Sopranos, Milch, Hugo and Fidel
SOPRANOS: Well, I think I like the way The Sopranos ended, but not 100% sure. It's anti-climactic climax certainly makes sense. There is little justice in this world so why expect much except the basic status quo? I was thrilled by the FBI ratting out Phil Leotardo and even more enthusiastic about the way Phil's head got crunched. The good part is that I have the rest of eternity to ponder Sunday's finale. Here's a roundup of instant critical reaction. And some thoughts from my own in-house critic as well.
DAVID MILCH (John From Cincinnati): I'm going to try very had to get addicted, given the new void in my life. I didn't tune out the first episode and admit to being vaguely intrigued as to where it will all go. The good part is that on this Wednesday, Deadwood Season 3 (which I missed) will be out on DVD and I can savor the old Milch if not the new.
Now on to more "substantive" thoughts.
HUGO: At times it's been kind of lonely out here being a leftist critic of Hugo Chavez. Sweet it was, then, to stumble across the work of a young Caracas-based scholar and freelance journalist named Eric Biewener. Even more pleasant to find his work on Chavez published none other than in NACLA . For more than three decades NACLA has been the premier journal of lefty analysis of Latin America. How wonderful it is to see them challenge the orthodoxy with Biewener's piece that deconstructs Chavez' propaganda strategy. Biewener also maintains two of his own blog here and here. He's just put both sites on hiatus but you should check out his even-handed posts on Venezuela. This young man is clearly a progressive and a democrat-- and therefore not bamboozled by Chavez' bluster.
FIDEL: Talk about even-handed. I've just finished reading about the most sensible piece I've seen in a spell about Cuba. Having lived in Cuba for three years in 90's, Brit Bella Thomas recently returned to Havana and wasn't exactly enthralled with what she saw. I find her reporting to be no less than exquisite and having been to Cuba several times myself I can say her writing reeks with authenticity. Her take is decidedly non-ideological, thank God, and seems to bow to few facile preconceptions. One short excerpt:
Healthcare and education are supposed to be the redeeming graces of the regime, but this is questionable. There are a large number of doctors, but, according to most Cubans I know, many have left the country and the health system is in a ragged state—apart from those hospitals reserved for foreigners—and people often have to pay a bribe to get treated. Michael Moore, the American film director, who has recently been praising the system should take note of the real life stories beneath the statistics. I went into a couple of hospitals for locals on my latest visit. In the first, my friend told me not to say a word in case my accent was noticed, as foreigners are not allowed in these places. I was appalled by the hygiene and amazed at the antiquity of the building and some of the equipment. I was told that the vast majority of Cuban hospitals, apart from two in Havana, were built before the revolution. Which revolution, I wondered; this one seemed to date from the 1900s.
On another occasion, I saw a man in a white coat with a stethoscope around his neck hurrying along the boulevard of Vedado, in west Havana. We struck up a conversation. He was on his way to the hospital around the corner. I asked him if he would take me there. He was charming and intelligent, and had that ease of communication that many Cubans possess: he wasn't at all taken aback by an unknown woman in dark glasses asking to accompany him to work. The doctor told me that I shouldn't be too shocked; the hospital was being "refurbished." The building certainly was in a state of filth and decrepitude. This was not a place one would want to be ill in.
This checks with my own experience. I remember how startled I was during a visit to Havana in 1995. I was visiting a Cuban friend who had been hospitalized and who sheepishly asked me if I could buy him some ampicillin as the hospital was out of the basic drug and he was left on his own to find some. He told me that if I looked in the tourist "dollar store" in the Hotel Riviera where I was staying I could probably buy some. He was right, of course. Another friend of ours brought the patient clean sheets from his home -- the only way to get them. At one point Thomas wonders why political tourists from the UK and the US are so often bedazzled if not bewitched by Cuba, convincing themselves that among the want, the delapidation, and the dysfucntion that plagues the island they still somehow believe they have discovered a viable alternative to their morally corrupt countries of origin:
There are plenty of visitors to Cuba from rich countries (including a disproportionate number from Britain) who believe they have encountered a true alternative to capitalist democracy. Why? Perhaps it is a way of keeping alive the idea of some ideal society, without having to experience the disadvantages oneself. It may also be a facet of a general dislike of the US, or a way of expressing unease with capitalist excesses. But it is also, in all probability, related to a nostalgia for the political certainties and the handsome design of the 1950s and before: the cars, the bars and the glamour. It is not for nothing that Cuba sells itself with the music of the pre-revolutionary period. If North Korea had charm and salsa and innuendo and beaches, perhaps a lot of politically naive people would be advocating its merits too.
