Daily Archives: June 16, 2017

It was a wipeout. Failing to win a single contest in 1,004 local elections in Italy on Sunday (11 June), Beppe Grillos 5 Star Movement was quickly assigned to the list of declining populist parties that began with Geert Wilders defeat in Marchs Dutch poll.

Said to be inspired by the Trump Effect, Italian voters gave their votes to the centre-right and centre-left, going so far as to post a Lega Nord/Forza Italia coalition victory in Grillos hometown, Genoa, a traditionally left-wing city.

The one-time comedian was quick to write off the defeat as a symptom of growing pains.

The M5S was the most present political force in this electoral round. The other parties camouflaged themselves, above all the PD which presented itself in around half the constituencies the M5S did, he told Ansa. The results are a sign of slow but inexorable growth.

Grillo might be right. 5 Star is no ordinary populist party. Indeed, calling it populist is itself something of a stretch, though the M5S leader has done little to dampen the comparison, given his embrace of Marine Le Pen, Nigel Farage, and, umm, Donald Trump.

More importantly, 5 Star has managed to fill a void in Italian politics that was opened up by the collapse of the countrys left, particularly that created by the fragmentation of the Communist Party in the early 1990s, of which Grillo was once a member.

Adding a healthy dose of environmentalism and anarchism, and a typically American embrace of the democratic possibilities opened up by the Internet, made the 5 Star Movement an especially distinct beast, with little ideologically in common with other populist parties such as Germanys far-right Alternative fr Deutschland.

The tone of the partys politics has always been counter-cultural, albeit hippie-like, sans the labour emphasis of the older Italian left. Given that Grillo and party co-founder Gianroberto Casaleggio were both baby boomers, it made sense.

They were, in fact, ageing hippies, who, in classic 1960s fashion, had held onto most of the contrarian ideologies of their generation.

That cultural mix is what made 5 Star such a potent and appealing, Zeitgeist-like force, particularly in the context of the economic crisis created by the decadence of Silvio Berlusconis disastrous four terms in office, during which the party was born.

5 Star didnt have to offer much in the way of a concrete political programme. It just had to emphasise the anti-establishment values associated with Italys declining left, and the culture of its post-war heyday.

The problem with this, and the one which makes it less than competitive with Italys right, is its anti-immigration stance, one that Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi resurrected this week, calling for a moratorium on migration to the capital.

A former advocate of Romes profound diversity, the scandal-ridden Raggi could not help but sound a bit insincere, smarting, as 5 Star was, from its electoral performance on Sunday.

Hence the significance of the electoral resurgence of the Lega Nord and Berlusconis Forza Italia. Both took an estimated 13% in Sundays vote, in no small part due to the consistency of their historic antipathy towards immigration.

Decidedly nationalist parties, and also avowedly pro-business, the Lega Nord and Forza Italia are also less ideologically contradictory than 5 Star.

Their return to prominence, at 5 Stars expense, helps highlight the ideological inconsistencies of Grillos party, and why immigration is a core weakness.

Hating Roma, for example, is not normally associated with environmentalism. Even in Italy, where fascism always indulged a mix of left and right.

If 5 Star continues to haemorrhage voters to its competitors, it will be impossible to ignore why.

Appoint a queer premier. The Serbian government has come under fire once again after the Nelt Group announced that its facilities in downtown Belgrade had been illegally razed.EURACTV.rs reports.

Democratic deficit. France is mulling the introduction of proportional representation for its next legislative election. It could take inspiration from its European neighbours, all of which bar the United Kingdom use a version of PR.

Hungary is such a drag. Budapests new NGO law is discriminatory and restricts the free movement of capital. This could affect other kinds of economic activity, former Commission official Heather Grabbe toldEURACTIV Germany.

Refugee crisis 1.0. Almost a decade before Lampedusa became a symbol of todays refugee crisis, the Canary Islands another southern European border faced a similar challenge, reports EURACTIV media partner EFE.

Cold War still hot. Ion Iliescu and 13 other officials have been ordered to stand trial on charges of crimes against humanity in connection with the crackdown on a Bucharest protest in 1990, the Romanian prosecutors office said on Tuesday.

