RE: Moving to Europe. (was Re: American Empire as Gated Community)

["Rainer Straschill" <rs@moinlabs.de>]

Hey Mark,

is there any way to swap citizenship? I'd gladly exchange my German
citizenship for your US American one without further thought (thought about
this enough already, that is). Perhaps I can tell you a few points which 
are
so terribly wrong in Germany, it makes me puke every day:

        * We did learn in school that for a democracy, we need three powers
(legislative, executive and judicative
          powers) which are independent of each other. In Germany, the 
legislative
elects the executive, which in
          turn decides about the judicative...

        * Germany is called "Bundesrepublik Deutschland" (short "BRD"), 
which
translates to Federal Republic of         Germany. Yet the BRD/FRG is not 
a bit
more federal than the DDR/GDR (German Democratic Republic) was
democratic.

        * The income, pensions and other services available to politicians 
give you
a reason to become one alone,
          especially if you're underqualified, stupid and detest hard 
work. This
may be the case in other countries,
          too, but it is the worst in Germany (compare i.e. the salaries of
politicians internationally). Whats more,
          with about one third of the US Government, we have roughly twice 
the
amount of congressmen...

        * The last twenty years (resulting from the last two governments, 
with the
second still in power) were the
          worst in the history of Germany since Adolf Hitler. Politicans 
of any
camp have excelled each other in
          acting strictly against the recommendations of leading 
economists and
other scientists.

        * I don't know how this works in the U.S. (I had noticed the 
massive media
coverage of the trials against
          policemen beating up African Americans et al.), but it works 
like this in
Germany. If a police officer
          shoots an innocent citizen for no apparent reason, the D.A. 
won't even
investigate the case.

Enough already? More details about one of the great countries in Europe
off-list, if desired. So please, all of you always keep in mind: the place
you live in only looks so bad to you because you live close enough to 
notice
all of the hidden dark sides. If you're a citizen of the U.S. with a job, I
can't see any reason to move at least to most parts of Europe (including
Germany, France, Italy, England and Spain).

Personally, I do have a language problem with a lot of countries (meaning I
don't speak their language), so countries like Sweden, Finnland etc. are
more or less out of the question. What remains (counting out the countries
mentioned above for being crap too) is perhaps Swizerland?

        Rainer

Rainer Straschill
Moinlabs GFX and Soundworks - www.moinlabs.de
The Straschill Family Group - www.straschill.de
digital penis expert group - www.dpeg.de
Eclectic Blah - www.eblah.de


> -----Original Message-----
> From: sine@zerocrossing.net [mailto:sine@zerocrossing.net]
> Sent: Freitag, 3. Januar 2003 20:22
> To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
> Subject: Moving to Europe. (was Re: American Empire as Gated
> Community)
>
>
> My wife and I have thought long and hard about this, and we
> really want to
> move out of the U.S.  Frankly, we feel the system is too
> broken to ever be
> fixed and that democracy is long dead.  However, unless
> you've got a company
> that's eager to hire you in a new country, it seems very
> difficult to move
> these days.  Any tips?  Anyone want to sponsor to very
> skilled, hard working
> computer graphics/animation/music people?  Can we seek
> political asylum?  I
> hear the U.N. saying, "No war unless proof Saddam is hiding
> weapons." and then
> I see that we're dropping leaflets telling them to tune into
> American US
> forces radio.  Makes me physically ill.
>
> I never thought I'd say this but I'd move out of here in a heartbeat.
>
> Mark Sottilaro
>
> Catilyne wrote:
>
> > At 01:55 PM 1/3/2003 +0100, Michael Peters wrote:
> >
> > >American Empire as Gated Community
> > >by BRIAN ENO
> > >
> > >         [*snip*]
> > >
> > >....The result is: Europe has less crime and less
> > >poverty and arguably higher quality of life than the U.S.,
> which makes
> > >a lot of us wonder why America doesn't want some of what we've got.
> >
> > Well, judging from many of the other mailing lists I'm on,
> there are a
> > whole lotsa people out there who are actively making/have
> made plans to get
> > some of what they've got -- or, in other words, expatriate
> their families
> > out of the US.  Although, to be fair, Europe and Canada
> seem to be running
> > about neck & neck in the race for favorite expat destination.
> >
> > For my part, in only two weeks we'll be taking the family
> on its first
> > "exploratory tour" to see which of the destinations that
> look good on paper
> > will actually make a decent home in real life.  We're
> shooting for the EU
> > in early 2004...
> >
> >          -c-
> >
> > _____
> > "i want to reach my hand into the dark and *feel* what reaches back"
> >                                                  -recoil
>
>