By now, you have carved usable spaces out of them. Some and somewhat, at least.

Still don't *get* Communism? This may help. 

"While the bourgeois revolution concentrated power in the hands of a minority class, the proletarian revolution would transfer power to a class representing the majority."

from Are Workers the Gravediggers of Capitalism? by Matt Vidal | Jacobin

How slow do I have to read this article again in order for everything to make sense? Why does this feel like calculus. Maybe it is, in a way. 

I promise I'm trying. 

- F

Communism (?)

I've finished writing two new blog posts for CPL, which should be publicly available on the CPL homepage on January 1st, though they'll already be published by December 21st and available via this link: Felicia's Blog | Chicago Public Library. One of them has five books I've selected for National Science Fiction Day, which includes P.D. James' Children of Men. 

I'm writing now, though, about something else. First:

"...equality is a political theory not a practical policy..." 

Right. I've heard this thousands of times from the mouths of many different people, none of which really dig into communism. Furthermore, the contemporary writing I've read about communism is, as of yet, too difficult for me to comprehend, though I will give myself credit enough to say that I have tried and will not stop until I feel I understand it. I'll take that with me to the grave. I've studied Marx, and, like some awful mathematical course from my childhood, I'm still.... lost. 

Is the way contemporary theorists and philosophers use this term following this popular opinion, which I've underlined in the first pages of Children of Men? Precisely, communism as being a great political theory to only put into practice via the written and spoken word? 

It seems when I come across the term I feel an inherent or innate adversity to it, perhaps due to my lack of comprehension, but also from what I gather the use of the term communism that seems to directly oppose what the intellectuals, whoever they are at whatever given time, seem to be trying to do. Elaborations on this further will have to wait. 

Exacerbating my confusion is Carly Rae Jepsen - an American pop star of the now annoying song "Call Me Maybe" who claims she is a communist on her Twitter page:

She claims she gets it, which I don't doubt that she does, but, why not I? It irks me so. 

Periodicals such as The Nation and The New Inquiry - beehives of political expression that I'm trying to make sense of - are watching this star on twitter, so that also gives her bio some creedence. 

There are lots of people who are late to the party, but I'm afraid I'm going to completely miss it. 

Sincerely,

F