VLVL(4)(v) Groovy Mr. Trotsky

[Vincent A. Maeder]

	"Others pointed out to her what a groovy chance this would be to
bring up a child in a politically correct way, though definitions of
this varied from reading Trotsky to her at bedtime to including LSD in
the formula."  (VL, Ch. 4, p. 42)  Other than the classic phrasing by
Mr. Pynchon, this sentence is loaded with sixties/seventies
counter-culture movement.  Although the Second Circuit has something to
say about LSD and formulas, it's not exactly the same.
http://www.ndsn.org/nov95/2ndcirc.html  And you might be more interested
in the actual formula for LSD
http://www.miramar.sdccd.cc.ca.us/faculty/fgarces/ChemProj/Ch100_Sp2001/
C_White/hallucinogen.htm  While LSD was officially banned in 1966 in
California, and Federally in 1967, there's still the odd problem with
Baby Formula Poison to contend with...
	"4.BABY POISON: The baby-formula industry, a multibillion dollar
enterprise, allegedly causes tremendous numbers of children to die of
diarrhea and malnutrition every year.This happens, critics say, because
most of these concoctions have to be diluted with water and the majority
of the victims are poverty stricken Third World citizens who have access
only to unsanitary water supplies: they mix the formula with tainted
water, and it turns lethal.Many illiterate parents also inadvertently
kill their infants by misusing the formula because they cannot read the
instructions. The problem is compounded by aggressive marketing
campaigns that target poor and often undernourished women who believe
that formula feeding will ensure the survival of their child better than
their own breast milk,though critics claim just the opposite."
http://www.abduct.com/messages_disc/2110.htm
	Let me not forget that Marxist, Mr. Trotsky, a mythological
figure in the late sixties for the long-haired hippie types (as well as
many other main stream Americans) looking for a way out of Vietnam,
poverty, racial discrimination, and the whole pot-boiler we call
American politics.  Yet the grass is always greener, as they say, but
here's a look over the fence at the "archives"
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/  And if you'd like a "fair and
balanced" view of his impact and life, take a look here while I wait for
the lawyers from Fox to serve me with their new lawsuit...
http://www.trotsky.net/  
	"Leon Trotsky played a leading role, together with Lenin, during
the 1917 Russian Revolution. It was Trotsky who organised the Red Army
as well as the fightback against all the forces of reaction that were
attempting to strangle the revolution in blood.The Revolution Betrayed -
a Marxist masterpiece - a review by Alan Woods 
	"After the Civil War and the death of Lenin, unfortunately the
Soviet Union remained isolated. One revolution after another (Germany
1918, Hungary 1919, Italy 1920 and so on...) was defeated. The economy
the Bolsheviks had inherited from Tsarism was extremely underdeveloped.
And in isolation from the rest of the world, this meant that the
material conditions for a rapid advance towards socialism did not exist.
In this situation a bureaucratic counter-revolution took place. A
bureaucratic elite raised itself above the working class. 
	"Stalin and his regime represented the interests of this
bureaucracy. But in order to consolidate their control over society this
bureaucracy had to eliminate the genuine traditions of Bolshevism. Thus
the struggle between Stalin's faction and the Left Opposition, led by
Trotsky, was a struggle between the genuine representatives of the
working class and the up-and-coming bureaucratic elite.
	"Trotsky led an implacable struggle against the Stalinist
degeneration of the Soviet Union. The Stalinist regime's response was to
expel him from the Soviet Communist Party and then exile him from the
Soviet Union itself. Huge numbers of his supporters inside the Soviet
Union ended up in Stalin's camps from which they were never to return.
>From exile Trotsky gathered supporters inside the Communist Parties with
which he built the International Left Opposition. 
	"Trotsky alone defended the genuine traditions, ideas and
methods of Marxism. This in itself was a great achievement. But he went
further: he was able to analyse and explain the phenomenon of Stalinism
and offer an alternative to this terribly deformed caricature of what a
genuinely healthy workers' state should be.
	"Today the fall of the Stalinist regimes in Russia and Eastern
Europe has led to confusion and demoralisation among many left
activists, especially those from the Communist Parties. A reading of
Trotsky, especially his classic, The Revolution Betrayed, can offer all
these honest worker and youth activists an explanation of what has
happened and also a way out. On this site we provide on-line versions of
many of Trotsky's works (courtesy of the Marxist Internet Archive who
have allowed us to mirror their site) together with more recent articles
and documents on the various aspects of Trotsky's ideas."
http://www.trotsky.net/  Onward then...