I had a couple of my posts taken down by Keith Redmond at the American Expatriates Facebook Group.
The first made use of Lebron James comment, ‘I’m the best player in the world’.
I wrote, “Mirror Mirror on the wall, who is the best basketball player of them all?” Keith Redmond, the co-administrator of the Facebook group asked me what relevance it had to the group and I said it is analogous to American exceptionalism, “Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who is the most exceptional of them all?” It is really about the National Narcissistic Personality Disorder from which Americans suffer as a nation. It leads to the USA unilaterally imposing FATCA on the rest of the world as so beautifully captured in this video, which is still the best explanation of FATCA ever:
The second censored post reported on the State Department’s denunciation of Dominican Republic citing the United Nations human rights provisions. I said the USA was hypocritical because it violates the human rights of its own expats.
Then as Deedee Gierow, the Democrats Abroad co-administrator of the American Expatriates Facebook group, posted that she was sick and tired of all the bashing of the USA and that she, Keith and others were working very hard to lobby Washington (Facebook link). This solicited a discussion in which Redmond and Gierow heroically defended the purpose of the group and that they would henceforth delete any America-bashing content.
The American Expatriates group’s mission is to inform, educate, and provide the most up to date information regarding United States government policies affecting the lives of Americans living overseas. It is extremely important to mitigate the misconceptions about Americans living outside the United States vis-à-vis the public at large
It remains unclear to me how it is possible to have a group which discusses Citizenship Based Taxation and FATCA from an expat’s perspective without being anti-American. This is the conundrum–either the content is irrelevant (e.g., cookie recipes) or it is anti-American–e.g., discussions of the lives that are being ruined by FATCA and CBT. How do you stand by and allow innocent people to be destroyed by a foreign government and say positive things about that government?
There was some back and forth between myself and some of the other active members of the group, in which I learned that I am argumentative and offensive. Really? That really surprised me.
My third censored post was a comment: if we can’t really complain about how the USA is treating us, then we are supposed to be like a battered spouse, who quietly accepts abuse, and so I posted a link to the following page and suggested the situation was comparable to spousal abuse: Intimate Partner Violence Dynamics.
It seemed like Expat Forum deja vu, when I concluded that a censored forum is an oxymoron. So later when I suggested that some people would indeed leave the group because it wasn’t a safe place anymore, Redmond told me to leave. So I suppose my days are numbered.
I guess that is all I can write for now. My knee is bothering me and it is hard to stand up at my desk. In any case, it is good that some people are trying to lobby the US government, but I have no faith that that will change anything. So perhaps my cynicism and pessimism is not welcome in best of all worlds–but certainly not on certain “forums”. Cheers to you all.
You may be correct in your assesment of the relationship between Japan and the US but its group think goes back to ancient times and codified into law in the Edo era.
@JDL
I believe that Keith is naive, and that his control was ultimately subverted by DA elements. Certainly, he’s in way over his head, and he lost the plot in the process. Now he is a homelander abroad, along with the other infiltrators.
I also had suspicions that RO was trying to subvert the group for their own ends as well, primarily to gain enough votes to get into power, and then forget about us, but, DA beat them to it.
I could’ve swore that I warned people about the plants on one of the threads. Especially when that one DA troublemaker was trolling the group. I forgot his name, already, but I was letting him have it everywhere he went, until he turned back into a moonbat, and flew back into his cave.
It is the US persons living overseas (non Homelander Abroad) with opposition to CBT FATCA FBAR who are showing true American ideals and principles – life, liberty, property, pursuit of happiness – while other Americans who oppose them are showing themselves as faux Americans, so say I.
@JC
I wholeheartedly agree.
Amen to that, JC.
Also, true Americans don’t tolerate being told what to think, what to say, nor what to do, either. Fuck authoritarianism.
No, really!
FUCK AUTHORITARIANISM!!
In all fairness, the administrators at American Expatriate are indeed working hard to lobby DC; and it appears that certain among those upon whom they are trying to have an influence have seen the vitriol from posters and told the adminstrators that if they want any help they better clean up the posts at the group and stop the negative posts. I do not know but apparently cooperation/help is contigent upon being respectful. I think that is part of what is going on.
I.e., I believe that the administrators are well-intentioned, I only disagree with their attempt to control the conversation.
