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Ultimo Discurso de Salvador Allende, el 11 Sept 1973

El 11 de septiembre del cono sur: quebranto de la democracia y la dignid...

What Did Assad’s Allies Do in Two Weeks?

People protest against a US military intervention in Syria in front of the Cannon House Office Building near the US Capitol in Washington on 9 September 2013. (Photo: AFP - Nicholas Kamm)

By: Ibrahim al-Amin

Published Tuesday, September 10, 2013

It was the British House of Commons that first opened the way for what became a retreat from the brink of war. Suddenly, public opinion entered the calculations of Western governments, which quickly led to a search for an exit for the White House. As soon as Barack Obama put the matter up before Congress, it was clear that he was looking for some sort of compromise.

All that was left was to find something that Washington can go to its Arab and European allies with and tell them, “See, this is what I got for not waging a war on Syria.”

The Russians saw their opportunity to make a move. They needed to come up with something that would not look like a defeat for the US, while at the same time wouldn’t make Damascus look like it is backing down completely. So they came up with the idea of neutralizing Syria’s chemical arsenal by placing it under international supervision.

The Russian initiative will likely usher in what appears to be only a temporary settlement, postponing the attack, rather than canceling it altogether. But even this requires quite a bit of discussion in order to see the light of day, and as the saying goes, the devil is in the details.

The Israeli plan in effect seeks a replay of the Iraq scenario, in which weapons inspectors were asked to look in every nook and cranny, including Saddam Hussein’s private palaces, until the US was ready to attack.

And what was leaked by the Israeli media about a Tel Aviv plan, advising Obama to drag out the negotiations, suggests that this will be nothing more than a short respite, until the opportunity presents itself at a later date to strike. By then perhaps, the right conditions will be in place to wage a war under more favorable circumstances.

The Israeli plan in effect seeks a replay of the Iraq scenario, in which weapons inspectors were asked to look in every nook and cranny, including Saddam Hussein’s private palaces, until the US was ready to attack. In Syria’s case, the Americans could use the excuse of having failed to reach a final agreement based on the Russian initiative as an excuse to wage a far broader assault on Damascus than what was planned this time around.

But what about the other side? How does it appraise the situation? And what is it planning for any future confrontation?

No one needs to tell Syria’s allies that Washington no longer possesses complete freedom to do as it pleases, particularly compared to a decade or so ago, before getting bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan. They also know that America’s recent setbacks have produced a regional and international opposition alliance that brings together powerful forces that continue to grow by the day.

This opposition alliance operates on a number of levels: Russia playing a diplomatic role, while Iran is prepared to take the lead militarily, if it comes to a regional confrontation with the US. Tehran is not only capable of facing down Washington in Syria and the surrounding area, but it has the ability to cause them serious harm.

In two short weeks, this alliance succeeded in mobilizing a broad military front that is prepared to engage in an extended war that could last for months or more, opening up many new opportunities that were not previously available and making it possible for this alliance to confront any Western attack, without submitting to the aggressors’ timeframe, geography or scale.

Ibrahim al-Amin is editor-in-chief of Al-Akhbar.

This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.

Keith Jarrett in the Landscape of Bach

by DAVID YEARSLEY

No keyboard player of this or any other age has been more wide-ranging than Keith Jarrett. His contributions to jazz extend from the endlessly astonishing treatment of standards to expansive and spontaneous explorations of the endless space beyond the limits of form and genre. Jarrett’s music-making as represented by his prolific output of recordings challenges the boundaries that separate classical from jazz, the improvised from the notated.

His choice of instruments is all-embracing as well: Jarrett’s double LP of 1979 Hymns/Spheres captures him improvising hymn settings and pastoral scenes on the magnificent baroque organ at the Benedictine Abbey in Ottobeuren in South Germany; the recording was finally reissued by ECM this year on CD.   Jarrett’s Book of Ways from 1986 stretches to two CDs and nearly two hours of clavichord ruminations. This is the medium that would seem ideally suited to a keyboard player such as Jarrett who listens with such depth and intensity: the clavichord is perhaps the only instrument that is best heard by the person actually playing it.

Jarrett’s performances on harpsichord, especially of the music of J. S. Bach, have been still more distinguished, even if the result is treated with skepticism by some specialists.  His 1989 Goldberg Variations arguably treated this epoch-making set of keyboard pieces with too much respect, thoroughly abjuring flashy virtuosity in favor of nuanced consideration. But this attitude yields its own marvels: the tender release of one note before the caress of the next; the cherishing of an unexpected harmony; the irrepressible and unexpected ornament; the thoughtful consideration of the contrapuntal logic between canonic voices. One has the feeling of listening to Jarrett listening to himself rather than performing for you.  Eavesdropping on his intensely intimate music making is revelatory.

The unsurpassed sensitivity of Jarrett’s keyboard playing can be heard equally on piano or harpsichord: while he understands the crucial differences between these instruments, these never hinder his search for expressive possibility. That he has recorded the two books of Bach’sWell-Tempered Clavier on piano and harpsichord respectively demonstrates that while the choice of instrument is not irrelevant, each provides unique means to the same end: the finely-shaped representation of musical thoughts ranging from the transparently beautiful to the densely complicated.

In the realm of chamber music Jarrett chose the harpsichord for his recording of the Bach gamba sonatas with violist Kim Kashkashian: thus a modern string instrument converses with an eighteenth-century keyboard.  The point of such combinations is an expansion of possibility that the use of different instruments encourages, especially when operated by a musician of Jarrett’s gifts.

