I followed Myra McPherson over to Harvard Square last night after our show, just to hear the Cambridge Forum version of the paean to I. F. Stone. And I heard a sad, old, mostly habitual celebration of a man and a world utterly departed — eerily and uncomfortably like what Billmon said he was hearing on Open Source. Agony! Maybe 30 or 40 denizens of the Peoples’ Republic of Cambridge looked pretty lost in the expanse of the First Church. Their memories of IFS seemed dim, and their questions rambled toward incoherence. I hadn’t read Billmon’s afterword at that point, but I heard a big click in my head that said: Next chapter, Chris. The god of your youth in journalism is secure in Olympus; his description of the hysterical fear of communism in the Cold War fits to a T what he’d surely see as concerted, transparently racist, foolish scaremongering today about Iran and “Islamo-fascism.” In the profoundest ways, nothing has changed. But then, in truth, everything has changed.
Tony Judt is right in his remarkable essay in the London Review of Books: what we used to count on as “Liberal America” –and I. F. Stone was for me the best of it — has been quietly suffocated and buried without notice. In his lifetime I. F. Stone was an exuberant hybrid of idealistic socialism, generous and only-half-secularized Jewish exceptionalism, and passionate Jeffersonianism where free press and political expression are concerned. In Stone’s country by 2006 — to our bitter loss — his mix of enthusiasms makes a slightly freakish museum piece. As has been noted on another blog, it’s not just I. F. Stone who’s gone; if he came back he’d find that his readers were gone, too, and most of the people who loved all the melodies in his medley.
So I walked out of the First Church last night saying to myself: bloggers and the new tech of Web expressionism are not enough. We need a new song. Then I read Billmon this morning. What’s the new song, Billmon?
Amen-sadly-Amen!
Well, it was a memorial. And it would have been a great one were it not for the complaints and the kvetching about Edwardian plants.
The thread got off in a wierd groove, marred by whether IF Stone was a communist agent. I don’t believe it. I don’t care.
Chris: his description of the hysterical fear of communism in the Cold War fits to a T the concerted, transparently racist, foolish scaremongering today about Iran and “Islamo-fascism.†In the profoundest ways, nothing has changed. But then, in truth, everything has changed.
Amen again. We’ve changed too. I’d read him again and now in the “Best of” for timelessness. The more things change, the more they remain the same.
And thanks for the Judt.
“What’s the new song, Billmon?”
I don’t know, but I hope Myra MacPherson isn’t the one singing. That woman is truly clueless.
Tony Judt is another tendentious historian.
I am not suprised he is a favorite here.
tendetious meaning “doesn’t agree with me.”
For new song candidate, try tuning in to Amory Lovins, Paul Hawkins, L. Hunter Lovins and the Natural Capitalism jingle.
‘Creating the Next Industrial Revolution: Natural Capitalism’, Little Brown and Company, 1999
See also, The Rocky Mountain Institute
http://www.rmi.org
How about “Papa’s got a new groove?”
Music was so much a part of the background and foreground to the Viet Nam War.
What are our toups listening to…what are the Iraqui’s lisetening to.
The Talbian banded music and dance. What is the middle east street music?
Chris, the new song is: Viva Immigration! Viva immigrants! Viva Diversity! The new song is being written and performed by immigrants from places like Brazil, Guatemala, and Haiti.
You write: “bloggers and the new tech of Web expressionism are not enough†Your right because the immigrants I come in contact with daily are not a part of this tech revolution yet.
I’m sure part of Mr. Stone’s outsider mentality came from his immigration heritage. We need to collectively incorporate the current immigrants who feel like outsiders; these people encompass that rebel energy I think you crave.
The demographics of bloggers and guests needs to expand, otherwise this medium will regress into catcalls of elite. We need go below deck and hang with the new under class and listen for a new rhythm – a new song, and when we hear it, we need to move our stagnant hips and swing to that swing.
Bravo Nother ( again!)
Right on brother nother! tear down the borders! The new and lively left is coming up from the south. Babu with all due respect I think “Natural Capitalism” is an oxymoron.
Loki, Micheal Franti’s latest CD, “Yell Fire!” comes to my mind. Franti took his music to Iraq. David Rovics another political songwriter to notice. Then I think we need those latin rythyms to loosen the hips and get the blood circulating.
And here’s a little ditty from Brit Attila the Stockbroker…
BAGHDAD SKA
Hooray Hooray for the USA!
Your soldiers took Saddam away
So we’re all going out on the streets to play
And celebrate our liberation day
The hospitals overflow with dead
The looters have stolen all the bread
But I think my family are all OK
and you said this was the only way
You said this was the only way….
I saw an old friend the very next day
Armed to the teeth and up for the fray
He said ‘I’ll make those Yankees pay!’
- A B52 blew his wife away
I put my hand upon his head
I held him close and softly said
‘I know it’s an awful price to pay’…….
Then sadly I went on my way
Sadly I went on my way
CHORUS
This is Baghdad’s scar
This is Baghdad ska
This is Baghdad’s scar
This is Baghdad ska…….
