Saw someone talking about moving that reminded me to ask this. I really want to stay in the U.S. to build socialism but sometimes I fear it is past the event horizon, that things will only get more gruesome, and I want my loved ones to live.
I have not the slightest clue where I would move to. Obviously the one we all think about sometimes is China, but I know next to nothing about the language, culture, history, values etc. and don’t know how I would adjust. It also seems it would be difficult as someone with no education or marketable job skills in respected fields.
Sometimes I think about places like Cuba because it is much more familiar to me culturally, linguistically etc. but then it seems an area like that is going to get a bad hand dealt to it with climate change.
Western countries would be the most familiar, and I do think perhaps they have a greater capacity for positive change than the U.S., but this also seems like it would be moving somewhere just 5-10 years behind collapse of America. Who’s to say which of these societies will jump ship to the new world order, if any?
Sometimes I also fear people across the world slowly (and understandably) becoming vehemently anti-USian, whether the US empire dies or clings on. Many older generations across the world seem to still think very fondly of Americans and our country, but I do not think the younger generations seem as affected by the global pro-American propaganda. Perhaps this is American cynicism to think like this, but perhaps it is not too crazy to imagine an era of people hating Americans and resenting American refugees, even if we try to play the “But I hated America too!” card.
Regardless, obviously being a refugee sucks regardless if one leaves “ahead of the curve” or not. It’s not supposed to be fun to feel coerced into leaving your home to escape doom, as many a country has experienced under American brutality.
It also seems kind of impossible because moving is so expensive, although I understand that if the situation becomes truly dire many Middle Easterners and Latin Americans in the last half century have managed to make grand treks with little to no possessions…although of course, many then end up in terrible situations.
What about you all? What are your situations, considerations, predictions, and interest regarding this topic?
I’ve thought about it but I won’t leave. No matter how bad it gets. This is my home; I was born here and I’ve lived here my entire life. My roots are here. My family is here. My dad is buried here. I won’t abandon them.
A great many of my better educated and professionally qualified friends have already jumped ship. The early leavers took off out of a cosmopolitan conception of what it means to be successful; that it was socially respectable to be a globetrotter; a citizen of the world. The latecomers who felt the call of cosmopolitan life but still struggled to “cut the cord” are now finally taking the plunge, citing the decline of their country as the main reason why. “It’s the smart thing to do”, they say.
And that may be so. But that is an individualist’s calculus. If you apply that same logic on a social scale, every professional in my country would simply up sticks and leave. What then would become of the millions of people who don’t share their privileged positions in society? They will be left in an anaemic country, with their throats in the ever tightening grip of the capitalist class. In time, this perspective will reduce my country to a dead zone.
So you see, there is no choice but to stay, organise and fight for the future. Fight for the masses who cannot yet fight for themselves. That is the only way forward.
❤️