Art

And here's a new review:

"Prophecy itself, despite the theatrical legacy, is as explosive as this week’s headlines—literally. This is because, besides Iraq, the play has the temerity to give voice to a pro-Palestinian stance—and we know what happens to people who take such positions: They’re reviled and drummed out of the press corps, as veteran reporter Helen Thomas was, after a crotchety answer to an on-the-spot question, which no one needed a Ph.D. to realize wasn't going to work. But, besides Helen’s senior moment, being sympathetic to Palestinians also gets booed at the Academy Awards; in 1978, Vanessa Redgrave had her career marked by the affiliation, and, unless they do them themselves, playwrights don't get their plays involving the subject produced in America—Malpede’s fate."

By David Swanson

I wrote a review of Karen Malpede's new play "Prophecy" when I had only read but not yet seen it. Karen read the review and invited me to lead the first in a series of talk-back discussions following performances in New York, and I did so on Wednesday. For that incredible privilege I'm glad I wrote that early review, but I'm sorry it was so insufficient as an attempt to convey the intensity of the phenomenon that is "Prophecy."

I'll be leading the discussion following the play on June 2nd.  Hope to see you there. --David Swanson

Get tickets!

So say Lionel Ritchie and Quincy Jones, and with much gratitude toward God, in this video.

And, by the way, a bunch of American millionaires really are not the world. Charity from people who are allowing their government to destroy and exploit on unprecedented scale is pathetic enough, but thanking God for a timely tragedy is a little bit too much.

Nice song, though.

We bomb the world
We kill the children
We are the ones who let the wars go on
So let's stop bullsh--ing
There's a choice we're making
We're ending our own lives
We'll never make a brighter day through charity

TAKE ACTION.

By David Swanson

"Prophecy" is the title of a new play by Karen Malpede, and I'm here to attempt the unamerican task of telling you to see it without telling you it's a comedy. In fact, I'm going to confess that I had to take a break from it and recover before I could write about it. I felt like I'd taken a blow with an enormous sledge hammer, even though I knew that a whole orchestra of smaller instruments had produced what I was feeling.

It was not a bad feeling, not an undesirable feeling. The play is a thing of beauty, and not all beauty fits into that Hollywood sensation of wouldn't-such-a-thing-be-sweet-but-I-bet-they're-divorced-in-a-year-and-I-shouldn't-have-had-that-last-gallon-of-coke.

By David Swanson

"If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution," said Emma Goldman, who might also have said "If we don't dance, not enough people will work long and hard enough in our revolution." This is one of the two most useful quotes for Americans right now, the other being another remark by Emma Goldman: "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal."

Ted Rall makes wonderful cartoons:

And columns. (Go read some.)

And videos:

And, now, books:

This is a very strange book, at least for someone who doesn't tend to read serious stories written as comic strips, or anything else written as comic strips.  It's growing on me, and I think I'll enjoy reading it again, but I think I would have enjoyed the first reading more had the author not recounted almost the whole plot in the foreword.  So, I won't say much about the plot here, and I recommend treating the foreword as an afterword.

Then I recommend imagining you had never read a novel before or heard a song before or watched a movie before.  In other words, try to be more open than I was at first to all things being done in an odd medium, so that the seriousness works as well as the funny parts.

You can read this in the time it takes to watch a television program, in which -- of course -- nothing works at all.

By David Swanson

We moved George Doubleya to Dallas
And Dick Cheney to McLean
Let's put Our torture victims
On an American-built plane

We moved our occupation
To Vietghanistan
Let's Move Guantanamo to Bagram
And pretend we have a plan

To restore the Constitution
With a brand new PATRIOT Act
Identical to the old one
But presented with more tact

We'll make laws with signing statements
Only when necessary
And we'll only shout "State Secrets!"
Approved by Justice Fairies

We'll release our visitor logs
And celebrate our purity
We'll only make exceptions
For national securtity

We'll detain you without limit
Without charge and without trial
But will talk of peace and justice
and limitations all the while

We'll fund the largest army

The Recipe, which consists of Priest and 337, trying out their new poem written in opposition to a plant in Kansas City that produces parts for nuclear bombs, and which the city proposes to fund the move and expansion of with $40 million meant for urban needs.

By David Swanson

Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young have just released a pair of incredible albums of protest, one a bone-rattling revival of the best of rebel music of ages past, the other an impassioned attack on our present slide toward fascism. A hundred years from now, if the human race has survived, when a future Springsteen records a future "Seeger Sessions" it will be bound to include the music of Young's "Living With War." Also by that time, Young's instant classic, "Let's Impeach the President," will have been translated, as any national anthem should, into a variety of languages, some or all of them, no doubt, destined to be deemed inappropriate by future proponents of the worst of the past.

From Jeff Cohen, founder of FAIR, columnist/TV commentator, former ACLU attorney

Feb. 3, 2004

To whom it may concern:

I have been an executive in the progressive/public interest/nonprofit sector for more than two decades, and I have never come across a public interest co-worker whose skills and work ethic surpassed those of David Swanson. He is a quick study, talented writer, great motivator of colleagues and consummate multi-tasker. I first met him when he was the communications director of ACORN. I hired him as the press secretary of the Kucinich for President campaign, where he did the work of three people. His output was the marvel of people inside and outside the campaign.