Welcome to Swans Commentary http://www.swans.com/ December 13, 2010
*** FUNDRAISING DRIVE: Green is the color of hope and hope means meeting a fundraising goal of $4,000 for 2010. That money, evidently, does not pay for wages, only the operating costs of the endeavor and the opportunity to keep bringing original humanist and radical thoughts to the wider realm. Jan Baughman and Gilles d'Aymery have sacrificed for 15 years to make this "sweetest dream"; a reality. Unfortunately, they never had a wealthy mentor or someone willing to match funds -- a sad happenstance, but a plain reality... Thank you very much to Beverly Holley and Phil Fine for their enduring friendship and their recurring generosity. Still, another $650 are needed. If you want to make a difference and help Jan and Gilles carry on, please Donate Now! http://www.swans.com/about/donate.html - Thank you for your attention and for reading Swans. *** # # # # # Note from the Editors: As December draws to a close it is time for our year-end review -- a tradition that has evolved over 15 years and which will endure so long as our voices are not silenced. The collusion between government and big business to shut down WikiLeaks is the latest example of the hypocrisy of freedom of speech. Jan Baughman's editorial cartoon depicts the 12 months of a less-than- amusing year, beginning with January's "freedom of speech" Supreme Court decision that handed unprecedented political power to corporations. From January to December, the elite triumphed and trampled over the masses. Some day, once we have been bled completely dry, a resistance will surely mount, and as Louis Proyect demonstrates, it is interesting to consider the same kind of intractable contradictions America is facing that brought down the USSR. Proyect asks whether the ruling elites can remain hegemonic when it shows so little capacity for acting in its own long-term interests. Gilles d'Aymery answers that question (as does Francis Shor) in his trip to Absurdistan -- the kingdom of the investors and creditors that have taken hostage the economy and captured the body politic. 2010 was an all-American political disappointment to say the least for both Harvey Whitney, Jr. and Charles Marowitz, from the nonsensical economic strategy to the Republicans' outmaneuvering of President Obama. Jonah Raskin endeavors to impart in his students the survival skills they will need to navigate the growing storm; Raskin recalls his own life underground in the 1970s, an era that today's generation cannot fathom. Gallic protests continued throughout 2010, and Marie Rennard reviews the presidency of Sarkozy, who sees himself as a new de Gaulle while everyone but him knows that those days are gone. Reporting from Italy, Peter Byrne considers the year in dissent, while Fabio De Propris finds the bad year for Roman walls symbolic of the crumbling European economy. Maxwell Clark shares a brief study of capitalist and otherwise temporality from a contrarian perspective, and Guido Monte and his students collected valuable year-end messages in a bottle from Tiziano Terzani. We close with Graham Lea's opposing perspective on peak oil and Gilles d'Aymery's "The Economy Is Not Coming Back -- The Reasons it Shouldn't," and our best wishes for the holidays. We'll be back in two weeks to start off the New Year with our customary Infamous PredictionsTM. # # # # # All the articles and the Letters to the Editor can be freely accessed from Swans front page. Please go to: http://www.swans.com/ You can also access our past issues at: http://www.swans.com/library/past_issues/past_issues.html And you have access to almost 15 years of archives by date, author, and subject at: http://www.swans.com/library/archives.html Remember, what's free to you is not to us! To help our work financially please visit http://www.swans.com/about/donate.html # # # # # Swans (aka Swans Commentary), ISSN: 1554-4915, is a bi-weekly non- commercial ad-free Web-only magazine which provides original content to its readers. We encourage pulp publications to republish Swans Work in print format. Please contact the publisher at <aymery AT ix.netcom.com>. Please, do not repost Swans Work on the Web and other mailing lists: "Hypertext" links to any pages of Swans.com are authorized; however, republication of any part of this site, inlining, mirroring, and framing are expressly prohibited. (You are receiving this E-mail notification for you have expressed your interest in Swans and the work of its team. If you wish not to receive these short notifications, simply reply to this E-mail (delete the content) and enter the word REMOVE in the subject line.) Cordially, Gilles d'Aymery -- Swans "Hungry man, reach for the book: It is a weapon." B. Brecht _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
