[Marxism] Swans Release: May 4, 2009

Sun May 3 17:41:18 MDT 2009

Swans Commentary http://www.swans.com/ May 4, 2009

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Note from the Editors:  Americans have apparently become bored with 
waterboarding, as the release of the Bush administration's torture memos 
left  its perpetrators at large (though sticking close to home), facing 
neither  public outrage nor presidential will to prosecute. There are 
bigger fish to  fry, or pigs to slaughter, with the fear of swine flu 
immobilizing our  already frozen-in-fear selves as we hold our 
collective breath until the  economy recovers. Time to look forward, we 
are told, as the stock-market  stats scroll endlessly under the 
flu-outbreak maps on the 24 hours of  television news. There's no place 
for investigative reporting in this ever- changing environment, in which 
All the News That's Fit to Print is obsolete  by the time it is printed. 
Charles Marowitz brings two related viewpoints on  that matter -- one on 
the abandonment of professional journalism for the  amorphous 
alternative of anything-goes twitterings from fatuous scribes whose 
concept of the world is defined by FaceBook and YouTube, and another on 
the  depths of indulgent triviality that our culture has sunk to in this 
new era  of Internet free-for-all. Bad news sells, as Gilles d'Aymery 
avers in his  Martian Blips that cover all of the above and more 
analyses, economic and  otherwise, that you won't read in what remains 
of the mainstream media. All  of which leaves us even more appreciative 
of photojournalist Art Shay, who  shares his unmatched photographic and 
linguistic talents and recounts some  humorous brushes with royalty 
during his career.

Not to be found in the US mainstream media is the analysis of Michael 
Barker,  who researches the links between the population control and 
environmental  movements and the liberal philanthropists behind both. 
Nor is there much  reporting on the economic crisis in the rest of the 
world, which has Peter  Byrne homesick for Bulgaria where he lived 
during the country's mid-1990s  meltdown and experienced life to its 
fullest intensity. While the Times and  the Post both reviewed "When 
Skateboards Will Be Free," Louis Proyect covers  the memoir of a boy's 
life with his Socialist Workers Party parents from a  non-mainstream 
perspective. Reporting from Africa, Femi Akomolafe confronts  Nigeria's 
ironic attempt to rebrand the country with a winning slogan. And  with 
the escalating violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan, US forces are 
employing imprecise predator drones as long-distance instruments of 
death,  leading Martin Murie to suggest there is much for humans to 
learn from the  hierarchy of the animal kingdom.

In the culture corner, unlike the twitterers and bloggers who broadcast 
  stream-of-consciousness trivia, Guido Monte painstakingly searches for 
just  one perfect word on which his very survival depends, and Raju 
Peddada  reflects poetically on his awe-inspiring children. In the 
French Corner (en  Français) Marie Rennard writes about the dangers of 
infidelity mixed with a  cravat; Simone Alié-Daram offers a short poem; 
and we publish an 1825 letter  from George Sand to her mother and the 
1848 Communist Manifesto. Finally, we  close with your letters on peak 
oil, nonfiction comics, lemon cars, and  prosecuting torture.

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http://www.swans.com/library/art15/cmarow136.html Breaking News - 
Charles Marowitz

http://www.swans.com/library/art15/cmarow137.html Trivia Triumphant - 
Charles Marowitz

http://www.swans.com/library/art15/desk086.html Blips #86 - From the 
Martian Desk - Gilles d'Aymery

http://www.swans.com/library/art15/ashay11.html My Camera Outpaces My 
Books In Royalties - Art Shay

http://www.swans.com/library/art15/barker19.html Sustainable Population 
- Michael Barker

http://www.swans.com/library/art15/pbyrne98.html Bulgaria Unter Alles - 
Peter Byrne

http://www.swans.com/library/art15/lproy54.html Saïd Sayrafiezadeh's 
"When Skateboards Will Be Free"  - Book Review by Louis Proyect

http://www.swans.com/library/art15/femia10.html Rebranding Nigeria: An 
Exercise In Futility - Femi Akomolafe

http://www.swans.com/library/art15/murie69.html Reaping Bodies And 
Hatred - Martin Murie

http://www.swans.com/library/art15/gmonte67.html Melting Pot (Unending) 
- Multilingual Poetry by Guido Monte

http://www.swans.com/library/art15/marier29.html Le noeud de l'intrigue 
- Nouvelle par Marie Rennard (FR)

http://www.swans.com/library/art15/salie02.html Dodecasyllabe traffic - 
Poème par Simone Alié-Daram (FR)

http://www.swans.com/library/art15/xxx131.html A madame Maurice Dupin - 
George Sand (FR)

http://www.swans.com/library/art15/xxx130.html Manifeste du Parti 
Communiste - Karl Marx et Friedrich Engels (FR)

http://www.swans.com/library/art15/rajup13.html Solace In Their 
Innocence - Poem by Raju Peddada

http://www.swans.com/library/art15/letter164.html Letters to the Editor

                                          # # # # #

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