stomach pains and communists

Never underestimate the powerful ties that bind the mind and the stomach. That is the lesson (re)learned this week. I was supposed to spend my monday night dancing until dawn to the sounds of Sebastian, Kavinsky and Surkin, but instead I spent most of it trying to pretend that I wasn't having excruciating stomach pains. I only lasted an hour or so. Stress, exhaustion, too much food at the family dinner...whatever the cause, it ruined my night. I heard Surkin tore the place up.

So the next day was a holiday. I spent it walking around, checking out the various rallies going on. Le Pen was having his rally in northern Paris, but I decided to pass on the Skinhead gathering. Instead I headed to Bastille and Republique and inadvertedly ran into a massive left-wing demonstration. At first I thought it was a Socialist party thing, then I realised that it was an anti-Sarkozy rally...until I hit Place de la Republique, which was literally a (cess)-pool of communists and other anti-free market ralliers. I perched myself and observed. And I got to thinking...what is it about communism that makes it so much less repulsive to us than fascism? Millions upon millions of people died under various communist rulers in the 20th century, and entire countries are still suffering, yet the Communist party remains accepted as a valid political entity. Whatever the reason, I was truly astounded at the sheer size of the crowd gathered at Place de la Republique...and of course, all of the usual crap that goes along with a communist rally: red clothes, Che Guevarra t-shirts, hammer and sickle flags, and those annoying 15 year old hippies who say they love Sartre and wish they could move to Cuba to live in a communist utopia. Strangely enough, there was also a large contingency of Kurds and Tamils...

Tonight is the big debate between the two candidates. My money's on Sarkozy. Also, Jim Lehrer from PBS Newshour recently did a piece on the French elections and came to my school. Check out the story here. Some of the info is slightly misleading though, namely that Sarkozy graduated from Sciences-Po. The real story as I've heard it from family friends who were in the same year as him is that he never showed up for class (he was already working for Chirac at the time), he was told by one teacher that he wouldn't go far in life with his attitude, and he eventually dropped out because he had better things to do. I guess things worked out for him in the end.