Mao More Than Ever (Boston communists say they want a revolution.)

The Boston Phoenix ^ | 07/01/05 | Mike Millard

[raccoonradio]

Boston communists say they want a revolution. Now they just have to agree on how to bring it about.

A pimple-faced teen with Coke-bottle glasses and a self-satisfied smirk stands near the doorway of Harvard Square’s tiny Revolution Books. He’s skinny and draped in a large black T-shirt adorned with a full-color portrait of Joseph Stalin, the iron-fisted despot responsible, directly or indirectly, for the deaths of millions.

"Stalin is my friend," the kid says, at once cockily and geekily, as he stares at the floor.

"Yeah, yeah, but we can do better than Stalin," says the guy behind the counter who, even though it’s hot, is wearing a heavy sweater under his SERVE THE PEOPLE T-shirt. "We can do a lot better. You can have socialism without suppressing intellectualism." His name is George Bryant, and he’s a volunteer at this decades-old bastion of unabashed communist agitation, a bookstore that, amazingly, still survives in the ever-more-corporatized "People’s Republic of Cambridge." Bryant gestures toward a stack of books and DVDs from the Maoist Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), whose chairman, Bob Avakian, is "really offering a deep critique of America and an in-depth defense of communism — in a sense reinventing it without throwing out the whole."

The kid and his friends, high-schoolers obviously flirting with jejune hard leftism, seem noncommittal and a little nonplussed. "What would you guys think about taking a bunch of these?" Bryant asks, offering a stack of the Maoist RCP weekly newspaper, Revolution, for them to proselytize with. The kids demur, and they leave.

[fortunecookie]

Doctors, lawyers, and college professors can hack it, but the service industry that waits their tables, does their dry cleaning, and operates their retail sector are leaving...who will do their 'dirty work' then? Interesting times...

I know, it's so true. I thought I could get a job there, but I couldn't crunch the numbers to make it work. It's funny to hear people who are dems there complain about the cost of living and jobs and illegal immigrants, but don't dare whisper that perhaps their support of the dems is at least part of the problem. It's humurous to hear some of the liberal talk radio on our drive, some of the callers are so close to conservative thought, yet they claim to hate it, and the dem system they worship is what is taxing them out of existence, but their 'solutions', when pressed, almost always involve more taxes.

It's easy to see who is taking those jobs, at least in some neighborhoods, that regular hard working Massachusan middle classers have to give up and leave - the illegal or barely legal immigrant. They afford the high rents by sharing living quarters with many others and do the work, but neither seems to realize it's the death of the middle class and the upper class Kerry's will just continue to lord it over whoever is left to do their 'dirty work'. Sadly, some of these immigrants may think they can achieve the 'American' dream, only to later be caught short when they can never rise above menial, low wage labor, once the middle class is really gone and the uppers rely on them to clean up. Ironically, my own rural western PA area has seen some migration of these Mass state middle class folks who come here to my area for the labor jobs.

[driftless]

Learn Spanish the way I'm doing it...the lazy way. Many dvds have Spanish subtitles and/or audio tracks in Spanish. I'm a big fan of "Seinfeld", and all of their seasons on dvd have Spanish subtitles and audio tracks. I frequently watch the show with the audio set on English with Spanish subtitles and then rewatch the same episode with Spanish audio and subtitles. (One word of caution, I know enough Spanish to know that the Spanish audio and subtitles do not match identically. In fact, amazingly, they can be very different. But they are usually close enough to understand what the characters mean).

Also many movies have Spanish audio and subtitles, and I reflexively check the jackets of prospective dvds to see if it has them. Probably not the best way to learn Spanish, but I am learning at a respectable rate. I should add that I took four semesters of Spanish in college and also subscribe to Tiempos del Mundo a Spanish-language weekly newsmagazine. At this rate, I figure I should be able to speak Spanish fluently within five years. Hopefully only five years that is.

[inquest]

Ah, that does make plenty more sense. But if that's the case, then it shouldn't count as democide at all. Does that statistic also include the number of ordinary criminals gunned down by police officers?

[raccoonradio]

I was thinking of putting the quote from "Revolution" up...Speaking of Lennon, a conservative talk host in Boston was pointing out how "Imagine" sounds like a plea for one world government, and so on (imagine no countries...imagine no religion, I wonder if you can...imagine no possessions). Of course I remember one of the tongue-in-cheek "Letters _From_
The Editors" in National Lampoon that went like this:

Dear Sirs:

Imagine no possessions. What a terrible, terrible thought.

Yoko Ono
New York City

:)

[mugs99]

Boston communists say they want a revolution.

Why? The Supreme Court is working as fast as they can to give them what they want, and they don't even have to risk their necks!
...

[steveyp]

Wow. The taking things away from you for the common good comment (or it paraphrase) is spooky given the SCOTUS ruling. Not that I needed anything else from Hillary to know she is a revolutionary of the red kind.

[raccoonradio]

>>Translation: We commies don't want to or have to work for a living.

The so-called "worker's party" is really a "non-worker's party" just as Bubba meant "_non-working families_" when he talked of "working families". Welfare to the max.

