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Review of "River of Grass"

Marjorie Stoneman Douglas’ book The Everglades River of Grass is a compelling and poetic account of the geological, biological and social development of the Everglades region. By starting with a deep analysis of the first two of these conditions, she is able to show the great degree to which the Everglades itself determined human growth on the region. Early boosters for developing the region appeared to be willfully unaware of the problems presented by the complexities of the environment, the raw power of the intermittent storms that exposed claims of unrelenting progress to be hubris and the disdain that the original inhabitants had for the settlers which sought to transform the region into an image of their own making rather than adjusting to life as it was.

Opening with great detail on the type of ecosystem that forms the Glades provides the setting for the development of the region. Douglas’ gives an extended description of the hard oolithic limestone, the qualities of the diverse and abundant of plant, animal and insect life. All of these favored nature’s power over a pre-industrial cultures capacity. Human’s initial inability to impose their own conception of order made it the primary determinant of the culture and social relations, at least until the colonizers came and technology reached the point where they are able to increasingly do so. The Mayaimi, Tekesta and Jaega, the people of the Glades settled in what is now called South Florida adapted in various manners to their environment. Religious celebrations were based upon seasonal patterns, an animistic religion guided their relationship to nature and, while reluctant to agree with Douglas’ conception of the division of labor initially existent as a “sort of caste system,” tasks required for reproduction and social health were divided amongst the people based upon qualities such as strength, intelligence, cunning and leadership capacity (76). Given the tribal nature of society social mobility was limited, but from the records that Douglas and others have cited they were content and preferred the social relations in to which they were born rather than that of the colonizers.

These newly arrived colonial powers, first from Spain then from England, France, The Confederacy and the United States were interested in exploiting the clearly fecund soil and using their natural harbors as locations from which to stock and rescue trade ships. Their colonial capacity to exploit it, however, were at first highly limited to small tracks of land and their antagonistic relationship with the Glades tribes which neighbored their settlements. The colonizers attempted converting them to Christianity in order to pacify their hatred for the dispossession of their lands, but the natives viewed this as the importation of a foreign God that literally had no relationship to the cycles of life on the Glades. The acts and tales of cruelties by these men far outweighed the few who were truly peaceful and thus conflict continued amongst them. At times adherence was feigned, but usually in order to obtain goods. Peaceful relations were broken up at times by intermittent conflict, but the colonizers were always limited in their capacity to overwhelm the people that had so sturdily adapted themselves to every aspect of their environment. This did not, however, mean social stasis.

Recognizing that the unique qualities of the Everglades and other coastal islands and estuaries was helpful to illicit trade and piracy, small coastal settlements formed. Other native tribes such as the Creeks, that once populated regions to the north and west recognized that they were unable to push back western expansion and forced their way south. Their new holdings were fertilized with the blood of previous occupants. Additionally playing a factor in the composition of Florida’s population were former slaves. They were aware of the conflict and the egalitarian values of the Glades people and often sought refuge amongst them. This was pre-text for greater conflict between them and the slave-owning society that abutted them.

The end of the American Civil War marked the beginning of an epoch that would accelerate the transformation of the socio-environmental landscape of Florida. Veterans and their families settled into peacetime occupations in the under-developed region of northern Florida and along the eastern coast. To facilitate growth the Federal government established mail routes and encouraged the transplanting of plant life. Intermittent conflict that erupted into prolonged campaigns to pacify the Seminoles or move them on to reservations continued, but so too did relatively peaceful trade relations between them and northern Florida Crackers and southern traders. Exchange of foodstuffs for coin, high-use or subjective value manufactured goods, such as guns and beads, as well as alcohol increased. Soon, however, a new item was prized: bird feathers. The northeastern hat-feather market was exploding and Seminoles labored to fulfill the near limitless demand for them. The demand for aigrettes was so strong that within four years the rookeries were destroyed. Recognizing the need to protect wild birds from the capitalist nexus between north and south, the Florida Legislature passed a law to protect the birds. Enforcement, however, was minimal to non-existent.

