As those of you playing along at home know, I am currently in Australia. I have been here since October 12. The Occupy Wall Street group had been hanging out in Zucotti Park since September 17. While I had heard about the movement, I was so caught up in my own preparations for a long trip that I thought “hallelujah!” and left it at that.

Since I’ve been here, I’m constantly explaining my presence to friendly Australian. Yes, I say, I guess it’s sort of a working holiday, actually thinking about moving here , etc.  They nod. No one seems surprised. Probably because of the influx of Americans. (statistics?)  They ask me questions. What’s going on over there?(Not much that’s good. That’s the problem.)  Is it as bad as people say? (Yes.) Is unemployment terribly bad? (10 per cent last I heard.)  How did all those people lose their homes? (Well, once upon a time, Congress voted for a thing called “deregulation.”) Doesn’t your government help? (Oh, yes. They gave the banks billions.)

what happened while we were mindlessly consuming reality television and Apples? Noam Chomsky related the decline in American culture started after WWII with the invention of Public Relations and Advertising. Eisenhower saw what was coming with the military industrial complex. Although Reagan left the California Governorship in 1975, refusing to run for a third term because he was getting read to become president, conservative philosophies and policies fucked California higher education with Proposition 13. Fucked more than that – the current real estate debacle has roots in Prop 13.

One of the instructors

I love my country, but there’s never been a better time to get out. Unemployment, the California economy, the current state of publishing – the list goes on. I don’t know that I will be able to relocate here, or even want to. I’m not finished exploring.