This is an absolutely fantastic quote and a great quote for any progressive person who wants to throw something back at liberals when they turn their noses up at us.
“When capital and the ruling classes apologise for: Colonialism, the 14 hour day, class privilege, the 7 day working week, children in coalmines, the opium wars, the massacre of the Paris Commune, slavery, the Spanish-American War, the Boer War, starvation, apartheid, anti-union laws, the First World War, Flanders, trench warfare, mustard gas, aerial bombing, the Soviet Intervention, the Armenian Genocide, chemical weapons, fascism, the Great Depression, hunger marches, Nazism, the Spanish Civil War, militarism, Asbestosis, radiation death, the Massacre of Nanking, the Second World War, Belsen, Dresden, Hiroshima, Racism, The Mafia, nuclear weapons, the Korean War, DDT, McCarthyism, production lines, blacklists, Thalidomide, the rape of the Third World, poverty, the arms race, plastic surgery, the electric chair, environmental degradation, the Vietnam War, the military suppression of Greece, India, Malaya, Indonesia, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama and Turkey, the Gulf War, trade in human body parts, malnutrition, Exxon Valdez, deforestation, organized crime, the Heroin and Cocain trade, tuberculosis, the destruction of the Ozone Layer, cancer, exploitation of labour and the deaths of 50,000,000 Communists and trade unionists in this century alone, then — and only then — will I consider apologising for the errors of socialism.” (from: the Communist Party of Australia)
There’s a great pic to go with this quote that I’ve just added to the Paulitics Political Images resource (along with a bunch of other additions).
Great post. Little typo in Soviet (or is it soviet?)
:)
Good eye. I guess I tried typing it too fast.
While the quote is certainly illustrative of the horrors of capitalism, don’t you think a ‘you first’ attitude is a little childish? Why not take the high road, in good faith, and apologize first. You may not get an apology back, but wouldn’t have anyway, and at least now you’ve taken the first step toward reconciliation.
I don’t know exactly how ‘capital’ and ‘ruling class’ is connected and I certainly think that blaming all of the above on ‘capitalism’ is fairly tenuous.
Oops, sorry, I thought this was a “Certified Feminism(tm)” posting. My mistake.
That was a good list!…. It served the purpose of inciting responses from those that would prefer not to recall with so much accuracy the sins of our capitalist past.
I guess they can’t stand all that negativity that is pointed in their particular direction.
Superb Quote