Category: Best

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“Smothered” on PBS

PBS recently showed a documentary (“Smothered”) on the struggle between Tommy Smothers and CBS brass over content of the “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” shown on CBS from  1967 to 1969.

You might have expected a fairly ideological blast at the network heavies for crassly suppressing the free-spirited higher consciousness of the rebellious 60’s but the film is actually fairly nuanced and even-handed. For example, it shows us that CBS actually permitted Pete Seeger– who had been blacklisted during the McCarthy era– to appear on the show. And then it excised “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy” for it’s allusion to Johnson in Viet Nam: “and the old fool said ‘to push on'”. And then, after the Smothers Brothers protested to the print media, allowed them to show it after all. Clearly, CBS brass was concerned about getting flack from someone– the White House, most likely– about a song that slyly and cleverly attacked the Viet Nam War and Lyndon Johnson himself. Yet, in the end, they let it go on.

The contract Tommy Smothers signed with CBS gave him “creative control” over the show, so CBS was clearly not within the spirit of the agreement to continue, through the life of the show, demanding cuts and excisions based on it’s own programming and practices code. On balance, however, the documentary is not shy about pointing out Tommy Smothers’ own ornery contrariness over the issue. Certainly, he wanted cutting edge writers and comedians, and he wanted the show to be daring and relevant. But he also seemed to actively court controversy and at times he was clearly arrogant about his own perceived power– “The Smothers Brothers” shockingly ousted long-time champion “Bonanza” from the No.1 spot in the television ratings.

You come away with the impression that CBS wasn’t all that bad. They allowed Joan Baez to appear, but cut out her comments about her draft-dodger husband. They nitpicked a lot. Maybe they expected Smothers to eventually just give in and self-censor: “oh, they’ll never let us do that anyway, so let’s take it out”, which is what most television people did. Tommy Smothers astutely observed at one point that America liked to have some dissidents on TV to show that they were a broad-minded, tolerant country… but not in prime-time.

“The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” never used canned laughter or applause, and treated their guests with respect. Tommy Smothers recruited some the best young comedic talent in the business, including Rob Reiner, Mason Williams, and Steve Martin, and clearly influenced the development of Saturday Night Live a few years later.

And it was one of those young talents– David Steinberg– that finally drove CBS over the edge, with a “sermon” on Jonah and the Whale. Knowing that CBS would never allow the sketch (after a torrent of angry letters about an earlier, similar sketch about Moses), Tommy Smothers refused to turn in the tape of the show early enough to allow CBS censors and the affiliates to preview it. CBS used the technicality to cancel the show. The Smothers Brothers sued CBS for breach of contract and eventually won.

By the way, the documentary left out the funniest line of the Moses sketch. Moses stands before the burning bush and God asks him to remove his sandals. But the ground was hot and burned Moses’ feet. And for the first time in the Bible the words “Jesus Christ” were uttered.

How about that– more than 30 years later, I still remember that line.

Don’t forget– Bill Maher’s show “Politically Incorrect” was cancelled when he said something that really was politically incorrect (that the hi-jackers of the planes on 9/11 were, whatever else you say about them, courageous). And in spite of the fact that conservatives would love you to believe that it is the liberals, the feminists, and so on, who promote political correctness, it is almost always, in fact, the conservatives who ban and censor and harass those who disagree with them. (After all, one of the liberal values that conservatives dislike is the attitude of tolerance of diversity.)

Do you think James Dobson would ever have Naomi Klein on his show? Would Liberty University ever invite Hillary Clinton to speak?  Would John Hagee offer a spokesman for the Palestinians to discuss his views on Israel?

Anne Coulter might like you to believe that the liberals in control at some universities won’t invite her to speak because she is so, so… controversial. No, it’s because you’re a feather.

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Twelve-year-olds of America: Unite!

