So for my high school graduation present, my parents decided to take my family to Belize. If you don't know where Belize is here is a quick reference:
I can't say I was altogether thrilled to go; I had friends to party with, hot girls to date, and dailykos to check 5 times a day and it's not like I was going to be able to do any of that in Belize. I was right, I wasn't able to do any of those things, but I had an absolutely outrageous time and was a hundred times more engaged with politics in a small Central American country than I would have ever imagined. This diary is dedicated to the surprising politics which welled up during my trip.
6/9/2004: We arrived in Belize after a 14 hour, 2 layover escapade from Spokane Washington to Seattle to Miami to Belize City. Lucky for me, this day was my 18th birthday and the drinking age in Belize is, you guessed it, three years less then our own. Cheers (2 Bilikin beers) to me.
From 6/10 to 6/15 my family and I stayed at the Blackbird Key, an island about 25 miles off the coast where we SCUBA dived 3 times a day. At this resort I had the amazing fortune to meet my friend John, a retired prosecuting attorney:
The white haired dude is John; I'm the funky looking kid in the orange t-shirt. Anyway John and his girlfriend, Marge (not pictured), are voters from OHIO!!! As soon as he told me where they were from my ears perked up and my swing voter radar started bleeping rapidly.
After several conversations with John I ascertained that he is a
1. Fiscal Conservative
2. Staunch civil libertarian opposed to the PATRIOT act
3. Gay Marriage Advocate
4. Pro-Choice
5. Pro-Legalization of Cannabis
6. Gun Control Advocate
7. Stem cell research supporter
So imagine how shocked I was he told me that he listened to Rush Limbaugh and was a hardcore Republican (his idol is Barry Goldwater). We talked for hours and I think I've got him on the ropes. I have his address and I plan to keep working on him; Marge, thankfully, is no problem and is NOT going to vote for Bush.
On 6/16 we embarked on the second stage of our trip into the center of Belize where we stayed at Duplooy's Jungle Lodge. By some stroke of luck, I happened to meet two more residents of Ohio; however, these men were not nearly as easy to work on as John. After talking with them for 10 minutes, the subject of their profession came up and they made me guess with the hint that they use Latin and Greek in the work. What are their jobs? Catholic Priests! Meet Fathers Jeff and Tim:
Only one issue dictates the politics of Jeff and Tim. You guessed it: abortion. It would have been impossible for me to get these men to vote for the pro-choice John Kerry (despite his personal objections to abortion) and rightly so; these men define life as beginning at conception and thus I agree with their politics, more lives are lost (or murdered in their eyes) through abortion than the Iraq War and capital punishment combined. My plan of attack- to simultaneously expose abortion as a red herring in political debate as well as convince them to have their cake and eat it too. Now these men agreed with most of Kerry's policies, but they just can't vote for him, while they disagree with most of Bush's but feel impelled to reelect him. I showed them that the GOP dominated congress (and the more recent White House) has done virtually nothing to stop abortion in the 10 years it has controlled Washington and that it was unlikely to do so anytime soon. I suggested that they should make a statement with their vote by voting for a third-party candidate who was more strongly pro-life and thus get Kerry into office without voting for him and press the GOP to take a tougher stance regarding abortion. (Note: does anyone know a rabidly pro-life candidate on the Ohio ballot that I can suggest to Jeff and Tim?)
I have one more person I would like to introduce to the Kos community: my guide, Edgar.
Edgar's family immigrated to Belize from Guatemala when he was 6 to flee from a bloody civil war which ravaged their country. After growing up a bit, Edgar married (young, the traditional age of marriage in Belize is 18 for males, 16 for females) his wife and fathered two children. Unable to find adequate work in Belize, Edgar illegally immigrated to Texas for two years where he worked two jobs, sending money back to his wife and infant children and saving enough to make a living when he returned.
Life in Texas, he told me, was hell. He worked long hours 7 days a week and was paid only 2/3 of his American coworkers. He was forced to do the most difficult, dangerous labor of construction as his priggish coworkers derided him as a "wetback.” He told me "I am a wetback and I'm proud of it. I saw across the [Rio Grande] river to get a better life for my family.” This got me riled up: not at Edgar but the bastard, ethnocentric, racist, excuses for humans that we refer to as Texans. How many
Texans would swim across a raging river to be treated as a third class citizen and be worked into the ground? That's what I thought. Funny how this subhuman trash (the Texans here) would betray Edgar to the corrupt Texan police who detained him until he could pay $250 to be released. Fucking incredible. I say we force Texas to secede from the Union, at gunpoint (sorry teenageddallasdeaniac) and rid ourselves of this disgrace to our country.
Anyway, Edgar eventually earned several thousand dollars and bought a van and drove it back down to Belize and sold it for a large profit. He bought a house, another van, and now lives for no man but himself, completely debtless: something that very few Americans can claim. Bravo.
In Belize, 80% voter turn- out is considered low, where the people wake up at 3 AM to line up at the polls to exercise their sacred right to vote. What if Americans had to wake up so early? What would our voter turn out end up being? I shudder to think.
Anyway, let me conclude with a few more pics from the trip (after all, this IS a
diary).
The Old Man and me smoking cigars
Image of my dad taken right after the scariest moment of my life: when my dad feinted and collapsed on the floor. Though he was just dehydrated and got up to quickly, I had never seen my dad show weakness before. I really had to come to grips with my dad's mortality here and it was terrifying.
I found this inside of a building. I nominate it for the coalition of the wild-eyed.
A GOP operative I found in the water one night.
No doubt a close relative of our president.
Cheers,
Aaron M. Ring