Do you ever just feel like giving up hope?

In case you are not familiar with my background I am the 16-year-old founder of www.youthdemocracy.net and www.anti-bush.com .

In 1999, when I was nine, I first started getting interested in politics. Politics has become my passion and it has consumed me since. Recently as I have become more intellectual and brighter, I have become very depressed. This country makes me feel like shit sometimes. Our current state, the past and what looks to be the future. It all looks so bleak. It is all so sad. I sometimes think that part of the problem is that I know just enough to get me depressed but I am simply not enlightened enough to see the bright side of things or have much hope.

Most of DU has more life experience than I, and I would sure appreciate it if I could hear your thoughts. How can I keep hope? Why shouldn't I just leave this country? Can you relate? Help!

Last November's elections give us something upon which to pin our hopes.
We took over both houses of Congress.
Our majority in the Senate is too weak to actually DO anything, but it's better than Repiglicans running it.

On the other hand, I could not in good conscience urge you or anyone your age to stay in this country.
There are likely to be better opportunities elsewhere.
You are also likely to face the draft here.

service. The likelihood of a draft here is damned near zero. Any move to draft would make the Johnson-Nixon Vietnam demos look like a cakewalk. You'd see fat kids from coast to coast put down the cheetohs, push away from the XBoxes, and take to the streets in overwhelming numbers, cheese stained fists in the air.

Ya gotta watch where you go, too. Here's the list of No Draft/Draft countries. Bermuda? Who knew?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_service

Countries that never had, or abolished, mandatory military service
1.1 Argentina
1.2 Australia
1.3 Belgium
1.4 Bosnia and Herzegovina
1.5 Canada
1.6 Costa Rica
1.7 Czech Republic
1.8 France
1.9 Hungary
1.10 India
1.11 Iraq
1.12 Republic of Ireland
1.13 Italy
1.14 Jamaica
1.15 Japan
1.16 Latvia
1.17 Lebanon
1.18 Luxembourg
1.19 Republic of Macedonia
1.20 Montenegro
1.21 Morocco
1.22 Netherlands
1.23 New Zealand
1.24 Portugal
1.25 Romania
1.26 Slovakia
1.27 Slovenia
1.28 South Africa
1.29 Spain
1.30 United Kingdom
1.31 United States

Countries with mandatory military service
2.1 Albania
2.2 Austria
2.3 Belarus
2.4 Bermuda
2.5 Brazil
2.6 Bulgaria
2.7 Chile
2.8 China (PRC)
2.9 Croatia
2.10 Cyprus
2.11 Denmark
2.12 Egypt
2.13 Eritrea
2.14 Finland
2.15 Germany
2.16 Greece
2.16.1 Conscientious objection to military service (Greece)
2.17 Iran
2.18 Israel
2.19 Korea, South
2.20 Malaysia
2.21 Mexico
2.22 Norway
2.23 Poland
2.24 Russia
2.25 Serbia
2.26 Singapore
2.27 Sweden
2.28 Switzerland
2.29 Taiwan (ROC)
2.30 Turkey
2.31 Ukraine

in, say, Finland or Switzerland is not likely to get you killed. Not exactly warmongering countries.

telling you when to get up, what to do, what and when to eat, when to sleep, what to wear. Hup, two, three, four. And the pay sucks.

Right now, in America, we don't have a draft, so "warmongering" or not, the kid is safe from a tour in uniform, unless he allows himself to be conned by a military recruiter and stupidly volunteers for service. And as I said, despite all the angst and hysteria floating about, it's likely we won't return to a draft, because BushCo LIKES a complacent population that isn't personally affected by his ugly little wars. Assuming a Democrat takes the White House, he's safe for at least the next ten years, and by then, he'd be too old.

So why leave at all, unless he's totally given up on the promise of the nation, and rather than work for change, would rather go somewhere else where someone else has already done that work for him? If that's the case, well, so long, sayonara, see ya round, buh-Bye. And good luck emigrating to a country that's evolved to that point--they're getting awfully picky nowadays. I think getting Finnish or Swiss citizenship would be quite the trick, absent a huge bank account or a great skillset. There's always the "Marry In" option, but that involves giving up some freedom for citizenship, too.

One of the good things about this country is that, so far, anyway, we don't stop people from leaving.

Been there, done the military thing. And it's better to stay and contribute to change while it's still possible. However if someone wants to leave (while it's still possible), he/she is not likely to get caught up in another country's warmongering with conscription if an intelligent emigration choice is made, which, as you say, could be problematic. I wouldn't rule out conscription here, we've had it before.

All of the "good" countries with the nice standard of living, the health care, the 'green' attitude, and so on, are getting super picky. A teenager has no skills, and how many kids know, say, fluent Finnish, or even French-Italian-German for entree into Switzerland. Not many. And without cash, prospects, language skills, a job, maybe, a sponsor, good luck getting anything beyond a tourist "come and spend your money, sucker" visa.

You can go to some shithole with no social services easily, and if you have a good chunk of money they might offer you citizenship, but if you want to get into a "desirable" country, you've gotta bring something to the table (like MILLIONS, or a special skill)--if you think our immigration policy isn't the best, you should get a load of some of those on that "no draft" list. You don't marry in, you aren't gettin' in, in many cases. They don't think we're "first quality goods" frankly.

I'll go ahead and say it--I DO rule out conscription, absent a coup in this country. And I can't see that happening, either. Bush is a crippled canard, a lame duck now. He's got nuthin' but his hat and swagger. He's ... pffft ... OVER. He'll get himself a bunch more dead servicemembers over the next several months, but the party is fucking over. That's why Cheney is in Iraq now--to deliver the news; it's "Shape up or ship out" time. For REAL, this time.

I was a military careerist, now I'm a peacenik again in my old age. I ain't leaving America--I spent half my life away from it. I've got too much invested in this country in blood, sweat, tears and history. I'm a "stand and fight" type. But for those who don't want to do that, well, off they go--goodbye, and good luck to them! I won't beg them to stay; it's a culling process, really. You either have it, or you don't. You either want it, or you don't. You're either a (sometimes dissenting--often the best kind) patriot, or you're not. No harm, no foul. It's a choice.

The tree of liberty will, as needed, be refreshed with the blood of other patriots; immigrant ones, quite likely, with new and vibrant ideas... like I said, one great thing about this country, BushCo notwithstanding, is that no one forces any one of us to stay.

yeah, but still even when Dems won't or can't carry through on getting us out of Iraq and they pull this kind of shit against people who voted them in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xar60vwzGvA its hard

But when I read a post by someone as young and intelligent as yourself I gain some hope back.

Most days an almost overwhelming sadness weighs on me like a lead blanket,and I wonder about giving up more than just hope sometimes.

You say you have been consumed by it for seven years now.That's a lot of rude awakenings for anyone,let alone someone your age (and please understand that when I say "someone your age" I don't mean it in a negative or condescending way).I've been consumed by them since I was fifteen (I'm 39 now) and there are times when you simply need to step back from it for your own sanity,even if it's for just a week or so here and there.Find passions outside of politics as well (science and music are two of my non-political passions).

Something that sometimes helps to inspire me is to think of people I admire both within and outside of politics.For me,someone like Jimmy Carter works on both levels.

