"If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" is a complicated and profound work of literature

I love this article about the book, "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie," because it shows how exciting interpretative analysis can be even with a children's book. For me, I laugh at how we misunderstand the grasshopper and the ants story. What we forget is the end of that story, which is, after the grasshopper is shamed, the ants realize their cruelty is worse is than the grasshopper's supposed laziness, and invite the grasshopper to join them in the food and shelter during the winter. It is why I get so frustrated when people start talking about the "undeserving" poor and promote punishment values when it comes to most economic public policy issues.

F.O. Matthiessen's "The Responsibilities of the Critic" essay is online, but who is this anyway?

I have been reading the book of essays and transcripts of speeches of the late F.O. Matthiessen (1902-1950) entitled The Responsibilities of the Critic, which was published posthumously after Matthiessen's suicide on April 1, 1950. Matthiessen had been a top literature professor at Harvard, and was a professed Christian Socialist, and a Popular Front New Dealer, which meant he cavorted with Communist Party members. He was the first president of the Harvard Teachers' Union, and seconded the nomination of Henry Wallace for the ill-fated presidential candidacy in the even more ill-fated, and Communist Party tinged, Progressive Party in 1948. 

In Matthiessen's suicide note, which he penned before jumping from a tenth story of a hotel window, Matthiessen wrote, "I am depressed over world conditions. I am a Christian and a Socialist. I am against any order which interferes with that objective." Notwithstanding that note, it seems to me more likely his deep depression into which he had fallen into following the death in 1945 of his longtime companion, Russell Cheney, an impressionist artist, and his feeling the walls closing in from the House Un-American Activities Committee for his involvement in so many so-called "Communist fronts," played more of a direct role.  He also had a close relationship with Harry Dorman, of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and spent time in the Land of Enchantment in the 1930s.  Matthiessen's main book, American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman (1940), is a must read for those who aspire to deepen one's already significant knowledge of the New England literary and other arts in the early to mid 19th Century.  For those not already familiar with the references and figures of the period, I admit Matthiessen's book to heavy sledding.  I find Van Wyck Brooks' books to be an important pre-requisite to reading Matthiessen.

Ironically, I found myself to Matthiessen through my reading various May Sarton novels, having read Sarton's fictionalized account of Matthiessen's life and death, Faithful Are the Wounds (1955).  It is a novel informed by those she knew who knew Matthiessen, as Sarton's father, George Sarton, was a famous chemistry professor at Harvard in that same early to mid 20th Century period.  However, because this was 1955, and Sarton was not yet writing novels highlighting homosexuality (something she did starting in the late 1960s), Sarton's character is simply portrayed as the eternal bachelor too caught up in politics to care about any deep persona relationship. In retrospect, and in our more enlightened time, is a major mark against the novel.* However, I found the novel compelling in its presentation of how the Red Scare affected academia and those sensitive souls such as Mattiessen, which is consistent with the suicide note.  I found the novel deeply touching.

In any event, I am happy to report the title lecture, "The Responsibilities of the Critic," from a speech Matthiessen made at a small liberal arts college in Michigan in 1949, is online.  It is compelling reading as one goes deeper into the speech.  His insights as to the rise of television, of highbrow and lowbrow art, Italian cinema and Hollywood, are outstanding and deeply prescient.  His discussion about the Red Scare is hauntingly and poignantly prophetic.

These past months, I have immersed myself in May Sarton and Matthiessen, and their writings have been a salve to the wounds of the mindless political discourse emanating from cable news media and, generally, our species acting like its own meteor.  I have found Sarton's intelligent breezy writing style, with penetrating insights throughout, and Matthiessen's post-World War II elegance, something he shares with Richard Hofstadter and the great post-WWII historians**, to be a joy to read just before putting my head on the pillow to go to sleep. As I read Sarton, who died in 1995, and Matthiessen, I find I am a bit saddened to have missed meeting them.  However, I find I read them as if they were in conversation with me, and find their presence comforting and, of course, enlightening.

*The irony is there is now the first LGBTQ Chair named in Matthiesssen's honor, an honor he may have ironically found awkward, due to his wanting to keep his private life something only known to friends or family.  I should also add I am reading my seventh Sarton novel, having completed and greatly enjoyed, in order of when she wrote the novels, The Shadow of a Man (1950), Faithful Are the Wounds (1955), The Poet and the Donkey (a novella, 1969), Kinds of Love (1970), Anger (1982), The Magnificent Spinster (1985), and The Education of Harriet Hatfield (1989).  I thoroughly enjoyed all of these, with the singular exception of the novella, which I found wandering and not much of a plot line. I have written of Sarton in an earlier drive-by, but I am still trying to wrap my head around a full treatment of her work.  I can say, in shorthand, her work is what some may call a woman's writer, but, if I use that phrase for her, it is one for high praise, instead of the usual derision one often hears in that phrase.  She writes with a demand that her reader be intelligent enough to know who James Conant was, and with respect to similar references she makes in her works.  As I said in the drive-by, reading Van Wyck Brooks prepared me to grasp the subtleties in her novels.  I bean with Kinds of Love and The Magnificent Spinster, and think others may find that a good starting place, as well.  

** Here, I think of C. Vann Woodward, David Morris Potter, and Henry Steele Commager, as my top faves.  Others include Rayford Logan and the still ticking and kicking--nearly a century old--William Leuchtenburg. 

Bernie's pro-gun past--and mine

In the early 1990s, if anyone was to ask me about the topic of guns, I would have said there are multiple reasons for people to have guns, particularly if one lived in more rural areas, namely for hunting and for protection.  I would even add the right of people to overthrow the US and state or local governments, though I also recognize that position is filled with tension because, if one tries to overthrow the government, and fails, then one is subject to treason laws. At the time, I was skeptical of wide ranging bans of guns, and I think I still am. I also viewed the 2nd Amendment as having some limited right of individuals to own guns, notwithstanding the first part of the sentence that is the 2nd Amendment, "(a) well-regulated militia..."  Over the years, and over the many, many gun deaths and gun-related massacres, and learning more about the development of guns that can kill so many people at a clip, I have had to re-evaluate some of my more theoretically-based arguments supporting gun rights. I admit to being influenced by Justice Scalia's majority opinion in Heller v. DC, particularly Section III of the decision, which I have analyzed elsewhere in attacking a San Diego, CA based federal judge who terribly misread Heller.

This article about Bernie Sanders' views about guns in the early 1990s is too slanted in accusing, without basis, Sanders of pandering right then left on gun rights and gun ownership.  When I read the article, I felt Sanders channeling my own views on the topic over the decades.  I also see how Sanders can sometimes fall back into pro-gun owners' rights the way I am when confronted with an urban or suburban person who simply thinks about guns in those environments, instead of in rural environments. On the other hand, I have become less patient with those who scream about saluting the flag and calling themselves patriots when they also say how much they need their guns to fight drones, machine guns, tanks, and trained soldiers--all to fight our government if it provides health insurance to American.  I think those people may be be charitably called fair-weather patriots at best.  I am also aware of the argument that at least one of the primary reasons for crafting the 2nd Amendment was to protect and promote slave patrols.  See here. However, see here and here for a more nuanced view of that argument, which is one I still use against extremist gun right people, but note it is not the only reason for the crafting of the 2nd Amendment.  There is still a sense among certain Americans that the  2nd Amendment is a white man's right more than any other person's right, which one can certainly see in the way the US Supreme Court, in the the 1876 Cruikshank decision, was not friendly to individual gun rights when it was free African-Americans seeking the right to arm themselves against white people who wanted to terrorize African-Americans.  There is also the famous Garry Wills essay in the New York Review of Books from 1995, which definitely enlightened my views on the history of the 2nd Amendment. If anyone wants to understand the history of the 2nd Amendment, Wills' essay is required reading.

I think today's article about Sanders is also well worth reading because it highlights why I like Sanders' appeal to people in rural areas. Bernie is truly thinking about the feelings of such people, and recognizes in his heart and gut their need for home protection and hunting rights.  He also correctly worried about the effects of a tort law bill that would have subjected small gun shop owners to products liability lawsuits, where there was no allegation the local gun shop owner had done anything more than sell the gun. Bernie supported the bill to the extent the gun shop owner could be held responsible if (a) the gun shop owner sold a gun the gun shop owner illegally obtained, or (b) the gun owner knew or should have known the purchaser of the gun did not have a right to a gun (felon, mentally ill, etc.). But Bernie was concerned, as I am, about dragging a local gun shop owner into strict products litigation over a manufacturer's design of a gun or manufacture of a gun, where the gun owner had no idea of any issue therein.  The one caveat that caught my eye was Bernie's concern in 2005 for a local, but large employer, gun manufacturer in the State, but there is where politics meets compromise, something Bernie has done throughout his life when there was no other way.  It is why I wince at how a guy can be my-way-or-the-highway when being the Amendment King.

