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      The Neo-Comintern Electronic Magazine  --  Installment Number 203
 .... .. .  .   .    .     .      .        .      .     .    .   .  . .. ....
    `""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""'
      
                  Subversive Literature for Subverted People

                  Date:                         June 2, 2002

                  Editor:                                BMC

                  Writers:                    Ahmed Balfouni                                              
                                        Margarina Cataclysma


  d""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""b.
 ;P                      Featured in this installment:                     .b
 $                                                                          $
 $              Notes from "Manif Bush" - Margarina Cataclysma              $
 $                     virtuous reality - Ahmed Balfouni                    $
 `q                                                                        p'
   `nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn'

                                EDITOR'S NOTE
                      (please do not read the following)

  Hello to all super people in readership land.  This day is extra special,
  for it follows the eve of the release of our very sixth printed-on-paper
  issue of The Neo-Comintern! I hope you will all enjoy this special issue.
  If you would like to, let me know!  I will help you acquire one!  Issue
  sixth is a very weekly capitalism issue.  I hope you do not like
  capitalism very much, or you will also not also like the issue.  So, in
  celebration of not capitalism, we have two articles that do not promote
  capitalism!  In fact, some would say, they do something of the opposite of
  that!
                                                             
                                                                       ,o$o
   o$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$Y$$$$b
  d$$$'                                                               `  `$$b 
 d$$'                       Notes from "Manif Bush"                       ,$$
 $$:                        by Margarina Cataclysma                      ,$P
  `$n,.. .  .   .    .     .      .        .      .     .    .   .  . ..P' 
    `"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""'

  Paris 26 May 2002.
  Co-correspondent Metal K. Dick

  After having been isolated in hermetic Switzerland for nigh on two months, 
  it was with some joy that your correspondents regained gay Paree
  yesterday.  The first afternoon of reacquaintance was spent trying to
  locate some bookstore which had been mentioned to us several months
  previous.  It took no less than five hours of foot-dogging before one of
  our number revived his flagged memory and remembered where it was.  For
  the good readership of the Neo-Comintern: this bookstore is called
  Librairie la Breche, has a communistic mandate and communistic wares, and
  is located god knows where, somewhere in the 12th.  We were happy to
  receive our instructions.

  Our arrival at the meeting spot (Place de la Republique) was a bit late
  because it was raining terribly and we sat for a while on the sheltered 
  doorstep of a church.  On the way there we passed some police officers 
  directing traffic away from a certain corridor.  Upon our arrival, we saw 
  and heard what looked to be a mid-sized group of people, milling about
  under several banners.  Yellow, Red, Black, Palestinian flags, French
  leftist political party flags, White flags with green circles and
  lettering, Attac flags, placards bearing different messages, a papier-
  mâché globe with naked business-boy Bush, who had a gas nozzle coming out
  of his navel (or it might have been his penis), sitting upon it, Free
  Mumia and Peltier banners, etc. (Incidentally Mumia is an honorary citizen
  of Paris.  We did not know this.).  Many people seemed to be wearing those
  black and white scarves that have dingle balls down their sides.  Since
  your correspondents had forgotten theirs in Canada, we bought two for
  fifteen Euros.  We wished that we had provided ourselves with signage
  beforehand.

  We started off amidst whistling and shouting and drumming and shuffling.
  Not having any direct affiliations, we didn't know exactly where in the 
  procession to march.  We walked quickly for a while until one of your 
  correspondents (the one who likes to dawdle) requested that we move more 
  slowly.  The marching crowd was enormous, actually.  Several times we 
  stopped and watched for long spans of time.  20 minutes, more.  People
  gave us flyers.  In addition to the very many Muslim family groups who
  were marching (especially lots of young women), there were expatriate
  Americans proclaiming their shame, a man dressed as the American grim
  reaper, not a few other people in costume, many and varied French
  communists, Attac propagandists, and lots of people, like us, with no
  obvious affinities except for the colours black and khaki.  My
  co-correspondent and I were both surprised and not surprised at the
  scarcity of teenagers.

  There was chanting.  Mostly along the lines of "Bush, Sharon, Assassins,
  un etat pour les Palestiniens."   That was the most common.  (In French, 
  incidentally, one doesn't say Bush as if it rhymes with push, but like it 
  rhymes with whoosh or swoosh or douche.)  The 'Internationale' was sung,
  by small female voices.  Repeatedly.  Your correspondent knows the English 
  words but felt silly adding her own small female voice and so refrained.  
  The most exciting group had a head cheerleader teamed up with a drummer, 
  playing a seditious duet over a roof-mounted PA system.  Some people
  danced.  There were megaphones and yelling.