In their call for the US to keep its "hands off Cuba," western supporters of the Cuban regime seem to miss the irony that this, unfortunately, is precisely what the US is doing. Were the US to relax its embargo, the result would be a tidal wave of US capital, which the regime would be unlikely to survive. Many Cubans would grow richer and more demanding, and would no longer accept playing second fiddle to the tourists.
Please read the entire piece before sounding off. You might learn something. While we're on the subject, here's precisely the sort of uncritical starry-eyed twaddle you get from politically correct (and blind) activist-tourists. She has seen the future -- and it works!
June 10th, 2007 at 10:48 pm
The Department of Defense has identified 3,494 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war. It confirmed the deaths of the following Americans over the weekend:
NEWMAN, William N., 23, Senior Airman, Air Force; Kingston Springs, Tenn.; 15th Civil Engineer Squadron.
SUTTON, Greg L. Sutton, 38, Sgt. First Class, Army; Spring Lake, N.C.; First Infantry Division.
June 11th, 2007 at 12:08 am
“In their call for the US to keep its “hands off Cuba,” western supporters of the Cuban regime seem to miss the irony that this, unfortunately, is precisely what the US is doing.”
This is really the key issue, both historically and for the present. If at any time over the past 50 years the US had lifted its embargo, stopped threatening Cuba, and just treated it like a normal country, there would have been two likely consequences: Americans would have seen that socialism was not as bad as they had been led to believe, and Cubans would see that they did not need a Stalinist dictatorship in order to have socialism. In other words, both the authoritarian Castroites and the die-hard capitalists would have suffered setbacks. So things stay as they are.
June 11th, 2007 at 6:56 am
About 3500 volunteer American military killed over about four years by the savages in Iraq out of a U.S. population of very roughly 300,000,000. This is 0.0000116 of 1% of the population. About 170,000 killed over the same period in traffic crashes. We all sigh a bit about traffic deaths, but half of us can’t bear this loss of volunteers protecting the national interests. Some go to the barricades. Others do their bit by tolling a death knell, like the commenter above. What would happen if we ever got into a really high-casualty war? (Based on WSJ op-ed)
June 11th, 2007 at 7:30 am
Fred shows why television like the Sopranos says a lot about the American character.
Speaking of which, this guy from NACLA is in over his head, makes some good points, but can’t separate wheat from chaff. He mentions that some opposition forces are indeed linked with “Venezuela’s International Enemies” (God forbid he says the US government) and that makes it easy to percieve said “student opposition” (which I’m skeptical about) - but he neither suggests or looks at ways that potential opposition could deaach itself…he seems simply to want to bring down Chavez or expose him, I should say. I disagree with his goals, but fair enough, if he wants to do so, he should be questioning whether these kids want to turn their country back over to the old social classes.
I looked at his blog and he’s truly a confused kid…I won’t accuse him of wittinlgy doing anything but he looks easily like someone who could be strung along by Dan Mitrioen types.
On Cuba, like Canada, many people don’t realize that national health care is not perfect. We have situations like that too, but not to the extent. It is in both situations due to underfunding. I don’t think the W.H.O. or Paul Farmer for example are blind Castro-ites. It is fact, from these eminent organizatiosn and persons that their system - when properly adminstered - is the best.
June 11th, 2007 at 7:37 am
That Sopranos was a huge blue balling, but I can’t imagine another ending that’d be preferable. I don’t think the guy going into the mens room was a hit man. Most of the hits happen really quick without deliberation. But who knows.
