Balloons and the social revolution

Margaret Marks says that the Marxist-Leninists are not giving away balloons in the German elections. I hope this is because they can’t afford them rather than for ideological reasons. While it is true that Jimmy Connolly saw in them the nemesis of the working classes, a progressive balloon vendor appears in one of my favourite fairy tales, a Simpsons-like affair by Yuri Olesha called Three Fat Men, and as far as I know neither Marx nor the other one ever said anything bad about balloons.

I see no reason either why Spanish reactionaries shouldn’t adopt balloons. Nicomedes Pastor Díaz (Los problemas del socialismo, 1848) uses the aerostat as a metaphor for civilisation, but nowhere does he suggest shooting it down; indeed, he emphasises the importance of providing it with sufficient hydrogen.

Related posts

• Balloon houses
• Perfume, Poe, parallel
• Social netrics
• Pneumatic!
• European agreements re language rights

Comments

Feeds: RSS2 · Atom

Trackback link.

Tell me if the spam dragon gives you a hard time. Log in if you want to be really foul.