#Jones Manoel

[heritageposts]

Google-translated, posted October 8th

This piece Manoel wrote in 2020 should also be mandatory reading for all Western "leftists," especially now as the Western illusion of military invincibility is being shattered

[...] Another factor that is very common in the western left is to treat suffering and extreme poverty as elements of superiority. It is very common in Western leftist culture to support martyrs and suffering. Everyone today likes Salvador Allende. Why? Salvador Allende is a victim, a martyr. He was assassinated in Pinochet’s coup d’ etat.

And, on Western leftists support of Palestine (pre Al-Aqsa Flood — Manoel, writing in 2020, was clearly underestimating the military capabilities of the Gazan resistance)

Palestinians are a people who are deeply oppressed, in a situation of extreme poverty, that don’t have a national economy because they don’t have a national state. They don’t have an army or military or economic power. Therefore, Palestine is the total incarnation of the metaphor of David vs Goliath, except that this David doesn’t have a chance of beating Goliath in political and military conflict. Therefore, almost everyone in the international left likes Palestine. People become ecstatic looking at those images -- which I don’t think are very fantastic – of a child or teenager using a sling to launch a rock at a tank. Look, this is a clear example of heroism but it is also a symbol of barbarism. This is a people who do not have the capacity to defend themselves facing an imperialist colonial power that is armed to the teeth. They do not have an equal capacity of resistance, but this is romanticized. Western leftists like this situation of oppression, suffering and martyrdom.

If you're a Westerner, I think it's worth investigating to what extent this image Palestinians as 'defenseless' or 'defeated' (I've seen some of you talk about Palestine in the past tense) factors into your support of Palestine as it is now, under occupation.

Because there will be an after.

Everyone supported Viet Nam when it was under attack, being destroyed and bombed for over 30 years. Viet Nam beat Japan in WW2, then had to fight France, and then had to fight the United States. It passed 30 straight years without being able to build a damn school or hospital because a bomb would drop, first from France and then the United States, and destroy it. When the country was finally able to beat all of the colonial and neocolonial powers and have the opportunity to start planning, to build highways, electrical systems, schools and universities without having bombs land on them the next day and destroy everything that was being done, the country was abandoned by the majority of the left. It lost its charm, it lost its enchantment. There is a fetish for defeat in the western left. It is an idea that defeat is something majestic.

[tita-ferreira]

As queimadas no Brasil aumentaram 90% em 2024!

[nooradeservedbetter]

Western Marxism Loves Purity and Martyrdom, but not Real Revolution

It is impossible to speak seriously about Marxism in the West without incorporating the role of Christianity in each social formation.

“Western Marxism has taken a historic distance from the concrete experiences of socialist transition in the Soviet Union, China, Viet Nam, and Cuba.”

There is a fundamental contradiction in many of the Marxist studies that are produced in the West.  Every time that they speak of Marxism in Asia – in China, Korea or Viet Nam – or when they speak of popular movements in Africa such as in Egypt or Libya, they highlight the influence of religion on these political movements and the national adaption of Marxism.  When any Marxist researcher studies, for example, Chinese Marxism, they are obliged to address the influence of Confucius’ philosophy on Chinese culture in a general manner and on Chinese Marxism in particular. Likewise, the influence that Islam has on many African countries is always taken into account in analysis of socialist nations such as Algeria.  

When the time comes to look at Marxism in Western politics, however,  the influence of Christianity in the construction of the symbolic, subjective and theoretical universe of this Marxism is rarely taken into account. It is as if in Asia, Confucianism has an influence on politics, in Africa, Islam has an influence  on politics, but in Brazil, in the US, in France, in Portugal, Christianity does not perform a similar role in forming historic subjectivity. This is a mistake for a very simple and objective reason, which Antonio Gramsci points out in several different passages of Prison Notebooks: the Catholic Church is the longest operating institution in the West. No other institution has managed to stay alive for so long with the capacity to disseminate and circulate ideas and concepts, through a body of intellectual priests, bishops and theologians, organized within a bureaucracy like the Catholic Church has.  So it is impossible to speak seriously about Marxism, politics, subjectivity, culture, and the symbolic field in the West without incorporating the role of Christianity in each social formation, in each specific country as elements of analysis. 

“No other institution in the West has managed to stay alive for so long with the capacity to disseminate and circulate ideas and concepts.”

I believe it is impossible to understand the phenomenon that is poorly described as “populism” (a term which I do not use), of this relationship of the popular classes with people like Lula, Getulio Vargas, Miguel Arraes, Brizola, Perón, and Hugo Chavez without understanding the basic configurations of the Catholic relationship between devotees and saints .  Obviously this is not the only explanation, but there is a symbolic element in the political structure of this relationship. I have been thinking about this for a long time. It is not my idea -- Domenico Losurdo and others have written about how the fetish for defeat is one of the fundamental characteristics of Western Marxism and how this is a misunderstood derivative of Christian culture.  

