Welcome to Swans Commentary http://www.swans.com/ April 19, 2010
Note from the Editors: Since our last publication, the Vatican has
managed to bury its anti-Semitism kafuffle by digging itself into an
ever-deepening hole with its assertion that celibacy is not to blame
for pedophilia, but rather homosexuality. Now that it has unwittingly
made suspect the sexual orientation of its priests, thereby
acknowledging that you can't pray away the gay, how will the church
justify its homophobic stance? We'll wait with bated breath for the next
sacred spin. Meanwhile, on to more credible matters: Michael Barker's
investigation into an ostensibly progressive magazine that works in
the service of imperialism may take the breath out of unsuspecting
progressives, yet it is essential that we understand these links if we
wish to influence meaningful change. Charles Marowitz, for one, would
like to see a return to honesty and fair play in politics, unlike what
was revealed about the combatants in the battle over health care
reform. Charles Pearson asks for a bit of outrage over price hikes,
British politicians' greedy lobbying practices, and the scandal of
privatization of the National Health Service, and from Harvey Whitney
Jr.'s perspective a little knowledge would go a long way toward holding
our leaders -- and the voters who elect them -- accountable for their
decisions. Case in point: Ghana. Femi Akomolafe recently traveled to
Paris to celebrate the fifty-third anniversary of her independence,
concluding that Africans remain their own worst enemies...
On Swans we strive to hold journalists and activists, along with voters
and politicians, accountable, so Michael Doliner, who studied with
Hannah Arendt, addresses Reuven Kaminer's distortion of Arendt's ideas
on totalitarianism, while Louis Proyect takes Jared Diamond to task
over his 2005 book, "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or
Succeed." For his part, Paul Buhle continues to support radical art and
recommends the new "World War 3 Illustrated #40" for the freshness of
topics and treatment by old hands in the enterprise of radical politics
and artist-activists.
On the cultural front, Peter Byrne directs a short play in which the
husband who just wanted silence gets his comeuppance. Le coin français
features Jean-Claude Seine on "Justice sociale" and Jean Ferrat's ass
(of the hooved sort), Simone Alié-Daram's analysis of the precautionary
principle, Marie Rennard's look at the history of relics, and the
poetry of Christian Cottard, who finds love a bit complicated. We close
with the linguistic blending of Guido Monte and Novella Nicchitta, and
your letters with an appeal to Jan Baughman to keep shouting,
plagiarized praise for Gilles d'Aymery's "The Scourge Of Plagiarism And
Scrubbing," two Shays converged in this polyglot, under-financed,
small piece of art that keeps fighting for justice; and more.
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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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