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| Ukrainian victims - starved on purpose |
On May 5, 1818, in the southern German town of Trier, in the picturesque wine-growing region of the Moselle Valley, Karl Marx was born….
Today his legacy would appear to be alive and well. Since the turn of the millennium countless books have appeared, from scholarly works to popular biographies, broadly endorsing Marx’s reading of capitalism and its enduring relevance to our neoliberal age.
In 2002, the French philosopher Alain Badiou declared at a conference I attended in London that Marx had become the philosopher of the middle class. What did he mean? I believe he meant that educated liberal opinion is today more or less unanimous in its agreement that Marx’s basic thesis—that capitalism is driven by a deeply divisive class struggle in which the ruling-class minority appropriates the surplus labor of the working-class majority as profit—is correct.
The idea of the classless and stateless society would come to define both Marx’s and Engels’s idea of communism, and of course the subsequent and troubled history of the Communist ‘states’ (ironically enough!) that materialized during the 20th century. There is still a great deal to be learned from their disasters, but their philosophical relevance remains doubtful, to say the least.
An open borders group that has benefitted from U.S. taxpayer dollars and is funded by leftwing billionaire George Soros launched a smartphone application to help illegal immigrants avoid federal authorities. The app, Notifica (Notify), is described in a Laredo, Texas news article as a tool to protect immigrants living in the U.S. illegally by utilizing high tech and online social communications. With the click of a button, illegal aliens can alert family, friends and attorneys of encounters with federal authorities. "Immigration agents knocking at the door?" the news story asks. "Now, there's an app for that, too."Here's how the Houston Chronicle describes the app: "Users can prepare a set of automatic messages to alert — with one click — family members, lawyers and others if they, or someone they care about, encounter immigration enforcement authorities."
The group behind the app is called United We Dream, which describes itself as the country's largest immigrant youth-led community. The nonprofit has more than 400,000 members nationwide and claims to "embrace the common struggle of all people of color and stand up against racism, colonialism, colorism, and xenophobia." Among its key projects is winning protections and rights for illegal immigrants, defending against deportation, obtaining education for illegal immigrants and acquiring "justice and liberation" for...