No taxes, no peace. The growing trend of distributing vouchers to employees to avoid taxes has raised eyebrows in the Greek government, which has moved to crack down on unprecedented levels of tax evasion in the cash-strapped country.

Refugees matter. The EU launched legal action on Tuesday against Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic for refusing to take in their share of refugees under a controversial solidarity plan.

Go West. Macedonias new leaders showed fresh resolve to revive the countrys stalled bid for membership of the EU and NATO on Monday by vowing to mend relations with estranged EU neighbours Greece and Bulgaria and implement long-delayed reforms.

Hippies are better at farming. Italys anti-system 5-Star Movement looked set to suffer a severe setback in local elections on Sunday, failing to make the run-off vote in almost all the main cities up for grabs.

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Trans-Europe Express: 5 Star fails on immigration - EURACTIV

(Random House) US: Jun 2017

For much of the 21st centurylike the decades preceding itidealism has seemed in short supply in America. As the country lurches from dubious democracy to outright oligarchy, and the fledgling achievements of the Civil Rights era are back-pedaled into barely veiled disenfranchisement and targeted violence against black Americans and other minorities, idealism has seemed the scarcest resource in a country where hope itself has inexorably dwindled. Even the countrys dissenters those pundits and politicians who challenge whatever status quo holds sway in the halls of Washington and board rooms of Wall Streetseem more intent on proving the legitimacy of their own voices than proving the legitimacy of any high ideals.

However, suggests Jeremy McCarter, the spirit of radicalism and idealism may be returning to America. As his book went to print in early 2017 he witnessed the march of a nation against the president it found itself saddled with; a president who seemed to embody all of the countrys most terrible qualities.

Perhaps hes right, and something is awakening in the American soul. Perhaps it requires great struggle against the most formidable and despicable of foes to break through the collective cynicism of a country disillusioned with its ideals; to quicken a peoples heart and enable them to believe in the potential for progress once again.

Driven in part by the hope this might be the case, McCarter looks back to a former century for inspiration. Young Radicals might appear on the surface to be a group biography, but its subject is actually the spirit of an age. McCarter explores the progressive-minded radical idealism of the 1910s, an era which produced some of the centurys greatest hopes and greatest horrors. In America: socialism and suffrage. Internationally: world war and the Russian Revolution.

Behind the fury of events and ideas were vibrant, living people, and McCarter weaves his narrative primarily around the stories and struggles of five of them. Walter Lippmann starts off the tale as an employee of the newly elected Socialist mayor of Schenectady, New York; he quickly grows disgusted with the municipal administrations failure to implement serious socialism and embarks on his own career as a writer and journalist, helping to found The New Republic magazine and eventually serving as advisor to presidents.

Alice Paul: the Quaker who learned militant resistance from the suffragettes in Britain and brought it back to America where she fought for womens right to vote, and broader equality, until her death in 1977. John Reed, swashbuckling journalist, poet, and playwright who produced the most famous chronicle of the Russian Revolution, tried to kickstart communism in America, and died as a member of the fledgling Soviet government in 1920, the only American to be honoured with burial at the Kremlin. Max Eastman, editor of the radical journal The Masses. And Randolph Bourne, radical writer and essayist whose refusal to commit himself to any ideological stricture was no doubt aided in part by his tragically early death.

The five core characters, and the many others who came into their orbits, were united by more than just their radical organizations, journals, and Greenwich Village roots. There was a spirit in the air. America was idealistic. People believed they could identify the countrys problems, and by thinking about them, solve them. There was a deep-seated faith that the answers were out there; a faith that coincided with the birth or maturing of doctrines that would go on to play an important role in 20th century history: feminism, socialism, communism, internationalism, transnationalism. There was a concomitant belief in the power of art to change the worldnon-commercial; radical; political artart for and by artists, not for or by corporate profit or state-sponsored regimes.

There was a purity to the struggle and idealism of the era, or at least McCarter helps it to appear that way in hindsight.

Of course, he handles his characters with passion, but also integrity. He knows they werent perfect. Alice Pauls suffrage militancy collaborates with white supremacists. John Reed and Max Eastman both wind up disillusioned after their first-hand experiences as part of the Russian revolutionary regime. Walter Lippmann becomes an apologist for Americas involvement in World War I, lured in by the prospect of influence at the highest levels of power in Washington.

