Gutenberg Lampoon » William Crawford

Reclaiming the Day of the Valentine

Mod­ern Impe­r­ial and Cap­i­tal­ist lead­ers have lead us all to believe that the day of St. Valen­tine is a day   where it is not only expected, but some­times required to spend as much money as you can to pur­chase generic tokens of affec­tion for your sig­nif­i­cant other.  Now the day has also received much crit­i­cism from cyn­ics and the lonely hearted who her­ald it as “Single’s Aware­ness Day” or a day where the greet­ing card com­pa­nies get rich.  While these both may be very accu­rate assess­ments it is plac­ing a lot of power on the day still, thereby feed­ing the suc­cess of these mys­te­ri­ous com­pa­nies and actu­ally turn­ing the naysayer into an out­cast or reject of the social sta­tus quo.  In essence, those who refuse to par­tic­i­pate or acknowl­edge the day at all, really are show­ing them­selves to be an out­cast and it makes them seem rather jeal­ous of the ideas that have been forced into our minds by com­mer­cials and brain­wash­ing.  I say that instead of ignor­ing the day, the best means of coun­ter­at­tack against the Cap­i­tal­ist rulers is to trans­form the day into the cel­e­bra­tion it should have been from the start.  In essence make the day a true day of social­ism and stand­ing up for what you truly believe in.

Let us con­sider the man, or rather the myth, of St. Valen­tine.  Did this Pope pro­claimed saint actu­ally spread love or pass out sponge-bob valen­tines to his friends and fam­ily?  Did he send a box of heart shaped chalk (meant to be eaten as candy) with x’s and o’s and mean­ing­less say­ings to his secret love?  He might have, but there is really no evi­dence to sup­port these claims.  What the books tell us is this; St. Valen­tine refused to reject his beliefs even on threat of death.  Now he was a Chris­t­ian and this was ver­sus the pagan beliefs, but he still held to his con­vic­tions.  So why don’t we cel­e­brate that?  What could be more of a shock to the cur­rent cap­i­tal­ist order than stand­ing up for what you believe in…or don’t believe in.  Look at the groups in Pales­tine and India who have flags of Valentine’s day in effigy burn­ing to show their dis­gust of the cap­i­tal­ist mar­ket.  So if you really don’t believe in the day for its cur­rent cel­e­bra­tions, qui­etly sit­ting by and mop­ing or even choos­ing to ignore it is a self­ish and kind of pathetic act.  Instead, vocal­ize your opinions…start a strike (peace­fully of course)  and boy-cot the day with feel­ing and passion.

Which brings me to another alter­na­tive.  Why the 14th of Feb­ru­ary?  Well there are lots of beliefs…was this when he was mar­tyred?  Was this the day he was declared a saint?  Maybe this was the day when he first decided what the “heart shape” should look like and that it could be turned into a box con­tain­ing choco­lates that had a sur­prise fill­ing in the cen­ter.  Well the other pos­si­bil­ity of course is  found within the pagan reli­gions Mr. Valen­tine was oppos­ing.  As it turns out between the dates of Feb­ru­ary 13th and the 17th, some pagan reli­gions actu­ally cel­e­brate fer­til­ity, love, and passion…not as two indi­vid­u­als or secret admir­ers, but as a com­mu­nity.  It is a social event of celebration….gifts might be exchanged, but the real cel­e­bra­tion came in the act of love itself…for sev­eral days, not just one.  The social­ist in me finds this to be an appeal­ing option.  Instead of spend­ing all your money on point­less gifts lets just make love for 4 days straight.  And this is some­thing that every­one can ben­e­fit from, not just Hall­mark.  So today I urge you…make love not capitalism!

February 14, 2010 at 6:41 am | Uncategorized | 145Commentshttp://www.gutenberglampoon.com/columns/william-crawford/?p=145Reclaiming+the+Day+of+the+Valentine2010-02-14+12%3A41%3A47William

Sinistra Italiana

Do not be fooled com­rades. I know it looks like the title says “sin­is­ter Ital­ian” but the word for “left” in Ital­ian is “sinistra”.  A while back I had informed every­one about my deci­sion to get deeper into the left wing par­ties of the Ital­ian cul­ture and that I would report back on my find­ings.  It has been a long and dif­fi­cult task.  How­ever, sev­eral drunken par­ties and many ragazze later I have news to report back to the home front.  In my last post on this mis­sion I had men­tioned a local bar in my town. Well the place is great and the other day I was offered a mem­ber­ship card…for a small price of course…but with this card I would be a mem­ber of this elite Ital­ian soci­ety that spans mul­ti­ple pubs through­out the country.

