I can't live in this country anymore.

[OliverQ]

I hate it. It's a cesspool. It's broken. It's corrupt.

I wish I could leave, but I have no means to get into another country. It's all so freakin depressing.

[donkeypoofed]

1. Take a bus to Canada

We have free healthcare and good jobs available too! We also know that a country needs immigration to sustain itself for future generations -so come on up. It doesn't matter what colour your skin is either.

[OliverQ]

3. Canada won't take me unless I have a highly skilled position like medicine or computers.

Same issue in most countries.

[BigmanPigman]

7. A lot of people don't realize that.

If countries were giving away free healthcare and higher education they would be inundated with too many people. I think the nordic countries have the best systems. They have equality of the sexes, they genuinely care about climate change, they have a great quality of life, and they aren't greedy. Anthony Bourdain went to Sweden and they have a word that means "content". They don't want "more, more, more" and to "beat the little guy" like in the US. They are happy to lead a content life...I like that philosophy.

[roamer65]

11. Greed is what is truly killing this country.

We are not happy if we don’t have more than everyone else...money, things, etc.

[Celerity]

16. lagom

[BigmanPigman]

45. Thank you!

[FM123]

38. Yes, I like that philosophy too....

[pintobean]

34. Maybe you can sneak across their border

and work for cash.

[democratisphere]

31. Sounds like Utopia when compared to this mess of a former nation.

[struggle4progress]

2. .

I don't feel safe in this world no more. I don't want to die in a nuclear war.
I want to sail away to a distant shore and make like an Apeman.

[WhiteTara]

4. Flight or fight

If you can't run; you have to fight. This is a marathon; evil never lets up. Find some green space. Sit under a tree, feel the air; the world still exists and when you're recovered, move with greater resolve to do what you can for a better world.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

37. "Find some green space."

Excellent advice.

While I was sitting just inside the door of my garage tonight, where I take my breaks ...

There is a beautiful spider web over my head. The spider tried for 2 nights to attach it to the back of my chair and I kept breaking the strand when I'd move. She finally attached it to a steel hook I hung from an overhead joist. It gives a slight bend to the web, but doesn't hurt the effectiveness.

There is a wasp nest at about head level on the rough-sawn board wall about 3 feet away. I watched it being built over the summer and watched the population on it grow. There's a whole community of light red-orange wasps with dark metallic blue wings. I'm pretty sure they're used to me.

A big toad hopped from out of sight onto my electric pruning chainsaw on the floor. It stayed there while I grabbed my camera and came back to snap a few shots. (The camera flash malfunctioned so it took a few to get a decent picture).

The sudden appearance of the toad scared me for a second because a copperhead snake came in one night, getting within about 4 ft of where I was sitting. That one didn't survive.

A few nights after the copperhead, a beautiful garter snake came in, saw me, and disappeared in a flash.

Every night, I see a bold, fat mouse bounding through. It's a miracle the little rodent has survived the variety of snakes around here. It's another on a very short list of critters I'd kill if the opportunity came -- it causes disease and damages. The skinks, lizards, and incredible variety of spiders will eat far more roaches than the mouse ever could.

The birds have all abandoned the nests they tend in my garage every summer. They will be back and will be welcome.

None of these creatures concern themselves with our politics. They just deal with life in the world as it is.

A refreshing green space doesn't have to be the middle of a wilderness; it just has to have life.

Be well.

[WhiteTara]

41. Thank you.

I'm glad to see that you are taking care of yourself. It is difficult to see everything you believe in being destroyed. I find it devastating at times, but yes, unlike the rest of the sentient beings on the planet, we make it complicated. Be well too.

[Laffy Kat]

5. Join the club.

My only hope: #2-son is graduating from college in May (physics) and wants to get his Ph.D. in Canada. He doesn't think there's a future for the research he wants to do in the U.S. Maybe if he moves, he can sponsor me eventually? I can dream at least.

[KT2000]

20. a friend is going under grandparents

category. Her son lives there and she wants to move near him. The fact that he has a child qualifies her for the grandparent thing.

Your son is smart to see his future elsewhere. If he is engaged in medical/health/environment research, he would have to enjoy working for corporations on research that validates them. Other countries do much better, especially the Scandinavian countries.

