The intersection of the arts and politicts has a rich history in LA, and there's
no better person to illuminate that history than author and journalist
Lionel Rolfe. In his book
Literary L.A.--just out in a revised
and expanded third edition---Rolfe reveals the history of L.A.'s forgotten
literary scene. From Charles Bukowski to Robinson Jeffers, Aldous Huxley
to Nathanael West, Rolfe describes the authors who made L.A. home and looks
at the stories and struggles behind the creation of a culture. Rolfe
is also the author of
Bread and Hyacinths: The& Rise and Fall of
Utopian Los Angeles and
Fat Man on the Left: Four Decades in the Underground. Alexander Dobuzinskis interviewed Rolfe for IMC-LA.
Rolfe will be at Skylight Books for a book signing on Feb. 3 at 4 p.m., 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Feliz,
[
Read The Interview ]
Following patterns of political repression that accompanied the early Cold War period, the "war on terrorism" is beginning to generate wide-ranging attacks on environmentalists. These include:
- A renewed effort to pass federal "eco-terror" legislation that would define some acts of civil disobedience as "terrorism."
- A nasty public PR effort casting all environmentalism as "eco-terrorism" to varying degrees.
- Coercive demands that law-abiding environmental groups provide a position on the criminal activities of the Earth Liberation Front
- Concerted attacks on the tax-exempt status of a handful of leading environmental organizations, such at the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) and the Rukus Society, complaining that direct action violates their IRS tax status.
Read the article. And check out the "terrorists" at
Rainforest Action Network, which has the image above on its homepage. (Ghandi or bin Laden?, You decide!)
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it." -- Martin Luther King, Jr. Quoted on homepage of
The Ruckus Society.