Joanna Sharp Early evening, on the Saturday of 12 December 1981, I walked across my local park in Warsaw to meet up with a new friend Iza to see the film ‘Hair’ which had been screened in Poland since 1980. It was cold and it was starting to snow. We were both eighteen, both in …
Academy of Ideas | How enlightened citizens can drive out a pernicious political epidemic.
Earlier today, in the post about expanding The Squad, Flagstaff progressive Eva Putzova noted that "the future of this planet depends on this country getting a bigger squad." That was about the boldest comment any candidate I asked ventured. But boldness comes naturally to Eva, more so than most other congressional candidates.
-by Michael WolkowitzMy old friend Michael Wolkowitz tells people he was formed in the late ‘60s. He's a dissident producer, a Social Democrat, and former board member of many progressive organizations, including a stint as the Chair of the Progressive Congress PAC. He put this post together after the Progressive Caucus Summit in Baltimore over the weekend.I was not able to attend last weekend’s Progressive Congress Summit.
One of my favourite American dissidents has always been and remains Frank Zappa. Zappa defies categorisation in terms of group allegiance, but as an individual, his views were remarkably coherent.
Zappa started his professional musical career in 1950s California, but before one thinks of a kind of proto-Beach Boy, Zappa’s California was the barren Mojave Desert (pre shopping mall days). He eventually made it to Los Angeles where he became to the hippy movement what Voltaire was to the French Enlightenment.
During a three-month period in 2015, August until October, one could not open a newspaper, turn on a television or visit a news website without being subjected to reports on the mounting wave of refugees coming to the European Union from countries such as Syria, Iraq or Libya. The majority of reports in the media covered the responses of EU countries such as Germany or France. A number of reports debated the state of Greece and its handling of the refugee influx.
Snowden as Samson, bringing the puzzle palace down around his head; Manning as Prometheus, tortured for her gift to mankind by ceaseless humiliation at the hands of dim jarhead martinets; the men who exposed the drone-massacre sweatshops, beggared by government decree; the helpless black witnesses of Ferguson and Baltimore, always photographed silhouetted by leaping flames like victims of auto-da-fé instead of killer cops.
Snowden as Samson, bringing the puzzle palace down around his head; Manning as Prometheus, tortured for her gift to mankind by ceaseless humiliation at the hands of dim jarhead martinets; the men who exposed the drone-massacre sweatshops, beggared by government decree; the helpless black witnesses of Ferguson and Baltimore, always photographed silhouetted by leaping flames like victims of auto-da-fé instead of killer cops.
When respected philosophers get attacked in the middle of the street, you know that something is going terribly wrong with the nation.
A couple of days ago a book came in the mail. Before I retired from Warner Bros, books used to come in the mail all the time. They don't any longer. I opened it and it was The Life Of Lou Reed-- Notes From The Velvet Underground by Howard Sounes. Never heard of him. Never heard of the book. But before I put it aside I noticed there was a note. Oh, I had heard of him. It was a note scrawled on a memo sheet thanking me for the interview. Ah...
