Want to meet some nice FBI agents?
According to Dan Harper, it doesn't take much. Just travel a bit and ask your library for a copy of the official Peking version of Mao Tse-Tung’s tome on Communism called "The Little Red Book."I bought one of those in the late 60s. So did pretty much everyone else who was even slightly on the left side of middle politically. Bought it at Barbara's Bookstore in the Old Town section of Chicago. I appear to have survived without major philosophical trauma.
Now you get government visits for wanting to see it. And you don't even get the book!
posted by Paul Wilczynski @ 12:13 PM
3 Comments:
I remember Barbara's well. In old town and Oak Park. I worked at the Dr. Sholl's factory outlet store just down the block from Barbara's Well street store.
I left a comment on Dan's blog but it's gone. I'm not sure if that's clumsyness on my part or that he deleted it, but I mentioned I remember buying books from China and North Vietnam in the 1960's when you had to register at the postoffice to get mail from those places and the books came with a gov stamp. Something to the effect they were from Communist countries, etc etc...
...anyways, this story just seems like thin beer to me. If gov is wasting time with Mao it's a waste; not an injustice.
The real stories, and the real human right abuses going on now is not this one. Just look at China today and stories like this on the crack down on Gay rights activists.
As a postscript, I'm ashamed really of my teenage enthusiasm for Mao. Read Phil Shorts bio of him. By Short's reckoning, Mao's megalomaniacal ambition led to such disasters as the Great Leap Forward (1958-1960), the collectivization and production drive that ended in apocalyptic failure as 20 million Chinese starved to death, and the chaos of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1969), during which hundreds of thousands were tortured, arrested or executed.
Story is a hoax by the way. Check out Media Nation.
So it appears ... see this story in the Boston Globe.
Not sure what to do about situations like this - should I delete this entire post?
Post a Comment
<< Home