Tag Archives: Communism

Stalin and Mao, BFF

Stalin and Mao on currency, 1950: __________ I post the above currency image because I’ve been thinking about how images function to make the individual viewer feel like Dorothy before the Wizard of Oz (small and weak before The Great … Continue reading

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Karl Marx for Beginners

First, let’s get a handle on two terms: bourgeoisie and proletariat. Bourgeoisie comes from the French word for those who live behind walls; those who dwell in bourgs, fortified market towns. For example, in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (1678), a book-length allegory of the … Continue reading

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John Gray Skewers Slavoj Zizek

In the New York Review of Books, John Gray’s review of Slavoj Zizek’s career and most recent book, Less Than Nothing, is damning. At bottom, Gray pegs Zizek as an armchair revolutionary lending intellectual and moral support to terrorism and … Continue reading

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Zeev Sternhell’s Question: What Is To Be Done About The Anglo-French Enlightenment?

In The Anti-Enlightenment Tradition (Yale 2009), Israeli historian Zeev Sternhell (b. 1935) sees a fault line running through much of contemporary global culture: what to do about the Anglo-French Enlightenment. By the Anglo-French Enlightenment, he means the intellectual movement initiated in 17th … Continue reading

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Burger King in Russia, Circa 2011

Thought experiment. Imagine resurrecting the following figures from the Russian and Soviet past: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Czar Nicholas, and Lenin. Show them the ad below. Tell them this is what is being promoted to Russian youth as desirable in the year … Continue reading

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Nietzsche’s checkmate: does atheism lead to totalitarianism?

A.C. Grayling, an atheist author that I tend to otherwise love, calls the idea that atheism gave birth to communism and fascism a theist “canard.” But, as an agnostic who has been doing a good deal of Nietzsche reading lately, I’m not … Continue reading

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Apocalypse Now?: North Korea, a nuclear power, threatens full-scale war with South Korea

And this chilling sentence appeared in the New York Times story on the crisis: The motivations, health and even state of mind of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-il, remained cloaked in mystery. Got it? We don’t know whether, exactly, Kim … Continue reading

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Are Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek Authoritarian Leftists?

At Dissent, Alan Johnson worries that two revered intellectual theorists, Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek, are increasingly sounding—it’s hard to be polite about this—old school authoritarian: I propose to write a series of posts on what I will call the “new authoritarian … Continue reading

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Dear Leader Megalomania

I like these two:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        . And this one:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   . More from MightyGodKing (MGK) here. And still more Dear Leader totalitarianism and megalomania (but of the Christian fundamentalist variety) here.

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Beck Zedong!

Glenn Beck’s got a one hundred year plan (oh, shit): “We need to start thinking like the Chinese.” In other words, Glenn Beck thinks that focused, insurgent, belligerent, fanatically committed mass movement Maoism—with its disciplined cell groups, ideological purity, and relentless propaganda—is the right … Continue reading

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Seem Familiar?

A John Birch Society flyer, early 1960s.  

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They Go There

This today from The Hill : The Secret Service may investigate a fax sent to a Democratic lawmaker that depicts President Barack Obama as the Joker and warns of “death to all Marxists.” The black-and-white fax portrays Obama in makeup similar … Continue reading

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Quote of the Day (from the Iranian Protests): “I will fight, I will die, I will get my vote back!”

Following the stolen election, here’s what the Iranian protesters are chanting: “Meejangam, Meemeeram, rayam-o-pass meegeeram” “I will fight, I will die, I will get my vote back.” Something’s happening. Is this 1989?:

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The New Bolsheviks?

Is nuclear armed Pakistan on the verge of collapsing to a band of revolutionary Islamic militants? The New York Times today reports on a “shaky” Pakistan being targeted by Al Qaeda: “They smell blood, and they are intoxicated by the … Continue reading

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In Washington D.C., a Tea Bag Protester Expresses Longing for a Blown-Up Capitol Building

Sounding like a 1920s German fascist or communist impatient with bourgeois parliamentary democracy in the Weimar Republic, Salon.com reports that a tea bag protester expressed his wish that, on 9/11, our nation’s Congressional building had simply been obliterated. This is really illiberal creepy … Continue reading

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Soviet Hammer & Sickle Shirts Being Sold at Amazon

Below is a disturbing shirt being sold at Amazon. I don’t oppose the shirt being sold, only disturbed that people are so ignorant of the history of the 20th century that they would think it “cool” to wear it. Or worse: they … Continue reading

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Quote of the Day

Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote this arresting passage in his short story, “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man”: [P]eople appeared who began devising ways of bringing men together again, so that each individual, without ceasing to prize himself above all others, might not … Continue reading

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Red State Scare: As the Polls Tighten, Republican John McCain’s Brother Calls Northern Virginia “Communist Country”

As McCain’s campaign sinks in the polls, the rhetoric becomes ever more Manichean, demonizing, and hysterical. John McCain’s brother goes there. You have to be a communist, you see, to vote for Obama-Biden. Republicans have done such a great job … Continue reading

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“We Should Get Out of the Habit of Worshiping Anything”: Physicist Steven Weinberg on the Importance of Critical Thinking and Skepticism

In an excellent and thought provoking essay in the New York Review of Books today, the physicist Steven Weinberg reflects on his own personal lack of religious faith, but also offers a caution about the dangers of abandoning traditional religious belief: … Continue reading

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“I Am the Great Oz!”: Image of Vladimir Lenin Doing a Wizard of Oz Head-Float Over Tractor and People

The Cult of Personality, in which a “Great Man” hovers larger than life over the masses and seems to embody their utopian aspirations. Long before Lenin, Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote this arresting passage (from his short story “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man”): [P]eople appeared … Continue reading

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