My first diary on DKos, published in December 2004, started with this paragraph:
In the fall of 2002 I started asking myself the question, "Knowing what I know now, when would I have left Germany before WWII?" Would it have been with the rise of the military-worshipping culture? Would it have followed the putsch? Would the anti-semitism have driven me away? All of those would have been fine reasons, but I think I would have left Germany as soon as I understood that I was personally in danger because of my oppostion to the government, non-violent though it may be.
I left the US in 2006... and I won't be back soon. After the jump I explain why.
This week I learned that over 1 million names are on the terrorist watch list, names like Robert Johnson and Gary Smith. Then today I visited DKos and learned via Lisa Lockwood's fine diary that US citizens can be held without charges in Mr. Bush's Orwellian nation.
I continued, in that first diary:
Is it selfishness or paranoia to want to live my life and practice my art? Is fighting against fascism more important than loving my wife? What do I owe to the rest of you? What do you owe to me? I think I want you all to be happy, and if that means we all move to Spain (they already had their Inquisition, afterall), well, let's go. But hear and believe this: the keepers of the tables in the temple are not going to give up power without a fight to the death.
I'm currently in the UK and it surprises me how the Europeans I meet are so certain that Obama is going to win the election. I'm not so sure - I certainly hope you guys are able to pull it off but I stopped making predictions after 2000, when I told all my international friends, with a laugh, that the US would never elect Bush President. Joke's on us.
Being an international traveler, having been one all my life, maybe I'm more sensitive to the idea of being on a "No-Fly List" than many others. It's not a risk I'm willing to take. I hate the idea that so many Americans - not just their criminal "leaders", are willing to kill every human being on the planet to feel more "secure" in their backyard. As I put it in an earlier diary,
How many innocents should we be prepared to kill to increase the illusion of our safety? I fear the war enthusiast's answer is "everyone but me and my family". Cowards.
So... all that's left for me and my conscience is to stay out here in the world and remind the people I meet what I wrote when I left:
The fact is that present day America is made up of the ancestors (and their offspring) of the very peoples we now oppress (yes, I said oppress. I've seen too much to be naive about American actions in the world). It's amazing the way we've screwed over the old homelands in our race to be the richest and most comfortable nation in the world. But it's people, not Americans who have done it... we killed and marginalized all the real Americans before we turned our attentions to the old homelands, after all.
I'll stay out here and live my life, trying to convince those I meet that the US isn't an evil monolith, while you good people do your best to change the system. But I certainly won't blame you if you decide to do as I've done... and flee the metaphorical Hun.