Dialogic Cinephilia - March 29, 2019

Balzarini, John and Les Bernal. "Gambling and Neoliberal Rot - How Our Most Regressive Tax Flies Under the Radar." Citations Needed #63 (January 23, 2019) ["As more and more states turn to casinos and lotteries to ‘fill the gap” in 'falling' state budgets, the predatory and regressive nature of gambling as an alternative to increasing taxes on the rich avoids nearly any media scrutiny among centrists and liberals. Even the Left has mostly ignored the issue––ceding criticism of our most regressive tax to the Christian Right, who largely oppose gambling for all the wrong reasons. In this episode, we explore how lotteries and casinos have come to represent the last throes of the false neoliberal promise of "jobs” and “growth.” Throughout much of the United States, specifically the Rust Belt and Midwest, casinos and prisons are increasingly the only growth industries, entrenching the shift from an industrial economy to one that exclusively preys on the poor and desperate in a never-ending race to the bottom. Beyond the glitz and easy “tax revenue” lies a massive transfer of wealth from the poor, black and elderly to the super wealthy - achieved, slowly over decades, with zero sustained criticism from the media."]

Beinart, Peter. "Trump Shut Programs to Counter Violent Extremism." The Atlantic (October 29, 2018)

Crump, Benjamin and Tamara Lanier. "The World Is Watching: Woman Suing Harvard for Photos of Enslaved Ancestors Says History Is At Stake." Democracy Now (March 29, 2019) ["Who has the right to own photos of slaves? We speak with Tamara Lanier, the great-great-great-granddaughter of Papa Renty, the enslaved man whose image was captured in a 19th century photograph currently owned by Harvard University. She is suing the school, accusing it of unfairly profiting from the images. We also speak with her attorney, Benjamin Crump."]

Gardner, Matthew. "Amazon in Its Prime: Doubles Profits, Pays $0 in Federal Income Taxes." Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (February 13, 2019)




Jordan, Peter E.R. "Repressing the Male Gaze? Sidney J. Furie’s The Leather Boys and the Growing Pains of Post-War British Masculinity." Film Criticism 43.1 (March 2019) ["A re-appraisal of The Leather Boys (Sidney J. Furie, 1963) drawing on the theoretical work of Antony Easthope, Laura Mulvey and others. The article contextualizes the film’s narrative in the historical reality of 1960s Britain and discusses its impact prior to and on the eventual decriminalization of homosexuality. The film is, in many ways, an accurate articulation of a crisis of masculinity driven by a range of social changes, with the result that white heterosexual male identity was challenged and examined as never before. Furie’s pragmatic, apparently unsophisticated, no-frills direction belies the intelligence, sensitivity and integrity with which the director dissects a complex issue and infuses the narrative with a compelling and disarmingly simple humanity."]

Meier, Barry. "OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma to Pay $270 Million Legal Settlement That Will Fund Addiction Center." Democracy Now (March 27, 2019) ["The state of Oklahoma has reached a $270 million agreement with Purdue Pharma—the makers of OxyContin—settling a lawsuit that claimed the company contributed to the deaths of thousands of Oklahoma residents by downplaying the risk of opioid addiction and overstating the drug’s benefits. The state says more Oklahomans have died from opioids over the last decade than have been killed in vehicle accidents. More than $100 million from the settlement will fund a new addiction treatment and research center at Oklahoma State University in Tulsa. “It’s really just the first move in what is a very complicated legal chess game,” says Barry Meier, author of “Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America’s Opioid Epidemic.” Meier was the first journalist to shine a national spotlight on the abuse of OxyContin. He asks, “Is this money going to be used wisely in terms of treating addiction?”" For 3 more reports on this click on this link.]

Neville, Morgan. "Won't You Be My Neighbor." Film Wax Radio #536 (January 30, 2019)

Tebbe, Jason. "Twenty-First Century Victorians." Jacobin (October 31, 2016) ["The nineteenth-century bourgeoisie used morality to assert class dominance — something elites still do today."]