There is a great tendency in the eastern left, according to Perry Anderson, to separate western and eastern Marxism.  Western Marxism is basically a kind of Marxism which has, as a key characteristic, never exercised political power.  It is a Marxism that has, more and more frequently, concerned itself with philosophical and aesthetic issues. It has pulled back, for example, from criticism of political economy and the problem of the conquest of political power. More and more it has taken a historic distance from the concrete experiences of socialist transition in the Soviet Union, China, Viet Nam, Cuba and so forth.  This western Marxism considers itself to be superior to eastern Marxism because it hasn’t tarnished Marxism by transforming it into an ideology of the State like, for example, Soviet Marxism, and it has never been authoritarian, totalitarian or violent. This Marxism preserves the purity of theory to the detriment of the fact that it has never produced a revolution anywhere on the face of the Earth – this is a very important point. Wherever a victorious socialist revolution has taken place in the West, like Cuba, it is much more closely associated with the so-called eastern Marxism than with this western Marxism produced in Western Europe, the United States, Canada and  parts of South America. This Marxism is proud of its purity and this is the first elemental characteristic that derives from Christianity.  Gramsci shows that one of the main historical concerns of the Catholic Church has been to control the reading and the diffusion of Christianity, blocking the rise and spread of popular, autonomous and base level interpretations and thereby saving the purity of the historic doctrine.  Therefore, the Catholic Church can say that Christianity is love, equality, loving thy neighbor, compassion and non-violence, despite the fact that it has been a fundamental weapon in the legitimization of slavery, the crusades and colonialism, and despite the coziness of various elements of the Catholic Church with Nazi-fascism and the military dictatorships.  There is a constant throughout the entire history of Christianity which is that these elements don’t corrupt the doctrine.  They are either false expressions of Christianity, or they are facts, like potatoes in a sack, that have no theoretical, political or, most importantly, theological meaning. So, the fact that history denies the affirmation that Christianity is based on compassion and peace does not change or challenge the doctrine. 

“This Marxism preserves the purity of theory to the detriment of the fact that it has never produced a revolution anywhere on the face of the Earth.”

Many Marxists act the same way.  Their biggest worry is the purity of the doctrine. Every time that historical facts challenge the doctrine or show the complexity of the practical operationality of elements of the theory, they deny that these elements are part of the story of Marxist theory and doctrine.  This is, for example, what doctrines of betrayal are built on. Every movement that appears to stray a bit from these “pure” models that were created a priori is explained through the concept of betrayal, or is explained as “state capitalism.”  Therefore, nothing is socialism and everything is state capitalism. Nothing is socialist transition and everything is state capitalism. The revolution is only a revolution during that glorious moment of taking political power. Starting from the moment of building a new social order, its over. Revolution is always a political process which has two moments:  a moment of destruction of the old capitalist order and taking power, and a moment of building a new order. The contradictions, the problems, the failures, the mistakes, sometimes even the crimes, mainly happen during this moment of building the new order. So when the time comes to evaluate the building of a new social order -- which is where, apparently, the practice always appears to stray from the purity of theory -- the specific appears corrupted in the face of the universal. It is at this point that the idea of betrayal is evoked, that the idea of counter revolution is evoked, and that the idea of State Capitalism appears in order to preserve the purity of theory.  

A great example of this was when the Soviet Union entered its process of terminal crisis. As the end of the Soviet Union approached many western Marxists announced that it was a great event in the history of Marxism because finally Marxism was liberated from that experiment that was born during the October Revolution, that distorted Marxism, that transformed Marxism into a mere State ideology.  Now, without having to explain the ball and chain of the Soviet Union, Marxism could finally be liberated and reach its emancipatory potential. 

“This Marxism preserves the purity of theory to the detriment of the fact that it has never produced a revolution anywhere on the face of the Earth.”

Another factor that is very common in the western left is to treat suffering and extreme poverty as elements of superiority.  It is very common in Western leftist culture to support martyrs and suffering. Everyone today likes Salvador Allende.  Why? Salvador Allende is a victim, a martyr.  He was assassinated in Pinochet’s coup d’ etat. When Hugo Chavez was alive, many sectors of the left turned their nose up at him.  If he had been killed, for example, in the 2002 Coup attempt, he would be adored by the immense majority of the western left today, as a symbol of suffering and martyrdom.  Since he continued exercising power as leader of a political process which, by necessity, had various contradictions, he was increasingly abandoned, as time passed -- I don’t even have to mention what has happened to Maduro here.  These same sectors which celebrate and support the idea of Allende because he defended democratic socialism do not see or do not want to see that Allende governed almost entirely through decrees.  At the time, the Chilean constitution had a legal mechanism which enabled the executive branch to govern by decrees that did not have to be approved by parliament or the Supreme Court. So Allende was able to make laws through decrees which bypassed Congress and the Supreme Court.  Since Allende did not have a majority in Congress and suffered a lot from the bourgeois opposition, he basically governed through decree throughout his entire mandate. This kind of action today is enough justification to label any left leader that practices it as authoritarian, to compare him to Trump,  Bolsonaro, or Orban. If Allende was alive today he would also be criticized, but he died.  

