festival of l'humanite

i went to the communist party be-in held in paris and it was quite a scene.
there was a crowd of thousands to take in the offerings of 3 days of  discussion, debate, music and this is france after all---food,food,food.

i was surprised by the number of young people who were there as young communists handing out literature and proselytizing for
leftist causes----of course many youth were there for cruising,eating,drinking and hip-hop (not much rock and roll)
there was a tent city for hippy nomads who seemed to be having a good time.

what was very appealing was that each local communist organization had a tent featuring food from their native region
--and of course a local band to sing songs of revolutions gone by.
there was a tent for the friends of the paris commune of 1871----these guys were not quite like our own civil war enactors____they
are serious about the lessons and ideals of the paris commune.

there were many oldsters who are still fighting the battles of trotsky et al
and aficionados of the spanish civil war.

the iconic pictures of che were much in evidence but what blew me away was that
mumia abu-jamal had quasi rock star status---there was a load of literature on the amerikan
so called justice system and the trials of mumia as well as hagiographic references to him
as the latest sacco/vanzetti or rosenberg.
meetings on mumia abu jamal are scheduled well into the fall.

not withstanding michael moore i went to a discussion of health care and found that many seniors were very worried about
sarkozy taking away some of their heqlth cqre benefits.

indeed whenever an audience seemed restless there was nothing better than referring to sarko-fascism to
get a big response from the crowd-----much more than an anti-amerikan remark--which is both because sarko is local and also anti-amerikan
remarks so commonplace they begin to lose their valence.

most people spoke of the amerikan parties as tweedledee and tweedledum.
hollande is not much liked by the communists and their response to socialist party
desires for a united front is the sound of one hand clapping.