Ten Little Chances to be Free (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tenlittlebullets) wrote2004-11-03 10:49 am
tenlittlebullets) wrote2004-11-03 10:49 am
(no subject)
You know what? As soon as I can, I'm fucking out of here. Canada. Germany. Britain. Switzerland. Somewhere. This isn't the idle liberal outcry of "I'm off to Canada if Bush wins;" for one thing, I have full intention of carrying it out, and this isn't about the election.
Okay, I lied. The election factored into it. But it was the straw that broke the camel's back, and there was plenty of weight on the camel before it hit. Shitty interventionist foreign policy. The Patriot Act. A government that will most likely be extremely homophobic and transphobic for years to come, no matter who wins the presidency, because after all who controls Congress? Who's gonna have a stranglehold on the Supreme Court if Bushie wins and gets to appoint more judges? A shitty electoral system. Rabid nationalism.
Yeah, that's what got to me most I think. Nationalism, egotism, a population who largely thinks that America is the only country in the world that matters and everyone else can either bow down or get bombed. "American pride." Flag-waving. We're all living in Amerika. Well, I don't want to anymore.
And I guess I've always, since I was little, wanted to live in another country for a time, even if only to break away from the American-centric worldview. If it just happens to be at a time when America's in its current sociopolitical climate, hey, I'm not complaining. Maybe I'll move back after a while, who knows, but I'm getting cabin fever on a national level.
To that end, although I'm too young to move out, I'm looking at my options for studying abroad. I don't know if sophomores get to do that, but I would like to spend a year at a German university. At any rate, after next year I have the option of staying here for junior and senior years or transferring to another college, and while I'd been looking at Reed before, now I'm seriously considering my options in Canada and Europe. Actual emigration is a bit more distant, because I'm still only 16, but I do want to get the hell out of the USA.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sandwichii, what's the political climate like in Switzerland?
Okay, I lied. The election factored into it. But it was the straw that broke the camel's back, and there was plenty of weight on the camel before it hit. Shitty interventionist foreign policy. The Patriot Act. A government that will most likely be extremely homophobic and transphobic for years to come, no matter who wins the presidency, because after all who controls Congress? Who's gonna have a stranglehold on the Supreme Court if Bushie wins and gets to appoint more judges? A shitty electoral system. Rabid nationalism.
Yeah, that's what got to me most I think. Nationalism, egotism, a population who largely thinks that America is the only country in the world that matters and everyone else can either bow down or get bombed. "American pride." Flag-waving. We're all living in Amerika. Well, I don't want to anymore.
And I guess I've always, since I was little, wanted to live in another country for a time, even if only to break away from the American-centric worldview. If it just happens to be at a time when America's in its current sociopolitical climate, hey, I'm not complaining. Maybe I'll move back after a while, who knows, but I'm getting cabin fever on a national level.
To that end, although I'm too young to move out, I'm looking at my options for studying abroad. I don't know if sophomores get to do that, but I would like to spend a year at a German university. At any rate, after next year I have the option of staying here for junior and senior years or transferring to another college, and while I'd been looking at Reed before, now I'm seriously considering my options in Canada and Europe. Actual emigration is a bit more distant, because I'm still only 16, but I do want to get the hell out of the USA.
sandwichii, what's the political climate like in Switzerland?