But I am get­ting ahead of myself a bit here.  So after that first night at the local bar a group of us decided to make our way to Firenze where we met up with an evening march parad­ing the Christ­masi­fied streets of this Tus­can hub.  Ban­ners wav­ing; speak­ers blar­ing; voices scream­ing:  “Liberi Tutti!!!!”  “Liber­erta per i com­pagni!!!!”  “Liberi! Liberi! Liberi!”  This was it…this was the voice of the com­mu­nist party of Italy.  Peo­ple of all ages gath­er­ing together to speak for the comrades…to show sup­port for all their Ital­ian brethren…to pave the way toward free­dom!  Kids tex­ting on their cell­phones while march­ing (most likely telling their starv­ing fam­i­lies about the sup­port that had come out in masses), men and women lead­ing up the rear, not with guns and arms…no they car­ried Mor­retti and Gior­nali!  We had to be a part of this march, the spirit within us had been awak­ened!  The hot blonde car­ry­ing the red flag bar­ing the golden ham­mer and sickle looked right at me and I could feel the fire in my soul!  I knew at that moment I had stum­bled onto some­thing great.  A lust burned inside of me, those blue eyes burn­ing red with passion…passion to help her fel­low man.  And I felt that same lust and pas­sion rise in me as well.  I jumped into the march and paraded through the tran­quil small vil­lage of Florence.

That night the world was chang­ing and we were a part of the change.  His­tory was being made per­haps for the first time on those cob­ble­stone streets in front of the duomo.  And there was not a sin­gle drop of blood shed for the lib­er­a­tion movement.  The night ended instead with the rais­ing of glasses and the shar­ing of music in a local pub, our water­melon shots and Heinekens proved that we had started some­thing pow­er­ful that night.  Not even a drunken Span­ish guy (another story entirely) could extin­guish the burn­ing need to make a difference.

After the bois­ter­ous cel­e­bra­tion of com­rades speak­ing out against injus­tice and the evils of the cap­i­tal­ist regimes, we decided to call it a night and stop in at a local food joint to re-nourish for the road that was set before us.  The golden arches form­ing the let­ter “M” that hung above the doors seemed to to tell me “Mondo” (or World); and I knew that I would make a dif­fer­ence, and that that night was only the begin­ning of my involve­ment with the sin­is­tra.  I was well on my way to becom­ing a “com­pagno del­gli sin­istri italiani.”

pho­tos cour­tesy of Jesse Dunn copy­right 2009

January 17, 2010 at 12:36 pm | Uncategorized | 131Commentshttp://www.gutenberglampoon.com/columns/william-crawford/?p=131Sinistra+Italiana2010-01-17+18%3A36%3A09William

Socialist Leaders New Mission “Sex for Everyone”

The ranks of com­rades is ris­ing but as the New Year and New Decade come to a start, social­ist lead­ers around the globe are try­ing new tac­tics to increase the ranks. Sex has always been used as the hall­mark of cap­i­tal­ist com­er­cial­ism; well now it seems it may be the dri­ving force between the new social­ist move­ment as well. Check out these new pro­mo­tions from the under­ground social order that are soon to enter main­stream com­mer­cials. Sesso Libero per Tutti!

 

Cloth­ing commercials

Cloth­ing is being devel­oped to com­pete with major labels such as aber­crom­bie and banana repub­lic.  What bet­ter way to infil­trate the cap­i­tal­ist mar­ket than to cre­ate prod­ucts that directly com­pete with one of the most impor­tant mate­r­ial goods in the United States.  A per­cent­age of pro­ceeds on all prod­ucts sold will go toward fund­ing pub­lic health care cen­ters until uni­ver­sal health care is a reality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anti-War/ Anti-Fascist Mar­ket­ing is on the horizon!

That’s right, Social­ism has long been con­fused with fas­cism when the truth of the mat­ter is that both ide­ol­gies are at a con­stant bat­tle for power.  In the wake of increased deter­mi­na­tion to con­tinue fight­ing around the world some Social­ists have arranged for adver­tise­ments that call for less mil­i­tary action, the first of which shows us that guns can be sexy when placed in the right hands and can achieve a more peace­ful end.