As Krystal Ball, co-host of The Hill online magazine morning Internet show, Rising, remarked the other day about Bloomberg's negative ads against Bernie for not having an extreme pro-gun rights stance, I, too, am happy to let this information go far and wide.  This history shows Bernie is the real moderate on this issue, and is again within the mainstream of American opinion.  Imagine that. :)

Thoughts about the Nevada Caucus and Beyond

The Nevada Culinary Union leadership better get with the program or face a challenge to their overall leadership. What is extraordinary about this moment is we are seeing a dramatic decline in base belief in corporate media narratives. This occurred in 2016 when right wingers decided for once not to listen to FoxNews, which people forget were largely hostile to Trump (pushing Cruz, Rubio, anyone they could throw out there), and it was, sadly, MSNBFox and CNN who were playing Trump rallies live and uninterrupted for an hour at a time throughout every day (while only mentioning Bernie as a weird, old guy also-ran). 

I really shake my head at my generation and above who consider themselves marginally or fully Democratic Party voters. They have an opportunity to stand with working people, with people of color, and the young people. Instead, they either snarl, speak with total confidence without any polling data behind them, and wring their hands in abject fear as if this was 1972 or 1952. 

Right now, I really don't care what libertarians think, whether in CA, TX, or elsewhere. Right now, I definitely don't care what rich people think anywhere. I don't care at any time what Trump fans who will never vote for any Democrat think, as opposed to those Trump fans open to Bernie--for those marginal Trump fans, I say, Come on abroad a train that lets your best values shine.  Pissed off at both parties' apparatuses and the way corporations and rich people screw you while lining politicians' pockets--and a corporate media which marginalizes your voices of frustration?  Come on board the Bernie train.  Let the horrible Joy Reid, who was last seen putting on a soothsayer body language "expert" tell us to believe Warren over Bernie in their year old conversation, obsess about Bernie in her interview with Nina Turner last night for not being a Democrat, when 70% of Democrats support his ideas, platform, and strategy for winning general elections. Let Chris Matthews, who I am starting to believe is a dry drunk, compare last night's victory to the Nazis taking France in 1940. And let corrupt corpses rise zombie-like (with no evidence of where that help is actually showing up--I haven't seen it at all) to red bait Sanders. These people are so ridiculous at this point, even the old Boomer and up shut-ins are going to have to wake up, despite their continuing trust in these odious, corrupt corporate media employees.

I should also admit, for this fall, I don't really care what even good Democratic voters think in states that still vote in general elections for Trump and modern Republicans like clockwork--because, as long as there is an Electoral College, Democratic Party voters have to realize their votes don't count in any state that is solid Red for any presidential candidate who wins the nomination (same with Republican voters in any State as Blue as CA, MA, NY, and other such states). However, that last demographic by state does matter for the time being, and matters later in down-ticket races. It is a laughable thing for Obama and Clinton fans to suddenly worry about down-ticket when they presided over the disaster of the past decade in the decline in both Democratic representation and political infrastructure. 

However, the idea of Bernie winning the nomination hurting down ticket Democrats is nonsense, as all they have to do is say they embrace the platform, and realize Bernie is in fact bringing out voters who have often stayed home--which will only increase their ability to win their races. No matter which candidate gets the Democratic Party's nomination, the Republicans are going to spend $1 billion in ads, and lie through social media, saying that Democrat is for open borders. That argument will ironically be harder to make people believe about Bernie because he has been foursquare for economic nationalism for over thirty years, and, as Joe Biden said, they can then toss out how Bernie opposed the 2007 immigration reform because he was concerned about guest workers undermining American citizens. Sure, Joe, keep saying that (and not telling how LULAC and the AFL-CIO had agreed with Bernie and had opposed that particular legislation, too). Bernie in fact has good coattails, much better than the often irrationally hated Hilary Clinton, and much better than Elizabeth Warren or Joe Biden or Mayor Pete would have--I think we should put a fork in Bloomberg.  He wasted a half a billion dollars, the way rich people often waste their money. 

Anyway, as more people realize they have permission to vote for Bernie--notwithstanding the cries and threats from corporate media employee pundits--more will come out and vote for him.

I feel so great I did not have to do this research

A PhD candidate at the University of Oxford has done the work I would have had to do about the libels against Jeremy Corbyn and anti-Semitism. I am so damned angry about the way in which Blairites in the Labour Party gleefully and cynically joined the British corporate and government owned media in creating a narrative that was, at its root, false. It is not to say there is no anti-Semitism in any political party in Great Britain. Of course there is, as it is Great Britain and no matter what is going on with Brexit, Great Britain remains culturally part of Europe. And Europe is the center and wellspring from which all anti-Semitism has arisen these past 1700 years.

It is worth the whole read, including links, if one is not inclined to agree with the author's conclusions.   

The Russians don't want Bernie. They just want to upset corporate and National Security State Democratic leadership

Good for Bernie to remind people he opposes Russian disinformation efforts and cybersecurity breaches into American electoral systems. What people have to remember is Russia is less interested in taking over America, but most interested in sowing division. They have a compromised president already, and it is why they push openly for Trump. As for Bernie, Putin knows the National Security State Dems hate Bernie, but Bernie supports the same sanctions against Russia which HRC and Obama initiated. Russia is also not on board with combating climate change--and sides with Trump regarding climate change, due to Russia relying for revenue from its oil and fossil fuel production. Putin buys nothing from Bernie per se, but enjoys sowing further unrest among the Democratic Party's establishment. Unlike Trump and the Republicans, who welcome Russian interference, Bernie opposes it strongly and consistently, and supports beefing up US efforts to combat Russian interference. If the establishment had any sense, which too many sadly do not, they would back Bernie as he would at least support continued and possibly expanded sanctions against Russia, and start to lead the world to ameliorate and potentially reverse climate change.

What'd I miss? LOL

I guess the non-Sanders candidates listened to advisers who agreed with my advice I put up on FB yesterday morning, which is to go after Bloomberg more than Bernie--and leave the Bernie bashing to the corporate owned media for now. The Son called me as I left my class to say Warren eviscerated Bloomberg on Bloomberg's women problem and stop-and-frisk, and even Biden got a good one in about the latter, calling Bloomberg a liar.  He said Warren also made sarcastic fun of, and personally attacked, Amy Klobuchar for having no health care plan except "insert plan here" with one or two paragraphs.  I laughed in reply, saying, Well, it appears Warren decided she didn't like civility after all.

Oh, and anyone telling us the past week how much they want civility, I guess the candidates on that stage, other than ironically Bernie, don't agree with you. I hope you civility police are ripping Warren especially, who must hold the record this primary season in attacking every single other candidate in the series of primary debates. Warren has attacked Mayor Pete for wine caves, Biden for his stance against working people in his carrying water for the credit card industry, and Bernie with the imbroglio over what their private conversation over a year ago was about, and now has finished her attack wave with Klobuchar.  Me?  I am happy with Warren's performance last night, and I think she saved her campaign for a few more weeks. This is what primaries are about, which is vetting each other, comparing and contrasting, and jabbing--and we appear to have hardly anyone to remind ourselves how viciously Obama and Hillary Clinton attacked each other in 2008 (well, Saagar at The Hill's Rising tried a couple of weeks ago).  

I have an additional fact check to the Yahoo Fact Checks: Near the end of the debate, Biden attacked Sanders for a single vote against comprehensive immigration reform in 2007.  Biden knew better and was knowingly misleading as this was an issue Hillary Clinton brought up against Bernie in 2016.  Yes, Bernie voted against it, based upon LULAC (a most prominent Latino organization) and the AFL-CIO opposing it, too. Why? Because the proposal was really a rich people's gambit about completely legitimizing guest workers, where businesses could bring in the guest workers for a season or even a year, and then send them back to Mexico or elsewhere.  This was not a solution to the immigration issue as much as codifying the very exploitation businesses undertake to drive down wages of American citizens.  

However, I loved to hear that Bernie said to Mayor Pete, after Petey's hit against Bernie about the Culinary Union leadership opposition to Bernie, that Bernie had more union support than Mayor Pete could ever dream up.  Take that, sonny boy! LOL.

