Back to the Past

Some McGill students have occupied the administration building again.  The administration is doing a far better job this time not confronting these folks (much easier when there are not thousands of students and other folks marching around).  The issues this time are different.  Instead of tuition, it is about various campus organizations and how they are funded.  It seems that the administration is thwarting the will of the students who voted somehow.  I have not been paying attention.  But I just found out who is behind the occupation apparently:

MAOISTS.  Really.  No, I am serious.  I just wonder if they are.  If you check out their site "the only source for proleterian information," it reads as if it is a parody of a marxist student website.  My department used to have a faculty member who was a big fan of North Korea, but I didn't realize that there was a Maoist organization around here.

Sure, I remember the good old days of the 1980's where there was a group at Oberlin, partially students and partially other folks, who were avowed Trotskyites.  But stuff happened since then--the fall of the wall, the de-legitimation of Communism in Europe and the former Soviet space, the reforms in China that facilitate capitalism while still denying democracy, and so on.  Yet there are Maoists on campus?  I guess they didn't follow the usual cool trend of 21st century idealist rebelling students and fall for Chomsky.

I really have no position on the current set of grievances, but I will always be skeptical of "proletarians" who are college students and have probably not experienced the life of the working class all that much and are not destined to be working class after they graduate.

On the other hand, it can all be a joke.  Maybe my readers can check out the site and tell me whether these modern day Maoists are the real thing.

Update: Ok, so this is a satirical blog (I don't follow their tweets but one of my commenters does).  So, I was right to think it was a joke, yes?