People Before Profit blog

Movies you might have missed: "The Band's Visit"

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:38:00 +0000

The 2007 film The Band's Visit concerns the unexpected adventure experienced by an Egyptian ceremonial police band traveling to a small Israeli town where they have been invited to perform.

The band is led by a proper and disciplined man. His number two officer is loyal, efficient and humble. He also leaves the impression that his hopes in life were left unfulfilled. He acts as something of a counterweight to the stricter leader of the group. Among their ranks is also a rakish youth with flirtatious habits and a rather casual approach to his duties. At the drop of a hat he'll start warbling Chet Baker's "Funny Valentine" to any young girl who crosses his path.

Due to some subtle linguistic mishaps the band arrives in the wrong community. The town is a rather desolate outpost. When the commander presents himself to the first locals they meet he inquires as to the location of the Arab cultural center. He is met with the reply that there is no Arab cultural center as well as no Israeli cultural center, in fact there is "no culture of any kind".

With few transportation or lodging options open to them they are forced to delay their departure and bed down as strangers in a strange place. The locals are hospitable however and in some ways appreciate the diversion these visitors bring to their lives, although the Egyptians in their somewhat preposterous powder blue uniforms are as out of place as ice cream on the Passover table. As the evening wears on they open up to each other about the detours their lives took, their regrets and the simple pleasures that make their days a little brighter.

There are moments of comical mishaps as well as great tenderness but mostly there is the commonality of the human experience - how each of our lives face many of the same challenges regardless of cultural background or national origin.

The Band's Visit is a gentle film from a part of the world so often associated with conflict and discord. The film is also an observant and honest portrayal of small town life, as well as the challenges our comfort level faces when confronted with both unfamiliar surroundings and unfamiliar people. In an amusing scene, one of the band members sits slurping soup in a tiny cafe. As he dines he notices that hanging near his head is a framed photograph of an Israeli tank at war. When no one is looking he hangs his hat on the wall to obscure it.

Actor Sasson Gabai is perfect as the proud, composed, but never arrogant leader of the ceremonial band. Ronit Elkabetz shines as the confident local woman who befriends the band members and acts as something of a guide during their brief stay. Her style and verve is ill-placed in this sleepy windswept burg and she is pleased to let the outsiders bring a little change of pace to the dry life of the community.

Those with a subtitle phobia need not fret: most of the film is in English, the language that the two cultures share the most and often communicate to one another in. The performances in the film are sincere and the brief interludes of Middle Eastern music are a joy.

The Band's Visit

Release date: November 12, 2007 (USA)

Written and Directed by: Eran Kolirin

Mudic by : Habib Shadah

Starring: Saleh Bakri, Ronit Elkabetz, Sasson Gabai, Uri Gavriel

DVD release date: July 29, 2008

MPAA rating: PG-13

Running time: 90 minutes

Who knew? Those wacky Renaissance faires have radical roots

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 11:31:00 +0000

For many people, Renaissance faires are objects of bemused curiosity. Progressives and leftists in particular often wonder what exactly motivates "Rennies" - as many faire participants and workers refer to themselves - to celebrate feudal society. Aren't these people just running away from modern problems in favor of a re-imagined past?

Well Met, Rachel Lee Rubin's book on Renaissance faires and American counterculture, may not be enough to get you to the faire, but it clearly outlines their radical history while also showing how faires continue to provide space for working people to enjoy working class traditions from all over the world.

The first Renaissance fairee took place in 1963 in Southern California after Phyllis Patterson, a theater teacher at a children's center in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Laurel Canyon, pitched the idea of an open-air art festival modeled on those of medieval Europe as a fundraiser for the independent and pacifist minded Pacifica Radio (now perhaps best known for hosting Amy Goodman's Democracy Now! radio broadcast).

Calling on the local community to help get the first faire off the ground, she tapped into a huge reservoir of creative talent among Laurel Canyon residents. In fact, because Laurel Canyon was home to many former movie industry workers who were blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee, Patterson found herself a community eager to create a new, non-commercial venue for craft arts and performance.