Where I was wrong is Bernie did not take my advice about using his opening remarks to focus on Medicare for All. However, The Son said there was really no moving of any needle on any substantive issues, especially Medicare for All. He said Bernie cited The Lancet study, which is great.  And he said he would like to strangle Chuck Todd and the MSNBC questioners for their obviously biased question structures against Bernie every time, especially on Medicare for All. I am proud to say he is now yelling at the television as much as I did back in the day.  I told him this is a problem he will face until senility sets in because he knows too much about debating styles and possesses too much information from reading and listening carefully over a period of time. 

The real takeaway for the night is how the non-Sanders candidates showed why people in the Democratic Party (other than oligarch supporters) should never support Bloomberg's candidacy and that voting for Bloomberg is a betrayal of most of the Democratic Party's issues and platform--though The Son said Mayor Pete got in a dig that we can't have Bloomberg and Sanders as the only candidates because neither are Democrats.  Nice, Pete.  That's a sly one!  Plus, there is the very, very subtle anti-Semitism, too, for a bonus. Yeah, those foreigners to our party, both Jews!  Bwwaaahaahaaa!  Oh yeah. 

Now, don't worry, civility fans. I know Mayor Pete is not anti-Semitic, but isn't that just like the argument that the primary is racist because there are now no longer any people of color on the stage?  It's not like it's Bernie's fault he is polling 50% with Latinos and has the highest support from people of color.  It's not Bernie's fault that most African-Americans rejected Harris and Booker, and Latinos rejected Castro. I just want us to start to realize how much our oversensitivity and weaponizing of this kind of language can look when we apply it across the board.  But I am worried about a Bloomberg v. Bernie final battle because it does play into the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which is the Jews' domination of the world through Capitalism and Communism. It's an anti-Semite's nightmare wet dream. 

Anyway, I don't watch the corporate media cable news networks, but I can bet their takeaways are:(1) Bloomberg was wounded, but never out because of his money; (2) Warren revived her campaign (by rejecting her own civility advice, though that will not be said, as it was the main thrust of the anti-Bernie supporter attacks all week); and (3) Klobuchar was shown to have clay feet.  As for Bernie, they will focus not on substance, but use the cudgel of attacking BernieBros again--though The Son said Bernie greatly and bravely said how his own staffers who are African-American women get the same type of death threats and vitriol, and that the Internet is full of such things, though a small minority of people overall.  He then denounced again anyone supporting him who engages in online harassment.  And they will flog Bernie in demanding that the most obviously fit person in the race--based upon schedules--produce more medical records than every other candidate. Sure, I am disappointed he is not releasing all medical records, but I wonder why this is not the rule for everyone. I'd sure like to see Biden's, Warren's and Bloomberg's, too, and let's not assume Mayor Pete is clean as I know I was sure a mess by 38.  Who knows what Pete and Amy have had in their lives?

Oh well, what else did I miss by not spending two and a half hours watching a corporate media circus? 

We are only taking away the greed: What I want Bernie to say tonight about health care and health insurance

This morning, I am off to a substitute job, so no links except for the one about The Lancet study. You are on your own research to confirm what I am saying, but I think you should trust I am essentially correct here.

Anyway, I happened to be by The Folks' house yesterday early evening and they had MSNBC/MSDNC on, and it was screen wall to screen wall filled with talking heads all trashing Bernie Sanders' supporters as a way to attack Bernie. I loved the African-American female talking head saying the BernieBros are the reason Bernie can never get past 27% in the polling data, when of course, that morning, the Marist/NPR/PBS poll, a respected national polling triumvirate, had Bernie with a double digit lead over the next candidate and at 31%--and rising. The ceiling talk as to Bernie reminded me of the ceiling talk Never Trump Republicans talked about with Trump at this point in 2016.

Anyway, I have class tonight, for my transitioning to become a high school history or civics teacher, and will miss the debate. If I was advised Bernie, I would advise him to use his two minute opening to clear the misinformation regarding his Medicare for All single payer initiative. I would open with the fact medical care/insurance now eats up 18% of the entire US economy as measured by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and continuing to rise. Then, I would say anyone who says they are for tweaking the current system, or the ACA/Obamacare, or adding a public option, is only adding to the costs. I would demand that tonight, every candidate reveal what their plans cost, and let Warren talk about her dopey cost approach that relies on an $800 billion immediate cut to the military. The others have no plan for how they cut costs. Nothing.

The Lancet, which is the oldest peer review medical journal in the English language, founded in 1823, has released a study dated February 15, 2020 analyzing Bernie's specific proposal for Medicare for All.  The five doctors and economists concluded Bernie's plan saves $450 billion a year while providing health insurance to every person in our nation and much wider care (dental, vision, long term senior care) than anything now offered here or nearly anywhere.  They said the costs for each person will be less for most people in the US, as the single payer system rationalizes and makes far more efficient the delivery of medical insurance, as it is insuring people that is the main issue.  Bernie's plan, I should add, also provides for free medical school at public schools, expands opportunities for nurses and PAs, and provides home care for seniors so they can stay home with help and avoid costly private retirement homes and such (I know it is costing nearly $5,000 a month for my mother in law, and because there is only one staffer per 25 people, she pays another $2-3 a month for helpers when my sister-in-law is not available).  The senior homes are nearly unregulated and it is a big money maker for the owners.  Ugh.

So will my taxes go up?  Yes, but you will not pay premiums, co-pays, or deductibles, so your overall medical insurance costs go greatly down unless you are truly in the top 5% or higher in income.  Bernie has said it will be a 2-6% progressive payroll tax, so the more you make the more it may rise between 2% and 6%, plus the wealth tax that will pay for his plan.  The negotiations will be over where the rise will occur at each level.  Check Bernie's site and you will see a calculator where you put in your yearly income and your medical insurance costs.  Chances are, unless you are really wealthy, you will pay less and likely far less.  We did it and it would save us $13,000 and change.  But dammit.  This is not about me.  We have survived. This is about the 40,000 dying from lack of medical care each year.  This is about 40 million left untouched by the ACA/Obamacare.  This is about the 35 more million underinsured.  We are still the richest country on earth and health care is a right that is essentially denied.  There is no choice with your employer provided plan unless you are the one who owns the business. The Culinary Union leadership is full of it.  They will lose their plan over the next few years if we don't start our transition, and anyone who loses his or her job there will not be able to pay the COBRA payment anyway.  So as John Oliver's show pointed out, there is more choice where it counts, in choosing docs or hospitals, under a single payer system than this jerry rigged employer health insurance provided system. And unions will be able to negotiate for wages again, instead of trying to hold the line on health care costs.

I hate to say it, but this is a test for the majority of Democrats and the American people.  Can we get our heads out of our collective asses and see that the only way to cut costs, give people choice of who to see when sick or ill, and not deprive people of care for lack of money, is a single payer system.  Read about Uwe Reinhardt, who studied this for most of his adult life as an economist at Princeton before his death a couple of years ago.  He was clear that single payer is the only rational way to go. Any politician who talks "universal access" or "public option" is full of shit at this point.  Enough.  Let's get on with it.  Let us take away the greed. Single payer Medicare for all of us.

"Ron Reagan is a Menace" is now up on YouTube, too

Yesterday, my song "Spoiled Generation" finally made it to YouTube, with the help of a FB friend. See here for the MF Blog, the Sequel post about it.  Now, having been taught how to do it, this morning, I uploaded the then-A side of the single from the band I created, Men Without Work, which song is "Ron Reagan is a Menace."

It's funny how my memory came roaring back as I uploaded this particular song. I distinctly remember writing this anti-Reagan song in 1983. Then, after playing it as a joke among drunken revelers on a piano near the end of an office Christmas party that year, my then and still revered late boss, a rock-ribbed Robert Taft Republican, said I should record it. So, in 1984, I decided to record it, costing me a bit over $1,500, not easy to pay in my still young days as a lawyer. 

For the single, I played the keyboards and did the vocals. For the drums, I retained a friend's younger brother, who was then still in high school. He was a great drummer. He followed my directions for the drumming beats and drum-melodies. To prepare him, I had him listen to Bill Bruford's drumming on Yes' "Heart of the Sunrise" and Phil Collins' background work on Genesis' "Battle of Epping Forest." I came up with the band name as a parody of two bands of the time, Men Without Hats and Men at Work. I had lined up a guitarist, but he canceled at the last minute because his Dad, an FBI agent, warned him away, saying his being on the project would ruin his life. It was Orange County, CA in the early 1980s, after all.  

