Jump to content

Fast Fridays: 30 Minutes for God: Difference between revisions

Line 25: Line 25:


== Friday, Sept 27: "Religion is the opium of the people" (or nothing new under the sun?) ==
== Friday, Sept 27: "Religion is the opium of the people" (or nothing new under the sun?) ==
Marx was an idiot.  
Marx was an idiot. He was also troubled, drunk, ambitious, and fearful. 


He was troubled, ambitious, and fearful. Humans don't like change, and like the infamous Luddites, who wrote threatening letters to factory owners signed "Ned Ludd" for a mythical weaver, he couldn't stand for the rapid, albeit bewildering changes in English society of the early- mid-19th century.  
Humans don't like change, and like the infamous Luddites, who wrote threatening letters to factory owners signed "Ned Ludd" for a mythical weaver, Marx couldn't stand for the rapid, albeit bewildering changes in English society of the early- mid-19th century. Either that, or he saw personal advantage in them. Likely both.  


Marx, however, unlike the Luddites, left the street protests and raids on mills to others, who only went on to kill upwards 100 million people in his name. (And unlike the real Ned Ludd, who as kid went into a fit of anger at being accused of idleness and smashed his knitting frames (or, another story had it, smashed his needles to bits after his father told him to "square his needles"; see [[wikipedia:Ned_Ludd|Ned Ludd - Wikipedia]]), Marx just wrote radical tracts, underwritten by the mill owner, Fredrich Engels. (The Luddite movement had been crushed before the German Engels, a whoremonger, btw, who inherited all his money, took over a mill in Manchester.)
Unlike the Luddites, however, Marx left the street protests and raids to others, who only went on to kill upwards 100 million people in his name. (Unlike the real Ned Ludd, who as kid went into a fit of anger at being accused of idleness and smashed his knitting frames -- or, another story had it, smashed his needles to bits after his father told him to "square his needles"; see [[wikipedia:Ned_Ludd|Ned Ludd - Wikipedia]]), Instead Marx wrote radical tracts, underwritten by a mill owner, Fredrich Engels. (The Luddite movement had been crushed before the German Engels, a whoremonger, btw, who inherited all his money, took over a mill in Manchester.)


Engels and Marx correctly worried, as did Dickens, who also profited form it, the conditions of the working class in industrial England. Dickens, though, sold his books to the growing middle class (growing from those rising in income, not the other way around) who turned the industrial revolution into cottages, professions, education, and improved living conditions. The short of it is such: Marx, Engels and their later followers all thought -- hoped -- the communist revolution would occur in industrialized Britain or France, which of course, would have none of it, as factory workers were making money and the rising middle class (the dreaded "bourgeoisie") was having a time of it all. Those revolutions did occur, but only in nations that, instead, lacked a vibrant, healthy middle class -- Russia, China, etc.  
Engels and Marx correctly worried, as did Dickens, who also profited from it, the conditions of the working class in industrial England. Dickens, though, sold his books to the growing middle class (growing from those rising in income, not the other way around) who turned the industrial revolution into cottages, professions, education, and improved living conditions. The short of it is such: Marx, Engels and their later followers all thought -- hoped -- the communist revolution would occur in industrialized Britain or France, which of course, would have none of it, as factory workers were making money and the rising middle class (the dreaded "bourgeoisie") was having a time of it all. Those revolutions did occur, but only in nations that, instead, lacked a vibrant, healthy middle class -- Russia, China, etc.  


The impatient and frustrated seek to blame obstacles for impeding their will. Marx blamed the bourgeoisie for externally obstructing the great proletariat uprising and religion for sedating proletariat anger, thus his infamous "opium of the masses" rant, which went as follows:  
The impatient and frustrated seek to blame obstacles for impeding their will. Marx blamed the bourgeoisie for externally obstructing the great proletariat uprising and religion for sedating proletariat anger, thus his infamous "opium of the masses" rant, which went as follows: