Some things never change. Specifically, the font on the International Socialist Organization's fliers. Civilization could end, and you can rest assured the ISO would issue a flier about it in 18-point bold Helvetica ("Fight back! Stop the oppression of fuel and gas shortages!").

I ran into some ISO-types busking in Central Square yesterday. I made the mistake of insulting their flier as I walked past, which resulted in a protracted tirade about the inefficacy of the ISO and left politics in general. It started as a general commentary on the robotic nature of ISO product, and how brainless they seem with their shoddy sloganeering. I believe my first salvo was something along the lines of, "I've lived in Boston for eight years, and you guys have had the exact same slogans the whole time." You know the ones: Stop this! End that! Fight back! Now! Now! Now! Simple imperative statements are appealing, for about ten seconds, until you realize that their political insight doesn't extend much further than that.

Eventually this conversation proceeded into the matter at hand, namely the "anti-war" movement. I'm glad to see that nothing new is happening on that front. Apparently there's a big rally scheduled for late September, which is presently split between the UFPJ^* and ANSWER^†. The former obsequiously refuses to divest itself from the Democrats and mouth words in support of the Palestinians; the latter dogmatically insists on thrusting the issue of Palestine into a march about the Iraq occupation. "They're connected!" insisted the ISO type I was harranguing. True. True. This, I guess, is the leftist version of the "Kevin Bacon Game".

She also insisted it was necessary to support the Iraqi resistance if we are really opposed to ending the occupation, because those who do NOT support the Iraqi resistance think we have to "finish the job" in Iraq. This seemed to be a false dichotomy to me (I certainly don't get sorted correctly by it), and when I pointed out that it wasn't necessary to support the NVA or the NLF in order to want to end the Vietnam War, and many of the people opposing it were not so inclined, she demurred.

This makes hiding in the Internet seem like a much more comfortable notion, since the world out there is dominated by people acting out some bizarre Marxist fantasy, shining their alien light on the rest of us leftists and insisting that anyone who wishes to march in support of some particular cause (e.g. ending the occupation of Iraq) should be happy to wear that glow. Either I must wear ugly Marxist clothes or dress like a Democrat - not much of a choice.

---

^* United for Peas and Eustace.
^&dagger Act Now To Receive Free Bonus Gifts.