The single, upon its 1984 release, received very limited airplay on KROQ-FM in Los Angeles (Thank you, Swedish Egil and especially Rodney on the ROQ), KPFK-FM (Andrea Enthrall, thank you!) , and KNAC-FM in Long Beach, CA (a station that played indie pop and rock at the time). At KNAC, the program director quit in protest against the station manager, who refused to let the Reagan song air after an initial airplay. This caused the Los Angeles Times to write a short blurb article on us and the imbroglio.  Also, scattered across America and Canada, some college radio stations played it from time to time during that election year. A few weeks after the KNAC issue, the now late Wally George called the office to invite me on his show. My boss and my parents pleaded with me, Please don't do this, and, more for him than even my parents at the time, I reluctantly relented. I don't know what would have happened if I went on that show, and if it may have changed my life.  On the other hand, it may have done nothing but force the firm to fire me, and then, when my heart went bad on me a few years later, I may have had poor or no insurance coverage that would have left me...well, let's not focus on that. Anyway, the song then disappeared.  In the last five years, two different professional record collectors tracked me down to get a copy of the single (I still have maybe 100 copies out of 1,000 left), saying it was highly coveted among that set. I do say that, had there had been an Internet and social media back then, the song may have had a better chance of notoriety, at least, and I may have more easily found a guitarist and bassist to make it sound much better than this. I still wince at the Farfisa keyboard sound, though I admit it works much better on "Spoiled Generation."

I have uploaded this song more for historical interest than anything in particular. As we look back at Reagan and his successors, and the way my generation and older generations have generally voted, I think this song remains prescient, and shows why neither my Boomer generation nor the older generations still alive should be left off the hook. We knew. And a majority of us still voted the way they did, and continue to vote badly. Sorry, kids. I'm really, really sorry. I tried to warn us, too. It is why I also wrote this short story, "Boomerang."

______

As stated in the previous post about "Spoiled Generation," nothing would make me happier than to see some young people re-record this song with guitars and bass and completely rock it out. All I ask for my permission to use it and we can discuss what you want to do with it commercially.

Men Without Work's "Spoiled Generation" now up on YouTube

Thank you to FB friend Steve Cabiedes for guiding me in putting up this song on YouTube this afternoon. I wrote this anti-Boomer song against us Boomers in 1978, and recorded the song in 1984 in a small recording studio in Buena Park, CA, with me on keys and vocals, and a friend's younger brother on drums. The one difference in the song lyrics is the original version had the line "...when Fonzie and then Star Wars just go sweeping the nation."  In 1984, I changed it to "...when Star Wars and then E.T. just go sweeping the nation."  The lyrics are also in the YouTube explanation section.

Steve Cabiedes came up with the phrasing at YouTube that this song was #OkBoomer before Ok Boomer was cool, and came up with the photo design of throwing dollar bills around the single. 

I wrote out the drum parts for the high school drummer, who was indeed a great drummer.

I will try myself to put up the lead side of the single, "Ron Reagan is a Menace," though that is only relevant for historical reasons at this point. 

Fun fact: There was supposed to be a guitarist for the two songs for the single. However, at the literal last minute, the guitarist's Dad, who worked at the time for the FBI, told him he was destroying his life if he anything to do with this record. Oh well. It was Orange County, 1984, the height of Reagan worshipping in that once hard core right wing, and now more Democratic in many parts of that county.

Final comments: I was 27 years old, and my voice was higher than it is now.  Nothing would make me happier than to see some young people re-record this song with guitars and bass and completely rock it out. All I ask for my permission to use it and we can discuss what you want to do with it commercially. The song is largely in 4/4, with the title line being in 5/4. I'd have to go through boxes in the garage to find the original sheet music I wrote for it.

Drive bys for February 16, 2020

* This article from Michael Hiltzik, business columnist from the Los Angeles Times, contains important information to keep in mind. Rich people often don't move because of taxes, contrary to the assumptions corporate media punditry and rich people funded economists want us to believe. Rich NYers have moved to Florida for years, telling themselves they do it because Florida has no state income tax. But rich folks in NY also move to California, which has the highest state income tax in the nation. Hmmm....I wonder what Florida and California have in common? Oh, yeah. Sunshine and warmer weather. Also, what Trump's $10,000 limit on state and local tax write offs did was hurt upper middle class ($75,000 and over) and long time middle class homeowners for whom moving is not an easy or desirable option, whether in California, Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, or New Jersey, or elsewhere. The article also shows there was a nefarious, malicious intent to punish the successful pro-Democratic Party states, and the irony is, well, the structural conditions that create jobs in those states has not been badly affected.  As people may recall, we moved from the Greatest State in the Union (CA) to the Greatest Secret in the Union (NM) because of medical bills that slaughtered our ability to save or pay down a mortgage, and the fact so many people want to move to CA from other states, and more and more, other nations.  Oh well.  Myths die hard, especially those corporate media owners generally want to tell.  It's not as if many people read Hiltzik's column in the Business Section. That should have been in the op-ed or even front page as an article.  It is no more opinion than the Times' political article reporters.

* This is a powerful graphic art editorial about what doctors see in end of life situations, and why we should follow the Swedes and Finns in providing senior home care as the main option before deciding to send to the mostly private and gouging nursing homes.  This is part of Sanders' signature Medicare for All single payer plan, I should note.

* Ah, the Malthusians are back. Sorry, professor. Blaming overpopulation is a classic rich person's maneuver. Just ask Richmond Valentine. It's the distribution. It is amusing she is telling American and European audiences to no longer have any children, when Europe and the US suffer from a failure to reproduce ourselves to provide support for each other. And if she looked at the US electoral map and dove in, she would find vast swaths of cows and vegetation, not people.  If this professor is truly into protecting existing human beings, she may want to primarily support birth control for women in poor areas, where birth control provides women the choice when to have or not have children.  As Barry Commoner recognized decades ago, after studying the chicken-and-egg question of whether overpopulation breeds poverty or poverty breeds overpopulation, he found it is more likely the latter.  She may also want to speak, with EO Wilson, the prominent evolutionary biologist, whose book I linked to, about putting humans on side of the planet and allowing other creatures to survive and do well, talks about overpopulation, but recognizes other solutions than Malthus offered is far more kind. Oh well. The death threats and other vitriol directed at this professor are, sadly, more depressing because it is so typical, and speak badly for the species in general.  I get that there is bad distribution, oligarchs ruining the planet, and farming and industrial methods that are destroying the planet.  However, if we focus on overpopulation, we are feeding a Thanos-Richmond Valentine narrative for the oligarchs that goes back to Malthus.  Karl Marx was right to attack Malthus nearly 200 years ago, and we are right to push back against the oligarchic-based overpopulation arguments now.  At some point, the crisis will come from inaction or insufficient action, however. And we will see murder on the minds of our rulers, and they will continue to divide us along ethnic, race, and gender lines.  Sad, but it is why we fight now.

* And once again social media helps let me hear prog bands I missed from the 1970s. This time, it is a Swedish band called Blakula.  Give it a listen if you are a prog fan.  Otherwise, it is okay to skip. :)

Taking Bernie's opponents one on one, Bernie wins

The author of this article is no Bernie fan. But this one on one matchup list shows why the argument that Bernie had 25% in NH and that means 75% voted against him is wrong. It was also wrong when Republicans used the same exact argument when Trump was winning 30% of the vote in early primaries and caucuses against a bunch of other Republican candidates.

I just wish those who disagree with me would provide something more than an opinion based upon their say so. I use polling data, knowing its limitations (though not very much in the way of limitations as they are mostly accurate over time). I wait for people to tell me what metrics they are using to disagree.

The lack of empathy may kill us

The NYRB has published what looks to be another story of another liberal minded, internationalist minded guy living in Trumpland, this time Lockport, NY, the far northwest corner of NY State. It is, but there are a few differences, such as his interactions and agitating on behalf of the 8% of African-Americans in the town who are mostly invisible, when they not being beaten or killed by the local largely white police force. And the lefty white guy writer writes about finding commonality with the often Trump supporting locals, when writing a local bi-weekly column, when it came to a boondoggle face recognition technology for the local school district and when a coal firing plant was closing with nothing to replace it even proposed--and how he came up with an idea to repurpose the plant.

However, the article suffers from two major defects. First, the writer never mentions corporate media, and its role in hiding people like him and how it would rather build up racial and ethnic conflict rather than confront the wealthy and donor class who have destroyed much of the nation. Second, the article is accepting the misleading generalization about the Democratic Party and its supposed "liberal" failures, while erasing populist Democrats, from now retired Iowa Senator Tom Harkin or North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan, and most horrible, erasing the memory of Paul Wellstone, the legendary Senator from Minnesota who died in a plane crash in 2002. Third, and worst of all, there is no mention at all about Bernie Sanders and his working class across races and ethnicity coalition.