[inquest]

Speaking of Lennon, a conservative talk host in Boston was pointing out how "Imagine" sounds like a plea for one world government

"Sounds like"? What else would it be?

Lennon himself admitted that he was taking a new strategy with "Imagine". Rather than being loud and in-your-face revolutionary with his music, he'd "sugar-coat" it instead. It seemed rather effective.

I read the lyrics to that song before ever having heard it. It reads a little like a leftist protest march (a la "Give Peace a Chance").

[raccoonradio]

>>"Right now we’re living in relative affluence, but I think there’s going to be a period where there’s economic and political crisis. The economy’s gonna shit the bed sooner or later..."

Wishful thinking for them. They WANT it to happen. It really stinks for them when things go well.

>>It's no secret among their leadership that revolution CANNOT occur as long as there is a strong middle class.

Which is why they want to bring down the middle class and upper class, and have hard working people forfeit much of
their salaries to a big government. The joys of a "classless society".

[raccoonradio]

The funniest part about the "spoof" website Communists for Kerry was...in reality, Commies WERE for him! The best comedy always has a healthy dose of truth in it.

[Burlem]

And conservatives are labeled as extremists?

[DaveTesla]

"But if that's the case, then it shouldn't count as democide at all."

If it is wanton murder by government for reasons of
political, genocide or mass murder the author attempts to
count it.
Read the authors definition of democide below.

"Does that statistic also include the number of ordinary criminals gunned down by police officers?"
No. It does not meet the definition.

The term democide means for governments what murder means
for an individual under municipal law. It is the
premeditated killing of a person in cold blood, or causing
the death of a person through reckless and wanton
disregard for their life. Thus, a government incarcerating
people in a prison under such deadly conditions that they
die in a few years is murder by the state--democide--as
would parents letting a child die from malnutrition and
exposure be murder. So would government forced labor that
kills a person within months or a couple of years be
murder. So would government created famines that then are
ignored or knowingly aggravated by government action be
murder of those who starve to death. And obviously,
extrajudicial executions, death by torture, government
massacres, and all genocidal killing be murder. However,
judicial executions for crimes that internationally would
be considered capital offenses, such as for murder or
treason (as long as it is clear that these are not
fabricated for the purpose of executing the accused, as in
communist show trials), are not democide. Nor is democide
the killing of enemy soldiers in combat or of armed
rebels, nor of noncombatants as a result of military
action against military targets.

With this understanding of democide, Table 1 lists all
communist governments that have committed any form of
democide and gives their estimated total domestic and
foreign democide and its annual rate (the percent of a
government's domestic population murdered per year). It
also shows the total for communist guerrillas (including
quasi-governments, as of the Mao soviets in China prior to
the communist victory in 1949) and the world total for all
governments and guerillas (including such quasi-
governments as of the White Armies during the Russian
civil war in 1917-1922). Figure 1 graphs the communist
megamurderers and compares this to the communist and world
totals.

Genocide: among other things, the killing of people by a
government because of their indelible group membership
(race, ethnicity, religion, language).

Politicide: the murder of any person or people by a
government because of their politics or for political
purposes.

Mass Murder: the indiscriminate killing of any person or
people by a government.

Democide: The murder of any person or people by a
government, including genocide, politicide, and mass
murder.

Table 1.


From:
DEATH BY GOVERNMENT
Definition of Democide

[raccoonradio]

>>It's no secret among their leadership that revolution CANNOT occur as long as there is a strong middle class.

Exactly.

By the way, in some ways "This Land is Your Land" is a great song (the beauty of our land), but how many people know that _avowed Commie_ Woody Guthrie wrote the following verse in that song?

"As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said "Private Property"
But on the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me."

(they hate the idea of being able to own property, one of the great concepts of our Republic)

[inquest]

OK, so if the UK government kills an IRA terrorist in British territory, and this killing is premeditated and would be considered murder if done by an individual, wouldn't that count under the "domestic" category in the chart posted at #53?

[nopardons]

Not to quibble, but RED DIAPER BABIES are the sons and daughters if actual, card carrying American Commies. Often, they've masqueraded as Liberals/Dems, but they were and still are, a select group of "elites", who all went ( and probably still go ) to the same Commie summer camps, play with each growing up, and network with others, all over the country. Just about every name connected with the "leadership" of the hippies, Yippies, SDS,Weathermen, etc., was a RED DIAPER BABY. The one exception was Tom Hayden.

If these kids really wanted to "rebel", they'd all become staunch, died in the wool CONSERRVATIVES. But that would take brains, guts, and work. So instead, these morons playact at being stinking Commies.

[nopardons]

Spot on!

[nopardons]

bttt

[x]

Take a walk down a block from Revolution Books and you'll see a super yuppified Harvard Square.

How do they manage to pay the rent? It is quite a pricy area and a lot of fringe business were driven out by high expenses.

[nopardons]

At one time, the KGB and the CPUSA used to fund this kind of stuff, but I doubt they still do.

[inquest]

It's not like there aren't plenty of tax-exempt foundations to fill the void.