Eclectic Jukebox 5/15/08

John Coltrane – "My Favorite Things"

Nixonian Dirty Tricks, 'Bama Style

The successful GOP plot to have former Democratic governor of Alabama Don Siegelman imprisoned on spurious charges has plenty of twists and turns, but Raw Story's latest piece on the matter (via DDay) adds some troubling details about a series of break-ins and other crimes committed against targets of the (corrupt) U.S. Attorneys in Alabama:

In two states where US attorneys are already under fire for serious allegations of political prosecutions, seven people associated with three federal cases have experienced 10 suspicious incidents including break-ins and arson.

These crimes raise serious questions about possible use of deliberate intimidation tactics not only because of who the victims are and the already wide criticism of the prosecutions to begin with, but also because of the suspicious nature of each incident individually as well as the pattern collectively. Typically burglars do not break-into an office or private residence only to rummage through documents, for example, as is the case with most of the burglaries in these two federal cases.

In Alabama, for instance, the home of former Democratic Governor Don Siegelman was burglarized twice during the period of his first indictment. Nothing of value was taken, however, and according to the Siegelman family, the only items of interest to the burglars were the files in Siegelman's home office.

Siegelman's attorney experienced the same type of break-in at her office.

In neighboring Mississippi, a case brought against a trial lawyer and three judges raises even more disturbing questions. Of the four individuals in the same case, three of the US Attorney’s targets were the victims of crimes during their indictment or trial. This case, like that of Governor Siegelman, has been widely criticized as a politically motivated prosecution by a Bush US Attorney.

It's hard not to think of Watergate. Meanwhile, DDay provides this passage from Thom Hartmann's interview with Siegelman on Air America:

[Thom Hartmann]: And, in fact, if I understand this correctly, you were being prosecuted by a woman whose husband was the campaign manager for the Republican who ran against you for governor and in the middle of the night in one county because of a voting machine malfunction after the election had apparently already been called in your favor, suddenly in the middle of the night when there were nobody expect Republicans standing around, they discovered a couple thousand more votes and said 'Oh, yeah, no no, Don Siegelman actually lost'. Do I have that right?

[cross talk]

[Don Siegelman]: You have it right. They electronically shifted votes from my column to my Republican's column.

Of course, it's easier to pull off this sort of thing when a major state newspaper is effectively in league with the culprits. I'd like to see more digging into this story, because it certainly seems the corruption runs quite deep, and it sure would be nice to uncover all the dirty tricks of the Alabama GOP — and Karl Rove. (I'll add that while Scott Horton at No Comment hasn't posted on Siegelman recently, but he's been one of the best resources for delving into this story, and is sure to cover new developments in the future.)

(Cross-posted at The Blue Herald)

Eclectic Jukebox 5/8/08

Kate Walsh — "Your Song"

Here's her MySpace page.

Who's on First?

Roughly a year ago now, a friend of mine had a great idea for her birthday party. She'd thrown some great bashes before, but for this one she decided to hold a talent show. It was especially appropriate since she's spent her life working in theater and film. A mutual friend suggested we perform "Who's On First?" for the occasion.

When I was a young kid, my dad used to check out short films from the local library and show it on an old projector of his. Unlike the projectors in our school, it had to be manually threaded, which could take a while. In any case, it was a great choice for birthday parties or Saturday entertainment, and meant we grew up with some of the Laurel and Hardy greats. Meanwhile, although this was just before the cable era really hit, Marx Brothers films were often shown on TV (unfailingly on New Year's or thereabouts) and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein made it on quite often as well. (Chaplin and Buster Keaton were rarely shown for some reason, and I've never much cared for most of the Three Stooges stuff.)

In any case, it was a real treat to dig into one of the great comedy sketches. Abbott and Costello didn't originate most of their old vaudeville routines, but they were probably the best at performing them. It's also interesting that it's completely clean (barring maybe the last lines). As kids we thought the word play (and Costello's frustration) was hilarious, but adults love it too. What makes "Who's On First?" a bit tricky to rehearse is that there's no one set script. Abbott and Costello varied it a bit each time. I hunted down some of the best.

Versions

Here's the version [6:54] we would up using, from a TV appearance in front of a live audience. It's probably my favorite. This version is featured on some old Abbott and Costello specials and compilations. I taped mine off of PBS years ago, and it turns out my friend's transcript, that he had typed up himself as a teenager from an audio tape, was the same version. Unfortunately, the sound drifts out of synch on the only YouTube copy I could find, but it's still a great listen:



Here's the transcript, via my buddy.

Here's the version [6:16] from the film The Naughty Nineties. This is the one that's in the Baseball Hall of Fame. It's probably the tightest and cleanest version available, although there's no live audience as there is for the other versions, so you won't hear any laughs. (Comedy is best seen with an audience.) The actual sketch starts after about a minute of setup:



Here's the transcript.

Here's another TV version [6:09], which many folks have posted to YouTube. The video ain't great, but it's in synch and a very good version with a breakneck pace:



I couldn't find a transcript of this version.

