[Marxism] Swans 11/29/2004

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.swans.com/
November 29, 2004 -- In this issue:

Note from the Editor:  The US squeaked through the 2004 elections,
Ukraine tried and failed with some help from the NED, and next in
line is Iraq, gearing up to exercise the gift of the "greatest democracy
on earth." It will happen in January, even if we have to kill every last
freedom-loving Iraqi and level a few more cities to make it so. One of
these days, in some utopian and distant future, the entire world will
become a big, peaceful Democracy, with no one left alive but weeds
to go to the polls...

The hidden costs of war are revealed by Charles Marowitz in the
psychic legacy that leaves no visible scars and earns its victim no
purple heart, but burns its mark on society...and it's gonna have to get
worse before hordes of disillusioned rise up through the weeds to
break this orgiastic folly, says Manuel García. Jan Baughman appeals
to the pool of marketing talent out there -- can someone, anyone,
please enlist your ad agency to represent humanity? There must be
hope of ending this cycle of violence and oppression in our lifetimes...
Gerard Donnelly Smith envisions a speech by a truly compassionate
president declaring National Gay and Lesbian Independence Week!
Gerard's words should be compared to those of Lockheed Martin's
chief executive, Robert J. Stevens ("Lockheed and the Future of
Warfare," by Tim Weiner, The New York Times, November 28,
2004) -- "Today, Lockheed is building weapons so smart that they
can change the world by virtue of their precision. . . . . With
technology we've been able to make ourselves more secure and more
humane. . . . . I don't say this lightly, our industry has contributed 
to a change in humankind."

One giant step for Lockheed, the military-industrial complex and the
killing fields of our newly revised "Utopia;" one catapult backwards
for humankind... Read, in that context, Milo Clark's analysis of
Pentagon strategist Tom Barnett's new "us vs. them" paradigm, where
"globalization personalized is Wal*Mart and Wal*Mart is America."
(Remember, it used to be GM that personified America -- cf. "Engine
Charlie Wilson," in 1953.) Amusingly, Wal*Mart has broken with its
world-wide policy of banning unions -- in PR China, that is... GM,
Wal*Mart, Lockheed..."it's all the same fucking shit, man!" (Janis
Joplin)

In fact, let's just heed Phil Rockstroh's antidote -- turn on some jazz
and get drunk on Coltrane instead of militarism, mass media escapism,
and consumerism. Not only can the arts warm the heart and soothe
the soul; perhaps they can even bridge, in some small way, great
divides such as those between Israelis and Palestinians. Phil
Greenspan reports on a Palestinian art exhibit that created a furor in
Westchester County, New York, was allowed to go on thanks to the
efforts of many activists, and occasioned much-needed dialogue.
Fiction depicts conflict in chapter one of Joe Davison's yet
unpublished novel, Gerry's War, about a paramilitary prisoner
released under the terms of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement; and
poetry is represented in a Smith poem to the "disappeared" victims of
war, and a Scott Orlovsky prose on the history of the Christian far
right and its atrocities, from Constantine to George W. Bush.

The Martian blips examine our dead-checking, psycho-ethnocentric
soon-to-be-completely-illiterate culture that looks to the Virgin Mary
on a grilled cheese sandwich for inspiration...among other tidbits.
Finally, John Steppling reviews the previous edition and, as usual,
we've a few letters from friends and foes alike. Of course, you did
subscribe to Bruce Anderson's new Weekly, didn't you?

As always, please form your OWN opinion, and let your friends (and
foes) know about Swans.

                                        *****

Here are the links to all the pieces:

http://www.swans.com/library/art10/cmarow02.html
The Hidden Costs Of War
- by Charles Marowitz

http://www.swans.com/library/art10/mgarci26.html
Newtonian America
- by Manuel García, Jr.

http://www.swans.com/library/art10/jeb138.html
Marketing Humanity
- by Jan Baughman

http://www.swans.com/library/art10/gsmith34.html
Remarks Of The President Of The United States On Gay And
Lesbian Policy
- Adapted by Gerard Donnelly Smith

http://www.swans.com/library/art10/mgc143.html
Functioning Core And Non-integrating Gap
- by Milo Clark

http://www.swans.com/library/art10/procks39.html
Dying Empire Bebop: The Sedition Of Ecstatic Novelty
- by Phil Rockstroh

http://www.swans.com/library/art10/pgreen54.html
Blowback For The Bigots
- by Philip Greenspan

http://www.swans.com/library/art10/joedav03.html
Gerry's War
- Story by Joe Davison

http://www.swans.com/library/art10/gsmith33.html
Birds in the Bush
- Poem by Gerard Donnelly Smith

http://www.swans.com/library/art10/sorlov22.html
Liberal Evangelical
- Poem by Scott Orlovsky

http://www.swans.com/library/art10/desk007.html
Blips #7
- by Gilles d'Aymery

http://www.swans.com/library/art10/letter55.html
- Letters to the Editor

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Gilles d'Aymery

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Swans

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