ReMarx

Apropos of nothing, I came across this excellent remix of the Communist Manifesto today - written very faithfully in the style of the great man himself - by Columbia Law professor, Eben Moglen. Here's a quote:

"The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians' intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt its culture and its principles of intellectual ownership; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image. But the very instruments of its communication and acculturation establish the modes of resistance which are turned against itself."

Pretty impressive. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, Moglen is affiliated with the Free Software Foundation.