Joe Strummer…was an artist profoundly shaped by his time and place. In a 1970s Britain wracked by racism and unemployment, Strummer chose to put himself squarely in opposition. The newspapers called the Clash “degenerates,” “hoodlums,” “anarchists.” To young people, they were “the only band that matters,” and it wasn’t because they sold a million records or made the most money. They mattered because they were the first band in a great long while that tapped into how the majority of youth actually felt. Continue reading Joe Strummer and the Clash
Month: December 2007
We Can’t Make It Here Anymore – by James McMurtry
Charles Dickens and the Judgments of Bleak House
Julia Stein on Dickens’ Bleak House:
What’s great about Dickens’ he makes judgments: against lawyers corruption, against the corrupt Court of Chancery, against the brutalization of the poor and the homeless. Well, right now the United States is also a Bleak House dominated by corruption: the corruption of the Iraq War totals billions. What is missing in a lot contemporary fiction is Dickens’ moral judgments.
I read Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, a novel which won a recent Pulitzer Prize for fiction, but the well-written novel has a father and son trying to survive in post-apocalypse America. In many ways I thought the Road was metaphorically saying this country is now so bad off all a decent person can do is suffer it–I find that a huge cop out. Give me Dickens any day of the week instead.
Or Lib Lit.
What is a Progressive Political Film?
Called progressive but actually a far more liberal array of films overviewed in the Progressive Picture Prizes by Ed Rampell, author of “Progressive Hollywood, A People’s Film History of the United States” (2005).
The Kite Runner – Reviewed by Laura Flanders
“Some will say it’s unfair to hold the movie of a novel to task for repeating the propaganda version of U.S. history, but the myth of the United States as macho rescuer is not only misleading, it’s deadly — for people in Afghanistan and around the world. Shed all the tears you like as you’re watching, but don’t leave the remorse in the cinema. Try as it might, Hollywood can’t purge our guilt, or dissuade us of the need to act.”
“reality-based community” – Suskind – Rove – Bush – Corporate Media
Scheherazade in the White House
Christian Salmon
George Bush’s war administration used a magician, Hollywood designers, and Karl Rove – presenting 1,001 stories to sell the invasion of Iraq. And Rove kept the distracting images of John Wayne-like morality tales spinning to help the American public avoid seeing the disaster in Iraq, says Christian Salmon.
Continue reading “reality-based community” – Suskind – Rove – Bush – Corporate Media
All Along the Watchtower – Bob Dylan
Masters of War – Bob Dylan
New Lib Lit story by Adetokunbo Abiola
Lizy – The courage and the struggle to vote in Nigeria.
Political Distortion in Charlie Wilson’s War
“We just can’t deal with this 9/11 thing. Does it have to be so political?” from an anonymous source at Playtone Productions
Life Among the Mentally Cleansed
They suspected everyone but themselves. They were the good people, respected by the respectable. They were the responsible class. They were the unwitting and witting minions of the monied class, the status quo. Some doubted themselves, but they believed their actions to be good, and good enough. If they believed anything else they could in no way facilitate the great crimes as very much as they did, these people.
More often than not they were people with more money than others. Some were the many faceless intellectuals who had been well trained and quite thoroughly mentally cleansed. Some were the acolytes of frenzied demagogues like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity busy duping and poking out the eyes of part of the populace. These people were often cheery, or dutiful, while others went numb or played dumb or otherwise could not care less.
Review of ‘Charlie Wilson’s War’ by Lisa Pease
From Consortium:
“Charlie Wilson’s War” has been billed as a political satire or comedy. While the film ripples throughout with truly hilarious moments, it is based on the true and very serious story of the largest covert operation in history.”
Activist Novels Staged in Iran
Gharibpur to stage “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” at Fajr festival
“The dramatization of world-renowned novels increases the number of theatergoers and attracts people from a variety of social classes to come and enjoy the performances. Some academics maintain the idea that the theater is only for the elite, however I personally believe this to be a destructive notion,” Gharibpur told the Persian service of Mehr News Agency, MNA reported Saturday.
Activist Art – Hustlenomics
“Hustlenomics Collective provides annual events for artists in the areas of photography, visual art, design, and print media . The collective represents talented up and coming Artists from the Bay Area, California to all boroughs of New York City. Each year the collective organizes an exhibtion for the artists to showcase their Art works in an environment that honors honestly, culture, and struggle. The Hustlenomics event annually pulls between 500-600 people of all ages and has been successful in providing Artists who normally don’t have that outlet, a space to shine and feel empowered.”
Euripides’ Antiwar Women of Troy
The play itself is a wonderful opportunity. There was a rash of Greek tragedies on the West End stage to greet the Iraq war, and this is, as it were, intended to remind us that the war isn’t over.
Persepolis and The Kite Runner
Doris Lessing’s Nobel Lecture
“On not winning the Nobel Prize“:
I think it is that girl and the women who were talking about books and an education when they had not eaten for three days, that may yet define us.
Bob Dylan and Joan Baez
Eagleton, Amis, and the Literary
The Amis-Eagleton controversy
The British literary elite and the “war on terror”
By Ann Talbot
In giving Eagleton a kicking, the British literary elite are sending a message to younger and less well-established academics, to aspiring writers and to students that Marxism is not acceptable and that they had better adopt the same degenerate stance as Amis if they expect to be published, get promoted or be awarded any grade above a gamma minus.
A Practical Policy 