I had a slightly interesting (if rather unimportant) epiphany today concerning my attitude toward communist imagery

I'm posting this because it is a good way for me to organize my thoughts coherently and because it would be interesting to hear some people's reactions.

I grew up as a Southern Baptist far right-wing conservative. And I pictured myself as a bright child, and was told by every adult that I was a bright child, so I sopped up as much of the propaganda as I could. I was a 12 year-old who could recite every argument against abortion, against gay-marriage, against taxes, and for Jesus Reagan Christ's America.

This is only relevant because it had a deep effect on me that now I try to protect myself from brainwashing of that sort with constant skepticism of everything that I think I know. Now, about two years after becoming communist, I am constantly carrying marxist books, my notebooks and laptop have communist imagery all over them, and my backpack has communist buttons all over it, and when I get unpoor in the near future, the first non-essential thing I am going to buy is a Soviet flag. And that spectre of skepticism mocks me fairly regularly for valuing this imagery to this extent. I even feel guilty of hero worship at times when I have a notebook with a picture of Trotsky on it and my laptop having Rosa Luxemburg and Vladimir Lenin on it.

I've realized recently, though, where this affinity for "commie swag" comes from. My entire life, I have had an acute sense of empathy. Suffering anywhere breaks my heart. And being a naturally curious being, I read a lot and try to learn about the world. One of the first things I learned about it is that there is an immense amount of suffering, misery, and terror. And my little empathetic heart can barely stand it. These feelings are accentuated further living in St Louis, where economic disparity is clearly visible from neighborhood to neighborhood. A feverish, desperate search for the source of the inhuman exploitation in sweatshops, and diamond fields, and the military turned up capitalism as the prime mover for this system. And further studies convinced me of Communism as the clear alternative for a system that doesn't provide privilege in exchange for tears.

So, in a society, where I am assaulted day after day, hour after hour, of horrifying, heartbreaking stories of despair, the little sticker on my notebook serves me as a reminder of hope. It's my little nightlight to ward off the American nightmare. And when I feel completely overwhelmed, I can think back to 120 years ago, when Rosa Luxemburg et al were completely overwhelmed. And that was just 25 years before the October Revolution.

So I feel better about my communist paraphernalia. I don't have Trotsky on my notebook because I think he's sexy or because I want to be the glorious leader of the new red army. It's not the aesthetic of the Hammer and Sickle that obsesses me, but it's the hope of a better world which it represents.