The technological capacity of the colonizers progressed and two major forces came to bear upon the environment: trains and drainage. Shrinking the limits to growth and the speed of exchange, these two rapidly expanded the facilitation of capitalist relations in the area in and around the Glades. Plant and Flager’s importation of these capacities led to the increased in foreign settlement. While initial harvests were small due to a lack of knowledge of soil conditions, this would later be fixed via the application of the science to the dirt. High capital investment would first presented a barrier, however later land companies were able to appeal to local and state governments for funds to create flood barriers, canals and military forces to push the Seminoles further to the interior while also encouraging greater assimilation through schooling. Unseasonable frosts encouraged farmers to move operation further south.

A state of regional anarchy best categorized the manner of housing and agricultural development while industrial development was limited due to the semi-tropical environment and lack of air-conditioning. Agriculture and tourism were the primary industries in the region surrounding the Glades and were increasingly at odds with one another as developments spread out rather than up. Former native combatants in the Seminole wars largely reconciled themselves to a peripheral place in the new productive regime in order to maintain their cultural peculiarities but still fought to prevent large techno-political projects from touching there habitation. Whether they were aware of similar battles over issues such as the salination of fresh water canals due to poor planning is not touched upon, but it’s clear that an increasing sense of the fragility of the environment was an increasing concern.

Douglas is not optimistic of the capacity for sensible land-use policies to be pursued by the government that has taken control from those that once wholly adapted themselves to the region. Given the history that she has written this is understandable. Following the arrival of colonialists her history is largely a depiction of a hubristic faith in progress, defined as increased technological manipulation of nature and man to further capitalist exploitation, that is able to correct any problems that occur. This despite the willfully suppressed recognition that the canals had caused soil depletion, industry has poisoned soil and that locks and drainage are frames for a holistic region that can be subdivided at the cost of huge and potentially irreversible environmental impact. As such the tension found in the initial written history of the region is one that continues – to adjust as people or to adjust the land around us.

Review of "Making Waves: Female Activists in Twentieth-Century Florida"

The historical essays contained in Making Waves: Female Activists in Twentieth-Century Florida illustrate a wide variety of female political praxis. While it is not until the final essay by Giardina that the phrase “the personal is the political” makes an appearance, all of the essays within show how the reconceptualization of the arena of women’s activity as a result of the Women’s Voting Act and changing social mores helped to alter Florida’s environment, polis and oikos in various ways. Working class women engaged in unionization activities, benefitted from paternalistic education while more financially secure middle-class women facilitated the growth of clubs that would provide skills and networks valuable for political leadership. Nominally independent women, such as the Marjories, were able to use their career paths as a position from which to advocate reform or the conservation of nature that would be lost due to short term logic of capitalist development.

One essay which addresses the role of working-class women is Rieff’s article Home Demonstration and Rural Reform. The author shows how it is that the federal government sought to demonstrate better practices of home economics through extension classes and minimal investments in canning machinery, to thus allow the continuation of existent capitalist practices by increasing the capacity for workers to reproduce. Class was, as always, informed by race and the ever-marginalized black population didn’t receive equivalent amounts of government funding. In the account of Tampa cigar industry workers, female retirees fighting against Air Pollution in areas affected by extractive and refining industries and Civil Rights Activists in northern Florida there is also evidence of the extension of the “women’s sphere” into the larger body politics. Women’s lacking access to land struck so that their pay would be of such a level that they were not forced into relationships with men simply to be able to live and in order to obtain increased power in the housing and food market.

They sought the restriction of industry such that their housing investments wouldn’t be destroyed by industry externalization, that their rights following the nullification of the separate but equal ruling would be enforced and that the inheritance of slum-conditions be ameliorated to better black communities. As the essays show, women resisted the limitation of their roles within the nexus of increased market exchange by striking, pleaing to local, state and national government and, if their council was not sufficiently listened to, entering into legally protagonistic relationships with them as well. As the cases of Elizabeth Virrick and Ruth Owen shows, once mobilized and able to find a constituency that was able to financially and morally support them, the women were subject to judicial contests. Owen was able to be seated as Florida’s first Congresswomen and Virrick was able to effect slum clearance, however this was not accomplished without entrance into the legal areana.

