IT DEFIES logic and plain common sense why some students who are supposed to be at the very least “above average” at the University of the Philippines (UP) would espouse and even die for a failed and obsolete ideology that is no longer relevant in the 21st century.
Communism was founded by Karl Marx as an answer to the exploitation of workers at the height of the Industrial Revolution in England during the 19th century. He envisioned a utopian society wherein there is no state, and no private property, and the workers collectively own the means of production.
The thing is, it is just a theory and a utopian one at that with absolutely no resemblance to the real world.
Although Russia billed itself as a communist state, it is not. There is no resemblance whatsoever with Karl Marx’s utopian state. At best during the height of its power Russia was a totalitarian dictatorship.
Eventually, the Russians came to their senses, gave up “communism” and is now one of the biggest capitalists if not the biggest. Likewise for China; it still fancies itself as a “communist state” but in reality it is an oligarchy (the Chinese “communist party” are the oligarchs) and the biggest capitalist market in the world.
I can understand the ageing pseudo communist professors at UP romanticizing their supposed to be “glory days” during the First Quarter Storm, but supposedly intelligent students still shouting the same boring irrelevant slogans from the ’70s brandishing pictures of Mao and Lenin dreaming of a utopian “withering away of the state” to turn into a workers’ paradise?
And they call it “critical thinking”,my foot. It is sheer stupidity.
Just because you don’t like a democratically-elected president you threaten to stop going to school until he steps down? Well, I got news for you. There’s this process we call presidential election and it happens every sixyears. Your childish tantrums does not work in a democracy.
You know I cannot imagine why these naïve gullible students would give up their lives and join the New People’s Army (NPA) to overthrow a democratically-elected government and exchange it for an obsolete totalitarian form of government.
They suffer the hardships of a fugitive up in the mountains while their “demi-god” Joma Sison is having the time of his life partying in Europe.
While we’re on the subject, you have to give it to Bayan Muna representative Eufemia Cullamat; a daughter was in the NPA and died for a cause however stupid. At least she’s no hypocrite unlike Teddy Casiño whose son is sheltered in La Salle while Carlos Zarate’s son is partying in Europe. Or perhaps Eufemia Cullamat is just a gullible fool taken for a ride?
By the way, “More” is the third studio album and first soundtrack album by English progressive rock band, Pink Floyd. It was released on June 13, 1969 in the United Kingdom by EMI Columbia and on August 1969 in the United States by Tower Records. The soundtrack is for the film of the same name, which was primarily filmed on location on Ibiza and was the directorial debut of Barbet Schroeder. It was the band’s first album without former leader Syd Barrett. His replacement David Gilmour handled all lead vocals and guitar on the album.
The film “More” featured a young hitchhiker in Ibiza who had succumbed to heroin abuse with party scenes and drug taking. Director Barbet Schroeder was a fan of the group, and brought a rough cut of the film to London for them to work with. Instead of typical background music, Schroeder wanted the songs to feature in the film, such as a record playing at a party.
“More” the album features a mixture of styles such as acoustic folk ballads; a genre not often explored by Pink Floyd. The album also contains rock, as well several instrumental tracks featuring their experimental and avant-garde approach as what one would expect.
Here’s what they say about the album: “More” received mixed reviews from critics. Record Song Book said the album was “always extremely interesting…quite weird in parts too”.
The Daily Telegraph was favorable, describing it as starting to “define experimental instrumental identity.”
But then again that’s Pink Floyd just being their usual self./PN
