Category Archives: Zeitgeist Movement

Exactly 30 years ago today FW de Klerk, who had been president of South Africa for barely five months, made an announcement that broke political deadlock and led the country out of centuries of conflict and into an era of negotiation and democracy. His legacy though remains deeply contested, writes Pieter du Toit.

When Frederik Willem de Klerk, then 53, approached the podium in the Great Hall of Parliament in Cape Town just after 11:00 on the morning of February 2, 1990, to deliver his annual address to the legislature, very few believed he would go as far as he did. After all, the National Party (NP) government, by then in absolute power for more than 41 years, did not look like it would succumb to any pressure, domestic or foreign.

And De Klerk, the son of a Cabinet minister in Hendrik Verwoerd's government, nephew of hard-line premier JG Strijdom and a lawyer schooled at the Afrikaners' Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, was considered a flag-bearer for the ultra-conservative section of the NP.

His older brother, Willem de Klerk, writes in FW de Klerk: The Man In His Timethat expectations of the newly-minted president was low to zero. There just weren't any indicators that he was going to be the great reformer he turned out to be.

But De Klerk wasn't an ideologue, he was a pragmatist. And after becoming president in September 1989, replacing the increasingly cantankerous and inconsistent PW Botha, he saw an opportunity.

The Berlin Wall had fallen and communism was crumbling. De Klerk believed the time to take the initiative and claim the moral high ground had arrived.

"There is no time left for advancing all manner of new conditions that will delay the negotiating process," De Klerk sombrely said in the middle of his address, before he went on.

"The steps that have been decided upon are the following: the prohibition of the African National Congress, the Pan Africanist Congress, the South African Communist Party and a number of subsidiary organisations is being rescinded"

In her celebrated account of the transitionAnatomy of a Miracle, journalist Patti Waldmeir writes there was an audible gasp among MPs as De Klerk reached the part about unbanning the SACP. "With those words FW de Klerk destroyed the world as whites knew it, and opened up a whole new universe to everyone else," she writes.

His government, De Klerk told the world, had taken "a firm decision" to release Nelson Mandela unconditionally. He also announced the release of political prisoners and that the state of emergency will be suspended. De Klerk and his government were determined to commence negotiations towards a democratic dispensation, based on equality before the law and protection of minority and individual rights, he said.

"The time for negotiation has arrived," he said.

De Klerk: A dyed in the wool party man

Historian Hermann Giliomee, in his book The Last Afrikaner Leaders, says the speech illustrated to what extent De Klerk managed to lead his party from rigid apartheid philosophies and its fears of communism a year before, to a place where it started to accept a shared country and society based on shared beliefs and values.

Willem de Klerk, the president's older brother and a noted member of the so-called "enligtened" section of Afrikaner intelligentsia (and a founder of the Democratic Party), wrote he never considered De Klerk to be progressive, he was "a veritable Mr National Party".

De Klerk Sr argues his younger brother was a "forceful" proponent of apartheid, propagating and executing his party's policies of "racial grouping".

"As leader of the white 'own affairs' administration, moreover, he became an advocate for white interests, thus projecting himself as Mr White as much as Mr National Party.

"He certainly never formed part of the enlightened movement in South Africa."

Giliomee says De Klerk was a popular figure in the party, but that he was a tactician and pragmatist, rather then acting out of conviction or belief. His reform initiatives were therefore carefully planned.

Waldmeir, who was a correspondent for the Financial Times, describes De Klerk as calculating, a consummate politician who was able to respond to the demands of the moment and who crafted his own beliefs to correspond with the zeitgeist. And, despite the far-reaching announcement on February 2, he certainly was not willing to let the process run out from under him.

"He was not, as many outsiders assumed, recognising the historical inevitability of black majority rule his plan, on February 2, was to share power with blacks, subject to an effective white veto, not to hand it over," she believes.

Reaction to De Klerk's speech was, predictably, positive. The international community lauded De Klerk and Britain announced it was dropping sanctions. Thabo Mbeki, then Oliver Tambo's right-hand man and the ANC's de facto minister of foreign affairs, conceded that De Klerk had stolen a march on the ANC, telling Frederik van Zyl Slabbert: "What do we do now? We can't put Mandela back in jail!"

Rejected by his own people, dismissed by the rest

Thirty years later De Klerk, as the last living head of the apartheid state and the leader who opened negotiations, is a contested if not reviled figure. He has been broadly rejected by large sections of his own people, the Afrikaners, and is generally dismissed as a transformative figure by black South Africa.

De Klerk managed to bring white South Africa with him to the negotiating table, winning a popular mandate in the 1992 referendum. But after 1994 and certainly after 1996, when the NP exited the Government of National Unity he lost influence and became a scapegoat for whites who blamed the loss of power on him.

Along with Roelf Meyer, who led his government's negotiating team, De Klerk is often criticised for his assurances of constitutional checks and balances, which he promised would safeguard the rights of whites and individuals, and which many whites believe have failed.

Letter columns in Afrikaans newspapers are often filled with vitriol directed at De Klerk and Meyer. And with Afrikaans society, especially in the northern parts of the country, seemingly increasingly disillusioned with democracy as Afrikaner nationalist organisations such as AfriForum gain traction, De Klerk is not looked upon as a distinguished elder statesman.

"FW must explain about his famous 'checks and balances'" or "De Klerk was nave" and even "He sold us down the river" are sentiments regularly expressed in letter columns or by Afrikaans opinion writers.

There is a popular school of thought among Afrikaners that De Klerk and Meyer were outfoxed by the ANC during the constitutional negotiations, and that language rights, schools and issues around cultural heritage were poorly managed. This school of thought, espoused by the emergence of a modern, white conservative movement and fanned by prominent commentators, traditional media outlets and new alternative voices, have sought to cast doubt on the transition and De Klerk's role in it.

And among black people De Klerk is nothing more than the last apartheid president and someone yet to pay for his role in the violence, murder and mayhem of apartheid.

Journalist and author Fred Khumalo, writing in Sowetan last year, said De Klerk and his government should be blamed for South Africa's violent culture.

"While De Klerk was being feted for a miraculous transition, the killing squads that he had helped create and finance, some of them operating under the aegis of Inkatha, were busy killing ordinary black people.

"Boipatong, Shobashobane, Thokoza, Richmond, Crossroads are not just place names. These are names of specific massacres on the eve of our 1994 election, while De Klerk was in office," Khumalo contends.

The EFF call him a "murderer" while journalist Lukhanyo Calata, son of murdered ANC activist Fort Calata, implicated De Klerk in his father's death last year.

And although Parliament annually invites De Klerk to the State of the Nation Address, he attends as a former deputy president of democratic South Africa, and not as the last head of state of apartheid South Africa. He is hardly called upon to give his views on the country and is rarely, if ever, given space in the media, and when he does opine it is roundly and summarily rejected.

Condemnation and plaudits

De Klerk's biggest moment was the year between his elevation to the party leadership and his February 2, 1990 speech, Giliomee writes. He grew into his role as head of state and conducted himself in a dignified and gracious manner. "His speech on February 2 was masterful, indeed it was one of the big moments in the country's history and without doubt one of the most important speeches in the history of the twentieth century."

Mandela called the speech "breathtaking". "In one sweeping action he had virtually normalised the situation in South Africa. Our world had changed overnight."

But, Giliomee judges, De Klerk had no masterplan for the negotiations, nor an experienced negotiator. Mandela says De Klerk never wanted to give up power, but Waldmeir one of the most astute observers of the transition says she doesn't share Madiba's condemnation. "He censures De Klerk for being a politician and not a saint. But if South Africa had had to wait for a holy man for its liberation, it would be languishing still in apartheid captivity."

De Klerk, who turn 84 years old this year, lives in Cape Town with his second wife, Elita. He remains involved with a foundation for constitutional rights bearing his name.

See the original post:

The last white leader: FW de Klerk and the disputed legacy of an apartheid president - News24

American Dirt is already shaping up to be one of the books of 2020. By setting out to humanise the plight of migrants crossing the US-Mexico border, author Jeanine Cummins has opened up a dialogue that has the potential to shape how people will vote in what promises to be a brutal Presidential election.

Timing is everything. American Dirt is Jeanine Cummins fourth novel and it has struck a chord like nothing she has ever written before.

In 2013, when I decided to write a book about migrants, I didnt expect people to care so deeply, Jeanine explains. That was way before the issue was in the national zeitgeist. But even since its become a hot button issue, the conversation tends to be incredibly superficial in the U.S. I didnt know if a novel about migrants would resonate so its tremendously gratifying to see the response. Resonate is putting it mildly. American Dirt has been greeted with international acclaim, including rave reviews from literary giants like Stephen King and Don Winslow. Lauded as a Grapes Of Wrath for the modern age, the gripping novel follows a middle-class Mexican woman and her son, who find themselves on the migrant trail to the US border, after surviving a massacre carried out by a local drug cartel.

