Good afternoon folks. In my travels today, I saw a set of seven billboards up in the Times Square area. I am not sure how long they have been there, but it made me stop and take a picture of it. Apparently, the messages are brought to us by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. There is also a hash tag #communismkills, and one of the billboards gives a body count of all the millions of people slaughtered by communist regimes.
I find myself in a quiet, questioning mood these days- even more than usual. It doesn’t help that I am re-reading George Orwell’s 1984, which was a scathing critique of Stalinist Russia, and totalitarianism in general. It has become the go to book for people grasping to understand the moment that we’re in right now.
I have several questions. First question that came to mind, is who paid for that billboard? Why now? Considering how there is no mass movement toward socialism/communism in the United States at this moment, why the billboards? Consider also that the main threat to people’s way of living is coming from the far right, which has found its expression in the current White House, isn’t this odd?
Or is this part of a coming war campaign?
The only thing I can think of at the moment is that this is the 100th year anniversary of the Russian Revolution. In any case, it’s interesting. Will there be a billboard for the victims of capitalism as well? That’s like 500 years of history though, so it would be immense.
I saw this online as a response. Interesting stuff that I just happen upon. What do you think?
Being killed directly by the government is much worse than starving and being killed by nature.
Starving is not due to natural causes. The point of civilization is to ensure human survival and not be at the whim of nature. Now, we are all at the whims of the laws of capitalism, which kills people directly also by deliberate decisions.