Weekend Assignment #12: Thanks to time travel and invisibility, you can be on the spot for any important event of the last 100 years (1905 onward). Which important historical event do you choose? As a twist, if you actually were at an important historical event, you can't pick that one. Why? Because you were there already. What, you want to be there twice? Think of the paradox!
This may be my favorite assignment yet. It's a very interesting thing to think about. In my usual dithering fashion, I have difficulty narrowing this down to one event. There are two I couldn't miss, given the opportunities. I don't just want to be a fly on the wall for these events, no - I want to be a full participant. The first is to protest, picket, and parade with Alice Paul and company, until we get the 19th Amendment passed in 1920. {The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.} Then I want to be in line for the historic moment when the polls opened for women to vote all over this country (15 states, mostly in the West, had already given women the right to vote by the time the 19th was passed), fill in my ballot and drop it in the box. Just thinking about it I can feel the joy, the pride, the sense of a long battle finally won - don't you know those women partied like crazycakes??????
The second event is the Spanish Civil War, 1936 - I've always daydreamed of being a member of the Lincoln Brigade, the group of Americans who went to join the revolt against fascism, against Franco, fighting against the evil that was soon to engulf much of Europe. Hiding in caves in the mountains, making guerrilla attacks with my hermanos and hermanas against the Guardia Civil - meeting Federico Garcia Lorca, drinking wine, fighting - even dying - for a cause that was ignored by most of Europe, a lost cause, but one of the most important social movements of the century. It's a purely romantic fantasy, but I've had it since I was a teenager. Again, not a fly on the wall for this one either. No, a rifle in my hands, a wineskin on my belt, "¡España!" the last word on my lips.
Pablo Picasso
6 comments:
I'd like to join you in the Spanish Civil War. It wasn't a lost cause at all. It's still looked at by people around the world as a prime example of what we can do if we are united. The lessons of the Spanish Civil War are still alive. And a day will come when the workers of the world will unite. I would give anything to be there. I might just have to do this assignment. Very interesting.
dave
http://journals.aol.com/ibspiccoli4life/RandomThoughtsfromaProgressiveMi
I picked the legislative session in Tennessee that finally ratified the 19th Amendment.
Two amazingly different choices, very cool! http://journals.aol.com/pixiedustnme/Inmyopinion/entries/783
ah Dave, what an optimist you are. i think the moment has been entirely lost, and will not come again, for the workers of the world to unite. now, it is the corporations of the world which have united, and will continue to unite. AGAINST the workers. look at the last presidential election in this country, as an example of the workers voting against their own welfare. the unions are imperilled, religion is the opiate of the people, etc. it's hard to imagine a phoenix arising from these ashes. i can only hope your enthusiasm and optimism will one day see fruition. i'm afraid it will be long after my life is over.
I agree; these are wonderful choices. Alas, I must toally fail this assignment. There is nothing in the twentieth century I would like to revisit, invisible or no. Well, maybe one: perhaps to sit in the bunker at Trinity Site at the explosion of the A-bomb and whisper in Robert Oppenheimer's ear, "Shame...shame."
Wow! You're something else! You go girl! Your passion and zeal humbles me.
:-) ---Robbie
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