Cummins begins the book with a letter to the reader. In 2017, a migrant died every twenty-one hours along the United States-Mexico border. That number does not include the many migrants who simply disappear each year. It is a shocking revelation. But, she adds, statistics cannot conjure individual human beings.

By telling the compelling story of mother-and-son protagonists Lydia and Luca, Cummins aims to humanise the migrant crisis for middle American readers. These characters happen to be Mexican and Central American, but the whole point of the book is that they could be anyone, she tells me. They could be from Syria or California or Australia. We could all find ourselves in Lydias shoes in these uncertain times.

Cummins observes that the conversation about immigration has been marked by a singular lack of humanity. Even in 2013, before Trump and the resurgence of casual racism, I had this sense of growing unease about how Latino people, and specifically Latino migrants, were being portrayed in the media and popular culture, she explains. "On the right, theres this insane caricature of the violent mob, like the narcos we see on Netflix scary people who are coming here to deal drugs, rape our women and steal our healthcare. Then, on the left, theres this equally simplistic and unrealistic characterisation of migrants as these impoverished, illiterate, rural people who need us to save them, because we have this saviour complex on the left. In neither narrative are we recognising that theyre actually just people. I felt there was an opening there to speak to the hearts of people, and remind them that migrants are just like them, she continues. They love their kids too.

The inspiration for the book came, in part at least, from personal experience. Jeanines husband, an Irish immigrant, lived undocumented in the US for years before they married. She is well aware that his experience was incredibly different to, and more privileged than, what people from Honduras or Guatemala, riding La Bestia (a treacherous migrant train journey) have to endure. But still...

He endured a decade of this terrifying situation of living as an undocumented person, she says. But he was a white undocumented person, a native English speaker, and he had all the privilege of being a member of arguably the most beloved immigrant group in this country. People here could not love the Irish more, which is kind of crazy when you look back a couple of generations, and see how reviled they were. This is all so short-sighted. Wre going to hate someone else next. It just happens to be the migrants at the southern border now.

It took five years for Cummins to research American Dirt. She travelled extensively on both sides of the US-Mexico border, visiting shelters for migrants, orphanages and desayunadores (breakfast soup kitchens).

I endeavoured to meet migrants, to understand the real conditions that theyre facing, Cummins says. But I was also there to meet the people who have given their lives to serving migrants and protecting vulnerable people on the borderlands.

Cummins engagement with the plight of migrants also stems from a lifelong interest in the universal nature of trauma. Her first book, A Rip In Heaven, told the story of her own familys tragedy. In 1991, a group of men raped her two cousins and beat her brother, before throwing them off a bridge into the Mississippi River. Her brother was the only survivor.

I wrote that book because I felt so angry that the story of my familys grief had been stolen by these men, she explains. They were convicted of their crimes and they were on death row and then, suddenly, everybody wanted to do a documentary on them, and give them a platform to proclaim their innocence. My cousins had been demoted to a footnote in that story.

There are so many violent, macho stories about narcos out there, she continues. Im interested in taking the story away from violent men and giving it to the women and children, and in telling the tale of what it feels like to be living in that trauma. Thats the unusual thing about this book. Thats why people are paying attention.

In an era in which identity politics are at the forefront of public discourse, however, Cummins decision to tell the story of the migrant trail has sparked criticism. In an authors note at the end of the novel, she remarks that she wished someone slightly browner would have written it.

I had, and still have, a lot of fear about being the person to tell this story, she tells me. Theres been plenty of debate about whether it was my right to do so. I identify as a Latina person, and Spanish was my first language. But my identity is something I have struggled with my entire life: Im not brown enough. And now, because of this book, Im being called to account for myself in ways that are impossible to do. I cannot change who I am. I am a person of Latino heritage, but Im also white. In some ways, I feel like Im marginalised from both ends.

Cummins agrees that there is a danger of fiction becoming horribly circumscribed by what one is allowed to write.

So many writers right now are afraid, she argues. This cancel culture thing is pervasive right now. If someone decides youre stepping out of your lane, the attack is coming. The tenor of that conversation is so vicious that people dont even want to risk it, because youre really sticking your neck out.

I understand where this movement comes from, and the need to be fiercely protective of representation, she continues. But when we chase white writers away from engaging with these topics, were just letting them off the hook. I deeply believe that every person in this country has a moral obligation to engage with these stories.

So, if I have a voice, and I can use that voice to try to spark a conversation in this country, that may open up a deeper dialogue in the middle-class populace, why not be a bridge in that way?

With American Dirt being published at the start of an election year, that conversation is likely to be timely.

Ive often said that the reason we cant get any traction when we talk about immigration in this country is because the language is so problematic, she notes. As soon as you open your mouth and choose your label, its like sticking a flag in the ground: migrants, aliens, undocumented, illegal. So, through the great magic of fiction, were stripping the labels off, and getting down to the intimate level of humanity.

Its a great moment for me as a writer, to know that, in an election year, book clubs will be sitting down to look at this book together, she smiles. A group of women, sitting around a dining room table in Kansas, who have probably never had this conversation before, can begin without having to choose a label. Its my tremendous hope that this story might render empathy in some readers who havent thought deeply about this before especially in an election year.

Because then we can then take that empathy to the ballot box.

American Dirt is out now.

View post:

Jeanine Cummins on American Dirt: I had, and still have, a lot of fear about being the person to tell this story - hotpress.com

For the November launch of The Morning Show, Apple hosted a lavish premiere at New York Citys Lincoln Center complete with klieg lights, celebrity guests and black-carpet (the new red?) appearances by the shows stars, including Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon.

The event announced Apples foray into original TV through its Apple TV+ service. But the tech giant is far from alone in betting on projects that deal directly, if in fictionalized form, with the sexual misconduct scandals that have rocked the media industry in the past few years.

Morning Show stars Aniston and Witherspoon, for example, also helped develop the series through their respective production companies, Echo Films and Hello Sunshine. Likewise, Charlize Theron has a producer credit on Bombshell (which she also stars in), a Lionsgate film dramatizing the downfall of Fox News founder Roger Ailes at the hands of female staffers and on-air talent who exposed years of sexual abuse accusations against him.

These kinds of news stories are kind of pre-sold because everyone already knows the basic narrative structure of whats going to happen.

Robert Thompson, Syracuse University

Hollywood has long reflected the zeitgeist, from films like the Watergate-era All the Presidents Men to The Big Short, which follows the 2008 financial crash. But The Morning Show is part of a new wave of projects, ones that reflect how the media industry is turning its own recent wrongs into profits, even as the events they focus on are playing out in ongoing investigations, litigation and press coverage. Backed by some of Hollywoods most powerful women, theyre also part of the #MeToo movement, supercharged by the misconduct they portray.

Annapurna Pictures and Plan B Entertainment have snapped up film rights to She Said. The book by New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey recounts how they investigated and broke the story of movie mogul Harvey Weinsteins long history of alleged sexual misconduct.

They want to use the platform they have to put a stop to this as much as possible, says Karie Bible, box-office analyst at Exhibitor Relations, about the prominent part women are playing in bringing these stories to the screen.

These projects are equally fueled by the demands of peak content and time-tested dramatic elements, including high-profile figures in peril, sex scandals and revenge. For producers and studios, the hope is that it all adds up to a ready-made audience.

Thesekinds of news stories adapted for film and TV are kind of pre-sold becauseeveryone already knows the basic narrative structure of whats going tohappen, says Robert Thompson, a professor at Syracuse Universitys NewhouseSchool of Public Communications.

Thats true even for a fictional series like The Morning Show, which parallels the removal of Matt Lauer from the Today show after sexual harassment allegations against the co-host surfaced in 2017. Everyone knows its the Matt Lauer story, so you dont have to show salacious clips to sell it, says Thompson.

These dramas invariably involve figures familiar to the public. The reason these stories are getting so much focus is not because theyre about the media business itself, but about well-known people, says Henry McGee, a former HBO executive who lectures on business administration at Harvard Business School.

If thats not enough to lure audiences, key roles are attracting A-list Hollywood talent. Along with Aniston and Witherspoon, The Morning Show boasts Steve Carell, while Bombshell features a trio of stars: Theron, Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie.

Three great roles for three top-caliber actresses, says Bible. That doesnt happen every day.

Whether the star-studded cast and societal relevance will translate into big box office for Bombshell is hard to predict, say experts. At the end of the day, a movie has to bring you in and entertain you even while youre receiving a message, says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. It still has to be [a] good movie.