For decades, I and relatively too few others inside the Democratic Party screamed into the ether about our nation's business and political leaders hollowing out communities like this. When living in CA in the 1980s and 1990s, I heard exactly the sentiments the writer heard (and quotes) from his west coast friends that put down people in rural communities and smaller towns reliant on the local manufacturing or mining industry. I heard such statements at cocktail parties and back room campaign strategy meetings. I was often a skunk in the room in Orange County politics, loudly supporting Senator from Iowa Tom Harkin for president in 1988 and 1992, and opposing Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council, and screaming against the trade deals that would codify the trends that had begun essentially in the 1970s. To no avail. I left the Democratic Party in 1994 when Ross Perot announced the Reform Party, hoping to find common allies in a left-right coalition against the trade deals, against the way in which the prominent Clinton Democrats were more interested in corporate human resources department liberalism. I left in 1996 for the Greens, and mostly for Ralph Nader, after failing to personally convince Ralph Nader (I did convince Ross Perot and people around Nader) about running on both the Reform and Green Parties' ticket. And with that failure, Pat Buchanan took over the Reform Party with his racist appeals and explanations. I wrote an essay on the then new Internet in 1997 about uniting Third Parties (which seems to have disappeared as it is 23 years ago) to find what we had in common, knowing there was, as a radical organizer friend of mine said, a "headshot" with libertarians when it came to economics, though not with respect to opposition to the Empire and war machine, and not with respect to civil liberties in general. And that essay reverberated around the web about five or more years, with me putting people in touch with each other from different movements and parties--all while I was barely making it economically myself and trying to stay alive due to health issues that were costing us big money we often didn't have.  It all came to nothing as too many of my Boomer generation, and Generation X, love our binary politics. I am hoping that may eventually change, or change more quickly if the corporate Democrats deny realities that continue to hit them in the face. 

Global economics, as practiced on behalf of corporate power, has emptied out towns across large swaths of America, from western NY State to nearly the Nevada border. Most Republican politicians support trade deals, with surprisingly far less support among Democratic Party politicians--though corporate media loves to tout the bi-partisan nature of the treaty support, and worse, Democratic Party presidents tend to work effectively with Republicans to pass various trade deals (ahem, Clinton and Obama). The disconnect of the Electoral College and the popular vote are one of the many results of that corporate conservative-neo-liberal consensus, where we see a majority of Americans supporting policies that resemble what Bernie Sanders is talking about and who is elected to run our governments. This goes beyond the presidency.  California, a state with 40 million people, has two senators. We have to add up at least 20 states to get to 40 million people, and that means those states have a combined 40 senators to CA's two. And white people in Lockport and elsewhere, who once had blue collar jobs that seemed as if they would go on forever, saw their cities decimated, and, instead of blaming that corporatist consensus, they are taught through hate talk radio and corporate owned broadcasting to fear the rest of their lives are under attack, and so cradle their guns and blame immigrants. The African-American communities, living right next to them, suffer under the same despair, but add, "Same-old, same-old," and are frustrated, and cynically resigned, when white people bitch and still treat them as dirt or worse.

What is really frustrating is there are actually a lot of Democratic Party base members in urban areas and even many suburbs who have my level of sympathy for rural America, and towns like Lockport, NY.  It's just we don't have money and find so much time spent in activism ends up with nothing, as we see rich supported or outright rich candidates dominate media with advertising and get the cable news pundits' support.  I've seen it happen when we have lived through day to day, week to week activism, supporting left-oriented propositions in CA that fail when the Democratic Party pooh-bahs convince just enough activists to not support and outright oppose them.

Over the years, I have come to the conclusion the hardest thing to get people to think about and act upon is empathy. It is what keeps us apart to the benefit of the top 0.1% to 10% of the monied class. It is what makes us see people of different ethnicities and races, and not systems, as the problem. It is what makes some union people afraid of losing a decent to good private health insurance policy to take a leap into a public plan that won't screw them just because they lost their job, or if the bosses decide cutting their insurance is worth a fight with the union to lock out the workers before they go on strike, and remind the workers they can close the plant and move elsewhere--because they can.

Am I angry that people fall for a con man like Trump, who is really not going to help them with anything other than Twitter rhetoric and calling people names? Am I frustrated about that? Yes and yes. But, goddamn it. Bernie Sanders is the guy sent for these times to unite and heal and this NYRB writer couldn't even find a line to say about that? I get it. Is Bernie perfect? No. Is he old? Yes. But again, goddamn it. This country has had opportunities since 1968 to fix its racism problem and still help all workers against the greed of their bosses. However, a majority of people who bother to vote keep making the wrong choices, or defend the Democrats they elect who also betray them, because those Democrats can't stop watching the corporate propaganda emanating from corporate media cable news, or get their asses out of rich people's cocktail parties and the money which flows to them.  

People love talking about Bernie raising so much money without corporate donors. Yes, that is important and defines what makes his candidacy so scary to corporate media punditry and rich people in general. But we don't talk nearly enough about what makes Bernie's Green New Deal proposal different is its equal focus on workers in fossil fuel industries. We already know Bernie, unlike every other politician running for president, means what he says about helping workers first and foremost, even when dealing with climate change issues.  As the Vox article shows, Bernie's plan is focused on significant things that have little to do with automation (a favorite trope among now departed candidate Andrew Yang, and too many corporate media people who also fall into Malthusian beliefs about getting rid of people to solve climate change). These are:

* Manufacturing, to build energy-efficient cars and boats

* Energy efficiency retrofitting of homes

* Renewable power plants to expand wind and solar power

* Sustainable agriculture

* Engineering, research, and development

And he recognizes there is no reason not to replicate the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) with respect to renewable energy initiatives.  Why have a profit margin that only goes to those at the top of the economic pyramid?  It is wasteful, and there are more than enough competent people to get the job done for a multitude of reasons, including empathy, as long as they are paid just well, and not lavishly rewarded.

In this regard, it has become tiresome to hear YangGangers, influenced by libertarians who have no interest in anything that smacks of an actual New Deal, ridiculing a massive federal jobs guarantee and promotion program. They fall into a trap about people being "coerced" (a favorite libertarian term; watch out, they mean anything nice the government is doing, not gulags and jackboots) into taking a job they don't want--as if a good paying job in a union is less money than $1,000 a month. I have said, let's try UBI and these things. However, I find, after Yang dropped out, more and more Yangers are acting like radical SDSers in 1968 and are UBI or bust, and don't care about Trump or McConnell staying in power at this precipitous time of four related existential issues.  And what are those existential issues? They are: (1) climate chaos; (2) a system that reinforces economic inequality; (3) a health insurance system that benefits the 01.% and causes us to lose our money and our minds, and (4) a system for going to college that beggars young people who are servicing debt, not accumulating capital in their 20s and 30s. We will see if Yang has the integrity to announce for Bernie if Bernie is doing well after Super Tuesday, and try to corral some of these YangGangers into line. Sadly, they are a small, but still influential on the Internet bunch. Still, I adore the youthful enthusiasm of these young folks, and believe they will come to see it is not a bad thing to have $15 minimum wages and definitely fine to have massive government jobs program in renewable energy, retrofitting homes with renewable energy and energy efficiencies, sustainable agriculture, and engineering research and development.

But, again, it is empathy I find we lack more than any other single thing, with too many still credulous about the propaganda from corporate media punditry--and political consultant hacks, who love a money campaign system as they are part of the money made from the ad revenue which flows to corporate media coffers and social media giants like Facebook. The writer at NYRB is so spot on in saying we have to deal directly and honestly with these working class folks the Democratic Party lost. But he never mentioned there are already Democrats out there, starting with Bernie Sanders and Democrats who support him in Congress and in the base, but who are constantly ridiculed when not ignored--and when they speak back respectfully, get nothing, and when they shout back, are told we are rude. It is a challenge beyond any other challenge, when workers are more alienated through our television sets that promise endless entertainment and an excuse to stay in our homes, and where churches get out the vote more effectively than union halls.  We need empathy for each other, which is why Sanders' twin slogans, "Not me. Us" and "Vote to help someone you don't know" are really all about empathy.  And the worst thing Democrats are doing, in certain liberal enclaves, is speaking in language that is racist against older white males who actually are on their side. I know Mayor Pete is a phony, as this brilliant essay from Elie Mystal at The Nation explains in a way I could never have written about with his personally based perspective and insight. But let's not say, we must have a Latina candidate for Congress if the Latina candidates promoted are more likely to side with Blue Dog Democrats or at least Clinton and Obama types in the DNC. I'll take the white guy from a wealthy suburb who is knowledgable about public policy and is a true Berniecrat.  But that is a tough sell when we are all falling into tribes.  

