May 24, 2004
May 24, 2004
Trade liberty for safety or money and you'll end up with neither. Liberty, like a grain of salt, easily dissolves.
The power of questioning -- not simply believing -- has no friends. Yet liberty depends on it.
Note from the Editor:
Before you begin accusing the French of once more sticking it to America for awarding the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival to Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" documentary, be aware that only one out of nine jurors was French. Four were American and one was British...prompting Moore to facetiously quip, "more than half came from the coalition of the willing." Anyway, of late, Americans need not the French to stick it to them. They're doing a good job on their own. To understand why a documentary won the top prize, a rarity at Cannes, suffices to read Frank Rich's superb review, "Michael Moore's Candid Camera," in the May 23 edition of The New York Times. Says Rich, "Subtleties and fine distinctions are not [Moore's] thing. That matters little, it turns out, when you have a story this ugly and this powerful to tell." Ugliness, as this new issue of Swans shows, is very much a part of the American landscape.
Whether the whole Muslim and Judeo-Christian fundamentalist caboodle is doing us in, with their respective apocalyptic policies having Armageddon and Rapture written all over them, is a matter of conjecture; but, posits Milo Clark, Wahabism, an extreme and powerful Islamist sect financed by Saudi petrodollars, may well be the most ruthless of all. That the Bushies have aligned their own interests and those of the USA with these fanatics should be exposed with the greatest urgency, suggests Clark in his well-researched historical analysis.
Civilization, a word coined by French physiocratic economist Mirabeau in 1756 (in his treatise, L'Ami des hommes), gives Phil Rockstroh serious pause. How can it be, he muses, with a gut-wrenching picture by Graphic Designer Angela Tyler-Rockstroh, that we in the U.S. have reached this ultimate stage in our development, the Wal-Martization of torture? Is this US destiny, "the true nature and heart of America," to use Mr. Bush's words? Michael Doliner, for his part, concludes that "we now claim we are fighting to make "them" into "us" . . . . [But,] to treat [Iraqis] as insects is to declare that we ourselves are insects."
And how can it be that the fossilized left and safe-states strategists spend so much energy demonizing and attacking Ralph Nader? Is this phenomenon also an inherent part of American "true nature"? Louis Proyect submits a clear analysis of the syndrome. Would energy not be better expended bringing potential voters to cast their lot with the ABB candidate? Have these "revolutionaries" anything to offer, plain and simple, besides trashing Nader? Instead of shooting at the messenger, could they come up with a positive rationale to vote for "their" candidate and cease emulating Mr. Bush's "us vs. them" axiomatic moronity? Is this too much to ask?
The news cycle is such that one cannot keep up with it. Just reviewing a few events and people who made the news in the past weeks requires a healthy dose of humor, if only to hide an increasing sense of revulsion at the "true nature" of this utterly debased culture. Gulags, psychoses, paranoid conspiracies, home-grown terror are some of the issues Manuel García and Richard Macintosh (welcome back, Richard!) address in their respective pieces. Philip Greenspan, once again, brings his observations to the fore in regard to the morale in the military and the causes for mutiny. We leave you with Joel Wendland's review of Rahul Mahajan's Full Spectrum Dominance, and a poem by Gerard Donnelly Smith that sums up how this orgy of violence might be viewed in history.
As always, please form your OWN opinion, and let your friends (and foes) know about Swans.
ContentsLibrary
Resources
About Swans
"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your common sense."
Quotations Search:
RESISTANCE: In The Eye Of The American Hegemon
|
Patterns Which Connect
Wahabi And Saudi Arabia, Islam And America
Finally, long connected patterns are being noticed.
Milo Clark is a writer and researcher focused on strategic issues. America: Myths and Realities
Can We Torture Them For You Retail?
When Saddam was forced to close shop due to the fierce competitive
practices of Bush Inc. -- the world witnessed the Wal-Martization of
torture.
Phil Rockstroh is a poet and a musician who lives in Manhattan.
The Terrible Shrug
Much has been said about the torture pictures and reports, but I think one point has been missed. When I look at the picture of Lynndie England pointing at the genitals of a prisoner, or Charles Graner smiling behind the naked pyramid of Iraqis, or the picture of a prisoner cowering before jailers, I am doubly horrified by the expressions upon the faces of the torturers. The pictures look like snapshots from a vacation. The torturers are vamping like children in front of a camera, and this makes what they are doing all the more humiliating to the victims. They seem to have no sense that to abuse and humiliate is something dark and unholy. More... Michael Doliner has taught at Valparaiso University and Ithaca College. He lives with his family in Ithaca, N.Y. Countdown to 2004
Behind The Anti-Nader Attacks
No matter how much the liberal and social democratic disillusionment
with Senator John Kerry deepens, there is still no sign that the Anyone But Bush (ABB)
crowd is ready to break ranks with their candidate. Whatever fervor is
missing from their endorsement of Kerry, it is more than made up for by
a well-orchestrated attack on Ralph Nader -- the only clear alternative to
Bush and Kerry in 2004 -- that is now reaching a fever pitch.