As for leaving the country,you'll get mixed responses to that.Everything from "you're a coward" to "get out while you can".I say be true to yourself and follow your heart.If that leads you to another country then that is where you should be.There is no right or wrong in the choice you make,in my opinion.

I will say if your depression lasts for a long time and you feel yourself sinking lower to talk to someone about it.A close friend,a counselor,your parents.Do NOT hold it in and try to just manage it yourself.Take it from me,it will consume you even more than politics does.Your post right here tells me that you're already willing to take such a step for yourself.Continue to do so.

Take care of yourself.

Focus on family and friends. The ones you love and who love you are what is most important. Most importantly, remember that we are American's and we are a strong nation. We have actually been through periods that were worse than these and have survived. Someday soon Bush and all the damage he has caused will pass and maybe the country will have learned a valuable lesson that will help us prevent such a cabal in the future. There are some great and compassionate people in this country and we will prevail. Take a day or two off from the media and DU and smell the spring flowers and sit in the sun.

I'd say the reason you shouldn't leave the country is that you can't run from your problems. America was founded(though murder, slavery, and genocide) as a destination for people running away. Now people are going to run away from the place they were running too? Just going around in circles.

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/170/

But it isn’t only false hopes that keep those who go along enchained. It is hope itself. Hope, we are told, is our beacon in the dark. It is our light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. It is the beam of light that makes its way into our prison cells. It is our reason for persevering, our protection against despair (which must be avoided at all costs). How can we continue if we do not have hope?

We’ve all been taught that hope in some future condition—like hope in some future heaven—is and must be our refuge in current sorrow. I’m sure you remember the story of Pandora. She was given a tightly sealed box and was told never to open it. But, being curious, she did, and out flew plagues, sorrow, and mischief, probably not in that order. Too late she clamped down the lid. Only one thing remained in the box: hope. Hope, the story goes, was the only good the casket held among many evils, and it remains to this day mankind’s sole comfort in misfortune. No mention here of action being a comfort in misfortune, or of actually doing something to alleviate or eliminate one’s misfortune.

The more I understand hope, the more I realize that all along it deserved to be in the box with the plagues, sorrow, and mischief; that it serves the needs of those in power as surely as belief in a distant heaven; that hope is really nothing more than a secular way of keeping us in line.

Hope is, in fact, a curse, a bane. I say this not only because of the lovely Buddhist saying “Hope and fear chase each other’s tails,” not only because hope leads us away from the present, away from who and where we are right now and toward some imaginary future state. I say this because of what hope is.

More or less all of us yammer on more or less endlessly about hope. You wouldn’t believe—or maybe you would—how many magazine editors have asked me to write about the apocalypse, then enjoined me to leave readers with a sense of hope. But what, precisely, is hope? At a talk I gave last spring, someone asked me to define it. I turned the question back on the audience, and here’s the definition we all came up with: hope is a longing for a future condition over which you have no agency; it means you are essentially powerless.

I'm 50 yrs old. In my life I have seen:

This country divided over an unpopular war, Vietnam, much, much worse than we are now.
Five major political assassinations, (Medgar Evers, Malcom X, JFK, MLK, RFK)
Four other assassination attempts (Wallace, Ford x 2, Reagan)
Twelve Americans walking on the moon. I watched Neal Armstrong live on an old B&W TV.
A Democratic President, LBJ, who could not get re-elected because of Vietnam.
A Republican President, Nixon, forced from office because he shat on the Constitution.
Recessions, inflation, prices rising, wages falling.
Natural disasters too many to count.
A terrific Bicentennial.
The Sexual Revoltuion.
Porn of every description.
The scourge of AIDS arrive and destroy the Sexual Revolution.
NINE Presidents in office.
Six dead Presidents (not the money) Truman, Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Reagan
War, revolution and rumor of war throughout the world, including the possibility of WWIII on more than one occasion.
Computers, and the internet. God I would have cut off a finger to have what you kids have today just in the technology field.

The key thing here is no matter how bad things have been, the USA is still here. The world is still here. Our country has survived much worse than George Bush. It's natural at your age to be depressed about the state of our country and the world. You get older, you gain perspective. The world doesn't revolve around you, and your concerns. Most people just want to live their lives, have a job, get married, have children, buy their own home and enjoy family, friends and life.

be good for you--at least to spend a year or two abroad. It's a big world out there, and there is a lot of good happening in it--it would give you perspective.

But travel aside, I want to tell you several things about hope.

1) It's not all up to you. Democracy is a collective effort. It has to be. And, in the current dire circumstances of our democracy--and they are dire--taking TOO MUCH personal responsibility can burn you out. The fascist coup that we are suffering is specifically designed to do that--to alarm individual citizens, render them powerless and burn them out. The remedy for this is FAITH IN THE AMERICAN PEOPLE (and I think there is good reason to have faith in them--which I will explain in a moment)--and taking the attitude: They will either rise to the occasion, or they will not. ALL I CAN DO is JOIN WITH OTHERS and DO MY PART. It is really and truly is not all up to you--or me, or any individual.

2) Your depression does no one any good. So do something else for a while. Something refreshing and renewing. Give yourself a break. Learn something new. Take a holiday. This mess will still be here when you get back, believe me.

3) I would especially suggest that you take a holiday from the war profiteering corporate news monopolies--if you are getting too big a dose of them. They are lethal to a healthy, democratic psyche. I call them the Dead Media. That is their job in this fascist coup--to kill your soul. To make you feel hopeless and helpless, and dependent on them for your sense of our national reality (a dead, corporate-run fascist country). I am quite serious about this. I think it is quite deliberate. So, turn them off (if you are addicted).

4) If you remain politically active, BE VERY PRACTICAL about it. Look for ways to empower the People. You could do quite a lot, for instance, just informing your immediate neighborhood or community about the voting system. Who is counting the votes, and how? You'd be surprised how uninformed people are about this. And just let that information cook for a while. Then find out what people want to do about it. How do THEY think votes should be counted? Etc. Reforming a huge country like the USA is going to take a million small actions. It has to be rebuilt from the bottom up. Don't think of stopping the war (although you might want to witness against it, in a protest). Think of empowering all those Americans in your immediate vicinity who oppose it. Why are they votes not working?

Having faith in the American people. When the buildup to the Iraq War occurred, it was a burning question to me: Had Americans gone nuts, or were the people just not being heard? If it was the former--that the majority of Americans had become fascists and Bushites and crazy wingnuts--that is one problem. It is a problem of public education, of advocacy, of convincing people of something (that fascism and war are nuts and immoral). If it is the latter--that the people were not being heard--that is quite a different problem. How to empower people? How to hearten them? How, strategically, to get their voices heard?

So I looked into the matter deeply. First thing I came across, 56% of the American people opposed the invasion of Iraq. 56%! Feb. 2003. Before the war. Before all the lies were even exposed. 56%! That would be a landslide in a presidential election. Now that number is 75%!!!

The majority of the people NEVER SUPPORTED THIS WAR, and, the more people found out about it, the more joined that consensus.

Next problem: How to help them? They don't need convincing. They need POWER. Why don't they have any? This is a democracy, right? The majority rules. And now we have a WHOPPING majority against the war. What has gone wrong?

Bush is now down to 28% approval (and probably less--the polls are weighted toward Republicans). And yet he is ESCALATING the war. And the Democrats are trying to figure out how to give him BILLIONS MORE DOLLARS for that escalation, while creating the illusion that they oppose it. What's wrong with this picture? 75% of the people against the war, and they can only achieve a 50/50 Congress.