The faire was an immediate success and faires soon began popping up elsewhere in part because of their reputation of subversion. As Rubin makes clear, the faires' open atmosphere continues to be one of its biggest attractions. Even now, despite many faires being "Disneyfied" by corporate minders who bought and consolidated small local faires during the 1990s, the faire is still known as "a place to be out" among many diverse groups - including the GBLTQ community and various political enthusiasts. Because of this, Rubin spends a majority of the time in Well Met addressing the faires as a space for play and experimentation for its workers and patrons.

Perhaps the most interesting idea in Rubin's book is that faires have consistently provided a place for a mostly working-class audience to celebrate working-class and peasant culture from all around the world. In fact, faires have played an important role in reviving interest in home crafting traditions (including glass-blowing, leatherworking, and wheat-weaving) as well as many genres of music and theater from around the world, including klezmer music and vaudeville.

I would only offer one caveat to potential readers: this is not a popular history but a book written by an academic for an academic press. Because of this, Well Met is primarily recommended for those with a strong interest to the faires, faire history and American counterculture.

Book information:

Well Met: Renaissance Fairees and the American Counterculture
by Rachel Lee Rubin
New York University Press, 2012, 346 pages

Photo: Faire History blogspot

Richard Blanco, inaugural poet, speaks to America

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 13:47:00 +0000

President Obama chose the first Cuban American and the first gay man to be the inaugural poet at his second inauguration this past Monday. Miami born and raised Richard Blanco is "a symbol of the new Miami, and a new America", says J. J. Colagrande, professor at Miami Dade College and author of novels Headz and Decò.

Blanco is only the fifth poet to participate in an inaugural ceremony: Robert Frost (1961), Maya Angelou (1993), Miller Williams (1997) and Elizabeth Alexander (2009) precede him.

A legacy of vice and hate stain the media image, and too often painful reality, of Miami. But, writes Colagrande,

"although Mr. Blanco lives in Maine, he has toiled in the relatively unknown world of poetry in Miami for years... [and ] the new Miami is where we take each other seriously; where we come together committed to the cultural and intellectual renaissance of our city; where we re-define ourselves for ourselves and the rest of the country. Mr. Blanco reading a poem on Monday at the presidential inauguration is a day of pride and joy for all those in the letters, Cuban-Americans, the LGBT community and every one of us."

Blanco works as an engineer, is a member of the Bethel, Maine, planning board, and has kept his poetry mostly to himself and, of course, the intimate national network of poets and poetry lovers. In December, he was tasked by the inaugural committee with writing three original poems, one of which the committee would ask him to read at the ceremony in Washington on January 21. At age 44, he's the youngest inaugural poet.

Richard Blanco's Inaugural poem, One Today, perfectly and intimately captures the singular details of "Americanization" in the arts, crafts, and geographies of the diverse immigrant and native contributions to this multinational and multiracial country we are becoming, and from which we arose. Each stream, each life is unique, rich, and indispensable. Yet one sun, one sky, one ground, one sea of stars, one home - unite us.

One Today
Inaugural Poem by Richard Blanco

One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,
peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces
of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth
across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.
One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story
told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.

My face, your face, millions of faces in morning's mirrors,
each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:
pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,
fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows
begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper - bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,
on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives - to teach geometry, or ring up groceries, as my mother did
for 20 years, so I could write this poem.

All of us as vital as the one light we move through,
the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:
equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,
the "I have a dream" we keep dreaming,
or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won't explain
the empty desks of 20 children marked absent
today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light
breathing color into stained glass windows,
life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth
onto the steps of our museums and park benches
as mothers watch children slide into the day.

One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk
of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat
and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills
in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands
digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands
as worn as my father's cutting sugarcane
so my brother and I could have books and shoes.

The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains
mingled by one wind - our breath. Breathe. Hear it
through the day's gorgeous din of honking cabs,
buses launching down avenues, the symphony
of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways,
the unexpected song bird on your clothesline.

Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,
or whispers across cafe tables, Hear: the doors we open
for each other all day, saying: hello, shalom,
buon giorno, howdy, namaste, or buenos días
in the language my mother taught me - in every language
spoken into one wind carrying our lives
without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.

One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed
their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked
their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:
weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report
for the boss on time, stitching another wound
or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,
or the last floor on the Freedom Tower
jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.