“Allende governed almost entirely through decrees.”

Another example of this is the situation with Ché Guevarra and Fidel Castro. To most western leftists, Che Guevara represents a rebel dreamer. In real life he was not, but they have built this image around him. Ché Guevara died immolated in the jungles of Bolivia, so now he is a symbol of sacrifice, martyrdom and the agony of defeat.  Fidel stayed in Cuba as leader of the Cuban Revolution and all of the contradictions of this process. Today he is viewed as a bureaucrat, without charm or appeal, by many if not the majority of the western left. Ché Guevara is an eternal symbol of resistance, of dreaming, of utopia that is unfulfilled because of death.  

Another example of this is the contrast in how the People’s Republic of Korea is treated compared to Palestine. Both nations engaged in the same struggle – the anti-colonial fight for national independence.  In the case of Korea, the struggle was made from a socialist perspective.  Korea succeeded, despite being a country that is fractured by imperialism. It has an economy that is relatively strong, with a reasonably high level of industrialization, a very strong national army and capacity to launch nuclear weapons. So, Korea is not a defenseless nation.  Palestinians are a people who are deeply oppressed, in a situation of extreme poverty, that don’t have a national economy because they don’t have a national state. They don’t have an army or military or economic power.  Therefore, Palestine is the total incarnation of the metaphor of David vs Goliath, except that this David doesn’t have a chance of beating Goliath in political and military conflict.  Therefore, almost everyone in the international left likes Palestine. People become ecstatic looking at those images -- which I don’t think are very fantastic – of a child or teenager using a sling to launch a rock at a tank. Look, this is a clear example of heroism but it is also a symbol of barbarism. This is a people who do not have the capacity to defend themselves facing an imperialist colonial power that is armed to the teeth.  They do not have an equal capacity of resistance, but this is romanticized. Western leftists like this situation of oppression, suffering and martyrdom.  

“Fidel is viewed as a bureaucrat, Ché is an eternal symbol of resistance.”

Another very well known case is that of Viet Nam. Everyone supported Viet Nam when it was under attack, being destroyed and bombed for over 30 years. Viet Nam beat Japan in WW2, then had to fight France, and then had to fight the United States. It passed 30 straight years without being able to build a damn school or hospital because a bomb would drop, first from France and then the United States, and destroy it. When the country was finally able to beat all of the colonial and neocolonial powers and have the opportunity to start planning, to build highways, electrical systems, schools and universities without having bombs land on them the next day and destroy everything that was being done, the country was abandoned by the majority of the left. It lost its charm, it lost its enchantment. There is a fetish for defeat in the western left. It is an idea that defeat is something majestic.  

A clear example of this fetish is in the case of the coup in Bolivia. Slavov Zizêk, the famous critical thinker, wrote an article called Bolivia: the Anatomy of a Coup, and what was his big concern? It was to show that Evo Morales was democratic, that Evo Morales did not purge or jail traitors during coup attempts in the past, and that now these same people committed a coup against him. In other words, Zizêk praises the very element which led to the defeat of the revolution in Bolivia  as proof of ethical and moral superiority.   Look how marvelous Bolivia is today. Every day an activist is murdered or jailed, but they have the moral consolation of not have been repressive or authoritarian with the Bolivian bourgeoisie. 

A third element that is common in the western left comes from the Christian concept that salvation is not a product of a person’s actions, but a decision made by God. It is the notion that, although you work to do good deeds, to follow biblical law, to be a good person and so forth, your salvation is a decision of God’s.  Subjective efforts related to the central point of Marxism, which is the conquest of political power (as Lenin said, “everything outside of political power is an illusion”), have been devalued due to this influence from Christian culture, even though the majority of Marxist intellectuals are atheists.  Instead, the highest value becomes an eternal position of resistance, which produces a sense of pride. When Bernie Sanders lost the democratic primary for the second time, a renowned Marxist professor at the University of São Paulo posted on Facebook, “We fought like never before. We lost as usual but the fight continues. Now, Alexandra Ocasio Cortez is the future of Socialism in the United States.”  The Marxist logic of thinking of all political conflicts in terms of strategy, tactics, coalition politics, programs, of critically analyzing mistakes to avoid making them again, of hitting the enemy from a political or even military standpoint in order to take power has simply vanished, replaced by an eternal movement of resistance as if it were proof of divine grace. The very logic that should be the essence of politics, which is the logic of strategy, is devalued as resistance becomes an end in itself. 

“Marxist logic has been replaced by an eternal movement of resistance as if it were proof of divine grace.”