Review of "From Yellow Dog Democrats to Red State Republicans"

David Colburn’s From Yellow Dog Democrats to Red State Republicans: Florida and Its Politics since 1940 narrates the political transition of Florida from party monopoly to a limited competition electoral regime. As Colburn points out on page 13, “From 1900 to 1950, Florida voted for a Republican only once, and that was to support Republican presidential candidate Herbert Hover against Al Smith… (who) represented everything they opposed” (13-14). Prior to this voters consistently, powerfully and successfully resisted the attempts of urban oriented politicians to enact new legislation and thus were oriented to rural, segregationist politics. The increased mobilization of under-represented groups, migration to the state by people living in regions associated with Republican party policies, the limited capacity of the state Democratic party to maintain discipline resulted and growing dissatisfaction with their national party created an atmosphere of increased political polarization and transformation of state voting patterns.

Governor Collins was a prime example of politicians caught within the turbulence of the times. While a gradualist in his approach to dismantling Jim Crow policies, accusations of being a progressive and of kowtowing to federal rather than state influence tempered his elected capacities. The conflict throughout the state found reflection in the blood-letting of the Democratic primaries and shifting of voting patters. The former issue of intra-party polarization caused subsequent gubernatorial candidate Carlton to refrain from getting Collins endorsement until late in the campaign, a mistake repeated later by Al Gore, causing him to lose to Bryant, who represented the parties segregationist wing. As the new governor’s ability to substantively shape racial policies was limited by the Federal government, the vote for Bryan’s segregationist rhetoric was more symbolic than substantive –this didn’t prevent the Republicans from capitalizing upon the division and general discontent.

On issues of policy, the discourse surrounding busing and the legal framework created by the Brown I and II rulings came into effect, how both parties responded lead to shifts in voting patterns. Though the state was now mandated to institutionalize the equality of blacks on a time schedule determined by the external political actors, local resistance to it continued via economic and community-oriented arguments. Whites held that the quality of social investment instilled via the school system would be degraded by the introduction of black students and teachers while blacks held that the community-oriented institutions that they had developed would now be dissolved. State Republicans were able to capture more votes as a result of this issue due to the fact that the party imposing this at the national level was the Democrats and compounded this advantage by advocating for a low property tax. Another nationa-oriented concern being felt at the polls was via the new Cuban vote, who largely rejected the velvet glove approach of Democrats to Castro. As Republicans found competent candidates with name recognition and their power to mobilize the “Cincinnati” electorate increased, the Democrats individualist approach candidate primaries and increasingly right of center policies lead to party flight evidenced by the last three governors.

Review of "Old South, New South, or Down South?: Florida and the Modern Civil Rights Movement"

The essays edited by Irvin D. S. Winsboro and collected in Old South, New South, or Down South?: Florida and the Modern Civil Rights Movement illustrate the trajectories of various civil rights battles held in the streets, schools, stores, public spaces, churches and courtrooms of Florida. In various ways the authors depict a series of status based contestations. Blacks were no longer going to “stay in their place,” as evidence via battles won in several Supreme Court Rulings, nor leave it at a pace dictated by the local whites.

The collection suggestions that the nature of African-American struggle changed as the primary mode of economic reproduction shifted from agricultural to service oriented work. As they transitioned from farming towns with small population density to larger towns and cities, the greater concentration of people with similar experiences or disenfranchisement caused a number of a qualitative shifts. First was the abandonment of the gradualist approach to social uplift exemplified in the yeomanry ethic of Booker T. Washington. As most of those in these regions were no longer agricultural producers but were wage laborers such a ideology was no longer as applicable to their experiences in the cities. Instead a number of ideologies were formed that were the beginnings of various forms of black power. Based upon this increasingly militant class-consciousness, a number of groups formed to place demands upon the state that approximated struggles occurring in other locales. Due to Florida’s heterogeneous composition of industry, previous settlement and migration patterns, the intensity of open political conflict varied from country to county. The response to these contests was, however, largely the same. Institutional violence, token desegregation, electoral dispossession through districting that gave more electoral power to rural, racist bastions over those areas more open to accelerated integration, and the legal tactics of delay that would have likely made the wording in of the Brown ruling “with all deliberate speed” mean never were the responses to these collective contestations.

