Books

[azurelunatic]

Finished Reading Lolita in Tehran. Started up the Amber books again. (I'd previously borrowed BJ's copy, and now I have a copy of my own thanks to the bookstore raid last night.)

As I'd suspected when I put down Reading Lolita in Tehran about a month ago, I was already overwrought when I started reading it, and being plunged into a very dark religious regime in place without the consent of too many of the people was not what I needed to be reading at just that time. Today, without feeling pre-existingly weepy and as if the world were about to end, I was able to read through Dr. Nafisi's withdrawl from the world into her reading group, and see her safely out of the country.

I see the slippery slope in so many of these stories. I see how the US is teetering on the edge of it, though it may not seem so to others inside, or to outsiders. And ... my loyalties are perhaps misplaced. Fuck the loyalty oaths that I recited as a child, I'm getting out of here sane.

Comments

[wibbble]

Being loyal to a country is nonsense, if you take it to literally mean the territory owned by that country. If it expands or contracts, do your old loyalties still apply? Are you not loyal to the 'new' bits, but must remain loyal to the bits that are elsewhere? It's nuts.

So you're not swearing oaths to the territory. You're swearing an oath to the ideals of the nation. But just as it's absurd to hold the old loyalties if the territory changes, it's equally absurd to hold them if the ideals change, and the nation is not the one you give your allegiance to.

Beyond the fact that you may or may not have understood the full implications as a child, if you want to flee the US, it's a sure sign that it's not the country you swore to be loyal to anymore.

[azurelunatic]

It may just be the regime.

[tygerr.livejournal.com]

Yes, we're teetering at the edge. Some would say we're already past it and the irreversible plummet has already begun. And it *is* obvious to at least some others, both on the inside and the outside.

I've already got my plans to get out if/when necessary. I just hope the country hangs on for another 5 years until my youngest is Officially Grown--as that makes the Escape Plan much easier. And more legal.

[azurelunatic]

Legal often helps.

I think Alaska would find it easier to secede if not for all that oil.