For his recording with Michelle Makarski of Bach’s sonatas for keyboard and violin due out later this month from ECM, Jarrett is back at the modern piano, rather than continuing his survey of olderkeyboards; I could well have imagined Jarrett at one of the clear and responsive early pianos of Bach’s own time. Nonetheless, Jarrett shows that under his hands, the carefully-voiced modern piano treated with taste and brilliance and recorded with the ECM label’s famed clarity and ambience is an appropriate, even if anachronistic, tool for this set of six sonatas of bracing allegros, erudite counterpoint, and celestial slow movements.

In these last years of the CD medium it is interesting to see how objects fast-becoming obsolete present music held to be timeless.  The cover of Jarrett’s forthcoming Bach disc is an atmospheric black-and-white photo of pond or swamp, in which a tree trunk is reflected, the tableau streaked through with misty, luminous swaths—perhaps the light of reason and interpretation penetrating the murky depths of Bachian consciousness? The disc contains no liner notes explaining historical contexts or current conditions for the music and its performance.  Nor are the performer’s bios included: it is as if the music and musicians will speak for themselves. Better not to set foot into the oily waters of history and scholarship.

Along the top edge the photo blends to black for the title: first comes the great composer then the title— “Six Sonatas for Violin and Piano.”  The performers are then given their due, violinist Makarski preceding the far more famous Jarrett in accordance with the order of the instruments given by the CD’s title.  Flipping two pages into the attractive booklet, which while it militantly rejects explanation and elucidation in the form of English prose has many vivid photographs of the musicians during the recording sessions held at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York City, one encounters a facsimile of a copy of the sonatas partly in Bach’s hand.  In this manuscript the title of the collection, written in modish Italian that even transform Bach’s first name to Giovanni, places the “harpsichord obbligato” first, then lists violin solo. True, the instruments are variously partners and competitors through the varied genres and moods encountered in these six sonatas, but to think of them in modern terms as violin sonatas is a mistake.  Bach’s own son Carl Philipp Emanuel called them “harpsichord trios,” praising them long after his father’s death for their stylistic currency even against the very different tastes of the later eighteenth century.

In the twenty first century there is no need to defend these sonatas against the trends of  popular, or even classical music, culture. That they inhabit their own realm doesn’t mean that they are safe: they are replete not only with the Bachian traits of erudition, strangeness, and complexity, but also with a range of emotional registers that only the best musicians can draw out, whether playing mighty modern grand pianos, towering organs, or whispering clavichords.

Tremendous individual interpreters at their instruments, Jarrett and Makarski are also perfectly matched for collaboration. The ensemble playing is unsurpassed, from the radiant precision of fast trills to the tandem heartbeats of their elegant phrasing and articulation. There is exuberance here, but also plenty of reserve, Makarski using vibrato sparingly as a kind of ornament, that is, in just the way it was deployed in Bach’s day. Her intonation is unfailingly accurate, and the sighing diminuendo with which she rounds off many notes, especially long ones, is a touch that transcends stylistic appropriateness and captures, depending on context, both the fire and melancholy in the music.

Jarrett never thunders on the big black piano, which gained its incredible size in the nineteenth century to fill increasingly large concert halls; he generally remains well below the loudest his instrument has to offer, exploring instead the many shades of softness. Yet his playing does not come across as overly careful, as it occasionally did on his harpsichord Goldbergs.  The sprinting tempo of the last movement of the first sonata in B minor gathers its intensity not just from its pace but also from Jarrett’s vibrant touch: the fingers of this militantly acoustic musician can be electric.

Jarrett and Makarski take the concluding Presto of the A major sonata at a challenging clip, but without losing the soaring grandeur of the movement’s melody nor blunting the spirited dialogue between the parts. One of the obsessions of Bach’s eighteenth century was the crispness and accuracy of ornaments: the devil was and is in such details.  Both Jarrett and Makarski have what contemporary English writers would have called a “crisp shake”—exact, vivid trills. These flourishes impart great energy to the proceedings.

If the duo’s brio raises the listener’s spirits, the slow movements make one recall that the eighteenth century was the great age of tears: find your baroque self and cry when you hear Jarrett’s threnodic accompaniment to the second Adagio of the E major Sonata, with Makarski soaring heavenward in the triplets above.  As always in Bach, the roles are then reversed, further depths plumbed and heights ascended.

To hear Jarrett and Makarski traverse the poignantly elegant Andante from the first sonata is to understand that beyond the fashionable pose of the piece lurks something deeply mournful. The intense beauty of this and other slow movements is almost painful. If you want to know music that can be haunting and hopeful at the same time, take in the plaint of the Largo from the C minor Sonata that opens the second of these two CDs and listen to how the slightest push or pull in tempo and dynamic from both Jarrett and Makarski constantly proves that this music must be interpreted with great care and intensity for it to achieve expressive meaning.

The duo’s reading of the fugal final movement of the last sonata in G major is a rousing, racing final stage of the pair’s uplifting journey through Bach’s landscape of invention and emotion. This moving twenty-first century recording of eighteenth-century music heard on what are essentially nineteenth-century instruments is timeless.

DAVID YEARSLEY is a long-time contributor to CounterPunch and the Anderson Valley Advertiser. His latest book is Bach’s Feet. He can be reached at  dgyearsley@gmail.com

A Journey Into the Mind of P

A documentary, written & directed by Donatello Dubini & Fosco Dubini, mostly on the authors reclusivness, how it's been delt with by some hysterical fans, old friends, critics... containing some interesting interviews & speculations on the themes of Gravity's Rainbow & how they relate to the historical realities of the american fifties and sixties, the paranoid politics of cold war logic, megalomaniac experimental psychology, the callous mindset of military engineering, & so on...