Here's a radio version [4:28], supposedly the first time they performed it on the air. The speed is astounding:



Here's the transcript.

Here's a cute, short "typography" version:



The Wiki entry on "Who's On First?" is quite good, especially at listing variations and homages to the sketch (The Simpsons one, with Principal Skinner killing the whole sketch at the start, is a classic on its own). I also found a long but interesting pseudo-Shakespearean version:



Abbott and Costello

Many accounts say that Abbott and Costello performed the sketch hundreds if not thousands of times. I was disappointed that some accounts claim they were scared to try new material, since I'm used to the idea of great performers not being content to rest on their laurels, and some of their other sketches are pretty damn funny as well. The two were hit hard by taxes due to their meteoric success, were estranged for a time, and this interview with Bud Abbott from 1960 is quite sad. (Molière and Bulgakov had pretty rough lives, too.) All that said, their performances were truly great, for the ages and a hell of a legacy, and we can all be grateful for that.

The Sketch

I know some people hate to analyze comedy. I agree that if a comedian has to explain the joke to the audience, it's trouble. There's an element to comedy that's just instinctual and subjective, and you either get it, or you don't. And tastes do vary. I'm not going to explain why "Who's on First?" is funny. Most people understand why, and more importantly, they laugh.

However, for performers, writers and directors, comedy sometimes does require more scrutiny and more work. I'm going to write a bit about the sketch itself and the experience of rehearsing and performing it. Feel free just to enjoy the videos, and stop reading now, if you like!

Perhaps the most interesting part of studying versions of the script was discovering that it's not really one set routine. It's a set of "subroutines." For most of the sketch Lou Costello took the lead and Bud Abbott played off him reactively. Even if the exchanges were fairly set, when you realize the exact script wasn't fixed, Abbott and Costello's performances become even more impressive, especially given their speed. Robin Williams in his coked-out days comes close, but damn, they're quick.

The exact content of the "subroutines" varied, and their order could even vary slightly in the middle, but roughly it goes:

Intro Setup (this varies from version to version)
The Roster (Abbott lays out the roster a few times)
Who's on First (the core gag)
What's on Second (they start riffing on the 3 basemen)
Paycheck (How does the first baseman sign his name?)
The Outfield (Why and Because)
The Pitching Staff (Tomorrow and Today)
Naturally (Costello tries to sum up, gets even more confused)
Finale (Costello tries to finish — I don't give a darn)

In the version we recreated, for example, you can hear Costello bulldozing over Abbott to push the sketch to the Paycheck section, but it all works.

The Rehearsal Process

There's a saying that everyone believes he or she is a great lover and has a good sense of humor. Needless to say, they're not all right. There are various theories about comedy floating around, but for my money (and I could go on at some length) some are horribly narrow and simplistic, most of all because there are different forms and styles of comedy.

Still — and this is something some "method" actors don't get readily — writing, directing, and acting comedy can at times be very, very technical. For writers, after the basic scene works, there's still a process of revision and word choice, paring things down to be tight. For directors, there's the matter of staging things, and working on the overall rhythm of a scene, the shifts, builds and reversals. And for performers, there's above all comic timing. Some forms of comedy require more of an "internal life" or can benefit from that, but in most cases the external mechanics have to be set first. That's especially the case for physical comedy and sight gags. Some actors don't have innate comic timing, but can memorize or respond to a rhythm. Similarly, when it comes to line delivery, sometimes the best way is apparent right off the bat, and sometimes finding it requires trial and error. All that's part of the process. (I do have a few stories about actors deliberately screwing up comedic bits that had gotten big laughs, all in the name of "acting," though!) I don't pretend to be a master of comedy by any stretch, but I have written, directed or performed in a fair number over the years, so I'm fairly aware of my limitations — and slighter talents — in that arena. (My stage fright used to be so bad I used to want to run off screaming right before going on, and while it's much better now, I prefer directing, and would say I generally still enjoy having performed more than I enjoy performing itself, and certainly more than waiting to go on.)

In any case, since my buddy's the better actor (and quite good), we quickly decided he'd do Costello's part. While Abbott's part ain't easy, I have to say for my money Costello's is much harder. He leads almost everything. He has far more verbiage, and if you listen to Lou Costello, he speaks with amazing rapidity but perfect diction. It's very impressive.

After running the scene a few times at the first rehearsal, I found the best way for me to learn the piece was to listen to it over and over and over again (my former blogmate Jim Swanson was kind enough to make me a MP3 from the YouTube video). I listened to it at home and in the car, and it took me about a day to get it memorized. There are a few tricky, snag spots, but I actually found it surprisingly easy, perhaps because for Abbott, much of it comes down to, "If Costello says this, you say that." For Abbott's part, I found it could be helpful actually to visualize the baseball diamond and the names of the players at each position. Costello's asking him questions, and as the straight man, he's just answering them straight.

