Emigrate to give and build, not just to save your own ass.
---more than you wanted to know about one man’s escape from America project
...After the issue of our rapidly diminishing freedoms, escape from America, emigration and finding a spot in the world in the face of what we all know is coming is the second most common topic of the hundreds of emails I receive weekly. Because I chose to leave the country (though I’ve had to return for a couple of months to fulfill some book contract obligations), I get an enormous number of questions about Belize, which I now consider home and where I personally sponsor a few very small scale development projects in the black Carib village of Hopkins. I do it alone mainly because anyone who has ever offered to help expects to be able to boss black people around and have a free Caribbean getaway home in exchange for his/her money or assistance. Please feel free to publish this letter on your site.
I am by no means an expert on matters of emigration to Belize or anyplace else. But here is my personal take on the matter, much of which goes against the grain of the rapidly growing American baby boomer migration to Mexico, Belize and other Latin American countries.
"Let me start by saying that yours is perhaps my favorite site for its truthfulness and I should have written to you folks a long time ago. Especially considering that you have been such strong and steady supporters of my own efforts on the Internet. Forgive me my tardiness in acknowledging my gratitude."
I believe this comment was intended for The Oil Drum crowd as I had asked him to write something for The Oil Drum about Belize as so many were mentioning it as a potential hidey hole.
I believe this comment was intended for The Oil Drum crowd as I had asked him to write something for The Oil Drum about Belize as so many were mentioning it as a potential hidey hole.
I have long considered such a move myself. I spent three weeks in Northern Honduras and the Bay Islands in 1997, and three weeks in Guatemala, around the Rio Dulce area, in 2000, looking for a place to retire, perhaps on my boat.
But I have since had second thoughts. I now believe an American that living in a third world country, when things really get tough, would be disastrous. Such a person would suffer the wrath of every starving person in the country.
"When law enforcement vanishes, all manner of violence breaks out: looting, settling old scores, ethnic cleansing, and petty warfare among gangs, warlords, and mafias. This was obvious in the remnants of Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, and parts of Africa in the 1990s, but can also happen in countries with long tradition of civility.”
- Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate.
Just being a member of any minority in any country would be a perilous position to be in. All manner of civil behavior would disappear. “Others” are always blamed for the misfortunes people suffer during times of crisis. And no better a target would exist than an American living amongst pitiful starving masses of a different culture and language, especially if law enforcement disappears. And one thing I found while in Honduras and Guatemala that law enforcement is already in very short supply there. It could completely disappear with little provocation.
While in La Cebia, Honduras, I was shocked to see an armed guard, with a shotgun, standing outside the local Burger King. Then I noticed the same thing at KFC, and everywhere else. Because robbery is so easy and the police so scarce, even fast food restaurants are forced to hire their own armed guards. I believe such a place would be an extremely dangerous place for an American during a local insurrection. And insurrections will be everywhere as we tumble over the cliff of diminishing fuel supplies.
While in La Cebia, Honduras, I was shocked to see an armed guard, with a shotgun, standing outside the local Burger King. Then I noticed the same thing at KFC, and everywhere else. Because robbery is so easy and the police so scarce, even fast food restaurants are forced to hire their own armed guards.
Have you visited an 'inner city' mall or fast food shop in the US of A?
Last 'inner city' mall I was at:
2 bill paying centers, 1 bank, 5 other units. at least 1 guard per store, and 3 'guards' in the general walking around area. These guards just lack the shotguns.
When you drive down the street and see an armed guard at every business with a cash register, or you have to step around a 20 year old with a shotgun when you visit your local Wendy's, then you can make a legitimate comparison.
yes, it could be wise to stay in your own country. For example in Europe we have a huge muslim immigrant population.
If i were a muslim in Europe, i would think about moving back to my muslim country.
WTSHTF the europeans could vote up new Hitlers, and kill the muslims, like the germans did with the jews. I believe this will be very likely. Most of ordinary people hate the muslims already. Everybody i talk to are negative to the muslim immigrants. Only the politicos are positive, and the matter is tabu for now, but it could very fast change if TSHTF.
Probably impossible to do because of our aggregate genetic desire to scapegoat others, but I thought an example near the very end of the movie "Gandhi" was hopeful:
http://sfy.ru/sfy.html?script=gandhi
-------------------------------------
The Goondas stand. They glance at Suhrawardy; he smiles tautly and they start to leave, but one (Nahari) lingers. Suddenly he moves violently toward Gandhi,taking a flat piece of Indian bread (chapati) from his trousers and tossing it forcefully on Gandhi.
NAHARI: Eat.
Mirabehn and Azad start to move toward him – the man looks
immensely strong and immensely unstable. But Gandhi holds up a shaking hand, stopping them. Nahari's face is knotted in emotion, half anger, half almost a child's fear –
but there is a wild menace in that instability.
NAHARI: Eat! I am going to hell – but not with your death on my soul.
GANDHI: Only God decides who goes to hell . . .
NAHARI (stiffening, aggressive): I – I
killed a child . . . (Then an anguished defiance) I smashed his head against a wall.
Gandhi stares at him, breathless.
GANDHI (in a fearful whisper): Why? Why?
It is as though the man has told him of some terrible self-inflicted wound.
NAHARI (tears now – and wrath): They
killed my son – my boy!
Almost reflexively he holds his hand out to indicate the height of his son. He glares at Suhrawardy and then back at Gandhi.
NAHARI: The Muslims killed my son . . . they killed him.
He is sobbing, but in his anger it seems almost as though he means to kill Gandhi in retaliation. A long moment, as Gandhi meets his pain and wrath. Then
GANDHI: I know a way out of Hell.
Nahari sneers, but there is just a flicker of desperate curiosity.
GANDHI: Find a child – a child whose mother and
father have been killed. A little boy – about this high.
