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News, articles and analysis about culture, art, music, literature, film, artists and related subjects.

Ae Fond Kiss, dir. Ken Loach; Yasmin, dir. Kenny Glenaan; Head-On, dir. Fatih Akin (2004). Film review – Tom Jennings

Tom Jennings’ essay on cinema representations of European Asians & Muslims .

Same Difference? by Tom Jennings
“The media and politicians don’t talk about Christian extremism, fundamentalism or terrorism – but everyone who considers themselves a Muslim feels tainted due to the propaganda use of 9/11” (Paul Laverty) [1]

On the poverty of Berkeley life and the marginal stratum of American society in general - Chris Shutes, 1983

A situationist-influenced text from 1983, containing critiques of Berkeley radicalism, the marginal worker, 'natural' commodities (e.g. crafts, food, medicine), the car, jogging, bureaucratic reform, Reaganism, the Black Panthers, criminality, culture/aesthetics, feminism, therapy, Robert Crumb, global class struggle in the 1970s and 80s and South Africa in particular - plus more.

Over the Rainbow Coalition - Slavoj Žižek

Philosopher/psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek reveals the intolerant kernel of liberal multiculturalism - tolerant of all except antagonism, that is the class antagonism that is the basis of capitalist society.

The credentials of those who, even prior to its release, virulently criticize Mel Gibson's Passion seem impeccable: are they not fully justified in their worry that the film, made by a fanatic Catholic traditionalist with occasional anti-Semitic outbursts, may ignite anti-Semitic sentiments?

Jack Common - selected articles

A selection of articles by the undeservably obscure Jack Common, a Geordie who wrote both novels and essays on various aspects of culture and class relations. His friend George Orwell had written of Common: "he is of proletarian origin, and much more than most writers of this kind he preserves his proletarian viewpoint".

A fascinating writer, his analysis of the emerging mass consumerism of the 1930s & 40s seems to closely anticipate the concept of the 'society of the spectacle' later developed by the situationists.

From the endangered phoenix.com website; http://www.endangeredphoenix.com/

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A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

TV Times 30 September - 6 October

Class War's weekly TV guide for the revolutionary couch potato. Two major documentaries from the Dispatches team this week - on data theft and Myanmar, plus a side to Iran that is little known. Science fiction fans can enjoy the TV version of Logan's Run - unless you are over 30 of course!

Sat 30 Sep 9.10pm - HG Wells: A Life In Pictures. Dramatisation of the life of the socialist writer and father of science fiction.

Mon 2 Oct 8pm Ch4 - Dispatches: Burma's Secret War. Evan Williams, who is banned from Myanmar, enters the country undercover to investigate claims of ethnic cleansing and forced labour.

The depraved heroes of 24 are the Himmlers of Hollywood - Slavoj Žižek

Jack Bauer: not only tortures others but condones his superiors putting his own life at stake

In this short article Žižek shows how the popular TV series is essentially a reflection of newly acceptable fascistic behaviour - torture, expendability of subordinates - in the 'war on terror', concluding that "24's real problem [is] not the content itself but the fact that we are being told openly about it."

On Sunday, the fifth season of the phenomenally successful television drama 24 will start in the US. Each season is composed of 24 one-hour episodes and the whole season covers the events of a single day.

1919-1950: The politics of Surrealism

A history of Surrealism and its links with politics and, in particular, anarchism and socialism.

Welcome to the desert of the Real - Slavoj Žižek

The philosopher-psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek’s take on the aftermath of the September 11<sup>th</sup> attacks, including his trademark references to popular culture to explain his Lacanian psychoanalysis. He presents a choice: “there are two fundamental ways to react to such traumatic events which cause unbearable anxiety: the way of superego and the way of the act”, and it is in ‘the act’ in which he sees the possibility to escape “the reassertion of the barbaric violence” (note: this is not the longer book of the same name).

[i]America's "holiday from history" was a fake: America's peace was bought by the catastrophes going on elsewhere.

1789-1989: Revolutionary song in France

A history of song, music and revolutionary working class politics in France from the 1789 Revolution up to the 1980s and punk.

Like other political groups, anarchists have seen music as an excellent means of agitation and of popular education, and have made it one of their key activities of propaganda in many countries.

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