One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes
tired from work: some days guessing at the weather
of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love
that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother
who knew how to give, or forgiving a father
who couldn't give what you wanted.

We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight
of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always - home,
always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon
like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop
and every window, of one country - all of us -
facing the stars
hope - a new constellation
waiting for us to map it,
waiting for us to name it - together

Photo: richardblanco.com

The Used headline pro-LGBT tour, join "It Gets Better"

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 16:54:00 +0000

The Used, a popular rock/screamo band from Utah, are calling attention to a problem that plagues their state and many others: discrimination against gays and lesbians. The artists headlined this year's Sub City Take Action Tour in Salt Lake City on January 19. The tour raised funds and awareness for the It Gets Better project, a national organization established to help LGBT youth. The band took the opportunity to talk to the audience about the struggles that gays and lesbians in the U.S. face.

"It's a very important, positive charity," said vocalist Bert McCracken of the project. "In high school, I was bullied for being different," he added, referring to his vehement rejection of both drugs and religion in a Mormon town.

He noted, furthermore, that his community frequently referred to homosexuality as immoral and sinful. He added that much of the lyrical content of The Used's new album, Vulnerable, is about living in such places and rising above the closed-mindedness, and making choices about finding better ways to live. "It's about taking the first step," he said.

"We teamed up with the It Gets Better project to spread the word about fair treatment for everyone," he said. "Ultimately, it's really about treating people with the same type of respect that you would expect to get.

"I was bullied in school for wearing fingernail polish and makeup. I was called a lot of sexual slurs. So I know how rough it can be to be different. Hopefully we can inspire [people] to really be themselves. I think it's just nice to know that people have a place to go when they need it. The "It Gets Better" project website has communities set up online where you can go and talk and get support. People in this world have the right to love and be loved" without enduring prejudice.

Metalcore band We Came As Romans opened for The Used, having jumped at the opportunity to use their music to support a progressive cause. They performed songs from their 2011 album Understanding What We've Grown to Be. Guitarist Joshua Moore said he was thrilled with the mission of It Gets Better. "Being a part of this inspiring positivity is a great thing to be involved with." He said the charity fits perfectly with the worldview of the band, and went on to say, "If you're not about something [positive], you shouldn't be a band at all."

The tour, which will now hit other U.S. cities, comes at a pivotal time for the LGBT community, who witnessed a landmark event on January 21, when President Obama openly advocated gay rights in his inaugural address - the first time this has been directly discussed in the high-profile speech.

Obama equated the struggles of gays and lesbians with civil rights movements, particularly those of African Americans and women. "We, the people," he said, "declare today that the most evident of truths - that all of us are created equal - is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears in Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall.

"Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like everyone else under the law - for if we are truly equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well."

Lizbeth Flores, a 32 year-old resident of Long Beach, California, remarked, "Real change is happening now. It's way different now than it was five years ago. We're more comfortable being out there and being ourselves."

George Roehm, a San Francisco resident who sat in the gay-friendly Twin Peaks Tavern, added, "I never in my lifetime expected the president to talk like that. Obama makes me so proud to be an American."

McCracken said that as the struggle moves forward, The Used's and other bands' music is an excellent way to get the message out to people. "Music has always been my savior. Whenever I was struggling in life, I could put on a record and kind of escape and forget. Music saves lives."

Photo: The Used vocalist Bert McCracken. Official website

"The Abolitionists": must-see TV

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 11:47:00 +0000

"The Abolitionists," a three-part series on the revolutionary struggle to end chattel slavery in the American republic, is currently being broadcast on PBS television. It should be seen by as many viewers as possible and shown widely in public schools.

Parts One and Two aired Jan. 8 and 15, respectively, and final episode will be shown Jan. 22, in the PBS "American Experience" series. "The Abolitionists" can also be seen online.

Using historians as commentators, and actors portraying major figures like William Lloyd Garrison, Angelina Grimke, Frederick Douglass, Theodore Dwight Weld, and John Brown, the first episode tells the story of the abolitionist movement's beginning at a time when "democracy in America" was associated with the slaveholder president Andrew Jackson. For Jackson, American democracy meant territorial expansion through the destruction of native peoples, conquest of Mexican lands and maintenance of slavery to "protect" the white "common man."

