Karl Marx statue erected in Trier for 200th birthday celebrations [Germany; present from China]

Deutsche Welle ^ | 04.13.2018 | nm/rt (KNA, dpa, epd)

[Olog-hai]

Workers installed a 5.5-meter (18-foot) statue of Karl Marx in Trier’s city center on Friday ahead of celebrations to mark the 200^th anniversary of his birth.

The huge bronze figure was mounted atop a pedestal right in front of the former Marx family home, but it won’t be unveiled to the public just yet. That spectacle has been reserved for his birthday on May 5. […]

The 2.3 ton statue was a present from the People’s Republic of China — a fact that has fueled plenty of debate in the community in recent months.

“The glorifying Marx monument is a poisonous gift from China,” said Ulrich Delius, director of the Society for Threatened Peoples, adding that it was “sad,” that the city had accepted a statue from a government that “commits state terror against its own people.”

Dieter Dombrowski of the Union of Victims’ Associations of Communist Tyranny called the gesture “bizarre.” Marx was “not just a scientist and philosopher,” he said. He also “laid the spiritual foundations for the communist dictatorships that came afterwards.” …

[Telepathic Intruder]

They should send China a statue of Hirohito in response.

[neverevergiveup]

Marx is near the top of the list of people I’d go back and kick the crap out of if I had a time machine.

[D Rider]

Germany is a country of Morons. It should be placed at a sewage treatment plant...or in Seatle.

[zeestephen]

Is this like the Statue of Liberty for former East Germans?

[zeestephen]

Re: Or, in Seattle.

LOL.

In case you don’t know, we already have a famous statue of Lenin.

[Brooklyn Attitude]

The people of San Francisco are sad they didn’t get one.

[a fool in paradise]

Is it next to a statue of Hitler?

[ReaganGeneration2]

Trier has Marxie’s birthplace museum. I’m confused because it has a gift shop:

[CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC]

MARX LIED; PEOPLE DIED.

I don't know if this info is on the web, because I heard it in the 70s or 80s, and since it was from historical research done by a "Marx Scholar" who marched to a different tune than the other 99.9% of his peers, it was likely quickly buried in Academia Lala Land ---

When Marx was publishing Das Kapital between 1867 and the early 80s, his central thesis was that industrialization was progressively making the plight of the lower classes worse & worse, decade by decade, as the factory owners got richer & richer.

His book was full of stats & tables & graphs, meticulously researched and presented to back up his thesis.

He obtained nearly all of his stats from the library of the British National Museum, the world's premier repository of the government and university and other types of publications having this kind of info. He hung out there daily for decades. The desk he used so often that it became "Marx's desk" has long since become a holy shrine to the Left.

The data showed a steady, unbroken decline from each decade to the next, ending at "this previous decade" - whichever that was (1840s? 1850s? 1860s? I forget).

And therein lies the rub. Because Marx did *not* include the 10 (or so) years prior to the publication of his book. He noted that the very latest stats were still being compiled and collected, and had yet to be published.

And I guess that sounded like a reasonable excuse to readers, given that all the local villages had to report their facts & figures to the townships, who had to collect & compile and then report the aggregated stats to the boroughs, who had to do the same and then report to the counties, who reported to the next level (regional govt centers? London?), and so on. And with everything done by hand with pen & paper back then, who knows how long this might take to finally appear in print at the British Natl Museum's Reading Room?

But this scholar was unwilling to accept Marx's reasonable sounding explanation at face value.

And his research turned up some very important facts:

• The stats from the 10 years preceding publication of Das Kapital really had been available in the BNM's Library / Reading Room.
• These stats were wholly different than any that had come before, because they showed that conditions for the industrial working class poor had improved over the previous 10 years for the first time ever.
• These latest figures destroyed the entire central thesis for Das Kapital, because they showed the plight of factory workers could be reversed, and was being reversed, without the need for a bloody class-war revolution.
• This researcher found proof that all these stats were readily available to Marx, and that he had to have seen them. Yet he chose to ignore them and pretend they didn't exist for the purpose of making his book more inflammatory.

CAVEAT: Sorry, but I'm only 2/3rds sure that "Das Kapital" was the book this Marx scholar was talking about. Perhaps I remember wrong, and it was actually his "Communist Manifesto" (1848) that ignored the stats from the most recent decade before publishing.

A very humorous (and pointed) "Empty Chair Interview" with Karl Marx published in 2012 and inspired by Clint Eastwood's infamous interview that same year

[Pontiac]

This researcher found proof that all these stats were readily available to Marx, and that he had to have seen them. Yet he chose to ignore them and pretend they didn't exist for the purpose of making his book more inflammatory.

And Leftist have been following his example ever since.

If the facts don’t support your argument ignore them or find a study that ignored them that you can quote.

[Fai Mao]

“Marx is near the top of the list of people I’d go back and kick the crap out of if I had a time machine.”

I’d loan you my steel-toed boots to do it.

[Sirius Lee]

What a slap in the face of he 100 million murder victims of marxism.

[Unam Sanctam]

How many millions of people have been killed due to his evil ideology?

[Leep]

Do they sell Hall Marx cards?

[\/\/ayne]

Re: Or, in Seattle.

LOL.

In case you don’t know, we already have a famous statue of Lenin.

From Wikipedia: The statue's hands are often painted (and repainted) red to protest the perceived glorification of a historical villain that supposedly has blood on his hands."

The statue is on private land and for sale but it certainly is glorified by having it up in town.

And "supposedly" has blood on his hands? Wow, Wikipedia. No wonder people don't trust you.

[Telepathic Intruder]

"How many millions of people have been killed due to his evil ideology?"

That's a point of contention. Is the idea that people can't own property, therefore the means to secure their own existence, evil? Perhaps. But then, it was acting upon that idea that was truly evil. I tend to think that people like Pol Pot were evil to begin with, and Marxism was the inspiration they needed to justified it, so they wouldn't have to think of themselves as evil.

At the very least, Marx was just plain wrong. The need of the individual to own property doesn't come from society, but the other way around. It's as natural to us as breathing. Where he got his ideas, I don't know.

[The_Media_never_lie]

This researcher found proof that all these stats were readily available to Marx, and that he had to have seen them. Yet he chose to ignore them and pretend they didn't exist for the purpose of making his book more inflammatory.

---

Kind of similar to global warming "scholars" today who ignore climate data counter to their cause. Or, mainstream media "journalists" today who only report stories that support their agenda. Marx was a cunning liar, too.

[Savage Beast]

"They should send China a statue of Hirohito in response."

The cleverest remark of the century!

[D Rider]

In case you don’t know, we already have a famous statue of Lenin.

Of course, they can up them next to each other.