,,ggddY"""Ybbgg,, subversive literature ,agd888b,_ "Y8, ___`""Ybga, for subverted people! ,gdP""88888888baa,.""8b "888g, / ,dP" ]888888888P' "Y `888Yb, ,dP" ,88888888P" db, "8P"""" Installment 243 of... ,8" ,888888888b, d8" db. dP b. ,8' d88888888888,88 d$$$s. dP `8, - -- -THE NEO-COMINTERN ,8' 8888888888888" dP$$$$$s. dP 8. d' I8888888888P" dP `T$$$$$$dP `.d$$b. .d$$b. .d$$b..s$s 8 `8"88P""Y8P' dP `T$$$$P d$$$P dP' `$ dP' T$ dP' `TP' `T$ 8 Y 8[ _ " dP `T$P d$$$P dP dP dP dP dP dP 8 "Y8d8b dP dP :$ .$ $b. .dP dP dP dP 8 `"".dP dP `T$$P' `T$$P' dP dP dP Y, ,,odnd88b, ,b `8, ,d8888888baaa ,8' ELECTRONIC MAGAZINE- -- - `8, 888888888888' ,8' `8a "8888888888I a8' Writers: `Yba `Y8888888P' adP' Jobe "Yba `888888P' adY" trilobyte `"Yba, d8888P" ,adP"' BMC `"Y8baa, ,d888P,ad8P"' - - - - -``""YYba8888P""''===================------- -- - - - - June 15, 2003 INSTALLMENT 243 BMC, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF - - - - -- -------===========================------- -- - - - - FEATURED IN THIS INSTALLMENT: captivalism - trilobyte Mix Tape - BMC SARS and Stripes - Jobe - - - - -- -------===========================------- -- - - - - EDITOR'S NOTE - - - - -- -------===========================------- -- - - - - Ahem... Two very important articles this week. First of which. SARS and Stripes. Coincidentally the last. End of the issue. Very timely. Very informed. Please be scared. Death is all around. Second article is. First article. captivalism. trilobyte disccusses. A problem in his country. The United States. Very United issue this week. Masturbating on car seats. Some thing in the mid. Some thing thrown in. A mix. There is one criteria. It must be a classic. And somehow it fits. Like a mix tape. Listen to it. Thank you. For reading this issue. I hope. Enjoy. - - - - -- -------===========================------- -- - - - - captivalism - trilobyte - - - - -- -------===========================------- -- - - - - capitalism is eating itself from the inside out; it is no longer a viable means of democratic self-sustanance. those who think it is are either deluding themselves or actually practicing limited socialism. let me tell you a little story. there used to be this thing called "money," and that money thing could fall into the hands of any intrepid entrepreneur. whether a person had a good idea and took it to fruition, or a person filled a need in their community, a person who did these things successfully was bound to have money land in their hands. not anymore. first of all, there is no such thing as community any longer. in those few pockets where people walk and ride bikes and take public transporation, then sure, there are still "communities." but in the greater scale that most americans live in, that one that we see on tv and read about in newspapers (and the ones who watch the tv and read the newspapers) are largely fragmented compared to how they were in the old days. fragmentation does not a community create. that is, of course, unless groups of people can be identified simply by their collective fragmentation. but that's illogical. don't even suggest it; you fuckers who use the term "post-modern" are gonna give me the schisms. in the olden days, you could (if you were a married man with children and a wife) find out that your son wanted a violin. being a supporter of the arts (by default, since you are part of 'community'), you could decide that the violin is something that would certainly enrich your son's life. so, proud of your son and his newfound ambition, you take him one saturday afternoon on a walk down the street, telling him you are going to visit the candy shop and get a lollipop or something. this excites him. however, you pass the music shop on the way, and happen to mention that you would like to stop in and check out a book of sheet music for the next family gathering. looking around the shop, you tell your son that "hey, look, there are some violins over there!" and send him on his way while you absentmindedly thumb through the books of sheet-music. after a couple of minutes, you look over at your son, and he is holding a violin in his hands and old Abram the proprietor of the shop is alternating between kindly showing your son the ropes and also giving you knowing, compassionate grins. and i'm not talking about child molestation, fucking perverts. go over to your capitalist-run porn store and buy yourself some wanking material, cappy pinko bastards. i'm talking about the fact that you just made a defining moment in your son's life, an afternoon he will never forget. now, let's contrast that with today, when you are so busy doing work for your insurance agency (which pays well) that you haven't got time to contemplate your navel let alone spend "quality time" with your family; you find out that your illiterate son is interested in the violin; beyond