The Pleasure Garden

The film takes a look at the world of showgirls in the "wild" 20's and tells a story of love, sex, passion, infidelity and murder. After much confusion and errors the real two lovers find each other. Hitchcock has adapted the novel by Oliver Sandys with emotion and suspense. This very first work of Hitchcock is an exciting thriller with high tension guaranteed to the end.

"The Pleasure Garden" was actually Hitchcock's second film, but the first to be completed. Hitchcock's first film, "Number 13 ", could not be completed because the production company went bankrupt. "The Pleasure Garden" became a later highly regarded and critically acclaimed film. In the beginning a Co-producer had to be found, because nobody in Britain had agreed to provide money for a film of a novice director. As a sponsor then a German production company, the Munich Lichtspielkunst Emelka was found and the film was made as german production at Munich-Geiselgasteig. The outdoor shots were later taken in Italy. Movie premiere, and with it the first performance of a Hitchcock film ever, was on the 3rd of November 1925 in Munich.

The film has different names in various countries. The original UK title is "The Pleasure Garden". In France the film is known as "Le jardin du plaisir", in Germany the name of the movie is "Irrgarten der Leidenschaft", in Austria it's "Der Garten der Lust", in Italy it's "Il labirinto delle passioni" and "Il giardino del piacere", in Sweden it's "Lustgården" and in Spain as well as in Argentinia the move is known as "El jardín de la alegría".

Simply put: A GREAT ARTICLE...

Yes, Syria and Hezbollah Will Hit Israel if US Strikes

By Sharmine Narwani - Fri, 2013-09-06 15:52- Sandbox

Informed insiders have confirmed that Syria and Hezbollah plan to retaliate against Israel in the event of an American-led military attack on Syria. Says one: “if even one US missile hits Syria, we will take this battle to Israel.”

An official who spoke to me on the condition that neither his name or affiliation is published, says the decision to retaliate against Israel “has been taken at the highest levels within the Syrian state and Hezbollah.”

Why attack Israel after a US strike?

“Israel has been itching for a fight since their 2006 defeat by Hezbollah,” explains an observer close to the Lebanese resistance group. “They have led this campaign to draw the US into a confrontation with Syria because they are worried about being left alone in the region to face Iran. This has become an existential issue for them and they are now ‘leading’ from behind America’s skirts.”

The "Resistance Axis" which consists of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and a smattering of other groups, has long viewed attacks on one of their members as an effort to target them all.

And Israeli aggression against this axis reached a new high in 2013, with missile strikes and airstrikes unseen for many years in the Levant.

Israel has reportedly conducted at least three separate, high profile missile strikes against Syria this year, effectively ending a 40-year ceasefire between the neighboring states. The last overt violation of this uneasy truce was in 2007 when the Jewish state destroyed an alleged nuclear site inside Syria.

Then two weeks ago, Israel launched its first airstrike in Lebanon since the 2006 war, bombing a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–General Command (PFLP-GC) target in an entirely unprovoked attack. Earlier, four rockets had been launched into Israel from Lebanese territory, but an unrelated Al Qaeda-linked group took credit for that incident.

When asked whether Syrian allies Russia and Iran would participate in retaliatory strikes against Israel or other targets, the official indicated that both countries would back these efforts, but provided no information on whether this support would include direct military engagement.

The Russians have stated on several occasions that they will not participate in a military confrontation over Syrian strikes. Iran has not offered up any specifics, but various statements from key officials appear to confirm that strikes against Syria will result in a larger regional battle.

On Tuesday during an official visit to Lebanon, Iranian parliamentarian and Chairman of the (Majlis) Committee for National Security and Foreign Policy Alaeddin Boroujerdi told reporters: “The first party that will be most affected by an aggression on Syria is the Zionist entity.”

His comments follow a steady stream of warnings by senior Iranian officials, which have escalated in tenor as western threats to attack Syria have intensified.

“The US imagination about limited military intervention in Syria is merely an illusion, as reactions will be coming from beyond Syria’s borders,” said the Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari last Saturday.

Even Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has stepped into the fray, warning the US and its allies: "starting this fire will be like a spark in a large store of gunpowder, with unclear and unspecified outcomes and consequences".

Concurrent with these warnings, both Iran and Russia have been urging the West to avoid further confrontation and return to the negotiating table to resolve Syria’s 29-month conflict. But instead, western officials and diplomats in the Mideast have spent the past few weeks hitting up their regional sources for information on how Syria’s allies will react to a strike.

An unusual visit to Tehran by UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman (a former senior US State Department official) was one such “feeler.”

According to several media outlets, the Iranians had a singular response to Feltman’s efforts to gauge their reaction to a US strike: if you are serious about resolving the Syrian crisis, you must first go to Damascus, and follow that by launching negotiations in Geneva.

Gunning for a fight

While Israel plays heavily in the background, by turns provoking and encouraging western military intervention in Syria, it publically denies any role in this business.

Just this week, Israeli President Shimon Peres attempted to distance the Jewish state from events in Syria by insisting: “It is not for Israel to decide on Syria, we are in a unique position, for varying reasons there is a consensus against Israeli involvement. We did not create the Syrian situation.”

He’s right about one thing. Any visible Israeli military intervention in Syria will likely raise the collective ire of Arabs throughout the region. But Peres is being disingenuous in suggesting that Israel hasn’t played apivotal role in dragging the region to the brink of a dangerous confrontation.

