Greetings Joe -
I just finished your piece on Hopkins and the cabana. I remember that Harry Shearer once called New Orleans (before the Bush Regime let it die so that they could rebuild it "a lot Whiter") as "an antidote to America". It looks to me that you have helped create your own antidote in that lovely place in Belize. I wish you the very best in relocating down there, if you choose to do so. It looks great and an excellent place to spend time with real people with nary a WalMart in sight. The idea of surfing the Net while relaxing in a hammock on the beach is too much!
All the best to you,
Bruce
Marin County, California
P.S. I continue to save my money as much as possible for my own exit from Gentrified Marin County and the Empire in general. It will either be that farm in Vermont or back to SE Alaska where I can stare at the great unfenced wildness in my rusticating years. Oh yes, Vermont passed some kind of state-sponsored healthcare system this year.
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Hello Bruce,
Thanks for taking your valuable time to write back about the notes Ken and I put up about the Hopkins cabana. If I had known so many folks would read it, I certainly would have made it into an essay -- not to mention cleaned up my sloppy writing.
As you say, plenty of Americans are in the process of making what limited attractive beaches Belize has (there are as many mangroves as beaches), "a lot whiter." And the cash-starved, colonianlized government and citizens are more than willing to help them do it. Belize makes a great effort to build tourism and has been increasingly successful -- if you call dragging in some 400 polluting cruise ships a year, and under-the-table deals with cruise lines to build casinos (then eliminating the $7 per tourist head government charge that used to be placed on the cruise ships) successful.
The great coral reef is bleaching out and dying off, thanks to America ships, etc. The sweet crude oil recently discovered has somehow magically been sold out from under the people and is being pumped onto ships as we speak. Altogether, the longterm future is not bright for Belezians, if remaining a unique nation and people is any kind of measure. Their currency is tied to the US dollar and their government policy dare not cross up American business or political interests down there and up here. The thing to do would be to align with Chavez, Castro, or other such leaders, but too many Belizean politicians are getting rich from deals with US developers, etc. The rest have learned the same message Americans learn form the same media: "Castro and Chavez are dangerous men, dictators and Communists," though few people in Hopkins have anymore real comncept of what a Communist is than do Aemricans. They just know they are the bad guys.
At the same time, a family is a family and children are children, regardless of circumstances, and resistance to cultural and economic destruction really starts at that level. As in: "Don't become a wage slave on the white man's resorts. Find a way to own your own lives and your nation."
Fortunately, there are at least some available resources. For instance, there is a high level of land and home ownership with Belizeans, mostly because Belize still has plenty of land for its citizens away from the beaches and inland. So my present thinking is toward a small non-tourist based project inland. One in which a family's house not only provides shelter, but also generates a small income from an affordable community needed service. Money from within the community recycling within the community. I dunno yet. But I'll know it when I see it. You cannot dream up stuff from here in America. I do know that.
RE: "saving my money for an exit from gentrified Marin County and the Empire in general ..." I'd be willing to bet you already have enough money to escape forever by much of the world's standards. And Vermont and SE Alaska are still part of the Empire, meaning that the extractive capitalism will continue to draw blood and money from you, regardless of where one is located within it or how well you plan. Of course that's just my opinion as one willing to live on $5,000 a year and considers $50,000 plenty to retire on, given the willingness to live in certain places on the globe, integrate into families for maximum benefit, and live at minimal eco-level. (Not to mention croak when my time comes, and not practice the American death avoidance fetish.)
Ah, but once again I ramble ...
Solidarity,
Joe
