For ALE's December theme of liberalism we go back to the moment that makes liberals misty eyed, the 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony. Rivers, railways and roads, the Churchill statue waving, the green mound that turns into an industrial hell, Kenneth Branagh, The Queen and James Bond jumping out of helicopters, Mary Poppins and the NHS beds jazz sequence... 


 


A high watermark for the Kingdom or a revealing window into the papier mâché heart of 21st Century liberalism? Who can say?  


 


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The Complete London 2012 Opening Ceremony 


 


Nick Clegg backs face-sitting protesters over UK porn ban - Andrew Grice in The Independent (2020) 


 


Baron Harkonnen 


 


Industrial Revolution sequence from the ceremony 


 


Brunel giving Caliban's speech from The Tempest  


 


The Queen and James Bond sequence from the ceremony 


 


Carl Schmitt at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 


 


NHS sequence from the ceremony 


 


London 2012 organisers had to stop Jeremy Hunt putting Hitler in the opening ceremony, documentary reveals - Caroline Mortimer in The Independent (2016) 


 


Comradio Film Club #1: Mank 


 


Eclipse section from the ceremony 


 


"WHEN ERIC CLAPTON’S BIGOTED 1976 RANT SPARKED ROCK AGAINST RACISM" 


 


What the Olympics didn’t say about Britain’s place in the world - Eric Taylor Woods (2012) 


 


Neofeudalism: The End of Capitalism? - Jodi Dean in LARB (2020) 


 


Does Neo-Feudalism Define Our Current Epoch? - Louis Proyect for Counterpunch (2020)

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