I think the show needed to end about two seasons ago. I agree on John from Cincinnati, jury is still out. That was a busy opening episode though…
June 11th, 2007 at 8:50 am
Cummings, what in the world are you talking about? I read through both of Biewener’s blogs and I didn’t see anything that would indicate that he’s a “truly confused kid.” Nor did I think that his goal is simply to bring down or expose Chavez. He certainly accepts the fact that his government has achieved some genuine accomplishments but also recognizes that there are some really troubling aspects there as well. It’s all right there in the blog. This doesn’t indicate the confusion of some doe-eyed, idealistic, Alden Pyle type (or of a dupe, as you insinuate there with the Mitrione reference) but rather it indicates a level of some political sophistication. You’re grasping at straws here.
June 11th, 2007 at 9:19 am
One man’s “political sophistication” is another man’s “unwitting accomplice.” I don’t doubt his sincerity, and somewhat agree with a few of his criticisms of the Chavez government. That being said, he commits numerous sins of omission. He never mentions what he’d like to see. He’s also - as a debate with Marxist Louis Proyect shows - someone who truly fears radical land reform, thinking its improper and violent.
June 11th, 2007 at 9:23 am
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2007/06/06/nacla-on-rctv/#comments
June 11th, 2007 at 9:23 am
Were the protests in Venezuela just a bunch of complaining by the spoiled rich kids?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/venezuela/story/0,,2097161,00.html
June 11th, 2007 at 9:25 am
Cummings, I have a proposition for you: Why don’t you try dealing with at least ONE of Eric’s substantive points instead of besmirching his person? So far he has whipped you — because all you do is a) slander him by saying he would be taken in by a torturer like Mitrione (outrageous) b) that he’s confused and c) that he’s afraid. Bullshit, old boy. Bull shit.
Your ability to so quickly write off the student opposition, without knowing in fact anything first hand about them, tells us a lot about what sort of ideological bias infects your “analysis.”
And by the way, there is no such thing as a “debate” with Proyect. the guy is daft.
June 11th, 2007 at 9:37 am
I know quite a bit and there’s conflicting information. From the limited information I have (there is very little non-partisan information) I believe that this student opposition and this writer are sincere, yet haven’t done enough to ensure that they won’t be used. In Iran, the left and opposition have made it clear that they are in no way connected to the neo-Pahlavi-ites and Maoist cults backed by the US government. Why can’t this group squarely condemn imperialism against their own nation while simultaneously opposing Chavez? Trotsky always defended the Soviet Union from foreign interference all the while acting as a staunch opponent.
June 11th, 2007 at 9:39 am
I have to run - but to expand on Eric’s fear of land reform - he refers to landless peasants as squatters and seems to truly sympathize with the gentry. Thsi there-has-to-be-a-better-way-ism truly shows a lack of knowledge of how these things work - including in the USA in which homesteaders and “cowboys” kicked ranchers off their land.
June 11th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Since I was not a fan of “Deadwood” I came to “John from Cincinnatti” with no preconceptions. And I left with no interest. Reminds me of a certain type of “quirky” Indie movie with its “Magical Realism” (and the main reason that, with all the good will in world I’can’t finish most modern fiction) and quaint characters.
Sorry. I’ll stick with “Big love” and, even, “Entourage.” Give me the real tinsel!
June 11th, 2007 at 11:44 am
Maybe Tony could do a meet with Hugo and satisfy everyone here. I heard a lot of psuedo-lefty shit from Meadow and AJ last night.
June 11th, 2007 at 11:59 am
Haven’t seen any of the shows, but it seems to me “Journey” was the perfect for the closing song.
Tony has always been a bit too versed in fifties and sixties pop for his age; Journey would be more of his time, however horrible.
June 11th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
It’s still a matter of a “mote in your own eye” when it comes to Chavez. Remember when criticizing Chavez that natural man has no innate appetite for democracy. Democracy evolves through civilization and economic security at some level. Ourside of primitive “consensus” societies, poverty and democracy have not fared well together. The point being that while democracy abroad is volatile in some places, it is evanescent here at home and UNLESS WE SCREAM ABOUT WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE, WE WILL SOON NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO SPEAK AT ALL.
