Chomsky News Network

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Fri May 31 13:30:36 PDT 2002


At 07:11 PM 5/31/2002 +0000, Justin wrote: second day of the battle, then charged with bayonets with they were out of ammo, probably saving the Union. I was surprised as anyone. I guess that makes me a patriot. Course I was also choked up when I saw the flowers in the Museum der Widerstand in Berlin, in the old Wermacht HQ, heaped on the site where the Nazis executed von Stauffenberg and the main July 20 conspirators.

I would add to this list visiting the Casa de Leon Trotsky in Mexico City and seeing the book cases filled with books and journals, a Spartan bed, a work desk, Earl Grey tea on a table. Or a dust-covered statue of Lenin inside the dilapidated Vitebsky Vokzal train station in Leningrad (now Sankt Petersburg) - one of the last remaining ones - and someone placing a bouquet of red carnations under it.

We may disagree with their politics, or point out their errors, but at least they pursued a heroic vision of a just society - regardless of where that society may be geographically located. That is what makes me "choke up" - especially in the era whose heros are sycophantic corporate nullities concerned only about lining their own pockets. As Nietzsche said "The errors of great men are more venerable because they are more fruitful than the truths of little men."

wojtek



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