I was a bit worried that studying the sketch this intensely would rob it of its humor for me, or alternatively, that I'd crack up during the performance. There's also the threat of drying up on a line, or just sucking. It'd be a crime to butcher such a great sketch. At the second rehearsal, I was concentrating so hard on getting the responses right, I wasn't cracking up at all. At the third, though, when we were both off book, and looking at each other, playing off each other, it was much harder to keep a straight face (for me, at least). The sketch is just so damn funny and the disconnect between the characters so ridiculous. And Abbott has to play it straight! (The British have a great expression for breaking character — "corpsing.")

In any case, I'm a big fan of drilling to get the fine timing and the rhythms down, and with this sketch, the responses have to be so lightning-fast, they really need to be automatic. And on the comic timing thing — I found it very educational just listening to Abbott and Costello over and over again, in my case paying special attention to Abbott's choices (mostly as quick a response as he could manage, pouncing as soon as Costello was done, but with some notable pauses in the Paycheck section, when he sets the rhythm briefly). Damn, they were brilliant on that front, and I think anyone who really wants to get down comic timing should study them, Sid Caesar's show and some of the other older acts, along with their favorite stand-up comics, sitcoms and comedy films.

Performing

Talent Show Birthday Night featured plenty of singing, with the birthday gal's parents and brother singing tunes, her daughter and other former students performing pieces she'd taught them, her young son MC-ing, many friends and guests performing, a young kid doing a Shakespeare monologue, a young woman with a Mohawk doing a hula dance... The atmosphere was inviting and encouraging, an everyone-join-in mood, but I have to say, plenty of folks were quite talented and memorable. In our case, we went with our own names versus Abbott and Costello, and apart from one brief snag in the sketch performance, it was rapid-fire and went over very well with our admittedly friendly, captive crowd. We received some very nice compliments, but of course no one can touch Abbott and Costello doing it. It was a wonderful, lovely night, actually, and a splendid time was had by all.

Two added, bizarre notes. Knowing the birthday gal, we figured she'd like the sketch, but she gave a big gasp when she realized what the sketch was (that'll give ya a momentary fright!). It turns out it's her all-time favorite, or right up there. What was even crazier was her mother had actually gone out with Lou Costello a few times as a young woman! We had no idea. Small world.

In any case, I felt like providing at least one lighter post today. Thanks to all the great comedy writers, directors and performers, and thanks to those adults wise enough to introduce their kids to that material and the beauty of a good laugh.

Some Reasons Why I'm a Liberal

(From the great Propaganda Remix Project — 'cause liberals do better satire!)

My high school history teacher once passed on a line he'd been told as a young man: "Anyone under 30 who isn't a liberal has no heart, and anyone over 30 who isn't a conservative has no brain." I don't truly buy it (and neither did he, fully) but while it's sort of funny, it plays into fairly widely-held stereotypes and inaccurate notions about the wisdom, effectiveness, value and competency of the liberal versus conservative approach.

"Liberal, ""progressive" and "conservative" can be contentious terms, but for the purposes of this post, I'd say that the current Democratic Party leadership is not particularly liberal, while FDR and MLK, for example, were genuinely so. The Democratic Party, while more liberal than the Republican Party, is likewise largely beholden to corporate interests and entrenched power, and isn't much more liberal than the major conservative parties of other prominent nations (and on some issues, such as national health care, it's more conservative). On the "conservative" side, I'd say that rule-of-law conservatives and conservatives who practice fiscal responsibility (not necessarily the same thing as fiscal conservatism) can play a valuable role in government. Country club and think tank conservatives, however, are dedicated to benefiting their already privileged minority at the expense of the majority, and their pundits have repeatedly shown no compunctions about lying to do so. Meanwhile, authoritarian conservatives, such as the current movement conservatism of Bush and the neocons, with their continued assaults on meritocracy, competency, honesty, transparency, accountability and empiricism, undermine the very notions of principle-based government, law and objective truth itself (more on these dynamics in this older post, although this post will recap plenty of blather from older posts). But let's move on.

A More Compassionate Approach

Throughout human history there's often been a dynamic of unequal and unearned power in society, with an entrenched, privileged few benefiting at the expense of the majority, and often fighting like hell to maintain that advantage to harmful extremes. In America, this group sees being staggeringly wealthy in a slumping superpower as preferable to being merely ridiculously wealthy in a more robust national economy. According to 2006 United Nations study, 2% of the world's population holds a staggering 50% of the world's wealth, while in America, wealth inequity is now about the worst it's been since the robber baron days (more here).

There's a stereotype of a "bleeding heart liberal" mainly because liberalism at its heart is about a core, base level of respect and rights for all people, regardless of circumstances of birth. It's at its heart a meritocracy. It's at its heart about giving a damn — about others as well as ourselves, and in some cases even about sacrificing personal gain or advantage for a greater good. It's frankly a harder path to tread than those offered by the more common strains of conservatism.

There's a line that the conservative ethos boils down to, "Screw you, I've got mine." Put another way:

Jared Bernstein, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, offers a trenchant critique of the economic, political and moral shortcomings of conservative social and economic policy that he dubs YOYO, or “you’re on your own.” He wittily contrasts them a progressive strategy that recognizes that “we’re in this together,”: WITT.

