course (or I don’t know of them), but somehow they managed to exist then. Who funded them, I wonder? Who could possibly fund something similar now for American immigrants to other developed countries? Everyone thinks all American immigrants abroad are people of assets. Not so. There are so many more of us than them, people who would dearly love to go, properly and legally, but who just lack the start-up funds. Perhaps some of those with assets would find this a worthwhile cause to contribute to, in addition to any other causes they may assist.
I can’t even go back to California where I lived before I moved abroad 11 years ago. I can’t afford to. I was hospitalized during my last Japan teaching stint last year (yes, I was able to pay for it there, I couldn’t have here), but the illness cost me my job, as it was brand new and the company didn’t want to absorb the cost of a new employee’s illness. After I recovered, I ran out of money before I was able to find a new job, and had to return “home” to the States — where after a harrowing year of job hunting and imposing on my sister’s already overcrowded house, this 57-year-old degreed woman with years of professional experience and bad knees ended up toiling in a factory for close to minimum. There’s nothing else out there anymore. What there is requires background I just don’t have and can’t afford to obtain. I’m $25,000 in debt. Forget paying it off. I can’t even afford to go bankrupt! I’m not in work today because the brakes on my car went out. I can’t afford to replace them. The car is old and was bought shortly after I arrived here with the last of my credit. There is no public transportation in this area and I work at night. If I do not find someone to help me pay for this car repair, I will be homeless within a month. Not would be. Will be.
I’m breathless with it all. The stress is absolutely killing me. The loss of hope is the worst.
A “vast intellectual underclass”? You bet. Lance couldn’t have described it better. For all the emails I get from splinter organizations (most of them extremely respectable and headed by well-meaning, compassionate people) wanting to get out there and change things, the majority of Americans are too brainwashed, and these groups will remain on the fringes. It doesn’t matter what they do — organize rallies where hundreds may show up (a drop in the population bucket for us), get together for little “house parties” where intelligent people throw around ideas but it will never change anything because they’re nowhere near the majority. It will take nothing short of absolute collapse, where the ruling class is also affected, for our system to change.
Especially in the case of us older folks, we need to be looking out for ourselves and any loved ones willing to follow us. I want very badly to get back abroad asap. I also want to see my California friends again after eight years of not seeing them, but I must get back abroad. Soon. Before it’s too late and I’m really locked in.
So if there’s no expat settlement organization currently existing, Michael, perhaps we should start one. We have no money but others do. How many other expats feel as we do, KNOW as we do, and have something to contribute? Perhaps we should communicate privately and find out …
All the best,
Ana
The amusing thing about the Lance type haters is that he thinks other countries are better. Show me country full of (good) people. I have traveled the world extensively and lived in Latin America for 8. The crime and political problems are much worse there. I guess its tough being a perfect person like Lance in such cruel world. Hey Lance I understand the North Koreans are nice, why dont you move there ?