In fact, since its establishment as a state, Israel has possibly never beenmore motivated to force a military confrontation in the Mideast:

The Arab uprisings, a shift in the global balance of power, increased isolation and the waning influence of Israel’s superpower US ally have all served to remind Israel that it stands increasingly alone in the Mideast in confronting its longtime adversaries - Iran, Hezbollah, Syria and various Palestinian resistance groups.

Before a US exit from the region becomes patently clear to one and all, Israel needs to disarm its foes – and it needs the Americans to do that. For years, the Israeli establishment has regularly threatened military strikes against Iran, in most part attempting to inextricably embroil Washington in this military venture.

Forcing 'red line' narratives into western political discourse – whether it be the use of chemical weapons in Syria or a civilian nuclear program in Iran – has become a clever way to commit allies to an Israeli military agenda.

When US President Barack Obama last week appeared to suddenly revise his plans to launch a strike on Syria by deferring the decision to Congress, Israel went into overdrive:

Two Israeli missiles were launched off the Syrian coast in the Mediterranean Sea to raise temperatures again. Whether this was meant to be veiled threat, a provocation, or an attempt to pin the deed on Syrians is unclear. What is certain is this: Russian early radar systems caught the activity and publicized it quickly to ward off misunderstandings that might trigger counterstrikes.

This quick reaction forced Israel – under US cover – to acknowledge it had participated in unannounced ballistic missile tests. The Iranians reacted very skeptically. Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed ForcesGeneral Hassan Firouzabadi said the missiles were “a provocative incident” conveniently executed as western nations withdrew from plans to attack Syria, and called Israel “the region’s warmonger.” He further charged: “If the Russians had not traced the missiles and their origin, a Zionist liar would have alleged that they belonged to Syria in a bid to pave the way for breaking out a war in the region.

On an entirely different front, Israel has been amassing its considerable army of US supporters and lobbyists to ensure a compliant Congressional vote on strikes against Syria.

All its heavy hitters have now stepped up to push US lawmakers into backing military intervention, even though polls continue to show the majority of Americans rejecting strikes.

The Israeli lobbying effort has been particularly critical to ensure there is bipartisan consensus and that Obama’s Republican opponents join the bandwagon. To ensure this, the scope of the “surgical strikes” had to be expanded for GOP members opposed to a cursory punitive strike against Syrian government interests.

Key Republicans have since piled on, and already there are soundings of 'mission creep.' Obama told lawmakers on Tuesday that his plan “also fits into a broader strategy that can bring about over time the kind of strengthening of the opposition and the diplomatic, economic and political pressure required – so that ultimately we have a transition that can bring peace and stability, not only to Syria but to the region.”

This suddenly sounds remarkably like President George W. Bush’s plans to remake the Middle East. And it is everything Syria and its allies have both feared and suspected from the start.

Existential for you, existential for me

If ever there was a real 'red line' in the region, this is it. Any "limited” or “broad” military intervention in Syria is simply unacceptable to Syria, Iran, Russia, Hezbollah, China and a whole host of other nations that want to turn the page on US hegemonic aspirations in the region and beyond.

Washington has miscalculated in thinking that an attack in any shape or form would be palatable to its quite incredulous adversaries. They are all intimately familiar with the slippery slope of American interventionism and its myriad unintended consequences.

Israel, in particular, appears to be victim to a false sense of security. Analysts and commentators there seem to think that the lack of a Syrian military response to recent Israeli missile strikes is a trend likely to continue. Or that Hezbollah and Iran would have no 'grounds' to climb aboard a counterattack if Syria were attacked.

But the fact is that, to date, no member of the Resistance Axis has faced a collective western-Israeli-GCC effort to strike a blow at their core. This promised US-plus-allies strike against Syria makes their calculation aneasy one: there is nowhere to go but headfirst into the fracas.

As Israel warplanes pounded Lebanon during the 2006 war, then-US Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice got one thing right. Refusing to call for a ceasefire, Rice explained that battle was sometimes necessary to break free of the status quo and emerge with a new regional order. The carnage, in short, was simply “the birth pangs of a New Middle East” - something to endure in order to reach a desired outcome.

But in 2006, conditions were not yet ripe for an all-out confrontation on multiple fronts. Today's confrontation, however, has all the ingredients to fundamentally shift the region in a clear new direction, depending on which side emerges victorious.

What Rice did not anticipate seven years ago was that a few thousand Hezbollah fighters could shake the region beyond Lebanon's small borders in a mere 33 days - simply by emerging from battle with Israel, leadership and capabilities intact.

The US has never predicted outcomes successfully in the Middle East and is unlikely to do so this time given that its strategic and military objectives seem even more muddled than usual. What we do know is that Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah has promised that the “next battle” will take place inside Israel’s borders and that he will fight proportionately this time – striking Israeli cities when Israel hits Lebanese ones.

On the Syrian front, Israel imagines a war-weary adversary. But the Syrian armed forces have the kinds of conventional weapons and ballistic missiles that can level a town in short shrift – that is not an outcome Israel has the capacity to endure.

In yet another corner is Iran, boasting a rare combination of military manpower, hardware, technology and tactical skills that Israel has never faced in any adversary on the battlefield. Russia looms large too – it may provide military intelligence to its allies or it may just use its clout in the UN Security Council to intervene at opportune moments in the fight. Either way, Moscow is a huge asset for the Resistance Axis – and will be joined by China to coach and calibrate responses to the fighting from the 'international community.'

Meanwhile, as if unable to stop a 'war trajectory' once it starts, the US Senate's Foreign Relations Committee has just voted to widen and deepen the scope of a US attack on Syria. The new goal? To “reverse the momentum on the battlefield” against the Syrian army and “hasten Assad’s departure.”