Anyway, that's how my thinking has gone. The American people give me hope. I will do everything I can to help empower them. I've been working on voting systems and voting rights issues now for three years (ever since 11/3/04). I think that is the key. I could quote you a bunch of other stats, but I will spare you that, and just say: I am completely convinced, on the basis of much study, that the great progressive American majority still exists, and that it has strongly resisted war and other fascist propaganda--nobly resisted it--but that this big majority that rejects fascism and rejects unjust war is mystified as to why the normal mechanisms of democracy are not working. They are just catching onto the coup in the voting system--which was taken over, during the 2002 to 2004 period, by rightwing Bushite corporations, who are now counting all our votes, in the new electronic voting machines, with 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code. That's my mission--to educate people about that, and help them figure out how to restore their right to vote.

I am also inspired by Nelson Mandela, 29 years in prison during the dreadful era of apartheid in South Africa--to emerge one day and become the first black president of his country! I am inspired by the black civil rights movement in this country--such a long journey, so hard fought, with so much suffering. I was about your age (a little older) when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed. I was a civil rights worker myself. I have never seen such courage in my life, as when the old, poor black people in the Alabama town I worked in, went down to the court house to vote--prior to the passage of the Voting Rights Act. They risked their lives to vote! They struggled against a lifetime of subjugation to take that amazingly courageous step. The Bushites have done much to undermine the civil rights gains of the '60s and '70s, but they have not really succeeded in their goal of undoing it all. You have to know what it was like during the '60s and before, to realize that the change is permanent. I saw the drinking fountains in public parks labeled "whites only," or "colored." I saw the back door that blacks had to go into, for medical treatment. I saw the whites only lunch counters, and no lunch counters for blacks. And the whites only hotels, and no hotels for blacks. I had a white woman argue with me about mixing white peoples' and black peoples' clothes in a laundromat washing machine. And all the ugliness of segregation and bigotry. The Bushites may impoverish blacks, they may steal their votes, and there is still racism and ugliness in our country, but there is no going back to the '50s and '60s. It was a revolution--deep, psychological, real. And it was based on this amazing and enlightened courage of our black citizens.

How can we complain, with such examples in living memory? Blacks were publicly lynched in the south, in the last century. They were raped and beaten, often, and with complete impunity for the criminals. They endured. And, by God, they triumphed over it all. And they made an especially intelligent choice in focusing on voting rights. That is the power. That is how you change things. There are now black mayors throughout the south, and in major cities, and black sheriffs and other cops, and--God preserve us!--a black Secretary of State, in fact, two black Secretary of States in a row. And blacks in all the professions. These things were almost unthinkable in the '60s and before. Truly, they were way, way in the far off misty future. They happened more quickly that I ever dreamed of. Within ten years of the Voting Rights Act, the man who led the civil rights movement--a dangerous, insurrectionary activity, worthy of death, at the time--was elected sheriff.

Finally, we have the astounding developments in South America over the last several years: leftist (majorityist) governments elected in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. These are also people who suffered very much--at the hands of fascist dictatorships (often US-back). Mass slaughter. Torture. Heavy, heavy oppression. Their leaders assassinated. The great majority of people utterly impoverished--by local fascists and by corporate fascists in cahoots with the US government. Yet they have managed to rebuild their democracies from the bottom up. The three precepts I have learned from them: 1) Transparent elections (!). 2) Grass roots organization. 3) Think big.

Here in the U.S., we are at the vortex of evil in the world. Global corporate predators have seized our military and are using it for a corporate resource war. They are running our government, and robbing us blind. And the corruption is vast and it is bipartisan. But we also have great potential power as a people. That is WHY these global predators have given special consideration as to how to disempower us. First, they took over the news media. Now they've taken over the actual counting of our votes, and are running it as a private secret corporate enterprise. Implication: our votes, as US citizens, are potentially very powerful. We have the sovereign power--theoretically anyway--to dismantle these corporations, to bring them to heal, to stop their oppression of the rest of the world. Know this! Know how much thought and scheming has gone into demoralizing, depressing and disempowering you. And you in particular are one of the most precious gifts to a struggling and oppressed people--an alert, informed, lively citizen, who believes in democracy and wants to help.

Americans are a struggling and oppressed people. We are not as financially poor as some people in the world (not yet anyway), but our democratic institutions have been decimated. Our morale as a people has been severely damaged. Our power over our government has been taken away. Our Constitution has been trashed. And our government has been hijacked by mass murderers, torturers and master thieves.

Have faith in the American people. They don't want things to be this way. We are a peace-minded people, a fair and just and generous people, who believe in democracy and want good government. And we are a people that is only just realizing the scale of the disaster that has come upon us. Have faith in the long and difficult civil rights and human rights and labor struggles of our history, and of the history of the world. Though it's hard to see here, in this country, at this time, the trend is overwhelmingly progressive. The human species is evolving. You are part of this great progressive movement. Lift the lid! Look outside! Commit yourself to do your part, here or abroad, wherever it seems right to you, and whatever work you choose to do. The Bushites want you to feel demoralized and depressed. So don't be. Kick 'em in the eye! Don't let them get to you that way. Have faith! It takes everyone to make a democracy. It's not up to you alone. And if we fail, we fail. There is nothing you alone can do about it. But I don't think we will. More and more Americans are beginning to identify the real problems--the screwy vote counting, the big military budget, the sabotaged environmental regulation. We know. Most Americans know. We just have to figure out how, collectively, to get our country back.

Cheer UP!
Democrats hold power in the Senate.
Democrats hold power in the Houses of Representatives.
There will be a Democrat President in 2009.
The next four Supreme Court appointees will be made by a Democrat President.
Hold onto your hat CalebHayes, the times they are a changing.

My problem is almost less with this government but with the complicit nature of the population of this country.

When I was a few year younger than you, Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were murdered. When I was in my 20's, I learned about AIDS for the first time.
My point is, the world is always filled with bad things, but at the same time, in the same world, there is so much joy and compassion to be found. A lot depends on where you focus your attention. Trust me, there is balance. Don't spend too much time on all the bad things, or all the good things. You need to experience both in order to make the best choices for yourself. You seem like a very inteligent and understanding young person. This is a good thing. My 16 year old daughter is like you, she's very sensitive, which frustrates her at times. But I explained to her that the very thing that causes her to get her feelings hurt so easily is the same thing that causes her to be careful of the feelings of others, and I wouldn't want her to be any different.
In my humble opinion, the world will be just as it should be, as long as people like you will be here to make positive choices and changes.
Peace.

Except when it's one step forward and two steps back.

There are depressing things all around us but there's also room for hope. Eight years ago almost no one knew anything about global warming. Now people not only know about it but also believe overwhelming--despite massive misinformation--that it's caused by human activity.

The Bush administration was a giant two steps back made even worse when 9/11 gave an arrogant and incompetent president who should not only never have been elected (arguably he wasn't)in the first place a mandate and a second term in which to wreak havoc. Looking at the current presidential race I am increasingly concerned that the Republicans will nominate another vapid, brainless, hyper-ambitious, tool (Mitt Romney) and the Democrats will choose a candidate who is incapable of speaking with clarity on the Iraq war (Hillary Clinton). The Republican will speak with force and optimism and the Democrat will waffle and weave and in the end most people won't vote and the election will go as it almost always does, to force and optimism. This would be almost guaranteed if a conservative who can speak forcefully against the war (Hagel) gets into the race as an independent.