The WITT paradigm takes much more work, and the challenge of making society more of a meritocracy can be daunting, but as Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland recently put it:

Well, like old Tony Grasci used to say down by the docks, "pessmism of the intellect, optimism of the will" -- there's never been any other option for champions of ordinary people who wish to keep on keepin' on in the often thankless struggle to wrestle power from the privileged.

I'll add that for me liberalism has always been very much entwined with imagination, compassion, creativity, curiosity, thoughtfulness, self-reflection and the arts. It takes imagination to conceive of how things might be better or more fair than they are now. And while conscience can in some cases be a "gut" feeling, in other cases it requires imagination. Recycling and energy conservation are (or can be) moral acts, but they require the imagination to consider how one's actions will affect other people, including people one will never meet. I consider compassion to be the emotional equivalent of imagination — imagining how someone else might feel, imagining how you yourself would feel in that situation, and reacting accordingly. I've known conservatives who give to charity every Christmas, for example, but as the right-wing campaign against Graeme Frost painfully showed once again, one of the defining characteristics of movement conservatism isn't just a lack of compassion, but an aggressive attack on compassion. It's also no surprise most artists tend to skew liberal, since art often questions the status quo, stirs reflection, and can say more than one thing at once (unpopular with a black-and-white mentality).

Of course, people often veer liberal or conservative because of (or in reaction to) their families, friends, colleagues, neighbors, the little talking heads on the TV... Some rhetoric and policies just resonate more than others. I've certainly met some Democrats in my time I'd call obnoxious, knee-jerk and unreflective, but that number shoots way up with conservatives. I'm personally not a fan of change for change's sake, and distrust obsessions with the latest fads without concern for quality or substance. Still, as I grew up, I noticed the conservatives I saw on TV tended to lie, be deceptive or be hacks faaaar more often than the supposed liberals. I've always tried to watch both national political conventions, and I still remember as a kid watching a Republican National Convention where the network hilariously kept panning over the lone black guy in the crowd, while the Democratic Convention was more multicultural and well, happier. I listened to the Republicans over the years to give them a shot, but Mario Cuomo and Jesse Jackson in 1996 and Barack Obama in 2004, for example, were far more inspiring than anything I heard from the GOP. Throw in Martin Luther King, John Kennedy, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Paul Wellstone and others, and it wasn't much of a contest for me. (Meanwhile, polls show the Bush administration sure hasn't won many converts for conservatism.)

Better Policies

I won't go into great detail here, since we pore over policy all the time on many liberal blogs, but in almost every instance liberal policies are far sounder than the conservative versions, on health care, taxes, social spending, education, foreign policy, the regulatory function of the FDA, EPA, and USDA, and a general attitude towards governmental competency and working for the public good. That's not to say that government is always the solution to every problem, but obviously the ideology and approach of those running the government plays a huge role in the harm or good it causes. It's probably not a surprise that the GOP, which claims to loathe government, is so bad at governing, and that the Bush administration has featured so much cronyism, abuse of governmental powers and large handouts to its political allies. The reason conservatives so rarely try to debate policies honestly on the merits is because almost every conservative policy benefits a privileged minority at the expense of the public good. I've often touted Paul Krugman's The Conscience of a Liberal, which gives a great overview of why progressive taxation and economic policies are better both for the majority of the people and for the country's economic prosperity as a whole. Meanwhile, pushing the mainstream media — particular the television media — to discuss the actual consequences of various policy proposals is a key goal of media reform, because, for example, they rarely challenge common, false claims about health care and taxes by conservatives.

A Commitment to Progress

One of my pet theories is that part of the conservative-liberal divide comes down to whether one, however unconsciously, subscribes to a paradigm of perfection or excellence. Conservatives, especially the authoritarians of movement conservatism, tend to worship with nostalgia an idyllic, perfect past that either never really existed or wasn't quite so idyllic for everyone. It's a mentality opposed to self-reflection, one that coheres perfectly with the fear-mongering and scapegoating so characteristic of the modern GOP — In their minds, everything would be great if only those uppity women, ethnic minorities, gays and liburals just minded their place. We have to fear the evil commies/Islamists, the Evil Other, and if we only sacrifice the 4th Amendment and habeas corpus, then we'll be safe. Even though the Bush administration called the shots almost exactly as it wanted to regarding Iraq, from selling the war dishonestly, to invading with too few troops, to botching the occupation and reconstruction, and so on, the real problem is that liberals and the press stabbed the Great Cause in the back. Many of them really do believe this stuff. John Stuart Mill famously observed that not all conservatives are stupid people, but most stupid people are conservative. Or, as Digby's often quipped, in their view, conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed. While the neocons, with their desire to go double-or-nothing by attacking Iran, demonstrate this frightening insanity on the foreign policy front, I'd say this general view of infallibility is even stronger for conservatism on social issues, and helps explain the conservative agenda for social control. Return to 50s social roles, to the Garden of Eden, or the womb, and all shall be well.