So, what I am trying to write here is not just another white liberal old guy talking about living with the natives who are restless and racist, but hurting all the same.  It is a demand that we listen up and see what possibilities are there for success based upon empathy and intelligent policy making that FDR understood best of all. I don't care about someone's resume built on what their status is. I care about someone's resume for policy proposals and action. I care about that person's sense of genuine empathy grounded less in their ambition than their anger and frustration at the world as it is. And I know corporate media is the existential enemy of all that can be good as we are way too credulous about the horrible people who spew their crap at us every day. But, somehow, someway we have to develop a better sense of human empathy because the lack of empathy may be the single factor which ultimately kills us as a species as much as climate chaos.

Zionism and its Discontents

Here is a decently well-written "inside baseball" essay-review at The Nation, reviewing Susie Linfield's troubled book about historical figures in liberal and left wing Zionism over the past century. Those who know me know I stand with Noam Chomsky and the late I.F. Stone about the Zionist project, despite differences between the two (Chomsky was a fan of cultural Zionism, while Stone was a liberal-left Zionist). For me, I would say my support, and, later, criticism of Zionism during my life has been historically based, and based further upon a particularist and British style-empirical philosophy, rather than an a religious-based or ideological support. Over the years, I have said, when discussing the topic with sufficiently enlightened friends, if I was in my middle age in the period of the late 1930s through the late 1940s, I would be a liberal to left Zionist--meaning opposed to expansionist and racist policies, but still of the view that the creation of Israel was a vital historically based policy for world Jewry. However, if we were to go back further in time, and I was in Europe at the dawn of the 20th Century and up through the early 1930s, I may have been one of the following: First, I may have been a Trotsky-supporting Menshevik, or someone in the Bund movement, seeking redemption on European soil, and therefore opposed to Zionism. On the other hand, if I was less optimistic about the status of Jews in Europe, and less of the view that we could overcome the growing nationalism in Europe (which thrived on anti-Semitism), I would have left Europe, and joined the cultural Zionism movement in Israel with Ahad Ha'am (It is worth noting that both of Chomsky's parents were ardent members of this movement, and it was not simply, as the book reviewer said, Chomsky's father). Therefore, either way, I would have rejected political Zionism, just as the Reform Jewish denomination did during that time up through the mid to late 1930s. 

As it is, I despair for the entire Zionist project, and continue to agree with the late Shimon Peres' remarkably astute book, The Imaginary Voyage, where he admits in parts of the book how disappointed Herzl would be in the way Israel developed, and the militarism and racism that has been  meted out against Palestinians and Arab bedouins. Peres' book was very clear how Herzl foresaw, in his last years, not a "Jewish" state, but one far more resembling a single bi-national state, where non-Jewish Arabs had equal rights with Jews. Peres was much more interested in quoting more from Herzl's later work of inspirational fiction, The Old New Land, than from Herzl's original work, The Jewish State. One may easily overstate Peres' outlook expressed in his book, and I am fine if someone wishes to tell me I am doing that. However, Peres wrote his book at the end of the 1990s, at a time when he still had a fundamental optimism regarding prospects for a lasting peace with Palestinians, and could afford to admit unpleasant things about Zionism. The irony for me is how, recently, I went back to read a book of interviews with Edward Said, and found his optimism about the prospects for peace between Israelis and Palestinians in the mid to late 1980s touchingly poignant. 

As I think about my views about Israel over the years, I realize that my views about Israel may seem schizophrenic, as they are part of my overall contrarian nature.  I am firm believer we are all wrong at one level or another, and at one time or the other. Specifically, over the years, I find I am most pro-Israel when I am confronted with hard-line anti-Zionists. I am most anti-Israel when confronted with hard-line Zionists. This is akin to my sardonic joke about my hopes and fears about America: "Once America goes socialist, I will become a Bolshevik. If America becomes Bolshevik, I will become a libertarian." I then go back to an old philosopher's saw which my first main boss in the law, the late Douglas W. Richardson, said to me--and I can only paraphrase at this point: By the time an idea has become fully accepted by the vast majority of people, and has been executed upon for some time, it becomes wrong. Doug's statement was dialectic, of course--which was ironic, because he saw himself as a Robert Taft Republican. However, his aphorism contains a deeper insight, which is this: 

The abuses from an otherwise good idea often do not come to the forefront until the good idea congeals into dogma. My own philosophy is more akin to Daniel Bell's, which is that economic socialist ideas are generally good for some of the big things everyone uses, and what will be needed from time to time thereafter are public policy based tweaks, as people learn to get around things they shouldn't. And eventually, wholesale reforms may be necessary. In that meantime, debates should be more about public policy rather than ideology.  It is why I support mixed economies more than anything "pure," whether capitalist, socialist, or the other isms that we have seen over the past 150 years.  

But back to my sensibility about Zionism. I am probably closer to anti-Zionism than I have ever been in my entire life. Until recently, I was a liberal then left Zionist who continued to believe in the two-state solution as the only practical solution for two people who have been fighting for over a century. However, as the scales fell from my eyes about the lack of viability about a two-state solution, and, as I had to confront the fact the majority of Israeli Jews are more into apartheid and fascism--and militarism inherent in both strains--I have concluded I no longer have any basis for any continued support for Israel. It is not quite a BDS position, as there is still a small, but perceptible smell of anti-Semitism around its edges. However, my view is one where I say I now oppose U.S. military or economic aid to Israel. Also, I see more Israeli Jews identifying their Judaism with the land they wish to gain and control, while my identification with Judaism is through its universality and separation from the land.  In other words, the political entity, Israel, does not define my relationship with Jewish theology or philosophy.

And to return where we began, which is Susie Linfield's book. Having read The Nation book review, I am sad to say the book sounds highly disappointing. Linfield's intent appears to have been to provide a history of liberal-left Zionism. However, the reviewer reveals her book to be a presentist polemic.* Linfield would apparently rather demonize Arendt, Deutscher, Chomsky, and Stone in the service of a faded belief in a two-state solution, when the majority of the Israeli voting public, and the Palestinians who suffer under Israeli occupation (West Bank) or blockades and bombings (Gaza), no longer believe that solution is feasible. 

So where do I stand about Israel? Frankly, I stand nowhere. Instead, I sit with despair, and find myself more interested in hiding from the noise and rancor by finishing my reading of the novels of the late Amos Oz and now very elderly A.B. Yehoshua (who recently came out in favor of a single bi-national state,). My heart goes out to liberal and left Zionists still left (pun intended) in Israel, and I wish I could whisk them here to the United States--and help the rest of America elect Bernie Sanders for president. The lonely left Zionists in Israel speak much more to my sensibility than the majority of Israeli Jewish voters, and I know they are now fatally outnumbered. I find every rocket fired from Gaza into Israel, every bomb from Israel fired into Gaza, every permit denied to a Palestinian, every water well blocked and then stolen by Jewish settlers in the West Bank, is an arrow piercing my heart.  And I have finally run out of space in my heart for any more arrows.

* The presentist argument is often made against my RFK-lives novel.  That has been most ironic since I went out of my way to ensure RFK was not clairvoyant, and to take RFK's and others' views about the economy, politics, and culture from the time in which people were living as how they would have acted. As an example, economists in the 1960s assumed we would have 30 or less hour work weeks by the year 2000 because of increased productivity, and the fact that, from their vantage point of the 1960s, we had gone from 16 hour days in 1900, 12 hour days in 1920, and to 8 hour days starting with the then sweepingly radical Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938. When RFK proposes things like shortening the work week, with a revitalized labor movement that  has unionized the American South, people find that I am being presentist, if not delusional. Yet, the trajectory under RFK following LBJ in in matters of economic policy is far different than with the break from LBJ to Nixon regarding economic policy proposals. Presentism is a very bad thing in a history because it refuses to give credence to what people in an older time had seen as the history of the time before their time.  In my novel, I tried to do precisely that, i.e. give credence to what people in an older time were relying on in the history which preceded them.

Bernie is a democratic socialist. So what? He still stands for a mixed economy, as in Scandinavia.