He raises his hand to the height Nahari has indicated as his son's.
GANDHI: . . . and raise him – as your own.
Nahari has listened. His face almost cracks – it is a chink of light, but it does not illumine his darkness.
GANDHI: Only be sure . . . that he is a Muslim. And
that you raise him as one.
And now the light falls on Nahari. His face stiffens, he swallows, fighting any show of emotion; then he turns to go. But he takes only a step and he turns back, going to his knees, the sobs breaking again and again from his heaving body as he holds his head to Gandhi's feet in the traditional greeting of Hindu son to Hindu father.A second, and Gandhi reaches out and touches the top of his head.
Mirabehn watches. The Goondas watch. Suhrawardy watches. Finally
GANDHI (gently, exhaustedly): Go – go.
God bless you . . .
--------------------------------
Most likely: we will go the way of Tadeusz Borowski, #119198, who personally helped maybe 50,000 or more of his closest friends, "THIS WAY FOR THE GAS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!"
Thxs for responding. Yep, since, in the aggregate we refuse to peacefully control our population Overshoot and the planet's carrying-capacity, then, by default: we will genetically whittle our grand total down postPeak. Of course, Mother Nature will lend a hand to reinforce this blowback trend.
My hope is that eventually enough people will become Peakoil Outreach informed that we can somehow optimize our detritus decline, then ramp up effective biosolar strategies so the Bottleneck Squeeze is as effective as possible for the maximum # of lifeforms to reach the other side. Time will tell.
It won't be much fun if it is only humans and cockroaches on the last outpost of a tropical Ellesmere Island. =(
According to Nirad Chaudhuri,one of my fave writers, most of GHandi was a load of baloney. pure Hollywood and largely apocryphal. Of course G's himself was stage-manager extraordinaire so this is appropriate.
Ron--
I have spent a lot of time in Central America (I drove from California to Costa Rica, then island hopped through the Caribbean, finally ending up in Columbia- long story), and surfed in Mexico, El Salvador and Costa Rica fairly frequently.
Anyway, forget Central America- with the exception of Nicaragua, all are client states of the US, with the usual huge difference in class, wealth, and all the suffering and violence that those conditions cause. Argentina or Chile offer greater opportunities for emigration, with educated populaces out of the thumb of the corporate jackals of the World Bank, and the economic slavery that brings on. Plus, Venezuela seems to be honestly trying to create a true Boleverian Revolution, with possible more energy security (possibly being the key word)
Personally, it is BC for me--
I feel you are right Ron. The scarest phrase Post Peak I think will be "You're not from around here are ya?"
I wouldn't think a country/cultural change at this time. I was in San Paulo Bz and Bueno Aries Argentina a few years ago, and wouldn't want to be there post peak for example.
Immigrants will have the same experience here in rural areas I believe. In cities enclaves of different groups will spring up more than there is now.
I'm from the northeast US and our citie had a german section, an italian section, a polish section, an irish section(Only citie with a traffic light has the Green Light over the Red Light),
Those families with roots that still exist in rural america I think will fall back there to some degree.
Watch for water to seek it's own level in times to come.
Stratification will increase.
I think that my best option is to continue to "bloom where I am planted" and work on making things better here.
Of course any plans can change due to unforeseen developments, which are not necesarily PO related.
I do think that it is good to evaluate where one might like to live in terms of peak oil and global warming.
A good time to make any changes might be sooner rather than later.
I am in a pretty good location with some good relationships and fairly local options for short-distance relaocation if things get too crazy in the city. (Minneapolis, MN)
Other thoughts on the "stay put" vs "find a new place in the sun" issue?
I think we will all die, so we just need to figure out what we want to do betweeen now and then. My priority has slightly less to do with long-term survival than with living for positive change while I can amidst the mainstream culture. Tilting at windmills, perhaps.
Thank you Leanan and Sid
I believe what your friend Joe finds most repulsive about Americans is the belief held by many of 'American Exceptionalism.' When I was younger I thought that if Americans were immersed in other cultures that their hubris would somehow be diminished. Now I realize that exposure of Americans to other cultures generally reinforces American hubris. Casting the pearls before the swine makes the swine no more intelligent.
Actually, I believe the opposite - that is, common Americans have been travelling less for a generation, and that is not merely coincidental. A silly example - in the early 1990s, the number of Malaysian students studying at American universities was greater than the entire number of American university students studying overseas.
Essentially, at this point, the message most Americans hear about overseas concerns 'threats' to their safety. The groups that tend to travel this most in American society also tend to be inured to actually integrating - Mormon and other missionaries, military personnel, the upper class.
This lack of experience of a broader world is one of the more useful tools available to ensure that Americans have no way to compare and contrast their own way of living with any others.
This may be one of the more interesting things about Sicko - it actually seems to open a window into certain aspects of daily life in other societies - and apparently, even this short glimpse is almost revolutionary.
Americans have become so American-centric they seem even unaware of it - any observations about how they live which don't fit their own opinions or self-image is immediately dismissed as being 'anti-American.'
Facts, like the example above concerning university students, play little role in American discourse at this point. It remains one of the attractions of peak oil to me.
Oh, and as a little side note - notice how the price of oil has been climbing steadily since Gonu? What an odd little juxtaposition - unprecendented and vicious storm in a major oil producing region, and afterwards, rising prices, as if the amount of oil available was less than the market anticipated. Merely a factor in a very complex situation, of course, possibly one which doesn't even exist - or one which has simply faded into the background, just like the permanent destruction of oil infrastructure in the Gulf Of Mexico.
You stated 'Actually I believe the opposite...', followed by a string of excuses for Americans that believe they are exceptional.