thinking that he's a fag, you suffer pressure from your beleagured wife to take him out to the store and get him an instrument. you thumb through the yellow pages because, of course, you haven't got a fucking clue where the music store is; you find one called The Music Shoppe that's on some street you've never heard of. you call them up and find out they're located on a frontage road out by the Wal-Mart, so you back up your QuickBooks and find your son masturbating on his bed; you tell him to clean up his filth mess and get in the car, you're going out to get a violin. he really just wants to sit there and masturbate some more, because there's twenty minutes left of The Grind on MTV, but your anger insists that he had better do something else, like follow you, so he gets in the car; you don't even talk on the way out to the store and once you get there your son lazily wanders around looking for the violins. he can't find them. he cries out your name, "Daddy!" and asks you to find them -- you haven't got a fucking clue either. where would they be anyway? woodwinds? synthesizers? that sounds like yeah, stratovarius -- no, you haven't got an idea so you go to the front desk and wait in line behind some middle-aged woman who's bitching about a refund for her daughter's unproductive guitar lessons, "SHE'S NOT A ROCKSTAR YET! SHE'S BITCHING AND WHINING AND MOANING AND SHE ALMOST KILLED HERSELF YESTERDAY!" and you're getting tired of standing there after ten minutes so you scream out "HELLO?" and some goatee'd beer-gutted hipster fuck with an ear-ring and twelve lazy girlfriends looks at you as if you're the last person he wants to see. it's probably the truth. "yes, may i help you" he moans and you tromp over to where he's standing at the counter and the woman with the bitchy daughter steps to the side as if you just shit on her shoulders and you ask if they've got violins somewhere and the fellow says "yes, in the backroom, can you hold on a minute" and looks at your son like he's a fag and then cleans up business with the woman by telling her she can have a twenty-five dollar gift certificate if her daughter cancels her lessons. the woman pretends that this is not better than what she had truly *expected* to get, which was nothing, and she tramples the carpet as she bee-lines for the door. "yes, what sort of violin were you looking for?" "stratovarius, i don't know, what you got?" "yamaha, sansui, kenmore, hyuandai, ... wanna take a look?" "sure." "alright, i'll be right back." the salesperson plays with the enormous keyring on his belt as he walks into the backroom, and you hear shuffling. a minute or two goes by and he comes back with four or five cardboard boxes, each labelled with its make and some japanese characters you can't read. "here." he says as he sets them down on the counter. you look at them. then you look at him, and then you're both waiting for each other to do something. your son is looking at a bikini-clad cardboard cutout of tori amos in the piano section, feverish with the need to wank off. "so, which of these sounds pretty good?" "i don't know," the salesperson replies, "i could look it up for you." "uhh, no, that's okay; uhh, can you tell me the prices on them?" "well, this sansui, it's $85, then there's the sony, which is $45 but it's made of plastic, good value, then there's the kenmore, which is $185, and let's see -- uhh, the bandai there that's $450." you look at them. "let's see the sansui." he opens up the cardboard box, removes some sheets of paper (assumedly instruction manuals, warranty cards, warning labels) and then pulls out the bubble-wrapped violin. it looks brown through the plastic. that's good, you think, violins are supposed to be brown ... "does that come with the, uhh, bow -- is that it? bow?" "yeah, but this one didn't include it in the box -- we have send off to sansui america to get it, and they might not have it in stock ... they didn't last time this happened, so who knows -- they might have to get it from sansui japan." your mind is spinning. "okay, so, uhh how long will that take?" "well, probably six weeks." he looks at the box, then back near you. "maybe a little more. not sure." "okay, well, eighty-five dollars? we'll take it. do you offer lessons?" "well, we used to, but then our instructor killed himself, back a couple of weeks ago -- uhh --" he looks around. you look for your son, to ensure he didn't just hear the mention of suicide, but he's nowhere to be found. you look back behind you and see him in the passenger seat of the car bobbing up and down, looking at his knees or something. "okay, do you know anyone in town who does?" "nope." "okay, well," you pause, figuring that the son's school probably has a band class, because yours did; but you don't know that your son's school has cut back on the arts program, leaving