But the gradual evolution of these characters is at least as instructive, and important, as the genesis of their radical idealism.

Biography of an Era

McCarters subjects at first appear to be a disparate, random grouping of intellectuals and activists, waging their own struggles and lives, linked here and there by common causes and employers. But what gradually emergesand McCarter does a consummate job in breathing it slowly into lifeis a common spirit of idealism and radicalism that animates not only this core of characters but also the movements and people around them. From the arts to politics to journalism and more, every field of endeavor seems infused by this sense of grappling with big ideas. No matter where the characters turn their energy, their projects take on a sense of fundamental radical importance.

During a summer break, John Reed, Louise Bryant and several others form what would become the famous Provincetown Players, at first just for a lark but they take it so seriously it develops a life of its own (in the process they accidentally discover and recruit Eugene ONeill, who would go on to become what many consider Americas greatest playwright). The theatre troupes constitution, drafted during an intense 24-hour writing session by Eastman, Reed, and a couple of others, deeply resembles the manifesto for their radical journal The Masses, grappling with issues of democratic and artistic control by the artists themselves, and dedicated to presenting the sorts of things capitalism would not be interested in. The two projectsand countless others during these few yearsare really one and the same.

The same radicals, pursuing the same dreams, facing the same problems: The Masses and the Provincetown Players are, at heart, twin children of the zeitgeist. Both explicitly reject the limiting, falsifying effects of commercial production. Both see a true and honest reckoning with the facts of American life as a step toward liberation. Both proceed not with doggedness, but with a light heart. There is, in both, a lively spirit of play.

The First World War is a constant backdrop to the throbbing beat of this zeitgeist, both tempering and quickening it. America watches in horror as Europeheretofore considered by many the apex of the civilized worlddescends into barbarous, self-destructive bloodshed. President Woodrow Wilson is initially determined to keep America out of the war, and public sentiment (along with the radicals) are on his side. Yet as the war drags on, so do the cries for America to do something, especially when growing numbers of American vessels and passengers wind up as unintended casualties of German U-Boats in the Atlantic.

Yet for the time being America rests atop its moral high ground, preaching peace to both sides, ready and waiting to help the world rebuild whenever the war ends. Wilsons administration sends a moralizing message to both sides: no matter who wins, the war will have been a setback for human civilization, and whatever settlement ends the war must not be grounded in vengeance but in ensuring that new systems are put in place to prevent war from ever erupting again. The government itself seems tinged with the idealism of the era. Peace without victory is the call coming from the White House; it is, perhaps, the last stand of institutionalized American idealism and morality.

When more American casualties pile up, and when the Germans not only refuse to rein in their U-Boats but are caught trying to provoke Mexico into a war with the United States, Wilsons administration finally opts for war (they werent entirely hapless victims: militarists and would-be war profiteers at high levels had been advocating for participation in the war for years). But even then, they attempt to varnish it with a moralistic sheen. Granted, war-making American administrations have always claimed they were fighting for some high ideal, but Wilson gives his vision a bit more substance: not only a war for democracy, but he suddenly injects the new vision of a League of Nations, a super-governing global body with the power to prevent future wars, into the mix. Its a fitting capstone to this radical moment that even the most institutionalized Establishment figure, the president, clings on to a radical idea as well.

In many ways, Young Radicals is an innovative history of the First World War. While it engages a broader range of subject matter than just the war, it also offers an important history of the war from the perspective of how it impacted progressive and radical socio-political movements in America. When America finally enters the war it signals a crack in American utopianism and idealism. From the dubious idealism of President Wilsons administration and its efforts to stay out of the war, to the split in the left caused by Americas eventual entry, the war impacted American progressivism just as powerfully as these young radicals impacted the war. And impact it they did, by challenging its repressive anti-sedition and anti-espionage legislation, which wound up shutting down radical papers like The Masses and eventually deporting hundreds of radicals to Russia after the war. Yet amidst these defeats, the radicals had victories, too, defending themselves from prison and worse in passionately argued court cases. Much of our popular ideals of free speech were shaped in pivotal ways during this period.

