Revolutionary Communist Party at Burning Man

What do you get when two RCP members go to burning man? A laugh riot of cultish posi-prose, for one thing! Can you imagine these nutcases from the party that not all that long ago denounced homosexuality as a bourgeois affliction wandering the open sands of burning man, Bob cards and manifestoes in hand, bringing the holy light of Avakian to throngs of naked hallucinating hippies?

You can't make this shit up (note the trademark RCP exuberance dripping off every word -- what kinds of extreme levels of happy pills must the Party prescribe to achieve such heights of emotion from its writers?):

There is a great need for people who are yearning for a different, better world to be introduced to Bob Avakian and his revolutionary vision of the most radical rupture with traditional property relations and traditional ideas, and a vibrant, exciting communist world in which people would really thrive—the unleashing of art and science, awe and wonder, ferment and imagination in mind-boggling dimensions.

What was once a bizarre but relatively harmless Maoist cult busy building bourgeois front groups and disingenuous political alliances with the political middle has truly degenerated into a pathetic and infantile spectacle of fawning hero-worship and self-delusion. I almost miss those days of World Can't Wait and their pathetically simplistic "Anyone but Bush" mantras, designed as they were to sucker well-meaning but silly anti-war liberals into front groups secretly manipulated by RCP cadre behind the scenes. Once captured, these poor saps could be bombarded into levels of unconsciousness sufficient for optimal susceptibility to Bob's flatulent pontifications, administered via marathon eleven hour video watching sessions. No kidding!

But despite their profligate production of thousand word proclamations, don't be fooled! There's not much in terms of real ideas lurking behind all those manifestos, and what little there is to their time travel Maoism can be found in any number of dinosaur commie formations that staggered dazed and tattered out of the ruins of the countless splits of the Seventies when the ever-worshipful Maoists faced the ultimate test of faith that was the collapse of Maoism in China.

Image over substance doesn't even begin to describe the vacuousness that is the RCP. I think the issue of Watchtower left on my door the other day was less fantastical in its evaluation of our current situation and likely future -- and certainly less savior-oriented than the RCP's Maoist millenarianism. It's been said that one of the things that has always distinguished anarchism from communism (and religions) is that anarchism names its tendencies after ideas or strategies, while commies name them after people. So, in that light, we can hardly be surprised when sad little party poopers like the RCP, having lost one dear hero, opt to build up another superman in his place.

Bob Avakian, "leading light" of the RCP

"Who is that man?" the sunburnt masses of burning man apparently demanded, if we are to believe the RCP's flowery text, provoked as they were by the installation of "a large flashing neon version of Bob Avakian's image in the midst of the art on the playa."

Although only visible at night, it looked great! Hundreds of image cards were distributed at the festival itself—left at camps, many of the numerous free bars and parties, and stuck in the spokes of participants' bicycles.

Hilarious! Only the RCP could go to burning man and miss the party (not to mention write a thousand word article about it without once mentioning the word "anarchy"). What I can't figure out is why the new portrait of Bob leaves out the trademark commie cap and hypnotic gaze that we all have come to love over the years? Surely that image, one of the few available to his fans during Bob's self-imposed Paris Left Bank exile, strikes a far more provocative pose than the new stencil! Bring back the old image, I say!

If you're looking for a few more belly laughs, please consider the impending release of the RCP's new "CONSTITUTION FOR THE NEW SOCIALIST REPUBLIC IN NORTH AMERICA" (all caps, naturally, in ironic tribute to its already foreordained irrelevance) which is sure to keep you in stitches. Oh, did you think that, if such a monstrosity were indeed to be considered (and let's hope it never is), something like a new constitution for North America might be the kind of thing that should involve the broad participation of the masses? Wrong again, comrade! The RCP and, more importantly, Chairman Bob has it all figured out for you in advance. Don't you worry your pretty little head about it!

Stay tuned, more comedy surely awaits!

Originally posted: September 22, 2010 at fires never extinguished