The articles in Winsboro cite a number of local civil society organizations that worked on their own and in conjunction with national groups and branches of the Federal Government to overturn the laws and help reshape the attitudes that maintained the Jim Crow regime. While there is a dearth of information on the actual composition, charters, membership numbers and structures of the organizations themselves, the story which emerges is that these grass-roots militants connected to activist churches spread across the state were sufficient to remake the laws which had chained them down to an inferior caste. Despite these gains, however, institutional discrimination persisted. Though KKK rallies were no longer considered socially acceptable, group membership persisted and maintained a degree of control via their entry into police forces. Thus while the legal standing of racial status was eventually changed, purposive targeting continued. Additionally, commensurate economic gains were not accomplished due to their being categorized such as communism, which was deemed a crime greater than being born black.

Review of "Coming to Miami"

On page ten of Melanie Shell-Weiss’s Coming to Miami: A Social History, the author state her intent to broaden the regions historical latinization by broadening the epoch to show the tensions which existed prior to their migration, and to develop that history with concern to extra-regional developments (those things impacting Miami but not necessarily originating there) as well as the role of race, labor and sexual relations. The net effect of such a process is the progressive unfolding of how it was that capitalist social relations developed and underdeveloped Miami and how it was that various communities attempted to resist such exploitation.

Shortly prior to Miami’s incorporation, Malthusian pressures encouraged a number of Bahamians to leave the islands and make their way to Miami. Initially the Bahamian population benefitted from their education within the British colonial system, greater capacity to obtain investment capital and familiarity with natural conditions that initially made them invaluable in the assistance of the burgeoning agricultural industry. These boons, which had the effect of making them the small business owners in the non-white neighborhood and a somewhat decreased capacity for Floridian police to used naked force against them put them at odds with the African Americans already living there. Racial alliances were tenuous and at moments when they did exist, as in the UNIA, there were disconnections between leaders and the rank and file which even when attempted to be corrected highlighted the middle class nature of the movement – a position most often held by the Bahamians.

These tensions within the highly qualified “black community” was slight compared to those that existed with between the African Americans and whites of Western European descent. Thought they literally made the structures of Miami and Miami Beach, they were prohibited from owning land these, visiting if not working and were generally placed within a system of etiquette where violations could result in gross bodily harm. Lacking the capacity to earn from land speculation and paid barely above the level of self-reproduction the infrastructure of the areas allotted to them were of much lower quality than those found in the white areas. Beachfront mansions were thus predicated on unpaved streets and shotgun housing with ad-hoc sewage facilities. The poverty that existed in these communities was a rare sight to visitors, who normally stayed in the white-capital created tourist facilities.

Organized attempts at correcting this took the form of civic and church associations rather than through economic groups such as unions as following such attempts accusations of communism could be made with their implicit threat of American Legion, KKK or police violence. With the increase of first Jewish and then Hispanic migration there were additionally considerations that complicated that already highly pressurized communities. While these two groups also faced discrimination, they were to become seen as if not allies than as preferable partners with which to exploit for labor. The transition to civil rights discourse and with its increased solidarity-oriented political consciousness changed this to a degree, but the damage done due to the previous physical isolation of these communities and their political marginalization made the effort a largely uphill battle.

Review of "Venezuela: Revolution as Spectacle"

Venezuela: Revolution as Spectacle presents a highly critical account of the Chavez regime as populist, militarist, and collaborationist with international capitalism. Uzcategui utilizes Guy Debord’s concept of spectacle as a means of explaining how it is that the Venezuelan population and leftists on the international stage buys into the “protagonistic” democracy. The thesis is at time very compelling, though at times not so much. In the latter case, it’s usually not for the information itself but due to the context of Uzcategui’s analysis.

One of the main reasons for Chavez’s categorization as a “spectacular fool” for international capital is his decision to pursue mixed ownership enterprises, as per Article 112 of the Constitution, within the extractive sector rather than outright nationalizing the process. While the, it seems to overlook Chavez’s basic recognition that to outright nationalize the industry would lead to the type of bloating that dragged down the company previously. Allowing market logic, albeit partially controlled by Chavez’s appointment, thus allows for Chavez to have greater amount of profits with which to spend on discretionary projects rather than increasing the membership of “the state within the state”. Chavez does, however, seem foolish in Uzcategui’s accounts of the ridiculous floating-monetary policy with it’s various prices, thus allowing some people with government access to make large amounts of money for doing no real “work”. A relation of this to the need for the government to stem capital flight would have made this section more compelling.

