Leaders Waffle on the possible Ukraine Peace Deal

What do they mean? Starmer and the rest of the western leaders who are not actually involved in the negotiations over peace between the US, Russia and Ukraine, and obviously sore about this, say they want security guarantees for Ukraine to ensure the peace deal with Russia, which has not happened yet, and which is currently winning on the battlefield. One supposes that they must look as if they are having something to do with it. Yet it is the security guarantee that would be provided by Ukraine joining Nato which has been a big factor in sparking this war. Zelensky constantly demands this membership from the west, ignoring the fact that this would, if Nato worked as it should, automatically spark WWIII. Like it or not, the Russians regard being encircled by a military alliance of western powers as aggressive, and particularly Ukraine, which has the history of being an avenue for the invasion of Russia/Soviet Union and has a legacy of fascism amongst a proportion of its leadership. So how could these leader’s demand for security guarantees ever be a factor that could help bring about peace? In fact, they cannot be, they are really a demand for more of the same war, if they are not just waffle, hot air, bluster, which they are.

It has become at least obvious with US president Trump, who needs some recognition for trying to save lives with a peace deal, that there are two imperialist ambitions at work on this battleground, fighting over resources and security positions, and Ukraine does not have much say in this, only those of its leaders who seek to sell out entirely to the US, that is, if it can be cajoled into entirely destroying Russia. On both sides working class people are being killed just to achieve certain objectives of their respective ruling classes.

Review of The French Connection by Iona Singh

The French Connection 1975 

Director William Friedkin

Gene Hackman has just left us and I couldn't help but have another look at his character frantically dashing around the sooty, trafficky streets of New York in The French Connection. Those annoying background noises and conversations that are hard to hear against the rumbling traffic and whirling wind, create a sort of anarchy of the senses that relies on the human centre pieces of Hackman and his sidekick Roy Schneider to bring a little narrative to the chaos. The two very unfilm-star type actors only just stand out from the city scape and very little looks like a  film-set here, offering us a glimpse of abandonned rubbish strewn spaces that foreigners rarely see. All just home to Popeye Doyle with his silly small hat, and with no one around to play the 'good cop' to he can unleash his dubious but comical "feet picking in Poughkeepsie" police tactics, unconcerned with what side of the racism line he appears to be on. 

Later, the 'french' bad guys, played by Fernando Rey and Marcel Bozzuffi (equally de-centred actors from European cinema) calm, twee and quite middle-class, feast in a posh restaurant, watched over by the two freezing policeman from across the street, cold pizza and terrible coffee in hand, catapulting our slob-hero's desire to catch them to insane levels later encapsulated in the frenetic elevated rail sequence, which must be one of the best car chases ever filmed. 

The 'cursory' style of filming New York City and its inhabitants, is boosted by theme music by the great jazz trumpeter Don Ellis, along with the fact that we only just overhear incidental 'snippets' of standard plot amidst the bustle, and the use of non-actors in supporting roles. Elements that make the movie formally a little bit radical and the homogeneity of all of that, the communication between the various departments, especially sound and wardrobe is wonderful. It holds up well in time. Maybe it is one of the best films.

Visually and aesthetically, looking at its influences, The French Connection is an example from a number of films that owe their existence to the 'incidental' work of groundbreaking 20th century street photographers like Gary Winogrand, Gordon Parks, Neil Libbert and Lawrence Shustak.

Gene Hackman in The French Connection

Still from The French Connection

Neil Libbert, 42 Street 1960

 Garry Winogrand, Utah (Wyoming), 1964

Lawrence Shustak, Street photographer

Gordon Park. A Harlem Family 1967