For the last year or so I’ve been raising bunnies. Nothing warms my heart more than watching them hop about for hours in the clover. Every morning Snowball plays tag with Buttercup while Mr. Cookie Pants hides behind the daffodils. I can’t even begin to describe how soft their fur is.

Anyway, I have some ‘special’ carrots for them this weekend. I heard the males are good for stew and the females are perfect for a fur coat.

Is this true or just an old wives’ tale?

Regards,
Perplexed in Pittsburgh

Dear Perplexed,

The false dichotomy you express betrays your lack of any true revolutionary consciousness. To assume first, that rabbits exist for your consumption and adornment is to wear your brainwashed conviction for all to see. Who but the bourgeoisie could honestly credit such a detestable idea? Worse, to assume second that the gender of said rabbits renders one more suitable to your depraved consumption and the other to your ornamentation is evidence that you cannot grasp the singularity of being that unites all in the struggle against the opressor.

Frankly, Perplexed, get your head on straight or I’ll arm your bunnies and put you up against the wall, fascist!

Revolution is in the heart, not off the shoulder, sister,

A socialist

Did you hear that Dave Wakeling is touring with an English Beat reunion band doing all the old stuff with a sprinkling of new? Kewl, huh!

Ranking Roger in Rockville

* * *

Dear Ranking,

In the Inaugural Address of the International Working Men’s Association of November 1864, Marx said: “If the emancipation of the working classes requires their fraternal concurrence, how are they to fulfill that great mission with a foreign policy in pursuit of criminal designs, playing upon national prejudices and squandering in piratical wars the people’s blood and treasure?”

And no, I had not heard that. Thanks for the tip.

A socialist

Isn’t it cool that Al Gore’s movie about the climate crisis won an Academy Award?

Happy in Houston

Dear Happy,

No it is NOT! What is wrong with you? Do you honestly think that we in the Revolution should stand up and cheer for a man who spent eight years one heartbeat away from taking the helm of the enemy ship?

Take notes: a) we DO care about the environment, b) we DO care about anything that is bad for the current government of the United States, c) we DO believe that the media can be used to promulgate the right message, but d) we DO NOT believe that the right message can be delivered by Al Gore! Rule d trumps a, b and c.

Now get your head straightened out, stop going to the feelies and read the Frankfurt School.

A socialist

How should a revolutionary be inclined toward a possible expedition to Mars, or space exploration generally, for that matter? I know that science is important for the future Utopia and I am inclined to feel as though any advances that can come from NASA or other space agencies might some day be used for good in the hands of the workers. But on the other hand, I worry that leaving this earth in capitalist controlled vessels funded by imperial governments is just extending the capitalist empire into space. Do you share my vexation?

Pondering in Pittsburgh

Dear Pondering,

You have perfectly summarized the dilemma that confronts modern socialism vis-a-vie space exploration. You will find adherents to each of the possible convictions you express above and neither of those convictions is wrong. Officially speaking, the Revolution is ambivalent on the matter.

That isn’t very important, actually. What is important is that you live in Pittsburgh, which was once the very heart and soul of the laboring class and today is a redevelopment playground for the wealthy. Get thee to Austin, forthwith.

A socialist

What should happen with all the money that Anna Nicole Smith inherited for blowing that old guy? Certainly it should be redistributed, shouldn’t it?

Wondering in Wyoming

Dear Wondering,

I am unaware of what you are referring to. Who is Anna Nicole Smith? Has she ever taken up arms to confront the Bourgeoisie? And what kind of money are you talking about? Greed captial? Surplus labor value dollars drawn from the workers’ toil and aggregated in the hands of the master class? If so, burn it. Who gives a fuck?

A socialist

Is it possible that Rex Grossman is really that horrible?!

Chapped in Chicago 

* * *

Dear Chapped,

Yep. It appears so.  As Martin Heidegger put it, “Holy fuck that kid ain’t worth a shit!”

A socialist

My boyfriend and I fight constantly. I blame him, he blames me. We’ve been going in circles for the last half year and it’s just a damn shame we can’t figure it out. What’s a woman to do?

Dizzy in Dubuque

* * *

Dear Dizzy,

Rarely am I called upon to answer a legitimate question. I’m sure you can imagine from reading the inane dribble to which I respond that most of my time is occupied with things not fit for a socialist to answer in the first place. Your question, finally, gives me hope in humanity.

First, I would point out to you that you called him “your boyfriend.” That in and of itself is revealing and I think should give one hope. You didn’t write in the past tense which means, to this socialist anyway, there is still love there and that you haven’t really closed the door. I know you’re standing at the threshold about to slam it, but you’re holding it open a crack and it makes this socialist think that’s because maybe, just maybe, you hope he walks back through it, albeit with a vastly new demeanor.

I wonder if it doesn’t aslo signify that somewhere inside you, you suspect there is something that YOU should change and that no matter who walks through your door, you want to figure out what that something is.

Anyhow, let’s get to the meat of your problem (and I’ll show you some problematic meat . . .  ba dum bum). You blame him and he blames you. I can tell from your plea that you’re a bright woman. I’m assuming, therefore, that anyone you chose to be involved with must also be bright. Ordinarily bright people don’t blame others for things erroneously. Thus, I have to conclude that what you blame him for is in fact his fault. But I’m left to conclude that whatever he blames you for must also be your fault.

