This is from a student protest against racist incidents on campus. See top right-hand corner.
It’s funny how everyone is a victim except for us. What we experienced doesn’t count. We get no safe spaces and no recognition.
Why, why does it always have to be, “I’m against these evildoers but in favor of those other evildoers”?
Because the Soviet government was a model of ethnic and racial tolerance amirite?
I will never understand why communist apologetics are tolerated in places that would never tolerate Nazi apologetics.
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I know. It’s so so sad. I have no idea what else needs to happen for people to acknowledge that the USSR was not cute.
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What did happen up to now? And I don’t mean in terms of the actual history of the USSR, but in terms of anyone’s concerted attempts to change the West’s narrative of the USSR?
For rebellious edgy teens, the USSR is just a counter-fantasy to whatever they’re dissatisfied with at home. The horrors the soviets did commit are not so much ignored as woven into the fantasy to make the person feel like their worldview is more ‘mature.’
Thing is, as much as I experience white-knuckle rage when friends I otherwise respect proudly and nervously pronounce that they are “communist”, expecting me to treat that as a dignified and brave choice when literally nothing is on the line for them for making it… I see no incentives for them to drop this fantasy – the USSR is politically irrelevant now, meaning they don’t ever need to experience a shock from reality, so this belief won’t change on its own. And I haven’t seen any concerted effort to introduce more people to the reality of soviet life, either.
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At first I thought you meant somebody shot the sign in the upper right hand corner, and then the lighbulb went off.
As to why….. the NYT published a series of love letters to communism this year which seems much more dangerous than any number of Putinettes (my designation for his american fans).
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I tried to erase it but it’s a wooden surface and it’s not coming out. Where in fucking Southern Illinois. How did this crap manage to infect people all the way here?
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I don’t know why I’m even so upset. This is just one little dumbass fool who is trying to be clever or something. Maybe it’s because the weather is unbearably hot but this is really getting to me.
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The other side of the installation is also quite priceless. “Let’s go punch some Nazis!” Is this a learning community or what? Can we do something useful instead of descending into bad poetry and outright badassery?
Yesterday, a group of colleagues conducted a series of educational events for high school kids in East St Louis. That helps to combat racism. And painting sickle and hammer on installations doesn’t.
OK, I’ll pipe down now.
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Being a communist is trendy with young people now. So much that they’re divided into multiple groups. The ones who approve of the USSR and other terrible regimes are called tankies, those who are against those regimes but are somehow convinced that a workable communism is possible are the ancoms (anarcho-communists.)
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Wow, I didn’t even know any of this. Interesting. Tankies, eh? In the Soviet Union we called clueless people “in the tank.” So it definitely fits.
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Like many Trump supporters, those students simply don’t know what USSR was.
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My understanding is that hammer and sickle were appropriated early on by various Communist parties, Marxist groups and proletarian-unity groups worldwide. To some of these people it means something different that USSR solidarity or nostalgia, it got dislodged and differently purposed nearly 100 years ago (gosh, we are only a month shy of the centenary, I just realized). Then, there were also these straight-up CP cells, that were USSR fans. It is never 100% clear to me how it’s being used unless I know the people. But in any case, in almost all progressive coalitions there is some small CP faction or small faction using this symbol in a different way, signifying related radical politics, or random rebellion, or what used to be called radical chic. But I think often it’s not used with the USSR in mind.
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Using the hammer and sickle symbol out of ignorance of the Communist barbarism that threatened to conquer/annihilate the world in the mid-20th century is no more excusable than using the swastika in Western society to symbolize its ancient origin as a sacred spiritual symbol in Buddhism, Hinduism, and other Asian religions.
The German Nazis never reached Asia, so the swastika is still used there in its original context. When I was stationed in Korea, I saw several churches (or temples, whatever the proper term) with swastikas prominently painted on their steeples.
But the Communists, although they never succeeded in starting a world war, spread their symbol worldwide — from Cuba off American shores to Eastern Europe to Vietnam and North Korea and China, where their savagery still rules.
Only a fool can claim that he or she doesn’t understand what the hammer and sickle stands for today. (Okay, you may find one or two such fools in a “progressive, anti-free-speech” university crowd. The rest are just willing Communist apologist dupes.)
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And the swastika existed long before Hitler and was used by Hindus, etc. Today, though, nobody would find the idea of putting up a swastika on campus to be acceptable. And if somebody did that, the argument that they were thinking of the Hindus and not of Hitler wouldn’t really work.
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My point is that in virtually any anti-imperialist or anti-fascist coalition you will get a few CP remnants or anarcho-communist types and they will use this sign. It’s as American as apple pie but these people are SO few. Confederate flag really is the scarier symbol, these people are many and know exactly what they mean by it, etc.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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