1) 'common Americans have been traveling abroad for less than a generation.' Where did you get that idea? I have been traveling abroad all my life (now over 60) and I am not rich, not a mormon and not in the military. I have encountered thousands of Americans abroad and most have been unwealthy, unmilitary, and unmormon.
2) 'Americans hear of threats to their safety.' I agree, but in what way do threats to their safety give them leave to think of themselves as exceptional?
3) 'Lack of experience of a broader world...snip...ensure Americans have no way to compare their own way of living with that of others.' I agree that they have no basis for comparison. If Americans cannot compare then why do they assume they are exceptional? Besides, the government still issues passports for a nominal fee. I have not seen any Americans with anchors tied to their asses.
4) '...Sicko...opens a glimpse into other cultures...glimpse is revolutionary.' Yes, and there are also a wealth of foreign films that offer glimpses of foreign cultures and are generally much more entertaining than anything coming out of Hollywood.
5 'Americans have become so self centric...unaware of it...anything that dont fit their own self image or opinions are immediately dismissed as anti-American.' Yes, this is called ignorance.
5) PO is PO, not on subject of being an expat in Belize or American exceptionalisim.
6) I respect and appreciate what you are doing for the people of Belize. I have worked in foreign countries and lived as a native. To help people that really need help gives one a feeling like no other. However, your response in no way excuses the Americans living in Belize in 'American compounds.' There behavior is the picture of ignorance and is typical of those that accept the concept of American exceptionalisim without ever even considering what they are doing. They have the opportunity to become familiar with a foreign culture, and that would probably change their lives for the better, yet they choose to remain ignorant.
Oops - that first sentence is not merely confusing (or wrong, if you prefer), it place the opening in context, Another try -
'For a generation, the number of average Americans simply travelling abroad has been declining.' Which itself is based on some data and some anecdotes. A nice link at http://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2003/01/31/how_many_america.php gives some additional perspective to that opening comment providing some context to what I mean. If we exclude immigrants travelling back to countries where they came from, the number of Americans I know who simply take a month to travel in a foreign country has declined over the last 25 years - in part, because how many Americans do you know with a month of free time and adequate savings to travel, especially compared to 25 years ago? The amount of military overseas, and especially those living on the economy, has also declined markedly over that time span.
As for exceptionalism - it is much easier to remain convinced of your exceptionalism if your only experience of other cultures is essentially zero (another place where the text is less than perfect, I see). There is an interesting German expression that translates to 'they only cook with water too.'
I come from Northern Virginia - the number of movie theaters playing non-Hollywood films has been declining around DC since I was 25. A complicated subject, but even a normal video store offered little in the way of foreign films. Obviously, how things are today in the U.S. in terms of Netflixx/Amazon/etc is beyond my experience.
Point number six seems to explain some of the confusion - I don't live in Belize, and was only commenting that in my opinion, the problem is that fewer Americans who aren't immigrants experience the world - though the pearls before swine may still apply, it is not the major problem currently.
People do what they want to do. If Americans choose not to travel abroad it is because a great many of them have been taken in by the consumer economy that surrounds them and have chosen to spend their discretionary income on consumer goods instead of travel. I ceed the point that some Americans do not have the means to travel abroad, some through no fault of their own. The ignorance in America is monumental. Americans have been distracted by bread and circus while their opponents in the class war have taken from them thier unions, their jobs, their overtime, their vacations, their decent standard of living, their health care and have left them in a state of fear for the miserable jobs that remain. Only an ignorant people would watch football on tv while so much was being taken from them. Ignorance, and the belief in American esceptionalisim, in our country springs from terrible schools that teach little of other countries and cultures or anything else except a bit of rote learning. They act, more than anything, as a day care service. After a couple of generations of such poor public education it becomes the norm. The entire system from grade school through college has been degraded. When all are rendered ignorant who remains to point it out?
All public libraries have computers with internet connections. Most films ever made are available from Amazon, Ebay, Half.com, and numerous internet sources. Many can be purchased used for bargain prices. Most of these same public libraries have movies that can be checked out just as books are available.
The 'pearls before swine' is definitely an appropriate analogy.
I think it must be more than just the lack of actual travelling overseas - the opportunities are more and the costs of travel somewhat less for Americans than they are for young Australians, yet here there has long been a "rite of passage" that many of us are almost expected to go through - finish Uni, then backpack through Europe (usually) for a year, working odd jobs if you can.
Personally I missed out (which I have some small regrets over), but at least I have travelled to Europe, SE-Asia, South America and the U.S. - and I'm little more than half your age. Why there should be such a different level of desire to even travel overseas between Australians and Americans (and probably similarly between Canadians and Americans) is hard to understand. I'm sure it must have something to do with the level of confidence about your own country's "importance" in the world - Australians are known to suffer a level of "cultural cringe" that, while often unnecesarily harsh, at least motivates us to go out there and see all these other countries and cultures that we all secretly know are better than ours. Americans appear to suffer something of the opposite effect. You might think events like 9/11 and the Iraq debacle would at least start to cause younger Americans to question their confidence in their own country's superiority, perhaps encouraging them to travel overseas a little more. I suppose it's too early to tell whether that's actually happening at all. But if it does, peak oil might put an abrupt end to it, which would be a shame.
Wizofaus thanks for the response. BTW, Australia is turning out some excellent films. I especially enjoy the comedys.
