The People's Cube - Political Satire

The other night, I must confess, I was presented with a great moral dilemma. To wit: I realized not only that I had forgotten to "requisition" my weekly supply of toilet paper from the History Department's custodial closet (that's one of the perks of tenure), but also that my local cooperative had already closed for the evening.

To make matters worse, my third wife (who is twenty-seven years my junior and a former student) recently left me for an anti-globalization activist. I don't really blame her, though - the guy's quite erudite and he's a dead ringer for Che no less. But I digress. I really haven't been myself lately; no wonder I forgot to pay my usual visit to the custodial closet.

The plot thickens...

Having overheard the prattle of a student conversation earlier that day, I knew that the local Target "superstore" would still be open. Oh, what to do? Would I be compromising my progressive principles? I was an emotional wreck.

Reluctantly, in a moment of desperation, I decided to patronize the corporate entity to acquire my much-needed item. Imagine my embarrassment; me, a zealous champion of the dispossessed, having to show my pale, professorial face inside such a temple of consumer culture and commodity fetishism. A wave of nausea washed over me as the automatic doors opened like the gates of some mythological hell and I helplessly inhaled the repugnant stench of the market economy. I'm sure you can pity my poor olfactory system...assailed by the incense of decadent goods and the musk of salacious, capitalist transactions.

Oh, the savagery of it all--and to think of the independent proprietors who had been sacrificed on the altar of this behemoth. The corporatist lackeys just slap a fresh coat of paint over the scene of the slaughter and go on as if it's business as usual. It's simply ghastly! But there I was, to my great mortification, among the "bartering" masses, in one of their depraved houses of worship.

Sheer astonishment and joy, however, quickly supplanted my state of disgust and disquietude. As I was walking by the clothing section, a specific garment leapt out of the racks like a red tiger of the Revolution. It was a sweat jacket beautifully emblazoned with the letters "CCCP," along with a stylized hammer and sickle. I could barely contain my delight and nearly knocked over some androgynous wage slave trying to get to this sacred artifact, which enticed me like a palm-shaded oasis in the midst of an expansive, desert sandscape.

The sight of it brought back memories of rooting for Soviet athletes during Olympics past and of courtships kindled by the fires of Marx, Lenin, and Gramsci. I grabbed one off the rack, found a four-pack of toilet tissue made of recycled materials, went through the odious check out process, then made my way out to my Prius, having gained a modicum of respect for Target for having the courage to stock such a potentially controversial garment. I have since worn my sporty sweat jacket around campus, and have received a myriad of compliments from radical students and professors alike.

Like my dear friend and mentor, the historian Eric Hobsbawm, I also find myself, as of late, "treating the memory and tradition of the USSR with indulgence and tenderness." Obviously, I'm not alone - the CCCP sweat jacket stands as a testament to the burgeoning romanticization of the former Soviet Union and its heady, egalitarian ideals.

I find this phenomenon particularly gratifying. For, despite the best efforts of rightwing historians (such as Robert Conquest and Richard Pipes) and the swarm of other red-baiting scribblers out there, the hammer-and-sickle has managed to weather perverse attempts to place it on par with the swastika in the annals of twentieth-century ignominy. Thanks to the efforts of intrepid New School historians (the most notable of which include J. Arch Getty, Gabor Rittersporn, Shelia Fitzpatrick, and Robert Thurston), the reputation of world's foremost utopian experiment has been largely rehabilitated.

Moreover, it has been absolved of many of the most damning charges that crypto-fascist traditionalists have made against it. Nevertheless, for daring to challenge the scurrilous and unverifiable allegation that Stalin was responsible for the deaths of over 20 - 30 million Soviet citizens, these "revisionists" have suffered the indignity of being compared to Holocaust deniers and labeled Stalinist apologists. Such is the lot of myth-debunkers.

A synthesis of this revisionist work, along with new scholarship on the counter-revolutionary conspiracy to destroy Stalin's regime and the proportional response to this threat, are the subject of my forthcoming book, Purging the "Great Terror" and Plowing Over the Fields of Famine: Deconstructing the Myths of Stalin's Brutality.

In my next installment, I will lay out the argument of my book, and, in the process, examine the shocking pervasiveness and malevolence of the fifth column, which was composed of Trotskyites, Zinovievites, first- and second-category kulaks, bourgeois specialists, unreconstructed shopkeepers, and other "outdated elements" operating in collusion with Western spies.

I will also utilize a Gramscian theoretical framework to illuminate the processes whereby anti-socialist historians, i.e., the shills of the capitalist ruling class, helped to foster a Sovietophobic hegemonic consensus in mainstream America, via the vilification of Bolshevism.

So stay tuned.

I thank you for purchasing your casual wear at one of my many stores. Every dollar of our profit goes to furthering the world wide imperialist war effort and the spread of mercantile capitalism and petty bourgeois reactionary thought around the globe. You can rest assured every dollar spent in our stores goes to capitalist warmongering hegemonic domination. Again, thank you for your support.

