I for one don’t hate or fear Marx or his ideas, as a poster’s graphic above implies that some do . I’m not overly fond of some results of Marxism in the 20th Century or Marxists themselves. I am even less fond of people who act as if they’ve been “into” Marx forevah and evah. This relatively recent development of Marx being in vogue started no earlier than 2008. I considered myself to be a Liberal in my twenties, and a Moderate Liberal in my thirties and early forties. In 2007/2008 I was roommates with a drunken, obnoxious uber Conservative (imagine a Randian SNL “Drunk Uncle”), who was always up in arms about the threat of Communism, Marxism, Collectivism, Progressivism, etc. I would tease him and say “Who the fuck even worries about commies, comsymps, Marxists et al any more? Game over, man. I should buy you a membership in the John Birch Society for your birthday, you putz.” Within a year of me teasing him like that, Marx was the Hot “New” Thing. Used copies of the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital disappeared from bookstores overnight: newly minted, faux Marxist “Occupy” types all over the country needed well-worn and dog-eared copies for their plank and cinderblock bookshelves, or to sit casually upon their cable spool tables: new copies just wouldn’t be authentic enough, you know? That having been said, I was getting literature from the CPUSA in 1985, and wrote a college English paper on Gus Hall in '86. Luckily, very luckily, I wised up. Now I am the one who is a member of the John Birch Society. Mainly for the humor and irony value, since I’m a big fan of absurdity, even when it is me who is being absurd. I’m also a member of the NRA and a registered Republican, for more serious reasons. Not every Conservative is a Thurston Howell III / Monopoly Guy caricature, a toadie for the rich, or an undereducated, racist, homophobic redneck: I’m more than willing to swap name-drop references to the “hip” Cultural Capital shibboleths that signify membership in the counter/sub/pop cultural intelligentsia hereabouts. Sans Google. Draw, pardner!
But seriously. I really do think that the Class War that we’re seeing in just the last six years (literally just the last six years, folks: I don’t recall Cory being such a fellow-traveler agitprop-spouting noodge back in 2006) is something to be concerned about. But whatever. YMMV, as they type. Das Sveedayna!
His parentage isn’t really quite the point. And I’m not trying to pick on Cory. I said that i don’t recall him being such a noodge in 2006 and I stand by that. I’ve been reading BB for quite a while, as have many of us. There’s a seemingly agenda-driven stridency here among some editors now that is less than appealing (to me, at least.) If the BB demographic has changed, so be it, I can live with that. But when it seemed (to me) less political on BB back when Bush was in office, and now everyone practically has a Chairman Mao jacket in their closet and a Che button on their lapel, well, it’s noticeable. The tone of many editor posts on BB really seem a lot more negative and “position driven” to me. Surely I’m not the only one who has noticed it? Getting pretty far afield here I know, and I don’t wish to start an argument. Hell, Antinous would haved deleted my posts and blocked me by now. Anyway, feel free to rebut
You thought BB was less political when GWB was in charge? Were you not reading the blog?
I know I was less political in 2000 (ironically as at the time I was a grad student in political science). But anyone who has been paying even slight attention over the past 14 years must have found at least some cause or motivation for engaging with politics and maybe, just maybe, saying 'this is not good, what is happening here."
Well, we’d have to define “political”. Don’t worry, I’m not backpedalling. I’m just saying that what seems political to me might not appear to be political to you, and vice versa. But I did also say I felt BB was more stridently agenda-driven and position-driven than it used to be. I stand by both points (political, and agenda/position driven), but I realllllly stand by the later.
Here’s an example of defining “political”: when I see Xeni’s post about “Meth-smoking white supremacist was able to buy tons of assault rifles despite felony record”, I consider it political: the point of the post is to influence people into agreeing that we need stronger gun control laws. There are other agendas promoted in other posts (“Powerful poetry slam piece on choice, rape and personhood”, “Seven year old girl tells Lego off for gender stereotyping in toys”, “Canadian Wifi spying: Harper’s secretary spins, lies, and slanders in Parliament”, “Army won’t answer Freedom of Information Request on its SGT STAR AI chatbot”, etc etc.) I’m no statistician. But I did a random check and came up with 31.1% of the most recent posts, where I stopped at a random point, seemed “political / agenda-driven / position-driven” to me. You might disagree with some of my choices. But the overall tone of that 31.1% seemed to me to convey and promote a cohesive agenda, a philosophy, a worldview. Off the top of my head, it is one of distrust of pretty much all current forms of governement, politicians, and law enforcement officers; a promotion of class warfare; free access to all information and technology for the people regardless of the consequences but (conversely) a desire for less surveillance and information-gathering by the government (in other words, govermental transparency but personal opacity): “Power to the People”, in other words. Sure seems like a political agenda to me.