Connecting the personal with the political, the episode follows a number of individuals to show how the movement development: Angelina Grimke, a daughter of Southern slaveholders, turned against the system that she initially saw as corrupting white slaveholders. An intellectual, William Lloyd Garrison, impelled by both the religious and secular spirit of the time to seek a more perfect society, became the voice and the pen of the movement. A slave, Frederick Douglass, came to fight back against the "slave breaker" brought in to beat him into submission. And the murder of Elijah Lovejoy, an abolitionist editor in Alton, Illinois, in 1837, inspired John Brown to dedicate his life to the destruction of slavery.

Viewers are also introduced to both the shifting forces and divisions among abolitionists over strategy and tactics. These are shown in the form of the "ultra-left" William Lloyd Garrison and the more politically astute Theodore Dwight Weld.

In one of the episode's most powerful scenes, Weld marries Angelina Grimke in a ceremony where neither pledged obedience to each other, or to any state, or any church. It was a ceremony presided over by a white and a free black minister. As the wedding took place, a mob pelted the hall with rocks and the building was later burned down

In those times abolitionists were subjected to terrorist mob violence in their homes and meeting halls. Most of the political establishment condemned them as "enemies of freedom and democracy," and some termed them foreign agents of the British Empire, which had earlier abolished slavery in its colonial possessions.

As it developed into an "antislavery vanguard," as one historian called it, the abolitionist movement was subjected to the kind of repression which would be associated with the "Red Scares" of the post-Civil-War period. As an example of this, the first denunciations of "socialism" in the U.S. in Congress were made by slaveholder politicians who associated abolitionism, land reform, women's rights, and other radical movements with "European Socialism."

I have not yet seen the second part of the series. There are a few criticisms I would make of the first episode, which in no way detract from its overall excellence. First, it might have better begun with the Nat Turner rebellion as a force influencing all that followed. It might also have emphasized the role of free Blacks in the movement, which hopefully the series will do more of in the following episodes.

And it could have found some way to show what progressive historians have long shown - that the anti-abolitionist mobs were usually led by wealthy men, members of local elites, who saw the abolitionists as a threat to both general property rights and their ability to control poor whites.

The series would make a fine companion to Steven Spielberg's contemporary big-budget film,"Lincoln," which largely looks at the political struggle in Congress and the administration (at the top) during the Civil War, although it portrays old abolitionist political leaders, now as "Radical Republicans" with power in Congress, positively.

For those on the broad left, particularly those who have been part of or have fought side by side with the activists of the Communist Party USA, the abolitionist movement is our most important forebear. And, in its subsequent development of a broad anti-slavery coalition and its role in the creation of a broad anti-slavery party, the Republican party (not to be confused with what Republicans are today or have long been), a guide to what can be done today to advance people's movements.

Watch Angelina Grimke Rebels on PBS. See more from American Experience.

The series is available on DVD for purchase ($19.99) and can also be downloaded via iTunes. Photo: When runaway slave John Price was arrested in Oberlin, Ohio, and transported to nearby Wellington in 1858, a group of abolitionists intervened to rescue him and eventually brought him to freedom in Canada. Via National Historical Society and PBS.

People’s World sports writer honored by public TV

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 14:48:00 +0000

People's World sports writer Neil Parthun has been named Urbana Public TV Member of the Month for January 2013. The station serves the Urbana-Champaign, Ill., area, where Parthun, an Illinois native, has lived since 2001.

Parthun has hosted a radio edition of Not Another Sports Show since 2009 on community radio station WRFU ("Radio Free Urbana"), housed in the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center. For the past year he has worked with UPTV volunteer producers and staff to produce a television version of the same show.

As the show's title implies, Not Another Sports Show is not your average sports show. As with Neil's People's World columns, his show focuses on politics and social justice in sports, including labor issues.

Not Another Sports Show can be heard live on WRFU 104.5 FM every Saturday afternoon from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. Central Time. That same episode is then shown on UPTV the following Wednesday evening. It's also available as a podcast. The show has a Facebook page as well.

Parthun also co-hosts a podcast about professional wrestling. You can listen to The Untitled Wrestling Show here.