We have found that many seemingly innocuous products ranging from ice cream to salad dressing to organic coffee to t-shirts which appear to be revolutionary and socialist in nature sell very well to the unsophisticated left wing illiterates of public school education so we've put out entire lines of CCCP, Ben and Jerry's, Che Gourmet and Paul Newman products as well as many other lines that you know and trust. Please continue to buy these at your local supermarkets and department stores. Thank you for purchasing all your revolutionary needs from us. We will continue to provide you with everything you need.

Wait, there is a Peoples toilet paper? I thought we were just supposed to use our hands! Oh well, I guess I will now have to apologise to everyone I have ever shaken hands with.

$.$. Halliburton wrote:Thank you for purchasing all your revolutionary needs from us. We will continue to provide you with everything you need.

Actually, I should be the one thanking you Mr. Halliburton, as you and your capitalist cronies have unwittingly become instruments of socialist subversion. We dangle the prospect of pecuniary profit in your face, and, what do you do? You bite, of course. How predictable: the fish snaps at the shiny lure. What's that tugging so insistently on your cheek? It's the hook, old boy. And we're reeling you in one regulation at a time.

Your avarice, your insatiable thirst for the “almighty dollar” will be the downfall of you and your acquisitive ilk. By tripping over yourselves to meet the ever-increasing demand for all things Communist, you are engaging in a de facto legitimization of the former Soviet Union's legacy. (You're sure making my job a lot easier. Ha!) You see, despite your most ignoble intentions, you are “mainstreaming” the collectivist ethos, i.e., making it fashionable and hip among the disaffected youth. Radical professors, like me, can only instruct our students on the supremacy of socialism in the social laboratories known as universities, but you, Mr. Halliburton, offer them a banquet of tangible accoutrements, or, as we like to call them, the “symbolic reinforcements”. Those quaint little CCCP sweat jackets that you sell help our ideology gain traction in impressionable minds. It's one thing to learn about a political system; it's quite another to touch the fabric of social justice and claim it as your own. Consequently, I must, again, thank you for making our proselytizing efforts that much more effective.

So please, keep stocking your shelves with our ideological Trojan Horse, and we'll see who has the last laugh. The tentacles of the Revolution are far-reaching indeed!

Warm regards,
Dr. W.S. Palimpsest

Seems somebody forgot about Kirov. Shame Shame. You know he was the first hero of the Soviet Union who died by Arkansascide. For that alone he was a trendsetter. I understand Stalin wept and balled like a baby at his funeral. Didn't they name a tank factory or something after him in Leningrad?

Didn't they name a tank factory or something after him in Leningrad?

Are you talking about Tankograd? That place is Cool!

Hello brother. Long time; no see. What's it been now, twenty years? Yes, I think Ronaldus Maximus was President (much to your dismay) the last time we spoke face to face.

Sorry to hear that your latest wife dumped you for a younger, hipper radical. Oh, who am I kidding, I think it's freakin' hilarious: you always had an affinity for strays, didn't you? Poor Dr. Pally!

I hope that my fraternal effrontery hasn't already biased your readers against me, because I have some important information to convey. Honestly, I'm surprised to see you--the Luddite that you are--taking your indoctrination efforts into the realm of cyberspace. Perhaps you've been getting some instruction from Mr. Gore? Didn't he just win some spurious award or receive some kind of “recognition” for his contribution to the internet? That cracks me up!

At any rate, I guess it's my responsibility to apprise your readers of a few facts concerning your biography. First of all, the name that appears on the birth certificate of the person now known as Dr. W. S. Palimpsest is actually Winston Stuart Davenport. He changed his name after he got involved with the New Left at Berkeley in the early 60s. Secondly, Dr. P. may play the role of a “proletarian” intellectual and live in a small Craftsman-style bungalow near the university, but he's actually a millionaire. Yes, that's right, I said millionaire. This is a fact that I'm sure he conveniently conceals from his fellow “revolutionaries”. Both my brother and I, being the principle shareholders of the “family” bank, made millions when a larger firm acquired our's back in the late 80s. Maybe it's just me, but I doubt Dr. P gave all of his “hard-earned” inherited $ to charity.

How kind of you, Charlie, to come on here and reveal some of the details of my personal life. Yes, it's true--I admit that I made a substantial amount of money when the "family" bank was acquired. I accepted it grudgingly, mind you, as I never wanted all of that stock that father left me in his will.

Lest my loyal comrades start to question my socialist credentials, let me state, for the record, what I've been doing with that windfall over the past decade. I've been putting the money to good use by subsidizing the publication of radical periodicals and funding the anti-capitalism propaganda machine! I've also donated sizable sums to organizations like the Tides Foundation and have contributed greatly to the campaign coffers of many progressive politicians. If the contents of my wine cellar also happened to grow during that time, so be it.

I still have a considerable bit of that money left, and I plan to spend every last cent of it advocating for social justice worldwide.

Dr. Palimpsest, I'm glad you finaly decided to become a writer on thepeoplescube. I really like your class, although I'm having a hard time deciding if I like you or Professor Ward Churchill better. And the way you screamed at that neanderthal kkkonservative was inspiring. I hope you failed the bastard. You've taught me to hate those bourguios kkkonservatives all over again, and I look forward to reading your undeniable truth here.

