It's Time To Flee The Country
Words By Chalmers Johnson
When I was a graduate student at Berkeley in the mid-1950s, my teachers included many brilliant refugees from Hitler's Germany. Sometimes, when we got to know them personally, we would ask them when they had bailed out. In some cases it was quite late. My professor Reinhard Bendix was a student at the University of Chicago in 1938 when his parents told him not to come home. Others left even later, some first heading to Cuba and others leaving only when it was almost too late.
My wife and I used to puzzle over these decisions (my wife herself had survived four years of Nazi occupation in Holland), and we toyed with constructing what we called a "Fascistograph"--a sort of checklist of social and political phenomena that might tell someone when to leave. I wish we had pursued our intellectual game more seriously, because I have the feeling that such a checklist might come in handy right now.
I see very little hope for America regardless of who is elected in November. All the candidates remaining in the race have said they will not "cut and run" in Iraq and Afghanistan. One may speculate that once in office, one or another candidate may be more flexible, but this is actually unlikely. The Republicans have swallowed both wars hook, line, and sinker, and the Democrats know that if they propose any sort of pullout they will be labeled "defeatists" and blamed for the miserable outcome. And, as many pundits have pointed out, the outcome is bound to be miserable either now or later. More civilians will be killed; more regions, tribes, or towns will turn to their own leaders--instead of to the elected national officials--for protection; more weapons will fuel whatever hatreds are being nursed against others in the region and most certainly against the United States. Isn't it ironic that we came to Iraq to "free" its people from a Sunni minority dictatorship, and we're now arming these same Sunnis against a Shiite majority? Isn't it ironic that the hated Taliban did a much better job of controlling the cultivation of opium poppies than the government we put in place in Kabul?
The disasters we've visited on the people of the Middle East are something for which we're ultimately responsible, much as blame for the Holocaust belongs to the Nazi regime and the Rape of Nanking to the wartime Japanese government. But I fear much worse is to come domestically. The lies of the Bush government that got us into these two wars, and the propaganda and public misinformation that continue to keep us there have had a corrosive effect on public trust. Many people no longer believe anything the government or the media tells them. So far this cynicism has not penetrated deeply into the ranks of the armed services. But I suspect that before long it will. As the wars drag on and the deployments stretch out, as the casualties continue with no end in sight, and as it becomes clear how poorly these casualties are cared for once they come home, our military--including the National Guard--will become demoralized and very angry. They should be angry for being used as they are; we should be angry for them.
In addition to our moral bankruptcy, there is fiscal bankruptcy. The Bush government talks about the burst housing bubble but says nothing about the obscene military budgets that are driving our entire economy deeper into debt. It will probably take a major financial crisis on par with the Great Depression to reorient our economy in a more productive direction. Unfortunately, I don't hear any viable candidate talking like FDR.
In short, I think our ship of state is heading for a mammoth iceberg. Just as many people in 1930s Germany were, I'm too old to leave and will probably go down with the ship. But if I were younger, I would be thinking of bailing out. Vote, if you must, in November, but don't expect that things will change much, let alone get better.
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Where would one go anyway? What's your recommendation? Where would you go?
Well, I hate to be the practical voice in this but where ya gonna go? The exchange rate for the dollar is in the tank. Canada? If you are a person of "means" then sure...but if you're middle class, even if you can sell your home here to have the money to go, what you could buy in Canada these days is marginal.
I'm not stupid, nor am I asleep. I can be declared a domestic terrorist at any moment. I have publicly spoken out against the war in Iraq. That's all it takes to be declared a domestic terrorist. Lately, I've been yelling for impeachment. God knows what sort of designation THAT gets ya.
If anyone has a bright idea on where to go or how to get us out of what is coming...I
I can't BELIEVE we're having this conversation in such a matter of fact way. Surreal.
Menopausal Mick
So this is it, eh?
Even Chalmers Johnson no less, says it's time to get out.
I had Canadian permanent residency papers and then my mother became too infirm. And I can't and won't leave her nor my two sons, one of whom is autistic and could not get into Canada anyway as I found out.
OK we stay and fight. But all of you need to understand one thing. At some point 'fight' means not just with votes when votes no longer matter.
