Chin up, Rahul! Hi there, Mimi!

[m-14970@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Hugh Rodwell)]

Rahul writes, with appealing diffidence:

>I'm not quite certain  ...

Where's the old chutzpah gone -- that 'spit-in-yer-eye' attitude?

All the old certainties of the list disintegrate before our eyes, all that
is solid melts into air!

Even Louis P and Adolfo seem to be mellowing -- or is it all just a trick
of the light?

Ah well, at least we've got Zeynep, and now Mimi, to draw us onward.

Welcome to the jungle, Mimi.

Only when you write:

        ive just finished reading the communist manifesto
        and i think its abt time we updated it so it takes account of
        women's oppression.

it strikes me you might have missed a page or two, such as:

        But you Communists would introduce community of women, screams the
        whole bourgeoisie in chorus.

        The bourgeois sees in his wife a mere instrument of production. He

        hears that the instruments of production are to be exploited in
        common, and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion than that
        the lot of being common to all will likewise fall to the women.

        He has not even a suspicion that the real point aimed at is to do
        away with the status of women as mere instruments of production.

        For the rest, nothing is more ridiculous than the virtuous
        indignation of our bourgeois at the community of women which, they

        pretend, is to be openly and officially established by the
        Communists. The Communists have no need to introduce community of
        women; it has existed almost from time immemorial.

        Our bourgeois, not content with having the wives and daughters of
        their proletarians at their disposal, not to speak of common
        prostitutes, take the greatest pleasure in seducing each others'
        wives.

        Bourgeois marriage is in reality a system of wives in common, and
        thus, at the most, what the Communists might possibly be
        reproached with, is that they desire to introduce, in substitution

        for a hypocritically concealed, an openly legalised community of
        women. For the rest, it is self-evident that the abolition of the
        present system of production must bring with it the abolition of
        the community of women springing from that system, i.e., of
        prostitution both public and private.


Not too bad for 150 years ago, is it? Especially if you compare it with the
other crap that was being written at the time.

And you could try some big library near you and see if they've got any
books on Marx's daughters Laura and Jenny.

Finally, since you send us all 'a big revolutionary hello from the love and
sex rebellion in san francisco', you might like to know there's a party in
Turkey popularly known as the Love and Revolution Party.


Cheers,

Hugh






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