Fishing As The World Burns
I just returned from a week of trout explorations, two days on the Ruby River ( which I actually started exploring last year) and three days on Hebgen Lake hunting the legendary "gulpers",which I had never done. What a hoot! Exacting fishing, using sight and sound, the closest thing to bonefishing I have found in fresh water. Consistently big fish (3 to5 lb) on 5x. You may be wondering, how does a fishing guide get to take a week off in the height of the season to go fishing? The answer is, I am blessed. I have the things I need and the time to do the thing I love and believe me ,I appreciate it. It is more probable you are wondering, is this bastard sick? ( fishing on his time off from fishing) The answer ,of course, is most definately.
Back to the "Real World". William Sanchez, an attorney for the Cuban -American non-profit Democracy Movement, urged Bush to TELL Cuba to set an elections timetable and LET Cuban-Americans come to the island to HELP with a political transition. OK, here we go.
Is a Cuban-American like a German -American? No. They are Americans only until they can get their hands back on their villas and plantations and casinos again and they want your tax dollars and cruise missles to help them do it. Has William Sanchez ever heard of Luis Posada? These are fascists who worshipped at the feet of Batista and they are drooling at the chance for another Bay of Pigs. I know which side I would fight on. Luckily Bush has his hands full with some of his other "transitioning" projects.
"Popular movements around the world often use non-violent civil disobedience to break impasses at critical moments of TRANSITION. Mexico today faces such a critical moment." Laura Carlsen , IRC. I would love to be camped in Mexico City ( but I have to go back to work) with the protesters. Americans are getting a lesson from their brown brothers again. I still wonder about the position of Marcos and the Zapatistas.
"How much longer will we accept that this world so in love with death is the only world possible?" Eduardo Galeano This is my segue into our continual, and important, discussion on Utopia, utopian visions, political possibilities etc. The Great Liberal ,Arthur Schlesinger Jr.( yes, I am being snarky again) warned us in his manifesto, The Vital Center, that : "The Utopians believed man to be perfectable; and that radiant belief permitted some of them to slide over into the INEVITABLE next step- that is ,to believe that they, at least, were already perfect. Men in a conviction of infallibility can sacrifice humanity without compunction on the altar of some abstract and special good." Hence, totalitarianism, both then( Hitler , Mussolini, Stalin etc..) and now.
Us socialists understand the dangers of utopianism equally well yet continue to believe that "imagining the good society" is an intrinsically human impulse. Not Perfect, but Good. Irving Howe and Stanley Plastrik described it such , back in 1954: " Today ,in an age of curdled realism, it is necessary to assert the utopian image. But this can be done meaningfully only if it is an image of social striving , tension ,conflict; an image of a problem creating and problem solving society."
Of course there will always be the "knucklehead factor" ,even in (or especially in) the working class. But this is no excuse to sink into acceptance of irrationality. (or sinfullness ,Wiser)
posted by troutsky @ 7:02 AM
10 comments
10 Comments:
Has the heat subsided in MT? Are the fish surviving?
I say, lets make Cuban the new 1936 Spain. Viva la revolution!!
I say, lets make Cuban the new 1936 Spain.
I certainly go along with the spirit. But, let's remember that it didn't exactly work out too well for our side that time.
It is grim here in the southwest part of the state where we have not seen a cloud, much less a raindrop in two months.Restrictions are in place on many streams but our fish are genetically tough.
I want to put together a reverse-Cuban Boat lift, supporters of the revolution, people who just want the right to travel, people who just want to visit relatives, etc.could form a flotilla and see if the coast guard would try to stop us. Might be some good exposure, education on the absurdity of US policy.
As for Spain 36, my comrade Che Bob (see link)feels this was the high point of Western civilization, despite it's brief timespan. I need to read more, ive read Gramsci and Orwells accounts but nothing really historical.
My favorite book about the Spanish Civil War -- even more than Orwell's great Homage to Catalonia -- is the memoir by British poet Laurie Lee, A Moment of War. I've also got a book I've never gotten around to reading, called Odessy of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade by Peter Carroll.
If I had the time, I might suggest a "radical bloggers book club". Alas, my new life as a lawyer seems to be eating up endless hours of my days, and leaving me with a throbbing headache when I finally get home at night. But perhaps when I get my life straightened out . . . .
I meant Cuba not Cuban.
That is true C.O. but you have to learn from past mistakes right?
I like the reverse-Cuban boat lift idea. I always wonder what people really think of their lives in Cuba,I have heard both good and bad. I need to read more on the Spainish revolution as well. I have read Orwell's account and various essays but not enough to talk in depth about it.
This is way off topic to the other comments, but I am delighted to meet a fishing guide. What a cool way to earn one's living, just cruising on a boat.
Dearest Patricia, "just cruising on a boat" would indeed be a great way to make a living. Babysitting millionaires, on the other hand, can be trying and not the idyll you perhaps imagine.And holding ones hand out for a tip (especially with my politics) is also annoying. But then the whole working class gets to feel like prostitutes to some degree I suppose.
I don't want to romanticize conditions in Cuba anymore than I do the conditions in Venezuela but I have met a number of people through Witness For Peace with extensive travel experience there and they generally agree that the revolution is alive in the hearts of the vast majority.I wish I could say the same about my own fellow citizens.
Thanks for the resource materials,CO, the best part of blogging is the sharing of info and ideas.
No discussion of dystopia?
I doubt if the anti-Castro types, have democracy in a mind, as a goal. When it was announced Castro was ill, I'm sure the Mafioso were smirking.
Gentlemen, The Battle for Spain by Antony Beevor is the book you definetly want to read.
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