Walked up to a Yankee yesterday
I asked how long they were going to stay
And how he’d reply to the folks who say
Our land was stolen by the USA
Then a shot rang out from across the road
I stood and watched his head explode
And all I could do was cringe and pray
As boots and fists took me away
Boots and fists took me away
CHORUS
They’re gonna take me to Guantanamo Bay
As an enemy of the USA
They don’t believe a word I say
They sneer that I’m in for a very long stay
I cry my own, my country’s tears
How many dead, how many years?
And through my agony I say:
there could have been another way
there could have been another way
there could have been another way
there should have been another way
Peggy Sue Thanks for bringing in Atilla….
I F Stone wrote an insightful article “Holy War” for the New York Review of Books in August 1967 that is posted on their website. His analysis of the Arab Israeli conflict at the time is, by way of commentary, on essays written by intellectuals, both Israeli’s and Arabs, invited for a symposium issue of Jean Paul Sartre’s review.
The article written just after the “Six Day War, is amazing for the depth and eveness of his analysis and how far-seeing and right he was, warning about about what might happen, what did happen. But he also wrote wrote about the way it should have been… the new song that nobody ( in power) heard, that they still cannot hear.
IF Stone came back he would also have to sing, sadly, that apt chorus line above “there could have been another way”.
Holy War by I.F. Stone
Peggy Sue, I checked out your website and I actually came away feeling a visceral calmness – so thanks.
http://www.rockisland.com/~pmcrae/index.html
I also want to say that I vote you our ROSarasvati!!!
http://www.rockisland.com/~pmcrae/sarasvati.html#sarasvati
Potter, thanks for the link, I will check it out. Whad’ja think of the Sunday NY Times review?
Nother- do read that, I found it amazing.
I read I. F. Stone in the late sixties and early 70′s when his writing meshed with my anti-Viet nam War feelings. I thought he was quite brave and I admired him tremendously his willingness to stand alone, publishing himself. He deserved my support even if I did not read or agree with his every word about everything he wrote. He was, in a way, a cause.
Thanks for the heads up about the Berman article in the NYTimes. These quotes appealed to my sensibilities the most ( as you might imagine).:
From Paul Berman’s Review in the NYTimes but available also at IHT where you do not need to register: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/09/29/arts/idbriefs30A.php
“…..Stone’s enemies in the United States, in a delirium of joy, responded to Kalugin’s remarks by leveling some very serious posthumous accusations at Stone, and they have kept on doing so, as anyone could have predicted……
…It depresses me to see this sort of sneering in Stone’s journalism — it reminds me of the ways in which liberal exiles from countries like Iraq and Iran, the Mensheviks of our own time, are sneered at today as tools of imperialism and people without principles…..
….inconsistency may have been what made him great†Berman after calling Stone’s signing of the Baez letter against Vietnamese Communist totalitarian policies. ( 1979)…
….not a fanatic but one of those “who remained liberals at heart yet, even so, kept applauding one left-wing tyranny after another….
…..But Stone was also not a totalitarian. He was a lover of freedom. A part of him always rebelled against the culture of mendacity he helped to foster in his own corner of the American left. He was a paradox.”
Two corrections:
from Berman:
“…It depresses me to see this sort of sneering in Stone’s journalism — it reminds me of the ways in which liberal exiles from countries like Iraq and Iran, the Mensheviks of our own time, are sneered at today as tools of imperialism and people without principles…..”
My comment; There is sneering at Stone’s journalism as well. But I have no idea who Berman is talking about today or what the nature of Stone’s sneering was.
” inconsistency may have been what made him great†This quotes Berman after recalling Stone’s signing of the Baez letter against Vietnamese Communist totalitarian policies. ( 1979)…
There’s a lot of sorting out between the reviewer, the biographer and the original material. I find it best to read the original material and make your own judgment allowing for our 20/20 hindsight- (as Babu on ther other thread put so well).
Hey thanks nother… glad you enjoyed my website.
Babu is here in person in my bookstore so maybe I’ll just let her get behind the counter and answer my question… Babu… isn’t “Natural Capitalism” an oxymoron? or, What’s so natural about capitalism?
Take it away Babu…
Hello from Griiffin Bay Books in Friday Harbpr, WA, after breaffast with Peggy Sue:
Natural Capitalism is Amory Lovins’ 1999 name for an incipient system which corrsponds loosely to the prnciples of ‘green chemistry’ introduced elsewhere recently. It’s a deep ecologcal approach to providing products and services where the entire life-cycle of the product and it’s labor, from it’s raw materials through it’s production, distribution, recycling and return to the earth are part of the calculation and concept.
This is an idea which squarely faces the fact that ‘there is no longer any ‘away’ to throw by-products away, etc; that there is no separation between the products/services we use and what was done to create and deliver them to us. It’s actually deep human ecology named to attract not repel curious potential converts. Green chemistry is a very good example of this.
