Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Part 3: The sounds of silence, or... Let the games begin!
Dialect: A variety of a language (specifically, often a
spoken variety) that is characteristic of a particular area, community or
group, often with relatively minor differences in vocabulary, style, spelling
and pronunciation.
Thank you Wiktionary! I speak several dialects, such as
Geek, Nerd, Right-Wing Conservative Catholic (my mother tongue), East Coast
Liberal (unfortunate, but unavoidable when repeatedly exposed), and am functional
in Pagan due to my alternative hobbies. My Libertarian/Materialism is weak,
however, and this troubled me.
I was afraid because beyond the practical aspect of the
conference was the social concern. To use a boxing idiom, you have to punch
your weight, and I was moving up in class, and probably more than one. I was
legitimately afraid I'd be completely lost and too intimidated to even
introduce myself. Thankfully, I'm a decent talker, and due to work, an
occasionally good listener. To at least pass as someone who belonged, I
familiarized myself with a few political talking points to ease into a
conversation, a few facts about Chile, and hoped the material we'd learn would
do the rest. I always try to bring an unusual perspective to the table, so I
brought up the possibility of the Democrats winning back the House in 2014, and then
juxtaposed it with the other party's timeline for going offshore. This turned
out to be an excellent topic. Chatting with my friend on the plane, he hadn't
even considered this development, and the effect it would have on this
schedule. All through the weekend, the mention of this possibility was usually
met with silence, and occasional panic. No one used denial as a coping
mechanism, which I'll take a good sign.
After a long sleepless flight, I landed in Chile, paid my
visa fee, and grouped together with a few others for a van ride to our various
hotels. We chatted, and said we'd meet for dinner after the cocktail reception,
which we did. The dinner was the only real chance I'd get to explore the city,
though I didn't know that at the time. Naturally, I found an Appleby's, a Ruby
Tuesdays, and a Starbucks. I reminded myself we were very close to the American
consulate, and this should have been expected. What I didn't find were
residents of Santiago. It was a holiday weekend, and everyone blew town. We
were warned this would be the case, but I pooh-poohed the notion. It turned out
Simon was not exaggerating. All but one of the restaurants was closed, as were
all the shops, and even the high-end cigar store in the hotel, which was full
because of the conference! This last part broke my heart, though my lungs were
quite happy. Simon also remarked that he asked his favorite Italian restaurant
to stay open, which the owner did as a favor to Simon; otherwise there would
have been no place to eat. The dinner itself was great, as was the cocktail
hour prior to food.
It was nice to speak to people who felt the same way I did,
and had the same concerns, both personal and societal. As for the demographics
of the conference over all, it was overwhelmingly white and middle-aged, with a
strong conservative bent. There were a few die-hard Libertarians at the dinner
table and in the seminar as well. Two of our dinner party came from Texas, one
of whom actually had several offshore accounts, and another had gold in
Singapore. I guessed they were there for immigration purposes, as they didn’t
need help with offshore banking. Quite a few at the conference, and the organizers of
our table, were from Southern California. This couple hailed from San Diego,
the last Republican bastion in the Golden State outside of Fresno. With the new
liberal super majority in the California Statehouse, there is no longer an ability to
block dramatic tax increases (and Cali voters made it really difficult to raise
taxes), so their offshore needs were by far the most pressing. Eventually, I had
to admit what I did for a living (Civil Service? Are you a spy? Yes, I’m actually
a sleeper agent for the Republicans. There are traitors in our midst indeed!),
but I was able to frame it by saying I understood how dysfunctional the system
truly was, and how I expected the debt-dependent system to crash around our
ears. This helped smooth things over.
Displaying my educational credentials (however reluctantly) gave
me an opening I hadn’t expected. My nascent plan for going offshore involves teaching
English, and everyone at the table really liked the idea. The uniform positive feedback
was appreciated, but it also illustrated the huge gap between myself and the
others at dinner, and I assumed by extension, the rest of the attendees. I was
the only one not looking to build a business either stateside or overseas.
Everyone else at the table already owned their own businesses, even if it was
just a side venture, or had self-directed investments, or property, or what have
you. I had designs on getting a job, and according to a few of my favorite websites,
not a very good one. I said it was a foot in the door, and that was and is
true, but I really had nothing beyond that. Still, it was nice to keep up in the
conversation. We all brought something interesting to the table as the coffee
and wine flowed. My point was the proper use of the semicolon and colon (really!),
which I suppose was a test to see if I was serious about teaching English. Thank
you Stepinac and Holy Trinity for beating the English language into me.
We then had the opening session to attend, and all of us who
had dinner sat together and waited to hear Simon. Our host began with a short
video about the growing militarism of the developed West, with police in riot gear
breaking up protests, knocking down doors, and generally misbehaving. The video
also included the shenanigans on Wall Street, the banking actions in the EU
(and this video was made before Cyprus, which became the topic du jour), and
generally why we were all here, as if we needed a reminder. Cyprus scared and
angered everyone, even myself, and I have no vested interest other than
sympathy for the Cypriots. After the video, he spoke about the conference; why
we needed the information he'd collected. If that was the meeting, it alone
would have been impressive. It was a great way to kick off the weekend, but he
wasn't done.
After the talk, and some scheduling info, Simon brought up
to the podium our keynote speaker for the evening. Amid hushed gasps and
shocked murmurs, Congressman Dr. Ron Paul (R-TX) stepped up to the podium. A
brief silence was followed by a thunderous standing ovation. For myself, I
wondered how they could top this while I cheered. My adventure (there's that
word again!) was in full swing, and I was grinning from ear to ear. Dr. Paul
then began to speak.