only drama as a haven for the creative; as ticket sales keep the program paying for itself as its low-budget reproductions of famous hollywood films of the time draw reasonable crowds, "we'll take it." your son has jizzed all over the dashboard and is racing to clean it up as you get into the car, you hand him the cardboard box and he holds it on his lap to hide his now-diminishing erection. capitalism has failed. all those smaller businesses that used to prosper in the environment of the community had to go through a period of middle-aged wifery: while they were so pretty when they were twenty or twenty-nine, they are now thirty-seven, and don't find themselves as pretty as those who are currently twenty or twenty-nine. so they compensate by tanning too much, cosmetically altering themselves, or wearing ill-advised brassieres, completely demolishing any memory of their former selves among those who used to respect or admire them. their husbands leave them, counting retirement of the libido, and then go out to pasture; they are left with no ambition but to live on vicariously through their children, who are still young and beautiful, until they all are dead and buried. count the restaurant into this picture that for years offered up a traditional fare to its traditional patrons, until the father decided it was time to retire, and left the business to his two sons who had gone to school to follow in his footsteps. these sons, seeing all the big-box restaurants and stores down the street, decide to give the facility a giant overhaul, and create a sort of hybrid of everything that's cool (and completely alien to the traditional clientele). they expect to bring in people like themselves, and perhaps find a few ladies to fuck and impress. what happens is that while their father has retired, and the clientele has also retired, people still need a place to eat, and as they get more senile it gets more complicated for them to go out to somewhere new and adopt the atmosphere. they just can't handle it. and even though they will die, and no longer be patrons, there will be more old people to fill their place, who will also order the same omelette every other day and eventually die having someone else take their place. but instead of an omelette they are faced with a tapas or fried pizza or garlic butter wine and don't know what to do so they die and nobody comes anymore. it's a shame. the internet offered a small opportunity for these middle-aged entrepeneurships to get a facelift, make themselves up a little, get with the times. but completely unaware of the hype that built up this phenomenon, they didn't realize their business was a community venture, and benefitted none for offering the same items to a global clientele which that clientele already had in their own locality. so there being no difference between abramsmusic.com and brucesmusic.com and fredsmusic.com except where they were located and a small variation in price (and their horrible web design), the facelift proved to do nothing for these mom-and-pop turned grandma-and-grandpa shoppes except make them look really nice in the casket. let's hope somebody set up a trust fund. everybody gets gobbled up or chewed apart by mega-millionaires, who already earned their money and have nothing to do but make more by making sure nobody else makes *any*. look at this: it used to be that the local specialty shoppes got their goods from regional specialty distributors, and everything was special. the distributor got the goods from the factory, sold it to the retailer, the retailer added some money to the price to profit and keep in business, and then the customers came in and bought it. everybody was happy, lots of people had jobs. now that we've got these regional outlets for every chain store imaginable, often with their own distribution outlets and warehouses, there is no job for the middle-man at the specialty distributor just as there is no job for the employee (or proprietor) of the neighborhood shop. good thing wal-mart and best buy have so many employees. it almost makes up for the dearth of jobs, by like 20%, and it certainly almost makes up for the lack of money in private pockets, by like offering half the wages. sarcasm. forgive me. if you like the picture, consider it's only getting bleaker: every bastion of lasting proprietorship is becoming nationalized; and by nationalized, i mean responsibility and cashflow is removed from the many communities in which the buzzards take roost, and these buzzards are often in cahoots with lobbyists who are in cahoots with government. how's that different from any other paper trail? how's that different from any other socialist scheme? here's how, from my limited knowledge: there's less supervision, only tattle-taling, neck-biting, ass-patting and poo-poo-pandering. oh wait, how's that