Steve Clark

Desde las cenizas es un poema de amor apocalíptico a la manera de monólogo interior en el que la voz lírica adquiere un marcado tono dialógico. Su autor, el neoyorquino Steve Clark, sabe cincelar este poemario con un riguroso dominio del lenguaje y una gran originalidad, si bien utiliza hechos que tienen que ver con la tradicion, con la filosofia sapiencial, con los proverbios o maximas e incluso responden a su concepcion filosofica de entender el mundo. Clark, como buen creador, aplica pinceladas de tono surrealista a su voz lirica, y nos muestra un mundo caotico y confuso a punto de extincion con el tono coloquial al que una buena parte de la literatura anglosajona ya nos tiene acostumbrados: resuenan ecos de autores como Anne Sexton, Galway Kinnell, Dylan Thomas o Charles Bukowski, por poner algunos ejemplos. Nos describe las entrañas de Manhattan, ciudad en la que observa con nitidez las evoluciones de estas cenizas, que le arden al yo poetico devorado por el desasosiego y la voracidad de la creacion. Clark no escatima en imagenes ni en metaforas que, como minimo, nos hacen parpadear. Es un poemario que destaca por su autenticidad y solidez, un poemario para descifrar en los abismos del sueño.

La poeta Marga Clark y su hijo, el cineasta Steve Clark, intercambian una serie de cartas literarias desde Madrid a Nueva York donde rememoran su pasado y dan forma a su futuro. Las visicitudes de la saga familiar, su vida en comun con celebridades como Andy Warhol, Paul Newman, Dustin Ho man, Steve McQueen y muchos otros, y la tension psicologica alrededor de un pasado dispar, bañan las paginas de este libro confesional y vibrante.Tengo que reconocer que ese fuego apasionadocon el que uno vive la vida, al igual que puri ca, destruye.Marga Clark

Since Donald Trumps 2024 election, the Democrats have been rightly damned for their failure to stand up for the interests of the nations working class majority.On the outs now and enduring Trumps autocracy, many Democrats insist on changing their partys stance. Too frequently, however, their alternative is some vague resurrection of the New Deal, the social contract that got the nation -- and, in many ways, the world -- out of the Great Depression and World War II and, then, girded reconstruction in the postwar era. That social contract was founded in Americas industrial might, and it championed the interests of the then-surging, US Labor movement, led by the Congress of Industrial Unions (CIO).Yet, the US did not remain an industrial superpower for too much longer. Instead, through the decades since WWII, the US became a superpower -- not in industrial production -- but in science, research, design, management, law, health, academics, technology, marketing, retailing, communications and finance. Today, nine out of every ten American workers earn their living, one way or another, by serving others. Documenting this reality and elaborating a cultural materialist framework to explicate its rise, A Class for Itself reveals that providing service is the post-industrialmode of production and the way of life of our worlds future. The class of Labor that survives by providing service -- of any and every kind -- is the class whose interests must now guide our politics.Though political power in the US is still in the hands of corporate capitalism, most people -- worldwide and, in particular, in the US and China -- already work in the service sector and are well-positioned to fight for the collaborative, problem-solving future that civilization and the planet now so desperately need.Of course, people still need food, and they need tools and commodities to make life work. But, in Service Age societies such long-standing, fundamental necessities are handled by ever-smaller segments of Labor that are supported by creative, labor-saving innovations of the service economy.So, the vast majority of American workers are "servicers," not mill or factory workers. Further, as A Class for Itself demonstrates, the lives and necessities of servicers are actually sharply different and distinct from those of their class allies in todays factories and on its farms.If progressives and, ultimately, the Democratic Party are ever to succeed in articulating a practical, yet programmatic vision that resonates with todays workforce -- its working class -- our nation needs an up-to-date understanding of who does the work in our country. What kind of work do they do? What values do they hold? How are they connected as a class? Who controls and exploits their labor? And, most crucially, what are the strategic, moral and practical necessities of the nations increasingly disgruntled and defiant, service class majority?

