Features of the American system that I’m saying no to:
- Inability to own power: least geographically-educated citizenry in the most forcing country.
- Having a gun to my head: inability to sit still when there are nukes pointed at you. And why are they pointed at you as, as an American citizen? Because you’re pointing them at everyone else— you have the largest nuclear weapons program in the world.
- Forced seriousness of work: of course it’s serious stuff when you tie access to healthcare to your employer in a fluid labor market.
- Control by capital owners: ex, why sustainable permaculture can only lose money. They put high taxes on farm real estate so that you lose money if you don’t follow the slash and burn practices that are subsidized
- Inability to own lack of integrity: Blame on the capital owners when you go along with their destructive practices. Ex: despite how clearly carbon emissions are causing the great extinction, there’s waning popular support for green causes. Suburban lifestyle keeps growing over cities.
- The myth of Meritocracy— that justifies the coercive behavior of the powerful and the self-hating trends of those without power (it’s because they didn’t hustle enough!).
- If you’re not first you’re last: there’s nowhere safe to be but the top. Of course that’s where insomnia hits when you realize the injustice of the system and that you’re the propagator of.
- Duty to be a consumer. Consumption over creation of your own art, embedded into a mindset that the only art is art that’s worth a million dollars (hint- that’s not art).
Now, moving to a country with more socialist politics won’t allow me to cut myself from these binds. But it will allow me to re-negotiate with them.
Beyond Mountains, More Mountains 