Cranks and jokesters take US protest to the streets

BOSTON, United States (AFP) - Anarchists comparing John Kerry to Hitler, theatrical pranksters parading as "Billionaires For Bush" and a self-styled porn king who wants to turn political protest into reality TV.

Welcome to the margins -- the far, way-out edges of the margins -- of the US Democratic convention.

As the carefully scripted four-day gala to crown Kerry as the Democratic candidate for president unfolds behind tight security, the misfits and oddballs left out of the process are taking their message to the streets of Boston.

Even though it's not always clear what that message is.

"I want to keep myself in a very public posture," said The Enron Guy, named after the Texas firm whose fraud and subsequent collapse have become a symbol of corporate wrong-doing in the United States.

His posture, however, didn't seem to attract as much attention as his outfit. Maybe it was the red cape, or the black mask -- or maybe it was the pantyhose.

His goal? "To re-emphasise the allegiance between Enron and the Republican party." And his real name? He wouldn't give it, even though he admitted he would "have to reveal my identity to get that money."

That money was the 100,000 dollars being offered by Chas Mastin, who was prowling the streets of Boston in search of the Great American Protester -- what he said was his plan for a new reality television programme.

Mastin claimed he was using his profits from an Internet pornography site ("I can't actually tell you the name -- it's in litigation") to fund the show, admitting he hadn't yet found a network willing to broadcast it.

"I feel that there's something wrong with this country but I don't know what it is," said Mastin, an intense young man who eyed a reporter's admission pass to the convention with envy.

He said the payout would go to the most convincing protester and pledged his "programme" would honour one of the time-tested rules of political TV: "I want to see people yelling, but yelling in an intelligent manner."

But if Mastin had the cheek to suggest turning dissent into capitalist profit, the self-described anarchists who took to the streets outside the convention on Monday were not in a similarly light-hearted mood.

They hoisted signs with outdated slogans ("Rent Is Theft", "Bush=Kerry=Hitler"), paraded outdated hairdos (punk quiffs of the 70s, bushy mops from the 60s) and swore to block the streets in a showdown with police.

Until they gave up after five minutes.

But even that concession couldn't dampen their revolutionary fervour, as they marched off chanting "The war on terror, the war on drugs, perpetrated by the same circle of thugs."

As a piece of outsider street theatre, though, it was hard to top the quartet of pimply university-age jokesters who called themselves "Billionaires for Bush."

Wearing swanky suits, bowler hats and ties printed with 100-dollar bills, they said their goal was to let Americans -- and the world -- know that Kerry was bad for their interests.

"We are here to defend the rights and interests of the fabulously wealthy," said one, who called himself Seymour Benjamins. "Kerry is a threat to no-bid contracts in Iraq, off-shore tax-havens, and high pharmaceutical profits."

One of his partners, dubbed Cassius King, denied they were having a laugh in the great tradition of college put-ons.

"Oh no," he said. "We're Halliburton board members."