Together, the three elements that I just described create a kind of narcissistic orgasm of defeat and purity.  The subject takes pride in not having any relationship with the entire historic concrete movement of the working class socialist and liberation revolutions. They take pride in not having any theoretical or political connection to the revolutions in China, Russia, Viet Nam, Algeria, Mozambique and Angola. They are, instead, proud of the supposed purity that their theory is not contaminated by the hardship of exercising power, by the contradictions of historical processes.  Being pure is what provokes this narcissistic orgasm. This purity is what makes them feel superior. It makes them feel that they have a privileged moral and ethical standpoint compared to the other leftists who, for example, recognize the Chinese Revolution or the Cuban revolution and, therefore, accept authoritarianism and accept an economy that is not based on the total realization of self-management. This kind of Marxism has no critical power. It can produce and does produce a lot of good analysis of reality but it is incapable of producing a movement that is strategic and revolutionary that aims to take political power. Therefore, the process of rebuilding a revolutionary Marxism in the West has to recognize these symbolic elements, which have become ingrained in Western Marxism, that were smuggled in as contraband from Christianity. These elements have to be submitted to radical criticism and surpassed. 

Jones Manoel is a historian and member of the Partido Communista Brasileiro (PCB)

[myownuniversech]

Kim Katapiroka se fufu kkkk

[brilliantfantasticgeronimo]

like, i agree with the main principle that they need to hire writers from other backgrounds. for sure. no arguments. i also agree in general, said so in my own post, that this episode is more of a "learning experience for white people" anti-racism story than a "catharsis for black people in the struggle" story. but there's an undercurrent in these criticism for the episode that i don't agree with, being that "white writers should never touch the subject of anti-racism because they could never understand it" (or conversely, "men should never write about feminism because they could never understand it") and like, tbh that's just not a premise i agree with. politically or artistically. being from a specific background doesn't actually guarantee that you understand your struggles or that you have the best ideas for liberation out there (if it were, rishi sunak and suella braverman wouldn't be in the positions they are, doing the things they do). and in dw itself, like, "hiring writers of color" doens't mean the episode will automatically be great. for example, i appreciate that rosa exists, but there's a lot of moments in rosa that diminish the episode for me and held me back from embracing it as truly anti-hegemonic, truly anti-racist piece of art. like for all the work it does in showing viewers the reality of segregation and showing the catharsis / admirability of people fighting it, it takes 10 steps backwards saying obama's election was "a victory" for anti-racism (ah yes the anti-racism of bombing yemen, syria, somalia, iraq....) + having rosa be congratulated in the bloody white house as "a symbol of her victory" or having a satellite named after her as the "end goal" of her work (ie. all symbols that just stand in for white "tolerance" rather than actual black liberation). conversely, if the person writing has a good grip on the issue, even if it's alien to them, yeah,,, i do think they can portray it well. and that they *should* try, because something genuinely interesting / pertinent may come from the exercise. and like, from my pov, living where i do, having unfortunately witnessed and lived thru racism......... yeah? the racists in dot and bubble and the doctor's reaction to them are pretty realistic to me (shrugs))? people criticism them as "caricatures" and ... i don't see it, honestly? like rich people really are Like That. racist are exactly like that. like i can agree with the crit for example that having ricky or a character like ricky at the end, saying the same stuff as lindy and co, would have driven the point home better (of "if you live in a society founded on racism, you will inherit racist views even if you're a "good" person most of the time"), but like, overall i do think the "cartoonism" or bluntness of the finetime's awfulness was a strong writing choice. i do think rtd make the right call there, and even if he's white, he got a good grip on how a black man like the doctor would react (like, pretty realistic to how irl black medical doctors speak about their experiences, for example). also lbr, some audience members are so dense about this (even a lot of people on /r/gallifrey said they *didn't* understand what the problem was in the end! ) and like... i don't think this should be that controversial? that's the magic of writing. that if you take the time to listen, learn and observe, you can write experiences other than your own pretty competently. anyway, back to the initial common ground, would a black writer have given them more specificity? most likely.do need to bring more of them (and if anything else, as good as the 3 boys in boys club are, it does get a little tiring to have only 3 voices in the choice for the last 5 years)? absolutely. but i dont think that means that rtd shouldnt have written this episode, or that him being white diminished how much of what the text actually says. and i think it would be a lot more productive to try to understand it on its own merits rather than defaulting to a kind of "locus theory essentialism" in media analysis.

i'm still baffled that an episode about racism had absolutely zero writers of colour. like what the fuck

[princesssarisa]

Opera on Youtube 4

L'Elisir d'Amore (The Elixir of Love)

Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, 1967 (Carlo Bergonzi, Renata Scotto; conducted by Gianandrea Gavazzeni; no subtitles)

Metropolitan Opera, 1981 (Luciano Pavarotti, Judith Blegen; conducted by Nicola Rescigno; Spanish subtitles) – Part I, Part II

Metropolitan Opera, 1991 (Luciano Pavarotti, Kathleen Battle; conducted by James Levine; English subtitles) – Part I, Part II

