Leaving America

Going to another country where you don't speak the language is probably a bad idea. You run the risk of hanging out with a particular type of anarchist in squats and not realy seeing the country.

France is not as great as you think. I live here and the racism is pretty open and institutionalised and although workers are protected there is increasing differene between the older generation who have protection and the younger who don't (and when the balance tips the older will lose those protections) I think your view is idealised, that's not unusual though and nothing to be ashamed of. IF you've never been to a country or spent time with people from there then you won't know it as well as if you had.

If you want to move then go for it, living in another country, learning another language are great things. But don't do it for political reasons because you'll likely end up disappointed.

Work trades etc are fine but I think it might be difficult to rely on them because these aren't widespread practises and a lot of the people open to them already do them.

Hello, I lived in Spain for three years and was involved in some of the kind of activity you are interested in.
I would say it's possible to do but can be difficult and makes a lot of demands on you.

My suggestions would be:

except for some countries mostly in northern Europe, like Finland, people don't speak as much English as English-speakers think. In poor neighbourhoods my experience was that most people don't speak English. Even if someone does it's tiring for them and takes up a lot of time in a group or a meeting. So my first recommendation is learning as much of the language as you possibly can.

Some practical skills travel really well, if you have those that will really help. But you will probably need to get a paid job. I don't know about work visas from the States, that might be really difficult. The black economy is possible but there are a huge number of people already trying to survive there so it's not easy.

armillaria

This is something that makes me want to head to Greece or France. So for people who've already been there / live there, does that seem like a thing I could realistically find, or more of an idealized/romantic imaginary?

[. . .]

My biggest question though, is just whether I could exist overseas in something other than a crappy tourist / expat way.

Having spent 7 years of my life living and working abroad, I'd suggest trying it mostly for the sake of seeing life from a different perspective. So I fully agree with your sentiments. I lived for 6 months in Japan, 5 years in South Korea, and 1 1/2 years in Greece. And I did all this consecutively, having left with a backpack not knowing how long I'd be away. Before I left, I'd read James Baldwin's Nobody Knows My Name and the tone of his musings about life in Paris really set the tone of my travels.

Here are some of my random reflections:

--Don't go to Greece for the reasons you wrote above. My comrades there have seen their standard of living greatly reduced since the country fell into economic crisis (one comrade said his conditions got 40% worse) and the anti-immigrant racism I saw in my neighborhood there has only gotten more overt as outsiders are scapegoated. I lived in Athens the whole time, first right on Exarcheia Square and fucking hated it. During the day the square was full of hipsters hanging out in cafes, like dilettantes endlessly drinking coffee and smoking pack-after-pack of cigarettes, and at night it was full of junkies. It was the kind of subcultural ghetto you seem to want to avoid. I later lived in Neos Kosmos, which was kind of O.K., but too expensive, and at the end I lived in the immigrant ghetto of Kerameikos across the street from the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. I became friends with a group of Sudanese exiles and worked with them in their applications for asylum status -- which were almost always refused. Since I looked like a white European, no one bothered me, but my African friends lived in terror as our neighborhood often had graffiti saying "foreigners out" in the style of Golden Dawn. Lastly, the largest sector of the Greek economy is tourism, so you'll never escape the trap of being either a tourist or expat. Even in the best of times, Greeks are jaded with being overrun with seasonal tourists and aren't that welcoming to visitors from abroad -- unless they're working and have to affect a service industry smile.

--Conversely, I went to East Asia having read a lot about the region's economic development and class struggle in response to this. So even though there were language barriers, most college educated people know basic English and at times reveled in the opportunity to practice it with a native speaker. When I met radicals like this, it was a perfect match for my ability to engage militants (especially in Korea) and learn about and be in support of their efforts. East Asians have cultural traditions of hospitality and I was always being invited to meals and made some lifelong friends in South Korea. Japan was different, but since I had read translations of some classic novels (Natsume Soseki, Kobo Abe, et al.), I also made literary friends there who I've stayed in touch with -- and who have come to visit the U.S. But in both places I always remained an "outsider," and despite how well I learned the language I never could get over this barrier. Longterm expats called this "hitting the wall."

--But by all means go travel. Learn as much of the language as you can. Read the culture's literature and study about its history -- especially its traditions of resistance. But go with an open mind and open eyes and ears. I can't stress how far an eager desire to learn about the culture will take you. I was in Gwangju, South Korea and was at a bus terminal trying to find my way to Mangwol-dong Cemetery where the martyrs from the 1980s uprising are buried. A clerk overheard my questions and got so excited about my desire to visit that historical site that he left his job, walked me several blocks away to the proper bus stop, then waited for the bus, paid my fare, and carefully instructed the driver to drop me off at the cemetery's entrance. I met labor militants in the same way, by showing interest, and was soon invited to their inner circles and ended up helping edit their English translations for their documents, websites and even assisted them organize international conferences.

--Lastly, I got so close to my Korean comrades that I would ask how to could help their struggle even more. Once I got a proper dressing down. They chastised me, saying we're part of the same struggle and that eventually I must go back to the culture I know best and struggle there, since our struggle would be stronger and we could be the liaisons who link them globally. This had a great influence on me: I can struggle best in the society I know best. But those international links might be of great importance some day.

Yeah I would say definitely if you have the opportunity go live somewhere else, or several other places, for a while.

But I wouldn't go anywhere else thinking the grass will be greener in terms of working class self organisation etc. Because it is pretty crap everywhere. Sometimes Americans can see Europe with big strikes and think things might be better here, but often in European countries where things like that happen other things like open racism are much worse.

But getting in touch with politicos is a good way of meeting locals. TBH travelling is probably the thing that makes being involved in politics the most worth it because it means there are people you can get put in touch with anywhere, and often people who can put you up on a sofa or what have you.

Best of luck with whatever you decide!

When you do depart for foreign climes, you will soon begin to discover just what control the nation-state possesses as you confront the reality of passports, various visa regulations, and residency rules.

To go off what ajjohnstone says; be very aware of what you can or cannot do politically in your newly adopted country, especially what types of activity may get you expelled. In some countries the bar for that is pretty low. For example, an Israeli acquaintance of mine was expelled from one of the European monarchies for distributing pamphlets against that country's monarchy.

Where I live, getting a mischief charge is enough to send me out of the country. And when it comes protests, blockades and such, the police give out mischief charges like it's candy. What I can do in specific contexts is therefore quite limited; I simply cannot take the same risks as I would in my own country.

Speaking of grass not always being greenr there's a chance a school near to me will go on strike...

to stop a merger with the nearby school that has a significantly poorer and browner student population.

We'll wait and see what happens there.