[url]http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/743488/posts[/url]

God.  2 years ago I was visiting a friend of mine studying art in Florence, Italy.  As we were walking, I was disgusted by the sight of a major road being named after Gramsci, and I said as much.

My friend started defending communism as an attempt to change the destructive and malignant qualities of capitalism. I was just flabbergasted. She was in Italy to study the great works of art that were created there, that were BANKROLLED by wealthy capitalists like the Medicis and Borgas and Doges of Venice.

I asked her why she wasn't studying art in Romania or Russia or Bulgaria.  Turns out she travelled to all those countries the next summer, and was pretty appalled by how malignant communism was itself.

the article implies that gramsci was an advocate of totalitarianism. he sure as hell was not.

communism is not a 'criminal conspiracy.' it is something that did not work very well in an ass backwards place like russia. or any place else for that matter. but calling it a criminal conspiracy is retarded. the suppression and utter dismissal of marx's ideas in this country is what borders on criminality. marxian theory has HUGE explanatory power for a wide array of social phenomena regardless of whether you agree with marx's intended political trajectory.

leslie white, an anthropologist at the university of michigan, was tailed by the feds because he dared to mention some marxian ideas in a book on technology and culture. the ultimate thrust of the book was actually right in line with ideas of capitalist development. apparently joe mccarthy and his bunch of ingrates failed to understand that.

the "new world order" hates marx because he dared to question the metaphysic of ideology somehow turned into "fact." the brilliance of marx is that his ideas can be used to explain the socioeconomic absurdities of ANY politico-ideological system. including his own preferred mode.

again, this in no way constitutes an endorsement of marx's political ambitions. i'm a gun totin' mostly libertarian freak.