Vienna State Opera, 2005 (Rolando Villazón, Anna Netrebko; conducted by Alfred Eschwé; English subtitles)

Theatro da Paz, Brazil, 2013 (Atalla Ayan, Carmen Monarcha; conducted by Emiliano Patarra; Brazilian Portuguese subtitles)

Teatro Manoel, Malta, 2015 (Cliff Zammit Stevens, Shoushik Barsoumian; conducted by Philip Walsh; English subtitles)

Vienna State Opera, 2017 (Dmitry Korchak, Olga Peretyatko; conducted by Marco Armiliato; no subtitles) – Part I, Part II

Ópera de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, 2017 (Ramón Vargas, Olivia Gorra; conducted by Guido Maria Guida; Spanish subtitles)

Vienna State Opera, 2018 (Benjamin Bernheim, Andrea Carroll; conducted by Frédéric Chaslin; no subtitles)

San Francisco Opera, 2023 (Pene Pati, Slávka Zámečníková; conducted by Ramón Tebar; English subtitles)

Hänsel & Gretel

Vittorio Cottafavi studio film, 1957 (Fiorenza Cossotto, Jan Poleri; conducted by Nino Sanzogno; sung in Italian with Italian subtitles)

August Everding studio film, 1981 (Brigitte Fassbaender, Edita Gruberova; conducted by Georg Solti; English subtitles)

Leipzig Opera, 1981 (Annelott Damm, Steffi Ullmann; conducted by Horst Gurgel; no subtitles)

Julliard Opera Center, 1997 (Jennifer Marquette, Sari Gruber; conducted by Randall Behr; English subtitles)

Opera Australia, 1992 (Suzanne Johnston, Christine Douglas; conducted by Johannes Fritzsch; sung in English)

Vienna State Opera, 2015 (Daniel Sindram, Ileana Tonca; conducted by Christian Thielmann; English subtitles)

Pacific Northwest Opera, 2015 (Sylvia Szadovszki, Ksenia Popova; conducted by Clinton Smith; sung in English with English subtitles)

Scottish Opera, 2020 (Kitty Whately, Rhian Lois; conducted by David Parry; sung in English with English subtitles)

Eklund Opera Program, 2020 (Christine Lee, Anna Whiteway; conducted by Nicholas Carthy; sung in English with English subtitles)

Amarillo Opera, 2021 (Sarah Beckham-Turner, Patricia Westley; conducted by Carolyn Watson; English subtitles)

Turandot

Mario Lanfranchi studio film, 1958 (Lucilla Udovick, Franco Corelli; conducted by Fernando Previtali; English subtitles)

Vienna State Opera, 1983 (Eva Marton, José Carreras; conducted by Lorin Maazel; no subtitles)

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 1986 (Gwyneth Jones, Franco Bonisolli; conducted by Jacques Delacote; English subtitles)

Forbidden City, Beijing, 1998 (Giovanna Casolla, Sergej Larin; conducted by Zubin Mehta; no subtitles)

Teatro alla Scala; 2001 (Alessandra Marc, Nicola Martinucci; conducted by Georges Prêtre; French subtitles)

Gran Teatre del Liceu, 2009 (Anna Shafajinskaia, Fabio Armiliato; conducted by Giuliano Carella; English subtitles)

Chorégies d'Orange 2012 (Lise Lindstrom, Roberto Alagna; conducted by Michel Plasson; French subtitles)

Wichita Grand Opera, 2015 (Zvetelina Vassileva, Ricardo Tamura; conducted by Martin Mazik; no subtitles)

Teatro de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, 2017 (Gabriela Georgieva, Carlos Galván; conducted by Enrique Patrón de Rueda; Spanish subtitles)

Opera Hong Kong, 2018 (Oksana Dyka, Alfred Kim; conducted by Paolo Olmi; English subtitles)

Eugene Onegin

Prince Regent Theatre, Munich, 1965 (Hermann Prey, Ingeborg Bremert; conducted by Joseph Keilberth; sung in German; no subtitles)

Paris Opera, 1982 (Benjamin Luxon, Galina Vishnevskaya; conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich; French subtitles)

Kirov Opera, 1984 (Sergei Leiferkus, Tatiana Novikova; conducted by Yuri Temirkanov; English subtitles)

Chicago Lyric Opera, 1985 (Wolfgang Brendel, Mirella Freni; conducted by Bruno Bartoletti; Spanish subtitles)

Petr Weigl film, 1988 (Michal Docolomanský dubbed by Bernd Weikl, Magda Vásáryová dubbed by Teresa Kubiak; conducted by Georg Solti; English subtitles)

Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, 1998 (Vladimir Glushchak, Orla Boylan; conducted by Gennadi Rozhdestvensky; English subtitles) – Act I, Act II, Act III

Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, Valencia, 2011 (Artur Rucinski, Kristine Opolais; conducted by Omer Meir Wellber; no subtitles) – Part I, Part II

