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Banned In China

Friday, May 28, 2010

The Commune



Who hears about them now, where is there a Tale of Two Cities or Scarlet Pimpernel or Nicholas and Alexandria about the aftermath of the Commune? No Marx does not count. It is no where I think. Why do you suppose that we sigh about the noble and brave oligarchs who die at the hand of the "mob." A mob who for a short time only gets a chance to give back some of what they and their ancestors endured for centuries at least.

So the writers and other creators know which way the wind blows and are more then willing to create stories that romanticize the aristocrats. Part of the reason is money I'm sure, but a lot of it is just the general suck upidness of the hoi poli for their betters. The French aristocrats ground down the peasants for ever. The Romanov's managed to do about the same to the Russian peasants and added a disastrous war. They are not criticized for what they have done (or really only in passing) but romanticized for how they died. Now how about Lenin or the guys who ran the Terror? They killed fewer and for a shorter period. Still they are the ones who get the balk of the condemnation. How fascinated and in love we are with the doings of the wealthy even as the rest of us struggle to just make ends meet. How we are willing to forgive them, but not those who over threw them in our name.

What is wrong with us as a species that we are more than willing to help the oligarchs keep us down? Who the hell knows.


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