http://www.swans.com
April 7, 2008
In this issue:
Note from the Editors: The housing and credit bubbles notwithstanding, when
the military-industrial complex bubble finally bursts, what effects will it
have on this soon-to-be former superpower and the rest of the globe? Michael
Doliner postulates in a fascinating and compelling essay that America's
economic decline will have dire consequences on its beacon of Middle East
democracy, Israel, who would become a hollowed-out shell of a nation in the
midst of the destabilized region, rendering any likelihood of a two-state
solution with the Palestinians, or any-state solution for that matter, off
the table. Meantime, propaganda continues to extol the virtues of exporting
American-style democracy around the globe, where We the Elite and We the
Corporations rule supreme. One can watch firsthand our very democracy at work
as the presidential candidates try to manipulate their party's rules to win
the ultimate prize: Power. Carol Warner Christen has some potent thoughts on
power, the eroded Constitution, the Corporate Fourth Estate, and the results
for We the People. If after reading her fine essay you still believe America
is a democracy, then read Gilles d'Aymery's detailed description of the state
our mythical Founding Fathers intended all along, a Constitutional Republic
controlled by the moneyed class; a look at the American Dream of the gilded
few; Obama's "new kind of politics"; and more. It will take far more than the
departure of George W. Bush for systemic change to emerge; Martin Murie
brushes us up on our country's murderous history -- and present.
But on to more cultural matters, resident playwright Charles Marowitz treats
us to an oddity that has fascinated his psyche for many years, Heiner
Müller's "Hamlet Machine," and the ever-cultured Peter Byrne takes us on a
musical journey with a review of "John Hammond and the Soul of American
Music." Jan Baughman walks us through her development of dentist phobia, and
as one should expect from the psychiatrist's couch, all roads lead to
mother... Finally, we close with the multilingual poetry of Guido Monte and
Francesca Saieva with a Giuseppe Zimmardi collage, "To Philip Greenspan,"
that would no doubt have made the good man smile; the multi-faceted poetry of
Marie Rennard; and your letters, on the arrogance of Dick Cheney and the
short supply of intellectual empathy; quoting Calvin Coolidge and dodging
foreclosure; and Parisians swooning over Obama and democracy.
# # # # #
http://www.swans.com/library/art14/mdolin32.html
The No-State Solution - Michael Doliner
http://www.swans.com/library/art14/carenc33.html
Power, Profits, Propaganda Unbound - Carol Warner Christen
http://www.swans.com/library/art14/desk068.html
Blips #68 - From the Martian Desk - Gilles d'Aymery
http://www.swans.com/library/art14/murie48.html
Murder - Martin Murie
http://www.swans.com/library/art14/cmarow103.html
Heiner Müller's "Hamlet Machine" - Theater Review by Charles Marowitz
http://www.swans.com/library/art14/pbyrne67.html
The Jazz Man From Vanderbilt Heaven - Book Review by Peter Byrne
http://www.swans.com/library/art14/jeb190.html
My Mother, My Teeth - Jan Baughman
http://www.swans.com/library/art14/gmonte41.html
Dialogue - Poem by Guido Monte & Francesca Saieva
http://www.swans.com/library/art14/marier17.html
Omnium-Gatherum - Poem by Marie Rennard
http://www.swans.com/library/art14/letter137.html
Letters to the Editor
# # # # #
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Gilles d'Aymery
--
Swans
"Hungry man, reach for the book: It is a weapon." B. Brecht
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