LETTERS: T'S IRRESPONSIBLE TO QUOTE MARX

To the editor:

Many thanks to David Limbaugh for his April 18 column. He has managed to demonstrate my prior observations concerning the misrepresentation of Karl Marx more eloquently and gracefully than I could ever hope to.

Before proceeding with this, however, I would be remiss if I did not also thank Karl Mindeman for his letter of the same day. Though it could not have been pre-planned, his piece was a fitting rebuttal to Mr. Limbaugh's claptrap. Their juxtaposition on the page was true beauty.

Of Mr. Limbaugh's sins, only two do I consider mortal. First, it surpasses mere irresponsibility to quote a document published over 150 years ago as if the circumstances surrounding its emergence were unchanged. The Communist Manifesto was a document written in criticism of institutions and social conditions that existed at the time of its publication. The family unit of the mid-1800s was quite a different entity than what we call the family today. Different obligations pulled it. Different forces drove it. Keeping that in mind, perhaps we can more easily understand Marx's critique of the bourgeois family and its influence on the proletariat family as he intended it, not as David Limbaugh would have it come across. This misrepresentation would be even more apparent if not for the artful editing job performed on the quote which ends Limbaugh's piece. What was not included, consciously or unconsciously, speaks more volumes to the careful reader than what was included.

The second of Mr. Limbaugh's sins is a common one, though no less deadly for its frequency. He, like many others, is so indoctrinated in his own system that he is unwilling or unable to step outside of it, let alone criticize it. Why? Perhaps it is because, as Marx foresaw, the system defines us. It creates us. How could we then dare to criticize it when to do so would be to criticize everything we have ever known. It would be a little like criticizing ourselves. And what if our parents were wrong all along? And what if we have been wrong? So instead, let us listen to those like David Limbaugh who tell us that America is "the greatest nation in the history of the world" and how a government like Cuba's "is bereft of both spirituality and freedom." Or, we could listen to how free we are and how lucky our children are to be free. For as Mr. Mindeman showed so well, our children (unlike Elian Gonzalez should he return to Cuba) are free to buy any one of 30 different brands of cargo pants, or maybe even one of the Beanie Baby teddy bears. But they will buy cargo pants and Beanie Baby teddy bears. Because they, of course, are free.

ADAM M. COX

Cape Girardeau