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[...]   find it interesting, though not surprising, that most discussions in the media about WikiLeaks focus on the suitable form of punishment for its editor-in-chief Julian Assange, rather than the nature of the diplomatic correspondence he and his organization have shared with the public. None of the documents were top secret-as they were either labeled secret, confidential or classified- and arguably they should be a part of the public domain. Some people are calling for the arrest and prosecution of Assange for espionage, and the branding of WikiLeaks as a terrorist organization. Rather than condemn Assange, we should commend him for doing all of us a great service. Commenting on the good that can come from openness and transparency, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once said that "sunlight is the best disinfectant."
[...]  

In 1906 — 65 years before the Pentagon Papers and over a century before WikiLeaks — 65 Upton Sinclair applied his own brand of disinfectant called The Jungle. His novel depicted the harsh conditions of the meat-packing industry, of diseased animals and dead rats finding their way to the dinner table. Ultimately, the visceral public reaction to The Jungle led to government reform of the food industry. More importantly, Sinclair shed light on the plight of poor and working people, on racism and immigration, on wage slavery, and the greed and corruption of people at the top. It was a book about an era when, like today, capitalism ran amok. Every generation might not get an Upton Sinclair to make things right, and some generations need one more than others. At a time when some in the media are far too eager to embed themselves in power rather than expose the powerful, the second decade of the twenty-first century desperately screams out for sunlight.

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220ee

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Uppåt

Sinclair Lewis and Upton Sinclair

Idoler från tjugo- och trettiotalen...

Lewis-Sinclair Upton_Sinclair

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  • Sinclair Lewis — nobelpristagaren

  • Denne var endast 45 år gammal när han 1930 fick nobelpriset i litteratur.
    Född 1885, skrev Sinclair Lewis, några få år innan han gick bort, 1951, KINGSBLOOD ROYAL. (Random House. $3)
    Detta är en bok som borde läsas av alla med ett genealogiskt intresse.
    Boken, som i den svenska översättningen heter "Av kungligt blod", (P.A. Norstedt & Söners Förlag) är skriven som en skönlitterär uppgörelse med den grova rasism som förekom i USA för sjutti-åtti år sedan. Kanske bidrog just den här boken, av en nobelpristagare, något till att somligas slöjor lyftes och till att utvecklingen sen gick åt rätt håll.
    En dåtida recensent, Howar Fast, skrev under rubriken "The Broadaxe of Sinclair Lewis" bl.a. att that it is not the lumpen who create race hatred and race riot, but those who are known as the "best families".

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  • Upton Sinclair
  • Ett uttalande av Upton Sinclair i oktober 1934. Denne var en av de allra mest populära författarna på 20- och 30-talet, speciellt för arbetarungdom. Det fanns massor av böcker på varje svenskt ABF-bibliotek av denne författare och hemma på många arbetares i övrigt spartanska bokhyllor var han vanlig. Det var förmodligen optimismen som präglade böckerna som man gillade. Så var det i varje fall för mig. Det goda segrade till slut — nästan alltid, i Upton Sinclairs böcker!
    Länken ovan går till ett uttalande som Upton Sinclair gjort i oktober 1934. Han kandiderade då till posten som guvernör i Kalifornien. Det blev han nu aldrig. Men böckerna minns man gärna.
    Den litterära huvudpersonen är oftast en antifaschistisk hjälte som lever ett gott liv tack vare enorma kunskaper om konst och konsts värde. Med sina kunskaper, kontakter över hela världen och till synes med gott om pengar hjälper han Spanien och arbetarnas vänner över hela västvärlden. I sanning a real working class hero!
     
    Den outgivna boken Millenium: A Comedy of the Year 2000, är Upton Sinclairs utopian vision of a reconstructed world. En länk till upptäckten av den okända boken finns nedan!  

