http://www.swans.com
May 19, 2008
In this issue:
Note from the Editors: "It breaks my heart to see the vast potential of the
Palestinian people really wasted," said President Bush through crocodile
tears on Saturday after a meeting with Mahmoud Abbas. "In fact, I gave up
drinking in 1986 to express my solidarity with them," he thought twice about
adding, all the while pretending that a Palestinian state will be realized
under his fine leadership, whose policy is merely a continuation of what Gore
Vidal calls perpetual war for perpetual peace. Meanwhile, Israel is boasting
her 60 years of achievements while continuing to gobble up the Occupied
Territories with no intention whatsoever to go back to the 1967 Green Line,
and besieging Gaza and starving its population to total destitution and slow
death with the complicit approval of the "International Community" and Mr.
Bush at the helm.
Will America's Middle East policy change with the next president? Jan
Baughman's cartoon sums up the answer with a few simple headlines. Gilles
d'Aymery relates the extraordinary and regenerating experience that he and
Jan had when they recently met the very man who would reverse such policy,
Ralph Nader, along with his running mate, Matt Gonzalez. Photos of the
occasion are included. Like Nader, so too does Martin Murie provide
encouragement for carrying on the good fight for a better world. Meanwhile,
Charles Marowitz tries to gage the inner selves of the other candidates,
while their outer selves attempt to present their credentials.
Our Middle East shenanigans are but one vast example of how humanism and its
enemies have produced a politics of hypocrisy in the guise of nationalism --
Michael Doliner shares an excellent analysis that traces such politics back
to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and the American Civil War. Sincere humanism
blossoms in the tour that artist and writer Carol Warner Christen provides of
her rural country life, her art, and the deeply personal influences on her
surroundings. This poignant essay is not to be missed.
With the 2008 US presidential election finally -- finally -- approaching the
party conventions, we will publish on June 2nd a Special Issue related to the
events surrounding the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, where antiwar
protests and police collided. Peter Byrne sets the stage by introducing Art
Shay, an exceptional photographer whose pictures of those events among others
are nuggets of Chicago and American lore. Byrne reviews Shay's book of photos
on his dear friend, writer Nelson Algren. Isidor Saslav brings us pictures
from another exhibition, illustrating that visual art can imitate music and
vice versa, and Guido Monte combines visual art and the linguistic blending
of verses by Dante and Blake. Finally, we close with our Martian's Blips,
responding to complaints of depressing, un-American prose on Swans, and your
uplifting letters on deteriorating democracy and the ERA, Tibet and the human
condition, and praise mail -- not the anticipated hate mail -- for our
thoughts on Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
As always, please form your OWN opinion, and let your friends (and foes) know
about Swans. It's your voice that makes ours grow.
# # # # #
http://www.swans.com/library/art14/jeb192.html
Changing The Middle East Course - Cartoon by Jan Baughman
http://www.swans.com/library/art14/ga251.html
Meeting Ralph Nader & Matt Gonzalez - Gilles d'Aymery
http://www.swans.com/library/art14/ga251a.html
May 11, 2008: Pictures Of Our Meeting With Ralph Nader & Matt Gonzalez</a>
- Gilles d'Aymery & Jan Baughman
http://www.swans.com/library/art14/cmarow107.html
Judging The Candidates - Charles Marowitz
http://www.swans.com/library/art14/murie51.html
Hearts And Minds - Martin Murie
http://www.swans.com/library/art14/mdolin33.html
Human All Too Human - Michael Doliner
http://www.swans.com/library/art14/carenc36.html
Down To Earth At Home - Carol Warner Christen
http://www.swans.com/library/art14/pbyrne70.html
The False Twins: Art Shay And Nelson Algren - Book Review by Peter Byrne
http://www.swans.com/library/art14/saslav08.html
Pictures At Another Exhibition - Isidor Saslav
http://www.swans.com/library/art14/gmonte44.html
Atman - Poem by Guido Monte
http://www.swans.com/library/art14/desk070.html
Blips #70 - From the Martian Desk - Gilles d'Aymery
http://www.swans.com/library/art6/rickr005.html
Politics Of Fear And Politics Of Hope - Rick Rozoff (Oct. 2000)
http://www.swans.com/library/art14/letter139.html
Letters to the Editor
# # # # #
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Cordially,
Gilles d'Aymery
--
Swans
"Hungry man, reach for the book: It is a weapon." B. Brecht
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