Many thanks to Michael DeLang & Phyllis Feigenbaum, and Frances Greenspan for their very generous donations.
"Our products and services contribute to a better quality of life. They provide the freedom to move, to heat and to see." So reads the company description on BP's Web site, while one of their products spews from the ocean floor and drifts dangerously toward the US Gulf Coast in what could prove to be a veritable ecologic and economic disaster in a region whose quality of life is already suffering. One man who's no doubt glad to see the spotlight turn from his company to BP is Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, who along with several colleagues was pilloried by the US Senate last week in a made-for-television show trial. In case you missed it, Gilles d'Aymery watched all 10 hours and sums up the winners and losers of the hypocrisy-laden spectacle, complete with John Ensign's moral outrage! It's no surprise, then, that Michael Doliner is so piqued as he considers Blanche Lincoln's proposed derivative legislation that is designed to fail -- a charade given relevance by one of CounterPunch's Cockburns. Equally inept was Julia Whitty's recent Mother Jones article that repackaged imperial myths on population; Michael Barker sets the record straight since that "progressive" publication cannot dare criticize imperialism. Is there an alternative to this destructive system? Our Editor-in-Chief thinks so, but it's definitely not the Tea Party...
Shifting to Africa, Michael Barker examines capitalist "humanitarians" and Human Rights Watch's neoliberal advisors, while our brother in Ghana, Femi Akomolafe, explains why every day is April Fools' Day in Nigeria. Two brothers in the brotherhood of the word were Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, whose correspondence helped to forge the Beat Generation -- Jonah Raskin reviews a new collection of their letters. And turning insanity into humor as only he can, Art Shay invokes Waiting for Godot while trapped in the computerized customer service maze of PayPal, something we hope you'll never experience when trying to submit a donation to Swans...
Our Arts & Culture corner is oozing with the likes of Peter Byrne on the play Chronicles of Long Kesh and Charles Marowitz on silent-screen actor John Gilbert. Francesca Saieva describes the "fragments of intertextuality" of Eliot's The Waste Land, and Maxwell Clark pokes fun at Swans in a creative and amusing poem. We close with your letters on progressive publications and Michael Barker's critique of Mother Jones, Art Shay's admonition of the abuse that starts with the priest and leads to the pope, with a unique solution, and more.
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Gilles d'Aymery: Blips #99
A few selected issues that landed on the Editor's desk, from the pantomime or Commedia dell'arte at the Senate hearings on Goldman Sachs; which of the accused scapegoats earned AAA ratings for their performances; the hypocritical executioner's who created the system in which GS played; to "ethical capitalism" and the reality being hidden behind this tongue-lashing fake show, and more. More...
Michael Doliner: I'm Just So Piqued
A gathering of stupidities: Andrew Cockburn's CounterPunch article on Blanche Lincoln's proposed derivative legislation that is designed to fail and thus illustrates nation-state politics in which politicians profess "human values" and bemoan their inability to achieve them. More...
Michael Barker: The Mother Jones Conspiracy?
Critique of Julia Whitty's article "The Last Taboo," which appears in the May/June 2010 issue of Mother Jones. More...
Gilles d'Aymery: There ARE Alternatives
Whatever the dominant discourse, there are real alternatives to the capitalist neoliberal socioeconomic system with concrete solutions and set of policies. More...
Michael Barker: Human Rights Watch Brings Neoliberalism To Africa
A careful examination of Human Rights Watch's neoliberal advisors. More...
Femi Akomolafe: For Nigerians Life Is April Fools' Day
Every day is April Fools' Day in Nigeria, from the president's whereabouts to financial corruption; education and terrorism; drug smuggling, and more. More...
Jonah Raskin: Kerouac And Ginsberg
An essay about the Kerouac-Ginsberg correspondence that helped to forge the Beat Generation. More...
Art Shay: Waiting For PayPal
Photojournalist Art Shay invokes Waiting for Godot while trapped in the computerized customer service maze of PayPal, as he simply tries to correct his mailing address in an order for a new camera battery. More...
Peter Byrne: Long Kesh And Environs
Playwright Martin Lynch's production of Chronicles of Long Kesh, a play about a jail that was created specifically for political prisoners, leaves out politics altogether and trivializes thirty recent years of pain and death in the real Irish tragic-comedy. More...
Charles Marowitz: John Gilbert: Last Of The Red Hot Lovers
The evidence of 1920s silent-screen actor John Gilbert's complexity is enshrined in the half-dozen or so films he has bequeathed to us. More...
Francesca Saieva: Fragments of Intertextuality: Cosmopolitan Multilingualism of The Waste Land
Francesca Saieva describes the "fragments of intertextuality" of Eliot's The Waste Land on a universal way, which prefigures Guido Monte's form of Cosmopolitan multilingualism. More...
Maxwell Clark: U-utter SUBMISSION T-to SWANS (D-digislavographism)
a poetic submission before the private owners of Swans' means of communication. More...
On progressive publications and Michael Barker's critique of Mother Jones; Art Shay's admonition of the abuse that starts with the priest and leads to the pope, with a unique solution; and thoughts on Michael Nagler's Is There No Other Way?, reviewed by the late Mac Lawrence. More...
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