Uzcategui criticisms of the mission is some of the most compelling writing of the book. The missions are not novel but replicate many of the former spending pattern prior to the lost decades of the 80s and 90s, have duplicated processes, obfuscated formerly clear issues and have often not matched up to their aspirations. With regards to the housing problem, simply put not enough has been made. To address this issue, the government has passed out accumulated leaflets on how to “properly” build barrios – a rather poor option considering the potentially non-informal jobs that could give a boost to the economy. As regards Mercal, there have been a number of irregularities found in distribution lines, there’s been shortages of food, the workers there are still without contract and there’s been little investment in the facilities thus leading to spoilage. The Mission Barrio Adentro has not kept up with it’s goals for creating primary health care modules and has often faced shortages of medicines and supplies.

In regards to Chavez’s populist, militarist character Uzcategui lays out the appointment of many members of the armed services within both the PDVSA and various government enterprises. While Richard Gott saw this as a means in which Chavez could maintain a certain level of oversight over potentially opposition-sympathetic political actors, Uzcategui sees this as an atavistic return to the militaristic tradition in Venezuelan culture with its cult of Bolivar. Because of this, the language against perceived enemies is very antagonistic (or in the usage of Chavistas “protagonistic”) and polarizing, has lead to an organization of society along military lines (seen in the various popular militias). These are issues that are important in the assessment of the Chavez regime, however they are then placed along with claims that a brief increase in the armed forces budget signifies that the government prefers military expenditure to social enterprises. This is done so by making comparisons between national defense spending and sports and also not contextualizing the region. As a percentage of expenditure of GDP, Venezuela is behind Peru, Paraguay, Brazil and Bolivia. This wrong emphasis should not, however, take away from the Uzcategui’s insight on how it is that Chavez’s strong role in the delegation of duties and delineation of policy had a negative effect on the political culture. By the overwhelming polarization which occurred and his enlargement of political power through quasi-legal means has meant that the PSUV has a certain level of disconnect from it’s base. Steve Ellner’s Rethinking Venezuelan Politics complicates this simplification, but the general co-optation of the social movements by the state and subsequent prioritization of the states needs over previous organizational actions seems valid as other commentators point this out.

The constitutional planks recognizing Venezuela’s indigenous population and their allowance of them to organize politically at a movement was widely seen as being a positive, progressive aspect of the new Bolivarian constitution. Uzcategui, however, shows how it is that these people have at times been forced to face relocation in order to fulfill various extractive or transportation endeavors. While the Wayuu were not forced to move from their homeland, they were offered large buyouts, an allowance not likely to have been given to them under previous regimes, and their

A particularly amusing and insightful section included the author’s recounting of a visit by “parecon” economist Michael Albert. I, like Diogenes Laerties was, am very much interested in the “lives” of modern thinkers and so found Uzcategui’s description of Albert insisting that his brief period with the government gave him more insight into the goings on in the country than the activists he was with and that his book being widely distributed in Venezuela would assist in the revolution. For one, it’s a compelling scene of the manner in which international leftist activists have turned the heart of the matter into a tabula rasa in which to read their own aspirations and as it shows the intellectual febrility of Albert when faced with counterfactuals.

One of the recurring problems of Uzcategui’s analysis is the placement of subjective factors normally attributed as outside the realm of government control as emerging from their authorship. For instance the high number of trade unionists killed in the country for reasons speculated to emerged from workplace issues is seen as he fault of Chavez’s government. He alludes to this but does not specifically say that this is a conspiracy. This is just one of several examples of the contrast between the how objective information to be found in the book about circumstances in Venezuela is often shown through a decontextualized, anti-statist prism that gives too much credit to the government in causing some of the problems that are functionally explained in other ways. Considering the author’s embrace of Bakunin’s theoretically model of the state this isn’t surprising, however one can’t help but wonder what the old plotter and revolutionist would actually say about Chavez.