In Feb, 1967, I left America for a 1 1/2 years of bumming and working my way through Europe, Greece and Turkey. I had just completed four years in the navy and had seen most of the Med but not as a civilian. I hitched, missed a lot of meals, sometimes slept in fields, met lots of great people, and had a wonderful time. In 1967 this was common practice among American youth. Viet Nam was beginning to roar and the draft age kids knew that they had to try for college deferments or get drafted. Many that I met in Europe, when they found that I had been in the navy, wanted advice about what to do. I convinced some of them to join the Navy or Air Force to avoid becoming cannon fodder(3 year enlistment vs 2 in the Army) or to take a four year enlistment and go to school on the GI Bill (what I did). I have tried to understand why kids dont take the opportunity to go to Europe now when they graduate hs and prior to starting college. I dont know the answer. After most kids finish college today they have large school loans to pay off so they get jobs right away but the hs graduates of today are afraid to just go to Europe without a car, credit card, lots of cash, etc. They have a different mind set than the kids of 1967. We were hippies and naieve enough to think we needed to see the world, get an education, then change the world...lol. My fellow travelers and I did not think of America as 'better than any other country', in fact, just the opposite. We saw America as a war mongering nation and would sometimes would try to pass for Brits because we didnt want to admit that we were Americans (four years in the navy is an education about American policies abroad). I doubt we fooled any Europeans. American youth today dont seem to have an adventurous spirit. Like I said, I dont know the answer, and perhaps it is because there is too much of a generational gap between them and me. I fear that they will miss an opportunity that will not come their way again.
The student loans aspect I hadn't thought of.
In Australia we have a system that makes a lot of sense - government subsidised interest-free loans that don't need to be paid off until you're earning enough. There were a lot of objections to the system when it was first introduced (given that previously under-graduate education was free), but even though it took me a good 5+ years to pay off my loan, and it represented a significant drain on my salary, it always seemed like a well justified expense (even though I was offered a good-paying full-time job well before I graduated).
Do student loans in the U.S. start accumulating interest immediately, and have minimum payment requirements regardless of salary (like any other loan, that is).
Yes, even the federally subsidized loans start accruing interest as soon as you take them out (all be it at a very low rate). This means that the loans I took out to cover freshmen year were charging me interest all through undergrad and grad school. Now I went to a State school so my tuition wasn’t that ridiculous. But even the 30+ k loan I ended up with when all was said and done (and consolidated) needed a $200 payment 6 months after I got my diploma. You can only defer if you go back to school for another degree.
As for bumming around Europe, the only people I know who did that were either rich or did a study abroad semester (and those kids were usually rich). Also, while you can backpack around Europe on the cheap you first have to get to Europe. The airlines generally frown upon hitchhiking.
When I graduated it took me 9 months to land a job. The first three student loan payments blew what little savings I had. When I did get a job and moved to where I’m at now the security deposit and first months rent went on the credit card. No traveling for me.
Besides, we all know us amurikins rock so what’s the point? :)
"No man who owns his own house and lot can be a Communist. He has too much to do." (Bill Levitt - 1948)
Wizofaus, I am hearbroken to see what you write here, and if I wanted to be uncharitable, I would say it is not simply that people in the US know nothing of the rest of the world, but that people in other countries no nothing of the history of the places in which they live. I am from Australia too. I am not that old, and I am telling you that my tertiary education was FREE. One of the greatest shocks I received on returning to Oz for a holiday last year was to hear all this appalling cr*p about 'student loans', and on a US scale. What is wrong with you all? Why aren't you setting fire to things in the street? How did you all just buy this stuff without even a whimper? I can't believe it. Did you have no idea that people in the generation before yours didn't pay a cent for this stuff? And yet you accepted that you ought to?
If even the young, who have the least to lose, won't fight, then no one will. Australia is doomed. No one knows, no one remembers, no one fights. Everyone will sleepwalk along in some reverie about good old John Howard (even though the boomming economy is all about China, and nothing else), and then it will all fall apart when the US goes belly-up and China tanks. You should know that from hanging out here.
God. You all deserve what you get. A midget, in all senses of the term, as one of the nation's longest serving leaders.
A constant refrain here is that US people are sheep, but I tell you now that Australians are far, far worse.
Well, like I said, I was one of the early ones for whom tertiary education required a HECS loan. I would tend to agree that it would preferable that tertiary education was fully subsidised, although I wouldn't be too keen on knowing my taxpayer dollars were funding so many mostly worthless law or management degrees either.
But I've never known anyone for whom HECS was a difficult burden financially. Many of my friends were musicians (I did a Music degree as well as a Science one), some of whom are probably today, over 10 years later, still not earning enough to be paying much (if any) HECS - which they're fine with.
I'm sure if Howard had his way he'd love to introduce something more akin to what the U.S. has, but Education funding has always been an important electoral issue here, and I doubt he'd get away with it anyway.
I spent a good % of Sunday with 27 young IN SHAPE upper middle class (mostly) kids bicycling from Jacksonville to San Francisco. They spent a week in New Orleans doing volunteer labor. Sunday was their "day off".
Americans are traveling less, and very few even have a passport--
Plus USA people work all the time--
Australians are planning that motorcycle trip through Asia with their 6 weeks, and Euros are off to all parts of the Planet--
USA Americans are shell shocked with 2 weeks off, and quite uncomfortable with free time.
Work is a addiction for USA Americans, and keeps them from facing reality.
I'm not convinced that explains the difference between student-level or just-graduated Americans vs Australians.
Unless perhaps American colleges/universities deliberately push students into jobs as quickly as possible?
BTW, I've never heard of anyone doing a 'motorcycle trip through Asia' - is that a genuine phenonemon? Flatting in London while working at the local to pay for jaunts off around the rest of Europe still seems to be the prevailing stereotype, and I know several people who've done just that (or similar enough).
wizo--
My brother has a dive business on the Great Barrier Reef--
Yes. it's true. I have been hanging in NZ, and with the exception of rich fly fishermen, Americans are few and far between- Lot's of Euro's and Aussies.
Most American Students can't find Iraq on a map--
Some can't even find the USA, and that must be quite challenging to be that ignorant.
A letter from Joe Bageant:
Emigrate to give and build, not just to save your own ass.
