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The Realism of Arthur Miller

The process of this destructive infiltration is carefully worked out in terms of the needs of the other characters—keller's wife and surviving son, the girl the son is to marry, the neighbours, the son of the convict—so that the demonstration of social consequence, and therefore of keller's guilt, is not in terms of any  abstract principle, but in terms of personal needs and relationships, which compose a reality that directly enforces the truth. In reaching out for this new social consciousness —in which "every aspect of personal life is radically affected by the quality of the general life, yet the general life is seen at its most important in completely personal terms"—miller, for all the marks of difficulty, uncertainty and weakness that stand within the intensity of his effort, seems clearly a central figure in the drama and consciousness of our time.

Where next for the Campaign?

Previously it was plausible to argue that since the decisions of the government in this country affected only people in this country, a decision was democratic if a majority of people supported it. For most people direct action means the two demonstrations at the north pickenham rocket base in december of last year.

After Thatcher - Ten More Years

In short, if labour is to use the political flux to reform its own political community it has to find a symbolic role for the state; invest regional government and international community with political meaning; force into the public arena, and politicise, the decisions which take place behind closed doors and make people feel helpless; and convince us that it is the hero who can both protect us from harm and liberate us from oppression. After thatcher ten more years what must john major do, asks sarah benton, if populist conservatism is to become the dominant political voice of the 90s i f john major is a strategist, he could reshape the political realignment which margaret thatcher kicked off, then almost destroyed.

What's It Worth Then?

In line with the general direction persona, provides us with some clues to of marketing logic, kennedy shifts the the identity of the new classical con- to 'fiddle poll tax' and the four sea- w 33 marxism today july 1990 'the growing demand for educational or selfimproving leisure draws attention to the value distinctions audiences make between cultural activities'  emphasis away from cultural producer to consumer: 'you're calling the shots now.' For, despite its use of new technology and niche marketing, kennedy's the four seasons is all about affirming forms of collective cultural experience organised around a live event (or the transmitted aura of the event) and working within the parameters of established cultural forms, albeit projected in new ways and to different audiences.

Love Is In The Air

And even the very worst 'in love' moments still represent a certain glamour that derives from the way they can be hooked up to the great cultural moments of despair and yearning that reverberate from jane eyre to elvis presley's 'are you lonesome tonight?' t to acknowledge that the script for love has already been written and is being continually recycled in all the love songs and love stories of western literature and contemporary media, is not however to say that falling, or being, in love turns people into the puppet victims of a repressive romantic ideology. the utopian aspect of love is most frequently expressed in its quite over- t 'lcky, jokey or coy, the message is the same: love is in the air, love is all around' the-top, extravagant claims to be sweeping us off our feet, bigger than both of us, everlasting, indeed existing outside of known time or space, altogether on some transcendental 'higher plane'.

CLOSE UP ON Annie Lennox

This was marked by the album be yourself tonight, where they kicked in the jams, coming up with an overblown pastiche of sly and the family stone, a long way from the mournful, psychedelic phasing of the first album. annie's voice had come to excel in vocal pyrotechnics, increasingly to the detriment of melody lines (as shown in the new album revenge), and she became officially stadium material. In a time of pvc and body piercing, the tourists (fronted by 'zany lady' annie) erred too much on the tacky, camp side of glamour and their songs, strong on fluid harmonies and keyboards, sounded far too serious and concerned about the quality of musicianship.

CONFLICT IN THE SOUTHERN SUDAN

re-organised the administration in the the origins of the current unrest go back southern region, and which are seen as to the colonial policy of the anglo-egyptian contravening the addis ababa agreement government which left the southern sudan of 1972 which established the south's status at independence in 1956 under-developed as an autonomous region, a status won after even by the poor standards of other 17 years of armed struggle by guerilla forces peripheral areas of the country. Since september northern soldiers and policemen, and 1982 anti-government guerrillas calling concern over islamic economic and cultural themselves anya-nya 2 have been attacking domination led to the development of a army detachments, police posts, and arab long and bloody civil war in which several merchants in a band of country across the thousands of people lost their lives and over northern part of the southern region.

Short Cuts A talk with Clare Short

Culture choice words short cuts clare short, mp for birmingham, ladywood, and recently elected on to the labour party's national executive committee, talks to chris granlund about the way reading has influenced her life treasure island was a big book in our childhood. I've hardly read a poem since i left school, i suppose it's because of the pace of life and yet i know i loved that form of expressing ideas the words used so carefully.

