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Calling All CounterPunchers!
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Today's Stories November 7 / 9, 2008 Jean Bricmont November 6, 2008 Frank J. Menetrez John Chuckman P. Sainath Joshua Frank Edna Canetti John Ross Norman Solomon Fawzia Afzal-Khan Robert Weissman Harvey Wasserman Website of the Day
November 5, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair Chuck Spinney Ishmael Reed Chris Floyd Binoy Kampmark Michael Donnelly David Macaray Peter Morici Manuel Garcia, Jr. William Willers Website of the Day November 4, 2008 Kathleen Christison James Ridgeway Winslow T. Wheeler Mike Whitney Conn Hallinan Holly M. Barker Ashley Smith Andy Worthington Martha Rosenberg Stephen Martin Doug Lummis Carlos Fierro Website of the Day November 3, 2008 Patrick Cockburn John Kennedy O'Hara Peter Montague Steve Conn Andrew Gebhardt Ron Jacobs Ralph Nader Niranjan Ramakrishnan Uri Avnery Dave Lindorff Fred Gardner DC Larson David Michael Green Val Strange Tuli Kupferberg / Website of the Day
October 31 , 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Douglas Valentine Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Dr. Ignacy Nowopolski Alan Maass William P. O’Connor Patrick Irelan Brian Cloughley Mats Svensson Binoy Kampmark Steve Conn Alan Farago Morton Skorodin Robert Bryce Wajahat Ali David Yearsley Dennis Loo Pam Martens Stephen Martin Richard Rhames Ramzy Baroud Missy Beattie Howard Lisnoff Richard Neville Saul Landau / Kim Nicolini Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 30, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair Vijay Prashad Paul Craig Roberts Glen Ford Stanley Heller William Loren Katz Joshua Frank James McEnteer Felice Pace Jonathan Cook Reza Fiyouzat Website of the Day
October 29, 2008 Arno J. Mayer Eric Toussaint Matt Gonzalez Steven Conn Jonathan Cook Patrick Bond Ramzi Kysia Douglas Valentine Stephen Martin Margaret Dooley-Sammuli Amee Chew Website of the Day
October 28, 2008 James G. Abourezk Andy Worthington Gary Leupp Paul Craig Roberts Mike Whitney Gregory V. Button Ralph Nader P. Sainath Martha Rosenberg Charles R. Larson Website of the Day October 27, 2008 Michael Hudson Barbara Rose Johnston John Dinges Mike Whitney Mary Lynn Cramer Greenspan's Higher Power Alan Farago David Michael Green Andy Worthington George Wuerthner Niranjan Ramakrishnan Website of the Day October 24 / 26, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Ishmael Reed Mike Whitney Don Santina Scott Boehm Saul Landau Ron Jacobs Binoy Kampmark Linn Washington Jr. Nicole Colson Bernard Chazelle Brian Jones Christopher Brauchli Benjamin Dangl Val Strange Steve Early David Macaray Allison Kilkenny Richard Rhames Jim Bell Kris De Welde Barry Clemson Adam Engel Mark Scaramella Tuli Kupferberg Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 23, 2008 Allan J. Lichtman Todd Chretien John Ross Peter Morici Mats Svensson Marlene Martin Robert Jensen / Margaret Kimberley Deepak Tripathi David Morris Website of the Day October 22, 2008 Brian Cloughley Heather Gray Jeff Birkenstein Ralph Nader DC Larson David Swanson Keeanga-Yamatta Taylor Race and the Election: When the "Real" America Enters the Voting Booth Larry Everest Robert Fantina Martha Rosenberg Stephen Martin Website of the Day October 21, 2008 Vijay Prashad Paul Craig Roberts Corey D. B. Walker Steve Breyman Eric Toussaint Wajahat Ali Robert Weitzel Brendan Cooney Dave Lindorff Marqueece Harris-Dawson / Bob Wing Patrick B. Barr Omar Barghouti Website of the Day October 20, 2008 Michael Hudson Anthony DiMaggio Tariq Ali Uri Avnery Bill Quigley Ben Rosenfeld David Michael Green William S. Lind Chris Genovali Stephen Martin Howard Lisnoff David Yearsley Website of the Day October 17 / 19, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Pam Martens Paul Craig Roberts Mike Whtney Michael D. Yates Suzanne Smith Carl Boggs Ralph Nader Fidel Castro Dave Marsh Saul Landau Jo Guldi Kevin Zeese Larry Everest Steve Early David Macaray Ben Terrall Missy Beattie Don Monkerud Helen Redmond Dan Bacher Wajahat Ali Farzana Versey Vladimir Frolov Kim Nicolini Poets Basement Website of the Day
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Weekend Edition Art Meets Realism in The ExilesExile and Displacement on Bunker HillBy KIM NICOLINI I was really lucky to have an opportunity to see the brand new pristine 35 mm print of The Exiles What struck me from the opening scene to the final shot is how exquisitely photographed this film is. I immediately thought of the urban documentary photographers from the 1950s (e.g. Elliott Erwitt, Lee Friedlander, and Gary Winogrand) whose work I like so much. It seemed to me that McKenzie and his collaborators were employing the stylistic techniques of the new documentary photography of the 1950s to document this “exiled” and invisible population residing not far from the Hollywood sign. Each shot is meticulously composed and utterly exquisite. The choice of details and framing, the way the characters inhabit the space and are illuminated by internal light sources (a ceiling lamp, neon lights, car headlights, a jukebox) work to elevate the profound realism of the film's content into a state of illuminated art. This art-meets-realism technique infuses the film with a kind of tension that speaks to the tension within the characters themselves. There is the internal tension within the characters themselves who are being split between two cultures (White and Native American), and there is the external tension between the men and the women, the men and the men, and everyone in their environment. All of that tension speaks to the identity split within the characters – the part of them that maintains a commitment to the rituals and traditions of their culture and life on the reservation, and the part of them that is seeking a new