---more than you wanted to know about one man’s escape from America project
Edited to shorten it to a link and an excerpt.
Thanks, Leanan. I figured you would take care of it. How did you know where my blog was or that it was on it? You must be psychic or something.
Google. :-)
Hi Leanan,
News.google.com with keyword searches? I'm curious...
No, just the regular Google. I searched a phrase from the article (with quotes around it), and it came right up.
"Let me start by saying that yours is perhaps my favorite site for its truthfulness and I should have written to you folks a long time ago. Especially considering that you have been such strong and steady supporters of my own efforts on the Internet. Forgive me my tardiness in acknowledging my gratitude."
I believe this comment was intended for The Oil Drum crowd as I had asked him to write something for The Oil Drum about Belize as so many were mentioning it as a potential hidey hole.
I have long considered such a move myself. I spent three weeks in Northern Honduras and the Bay Islands in 1997, and three weeks in Guatemala, around the Rio Dulce area, in 2000, looking for a place to retire, perhaps on my boat.
But I have since had second thoughts. I now believe an American that living in a third world country, when things really get tough, would be disastrous. Such a person would suffer the wrath of every starving person in the country.
Just being a member of any minority in any country would be a perilous position to be in. All manner of civil behavior would disappear. “Others” are always blamed for the misfortunes people suffer during times of crisis. And no better a target would exist than an American living amongst pitiful starving masses of a different culture and language, especially if law enforcement disappears. And one thing I found while in Honduras and Guatemala that law enforcement is already in very short supply there. It could completely disappear with little provocation.
While in La Cebia, Honduras, I was shocked to see an armed guard, with a shotgun, standing outside the local Burger King. Then I noticed the same thing at KFC, and everywhere else. Because robbery is so easy and the police so scarce, even fast food restaurants are forced to hire their own armed guards. I believe such a place would be an extremely dangerous place for an American during a local insurrection. And insurrections will be everywhere as we tumble over the cliff of diminishing fuel supplies.
Ron Patterson
While in La Cebia, Honduras, I was shocked to see an armed guard, with a shotgun, standing outside the local Burger King. Then I noticed the same thing at KFC, and everywhere else. Because robbery is so easy and the police so scarce, even fast food restaurants are forced to hire their own armed guards.
Have you visited an 'inner city' mall or fast food shop in the US of A?
Last 'inner city' mall I was at:
2 bill paying centers, 1 bank, 5 other units. at least 1 guard per store, and 3 'guards' in the general walking around area. These guards just lack the shotguns.
When you drive down the street and see an armed guard at every business with a cash register, or you have to step around a 20 year old with a shotgun when you visit your local Wendy's, then you can make a legitimate comparison.
Ron Patterson
yes, it could be wise to stay in your own country. For example in Europe we have a huge muslim immigrant population.
If i were a muslim in Europe, i would think about moving back to my muslim country.
WTSHTF the europeans could vote up new Hitlers, and kill the muslims, like the germans did with the jews. I believe this will be very likely. Most of ordinary people hate the muslims already. Everybody i talk to are negative to the muslim immigrants. Only the politicos are positive, and the matter is tabu for now, but it could very fast change if TSHTF.
Oh don't be shy now. Just say what you mean!!
I thought i did it.
Hello Swede,
Probably impossible to do because of our aggregate genetic desire to scapegoat others, but I thought an example near the very end of the movie "Gandhi" was hopeful:
http://sfy.ru/sfy.html?script=gandhi
-------------------------------------
The Goondas stand. They glance at Suhrawardy; he smiles tautly and they start to leave, but one (Nahari) lingers. Suddenly he moves violently toward Gandhi,taking a flat piece of Indian bread (chapati) from his trousers and tossing it forcefully on Gandhi.
NAHARI: Eat.
Mirabehn and Azad start to move toward him – the man looks
immensely strong and immensely unstable. But Gandhi holds up a shaking hand, stopping them. Nahari's face is knotted in emotion, half anger, half almost a child's fear –
but there is a wild menace in that instability.
NAHARI: Eat! I am going to hell – but not with your death on my soul.
GANDHI: Only God decides who goes to hell . . .
NAHARI (stiffening, aggressive): I – I
killed a child . . . (Then an anguished defiance) I smashed his head against a wall.
Gandhi stares at him, breathless.
GANDHI (in a fearful whisper): Why? Why?
It is as though the man has told him of some terrible self-inflicted wound.
NAHARI (tears now – and wrath): They
killed my son – my boy!
Almost reflexively he holds his hand out to indicate the height of his son. He glares at Suhrawardy and then back at Gandhi.
NAHARI: The Muslims killed my son . . . they killed him.
He is sobbing, but in his anger it seems almost as though he means to kill Gandhi in retaliation. A long moment, as Gandhi meets his pain and wrath. Then
GANDHI: I know a way out of Hell.
Nahari sneers, but there is just a flicker of desperate curiosity.
GANDHI: Find a child – a child whose mother and
father have been killed. A little boy – about this high.
He raises his hand to the height Nahari has indicated as his son's.
GANDHI: . . . and raise him – as your own.
Nahari has listened. His face almost cracks – it is a chink of light, but it does not illumine his darkness.
GANDHI: Only be sure . . . that he is a Muslim. And
that you raise him as one.
And now the light falls on Nahari. His face stiffens, he swallows, fighting any show of emotion; then he turns to go. But he takes only a step and he turns back, going to his knees, the sobs breaking again and again from his heaving body as he holds his head to Gandhi's feet in the traditional greeting of Hindu son to Hindu father.A second, and Gandhi reaches out and touches the top of his head.
Mirabehn watches. The Goondas watch. Suhrawardy watches. Finally
GANDHI (gently, exhaustedly): Go – go.
God bless you . . .