A final thought, unrelated to Uzcategui’s general take on Venezuela, is the idea that the author seemingly wants to “investigate and punish those materially and intellectually responsible for these crimes” (45). While the point made in the quite relates to workplace crimes, it’s mentioned earlier as it related to the Amparo massacre. In there two places the punishing of those “intellectually responsible” for the crime is a legalistic burden of proof, that for an anarchist, is a rather strange one. The case of the Haymarket martyrs ought to come to mind, being that all those that were placed under indictment and later judged guilty were all known to not be involved in the actual bombing but were the bombers “intellectual inspirers”. While the author likely means that those that are acting against the interests of el pueblo should be held accountable, as a legalistic doctrine it is of course very dangerous and something the other should consider jettisoning given it’s historical misuse.

Review of "Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams: A Social History of Modern Florida"

Gary Morimo’s Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams: A Social History of Modern Florida is concerned primarily with the manner in which Florida transformed from a barely inhabited region in 1900 to the state with the fourth largest population in 2000. Connected with this story of growth is the manner in which Florida formed a distinct identity distinct from its northern, more established neighbors. To accomplish this Morimo shows how it is that since the 1960s “Florida was more climate controlled, technologically inclined, and also older, more ethnic, more religiously and racially diverse, wealthier, whiter and less agrarian than the rest of the south” (7).

Florida’s beaches were early recognized as a place of beauty to be areas of repose and restoration by elites, leading to various real-estate booms and busts in Miami, the lack of transportation infrastructure, the real threat of hurricanes and the fetid and mosquito filled natural environment meant that most of the states economic activity in the beginning of the 20th century was agricultural and located in the interior of the state.

It was not until the onset of World War II that the conditions would be present that would lead to Florida’s rapid coastal development. First was the transition to Fortress Florida. Federal investment into the region for military bases brought with it service sectors, better roads and infrastructure to be used by the counties after they abandoned it. The many barrier islands were ideal for practicing amphibious assaults, such as the ones that would occur in the Japanese peninsula, and it is the state closest to the Caribbean. It thus was ideal as the base for operations to quell communist organizing in places such as the Dominican Republic following the capture of Cuba by Castro.

Morimo additionally illustrates how new technologies shaped the patterns of habitation, economic investment and culture of Florida. The creation of refrigerated rail cars and that capacity to make juice concentrated enabled agricultural barons to expand their market share and their income. Interstate highways led to the decline to smaller tourist attractions and restaurants and the increase of large tourist operations and chains. Air-conditioning made Florida an acceptable place to live year round to more people, while dredging operations made more land available for housing. It was not just technological innovation that helped create the state, but financial innovation as well.
Much of the mid-twentieth settlement of Florida was accomplished via financial instruments that made paradise affordable to northern retirees. Low down payments on homes facilitated a gray invasion of retirees while insurance policies were founded on political rather than economic rationales. Later came the Marielitos and shortly after them narcos, crooked bankers, dictators and their cabals from South and Central America brought with large amounts of money and a distinct culture that helped distinguish South Florida from “the south”. These factors that shaped modern Florida continue to do so and in ways that are not always clear – be they environmentally devastating or otherwise – however the image of Florida as an aspirational place to live continues despite it’s many peculiarities.

Review of "Miami"

Joan Didion’s book Miami is a New Journalism account that delves into the relationship between the large Cuban exile and Anglo communities in Miami and Washington D.C. While the type of political assassinations that were making headlines at the times of the book’s first publication is no longer a normal occurrence, the book is still insightful for understanding Miami’s official as well as their “underwater” history. As a caveat, however, Didion also engages in an unfair essentialization of Latins by framing their exile politics, as anyone familiar with 19th century radical exile politics London knows is always full of passion and intrigue, as being “Spanish” and a product of a hot environment. Her connection of their militancy to these, in the end, imperialist and orientalist notions is a mar on an otherwise compelling work.

