Comrades!
Stalin used to do it with
large tanks. Mao enjoyed doing it with many-warheaded missiles. You,
dear reader, can celebrate May Day in less militaristic fashion, as
we troop for you a record number of incendiary articles this month.
This missive is a little longer than most for two reasons first, it
is May Day, which the Editors feel gives them licence to overindulge.
Second, we've got a record amount of material to tell you about. With
so many treats available, we understand that some readers may want
to jump straight into the Turtle's welcoming wings and skip the missive;
for the Enthusiastic and Impatient among you, then, we present The
May Day Executive Summary of the Turtle.
* New Contributors: 4,
* New Poems: 4,
* New Turtle Reviews: 4
* New Articles: 6
* Problems Solved by Uncle Rosa: 1
* Continents covered: 3
* Months left for you to write your reviews of Hardt and Negri's
Empire before we have our Symposium: 1.
* Stakhanovite of the Month: Joe Bord
* Salute: Peter Tatchell, for walking the activist talk
* Days until the revolution: But a handful, surely.
Yes indeed, it has been
a bumper month for the Turtle. Uncle
Rosa has played comfort Uncle to a comrade lamenting the lack
of direction in the anti-globalisation movement. The Poetry Cell has
been inundated with fine, exclusive, left-wing verse, some of it in
hypertext, by two new contributors: Terry
Cantwell and Trevor
Landers. Last month's dose of election fever has yet to subside,
its locus merely having shifted from Zimbabwe to France, in the capable
and comprehensive hands of Dan
Gordon and Peter
Dwyer (whose piece will be published shortly). Our scrutiny of
the Gauls is not limited to the election: we also have a report from
Naima Bouteldja, on the French
anti-capitalist movement. Mirroring Le Monde's decision
to publish bits of the New York Times, we stretch across the
Atlantic to find out what's happening on the US protest scene, and
Mark
Engler this month provides us with all the news that's fit to
print.
As if all this weren't
enough, the Turtle has been reading with a vengeance. We've worked
through our Situationist phase, to everyone's relief, and have turned
our attention to Conservatism,
under the stewardship of James Thompson; in the interests of balance,
we also pronounce on Istvan Meszaros' deliberations between Socialism
or Barbarism, with John Lea as our enthusiastic guide. Jo Crawley,
reviewing Naomi Wolf's guide to mothering, shows it to be misconceived
and will be posted soon, while Leo Zeilig provides a similar diagnosis
of Patrick Bond's recent effort, Against
Global Apartheid.
Books are not the only
media. Sean Jacobs has extended our Southern African coverage by going
to the movies. Read his fine coverage of Amandla!
A Revolution in Four Part Harmony. Raj Patel has been sitting
in front of the TV with his headphones on, comparing the antics of
Ali
G with banned beat poet Sarah Jones; while J. Carter Wood has
been listening to Billy
Bragg and reading Colin MacInnes at the same time.
We have a Stakhanovite
this Month: Joe Bord - a man of the people, for the people and with
the people - has supplied us with two fine articles on the National
Health Service, and the railways
in Britain under New Labour.
Finally, we're exceptionally
pleased to Salute the work of Peter Tatchell, friend of the Turtle,
and an inspiration for those looking to live a life on the left. His
recent attempts to arrest Henry Kissinger are merely the latest in
a laudable life of action and passion, and we will have a Salute Page
up on the site in the not too distant future.
This May Day, then, the
Editors have much to crow about. To keep this momentum will be difficult.
We're still soliciting reviews of Empire for our symposium, and are
always scouting for new contributors, especially women. Although the
Turtle itself is impossible to sex, its contributors, and often their
concerns, are all too easily predictable. As ever, then, please send
us your bile, wisdom, testimony, lengthy email, or even appeals for
assignments. This month, the Turtle has commissioned, for the price
of a beer, its first article: expect wisdom from Mindy Peden next
month on the crisis in the Catholic Church. The Editors are more than
happy to commission more from you, for a similar fee. We understand,
however, that at the end of today's celebrations, yet another beer
might not be entirely welcome. We can also supply Alka-Seltzer.
Happy May Day! Avanti
Popolo!
The Editors