This is no different than Libya, Afghanistan or Iraq. Israelis and Americans need to understand that language and behavior threatening 'regime-change' gives their adversaries only one choice: to retaliate withall their capabilities and assets on all fronts. Washington just made this existential. No more games, no more rhetoric. Any strike on Syria will be 'war on.' In US military parlance: a 'full-spectrum operation' will be heading your way. And you can call it Operation "Tip of the Iceberg" out of sheer accuracy, for a change.

Sharmine Narwani is a commentary writer and political analyst covering the Middle East. 

Obsessed with Vertigo (1997), New Life for Hitchcock's Masterpiece (The ...

A documentary about the making and restoration of Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece "Vertigo". Narrated by Roddy McDowall, with behind-the-scenes talk from Barbara Bel Geddes, Henry Bumstead, Robert A. Harris, Patricia Hitchcock, James C. Katz, Kim Novak, Peggy Robertson and Martin Scorsese, as well as other cast members. Brings fresh perspective, not just to the film and the director, but to the Fifties Hollywood as well.

Críticas a McCain en EEUU por jugar con su celular durante el debate sobre Siria.

El senador republicano John McCain es tema del momento entre los tuiteros de Estados Unidos, luego de haber sido descubierto jugando al póker on line cuando se desarrollaba la audiencia sobre una posible intervención militar en Siria.

McCain fue fotografiado mientras jugaba con su celular durante la importante audiencia en el Senado.

Más tarde argumentó que estaba aburrido porque el debate fue muy extenso, lo cual desató una ola de críticas.

Ayer, la fotógrafa del diario The Washington Post Melina Mara estaba cubriendo la audiencia en la Comisión de Relaciones Exteriores del Senado, donde el secretario de Estado, John Kerry, el secretario de Defensa, Chuck Hagel, y el jefe del Estado Mayor Conjunto, Martin Dempsey, expusieron la postura oficialista sobre el uso de la fuerza en Siria, cuando descubrió que el ex candidato presidencial McCain.

"¡Escándalo! Me engancharon jugando con el iPhone en una audiencia de más de 3 horas. ¡Lo peor es que perdí!", escribió en Twitter, lo que generó más críticas.

Spike Lee Shares His NYU Teaching List of 87 Essential Films Every Aspiring Director Should See.

I’m sure you’ve heard by now: wealthy, successful film director Spike Lee hopes to fund his next film via a Kickstarter campaign. Yes, that’s right, he wants you to pay for his art. His campaign, perhaps needless to say, is hardly popular with the average film fan, many of whom find it hard enough scrounge up the skyrocketing prices of tickets these days. Lee has responded to his critics, but somehow I doubt his reasoning will go over well.

But we’re not here to talk about alleged crowdfunding abuses (have at it in the comments if you must). Instead, today we have for you—in the tradition of our many posts on famous teachers’ syllabi—one of Lee’s teaching tools in his role as an NYU professor. Where all of our previous posts have featured reading lists, Lee’s is a list of films, which he hands out to all of the students who take his graduate class–not required viewing, but recommended as “essential” for every aspiring director.

In the video at the top of the post, see Lee introduce the list of what he considers, “the greatest films ever made.” “If you want to be a filmmaker,” he says, “you should see these films.” The list, above and continued below, includes some of the usual critical favorites—Rashomon, Vertigo, On the Waterfront—and some pretty left field choices, like Mel Gibson’sApocalypto.

Slate, which first published the list, notes the omission of usually revered directors like Howard Hawks, John Ford, Fritz Lang, and Yasujirō Ozu as well as the paucity—or near non-existence—of female directors (only one makes the list, the co-director of City of God). In addition to possibly ranting about, or defending, Lee’s use of Kickstarter, many of you may find yourselves quibbling over, or defending, his definition of “essential.” And so, I say again, have at it, readers!

Source: http://www.openculture.com/

Leaders in Europe Cave Under US Pressure over Snowden

Europe’s Shame: Snowden and Morales

by DAVE LINDORFF

Those of us who have been saying that the US has become a weak, or at least more ordinary power among many in the world because of its military failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, and because of its economic decline, will have to recalibrate our analysis after watching the pathetic behavior of the leaders of Russia, Germany and France under pressure from the Obama administration not to allow Edward Snowden to gain asylum in those countries or even to escape his purgatory in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport.

Last night, in an astonishing display of fawning obedience to the demands of US leaders, France and Germany first announced that they would not grant asylum to Snowden, despite broad popular support by French and German people for such an offer of aid to the embattled whistleblower. Then, France and Portugal abruptly refused to allow a Bolivian aircraft carrying the country’s president, Evo Morales, from a state visit with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, to land for refueling in their countries, saying that they were concerned he might be flying Snowden to asylum in Bolivia.

Although Spain said eventually it would allow the Morales plane to refuel in the Canary Islands, it did not have enough fuel to get there and had to be diverted to Vienna, where, astonishingly, it was then searched like a drug-smuggling flight over Bolivian protests. Snowden was not aboard. A furious Morales immediately blamed the US Department of State for the whole incident — a charge that no one has disputed, though of course the US is refusing to comment.

Aircraft carrying national leaders have absolute diplomatic immunity under international law and moreover, Bolivia would have the absolute right to grant Snowden amnesty, and to bring him to its territory, whether or not he had a valid passport. As the leader of a sovereign nation, Morales has every right to carry anyone he wants on his plane with him back to his country.