--------------------------------
Most likely: we will go the way of Tadeusz Borowski, #119198, who personally helped maybe 50,000 or more of his closest friends, "THIS WAY FOR THE GAS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!"
http://dieoff.com/page226.htm [Please be prepared: this is a gut-wrenching read]
Yeast don't choose sides, then resort to violence. =(
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Hello Bob
WTSHTF i believe we will see a lot of this(see former Yugoslavia, Ruanda etc even before PO).
Hello Swede,
Thxs for responding. Yep, since, in the aggregate we refuse to peacefully control our population Overshoot and the planet's carrying-capacity, then, by default: we will genetically whittle our grand total down postPeak. Of course, Mother Nature will lend a hand to reinforce this blowback trend.
My hope is that eventually enough people will become Peakoil Outreach informed that we can somehow optimize our detritus decline, then ramp up effective biosolar strategies so the Bottleneck Squeeze is as effective as possible for the maximum # of lifeforms to reach the other side. Time will tell.
It won't be much fun if it is only humans and cockroaches on the last outpost of a tropical Ellesmere Island. =(
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Funny you should bring this up. I ran across the story again in an anthology recently, after not having read it in many years.
It still shocks me.
Borowski killed himself before he reached 30 years old, I believe.
According to Nirad Chaudhuri,one of my fave writers, most of GHandi was a load of baloney. pure Hollywood and largely apocryphal. Of course G's himself was stage-manager extraordinaire so this is appropriate.
Matt
Ron--
I have spent a lot of time in Central America (I drove from California to Costa Rica, then island hopped through the Caribbean, finally ending up in Columbia- long story), and surfed in Mexico, El Salvador and Costa Rica fairly frequently.
Anyway, forget Central America- with the exception of Nicaragua, all are client states of the US, with the usual huge difference in class, wealth, and all the suffering and violence that those conditions cause. Argentina or Chile offer greater opportunities for emigration, with educated populaces out of the thumb of the corporate jackals of the World Bank, and the economic slavery that brings on. Plus, Venezuela seems to be honestly trying to create a true Boleverian Revolution, with possible more energy security (possibly being the key word)
Personally, it is BC for me--
I feel you are right Ron. The scarest phrase Post Peak I think will be "You're not from around here are ya?"
I wouldn't think a country/cultural change at this time. I was in San Paulo Bz and Bueno Aries Argentina a few years ago, and wouldn't want to be there post peak for example.
Immigrants will have the same experience here in rural areas I believe. In cities enclaves of different groups will spring up more than there is now.
I'm from the northeast US and our citie had a german section, an italian section, a polish section, an irish section(Only citie with a traffic light has the Green Light over the Red Light),
Those families with roots that still exist in rural america I think will fall back there to some degree.
Watch for water to seek it's own level in times to come.
Stratification will increase.
The only one I know of in the northeast US is in Syracuse NY.
Where IS that 'Theory of Everything' ?
Here
it is !
On location and re-location.
I think that my best option is to continue to "bloom where I am planted" and work on making things better here.
Of course any plans can change due to unforeseen developments, which are not necesarily PO related.
I do think that it is good to evaluate where one might like to live in terms of peak oil and global warming.
A good time to make any changes might be sooner rather than later.
I am in a pretty good location with some good relationships and fairly local options for short-distance relaocation if things get too crazy in the city. (Minneapolis, MN)
Other thoughts on the "stay put" vs "find a new place in the sun" issue?
I think we will all die, so we just need to figure out what we want to do betweeen now and then. My priority has slightly less to do with long-term survival than with living for positive change while I can amidst the mainstream culture. Tilting at windmills, perhaps.
Thank you Leanan and Sid
I believe what your friend Joe finds most repulsive about Americans is the belief held by many of 'American Exceptionalism.' When I was younger I thought that if Americans were immersed in other cultures that their hubris would somehow be diminished. Now I realize that exposure of Americans to other cultures generally reinforces American hubris. Casting the pearls before the swine makes the swine no more intelligent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism
Actually, I believe the opposite - that is, common Americans have been travelling less for a generation, and that is not merely coincidental. A silly example - in the early 1990s, the number of Malaysian students studying at American universities was greater than the entire number of American university students studying overseas.
Essentially, at this point, the message most Americans hear about overseas concerns 'threats' to their safety. The groups that tend to travel this most in American society also tend to be inured to actually integrating - Mormon and other missionaries, military personnel, the upper class.
This lack of experience of a broader world is one of the more useful tools available to ensure that Americans have no way to compare and contrast their own way of living with any others.
This may be one of the more interesting things about Sicko - it actually seems to open a window into certain aspects of daily life in other societies - and apparently, even this short glimpse is almost revolutionary.
Americans have become so American-centric they seem even unaware of it - any observations about how they live which don't fit their own opinions or self-image is immediately dismissed as being 'anti-American.'
Facts, like the example above concerning university students, play little role in American discourse at this point. It remains one of the attractions of peak oil to me.
Oh, and as a little side note - notice how the price of oil has been climbing steadily since Gonu? What an odd little juxtaposition - unprecendented and vicious storm in a major oil producing region, and afterwards, rising prices, as if the amount of oil available was less than the market anticipated. Merely a factor in a very complex situation, of course, possibly one which doesn't even exist - or one which has simply faded into the background, just like the permanent destruction of oil infrastructure in the Gulf Of Mexico.
You stated 'Actually I believe the opposite...', followed by a string of excuses for Americans that believe they are exceptional.
1) 'common Americans have been traveling abroad for less than a generation.' Where did you get that idea? I have been traveling abroad all my life (now over 60) and I am not rich, not a mormon and not in the military. I have encountered thousands of Americans abroad and most have been unwealthy, unmilitary, and unmormon.
