Monday, January 7, 2002
By Michael MedvedEditor's note: Aside from being America's cultural crusader, Michael Medved knows how to bring American history alive! Get his 24-tape set, which presents the nation's story from the founders' perspective – available in WorldNetDaily's online store. Take advantage of this offer now.
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
Is communism really so irrelevant, so dimly remembered that it's now no more threatening or controversial than "The Cat in the Hat"?
That's the message from arts bureaucrats in Memphis, Tenn., who chose to use taxpayer money to decorate the gleaming new $70 million central library with the most famous of all Marxist slogans. The pavement in front of the new building has been inscribed with the famous words "Workers of the World Unite!" – adjacent to an image of the famous top-hatted feline from Dr. Seuss.
Conservative elected officials angrily protested the Marxist message in Memphis, but leaders of the public/private partnership that sponsors the Urban Art Commission ignored demands to remove the offending words. Concerning the quotation from "The Communist Manifesto," Carissa Hussong, executive director of the arts commission, baldly declared, "When you see it in the context of the history of mankind, it is not ideological."
This astonishing statement, quoted by the New York Times, combines ignorance and mendacity to a breathtaking degree. If the revolutionary rallying cry of Karl Marx doesn't count as "ideological," what does? It is precisely "the context of the history of mankind" that reveals the devastating impact of communist ideas. When a political philosophy claims 70 million mass-murder victims in its various international applications, does it somehow take away the guilt and blood to claim that this philosophy is "not ideological"?
As Memphis city councilman Brent Taylor aptly commented: "Over 100,000 Americans were killed in two wars trying to rid the world of communism. We just don't feel a public place is appropriate to inscribe the motto of our enemy of 70 years."
The fact that the communist slogan is surrounded by more than 150 other quotes, ranging from Groucho Marx to Nelson Mandela and the Bible, only trivializes the unique nature of Marxist slaughter.
"The Communist Manifesto" wasn't just another literary contribution; it was a fiery blueprint for the most monstrous tyranny in world history. The library director claims that the designers of the quotes carved on pavement and pillars merely "wanted people to be curious, to think, to find out more when they weren't sure."
Would this purpose justify the inclusion of a celebrated quotation from that distinguished thinker and author, Adolf Hitler, who memorably proclaimed "One People! One Government! One Fuehrer! One Germany!" Should those words be immortalized too, as a means of inspiring curiosity about the Nazi era?
Actually, the Memphis officials already answered that question with their treatment of the single reference to Hitlerism in their sprawling collection of words and images. Carissa Hussong declined an invitation to speak on my radio show (because, she said, she hopes the controversy will "die down"), but she did send me a full list of the citations selected as part of the public arts project. There, on "Scroll B," directly between an Arabian saying and a Japanese Gingko Family Crest, is a "Nazi Swastika with 'Never Again' as seen at the museum at Dachau." In other words, when the artists invoke Nazism, they feel the need to place its symbol in a disapproving context. Why not handle "The Communist Manifesto" reference in a similar way? The words of Marx should appear with their own accompanying "Never Again!" or a brief notation like "70 million killed!"
The truth is that leaders of elite opinion refuse even now to view communist butchery with the same revulsion with which they rightly respond to Nazism. Part of the revisionist attempt to make heroes of blacklisted leftists from the 1950s (the disappointing Jim Carrey movie "The Majestic" is only the latest example) involves the stubborn refusal to take communism seriously – even when recalling a period when Stalin himself ruled half the world.
We're supposed to ignore the fact that some (but not all) of the screenwriters and directors who suffered during the McCarthy era remained dedicated Communist Party members who proudly defended the bloodiest regime in human history. Would anyone try to produce a movie or play or TV special about an uncompromising American Nazi who suffered unjustly for his beliefs?
If anything, communism ought to inspire more current discomfort than Nazism, not less. Communism remains the official ideology of close to 2 billion people – in China, North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba, not to mention many academic departments of American universities. Nazis, on the other hand, exist only in thriller novels and on the fringes of political discourse, while enjoying no real power base anywhere on earth.
Five words carved into the pavement in front of the Memphis Central Library won't add significantly to the momentum of world communism, but this famous phrase does reflect the arrogance and ignorance of the arts establishment. The creators of the library's public art project insist they are shocked – shocked – by the angry public reaction to their little Marxist memento, because they refuse to acknowledge the special responsibilities of artists who take tax money for their work.
Americans who value honesty about our historic struggle in the Cold War should support those local political leaders who demand some correction or addition to make up for this abuse of public funds. In other words: Taxpayers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but a few smug bureaucrats, and an important lesson to gain.
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Michael Medved hosts a nationally syndicated daily radio show focusing on the intersection of politics and pop culture. He's the author of eight non-fiction books, including "Hollywood vs. America" and "The Shadow Presidents."
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The Red Menace in Memphis
January 10, 2002
Chris Davis
Memphis FlyerA number of concerned citizens and perturbed politicos have complained that the work of art outside the majestic new Memphis Public library's entrance, a piece which supposedly represents the wisdom of the ages, contains the old (but still potentially harmful) communist battle cry, "Workers of the world, unite." It's etched in the stone walkway adjacent to a carving of that childhood fave cum druggie icon the Cat in the Hat.
This excerpt from Marx's atheistic screed has been duly criticized by a number of local patriots via scalding letters to the press. It has also raised the hackles of such would-be commie-busters as City Councilman Brent Taylor and County Commissioner Marilyn Loeffel, a proud suburban mother who has been unjustly dubbed the Virgin Mary by leftists sympathetic to the Communist cause.
