Post Election thoughts by John Perry Barlow of the Grateful Dead & Electronic Frontier Foundation
Now is the time to dig in, stand tall, and be *real* American patriots.
from John Perry Barlow
(the following was copied from JPB on Facebook and Twitter)
I realized at about 6:00 Tuesday afternoon that the unthinkable was becoming real and started tweeting about it. But Twitter releases everything “upside-down” and requires severe brevity.
So I’ve decided to reassemble them into something like prose, yielding this micromanifesto:
For the first time ever,I am truly ashamed of my country. I thought of Americans as kind, decent, generous, fair, rational… Guess not. This is a terrible time for me to consider exile. But I don’t want to share the American Dream with those who are tone-deaf to its melody.
My family has been in America for 400 years on each side. But now it feels as if I’m being chased out newcomers who think they own the place. My first reaction has been to haul out my list of escape hatches from previous near lunges (Viet Nam, Reagan, both Bushes, etc.): Vancouver, Rio, Michoacán, St. Barthe’s, Provence, Laos, Belize, Hong Kong, but…
I find people turning to me for reassurance and advice. And hell, I’m American as it gets, and I realize this may actually provide an opportunity to restore America to greatness in *my* sense of the term: to show the world that we *are* as generally decent as we’re thought to be, that America *is* as dedicated to its founding principles as ever, perhaps more so.
Despite our elevation of a thorough creep to *lead* us, we can be guided by our “better angels.” We can isolate this toxic asshole and prevent his hatreds, arrogance, bigotry, fear, and ignorance from defining our National Character in the eyes of the world.
No! Now is the time to dig in, stand tall, and be *real* American patriots.
from John Perry Barlow
https://twitter.com/JPBarlow
