City Lights Review #5

Contributors to this 47-item collection, which includes essays, poems, photographs and posters, ``view the Gulf atrocity . . . as one facet of an interrelated whole,'' reflecting not only on the war but on other domestic and international crises, according to Peters (co-editor of earlier City Lights Review s). Aimed at dissenters, the book offers perhaps predictable left analysis, such as Steve Goldfield's report on U.S. power in the region and its historical connection to Middle East oil and Noam Chomsky's distinction between war, properly defined, and Iraq's ``state terrorism'' in Kuwait and the ``slaughter'' waged by the U.S. and U.K. on Iraq. Jeffrey Blankfort criticizes Chomsky and others for blaming ``imperialism,'' rather than the Jewish lobby, for Congress's support for Israel. Among the many contributions from artists and media analysts, some seem self-indulgent while others hit home: Douglas Kahn contrasts the near-ubiquitous Rodney King beating video with the absence of pictures of Gulf war victims; performance artist Karen Finley, noting the hyped television network war graphics, excoriates the ``military state of the Superbowl.'' (Apr.)