Teatro Comunale di Bologna, 2014 (Artur Rucinski, Amanda Echalaz; conducted by Aziz Shokhakimov; English subtitles)

Mariinsky Theatre, 2015 (Andrei Bondarenko, Yekaterina Goncharova; conducted by Valery Gergiev; French subtitles)

Livermore Valley Opera, 2019 (Morgan Smith, Antonina Chehovska; conducted by Alex Katsman; English subtitles)

[valjeans]

THE ROUND ONE RESULTS ARE IN!!!

another really fun opening round with some close calls and big names going out!! full results are below the cut:

Earl Carpenter VS Gavin Lee Earl Capenter = 109 (91.6%) Gavin Lee = 10 (8.4%) Earl Carpenter WINS

Manoel Felciano VS Ted Keegan Manoel Felciano = 61 (53%) Ted Keegan = 54 (47%) Manoel Felciano WINS

Jeremy Secomb VS Hadley Fraser Jeremy Secomb = 30 (25.6%) Hadley Fraser = 87 (74.4%) Hadley Fraser WINS

Matt Seadon-Young VS Niall Sheehy Matt Seadon-Young = 26 (23.9%) Niall Sheehy = 83 (76.1%) Niall Sheehy WINS

Jeremy Stolle VS Ben Forster Jeremy Stolle = 88 (76.5%) Ben Forster = 27 (23.5%) Jeremy Stolle WINS

Tommy Körberg VS Tim Morgan Tommy Körberg = 52 (47.3%) Tim Morgan = 58 (52.7%) Tim Morgan WINS

Ramin Karimloo VS Brian D'Arcy James Ramin Karimloo = 64 (52.9%) Brian D'Arcy James = 57 (47.1%) Ramin Karimloo WINS

Tom Hewitt VS Malcolm Forbes Peckham Tom Hewitt = 67 (58.8%) Malcolm Forbes Peckham = 47 (41.2%) Tom Hewitt WINS

Raul Esparza VS Brian Stokes Mitchell Raul Esparza = 90 (78.3%) Brian Stokes Mitchell = 25 21.7%) Raul Esparza WINS

Josh Groban VS Laird Mackintosh Josh Groban = 55 (44.4%) Laird Mackintosh = 69 (55.6%) Laird Mackintosh WINS

Simon Bailey VS Gareth Snook Simon Bailey = 68 (71.6%) Gareth Snook = 27 (28.4%) Simon Bailey WINS

Norm Lewis VS Derek Klana Norm Lewis = 86 (79.6%) Derek Klana = 22 (20.4%) Norm Lewis WINS

Dave Willetts VS Will Swenson Dave Willetts = 32 (32%) Will Swenson = 68 (68%) Will Swenson WINS

Harry Hadden-Patton VS John Owen Jones Harry Hadden-Patton = 26 (74.8%) John Owen Jones = 77 (25.2%) John Owen Jones WINS

Adam Pascal VS Christopher Plummer Adam Pascal = 17 (15.9%) Christopher Plummer = 90 (84.1%) Christopher Plummer WINS

Hugh Panaro VS Killian Donnelly Hugh Panaro = 72 (67.9%) Killian Donnelly = 34 (32.1%) Hugh Panaro WINS

Julian Ovenden VS Patrick Page Julian Ovenden = 41 (38.7%) Patrick Page = 65 (61.3%) Patrick Page WINS

Terrence Mann VS Franc D'Ambrosio Terrence Mann = 82 (78.8%) Franc D'Ambrosio = 22 (21.2%) Terrence Mann WINS

Peter Lockyer VS Stewart Clarke Peter Lockyer = 69 (69.7%) Stewart Clarke = 30 (30.3%) Peter Lockyer WINS

Mandy Patinkin VS Cameron Blakely Mandy Patinkin = 81 (77.1%) Cameron Blakely = 24 (22.9%) Mandy Patinkin WINS

Philip Quast VS Matt Harrop Philip Quast = 68 (69.4%) Matt Harrop = 30 (30.6%) Philip Quast WINS

Howard McGillin VS Greg Mills Howard Mcgillin = 47 (50%) Greg Mills = 47 (50%) DRAW (Tie break will be posted after these results are published)

Robert Lindsay VS Christian Borle Robert Lindsay = 63 (66.3%) Christian Borle = 32 (33.7%) Robert Lindsay wins

Dean Chisnall VS Edward Baker-Duly Dean Chisnall = 85 (94.4%) Edward Baker-Duly = 5 (5.6%) Dean Chisnall WINS

Jon Robyns VS Bronson Norris Murphy Jon Robyns = 77 (78.6%) Bronson Norris Murphy = 21 (21.4%) Jon Robyns WINS

Hayden Tee VS Bradley Dean Hayden Tee = 40 (44.4%) Bradley Dean = 50 (55.6%) Bradley Dean WINS

Fred Johanson VS Ken Watanabe Fred Johanson = 13 (13.7%) Ken Watanabe = 82 (86.3%) Ken Watanabe WINS

