Cultural Dissent

A selection of this week's politically-relevant entertainment news...

Why *did* it cost Angelina Jolie $3000 to test for BRCA1 in the first place? Because the gene is owned by a private company http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/53688

18-Year-Old Aspiring Rapper Facing Terrorism Charges After Posting Lyrics On Facebook http://bit.ly/10kJ31e

Dark Mofo Festival's Mass Skinny Dip Deemed Obscene By Police http://bit.ly/18aEmfu

Burn The World
AC4
March 2013
Ny Våg / Deathwish / Shock
www.ac4official.bandcamp.com

Swedish socialist hardcore punks AC4 blast nuclear policy on their new album, Burn the World. Green Left's Mat Ward spoke to frontman Dennis Lyxzén and main songwriter Karl Backman.

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Black Against Empire, the History & Politics of the Black Panther Party
Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin Jr, University of California Press, 2013, 560 pp., $54.95

The United States in the 1960s was a tinderbox of unresolved racial tensions. With Jim Crow racism dominating the South and oppressive police patrolling the northern ghettos, Martin Luther King’s Civil Rights Movement ignited hopes for change nation-wide.

Live in K-Town
Random Hand
Bomber Music
April 1, 2013
www.randomhand.bigcartel.com

West Yorkshire ska band Random Hand blend hardcore, reggae, punk and dub with plenty of politics. Bassist-vocalist Joe Tilston, who is also a critically-acclaimed solo folk artist, talked to Green Left’s Mat Ward about their new live album.

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More Light
Primal Scream
First International
Released May 13, 2013
www.primalscream.net

British indie rockers Primal Scream are best known for Screamadelica, the breakout dance-crossover album that embraced ravers in a sweaty bear hug in 1991 and left them in a state of blissed-out awe.

Latin America's Turbulent Transitions: The Future of 21st Century Socialism
By Roger Burbach, Michael Fox & Federico Fuentes
Zed Books, 2013
www.futuresocialism.org

In a quirk of history, Margaret Thatcher died a little more than one month after Hugo Chavez. Thatcher was a figurehead for the global class war in the 1980s and '90s known as “neoliberalism”. Chavez was a figurehead for the struggle against it and the alternative starting to be built in Latin America over the past decade.

A selection of this week's politically-relevant entertainment news...

US singer Steve Earle says coal seam gas is not 'natural gas'. http://bit.ly/10X3RdX

Rekindle The Spirit - Ken Loach’s newest film documents the greatest cultural shift in British working class... http://tmblr.co/Z0MsOtk4xVyx

Rapper Seth Sentry Saves Paralympian Fan From Angry Mob http://bit.ly/18JUWUE

Community Radio "May Be Forced To Shut Down” After Being Ignored In Federal Budget http://bit.ly/18JS7TA

No Local: Why Small-Scale Alternatives Won’t Change the World
Greg Sharzer
Zero Books, 2012

Against a backdrop of global climate disasters, financial panics, and inequality, localism — the creation of small-scale local systems of production and distribution — seems to make sense.

Start small and stay close to home. Forge community ties, grow your own food locally, and create alternatives that can eventually replace the current system of global capitalism with a sane, sustainable way of life.

A selection of this week's politically-relevant entertainment news...

Snoop Lion Defaces Defenceless Barack Obama With New Snoopify App http://bit.ly/12ff9gy

Unmanned Drones To Deliver Delicious Beverage Relief To Punters At Music Festival http://bit.ly/12fcLGz

As I Lay Dying Singer Arrested Under Suspicion Of Hiring Hitman To Kill Wife http://bit.ly/10ocsaz

Rapper Lauryn Hill Sentenced To 3 Months Jail For Unpaid Taxes http://bit.ly/13eJQEY

Singer Charli XCX Says Sexism Makes Collaborations Tough http://bit.ly/18qGIrC

Lately it seems that we can’t get away from the hard, simple fact that art requires labour — both in the actual creation and in the conditions that make it possible.

Where there’s labour there’s normally a lot of hard work and sacrifice. And where there’s hard work and sacrifice, there’s normally some bastard at the top looking to squeeze as much as they can out of those of us who actually work.

Much as some of us would love to act like art exists in a separate realm from all of this, it doesn’t.