different again? yeah, that's right, because it's a free market :: one that's coming to a close. the former proprietors of our nations' great small businesses have traded in their butterfly nets for metal detectors; there's none to be found but the nails to be used in their own coffin. let's dig in to cake of capitalism. maybe somebody placed a knife in there for us so we can get the fuck out. - - - - -- -------===========================------- -- - - - - Mix Tape - BMC - - - - -- -------===========================------- -- - - - - I can define the world for you in a mix tape, baby. When I made this mix tape, I didn't know how it was going to turn out. The only condition was that every song had to be a classic. It's a bit eclectic, a bit on the crazy side, but also a bit mellow at times, and always just what you need. This one is Benny Goodman. Have you heard it before? It's super rare. It's barbershop quartet. Can you imagine putting that on a mix tape? Well I did! It's so weird, and yet it just fits. You know what I mean? This one's super rare. Have you ever heard it? No? Well it's Buddy Holly, actual fucking rock and roll. Listen to it. Have you heard it before? Buddy fucking Holly there, buddy. I can distill my essence to a mix tape. The Breeders. Has anyone seen the iguana. No, I know that's not the name of the song. This is a good song though. Perfect stuff for a nice relaxed night. Man, have you noticed that this mix tape is the essential self? Cat Stevens. Gotta have Cat Stevens. Yeah, Speeding Motorcycle by Daniel Johnston. Definitely a classic song. As far as new songs go. It's like it was born a classic. It's like in the delivery room, like "Congratulations, it's a classic." You know? Are you listening to this song? Classic. Well, even if it's not that new, it's still a classic. Have you ever been in love? Me? Nawww, I don't think so. But this is a song about love. You can hear it. Dead Milkmen. What more to say? That is a classic fucking name, or at least it has the potential to become a classic. Listen to the mix tape. Listen to me. Frank Fuckin Black. Billy Radcliffe. This song is intense. You really have to listen. Listen close now. Now listen closely to this part. Listen. Did you hear that? Did you hear that? That was awesome. Listen again. That was awesome too, but not as awesome as the part before. People can seem more egocentric when they're talking about music than when they're talking about themselves. Gang Starr! Rap shit, you know? And still it just WORKS. FUCK MY ASS - - - - -- -------===========================------- -- - - - - SARS and Stripes - Jobe - - - - -- -------===========================------- -- - - - - Whither American credibility? This question invariably creeps up in response to any issue these days that has some connection to U.S. politics and economics, whether the topic is accounting fraud, insider trading scandals, or the detainment and abuse of hundreds of non-U.S. citizens suspected of-but not charged with-terrorist links. Add to this list the ongoing debacle surrounding Iraq's alleged cache of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and suddenly, a growing number of American institutions find themselves suffering from a credibility gap. In fact, the only weapons of mass destruction that have been discovered so far are U.S. greed, paranoia and xenophobia. Enron, WorldCom, ImClone, Kmart, the Department of Justice, the Pentagon, the CIA: These are just a few of the organizations that have attempted to concoct their own renditions of U.S. democracy in recent months at the expense of the unwitting American public. Thus, it is with great skepticism that I scour the latest reports detailing the number of SARS cases in the U.S., as identified by the Center for Disease Control (CDC), its federal agency for protecting Americans' health and safety. By now, everyone should recognize the acronym SARS: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, a sort of glorified pneumonia that has been somewhat blown out of proportion, possibly because it originated in a non-Western country. SARS is the disease that singlehandedly delayed the Ontario provincial election until a time when the Progressive Conservatives-the party in power-feel they can fully escape the censure of the voting public in general and the healthcare industry specifically, maybe by 2007. SARS is the source of the American media's virtual smear campaign of China and Canada, the latter coincidentally occurring shortly after Prime Minister Chretien announced Canada's unwillingness to support the use of military force on Iraq. However, while the U.S. media were casting stones at their northern neighbours, a strange thing happened; SARS pervaded the hallowed borders of the United States. We're not talking one or two isolated cases either. At last count, the World Health