If I were an American 12-year-old right now, I would get on the web, set up a new site called something like www.boston_tea_party2008.com and start up an online petition. The petition will be to designate a representative to go to Washington and appear before Congress– with a phalanx of media, of course– to announce that the future taxpayers of America– today’s children and young people—do not agree to pay to bail out this generation from their own folly. They will not pay for the war. They will not pay for tax cuts to the rich. They will not pay for obscenely over-priced fighter planes.

Barack Obama does not have $750,000,000,000 and neither does George Bush. The U.S. government does not have this money either. The U.S. government has done something rather shocking. They borrowed the money from the 12-year-olds… without their consent. Yes, they are going to give the money to the big banks and the Detroit 3, and then they are going to pass the bill on to future taxpayers. They’re charging it all to our children.

No 12-year-old voted for Obama or Bush. They didn’t vote for Clinton either or anybody else who contributed to this mess. So why the hell should they pay for it? Why on earth should they simply accept that they are on the hook for this money? Since they didn’t vote for it, I think they have every right in the world to walk away from it.

I think this idea could really gather some momentum. It should start at a local school level with grade nine students meeting at lunch to elect a representative. All city and all county representatives would follow, and would meet at the state capital to elect national reps. They meet in Washington, with some cool adult chaperones, of course, like maybe Kristen Stewart and Bruce Springsteen, and then they march to the Capitol buildings and announce that the future tax-payers will not pay this bill.

The mechanism for doing this might be complicated. They could sell off a couple of aircraft carriers, and some national parks, and the statue of liberty. Might not be enough. They might have to simply garnishee it from social security. How do you like that?

While they’re at it, they should also announce they are not going to fight any more wars on behalf of old feeble rich white men anymore either. Any future war would have to have congressional support from more than half of all the black or Hispanic or female members. How ’bout that?

Added 2011-09:  Okay, I’m just saying. In essence, the government is borrowing money to buy a house for themselves but will also be available to the 12-year-olds to live in. When they are old enough, they will have to pay their share of the mortgage.

But it is also true that if you took away the insane massive tax cuts given to the wealthiest people in the country and the corporations, you could easily pay for all of the government programs and the wars and the weapons that are reasonably affordable.  What I object to is that while soldiers and middle-income earners make sacrifices for the war– big ones– the rich are actually making out like bandits with reductions to their tax burden.

That is obscene.

And the truth is, given a choice, the 12-year-olds will demand to live in the house that they don’t want to pay for. I’m just saying….

What would actually happen if the 12-year-olds of America could do this? Revoke their obligations to the present generation of borrowers? Who would loan the government money if it seemed the the next generations would simply revoke their obligations?

If only. The lenders would simply destroy the U.S. economy. Think it can’t be done? The Americans threatened to do it to the British and French over the Suez crisis in 1956. [Read the section under “Financial Pressures”.]

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The Mainstream Media is Right

In today’s Washington Post– and all over the place, actually– several right wing pundits are weeping their little eyes out because the Mainstream Media is so biased that it gave overwhelmingly favorable coverage to Obama and overwhelmingly hostile coverage to McCain. McCain, in fact, stopped talking to the media early on in the general election campaign because he thought they were all “for Obama”.

Is it true?

And if it’s true, does it matter?

1. If it matters, how come Bush was able to win two elections without the slightest assistance from the MSM? How come McCain didn’t complain about bias when he was the media’s darling? And how dare the MSM disapprove of John Hagee anyway, or Gordon Liddy, or James Dobson, just because they are crypto-fascists?

The fact is that even if there was a conspiracy, it couldn’t work: the internet has made it impossible for anyone to effectively suppress news. If a story really was suppressed– that would become the story, as it often does, when you see even liberal columnists bemoan the alleged bias of the media. (They somberly note that more favorable stories have appeared about Obama than about McCain.)

But what if Obama is the better candidate?

In short, McCain says it’s snowing and Obama says it’s raining, the media is biased if they look outside. [With thanks to Campbell Brown, CNN Editor, in Time Magazine this week.]