Bombshell opens only months after The Loudest Voice, the Showtime limited series starring Russell Crowe and Naomi Watts that ran this summer and also dealt with the Ailes scandal. Meanwhile, the Clint Eastwood-directed Richard Jewell also questions ethics in the media industry, suggesting that an Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter offered sex in return for tips. The newspaper has pushed back, disputing the movies depiction.

For its part, The Morning Show has drawn mixed critical response (a 62 percent fresh rating on review site Rotten Tomatoes) but appears to have intrigued potential viewers.

Leading up to its Nov. 1 premiere, it was among the 10 most-searched TV titles, according to MiDiA Research, which tracks audience metrics across 410 shows. With the subscription-based Apple TV+ just launching, though, it will take more time to judge whether interest in The Morning Show leads to more Apple TV+ sign-ups.

That said, this age of peak content means steady demand for material that aspires to capture the cultural moment. Think of series like HBOs Succession, which portrays the owners of a media and hospitality empire at war among themselves, or Netflixs Black Mirror, which explores the unintended consequences of technology.

Combine that trend with the #MeToo era, and I suspect were going to see a lot more of these stories, says the Newhouse Schools Thompson.

Go here to read the rest:

Hollywood Has a New Profit Model: Its Own Scandals - OZY

Macquarie Dictionary has announced cancel culture as its Word Of The Year,beating out the likes of thicc and robodebt to take the 2019 title.

Macquarie Dictionarys selection criteria for Word of the Year is based on which word best reflects the year that passed, and one wouldnt be amiss for feeling like cancel culture may reflect the last few.

Cancel culture is defined in the Macquarie Dictionary as a:

call for or bring about the withdrawl of support from [for] a public figure, such as cancellation of an acting role, a ban on playing an artists music, removal from social media, etc., usually in response to an accusation of a socially unacceptable action or comment by the figure.

The zeitgeist has been riddled with cancel culture and call-out culture for a few years now. From the heights of the #metoo controversies which oversaw the toppling of multiple celebrity empires to comedians getting railed for the social media faux pas of their past, no one in the spotlight is safe from the ire of the twitter populace.

Theres no doubt that the outcomes of holding powerful people accountable for their actions have completely changed the trajectory of social dynamics. With the likes of Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey being exposed as sex offenders and a few Aussie music darlings outed as complete douche-canoes, the movement has had an overwhelmingly positive effect.

However, many critics of it (former President Barack Obama and comedian Sarah Silverman to name a few) say that its gone too far.

It sure holds a controversial place in pop culture history. Having publicly exhumed the social hierarchy of man with power does what he wants many people in the crosshairs of cancel culture have also, albeit arguably, copped a rather unfair social ribbing. However one feels the good outweighs the unfair, and any overcorrection will inevitably subside as the pendulum swings back to the middle. As it always does with everything.

If you disagree with MacquariesWord of the Yearand demand it be canceled for being problematic, your voice can be heard on twitter. Or alternatively, vote for the Peoples Choice Word of the Yearright here.

I wanted thicc to win anyway.

Macquarie Dictionary also gave honourable mentions to eco-anxiety and Ngangkari, the former self-explanatory and the latter being an Indigenous language word meaning practitioner of bush medicine.

Read the original:

'Cancel Culture' wins Macquarie Dictionary's 2019 word of the year - Happy Mag

Extinction Rebellion (XR) is many things at once: a hopeful mass movement; a commuters nightmare; a source of inspiration; an apocalyptic kick up the arse. Within the UK climate movement, it has become a Rorschach test. For some, its shock doctrine ethos flirts with eco-fascism. For others, the actions have become their lifes calling.This Is Not A Drillhas been written to clarify, inform, inspire and equip the people who are undecided yet interested in moving deeper into the climate action zeitgeist XR has ingeniously catalysed.

The book is loud and proud. Its hot pink cover is impossible to ignore, and pages of the text are dedicated to vivid woodcut imagery and all-caps messages. The book contains a wealth of essays, anecdotes, and advice. All are short and generally unfussy: no footnotes here. They are written by people from a variety of backgrounds, united through their concern over climate breakdown. An Indian farmer and a Californian firefighter offer their perspectives; individuals working in academia, climate science, politics and other fields weigh in too. These include Mohamed Nasheed, the former president of the Maldives; psychotherapist Susie Orbach; Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, an indigenous rights campaigner from the Mbororo community in Chad; and visionary economist Kate Raworth, among many others.

Notably, XR is working to develop a deeper understanding of climate justice and the causes of climate breakdown. The Indian environmental activist Vandana Shiva writes a powerful foreword stating explicitly that ecocide and genocide are one indivisible process, pointing to colonialisms ravaging motive by quoting US President Andrew Jacksons 1833 call for a superior race to triumph over native people in America. She and other contributors make it clear that colonialism and capitalism comprise a pincer movement that is destroying life as we know it. This lays important foundations for conversations about what an ecologically healthy and socially just future needs to consign to history.

These big global overviews of climate breakdown and its impact on different communities are salutary reads for any reader. The more practical pieces that explore the logistics of effective direct action are excellent too. One, Cultural Roadblocks, shares the story behind how XR sourced a boat for activism purposes, and it conveys the mix of determination, absurdity, effort and camaraderie that collective action can involve. From branding textiles, to befriending journalists, to cooking on-site meals that wont give everyone food poisoning, the best of these chapters share the qualities of being informal, smart, and motivating.

There is unexplored tension in the text. Horizontal self-organising is recommended throughout, yet the encouraged action, reiterated through a number of chapters, remains bafflingly prescriptive: disrupt transport in capital cities. Blocking bridges is a tactic, but is it the only option? According toThis Is Not A Drill,it would seem so. The roots to this strategy can be found in the chapter written by XR co-founder Roger Hallam, where he states that disrupting cities is the only option: Thats just the way it is. Martin Luther King and Mohandas Gandhi, effective civil rights leaders whose work Hallam cites elsewhere, might have disagreed with this dogma; the Salt Marches in India and the Selma to Montgomery marches in the US, for example, were pivotal to their respective causes.

Its worth noting that Hallam has form in presenting opinion as fact. When interviewed on the Politics Theory Otherpodcast, he was challenged on the claim that most prison officers are black, which appeared in the (now-deleted) XR prison handbook. Hallam doubled down on the claim, saying, Thats just an empirical fact. I mean, Ive been to prison several times and thats the fact of the matter. Given that, in reality, over 94 per cent of all UK prison officers are white, it seems wise to take Hallams other empirical facts with a pinch of salt, city roadblocks as a means to liberation for all being one of them.

Most contributors wisely avoid this queasy romanticising of peculiarly XR views, though it does crop up in some pieces. One contributor states that it is impossible to overstate the significance of where we are now, and brags about the Easter Rebellion costing the city of London tens of millions of pounds. Another self-styled Rebel offers a misty-eyed account of hands [being] held together with love and superglue and an emotional police officer serenading arrestees with Leonard CohensHallelujah.Meanwhile, the legal team chapter opening comes across as an unconvincing disclaimer for past errors around police relations (Extinction Rebellion is clear that the police continue to be structurally racist)

During the October Rebellion in London. By Garry Knight, under a Public Domain dedication

XRs other hallmark, a kind ofDads Army-ish tendency to dismiss other approaches because Theres a war on, you know!, emerges in these essays too. Mulishness is an essential trait when you are delivering a message that many would rather not hear, but the assertion that Extinction Rebellion thinks beyond politics (unlike everyone who isnt in XR) is the kind of sanctimony that most people would cross the street to avoid. This kind of messaging suggests that XR is still processing criticisms that their model is alienating to many.

This Is Not A Drilllooks and feels well-calibrated towards an audience with disposable time, income and privilege. Its not a bad strategy for a pressure group, but risky for a beyond-politics mass movement. People living low- or no-wage existences, with more immediate survival concerns, do not seem to figure in XRs plans, except perhaps as recipients of XRs heroism. Black and brown climate activists repeatedly marginalised by XR will not find olive branches here. Instead, another XR cofounder, Gail Bradbrook, says, All the children are our children. The pink cover ofThis Is Not A Drillwill be a status symbol to some and a red flag to others.

This Is Not A Drillis at its best when presenting overwhelming information in a clear, digestible way that moves readers towards re-assessing their personal and political (yes, political!) choices. Not everyone who reads it will block a road, but plenty will take valuable action of some form, feel more empowered to make individual changes without apology and know more about the seismic policies we must demand at a national level. The book is an encouraging and timely primer for those looking to join XR, but it also mythologises XR as the last word on survival in the age of climate breakdown. In reality, it is one of many essential groups, part of a much wider ecosystem of action. Starting points for people eager to act beyond voting, recycling and A-to-B marches include Go Fossil Free, Reclaim the Power, and the UK Student Climate Network, to name just a few. These groups empower people to intervene in business as usual using a wide variety of effective tactics.

