Almost as if the editors of the BBC “Newsnight” programme had trawled the political spectrum in order to concoct a riposte to the clarity of the Trotskyist perspective of permanent revolution and the Marxist approach of historical materialism as the way to understand the dynamics of social change that are expressed in this article, presenter Jeremy Paxman conducted extended interviews in tonight’s edition with Francis Fukuyama and the spokesman of the English Defence League. What will be decisive in Egypt, as throughout the Middle East, north Africa and the rest of the world will be the struggle for socialist consciousness in the working class and the building of sections of the Socialist Equality Party.
John G
UK
1 February 2011
On “Bankers lay down the law at Davos”
On the line: “...notwithstanding the fact that their actions had triggered the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression”— I would add their predecessors caused that crisis.
Last night, C-Span aired a program from the national archives looking into the documents surrounding Ferdinand Pecora’s job as part of the 1932 - 1933 investigation of the causes of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 by the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking and Currency.
Among the documents was a postcard addressed to Pecora that read, “The combined occupants of Sing Sing prison are but infants in crime as compared to the gentlemen of Chase Bank.”
Thanks for the coverage you’ve provided. It had been in years passed at these economic summits that the protestors outside seemed to affect the invited elites like so many gnats. They had their militarized police response in place to handle any such annoyance. But they can’t put a lid on what’s happening in North Africa, and wherever else the Tunisian
example gives inspiration.
Sincerely,
Cynthia A
California, USA
1 February 2011
On “Country singer Charlie Louvin dead at 83”
Thank you so much for this obituary/appreciation of Charlie Louvin of the Louvin Brothers, one of the all-time great duos of country music. In the course of your essay, you mentioned not only two of my favorite Louvin Brothers songs, “I Don’t Believe You’ve Met My Baby” and “Cash On The Barrelhead” (which I used to have on a 45), but three other great groups in the brother duo tradition: the Blue Sky Boys, the Monroe Brothers and my personal favorites the Delmore Brothers. After hearing the Louvin Brothers, I could never listen to the Everly Brothers—a great brother duo from the generation after—without thinking that they must have studied Charlie and Ira pretty seriously. I don’t have my 45s anymore, but I hit YouTube right away! Thanks again.
Lawrence M
1 February 2011
***
I appreciated this obituary for an artist whose music, as the reviewer states, bears little resemblance to what is called country music today. Classic North American country music (and there are worthwhile younger artists who have been inspired by it), has a genuine and haunting quality which marks it as being grounded in the life and soul of those who compose, perform and hear it. Very unlike the soulless “country music”, like “pop music” in general, distinguished by its utter mediocrity in the service of commercial interests and nothing else.
KV
British Columbia, Canada
1 February 2011