PUTTING THE POPULAR BACK INTO CULTURE

there were several choices facing tomkins; devolve the arts and recreation policy to the boroughs, hand them over to a body outside of the glc's committee structure such as the greater london arts association, or take a more radical path to make the policy the result of grassroots involvement within the glc itself. as both lord birkett, director of arts and recreation at the glc, and alan tomkins, policy adviser to the arts and recreation committee, admit, up until 1981 there was little to choose between the leisure policies of either tory or labour administrations in london.

Three Steps Forward One Step Back

Unless the women’s movement is to be relevant to only an elite group of women, then the experience of those women who are at home with kids must be recognised as real. The women’s movement had hardly got started in this country and it seemed to me that any discussion there was, centred on the problems of women who were exceptions any­ way — university lecturers etc — a different species from me.

Labour's Lost Millions 4 - viewpoint

Incidentally, eric, the labour movement — by which term most people mean the labour party, the trade unions, the co-operative and other left political forces like the communists — is a much broader conception than the labour party. 44 february 1984 labour's lost millions 4 we conclude the debate with... dave cook: open to the outside world eric heffer expresses the commonly held view that within the labour party 'to a large extent the renewal process (particularly the constitutional reforms — dc) has been completed, and now the time has come to consolidate the changes, to translate them into campaigns throughout the country and win support for the party.'

Bypassing Politics: The Contradictions of 'DiY Culture'

200  bypassing politics the 'class politics' of nature i find that the work of sociologist klaus eder provides a useful framework within which to think about some of the concerns of this new wave of protest.2 eder argues that a counterculture has always been present within modernity, but that it has recently been foregrounded by growing awareness of what he calls 'the ecological crisis'. e ven though i find eder's a useful framework for looking at possible postindustrial collectivities and solidarities beyond those of traditional left politics, i feel that the new environmental protest politics can only partly be accounted for in eder's terms.

Bypassing Politics? The contradictions of 'DiY culture'

200  bypassing politics the 'class politics' of nature i find that the work of sociologist klaus eder provides a useful framework within which to think about some of the concerns of this new wave of protest.2 eder argues that a counterculture has always been present within modernity, but that it has recently been foregrounded by growing awareness of what he calls 'the ecological crisis'. e ven though i find eder's a useful framework for looking at possible postindustrial collectivities and solidarities beyond those of traditional left politics, i feel that the new environmental protest politics can only partly be accounted for in eder's terms.

Labour's Forward March: Centre Of Attraction

swing* 17.5% -15 -14 -20 -11 -18 -13 -13 -15 -17 -12 +21 +20 + 19 +21 +22 + 18 + 18 +20 +23 + 17 -12 -12 -12 -16 - 8 - 8 -14 -12 -13 -10 18% 17% 19.5% 16% 19% 15.5% 15.5% 17.5% 20% 14.5% -16 -14 -12 -20 -17 +21 +22 + 17 +22 +23 -10 -16 - 8 -11 -14 18.5% 18% 14.5% 21% 20% -13 - 6 -13 -16 -15 -14 -17 + 18 + 8 +20 +24 +20 + 17 +22 - 9 -11 -12 -13 -11 -11 -12 15.5% 7% 16.5% 20% 15.5% 15.5% 19.5% t 'in the 1980s labour was a regional class party of dispossessed minorities. More voters thought that taxes would rise (42%) than fall (18%), that inflation would speed up (35%) than slow down (19%), that the economy would get weaker (39%) rather than stronger (21%) and that their own standard of living would be lower (27%) not higher (23%).

Patient As Punter Interview with Kenneth Clarke

The theme of the white paper and the way it's addressed to the public is that we are spending vast sums of money on the national health service, we're likely to have to spend vastly more, at the moment it isn't run as well as it ought to be and it needs to be a better public service, so we can get better value out of all this money and make it a better service still. I believe you will get a better distribution of resources in the health service by competition than you do at the moment, where the distribution of money's largely determined by obscure formulae, devised by the health service management, coupled with a lot of lobbying.

It's Off To Work We Go?

it also needs policies which can build on the changes which have taken place in recent years and which are largely (although not entirely) irreversible the growth of service industries and decline of manufacturing, the emergence of a new spatial division of labour, the development of more flexible systems of production and widespread use of new technology, the development of new forms of work (eg, part-time work and self-employment) and decline in full-time work, and the massive growth in women's employment. although it still proclaims that market forces in a 'de-regulated' economy will, if left to their own devices, lead to more efficiency and economic growth, and through this to new jobs, the government has in fact had to devise a whole array of measures to deal with high unemployment, especially long-term unemployment which now stands at over 40% of registered unemployment.

