Text 4839, 153 rader
Skriven 2004-11-11 13:36:00 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Going home
==================
I say "Good Bye"...  People shouldn't live here if they aren't happy...

======================

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=235904&page=1

Some Say U.S. No Longer Feels Like Home

With Bush's Re-Election, Foreign Countries Look Better to Them

By DEAN SCHABNER

Nov. 10, 2004 -- Leora Dowling and her husband thought returning from 
deep in "red" America to her native New England would make them feel 
more comfortable, more like the people around them shared their values. 
Since the election, she's been contemplating another move. To Italy.

"After the election, my husband and I asked ourselves, 'How could our 
country be heading backward? How could so many people miss or choose to 
ignore the obvious failures of the Bush administration?'" the former 
Florida resident said. 


President Bush pledged that one priority for his second term would be to 
heal the wounds that a bitter election — in which groups not formally 
connected to each candidate ran attack ads focused on character, not 
issues — seems to have opened for many Americans.

Dowling, a college professor who lives with her husband in Vermont, is 
not alone in feeling that the wounds cannot be healed, or at least that 
Bush is not the man to do it.

For Dowling, as for others who ABCNews.com spoke with, though the 
immediate anger may be focused on the president — whether because of the 
war in Iraq, his stance on same-sex weddings, what they say is his 
blurring of the line between church and state, or his championing of the 
Patriot Act — there is a broader concern. They say they feel the United 
States is changing in ways they do not like, and they feel powerless to 
stop it.

"We were leaving anyhow, mostly because we want to start a family and we 
don't feel our children can get a decent education in the United 
States," said Brian Sinicki, of Laramie, Wyo.

He said America's schools fail children by not teaching subjects like 
philosophy and civics, subjects that he said would give Americans not 
only a deeper understanding of the world, but an appreciation for why 
they should be more actively involved in the political process, not only 
voting but staying informed.

He also criticized the media, and television in particular, for the way 
news is covered.

"Television I think has single-handedly destroyed the level of political 
discourse," he said. "When I talk to people about politics, they're 
either radically misinformed or they wouldn't know how to define the 
terms that they use."

Sinicki, who has been job hunting in his wife's native France, doesn't 
blame Bush for what he believes is happening in America, but he doesn't 
believe Bush will change things for the better, either. 


"All these things were going on before Bush got elected," he said. "But 
I also think they got worse since Bush got elected. He's a symptom of 
the problem and he's making it worse."

Like Sinicki, Dowling didn't start thinking about moving abroad last 
week, but she said her concern was more about the role Bush's religious 
beliefs seem to play in his governing, and the role of religion in 
American society — what she called "aggressive Christianity."

"There is this aggressive morality that seems to me to have nothing to 
do with Christianity," she said. "Our fathers were mostly Unitarians, 
not at all holy rollers."

She also said it feels like there has been a closing of the American 
mind.

"I can't understand when in our nation's history being an intellectual, 
having a questioning, curious mind, wanting to travel, became bad," she 
said. "I don't understand when it became stigmatized."

She said Italy appeals to her because it is a country that holds secular 
values, with a "mind your own business" attitude to religion and an 
acceptance of the fallibility of its government.

"I do love my country and it hurts me very deeply to see what's 
happening here, to see us so far off course," she said. "But I've met a 
lot of evangelicals and they believe it deeply. They'd rather vote for 
fetuses and against gay people, rather than voting against war, with 
thousands dead, against guns, which we know kill people. When you're 
talking about deeply held religious beliefs, you're out of luck."

While for some people who said they are investigating the possibility of 
leaving the country, the difficulty of finding work overseas could keep 
them in the United States, for those who operate Web-based businesses, 
that is not a problem.

One such person, Kelly Ann Thomas of Houston, said she has put her house 
on the market and a real estate agent has been showing her properties in 
a Central American country. She said she did not want to say exactly 
where, because her agent told her he received 45 calls in one day from 
Americans looking to move to the same location.

She has been concerned since Bush took office in 2001, she said. She 
started buying gold and investing in euros, because she and her husband, 
an oil trader, were worried about a "significant stock market collapse."

Much of her anger at the president is related to the wars in Afghanistan 
and Iraq, both of which she believes were being planned by the 
administration months before Sept. 11, 2001. But her opinion of former 
Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry isn't much better.

"I can no longer in good conscience support a nation that believes it is 
OK to lie to start wars," she said. "I will not live in a country where 
dumb and dumber are my two choices for president. I'm taking my assets 
out of the country and moving to Central America, where ironically, I 
will have more freedom to live my life without interference from a 
corrupt government. My husband and I will leave within four months."

For Cindy Sproul, though, leaving the country — if she does go — will be 
a business decision, though one that is based on politics. Or it could 
become a matter of life or death.

She operates an Internet business, RainbowWeddingNetwork.com, a gay and 
lesbian wedding registry and directory of gay-friendly professionals.

The business has been successful — she said the site has 4,700 vendors 
advertising there, and most of the businesses are not owned by straight 
people — but a combination of factors has made her feel unwelcome in her 
own country.

"With the ban on gay marriage passing in so many states and the 
conservative agenda President Bush is taking, it doesn't feel safe in 
the U.S. any more," she said. "We are expecting that next year Bush will 
try to push the Federal Marriage Amendment Act through Congress again."

Actually, she said she has been worried about safety since receiving her 
first death threat, two weeks after starting the company. The threats 
have not stopped coming, she said, though she relocated to another city, 
and then had to relocate again within the new city.

She said her Web site already does a lot of business with Canadians and 
Canadian companies, and she feels Canada is more tolerant than the 
United States right now. But she said her decision will be made on 
business terms.

"We're small business owners, so everything relies on the business 
aspects," she said.

--- PCBoard (R) v15.3/M 10
 * Origin:  (1:226/600)