LEFT CURVE no.30 EDITORIAL

We could say that, since the radical caesura of 9/11, things in the world today have "settled" into a of series of catastrophies: unending, asymmetric war ("war on terrorism"; continuing civil war in Afghanistan; the on-going Palestinian/Israel conflict; the raging fires spewing from the gaping "gates of hell", blasted open by the criminal "shock and awe" U.S. invasion and no-end-in-sight violence and occupation of Iraq; upheavals in Africa, Chechnya, Southeast Asia, etc.); the alarming, widening chasm between the Islamic world and the "West"; criminality and corruption on all levels of life; transnational and local drug wars and addiction (legal and illegal); pandemic sexual abuse, degradation, torture and pornography; epidemics (AIDS, West Nile virus, Mad Cow, Bird Flu, etc.); natural disasters (Tsunami, devastating hurricanes, wild fires, erratic weather patterns, species' extinction, global warming: melting of glaciers, polar ice caps and the Siberian permafrost, etc.)--and on and on and on... A frightening, dire, bewildering, sheering tear has ripped through the fabric of contemporary being: an ever-widening caustic fissure has opened, spewing noxious, suffocating gasses and acrid particles that are somehow everywhere and nowhere--corroding internal and external space as an unseen but palpable dense cloud of death stealthily spreads over the land. And all this can be seen as the culmination of the "modern civilization" (colonialism, imperialism, exploitation of all natural and human resources for private gain, commodification of everything) that has finally crashed into impregnable boulders formed out of the modern world's own presumptive arrogance that the world exists just for self-aggrandizement and physical pleasure--which, of course, only "benefitted" the few at the expense of the many--all under banners of "individual liberty and democracy." Anyway, it's hard to feel too cheery these days, without denial and/or self-delusion. As for solutions, let's be honest: there aren't any forthcoming; what we face now has never existed before in history, all past answers ring hollow or become nostalgic escapes. But that doesn't mean we have to give up either and this issue is put together with an attitude of uncompromising refusal and resistance to the insanity.

Maria Gilardin's article, "Apocalypse Now: How Mankind is Sleepwalking to the End of the Earth", is an alarming exposé of the environmental catastrophy that is unfolding all around us. And the overwhelming responsibility lies with the wasteful life-style of the U.S., which, as Maria writes, for example, puts out 20 metric tons of CO 2 per annum per person, while the EUës figure is 8 and China's 2--and the Bush administration refuses to sign any agreements to cut back CO 2 emissions. So, Maria concludes, "...it is up to ordinary people to refuse collaboration and to control the perpetrators."

"Globalizing Abu Ghraib: Four Meditations on Rhetoric & Violence in an Age of Empire" is a well-composed, disturbing chronicle of the "war on terrorism." Rather then addressing the ill-effects of American gluttony, the Bush administration has spent untold billions in wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq, dispensed filled-to-the-brim pork-barrel "Homeland Security" hand-outs to the well-connected, carried out extrajudical assassinations by spy-drones, set up gulags like Guantanamo Bay and Bagram prison, overseen the obscenity of Abu Ghraib and secret torture chambers in unnamed countries, instituted spying operations on U.S. civilians without accountability, while allowing thousands of Hurricane Katrina victims to die and languish in the Gulf Coast. G. D. McFetridge's short story, Afghanistan, is a well-written account of the thuggish, racist mindset not uncommon among U.S. soldiers that illuminates how the atrocities of Abu Ghraib could be carried out. Meanwhile, serious unanswered questions surround the event that sparked all this, as Ronald Bleier's article, "9/11, An Inside Job?", explores. Michael Ray Fitzgerald and Fred W. Hill's historical survey, "Gimmie That Red-State Religion," provides insight into the origins and development of a little known but important part of the American social psyche. Insight can also be gleamed into the disgraceful response to Hurricane Katrina through Richard Young's, "Hello Rescue", in which a supposed training course for emergency rescue personnel "...sounded like urban war, the state-of-the-art in military discourse being transplanted into Emergency Response planning." In contrast, the work of the grass-roots organization Common Ground, relying solely on volunteers and donations, went to work "Cleansing New Orleans," with the slogan, "Solidarity Not Charity," in a way that would be of direct benefit to the displaced people as the interview of Rahim Malik, by Ildiko Polony, demonstrates.

In commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the assassination of Pier Paolo Pasolini, we are pleased to present "A Pasolini Dossier," prepared by Jack Hirschman, which gives us a sampling of an anthology to be published by City Lights Books that Jack is overseeing. Pasolini's prophetic voice clearly foresaw the totalitarian consumerist "anti-fascist fascism" within which we are now suffocating. Of particular note are the two essays by Gianni d'Elia which show just how relevant Pasolini is to our current dilemmas. We encourage the reader to read with care the essays and poetry of this dossier and thereby come to know one of the most original and uncompromising voices of the past century. P. J. Laska's, review, "Melville, Marx & the Megatechnology of Capitalism", of the book, Herman Melville, Between Charlemagne and the Antemosaic Cosmic Man, by Loren Goldner, reveals a subversive side to the great 19th century writer, citing Melville's view that: "Seeking to conquer a larger liberty, man but extends the empire of necessity."

2006 is the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution, which was a watershed event that fully exposed the fundamental failings of the first practical attempt to construct a society beyond the monopoly of commodity relations. The resort to a tightly controlled command economy produced not liberation but bondage to a hyper-rationalized party/state structure that ignored the concrete reality of actual human life--not to mention the singularity of given peoples' historical legacies. Party/State Socialism's failing can be seen now not so much as a reversal from a presumed opening of a new era of human history, but rather as a closing chapter to modernity's myth of linear progress. Irrespective of how the revolt has been appropriated and (mis)used by capitalist powers, it's important to reclaim and preserve the legacy of 1956 as another example of spontaneous popular revolt, wherein "People took the direction of their fate into their own hands, actively intervening in shaping it and making history." It is through the accumulated tradition of such radical breaches in the status quo that the subjugated have written their history and which Power at all costs tries to distort or erase. As our way of commemoration, we're publishing documents from the film, "1956, or The Nap Street Boys", by the Hungarian filmmaker György Szomjas, that is currently in preparation and is to be released on Oct. 23, 2006.

Another revolutionary tradition that is in need of reclamation is that of the classical avant-garde of the early 20th century, which, "...shared... a radical refusal to be reconciled with the dominant social given." Gene Ray's "Art School Burning & Other Songs of Love and War" is an excellent piece of research on that theme, which also tries to draw lessons that can be of use for today's artists. A tall order, to say the least, given academia's and the art world's elite gallery system's well-honed penchant for co-opting anything and everything. The essay also traverses through the state of neo-liberal university education today: "Once claiming to be a preserve for free thought and unfettered critique and exchange, the university now resigns itself to vocational training and officially directed research... (in) what the corporate sector thinks will promise profit... and what the war machine requires..." Among other issues, Ray also reflects on the legacies of the 20th century revolutionary movements, their disastrous and traumatic history of defeat which, Ray argues, must be confronted honestly.

The spontaneous, leaderless, directionless explosion that ignited the perimeter of Paris and many other French cities in the late Fall of 2005 is the most recent example of unpredictable uprisings by the downtrodden that periodically ruptures society's surface calm. (Think Los Angeles in 1992). The dismissive, xenophobic, if not out-right racist reaction of many "progressives" ("...they're Muslims and sexist...!"), merely reveals just how far removed from the oppressed and a commitment to real radical change such people are. "The French Suburbs and the Revolutionary Subject," by Marco Antonio Esteban, succinctly places this event into a proper socio-historical context. The manifesto from France, "We'll Change Our Uprisings into Revolution", by the newly regrouped Association of Revolutionary Writers and Artists, represents a welcome new voice added to the long French revolutionary tradition.

I'd like also to direct the reader's attention to the fine short stories in this issue, which cover a wide-range of human experience. "Foetry.com: Interview with Steven Ford Brown, What Academia Doesn't Want You to Know About the Creative Writing Industry," is a nice exposÈ about the corruption in American letters, that may be an eye-opener for many readers. It's another example of how "free speech" and "free competition in the market place" are egregious deceptions that many blindly mouthe, without having a clue about how who's in and who's out are actually parcelled out in this society. We encourage writers to check-out Foetry.com's work, so they can have a better understanding of what they have to deal with. In "Capital, Culture & the Breeding of Power", John O'Kane focuses on the origins of the effects of the transition--which he locates during the years 1965-1973--to a Post-Fordist socio-economic structure, the full effects of which we are living in now.

We conclude this issue with a concise summary of "The Tenor of Our Times", by William T. Hathaway, in which the author sees our era as a period during which the forces of reaction have gained the upper hand. He aregues that dismantling the corporate colossus will be the work of generations. "What matters is widening the cracks" in the dungeon walls. "So we must persist. Patiently Perseveringly. After all, Rome wasn't destroyed in a day."

As always, feel free to contact us. Send us your critiques, submissions, orders and subscriptions.

--the editor