One Fish, A Fire, and the Cost of a Ride

Outdoor Democracy

He went down to the stream and came back with a fish. Built a fire, tucked pine boughs under a slant of tarp, and leaned back into the language of birds and wind. No Wi-Fi. No pledges to billionaires. No tangle of lobbyists writhing like eels around the ankles of lawmakers. Just one man in rhythm with the natural code — that ancient hum we’re taught to ignore.

It was a good day. As simple as that.

And simplicity, I might argue, is now the most radical act of resistance.

You see, once you push past the commercial jingoism of “American Exceptionalism,” the slogan that keeps frat boys and fascists frothing in unison, you’ll find a remarkable people — inventors, poets, working stiffs, revolutionaries, and the hopelessly kind — all gasping for air beneath a collapsing cathedral of capital. I grew up feeling the burn of the branding iron. We were taught we were better, but I read maps. I saw other lands. I imagined other children who didn’t speak English and didn’t need to. I knew the world was bigger than the county line and the Kmart parking lot.

The rot, though, set in when the Supreme Court cracked open the vault and called it free speech. Citizens United — a name as dishonest as any in modern governance. What it really did was unzip democracy and let the predators in. Dark money, invisible and unaccountable, now courses through every vein of public life. You can’t run for dogcatcher without pledging allegiance to a hedge fund.

So here we are: the most capable among us avoid public service because it now requires selling your soul to the highest bidder — or lowest troll. What’s left? The vain, the vicious, and the vocational liars. Governance by those who treat public duty as a brand extension. All while the donor class clinks champagne glasses in Aspen or Davos, whispering about how best to “optimize” the poor.

A friend said something that hasn’t left me: “A ride in an ambulance for the uninsured costs $3,000.” Think about that. You’re hemorrhaging on the sidewalk, and the clock starts ticking — not just on your life, but your bank account. And someone, somewhere, is profiting off that desperation. Not a nurse. Not an EMT. But a private equity ghoul who buys hospitals like they’re vending machines.

That’s the real America First — first to charge, first to sue, first to squeeze.

So maybe the answer is one fish, a fire, and a day away—a return to the things that don’t bill you monthly or lobby you nightly. Maybe the real revolution starts with knowing the difference between survival and servitude.

And maybe, just maybe, peace isn’t a policy.
It’s a small fire,
well-fed.