Interview w i t h Neil Kinnock

Of showing that the labour obviously one of the crucial things in the position of the labour party is party's sufficiently responsive to the condition of our society to its relationship with the trade unions, on which the labour party after want to take the lead in representing grievances and having the all is founded. If people were conscious of the ideology of the labour party, broadly stated, it would be a good insurance against the vagaries of shifts in the labour party that is a consequence of our over-dependence on the nature of leaders.

THE STUFF THAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF

Whilst its roots can be traced back to the autobiographical fictions of eugene francois vidocq, the world's first private detective, and alan pinkerton, the founder of america's first detective agency, it really begins with the writings of dashiell hammett in black mask who had himself been a pinkerton agent. 34 april 1982 marxism today the stuff that dreams are made of kevin gough-yates the private detective story is a modern phenomenon, born on the pages of pulp magazines in the aftermath of the first world war, during prohibition and economic depression.

EURO-LIFE A Thousand Beams Of Light

achieving the cultural potential of a broadband network will depend on political will and imaginative planning at both these levels: levies and taxes on the bland channels full of imported material; public funding agencies to finance minority material, the bizarre, the challenging, the investigative; ownership rules to break up the conglomerates; independent european news services to tell us what the european parliament and the commission are up to on our behalf; guarantees of universal access and industrial plans to distribute tv production to the regions. The european commission was also captivated by the vision of 'television without frontiers', a free trade zone for tv to go with the internal market for shoes, washing machines and toasters, a single europe 34 bavarian tv have turned out to have stronger political bases than a nebulous concept of euro-tv.

book reviews: - FEMALE DESIRE - DESIRE: THE POLITICS OF SEXUALITY

Reviews june 1984 marxism today 41 female desire: women's sexuality today rosalind coward paladin, £2.95 desire: t h e politics of sexuality ann snitow, christine stansell, sharon thompson (eds) virago, £6.50 spring is in the air, and desire is in the bookshops. In examining the history of sexual radicalism, the essays unearth continuities and paradoxes: between nineteenthcentury campaigns against the double standard and male vice, and the current attack on sexual commercialism; how sexual revolutions and 'movements of "sexual freedom" have so often ended by constricting homosexuality, female sexuality, and one might argue, sexual excitement itself.

Reviews: Mailer's pen is bigger than the Norm

46 september 1985 marxism today mailer's pen is bigger than the norm mailer: his life and times peter manso, viking£16.95 norman mailer has been kind of fucking america into some kind of reaction for nearly 40 years. Facts never speak for them- reviews selves and throughout this book i wanted less description of events and more of the framework from which manso wrote - his relationship to mailer, how he did the book, and also his interpretation of mailer's work.

COMING OUT OF THE COMMUNE Interview with Richard Coles

For a long time i wanted to be more politically active, especially last year after being involved in lesbians and gays support the miners, but i don't want to join the labour party how, i want my political involvement to be in red wedge because i can see it as far more hasn't red wedge got to be organised on totally different grounds to the rather antiquated labour party? How will red wedge seek to involve young people in its own organisation? at the moment we're ironing out the final details about how to set up red wedge in the regions, what red wedge can do on a local basis.

REST IN PIECES Notes on the fragments SOCIALIST FEMINIST SOCIAL POLICY GROUP

In the present hiatus of left politics, ‘beyond the fragments’ offers an alternative political form based on feminist practice as a solution to how the fragments (women’s movement, gay movement, anti-racist and anti-nuclear groups, alter­ native papers, socialist theatre groups, trades councils, tenants’ movements, et al) come together. given our outline of a more complex and contra­ dictory role of the state in relation to one of the fragments—women—what implications arise for the formulation of specific socialist-feminist social policies?

Arts

One can scarcely imagine a com bination m ore pro­ mising or m ore likely to captivate the left-wing theatre audience: the brilliant and tormented figure o f gramsci, set in the context o f one o f the m ost important high-points o f twentieth-century revolution­ ary thought and action, the occupation o f the engineering plants by the turin workers in 1920. 3 meeting o f workers representing the factory councils o f fiat meeting in the office o f giovanni agnelli (founder and chairman o f fiat.) sitting behind agnelli’s desk is giovanni parodi, workers, one o f the leading militants.

Arts

The idea that the world appears to us as it does on ly as a result o f a long process o f integrating various form s o f thinking about the w orld into a single fabric o f language, and that this fabric may have to be torn apart to allow new conceptions to develop, has never been heard o f in those bastions o f reaction. t w o o f the best known o f these pieces are micro i — in which a large sheet o f paper is wrapped in a has ceased to expand, and no longer offers apparently unlimited oppor­ tunities to bright young men and women, and is — as a list published in urinal shows — not renewing the contracts o f a good number o f them.