Welcome to Swans Commentary http://www.swans.com/ August 15, 2011
$$$ Many thanks to Thalia Pandiri and Steven & Xuan Hohensee for their
generous financial contributions. We've raised $2,160 so far and need to
reach $4,000 by the end of the year. We've just spent close to $800 in
the last month (had to buy a new "off-lease" computer and monitor, and
renew our yearly subscription to our e- mail ISP -- we also need to
replace the fans of Gilles's main workhorse). Your money helps us
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Note from the Editors: A dispiriting yet powerful Op-Ed by Neal Gabler
in today's New York Times (which, remarkably, we received -- read
Chapter 2 of Jan Baughman's ongoing rural delivery saga) describes the
current post-idea world, overrun by facts, outrageousness, and social
media, in which thinking is no longer done. If thinkers still exist,
says Gabler, "...they are not likely to get traction in a culture that
has so little use for ideas, especially big, exciting, dangerous ones,
and that's true whether the ideas come from academics or others who are
not part of elite organizations and who challenge the conventional
wisdom." One should direct Mr. Gabler's attention to Swans Commentary
("The Companion of Thinking People") and the work of its resident
thinkers. Gilles d'Aymery, for one, has given a great deal of thought to
current events and the economy; his latest Blips analyze everything from
the tracking of the stock market and the spending of the happy few; the
secret behind the S&P downgrade that the corporate mainstream media
ignores; to lost-generation insurrections, and much more. Michael Barker
continues his hard-hitting challenges to elite organizations, this time
taking on British media propagandist Jon Snow, who like otherwise
intelligent individuals "can serve as hacks for ruling elites while
professing to do just the opposite." Bashir Sakhawarz thinks back to the
Afghanistan he knew and experienced in 1972, prior to the Soviet Union's
invasion; one doubts whether the elites attempting to manipulate the
future of this war-torn country have any understanding of its history or
culture...
Speaking of culture, Jonah Raskin recalls his first European vacation
and shares his impressions of this summer's holiday, full of joie de
vivre and crisis-free locals. Harvey Whitney, Jr. thinks that the
release of Captain America couldn't be any more antithetical to
liberalism, as Hollywood is not immune to selling movies used to promote
American exceptionalism, whitewashing dubious American domestic or
foreign policy. Likewise, Charles Marowitz looks beyond the one-time
villain in his liberal-leftist world, Elia Kazan, who testified before
the House Un-American Activities Committee. Marowitz concludes that it's
time to honor Kazan's unsurpassed mastery and potent imagination that
fertilized some of America's most treasured playwrights and inspired
many of its greatest performers. Peter Byrne gives thought to the
horrifying prisoner torture and abuse recorded in the diary of a British
Army private at an Iraq prison camp, the topic of the London play
"Tactical Questioning, Scenes from the Baha Mousa Inquiry"; while Raju
Peddada is tortured by dangerous, texting drivers. We close with
Claudine Giovannoni & Guido Monte's multilingual tribute to the
admirable poet Derek Walcott, your letters, and our sincere thanks to
those who continue to support the ideas, thoughts, and opinions we
present in this otherwise post-idea era.
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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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