The Nation magazine sends its loyal readers a fundraising appeal, beseeching them to bid on commie gewgaws like the Noam Chomskygarden gnome (current bud $340) and a Karl Marx plush toy (current bid $35).
Are you tired of all those cute but essentially brainless "beanie" dolls? We were, so to offset the trend we designed the "Little Thinkers." Let the Little Thinkers add a little culture and humor to your life. 11" Tall and oh, so smart!
Way back in 2002, Nick Gillespie noted this clever little item for sale on the website of Mother Jones magazine:
Although I've been dead for close to 80 years, I've got a great new gig these days, shilling bowling shirts for my comrades at Mother Jones. I know what you're thinking: It's ironic for me to be hawking merchandise for a left-wing magazine that spends much of its time attacking capitalism for creating false needs. In fact, the May-June issue even slags the makers of so-called alcopops--"sweet malt-based beverages" such as Mike's Hard Lemonade and Smirnoff Ice--for pitching their product to kids in an attempt to "groom the next generation of drinkers."
But hey--they don't call it a commodity fetish for nothing, and the shirts only cost $39.95. That's pocket change you can probably expropriate from the kulak next door. And what other murderous head of state are you going to wear on your back to show how cool your are? Hitler, Mao, Kim Il Sung, Pol Pot--none of those guys is half as hip as moi.
My only fear is that my current employer is going to catch wind of my dubious past as a proponent of the death penalty, especially since they are rightly skeptical of that policy's efficacy. In 1922, as I was starting to pick off my former beloved revolutionary pals, I wrote to the people's commissar of justice, "It is my view that the leeway for applying the death penalty should be considerably enlarged, and should include all the activities of Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, and others." Oh well, it's not like I let soda pop be sold in Soviet schools.