kind of freedom in the white media-saturated culture of Los Angeles. The scenes with the characters walking through the tunnel are breathtakingly beautiful. As they traverse the glowing lights of the tube with cars speeding by in a cacophony of motor sounds, you get this visual sense that these people are in transit, moving through this in between place, caught between two locations and cultures – the reservation and the city – represented by each end of the tunnel. A preponderance of consumer and entertainment culture infuses every scene. A young pregnant Native American woman studies the display of baby carriages and accessories in a department store window, all modeled with pristine white mannequins, and all far beyond the character's socio-economic means. Every scene is punctuated with popular music and cinema references. Music pours through the jukebox. A romantic melodrama flickers on the movie screen. A commercial blares from the television. The juxtaposition between the rhythm of the reservation (represented by a flashback with a Native elder playing drums and singing) and the rhythm of commercial media and the city drives the energy of the film as the characters move from drunken scene to drunken scene. All the energy coalesces in a gorgeously tumultuous powwow on a Los Angeles hilltop. The drums, cars, honking horns, violent sexuality, singing, dancing, and drunken brawling show the chaos created by this cultural split. The scene reels with an unhinged energy from a desperate and unsuccessful attempt to assimilate in an environment where assimilation seems neither possible or ultimately desirable. So much of the power of the movie is delivered through tension and rhythm and a sense that something is brewing and going to explode at any moment. The threat of violence lurks just under the surface. We see it in an odd homosexual drunken dance scene in a bar, in a glimpse of cops beating some men on the sidewalk, and in the constant threat of seething sexual violence between the men and the women. The Bunker Hill neighborhood in which the film was made is now itself a kind of “Indian Burial Ground” as it was razed in the 1960s to make room for urban “redevelopment.” Watching this film is also sort of like watching a ghost story, since the entire neighborhood and its occupants were erased from the geography. Like in so many other urban redevelopment projects, the impoverished residents who occupied the Bunker Hill neighborhood were displaced by eviction and demolition. So the term “exiles” resonates even further when we watch the movie today knowing the future of Bunker Hill. First the Native Americans were exiled from their own land by European settlers, then exiled from the reservation to the alien landscape of the city, then exiled from their city home to make room for urban redevelopment. Part of the rhythm of the movie is also the rhythm of exile and displacement. I’ve been to that neighborhood in LA which was razed to build the Hotel Bonaventure (documented in Mike Davis's City of Quartz) amongst other urban redevelopment projects. The neighborhood feels eerily sterile and artificial. The gates to Bunker Hill as seen in the movie still stand, but now they serve as a kind of gravestone, a marker of the community that was killed to build the “new space.” The movie is breathtakingly beautiful though hard to watch because of its relentless desperation. And even though the film documents the specific Native American population that occupied Bunker Hill, I think it will feel profoundly real to anyone who has partied the night away and saturated themselves in alcohol and/or drugs in a desperate attempt to feel freedom and life. It sure felt real to me. Kim Nicolini is an artist, poet and cultural critic. She lives in Tucson, Arizona with her partner, daughter, and a menagerie of beasts. She works a day job to support her art and culture habits. She is currently finishing a book-length essayistic memoir about being a teenage runaway in 1970s San Francisco. Her work has appeared in Bad Subjects, Punk Planet, Bullhorn and Berkeley Review. She can be reached at: knicolini@gmail.com.
New in the Print Edition of CounterPunch For his 20-year stretch as Fed chairman, they all fawned on him – presidents, Congress, the press. Only a handful of left economists said he was pushing the economy over the cliff. Now Greenspan admits it in a humiliating confession. As the world’s financial structure tumbles in ruins, guess what? “I found a flaw in the model… To the extent that I figure out where it happened and why, I will change my views.” Read Frederick Claremont’s savage assessment of the fool who has plunged millions into misery. Also in our new issue: Bill Hatch on the story of one foreclosure; Kristian Williams on police torture in Chicago. Only in CounterPunch newsletter! Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great presents. Order CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year !
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New in the CP Print Edition! For his 20-year stretch as Fed chairman, they all fawned on him – presidents, Congress, the press. Only a handful of left economists said he was pushing the economy over the cliff. Now Greenspan admits it in a humiliating confession. As the world’s financial structure tumbles in ruins, guess what? “I found a flaw in the model… To the extent that I figure out where it happened and why, I will change my views.” Read Frederick Claremont’s savage assessment of the fool who has plunged millions into misery. Also in our new issue: Bill Hatch on the story of one foreclosure; and Kristian Williams on police torture in Chicago. Only in CounterPunch newsletter! Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Now Available from CounterPunch Books! Waiting for Lightning
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