Last edited Wed Jun 21, 2017, 07:08 PM - Edit history (1)

Some need to cut and run and think only of themselves. I'm just grateful for the fighters in our history and vow to carry on that fight. I wish this family all the best and won't spend one atom of energy worrying about their future. They're Ecuador's problem now.

Would you have said the same about those fleeing Nazi Germany?

You sound very brave. I'm impressed. Not.

But this isn't Nazi Germany, is it? To even mention it discredits, cheapens and insults all who died, were tortured and suffered through that awful genocide. You equate these entitled, self absorbed, privileged people with people like Ann Frank? Puke.

And no, I'm scared shitless my father will lose his leukemia treatments or my disabled sister loses her SSI or the other people I don't know will suffer due to GOPee actions but I'm not about to let them down, turn tail and leave them on their own, mainly because I'm not a total a-hole.

Good night.

People used to come here to get away from the crap that is going on here now. Were those folks wrong to come here for a better life?

Fair weather friend. The tough get going when the going gets tough. etc etc etc.

Look, this isn't Nazi Germany, Uganda, Mao's and the Khmer Rouge isn't beheading anyone. These people aren't frightened refugees seeking asylum due to their life being in immimnet danger nor are they fleeing to some over crowded and dirty tent city. No U.N. provided protein gruel is in their future. Spare me that hogwash because we're no where close that.

Right now, we need to be fighting, resisting and standing UP for what's right. Forget "American values' and all that crap, I mean just for what's right. I'm not brave. Most of DU's little sisters could beat me up. Most, not all! But being a small person, I HAD to stand up for myself. Might does not make right and some things are worth getting your ass kicked over.

I'm a little old man and have more gumption in the stains in my underwear than these people have in their whole bodies. The children will learn that running away, as long you have that kind of money, is a lot easier than actually standing up for decency and caring about others less fortunate or able. Hard work sucks. Sacrifice is for poor people. See ya later, Rubes!

Again, the situation in this country is NOT a violent genocide in progress nor were these people's lives in danger. It just got uncomfortable and they don't care to help correct it, Fine. I don't have to like it or respect them anymore than they give crap about me or my grand children.

My family came here because of famine. The reasons the person listed are enough for them.

You would have more valid point if there were not children involved. They don't have the time to wait for our education systems to improve, the drug issues to be controlled, gun violence diminished etc.... I completely understand why someone with small kids may want to go somewhere else. Why the hell they chose Ecuador is a mystery to me.


IF things could turn around in a year or two - even five, then of course -stay & fight. However, it's going to take decades and will get worse long before it gets better. I don't blame them thinking this is best for their family.

I'm going to retire in Portugal in a couple years - I already that planned. I'm sure I suck too in your eyes. I'll remember that when I'm sitting in the Algarve enjoying some vinho.

Of course you know that planning to retire outside of the U.S. is not the same thing as "fleeing" war ravaged America. I wonder if their parents moved to Ecuador during the Great Depression or right after Pearl Harbor or maybe Desegregation to provide a better life for their children.

"IF things could turn around in a year or two - even five, then of course -stay & fight. However, it's going to take decades and will get worse long before it gets better."

You've got a wonderful crystal ball there and it's even more impressive when you present the hocus pocus as if it's fact. Well done! Decades, huh? In what ways will it get worse? How much worse? How do you know this? Are you sure it's going to take decades and not centuries? Or weeks? More hogwash...you do not know, it's pure conjecture.

"Things" are not ideal but besides rhetoric and possibilities, very little has been done. To be clear, I'm not saying nothing has changed but it's been 4 MONTHS and people are splitting already? The economy hasn't changed much in 4 months. We haven't invaded or been invaded by anybody. While we have increased deportation efforts, that isn't entirely new either. These people are spoiled, self absorbed and lazy and will teach their children those same "values", imo. Ecuador has it's share of problems, also and, as is the case here, there are no guarentees on anything. Oh well, if Ecuador tanks, they can just up and move again to the next paradise.

Anyway, enjoy your retirement and to make it even better, forget about me.

We didn't get to this level in the last 4 months. Trump is just the cherry on top after all this crap that started under Reagan and has chipped away at everything that has made the middle class strong. The religious right started their crusade about the same time and just unbrainwashing the masses will take a decade or so.

If you can't see how this country right now is not a healthy place to raise children - then good for you. There are better places and I do not blame anyone who seeks a better life for their kids.

Enjoy your condescending remarks. I will take your advice and forget about you.

bye

I see America becoming toxic. One of my daughter's classmates just OD'd. 27 years old. My daughter has struggled with addiction. We live in a mountain paradise where people come for vacation and our local kids are shooting up. We are surrounded by the stunning beauty of nature and the wealthy who come to play. Million dollar mansions used 90 days a year at most while the locals pay huge rents for substandard any roof they can find. When the wealthy second home owners decided the town repertory theater needed a new home, they raised $7+ milliion in two years, buliding a lovely theater with a grand crystal wall bearing the names of $100,000 + donors. Our grand benefactors, while our elementary school closed the same year due to declining enrollment because people can't afford to raise families here anymore.

Greedy, greedy America. Worth fighting for? I don't know. I mostly do agree with you, but if I were younger I think I'd be looking for a better future elsewhere. I'm sick of racism, poor shaming, and religion. It's not about lives in danger, it's about the relentless greed and divisiveness, and how hopeless so many of us are feeling about the future. Let's face it, in America nearly half of eligible voters don't vote. They haven't left the country, but they might as well have. Sometimes I think, just let them have it.

"The children will learn that running away, as long you have that kind of money, is a lot easier than actually standing up for decency and caring about others less fortunate or able. Hard work sucks...


I've little doubt that is the only possibility you are able to see, though others yet exist. It realize how incredibly convenient to one's bias it is to deny yourself the difference of degrees between scenarios, and that comparison and contrast is merely "hogwash," and to believe that concern for the future of one; family directly equates to not "giving a crap" about yours...

Those fallacies are something we often hold dear when we see others taking action.

We only get one life to live and some of us chose to spend it where our fighting will actually do some good. Not really the same thing as "cutting and running and thinking only of yourself".

I left the States permanently in 2004 after GWB was reelected because it was obvious to me then that we were never going to make any meaningful progress on nationalised health care, climate change or income inequality as long as the progressive parts of the country were permanently lumbered with Jesusland and Rush Country and our only choices election after election were between moderate quasi-Republicans and batshit crazy theocrats. And guess what? 13 years later, the US hasn't made any meaningful progress on health care, climate change or income inequality.

Meanwhile my tax dollars and industry go to a country which has universal health care, the lowest levels of corruption of any country on earth, was the first country to give women the vote, elected its first female Prime Minister twenty years ago, has banned the death penalty and nuclear weapons, gets 80% of its energy from renewable sources, and has the most progressive environmental legislation in the world and has done since 1991. Plus all the cops are named things like Clive and Nigel and they aren't allowed to carry guns. And the airports don't even use metal detectors on most domestic flights because they don't believe in treating everyone like a criminal to prevent a risk of death so miniscule it makes getting hit by lightning seem likely.

Sometimes the only way to win the game is when enough people refuse to play it. The system is rigged in the US and you don't need to participate in that system to fight it.

But life is like that. Sometimes it makes you happy and other times it's inflammatory.

"And guess what? 13 years later, the US hasn't made any meaningful progress on health care, climate change or income inequality."

I disagree a bit with your assertion that there has been no progress in health care, income inequality or climate change. The, ACA, Fightfor$15 and rising minimum wages in some locales (think Seattle) and Paris Agreement are concrete examples of those continuing efforts and the fight will continue.

I bold-ed "13 years" because, to me, it's a drop of time in a huge barrel of history. It took us how many centuries to end slavery in this country? That fight is still being fought but it's the right fight. How "quickly" did women earn the right to vote? Child labor, worker safety, seat belts and on and on and on. 13 years? Pffft.

I understand wanting to move to another country because you like it. Go for it, have fun and enjoy yourself. My issue is people running from the problem as if it's even possible. Ecuador isn't exactly a shining beacon of freedom and prosperity and even if it was, there is no guarantee it'll stay that way. What then? Run to Brazil? Italy? France? They have their issues, too. So, when do you take a stand against inequality, lack of health care or poor stewardship of our environment? When do you care enough to put aside your fears? When do you stop running? More importantly, why should any of those that remain care for those that ran?

This is NOT Nazi Germany but, yes, it could be. It's made more likely by the flight of people that care nothing for their fellow human and are lucky enough to have the money to seek greener pastures.

And finally, "The system is rigged in the US and you don't need to participate in that system to fight it." No, but if you don't fight it, you don't get to enjoy the victory, either.

"take a stand against inequality, lack of health care or poor stewardship of our environment' is in the US?

Believe it or not, there are 195 other countries in the world and most of the people living in them also care about those things and fight to achieve progressive goals.

It's just that some of them have a better culture and political system for actually achieving them. I work my backside off day after day to improve environmental outcomes. And thankfully I live in a country where I can actually make meaningful progress. So how do you know the "fight" can only be won in America but not in Europe or South America or Canada or Australia or Asia?