Organization (WHO) listed 71 probable cases of SARS in the United States, more than all other countries but five, with new cases being reported every day. Furthermore, while countries such as Singapore and Vietnam have contained the epidemic entirely, and cases in Canada have been limited to a handful of Toronto hospitals, a total of 25 American states now have patients suffering from SARS. This begs the question: Why does the CDC continue to advise Americans to avoid travelling to Canada? Perhaps it should warn them not to travel to California where 22 probable SARS cases exist or New York State, where 9 people have contracted the disease in the past few weeks. Crazier still, the CDC may have been prudent to institute improved measures for containing the spread of SARS in the U.S. after having several months to monitor the disease. As things stand, the United States may be the country most at risk of experiencing the next SARS outbreak. The other curious SARS-related statistic is that, out of these 71 probable cases in the U.S., fortunately nobody has died from SARS but only 36 have recovered from the disease thus far, resulting in a vast number of cases that have been unaccounted for. There are likely two explanations for this discrepancy in the figures: 1) Most of the cases have occurred in recent weeks, so those patients with SARS are still afflicted by its symptoms, which is disconcerting because it implies that the disease is still highly active in the U.S., maybe more than Americans realize. 2) The CDC may be either misdiagnosing SARS cases or failing to report potential SARS-related deaths in efforts to counteract the negative repercussions that are likely to follow, such as a further downturn in the economy and widespread mistrust in the highly privatized U.S. healthcare system. The U.S. should certainly be commended for its perfect record thus far, but the worst may be yet to come, whether or not the CDC's figures are accurate and up to date. While the latter scenario is the less likely of the two, the serious lack of credibility exhibited by the United States government of late should certainly raise some eyebrows-or at the very least, questions-as to why Americans are seemingly immune to the most dire consequences of the SARS coronavirus. I'll be the first to admit that I'm a conspiracy theorist, but I still have doubts about the veracity of the U.S. figures. It seems inconceivable that out of 71 cases, not a single person in the U.S. has died from a disease that has almost a 10% mortality rate. Is U.S. healthcare that much more superior than that of other countries? What measures, strategies and precautions are the U.S. using to prevent SARS fatalities, and if they are proving so successful, why hasn't the CDC been sharing them with other parts of the world that have been particularly hard hit by SARS? Are there any regions where a traveller might want to exercise greater caution if planning a trip to the U.S. in the near future? On another vein, is it possible that the U.S. has either misdiagnosed or improperly labelled certain SARS cases simply as pneumonia-related illnesses? Are current U.S. medical records for SARS incomplete or are they fully up to date for all 50 states? Depending on the response to the previous question, is there the potential in the near future for a spike in either deaths or probable SARS cases? I have twice emailed these questions to the CDC public relations staff in the past week, but nobody from the organization has yet to respond to my queries. Whether or not my theory about an imminent SARS outbreak in the United States is true or false or an act of karma, the WHO and CDC have set the benchmark in terms of areas around the globe where Americans should fear to tread. In declaring a city such as Toronto unsafe based on 33 SARS-related deaths over a span of several months, these two organizations have raised the safety bar of North American cities. As a public service to Canadians who may be pondering a trip to the United States and for those Americans who seek to live their lives to the fullest, I present below my WHO- and CDC-influenced list of cities to avoid due to their potential threats to public health and safety: (Magic Number = 33) 1) Los Angeles: You wouldn't last 3 weeks in this death trap if you happen to be on the wrong end of the revolver. Statistics show that L.A. was home to 658 murders in 2002. Perhaps L.A. has drastically overhauled its notoriously shoddy police force, as the 33rd homicide of 2003 didn't occur until well into February. Of course, the city may have simply given up reporting gang-related crimes. 