[donkeypoofed]

6. Not all our immigrants are "highly skilled"

Or you could open a small business that employs Canadians, that'll help. I'm not an expert at our.Immigration Laws, but for sure not everyone is "highly skilled". In fact, I know many medical professionals who can't practice here till they take equivalency exams, and so have taken office clerk jobs and such. All the cleaners in our office here are new immigrants. Maybe they got in thru family sponsors or something, I don't know.

[Lunabell]

8. Don't despair!!

Fight like hell til your dying breath! It's easy to give up but don't do it. We need your voice now more than ever.

[awesomerwb1]

9. Vote.

Enough with the defeatism.

Lots of people have it worse than you do/I do. Lots.

[uppityperson]

13. Wow, you know OliverQ personally

Amazing

[awesomerwb1]

15. Amazing comeback.

Congrats.

[uppityperson]

17. Thank you. I've only met about 5 other there but wouldn't think of telling them to not

complain because other have it worse. I'm that sort of person though.

[lunatica]

46. Snap!

[k-dub]

10. I have to say

My wife, last night, said this. She has now quit talking politics altogether. I will make sure she will vote, but she is a highly educated, intelligent women who has "checked out". She can't take it anymore.

I worry for her health and well being. If Trump wins in 2020 I don't know what she'll do. I am on this earth to-among other things- serve my wife, and if I need to move her the fuck out of her so she'll be healthier then I'll have to consider that.

[roamer65]

12. If you live near Canada, there is another option.

Live in Canada, work in the US.

If you already have an income, I have been told it is a LOT easier to get in and establish permanent residency. In Canada once you cross the border you are considered an immigrant. From what I was told, that status lasts six months. Extensions then have to be filed every six months.

Once you get PR, then you can move anywhere in Canada.

[Fiendish Thingy]

40. That is false

You don't gain immigrant status by simply crossing the border- you can request asylum as a refugee, but good luck with that.

A US person can stay 6 months as a tourist, then must return unless they have obtained a work visa or other extension, no way would you get PR status that quickly under normal circumstances- took us Almost 2 years, with a good immigration lawyer, and that was 10 years ago when the skilled worker visa rules were looser.

For those considering leaving the broken corrupt USA, do some research and consult a good immigration lawyer.

[Separation]

14. Ya cant fight here if you dont live here.

I have been around the world. Does America have its issues? Yes, absolutely. Until you start seeing g government crackdowns on protesters here like overseas. I'll take my chances here, and keep the fight here as well. I could very easily move to a foriegn country and live in a relative luxury for the rest of my life. I dont think I could abandon it, or the people.

[SuprstitionAintthWay]

39. This. Except for the I-could-emigrate-easily-and-live-well part.

American politics are indeed ugly, brutal, sickening even, and our democracy itself is threatened, being step by step taken over by insatiable greedy plutocrats.

But there are very few pockets of the world in which the national politics (or else economies) aren't either (a) permanent running disasters, or (b) also trending badly of late, and already scary messes too or seemingly on the downslope in that direction. I suppose one could emigrate and totally ignore the politics (or poverry) of one's new home. But if disengagement is one's remedy, that can be done right here.

The English speaking exceptions to these patterns are Canada and New Zealand. The Kiwis are sounding like they're already tired of Americans with the resources buying bug-out homes down there and driving up their real estate prices, and they're starting to restrict it.

The most sane, civilized, advanced, economically sound, democratic, and contented non-Anglo region I believe is Scandinavia. And nearly everybody's 2nd language there is English. But all four countries' plus Iceland's total population is, what... can't be much more than 25 or 30 million? Those countries can't handle and won't accept a lot of us fleeing our nation of 325 million, any more than it can be the refuge for the probably 100s of millions of people who want out of much more intolerable conditions elsewhere in the world and would love to emigrate there. A few can escape to Scandinavia, but not many.

So there's a shortage of true refuges from the kind of shit we're facing here. For most of us the best and most realistic option is stay, and either fight, or disengage.

'Stay and fight" is what our country and the rest of the world need us to do.

[wasupaloopa]

19. This country is more than the stuff you read on DU.

It is not a cesspool and it is not broken and it is not corrupt. Some people are but they will not be around for ever.


Today I was at the beach on the west coast. It was beautiful. it is part of this country.

[Raine]

22. I agree

there's lots of good in this country, best not to spend all one's time on everything that's wrong.

[Pachamama]

25. As a proud citizen of the California Republic, I completely agree....

[Doodley]

21. FFS! A patriot stays and fights for his country before running away.

[Norbert]

23. This is my country

I'm staying and fighting.

Let's say you leave for Canada or Western Europe, this is all well and good from a personal standpoint. But we still have the problem with the crazies running the asylum which happens to be the greatest country in the world. I don't think there is truly any getting away from it. The head idiot has already shown his displeasure to many of our allies on numerous occasions. If we are not here fighting what will stop him from taking the next step against our allies.

I'm staying anf fighting for a world I want to live in.

[frogmarch]

24. I understand the feeling, but

I hope that, like me, you can change it to this one: I am here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and I'm all out of bubblegum.

[Pachamama]

26. +1000

[still_one]

27. My unsolicited advice, take some time off, then come back and vote. That is the only way things

will change

[secondwind]

28. This is what Vladimir Putin wants.

Don’t give up!!!! RESIST!!

[ariadne0614]

29. Dan Rather has words for this:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/MalcolmNance/permalink/1124083857748174/

Dan Rather
23 hrs
So Collins misses her moment to be a hero, and the old bulls win again. Trump, McConnell, Grassley, Hatch, Graham—the whole lot of them-- win. Again. They are laughing, congratulating one another, and at least metaphorically are popping Champagne.

For most women and many men it’s a bitter, devastating loss. Which makes it all the sweeter for the old bulls, and for the forces of power, privilege and money everywhere. A sense that the nation’s climate of justice has taken another turn toward dark clouds rises. The age-old question for the country of whether we prioritize power, privilege and money over justice takes on renewed importance.

So I talk to the wife—the good, gentle wife—who is furious and deeply disappointed. Talk to my daughter—the lion-hearted eldest child—whose first words are, “Can we, will we survive this?” I answer, “Of course we can, and if we have the will and the spirit, we will not only, survive we will thrive. Eventually. But if, and only if, we are “get-up fighters.” Strong as she usually is, she doesn’t seem convinced.

So, I take a walk, to be alone with my thoughts and reminders to stay steady. Among the thoughts that emerge are these:

Cut through the clouds of the present, consider the long river of history, and one can see this as a breakthrough moment for women. To paraphrase the daughter who recently said in another context, "women have never had a better moment to be heard in politics, to make a difference.” That is, if they—and those of us men who support them—seize the moment (if they don’t miss the moment as Senator Collins has.)

What that requires is that women and the men who love them and hate what has happen adopt an attitude of “we can be beaten but never defeated.” Adopt it, cling to it and live it as a credo.

Be relentless. When things are bad, when the going is tough, just keep putting one foot in front of the other and carry forward. Also, maybe take as a goal what an old man once said to me: "keep trying, keep fighting, keep smiling every minute you’re alive; you’re going to be dead a long time.”

And recognize that you are not alone. Far from it. Look to your left and right, before you and behind you, at the millions who will support you on this journey for justice. Fill your lungs with the determined air of action. I find myself humming that old but powerful anthem of the Civil Rights Era. "We'll walk hand in hand!" "We are not afraid!" "We shall overcome!"

[rownesheck]

30. For people like me

who live in red areas of the country, it does feel hopeless. I would assume there is a lot of hope in blue areas. You at least have local blue representation. We in dumbfuckistan have red local, state, and federal "representation". We see the people who live around us, our neighbors and their maga hats, the yard signs for crazy, eye patch wearing republicans, and the t shirts for Abbot for governor (In my case). It's hard as hell for us to hear the gloating about trump being president and beating that dirty "b@#$*" Hillary. It feels like a constant beat down every single day of our lives. When we hear talk of a blue wave, there is no optimism for that considering what we see and feel every day. I, myself, seriously wish our country would just split again. Let the reds live with the reds, and we normals live with the normals.

Having said that, we have to remember that normal people FAR outnumber the republicans. Three million more votes for Hillary was not a sham. We have to hope that eventually the tide will turn. I may be a grandfather by the time it happens, but i have to believe it will happen. I don't want to move from Texas. What would i do without Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, and Houston, as well as the gorgeous Toledo Bend, Sam Rayburn, and Lake Fork? I would miss the hell out of the Frio River and that whole beautiful, quiet hill country. Hope is all I've got and I'm willing to live on it until I'm gone, even if that's all it'll be.

P.S. There sure are a hell of a lot more Beto signs than cruz signs around here!

[JI7]

32. what state do you live in ?