The notion of the underwater narrative refers to the manner in which Cuban-American’s interact with the Federal government, specifically how the state deals with a body of foreign nationals which seeks to overthrow a neighboring country’s government during the Cold War epoch. Didion doesn’t examine many archival documents or policy proscriptions, but instead infers the underlying beliefs of policy advocated by the Cuban community and the American’s tasked with handling them. Handling their passionate excesses is seen as “disposal problem”, especially following the Mariel boat lifts when tens of thousands of refugees, normal, mentally disabled and criminal, were now considered “American citizens”. This problem of disposal is both one of housing, a la the tent cities created in the parking lots and empty spaces along stadiums, as well as how to deal with groups that, now free from the Cuban police, want to provoke a war between the two countries by attacking Soviet bloc ships in the Miami port and hit-and-run incursions into small Cuban ports. The solution to the first problem, how to house tens of thousands as fast as possible, isn’t mentioned but the latter is given an accounting. Simply put, the militants that left are given further training at the Ejercito Cubano Anticomunista camp in Homestead and other places around the Everglades.

At this point, the US backing of a foreign for to ostensibly invade another county, runs into a problem with this style of writing. Specifically, the paucity of sources allows for subjective inferences which may be far from the objective reality. While Didion can correctly claim that JMWAVE existed, that in the early 1960’s Miami the CIA had assembled the third largest Navy contingent of battle and retro-fitted ships in the event that they wanted to invade Cuba, she also states that there may have been anywhere from 15,000 to 150,000 anti-Castro operatives fielded by the CIA. While it is unlikely that she would have access to actual numbers so close to the time period she’s writing, the result is that the account only gives a small picture of the events rather than a larger, more coherent narrative. She drifts from inference to inference in a highly suggestive manner that feels true to life, but it’s still hard to say how much of it is true and how much of it is a reading of her own fears of the situation onto it. Instead of deep investigative reporting that gives detailed descriptions of the actors involved, she relies mainly on what is reported in the newspapers and is “known on the street”. People drop in and out of the book, only mattering insofar as Didion is able to get a point she wants to make across – usually how this group of exiles has led to a third-worldization of politics in Miami. The picture that she presents is one filled with conspiracy, martial ideas of political behavior, killing of people open to dialog with Castro and wealthy Cuban’s fundraising for la causa. It is a dark, paranoid and ultimately tragic portrait, but one can’t help but wonder if the focus on a small, sensational and militant contingent of people leads to a distorted view. Because while Didion shows that this group is able to gain a significant modicum of local political power and can gain access to upper-level bureaucrats in Washington DC, the latter’s instance on IR realism always checks the “poeticism” and volunteerism of the Cubans.

One of the poetic metaphors that Didion uses several times that I found fitting was the the manner in which Washington D.C.’s vacillating policy towards Cuba, indeed all of Latin America, leave traces on the board. People, the moving pieces on the board, end up resenting and feeling antagonism to their handlers for their perceived lack of commitment. This is especially clear in the section detailing the manner in which media strategy has come to dominate the presidency. This need to address the variety of issues prevalent in the United States disallows the type of intensive attention and concern that the Cubans would like to see given to their sense of purpose. As Cuban-American and American interests overlap only at limited points, especially towards a stable government widely perceived as legitimate by their own people, the American willingness to act is seen as weak as their capacity to act and change the government is seen as definitive. Such sentiments are shown in Didion’s excerpt from conversations with the elite, in the volunteering and fundraising for the Nicaraguan contras compartmentalized in the slogan seen on stickers at anti-Castro businesses “Hoy Nicaragua, Manana Cuba”. Additionally, these traces are visible in the varied treatment of the policing apparatus to Omega 7 and Alpha 66. Sometimes they are considered acceptable and given access to advanced military training and weaponry while at other times the membership is prosecuted for crimes. Salon has an article on their website that updates some of Didion’s writing. Most important as it relates to Didion’s work is the manner in which these groups changed when no longer coddled or assisted by the CIA and the American government’s prosecution of individuals in the United State which were arrested for attempting to gather information on these groups to prevent their action or to help arrest and prosecute them following actions.

Another interesting point that Didion makes is in hinting at the similarities between the former ruling class of Cuba’s beliefs and those of Castro. Perhaps it is because of an unrecognized fear of retribution that she is never heavy handed in pointing it out, but at several scenes the parallels between them are clear. The violent retribution against collaborators and the disruptive counter-demonstrations to silence “non-Cuban” speakers highlight the qualities which the exiles exhibit yet claim as cause for the Cuban regime to be overthrown. This dissonance finds itself in other places as well. One of the ways in which she speaks of correcting Castro’s unacknowledged or repressed presence is in the corrective she makes to other’s claims by pointing out that Castro has had a big if not one of the biggest effects on the development of South Florida as a community. As none of the people she interviews would likely be there if not for him, she does this to show how it is that their ideology has scrambled their worldview to the point that the conditions which lead to the revolution and his role in it is simply transformed into a target that, once killed, would solve all of their problems.