Some of his recent People's World articles have dealt with gun culture and the Jovan Belcher tragedy, the 2012 baseball season, the NHL lockout as a major labor struggle, Lance Armstrong, and athletes and LGBT equality

A versatile guy, when he is not doing journalism and community media Neil teaches history at a local junior high school, reads comic books and spends time with his girlfriend, Lisa.

Congratulations, Neil.

Photo: Peoples World

History, Tarantino style: "Django Unchained"

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 11:54:00 +0000

Quentin Tarantino's latest film is a tonic after the incessant racist dog whistles of last year's campaign (and basically Obama's entire presidency). This film answers the dog whistles with a shotgun blast. "Django Unchained" takes a central tragedy of American history and re-imagines it as exploitation-film revenge fantasy. This patently "insensitive" treatment of slavery and racism isn't for everyone: Spike Lee recently complained via Twitter: "... slavery was not a ...spaghetti Western. It was a holocaust." Yet Tarantino's previous film, "Inglourious Basterds," was also a "spaghetti Western" - about the Jewish Holocaust. "Basterds" tells the story of a World War II all-Jewish-American special ops unit in occupied France dedicated to killing - and scalping - as many Nazis as possible.

"Django" is to Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" what "Basterds" is to "Schindler's List": an action film do-over of historical outrages. Whereas Spielberg uses real people and events to create fictionalized history, Tarantino's use of trashy fiction encourages us to discern powerful moral truths from history. Spike Lee has (rightly) criticized Tarantino in the past for his flippant use of the n-word - Tarantino's repeated use of it in his own dialog in "Pulp Fiction" was particularly troubling. However, here the word is used, fittingly, to depict racism. Together, both "Django" and "Basterds" form a dual indictment of white supremacy in its European and American skins.

Like many Westerns, "Django" is about redemption and retribution. It tells the story of Django (Jamie Foxx), a slave in pre-Civil=War Texas freed by German bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz). Together, they pursue Django's quest to reunite with his wife, Broomhilda Von Shaft (Kerry Washington). Django learns to be a hardened killer ("the fastest gun in the South") from Dr. Schultz; in turn Django teaches the German "dentist" to be human.

The eccentric cinematic meta-narrative of "Django" and "Basterds" operates like a stoned Hegelian dialectic between pop culture and history. Dr. Schultz (as the heroic twin of Hans Landa, "The Jew Hunter," in "Basterds") preemptively redeems German culture by casting Django's struggle as the story of Siegfried and Brunhilde, and by not bearing to hear Beethoven as the background music to inhuman brutality (in a scene reminiscent of "A Clockwork Orange.") Leonardo DiCaprio plays the slaver Calvin Candie as an anti-Lt. Aldo Raine ("Basterds" good guy Brad Pitt), Southern accent and all. Candie blasphemes the European Enlightenment in his final outrage, his pseudoscientific justification of white supremacy's perverse order.

Dr. Schultz learns that the law can only rectify injustice up to a point; radical moral action is needed to approach true justice. In this sense, he is like another slavery-hating mid-19^th-century German doctor I know of who taught that each of us has the power to change the world.

"Django" holds a funhouse mirror up to the reality of the monstrous institution of slavery - to really get at the true horror and absurdity of slavery and white supremacism, it is necessary to construct the grotesque carnal carnival of atrocities Tarantino has assembled with this film. Django's antebellum South is nonetheless a more "accurate" picture of slavery and racism than that seen in any genteel period epic: almost as tasteless, offensive, and inappropriate as reality itself. The obscenities committed by Django's villains are insults to our sensibilities so severe that they can only be resolved by shootouts that are so ridiculously bloody they become slapstick, like pie fights with gore instead of custard. "Django" visualizes quite literally Lincoln's second inaugural address: "until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn by the sword."

Tarantino clearly loves his medium - his films are always banquets for movie lovers, and he wears his cinephile heart on his sleeve. "Django" refers as easily to 1970s plantation potboiler sleaze ("Mandingo") and blaxploitation Westerns ("Take a Hard Ride") as it does to higher brow fare like Gillo Pontecorvo's "Burn!" and Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch." It owes as much to the racially charged opening scenes of George Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" (1978) as it does to the stark closing shots of Alexander Dovzhenko's "Arsenal" (1928). It's a cross between "Birth of a Nation" and "Blazing Saddles," or "Gone With the Wind" with a gangsta rap soundtrack.

I wish Tarantino would continue this film cycle forever, with action heroes to save every oppressed community. I can't wait to see Sonny Chiba as an ass-kicking World War II internee, or Sean Penn as a Harvey Milk who shoots back.

What I admire most about Quentin Tarantino as an artist is the respect and appreciation he shows for his audience by putting out work that doesn't pander or insult their intelligence, but instead raises consciousness by exploring challenging questions and offering provocative ideas in an entertaining way. "Django" has as much to offer to film and lit majors and fans of equal rights as it does to grindhouse gorehounds. Like all great art, Tarantino's antiracist period pieces don't leave one satisfied; they leave one wanting to confront injustice in real time - before it's "too late" and history is allowed to play out its tragedies without intercession.

Movie information:

"Django Unchained"

Directed by Quentin Tarantino

Starring: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson

2012, rated R (violence and language), 165 min.

Photo: Movie still of Christoph Waltz and Jamie Foxx.

“Koch Brothers Exposed”: must-see DVD hits hard

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 13:17:00 +0000

In "Koch Brothers Exposed," director Robert Greenwald shines a penetrating light on the way in which billionaire businessmen brothers Dave and Charles Koch have used their money to impose their conservative agenda. The Koch Brothers own the second largest corporate empire in the United States, worth $100 billion with enterprises in oil, gas, forestry, plastic, and consumer goods.

The Koch brothers have financed a web of right-wing think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute, which promote the brothers' views in the media. Among other things, these organizations advocate raising the retirement age to 70, privatizing Social Security and reducing taxes for the wealthy.

As critics point out, they advocate positions that are based on misinformation such as that social security is nearly bankrupt. In fact, social security is running a $2.6 trillion dollar surplus, according to Sen. Bernie Sanders. These right wing think tanks create "an echo chamber that repeats a lot of this false information," Sanders says. Koch-backed politicians in Congress and the Senate reiterate the lies. (Review continues after trailer.)

Dave and Charles Koch have bankrolled state and federal politicians who work to undermine the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other regulations and help them reduce or evade fines. They have given over $500,000 to members sitting on the House Energy and Commerce Committee in charge of environmental and pollution regulations.

"From the Koch brothers point of view, you try and buy yourself a Congress who has single handily tried to eviscerate government environmental regulations across the board", states Rep. Gerald Connelly of Virginia.

Koch Industries are the tenth largest polluters in the U.S. Over the years, they have paid tens of millions of dollars in fines for emitting pollution and allowing oil spills. They want to build the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline to bring dirty tar sand oil from Alberta, Canada to Texas where it can be refined and exported.

Environmentalist Bill Mckibben dubs the Koch brothers "carbon barons."

The documentary takes you to the small community of Crossett, Ark., where a large Koch paper plant that spews toxic chemicals into local creeks has led to many cancer deaths. One mother, tears streaming down her face, recounts how her 36-year-old daughter, who had never smoked, died of lung cancer.

"The Koch brothers have not only manipulated the political process, but have manipulated the public into believing that the EPA is killing jobs," claims Texas Environmental Criminologist Melissa Jarrell. She cites one high profile case in Corpus Christi, in 2000 where a Koch-owned refinery was convicted of releasing excess Benzine into the air and then trying to cover it up. Benzine increases the risks of getting cancer.

Former President George W. Bush worked with the Koch brothers to reduce the severity of the charge and the fines, from $350 million to $20 million.

"They know they can get away with it. They will only wait and be fined if they ever get caught. In most cases they won't get caught because the EPA is understaffed and underfunded," Jarrell laments.

The brothers have also financially backed voter suppression efforts in 34 states, which have introduced tough new voter identification laws that make it more difficult for students, the disabled and elderly, Latinos and Blacks to vote.

To pressure public officials, the Koch brothers formed "Americans for Prosperity" in 34 states, which organizes public demonstrations that push for less government regulation and fewer government programs, including the repeal of "Obamacare". They also support think tanks that promote the privatization of the education system.

According to Nation editor Katrina Vanden Huevel, the brothers provide grants to universities that require them to hire professors the Koch brothers recommend. The brothers have agreements with 150 universities and colleges. In North Carolina's Wake County, they even funded groups that tried to reintroduce segregation in the public school system.

The Koch brothers have been behind the Republican war against public sector unions in Wisconsin and other states. The brothers first sent emissaries to Republican Governor Scott Walker to urge him to attack public sector unions in Wisconsin. The Koch brothers then donated money to the Governor and had Americans for Prosperity run TV attack ads against public sector unions.

Greenwald suggests that father Fred, who made his money working with the Soviet oil industry in the 1930s, molded his two sons. Fred Koch was an ardent supporter and big financial backer of the John Birch Society that fought against civil rights for blacks during the 1950s and 60s.

Greenwald's well-crafted documentary exposing the shenanigans of Dave and Charles Koch is a muckraking tour de force that takes no prisoners. Every union, left wing party, church group and community group concerned with social justice in the U.S. should screen Koch Brothers Exposed.

DVD review

"Koch Brothers Exposed"

Directed by Robert Greenwald

Producer: Brave New Foundation

2012, 55 mins.

Movies you might have missed: Ace in the Hole

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 12:02:00 +0000

The corrupting influence of mass media in a capitalist society has been the focus of several films. Most of these concentrate on the medium of television, famously exposing the manipulation of opinion and emotions for profit are such pictures as Quiz Show (1994), Network (1976), and Being There (1979). Predating all of these however is a 1951 production directed by Billy Wilder that examines the newspaper business entitled, Ace in the Hole.

Kirk Douglas stars as a hard-driving reporter detoured to New Mexico after a string of mishaps at large papers in the East and Midwest. His relationship with the truth is casual at best and his stock in trade is the sort of sensationalist schlock the bourgeois press was built on.

Intrigued at the idea of increasing circulation by picking up an experienced reporter at a bargain price the editor of a small town paper offers him a job, but before long, Douglas finds there is little news to cover, or even invent.

A delightful scene occurs early in the film as a bored and grumpy Douglas paces about the newsroom loudly lamenting his distance from New York. "What do you know about Yogi Bera?" he bellows at one of his colleagues and receives the reply, "well, it's a sort of religion isn't it?" and he barks back "you bet it is!"

Douglas gets a break when en route to the less than glamorous beat of covering a rattlesnake hunt, he stumbles upon an Indian artifact collector trapped in a cave. The Douglas character quickly calculates it will take at least a week for him to milk the story for all it's worth. He realizes he can turn what would have been a one day human interest story into a media sensation. One that he will carefully control and use as his ticket back into employment with the major dailies.

The actual rescue of the trapped victim would be a fairly straightforward procedure but Douglas conspires with the local Sheriff and a contractor to promote the idea of reaching him via a circuitous route that will take considerably longer. He persuades everyone that if they cooperate with his scheme they will get what they want. The Sheriff will get votes, the trading post located next door will sell hamburgers and souvenirs. With the plan in place the floodgates are opened and a brigade of salivating reporters from the big papers swarm in and camp out at the site. With each passing day they eagerly wait for each bit of information on the rescue that Douglas carefully lets out bit by bit. The Sheriff having already agreed to keeping the other reporters at bay for "safety reasons". The supposed rescue effort becomes a tourist destination in addition to being a media circus. Another willing participant is the trapped man's wife. She is bored with a life that is little more than being a glorified waitress at the trading post and domestic drudgery with a desert backdrop has long since lost it's ability to charm her. And it isn't enough that Douglas corrupts what is left of his own ethics, he warps a young copy boy from his paper into a sickening version of himself.

Ace in the Hole follows the traditions of American film noir with crackling dialogue and a cast of characters that is utterly irredeemable. Even the man trapped in the cave is in reality little more than a grave robber who pinches earthen Indian jars to which he has no right, for his own profit.

Upon it's release the picture was not a success. The gloomy portrayal of the cynical manipulation of events for private gain, indeed with a man's life at stake, was too dark a commentary on the shabby business of corrupt enterprise under capitalism. It's message resonates just as strongly today however, for as long as the spirit of private profit and competition motivate man rather than mutual cooperation then we will continue to witness sad commentaries such as these, not only in the movies, but in our society.

“Sorry to Bother You”: 2012’s top 10 albums

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 11:56:00 +0000

During the annual consumer orgy I call Capitalistmas, critics are assigned the task of rating the cultural product of the closing calendar year. This functions to stimulate the economy as it inspires customers to go out and move end-of-year inventory by purchasing items to give as gifts in a stressful, environmentally destructive ritual of commodity potlatch. But crude economic analysis aside, now that it's too late to grease the skids of commerce, it is time to look back at 2012's best achievements in music.

I'm probably not the most reliable critic to opine on this topic, since I only listened to one album released this year. Fortunately, it was on at least one other critic's list. But more on that later.

With the Internet, anyone can formulate his or her own Top 10 Albums list - without even listening to a single song. Simply consult dependable sources such as: big circulation publications (People magazine, Rolling Stone, New York Times), hipster public radio DJs, websites that track sales (Billboard, Walmart.com), and websites with lists of links that lead to more lists of links (BestEverAlbums.com, AlbumoftheYear.org: Pitchfork's Best Albums) ...

Hopefully, the annual Top 10 List itself will be made obsolete altogether by technologically- and socially-driven changes in the culture "market." Social media, Internet file sharing, independent record stores, and public institutions such as public radio, museums, and libraries are ensuring that people's music choices are not completely dominated by the annual commercial offerings of a few big record companies and chain stores.

From my collected Top 10 Lists, I distilled a Top 10 Albums Meta List. The albums containing my favorite (Korean hip hop artist PSY's tongue-in-cheek paean to Seoul's rising bourgeoisie, "Gangnam Style") and least favorite (Carly Rae Jepsen's cloyingly sexist "Call Me Maybe") singles didn't make the list. Although both became the compulsory hits of 2012, they're also (fairly or not) considered "novelty songs" that didn't translate into album success.

Top 10 Albums of 2012 Meta List:

1. Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.A.A.d city
Hard and heavy West Coast gangsta rapper, and heir apparent of Dr. Dre., Lamar flows from thug hedonism with a conscience - "Swimming Pools (Drank)," to the spacey, pitch-black "m.A.A.d city (feat. MC Eiht)."

2. Frank Ocean - Channel Orange
Thin, spare, laid back '70s groove; sort of like a new school Common to Kendrick Lamar's Dr. Dre.

3. Taylor Swift - Red
Continuing the 2012 theme of nostalgia for things that aren't that old, the embittered adolescent breakup ballad pioneered by Kelly Clarkson works better in Swift's pop-country format. The joyful, liberatory "We are never ever getting back together" contains a nice bit of self-deprecating irony: "find some peace of mind in an indie record that's way cooler than mine."

4. One Direction - Up All Night
This boy band created by Simon Cowell features flirtatious, esteem-building boyfriend music: "What makes you beautiful" is that "you don't know you're beautiful."

5. Now That's What I Call Music vols. 43 (feat. One Direction and Carly Rae Jepsen) and 44 (feat. Justin Bieber and PSY). Indispensable if you're curious about what the masses are listening to.

6. Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel is Wiser than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do
The sexy "Hot Knife" proves that this Indie balladeer can still deliver a post-modern folk song.

7. Tame Impala - Lonerism
Like a noisier, trippier Beatles.

8. Grizzly Bear - Shields
A cleaner, mellower '70s rock than Japandroids.

9. Japandroids - Celebration Rock
Fun, blaring throwback rockers.

10. Poolside - Pacific Standard Time
Disco handclaps and high-pitched vocals make for an aquamarine swimming pool glow.

My personal Best Album of 2012, The Coup's "Sorry to Bother You," sadly did not make my own list. It landed on only one other critic's list (in Mother Jones magazine, at that.)

Boots Riley delivers his most mixed-up hip hop extravaganza to date, ranging from a Sly & the Family Stone meets Schoolhouse Rock jam ("Magic Clap") to a "London Calling"-era Clash punkout - with kazoos ("Parent's Cocaine.") Boots' experimental cross-fertilization of hip hop and rock works best in the swirling "Long Island Iced Tea, Neat." A brief sample of Boots' dialectical poetics:

"We are only a fetus, we are modeling the shape
We gon make a masterpiece out of all the mistakes"

Photo: Author's copy of The Coup's "Sorry to Bother You," autographed by Boots RIley. (Chris Elliott/PW)