On the other hand, the 2006 election was a big two steps forward. The news media is entertainment driven and biased but more and more people are getting their news from the Internet. Keith Olberman's success has made it OK to be an outspoken liberal on cable news. Daily Show viewers score higher on current events quizzes than people who get their news from any other sources--especially Fox News.

One concern I have is that we no longer have a national set of facts to make decisions from. There is so much spin and obfuscation that today we have "Conservative Facts" and "Liberal Facts". How else do you account for the fact that some 30% of Americans think that Bush is doing a Heckuva job.

It's a mixed bag, it always has been and always will be. Right now I'm doing what little I can to make this a "Two Steps Forward" year.

... next time.

You don't know me but it seems I know you. I have been very impressed!

In spite of thinking otherwise, I really wasn't very aware of the world around me until 2001. I was busy climbing the corporate ladder, thinking I could play in the club, in spite of not having the right name and connections (not even a penis).

When the IT industry went to hell, I pretty much lost everything I had worked so hard for. In spite of never having a problem finding a job in 30+ years, I found myself dreadfully underemployed.

Never being one to do something half-ass..I delved into learning about what in the hell was going on. What an eye opener! However, I am the first to admit, I was a much happier person with my head in the sand. I could have probably could have minimized my losses somewhat except I became so obsessed with catching up. Unfortunately, now I cannot ever go back. To be honest, I don't ever want to go back, in spite of how happy and content I had been.

You are so important! In 46 years, I have not been able to achieve what you have in 16. However, I learned about a year ago that I had to temper things and take care of myself. You can't let it completely depress and overwhelm you. You need to, even if you are forcing yourself, to let it go. Go out with your friends, even if they seem oblivious and that annoys you. Don't let it annoy you for one night (this one is still hard for me). Plant a garden (working in the dirt is therapeutic). Volunteer at an assisted care facility or nursing home (I love learning from my elders). Go do something decadent, like get a facial and pedicure....have a hot fudge sundae afterward. Experience the good part of life. Let yourself enjoy it even...even if it is hard!!

You have so much to offer the world. Don't burn yourself out. I had many a friend die in the Vietnam war. I had many other friends that came home without limbs or had such sever emotional scars. My significant other is a Vietnam Veteran and he still carries such a weight I cannot understand.

Give yourself a pat on the back and reward yourself! You are wise beyond your years but don't let that cause you to forget to have fun. Go fly a kite (go get a good stunt kite..they are a ton of fun).

Thank you for being you!!!

I try to avoid it as much as possible.

The bastards will have to pry Hope from my cold, dead hands first.

I was born during Truman, grew up with Ike, came of political age with JFK, grew angry with LBJ, screamed at Nixon and Ford, took a deep breath with Carter, seethed over Reagan and Bush the First, was somewhat renewed by Clinton, and have been near apoplectic over Bush the Second.

I expect I'll continue on in the same way until my time to exit stage whatever direction from this life. But give up Hope? Never!

Because if I did, that would mean they won.

They won't steer you wrong.

Good luck and take care.

Don

no matter what the few who are concerned about poverty try to do to increase awareness and CONCERN.

Poverty isn't "sexy", and just doesn't rate.

Thousands are dying in this country from poverty, but that just doesn't matter when all most can concentrate on is waaaarrrrrr.

There was a time when liberals were able to multi-task and work on many issues at the same time.

So, yes, if you can leave, do so. Other countries have MUCH MORE compassion for those with less. It would be an eye-opening experience.

I wish poor folk in this country to leave and go to other countries where poor people are cared about!!

But, we'll just continue to die quietly, one by one.

you are doing a great thing and at an earlier age than most of us here, you have started on a very interesting political and sociological journey. Turn the tv, ps2, radio off and do something completely different for awhile. Get your homework done - go for a walk. Take B vitamins to revive your body. And finally, read the Declaration of Independence and enjoy the adrenalin rush.

After you do that, your head will be clear enough to make decisions again. We all fall down the rat hole if we don't pull up from time to time. Americans are a resilient and stubborn bunch. That's why we have survived the last 6 years. We need young leaders who see the big picture to stay around and help clean up the mess made by this criminals.

Peace.

And in fact I did leave the country. I have three teenage boys who will have very limited opportunities in life because of my financial situation and the lack of vocational education for young men in the school systems in the US.

Unfortunately, I was unable to gain a work visa or citizenship. Apparently if you don't have a very specialized and unique skill set combined with an already healthy bank account (or a native to marry), chances of getting citizenship in a neighboring country seem rather low. I was forced to come back after 4 months. Afterall, my unique skill sets have already been outsourced to China and India.

My boys are all leaning toward joining the military. I don't know what to do or how to handle that. Hope is a diamond in the rough for me right now. I know it's out there, but it's going to take alot of work to find it. It first appeared back in my life in November of 2006. It still eludes me, but at least I can see a tiny glimmer from time to time.

Until this war is ended, I know hope will continue elude me. So everyday I write letters and emails and try to change just one mind. It's all I can do to keep sane.

{1} In my case, the answer would be "no." I do not ever feel like giving up hope. There are many reasons for this, but I'll keep it to two. First, I learned long ago that our culture is in such a condition that it will take the coordinated efforts of several generations to get us back onto a healthy course. We are building the foundation of a Great Society, and the accomplishments of those who work in the trenches are usually not visible from by-passers. I can work in complete confidence, knowing that what good I do today will not be recognized until tomorrow.

Second, when one looks at how much is "wrong" with the world today, it should be obvious that there is at least an equal amount of "good" .... or else the world would have ended. It hasn't. We are still here. It's often a matter of perception: we need to look at life in a way that allows us to see the good that often is overlooked. There is the old question about "is the glass half empty or half full?" Neither -- it is half-full of water, and half-full of air, and we need both to live. The glass is full.

{2} When people do begin to feel like giving up, they do well to study the works of others who have had the same experience, and overcome it. A good example is Martin Luther King, Jr. In one of his speeches, he tells of how one night, when he was very tired, but unable to sleep, he got one of the numerous phone calls he received late at night. The caller made a death threat,and because Martin was tired and feeling overwhelmed to begin with, this call upset him far more than usual. He continued the story, to tell how he overcame his feelings of hopelessness, fear, and despair.

There are numerous other examples, including Malcolm X in his autobiography, Gandhi in his writings, and many others. When we read these accounts, we come to recognize that the feelings that you mention are normal, and come with the territory. In other words, throughout history, both the heroes and the victims deal with those same feelings -- fear, helplessness, hopelessness. The difference is that one learns to channel that energy in a manner that helps them move forward, while the other allows these to defeat them.

{3} Moving out of the USA should not be considered "giving up." It should be viewed as one option. Some people move away for a period of time, others for the rest of their lives. It's not a weakness. It's an example of people taking advantage of their options.

thanks for writing this. Perhaps reposting this in GD would help a lot of others today too?

The Autobiography of Malcom X had a profound impact on me in my youth,for the good, during very turbulent times in this country when I was trying to find my way through the darkness.

Best book I've ever read.

in a little over 20 months Bush & Cheney will be gone, but you'll still be around.