Louis Proyect is a computer programmer at Columbia University and the moderator of marxmail.org More Patterns Which Connect
Recent News, Personalities And Definitions
News, like a kaleidoscope, reflects a series of constantly changing patterns that both fascinate and confuse the onlooker. After a while, it all becomes dysfunctional. Attention slowly oozes away and the information disappears like a dream. So here are a few people and events that made the news in the past few weeks, with short contextual descriptions.
Gilles d'Aymery is Swans' publisher and co-editor.
American Gulag, And A Dogfight Of Psychoses
Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram, Kunduz/Sheberghan, Mazar-i-Sharif and the Naval Consolidated Brig at Charleston, SC: it is now an acknowledged fact that America has a Gulag Archipelago. Like all empires and coercive ideologies of the past, American Capitalism (ersatz "democracy," "freedom," "free markets," "globalization") has a hidden prison system for the absorption, detention, interrogation, and disappearance of enemies. The true horror here is the depth and age of the ignorance of the workings of its empire by the American public. More... Manuel García is a physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Walking Wounded
Back in the early nineties, my wife and I briefly operated a Western-style bar and grill -- the Loading Chute Saloon -- located in a small town in California. The Loading Chute attracted all sorts of characters, some real, some faux and aside from a few dangerous moments, was a lot of fun. One of the legitimate characters who frequented the Loading Chute was a youngish rancher who had the innate ability to antagonize almost anyone he ran across. For the sake of anonymity, I'll just call him "Billy." More... Richard Macintosh is a former Public High School Teacher and a part-time consultant on Personnel/Team matters.
A Cancer In The Military
The agony that afflicted the military by their failure to defeat the
Vietnamese has never really been alleviated. Several excuses have been
advanced -- all shifting the blame.
Philip Greenspan is a retired attorney, a World War II veteran and a political activist. Hungry Man, Reach For The Book
Rahul Mahajan's Full Spectrum Dominance
Few writers have delivered clarity of analysis and the scope of information on the Iraq war as does Rahul Mahajan in Full Spectrum Dominance. Impeccably researched and insightfully argued, Mahajan's short book slices through the layers of lies, misleadership, hidden agendas, and criminal acts perpetrated by the Bush administration in its drive for war in Iraq. More... Joel Wendland is managing editor of Political Affairs, a monthly magazine of ideology, politics, and culture, and a member of UAW Local 1981 (national writers union). Poetry
Twisted Ascension
From his wheelchair he arose a martyr; Gerard Donnelly Smith teaches creative writing, literature and composition at Clark College in Vancouver, WA. Letters to the Editor
John Steppling reviews Swans' past edition (a new feature); and other friendly and not-so-friendly readers have their say regarding Swans, and the perspectives expressed by John Blunt, Jan Baughman, Gilles d'Aymery, and, as in the famed Americana, more. We had our share of hate-mail. Sorry, didn't make the cut! We appreciate your comments. Please, remember to sign your e-mails with your real name and add your city, state, country, address and phone number. If we publish your opinion we will only include your name, city, state, and country. Thank you. More... Announcements
– Say NO to Amazon.com and the corporate bookchains! Support your local independent bookstores! Books can be ordered through Booksense. Simply enter your Zip code and click on "Go" to find all local independent bookstores near you: – Highly recommended book: Alexander Cockburn & Jeffrey St. Clair (editors), The Politics of Anti-Semitism, CounterPunch and AK Press, 2003; ISBN: 1-90259-377-7. 178 pages, $12.95. You can read our review of The Politics of Anti-Semitism. – A book for your library: Jeffrey St. Clair, Been Brown So Long it Looked Like Green to Me: The Politics of Nature, Common Courage Press, 2004; ISBN: 1-56751-258-5. You can read Louis Proyect's review of The Politics of Nature. – A book to accompany Swans' Special Issue on Iraq: IRAQ UNDER SIEGE: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War, edited by Anthony Arnove, South End Press, Cambridge, MA, 2002, ISBN: 0-89608-698-4 (cloth), 0-89608-697-6 (paper). See, http://www.southendpress.org/books/iraq.shtml – A must-read book: Johnstone, Diana; Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, Nato, and Western Delusions, Monthly Review Press, 2003, ISBN: 1-58367-084-X. An excerpt of the book, the introduction, is published on Swans as well as three reviews whose links are appended at the end of the excerpt. – If you wish to receive an e-mail regarding each new rendition (twice a month) with the Note from the Editor and the URL to each article, please send an e-mail with "Subscribe Swans" in the subject line. Please also include your first/last name in the body of the message. – Remember, every time you reload the front page, one of 82 different quotes appears randomly in the left margin (below the link to the French translation). Latest indexing on Swans
- US Elections & Democracy The classification of all the work published on Swans is an ongoing project. We are adding subjects slowly but surely. We could use some help on this classification. If someone wants to volunteer his or her time, please contact us. Thank you. |
About Swans | Archives | Copyright | Resources | Contact
This site strongly supports Free Speech.
It can be viewed with Any Browser.
And its content is labeled by ICRA, the Internet Content Rating Association.
© 2004 Swans. All rights reserved.
