[Paris] ESF2 and the election

My teacher has me rewriting (French to French, of course) the work of Marguerite DURAS (L’Amant, 1984). I think she has decided to capitalize on that I am always too ambitious in my devoir and I throw in little bits of poetry where I can (my own). The description I wrote of my flying-for-fun dream had a lot of illiteration which reminded her of Duras. I am almost finished but needed a break... always constructive procrastination.

Touring the stalls at the ESF conference on the first day made me feel depressed. Maybe they reminded me of the oppression of growing up in Berkeley (where everyone is a hypocrit and a “genius” and you are a bad person if you question the politically correct dogma regardless of your final conclusion on the subject or how you got there) or if the aesthetics of the far left (which means what? People who care about fish and people they don’t know or would prefer that government fed the hungry and treated the sick rather they murdering them and spending tax revenues to subsidize a destructive lifestyle?) is ugly to me. I came across a group of middle-eastern-looking people who were yelling something at each other that sounded like “nuclear testing” but was probably not English. The building is beautiful but only one table is dedicated to transport issues. It was a UK organization that lobbies for public transportation, multi-modal roadways, and maintenance of the country’s rail system. (However, the gentleman manning the table was administrative staff and didn’t know much of the intricacies of the issues.) I needed a mood elevater (coffee).

The first talk I attended was on oil addiction. The speakers seemed more interested in pointing their fingers at government than examining what they called consumer behavior. Sure, policy is designed to foster “oil addiction”, but we do have some choice in where and how we live and work. I refuse to think of myself as the victom of public policy, while I will be the first to admit inconsistency. I live a car-free lifestyle but I still fly in airplanes all over creation and, yes, I shop at Old Navy. I will try to be better, and I hope you will too. But I am just as complicit in the mess of the world as our government officials and their desctructive policies. OK, I know, chances are I am preaching to the choir on this one....

I am in Europe as a political refuge (says Juliette and I agree), trying to avoid exposure to the election, the war, and the many other autricities committed by the US government in- and outside of its land. That said, I have read some of the coverage of the debates. Did anyone else notice that in every picture of Bush, he is facing the camera and smiling pleasantly, and in every picture of Kerry, he is looking away or you can only see the side of his face? In one photo of Kerry looking away you could even see Bush facing the camera and smiling pleasantly. Meanwhile, you still read about the “swing voters” saying they just aren’t sure they know what Kerry is all about.... If anyone ever beleived we had an impartial media, this should be enough to convince them otherwise. (It is a matter of the Associated Press, since even UK’s the Guardian had these photos.) So, if the media is reporting a close race, that means to me that Kerry has a clear majority. However, this also means that the folks who run the elections (ie, the Republicans owning the voting machines) will see to it that we have a repeat of 2000.

In fact, I read an entire newspaper on Saturday (the Guardian, UK) for the first time in several years (yes, I hate the news; it’s depressing). Get this kids, they did a poll of 10 countries and how they would vote in the US election (France, Spain, Mexico, Japan, S. Korea, Canada, UK, Australia, Israel and Russia). Now, maybe they should be allowed to vote, since US imperialism is so prevasive. Eight of these countries would elect Kerry. Those that would elect Bush were Israel (by a large margin) and Russia (by a very small margin). Likewise, I heard in a talk on US imperialism (during which I cried my eyes out twice, and yes, I think they got pictures of me doing it), I heard that if Europe were to elect the next US president (again, maybe they should), only 4.5 percent would vote for Bush. This seems high.

I also read that the world’s frog population is on the decline – a canary in our coal mine? So, yes, I read the paper, and strangely, I didn’t want to kill myself afterwards.