That France, Portugal and Austria would so violate such basic diplomatic rules suggests that the US (which of course has long demonstrated that it views diplomatic rules and international law as applying only to others, but not itself) has some powerful leverage to exert behind the scenes. The more so because this whole incident makes leaders like French President Francois Hollande, who only the day before had suggested his country might consider Snowden’s asylum appeal, look foolish, and because this aggressive and hostile action taken against the leader of a sovereign nation makes France, as well as Portugal and Italy, look pathetic and ridiculous at a time that public sentiment across Europe is solidly in support of Snowden. (An activist friend in Germany reports that sentiment there in support of Snowden and even of granting him asylum is “probably at about 80%,” and that is probably also true in France.)

This latest incident, which has incredibly not been protested either by Russia’s Putin, from whose country the disrupted flight originated, and who was Morales’ official host, also shows Putin and Russia to be under America’s thumb. Who could have imagined Putin allowing a meeting of leaders in his own country to be so shamed by US intervention with a foreign leader’s return flight home without a loud protest and even some counter action. At a minimum the US ambassador should have been called in to be tongue-lashed by the Russian president.

Has the US, with its massive spy network, just demonstrated that it now has a power greater than its nuclear arsenal: a dossier perhaps on almost every leader in the world with which it is able to blackmail even the likes of Hollande, Merkel and Putin? It is hard to come up with another explanation for the way this incident played out.

We will have to see now whether Morales, a popular leader from an impoverished indigenous background who is clearly no coward and who is probably too clean to be blackmailed, will make good on his assertion made in Moscow that Snowden would be welcome in Bolivia. Russia could recover a modicum of its self-respect by flying him there on a Russian plane to avoid similar US-orchestrated interference. Venezuela’s new president, Nicolás Maduro, who has also spoken favorably of granting asylum status to the National Security Agency whistleblower, should also step up at this point. Since he is still in Russia, he could offer to bring Snowden back home with him, and dare the nations of Europe to try and stop him.

Europeans are pissed already off at the US, in the wake of National Security Agency leaker Snowden’s latest revelation that the US was aggressively spying on its European allies, both at their and the European Union’s embassies in Washington, and in Europe itself, gleaning not information about terrorism, but inside-track knowledge about trade negotiation positions and other areas of disagreement or negotiation.

Leaders in Germany, France, Italy,  and other European countries are demanding that the US cease its spying on them, and give a “full accounting” of the spying that it has been engaging in. But given the steady stream of lies coming from the NSA, the Obama Administration, Secretary of State John Kerry, and other American sources, why should they believe anything they are being told? Most Europeans understand now that all this bluster from their leaders is just that: bluster.

Europe’s leaders have shown themselves to their own people to be sell-outs in the pocket of the US.  As several commenters on the website of the German magazine Der Spiegel, which last week ran a cover expose about the NSA spying program directed against European leaders, have written, Germany’s and France’s leaders have sold out their countries and people by caving in to US demands. As one person wrote: “Our government has sold us out and is beyond help.”

To be sure there was a wave of tough talk only days earlier, with, for example, Martin Schulz, the president of the European parliament, saying that the NSA is like the Soviet-era KGB, and with leaders of countries like Ireland and Norway saying that they might consider amnesty for Snowden, but only if he could reach their soil first — a ludicrous requirement, since there is no international law requiring such silliness. Any country can grant asylum to any person it wishes, wherever that person may be at the moment. They cannot offer protection, of course, except in an embassy or in-country, but that’s different from just offering a grant of amnesty. Indeed, the mere fact that the US has cancelled Snowden’s passport doesn’t mean his passport cannot be respected as a travel document by another country. How, in fact, when you think about it, would a country know that a person’s passport had been “cancelled” unless the issuing nation had issued some kind of news release about it as the US did in Snowden’s case? There’s no international registry of global passports. Those records are held closely by each country and in fact are supposed to be secure.  Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Norway, Ireland or any other country that had said at any point that it would be willing to accept Snowden, could stamp their visa on his passport and accept him on their planes.  (Even the US Passport Office accepts an old, expired passport as an identity document when one is applying for a new one.)

After this abject display of rank servitude in the interest of the US Imperium by some of Europe’s most powerful nations, if little Bolivia and/or Venezuela don’t step up and show Europe how sovereign nations are supposed to act, it will be up to the people of Europe to act.

Certainly, following the latest revelations in the Guardian and elsewhere showing that the NSA has been vacuuming up data on millions of Europeans, and with former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden stating publicly that the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution — the one that at least used to protect Americans’ right to privacy and from government search and seizure — “is not an international treaty,”  the anger among Europeans at US spying is swelling, and with it, support for the embattled whistleblower Snowden.

We can only hope that the revelations of outrageous US intelligence abuses and violation of Europeans’ privacy rights will continue, that the rage against the US among ordinary European citizens will grow. We can only hope that with that growing rage, a desire to stick it to the US by protecting Snowden will grow too, until some European leader finally sees it as a popular or necesssary move to offer him asylum.

This latest abomination in the treatment of Bolivia and its leader, which has shamed  France, Portugal, Austria, Italy and Russia, will be a great test of how angry the peoples of those countries are about their leaders’ servile behavior towards the US.

Of course, we in the US should be the most outraged of all, but sadly, there is probably even less chance that a majority Americans will get angry at all this than that Europeans will.

DAVE LINDORFF is a founding member of ThisCantBeHappening!, an online newspaper collective, and is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press).

The Empire Strikes Out

Bolivian Plane (and Sovereignty) Grounded by US

by KEN KLIPPENSTEIN

Yesterday the Bolivian presidential plane was forced to land due, in theNew York Times’ words, to “suspicions that Mr. Snowden was aboard.” As the Bolivian Defense Minister has pointed out, this “is a violation of the conventions and agreements of international air transportation.”

