November 15, 2011

But That's What They Call Themselves

Michele Bachman might be a demented cretin - hell, unarguably is a demented cretin - but people might want to acquire some capacity for nuance and detail in the use of political terminology rather than go about suggesting an inequitous, state-capitalist dictatorship can be sensibly described as "communist".

National parks are communist. Rich Shanghai developers using their contacts in government and the iron fist of the PSB to kick people out of their homes to make way for one of their lucre-spouting projects are not. If a corrupt nexus between businessmen and officialdom backed up with state violence is communism, then so was the Gilded Age.