There'll be plenty of challenges after that, and a big task of making sure America's never hijacked this way again.

I wouldn't advise against leaving the country: if that's what you wanted, it'd be the right thing. And travel's good in its own right.

But if you go elsewhere, don't assume that America's problems won't spill over there too. I do think the US is where it's happening. The world has a habit of following America's lead.

... Barack may not be your candidate but his message is vital, with enough enthusiasm hope and vision ALL the problems can be corrected. To be American is to be brave and in that bravery should come endless optimism. Fear and doubt are the root of all evil just head the other way.

:hide:

... now it's all a matter of connect the dots but if these estimated 100 million plus planets that are with them can make contact. Maybe they have the answer of how to reach them. Then pow, new planet new start. It's all good. To say we can't fix foreign policy and the environment is to say there is a limited power in the universe.

You (we) should take some solace in the fact that here we are, trying to make a difference in our government and in the world around us. I think Americans have faced many challenges which seemed overwhelming at the time. But with hard work, determination, and a bit of luck sometimes, we prevail and overcome.

Understand, if you will, that time WILL pass, and things do change; many times for the better. Stick to it and keep pushing forward, Caleb.

from this country and from around the world, especially those that didn't seem like they had a hope in hell of prevailing...I think of Vaclav Havel in the former Czechoslovakia and Nelson Mandela right off the bat.

Both were imprisoned for their dissident views, Havel under Soviet totalitarianism and Mandela under apartheid in South Africa, and both went on to lead their countries. I'm not saying they lived happily ever after and ushered in a golden age after coming to power, but pointing out how they persevered in situations worse than ours.

Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Emma Goldman...they also come to mind.

There are many, many others whose stories and writings can show you what it means to endure and resist evil.

Hang in there...

I share your pessimism but not simply because of frustrations related to bringing about political change, stopping wars, creating a better society. Those goals are hard enough, but what truly causes me to dispair is the impending environmental collapse that seems (almost) inevitable at this point.

Personally, I have little hope that those who control the levers of power in America and the rest of the consuming world are likely to do anything meaningful to avoid the coming calamity. No matter how hard I look, I just don't hard evidence to suggest that any systems are in place whereby ordinary, good-spirited people could rise up to stop this from happening. In fact, all the systems are in place to prevent this from happening.

So I share your pessimism. My personal way of avoiding total dispair is to try to minimize the damage I do to the planet and to my fellow beings, and I try to be kind. That and taking time to enjoy things that are there to enjoy -- family and friends, literature and nature, even sports (note my avatar!)

There isn't much more a person can do, really. The reality is that at no point in human history prior to the nucelar age, and now the age of looming environemntal catastrophe, have we ever faced the possibility of straight-up species extinction. I think this changes the equation. For any intelligent person with any curiousity about the world, pessimism is now a rational state of mind. These are not happy, carefree times.

- B

Have you read "Collapse" by Jared Diamond, of "Guns, Germs and Steel" fame? It's a thorough dissection of societies, past and a few present, who have been faced with the inevitability of environmental collapse and have either chosen to continue the practices that put them into that situation in the first place, or chosen to stop unsustainable practices and adopt new ways of bringing their needs into alignment with the needs of their particular ecosystems. Needless to say, there are far more examples of the former than the latter.

One chilling factoid I remember quite clearly from the book: If the world's population didn't add a single human for, say, the next five years -- zero birth rate, normal death rate for half a decade -- and if China's current population achieved a first world standard of living, the environmental impact of that many Chinese living like Americans would be the same as if the world's population had doubled, from about 6.5 billion to around 13 billion, in just five years. And that's with no births occurring for five years, which is of course impossible.


Happy Wednesday,


wp

But it is on my list. I've held it in my hands several times and declined to buy it precisely because I'm not sure I'd feel much better once I got my way through it.

I guess while you were writing your posting here, I was leaving a brief comment on your earlier posting to just say you were spot on.

I'm about the same age as you, and I am grateful that live in Canada, and hence don't have to live every day in what America has become.

But I also know that as the US Empire goes, so goes the rest of us, eventually, and I don't see much grounds for optimism when I look south, or think about our ability here in Canada or anywhere else to exempt ourselves from the madness that lurks around the corner.

And I feel exactly as you do about the 60s, and how we took a pass on what may have been the best possible chance for really turning things around.

So, happy Wednesday to you.

- B

While NZ is my dream, Canada -- particularly western BC and the Gulf Islands -- would do just fine. Only thing is, I'd worry about 10 to 15 years down the road, when the mid-west begins to move toward desertification and the permafrost starts to thaw throughout northern Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba. There's going to be a group of about 350,000,000 people -- with absolutely nothing going for them except overwhelming military might -- starting to experience hunger pangs and casting their greedy little eyes northward. It's going to be annexation time, violently or otherwise.

Of course, we might use the intervening years to develop some environmental sanity, pioneer new agricultural methods that don't rely on mass irrigation or predictable rainfall, and rediscover a willingness to be a non-aggressive partner in the world community.

Or...

Let's just take a stroll north and fuck the canucks if they can't handle take a joke.


Betcha US$50 on option number two.


wp

But only if it is US$50 in fifteen years time, which by then will be worth about 10 cents Canadian in current dollars.

So should I send you the Canadian dime now?

- B

:toast: :toast:

But only if it is US$50 in fifteen years time, which by then will be worth about 10 cents Canadian in current dollars.

So should I send you the Canadian dime now?

- B

But only if it is US$50 in fifteen years time, which by then will be worth about 10 cents Canadian in current dollars.

So should I send you the Canadian dime now?

- B

It helps keep the problems we face today in perspective.

Start with "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn.

It's a great view of history from the perspective of the "little people", the powerless who fight the wars, build the monuments, and make countries great but get little of the credit in most history books.

Reading it, you can't help but think of how much easier things are today (which is part of the curse progressives face - people are not willing to rise up until enough of them become truly uncomfortable).

Another one you should read is "The Grapes of Wrath". There's also a good film of it with Henry Fonda.

You will notice that even in the depths of the Depression, working backbreaking labor all day for slave wages, the people then still took the time to sing and smile. It's important to find joy in the everyday, in the mundane and in the moments you share with the people you care about, not looking towards a "someday".

And you REALLY shouldn't pin your hopes on politics. It's good to care, to be involved, even to be idealistic, but you have to remember that the politicians we end up having to support are extremely imperfect vehicles for change, and even the better ones (Clinton, for example) will disappoint you time and again with compromises or even outright right-wing actions. But you have to keep in mind that at least with Clinton we were better off than we would have been with 4 more years of spymaster thug George Bush Sr. in office.

As for leaving the country, I did it. It can be a good thing, if you have a connection to another country where life is good. But the forces that are at work pulling the rug out from under the US's middle class are trying to implement the same changes in most other countries, too.

There is no utopia, but in my case, I am grateful to live in a country with excellent national health care, transit, and in recent years, a LOWER cost of living in than in many cities in the US. (I pay less than half what I paid in rent in San Francisco, for a nicer, bigger place)

here in WA where kids from highschool can take the money that would go to public school and transfer it to a community college and have their AA or ATA by the time they graduate.

Right now I'm in History 140, our history since 1865, and it is terribly depressing. I sorta knew all of it but every thing has been so depressing. FDR was okay, but fucking internment camps! OMG There is no break. It all sucks sometimes.

