Friday, Jan 27th 2012
SPOILER ALERT: The following article contains spoilers galore, so it’s best not to read it unless you’ve followed The Wire to the very end.
There have been few television shows that have enjoyed a posthumous fame as great as The Wire. Generally ignored by the public and the Emmys ever since its debut in early 2002, [...]
In two superb essays published in the London Review of Books recently, Perry Anderson describes the politics of Italy’s Second Republic in the context of the consolidation of power by Silvio Berlusconi and the recent history of the Italian Left, respectively. These are worth reading by anyone interested in politics and contempory European history in [...]
FREDERIC MORTON | The Armageddon Waltz - NYTimes.com
“IN the depth of winter of 1913, at the height of pre-Lenten carnival, the Vienna Bankers Club gave a Bankruptcy Ball at the opulent Blumensaal hall. Some ladies appeared as balance sheets, displaying voluptuous debits curving from slender credits. Others came as inflated collateral: faux enhancements amplified the [...]
Jim O’Leary rightfully points out our tendency to view our problems in isolation from the rest of the world - as if we were somehow unique. He suggests we look abroad, to other examples. He selects my home state California to see what lessons we can draw. His principle is sound, his selection curious.
It’s not [...]
Peter Connell | Who’s for some expansionary fiscal contraction?
Peter Connell is asking some very important questions about the current ‘big idea’ underpinning the mini-budget due at the beginning of April: ‘expansionary fiscal contraction’. The theory behind EFC is ‘that cuts in public spending will lead citizens to believe that taxes will also fall and, on [...]
Green Party Ard Fheis 2009 | Gav’s Blog
Gavin Sheridan has plenty of his own video footage of the Green Party conference. Patricia McKenna's speech, Eamonn Ryan in the press room and the back of John Gormley's head - it's all there.
“The challenge for those who believe art should have real purchase on contemporary debate is always how to write the engaged political poem while still making it artful.”
Siobhán Campbell, MA/MFA Course Leader, Creative Writing, at Kingston University, London.
“Why bother with political poetry, just send me a text,”
A comment made by a radio host recently as [...]
The recapitialisation of Irish banks seems to be designed to restore them to their previous prosperous ways before the decline in International finance which began 2007 and the rapid deflation of the Irish property bubble in 2008. The reassurances we are given by the big 2, AIB and Bank of Ireland and the Minister for [...]
So, the Brians are asking for advice. We should not begrudge them. It is time for all ‘good patriots’ to step forward and give our faltering government a helping hand. For we are now, effectively, looking into the third budget in five months. So where do we start?
No better place than with Sean O’Riain’s piece [...]
LRB | Perry Anderson: An Invertebrate Left
2nd part of Perry Anderson’s examination of contemporary Italian politics. This one is on the Italian left: “The Italian left was once the largest and most impressive popular movement for social change in Western Europe. Comprising two mass parties, each with its own history and culture, and each committed [...]
