Home from the Dark Side of Utopia (eBook)

A Journey through American Revolutions

Clifton Ross (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2016
384 Seiten
AK Press (Verlag)
978-1-84935-251-2 (ISBN)

Infos

One man’s reassessment of his faith in political parties and revolutionary vanguards.

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A riveting personal memoir that shares hard-earned political insights. Ross's journey mirrors that of the post-war American left. From an Anabaptist hippie commune in the 1970s to the present-day failures of the Venezuelan revolution, he charts a trajectory of good intentions and poor choices, of blind faith in charismatic leaders followed by inevitable disillusionment and, ultimately, a solid belief in the ability of ordinary people to make history.Clifton Ross directed the film Venezuela: Revolution from the Inside Out. He is the co-editor of Until the Rulers Obey: Voices from Latin American Social Movements.

Autor

Clif Ross grew up on military bases in the U.S. and Europe. He’s worked as a laborer, translator, editor, writer, printer, filmmaker and teacher.
Ross edited and co-translated A Dream Made of Stars: A Bilingual Anthology of Nicaraguan Poetry (1986, Berkeley, Ca: Co-Press); Quetzalcóatl by Ernesto Cardenal (1990, Berkeley, Ca: New Earth Publications); and the first collection of Zapatista materials to appear in English, Voice of Fire: Communiqués and Interviews of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (1994, Berkeley: New Earth Publications).
In 2005 Clif represented the U.S. in Venezuela's World Poetry Festival and from 2005-2006 he reported from Mérida, Venezuela and began work on his movie, Venezuela: Revolution from the Inside Out (2008, Oakland, Ca: PM Press). His book of poetry, Translations from Silence (2009, San Francisco: Freedom Voices), won Oakland PEN’s Josephine Miles Award in 2010 and was released in Spanish in 2011 (2006, Caracas, VE: Editorial Perro y Rana) as Traducciones del Silencio. His most recent book was Until the Rulers Obey: Voices from Latin American Social Movements, co-edited with his wife, Marcy Rein (2014, Oakland,CA: PM Press).

Inhalt

Chapter 1
From Nowhere to Nowhere
The apocalyptic world of military-civic religion during the Cold War years.
Conversion to fundamentalist Evangelical Christianity.
Closer look at apocalyptic, utopian, millenarian matrix (AUMM)
Hal Lindsey and the Strange, Ever Changing Map of the End Times

Chapter 2
In the Priesthood of Believers
Arriving in Berkeley and the Anabaptist community
The Simple Life
Radical Catholics, pacifists, priests and poets
Historical look at origins of Anabaptists

Chapter 3
Sandinista Revolution: Liberation Theology and Apocalyptic Spiritualism
Liberation Theology and Sandinism
The first trip to Nicaragua (1982)
Historical look at Augusto Sandino
Christians for Socialism
Red Star Black Rose, radical Catholics and Anabaptists
Historical look at Liberation Theology and Sandinista Revolution

Chapter 4
Wobblies and Zapatistas: General Strike and Apocalyptic Cycles
Historical look at Wobblies; Redwood Summer and General Strike
In an IWW job shop
Zapatistas and punks break the boredom of the New World Order
La Realidad Tour, 1996

Chapter 5
The Bolivarian Revolution of Venezuela Part One
Living in a Venezuela in transition, 2005-2006
What is the “Bolivarian Revolution”
Questions no one wants to ask

Chapter 6
The Bolivarian Revolution of Venezuela Part Two
The Enantiodromic Law: Decline at the Peak, 2007
Ideals and the Real
Elections of 2013
Venezuela’s dark future

Chapter 7
The Place of Utopia, the Utopia of Place
Conclusions and questions