Paul Krugman is such a putz sometimes. We, as a nation, have to de-toxify the word socialism. No matter what anyone, especially conservatives trying to not admit the obvious in Denmark, likes to say, it remains certainly true that Denmark's approach is socialist in orientation, no matter what he wants to say. It is a lie we tell ourselves when we try to say Social Security and Medicare are not socialist. And just try to say to a conservative or a corporate Democrat, well, okay, then, let's compromise. Let's have Denmark.  Then, they end up stammering back to Denmark still being too radical and, um, socialist.  What is important about Sanders' candidacy, from the start of his candidacy in 2015, is his push back against the libel against socialist ideals since the start of the Cold War, and the rise of national corporate media propaganda in the service of the Cold War. 

The ultimate answer is a mixed economy, of course. But the US needs to, again, de-toxify the S word so that intelligent, reasonable comparisons and contrasts may be done. Bernie's use of the phrase "democratic socialism" and his policies go back to Michael Harrington, who was always willing to identify himself as such, and understood the point was to move towards the best of those societies in Scandinavia, and complete the New Deal. That is Bernie's aim and intent.

As one reads Krugman, we see his fear is the Republicans and many media people will say, "SOCIALIST!" in scary tones. But that was what these folks called Obama. Corporate tool Obama. I mean, really, Paul, Harry Truman got the label and he was campaigning on single pay health insurance in 1948.  And Harry's response was fabulous (and I have my own deep criticisms of Harry Truman):

Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years.

Socialism is what they called public power.

Socialism is what they called social security.

Socialism is what they called farm price supports.

Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance.

Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations.

Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.

When the Republican candidate inscribes the slogan “Down With Socialism” on the banner of his “great crusade,” that is really not what he means at all.

What he really means is, “Down with Progress — down with Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal,” and “down with Harry Truman’s fair Deal.” That is what he means.

Now, we know Harry was actually trying to say those things are not "socialist," which is how we ended up here. But in the current context, it helps us realize calling something "socialist" should not mean it is automatically bad.  In fact, it can be very good.  What is needed is for us, as a nation, to continue to push back and finally end the scary tones and phraseology about "socialism" so that, as already happens with young people already, the majority of Americans will just shrug their shoulders, and vote for a guy who speaks straight, consistently, and is primarily concerned with regular people, not rich donors or the 1%--you know, Bernie Sanders. 

Krugman's problem is his attending too many NYT cocktail parties. Sometimes, I wonder what his outstanding economist wife sees in him.

When American sports reflect the corruption in American political life, and how only sportswriters are allowed to talk about it

Dylan Hernandez, LA Times sports columnist, wrote something this morning rare in any corporate media journalism when he said Astros' owner Jim Crane is "an out-of-touch plutocrat used to people telling him they agree with whatever nonsense comes out of his mouth." Hernandez then calls the commissioner's report a whitewash and says it was designed to make the manager and GM fall guys, while the dumb, overrated billionaire owner, and the actual players who were cheating, off the hook. Over the decades of reading newspapers, I have long noted how sports writers have been allowed far more leeway to rip rich owners for being overrated jerks in a way political reporters never are. We know why, and you do, too. Sports don't count in terms of changing control of a society from the owners to the workers. Instead, while modern sports is big business, it remains the circus part of bread and circuses, designed to keep the masses busy while the top 0.1% control our lives akin to feudal days.  Chomsky is quite insightful and amusing about this.

However, on the topic of the cheating scandal, I have said Major League Baseball (MLB) should have stripped the 2017 World Series win from the Astros, and that the Astros go down in history as the new BlackSox (If you haven't seen the film, Eight Men Out watch it). I have said the same punishment should be meted out against the Boston RedSox if, after the investigation is complete, it turns out Alex Cora, the third base coach for the Astros in 2017, took his cheating ways to Bean Town in 2018. I really do not understand how the Dodgers traded for Mookie Betts from Boston. Are we really sure he will be as good a hitter when he doesn't know what pitch is coming? 

We know the Dodgers largely lost in 2017 and 2018 because its pitchers were roughed up in both World Series. But now, we have learned how, too often, during that 2017 series, and probably the 2018 series, the Astros and BoSox hitters knew what pitch was coming. I don't know why the players are turned into children, having no agency. Well, actually I do. Major league sports represent some of the biggest money ventures now, and the players at least are highly paid, too, unlike the BlackSox 1919 players, which was why the players were paid by bookies to throw the 1919 World Series. I have much more sympathy for those players, and of course the legendary Shoeless Joe, who either took no money and played great, or took the money, and still played great. These modern cheaters wanted to win so badly they decided to cheat. You know. Like their bosses did to make the billions they made. I think that is even worse than any of the eight players banned for life from baseball ever did. The Astros players, all of them who ever got up to hit in that series, should all be suspended for at least two years, if not completely banned from baseball. And yet, the Dodgers just traded for one of the likely BoSox cheaters. Betts. Oh well. It is at least cynically amusing to see the corruption of modern American politics reflected in America's past time. I wonder what Ray Kinsella's father thinks of all this? :(

My encounter with the late California federal jurist, Stephen Reinhardt, now exposed as a lecher

Wow.  We all heard about former 9th Circuit federal appellate judge, Alex Kozinski, who was a piece of work, but Stephen Reindhardt?  Reinhardt was married to Ramona Ripston, former head of the ACLU-SoCal for many years. Both Reindhardt and Ripston died in 2018, about nine months apart, with Reinhardt pre-deceasing her. Reinhardt and Ripston were a true power couple in a land of power and power couples.  I am shocked she would have put up with such behavior, but then, again, I never understood how Reinhardt heard cases involving the ACLU SoCal branch, or cases where the ACLU SoCal office submitted amicus briefs, without recusing himself.  

My memory of once seeing Reinhardt up close was in the mid1990s. Even then, he was starting to fade intellectually, but was still arrogant in thinking he was the smartest guy in the room. When I had my famous confrontation (friendly, but firm) with Justice Scalia over the incoherence of Scalia's stance supporting "originalism" and its contradiction with Scalia's texturalism, it was in the Q&A after a highly publicized among lawyers debate Scalia and Reinhardt had on originalism. Reinhardt had clearly not prepared and did terribly against Scalia, which shocked me. Scalia, on the other hand, was prepared, and far more effective for his position. Seeing how badly Reinhardt did, I decided to stand up in that room of over 500 lawyers during the Q&A period, and threw my cross exam questions at Scalia--and exposed Scalia in less than 2 minutes on the topic. One may have thought Reinhardt would have been pleased to see someone push back against the lion of the conservative jurists, meaning Scalia. Nope. When I walked up to Reinhardt after the Q&A, he brusquely refused to talk with me. It was my part of my education of how players play, even those who largely agree with you. The irony, of course, was later in the evening, at the dinner (it was a weekend seminar), someone came over to me and said Scalia wanted to meet me. I did, and he was kind, fun, and friendly. Scalia was excited to learn I was a half Italian-half Jewish guy from New Jersey, saying how he and his family were in the Jewish section of Brooklyn, how important it was to his growth as a person, and becoming involved in the law, and how Jewish and Italian moms are essentially the same.  He told a great old Jewish bubbe joke at this gathering, which was sponsored by Orange County Chabad, and he was very charming and friendly. What I learned from that experience was how much Scalia liked good and solid argument, and respected that type of argument. It is why I was not surprised when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would later say how much she and Scalia got along even as they had some knock down, drag out verbal fights.  He was definitely acerbic, no doubt about it. But he respected and loved good arguments.

So, reading this article about Reindhardt being a lech, a sexist, and harasser, is a sad shock, as again I would never have thought Ramona Ripston would countenance such behavior. But Reinhardt was an arrogant asshole, intellectually a player, and therefore intellectually corrupt--and, on top of that, he stayed on the bench way too long, which is why I am supportive of term limits of 20 years for judges.  Yes, count me in as angry with Justice Ginsburg for her not retiring in 2014, when there were some quiet, but respectful calls for her to do so.

The Hill's Rising is the most important political show on the Internet and therefore anywhere

This is Krystal Ball's Radar analysis this morning about Elizabeth Warren. I could not have said it better myself. I loved Warren and am so disappointed in how she has conducted the campaign. I signed petition after petition to have her run in 2015 for 2016. And had thought she was holding back from endorsing Bernie because she was gearing up to challenge Chuck Schumer's Democratic Party leadership in the then next Senate session. Then, she just supported Schumer without a fight.

And here is Saagar's analysis of the joke that was Deval Patrick's "campaign," and then nails how identity politics/vanity/biography candidates failed, including Warren's "self-care" campaign.

If you are not watching Rising on a regular basis, you are missing out on important analysis and people who get the actual narrative we are living in.