Review of "The Savage Detectives"

The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño recounts the lives of two aspiring poets, Ulisses Lima and Arturo Bolaño, along with their circle of poets that, for poets, spend a surprisingly small amount of time writing or publishing poetry. Despite the paucity of presses willing to accept their work, however, the poets still continue in their roles as seekers and the narrative takes the two protagonists on a series of trips or varying adventures.

The first and third sections of the book are set in Mexico City and told from the third person while the substantially larger middle portion of it approaches those characters from the perspective of strangers and friends, not always in chronological order, which they encounter in Spain, Nicaragua, France, Israel and Monrovia. The split sections are not just changes of style, but in time as well. Chronologically the first sections is first, the third section is second and the second section is the third. This break-up of the events is at a significant point, just after the boys have spirited away a prostitute from her pimp, and the results of this, which surely inform the subsequent chronology, isn’t learned until the end. I’ve not normally liked the results of the authors that have written in such a vein, what immediately comes to mind is Nabakov’s Pale Fire, Bolaño’s work isn’t as purposively alienating though he too does have his moments of seemingly excessive erudition.

Moving from this issue of time and going back to the protagonists, Lima and Bolano’s lives, just like those that in one way or another look up to them, are tragic. It’s not just the poverty of many of the characters, such as Luscious Skin who lives in a shack on the roof of an apartment building, but the manner in which they all seek for a truth leads them to be so far alienated from those around them. They are tragic people, largely outcasts from society with limited capacity to feel connected to it, they have tragic loves, obsessing over people that they can’t have, they are tragic actors, who flirt with death and wandering as a coping mechanism over their variance and even antagonism to official Mexican culture and preference for the classical and avant garde. It is in fact their love for the latter that informs the name of the poetry group that consolidates around Lima and Bolano. They call themselves the “visceral realists”, as an ode to another group of Mexican poets who went by the same name forty years before and they connect it to the Flores Magon, Tristan Tzara and the stridentists.

Lima and Bolano are seekers after poetry in a religious sense. Their obsession is not just with reading the works of various famous literary circles but in learning all of the history between the authors. This is evident later in Belano’s life in his deep reading of the Generation of ’98 once he is in Spain, but is first seen with his concern in learning about and interviewing the surviving members of the Mexican stridentists and seeking to learn about one of their members Cesarea Tinajero. The search for her takes up the majority of the third section and is almost a quixotic tale as for all intensive purposes she has published only one poem in a small run journal and this poem consists solely of three lines without text – a straight line, a wavy line and a jagged line. The energy which they exert and the results they end up getting is highly telling of their tragicomic embrace of the literary arts. As such a polyphonic work ought to suggest just by such a categorization, their perspective is not the only one highlighted and this anomie and aimlessness, at times excruciating detailed in Belaño and Lima’s account outside of Mexico highlights their general aimlessness and anomie following the discovery of Tinajero, and they are contrasted with several other poets of people whose politics is not limited to poetry. There are numerous Trotskyites, the fault them for their lack of real political commitment, there are the peasant poets, followers of Octavio Paz, publishers and just normal people for whom the literary world is not so much of a drive which all mock them for their pretensions and posturing.

Having just read The Counterfeiters by Andre Gide before this I completely agree with James Wood’s comments on the novel that despite these divergences from character and form it is in Many ways like Gide’s work in that one of it’s major themes is what exactly does it mean to be a writer. Chapter 23 specifically, is where I believe that Bolaño accomplished some of the best of his writing in this regard, not as letters to a young poet a la Rilke, but as Diogenes Laetrius. Bolaño even puts in a Marxian-Hegelian twist in the ending of all of their stories by rewording the famous “first as tragedy, second as farce” line in what I think is one of the most compelling sections of the book. Here we can see not just fragmented details of the journey of the spirit of these two poets, but how it is that the others writers relationships to society, their notion of truth, etc. informs their station in life.