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Hot-Heads and Communism
My Dad is a capitalist. There’s no way around it. His dad was one, too. In fact, my grandfather started working in the U.S. sweeping floors in a paper mill. He worked in that mill most of his adult life, eventually becoming part of management. After he retired, he used to have nightmares about “them” making him go back to work at the mill.
My dad learned to program computers way back in the day, and has done well, I guess. He worked for a chair company, then a cotton processing company, and now for a big multi-product company. What the place makes doesn’t affect his job much, because he deals with inventory systems for the most part.
My dad is a hard worker. Even though I was little, I remember when he would go to night classes after work so he could finish his degree. He had four kids with my mom, and managed to take us all on vacation in the summer to Hampton Beach, New Hampshire for 2 weeks. My parents somehow saved enough money to take us all to Orlando a couple of times, too.
He never calls in sick, always goes in early, and gives it his all every damn day of his life. I’m sure he has had to struggle through some tough stuff over the years, what with the kids, and bills, a house, sending us to college. I cannot even imagine what diapers must have cost. We used to drink a gallon of milk a day. But, the folks made it work. I got my blue bike for christmas, the stockings were always full, I had birthday parties at video arcades and all that.
If you suggested to my mom, or my dad, that we could make another way to live, they would feel offended (?), because he has had to fight so hard to get every tiny bit of the American Dream they have managed to get a-hold of. How could I think of giving things away? How could I think of taking anything away from them?
(Sigh.) How do you tell your folks that you are, at the mildest, a communist? A red, a pinko? How to tell them that seeing your dad struggle like that—and still struggle now—has helped you become communist? The have such faith in the system. Sometimes I think such faith comes about because of the horribly hard time they have had over the years. There’s a lot of emotional investment going on there. I can understand that. If there was another way, they might feel like all the hard work, all the suffering was meaningless. They would be right.
Not meaningless in the sense that it didn’t matter to me. I’m so grateful for all the sacrifices they made that I can’t stand to see it go on anymore, anywhere, for anyone. Marxism, ultimately, grows from compassion. I see suffering, I feel compassion welling up within me, and I must act. I see the injustices of capitalism, the centralization of wealth, health, and power, and I must act. I don’t want to take away anyone’s accomplishments, or belittle anyone’s suffering. I simply see a way to stop the pain, the inequality, the horrors around us.
Compassion for my folks and their ‘lost’ years of fighting the system to survive. Compassion for my brothers and sisters who made the mistake of having bad luck, and now live on the streets. Compassion for someone who has fallen down. Not paternity, but fraternity.
No one deserves to suffer.
I have heard people say that Communism is naïve, that it only works in theory. That we should pay attention to the facts of reality, that humans are depraved, brutish, mean-spirited, greedy, and cannot be trusted. I quote Lenin: “So much the worse for reality!”
How do I tell my folks I’m at best a communist? I tell them that they have inspired an unbounded love, an unstoppable compassion in me. I tell them that I have seen them work hard enough, struggle enough, sacrifice enough—and no more. I tell them that I this doesn’t mean I will run around the hills and woods, shooting and sabotaging. I won’t destroy freedom as we know it. I won’t start taking things away from the people who have fought so hard. I will reject fear, though. I will wear my ideas on the outside. I will not hide my compassion, and I will not sit still and accept the capitalist system. I value the gifts my parents have given me, and I realize how privileged I have been. I also recognize that the gifts could be got without the sacrifice in the first place. I say, this far and no farther! I remember that the United States was not born by a group of men, quietly sitting by, not rocking the boat. I remember a group of hot-heads who had had enough. And now, I will stand as a hot-head and say: no farther. We’ve had enough suffering. Comrades, it has come down at last, to the words of the patriot and hot-head, Patrick Henry in 1775:
"Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace-- but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
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