  Our manif marched from Place de la Republique to Place de la Bastille,
  then the enormous mob was to hang a left towards the Place des Nations.
  The first leg of the journey was very nice, perhaps because the streets
  and air and people were all fresh after the rain.  It is a few pleasant
  kilometers along the broad, treed Avenue du Temple to la Bastille, and
  there were many people standing under the trees, watching, and many
  pamphleteers handing out tracts:  "Poutine Bush Sharon Haider - Un Autre
  Monde est Possible (Sans Eux)", by L'Alternative Libertaire.   "Bush n'est
  pas le bienvenu ni en France, ni en Europe, ni ailleurs".  "Stop aux
  Guerres de Bush!".  "Contre L'Imperialisme Capitaliste".  "Guerre
  Imperialiste:  Etat Policier."  Also: "Le Troisieme Tour se fera dans la
  rue", referring to popular protest against the crook, Chirac.  "Il faut
  stopper le guerre sans limite de Bush", from the Association of Iraqis in
  France.  "Non a fascisme et au racisme", from the Marxist Leninist
  Communist party of Turkey, French chapter.  "Contre la peine de mort aux
  Etats-Unis".  "Choisissez des candidats 100% a gauche", from the Communist
  Revolutionary League, referring to the upcoming legislative elections, and
  demanding the abandonment of the so-called pluralist left, ie/ Jospin.
  "Regularisation!!", from the Coordination Nationale des Sans-papiers.
  "L'Imperialisme Americain, Le Sionisme, Leurs Allies Imperialistes et
  toute la Reaction Declarent la Guerre au Peuple Palestinien et a tous les
  Peuples", by the Parti Communiste de France (Maoiste) en formation.

  There were lots of people who carried brilliantly witty signs, most of
  which unfortunately I have forgotten,  (paraphrasing): "George Bush IQ =
  90 Lowest IQ of any American President".  "George Bush: Wanted for Crimes 
  Against the Planet".  "Stop meddling with Venezuela".  We, having been 
  subject to both Attac propaganda and Adbusters propaganda, were surprised
  to see that many people in the crowd who were there to protest American 
  imperialism were wearing Levi's and Gap and Reebok and Nike and etc. 
  products.  We did however receive a slip of paper that listed companies
  that we should boycott.  And there was a guy with an anti-corporate flag 
  (Adbusters campaign from a while ago) who was filming everything.
  Sometimes you can buy or otherwise obtain footage from these events.  FYI.

  There were some posters (I saw two) that equated the Star of David with a
  swastika.  My co-correspondent reports seeing pictures of Bush upon which 
  Hitler moustaches had been drawn with green felt pen.  I saw one picture
  of Bush which really looked like it had been used for target practice.

  We were witness to an incident (scuffle) when a man wearing a brown
  rucksack with a brown umbrella sticking out of it (this is how I 
  differentiated him from the rest of the crowd), approximate age 50, 
  attempted to get himself beat up, or start a riot, or something, in the 
  midst of what seemed to be tight group of people who were shouting "Bush, 
  Sharon, Assassins...".  There was some anger, and your correspondents 
  rationally tried to distance themselves from the scene for reasons of 
  spreading pacifism (and also one of your correspondents learned her lesson 
  about altercations with strangers on New Years Eve).  The man with the
  brown rucksack and umbrella was next observed (several minutes later)
  chasing after another man, grabbing his sleeve and trying to pull him
  around to face him, trying desperately to have some sort of exchange.  His
  target (around 20 years old) was trying to shake him off, and looked
  desperately sick of the guy and a little bit panicky.

  A little while later, a man (approximate age 40) clambered onto the top of
  a cluster of phone booths.  His friend joined him and they were cheered by 
  some of the crowd.  (Bush, Sharon, Assassins... Rahhhhhhhhhh!) and the
  first man put a lighter to a homemade Israeli flag.  It didn't take too
  easily, but his friend had an American flag, and they did manage to set
  fire to both.  Probably not on purpose, the phone booths also started on
  fire.  They seemed to be more flammable than the flags.  My
  co-correspondent says that flags are notoriously difficult to burn, unless
  you soak them in gasoline first, that in fact they are not made of
  polyester or whatever.

  When we got to Place de la Bastille, we were almost starving, so we
  ventured into the crap market that resides there on the boulevard and I
  bought a crepe for my co-correspondent, who then told me that he loved me.  
  We were filled with feelings of camaraderie.

  The second half of the march was less of a party.  The surprise of being
  in such a large boisterous group had mostly worn off, and indeed we (the
  manif) lost quite a few bodies at or around Place de la Bastille.  We
  passed a shop where the sidewalk displays of fruits and vegetables had
  been covered.  The shopkeeper and two of his friends stood outside the
  door watching over them.  We all know what happens to fruits and
  vegetables when large groups of people are riled.  Along the street, we
  noticed that all the billboards on our route had suffered from 'art
  attacks:'  the smiling young consumers and the gleaming products these
  spaces used to advertise had been obliterated with non-commercial messages
  about love and freedom.  Whoever did this was probably still in bed after
  the night shift they worked to get it all done in time.

  Another almost-dramatic moment, and one that was interrupted only when the
  crowd was warned of police: just before arriving at our destination, we 
  looked up (following the gaze of all the others and the angry shouts of 
  some) to see that some tactless cretin on the upper floor of an apartment 
  building had hung a sign: "Israel vaincra."   His neighbours will hate
  him, as the front of that building was soon defaced with the usual
  slogans.

  Your correspondents had read in the usual books about the !exciting!,
  !new! practice of having spontaneous street parties to protest all the
  usual things.  This manif appeared ready to turn into one of these at
  Place de la Nation (an immense traffic circle in the east of Paris), since
  the big red truck with the model of Bush was also loaded with turntables
  and amps.  There was a monkey man dancing on a light standard and a drunk
  woman dancing on the truck, and lots of people sitting and standing around
  watching them.  But, and perhaps this is unavoidable in a city with such a
  long history of manifs, there was nothing spontaneous about the occasion.
  Rolling quietly behind the stragglers, the big green trucks of the
  sanitation dept. followed upon the heels of the march, true to their
  motto -- vigilance and tidiness.  And behind them, and sitting in many,
  many full buses parked on side streets, were the cops -- not the friendly
  traffic cops who had cleared a path for the manif in the first place, but
  the rowdy, nervous cops with lots of gear, the stern cops blocking the
  sidewalk (who will not break your gaze if you accidentally look at one but
  are, you are led to assume from the very same gaze, very willing to break
  the rest of you), and the ones whose vests bulged with tear gas canisters
  in neat little pockets, a little like those ancient fertility goddesses
  with all the mammaries.  No need for all this of course -- all the good
  people, their militant statement made for the day, were already on their
  way home -- including, dismayedly, your correspondents.  Traffic began to
  circle again.  The fellow with the bright red cartoons of Bush as a
  gunslinger, glued to apple crates and mounted on his bicycle, pedaled into
  the distance.

  It was not, then, all it could have been.  If your correspondents, like
  the rest of the demonstrators, have no love for Bush and sometimes use the
  term imperialism when discussing the U.S. of A., s/he is less comfortable
  joining in with the furtive young men half-shouting "Al-Queda."  It should
  have been a day to make a clear statement against the corporate domination
  of the planet, American arrogance, militarism and obsessive meddling, 
  neo-liberalism, greed, the environmental crimes of the Bush, the 
  psychological crimes of the mass media, and the commercialization of 
  everyday life; not to mention fascism, racism, sexism and oppression.  It 
  should have been a day in the life of a rolling global manif that tracks 
  Bush everywhere he goes, shouting that he is not welcome.  But most of the 
  shouting here today was about Ariel Sharon, who wasn't even in Paris, at 
  all.  We are afraid that when images from this manif flash by on CNN, it 
  will seem like nothing more than a motley collection of perpetual 
  malcontents: in this case elderly Trotskyists and young arabs, going for a 
  stroll on a sunny Sunday in Paris (because the sun did come out after
  all).  Was there a single window smashed?  Did any of the three McDonald's 
  restaurants your correspondents passed suffer a momentary dip in sales 
  volume?  Oh well, there is always next time.
 
                                                                       ,o$o
   o$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$Y$$$$b
  d$$$'                                                               `  `$$b 
 d$$'                          virtuous reality                           ,$$
 $$:                          by Ahmed Balfouni                          ,$P
  `$n,.. .  .   .    .     .      .        .      .     .    .   .  . ..P' 
    `"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""'

  the bookstores of Hollywood Blvd. are gone
  even the vast market where I saw among the flats
  Military Justice Is To Justice
  As Military Music Is To Music

  not music even
  a computer representation of music

  between the Chinese and the Egyptian
  Babylon Court
  a shopping mall
                                                       

 .d&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&b.

  The Neo-Comintern Magazine / Online Magazine is seeking submissions.
  Unpublished stories and articles of an unusual, experimental, or
  anti-capitalist nature are wanted.  Contributors are encouraged to
  submit works incorporating any or all of the following: Musings, Delvings
  into Philosophy, Flights of Fancy, Freefall Selections, and Tales of
  General Mirth.  The more creative and astray from the norm, the better.
  For examples of typical Neo-Comintern writing, see our website at
  <http://www.neo-comintern.com>.

  Submissions of 25-4000 words are wanted; the average article length is
  approximately 200-1000 words.  Send submissions via email attachment to
  <bmc@neo-comintern.com>, or through ICQ to #29981964.

  Contributors will receive copies of the most recent print issue of The
  Neo-Comintern; works of any length and type will be considered for
  publication in The Neo-Comintern Online Magazine and/or The Neo-Comintern
  Magazine.

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