Don’t be an idiot

So, you are distraught about what has happened to your country, and you’re thinking about moving to Panama?

If it’s about Brexit or Trump, probably those ads showing Panama as this country of blondes is not what would impress you. Neither should all that ridiculous real estate hype disguised as news in International Living or publications like that. Don’t be an idiot.

Do you want to be a mirror image of the influx of the Rick Wiles zombies, not sharing their weird right politics but thinking about coming to a country that doesn’t have immigration or labor laws that apply to you, just picking up and moving as if from another state to Oregon or another neighborhood in London? Don’t be an idiot.

Do you think that it’s viable to live in an English-only bubble here, eating only the foods you know from back there, expecting services to be the same, learning nothing other than possibly contempt about other cultures and going about your life as if nothing is different? Don’t be an idiot.

Panama is an independent country, maybe not as independent as it ought to be but a distinct place nevertheless. It takes getting used to. It takes some acclimation. You need to understand that if where you are now there are ugly people who are vicious to foreigners, there is a small element here that would take similar stuff out on you, and one of them just became the leader of the women’s branch of Panama’s biggest political party.

So you have enough money to surmount all of that in Panama? It ought to be enough to insulate yourself where you are.

We are a tropical paradise and a Third World hellhole. We are what the people here, citizens and foreigners, make of us. If you are a disheartened citizen of where you are who is thinking about fleeing to Panama, do so with your eyes wide open and your nonsense alarms turned on. If you are a criminal thinking about fleeing to Panama, just don’t because you are not wanted by the people here and you won’t be able to keep it secret for very long.

Welcome to Panama. Don’t be an idiot.

A list of lame duck chores for Barack Obama

1. Clean up the political prisoner messes. Free Leonard Peltier. Commute Chelsea Manning’s sentence. Drop all charges against Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. Don’t just close down the prison at Guantanamo, abandon that military base to Cuba to which it really belongs.

2. Put the TPP, TTIP and TiSA “free trade” negotiations out of their misery.

3. Oversee a dignified transition, and prepare to be a dignified senior statesman as you get on with the rest of your life

4. Relax. You have earned it, Mr. President.

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