holiday reading....
An interesting and informative interview with Gore Vidal.
Vidal is 81. Noam Chomsky is no spring chicken. Ditto William Blum. So all of these great American whistleblowers will all too soon be dead. Who will take up their mantle? Hmmm ???
(Thanks to DS for the heads-up on the Vidal interview.)
Vidal is 81. Noam Chomsky is no spring chicken. Ditto William Blum. So all of these great American whistleblowers will all too soon be dead. Who will take up their mantle? Hmmm ???
(Thanks to DS for the heads-up on the Vidal interview.)
posted by The Editor at
11:28 PM
7 Comments:
PBS broadcast an interview with Vidal just on the eve of the election. Only there have I even heard his name among broadcast media in the US. It should be a name on every tongue but I think America-watchers [which, unfortunately excludes most yanks] know Vidals work better than most Americans.
It was you, Gerry, who put me wise to this via one of his particularly trenchant quotes.
In the video interveiw, his age and frailty were clear but his well marshalled dismay was still quite forceful.
Ahh, GS... It's a shame so few Americans can get beyond the jingoism and the myopia of propaganda-driven patriotism to bother to find out what America has REALLY been up to globally in the last hundred-or-so years. Pity they can't see capitalism for the slimy poisonous cane toad that it is, instead opting for the meretricious myth that it is a wonderful, noble knight in shining armour liberating the world.
The whole American edifice is built on lie upon lie upon lie. And most Americans don't want to know.
Who will rectify this travesty?
Where will it all end?
Gerry, thanks for posting this link. I skimmed the beginning of the piece and will read it more thoroughly in a bit. Yes, I too will be dearly sorry to see such luminaries leave us. Carl Sagan, Stephen Jay Gould, David Attenborough, E.O.Wilson, Castro, the guys you mention....no-one seems to be taking their places.
As for demonizing America, you and Vidal certainly have a right to do so because America has been very wrong for a very long time. I believe the U.S. just happened to come along first and since the continent was resource-rich, they managed to burst out into the lead.
I do however wish to state that, even tho the U.S. may have been the bad guy for the last hundred years, if America hadn't done it someone else would have eventually done it. I haven't yet verified the following story, but apparently in Brazil an elderly nun was recently shot in the back by timber barons at an on-site demonstration to prevent the natives' homes from being destroyed. She was shot as she was walking away, reading the Bible. Humans are resource-hungry and power-hungry. And remember what JT said a while ago about China and all wild life being taken for food.
You already know all this, and I am not trying to convince you of anything here.
Anyway, speaking of Cuba, back to something more enjoyable and hopeful: rent the video (or buy a used one) of a movie called "The Buena Vista Social Club." It's great...you can read about the movie on Wikipedia but personally I wouldn't do too much more research on it ahead of time; it's a sheer joy to watch things unfold. The music alone is exceptional and worth it; the cinematography is remarkable; the film lets us peek into a world that has stood still for 40 years. Let me know if you do watch it. And let me know what you think of that drop-dead gorgeous piano (in the dancing school) that Ruben Gonzales plays.
Kurt, I fear the luminaries are being replaced by spinners and apologists for the omnipotence of The Corporation.
I am shattered by the news of "the nun". If she is who I think she is, I saw a documentary about her earlier this year. I thought then that she was up against something which neither she nor anyone else can stop, namely, the thing I call The Corporate Imperative. It used to be called greed. Now it's called "in the interests of the economy".
I've heard lots about The Bueno Vista Social Club. It played in the cinemas here a couple years ago. Must get it out on DVD. I'm not into ogling at pianos, but my partner is, so I'll let you know what she thinks of it. I'm anti-piano. Any instrument which can't easily be carried around is an abomination to music and should be smashed to smithereens immediately. Instruments like large organs, harps and pianos are to music what The Establishment is to politics. Music should be for the people, of the people, and to this end, instruments must remain portable. I have spoken. ;-)
It was 4.00am here when I got up to write a post which was churning in my head and your comment was eerily in harmony with that, Kurt, so now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go write it.
Okay, if that gorgeous piano gets broken into smithereens then I will be first in line to get some of the pieces. Maybe make a guitar or violin out of the them. Some woods just call out for hands to be run over them, caressing every bump and change in grain, marveling at the iridescence and luminosity of the fibers.
Oh, and I inquired more from my source on the nun story...she said she'd read it in an old (2005?) issue of National Geographic Magazine. I couldn't find a reference.
I see you are a person who deeply appreciates wood, Kurt. I think there was more than one nun killed by the timber barons. So maybe she was an earlier one. Another possibility is that i saw the documentary more than a year ago. I lose track of time a lot these days.
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