Radical media, politics and culture.

The Circle of Greed: Who Wants to be a Congressman?

Mark Faulk, The Faulking Truth


Call it what you want. Naked short selling. StockGate. Fail to delivers. Stock counterfeiting. Financial terrorism. By any other name, it’s still the same thing. Fraud. Millions of Americans being robbed by hedge funds and multi-millionaires utilizing loopholes built into our stock market system.


This is no longer news. No one in Congress can claim plausible deniability, no one in the SEC can say that is doesn’t exist. The White House, and even President Bush himself, can on longer claim ignorance when it comes to the financial raping of our country that has driven thousands of young companies into bankruptcy and ruin, the same companies that our economy depends on to provide the jobs of the future, the same companies that we depend on to keep our workers and our money right here in America. Even the media, who, controlled by the brokerage firms, investment banking companies, and New York Stock Exchange representatives who sit on their Boards of Directors, until recently has either turned a blind eye to this massive scandal or actually seemed to side with the criminals, has begun to realize that this is an issue that, to borrow a line from Dylan Thomas, will “not go quietly into that good night”.


How long have our country’s elected officials known about stock counterfeiting, how long have they turned a blind eye while countless retirement accounts, college funds, and small businesses have been bled dry by an industry that seems to care only about its own, and by “its own” I don’t mean the millions of investors who they are pledged to protect and represent, I mean the chosen few who have a large enough net worth to buy influence and control, and the industry itself, who profits to the tune of billions of dollars a year from buying and selling shares of stock that don’t exist?

Return of the Suppressed

Keith Sanborn, Art Forum

"Guy Deord made very little art, but he made it extreme," says Debord of himself in his final work, Guy Debord, son art et son temps (Guy Debord: His Art and His Time, 1995), an "anti-televisual" testament authored by Debord and realized by Brigitte Cornand. And there is no reason to doubt either aspect of this judgment. While Debord has been known in the English-speaking world since the 1970s as a key figure in the Situationist International and as a revolutionary theorist, it is only in the past decade that his work as a filmmaker has surfaced outside France. One reason is that, in 1984, following the assassination of Debord's friend and patron Gérard Lebovici and the libelous treatment of both men in the French press, Debord withdrew his films from circulation. Though the films were not widely seen even in France, four of them—by the time they were withdrawn—had been playing continually and exclusively for the previous six months at the Studio Cujas in Paris, a theater financed for this purpose by Lebovici.


The communiqué issued by Debord soon after Lebovici's death reads: "Gérard Lebovici having been assassinated, to the applause of a joyful press and a servile public, the films of Guy Debord will never again be projected in France." Three years later, in a letter to Thomas Levin, Debord amended this to: "I should have said: Never again anywhere."

CARY GRANT: STYLE AS A MARTIAL ART

A conversation with Wu Ming 1 (2005)


At the end of 2004, we took part in an international three-day conference on Cary Grant at the Museo Nazionale del Cinema in Turin, organized by professor/script-writer Giaime Alonge, who teaches History of Cinema at the Università di Torino. The following interview took place a few months later and will be included in the book collecting that conference's papers and proceedings. If the first answer sounds familiar, that's because it's an extended version of an answer we gave to "3am Magazine" in the same days.

GIAIME ALONGE - What gave you the idea to include Cary Grant in 54? What do you find fascinating in this character?

WU MING 1 - The first chapter in which Cary appears includes a long pseudo-historical and pseudo-theoretical tirade, a sort of marxist analysis of the Grant-myth and his value in the proletarian struggle.

The purpose was satirical, it's a parody of the attempts to rationalize why we like something, or someone. We are inclined to think of other people as bidimensional figures, we don't grasp the depth, we see a square where there's a hypercube. We don't expect a person's ego to be fragmented; we point at inconsistencies and, in our turn, try to show ourselves as consistent, every part has to fit well with all the rest. If someone asks you: "How does your love for Country & Western music fit in with your ideas on the origins of stars-and-stripes reactionary rhetoric?"; or: "You claim to be an ecologist, how can you say you like that car?", the temptation is to force that passion of preference back under the umbrella of your ideology that passion or preference. "Radicals" go out of their way to prove that the music they listen is "radical", leftists explain why a certain kind of shoes doesn't belong to the Right etc.
In the above-mentioned chapter an indefinite omniscient narrator rambles on Cary Grant, the working class, and socialism. This is also a pre-emptive self-parody. It was like saying: when you ask us the reason why we included Cary Grant in our novel, our answer will be something similar to this. At the same time, we exaggerated and added a sentence by Marx turned into a joke ("In a classless society, anybody could be Cary Grant"). It's as we issued a notice: don't take this description too seriously. It makes sense, more or less. It's fascinating. But it came later. We included Grant - availing ourselves on a mistake by Wu Ming 2 - because we like him, we find him intriguing, we like his style. I met the not-yet Wu Ming 4 eleven years ago, he'd just graduated and was about to begin university. The first time I entered his room, I saw a big poster of Cary Grant on the wall. It's not the movie star you expect to find above the bed of a nineteen year old. We have always admired people with style, those who knew how to turn their style into a martial art. "Style as a martial art" is also the name of a column I used to write for a local small mag in the late Nineties.

