Comments on: Communism is so passe…

By: James Russell

James Russell — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 14:29:41 +0000

You’re wrong - I don’t read *any* political blogs.

A wise move. After a point they become toxic, both left- and right-wingers.

By: jp

jp — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 17:19:33 +0000

Why the hell should a student (or anyone else) have to leave his social security number on an inter-library loan request at his own schoolâ€™s library?

it’s so our reptilian overlords always know EXACTLY where we are!!!!

By: Carol Maltby

Carol Maltby — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 13:07:42 +0000

Why the hell should a student (or anyone else) have to leave his social security number on an inter-library loan request at his own school’s library? It’s not like the university hasn’t got any of that information on file.

By: alistair

alistair — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 12:43:25 +0000

well, the words are hot buttons. communism still resonates all the way back to mccarthy.

By: Tim Boucher

Tim Boucher — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 05:06:27 +0000

I was just thinking… part of the reason ideologies like communism don’t phase me is that I’m consistently immersed in shit that’s 100 times weirder than that. I guess for the ordinary folk, the communist signals still get them pretty fired up.

By: Tim Boucher

Tim Boucher — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 05:00:47 +0000

Tim, you obviously donâ€™t read enough political blogs.

You’re wrong - I don’t read *any* political blogs. Can’t stomach the stuff. Celebrity gossip is more meaningful. Okay, well just barely. But I would put them on a pretty close level.

By: channel null

channel null — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 04:48:24 +0000

I mean, sure this sounds all fascist and evil on the one hand, but more than that, it just sounds like a sad pathetic attempt to assert control

Asserting control is what all governments do, and it becomes an ends in itself. Yes, it’s lame as hell. But it’s also dangerous. Raoul Vanigem stated quite clearly that the vertical edifice of control–i.e., the medieval church’s political power & the ostensive controls of feudalism–had been replaced by a thousand horizontal means of control. E.g., the clothes you wear you bought in the store, the logo on you coffee cup, the schedule of your TV programs, etc., etc. I think that the effect of this leveling, horizontal “edifice”–somehow tied to Ken Wilber [wiping vomit off my keyboard]’s “Flatland”–has a more dangerous effect on the alchemical formation of the human psyche. The social pressure for conformity has changed from physcially coercive to “lebensfeld” (roughly, “domain of regular life,” lit., “life field”) invasive.

By: alistair

alistair — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 04:12:57 +0000

communism and capitalism are the same thing. they both deal in the ownership of the means of production. it was the theoretical brainchild of marx in russia. it never actually manifested it`s self in russia. they decided to do socialism instead. we do a mixed form of capitalism here, mixed with an egalitarian re-disribution of wealth (capital) in the form of benifits. it is a balancing act of capital preservation and re-investment and meeting the political needs of coming through with the vote promises of past generations in the form of benifits.
pretty simple really.
reduce the pre-adolescent tantrum of demanding more “rights” in the form of guaranteed money and the government can preserve the tax income, or universal benifits for everyone (hooray!) and in a gneration we are bankrupt and have to look to more extreme means to keeping the lights on. little secret between you and me…….. we`re already there.
george has been pushed to the front o`the class to explain what the fuck is going on and there are those who don`t like the message.

By: James Russell

James Russell — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 02:22:37 +0000

Tim, you obviously don’t read enough political blogs. Conservative bloggers still have a fear and loathing of anything approximating to liberalism, let alone actual communism; reading right-wing blogs, you sometimes feel the cold war never ended, or that capitalism somehow didn’t triumph over communism. I don’t think anyone should be surprised to find this sort of thing still exists at the institutional level…

By: Jimmy

Jimmy — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 01:28:38 +0000

Hahaha, Wow.

It’s kind of sad that I hear about this from your website. I study history at Umass Dartmouth and this is the first I’ve heard of this, although I can imagine people wanting to keep it on “the down low”, as they say. Its still weird to see an article that strikes so close to home. Well at least I’ll know now to be careful of what books I get out at the library.

By: hf

hf — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 23:52:08 +0000

Biblical literalists didn’t merge with the GOP until the threat of communism scared them into it. Some of them (in the churches and Wall Street both) may still fear a communist resurgence. Certainly a lot of them preserve the habit of attacking Reds.

By: alistair

alistair — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 21:32:03 +0000

artists and intellectuals are the thorn in the side of the bureaucracy. the chinese just shot them all during the revolution. we have a little bit more wiggle room here. we just have special case actions. like the i.r.s. did to what`s her name with the t.v. show. makes everyone else tow the line. and actually, i think the threat to democracy lies in socialism more than in communism. communism still is interested in the preservation of capital and maintaining the means of production, whereas socialism is not so much interested in production as in slavery. the egalitarian view that the college proffesors preach is in reality everyone covered in the same layers of dirt and grime. actually read gulag archepelago and put yourself in alexander`s shoes for a minute.
pure communism and capitalism are basically the same thing. workers owning part in the means of production. in the u.s as elsewhere in the economic world we own stocks, bonds and other financial instruments as a means of ownership in companies. in karl marx`s model, the factory workers would have a share in the capital of the factories they worked in. what happened in real terms was that the union of soviet socialist republics (or c.c.c.p. in russian) took everything and gave back the scraps to the people. socialism. hilary clinton`s idea of an america of the new century with her as president and her husband as head of the u.n. is exactly that.
so here`s the choice. we either really like george bush`s gung ho capital preservation strategies or kerry, clinton, clinton, gore socialism.
aint politics fun?

By: mike

mike — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 19:05:26 +0000

makes me want to request the same book through inter library loan and see what happens.

By: andrew

andrew — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 17:08:58 +0000

outraged. i cant say much more.

By: landruc

landruc — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 15:36:50 +0000

Wow, reader perspective really does influence the meaning of a text, doesn’t it!?

By: Brenden Simpson

Brenden Simpson — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 12:59:07 +0000

Nx0, you’re a member of the Department of Homeland Security?

By: NxO

NxO — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 07:47:39 +0000

The old saw applies:

Don’t mock until you KNOW a little more. Frankly, I don’t appreciate being “lumped-up” with the mass quanitity of teenage “Oh Em Gee I AM ARWEN RELLY OMGOMOMGSQUEE111!!11ONEONE!1″ soulbonders OR “Otherkin” out there.

I check the trackback links from truthofthespoon twice weekly, when I can — and I found this. How about ASKING questions…. good old investigative method, and all that? I mean shit, man — my e-mail’s right there. Thousands of people have. BEFORE they mocked.

*sighs.* But why am I not surprised?