Today is the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist party, and the governmentality operated television is filled with images of happy workers singing patriotic songs. The attitude here toward such celebration contrasts sharply with what I remember of the American bicentennial in 1976. For the Chinese regime does not enjoy the support of its people.
My students keep asking me questions about the availability of guns in America. I believe that if guns were available to the Chinese populace, the regime would have been overthrown.
Many of you know that my family of origin was Leftist, and that several of my relatives belonged to the American Communist Party in its heyday. I have never been as categorically dismissive of Marxist thought as the American Right Wing. Nevertheless, one cannot keep from noting that every country that attempts to develop a Communist system rapidly turns into a military dictatorship. People who live under Communism loathe it, except for a small elite.
The essential texts of Marxism such as Capital and The Communist Manifesto are hard to obtain here, probably because of their radicalism and emphasis and human rights. My university students have not read them. This would be like restricting our students’ access to the American Constitution and the Federalist papers.
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