Life, however, is dynamic, not static, and a evolutionary paradigm describes reality better than does a paradigm of failed perfection and "sin." As we progress, things can grow better or worse, but progressives naturally believe they can grow better, and try to make them so. Rather than lamenting some lost, illusionary perfection, there's in fact no limit to the progress that can be achieved. Excellence, not perfection, is the goal. At its best, without being naïve about tough realities, liberalism is more forward-thinking, positive, and hopeful.

There's a big schism on patriotism, too. Consider all the silliness about flag pins and patriotism thrown around idiotically and generally disingenuously in the press these days, with right-wing hacks or shallow pundits often attributing their vapid attacks to the interests of the "public." I've previously featured E.J. Dionne's great thoughts on the great, American tradition of patriotic dissent:

...The true genius of America has always been its capacity for self-correction. I'd assert that this is a better argument for patriotism than any effort to pretend that the Almighty has marked us as the world's first flawless nation.

One need only point to the uses that Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. made of the core ideas of the Declaration of Independence against slavery and racial injustice to show how the intellectual and moral traditions of the United States operate in favor of continuous reform.

There is, moreover, a distinguished national tradition in which dissident voices identify with the revolutionary aspirations of the republic's founders.

Compare that sentiment to what MLK said in his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, about making the reality of America match the ideal:

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

Finally, for patriotism versus nationalism and jingoism, I have to go with George Orwell:

By “nationalism” I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled “good” or “bad.” But secondly—and this is much more important—I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests. Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved. By “patriotism” I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseperable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality

It is also worth emphasizing once again that nationalist feeling can be purely negative. There are, for example, Trotskyists who have become simply enemies of the USSR without developing a corresponding loyalty to any other unit. When one grasps the implications of this, the nature of what I mean by nationalism becomes a good deal clearer. A nationalist is one who thinks solely, or mainly, in terms of competitive prestige. He may be a positive or a negative nationalist—that is, he may use his mental energy either in boosting or in denigrating—but at any rate his thoughts always turn on victories, defeats, triumphs and humiliations. He sees history, especially contemporary history, as the endless rise and decline of great power units, and every event that happens seems to him a demonstration that his own side is on the upgrade and some hated rival is on the downgrade. But finally, it is important not to confuse nationalism with mere worship of success. The nationalist does not go on the principle of simply ganging up with the strongest side. On the contrary, having picked his side, he persuades himself that it is the strongest, and is able to stick to his belief even when the facts are overwhelmingly against him. Nationalism is power-hunger tempered by self-deception. Every nationalist is capable of the most flagrant dishonesty, but he is also—since he is conscious of serving something bigger than himself—unshakeably certain of being in the right.

Accuracy Over Hackery

Anyone who's followed the blogosphere for some time in some depth knows that liberals tend to, ahem, swear more, but also care much more about something called accuracy, whereas many conservative bloggers sadly consider political advantage to be the loftiest ideal. Conservatives just spew far more bullshit than liberals. As John Dickerson put it:

One of the healthiest things about the left-wing blogosphere is its confrontational dislike of the mainstream media. There's a distinction here with the media's critics on the right. At some level, the right doesn't much like that the press exists. They don't want to fix it, they want to drive a stake through its heart. The left, on the other hand, just wishes the establishment press would do a better job. The Kos-type critique of the media is intertwined with its passion about politics. When the press gets it wrong, left-wing bloggers believe, the people are ill-informed and democracy suffers. There's respect in that anger, though you wouldn't always know it if you're the target of one of their flaming arrows. (Sometimes they apologize.)

Violent rhetoric towards one's perceived political foes is also an accepted norm on many leading conservative sites — in posts, not merely comments — whereas the same is simply not true of most liberal sites. (I have more on this in posts on Ann Coulter and the campaign to slime Graeme Frost.) I'll add that in the national discourse, beyond the corporate media bias, there's an essential disconnect between actual liberals and movement conservatives, because the liberal ethos is all about being fair, including to the person one's debating, while the conservative ethos is all about power, acquiring it and maintaining it, and honesty and fair play often don't enter in.

A Liberal Tradition

Whatever its flaws over the years, the United States of America was founded on principles of classic liberalism, as shown by the Declaration of Independence and its stirring lines about "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." As MLK and others have reminded us, we haven't always lived up to those ideals initially, but we can and have made progress in making reality match the ideal more closely (rather than believing everything was hunky-dory back when people didn't ask so many goddam questions). There are certainly intolerant Democrats around, but the liberal ideal is to uphold that other great founding document, the Constitution and its Bill of Rights, and the sentiment that while I might disagree vehemently with what you have to say, I will fight for your right to say it (authoritarian conservatives do not share this value).

You can see this divide on many issues, but perhaps most starkly on an issue BH and VS have endeavored to cover in some depth: torture. As we noted in a Torture Watch roundup post, "as with virtually every other issue, [authoritarian conservatives] hold that torture is right when their side does it but wrong when the "Enemy" does it, with no independent standard of morality separate from tribalism." Liberals (and rule of law conservatives) feel differently, of course. But it makes conservatives' charges against liberals of being "moral relativists" just as ironic and false as their claims to be the party of "personal responsibility," since the Bush administration in particular has accused their opponents of cowardice and proclaimed their own courage and righteousness, while continually lying about their own radical actions and criminal negligence.