History can seriously depress me.

...but they were a product of their time. At least they were humanely run, and they were technically voluntary (People who didn't want to live in them had to stay out of the coastal "exclusion zones". They were not concentration camps. Japanese & Japanese-Americans were not allowed in Pacific states because of the belief that their empreror worship might affect their loyalty to the US - it should be noted that German-Americans and Italian-Americans were also placed in relocation camps, and unlike the Japanese, they never received any reparations.

Besides, think of the risk to life and limb of the Japanese-Americans (and other asians who might have been mistaken for them) had they stayed in California cities. At least in the camp, they were safe from enraged, jingoistic nuts who might have harmed them. Remember, there was no such thing as a "hate crime" law then...

Fortunately the Supreme Court found the camps to be unconstitutional before the end of the war. Knowing this history doesn't depress me. It heartens me to see we have made progress. How great it is that American children no longer have to work in dangerous factories! How great that workers are no longer paid in company scrip that can only be spent at an overpriced "company store". How great that there are now protections for worker safety, and workers who try to organize a union are no longer shot by thugs. THANK YOU UNION MEN AND WOMEN!!! If people today had any inkling of how much their workplace situation has been made better by the actions of union people, they would not badmouth them the way they do, nor would they sit idly and watch as Wal-mart, corporatist politicians and the offshorers slowly dismantle everything they have worked for. Every cloud has a silver lining, and every silver lining has a coudburst in it. That's how it is, and how it will always be, an endless stuggle between the people who give a crap about their society, and those who only give a crap about themselves.

You're so lucky to be in college! Not in the daily grind of work every day - to spend every day learning, and many a night enjoying your youth! Enjoy it to its fullest!

:)

And the thing you don't mention is the fact that many, perhaps most, of the internees had their property stolen from them and, when they were finally cut loose from the camps, found that they had no homes or land to return to. They had been taken over by any of several institutions: banks and other lenders; the feds; the states; local government agencies.

If these properties were particularly desirable, as were many in coastal California and particularly the Bay Area, one of those entities "confiscated" them in the name of patriotic intervention and then quietly sold them at pennies on the dollar to their very best pals. If the properties weren't particularly noteworthy, they were just expropriated and sold at auction by the mortgage holders or by some governmental agency to developers or individuals.

Whether this viciously cynical land grab was the actual reason for starting the camps, or whether it just evolved as the usual slimy bastards saw an outstanding opportunity to fuck some more helpless people out of their money and property, I have no idea.

I do, however, know perhaps two dozen men and women of Japanese extraction -- all children or grandchildren of internees -- whose families had this scam run on them 60+ years ago. These people are all friends, friends of friends, or acquaintances from back when I lived in the Bay Area -- my first 50 years, from 1950 to 2000 -- and they would seem to have no motive in collaborating on some bullshit story just for my benefit so I could one day post it on an internet bulletin board. Call me naive, but that's a little hard to imagine.

And they all tell basically the same sick tale: Some of the properties their ancestors owned were just simple houses in average neighborhoods. A couple of families had owned nurseries around Redwood City and San Carlos. Others had small farms of 40 to 160 acres, back when the Bay Area hadn't been completely paved over.

And in all cases, when the war ended and these "dangerous fifth columnists" were finally let out, they returned to find they were homeless, their bank accounts had been emptied and they had to rebuild their lives from square one. Incredibly, most did, and their kids and grandkids are back in the old neighborhoods, fully integrated back into the society that stole their birthrights, and doing on average pretty well.

Me, I'd go the route that a few of the more vocal victims have chosen and sue the feds for reparations. Not that it has much chance of success -- I mean, can you imagine BushCo, and Alberto Gonzales' DoJ, deciding to settle such a suit and give these people perfectly good money that could otherwise be used to either kill Iraqis or continue subverting democracy?

Still, I really hate to hear this revisionist history about how well these internees were treated and how it was harsh but necessary in the climate of the times. A land grab's a land grab, however you disguise it. Same shit, different day as far as I'm concerned.

This time around, it's the brown people with Arab-sounding names. Other times, it's been brown or red or yellow people with Hispanic, Native American or Southeast Asian-sounding names.

But imperialism is always the same, and the rationale is just the velvet glove covering fascism's iron fist. Except for today, of course, where the glove is no longer necessary because "9/11 changed everything." Now we get to do what we've always done, but with none of the usual bullshit claims of Constitutional loopholes and how we're using (insert your favorite unconstitutional program or practice here) only to serve the greater good and protect Americans against death, chaos and misery. Blah, blah, blah. Now we just raise our collective middle finger and go about our business. I suppose it's more honest that way, but I kind of miss the old US, where we at least had to pretend we were the good guys.


wp

First of all, I'm not revising history. The fact is that the camps are so often referred to as "concentration camps" that there are a great many people who believe that that is what they were.

"Still, I really hate to hear this revisionist history about how well these internees were treated and how it was harsh but necessary in the climate of the times. A land grab's a land grab, however you disguise it. Same shit, different day as far as I'm concerned. "

You will note that *I* never said they were necessary. They were an infringement upon civil rights of citizens that was totally uncalled for even in wartime. I do also think it's fair to mention that it was not only Japanese who were interned, and not just in the United States - Canada and a few South American nations interned Japanese, Germans and Italians as well.

A terrible injustice was committed, yes, but it is important to remember the stage of development our society was in at that time. The Civil Rights Act had not been passed, the nation was fully segregated, hell, there were still people around who could remember the last Indian wars. The US, and most other developed nations still had a LONG way to go in the area of human rights.

I can't speak to the "real motivation" behind the internments as I wasn't around, but my inclination is to believe it was more about paranoia and xenophobia than getting Japanese-Americans' property at fire sale prices. But people do take advantage of others' weak moments, don't they...

I didn't use the term to insult you. It's more a generic disgust I have for the professional "debunkers" who say there were "only" about 100,000 or at most one million Jews killed in the Nazi camps, "only" a few hundred thousand American natives exterminated by the Europeans, and so forth. Members of this cult of bizarre arithmetic have claimed that slavery was limited to a few small areas of the south and "only" involved thousands rather than millions of kidnapped Africans. And they have claimed that the Japanese who were interred during WWII had it great, three squares a day, decent accommodations and resumed their lives when the war ended.

I know that this isn't the case. I know first hand that, at least among the people I know and have talked with, their ancestors' lives were permanently changed for the worse by their internment and the subsequent theft of their property.

I don't care how many countries did it; nor do I care that Germans and Italians were also occasionally interned (my Sicilian great uncle was one of them, although he came out of it just fine with property intact).

What I care about is the exact obverse of your claim that these acts were a product of their times, when the US was less evolved and less aware of human rights issues.

I would argue that, rather than patting ourselves on the back for moving on and enacting legislation that affirms human rights, the 21st century has been all about the exact opposite -- putting as much distance between the American creation myth and the modern reality as possible.

That's what really pisses me off about the fiction that these events are just a reflection of their times and we're beyond that now. If anything, we're poised for another go-round, only this time it's going to be multi-racial and multi-ethnic. The common criteria will be disgust with right wing ideology and practices, association with others of like mind, and the absence of the proper level of blind respect for or cowering fear of institutional and governmental authority.