2) 'Americans hear of threats to their safety.' I agree, but in what way do threats to their safety give them leave to think of themselves as exceptional?
3) 'Lack of experience of a broader world...snip...ensure Americans have no way to compare their own way of living with that of others.' I agree that they have no basis for comparison. If Americans cannot compare then why do they assume they are exceptional? Besides, the government still issues passports for a nominal fee. I have not seen any Americans with anchors tied to their asses.
4) '...Sicko...opens a glimpse into other cultures...glimpse is revolutionary.' Yes, and there are also a wealth of foreign films that offer glimpses of foreign cultures and are generally much more entertaining than anything coming out of Hollywood.
5 'Americans have become so self centric...unaware of it...anything that dont fit their own self image or opinions are immediately dismissed as anti-American.' Yes, this is called ignorance.
5) PO is PO, not on subject of being an expat in Belize or American exceptionalisim.
6) I respect and appreciate what you are doing for the people of Belize. I have worked in foreign countries and lived as a native. To help people that really need help gives one a feeling like no other. However, your response in no way excuses the Americans living in Belize in 'American compounds.' There behavior is the picture of ignorance and is typical of those that accept the concept of American exceptionalisim without ever even considering what they are doing. They have the opportunity to become familiar with a foreign culture, and that would probably change their lives for the better, yet they choose to remain ignorant.
Oops - that first sentence is not merely confusing (or wrong, if you prefer), it place the opening in context, Another try -
'For a generation, the number of average Americans simply travelling abroad has been declining.' Which itself is based on some data and some anecdotes. A nice link at http://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2003/01/31/how_many_america.php gives some additional perspective to that opening comment providing some context to what I mean. If we exclude immigrants travelling back to countries where they came from, the number of Americans I know who simply take a month to travel in a foreign country has declined over the last 25 years - in part, because how many Americans do you know with a month of free time and adequate savings to travel, especially compared to 25 years ago? The amount of military overseas, and especially those living on the economy, has also declined markedly over that time span.
As for exceptionalism - it is much easier to remain convinced of your exceptionalism if your only experience of other cultures is essentially zero (another place where the text is less than perfect, I see). There is an interesting German expression that translates to 'they only cook with water too.'
I come from Northern Virginia - the number of movie theaters playing non-Hollywood films has been declining around DC since I was 25. A complicated subject, but even a normal video store offered little in the way of foreign films. Obviously, how things are today in the U.S. in terms of Netflixx/Amazon/etc is beyond my experience.
Point number six seems to explain some of the confusion - I don't live in Belize, and was only commenting that in my opinion, the problem is that fewer Americans who aren't immigrants experience the world - though the pearls before swine may still apply, it is not the major problem currently.
People do what they want to do. If Americans choose not to travel abroad it is because a great many of them have been taken in by the consumer economy that surrounds them and have chosen to spend their discretionary income on consumer goods instead of travel. I ceed the point that some Americans do not have the means to travel abroad, some through no fault of their own. The ignorance in America is monumental. Americans have been distracted by bread and circus while their opponents in the class war have taken from them thier unions, their jobs, their overtime, their vacations, their decent standard of living, their health care and have left them in a state of fear for the miserable jobs that remain. Only an ignorant people would watch football on tv while so much was being taken from them. Ignorance, and the belief in American esceptionalisim, in our country springs from terrible schools that teach little of other countries and cultures or anything else except a bit of rote learning. They act, more than anything, as a day care service. After a couple of generations of such poor public education it becomes the norm. The entire system from grade school through college has been degraded. When all are rendered ignorant who remains to point it out?
All public libraries have computers with internet connections. Most films ever made are available from Amazon, Ebay, Half.com, and numerous internet sources. Many can be purchased used for bargain prices. Most of these same public libraries have movies that can be checked out just as books are available.
The 'pearls before swine' is definitely an appropriate analogy.
I think it must be more than just the lack of actual travelling overseas - the opportunities are more and the costs of travel somewhat less for Americans than they are for young Australians, yet here there has long been a "rite of passage" that many of us are almost expected to go through - finish Uni, then backpack through Europe (usually) for a year, working odd jobs if you can.
Personally I missed out (which I have some small regrets over), but at least I have travelled to Europe, SE-Asia, South America and the U.S. - and I'm little more than half your age. Why there should be such a different level of desire to even travel overseas between Australians and Americans (and probably similarly between Canadians and Americans) is hard to understand. I'm sure it must have something to do with the level of confidence about your own country's "importance" in the world - Australians are known to suffer a level of "cultural cringe" that, while often unnecesarily harsh, at least motivates us to go out there and see all these other countries and cultures that we all secretly know are better than ours. Americans appear to suffer something of the opposite effect. You might think events like 9/11 and the Iraq debacle would at least start to cause younger Americans to question their confidence in their own country's superiority, perhaps encouraging them to travel overseas a little more. I suppose it's too early to tell whether that's actually happening at all. But if it does, peak oil might put an abrupt end to it, which would be a shame.
Wizofaus thanks for the response. BTW, Australia is turning out some excellent films. I especially enjoy the comedys.