The final section begins with an exhortation: TIME TO STOP READING. And a diagram of how to block a road. Its a clever editorial decision, but it is also a missed opportunity. A movement directory, much as it might pain some XR folk, could connect people with others who are already deep into the thinking and doing the work of climate justice. XR presents itself as the only show on the road. Issues of crediting others aside, this assumption breeds the saviour complex that currently limits XRs appeal.

A revolution is happening, yes. But it needs to meaningfully communicate with people who dont need to be saviours, and dont care to be saved people who care because they want to survive.

Teaser photo credit: Extinction Rebellion at Oxford Circus. By Mark Ramsay, under a CC BY 2.0 license

Excerpt from:

This Is Not A Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Handbook: Review - Resilience

Extinction Rebellion (XR) is many things at once: a hopeful mass movement; a commuters nightmare; a source of inspiration; an apocalyptic kick up the arse. Within the UK climate movement, it has become a Rorschach test. For some, its shock doctrine ethos flirts with eco-fascism. For others, the actions have become their lifes calling. This Is Not A Drill has been written to clarify, inform, inspire and equip the people who are undecided yet interested in moving deeper into the climate action zeitgeist XR has ingeniously catalysed.

The book is loud and proud. Its hot pink cover is impossible to ignore, and pages of the text are dedicated to vivid woodcut imagery and all-caps messages. The book contains a wealth of essays, anecdotes, and advice. All are short and generally unfussy: no footnotes here. They are written by people from a variety of backgrounds, united through their concern over climate breakdown. An Indian farmer and a Californian firefighter offer their perspectives; individuals working in academia, climate science, politics and other fields weigh in too. These include Mohamed Nasheed, the former president of the Maldives; psychotherapist Susie Orbach; Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, an indigenous rights campaigner from the Mbororo community in Chad; and visionary economist Kate Raworth, among many others.

Notably, XR is working to develop a deeper understanding of climate justice and the causes of climate breakdown. The Indian environmental activist Vandana Shiva writes a powerful foreword stating explicitly that ecocide and genocide are one indivisible process, pointing to colonialisms ravaging motive by quoting US President Andrew Jacksons 1833 call for a superior race to triumph over native people in America. She and other contributors make it clear that colonialism and capitalism comprise a pincer movement that is destroying life as we know it. This lays important foundations for conversations about what an ecologically healthy and socially just future needs to consign to history.

These big global overviews of climate breakdown and its impact on different communities are salutary reads for any reader. The more practical pieces that explore the logistics of effective direct action are excellent too. One, Cultural Roadblocks, shares the story behind how XR sourced a boat for activism purposes, and it conveys the mix of determination, absurdity, effort and camaraderie that collective action can involve. From branding textiles, to befriending journalists, to cooking on-site meals that wont give everyone food poisoning, the best of these chapters share the qualities of being informal, smart, and motivating.

There is unexplored tension in the text. Horizontal self-organising is recommended throughout, yet the encouraged action, reiterated through a number of chapters, remains bafflingly prescriptive: disrupt transport in capital cities. Blocking bridges is a tactic, but is it the only option? According to This Is Not A Drill, it would seem so. The roots to this strategy can be found in the chapter written by XR co-founder Roger Hallam, where he states that disrupting cities is the only option: Thats just the way it is. Martin Luther King and Mohandas Gandhi, effective civil rights leaders whose work Hallam cites elsewhere, might have disagreed with this dogma; the Salt Marches in India and the Selma to Montgomery marches in the US, for example, were pivotal to their respective causes.

Its worth noting that Hallam has form in presenting opinion as fact. When interviewed on the Politics Theory Other podcast, he was challenged on the claim that most prison officers are black, which appeared in the (now-deleted) XR prison handbook. Hallam doubled down on the claim, saying, Thats just an empirical fact. I mean, Ive been to prison several times and thats the fact of the matter. Given that, in reality, over 94 per cent of all UK prison officers are white, it seems wise to take Hallams other empirical facts with a pinch of salt, city roadblocks as a means to liberation for all being one of them.

Most contributors wisely avoid this queasy romanticising of peculiarly XR views, though it does crop up in some pieces. One contributor states that it is impossible to overstate the significance of where we are now, and brags about the Easter Rebellion costing the city of London tens of millions of pounds. Another self-styled Rebel offers a misty-eyed account of hands [being] held together with love and superglue and an emotional police officer serenading arrestees with Leonard Cohens Hallelujah. Meanwhile, the legal team chapter opening comes across as an unconvincing disclaimer for past errors around police relations (Extinction Rebellion is clear that the police continue to be structurally racist)

XRs other hallmark, a kind of Dads Army-ish tendency to dismiss other approaches because Theres a war on, you know!, emerges in these essays too. Mulishness is an essential trait when you are delivering a message that many would rather not hear, but the assertion that Extinction Rebellion thinks beyond politics (unlike everyone who isnt in XR) is the kind of sanctimony that most people would cross the street to avoid. This kind of messaging suggests that XR is still processing criticisms that their model is alienating to many.

This Is Not A Drill looks and feels well-calibrated towards an audience with disposable time, income and privilege. Its not a bad strategy for a pressure group, but risky for a beyond-politics mass movement. People living low- or no-wage existences, with more immediate survival concerns, do not seem to figure in XRs plans, except perhaps as recipients of XRs heroism. Black and brown climate activists repeatedly marginalised by XR will not find olive branches here. Instead, another XR cofounder, Gail Bradbrook, says, All the children are our children. The pink cover of This Is Not A Drill will be a status symbol to some and a red flag to others.

This Is Not A Drill is at its best when presenting overwhelming information in a clear, digestible way that moves readers towards re-assessing their personal and political (yes, political!) choices. Not everyone who reads it will block a road, but plenty will take valuable action of some form, feel more empowered to make individual changes without apology and know more about the seismic policies we must demand at a national level. The book is an encouraging and timely primer for those looking to join XR, but it also mythologises XR as the last word on survival in the age of climate breakdown. In reality, it is one of many essential groups, part of a much wider ecosystem of action. Starting points for people eager to act beyond voting, recycling and A-to-B marches include Go Fossil Free, Reclaim the Power, and the UK Student Climate Network, to name just a few. These groups empower people to intervene in business as usual using a wide variety of effective tactics.

The final section begins with an exhortation: TIME TO STOP READING. And a diagram of how to block a road. Its a clever editorial decision, but it is also a missed opportunity. A movement directory, much as it might pain some XR folk, could connect people with others who are already deep into the thinking and doing the work of climate justice. XR presents itself as the only show on the road. Issues of crediting others aside, this assumption breeds the saviour complex that currently limits XRs appeal.

A revolution is happening, yes. But it needs to meaningfully communicate with people who dont need to be saviours, and dont care to be saved people who care because they want to survive.

Suki Ferguson is a writer based in Hackney.This Is Not A Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Handbook is published by Penguin.

See original here:

Review This Is Not A Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Handbook - Red Pepper

If youre reading this, chances are you care a lot about fighting climate change, and thats great. Maybe youre thinking about making a donation to the cause on Giving Tuesday, and thats great, too.

Climate change is the biggest emergency facing humanity. Our global response to it has been, in a word, pathetic. Over the past decade, our carbon dioxide emissions have actually risen 11 percent. We need to reverse that trend and fast.

The trouble is, it can be genuinely hard to figure out how to direct your money wisely if you want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Theres a glut of environmental organizations out there and a lack of rigorous research on their impacts and cost-effectiveness, though thatll hopefully change soon with the arrival of brand-new evaluators like Giving Green and ImpactMatters.

Ive written before about how billionaire philanthropists can spend their money to fight climate change. But lets face it: Most of us are not billionaires. While they can afford to spend influential sums on, say, trying to get a Democrat elected president, we might have only $10 or $100 to spend.

So if youre in this camp and you want to have the greatest impact possible per dollar donated to the fight against climate change, where should you give?

Below is a list of six of the most high-impact, cost-effective, and evidence-based organizations. (Im not including bigger-name groups, such as the Environmental Defense Fund or the Sierra Club, because most big organizations are already relatively well-funded.) The six groups here seem to be doing something especially promising in the light of certain criteria: importance, tractability, and neglectedness.

Important targets for change are ones that drive a big portion of global emissions. Tractable problems are ones where we can actually make progress right now. And neglected problems are ones that arent already getting a big influx of cash from other sources like the government or philanthropy, and hence could really use money from people like us.