What we need in this country is to rediscover our true revolutionary roots and spirit. When Patrick Henry said "I know not what course others may take; but give me liberty or give me death" he was not blowing smoke on CNN. All of our founding fathers would have been hung if they had not succeeded.
To understand the nature of what might be coming down the pike you should read this article:
http://tin
I am truly sorry that the country I grew up in is now a fading memory. It was fun. But nostalgia will not feed the bulldog as it were. Bravery will be the order of the day. If we truly love that which we profess we do: freedom, liberty, decency, then we have no choice but to get mad and yes, get mean. We are in a streetfight for our country and our very lives now.
my blog: http://bad
Hey step back and put things in perspective. Doom and gloom and cynicism are not the way. Stay and fight. We need to take our country back - quit being so lazy and give up the fight. This country is too big to control the way Hitler controlled Germany. It's all done in the mind - what you believe.
Quit being part of the problem
I am afraid too. Watching this campaign is like watching a theatre of the absurd play. It is time to get out.
You have dug up the unfortunate truth.
Ok, now I'm scared. This article was a little dark, you think??? Still, I know that these things have a way of snowballing, and I am the kind of person that might be in trouble. I have been on many atheist and liberal web sites and I have donated to certain causes that wouldn't be looked upon kindly by W et al. I also know that some Jewish people, in Nazi Germany, had a false sense of security that lead to their downfall.
But still!!!!! (If anything happens to me or my family, I'm blaming my 77 year old father. He voted for W....twice
Arghhhh!!!
We're going to take this country back. Period. Those who have used and abused America, its people and millions of others from around the world... for far too long, know it however. So this next chapter won't be easy. Stick around.
This is the bars that Bush/Cheney/Rove and Bush1 have wrought.
It's very scary sir. I too know some who fled Germany and whose nuclear families were extinguished. I agree that now is still a safe time to leave. But I also recall the advice of Sun Tsu to cut off escape to bring out the ferocity in his warriors. They must fight or perish. Cutting off their alternatives by burning the means of escape will do that to them. Never did I feel this more than now. The nation is not yet cutting off means of escape so the strong and smart will leave. That will make it easier to achieve complete control over us when they do finally cut off the border escape routes. Maybe we should chose to fight now, and by that decision cut off our own escape routes, surprising those who would destroy our once human and democratic nation, as we turn on them, and ultimately imprison them for their crimes against our nation.
If we flee, we cede the battle to Evil.
Me ... I will stay and fight for Principle and Honour, rather than allow Evil to grow, uncontested
Never in my life would I expect someone to write articles like this about America.
If we flee, we cede the battle to Evil.
Me ... I will stay and fight for Principle and Honour, rather than allow Evil to grow, uncontested.
don't forget, not even fdr "talked like fdr" until after march 4th, 1933.
I couldn't agree more. In fact, I did leave the country for Canada 3 years ago.
And we miss you here Pasty(?). While I fear the worst, I still hope for the better course. I wrote in my diary two scenarios, last September, and the better one may be playing out, although the worse one is still possible. You were in a good position to leave. Good luck to you, and the family you left in Amerika.
You go where you look!
OK, big picture...
Corporations have spent almost 80 years brainwashing our citizens, mostly to buy cornflakes. But always whispering in OUR ears using OUR broadcast airwaves.
The last 30 years or more, a lot of that corporate message has been to feed our consumerism and to keep our heads down and our mouths shut. Our pioneering, revolutionary country got locked down. Little by little, laws have been written to make revolution of any kind illegal.
Corporations (and in the past, Big Money FatCats) have always had a huge influence on our govt. At least old FatCats died once in a while. Corporations don't die. They now own our govt. The huge pool of resources that are country provides is theirs for the taking. Our crops and money and investments and financial instruments are all gathered into one huge heap, ostensibly guarded by the govt, but actually being plundered mercilessly by the corporations who have manouvered and bought their way up to the trough.
It is fascism. The need for the Corps to get the people to conform. The disinformation. Actually fascism, as one of it's symptoms, is a melding of govt. and corporate. But this is not like Hitler, even if so much of it is familiar. This is Corporate Fascism. We are a CROP to them. We are to be mined, harvested.
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Posted May 21, 2008 | 07:49 AM (EST)