Michael Ball VS Alfie Boe Michael Ball = 48 (50.5%) Alfie Boe = 47 (49.5%) Michael Ball WINS

[laurelnose]

i reread Animal Farm this month. it’s been almost ... fourteen years? since I first read it. coincidentally I also relatively recently read the first volume of Animal Castle by Xavier Dorison, back in November, which is a direct response to Animal Farm. returning to Farm as an adult and with that in the back of my mind made for a really, really interesting contrast.

first of all I simply love Animal Castle. it’s exquisite, one of the most beautiful animal fantasies I’ve seen illustrated in a long time. Felix Delep’s forms and gestures are so weighty, so fluid, & his designs evoke realism and character in equal measure, which is a hard line to walk in animal fantasy. every character is distinct and recognizable with resorting to caricature — an equally artful character design sensibility, but incorrect for the tone of this book. (can’t help but compare w/ Joe Sutphin’s recent graphic novel adaptation of Watership Down, which similarly wanted a realist sensibility and was genuinely a joy to read but suffered from all the bunnies looking the same, much like real bunnies.) and every panel is a treat to look at! Delep’s backgrounds are sooo detailed, the sense of place is really fantastic, not to mention his handling of light. pick this one up in hard copy if you can, it’s so worth seeing in person.

textually, storywise, it is equally excellent. Dorison is doing something different from Orwell: Farm is allegorical, a fable, which by necessity makes simplifications and operates with broad strokes, relying on archetype. Orwell is not particularly interested in the inner lives or personal relationships of any of the animals, which is fine for a fable. but I think it has a major failing, which is that basically all of Orwell’s working class characters areeeee... dead stupid. The working animals are, with the exception of Benjamin the donkey (who is cynical and apathetic), ignorant, illiterate, incapable of becoming literate, and without agency. This is even true of their descendants! (I do not think I am personally quite as pro-revolution as Jones Manoel, but I find his critique of Farm on this basis very compelling. This isn’t the only theme or moral you can pull from Animal Farm, but it is easy to read one of the main themes as “dictators are inevitable because regular people are stupid and gullible and cannot be educated,” which is ... I do not endorse this.)

Castle, on the other hand, is an entirely character-driven story. Miss B, our beloved Miss B, may not the smartest or strongest or best-positioned individual, but she has a will, she has a personality, she has opinions, she has family and friends and material interests and incentives, and Castle cares very much about all of these things. it also is far more interested in the small, mundane details of resistance against authoritarianism; no glorious revolution (yet? the story is still in progress & I need to read the first 3 issues of vol. 2, but I doubt it), but the small acts of rebellion and community building that are no less important. it is also, of course, very relevant that Dorison’s protagonist is a single mother. Dorison is interested in the ways women manage in authoritarian regimes — the hens whose reproductive labor is exploited are a much bigger part of the book, and the ewes (some of the sheep are ewes!) are not brainless sycophants but people who are realistically cowardly and reluctant to make waves, plus there are also rabbits in Castle and iirc they’re doing some sex work — and this also includes those who cozy up to the government. Orwell, known misogynist, very briefly mentions a female dog and a couple of sows, but only as vehicles to produce Napoleon’s guard dogs and more pigs; Dorison sketches out the ox dictator’s consort and the wife of the chief guard dog as minor but fully considered characters with concerns and incentives of their own.

Castle also has a much less hypercompetent authoritarian government. Metatextually, neither Napoleon nor Snowball are actually superhumanly competent compared to an average person, but the rest of the animals are so stupid that the bar for competence is on the floor. Castle knows & shows that dictators are not actually head and shoulders above working class people in terms of competence, only in terms of the amount of force they can bring to bear.

i don’t think Castle is necessarily strictly better than Farm, they have different concerns (Farm, by Orwell’s own admission, is much more immediately about revolutions failing, and Castle is more about existing under authoritarianism afterwards) and are also fully different forms (the allegorical novella vs. the serialized graphic novel), but... my edition of Farm (Signet Classics 1996) has a quote from the NYT on the back, reading, “A wise, compassionate, and illuminating fable for our times.” illuminating? yes. compassionate? no, I don’t think so. Orwell does sympathize with his characters (except Mollie, justice for Mollie) and wants you to sympathize as well (weren’t we all traumatized by Boxer’s death in high school?) but still, he is distinctly in contempt of the common man and women generally. I prefer Castle.