In Feb, 1967, I left America for a 1 1/2 years of bumming and working my way through Europe, Greece and Turkey. I had just completed four years in the navy and had seen most of the Med but not as a civilian. I hitched, missed a lot of meals, sometimes slept in fields, met lots of great people, and had a wonderful time. In 1967 this was common practice among American youth. Viet Nam was beginning to roar and the draft age kids knew that they had to try for college deferments or get drafted. Many that I met in Europe, when they found that I had been in the navy, wanted advice about what to do. I convinced some of them to join the Navy or Air Force to avoid becoming cannon fodder(3 year enlistment vs 2 in the Army) or to take a four year enlistment and go to school on the GI Bill (what I did). I have tried to understand why kids dont take the opportunity to go to Europe now when they graduate hs and prior to starting college. I dont know the answer. After most kids finish college today they have large school loans to pay off so they get jobs right away but the hs graduates of today are afraid to just go to Europe without a car, credit card, lots of cash, etc. They have a different mind set than the kids of 1967. We were hippies and naieve enough to think we needed to see the world, get an education, then change the world...lol. My fellow travelers and I did not think of America as 'better than any other country', in fact, just the opposite. We saw America as a war mongering nation and would sometimes would try to pass for Brits because we didnt want to admit that we were Americans (four years in the navy is an education about American policies abroad). I doubt we fooled any Europeans. American youth today dont seem to have an adventurous spirit. Like I said, I dont know the answer, and perhaps it is because there is too much of a generational gap between them and me. I fear that they will miss an opportunity that will not come their way again.
The student loans aspect I hadn't thought of.
In Australia we have a system that makes a lot of sense - government subsidised interest-free loans that don't need to be paid off until you're earning enough. There were a lot of objections to the system when it was first introduced (given that previously under-graduate education was free), but even though it took me a good 5+ years to pay off my loan, and it represented a significant drain on my salary, it always seemed like a well justified expense (even though I was offered a good-paying full-time job well before I graduated).
Do student loans in the U.S. start accumulating interest immediately, and have minimum payment requirements regardless of salary (like any other loan, that is).
Yes, even the federally subsidized loans start accruing interest as soon as you take them out (all be it at a very low rate). This means that the loans I took out to cover freshmen year were charging me interest all through undergrad and grad school. Now I went to a State school so my tuition wasn’t that ridiculous. But even the 30+ k loan I ended up with when all was said and done (and consolidated) needed a $200 payment 6 months after I got my diploma. You can only defer if you go back to school for another degree.
As for bumming around Europe, the only people I know who did that were either rich or did a study abroad semester (and those kids were usually rich). Also, while you can backpack around Europe on the cheap you first have to get to Europe. The airlines generally frown upon hitchhiking.
When I graduated it took me 9 months to land a job. The first three student loan payments blew what little savings I had. When I did get a job and moved to where I’m at now the security deposit and first months rent went on the credit card. No traveling for me.
Besides, we all know us amurikins rock so what’s the point? :)
"No man who owns his own house and lot can be a Communist. He has too much to do." (Bill Levitt - 1948)
A $250,000 in student debt is normal for medical doctors.
Alan
Wizofaus, I am hearbroken to see what you write here, and if I wanted to be uncharitable, I would say it is not simply that people in the US know nothing of the rest of the world, but that people in other countries no nothing of the history of the places in which they live. I am from Australia too. I am not that old, and I am telling you that my tertiary education was FREE. One of the greatest shocks I received on returning to Oz for a holiday last year was to hear all this appalling cr*p about 'student loans', and on a US scale. What is wrong with you all? Why aren't you setting fire to things in the street? How did you all just buy this stuff without even a whimper? I can't believe it. Did you have no idea that people in the generation before yours didn't pay a cent for this stuff? And yet you accepted that you ought to?
If even the young, who have the least to lose, won't fight, then no one will. Australia is doomed. No one knows, no one remembers, no one fights. Everyone will sleepwalk along in some reverie about good old John Howard (even though the boomming economy is all about China, and nothing else), and then it will all fall apart when the US goes belly-up and China tanks. You should know that from hanging out here.
God. You all deserve what you get. A midget, in all senses of the term, as one of the nation's longest serving leaders.
A constant refrain here is that US people are sheep, but I tell you now that Australians are far, far worse.
Well, like I said, I was one of the early ones for whom tertiary education required a HECS loan. I would tend to agree that it would preferable that tertiary education was fully subsidised, although I wouldn't be too keen on knowing my taxpayer dollars were funding so many mostly worthless law or management degrees either.
But I've never known anyone for whom HECS was a difficult burden financially. Many of my friends were musicians (I did a Music degree as well as a Science one), some of whom are probably today, over 10 years later, still not earning enough to be paying much (if any) HECS - which they're fine with.
I'm sure if Howard had his way he'd love to introduce something more akin to what the U.S. has, but Education funding has always been an important electoral issue here, and I doubt he'd get away with it anyway.
I spent a good % of Sunday with 27 young IN SHAPE upper middle class (mostly) kids bicycling from Jacksonville to San Francisco. They spent a week in New Orleans doing volunteer labor. Sunday was their "day off".
http://www.bikeandbuild.org/cms/content/view/32/49/
They began to pick up on the cultural differences here in New Orleans.
All is not lost :-)
Best Hopes for diversity of culture within the US as well as outside,
Alan
Americans are traveling less, and very few even have a passport--
Plus USA people work all the time--
Australians are planning that motorcycle trip through Asia with their 6 weeks, and Euros are off to all parts of the Planet--
USA Americans are shell shocked with 2 weeks off, and quite uncomfortable with free time.
Work is a addiction for USA Americans, and keeps them from facing reality.
I'm not convinced that explains the difference between student-level or just-graduated Americans vs Australians.
Unless perhaps American colleges/universities deliberately push students into jobs as quickly as possible?
BTW, I've never heard of anyone doing a 'motorcycle trip through Asia' - is that a genuine phenonemon? Flatting in London while working at the local to pay for jaunts off around the rest of Europe still seems to be the prevailing stereotype, and I know several people who've done just that (or similar enough).
wizo--
My brother has a dive business on the Great Barrier Reef--
Yes. it's true. I have been hanging in NZ, and with the exception of rich fly fishermen, Americans are few and far between- Lot's of Euro's and Aussies.
Most American Students can't find Iraq on a map--
Some can't even find the USA, and that must be quite challenging to be that ignorant.