Back to you, Peggy Sue.
babu
Wow, that was kind of like “natural†blogging, a face to face conversation that we could all hear.
Thanks for relating that cool concept Babu.
I don’t know if Chris will be checking this thread out but just in case I want to say how much I appreciate its existence. Not because of some lack of quality with the I.F. Stone hour (I actually enjoyed it) but because of the basic humility it took to admit your self-doubt. I can’t picture Water Cronkite years ago, issuing a heartfelt statement questioning the quality of a newscast the night before; It’s hard enough to find the corrections section in the Ny Times today.
Your “back at you, Billmon†blog was inspirational to me and I will tell you why. Instead of criticizing the “Stone†show on the ROS website, Billmon retreated to his blog bubble and uncouthly criticized the show, and in the process he attempted to group you (the first podcaster!) with the tired old guard. You responded to the challenge by stepping up to the plate and blogging a home run. You wrote a blog that encompassed all that a blog can and should be: It was essentially in real time (improvised shall we say?), it was as personal and soul searching as a diary entry, it was as public and informational as an opt-ed piece, it optimized technology with it’s link to the London Book review, it was conversational in it’s quest for dialogue (you question Bilmon/Us and you sincerely want a response), it reached literary heights with it three parts and illuminating metaphors (song, melody), and last but not least, it was short and to the point.
The new frontiers of this medium are deep and dense and when we become inevitably disorientated on the journey we must shake the haze and remember Emerson’s words: “The voyage of the best ship is a zig zag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency.†Mr. Lydon, no matter the result from night to night, your average tendency is to swing – and I’m forever digging your melodies.
Hey Potter I read that Stone article, fascinating stuff. I had read parts of it other place but it was nice to read it in full.
This struck me:
“Universal values can only be the fruit of a universal vision; the greatness of the Prophets lay in their overcoming of ethnocentricity. A Lilliputian nationalism cannot distill truths for all mankind. Here lies the roots of a growing divergence between Jew and Israeli; the former with a sense of mission as a Witness in the human wilderness, the latter concerned only with his own tribe’s welfare.”
I have only recently discovered Open Source and I’m happy to report that I’ve learned a great deal in a short time. I particularly enjoyed the I.F. Stone piece because I was completely ignorant of his existence, to my detriment. I found Billmon’s abrupt dismissal of the show and the guests to be sad, because if anything, they were only guilty of excessive enthusiam for a beloved man. In Myra MacPherson’s defense, I can only imagine that if I had recently spent a significant portion of my life pouring over everything there is to know about a person, I too would be bursting at the seams to tell everyone about him and his greatness. In Billmon’s defense, his ego may have been smarting because she called him “Bob.”
nother, thanks for pointing out that the musical question was metaphorical. And here I was about to suggest, hey, let’s listen to some Billy Bragg!
babu,
I’m glad you mentioned the deep ecology perspective. Yet, I’m afraid I still see capitalism as being primarily concerned with profit. A deep ecology ethic, like most indiginous tribal societies, would base what is taken for use (not profit) on need (not using advetising to generate so-called-needs that never existed before) and would recognize humans place within the natural world.
more later….
I refer to Judi Bari’s essay on Revolutionary Ecology
http://www.judibari.org/revolutionary-ecology.html
In the literal world I would vote Radiohead’s “Karma Policeâ€
I like to watch this video and imagine the guy running down the street is GW.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2tVublax0k
Nother again… bravo! A triple home run applauding Chri ( and I.F. Stone) and “deep and dense”. You are too wise for your years. Coast a bit so we can catch up
oops! “applauding Chris” .
Thank you Potter, you rock! I’m already coasting on the coattails of you and Peggysue and Allison.
Peggysue, if your still checking out this thread (i’m hearing a lonely echo in here)
this is a cool toon by Bragg, I’m sure you’ve heard it, take a listen:
http://www.peace-not-war.org/Music/BillyBragg/index.html
This is new one from him, “Bush War Blues.â€
http://www.billybragg.co.uk/multimedia/Bush_War_Blues.mp3
Ah, thanks nother – yes I’m back to this hidden corner of the blogg. I nice big crack for a sentimental leftist to fall into because I’ve just been looking through a beautiful book, Absence and Presence Pablo Neruda illustrated by photgraphs of Luis Poirot.
These words of Neruda, another beloved leftist, seemed appropo to this thread.
Tyranny cuts off the singers head
but the voice from the bottom of the well
returns to the secret springs of the earth
and rises out of nowhere through the mouths of the people.
And we will win.
Although you don’t believe it,
we will win.
Pablo Neruda
And now, please humor me and allow me to Brag about Bragg. Once at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival I suddenly found myself standing right next to Billy Bragg himself (another beloved leftist thankfully still living) our elbows actually touching! So I can literally say that I have “rubbed elbows” with Billy Bragg! Now I hope you are sufficiantly impressed. I better wait until I get home to follow your links but follow them I will as I am quite a fan.
thanks nother… I’d never heard Bush War Blues. That made my evening.