@MJH
I think it was that Deedee lady Democrat administrator who got Keith Redmond to attack Petros. As soon as Keith attacked, all the other democommies jumped in and started attacking the most active contributors, to include Walt Sanchez.
I do remember that dingbat Kenneth Bobu. He was anti-FATCA but pro-CBT and always attacking everyone who was against CBT. Strange guy, I can’t figure out how any expat can be pro-CBT.
Cooperation with the oppressor? LMAO! No fucking way! I want out of that chickenshit outfit! I am not about to ‘cooperate’.
Many there are clearly more loyal to their political parties than to the cause of liberating Americans abroad from oppression.
@JDL
I’d believe it. Either Deedee, or James, or both.
Indeed, what they did to Walt was not right, either. Him and Petros contributed more to that group by themselves than those two moonbats put together.
In ancient Rome if a slave owner was killed by a slave, the entire household of slaves would be executed. During the reign of Nero, a slave killed the city Prefect and Nero crucified the prefect’s entire personal staff of 400 slaves, men women and children. Nero used his army to clear the protestors in the street.
We must keep the slaves on the plantation acquiescent. That is how it works.
Hey, I am still part of the group, so I am trying to be good.
Me too, but my cookie recipe has been removed 🙁
I can’t even post a cookie recipe without offending someone there.
It does seem divisiveness is rearing its ugly head both on Facebook and, I’m afraid, at IBS. I know this site is overwhelmingly populated by Canadians who are also deemed US subjects. But I beg to differ with those who stated earlier in this thread that Non-resident Americans are either those who don’t consider themselves Americans, or “Homelanders Abroad” who only want to avoid FATCA and CBT for themselves. This is not a helpful attitude. There is no such either-or.
I am a US citizen, single nationality, not living in Canada or Western Europe, but in an Asian country where obtaining local citizenship is both administratively difficult and not particularly attractive to me, and where my race would make me have to explain for the rest of my life how I could possibly be a real citizen of such-and-such country. And when it comes down to it, deep down I don’t really want to ditch my US citizenship. It still holds some meaning. Yet I don’t ever intend to live in the USA again, and am bubbling with rage toward the US for putting me and millions of others in such a position of eternal fear. So what am I? Certainly not a “Homelander Abroad”, for what that pejorative implies.
How about instead of tribalizing ourselves into different so-called camps, and accusing each other of somehow being less sincere or more combative, we stop taking out our pent-up rage on each other and focus instead on the issues which unite us? That goes for people at IBS and those on both sides of the latest spat at the Facebook group.
I was happy living my life abroad until I realized that the US was after my assets and at that point I decided I would do well to relinquish my US citizenship. So in essence the IRS forced me to decide to renounce my loyalty to the USA. If I am this camp or another it is the Obama adminstration who has done it to me.
I’ve just tuned in here (and don’t *do* Facebook). I’ve entirely missed what has been happening (again).
Yes, déjà vu, to the days before this site and those who met at ExpatForum.com. Thus, IsaacBrockSociety.com and then IsaacBrockSociety.ca was formed and sustained by Petros’ hard work, time and resources. I’m forever grateful to Petros, this site and those who contribute to the discussion here with their expertise and their support for each other. It has sustained me in some pretty dark times.
Homelanders Abroad — I just cannot relate to them. Though we have the same *accidental* place of birth, I don’t have plans to return to the country of my birth. I respect their choice to live their lives accordingly, but I don’t support their defence of CBT to me, my family and other families’ detriment — those whose choice has been to leave the US and make our lives elsewhere, having become contributing members of a new society. How these people can justify what is being done to *accidental Americans*, those born in the US to other country citizen parents who returned to their parents’ countries as infants or children or children born to US citizens in other countries but who have never *been registered with the US*, never lived in the US and never have had any benefit from the US. Any *Homelander Abroad* who would justify the entrapment of such a person without *requisite mental capacity* into the consequences of US citizenship-based taxation just is my enemy if we have no CHOICE. They betray me as much as the country of my birth and the government of the country I now live in that, since the signing of an IGA with the US, describes me and my family as *US citizens who happen to reside in Canada*. To my mind, the problem needs complete resolution (and death of CBT), not just a *same-country exemption* to appease and stop US shame of the number of our renunciations and reliquishments of US citizenship and, oh my, the necessary (because of inaction) litigations.