January 6, 2010 at 7:50 pm | Uncategorized | 107Commentshttp://www.gutenberglampoon.com/columns/william-crawford/?p=107Socialist+Leaders+New+Mission+%22Sex+for+Everyone%222010-01-07+01%3A50%3A48William

Visa serves as Capitalist Propoganda

 

 

We have all seen the com­mer­cials,  a sea of mechan­i­cal peo­ple going through their daily rou­tines which hap­pen to con­sist of noth­ing more than con­sum­ing prod­uct after prod­uct.  An assem­bly line of peo­ple spend­ing money in order to keep the machine of cap­i­tal­ism rolling along.  I like to think of the per­son cre­at­ing a stop in the machine here as the rebel, the activist stand­ing up to sup­port the work­ing class.  Visa and thereby the cor­po­ra­tions that sup­port would have us put all our faith into the idea of spend­ing imag­i­nary money by putting our­selves fur­ther into debt with the sim­ple swipe of a card…and for what?  In order to become a mind­less cap­i­tal­ist zom­bie in the con­sump­tion of goods and ser­vices.  The com­mer­cials tell us that the per­son search­ing for cash is a hin­drance on the Amer­i­can con­sump­tion machine.  The indi­vid­ual who may be more intel­li­gent by not suc­cumb­ing to the cap­i­tal­ist myth that a credit sys­tem of imag­i­nary money is healthy for an econ­omy and for a coun­try.  I argue instead that we should fight the mar­ket of card car­ri­ers con­stantly feed­ing our econ­omy with bogus dol­lars.  Maybe the work­ing class per­son who is unable to qual­ify for the credit card or who is already so in debt that he has had to destroy his credit cards should be looked to as a per­son that we can all relate to.  Nay-sayers and the naïve in this coun­try always spread fear of change by claim­ing that a social­ist world would leave us all the same and with­out a sense of our own identities…but Visa steps in here to show us that is exactly what we have become in the Cap­i­tal­ist mar­ket of today.  So con­stricted by our need to con­stantly assim­i­late and con­sume that an ad can actu­ally be bla­tantly released to tell us that is exactly what we need to do: lose our iden­ti­ties.  So let’s fight back for our indi­vid­u­al­ity and avoid becom­ing just another cog in the machine that is Con­sumerism.  And let us stand up and defend our brethren who have been weak enough to give into the cap­i­tal­ist credit brain­wash­ing.  Don’t for a sec­ond let your­self believe that we are meant to be mind­less con­sumers in a cor­po­rate world.  We can be more and have more poten­tial.  Step away from the fal­si­ties that are being thrown at you and look at the truth!  LIBERI I COMPAGNI!!!!

December 29, 2009 at 5:19 pm | Uncategorized | 99Commentshttp://www.gutenberglampoon.com/columns/william-crawford/?p=99Visa+serves+as+Capitalist+Propoganda2009-12-29+23%3A19%3A10William

Christmas Deaths by Capitalism

After Black-Friday’s fatal tram­pling of a Secu­rity Guard it didn’t seem like the Cap­i­tal­ist rush to shop could become more deadly.  How­ever, in the weeks fol­low­ing Thanks­giv­ing and lead­ing up to the “Big Day” Cap­i­tal­ism has con­tin­ued its mas­sacre of the inno­cent.  How­ever most of these have gone under the radar so as not to detract Amer­i­cans from rush­ing out to Wal-Mart to spend more money.  After all, who would want to go shop­ping if they knew that there was a higher mor­tal­ity rate than stab­bing your­self in the eye?

Rhode Island– Mad rush of shop­pers at a local mall results in under­cooked food court cui­sine.  15 cases of food poi­son­ing result, 1 man still on the toi­let, another has devel­oped a hernia.

Wyoming– Mother miss­ing after telling chil­dren all the stores are out of Wii’s.  Local law enforce­ment sus­pects foul play.

Okla­homa– Car crash in park­ing lot at local Toy store results in fatal­ity.  Wit­nesses say deceased drove around park­ing lot for 10 min­utes look­ing for a park­ing lot and then decided to make his own.

Min­nesota– Elderly falls on ice and breaks hip when attempt­ing to push gro­cery cart of socks and sweaters out of store.

Waco, Texas– Local Elec­tron­ics store employee begins attack­ing cus­tomers with rock band gui­tar after two weeks with no day off.

So with one day left until the final show down, our best hope for sur­vival is to avoid the brain­wash­ing of cap­i­tal­ism that would tell us to rush out to feed the last minute shop­ping crav­ings.  Let us all remem­ber the true mean­ings of the hol­i­days, com­ing together with fam­ily and friends and a com­mu­nity.  Liberi tutti!!!