[priafey]

i swear i cry every time i read this fucking book. i was sitting in my car during my lunch break earlier and read "Here, the families love their martyrs–so an elderly cane-cutter tells me–but only after they're dead. Before that, there was only pure disdain." and just fell apart

the line, in context, refers to those who willingly died to further the cause of the cuban revolution. and i know why it makes me cry (a sense of loss of what we puerto ricans have not been able to achieve, the same dual-sided sentiment mirrored with our own martyrs) but it still eats me up inside.

that anyone would look at the cuban revolution and arm themselves with indignity to whine about the violence it entailed, at the violence that literally any successful revolution entails, speaks either to their ignorance of (or outright preference for) the violence the cuban people experienced at the hands of american absentee corporations before 1959. i am referring to the 14-hour workdays, to the rampant unemployment, illiteracy, disease, to the land degradation (and waste!) that came with their resource extraction and theft, to every person on the island's livelihood being tied to the ebbs and flows of foreign demand for sugar. if you honestly think cuba is worse off today than it would've been if the revolution had not happened, i can only assume you have not engaged with the works of contemporary cuban artists, economists, athletes, physicians etc etc living on the island, do not actively seek out their perspectives, are incurious, and have, quite simply, chosen your fucking side.

lo que cuba tiene no lo compra nadie. solo lo compra casi 70 años de lucha y resistencia a las fuerzas imperialistas. jones manoel put it best (emphasis mine):

"There is a great tendency in the eastern left, according to Perry Anderson, to separate western and eastern Marxism. Western Marxism is basically a kind of Marxism which has, as a key characteristic, never exercised political power. It is a Marxism that has, more and more frequently, concerned itself with philosophical and aesthetic issues. It has pulled back, for example, from criticism of political economy and the problem of the conquest of political power. More and more it has taken a historic distance from the concrete experiences of socialist transition in the Soviet Union, China, Viet Nam, Cuba and so forth. This western Marxism considers itself to be superior to eastern Marxism because it hasn’t tarnished Marxism by transforming it into an ideology of the State like, for example, Soviet Marxism, and it has never been authoritarian, totalitarian or violent. This Marxism preserves the purity of theory to the detriment of the fact that it has never produced a revolution anywhere on the face of the Earth – this is a very important point. Wherever a victorious socialist revolution has taken place in the West, like Cuba, it is much more closely associated with the so-called eastern Marxism than with this western Marxism produced in Western Europe, the United States, Canada and parts of South America. This Marxism is proud of its purity [...]"

[ghelgheli]

The Stuff I Read in December 2023

favourites in bold

Books

Calling a Wolf a Wolf, Kaveh Akbar

The German Ideology, Marx & Engels

The Dark Forest, Cixin Liu

Yuri/GL

Hanamonogatari, schwinn

The Moon on a Rainy Night / Amayo no Tsuki (Vols 1-2), Kuzushiro

Run Away With Me, Girl, Battan

Opium, Aji

Asashi to Satsuki, Fujita

The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy At All / Ki ni Natteru Hito ga Otoko Janakatta, Sumiko Arai

Free Soul, Ebine Yamaji

Short Fiction

Yon & Mu, Junji Ito

A Day in the Life of Anmar 20X1, Abdulla Moaswes [strange horizons]

Muneera and the Moon, Sonia Sulaiman [fiyah]

The Center of the Universe, Nadia Shammas [strange horizons]

Honeydew Toxicity Event, Porpentine Charity Heartscape [link]

Palestine

Palestinian Anarchists in Conversation: Recalibrating Anarchism in a Colonized Country, Joshua Stephens [link]

Anarchist, Liberal, and Authoritarian Enlightenments: Notes From the Arab Spring, Mohammed Bamyeh [link]

Our Siege is Long, Esmat Elhalaby [link]

Anti-Zionism as Decolonisation, Lara Kilani & Leila Shomali [link]

What's the matter with the Israeli working class?, Daphna Thier [link]

Inside the Pro-Israel Information War, Lee Fang & Jack Poulson [link]

Refusing Genocide, Rasha Abdulhadi & Beatrice Adler-Bolton [link]

‘A mass assassination factory’: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza, Yuval Abraham [link]

"Theory"

Western Marxism, the Fetish for Defeat, and Christian Culture, Jones Manoel [red sails]

On Contradiction, Mao Tse-Tung [marxists dot org]

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Walter Benjamin

Other

Multimodal datasets: misogyny, pornography, and malignant stereotypes, Abebe Birhane, Vinay Uday Prabhu, Emmanuel Kahembwe [arxiv]

On Anthony Bourdain, Lz. A. [red sails]

The Myth of Man the Hunter: Women’s contribution to the hunt across ethnographic contexts, Abigail Anderson et al. [doi]

Monster, Terrorist, Fag: The War on Terrorism and the Production of Docile Patriots, Jasbir K. Puar & Amit Rai [link]

Deaths Pulled From the Future, Beatrice Adler-Bolton [link]

In The End We All Do What We Must: Universal Paperclips, Clicker Games, AI, and Agency, Sam Keeper [link]

[andremarcoantonio]

Jones Manoel

[tita-ferreira]

[xikowisk]

COMO DERROTAR O FASCISMO? - GUSTAVO GAIOFATO E JONES MANOEL RESPONDEM!

[myownuniversech]

O suco de entretenimento kk

[imperiodobrazil]

O NACIONALISMO É INSUFICIENTE | RESPOSTA AO JONES MANOEL