I have already written that I recognise that Michael is a great artist and that Roger and Me is a great film. But I have also been critical of what I consider to be the descent into the grotesque in this film particularly in its portrayal of the rabbit lady.
But most important of all I write to welcome Michael's replying to what we have had to say, and I insist that we should grasp the importance of the dialog that we have been offered. The big question is are we able to?
I have also written elsewhere about the role of the Left in cultural criticism and politics. Our record is by and large abysmal. Nevertheless we do know some things and we are the possessors of some truths and at some stage the working class will have to overcome its fear and hatred of us to create the true revolutionary movement/party we desperately need.
At present the political and cultural weaknesses of the working class means that they are condemned to a life of increasing misery, while we on the middle class left have our own hell of wretched marginality.
Here in Brisbane on May Day I was witness to the spectacle of the workers reacting to the High Court decision to order the reinstatement of the sacked waterside workers in the way that the media and their officials told them to. The workers were convinced by these parties that they had won. In their joy they seized their officials and tossed them up into the air. These same officials have betrayed them deeply. The mas movement has been demobilised and the union has been trapped in the courts. I knew all this but there was no way the workers would have listened to any of this.
However when the day comes that the working class throw the same officials up but refuse to catch them on the way down, we will be in business.
regards
Gary