2. What about Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, ABC, and all the other conservative outlets? I could almost buy the bias argument without choking if any of these whiners would actually think to mention that Fox News is at least as biased– and, more reasonably, actually far more biased– than CBS or the New York Times. We often accuse our enemies of the flaw we most recognize in ourselves.

3. If the MSM really unfairly ignored the William Ayers story, then Fox News would most certainly have uncovered any relevant facts. But Fox News and conservative columnists kept ranting about William Ayers without providing the slightest evidence of anything about the matter that was relevant to the election. What Fox News did do was give air time to some of the most poorly documented and scurrilous stories circulating among the fanatical fringes. Obviously, they can safely assume that most of their loyal readers and listeners don’t read very widely.

4. Nobody tied Sarah Palin to a chair and forced her to provide Katie Couric with inane answers to sensible questions. Nobody forced her to chat for six minutes with a bad imitator of French President Sarkozy. Nobody forced her to identify white rural citizens as “real” Americans.

5. Did the MSM largely ignore Biden’s gaffes? I don’t know of any gaffe by Biden that would have caused anyone to doubt his knowledge, abilities, or competence. Even his comment about Obama being tested by America’s enemies soon after taking office wasn’t even really all that controversial– does McCain really believe he won’t be?

6. Would you really go to Fox for actual news over the New York Times, Washington Post, or L.A. Times? Okay– the Wall Street Journal and Globe & Mail– conservative papers– provide a fair bit of real journalism. But then, you don’t hear their columnists ranting on and on about liberal bias. The most conservative columnists, like the most conservative politicians who never seem to actually serve in any wars (McCain is the exception), never actually seem to do any reporting– just opinions.

7. As even many conservative columnists agree, Obama ran an absolutely superb campaign, perhaps one of the best in recent history. He was supremely well-organized and efficient, and he raised enormous sums of money. He was consistent and prudent and unflappable. The MSM accurately reported. That’s not bias: that’s journalism.

8. The conservative press assumes that all Americans share their anguish that Obama doesn’t seem very eager to blow things up, bomb foreign cities, or spend trillions on obsolete, ineffective weapons systems. How dare he. They are even more astonished that any sane person would have the slightest concern for the environment at a time when Wall Street Investors actually have to bear some risk for their investments.

What is “bias”?

Everyone talks as if there is a common understanding of what “bias” looks like. Take the example of Obama’s alleged association with William Ayers. This issue puzzled me. I heard from conservative pundits that there was something nefarious afoot here and the MSM was not reporting it. All right, I thought. Let Fox News– biased the other way– report it. So I went to Fox News, and Charles Krauthammer, and George Will, and the others, and waited to be enlightened with information the MSM had ignored or concealed. What was that information? What new evidence of a covert relationship did they have? What shocking story did they have to tell?

Well, it turns out that the shocking story they had to tell was that the MSM didn’t find anything particular sinister about Obama’s relationship with Ayers. They met a few times and Ayers, who lives openly in Chicago and, in fact, was voted “citizen of the year” by the City of Chicago for his extensive work promoting educational programs. Here’s CNN’s take on the issue.

The “bias” here is expressed as the conclusion drawn by responsible journalists that the Ayer’s story has no real significance or relevance to Obama’s candidacy. They worked together on two boards of charitable organizations that were clearly active promoting progressive social causes. They probably served together on a panel addressing juvenile justice issues. The odd thing is that one might reasonably argue that Obama’s association with this community activist has flattering implications. Think about it. Ayers was a radical in the 60’s, but he grew up, he matured, and learned to work within the “system”. He clearly is dedicated to working with disadvantaged youth in the City of the Chicago. How awful is it that Obama, a community organizer, would end up working with him on several worthy projects?