There is an ancient caveat: “hoy lloramos como ninos por lo que como hombres no pudimos proteger”
June 11th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
It’s still a matter of a “mote in your own eye†when it comes to Chavez.
Wow. Good thing I didn’t think that way when Pinochet and Videla were in power.
June 11th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
“Magical Realism†(and the main reason that, with all the good will in world I’can’t finish most modern fiction)
I’m with you on that one.
June 11th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
jcummings: post-it note:
When Pinochet, Videla, Amin, Stalin, etc. were in power, democracy was not collapsing in America.
Failure to fix it at home will surely invite their ghosts or succesors to fill the vacuum here. Ask the German people who three time voted for the son-of-a bitch paper hanger DEMOCRATICALLY.
June 11th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
Hank,
At least with regard to Pinochet, apparently you’ve never heard of Richard Nixon.
As for the rest of your comment, some of us can multitask.
June 11th, 2007 at 6:20 pm
I don’t know the context of Hank Quevedo’s remarks - I am foursquare with the notion that America has no right to, as a state, itnerfere with any other nation’s affairs precisely because of the sclerotic state of its own “democracy.”
June 11th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
I didn’t say anything about interfering on a governmental basis. Hank seems to be saying that Americans shouldn’t comment about Chávez until everything is okay here and to that, I say bullshit.
June 11th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
Yet it seemed like he was adressing his comments to me. I happen to think that you have the “right” to criticize Chavez, of whom I’m critical in many ways - but with two caveats in terms of politics - one is to also completely detach oneself from the US/right wing effort to restore the old elite torturers adn oligarchy, another is an understanding that it takes no moral courage to take such a position. Wooly-headed as it may be, you can pretend that there’s some third option. But unless you declare that you also oppose America’s agenda, then you implicitly solidarize with it. With us/against us? Damned right in this circumstance.
June 11th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
“Upon Further Review”, as they say in the NFL I’ve decided that Tony got whacked. A comment on the TRUTHDIG site convinced me. Here’s the evidence as that correspondent presents it:
1. The guy in the “Member’s Only” jackect in the diner is listed in the credits as Phil Leotardo’s nephew.
2. Early in the last series (think its episode Two) Tony and Mike discuss what its like to be shot. “You never hear it come” they conclude. That was replayed last week after the whackings.
3. Each time a person come in to the diner we hear a bell - there is an obvious shift to Tony’s POV.
4. Meadow comes in - bell - fade to black.
5. Who did it? Who knows? From Tony’s perspective you never see it coming . . .
This has been a complicated answer to a simple question.
And Chase is still way better than Aron Sorkin!
June 11th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
No, he wasn’t addressing it to you.
As for the with us/against us dichotomy, I say bullshot to that as well. I’m perfectly capable of thinking that the old established order in Venezuela is bad for the country and so is Chávez.
RLC,
No, he was listed in the credits as “Guy in Members Only Jacket.”
June 11th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
That Nikki Leotardo thing in the credits was a reference to one of his grandchildren. I don’t believe Tony was wacked. I believe the show had come full circle (hence onion rings eaten whole) and the ending was both intentionalyl ambiguous, leaving many many more questions - a reference to the larger issue of unresolved problems/threads - in real life, there are very few resolutions. As in “this thing of ours.” And as it ends, you’re just like Uncle Junior hearing Bobby and thinking of the Ambassador hotel.
June 11th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
RP - you fulfil lwhat I see as responsible criticism…but you haven’t provided me with any evidence of any real human alternative, that is based on concrete analysis of concrete situations.
June 11th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
Multitasking in the case of democracy as it exists today is straining the gnat while letting the camel pass. My point is we come close to forfeiting our right to criticize when we create a greater danger. While we criticize minuscule autocrats whose worse depradations have limited impact, we may turn the world’s greatest nuclear power into an authoritarian rogue state. It happens incrementally, in small aggregations until, boom, it’s gone. It has happened so many times that we ignore it at our risk.