Realizing the political jeopardy in which they were placing themselves by taking a stand on this hot-button issue that so directly affects the day to day lives of so many Memphians, and without the slightest regard for the ease and cost-efficency of the publicity such a stand would bring, the two moral leaders have denounced the art as "bad stuff" and proposed that the words be be removed with a sand blaster. Other proposals included the addition of more New Testament quotes or the creation of an additional artwork pointing out the manifold evils of Communism. The quote caused such a brouhaha that it caught the eye of many national media outlets including that long time Communist scandal sheet The New York Times.
Some pink-leaning observers have claimed that this is a perfect example censorship, oppression and hysteria in this newly conservative post 9/11 era, where, according to our nations top legals, dissent is tantamount to treason.
But the simple fact is, if you look closely at our new public artwork and at the library itself, alarms immediately go off and it becomes quite clear that the quote "Workers of the world unite" should be among the least of our worries. There is a vast array of potentially hazardous iconography hidden in the monolithic sculpture, including snippets of pagan lore and oblique references to the irresponsible theory that mankind (only a notch below the angels) once swung from long and limber tails.
There is a large picture of a hand with its two center fingers and thumb drawn in toward the center of the palm, the universal sign representing both heavy metal music and its evil inventor, the Christian Devil. There is another equally disturbing representation of a hand adorned with the kind of arcane symbology that suggests the occult. As if all the red propaganda and witchcraft wasn't disturbing enough, the art bears quotations by homosexuals (both suspected and known) and at least one very graphic depiction of a male sexual organ (fortunately not engorged).
Friends, it's no accident that these images grace the library's main entrance. They are not mere decoration. They are clear indicators of the dangerous geophysical and neopolitical pornographies housed like welfare babies within the walls of this tax-supported institution. Our library system may try to position itself as a benevolent entity dedicated to the judicious accumulation of human knowledge, but further investigation reveals it to be a filthy Gomorrah packed with dangerous ideas and dirty pictures.
Outside the library is the quote from the Communist Manifesto. Inside there is an entire book by Adolph Hitler. And that's just the beginning.
To see evidence of the ongoing plot to weaken our national morals one need look no further than the entrance to the new library's children's book section. A fake forest has been erected there. Trees with yellow, green, and red "candy-colored" trunks guard a golden path to the obviously satanic Harry Potter series.
The secret commie meaning of this art installation is two-fold. First, the brilliant, unnatural colors are obviously an effort on behalf of the designers to simulate the effects of a way-out "trip" on pot or perhaps on the drug known as LSD. The communists know that it will be easier to control our children's thoughts once they are hooked on these addictive mind-altering drugs.
Don't believe it? Peruse the shelves and you'll find The Practitioner's Guide to Psychoactive Drugs and a number of Terrence McKenna's blasphemous texts which credit psylocybin mushrooms with miracles of creation that should be rightfully ascribed to God Almighty. And if dabbling with drugs leads to any scrapes with the law, F.D. Rosenthal's Marijuana, the Law and You: A Guide To Minimizing Legal Consequences should prove to be a useful resource. It is, as one might suspect, also available.
And anyone who stayed awake through freshman English knows that in literature the "forest" always represents something else: a place of discovery, magic and sexual transformation. Long story short, it's where kids go to fornicate against their parents' wishes. The collected works of William Shakespeare (a possible warlock and homosexual) are filled to bursting with lurid arboreal references. Therefore the library's colorful, deceptively innocent "forest" must be chopped down immediately, before our children get any deeper into Satan's woods.
While on the topic of Satan it may be appropriate to point out that there are a number of texts on Satan worship and the occult in our library, including a selection of works by the demonic conjurer Aleister Crowley. Crowley practiced a type of black art which incorporated a number of perverse sex acts. Those who wish to learn more about sex before attempting any of Crowley's studied suggestions may wish to peruse the library's extensive collection of sex-related books and videos. Younger readers who may not be ready for the Kama Sutra can always turn to Carole Marsh's practical text, Sex Stuff for Kids 7-17.
Before leaving the topic of sex, magik, and satanism it must be mentioned that the Dewey decimal number 666 denotes texts which are devoted to an insidiously innocuous art form widely associated with the strictly forbidden creation of "graven images." Is it at all surprising that when searching through section 666 one of the first listings you come across is a book titled The Magic of Ceramics? No indeed. No indeed.
Topping the list of blasphemous texts is a pair of false Bibles. The Roof Framer's Bible obviously insinuates that God is a tar-paper shingle while The Investor's Bible clearly leads one to worship Allen Greenspan. It's unconscionable. It's wrong.
There are, just as one might expect in this communist stronghold, many books about communism in both theory and practice. Too many to list here. Former Soviet prime minister Nikita Kruschev claimed that the fundamental goals of Marx and Lenin would not be relinquished "till shrimp learn to whistle." You won't hear any shrimp whistling at the new library, not by a long shot.
Finally, while there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the Koran, Americans are now all too aware of how it can be interpreted by evil men with evil plans. Can we really afford to have this book sharing shelf space with Tadeusz Urbanski's Chemistry and Technology of Explosives? Can we? I think not.
Bring on the torches. Let the burning begin.
Chris Davis penned a version of this satire for the Memphis Flyer, where he is a staff writer.