I hope this answer was intelligible. To avoid misunderstandings, I want to specify that I do listen to Country & Western, but I hate cars. I could never find them attractive. To me even the most glamorous Lamborghini is just a sad and lethal piece of plate.

GA - I beg your pardon? What was the misunderstanding with WM2?

WM1 - Well, leafing through a 1954 magazine, he found an article on the film stars preferred female readers loved the most. Gary Cooper topped the list. WM2 jotted in a hurry "G.C." on his notebook. A few weeks later, going through his scrawls he read "C.G." instead of "G.C." and thought: Cary Grant. At our meeting he told us: "Cary Grant was the most popular actor among the female readers of such magazine." Inspiration! Cary Grant! Lets get hold of the films and biographies!

Pure Law and Bare Life in CIA Prisons

Adam Roark

In November 2005, leaked top-secret information revealed the existence of a global network of secret CIA prisons wherein prisoners are held and processed “without judicial involvement” (Associated Press). Identified as ‘detainees’ or ‘enemy combatants,’ these prisoners are held without designation as citizens, who are subjects of constitutional rights and law, but rather as suspected terrorists who cannot be managed in a constitutional manner. While initially it appeared that the revelation of the CIA prison network would become the grounds for partisan fighting in the US, instead, the Washington Post reports “the CIA and the White House, citing national security concerns and the value of the program, have dissuaded Congress from demanding that the agency answer questions in open testimony about the conditions under which captives are held”. The aftermath of the media exposure of the prisons reveals that the creation, execution, and disappearance of the prison network demonstrate Agamben’s thesis of a ‘permanent state of exception’ and the emergence of pure law.

Adam Roark writes


Pure Law and Bare Life in CIA Prisons


In November 2005, leaked top-secret information revealed the existence of a global network of secret CIA prisons wherein prisoners are held and processed “without judicial involvement” (Associated Press). Identified as ‘detainees’ or ‘enemy combatants,’ these prisoners are held without designation as citizens, who are subjects of constitutional rights and law, but rather as suspected terrorists who cannot be managed in a constitutional manner. While initially it appeared that the revelation of the CIA prison network would become the grounds for partisan fighting in the US, instead, the Washington Post reports “the CIA and the White House, citing national security concerns and the value of the program, have dissuaded Congress from demanding that the agency answer questions in open testimony about the conditions under which captives are held”. The aftermath of the media exposure of the prisons reveals that the creation, execution, and disappearance of the prison network demonstrate Agamben’s thesis of a ‘permanent state of exception’ and the emergence of pure law.

       

Anonymous Comrade writes:

"Cartoons and Bombs"

John Chuckman

I wonder, are waves of angry protest, flag burning, and embassy burning in the name of religion any less rational than waves of B-52s, cluster bombs, and torture in the name of democracy?


So when I hear any American official speak about the worldwide protests against unflattering cartoons of Islam’s Prophet, it is difficult to credit the words, but surprisingly there is one statement by an American – someone who ranks third only after George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld for total number of career lies – that I do credit.

We Fight the Forum

Wladek Flakin

from Left Hook


Angela Merkel meets Angelina Jolie. Bill Gates meets Brad Pitt. States and corporations meet NGOs and media. That is the World Economic Forum (WEF), which has met every year in the Swiss ski resort Davos since 1971. From January 26 to 29, this year's WEF dealt with "projects in hunger, anti-corruption, financing for development and public-private partnerships" [i.e. the privatisation of public services].

