3599918_blog
By Selwyn Duke

It may be clichéd to quote George Santayana and say that those who
forget the mistakes of the past are damned to repeat them, but truer
words were never spoken. Although it may be hard for those who remember
Soviet bread lines to believe – and even harder for the well-versed in
history who learned of Soviet mass starvation – workers of the world
are once again uniting under the red banner. In Japan, for instance,
economic stagnation, depressed wages, and a workforce that is 44
percent part-time only has created fertile ground for the Japanese
Communist Party (JCP), now the nation’s fourth largest political party.
Treating this at Telegraph.co.uk, Danielle Demetriou writes:

New recruits [for the JCP] are signing up
at the rate of 1,000 a month, swelling its ranks to more than 415,000.
Meanwhile a classic proletarian novel is at the top of the best-seller
lists, and communist-themed ‘manga’ comics [200,000 copies sold a year]
are enjoying soaring success.

A further sign of disaffection among young Japanese . . . is the
increasing frequency of rallies by workers on the streets of the
capital.

Earlier this month, crowds of up to 5,000 young Japanese workers
marched through the streets of central Tokyo to express their growing
discontent with the government over working conditions.

Read the rest here.

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10 responses to “Communism on the Rise”

  1. Arise ye workers... Avatar
    Arise ye workers…

    Duke writes that, “It may be clichéd to quote George Santayana and say that those who forget the mistakes of the past are damned to repeat them…”
    He’s right…it is clichéd but, I liked “Black Magic Woman.” I thought Santayana was finished until he hooked up with Clive Davis. Hey, and isn’t his first name Carlos anyway?
    You know what though…it can happen here, that Communist thing! The army kept it down in the early 1900’s and the New Deal kept it from taking hold in the 30’s. Now, thanks to soon to be ex-President Georgie and his merry band of Milton Friedman reading numbskulls, there is a rebirth of the C-WORD among those dissatisfied with the state of things in America. (A little good comes out of everything doesn’t it?) And there are a lot of folks who are dissatisfied.
    I know that there are many of you who think the government is around only to build Interstate Highways. That’s okay, but unless you want more “little c” commies running around waving red flags you’d better put your pure Neo-liberal or Neo-Conservative or whatever you call it, agendas aside for a few years so the new administration can rebuild what you’ve torn down.
    If you do that, you’ll always have a chance to wreck things again! (If you had more time this time around, I’m sure things would be in such a state that they would be singing the Internationale in the streets.) Keep up the good work boys, if anybody can bring Socialism to America…it’s you!

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  2. singalongselwyn Avatar
    singalongselwyn

    The Internationale
    Arise ye prisoners of starvation
    Arise ye toilers of the earth
    For reason thunders new creation
    `Tis a better world in birth.
    Never more traditions’ chains shall bind us
    Arise ye toilers no more in thrall
    The earth shall rise on new foundations
    We are naught but we shall be all.
    Then comrades, come rally
    And the last fight let us face
    The Internationale
    Unites the human race.

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  3. John Avatar
    John

    Arise, I’m glad you’ve told us what you really are. We’ll need to know who the commie-pinkos are when the time comes.

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  4. Arise Avatar
    Arise

    John,
    Oh boy…a threat from the Right! Never heard that before. I guess it’s the camps for us. Of course only, “when the time comes.” But you won’t have to look hard for us John. Just peek over your shoulder, the left one if can stand it. You really are a Cold War guy, aren’t you? Gee whiz,”commie-pinkos.” That’s a good one!

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  5. havearead Avatar
    havearead

    Marx was right
    by PWW/NM Editorial Board, 10/21/2008
    It was only yesterday that “free market” ideologues were dancing on Karl Marx’s grave with scornful shouts that “greed is good” and “TINA” — “there is no alternative” to capitalism. These fat men guffawed contemptuously at Marx’s warning that capitalism is built on wage exploitation, that workers never earn enough to buy back what they produce, creating “overproduction” and periodic crises — some deep and long — that can only be solved by socialism.
    Reprinted from the People’s Weekly World Newspaper.

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  6. W. Tieff Avatar

    I’m just wondering, if workers were guaranteed the ability to purchase what they produced, exactly how much would be produced? Would they care to make more than for just themselves? And would they trust the establishment and the “government” to fairly distribute any surplus in their production? Clearly, Marx answered this question as “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”. But I was under the impression that Freedom and Liberty means individuals’ (even workers’) God-given right to determine for themselves their “ability”, and “need”. Not government, not society, and not at the whims of a global economy. If this simple principle is so outdated, then neither God nor Citizen stands a chance.
    “..And the world will tremble when one man falls.”

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  7. havearead Avatar
    havearead

    “Freedom and Liberty means individuals’ (even workers’) God-given right to determine for themselves their “ability”, and “need”. Not government, not society, and not at the whims of a global economy.” – W.Tieff
    Tieff,
    Do actually (personally) know anybody who is that autonomous; anybody who is not subject to manipulation; anybody who is so independent that they decide their fate solely by themselves and are not subject to being directed, controlled or influenced by others and are separate and complete entities by themselves, unconnected to anyone else? I don’t know, maybe you hang around with corporation fats cats (the only guys I can think of that would come close) smoking big cigars and deciding how to lower wages.
    “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to loose. Nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’ but it’s free…”

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  8. your papers please Avatar
    your papers please

    From John…”we’ll need to know who the commie-pinkos are when the time comes.”
    I can sure see John looking for commie-pinkos “when the time comes” (we all know what that means) wearing a black leather top coat and coming up to people asking them for their papers.

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  9. W. Tieff Avatar

    No, of course society and the individuals it is comprised of depends upon division of Labor, secure land and borders, and abundant resources (capital). A lone person cannot sufficiently support himself without cooperation and social interaction, nor should he even try, as ultimately it would be a hollow and joyless endeavor. But that’s not the point i was trying to make. The point is that production and service cannot continue without surplus-based operations in order to satisfy public consumption, which is the finality of production. (read: Adam Smith) But more to the point is that the individual citizen and laborer should have the Freedom and Liberty to quit a laborious job, or to seek out a more challenging position, and not have some beauracrat making arbitrary age-based decisions about his ability or need. feh. whatever.. I’m gonna go, now, and smoke cigars with your imaginary fatcat CEOs, trying to think about how to replace employees with machines………..

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  10. Robert Berger Avatar
    Robert Berger

    Will you conservatives get over it and accept reality ?
    Like him or not, Obama is going to be our new president,come whay may.
    You conservatives continue to grasp at straws, and are still looking for any excuse to discredit Obama, no matter how false and far-fetched.
    Onbama is no more a communist than he is Santa Claus. And ironically, the REAL left-wingers think he’s much too conservative !

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