Perhaps another "terrorist attack" -- although "another" may not be the proper word -- would get the ball rolling, and the uber-patriots would cheer and wave their little flags around and drink another Miller Lite. Just as, I'm sure, the 1940s versions of uber-patriots did as those dangerous slanty-eyed people were rounded up and taken away. Except for the Miller Lite, that is.

So I disagree that we've come very far from the internment mentality, if at all. I think this government would be more than happy to dispatch me and the rest of the hundred thousand-plus members of DU -- along with millions of other lefties and progressives throughout the country -- to some mosquito-infested swamp in Louisiana. Or maybe Honduras, where the CIA still maintains a small army of spooks and black ops experts to protect "American interests" in the region.

I put nothing past these bastards, and I think we ignore history at our own peril -- all history, not just the US high school happy talk kind. That's where the precedents are set; that's where the ideas come from; that's where the power structure goes to learn from its mistakes and improve their chances of success in subsequent exercises.

By the way, have you read "Snow Falling on Cedars?" Wonderful novel with the WWII camps as the backstory.


wp

If we compare our situation to Star Wars, it does seem like the Galactic Republic is rapidly turning into the evil Galactic Empire. Except that while I'm ready to sign up with the Rebel Alliance, there is no Rebel Alliance...

As early as the campaigns are right now, when polls have come out showing huge leads for Hillary I feel like calling my relatives in France and seeing if they may have room for me. Either way, we'd end up with a republican. Hillary or the gop nominee it makes no difference. They are both for the corporate interests and stupid and wrong for us. Hillary showed her poor judgement when she voted for the war.
Plus this whole Bush Clinton dynasty thing. We will never move on to get this country on the right track if we do not get off the broken record of bad government and 90s politics.
I feel so depressed for this country knowing it will never move on and continue in a downward spiral.
Hillary will make the second worst president in history.
It is up to you, the young to come out in force and vote. To make sure this country moves forward and gets away from dynasty poltics with the 2 most dysfunctional families ruling our country.
Dictatorship.
You have to make sure you band together and come out in droves to move this country away from this dangerous trend.

and surrendering to the current status quo. I am 55, socially shy and awkward and pretty much a loner. The only thing on my mind now is providing for a comfortable retirement for myself if I'm licky enough to make it that far. Even sex isn't on my mind which goes to show you how old I really feel.

But you, on the other hand, are just starting out. You are obviously highly intellegent and socially aware. Make up your mind now to fight. Keep out of trouble and hit your studies hard. Work towards a goal that matters in today's world. Something like an undergrad degree(s) in political science and or international affairs and then a law degree. Specialize in something like constitutional law. Become a recognized expert. And start making your opinions heard. Publish in the leading law journals. And surround yourself with a group of like-minded friends throughout your life. Become an activist in your community. BOTTOM LINE ... FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT BUT FIGHT LIKE HELL AND FIGHT TO WIN. Remember the Star Trek TOS episode where Kirk and allies are forced by the lava guy to fight the bad guys in order to educate the lava people about good vs. evil. Kirk told the lava guy that it's all about what you're fighting for.

This country pisses on the constitution when ever it feels like and unless we have some sort of revolution, that will never change. The people are to complicit and the only chance for them to ever think about a revolution is if their pocket books are hurting. Something has to give here.

Democrats have the Congress. We might get the White House next year. People all over the world are coming to realize that global warming is a problem. I think people are coming to see that liberals were right about everything -- the environment, the war, the awfulness of Bush.

It's so slow sometimes it's invisible, but I believe things are improving...

All the way to New Zealand. Find out what skills they want in their workforce, what your prospects for acceptance into the country are if you match one or more of those skill sets, then get thee to university and become an expert in the field(s) you're most interested in and that they're looking for. Honestly, if I were your age and/or had had your political awareness at age 16, I would have been a citizen of NZ going on 40 years.

Here's the CIA world factbook breakdown of New Zealand.

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/nz.html#Geo


One thing of particular interest to me: They've only added about 1.2 million people since 1950, so they're obviously firm believers in maintaining a sustainable ratio between population and carrying capacity. That's huge, and will become more so as the world population doubles and redoubles into absolutely unsustainable numbers. And the inevitable massive environmental collapse triggered primarily by too many humans eating, drinking, excreting, polluting, driving, generating landfill, deforesting and so forth, will probably be far less catastrophic in New Zealand, with its relatively remote location blunting the effects that will devastate larger land masses.


Besides that, it's pretty temperate, particularly toward the north end of the South Island. Farther north, it becomes a bit tropical, while at the extreme southern tip of the South Island it can be pretty chilly. Also, the topography is highly varied, kind of like if you left San Francisco and drove east on I-80 to the Sierras. You can literally surf and ski on the same day in both CA and NZ.

So why aren't I typing this from Aukland rather than Oregon? After all, I'm completely incompatible with America v2.0 I certainly wouldn't immigrate here by choice. And I was just as alienated from US governmental, doctrinal and mass cultural institutions back in my 20s, although quite ignorant of the actual nature and function of those institutions. So why didn't I follow my instincts? I think it's two reasons: underestimating the sheer malevolence of the enemy, and overestimating my generation's impact on the values and assumptions that underlie the US.

I think we gave up too soon in the '60s - early '70s. We patted ourselves on the back for ending the Vietnam war (although how much our protests influenced the eventual end of the war is certainly debatable) and then we got rid of Nixon, or rather, he got rid of himself. So it was kind of like Mission Accomplished, and let's all go back to sleep.

We could have built on those accomplishments to create a movement for sustained peace and egalitarianism, and that shifted the country's economic motivators from sheer, unbridled greed and exploitation toward a more cooperative work model, with workers as owners and today's fucking bastard CEOs raping some other country.

I know that sounds ridiculously Utopian and unrealistic in today's dystopian state, but we had significant numbers, we were pretty well educated, we were raised on political activism, and we were battle-tested and ready for another good fight. We could have simply infiltrated the political system from the bottom up, winning places on school boards, city councils, planning commissions and the like, then leveraging those positions to climb the ladder toward Congressional seats -- which is exactly what the right wing has done over the past 30 years and is the ultimate cause of its dominance today (that and a ton of money, 24/7 wingnut demagoguery on the radio, media toadyism, and so forth). But instead, we all just congratulated ourselves on a job well done and began emulating our parents -- kids, mortgages, jobs, suburbs, cars, commuting, layoffs, transfers, job uncertainty, recession, boom time, insane real estate prices, real estate bubble bursts, squirreling away our personal little IRAs and 401-Ks, creating the fiction of the possibility of carefree retirement, and so on... Given all that, had I had a clue what the last quarter of the 20th century would look like, I would have gotten out while I was still young, adaptable, strong and relatively unco-opted.

But you still have choices and, sensibly enough, you're examining your options. IMO, here's what you're dealing with in the US:

You're living in the world champion of runaway capitalism, where the only thing that's valued in business anymore is the ability to extract more work from fewer people for less pay, all the while cutting or eliminating benefits, busting unions and generally creating a climate where the labor force is too scared and insecure to make much noise.

