Teaching a course in post WWII U.S. history during the Wintersession at Rutgers University, I have been away from the blog, except to try to keep up with my Marxist IQ postings.  But the world continues to turn in the New Year, and while Karl Marx remains the foundation for understanding social reality, Groucho Marx more and more seems to be important to understanding the superstructure of that reality.

Take for existence the story concerning the distinguished and quite wealthy French film star, Gerard Depardieu.  He  has made successful films for decades in France and the U.S., but, has now , because of the tax rate for wealthy people in France, has changed his citizenship.  That is nothing new for the rich.  It was quite common in Britain after WWII when the Labor government established a system of progressive taxation.  But Depardieu has changed his citizenship to Russia, the "new Russia," whose art, culture, literature, and President(Putin) he claims to love(slong with its 13 percent "flat tax" on income).  Depardieu in proclaiming his love of "new Russia" even said that his father was a French Communist and an avid listener to radio Moscow(his upward mobility,at least in economic terms, probably drew him away from the Communist movement long ago, while the counter-revolution that destroyed the Soviet Union and created the "new " capitalist its "flat tax."

But, since I have been dealing with McCarthyism and McCarthy's charges that everyone connected with any anything mildly progressive was both a Communist and a Soviet spy, this got me to thinking.  Steve Forbes, longtime champion of a flat tax in the U.S., and the legion of tax party Republicans  who champion that cause.  Maybe they have all be Russian agents, seeking to establish Russian capitalist domination of the U.S. through the Republican party.;  Maybe the attacks on China, the invasion and occupation of Iraq, are all part of this "conspiracy so immense."  Behind every rightwing Republican there may be a Borscht slurping Russian capitalist handler.  Perhaps we need a new Congressional Committee to investigate this Russian capitalist influence in the U.S. 

While I am only kidding, anything in today's anarchic capitalist world is possible, as a Russian billionaire owns an NBA basketball team which he moved to Brooklyn and whose radio sponsor is the old Soviet Airline, Aeroflot.  At least he didn't have the nerve to name the team the Brooklyn Dodgers.