As Pete Seeger and other folkies have sung, some of the liberal-conservative divide simply comes down to "Which Side are You On?" Who moves you? What causes stir you? As the fictional Matt Santos put it memorably in the live debate episode of The West Wing:

Santos: I know you like to use that word "liberal" as if it were a crime.

Vinnick: No, I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have used that word. I know Democrats think "liberal" is a bad word. So bad you had to change it, didn't you? What do you call yourselves now? Progressives? Is that it?

Santos: It's true. Republicans have tried to turn "liberal" into a bad word. Well, liberals ended slavery in this country.

Vinnick: A Republican president ended slavery.

Santos: Yes, a liberal Republican, Senator. What happened to them? They got run out of your party. What did liberals do that was so offensive to the liberal party?

I'll tell you what they did. Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act.

What did conservatives do? They opposed every single one of those things. Every one. So when you try to hurl that label at my feet – "liberal" – as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work Senator. Because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor.

That's pretty stirring to me. I'll add that I believe in bipartisanship, but only on shared goals with thoughtful conservatives of good faith. If a conservative wants to craft a cost-effective poverty-reducing program, great, we can work together, but if that conservative doesn't view poverty and the vast inequity of wealth as a problem (as the National Review crowd certainly doesn't), there's no basis for cooperation. The same goes for many line-in-the-sand issues such as torture, habeas corpus, due process, reproductive freedom, the Bill of Rights, and so on. There are times it's necessary to make a stand, and the modern GOP has sadly shown that it will consistently put party solidarity and power above "bipartisanship," the good of the American public and the nation as a whole. In contrast, liberalism is about making the country better — even for the constituents of obstructionist Republicans.


This post recaps plenty of older posts, but for all that, it's pretty cursory. Please feel free to pass on your own thoughts, or link a post on why you're a liberal (or conservative, or libertarian), in the comments. Thanks!

(Edited slightly for clarity.)

(Cross-posted at The Blue Herald)

Rick Perlstein: Nixonland and Hack-Slaying

Rick Perlstein of The Campaign for America's Future/The Big Con been so busy recently he needs his own roundup. If you missed it, he's posted some selections from his discussion with David Frum on Blogging Heads TV (via C&L). The usual pattern is: Frum spins away, states a falsehood, Perlstein calls him on it, and Frum will try bluster his way through, issue an irrelevant qualifier, or pretend that being wrong doesn't affect his argument at all, and try to move on. It's really pretty funny (and educational) stuff. As I've commented, I think it perfectly captures the wonk versus hack divide, but I wish it played out like this more often.

Perlstein explores the dilemma of how to deal with folks like Frum:

This navigates us straight into some tricky waters: what to say when, as is so often the case, conservatives utter confident falsehoods in mid-debate that just happen to gel exquisitely with their own preferred arguments? Are they lying? Ignorant? Or merely a bit opportunistic?

Charging any of these is inflammatory, of course, or at least ungentlemanly. And, yes, perhaps even unfair (there is such a thing as a good-faith factual mistake, even one that happens to seem to clinch an argument).

But not charging any of these things might be yet more discomfiting—because you might let a blackguard escape the scene of a rhetorical crime.

As it happens, one of American politics' greatest masters of talking himself out of sticky verbal situations—most often with a quip—derived a perfect solution to my little dilemma. Here's Ronald Reagan, in his famous October 27, 1964 televised address for Barry Goldwater, in a line he often repeated: "Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so."

Just so. That's the most generous, non-judgmental way of describing my problem with our conservative friends.

I once coined a word to describe all the untrue utterances I heard at the 2004 Republican National Convention to write around the thorny problem over whether the men and women of the Grand Old Party were lying or merely ignorant: not-so's. The coinage never took off, but I'm going to revive it to neutralize characterize all the untrue utterances that so casually came out of David Frum's mouth as I debated.

That's a pretty good, polite term for it, and it occurs so often there's certainly a need for such a term. Certainly, as Roy Edroso satirically does, we can consider the stupidity-to-evil ratio of various right-wingers, and as Jonathan Schwarz does, we can occasionally uncover evidence that "these people truly believe the insane stuff they say." I still like the term "to Horowitz," coined by a Sadly, No! commenter, which is when a conservative essentially says, "The fact that my premise was false in no way reduces the strength of my argument." It's a popular gambit with David Horowitz, Jonah Goldberg and… David Frum. Personally, I'm fond of the very useful term bullshit, which describes any statement where the speaker just doesn't care whether it's true or not. But that doesn't play as well on "civil" talk shows, and there are plenty of falsehoods conservatives actually do believe (such as this one). So "not so" — or NotSo! — may prove very useful.