Where three out of 10 people around you at any given time are religiously insane and think the earth is about 6,000 years old. Where public education is just about extinct, and where there is no money for anything necessary or worthwhile, unless you like new nukes and aircraft carriers. Where the economy runs as a rigged zero-sum game, and where even rare and highly prized skill sets don't guarantee a job with decent pay. Where environmentalism is seen as subversive, and where intellect is viewed with suspicion. Where Constitutional guarantees are now optional, where celebrity worship trumps political awareness, and where the apex of mass culture is the Super Bowl halftime show. Where paper pushers make fortunes and caregivers make minimum wage, and where systemic racism and xenophobia create murderous monsters out of otherwise normal people. Where the second amendment -- the only one still respected by the feds -- has created a national free-fire zone. Where the distribution of wealth is so heavily concentrated in the greedy little fists of the upper five or so percent that they own about 60 percent of everything and even that's not enough for these parasites. Where the trappings of success go to the most devious or outright criminal, while the decent people get the dregs. Where a significant percentage of the country's infrastructure of roads, bridges, overpasses and underpasses is structurally compromised and in immediate need of reinforcement, but there's only federal money available if you're in the mass slaughter and genocide business.

I could go on, but if you've read this far you've probably gotten my point. I wish to hell I had your awareness when I was 16. I wish I had the options you have now. I'd love to give you some pep talk about how the good old USA is on the rebound and good people are going to regain control next November, or how it's somehow immoral to leave the country of your birth in search of a better deal when there's so much to be done back home.

But I don't buy it. The next administration, no matter its intentions, will be hamstrung by BushCo's massive deficits, unable to find money to fund a progressive agenda, and will only manage to find the usual giant sums of money to feed the Pentagon, since Democrats are just as hooked into the campaign money supply as is the GOP and, worse yet, are terrified of being painted as "soft on terror" or "not supporting our troops" or some such idiocy.

Also, I just don't see this country getting past its quasi-religious faith in the gospel of the market economy, which guarantees that vital commodities and services like energy, health care and pharmaceuticals will remain in the hands of giant corporations whose only allegiance is to profitability and if that means you have to die because they can weasel out of approving a vital medical procedure, tough shit. The market doesn't give a damn about individuals; it only cares that there's enough of a cheap labor pool out there to keep feeding the machine.

Sorry to be so bleak, particularly first thing in the morning on what looks like a very pleasant day out here in Portland. But there are three recent times and places I would do anything in my power to avoid: 1930s Germany, 1940s to mid-'50s USSR, and 21st century America. You have the incredible luck to have avoided the first two and stand a very decent chance of getting out of the third if that's how you choose to go. Good luck and very best wishes, whatever you decide.


wp

I like his advice to you.

But should you decide to stay here in the good ole US of A version 2.x then prepare yourself to fight for freedom. But think about NZ should you be threatened with having your innards forcibly removed from your possession.

in this thread. The first thing I'd suggest is to keep learning, read everything you can get your hands on, and seek out information from outside this country, most of what's available here is garbage. Forget everything they told you in school it is mostly lies and propaganda. Do what you have to do to get through, but always remember that you are just giving them what they want to get what you need.

Somebody recommended http://libcom.org/library/peoples-history-of-united-states-howard-zinn">Howard Zinn and I would second that with the most enthusiasm possible. His work is the closest thing to truth you are ever like to encounter. Other suggestions;

Smedly Butler's http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm">"War is a Racket", I'll bet you've never even heard of the business plot, don't worry there's been a concerted effort for over 70 years to bury it.

Riane Eisler's http://www.partnershipway.org/html/subpages/chalice.htm">"The Chalice and the Blade", will give you a plausible explanation of how we got to this perverse state of existence and some suggestions on how it can be changed. These are a start.

Noam Chomsky has written a lot of http://www.chomsky.info/books.htm">worthwhile stuff, but keep in mind that he is of the ruling class and is smarter than you are, so be a little skeptical.

Learn to speak Spanish. The future of the world could well be in South America and speaking the dominant language is essential if you do decide to leave this mess.

Never, ever, ever, even for a second, consider joining the military. The US military is the ultimate practitioner of the science of convincing people with nothing to gain to worthlessly expend their lives for somebody else's purpose. It is the culmination of 6,000 years experience and it will, without fail, win. There is no signing bonus, college tuition, or veteran's benefit that is worth your life. Hold on to it and cherish it. It is so much shorter than it seems to you right now.

In the meantime let me encourage you to keep at it, you and your contemporaries are the only chance we have. The young have the most to lose and the most to gain from changing the world, and if it doesn't change very soon none of it will matter. Tell them what you've learned, make them see what is going on and how it will fuck them if it keeps happening.

People like me (old) don't matter, there are a few of us that are cool, but generally we are too well conditioned and chained to the status quo to take the risks that are necessary to bring the changes needed. Don't put your faith in politicians or political parties, they only exist to make you think they will help while they continue the downward spiral and enhance their own lives.

There is only one distinction among people that matters and that is class. Race, religion, politics, national origins, etc., are only distraction to keep you from noticing who is doing what to whom. There is, and always has been, a class war, the problem is that only one side is waging it while the other pretends it doesn't exist.

Well, there you go, hope you read it. Good luck.

I suffer from clinical depression (called MDD over there) so asking me if I've lost hope is a little like offering to get a Catholic priest drunk: You're far too late on either score.

I'm also English. Ever heard of English tenacity? Really, that's just a polite way of saying we're stubborn as mules but it does mean that we'll always fight. As Churchill said "We shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight them on the shores, we shall fight them in the streets and towns and we shall never surrender".

If you lose hope, think on it this way: If there is no hope of winning, there is at least a good hope of fucking Bush's shit up.

I am 57 , I applaud you for your knowledge and you efforts at such a young age .

I recall how I felt during 1968 at 18 when Vietnam was at it's worst point wondering if I would be drafted or if I should flee to Canada . I thought about this constantly knowing I could not kill however not long after the lottery came along and I was a high number .

It was a different world then and there was more hope and cummunity , at least I felt this and there was the music we had to relate with and escape into .

The times were so different , now we have bush and his entire group of liars and false fronts and the people who fell into this idea that bombing Iraq was a grand idea .

Yes you are right , there is alot to get depressed about more than I had back then and now there seems to be no way to avoid the reality . once you get involved it is difficult to put it all out of your mind .

My biggest fear at 16 was graduating highschool and what I was to become and do for life , I was always torn and confused but I had nothing in worries compared to you at 16 .

I wish I could say to you , fear not , enjoy your youth and sleep well at night , hope is just a moment away . You know you did not create this and sadly you have to live with it through years of greed and ignorence of past generations . You should not have to deal with a global economy and deserve better than this criminal government we have found ourselves with . I was not thinking about global warming or AIDs and so many other issues there are now . At 16 you should not have to deal with all of this . I am sorry this is what it has become .

All I can offer is my older minds view of being 16 in a different world and leave you and many others your age a wish that soon this nightmare will end . To tell you , you are not alone means nothing , you know this .

At 16 you own this country nothing and if moving will find you happiness and a life of hope then if this is your choice and free will I do wish you well and blame you not .

It's nice to hear from others. Thanks everyone.

Gives me hope. They expect us to surrender. I choose not to.

But then you're faced with what to do next. If there's no hope, does it matter? Does anything matter?

I've come to the conclusion that I have no idea what the answers are, but this is OUR country, not just theirs, and when there seems to be no hope, I've got plenty of spite to keep me going. Before long, something always happens to bring back hope. Hope is contagious like herpes - you can never get rid of it completely unless the host dies. Just don't die.