Communism, what a joke.

Just the other day, I saw a friend of mine and he was wearing a sweatshirt with a picture of the hammer and sickle.  In fact many of my friends say that my friend, Ian, wears some sort of communist shirt almost every day.  Ian doesn't wear these shirts to support communism, but instead because he thinks they are quite funny.  The point of this blog post isn't to point out my friends strange obsession with communism, but more why communism has become this big joke.  The point of this post also isn't to answer any questions but to pose one.  Communism used to be something that was strongly believed in, and may still be today but on a much smaller scale.  What happened?  Why is communism not taken seriously, or is it taken seriously it just seems like it isn't because we are a part of one of the more anti-communist countries in the world?

I felt a little weird commenting on my own blog post so instead I'm just going to edit my original blog and say what I think about the whole idea of communist being a joke.  Personally I think communism started out as a very serious thing and at one point in time it was a very serious way in which to govern.  At that time there were certain world powers (I'm not going to say any names, but russia and china.) who tried to spread communism, but since then Gorbachev successfully converted russia over to a more capitalist government.  Now, since virtually all supporters of Communism have been converted or are dead, it seems as though the whole idea was a joke and makes it very hard to picture the fact that people actually thought that such a government would work.  Its like an argument where there used to be equal sized teams but slowly one team switched to the other side, thus becoming a very one sided argument which is part of the reason why it is taken as a joke, because there is nobody to argue that it isn't a joke.  All you can say is that it wasn't a joke, it didn't used to be a joke.

The Taliban Vilify Another Minority

On the New York Times website I came across a five minute video Op-Ed called Last Jew in Afghanistan. This is the story of Zablon Simantov who still lives in Kabul, Afghanistan. Most Jews have fled out of fear and pressure from the Taliban even though their Jewish roots have stemmed from Afghanistan since “the seventh century A.D.” and even “as far back as 720 B.C.” Zablon admits that he even sent his daughters away from Kabul. This man is driven by his idea of destiny, and he will never leave Afghanistan because God has chosen this fate for him. The video takes the viewer inside the Flower Street Synagogue that has been ravished by the Taliban. This short film moved me because this man takes a stand in a world that is suffocating his beliefs. The Taliban have made their motives clear, and Zablon knows well that he will not be alive to see a resolution: why else would he send his daughters away? Even those Jews who want to return to Afghanistan cannot until a proper government is established and security returns to the borders. This video proves that schoolgirls are not the only ones being punished by the Taliban: Jews are receiving the barbed end of the whip as well.