Your comments about "fleeing" and "caring nothing for fellow humans" are not "life". They are your deliberately chosen slanders against people who have simply adopted a more global perspective than yours. You're "fighting" for "America" i.e. bullying people on the Internet who are considering leaving it or have left it. I think "fighting for America" is smoke and mirrors.

I'm fighting for income equality and health care as a human right and a healthy environment for everyone everywhere. And I don't think you can achieve those things in the current US two party political system in a country where 80% of the people believe in angels, 43% don't accept evolution, and 50% are so scientifically illiterate they can't understand that 97% of scientists saying that climate change is real, caused by humans and will have devastating impacts on the planet means that climate change is actually not still up for debate.

You will never make meaningful progress on the issues that really matter until you banish the influence of money on politics, have multiple parties that reflect a spectrum of views, introduce journalistic standards that hold networks like Fox accountable for lying, significantly raise the education level of the majority of Americans in civics, science and geography, breathe life back into labour unions, significantly increase taxes on the wealthy and make Americans start giving a shit about each other regardless of race, religion, gender, income or sexual orientation.

When was the last time any of those things was even seriously on the table in US politics? Never in my lifetime. Do you honestly see them ever coming on the agenda in the next 40 years? I don't. And if I ever do, I can always move back. Or, you know, vote absentee and participate on US message boards and go to protests where I live because we have the internet and a global postal system and social media and TV and you don't need to actually physically live in a country to participate in its political system.

I'd like to see that country! Where is it?

Aloha.

... fighting Muslims is important to Russia too and its because the old Soviet Union had a good number of Muslims states that were part the USSR.

When Ukraine left the USSR the Russian federation didn't want to stay in the USSR because the Muslim states would've been more influential at the Supreme Soviet.

White supremacist sympathize with Vlads fight against making Muslims influential in Russia.

sad, racism is the root cause of why the USSR broke up ... it wasn't just Ukraine pulling out of the supreme soviet (soviet = council) fuckin Russians didn't want an ethnic minority to have power.

Without having to move all the way to another country to do it? Oh, his son saved money for a keyboard he wanted? No one ever does that in the US And all those icky people with mental health problems. That's a US only problem, too.

This was nothing but privilege speaking about how special they are. Barf.

I am all for exploring our world and I don't by any means think America is the end all be all.

This article reads like an attempt to make the author feel good about her decision.

The reasons given were pretty silly. If it makes them happy, more power to them, but promoting it as a great idea is ridiculous.

I agree that they (as well as most of us Americans) could probably do a lot of simplifying and enriching right at home.

Ecuador appears to be the wrong place to go.

just wonder if they are drinking the water out of the tap or not by now.

That you need to move to a country like Ecuador to have adventures or to be able to enjoy the simple things. My family and I are incredibly blessed to be able to travel domestically and internationally every year...and sometimes multiple times a year.

Home is where the heart is. Not the house or the area around it. It is where you make it.

It's really stressful living here in these times. When things aren't going well here, I think about our political problems every day, many times a day.

I fought a lot in my youth, and I am proud of my contributions to the social revolution in the late '60s and the cessation of the Vietnam war.

But I am old now and don't have a lot of energy, and the stress wears on me. I'm so worried about losing Social Security and Medicare just as I am ready to need it.

I'm also in despair about how badly my adult children have to struggle in their lives, and see the little bits of hope they had (student loan relief, housing assistance, Medicaid, drug rehab assistance) dying out, one by one. Of course leaving the country would not help them, or alleviate my worries about them.

It takes a lot of courage to make a big move like that. From what I've read, many come to regret it, especially when the culture is extremely different from what you are used to living in.

THAT would put things in perspective.

My mantra these days is--This too, shall pass. Hang in there to the next round of elections. I think we're going to see a major change from the current status quo. The regular populace is sick and tired of this shit. Hopefully the zombies won't destroy the world before then.

They came here because life for them in Europe sucked.

Migration is a very human trait, since the very first humans.

Criticizing people who've left because they find it intolerable here is silly.

The ability to emigrate is the very essence of freedom.

Personally, I think blind nationalism or patriotism are, like many "isms" (sexism, racism, fascism, etc...), a bad thing.

Americans don't travel as much as most of the Western World. The power structure here doesn't want us to see how the rest of the world lives so they demonize all other countries. If Americans knew what a functioning Democracy centered on doing right by the middle class looked like they would throw out the entire Republican Party forever.

Now Ecuador has some issues and they are no Sweden, but the idea that children can't have a great life in another country is silly.