American Diaspora
A Brief Guide to Fleeing

by Doc Cuddy

The refugee’s lot is not a happy one.

Basically the fleer is faced with two questions:

    1. When to flee, and
    2. Where to flee to.

Before the rise of Late Capitalist pseudo-affluence, there used to be a third question: How to flee? These days, as long as you have at least one credit card that’s not maxxed out, how to flee is no problem. Even if all your cards are at the limit, you’re still OK. Just accept any (or several) of the card offers in your daily mail.

When to Flee
In fleeing, as in the rest of life, timing is crucial.

Use the following checklist to determine if it is time for you to leave your country.

____ 1. Has your government recently invaded one or more countries on the flimsiest of excuses?

____ 2. In doing so, did your country’s government ride roughshod not only over the countries in question but also over the advice of its own military experts as well as that of the international community?

____ 3. Has your government taken to eavesdropping on the private communications of its own citizens?

____ 4. Is your government currently headed by one person who, working with a rubber-stamp legislature and a rubber-stamp court system, effectively functions as a dictator?

____ 5. Has your country’s government recently suspended such ancient legal safeguards as habeas corpus, separation of church and state, etc.?

____ 6. Do your country’s leaders habitually demean and question the basic humanity of various minority groups (homosexuals, "illegal" aliens, etc.)?

____ 7. Has your country’s government either constructed or made plans for constructing massive "detention camps" for use in case of widespread "civil" unrest?

____ 8. Over a period of recent months (and years), have the statements of your country’s leaders showed a widening rift between the way they say things are and the way they clear are?

____ 9. Is there, in your country, a constantly widening gap between the wealth of the very rich and the lack of wealth of everybody else AND is this fact boasted of by your country’s leaders as proof that your country is still a land of opportunity where all have a shot at the biggest prizes?

____ 10. Does your country’s leader avoid anything that smacks of culture (books, art, modern dance, symphonic music, etc.)?

____ 11. Does your country’s leader believe that his deity speaks directly to him with instructions about what to do next?

____ 12. Has your country’s government recently overthrown the Geneva Conventions and embraced torture as a proper method of interrogation?

____ 13. Has your government abandoned one of the world's great cities in its hour of need and left it to rot in the subtropical sun?

If you answered "yes" to at least five of the questions, it is definitely time to flee.

If you answered "yes" to ALL the questions, it’s too late. You might as well resign yourself to your fate.

Where to Flee to
In a world where the wonders of the Free Market have given us so many choices in all areas of life, the decision about where to flee to is a difficult one.

Just so we don’t lose ourselves in abstractions, let’s use a real example.

Unlikely though it may be, let’s assume that, incredibly, American democracy has stumbled badly and is in danger of total collapse. We’ll pretend you are an American who—I know this is a stretch—has decided it’s time to go elsewhere.

What are your choices?

Naturally, we all think first of Canada.

Yes, there’s always good old Canada: humane, progressive, with open arms to Americans with problems vis-à-vis their government.

Canada is convenient, the language is (mostly) English, and they play both football and baseball. What more could you want?

Indeed Canada is tempting. But the realist will quickly conclude that the very same things that make Canada attractive to the fleer also make Canada very attractive to any large, expansionist, dictatorial government to the south.

Let’s say you settle on—and in—Canada. Please think carefully about this question: What’s to stop your former government in the south from "annexing" Canada any time that government decides the Canadians are getting a little too uppity for their own good. The historically minded reader may recall the German word, "Anschluss," which provided convenient cover and justification when a certain government in the 1930s felt the urge to set such countries as Czechoslovakia and Austria straight by attaching them to the "Thousand-year Reich."

So. Canada is out.

What about the other American neighbor, Mexico, you ask?

You jest, surely.

Mexico is the fifty-first state already in everything but legal reality. If you think you’re going to be safe from the long arm of the Department of Homeland Security or the National Security Agency or the CIA or the National Association of Evangelical Churches in Mexico, you are, I’m afraid, seriously delusional and in need of massive daily dosages of Zoloft.

No Canada, no Mexico. Where, then?

Well. There’s always the Axis of Evil. You, as a fleeing American, would no doubt be wildly welcomed in either Tehran or Pyongyang and put on very public and proud display.

If you think you can live without 24/7 access to Internet porn, your SUV, and mega-mall shopping, then go for it. Need we remind you that you will also be required to stop THINKING?

We’ve eliminated 4 countries. But, you say, that leaves another 200 or so to choose from, doesn’t it?

So it would seem… until you consider 21st-century geopolitical reality.

Ask yourself, you wannabe-refugee, where, where on this planet do you think you will be safe from the very long, very devious, very determined tentacles of an American government set on having its way in the world? Basking in the sun by the blue Pacific in Pago Pago? Lolling about as an eco-tourist in Costa Rica? Sampling the full range of fleshly delights in Bangkok?

The answer of course is: nowhere.

Unpack your bags. Scissor those new credit cards. Put away your passport.

In Germany in 1935 fleeing made sense.

In Vietnam in 1975 fleeing made sense.

In America now? No way. No point.

The only thing for us to do is to stay, get off our spoiled asses, get to work and try to fix the badly broken system here.

Your neighbors will thank you (eventually). The world will thank you. Above all, your conscience will thank you.

END

Back to Magellan's Log 106

Magellan's Log front page

Send this page to a friend.

We love to get mail from our readers!