2,300 participants, including executives from top companies, lots of ministers and a few heads of government like German Chancellor Merkel, chairpersons of charity organizations, religious advisors and a few celebrities, discussed "The Creative Imperative" (this year's motto) in "Improving the State of the World" (permanent motto). Representatives of Western aid organizations -- like Tombraider/UN goodwill embassador for refugees Angelina Jolie -- were there to speak in the name of billions of people suffering from hunger, who of course were not invited to speak themselves.

Like at the last G8 summit in July 2005, the policy makers in the political and economic sphere were very concerned about "the world's problems". The president of the European Central Bank admitted that the "developing countries finance the industrial nations", and he called this situation "intolerable in the long term." Even the richest man in the world, Bill Gates, professed alarm at the spread of tuberculosis and the inaccessibility of universities to three fourths of the US population. But they were unable to connect these problems to the concentration of wealth in the hands of ever fewer corporations, the massive debts of third world countries and so-called "preventative war" -- policies the WEF has advocated in the past and continues to advocate.

Activist Artists Subvert the Message

by Marcela Valente


From a distance it looks like an ordinary traffic sign, a
yellow rhombus like so many others in the Argentine capital.
But on approach, the sign can be seen to contain an unusual
warning message: "A former torturer lives 100 metres from here."

BUENOS AIRES, Feb 13 (IPS) -- The sign, quietly placed in a
public area, will not stay in place for long, but the Street
Art Group (GAC) does not care. "It may last a day, a week,
or a little longer," Carolina Golder, a member of the group, told IPS.

The aim of this collective of eight artists, designers and
photographers is to infiltrate traditional communication
systems and "subvert the message," she commented.

The GAC was formed in 1997 to back a protest by teachers
demanding wage hikes and a greater share of the budget for
education. The teachers had pitched a massive tent in front
of Congress, and took turns camping there for more than two
years.

The artists adorned the White Tent, as it was called, with
black and white silhouettes of the white coats worn by
teachers in Argentina.

The group became famous, however, when the Parque de la
Memoria (Memory Park) was inaugurated. This is a green area
along the bank of the Rio de la Plata commemorating those
who were detained and 'disappeared' during the 1976-1983
military dictatorship. The GAC put up a set of "road signs" with messages to recount the last few years of Argentine
history.

Danilo D'Antonio writes:

"GNP Against GNP

Danilo D'Antonio

Kind Madames and Sirs,

I present you my best and warmest regards.

I'm writing in order to humbly ask you to address your attention on the fact that today the economic systems of the developed Countries have a strongly military valence, of defense and attack, that predominates and misleads a correct economic function, directed to satisfy the legitimate necessities of a people in a perfect interaction with the rest of the world.

I humbly ask you to consider the fact that the growth of the Gross National Product (GNP) is today the only way officially granted to a Nation (after that the wars between greater States have become impossible because of the advent of the nuclear armaments) in order to maintain within balanced levels the pressure, equally economic, that every other Country turns against it.

By pursuing the increase of the GNP, governments try not so much to satisfy real inner economic requirements, they try instead to avoid the real danger of an invasion, may be at first even only commercial, and of a successive total oppression of one's own Country by whichever other Country that was reached to successfully grow much more. It is a concrete danger, extremely present, that comes as well from the West as from the East, that perfectly explains why the governments stubbornly continue to pursue a growth of traditional kind, numerical and not qualitative, very beyond the limit that would be opportune.

Danilo D'Antonio writes:

"GNP Against GNP"

Danilo D'Antonio

Kind Madames and Sirs,

I present you my best and warmest regards.

I'm writing in order to humbly ask you to address your attention on the fact that today the economic systems of the developed Countries have a strongly military valence, of defense and attack, that predominates and misleads a correct economic function, directed to satisfy the legitimate necessities of a people in a perfect interaction with the rest of the world.

I humbly ask you to consider the fact that the growth of the Gross National Product (GNP) is today the only way officially granted to a Nation (after that the wars between greater States have become impossible because of the advent of the nuclear armaments) in order to maintain within balanced levels the pressure, equally economic, that every other Country turns against it.

By pursuing the increase of the GNP, governments try not so much to satisfy real inner economic requirements, they try instead to avoid the real danger of an invasion, may be at first even only commercial, and of a successive total oppression of one's own Country by whichever other Country that was reached to successfully grow much more. It is a concrete danger, extremely present, that comes as well from the West as from the East, that perfectly explains why the governments stubbornly continue to pursue a growth of traditional kind, numerical and not qualitative, very beyond the limit that would be opportune.

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