Founders Pledge, an organization that guides entrepreneurs committed to donating a portion of their proceeds to effective charities, used these same criteria to assess climate organizations. Its comprehensive report, released in 2018, informed my research and the list below. As in that report, Ive chosen to look at groups focused on mitigation (tackling the root causes of climate change by reducing emissions) rather than adaptation (decreasing the suffering from the impacts of climate change). Both are important, but the focus of this piece is preventing further catastrophe.

Ive also intentionally selected organizations that are tackling this problem on different levels. Some advocate for high-level policy change or engage in long-term research, while others are achieving immediate emissions reductions through activities like stopping deforestation.

Dan Stein, director of the new Giving Green initiative at IDinsight, an organization that uses data and evidence to combat poverty worldwide, says we should have a diverse portfolio of mitigation strategies. There should be some short-term projects that give us certainty about reducing emissions now, he told me. But I also buy the argument that thats not going to be enough we need some moonshot projects.

Its very difficult to do a comparative cost-effectiveness analysis of different climate projects, and experts freely admit theyre not 100 percent sure theyve made the best recommendations. Sometimes theyll change their recommendations as new evidence comes to light. Likewise, I may update this piece as more information becomes available.

With that in mind, here are the organizations where your money will likely do the most good.

What it does: The Coalition for Rainforest Nations is unique in that its an intergovernmental organization of over 50 rainforest nations around the world, from Ecuador to Bangladesh to Fiji. It was formed after Papua New Guineas Prime Minister Michael Somare gave a speech in 2005, and since then its been partnering directly with governments and communities to protect their rainforests.

The Coalition championed something called the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) mechanism. Among other things, it ensures developing countries get paid if they can show that theyve been preventing deforestation, a huge source of greenhouse gas emissions, and environmental degradation. This was folded into the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and enshrined in Article 5 of the Paris agreement. The Coalition now concentrates on implementing REDD+ and on increasing public and private funding for it.

Why you should consider donating: This group is believed by Founders Pledge to have had a huge impact on reducing emissions through REDD+. The group also played a big role in securing an agreement on forestry in the Paris agreement.

According to Founders Pledges cost-effectiveness model from 2018, a donation of just 12 cents to the Coalition for Rainforest Nations will avert approximately a metric ton of CO2 (or the equivalent in other greenhouse gases). This means that if you donate $100, you can avert around 857 metric tons of CO2.

These are definitely just estimates, but still, thats pretty damn good! For comparison, the average American causes around 16 metric tons of emissions per year. And most organizations cant avert a metric ton for less than $2.

If you like the sound of this, you can donate here.

What it does: The Clean Air Task Force is a US-based non-governmental organization (NGO) that has been working to reduce air pollution since its founding in 1996. It led a successful campaign to reduce the pollution caused by coal-fired power plants in the US, helped limit the US power sectors CO2 emissions, and helped establish regulations of diesel, shipping, and methane emissions.

Why you should consider donating: In addition to its seriously impressive record of success and the high quality of its research, the Clean Air Task Force does well on the neglectedness criterion: It often concentrates on targeting emissions sources that are neglected by other environmental organizations, and on scaling up deployment of technologies that are crucial for decarbonization yet neglected by NGOs and governments. For example, since 2009 its been working on a campaign for tax incentives for carbon capture and storage.

Founders Pledge estimates that a donation to this group would avert CO2 at a rate of $1 per metric ton. So, if you donate $100, you can avert around 100 metric tons of CO2 (or the equivalent in other greenhouse gases). Not bad!

You can donate here.

What it does: The Information Technology and Innovative Foundation, a highly regarded US think tank, runs the Clean Energy Innovation program. That program looks into smart clean energy research and development and the effectiveness of increasing spending in that space, then advises policymakers on the best course of action.

Why you should consider donating: Lets Fund, which is guided by the principles of Effective Altruism in its recommendations, argues its the best place to donate for climate change.

Heres why: By 2040, around 75 percent of all emissions will come not from the US or the EU, but from emerging economies like China and India. So in addition to reducing emissions at home, we need to make it likelier that those countries will reduce their emissions, too. A great way to do that is to stimulate innovation that will make clean energy technology cheaper everywhere. For example, if you bring down the cost of low-carbon technology in the US, you can make it competitive with fossil fuels in China and India, encouraging its use. Thats called a global technology spillover.

Lets Fund compared 10 innovation-stimulating policies (like carbon taxes, deployment subsidies, and cutting fossil fuel subsidies) and found that increasing budgets for public clean energy R&D is the most effective.

This sort of R&D is also neglected; only 0.02 percent of world gross domestic product is spent on it annually. (In the meantime, were spending 300 times that 6 percent on the energy we use up!)

In advanced economies like the US and EU, we can unilaterally increase how much we spend on R&D no international coordination necessary. That, Lets Fund says, makes this much more politically tractable than carbon taxes. And as my colleague David Roberts has written, Innovation is perhaps the one climate policy that virtually everyone agrees on, across the ideological spectrum. Even US Republicans support it, at least notionally.

You can donate here.

What it does: Rainforest Foundation US works to protect the rainforests of Central and South America by partnering directly with folks on the front lines: indigenous people in Brazil, Peru, Panama, and Guyana, who are deeply motivated to protect their lands. The foundation supplies them with legal support as well as technological equipment and training so they can use smartphones, drones, and satellites to monitor illegal loggers and miners, and take action to stop them.

Why you should consider donating: Rainforest Foundation US has shown an unusual commitment to rigorous evaluation of its impact by inviting Columbia University researchers to conduct a randomized controlled trial in Loreto, Peru. Starting in early 2018, researchers collected survey data and satellite imagery from 36 communities partnered with the foundation and 40 control communities. The analysis is ongoing, but the preliminary results are promising.

We see tentative findings that along the deforestation frontier where deforestation was most likely to occur there are reductions in the rate of deforestation, said Tara Slough, the Columbia University researcher leading the study, in a presentation this September.

Given that this year has seen massive fires and a surge of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, an ecosystem on which the global climate depends, it now seems like an especially good time to directly support the indigenous people who are holding the front line for all of us.

You can donate here.

What it does: Based in London and Brussels, Sandbag is a nonprofit think tank that uses data analysis to help build evidence-based climate policy. It advocates for carbon capture and storage in the EU, pushes for strong carbon pricing, and works to accelerate the coal phase-out in Europe so as to ensure all plants are closed before 2030.

Why you should consider donating: Since it focuses on the EU which is not projected to be one of the biggest emitters and so is not as high-priority a region as Asia or Africa Sandbag scores lower on the importance criterion than the groups mentioned above. But its still among the best groups out there (it made the Founders Pledge shortlist), particularly because its one of the few European charities working on carbon capture and storage, a sorely neglected mitigation strategy. And it works to change European legislation on climate by working with and influencing key policymakers.

You can donate by going here and clicking on the section on funding.

What it does: The Climate Emergency Fund is different from the groups listed above. It was founded very recently this July with the goal of quickly getting money to groups engaged in climate protest. It has already raised over $1 million and disbursed about $800,000 of it in 26 grants to groups it has vetted. The grantees range from the well-established 350.org to the fledgling Extinction Rebellion, an activist movement that uses nonviolent civil disobedience like filling the streets and blocking intersections to demand governments do more to stave off mass extinction.

Why you should consider donating: Because its so new, the Climate Emergency Fund definitely has less of an evidence base than the organizations listed above, so well have to monitor its impact and cost-effectiveness. But it offers something important: immediacy. As David Roberts wrote for Vox:

The money is going to everything from hiring organizers to buying signs and bullhorns to organizing school trips. A second round of more than 30 grants is in the works, representing over $2 million more. The fund is currently raising money, accepting donations large and small. ... [The founders] came together around a shared conviction that street protest is both crucially important to climate politics and a longtime blind spot for environmental philanthropy.

And theres evidence that focusing on movement-building is essential in the climate fight. If youre skeptical that street protest can make a difference, consider Harvard political scientist Erica Chenoweths research. Shes found that if you want to achieve systemic social change, you need to mobilize 3.5 percent of the population, a finding that helped inspire Extinction Rebellion. Thats not an impossible proportion of people to get into the streets particularly if the activists doing the work get funded.

Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org, recently told me that building the climate movement is crucial because although weve already got some good mitigation solutions, were not deploying them fast enough. Thats the ongoing power of the fossil fuel industry at work. The only way to break that power and change the politics of climate is to build a countervailing power, he said. Our job and its the key job is to change the zeitgeist, peoples sense of whats normal and natural and obvious. If we do that, all else will follow.

You can donate to the Climate Emergency Fund here.