One major impact the war had on the radicals was in splitting their ranks, between those (like Lippmann) who bought the governments claim that it was fighting for democracy, peace and other high ideals; and those who saw Americas entry into the war as treachery and imperialism. These latter included not only radical socialists like Eastman and Reed but also Paul and her suffrage movement, which rightly pointed to the hypocrisy of a government that claimed it was going to war for democracy while it denied democracy to tens of millions of women voters at home.

Lippmann himself became an ideologue for the Presidents war-making, narcissistically convinced he would help craft the post-war new world order. When finally faced with the fact of both his exclusion from decision making and the failure of America to achieve the idealistic post-war treaty it sought, he seeks redemption by working to scuttle the fatally flawed treaty. Interestingly, President Wilson himself becomes almost a sixth core character, ostensibly the farthest thing from a radical (as President) yet almost helplessly sharing in the radical and idealistic spirit of the age despite himself.

Young Radicals is a beautiful book; a desperately-needed book for the present era. The prose is passionate and poetic; the narrative is fast-moving, riveting and resonates with the very idealism that its author seeks to explore. McCarter writes with passion and integrity. Its a book that renders hope real again, and reminds us that idealism and progressive radicalism are not terms of insult; they are core American values that America needs desperately to rediscover. Its only ever idealism that has driven America forward, notes McCarter in closing. In a dark era like the present, its more vital than ever to (re)discover and cling to the most audacious ideals, for they are the only bulwark against the destructive power of cynicism.

Whatever happens, we ought to be braced by the example of the young radicals: how they discovered their ideals, made a decision to fight for them, and went on fighting even when the battle turned against them. Their defeats were painful, but not final. Battles for ideals never are. Ruins stop being ruins when you build with them.

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Original post:

Whatever Happened to American Idealism? - PopMatters

If you grew up listening to Tupac Shakur, youre going to be disappointed with the biopic All Eyez On Me. If you merely knew about Tupac but are generally unaware of his songs and what they stand for, youre going to be disappointed with this movie. If youre looking for a hip hop biography in the vein of Straight Outta Compton, youre still going to be disappointed. With no clear target audience that will be entertained, this is a difficult film to recommend.

Tupac is a giant name, and he deserved a film better than this one. Directed by Benny Boom, who is known for music videos for 50 Cent, David Guetta and other such big artists, the film never manages to engage on a level that Tupac did with his songs. In fact the film plays out like a string of music videos, with bits of story sprinkled, to no lasting effect.

A still from All Eyez on Me. Image from Facebook

A biography tends to chronicle familiar beats such as humble beginnings, an opportunity, a rise, the descent into sex, drugs and disillusionment and the eventual fall but a good biography transcends these cinematic clichs with either new ways to explore them, or pure cinematic heft. All Eyez On Me unfortunately tracks those familiar elements like a checklist, not revealing anything that wasnt already known about the legendary hip hop artist.

The biggest focus here is the frenemy relationships between Tupac, Suge Knight and Biggie Smalls but theres a lot of smoke and no fire the conflicts dont exude any power and the drama feels like something out of a bad TV movie than a motion picture. Even worse is the supposedly platonic friendship between Tupac and Jada Pinkett (who would later become a movie star and Will Smiths wife). The film tries to shoehorn a social issue with Tupacs mother being a blacktivist, and the internal conflict that Tupac has with whether to stand up for his community, but that too is weakly executed. The censorship by Mr Nihalani doesnt help matters with swear words muted listening to Tupacs songs feels like eating a burger without the patty.

A still from All Eyez on Me. Image from Facebook

Demetruis Shipp, who plays Tupac looks a lot like the guy hes playing, but falls completely flat during the dramatic moments and fares even worse in the sentimental ones. The few bits of entertainment come from the music montages where you see him belting out his legendary songs, but the film never manages to capture the infectious energy of better films of its genre.

The 90s captured a whole zeitgeist of music and the rivalry between the East and West coast rappers, theres a whole history behind the movement and the film wastes a huge opportunity to tap into a time so crucial to both America and music. Perhaps a Netflix mini series would be a better avenue to explore the chunk of time in greater detail. In fact the hologram of Tupac performing at Coachella a few years ago was farmore interesting than this film you could head over to YouTube to watch an icon digitally come back to life.

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All Eyez on Me movie review: This 2pac biopic is a compilation of videos with very little story - Firstpost