Now the pundits over at Fox News seem to perceive something dangerous in this activity. But that’s not because biased MSM reporters ignored important details. It’s because they don’t share the same extremist values of the conservative pundits who find the very idea of “progress” hysterically frightening because it applies to the lives of working Americans instead of the portfolios of investors.

So what the hell is going on here, with this “bias” argument? Is this all there is? Is this typical of the conservative arguments against Obama? Now I understand what they mean by “bias”.

It should surprise no one that at least some Republicans are immediately presenting the bullshit argument that somehow Obama didn’t really win a mandate. When Republicans win the election by concealing their real policies of shifting wealth from working people to investors, it’s because voters want them to govern. When Democrats win by campaigning on policies that benefit the middle classes–as Obama clearly did–, the voters were “deceived or misguided”. So John Boehner wants you to believe. That justifies the Republicans in Congress being as obstructionist as possible. Precisely the kind of politics the voters rejected by choosing Obama.

If Obama wanted to get his way more efficiently, he could just do what Bush did to get his way on Iraq: lie through his teeth.

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Dear George Will: About Canadian Health Care

George, I know you strive to be fair and balanced though your basic worldview is conservative.  As a Canadian who “suffers” under our single-payer system, I would ask a very simple, very important question: having lived under a single-payer system for almost fifty years now, could you persuade a majority of Canadians to give it up, and let a “market-based” system prevail?  Do you think most of us believe that will drive down health care costs and give us more “freedom”?

George Will on Health Care

Most Canadians I know can’t even believe that there is a debate on this issue in the U.S.  We are all mightily impressed that America believes it’s system is better and everyone else is wrong even though Americans seem to know nothing about any system but the one that is failing them now.  It’s possible that everyone else is wrong.  Sometimes everyone else is wrong.  It’s also possible that the sun orbits the flat earth.

Anybody can find a few Canadians who don’t like our system, and few horror stories of delayed care and inept management.  No reasonable person can deny, however, that the U.S. system costs astronomically more to administer, and that almost all Canadians receive basic health care without the slightest impediment, and that the actual results in Canada are better than in the U.S.

Furthermore, I have no idea of where you would find any proof that Canadians do not have a choice of doctors or hospitals or treatments.

True– we can’t choose to opt out.   But Americans can’t really opt out either.  They can’t!— an American without insurance will still receive treatment at any nearby hospital.  Who pays for it?  Everyone, through taxes and astronomical charges for treatment for the insured.

Isn’t that the basic principle of insurance?  Any of us could suffer a serious illness or injury.  Why not agree to contribute to a plan that covers everyone?  Especially since we all know that those who “opt out” will still receive medical care one way or the other, but certainly less efficiently.

Finally– this is one gripe I do have about conservatives in general:  I think they are far more likely than liberals to persist in believing something long after it has become overwhelmingly clear that the results show they are wrong.  Example:  McCain actually stated at one time that Obama’s idea of talking to Castro was ridiculous because, with his long experience, he knows that it wouldn’t work.  Excuse me!  Exactly how many more years must the embargo continue before it “works”?  That is absurd.  Why not just admit that the embargo has failed and try something new?  Liberals, who have a mind-set that entertains alternative realities, are by nature more inclined to consider other possibilities.  McCain would still be in Viet Nam.  McCain will be in Iraq for 100 years (a joke really– the oil won’t last that long and then we will go back to indifference to human oppression).  And McCain will continue to believe that through some miracle, health care costs can be reduced by letting it “compete in a free market”, as if  dying of cancer is a commodity that could be sold to a hedge fund.

For the record, I’m not sure the Canadian system couldn’t stand a few modifications, and I am very interested in Obama’s hybrid ideas.  Not sure about them– but– as a liberal– I can consider the possibility that different points of view have something to contribute to our ultimate success on any issue.  Hey George, why not be the first reasonable conservative to admit that, as a family values kind of guy, you would like to see all of the nation’s children covered, and it clearly– the results show!– isn’t happening under your free market system.