Perlstein solicited submissions for key conservative "not sos" in "Axis Of Um, Um: Where Do We Go Frum Here?" and has followed up in "Notso! — And A New Request."

(I also have more on the subject of debating hacks here and here, among quite a few other posts.)

Meanwhile, Perlstein's new book Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America is out, so give it a look and keep your eyes out for the book tour. A previous book by Perlstein, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus was praised even by conservatives for its accuracy and insight. That one's out of print, and won't be re-issued until next year, but Jonathan Schwarz passes on that Perlstein's auctioning off some first editions on eBay that he'll sign and dedicate as requested.

Schwarz also passes on a speech highlighted by Perlstein over at The American Prospect. The speech's by Senator J. William Fulbright (D-Arkansas) back in 1966, highlighting the importance of patriotic dissent, in this case opposing Lyndon Johnson on the Vietnam War. Schwarz quotes the best paragraph:

The causes of the malady are not entirely clear but its recurrence is one of the uniformities of history: power tends to confuse itself with virtue and a great nation is peculiarly susceptible to the idea that its power is a sign of God's favor, conferring upon it a special responsibility for other nations -- to make them richer and happier and wiser, to remake them, that is, in its own shining image. Power confuses itself with virtue and tends also to take itself for omnipotence. Once imbued with the idea of a mission, a great nation easily assumes that it has the means as well as the duty to do God's work. The Lord, after all, surely would not choose you as His agent and then deny you the sword with which to do His will. German soldiers in the First World War wore belt buckles imprinted with the words "Gott mit uns." It was approximately under this kind of infatuation -- an exaggerated sense of power and an imaginary sense of mission -- that the Athenians attacked Syracuse, and Napoleon and then Hitler invaded Russia. In plain words, they overextended their commitments and they came to grief.

That's pretty timely and timeless, to my mind, especially given that the zeal for war not only ignores all human wisdom, but also the realities of war throughout human history and simple common sense. Perlstein's introduction to the speech includes these remarks:

I've heard that Nixonland can be a depressing book -- it does describe the spectacle of a certain political party whose name begins with a "D" tearing itself to shreds in divisive presidential primary fights and then nominating sweet-tempered goo-goos who get rolled over by a Republican mountebank who'll say anything to win. That selfsame mountebank outright robs the mantle of populism from the Party of the People by somehow saddling the Democrats for a generation or more with the label elitist. As I said, depressing.

Well, like old Tony Grasci used to say down by the docks, "pessmism of the intellect, optimism of the will" -- there's never been any other option for champions of ordinary people who wish to keep on keepin' on in the often thankless struggle to wrestle power from the privileged.

Those are pretty timely and timeless observations too, I'd say. This May Day, citizens demonstrated for immigrant rights and to stop the war. Both are encouraging. And 'often thankless struggles' are less thankless, and less draining, when they're undertaken with other people. The Bushies view the crime of Watergate as getting caught. Since Cheney and Bush are basically Nixon with the warm, fuzzy and occasionally responsible parts ripped out, I'm thinking Nixonland could be a valuable resource. Part of fighting movement conservatism lies in not letting them rewrite history and spread their "not sos" unchallenged. This crew needs to be called out and permanently discredited. It'll take a sustained, group effort, but every little bit helps. There can never be enough hack-debunking or activism for social justice.

(Cross-posted at The Blue Herald)

Happy May Day!

Freedom is merely privilege extended, unless enjoyed by one and all.

Here's the best video I could find for Billy Bragg's version of the Internationale, a stirring tune. Pete Seeger pressed Bragg to write new lyrics to it because he felt there wasn't a good version in English. (In case you were wondering, this is offered in the spirit of democracy and human rights; I'm not an anarchist nor a commie, although I sometimes joke about being a commie with my conservative friends and family to make them laugh. Come to think of it, at least one conservative family member likes Seeger, too.)

I'm not going to get into an extended economic discussion here, but despite what the Wall Street Journal editorial board, National Review and Weekly Standard crowd insist, unions are largely a good thing. Regulations can in some instances be silly and excessive, but they're often wise, necessary, and even crucial (think especially of the FDA, EPA, USDA, meat and toy inspections). Fighting wealth inequity isn't just a moral imperative, it helps the country as a whole, as the growth of an American middle class in the 40s, 50s, and 60s shows us. Sure, there's a national security benefit to a stronger middle class and stronger economy, but it also speaks to quality of life — and it simply makes sense to work to benefit the majority more than a very small minority who really don't need any more help anyway. The rich can certainly remain rich yet without our most impoverished citizens living in such horrendous conditions (and that's not to mention the rest of the world). Contrary to what the right-wingers, country club Republicans and conservative think tank shills contend, all positions to the left of the New Republic — or their own — are not socialist. We currently have the worst wealth inequity in America since the robber baron days. It's funny how rich talking heads paid lavishly by even richer folks and companies always offer arguments insisting that giving even more money to the most privileged and powerful will somehow benefit both average citizens and the country as a whole. It's also funny how that never turns out to be the case.