Red Fox wrote:Dr. Palimpsest, I'm glad you finaly decided to become a writer on thepeoplescube. I really like your class, although I'm having a hard time deciding if I like you or Professor Ward Churchill better. And the way you screamed at that neanderthal kkkonservative was inspiring. I hope you failed the bastard. You've taught me to hate those bourguios kkkonservatives all over again, and I look forward to reading your undeniable truth here.

It's always a pleasure to receive positive feedback from students, or should I say future revolutionaries in training. I must confess, however, that this is not an infrequent occurrence, as my courses are quite popular on campus. I've even heard tale of students bribing university administrators to secure a seat in my hallowed lecture hall.

I can certainly understand your strong affinity for Professor Churchill--he's quite a charismatic figure and a brilliant polemicist. I've certainly found myself enraptured at times during our conversations about American imperialism and stamp collecting. And those prodigious sunglasses...they have this irresistible hypnotic power, which only adds to his mystique. Furthermore, I can't claim to be 1/16 Native American, so I guess that ultimately gives him more cache than me. Oh well, I don't mind playing second fiddle to him.

Regarding the confrontation with the rightwing student that you mentioned, I would be lying if I said I recalled the specific incident. You see, I hector and harangue so many "little Eichmanns" throughout the course of each semester that it would be impossible to remember them all.

Good luck with your future studies!

Cheers,
Prof. Palimpsest

Dear Dr. Pamplisest,

How are you? We have conversed on a seperate chamber in this cybermaze! Amazingly, I had not seen this particular "thread." I am amazed by your scholarship and brilliance.

I, too, have a "black sheep" brother who never lets me forget my "given name." The courage is ours comrade, for choosing the righteous path!

I must say, the structure of this website is more complex than the kremlin! On my visits there, I can always find my way around.

Leonid

Dear Leonid,

Thank you for your kind words!

Sorry to hear that you also suffer from the bane of having an imperious brother who still clings to outmoded notions of familial fealty. What simpletons our brothers are--non compos mentis to be exact! Needless to say, my true kinspeople are the radicals and revolutionaries here at the Peep's Cube.

Please accept my apologies, but I don't have much time to write this evening. I'm leaving tomorrow for a summer sojourn at my winery in southern France and still have some final packing to attend to. I'll be sending in my next installment from there.

Cheers,
Dr. P

Dear Doctor,

I must know more. What was your mother like? Did she (does she) encourage your efforts? Did she help you as a youth with your arts and crafts of revolution? Do tell. And do you have any sisters? Have you ever taken a female revolutionary aide, so to speak?

Leonid Fuku wrote:Dear Doctor,

I must know more. What was your mother like? Did she (does she) encourage your efforts? Did she help you as a youth with your arts and crafts of revolution? Do tell. And do you have any sisters? Have you ever taken a female revolutionary aide, so to speak?

Colleague Fuku,

It is with great regret that I must inform you that my mother was a cold and emotionless martinet, who wallowed in materialism and passionately encouraged my father's relentless acquisitiveness. She was reminiscent of the Dagny Taggart character in Ayn Rand's abysmally boring and morally repugnant tome Atlas Shrugged. I know she despised me, although she never verbally articulated her feelings.

I have no biological sisters, but I have many Sisters in Revolution (of all genders of course)! *Snaps*

Have I ever taken a radical female aide? Let's just say that the professor is a huge fan of The Vagina Monologues.

Skating on thin ice? Life imitates art; or, better yet, life imitates parody. Move over Palimpsest: "He's here; he's Weir!"


People's Hero Johnny Weir sticks it to the "man" by wearing a CCCP track jacket at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turino, Italy. He may not have won a medal in the cruel figure skating competition, but he certainly won our hearts. Thank you, Johnny!

(Refer to story above to see a photo of Palimpsest in his CCCP track jacket.)

$.$. Halliburton wrote:I thank you for purchasing your casual wear at one of my many stores. Every dollar of our profit goes to furthering the world wide imperialist war effort and the spread of mercantile capitalism and petty bourgeois reactionary thought around the globe. You can rest assured every dollar spent in our stores goes to capitalist warmongering hegemonic domination. Again, thank you for your support.

We have found that many seemingly innocuous products ranging from ice cream to salad dressing to organic coffee to t-shirts which appear to be revolutionary and socialist in nature sell very well to the unsophisticated left wing illiterates of public school education so we've put out entire lines of CCCP, Ben and Jerry's, Che Gourmet and Paul Newman products as well as many other lines that you know and trust. Please continue to buy these at your local supermarkets and department stores. Thank you for purchasing all your revolutionary needs from us. We will continue to provide you with everything you need.

Too bad for you $.$. most of the money spent on such things, all the price is just a tax for the Greater Good. Believe it or not, everything in our socialist utopia is free, the only reason it has a price on it is so we can see how much we will give back.

I know you said you "own" this store, fair enough, and I feel I should denounce Comrade Winston, but at the same time, the shirt is Progressive, so it's a tricky denouncement.