May we one day go our own ways in peace. May they one day support my and our CHOICE to be left alone, no *fair share* owed to the *Homeland*.
Whether we like it or not, there are different camps of people here with different interests.
Personally I really don’t give a shit what laws the USA has now or dreams up in future to persecute those it defines (and may redefine in future) as ‘US persons’, as long as the Canadian government treats me like every other Canadian, and doesn’t allow the USA to force its laws on Canadians living in Canada.
Not saying I don’t feel empathy for everyone caught up in all this B.S.,or that CBT shouldn’t be challenged, just saying that as a Canadian with clinging US nationality (NOT a US person abroad, NOT a homelander abroad) my focus is on Canada, and that is really where it should be imo for those of us that consider ourselves Canadian only (regardless what the US says).
You may be correct but in my limited experience I have found only one of the 10 US expats I know personally to be a homelander abroad. Two are infuriated, two are concerned and researching it, another will listen but in cautious disbelief and all others are ostriches, refusing to even listen about it.
I sympathise with those who can’t be bothered with it. This whole mess is quite unbeleivable. It seems to take more than just a colleague’s concerns to bring down the sacred believe that the US is the protector of individual freedom. This worries me.
I have had homelanders state that they are quite happy to violate the constututionally protected rights of a group of Americans because they need the money for roads and schools etc that are under funded because we are not paying our fair share to the US. This scares and angers me.
However, the one who causes the greatest anger is the homelander abroad, he should know better.
And ditto for those who consider themselves Australians living in Australia, Japanese living in Japan, German living in Germany, etc. Our own governments of the countries we live in and pay taxes to and are citizens of should be hiding their heads in shame that we are even having this conversation right now and that this website exists – every fucking one of them who signed on to FATCA IGAs! (I figure TheAnimal and MJ used the F word tonight, so I can too)
@Barbara
I view expats who support CBT as Homelanders Abroad. It has nothing to do with those who renounce vs those who cannot or choose not to renounce.
Once my wife and I learned of the ramifications of my US citizenship status on her rights as a Canadian, I had to separate ALL of my finances from hers, just so that she’ll never have to deal with the nastiness of the IRS. That also means I get to suffer essentially the loss of all my deductions, for not selling her out, and for having no choice as a result, but to file as ‘married filing separately’.
So, thanks to both CBT and FATCA, not only can I not have a normal relationship with my bank, I can’t have a normal financial relationship with my wife, either.
I can’t even have a normal relationship with the Canadian economy without having to report it to those mother fuckers in Washington. Thanks in part to those mother fuckers Carl Levin, and Chuck Schumer, for MY want of a better life elsewhere, and especially thanks to their communist, DA apologists abroad, as well as those Democrat scumbags back at the homefront.
I am done trying to be nice about this. It has served me so poorly for so long, that I will not engage in it, anymore. My US citizenshit is a noose around my neck. My US heritage is nothing but a big lie, and I’m fighting like hell to free myself from these shackles – forever!
I am NOT sorry if my comments offend anyone! Get over it!
@Barbara Good counsel to not divide ourselves. It is not just up to us. It is being done by others.
@Petros. I noticed here at IBS getting after some persistent trolls, sending them e-mails etc. The request was for them to be respectful , and basically not mess up this site. I support that. So your posts might have been taken as messing up the Facebook page. Did you post that picture of the British burning The White House in the War of 1812?
Please surprise us this 4th of July. I think the theme should be Old America Remembrance Day with US flag of the 13 colonies, to celebrate the principles that America once stood for (implying that it no longer represents today the principles upon which it was founded, for US persons living overseas).
Lynne Swanson reminded me of her Declaration of Independence (looks like the original yet modified for US persons overseas). I think perhaps we are more at a point of a Declaration of Grievances and Resolves. In history this preceded the Declaration of Independence and was quite specific about certain offending laws. I think that a Declaration of Grievances and Resolves may have more impact then a Declaration of Independence.
Well, there is certainly no way I’m going to sit around and wait for the merry misguided, and partisan folks back at AE to try and lobby for our relief. No way. I’m saving myself.
My declaration of grievances will be written, and given to the embassy on my date of relinquishment.