Friday, December 27, 2013

Precious Stones I

When Oliver Stone turned over the dozen parts of his documentary masterpiece Untold History of the United States to Showtime in the early fall of 2012, Showtime balked. They had contracted for only ten episodes -- the first to begin with World War II, the last ending with Obama's corporate totalitarian murder state. But Stone (with co-writer Peter Kuznick) had composed two "prequels" as well: prequel A covering the birth of US imperialism under McKinley through the end of World War I; prequel B continuing through the 1920s and 30s. The prequels were not broadcast. But they have been, alas, included in the just-released Blu-ray and they are -- like the rest of the series -- as beautiful and passionate as they are dark and despairing. Stone has found his place. He has become a great American filmmaker. Perhaps the only one we have, currently working.
"My goal is to make enough money so I can hire half of the American workforce to kill the other half." -- Jay Gould
Prequel A seeds the birth of the American war state in the ground of post-Reconstruction industrialization and the "end to frontiers." William McKinley found some: Cuba, Panama, the Phillipines. After his assassination by brave anarchist Leon Czolgosz, it was racist gangster Teddy Roosevelt's turn. Then devil iceman Woodrow Wilson. All done, all the wars and expansions and repressions and demonizations, to crush one thing: the nativist American socialism of the 1880s and 90s, and from the turn of the 20th Century. Yet out of worldwide carnage aided and abetted by Wilson and US capital, the Soviet State is born.

Precious Stones II

"The common man would now have to find his one-eyed way in the Kingdom of the Blind." -- Dos Passos
While literati such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Henry Miller move their feasts to Paris and gaze at their navels -- helping to fill the gap caused by the WWI deaths of half of all French males between the ages of 15 and 30 -- the pygmies known as the American Oligarchy regain full control, flushing whatever remains of late-19th / early-20th Century humanism, and roar their way through the 1920s: the decade of Prohibition, massive coast-to-coast KKK rallies, eugenics, the birth of Organized Crime, and major financing by American bankers of fascist movements across Europe. When things fall apart at the turn of the 30s, FDR steps in and saves US capitalism from (and for) the capitalists. Who don't see it that way.



(The original ten episodes of Untold History can be found on this blog, for the months of November / December 2012 and January / February 2013.)

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Alex Cox

Has an old friend in Chris Floyd; and a terrific website and new book on what went down in Dallas, 50 years ago.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Onslaught


Pat Speer on the mass media's assault on truth, this autumn's 50th Anniversary of JFK's murder.

Monday, December 9, 2013

Supermen


Remarkable.

Saturday, December 7, 2013

Little Match Girls

Jean Renoir's.



And my own.


Happy 9th Birthday
to the best daughter in the world!