December 23, 2009 at 9:45 pm | Uncategorized | 94Commentshttp://www.gutenberglampoon.com/columns/william-crawford/?p=94Christmas+Deaths+by+Capitalism2009-12-24+03%3A45%3A56William

Communists or Democrats…or just Kool Cats

So my adven­tures have lead me to a local bar in the town of Arezzo that was for­merly well known as the head­quar­ters of the com­mu­nist party. Today they make sure every­one knows they are offi­cially the demo­c­ra­tic party. It is a great quaint lit­tle place with cheap boos and a back room with a small stage, great for cabarets or meet­ings or even just hang­ing out. They have actu­ally shared alco­hol with us on mul­ti­ple occa­sions (some of the com­mu­nist spir­its as I call them). The vari­ety of peo­ple one could meet at the bar is extreme. We have met teach­ers, crazy beer guys, goth punks, and most recently a group of local actors. Loca­tion wise the place is great, not much around except for an Indian Kebab place and some sketchy but amaz­ing pizza places and restau­rants. This is where the art scene and the polit­i­cal scene of medieval town Italy really seem to take shape. They often have meet­ings for the polit­i­cal lead­ers as well and I have now been given an open invi­ta­tion to have audi­ence in any of their meet­ings. I will try to see if maybe some­time in the near future I can sneak in and see what it is all about. Fear not com­rades for I will be sure to report back with you on all of my findings.

December 11, 2009 at 2:33 pm | Uncategorized | 90Commentshttp://www.gutenberglampoon.com/columns/william-crawford/?p=90Communists+or+Democrats...or+just+Kool+Cats2009-12-11+20%3A33%3A43William

Mark Steel — Lectures worth listening to

 

Mark Steel may be a come­dian, but his lec­tures are some­thing that we can all take some­thing from.  From Aris­to­tle to Beethoven and Marx to Che, he is able to present the real lives behind these men.  And a com­mon thread in all his lec­tures is how some of the most famous men through­out his­tory have helped shape the thoughts and ideas that have very much kept us mov­ing for­ward in social order.  By look­ing back at these great men and dis­cussing their beliefs and achieve­ments we can clearly see that today we actu­ally seem to be drift­ing away from con­cepts that were so clear to the bril­liant minds of the past.  While cap­i­tal­ism served its place to help rebuild a break­ing econ­omy, is it really the best sol­lu­tion in today’s world?  What have we lost as a result of for­get­ting where we came from?  Accord­ing to Mr. Steel we have lost the time to dream, and with­out our dreams where would we be?  I have pro­vided here part 3 of Mark Steel’s lec­ture on Karl Marx.  Let’s regain the abil­ity to dream together as a com­mu­nity of dreamers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8yFmzN0cRQ&feature=related

December 9, 2009 at 6:29 am | Uncategorized | 84Commentshttp://www.gutenberglampoon.com/columns/william-crawford/?p=84Mark+Steel+-+Lectures+worth+listening+to2009-12-09+12%3A29%3A56William

My Babushka found on “picture is unrelated”

http://pictureisunrelated.com/2009/10/09/babushka-said-hands-off-the-borsch/

I just found this.  If this grandma is this con­fi­dent why can’t more peo­ple join the good fight?

December 5, 2009 at 6:57 am | Uncategorized | 81Commentshttp://www.gutenberglampoon.com/columns/william-crawford/?p=81My+Babushka+found+on+%22picture+is+unrelated%222009-12-05+12%3A57%3A12William

Socialist Cola Commercial

 

 

 

 

November 30, 2009 at 2:41 pm | Uncategorized | 72Commentshttp://www.gutenberglampoon.com/columns/william-crawford/?p=72Socialist+Cola+Commercial2009-11-30+20%3A41%3A33William

A Thanksgiving for Everyone

Happy Thanks­giv­ing to every­one.  Please honor the day today with the heart of the thanks­giv­ing spirit:  Social­ism.  When the Native Amer­i­cans shared their goods with the Pil­grims what they were really say­ing is “Wel­come to the social­ist order.”  So share your com­modi­ties today with your friends and fam­ily and be thank­ful for community.

November 26, 2009 at 7:18 am | Uncategorized | 66Commentshttp://www.gutenberglampoon.com/columns/william-crawford/?p=66A+Thanksgiving+for+Everyone2009-11-26+13%3A18%3A29William

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