Tomorrow I start laying the groundwork to move back to Japan permanently.

[UdoKier]

I will retain my US citizenship and continue to vote in democrat in US elections, but enough already. I feel so alienated from this country. My Japanese wife will be happier there, the cost of living is much lower than here in San Fran, and we will have good, inexpensive health care, and most people are kind and considerate.

I love San Francisco, but I've given up on this sick fuck of a country. I don't want it's sick values to infect my kids.

When I get back there, I will apologize to every one of my former student who I told "Americans are independent minded and like to question authority". I was wrong. We are a nation of sheeple. The Japanese are FAR MORE individualistic.

[Sirveri]

1. I've got a friend who also wants to leave for Japan.

Maybe I can have him join you? I'm gonna stay, we need some good people here, and I want to try to put the brakes on this place.

[UdoKier]

2. Like I said, I'll continue to vote.

I'll stay involved to the extent I can, but I've had enough. I don't like the bitter, hateful person I see myself becoming if I stay here. I HATE these people and what they've done to our country.

They've turned it from a nation of barn-raisings and working together, to a nation of gated cul-de-sacs and paranoia. This is no longer a society at all. It is a bunch of isolated people living in the same geographic area.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. You know, I have to agree with you

Most Americans might be surprised to learn that you can live far more cheaply in a smaller Japanese city than in a large American one.

And I agree that the Japanese are far more individualistic (in the sense of not being afraid to have their own likes and dislikes as opposed to the sense of being wagamama) than the average suburban middle American, one of the most conformist creatures on earth.

[Bluebear]

4. Mata, ne?

[UdoKier]

8. Sainara. Abayo.

Konokuni ga matomo ni naru hi made...

[Beearewhyain]

5. With all due respect...

If you lose and run away, that makes you a...well...a colloquial term for part of the female anatomy. Stay and fight, even if it is with me :)

[telex54]

6. All this talk of people moving is disconcerting.

You all love this country, you must stay and fight!

[Bluebear]

7. Many people don't feel the country loves them anymore

[UdoKier]

9. I am as Japanese as I am American, and I love Japan as much as I love USA.

But Japan has NEVER screwed me over the way the US has tonight.

Sorry, but I don't owe this country any more than I owe Japan.

[Beearewhyain]

17. With my limited knowledge of Japanese politics

I am still not sure that it is much better than here. How is it very much better and not worth fighting with?

[UdoKier]

19. Most people are apolitical and pleasant and willing to LISTEN.

Most people practice religion as a matter of tradition, but are essentially agnostic. There is affordable national health care, a comprehensive transit system...need I go on?

Sure, the ruling LDP is not a great progressive party, but nor are they an extremist party as the GOP have become. They are amazingly dependable lapdogs for whoever is US president, though - even 60 years after the war, and with Japan holding a HUUUUGE chunk of our foreign debt.

Oh, yes, the coming economic apocalypse here is yet another reason I'm preparing to leave.

[Beearewhyain]

22. Please correct me if I am wrong but...

you are saying that the political fight there is easier than here; therefore you will move to Japan. If I might be presumptuous, you have some Shinto ethics, what would they think?

[UdoKier]

25. Please don't take it the wrong way.

It's not a petulant "Vote for Kerry or I'm leaving" thing.

It's more like me weighing which place would be a better place to raise my bicultural, binational children. I can easily find work in either country, but their futures are extremely important to me, and I really don't want them absorbing the kind of sick values that are becoming prevalent here.

It's home to me as much as the US is, especially now that I don't even recognize my own country.

[Kanary]

10. Sayonara!

[B. P. R. D.]

11. Stick Around A Little Longer.

Unless of course, you are leaving because your scared of what this election battle will bring.

[UdoKier]

13. I'll go even if Kerry squeaks in.

I tried to have faith in our people, but as a nation, the majority either are psychopaths,or just don't give a fuck.

Bush is up by FOUR MILLION votes. All Diebold? A bit far-fetched, IMO.

[geek tragedy]

12. A very wise move.

This country is a lost cause.

This is not our country anymore.

[athena]

14. I'm moving back to Canada.

I'm not an American, but I've been living here for over 9 years and had started to care a great deal about America. I would even have considered becoming an American citizen if Kerry had won big. As it is now, I don't want to stay any longer than I absolutely have to. Better to leave now than wait till I get deported for dissent.

[Kickin_Donkey]

15. Been there, done that ...

I became disenchanted with the U.S. during the Reagan era, and went to Japan to live (for many more reasons than just politics). It does wonders for your psyche to be outside of the American bubble. By the way, I voted in U.S. elections while I was in Japan.

I came back after 12 years ... just in time to witness the stolen election of 2000.