The hyperbole is for emphasis, not to squelch international observation…it demands proportion.
And it should provoke passionate and rational dialogue…I’m waiting.
Randy, as to the old established order vs. Chavez, it is simply too soon to tell.
I still thing Chase screwed his audience.
June 11th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
My first impression was that Tony gets whacked, but what it really shows is that he could just as easily be then as at any other time. (Honestly, though, the mystery that I’m really going to have to research is, was the FBI agent’s girl wearing underwear?) What I think the ending really communicates is that so long as Tony does survive his life is going to be a matter of constant tension and peril. This is communicated by the numerous potential assassins around him, but most artfully evoked by Meadow’s multiple attempts at parallel parking: Something awful is expected each time, and the tension rises with each repetition, even though nothing actually goes amiss.
I’ve decided, though, that I can wait for the DVD for John from Cincinnati. I’m off HBO until the Deadwood movies are scheduled.
June 12th, 2007 at 8:03 am
jccummings writes: “Fred shows why television shows like the Sopranos says [sic] a lot about the American character.” Because I have never seen this show jc has me at a disadvantage of glibness. A dismissive insult without content is easy to write and hard to refute, a jc specialty.
June 12th, 2007 at 11:31 am
First, my condolences to Cooper, slugging it out against Chavez and Castro all alone (ha).
As for the young American “scholar” Biewener, my 3-minute perusal tells me the guy actually knows very little about Venezuela. He attributed the sporadic lack of certain food products in grocery stores to a land reform program that did not touch one acre of agricultural land (only vacant land). He is similararly way off base when discussing the “Tascon list” - amongst others I can expand upon. His NACLA piece about demonizing one’s political opponents can be turned around on the opposition just as neatly - but he does not go there. His shock at the pro-Chavez “propoganda” seen on Caracas’ streets just shows his ignorance of the history of Venezuelan politics, which has a long history of such banners. Chavez has tried to seperate those honorable elements of the opposition and those with ties to imperialism on many occasions. All ignored here.
As for the “independence” of the student protesters, check the photo of the CIA capitan of Latin America in their midst, or review their flyers, which had the exact same (US Govt funded) Freedom House clenched fist graphic as we saw during the colored revolutions in E. Europe. One could also ask why the major private Universities are cancelling classes and paying for bus service to transport students. Could it have to do with the 28 public universities that Chavez is building?
June 12th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
As for Cuba, it is not surprising that Mrs. Thomas’ critiques come from anecdotes, not from anything resembling empiricism. As such, Thomas is far from even-handed. She is smart and knows how to artfully hide inconvenient truths and place mistakes in the mouths of others.
On health care, she takes the typical route around the WHO studies, UN stats, etc. by telling stories. She says she “was told†that most hospitals were built before the Revolution. Well, actually in 1959 Cuba had only 10 hospitals and 80% of beds were in Havana. Today there are 191 hospitals, 290 polyclinics and many other smaller facilities – the majority outside Havana. Every town has access. She says Cuba has many doctors, but many have left the country, which implies desertion. If fact, the 20,000 doctors serving in the poorest areas abroad are doing so heroically, despite the publicized US offer for automatic US citizenship for anyone who will defect to a US mission (a disgusting move, I hope we can all agree).
Of course, Cuban health facilities and equipment certainly would appear second rate to most Westerners, but does this really matter? The fact that Cuba has achieved results on par with the US, who spends 30 times more per person, in spite of its financial limitations tells us something more profound about profit-based health care than socialized, I would think. If asking patients to bring in sheets allows more urgent equipment and medicine to be bought, what is wrong with that? Indeed the majority of hospitals in Cuba were refurbished in the last couple years – with money from the foreign clinics – unlike in Thailand or wherever where private companies take the profits and run. As for Cooper’s tale about buying ampicillin, here is a Canadian study that found it to be available in hospitals, even during the special period. I’m not calling the story false, just that stories have a way of not telling the whole story…
Thomas takes the route we have seen before (from Cooper) in psycho-analyzing those (few) of us who defend the Cuban Revolution. It’s all crap. Is it really so inconceivable for someone who studies the problems of US cities to think that capitalism has indeed failed us and can offer no solution to poverty, homelessness, crime, education, health care, segregation, drugs, gentrification, ect.? Why is it so wrong to look at Cuba and say they’ve figured out a way to solve/improve these things with hardly any resources? Sure Cuba has other problems, including many of the things the US does well. But I, like billions of others on this planet, see justice and equality as indispensable and impossible under the tyranny of the free market.
