Wampum

This is an interesting choice of images. José Bové is drawn as a Gaul, right down to the signature mustache, a person stepping out of the pages of Asterix, where, as everyone knows, The year is 50 B.C. Gaul is entirely occupied by the Romans. Well not entirely! One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders. And life is not easy for the Roman legionaries who garrison the fortified camps of Totorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium...

If you pop over to RealClimate you'll see that I'm not the only one who uses Asterix to make sly allusions. I'm glad they're back up after the weekend's database corruption.

Its smart to associate the candidate with the tradition of resistance, even in bande dessine (comic book) form.

If you are "of the left" in France, you've got a choice between an HRC triangle-alike, a couple of clapped out Commies, the by-one-tricked-vote Green and ... Bové.

I like candidates who stand for something. I particularly like candidates who take part in civil disobedience, at military weapons materials and commercial electrical generation reactors, who go to a point and remain there. With Bové it is biologically irresponsible, unsustainable and ultimately, unprofitable corporate agriculture. Genetically modified corn and soy in the fields, and bovine growth hormone dosed cattle in the stockyards.

Yesterday his sentence of four months time was confirmed. He was given the option of wearing an electronic bracelet, which he declined, and yes, he'll campaign for President of the Republic from his cell.

Unis Ave Bové beats the hell out of leaving politics to the pro-globalization corporate puppets who actually lost the referendum on the neo-liberal "European Draft Constitution", and here in the Parallel Universe, a good candidate or two is a blessing. Especially today.

The campaign has almost 40,000 signatures. Mine was the 8,543rd signature. Rather than start a new category, I'm going to file my '07 cycle presidentials (French) under Gore and Edwards. I've my reasons.

José BOVÉ, Gilles LUNEAU, Pour la désobéissance civique, éd. La Découverte, octobre 2004, 264p., 17,50 euros