The time for Democratic Party voters to reject corporate media narratives is now

The turnaround in New Hampshire for both Buttigieg and Klobuchar, more for Klobuchar as Mayor Pete had risen far earlier, the rise of Bloomberg in national polls, and the stunning collapse of Biden and Warren, proved something that truly does concern me: Too many Democratic Party voters continue to be susceptible to corporate cable news propaganda and political advertisements on television and radio. Unlike Republican voters, who turned back even FoxNews' and other conservative media attacks on Trump in 2015 and the early part of 2016, Democratic Party voters still appear to trust corporate cable news narratives, and believe commercials are real indicators of support; which make the narratives and commercials self-fulfilling prophecies. Even some younger Democratic Party voters are falling for this combination.*  

The woman at the Iowa caucus who did not know Buttigieg was gay, the vast majority of Democrats, starting in New Hampshire, who did a last minute, and panicked rush to Amy Klobuchar--without knowing of her record as a prosecutor being even worse than Kamala Harris' record as a prosecutor, or Klobuchar's carrying water for insurers and medical device manufacturers to weaken the ACA/Obamacare--are part of a piece. It is sad to see this, as the corporate cable news narrative loves to tell Democratic voters how "smart" and "practical" they are, which goes to show how far flattery can get us to do someone else's bidding. The numbers have long shown 80% of Democratic Party voters like Bernie and consistent polling shows Bernie wins over Trump better than anyone else--because he gets white working class Republican voters better and independents, too--something Republican strategists understand. And many Democratic Party voters trust Bernie the most on the issues which matter the most to those voters, compared to every other candidate running. Yet, the fear mongering word about Bernie's supposed lack of "electability," when Bernie has the most diverse coalition among any of the candidates, works to an extent that does concern me when considering the plight of our species' ability to reason our way out of the existential crises of global climate chaos and global economic inequality. 

On television, nobody is talking about Bloomberg being too old, though I hope Bloomberg's birthday this Valentine's Day, making him now the same age as Bernie Sanders (Sanders was born less than six months earlier than Bloomberg)** will cause a few Democratic Party voters to wonder: How come media punditry land are not worried about age anymore? Bernie is old, old, old, but not Bloomberg? On television, MSNBC thinks it is too harsh to refer to Bloomberg as an oligarch, when Bloomberg fits the very definition of the term, and two Princeton political scientists produced a study showing the US fits the definition of a functioning oligarchy than a republic.***  And, really, did Republicans care when corporate media pundits said Trump was a Democratic Party registered voter for most of his adult life? Not in the least.  Yet, there are still voices saying Bernie is not a "Democrat," right up to the present when Bloomberg, a guy who only recently left the Republican Party, and still had Republican Party views on taxes, the minimum wage, and foreign policy, is now moving up in the polling among Democratic Party voters with no argument about his being essentially a Republican Before Trump.

When Republicans and the corporate media tried to talk about Trump's natural "ceiling" in early 2016, Republican voters simply didn't care.  Too many Democratic Party voters, however, continue to be quick to accept that analysis, as if too many Democratic Party voters are seeking permission to vote for Bernie before doing so. Again, look at the numbers above about Bernie being the most popular candidate in the race and how many Democratic Party voters trust Bernie the most on issues they care about the most. There appears to remain a stubborn belief, not based on factual analysis, that the other candidates--flavors of the month--are essentially the same as Bernie in the degree to which Bernie fights for what he believes, and, worse, somehow these candidates are sufficiently trustworthy to do so.  And of course, there is never mention of the fact only Bernie speaks about the military-industrial complex or speaks consistently about building a movement to counter the oligopoly that rules our nation. He knows what he would be up against as president, contrary to those who continually say, "Well, he'll never get anything passed in Congress."  He says, quite clearly, but somehow filtered out from most of corporate broadcast media punditry land, that only a movement has the best chance to defeat the oligopoly which controls Congress and now the courts.  Exactly how Warren, Biden, Mayor Pete, and Klobuchar expect to get what they claim to want passed is never remarked upon for being naive. Remember when Obama thought he could get Republicans to sign onto his health care/insurance plan by embracing the Republican plan and cutting an early deal with BigPharma not to challenge Big Pharma's hegemony? Remember Obama's offer of a "Grand Bargain" to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits only caused Republicans in Congress to seek something far more draconian?  As Gore Vidal said to the Clintons twenty odd years ago, when the Clintons visited Vidal in Vidal's home in Ravelo, Italy, you can't negotiate with the owners of the country (some things are simply not on the Internet, folks).  You must defeat them, he said to the naive Clintons. Wait. See how hard it was to read that last remark about the "naive Clintons?" That is corporate media training, to think the Clintons are hard-boiled, cynical, practical, realists, when they had no idea how to challenge corporate power, even when they sought a mere compromise.

What I hope is Latino voters in Nevada and California continue to show they are less reliant on corporate cable newspeak, and continue to reject cable news narratives. However, we may see a spike in Latino support for Bloomberg after Bloomberg's Spanish speaking commercials air, just as African-American voters of a certain older age are flocking away from Biden to Bloomberg, despite Bloomberg's racist policies against African-Americans and Puerto Ricans during Bloomberg's tenure as mayor of New York City.  And maybe white suburban women voters who call themselves proud feminists may wish to consider Bloomberg's history with women and how he views women.  Just try to imagine Bernie saying that and behaving that way, and how CNN, MSNBC, and FoxNews would have covered that, and how well Bernie would do with women voters. 

It remains remarkable to me how Democratic Party voters can vote for a guy who has already spent $350 million in his own money, yet decry big money in politics. Again, Democratic Party voters in the main continue to be too credulous and trusting of corporate media narratives and presentations, which do not speak to the majority of Democratic voters' economic interests any more than to Republican working class voter interests. So, Democratic Party voters, please consider the following proposition: The corporate media punditry are not your friend.  The woman who shocked NBC's Ari Melber yesterday got it right, but she admits to what sounds like all-day watching of television cable news.  Please, Democratic Party voters--turn off corporate cable news.  If anything, watch The Hill: Rising.  Read The Nation. Common Dreams.  Anything like those, but not corporate owned cable news.

The only caveats one can say to this analysis is there are, in fact, largely economically well-off Democratic Party voters who truly believe we merely need to tinker around the edges and get back to Obama "normalcy," or who still think in Cold War terms when they hear Bernie say he is a "democratic socialist," as Chris Matthews emotionally enunciated.  I find that last bit laughable in the face of Donald Trump, who more fits the definition of a Russian asset than Henry Wallace ever did.  But those caveats do not apply to the majority of what people call the Democratic Party's base. The base is past the Cold War.  The base is past just wanting a return to Obamaville.  The base says they want "fundamental change," but somehow keep rushing toward flavors of the month for what looks like a fear of upsetting Chris Matthews, Chuck Todd, and Wolf Blitzer--and your 62 years old or older well-off suburban white woman friend who is still bitter over the Sanders-Clinton primary of 2016.  

As I said, these are existential times.  And it is time, past time really, for the majority of Democrats to embrace a reality beyond corporate cable narratives.  The majority of our children understand this.  As I said in a FB post last night, I stand with the working class and the poor.  I stand with the kids.  I stand with the other creatures on the planet.  How about you?

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* Never mind, for this analysis, that New Hampshire's new law requiring students who live at school for nine months out of the year had to change their drivers' licenses or else could not vote may have depressed the turnout among first time and younger voters, who were overwhelmingly for Bernie.  However, we learned the overall turnout was the highest ever, which shows, one hopes, Democratic Party members are motivated to defeat Trump in New Hampshire at least.

** How many Democratic Party voters know Nancy Pelosi is a year and a half older than Bernie Sanders?  I guess Sanders should have dyed his hair, as do or did Pelosi, Bloomberg, and Reagan. :(

*** Don't believe the Vox analysis of those criticizing that study.  The argument against the findings fail to take into account how corporate media herds voters into accepting a very limited Overton Window, how money compromises politicians, and what issues are deemed worthy of discussion.  I remember understanding this for the first time during the NAFTA/WTO fights in the early 1990s, where the vast majority of Americans were against the agreements, but the elite wanted what they wanted, and got it. It is not enough to look where middle class voters and wealthy voters overlap on policy.  It is more enlightening to see where the difference arises, and who most often wins.  It is akin to the argument about AIPAC.  AIPAC wins most of the time, but only when the US national security state apparatus wants what AIPAC wants, too.  Otherwise, AIPAC will lose when up against the US national security state apparatus. See here and here for support for this point.