Happy Fossil Fools Day

It's a big day for Londoners. Some of them will be attempting to catch a few Obama rays when the new prez makes his way over to the Excel Center, or is en route to drink tea with the queen, or do the 10 Downing Street elite dinner party later this evening with his hosts from the Central Bank. (Indeed, a busy day for Barak, although the main question on the tongue of every 'banking economics have melted my brain' journalist is undoubtedly whether Michelle will dare to bare her arms in the presence of royalty.) Yet another group, mixing the francophiles with the francophobes, will be waiting to see Mr. Sarkozeee storm out of the meeting when he doesn't get his way with Chorus Liquidity. However, the most enthralling events are sure to take place on the streets, in the vicinities of the Bank of England and the European Carbon Exchange. UK Climate Action has dubbed their ECE campout 'Fossil Fools Day' (must give credit where credit is due) and the G20 Meltown organizers are rallying people under the banner 'Storm the Bank!' i've clipped the more provocative part of their propoganda here, but you can check out the whole poster set and entire list of rhetorical anti-capitalist questions on their website.

Unable to participate personally in any of these stress-reduction programs, i've allowed myself to speculate telepathically on how the overall experience will pan out. The climate action folks tend to provide the most creative theatrics and would be the place to go for sensible discourse on how to rearrange the Titanic's deck chairs. What i love about hardcore climate activists is that for every criticism of the status quo, they always have an alternative model; even if i personally can't live their ecotopian lifestyle by completely eliminating plastic and other petroleum products from my life, at least i leave them feeling more guilty - er, empowered - carrying away a kilo of craftily designed directives printed on acid-free paper that explain how to live independent of fossil fuels and thereby save our gasping planet, which in turn would make me a hero rather than a disgraceful part of the problem.

The bank stormers are sure to be an altogether different experience. The Bank of England will be the place to go to see London's crowd control officers lose their cool, as i'm expecting strategically placed grecian anarchist types to act out their rage on Britain's equivalant to the Parthenon. Or maybe there won't be any Greeks; the British working class is more than capable of lashing out at their adversaries without foreign intervention, thank you very much. i see molotovs flying over the heads of peace-loving percussionists, leftist intellectuals yacking to the press outside dissipating clouds of tear gas, locked-down 20-somethings chanting 'Eat the Rich!' Indeed, the Bank of England is the place to be if one needs to vent anger of any sort, since even failed relationships can be rationalized as fallout from the unfettered commodification of human beings in the interests of capital: how am i supposed to get a lover to value me when my employer doesn't even want to cough up minimum wage?

When i've had my fill of all this fun or need a recharge to stay up long enough to upload my photos in the hope that HuffPost might publish at least one of 350, then it's off for a jolt of joe at the nearest Starbucks. You may or may not be surprised to hear this, but Starbucks has 307 Free Trade-stickered retail locations in London. Today is bound to be a busy day for them, especially if they tweak the drink list a bit: Bust a Bank Super Chai (spiced tea topped off with a shot of Red Bull), Espresso Economico (light on the coffee, heavy on the whipped cream), or Capituccino (white-washed arabica sprinkled with shredded treasury bills). i've noticed over the years that Starbucks has often made a concerted effort to cultivate business from the radical demo crowds, probably hoping to protect themselves from being attacked with newspaper boxes, et al. Whatever works, right? i've seen their shops get totally trashed by balaclavists and i've seen them deal with out-the-door lines of people sporting 'This is what democracy looks like' t-shirts. So that's definitely where i'd have to go for a glimpse at how business is capitalizing on anti-capitalism, and if i run into Tariq Ali or Tony Benn at the counter, all the more radical chic to blog about.

So, that's what i'm not doing but wish i were this April 1st. Instead - and you just gotta laugh at the irony here - i'm going to design an 8-week english course for two classes i'll start teaching next week at Citibank. Hungarian employees of the bank need to know how to converse effectively with Citibank's Dept. for Undeserved Bonuses, Division of Deceptive Assets Reporting and so forth, and i'm more than happy to be paid to provide them with the proper syntax and synthetic acronyms required for doing so. While my comrades in London may experience frustration at being stuck on the outside of the banks, looking in, i at least get some satisfaction about being on the inside, looking directly into the system's abyss. Actually, that's a lie. i'd much rather be on the streets of London, where getting no satisfaction has long been the noblest theme song of my generation.