Its worth noting that there are plenty of ways to use your skills to combat climate change. And many dont cost a cent.

If youre a writer or artist, you can use your talents to convey a message that will resonate with people. If youre a religious leader, you can give a sermon about climate and run a collection drive to support one of the groups above. If youre a teacher, you can discuss this issue with your students, who may influence their parents. If youre a good talker, you can go out canvassing for a politician you believe will make the right choices on climate.

If youre, well, any human being, you can consume less. You can reduce your energy use, reduce how much stuff you buy (did you know plastic packaging releases greenhouse gases when exposed to the elements?), and reduce how much meat you consume.

Research shows that its very difficult to convert people to vegetarianism or veganism through information campaigns, which is one reason why I did not recommend donating to such campaigns (there are more cost-effective options). But with Impossible Whoppers and Beyond Burgers now available in so many grocery stores and restaurants, you can transition to a more plant-based diet without sacrificing on taste.

You can, of course, also volunteer with an activist group whether its Extinction Rebellion, the Sunrise Movement, or Greta Thunbergs Fridays for Future and put your body in the street to nonviolently disrupt business as usual and demand change.

The point is that activism comes in many forms. Its worth taking some time to think about which one (or ones) will allow you, with your unique capacities and constraints, to have the biggest positive impact. But at the end of the day, dont let the perfect be the enemy of the good: Its best to pick something that seems doable and get to work.

Sign up for the Future Perfect newsletter. Twice a week, youll get a roundup of ideas and solutions for tackling our biggest challenges: improving public health, decreasing human and animal suffering, easing catastrophic risks, and to put it simply getting better at doing good.

Go here to see the original:

The best climate change charities to donate to - Vox.com

LIVERMORE, CA - DECEMBER 6: Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones at The Altamont ... [+] Speedway on December 6, 1969 in Livermore, California. (Photo by Robert Altman/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

If the Woodstock festival in August 1969 represented peace and hippie idealism, then the Altamont Free Concert, held almost four months later, symbolically shattered that innocence. On December 6, 1969, about 300,000 gathered at the Altamont Speedway in Tracy, California to see the Rolling Stones perform a free concert that was seen as a Woodstock West. It was also supposed to be a triumphant conclusion for the band that year, following their successful U.S. tour. But the event was marred by violent confrontations between the Hells Angels (who were hired to do security) and the crowd, in addition to lack of organization and bad drugs. By the end of the show, a total of four people diedamong them 18-year-old Meredith Hunter, who was stabbed to death by a Hells Angels member, a moment captured in the Maysles Brothers and Charlotte Zwerins classic documentary film Gimme Shelter.

Fifty years later, Altamont is not only considered one of the most disastrous moments in rock, but it has become a convenient shorthand term for the death of the 60s. To San Francisco-based veteran music writer Joel Selvin, who wrote the 2016 book Altamont: The Rolling Stones, the Hells Angels, and the Inside Story of Rock's Darkest Day, now out in paperback, the concert was a toxic cocktail of greed and innocence. It's a subject of never-ending fascination and not just for people who were there, he explains on the eve of the milestone. It's such an anomalous event in our history. And it also is commemorated by [Gimme Shelter], which is a great movie. But that movie is a patented fiction. Its an apology for the Stones and paints them as victims.

Book jacket of Altamont, by Joel Selvin

There were a number of reasons why the free concert happened. For the Stones, said Selvin, mounting the event which also included the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, and Santana was their way of being part of the counterculture hippie zeitgeist as represented by Woodstock, according to Selvin. Theband was previously criticized over charging high ticket prices for their U.S. tour, particularly from San Francisco Chronicle music critic Ralph Gleason. And another incentive for mounting the show was because of the documentary film, which the Stones, primarily Mick Jagger, had a financial interest in.

They wanted a piece of that pie... to be a part of this underground that had sprung up since 1966 when they were last in America, Selvin says of the Rolling Stones. The free concert and the Woodstock ethos certainly were part of it. They definitely had their heads turned by the immense reaction to their tour in 1969, they were surprised by how famous they were and how intense the excitement was. And by that time, the movie was underway. So there's no doubt they were thinking about these things. And I know that, because Jaggers deal with the Maysles was contingent on them delivering a finished print to theaters ahead of the Woodstock movie in March [1970].

Jagger was clearly sitting there thinking they never had a big time movie deal, they didn't do A Hard Day's Night. So he's going to go into this and he's going to surf that Woodstock wave. He doesn't quite realize that Altamont was going to have its own cachet and become an event in itself, and that the movie was worth one-million bucks, a big hunk of dough to the Rolling Stones in 1969.

In hindsight, it's remarkable that the event as the Stones were touring America starting in early November 1969was put together in a short amount of time. Driven by both the Stones and the Grateful Dead, the concert was supposed to take place at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park until the city squashed that. Plans to host it at Sears Raceway in Sonoma fell through when the company that owned the site wanted $100,000 upon learning the concert was being filmed. Finally Altamont Speedway in Tracy stepped in. In a matter of days, the staging was set up, albeit in somewhat makeshift fashion (the stage was so low, creating not much of a barrier between performers and fans). According to Selvin's book, there was no central command or figurehead running the whole concert and handling the logistics; nobody in the crew knew who was in charge.

Pictured later in the day, the increasingly packed together crowd at the Altamont Speedway for the ... [+] free concert to be headlined by the Rolling Stones. (Photo by William L. Rukeyser/Getty Images)

At the end of their tour on a Monday, [the Stones] went to Muscle Shoals to record Brown Sugar and a couple other songs, says Selvin. They sent their people to San Francisco to make the concert happen for the next weekend. There was no site, there was no sound system. There was no staging, although some of that was being sent to the Bay Area. There was no crew. There was no nothing. 'You know, we'll be there over the weekend. We'll do the show on Saturday.' The hippies that the Grateful Dead marshaled behind this were idealists and innocent in some ways. They just figured that they could do it. It just didn't matter what obstacles were thrown in their way.

The decision to have the Hells Angels to do security for $500 worth of beerwould have serious consequences. On the day of the show, they Angels were physically violent towards the crowd with pool cues; they even assaulted Jefferson Airplane co-singer Marty Balin during his band's set when he tried to intervene in a scuffle. Adding to the sense of drama were the bad drugs going around; health professionals at the medical tent were dealing with numerous people experiencing freak-outs. It's like a toxic mass psychosis, says Selvin. And the drugs were terrible. There were no longer sacraments of a movement. They were cut with all kinds of things.

Such factors as the Angels, drugs, and the lack of police intervention and proper facilities all contributed to a tense and dark environment throughout the day. Sensing the chaos, the Grateful Dead decided at the last minute to pull out. And as the Rolling Stones were trying to play Sympathy for the Devil, Jagger was telling everybody to cool out when things started to get out of control within the audience.

Meanwhile, Meredith Hunter, a young black man who went to the show with his girlfriend, was beaten up by members of the Hells Angels. Trying to get away from them, Hunter pulled out his gun near the stage and was fatally stabbed by Hells Angels member Alan Passaro (he was later acquitted in court). [He was] in many ways, Selvin says of Hunter, emblematic of being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong blonde girlfriendcaught between the Hells Angels and the Rolling Stones where no black [person] could watch, dressed in a lime green suit, with his Afro combed out, having been shooting speed.

A still from the documentary film 'Gimme Shelter', showing audience members looking on as Hells ... [+] Angels beat a fan with pool cues at the Altamont Free Concert, Altamont Speedway, California, 6th December 1969. The concert was headlined and organized by The Rolling Stones. The film was directed by Albert Maysles, David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin. (Photo by Bill Owens/20th Century Fox/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Ironically, the Stones performed, in Selvin's opinion, a great set. They'd pick it back up finally when Mick Taylor says, Lets do the new one, and they did Brown Sugar for the first time. They just put their chins to their chests and played the set of their lives. Richard's and Taylor just locked in, and Charlie and Bill are holding down the bottom. Jagger put in a vocal performance that is so sincere, as opposed to as usual sort of cartoonish caricature type of voice. Not this time, man. He's for real and they burned from Brown Sugar to the end of their set Street Fighting Man. It could be one best sets I've ever heard from the Stones.

LIVERMORE, CA - DECEMBER 6: The Rolling Stones L-R Mick Taylor, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and ... [+] Tour Manager Sam Cutler take a break during their set to assess the damage by The Hells Angels attacking the crowd. Sam Cutler brought The Hells Angels in to act as Security on December 6, 1969 in Livermore, California. (Photo by Robert Altman/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

In the years after Altamont, the Stones have rarely mentioned that event publicly, although Keith Richards recently said to The Washington Post: "It was just sort of a nightmarish day. Not just for us, but for everybody." On why the band didnt just cancelthe show, Richards responded: It could have gotten a lot worse, man. That could have been a really big disaster...Who knows what else would have happened?