Sincerely,

Bill Van Dyk

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Palin’s Executive Experience

The “Executive Experience” argument: Can we please stop this nonsense? Palin was an “executive” of a very small town and then, for two years, of a very small (population-wise), weird state with massive oil and gas revenues to pay the bills. Senators, like McCain and Obama and Clinton and Biden, are intimately involved in issues related to national governance, including foreign affairs, homeland security, disaster relief, justice and law enforcement, the environment, the military, and so on. The idea that Palin is more qualified to deal with these issues on a national level because she had final authority to negotiate a pipeline is silly. The idea that any of the Senators are unprepared because they only participated in national government and didn’t make final decisions by themselves is silly.

What’s even scarier: Palin has displayed a marked tendency to fire competent people in highly-placed, well-paid positions and replace them with cronies, including, in one instance, a high school friend whose primary “executive experience” consisted of managing a mailbox franchise. In that sense, I suppose, she is a true Republican– look at Bush’s attempts to put Harriet Maier on the Supreme Court. Maybe she could appoint her mother-in-law to the Supreme Court.

Palin is also a book-burner– she is lying about that little episode in her life– and she’s either a hypocrite or a liar about abortion: she suggests that her daughter made a “choice” about keeping the baby, while insisting that, if she could, she would make it illegal for anyone else to have a “choice”. In fairness, she hasn’t tried to push the social agenda as governor… but then, a governor does not appoint Supreme Court justices or the Attorney-General of the United States.

Palin and her staff occasionally used personal e-mail accounts to conduct state business so they would not–so they thought– be subject to subpoena, if anyone dared to challenge her actions. Can’t wait to see who she appoints to the office of Attorney-General. But that certainly is good preparation for someone who might inherent the constitution-bending role of Dick Cheney.

All politicians “fudge”– well, they lie– to a certain extent. Palin is a bit unusual in the zest with which she embraces this task at the Republican convention and interviews, even when there are tapes and emails showing the contrary. McCain must be hoping that this information doesn’t filter down to the bubbas and marges of U.S. politics by November. The lies pertain directly to her aura of incorruptibility– in fact, we learn quickly that Ms. Palin is immensely corruptible and corrupting, as well as unqualified for the office she aspires to.

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The Mouse Brings the Cheese

There is an interesting article here about why many poor, working-class Americans vote for the party whose policies are clearly against their own self-interest.  [Dead link– sorry.]

They vote for the party that fought the Iraq war to benefit the same companies that are now gouging them at the pumps. They vote for the party that weakens regulations that protect their health and safety. They vote for the party has steadfastly refused to shore up the one great government program that benefits them directly: social security.

I’m not sure I totally buy it but it made me realize that criticism’s about Palin’s lack of qualifications will only fall on deaf ears. To many of these voters, the idea that Palin has no experience or knowledge relevant to the job of president is a wonderful thing, because they don’t get what’s so complicated about “cleaning up Washington” of all those vaguely evil people who, for example, messed up this wonderful privatized health care system so that it actually is more expensive and less accessible than almost any other nation’s government-run systems. “I’ll be damned if I’ll vote for a health care system that makes me wait for treatments I could get right away if I actually had a decent insurance plan…”

Russians Unhappy with U.S. Involvement in Georgia

Georgia on my mind… how would the U.S. respond if Putin starting holding high-level meetings with Mexican officials to negotiate some kind of strategic alliance? Hmmm. Or if they tried again to put missiles in Cuba? Well, hell, let’s go for it. World War III– here we come.

Why do the Republicans always act as if the so-called Main Stream Media isn’t allowed to reach the conclusion that– especially this time around– is obvious to any rational person: Obama is the better candidate. The Republicans constantly howl that the media is “biased” because they know, in fact, that their outrage will frighten many journalists into giving them more favorable coverage.

What’s wrong with the media having an opinion about the issues they cover? The media are, compared to Joe Six Pack, relatively well-informed about the issues. Many of them have spent considerable time with the candidates. Why, oh why, shouldn’t they have a preference?

