Soviet Posters

Re Andrew Mangravite’s review of Soviet posters at Arthur Ross Gallery—

“Stalin died laughing” is not funny, any more than New York Muslim fanatics exulting in 9/11 is a joke. Mindless absolutism is life-denyingly inhumane and unacceptable, whether it comes from Stalinists suppressing peasants, Ratzinger telling African AIDS victims they can’t use condoms, or Osama bin Laden spreading
Sharia’s insane laws.

Howard Zinn’s recent death has moved me to reread Nicholas Coles and Janet Zandy, American Working Class Literature (Oxford, 2007) and Julia L. Mickenberg and Philip Nel, Tales for Little Rebels: A Collection of Radical Children’s Literature (New York University, 2008). We smirk smugly about the absence of freedom elsewhere when virtual (and vicious) censorship keeps 99% of us as ignorant as Commie apparatchiks of our blue-collar origins.

Let him who is without Zinn slavishly join the SEC’s pornorama!

P.S. I still love Popova, Andrew!
Patrick D. Hazard
Weimar, Germany
April 24, 2010