[DFW]

33. Oh, you'd be surprised what a person can put up with.

I know people from the former East Germany who spent months in jail for the crime of having a coin collection. Before 1989, they used to shoot their own people trying to go over the Berlin Wall. I've been interrogated in East Berlin in a windowless room where I was the only one without a gun, an East German uniform or the right to stand up without permission. I've visited Caribbean islands steeped in poverty you couldn't believe. I visited Cuba in the 1980s, got followed everywhere by the secret police (and I was there at THEIR government's invitation), and pleaded with by people on the street who had a keen eye for who was a westerner, and who was not.

This doesn't mean shut up and count your blessings. It means we have something worth fighting for, and I say this as one who has been living abroad for years. But I go back several times a year, still keep my connections with the States, still make lots of contributions to candidates and causes I believe in, and keep in touch with people back home that I agree with AND with whom I disagree. Moving abroad may be a solution, but paradise is nowhere. For all the people extolling the virtues of the Nordic countries, I wonder how many live there and speak the language? I don't live there, but I speak Swedish well, and go up there on occasion. They are struggling with a growing nasty neo-Nazi rightist movement nurtured by preventable stupidity on the left. The number of evil-looking skinheads on Swedish streets is unnerving. It's no paradise up there, either.

EVERY country here in Europe has its issues. My wife is German, has retired from her job as a social worker, but keeps busy doing--what else? Social work. She volunteers with remedial help at a German elementary school. Why? Because the vaunted German educational system is very Darwinian, and leaves behind children who do not learn as quickly as others. Indeed, it wanted to prevent my elder daughter from going to college because her high school teachers said she didn't speak up enough in class (she was shy by nature), and gave her bad grades for it. She ended up going to college in the USA and had to ask me just before graduation what a "valedictorian" was and why did it mean she had to give a speech in English in front of 1000 people? In Germany, she would have ended up waiting on tables. I'm here because both my wife (she's the only one left with a living parent, and her mom speaks no English) and my job demanded it.

If you have nothing holding you down, by all means check out your alternatives, but check them out THOROUGHLY. The grass is not always greener, even if it looks that way from afar.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

44. steppenwolf 7 -- renegade

Your first paragraph reminded me of John Kay's escape:

[LBM20]

35. Take your rage to the campaign trail. Make calls. Knock doors. Donate. Vote. And bring friends.

[njhoneybadger]

36. Buck up Little Camper. I feel the same way sometimes, we all do. We're not giving up

Not Dark Yet
WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN
Shadows are falling and I’ve been here all day
It’s too hot to sleep, time is running away
Feel like my soul has turned into steel
I’ve still got the scars that the sun didn’t heal
There’s not even room enough to be anywhere
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there

Well, my sense of humanity has gone down the drain
Behind every beautiful thing there’s been some kind of pain
She wrote me a letter and she wrote it so kind
She put down in writing what was in her mind
I just don’t see why I should even care
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there

Well, I’ve been to London and I’ve been to gay Paree
I’ve followed the river and I got to the sea
I’ve been down on the bottom of a world full of lies
I ain’t looking for nothing in anyone’s eyes
Sometimes my burden seems more than I can bear
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there

I was born here and I’ll die here against my will
I know it looks like I’m moving, but I’m standing still
Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb
I can’t even remember what it was I came here to get away from
Don’t even hear a murmur of a prayer
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there
Copyright © 1997 by Special Rider Music

[nuxvomica]

42. When I get to thinking that way, I think about my uncle Joe

He was a gangly teen-ager who cared mostly about when the new 78s arrived at the local record shop. He had lived through the Depression and signed up to fight Nazis in the war. He had caught a flesh wound during a battle somewhere in France but managed to carry his more seriously wounded buddy to safety. His buddy got the penicillin that was in short supply and uncle Joe didn't. His flesh wound became infected and he died over there.

I figure if I encounter half the hardship as that gangly teen-ager and still believe in America, I can meet the challenge. I never considered, though, that after all these years we would still be fighting Nazis. To paraphrase Max Erhmann, "With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful country."

[Iterate]

43. It's already a world war.

Do you not get that?

Find a safe place to fight from. Find allies to fight with. Find a thing that matters and never give up.

[Still In Wisconsin]

47. Same here... I'm wavering between moving away and doing myself in.

But, I'm too old for the former, really, and the latter? I still have kids to support- for five more years anyway. After that point maybe option B becomes more viable.