Week 1

It's going to be a long season. I take rich people fishing for a living, yes, a "high class" whore, an "escort" perhaps, and it is a trial in the best of times. But now, with the Empire desperately lashing out and it's apologists becoming more and more delusional, I am finding it harder and harder to swallow my bile and hold out my hand. A not untypical scene:

During the hour long ride to the put-in on the lower Big Hole last Friday, my long time client starts in on how our plan to bring freedom to the Iraqis has not turned out as well as was expected. I can only laugh, (we had this conversation last year) and express amazement at his total lack of awareness, honesty, integrity,etc.. We openly discuss politics, he knows my ideology, but it never usually opens into a candid debate because I work for him, we're supposed to be "relaxing" etc. Still, he acts hurt, a little indignant even at my inability to take his comment seriously. With anger creeping into his voice the jumbled, confused, incoherant slogans which are his belief system come spewing out with no space for interjection and I am forced to jabbing rebuttals on top of the non-stop jingoism. In the confusion his true ,guiding philosophy comes out as he states "I will do whatever it takes to hang on to what I have."

At last, the layers of psuedo-intellectual rationalization are peeled back and we confront each others realities. He is living the "American Dream", owns tremendous wealth and property which creates unlimited opportunity for himself and his children and my socialism, all the "terrorists" and all the "Other" out there are a threat he is willing to confront with any amount of force necessary. The "Other" includes all deviations from his social norm, feminists, gays, other races, religions and ethnicities but the bottom line is haves and have -nots and I am at once relieved all the pretence of "compassionate conservatism" is gone and the naked desire, avarice and fear lay exposed and of course saddened this decent human cannot source some empathy to fight the greed. My clients college-age son in the back seat parrots his Sean Hannity sound bites knowing full well what he stands to inherit, fully immersed in his lacrosse team reality, a nice car, apartment and summer job with Dad's company. "Islam is a demented religion","Arabs are a violent race"," the teachers at his private college are left wingers","schools are teaching kids to be gay", Duke team frame up, Iran will wipe out the Jews, Why can't the UN save Darfur? on and on through the whole moronic litany till we finally get near the river and he turns to me oh-so-sincerely and says "We all want the same thing for our children, peace."

Nineteen more weeks to go.