I går kväll såg jag på TV en dokumentär om Francisco Boix. En hjälte i i Upton Sinclairs anda, som bl.a. dokumenterade avskyvärdheterna i Mauthausen, ett KZ-läger utanför Linz invid Donau i Österrike, som vittnade i Nürnberg och dog endast 30 år gammal. Rekommenderas ! (Se bild nedan från stenbrottet) En repris går den 22 april 2001.

Böcker av dessa båda Sinclair´s finns att köpa i antikvariaten. Jag har några på lista 3 författare M - Z  resp.  lista 2 författare I - L.

När det gäller nobelpriset i litteratur så fick aldrig Upton Sinclair något sådant. Men Winston Churchill fick, och en BobDillan, och det kan man ju högeligen förundras över. Jag hoppas att Albaniens store författare, Ismaïl Kadaré, får priset snart.

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Ned       local index       local folder       main index          main folder

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CARL JENSEN, PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF COMMUNICATIONS STUDIES AT SSU AND FOUNDER OF PROJECT CENSORED, discovered a rare novel written by famed muckraker Upton Sinclair titled THE MILLENIUM: A Comedy of the Year 2000.

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Al-Jazeera svenske Mark LeVine 2010 12 16

For professional historians the publication of the vast trove of diplomatic cables is a bittersweet affair. No one outside of the Washington establishment and the myriad foreign leaders shamed by revelations of their penchant for hatred, hubris and pedestrian peccadillos can seriously argue that the release of these classified documents has done anything but good for the cause of peace and political transparency. Whether about Iraq, Afghanistan, or the minuate of American diplomacy, they have shed crucial light on some of the most important issues of the day and will make it much harder for Western or Middle Eastern governments to lie to their people about so many aspects of the various wars on/of terror in the future. Indeed, if there's anyone who deserves the next Nobel Peace Prize more than the courageous American soldier, Bradley Manning, who is alleged to have given the documents to Wikileaks in the first place, I'd like to know. [...]

thanks to the latest WikiLeaks release - the Nobel Committee should demand his medal back and give it to Manning or whoever the leaker is. A new approach to diplomacy-honesty and transparency Already, thanks to WikiLeaks, citizens in the West and Middle East know more than they were ever supposed to about how corrupt, misguided, incompetent and mendacious, are their leaders and the policies pursued in their name. [...]
Källa: Al Jazeera Dec 2010

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Mantel

In 1906, Sinclair acquired particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle, which exposed conditions in the U.S. meat packing industry, causing a public uproar that contributed in part to the passage a few months later of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act.
In 1919, he published The Brass Check, a muckraking exposé of American journalism that publicized the issue of yellow journalism and the limitations of the “free press” in the United States. Four years after publication of The Brass Check, the first code of ethics for journalists was created.[2] Time magazine called him "a man with every gift except humor and silence."[3] He is remembered for writing the famous line: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon him not understanding it."

1906   is Upton Sinclair exposing the rotten meat. The message is, don't buy the rotten meat, or the rotten wars they're trying to sell to you. No wonder Bank of America is worried that they could be next.
David A. Love The BlackCommentator mid dec 2010

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Paul Revere September 2nd, 2010 11:40 am

America's foreign policy has been fascist for at least 100 years with the false flag of the Maine in Cuba. Before that, America's domestic policy was fascist with the genocide of the Native Americans. Now we have the false flag of 911 and the Tea party folks wrapping themselves in their Nazi flag, their ignorance and phony patriotism. They wave their Swastica, flags and listen to the disingenuous, rhetoric of idiots like Beck, O'Reilly, Palin eating it up like a bunch of lap dogs led by christian fascists and their whores in the corporate media. Looks like Nazi Germany in the 1930's to me when most of the churches and the German Media condoned what Hitler was doing. Sinclair Lewis was prescient to say the least. And though it has become a cliche it bears repeating:
WHEN FASCISM COMES TO AMERICA, IT WILL BE WRAPPED IN THE FLAG AND BE CARRYING THE CROSS.
insert CDreams sept 2010

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Julian Assange assange