I am willing to wager that whatever his fault and your fault might be, they probably feed off one another and make things worse than either of your faults would be independently. Ah the exponential and infinite expansion of fault. I’ll tell you one thing, if a good socialist has some issues and needs to bring them to the surface, he or she should try getting in a relationship. That’ll bring your shit out quicker than anything.

One other thing I can tell you is this: like the revolution, happiness is not just going to happen – it has to be fought for. Your boyfirend sounds like the kind of good revolutionary socialist who will not flee in the face of adversity but will stand his ground and fight on in common struggle certain of his convictions and willing to die and be judged wrong rather than not have tried. Those are admirable qualities in a socialist grunt, but if we all had them we would all take up arms, storm the halls of of the master and get killed.

There is room too in the revolution, indeed there is a need for, the voice of reason and the sage advice of those who would counsel us to hold in fief the gathering storm and keep leashed the dogs of war and live to fight another day. You are quite clearly such a sage.

This particular socialist will not claim to know all the folly and hurt that lies at the depths of the human heart. But one thing I do know is that the revolution will require us all. It’s not a solo act. And as with the revolution, so with life. Herman Hesse wrote well that nothing is as painful to a man as the path that leads to himself. I suggest the same may be true for a woman.

You find yourself now approaching the end of a path that began within yourself and has led you inexorably back to where you satrated and this socialist wants to know, who else, beside you, is there?

There is no reason for you to take verbal attacks. There is no reason for you to take threats and hostility. There is no reason for you to suffer. But there might be a reason for you take an accounting of your own actions and there might be a reason for you to ask what it is at the end of your path that remains inside you, forcing you to guard yourself and defend yourself and hide from everyone including yourself at the expense of what should be the joy of a pure socialist life?

You, sister, are a blessing to the movement. You are the soul, the spark, the glimmer of hope in the eye of every socialist’s dream. You are as the breeze blowing across the lake – the only breath that prevents stagnation. You are what our struggle aims at. You are the ideal at which our struggle points. You are the fulfillment of destiny, the realized manifestation of a dialectical material course of events that was set in motion before we could even know it.

Somewhere for you there is a soldier. I think you may already have found him but I can’t know that. I do know, however, that you must commit yourself to asking the truly hard questions: was my soldier at least partially right? Do I have at least something within me that I have refused to change? Has it been there all along? Have I intended to do something, promised to do it and even believed I had done it when maybe I hadn’t really?

Life in the revolution is about progress, not perfection. Your soldier will accept that you cannot instantaneously burst forth in full completion of your own aspirations. He will be there for you and he should commit himslef to curing whatever it is that he brings to the souring of your well. If he doesn’t, I’ll put him up against the wall myself.

But use your light for good. Heal your soldier when he’s wounded. Don’t fear him, care for him. Let his strength support you when he’s well. Don’t resist him, trust him. Love your soldier with all your heart and all your body and let him love you back. Don’t measure him, embrace him.

You are a gift to all of us united in struggle against a foe that none of us alone can face. You are indispensable, my little dizzy sister, and on behalf of good socialists everywhere, I beg you not to run away.

Your ever loving, A socialist

Last July I purchased a potted geranium from the Rite Aid around the corner from my house and the little information stick that came in the pot said that it was a hearty plant that could do well in all climates. However, this winter we’ve had an unusual bout of cold weateher and my geranium appears to have died.

Now I don’t know whether I should take the dead plant to the store and demand my money back or wait until late at night and spray paint a protest slogan across their plate glass window. What do you recommend?

Disgruntled in Del Mar, California

* * *

Dear Disgruntled,

Ownership of potted plants is a sure sign that you are not a real socialist. Ownership of a potted geranium, well that’s too bourgeois for words. Plants are life forms, you facist! Do whatever you want. When the revolution comes, you’re getting a visit from the redistribution of wealth committee.

A socialist

I’m like totally into the contemporary music scene and I’m a good socialist, in common struggle, dude. I totally reject mainstream media in all its forms, including musical performers who sign on with major labels. Like I don’t even listen to Rage Against the Machine anymore because, like, even though they had a pretty decent message and their music like fucking wailed, they’re just way too sold out and commercialized for me.

So anyway, I go to college and next week there’s like this speaking gig at our main hall and this dude, Noam Chomsky, maybe you’ve heard of him, is like gonna talk about the evils of global capital and everything and I’ve heard him before and I like really dig what he has to say, but then like somebody told me that he’s like a pretty huge dude who like speaks all over the world and sells books and tapes and all that junk and I’m like, “Dude, I’m so not going to hear that dude. He’s not a real socialist; he’s just like Michael Moore or Ralph Nader or one of those other totally rich dudes who just goes around talking about what a socialist he is but then gets like totally rich off selling his own shit.”

What do you think?

Fred at Fresno State

* * *

Dude,

For the record, Karl Marx never used the word “like” more than once in a sentence. Also for the record, Noam Chomsky couldn’t carry Karl Marx’s jockstrap. Lastly, for the record, your question is well-informed but I’m like totally not gonna answer it because until you put down the bong and stop being the poor man’s version of Jello Biafra’s untalented cousin, you simply don’t deserve a response from a like totally real socialist, dude.

Peace out, a socialist