I had a good high school history teacher who was hardly a Marxist, but knew Marx's work quite well. He bemoaned that it was hard even to mention Marx in a class because many students had a knee-jerk reaction — they had heard Marx and Communism constantly demonized (this was the Reagan-Bush-Rambo era and the last few years of the Cold War, after all). Bullying and fear-mongering are defining characteristics of movement conservatism, and authoritarianism in general, of course. A discussion of any policy on its merits, or any event on its facts, tends not to favor them. But while Marx's proposed solutions to the problems of capitalism as practiced under various Communist regimes in the 20th Century certainly didn't work out that well — and governments everywhere have often adopted populist, workers' rights rhetoric while practicing something far different — Marx's basic analysis of the flaws of capitalism remain pretty incisive. Basically, it benefits a capitalist's profit margin to screw over his workers. That's why, in our economy/marketplace, as in our Constitution, there's a need for some checks, balances, rules and oversight. Sadly, we've been lacking those checks in both areas during this past decade — and in some areas, far longer, going back to Reagan or even Nixon. The government's been on the wrong side of wealth distribution, transferring it from the poor and middle class to the already wealthy. Call it an oligarchy, a plutocracy, perhaps even a feudal or Mafioso system, whatever, but it's quite the scam, and extremely harmful to the country as a whole. There's room for honest disagreement on economic measures, social programs and the like, of course, but let's not pretend that the National Review crew are arguing in good faith or that they give a damn about anyone other than themselves. Let's remember how these people talk when they think no one else is around, as on the National Review cruise:

There is something strange about this discussion, and it takes me a few moments to realize exactly what it is. All the tropes conservatives usually deny in public--that Iraq is another Vietnam, that Bush is fighting a class war on behalf of the rich--are embraced on this shining ship in the middle of the ocean. Yes, they concede, we are fighting another Vietnam; and this time we won't let the weak-kneed liberals lose it. "It's customary to say we lost the Vietnam war, but who's 'we'?" Dinesh D'Souza asks angrily. "The left won by demanding America's humiliation." On this ship, there are no Viet Cong, no three million dead. There is only liberal treachery. Yes, D'Souza says, in a swift shift to domestic politics, "of course" Republican politics is "about class. Republicans are the party of winners, Democrats are the party of losers."

There's the conservative credo: Screw you, I got mine — and everything wrong is your fault. Hmm, with a bunch of people with contempt for their fellow human beings like this, ignorant, unreflective, mean-spirited, dishonest, bullying, scapegoating — I gotta say, I'm really looking forward to seeing their taxes raised next year.

I'll close by recommending once again the work of David Cay Johnston, and Paul Krugman's The Conscience of a Liberal. Finally, there's the great paradigm contrast offered by economist Jared Bernstein: YOYO, or You're On Your Own, versus WITT, for We're In This Together. As Krugman and others have shown, many of the economic policies that help the country as a whole the most also happen to help individuals and families the most when it comes to the whole life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness thing.



(Cross-posted at The Blue Herald)

Eclectic Jukebox 5/1/08

Willie Nelson, Diana Krall and Elvis Costello — "Crazy"

Willie just turned 75 yesterday, so one of his most famous songs seemed like a good choice. Happy Birthday, Willie!

The Soloist

One of the more remarkable stories I've heard recently comes from a Fresh Air interview with Los Angeles Times journalist Steve Lopez. It's about Lopez and the relationship that developed between him and a homeless musician named Nathaniel Ayers. Lopez was struck by the beauty of Ayers' playing, and was further amazed to discover Ayers was playing with only two strings on his violin. Next he found out that Ayers had been studying at Julliard, but had to drop out due to the onset of schizophrenia.

Lopez wrote about Ayers in a series of columns, and now has a new book out, The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music. The NPR link above features an excerpt, and the interview is just under 40 minutes long. It's riveting.

The Los Angeles Times has an article on the movie currently being finished that's based on this story (it's slotted for a November, Oscar season release). Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey seem well cast, but I'm a bit wary about Joe Wright (Atonement) as the director. We'll see. I'm pulling for it, and really hope it doesn't suck. There aren't many major studio films that depict the homeless, certainly not accurately, and the same goes for mental illness.

Regardless, give the interview a listen. I'd love to see the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities receive at least, oh, a few billion in funding. But Lopez and Ayers ' story explores a great deal about the importance of human connection and kindness, and the absolutely vital role that art (or more broadly, creativity) can play in sustaining us.

Since I've been riffing on Shakespeare recently, let me close with:

Ferdinand
Where should this music be? i' the
air or the earth?
It sounds no more; and sure it waits upon
Some god o' th' island. Sitting on a bank
Weeping against the king my father's wreck,
This music crept by me upon the waters,
Allaying both their fury and my passion
With its sweet air; thence I have follow'd it —
Or it hath drawn me rather — but 'tis gone.
No, it begins again

— The Tempest, 1.2, 447-455.

(Cross-posted at The Blue Herald)

Eclectic Jukebox 4/24/08

Sera Cahoone — "Couch Song"

Here's her MySpace and SubPop artist pages.