Andre Vltchek on Empire, Revolution, and Art.

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=By= CounterPunch Radio Interviews Andre Vltchek

De Typemachine Festival (Creative Commons)

In this episode of CounterPunch Radio, our Contributing Editor and Roaming Correspondent Extraordinaire for the Left, Andre Vltchek, engages in brief discussion of his new book, Exposing Lies of Empire, in which he puts a truly human face on the imperialism of the Untied States. He then enters into a broader and deeper commentary on a variety of issues from the intellectual milieu of contemporary “thinkers,” to the role of art and philosophy in revolution. He argues that there is a tremendous gap as many in the intelligentsia seem to actively avoid the artistic side of expression; the literature of art, poetry, and fiction.

Here is one short quote to whet your appetite.

“As a philosopher I want to divorce philosophy from the university, universities, from academia. I think philosophy belongs to the barricades now. It belongs to the slums. The same thing with fiction. We are living long decades when fiction and films both feature and documentary lost passion. They lost ideology. And I really think people need ideology; they need passion; they need to also dream. A lot of, in the west, a lot of non-fiction writers activists, a lot of left wing thinkers, they actually don’t read fiction. Even some of my friends (I’d better not say) but even some greatest names in left wing intellectual milieu, they don’t touch a book of poetry; they don’t a book of fiction; yet some of the greatest cries for revolution in Latin America and Russia, but also in China, are written in poetry.”

The interview goes on to discuss the view of the actions of empire from the perspective of the global south, and the activism of people around the globe.

Contributing Editor Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His latest books are: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”. Discussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western Terrorism. Point of No Return is his critically acclaimed political novel. Oceania – a book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about Indonesia: “Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear”. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Press TV. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and the Middle East. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter.

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