This is my first diary! I have been a lurker here for a little over a year. A couple of weeks ago I finally joined and began commenting. My feet are wet and now I am diving into the pool.
About six months ago my wife, my daughter, and I moved to the Philippines from the U.S. My wife is a Filipina so that made immigrating here easy for us. We did it to have a better life. The reasons for this are long and perhaps I will cover them in another diary. I will say that I have met MANY Americans here that came for the same reason, a better life. So much for the mythical American land of prosperity.
But I digress. The point of this diary is that I have told my story to many people and while most progressives understand, agree, and are generally jealous, the response from conservatives is the opposite. The conservative response invariably includes cutting, mean, derogatory remarks about the Philippines. I respond to this by informing them that the Philippines is a Republican paradise.
Want to find out how, keep reading.
The Philippines has very low, almost non existent taxes. The central government is very weak and ineffectual. There are almost no social services, no welfare, no medicaid, no food stamps. Divorce is all but illegal, as is abortion. Even contraception is frowned upon to the point of being practically illegal. Capitalism is free and unbridled. There are no zoning restrictions, no pollution controls, no regulations to speak of. Government operates through capitalism, bribes being the preferred way to get things done. Local governments hire hit men to kill criminals set free by the judicial system. There is almost no middle class. Five families own close to 50% of the stock market and control most of the nations wealth. The masses of poor provide a large pool of cheap and ready labor. There are no unions or pesky safety regulations to worry about.
This is America as Republicans want to be. This is their dream, their paradise. This description quickly shuts up the loud mouth conservatives bashing the Philippines. It is a fairly accurate description and it is the Republican/conservative dream for America. With your massive personal and federal debt levels, your flight of jobs overseas (many of them come here), how long before your country (my country), the U.S., becomes just like here?
You are probably wondering why a socialist progressive, practically communist, like myself would choose to live here. It seems odd to me as well sometimes. However, I think it is one of those paradoxes of life that I found happiness here in this land. Like I said before, it is entire diary, or several, in itself. If anyone is interested I will work on a diary to that effect.
I do want to say that I love the Philippines and its people. They are kind, generous, and hard working. I do not want my description of politics here to make it sound like this is a bad place, it is just the opposite. Like any place on earth it is a complex country with many pros and cons.
My final point is this, progressives need to start talking about what kind of America they want to live in. What kind of place you want America to be. Forget about Bush and the neocons and start getting YOUR VISION across. You also need to start getting people to understand that all those New Deal programs that Republicans love to hate, and love to trash (just like they trash the Philippines), were all that stood between where you are, and where the Philippines are.
What do you think? I am interested