The plane originally intended to land in Lisbon, Portugal for refueling; however, it was denied permission to land, forcing it to instead refuel in Vienna, Austria. Austrian officials have since confirmed that Snowdenwas not on board. The U.S. was almost certainly behind this maneuver, unless you believe that Portugal acted independently—unlikely given that Snowden is leaking only U.S. data, some of which showed that the U.S. has been spying on Europe extensively.

Obama, assuming the annoyingly unflappable, measured persona he always does when addressing embarrassments to his administration, said that he’s “not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year old hacker.” Not scramble them—just force them to land. His earlier claim that he’s “following all the appropriate legal channels…to make sure that rule of law is observed” in apprehending Snowden is a statement that now reads like sarcasm. John Kerry’s lecturing admonition that “it’s important to uphold the rule of law and respect the relationship between two nations”, directed at Russia for its refusal to extradite Snowden, is similarly laughable.

Somewhat more surprising is the cowardice of European officials, namely those of Portugal and France (France also disallowed the Bolivian presidential plane from flying through their airspace). Just days after Snowden’s revelation that the U.S. had bugged European Union diplomatic missions in both Washington, D.C. and the United Nations, EU leaders seemed furious. French President Francois Hollande asserted, “We cannot accept this kind of behavior between partners and allies.” This kind of indignation is limited, of course, to words and not actions: the French Finance Minister yesterday said thatSnowden’s asylum request to France is “not an issue”; and now, of course, Hollande’s administration denies a plane passage based on the possibility that it was carrying the very whistleblower who informed them of the “kind of behavior” to which Hollande expressed dismay.

The German Chancellor’s Spokesman said of the spying scandal, “we are no longer in the Cold War”. Her remarks can be assumed to be no more sincere than those of Obama, Hollande, et al. Yet the sentiment she’s expressing is held quite seriously by the German people. During the Cold War, Germany was split between two superpowers: the U.S. and U.S.S.R. East Germany belonged to the Soviets, whereas West Germany was allied with NATO. During this time, Germans were heavily surveilled by both sides. Regarding empires, the currency on which their political economies function is control. Whether or not a particular state is an ally of an empire is irrelevant; control will still be exercised over them. What empires will not under any circumstance tolerate is independence, which brings us to Bolivia.

The Bolivian Vice President put it well when he characterized the grounding of the Bolivian presidential plane as an “act of imperial arrogance.” Once again, imperial empires derive their power from control—economic, military and otherwise—over other countries. As Snowden’s list of countries that have not yet rejected his asylum bid dwindles, we see which countries are not truly satellites to U.S. power. One of these is Bolivia.

Whether or not Snowden was on the plane may not have even been relevant to U.S. officials. The grounding of the Bolivian presidential plane signifies a power even more awesome than the ability to capture whistleblowers: the ability to capture even potentially wayward heads of state—of which Bolivian President Morales is one, for merely considering Snowden’s asylum request. The same dynamic is at work when Latinos in Arizona are systematically stopped, searched and asked for their passports. The authorities don’t particularly care about illegal immigration (it offers cheap, non-union labor and is therefore favorable to big business); what they care about is that Latinos know who’s in charge.

This concept may seem nebulous to the privileged, but those inhabiting the less privileged levels of society are thoroughly familiar with the dynamic to which I’m referring. Totalitarian states like the U.S. depend, as the root word suggests, on total control. When someone like Morales even intimates that he’ll consider Snowden’s request for asylum, this diminishes the totality of U.S. power. And so he, like a Black man being racially profiled and searched for possession, will be grounded and searched for possession of a certain whistleblower.

Ken Klippenstein lives in Madison, Wisconsin, USA, where he co-edits the left issues journal, whiterosereader.org He can be reached at Reader246@gmail.com

Art of the Brick: Nathan Sawaya’s LEGO Solo Show in New York.

If you happen to be in New York this weekend stop by Art of the Brick, the upcoming solo show by artist Nathan Sawaya at the Discovery Times Square museum. The collection of LEGO sculptures is being billed as “the world’s biggest and most elaborate display of LEGO art ever and will feature brand-new, never-before-seen pieces by Sawaya.” The show opens tomorrow and runs through January 5th, 2014.

Side note: Sawaya is trying to get enough votes over on LEGO CUUSSOO to have one of his orignal artworks turned into an actual LEGO set. All imagery above courtesy Discovery Times Square. (via laughing squid)

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Tugboat Printshop Carves and Prints “The Moon”

Back in December Paul Roden and Valerie Lueth over at Tugboat Printshop shared a tantalizing peek at their largest hand-carved relief print ever, The Moon. The print is finally complete and it’s gorgeous. The illustration of the moon was first drawn with a pen onto a piece of 3/4″ birch plywood incorporating various topographical features of the actual moon. After that was carved the stars were carved into the sky on the same piece of wood, but the moon was then cut out with a jigsaw prior to printing.

If you’re interested, the duo published the process of how everything came together over on their website, and 200 copies of the limited edition print are now shipping. Next up:Desert Island.