The few times they've addressed it, says Selvin of the Stones, [its,] We're the victims. There has not been the slightest acceptance of responsibility. The Stones left town without paying any of their bills. That was a pirate trip: they came to the island, they ransacked it forbooty and young maidens, and then they made it back home.

Except for a few die-hard rock music fans and tons of empty wine bottles and other litter, the hills ... [+] around Altamont Speedway are serene compared to the scene the day before when an estimated 300,000 persons attended a free concert by the Rolling Stones and other rock music groups. The owner of the speedway said it would take at least a week to clear the area of debris.

While the Stones and the Dead came out of it relatively unscathed, the incident forever changed them in Selvins view. I don't think the Stones would ever be so fierce and fearless and unrestrained ever again, having had to confront real evil face to face in the performance of their music. You can see [in the movie] the fear, anxiety and despair that the Stones experienced when their stage was nearly invaded and taken over by these Hells Angels, who are very clearly the masters of the stage. And that has been an inviolate space for them, it was a humbling experience to the bone. I don't believe the Stones ever really recovered from it as artists.

Today Selvin takes issue with the idea that Altamont represented the death of the 60s. The probable end to the 60s was the fall of Saigon in 75. Woodstock was a disaster. [The violence there] just didn't happen. That's all it was. They burned down the concession stand when they got there and saw the prices. They broke the fences, they turned it into a free concert. They blocked the interstate highway. The Woodstock myth is pretty fragile, and don't blow on it too hard because it'll just crack under pressure.

Now 50 years later, much has changed for the Stones as their subsequent live tours have been extremely professional and tightly-organized affairs. So has the live music business in generalyet there have been occasional disasters from Woodstock '99 to most recently the Fyre Festival. As for lessons to take from Altamont, Selvin says: Everybody has a different lesson to learn. Meredith Hunters lesson was entirely different from Mick Jagger's. There's abundant evidence to indicate that whatever lessons there were, [they] were not learned.

Read more here:

Altamont At 50: The Disastrous Concert That Brought The 60s To A Crashing Halt - Forbes

If you walked into either San Diego or New York Comic Con this year, youd have been bombarded by inescapable superhero marketing. But, unlike previous conventions where the Justice League-led DCEU or the Avengers-focused MCU pushed big reveals, 2019 was all about the anti-superhero superhero show. Amazons The Boys, built to showcase awful superheroes doing awful things in the real world as a sort of televised Larry Niven essay, had a huge presence at SDCC while HBOs Watchmen debuted its cops and KKK in masks take on superhero fare at NYCC. Both went on to be heavy hitters: The Boys became one of [Amazons] most watched series ever while the critically acclaimed Watchmen has already earned a devoted audience devouring its recaps, explainers, and various in-universe appendices.

Thats because these shows are playing to the same audience that made Avengers: Endgame the highest-grossing movie of all time. Theyre certainly reaching the audience that pushed reactive anti-blockbuster Joker past the R-rated billion-dollar boundary. People who feel inundated by super-nonsensethe ones getting a little sick of unpacking the alternate realities created by time travel and debating whether, canonically, Ant-Man could destroy Thanos by crawling inside his anusare looking for an outlet.

Those topics come up when a monotone, action-adventure sameness dominates comic adaptations, which in turn (thanks to the DCEU and MCU) dominate the film and TV industries. When going to see a summer blockbuster featuring a comic character, moviegoers can expect bloodless violence against non-humans, quippy characters, a degree of impermanent loss, and the ultimate victory of their heroes. Marvel or DC, hero or heroine, talking raccoon or Amazon princess. If theres a departure from this standard that still isnt something that doesnt contain a comic character (god forbid), thats very attractive to a culture thats been dominated by masks and capes over the last decade.

Its easier (and more lucrative) to poke fun if the culture is saturated and the audience is given something familiar. The 70s were rife with disaster filmsAirplane!, which roasted them to death in 1980, lifted its plot and characters from one of their precursors, 1957s Zero Hour! You better believe moviegoers were familiar with, and mostly over, the material: The Poseidon Adventure was a smash in 1972; its 1979 sequel, Beyond The Poseidon Adventure, sank. The current financial situation may not yet have reached this tipping point for superhero films, but the collective groan from the fandom when Kevin Feige suggested that Disney+ would be necessary to understand the MCU was portentous.

The Boys (no Airplane!, to be sure) might not name names directly, but its sexually deviant Seven has a lot in common with those leading the box office disappointment Justice League. Every outrageous set piece is like a Mallrats gag about Superman: A speedy Flash analog zips right through a woman, vaporizing her, while Aquaman-esque The Deep is a useless pretty boy who talks to fish. These gags play better if you know your superheroes; they play best if youre more than a little tired of them.

Watchmen, formulated as an anti-superhero comic with Rorschach as a big bean-eating middle finger to Batman, exists in a world immersed in the authoritarian dilemmas of the superhero genre. The HBO show it inspired gives this insight a new spin. All cops wear masks. So too, do the racist Seventh Kavalry. Some comic fanboys, presumably those that didnt get the Rorschach joke in the original, werent ready to accept that commentary and review-bombed the show. Among their other problems, they wanted a show that played like their kickass CGI movies. The rest of us, while not kicking kickass CGI out of bed, happily devoured a series willing to explore the PTSD that surviving said kickass CGI (like the squid-filled parallel to the Marvel snap) will give youenjoying it even more because of how little these films care about that kind of thing. When youre burned out on superheroes, bringing them back to reality feels like sticking it to the man even if the man is still behind it all.

Its not just the content of these reactionary shows thats attractive to some superhero fans. To get that lucrative demographic, the marketing for these shows mimics tentpole cinema almost indistinguishably. In a world where superhero movies are the biggest business in town, anti-superhero TV is having to match them stride for stride simply to be their edgy alternative. Ad buyouts, social media dominance, and prime panel positioning at the biggest genre gatherings in the worldcounterprogramming now just means putting on a different mask.

The comic-based entertainment bubble has become so massive that while Marvel partisans wage war against Martin Scorsese, Scorsese knock-off Joker does gangbusters. The Joaquin Phoenix-led film bested Shazam!s box-office gross and also beat the hell out of Dark Phoenix. Sure, there are still three MCU movies ahead of Joker in the years top ten money-makers. But its success makes it clear that the markets for straightforward superhero media and those making a self-conscious effort to avoid that designation are blending. For example, this Halloween, you could spy a blue muscle-suited The Tick costume on the same rack as Iron Man.

Somehow I dont think those behind either character thought that Spoon! and I am Iron Man (or, for maximum contrast, I love you 3000) were operating on the same level. The punk acts have gone mainstream well, even more mainstream, since DC published both Watchmen and The Boys comics while The Tick has been one of the weirder properties to air on the Fox network since the 90s. The second season of the big blue bug of justices modern-day, live-action incarnation, which ended its run at Amazon in April, was all about mocking the literal hero business via bureaucratic nightmare A.E.G.I.S., but the realities of the real-world entertainment industry mean that merchandise still reigns.

The Boys, with its similarly corporate (if far raunchier) subject matter, may not have official tie-in products for sale, but the swag Amazon has handed out at con appearances is readily available on eBay. Even if the items bear Fuck Supes instead of, say, the Superman S, nerdy superhero consumers crave the branded goodies. The Boys embraces it: It even released a fake action figure commercial. The first seasons soundtrack reps the in-universe Vought International label, while Watchmens (released as Sons Of Pale Horse album The Book Of Rorschach) hides a self-referential history in the liner notes. Amazon even created fake endorsement ads, positioning its heroes as celebrities in the same system that placed Gal Gadot on the cover of Rolling Stone. When we did this takeover around when [Avengers: Endgame] launched, we ran the fake commercials on television, Mike Benson, head of marketing for Amazon Prime Video, said. It was really aggressive.

The shows may revel in deconstructing costumed crimefighterstaking apart capitalism, celebrity, fandom, ego, power, and exploitationbut the content criticizing and satirizing superheroes is still marketed using the same channels in the same ways. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram feeds are full of trailers, light super-humor, and secretive cast pictures from set. That strategy has been seen all over these brands pop culture presence, and its paying off with results similar to those theyre aping.

