Music

Video

Book

Blog Roll

Blogspot Archives

Partner Site

The Ordinary Oak, the Unseen Flower

One side lies about money; the other side does the same. The only sure thing in this sinister kabuki is that the rich will make out like the bandits they are, and the weakest will go to the wall. You can waste your time trying to parse every little twist and turn of the “policies” of these murderous poltroons, as they set about gutting the carcass of their own country and bombing the hell out of several others; you can pretend their words have meaning, that they aren’t the howls and grunts of brutal degenerates given over, sad wretches, to

Read more»

After Lear: Questions and Enactments

After Lear, walking unfamiliar streets in search of a pub, we found that we had circled back behind the theatre. There was a crowd bunching in a passageway, gathered around a small, white-haired man in a trim blue blazer; he was smiling politely, responding affably, signing programs proffered mostly by aged hands. Not twenty minutes before, we had seen him die on the stage beside his hanged daughter, in the great existential boomerang of their earlier, rapturous reunion.”No cause, no cause,” she had said then, as her hands sought his ravaged face – the shattering scene, the heart of the

Read more»

Drifting Too Far From Shore: The Unresisted Rise of the Elite

In the LRB, David Runciman provides some telling insights in a review of recent books about the “off-shoring” of the world economy into tax havens, where the hyper-elite hide their money from the taxes and regulations that ordinary citizens are subject to. The review also deals with the political machinations involved in this corrosive process, which lies behind much of our dysfunctions and discontents. You should read the whole article, which provides rich historical context, but are some excerpts, in medias res: When officials from Delaware toured the globe in the late 1980s advertising their services (and hoping, among other

Read more»

Success Stories: The Imperium Strikes Back

Wise man William Pfaff speaks the truth like rolling thunder here: The struggle is under way to re-establish American control over the successors to those despots whom popular uprisings have ousted from Tunisia and Egypt, threatening the careers of still other abusive absolute monarchs and presidents-for-life (and their offspring). The report that Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh is to be thrown to the crocodile crowds by the American government, allowing for bids by the CIA for a successor, was “leaked” (meaning not announced at a press conference) to The New York Times. His fault, in American officials’ eyes, is not

Read more»

Ageless Emblem

The tombstone of Flavinus,from the Ala Petriana,stationed in Britain,shows him horsed, rearingabove a naked captive.This is the pose he desiredto carry his nameinto eternity: brandishingthe standard, proud, honored. The captive is lion-faced,wild and bearded,on all fours,clinging to a post,tensed for the blow.He could have come from Blake,some lost engraving,the carved lines chargedwith living frenzy, history’s flesh.    

Read more»

Eternal Punishment: Obama Leads Third Century of Imperial Revenge on Haiti

The blood and thunder (or is it thud and blunder?) of the American-led intervention in Libya has obscured one of the more revealing episodes of our times — especially for those many millions who still cling to the idea that Barack Obama is somehow an improvement, however slight, over the ruthless, lawless, corroded souls who preceded him in the post of imperial manager. We speak of course of the American rigging of the election in battered, helpless Haiti — a brazen effort to disenfranchise the majority of the population and ensure the election of a vicious — but acquiescent —

Read more»

An Urgent Call: Act Now to Save a Valuable Voice

Arthur Silber, one of the most incisive and eloquent analysts writing today, is, in his own words, “sick, broke and scared.” Silber is wracked by chronic and worsening health problems, which he is having to endure in dire poverty. Voluntary contributions to his website are his only source of income; but of course, when he is sick, as he often is, he can’t post new material, and therefore donations drop off. He is in a particularly bad spiral at the moment, with mounting medical bills and an all-too-real prospect of homelessness. This is what often happens to fearless truth-tellers in

Read more»

A Hundred Years of Rain: Air War Comes Full Circle in Libya

Ian Patterson notes that the air war unleashed on Libya by the Western powers last week coincides very neatly with the 100th anniversary of the first military air strike — which was launched by a Western power against … Libya. From The London Review of Books: The world’s first aerial bombing mission took place 100 years ago, over Libya. It was an attack on Turkish positions in Tripoli. On 1 November 1911, Lieutenant Cavotti of the Italian Air Fleet dropped four two-kilogramme bombs, by hand, over the side of his aeroplane. In the days that followed, several more attacks took

Read more»

Ancient Poison Bears New Fruit: Western Frenzy Grows in Libya

The American war against Libya grew in intensity on Sunday, raining death in all directions — including on civilian vehicles and Libyan forces in full retreat. Behind the full-scale barrage launched by the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, the armed opposition led by recent henchmen of Moamar Gadafy pressed forward in a military offensive. Libyan soldiers were gunned down as they fled — a reprise of the “turkey shoot” American forces conducted on retreating Iraqis back in the first glorious Gulf War. (But weren’t they supposed to retreat? Wasn’t that the purpose of the UN directive? Oh, it’s so confusing!) Here’s

Read more»

First Blood: American Missiles Rain Down on Libya

When the UN intervention into Libya was first announced, we immediately heard how the United States would not be in the forefront of the military action; the lead would be taken by other nations, with US acting largely as a supplier and facilitator for the “broad-based coalition” arrayed against Libya (including some real live Ay-rabs! as the interventionists enthusiastically noted.) But it took less than two days to give the lie to this claim. On Saturday, just after the French — who have extensive oil interest in Libya — jumped the gun on the UN coalition and started attacking Libyan

Read more»