Monday, January 10, 2005

Stalin and Luther

From a long article in the Asia Times on modern art and socialism:

Freedom is always under attack in any society beset with a garrison-state mentality. The "war on terror" has turned the US into a police state. Stalin did many inhumane things in the name of preserving institutional revolution. Josef Vissarionovich Stalin (1879-1953) would in fact fit the definition of a Lutheran diehard, at least in revolutionary strategy if not in ideological essence. Like Martin Luther (1483-1546), Stalin suppressed populist radicalism to preserve institutional revolution, and glorified the state as the sole legitimate expeditor of revolutionary ideology.

This says too damn much about me. Nothing more joyous than growing up as a Lutheran, let me tell you.