Comments | tongodeon: Why I don't just go live in Canada or something.

tongodeon

Why I don't just go live in Canada or something.

Jul 16, 2006 17:05

I have vague memories of growing up in the late 70s and hearing the phrase "If you think America so bad why don't just you go live in (foreign country) or something?" used against critics of American politics and policy. Some consider Iraq to be this generation's Vietnam, and whether or not that's true I've noticed a resurgence in what I remember ( Read more... )

free speech, activism, politics

Comments 11

mopti July 17 2006, 13:01:36 UTC

Barbara Kingsolver has written an essay (Jabberwocky, published in her book "High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never") about leaving the USA for this kind of reason:

"Once upon a time, a passing stranger sent me into exile. I was downtown in front of the Federal Building with a small crowd assembled to protest war in the Persian Gulf. He was in a black Ford pickup. As the truck roared by, he leaned most of his upper body out of the window to give me a better view of his finger. And he screamed, 'Hey, Bitch, love it or leave it,' so I left."

She moved with her daughter to the Canary Isalnds, but as her essay goes on to explain, she came to see that for her being patriotic meant returning and trying to change her country.

avocado_tom July 17 2006, 16:48:04 UTC

I wholeheartedly agree and came to many of the same conclusions after 6 months in Australia.

I love my country, but definitely consider her a "fixer-upper": lots of potential though.

Good Rant!!! drieuxster July 17 2006, 20:18:59 UTC

The real comedy here, of course, is that the hard corp "love it or leave it" from the vietnam era were also the very same 'draft dodgers' who would wind up in the National Guard at Kent And Jackson State! Not to mention the Chicago Police Riot in 1968, when those avoiding active service in vietnam were cracking the heads of those doubting the utility of sending american boys to do a Job that Asian Boys were unwilling to do. ( which of course comes from the 1964 campaign rhetoric of LBJ... but that of course was lost on too many back then. )

So the currernt round of fiasco-isms from the Devotee's of the Great Vietnam War Heroes like Tom DeLay, Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove, et al, has come from the folks who are still trying to work out why they are still in the rear with the beer, rather than out there 'winning one for the gipper'.

Hence the real challenge is not merely that on 'the left' of "what IS the problem with the democratic party!?!" but the uglier one for us - namely, What will it take to PURGE the GOP of the Wing Nuts? So that ( ... )