So it’s just possible– just possible– that Sarah Palin really is a lousy candidate.

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Rick Warren

Rick Warren was invited to give an address to TED in February 2006. Time Magazine had recently identified Rick Warren as a veritable god of popular religion and wisdom, so I thought I’d better check it out.

Not that I hadn’t checked out “Purpose Driven Life”…. I tried. I couldn’t finish it. I couldn’t find the content. It was the kind of sustained generic common sense which, devoid of any specific application, can never be proven wrong. Be yourself. Have patience. Set goals. Plan ahead. Was there something remarkable in this book that I missed? Are there really millions of people out there who don’t have any purpose but would buy a book about it? Will any of them, really, acquire one by reading this book?

Warren makes the stunning assertion that he doesn’t know a single pastor who is “in it for the money”. That’s a stereotype, he says, but it’s not true. That’s amazing. He doesn’t think pastors draw a salary anywhere? He doesn’t believe that deep down within their presumptive souls it never occurred to most pastors that they could get paid to talk?

I leave alone for the moment the outrageousness of it all, but either he’s right and all those exposé’s about preachers living in hugely expensive mansions or driving around in limousines or wearing expensive designer clothes are false…. or he’s being incredibly disingenuous. Either “Elmer Gantry” is a fraud or Warren is. Either Jim Bakker is a shocking aberration or he just happened to get caught. Either John Hagee is just covering his expenses or he is living very, very well. Either Dobson has bodyguards or he doesn’t. Either Rick Warren himself has bodyguards or he doesn’t.

Warren traveled to Syria in 2006 and made several statements afterwards that appeared to praise Assad’s regime there as tolerant and moderate. I get that Warren believes he can personally negotiate world peace, but I also get that he, like Billy Graham, may be naïve, and may be in the process of allowing himself to be used by shrewd politicians.

What does he get out of it? Well, gosh, just read his stuff. Like Rev. James Dobson, he loves to name-drop. Even worse, when taken to task by Joseph Farah, one of the fanatics at WorldNetDaily, for his comments, Warren appeared to misrepresent himself– to put it generously. Then he accused Farah of being Satan’s proxy. Then he apologized to Farah. (Farah, by the way, is far more scary than Warren will ever be, and almost as scary as Dobson but not quite as scary–or comical–as John Hagee).

It is a little difficult to believe that any preacher presenting a message, nowadays, that is genuinely biblical, and transforming in a spiritual sense, would be invited to speak at the NBA all-star game. The organizers of the NBA all-star game are not going to invite someone to speak who seems to hold exotic values. They won’t invite someone who believes that sports are not really all that important, that success is not about winning, that trinkets and souvenirs won’t buy you happiness.

Warren claims that he wants evangelicals to stop voting for candidates based on single, “wedge” issues like abortion. He wants us to believe that he is more sophisticated and mature than that– he thinks the environment is also important, and poverty. So Warren hosts Obama and McCain this year– separately– claiming to be non-partisan, but in 2004, he issued a “toolbox” for pastors which urged them to urge their church members to consider abortion as the only non-negotiable moral value in the election.

So Warren wants to sound objective and enlightened and a little more sophisticated… but he ends up with the same position as Pat Robertson, who doesn’t drive around in a limousine, don’t you know.

A website critical of Warren posted the following, from a workshop Warren gave in 1998 at Saddleback Church::

“Now, at Saddleback Church, we are unapologetically contemporary… I passed out a three-by-five card to everybody in the church, and I said, ‘You write down the call letters of the radio station you listen to.’ I wasn’t even asking unbelievers. I was asking the people in the church, ‘What kind of music do you listen to?’ When I got it back, I didn’t have one person who said, ‘I listen to organ music.’ Not one…. So, we made a strategic decision that we are unapologetically a contemporary music church. And right after we made that decision and stopped trying to please everybody, Saddleback exploded with growth….

