[Pen-l] The Deserted Village

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Where then, ah! where, shall poverty reside,
To ’scape the pressure of contiguous pride?
If to some common’s fenceless limits strayed,
He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade,
Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide,
And even the bare-worn common is denied.
If to the city sped -what waits him there?
To see profusion that he must not share;
To see ten thousand baneful arts combined
To pamper luxury, and thin mankind;
To see those joys the sons of pleasure know
Extorted from his fellow creature’s woe.

From Oliver Goldsmith’s “The Deserted Village“

This year’s African Disapora Film Festival featured two films that were 
related thematically. Both “A Night in Morocco: Where are you going 
Moshe?” and “Waalo Fendo: Where the Earth Freezes” take as their subject 
matter the abandonment of rural villages under duress. If Oliver 
Goldsmith’s 18th century British village was being emptied by the forces 
of capitalism in its infancy, these two movies describe a similar 
process being driven by the same system now in its senility.

full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/12/12/the-deserted-village/
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