Not sure if anyone else was planning to post today. I know Bob & Raine are up in NY tho.

In case y'all missed my post about it over on that other platform, on Monday night a non-profit indie library/reading room was the target of a Nazi harassment gang. The patrons that night were at a celebratory reading and discussion on the anniversary of the publication of Marx's Communist Manifesto. Most of those attending were black, which the unwelcome thugs made everyone in the neighborhood know with their hateful shouting. They even prevented the patrons from leaving, as the only door to the library was blocked from the outside. It took neighbors calling the police for them to leave (no one in the library did it, probably because they wisely don't trust PVD cops) and even then it took multiple units to show up before they moved on.

This incident, besides alerting me to the mere existence of this library in my city, spurred me to give another read to CM. The last time I read it was in high school, and back then it REALLY didn't capture my attention that much compared to computers, campaigning for Bill Clinton or my infatuation with a certain EXTREMELY smart girl in my French class. Now that I'm older and focus myself better, and have a couple more decades of life experience to guide my thinking, a lot of what Marx had to say seems almost prophetic on several fronts - from the economics of labor and material consumerism, to the environmental impact of constant capitalist innovation, to the conflict of cities/towns vs. rural areas and their mutual decay.

I don't find myself desiring to become a full-fledged communist. That would probably mean embracing militarism, and I have absolutely no desire for that no matter how necessary it might become in the future. However I do agree with the idea that certain industries (healthcare, resources, manufacturing and infrastructure) need to be nationalized and greatly expanded. If there's one thing capitalism does great, it's cutting corners when it matters so that someone can divert resources to their pet projects. A great example of this right now is Jeff Bezos - he pays his employees far less than they should be based on their productivity, skimming their breaks and not giving a damn about working them to exhaustion.. all so he can live lavishly and build a spaceship only for other rich people to relive their childhood memories?

If you think that's bad, think about the past 50 YEARS of corporations exporting factories to other countries. Now that the damage is done we see what allowing that has caused - people without jobs at home, people with shitty paying jobs in other countries, and governments that can't produce enough of a single item to satisfy urgent demand at home. The pandemic showed us that in the starkest light - small, poor countries don't have factories to produce vaccines or PPE (masks and gloves), and now they're forced to import them at a premium AND a lower priority to wealthy countries that pay more. Meanwhile in the US, PPE was produced in Puerto Rico until those factories were destroyed by neglect and natural disasters, and now we're forced to import those items from China and pay a premium for lower quality and durability because the companies that own the factories aren't rebuilding. The folks who worked in those factories are now forced to look elsewhere for work.

Lastly, property being privatized for personal or corporate profit needs to go, period. There was a report in the Wall Street Journal citing that last year securities fund houses like Blackrock bought up a SHITLOAD of single-family homes all over the country so they could turn them into rentals, and that was the reason the price of homes AND rents went through the proverbial roof.

I could keep citing parallels between today's world and that which inspired Marx to put deep thought to paper. But hey, the people who need to read it most are those thugs who showed up Monday night. They're fighting against the wrong people, and for the wrong reasons. Sadly, telling them that is futile.