Works Consulted #11

rosemary ashton- george eliot: a life. london: penguin, 1998.

samuel beckett - the unnamable. new york: grove press, 1958; l'innomable. paris: les editions de minuit, 1953; disjecta: miscellaneous writings and a dramatic fragment. london: john calder, 1983

lauren berlant - the anatomy of national fantasy: hawthorne, utopia, and everyday life. chicago: u chicago press, 1991.

robin blackburn - the overthrow of colonial slavery. london: verso, 1988.

maurice blanchot - the infinite conversation (trans. susan hanson) minneapolis: univ of minnesota press, 1993.

pascale casanova - samuel beckett: anatomy of a literary revolution. london: verso 2006.

anthony cronin - samuel beckett: the last modernist. london: harper collins, 1996.

charles dickens- our mutual friend. new york: penguin, 1997.

frederick engels- socialism: utopian and scientific. new york: international publishers, 1989.

fredric jameson - a singular modernity: essay on the ontology of the present. london: verso 2002.

james knowlson - damned to fame: the authorized biography of samuel beckett. london: bloomsbury, 1996.

jenny uglow- george eliot. london: virago, 2008.

raymond williams- marxism and literature. new york: oxford university press, 1977.

Obama in Jerusalem

On the occasion of Senator Barack Obama's recent world travels (which brought him to Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel and the Occupied West Bank, and Germany, and will soon see him in Britain and France), we point you to an editorial written for the Guardian by the Electronic Intifada's Ali Abunimah. Pressure from the Israel lobby (in the form, as always, of Alan Fucking Dershowitz) has caused Obama to distance himself even from someone as "establishment" as Zbigniew Brzezinski--do we detect the long arm of a rejuvenated (and sadly ignored) Jimmy Carter and his calls for a "new role" in the world for America? On his visit to Israel--which included the better part of one hour spent with Mahmoud Abbas in occupied Ramallah--Obama sought to reassure Ehud Olmert, Shimon Peres and the Israeli public that his commitment to the safety, security, and right to "self-defense" (that old reality-twisting litany) of the State of Israel ought not to be doubted. The obligatory references to the dangers of a nuclear Iran (despite a recent "slap in the face" of Israel delivered by America) were also made. Nothing, as Abunimah points out, about a freeze on settlements, dialogue with Hamas, or negotiation of the refugee problem.

In a separate editorial, the Guardian points out that while Obama's visit may have done some good for his shaky reputation as "friend of Israel," it did nothing nothing for peace in Israel/Palestine. And, as the New York Times reports, not many people in the Arab World expect this to change.

Late add: Nicholas Kristof offers this uncharacteristically lucid, accurate, and politically practical editorial in today's New York Times, saying that what Israel needs from Obama is "tough love."

2008

As the Senate passes George Bush's domestic eavesdropping program, 2+ years after it was introduced, and with the new-found support of Senator Barack Obama--who had once claimed he fully intended to vote against it, rejecting the false dualities of the "strong on terror" discourse--we'd like to take a minute to reiterate something we've found that the ultra-left in America has failed repeatedly to understand. We do understand ("appreciate" is not the best word) that, in running a national campaign, Obama ought to be expected to hover somewhere around the center. Any policy statement that radically breaks from the mainstream would torpedo his candidacy months before the general election. And Obama does represent a yearning among the bulk of American voters for radical change. That he will inevitably disappoint those blindly expecting a radical transformation is also something that must be accepted. However, in supporting an unprecedented expansion in the Executive's spying capabilities, as in, for example, calling for East Jerusalem to remain the undivided capital of the State of Israel (to take examples from Obama's recent domestic and foreign policy stances), Obama seems to go above and beyond the call of a mediocre "centrist" politics. And his going out of his way yesterday to remind his supporters--who are increasingly uneasy with his recent moves--that he is "no doubt" a "progressive"--is simply no consolation whatsoever.

Aijaz Ahmad: What Would a Rational U.S. Foreign Policy Look Like?

In a two-part analysis for The Real News, Aijaz Ahmad considers the working assumptions behind U.S. foreign policy decisions, assumptions that can often seem intractable, the unchangeable "way of the world." Starting with "the most basic assumption of U.S. foreign policy...that the United States is, and must remain, the world's most powerful, preeminent country," and moving to the question of why the U.S. finds it unquestionable that it have military bases around the world, Aijaz offers a concise and coherent projection for what a "rational" American foreign policy just might look like.

Part I



Part II