Book Paintings by Ekaterina Panikanova

© Ekaterina Panikanova

© Ekaterina Panikanova, courtesy z2o Galleria

© Ekaterina Panikanova, courtesy z2o Galleria

© Ekaterina Panikanova, courtesy z2o Galleria

© Ekaterina Panikanova

© Ekaterina Panikanova

© Ekaterina Panikanova, courtesy z2o Galleria

© Ekaterina Panikanova, courtesy z2o Galleria

© Ekaterina Panikanova, courtesy z2o Galleria

Artist Ekaterina Panikanova creates densely layered paintings across large spreads of old books and other documents, resulting in artwork that blurs the lines between painting, installation and collage. Born in St. Petersburg in 1975 Panikanova graduated at the top of her class from the Academy of Fine Arts and was subsequently given a studio to work from for five years. She now lives and works in Rome. Much of what you see above was from her second ever solo show Un, due, tre, fuoco at z2o Galleria earlier this year, and if you’d like to see more, check out her website. (via this isn’t happiness)

Chinese Propaganda Posters

John Foster


Bloomsbury Auctions in London held an auction last week of vintage Chinese propaganda posters, largely from the 1950s and 60s. In the heyday of what was then called Red China by the West, millions of these were placed in shop windows and factory walls throughout the mainland — all designed to spread fear of U.S. Imperialism and promote the ideals of Communism. Though propaganda in China today is spread via the mouthpieces of state-run radio and television news — or highly-censored news from other countries, some internet access and robust activity with social media give the people at least a chance for balanced understanding of the world.



Gu Yuan Smash Imperialist Invasion and March Forward for the building of Our Peaceful, Happy Life
770 x 530 mm, by Gu Yuan, People's Pictorial [Beijing], 1951.


Chao Yu Resist US and Support Korea to Defend Hometown and Motherland
The edition was 10,000, 770 x 530 mm, by Chao Yu, People's Fine Art Publishing House [Beijing], 1951.


Bi Cheng Defend our Motherland and our Hometown
770 x 530 mm, by Bi Cheng, People's Fine Art Publishing House [Beijing], 1951.


Gu Yuan I am a hero of both fighting and labor
770 x 530 mm, by Gu Yuan, People's Pictorial [Beijing], 1951.


Suzhou artists' association Young students should join the military training class to strengthen the national defence
770 x 530 mm, by Suzhou artists' association, Suzhou Committee of defending world peace and resisting the US imperialist invasion, 1951.


Resist US and Support Korea to Save Neighbors and Ourselves
770 x 530 mm, Chinese People Defending World Peace and Against US Aggression Association, East China General Branch, 1951.


Gu Yuan US invaders must be defeated
770 x 530 mm, with archive stamp from previous owner, by Gu Yuan, People's Fine Art Publishing House [Beijing], 1951.


Gao Junxian Great International Love and Endless Hatred
770 x 530 mm, by Gao Junxian, People's Fine Art Publishing House [Beijing], 1951.


Li Mubai Zhang Jihui, the air force hero of the Korean kids
770 x 530 mm, by Li Mubai, Shanghai Pictorial Publishing House [Shanghai], 1951.


Suzhou artists' association Resist US and support Korea to defend the motherland and family
400 x 530 mm, by Suzhou artists' association, Suzhou Committee of defending world peace and resisting the US imperialist invasion, 1951.


Ye Wenxi Anti-American Empire to aim Japan
530 x 380 mm, original drawing by Ye Wenxi, 1951.


Zhang Ding, Wu Guanchong Long Live the Victory of the Korean People's Army and the Chinese People's Army
530 x 770 mm, by Zhang Ding, Wu Guanchong, People's Fine Art Publishing House [Beijing], 1951.


Ye Shanmou Smash the US imperialist germ war with anti-bio shots for everyone
770 x 530 mm, by Ye Shanmou, People's Fine Art Publishing House [Beijing], 1952.


Miao Su Wipe out fire to save peace
770 x 530 mm, by Miao Su, People's Fine Art Publishing House [Beijing], 1952.


Zhang Biwu Vice Chairman Song and Young Pioneers
770 x 530 mm, by Zhang Biwu, Tianjin People's Art Publishing House, 1963.


Cai Zhenhua With the help of the Soviet Union, we will do our best to realize the modernisation of motherland
770 x 530 mm, by Cai Zhenhua, East China People's Fine Art Publishing House [Shanghai], 1953.


Zhao Yannian Developing More Production can Wipe Out One More Enemy
770 x 530 mm, by Cao Yinian, East China People's Fine Art Publishing House [Shanghai], 1953.


Tao Mouji Save Taiwan Compatriots
770 x 530 mm, by Tao Mouji, East China People's Fine Art Publishing House [Shanghai], 1954.


Weng Yizhi Salute to, and learn from the work models
770 x 530 mm, by Weng Yizhi, Shanghai People's Fine Art Publishing House [Shanghai], 1955.


Oppose the US for interfering with our national affairs
770 x 530 mm, People's Fine Art Publishing House [Beijing], 1958.


Shao Jingkun, Zhao Yu Oppose Warfare
The edition was 10,000, 770 x 530 mm, by Shao Jingkun, Zhao Yu, People's Fine Art Publishing House [Beijing], 1958.


Xing Chen, Shen Lin American Aggressors are Sure to Hang Themselves
770 x 530 mm, with archive stamp from previous owner, by Xing Chen, Shen Lin, Shanghai People's Fine Art Publishing House [Shanghai], 1958.


East Wind Prevails over West Wind
770 x 530 mm, Central Arts and Handcrafts Institute, 1958.


Yang Xianrang Long live the brother friendship of China and Soviet Union
The edition was 19,000, 530 x 770 mm, by Yang Xianrang, People's Fine Art Publishing House [Beijing], 1959.


Wu Yun Form the possible united front in order to win the war against Imperialism
The edition was 6,000, 770 x 530 mm, by Wu Yung, People's Fine Art Publishing House [Beijing], 1960.