Watchmen and The Boys, both in their first seasons, havent yet reached the live-tweeting, GIF-flooding social media dominance of Marvels most-loved show (Daredevil) or DCs biggest series (Arrow). The R-rated and meta nature of both might require a more specific audience (one that enjoys, used to enjoy, and/or is hungry to deconstruct superhero content), but the numbers seem to indicate that such an audience exists. The newer series have higher average follower-per-month gains on their Twitter accounts than their serious counterparts in past years, according to social media stat site Social Blade. That growth reflects a marketing plan thats logistically unchanged, despite the shift in tone.

Even the in-universe satire corresponds to on-the-nose real-world activity. The Boys pushes reluctant newcomer heroine Starlight on the terrible media circuit, signing autographs and making public appearances, while Starlight actress Erin Moriarty walked the press line and gave interviews at SDCC. These shows, though successful in their messaging to various degrees, are still flattening the landscape to a place where irony and earnestness are sold so similarly that audiences may soon stop caring or all superhero content will evolve a standardized, market researched, semi-self-aware tone to split the difference.

Shazam!performed this trick on the big screen for one of the Big Two, introducing a wry hero that gains powers in a world that already has superheroes, while the Deadpool films did the same for its competitor across the aisle. Shazam!s in a world where Batman and Superman have lore and action figures, where a kid blessed with superpowers has an idiom to fit intoand rebel against. Deadpool, a superhero who has long been a cosplay haven for men who think theyre Spencers Gift to the world, pokes fun at superhero landings, casting, and lucrative film deals, both origin stories and larger ensemble team movies. Here too, parody becomes reality: Until Joker surpassed them, Deadpool 2 and Deadpool were the highest-grossing R-rated movies of all time.

Some Watchmen viewers may bitch about the satirical elements of the series and still watch, simply because its easy to cling solely to its amped-up versions of traditional superhero offerings (violent hand-to-hand combat, bloody effects, cool masked characters) when living through this zeitgeist. While those of us sick to death of these ubiquitous elements are happy to see them parodied, those unwilling to engage on a deconstructive level have some shred of plausible deniability. The Boys falls harder into that trap: At a certain point in the show, its easy to tell the writers were looking more into What awesome and nasty thing can we get away with? than How can we really say something about our subjects? And why not: Its actually been helpful, critically and popularly, to blur that line.

Shazam! and Deadpool, despite their minor deconstructions, will still exist as parts of greater superhero universes. Theyll still sell comics and action figures. Superhero shows, as their audiences blend the zealous and the jaded, may follow suit. Though its off to a strong start, its too soon to say how Watchmens themes will shake out from its sometimes violent but thoughtful narrative. The Boys, however, is already on the cusp of fully following the R-rated super-route of empty gore and gags. Even at this end of the cycle between conviction and cynicism, pop cultures superhero industrial complex is dangerously easy to join.

Read more:

Watchmen, The Boys, and The Tick turn superhero burnout into a TV movement - The A.V. Club

Whats new in the food and hospitality scene in Miami for 2019 Art Basel? Below, our guide for where to eat and stay for this year.

Given the balmy climate, Miami isnt exactly a bakers paradise but ice cream is another story. Frohzen, among a trio of new dining concepts by the late Jel Robuchons successors and protgs, promises to do for icy confections what the Cronut did for doughnuts. Besides being delicious, its focused menu is meant for Instagram (what isnt these days?) and explores desserts white space.

I dont think anyone has made a cupcake almost entirely out of ice cream, says executive pastry chef Salvatore Martone, of his exclusive recipe that churns sponge cake and ice cream into a frozen cupcake topped with soft serve, in lieu of frosting. Flavors are inspired by traditional combinations like red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting.

Macarons elevate ice cream sandwiches of childhood memory, and hybrid popsicles called cakesicles are piped with semifreddo. Though not a fan of the rainbow unicorn drink fad, Martone gets its appeal. His treats come with custom blends of gourmet crumbles such as cinnamon and key lime.Martone, who will take Ben & Jerrys over Hagen-Dazs any day, says I always go for textured ice creams. I love finding that little swirl of caramel or crunchy nut.

Cannibalism isnt exactly polite dinner conversation unless its in the name of art, and youre Alan Faena. The provocative visionary has partnered with Unigram Theatrical, a young British company founded by music and theater veterans Amanda Ghost and James Orange, for a dinner theater production based on Peter Greenaways chillingly disturbing cult classic The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover. Like the films denouement, cannibalism is indeed on the menu (at least for the thief), but so is Miami chef Michelle Bernsteins duck and chocolate sphere dessert served with individual mallets to violently crack for a bit of audience participation. The immersive, meta experience re-creates the movies otherworldly set, a gourmet restaurant called Le Hollandais, where the lines of reality and the stage are blurred.

Youre actually dining with the actors, Faena says of his first immersive concept that involves a functioning restaurant as if Sleep No More meets fine dining. The timing is very difficult to synchronize serving courses between acting scenes and music numbers.

In the age of Trump and #MeToo, through the shows subject matter and support of the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence, its timing nails the zeitgeist. Yet its been brewing in Faenas thoughts since Greenaway spoke at the original Faena in Argentina more than a decade ago.

It was a very revolutionary movie 30 years ago, and I thought it would make a great musical someday, says Faena, who has grander plans when it closes here in May. Well take it on the road to other cities.

That East Coast-West Coast rivalry is put to rest by Palisociety, whose Palihouse Miami Beach imports the hospitality brands California vibes a couple blocks from the Atlantic Ocean. The 71-room boutique property with the frisson and community spirit of Soho House (sans the heart-palpitating bill) adds to Mid Beachs thriving collection of hip hotels and hostels.

Most of our L.A. hotel clients are from New York and London, and New Yorkers go to Miami a lot, says founder Avi Brosh, regarding his foray east of the Mississippi River. But the hotels story isnt too Miami. It has more of a coastal Italian feel.

To celebrate his bicoastal status, he commissioned Los Angeles designer Heidi Merrick for exclusive SRF MIA sweatshirts in hot pink and black. Real surfers or not, guests can ride the house Moke to the shore, where beach butlers set up beach umbrellas, chaises and picnic lunches. Rather than a full-service restaurant, snacks from grilled cheeses to smoothies can be ordered in the lobby and poolside and residential-style studios, the majority room category, feature kitchenettes.

The beautiful Mandolin Aegean Bistro may be the fashion worlds favorite dining destination here, but its husband-and-wife restaurateurs roots lie in humbler sustenance. They return to their immigrant ancestors livelihood with Gregorys diner, which is as much a salute to the waning American dream as a sorely lacking all-day neighborhood catchall to recharge. It helps that diners are making a comeback with veg-forward and gluten-free options, according to cofounder Anastasia Koutsioukis, whose Greek grandparents owned and operated a diner for decades in St. Louis.

Its not a concept but our story and their story as well as a relatable story to many Americans, she says, having named their new venture in the mid-century-modern Vagabond Hotel in Miamis Upper East Side after her grandfather. We laugh that were following in their footsteps but in our own way.

Mandolin patrons will recognize Koutsioukis signature flair for design. A portrait of her grandparents, a handsome pair in their day, hangs at the entrance. They slept in gender-specific, color-coded his and her bedrooms, so Koutsioukis used a lot of blue tones in Gregorys French brasserie setting with plaid wallpaper and mahogany veneer. (Her grandmother gets her due when Marias Living Room, a pretty-in-pink cocktail lounge, opens next to the hotels lobby in December.)

Im trying to create environments that are as soulful as the food, she says. Weve already become an anchor.

Before the 1980 Mariel boatlift when thousands of Cubans arrived in Miami, the city was Southern through and through. New Yorkers and Jewish migrs further diluted its regional heritage, as delis and Cuban restaurants competed for clout. Barbecue, a Southern institution, fell by the wayside.

Though not authentically Southern, Brooklyn-born Hometown Bar-B-Ques outpost here (whose name has been altered to Hometown Barbecue) offers meticulously smoked meats and other staples that pitmaster owner Billy Durney picked up in Texas. It opened in a former produce warehouse kitty corner to the new Rubell Museum in Allapattah, a gritty industrial neighborhood on the verge of gentrification, a similar scenario to the original in Red Hook.

Barbecue can change a neighborhood quickly plus we didnt really have good barbecue here, says Jeff Weinstein, a Miami developer who partnered in the expansion. But more selfishly, I wanted to eat at Hometown without flying to New York.

Even Red Hook regulars should visit the Miami location for exclusive dishes. Being one foot in Latin America, it adds thrice-jerk (brined, slathered and spiced) slab bacon and mole-dusted chicken wings with poblano crema. The latter take four days to make. The place has inadvertently become known for natural wines, too, a nascent movement here.

Per Weinstein, People automatically think of beer with barbecue, but a crisp wine cuts through the fat better.

See the original post here:

Art Basel Miami Beach 2019: Where to Eat and Sleep - WWD