As the US Left struggles to define a vision and plan for 21st century socialism, it can benefit from post-Marxist insight in three vital realms: cultural hegemony, class analysis, and state power.

After roughly 500 years on earth, industrialism has reached the limits of its sustainability. Ecological destruction in combination with economic and social polarization has brought civilization to the brink of a new dark age. Deforestation, species extinction, oil depletion, climate change, food insecurity, epidemics, migrations and soaring violence these now are the markers of our planets future.Already bearing down in the harshest possible way on millions of the worlds people, this looming catastrophe this truly existential crisis is broadly dispiriting to progressive and reactionary forces alike. None offer a fresh, practical, revolutionary way out.Instead, while the worlds oil giants aggressively promote a "war on terrorism" that only exacerbates the crisis, the big banks, under cover of austerity, retreat from real investment that might re-stabilize community life through global full-employment. Driven all the more by fierce competition in todays catastrophic times, all corporations necessarily put their own profits ahead of human need, social service and ecological accountability.Meanwhile, despairing Boomer progressives, watching corporations take evermore thorough control of governments all over the world, imagine only a dystopian future in which good people survive in local, self-made, self-reliant communities. But, younger activists, still with energy and long lives ahead and bearing witness to the crisis at hand, cannot abide such gloom. Mobilizing through social media, they rise periodically in spontaneous rebellions against the corporate empire, momentarily occupying its squares but unable to secure lasting and decisive victory. Their vitality begs better vision and leadership from their elders.Revitalizing V. I. Lenins pen name, What Is To Be Done? cuts against all hopeless and debilitating responses with a penetrating update and application of Marxist class analysis. Embracing Marx philosophical materialism "[Humankind] always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve" American leftist Steve Clark asserts that, like other historic world systems (hunting/gathering, agriculture) that reached their sustainability limits, industrialism has already created the forces of its own succession.Those forces are the service class, the people who provide the services that make contemporary life possible: teachers, doctors, nurses, accountants, lawyers, counselors, entertainers, artists, designers, planners, economists, journalists, systems operators, food servers, clerksthe list goes on. These are not the proletarians of Marx and Lenins time. These are the productive forces of a new age, the Service Age.Service production is inherently oriented to solve problems. It has no intrinsic drive to exploit labor or nature. One server serves another who, in turn, serves others. All are dependent on others for the services they need to survive. It is a new way of life with the potential to put everyone on earth to work solving the social and ecological problems of their own community.Clark asserts that the Service Age is already here, but its power and potential is masked by the continuing cultural oppression and political domination of corporate capital. Denying the possibility and rejecting the goal of overthrowing modern-day states and nationalizing corporate assets that is, redefining the objective of revolutionary class struggle for the emergent Servi...

In hard times, dissention mounts.The old social contract flounders and cannot be revived.Reaction asserts itself.Rising forces seek liberation.Danger and risk intensify.Opportunity beckons.Such is our time. In Digging OutGlobal Crisis and the Search for a New Social Contract, two brothers from the social and environmental justice movements open the debate over the next social contract, identifying its strategic aims and political agenda. Theirs is a revolutionary proposal rooted in the power dynamics of the worlds rising service-based economy.The brothers provide a theoretical framework to reinterpret and address festering world problems through local-global initiative. They urge cultural invigoration to redeploy our skills and innovation in service to othersand, therein, to ourselves as well. Their proposal confirms the leading role of civil society. They call for a global commercial transactions fee to curb financial speculation while adequately and permanently funding global problem-solving for everyone.Digging Out proposes a new social contract to advance economic security, social justice and ecological restoration worldwide. It is a clarion call, urging us to unite and demand the changes necessary for a better tomorrow.

Only Fools and Horses - The Official Inside Storytakes us behind the scenes to reveal the secrets of the hit show and is fully authorised by the family of John Sullivan, the shows creator and writer. The book is based on dozens of one-to-one interviews conducted by author Steve Clark with the shows stars including Sir David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst and key members of the production team.