I don't have the energy to move to a foreign country again. Geez, what now? I wish Scotty could beam me up.

[cassiepriam]

18. scotty beam me up

That has been in my head since last night.
I do not belong on this planet anymore.

[UdoKier]

20. Wow. I came back at the same time. Fully expected a Gore blowout.

We didn't hear much about Monica in Japan. Just how popular Clinton was. Had NO IDEA how huge the RW attack machine had gotten in my absence.

[UdoKier]

16. By the way, when I get to Japan...

The first thing I will do once settled it start helping to try to unseat the corrupt LDP party and their shithead Prime Minister Koizumi, who is even more of a Bush lapdog than Blair, and who had the nerve to endorse Bush's election, even though most Japanese dislike Bush intensely and disagree with the war.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

21. The political parties in Japan are monumentally corrupt

but they're not MEAN in the way that the U.S. Republicans are. I can't see them trying to dismantle the public school system or the public health system, for example, or trying to require Shinto or Buddhist prayers in school or banning abortion.

If I were a Japanese citizen, I'd probably vote Communist to reward the one political party that has never had a bribery scandal. :-)

[charlie]

24. Good luck with that

The LDP is more firmly entrenched than a bad case of lymphoma. If the futility of beating back Republicans exhausts you, trying to uproot the LDP will be like a death march. Don't invest too much of yourself in the effort or the frustration will make you nuts.

[UdoKier]

26. As is the US Demo-blican party.

The Democratic party is no progressive savior, you know. They just look that way next to the unbelievably corrupt and evil GOP.

Japan is a multiparty parliamentary system with shifting coalitions. The LDP lost a lot of seats thanks to Koizumi in the last election. I don't see them dying out soon, but change is a constant.

[spinbaby]

23. ki o tsu kete

I'd join you if I could.

[Piperay]

27. Lucky you

I am moving to Mexico (also still retaining US citizenship & voting here) but it will probably take 4 years before I can get everything in order to go, sigh. :-(

[UdoKier]

28. Oh, it'll take a while.

At least one to 3 years, I'm wagering.

Moving overseas is a huge undertaking. We just moved to SF from Miami 8 months ago. Not ready just yet.

[Habibi]

29. Don't do it.

We need you here. We need all of us. This thing will not be turned around if the progressives leave. Please, don't do it. Japan does NOT need you. We do.

[charlie]

31. If you have kids

Japan is a splendid place for them to enjoy a good life. Real neighborliness. Clean, safe streets -- your kid can walk to the store for a bag of candy in the middle of the night without you sweating it. Plenty of greenery and parks. Bookstores galore. And there's little of the cynical ironic mindset that's de rigeur in the US.

I don't blame him a bit.

[T Town Jake]

30. "The Japanese are FAR MORE individualistic"....

...uh-huh - right. Those Kamikaze pilots sure were "individualistic," weren't they? Give me a fucking break: that entire nation was willing to follow their "god" - the Emperor - over a suicidal cliff during WW II. In what sense was that "individualistic"? Pray tell us.

[iverglas]

35. most of the rest of the world is far more individualistic ...

"that entire nation was willing to follow their 'god'
- the Emperor - over a suicidal cliff during WW II.
In what sense was *that* 'individualistic'? Pray tell us."

... but hey, keep swallowing that propaganda. Don't let us interrupt.

over half of your nation is willing to follow their "god"-
fearing idiot pseudo-Emperor over a suicidal cliff during GW II.
In what sense is *that* "individualistic"? Pray tell us.

Or did you misunderstand the question implicit in the first post somehow?

Guess you just swallowed some more propaganda, or have never encountered the concept that things change. Amazingly, many of the people who now populate Japan are the children of people who weren't born when WWII happened.

Hell, many of the people who voted in your election are probably the children of people who weren't born back when a few more of the people who populated the US actually thought for themselves.

[bluestateguy]

32. Crickets chirping

What were you expecting to hear from us?

[still_one]

33. I will do something similar

My wife is from Hong Kong when it was under British rule, and she has dual citizenship. Maybe British Columbia might not be so bad

[iverglas]

34. that's a joke, right??

"My wife is from Hong Kong when it was under British rule, and she has dual citizenship. Maybe British Columbia might not be so bad"

I mean, I know you know that British Columbia is a province of Canada, which is not under British rule, and that UK citizenship is of the utmost irrelevance to entitlement to live in Canada.

Or maybe those were just two unrelated thoughts. ;)

Yup, I hear BC isn't bad at all. Lots of folks from Hong Kong there, in fact. And just like all the folks from China, India, France, the US, the UK, and anywhere else in the world, they applied for and were granted permanent residence (think: green cards) after qualifying.