2) Washington, D.C.: Not only the deception capital of America but also its murder capital, this brother city of Tikrit had the highest murder rate among U.S. urban centres of 45.8 per 100,000 residents. Too bad the city's total population is nearly 600,000. This city also has one of the highest rates of mental illness in the U.S. 3) Detroit: U.S.A.'s murder capital of 2001, it still remains the honourary murder capital in the eyes of most Americans. Its 42 deaths per 100,000 metropolitan residents in 2002 (and 402 deaths in total, or roughly 33 every month if you're scoring at home) were slightly above its 2001 totals and below only Washington D.C. among cities with the highest murder rates-and the U.S. isn't even mired in a recession. Detroit is the ideal city for those Americans who really like to live on the edge. On top of that, the city also has one of the highest rates of McDonald's restaurants in the United States: 18.6 McDonalds for every 100,000 residents, or 178 in total. According to the folks at the CDC (I'll give them the benefit of the doubt with these figures), 27,804 people in the state of Michigan in 1999 died of a heart attack, a rate of 197 per 100,000 residents (third-highest in the United States). Based on that rate, and 1999 census figures for 1999-which peg Detroit's population at roughly 4.5 million butterballs- about 8,800 of the city's population died of heart attacks, or a whopping 24 daily. Canada's SARS-related figures pale in comparison- combined totals of all suspect and probable SARS cases have averaged less than 3 a day for the entire country. These figures may be a few years old, but something tells me Detroiters aren't rushing out in droves to buy McDonald's new veggie burger. 4) Las Vegas, Nevada: Las Vegas continues to be one of the fastest growing cities in the United States, but its chain-smoking residents may be on borrowed time. About 30% of the Nevada population puffs regularly; only tobacco-wacko Kentucky--the home of Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corp, and a state where the pestilent weed grows in all but 1 of its 120 counties--has a higher smoking rate. Statistics show that 1 out of every 635 Nevada residents in 2001 succumbed to tobacco-related deaths. With Las Vegas's population hitting 1.1 million that year, some basic math reveals that about 1,750 of them died from cigarette smoking. If the World Health Organization had been alert, it should have warned supermarkets and convenience stores in the city to stop selling cigarettes to Las Vegas residents sometime around the first week of 2001, about the time when 33 smokers would have died. But other statistics suggest that Las Vegas residents might just have a death wish, as the city also possesses one of the highest suicide rates among American cities. At roughly 23 suicides per 100,000 residents, Las Vegas citizens are almost killing themselves faster than Washingtonians kill their fellow Americans. Despite the bad press, we may still be able to count on our pals from Las Vegas to disregard the WHO travel advisories and make a trip to the Canadian hinterland. For the record, the U.S. military--son of SARS--is responsible for the deaths of at least 3,240 and as many as 7,207 Iraqi civilians since the beginning of this year, depending on your sources. The smaller figure comes from Associated Press, while the larger total is the estimated maximum number of civilian deaths calculated by www.iraqbodycount.net: That's an average of 20-44 civilian deaths per day. But don't ask the U.S. military to verify these figures, it doesn't keep track of the number of Iraqi civilians it kills. - - - - -- -------===========================------- -- - - - - 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 . Submissions of 25-4000 words are wanted; the average article length is approximately 200-1000 words. Send submissions via email attachment to , 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. - - - - -- -------===========================------- -- - - - - ___________________________________________________ | THE COMINTERN IS AVAILABLE ON THE FOLLOWING BBSES | |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| | TWILIGHT ZONE (905) 432-7667 | | BRING ON THE NIGHT (306) 373-4218 | | CLUB PARADISE (306) 978-2542 | | THE GATEWAY THROUGH TIME (306) 373-9778 | |___________________________________________________| | Website at: http://www.neo-comintern.com | | Questions? Comments? Submissions? | | Email BMC at bmc@neo-comintern.com | |___________________________________________________| | The Current Text Scene : http://www.textscene.com | |___________________________________________________| - - - - -- -------===========================------- -- - - - - copyright 2003 by #243-06/15/03 the neo-comintern All content is property of The Neo-Comintern. You may redistribute this document, although no fee can be charged and the content must not be altered or modified in any way. Unauthorized use of any part of this document is prohibited. All rights reserved. Made in Canada.