“I’ll be honest with you, we are loud. We are really, really loud on a weekend service…. I say, ‘We’re not gonna turn it down.’ Now the reason why is baby boomers want to feel the music, not just hear it…. God loves variety!”

Unusually democratic for a church, don’t yo think?

JIM WALLIS: You know, some of those faith-based organizations who are providing services are the very ones who are now saying we can’t keep pulling bodies out of the river and not send somebody upstream to see what or who is throwing them in. So they’re talking about policy questions. So this is where the old left-right thing breaks down.

I think values are a good conversation for politics. It may be the future of our discussion. But it can’t just be partisan values wedged in to divide people. But I think a broader sense of values, personal and social — personal responsibility and social responsibility together are at the heart of religion. The two together will provide a powerful political vision for the future.

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Obama’s Next Compromise

Barack Obama supported and voted in favor of the recent wiretapping bill that grants immunity to telephone companies that cooperated with the Administration’s illegal requests for wiretaps on Americans receiving or making foreign telephone calls.

The so-called liberal media has completely dropped the ball on this one. Why is this not a scandal? George Bush refuses to admit that his Administration acted illegally when they requested the wiretaps. He continues to assert that the requests were legal. If they were legal, there is no need for immunity. The courts, as is their role in a constitutional democracy, have the authority and right to decide the lawsuits filed by plaintiffs against those Telcos. This law circumvents the constitution by providing retroactive immunity for crimes the government refuses to admit were crimes. This is insane. This is impeachable. This is obscene.

This is an out and out betrayal of all the bullshit platitudes about constitutions and freedoms and due process that America constantly foists on the world as justification for all the lives lost in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Barack Obama also supports the ethanol industry in its Disney-esque fantasy of replacing foreign oil with domestic plants. Everyone can already see what the results of this policy will be: oil will continue to cost more, and ethanol will have an absolutely negligible impact on domestic consumption while driving up food prices in the poorest parts of the globe. Even worse, Obama does not support dropping tariffs on imported Brazilian sugarcane ethanol which at least provides a far better return on the energy conversion (8-1, vs. ethanol’s 2-1). Why?

Because Iowa.

Because he wants the support of the Midwestern farmers who stand to benefit enormously from the ridiculous government subsidy of ethanol prices.

Put it this way: the oil industry is not worried about ethanol.

Think about that a lot. Think carefully about it: the oil industry LOVES ethanol. The oil industry’s stooges in the White House are pushing ethanol enthusiastically. The oil industry’s stooges in the White House have, so far, successfully torpedoed a bill that continues giving tax incentives to other alternative forms of energy like wind and solar power.

For those who think Obama will bring a sprig of fresh ideas to the White House, these two issues are bad omens. The first is a classic political compromise, an opportunistic sell-out to the enduring Democrat fear that they won’t appear to be tough enough to take on all those zillions of terrorists out there blowing up buildings in Des Moines, Iowa, or Cedar Rapids, or Flint, or Greensboro, and so on. Oh my God– we can’t let them think that John McCain will be more willing to undermine the constitution than we are!

The second is the classic trade-off of special interests against the genuine interests of the American people. There are numerous lobbyists or other agents associated with the ethanol industry working with Obama’s campaign. That’s disappointing.

The optimist hopes that Obama is making these compromises to get into office, so that once he gets into office he can resume his principled leadership and persuade Americans to support the right course of action. I tend to think it is more likely that once he gets into office, he will make the same compromises that most politicians usually make and things will not be so different after all.

It’s all relative. So we have here the shocking realization that Obama is human after all, and capable of making the same kind of moral and ethical compromises that most politicians make… it is still probable that the election of Obama will improve the U.S. government by a huge margin for the simple reason that we are more likely to have competent people in charge of government policy for the first time in 8 years.

