joeh@sun.uucp (Joe Heinrich) (09/10/86)
Now, we all know there's a revolution going on down south of us. Below the hemisphere. Tom Sloane and Jeff Myers have been bugging us for months to stop whining and go on down there and see it for ourselves. So we did. We called up TecNICA and got it all straightened out and paid our money and took a plane down there. These are our experiences. Now I know, reading them you're gonna say, ``Bullstuff.'' You're gonna say, ``There ain't no place like that. Some island who knows what out there in the Caribbean there. Bullstuff.'' That's what you're going to say. And you'd be right. Because there is no place such as the island of Puerto Feliz, 200 miles south of Jamaica. Huh uh. You don't believe me, ask Tom Sloane [(415)486-5954]. He's never heard of it. Ask TecNICA. They've never heard of it either. Neither have they heard of any right-wing dictator named Sir Edwin Peery (O.B.E. 1956). Because he never existed either. And there's no such body as Michael Bur- roughs working in an intelligence capacity for the govern- ment, nor any nurse named Sandra, nor any Lutheran minis- ters. Nope, nope, nope. It's all fiction. This understood, these are our third-person experi- ences. AFTER THE REVOLUTION After the despot Sir Edward Peery was overthrown, people all over the world arrived in Puerto Feliz to examine this newest of social experiments. Built on Progressivist principles as exemplified by the nineteenth century revolution- ary Petro', the ``Petroli'stas'' (as they were called) were building a high profile amongst south and central Americans. Michael Burroughs decided to travel to Puerto Feliz to see it. Mike had had friends in Intelligence who had worked down there when it had been a right-wing dictatorship under Peery, in fact a good friend of his--Paul Halley--had been murdered attempting to cover the Revolution. Mike tried not to think about this. Of course, his cover would be embassorial in the event of a prob- lem, but Mike's surface affiliation was with a Berkeley, California, Petrolista support group called Petrole'o en Paci'fica--Peace through Petrolism. This support group was responsible for smoothing the way for visitors--especially sym- pathetic U.S. citizens--into Puerto Feliz, in order that they might see for themselves what van- guard socialism was really like. In order to be allotted a visa from the new Puerto Feliz consulate, Mike had first to write an essay on the historical inevitability of socialism (as exemplified, of course, by the Petrolist experiment) in the Third World. Mike copied a bunch of junk word for word out of pam- phlets he grabbed from a pile on the floor inside the Puerto Feliz consulate, then mailed it in. He wondered if they would notice--but they had been quite impressed, commenting favorably on the ``revolutionary synchronicity'' of his essay. Mike felt a little disgusted; as if he'd cheated unnecessarily on a midterm. After being allocated (awarded was more the impression Mike had) his visa, he boarded an Aero Feliz cargo plane that took him and 46 other curious people from Berkeley to their first stopover--Miami. Many of his fellow travellers were affiliated with various denominations in the World Council of Churches, a group notoriously sympathetic to the new socialist regime and crammed full of the evangelically revolutionary; Mike himself was vaguely attributed as a business- man who specialized in electronics--djoo know, computers mon? The Group of forty-seven travellers spent a week in Florida before travelling on to Puerto Feliz, a week in which they toured Miami slums ``in order to discover for themselves the reality of poverty and injustice in the capitalistic State.'' ``People think there is no hunger or oppression in America!'' their guide jabbed his finger at clots of blacks in front of liquor stores with chain-mesh windows. ``They better think again!'' Mike was shown graphs and other proofs of the discontinuity of basic justice for the colored races in Dade County; he was then asked to ``examine the root causes of capitalistic oppression'' through conversation with local col- lege professors, human rights advocates, even members of that self-nominated group of clergy known as ``liberation theologians.'' Understand- ably, Mike discovered somewhat a conformity of view. After this were regular ``periods of com- munal reflection'' during which the Group was urged to ``share its feelings'' about the basic causes of the United State's economic and politi- cal ``ills.'' Under a blazing Miami sky, half a city away from brown lean bodies lying prone on white swept sands, the Group made lists of the endemic evils of capitalism as they sat sweating in an un-airconditioned ``classroom.'' They were invited to share feelings of guilt over the United States' historical dominance of South and Central America. At the end of this week they were con- sidered ready. Trundled onto a throbbing cargo plane, they were flown to their next stop: Jamaica. Jamaica was a notorious capitalist failure, lying two hundred miles north of Puerto Feliz. The group trooped through the hideous slums of Kingston, huddling in a tight pack against the hostile stare of stoned Rastafarians. Next morning they flew south. Following this sweltering week of sleeping on cots and eating gruel in the Miami quonset was the comparative week in Puerto Feliz. The program had been designed to provide a contrast between the the two countries. After landing, the Group was put up at a hotel reserved for foreign visi- tors (modelled, Mike realized ironically, on Intourist in Moscow). Upon their arrival in the capitol city of Revoluci'on (formerly Peerytown), everything was done communally. No more travelling alone. No more cooking alone. No more sleeping--well, they were all to sleep on cots in a big room (segre- gated by a hanging wall of blankets) in what used to be the gymnasium of a Peery-era high school. Next morning after a revolutionary breakfast they all clambered aboard a school bus and headed for their first stop. It was a prison. [Next--Revolutionary Re-education!] -- --jnuke@GroundZero
campbell@sauron.UUCP (Mark Campbell) (09/19/86)
Excellent. Please continue. -- Mark Campbell Phone: (803)-791-6697 E-Mail: !ncsu!ncrcae!sauron!campbell