June 12th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Leftside-You are dead on. Liberal democracies address hunger, poverty, racism and economic justice symptomatically. The French Revolution taught us that, after defense, the main role of a liberal democracy is to temper and mitigate the most cruel aspects of the markets, no more no less.
It is the nature of capitlism to concentrate wealth, social benefits be damned. It should be the role of the state to promote economic justice by enlightened and redistributive interference and restraint. That is Jeffersonian, not Marxist or socialist. The best internal defense policy is economic equilibrium.
June 12th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Leftside sits in front of a highly technical $399 computer he bought for 1/2 his weekly income able to communicate with anyone in the world, while making and getting calls from a highly technical wireless phone he got for free with a $39 a month call contract costing 1/20th of his weekly income, while eating a delicious fast food meal he bought off a $1 menu for 1/800th of his weekly income, while watching a highly technical $149 TV he bought for 1/6 his weekly income, while watching anyone of 112 highly intertaining channels he gets for 1/20th his weekly income, while using his highly technical $49 microwave he got for 1/24 his weekly income for a delicious instant popcorn snack he got for 1/4000 of his weekly income, while sitting on his fat ass using all this technology to complain about the greedy system that allows others to make a profit off his cheap ass, while actually believing all this could be had for less if only if were not for the tyranny of a free market, while totally blind to ALL actual history that has shown just the opposite to be reality.
The perfect example of a total fucking leftwing loser.
June 12th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
I thought I would be nice and not mention the free education he got the tyrants paid for, and the free food he got the tyrants paid for, and the free welfare he got the tyrants paid for, and the free home he got and the tyrants paid for, and the free mental health he got and the tyrants paid for in his fucked up and fucked out fatherless family he grew up in where he learned to disrespect the shit he got for nothing.
It’s not his fault. It’s human nature.
June 13th, 2007 at 9:11 am
Easy Jimbo. The middle class welfare we do have in this country (subsidized suburban roads and schools, home mortgage deductions, my mom’s school teacher health care plan) has indeed done ok for me. We made due even though my dad was out of work for 3 of the last 15 years. I’ve managed to get one of the few decent jobs in America, where I can be of use and not be around exploitation. I get by paycheck to paycheck.
It’s about others having the same opportunities I had. This morning I witnessed 2 grown men crying. One screaming into a pay phone that he has no one else. Another’s daughter drying his tears on the bus. Yesterday I was surveying in South LA, where every other building is a church, barber or liquor store - and where people die every day for our lack of concern. All is not well in America.
But maybe if I concentrate on buying more things that others can not afford I’ll get over this…
June 24th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
Consider this possibility for the ‘meaning’ of the end of the Sopranos: Tony didn’t get whacked; the show got whacked. And therefore we, as the viewers, also got whacked.
We had a lovely bit of suspense built up there at the end, didn’t we? But then we see Tony looking up, and, just as described by Bobby Bacala, everything went black. Since it wasn’t from Tony’s POV (we were looking at Tony), it wasn’t Tony who got whacked. But something definitely ended, forever, and it was the show…the show got whacked. And we Sopranos fans got whacked.
Now, that’s interactive television.
(As for all the other stuff about Cuba and Chavez…uh, okay. I love Chavez tweaking the noses of the Bushies, and also the irony that the neocons’ adventurism in the Levant has driven gas prices up which puts enormous sums into the treasuries of…Venezuela & Iran!)