Just how perverted is this generation of voters? McCain feels no need to hide the fact that he would allow the CIA to continue to use torture. TORTURE. On human beings. As if we were not morally superior to terrorists and murderers and torturers.

No candidate in this coming election– wait, is Ralph Nader running?– has proposed to return the U.S. to democratic constitutional greatness and honor and decency. There are no Christian candidates in this election. There is no god in this election.

Torturing the New York Times: Why, in this article, does the New York Times– supposed bastion of liberal dissent– refer to torture as “enhanced interrogation techniques”. Who the hell told them to use this phrase instead of the word “torture”? Is this because they are giving McCain and Bush the benefit of the doubt? Well, it might not be torture, after all? It might be the euphemism? Geez, where are the real liberals when you want one!

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Dobson’s Choice

Dr. Dobson — your unelected Supreme Court Decider, has four body guards. I think this is fascinating. Capo James– the Godfather of the American Civil Religion– has bodyguards.

Who, I wonder, would want to kill Dr. Dobson? I mean, aside from all those liberals and progressives and environmentalists and any individuals who were tortured as a result of Bush Administration policies that Dobson endorses. Oh no. I mean, seriously, someone who really wants to stop him?

When a poor kid from the ghetto with special talent makes it to the big leagues, basketball, baseball, football, the first thing he does is hire a bodyguard.  Not because someone is threatening to kidnap or murder him, but to demonstrate that he is now important. Nobody is out to kill the dude. Nobody plans to assassinate a basketball player. The body guard, besides holding reservations for dinner or finding a parking spot for the Rolls, functions primarily as a status symbol.

Dobson claims he has received death threats. Oh yes, the forces of Satan are out to get him. But of course, if the forces of Satan were really out to get him, his body guards would be of absolutely no avail. In fact, this foolish trust he places in human efforts would endanger him, because we know that God would not approve. Think of all the times in the Bible that Israel put their trust in military might instead of God– they would be soundly defeated. Then they would repent, accept God’s new appointed leader, and charge on to victory.

God would be more faithful to James Dobson if he knew that Dobson trusted only in Him for his protection.

James Dobson wants you to vote Republican because he really, really, believes that that is what God wants you to do. He wants you to forget about science and physics and technology and teach your kids Creationism or Intelligent Design.

But as for his personal safety– there are those body guards.

On the contrary, I personally believe that Satan, if he is really as smart as they claim, would do everything within his power to keep James Dobson out there preaching and hectoring and advising Bush on Supreme Court appointments and so on, with his body guards, convincing millions of followers that being a chest-thumping militaristic materialistic patriotic American is as close as it comes to being a disciple of Jesus Christ.

In answer to my own question, Dobson believes you should stop spanking your children on the buttocks with a switch or a paddle by the time they are, oh, 10 or 11. Never spank teenagers. And if you secretly enjoy spanking– stop now. (Of course, the whole point of “secretly” enjoying spanking is that you know you should stop but don’t.) And never even attempt to spank the leaders of foreign countries like Iran or North Korea.

Who is the Council for National Policy? And why are they secretive?

Why does Dobson, who trusts in the Lord, have four bodyguards?

There’s some suspicion that Dobson may be quietly sucking up to McCain. If this is like a high-stakes game of chicken, Dobson just twitched.

[Confirmed later.  Once McCain won the nomination, they basically sucked up to each other.]

Number of Abortions
George Bush has prevented: 0

It’s like magic– take a pro-war militaristic Republican who wants to send your sons and daughters out to risk their lives on behalf of big oil and Walmart, look at his personal history, and, voila: no military service! James Dobson dodged the draft by signing up with the National Guard — de rigueur for these righteous dudes!

What if John McCain wins in November? Oh oh! James Dobson has stated emphatically that he would rather not vote at all than vote for John McCain. The leading Agent of Intolerance in the U.S. will certainly stick to his principles now, even if he never, ever gets invited to the White House again, or gets to brag on his website about chatting with the prez over which pro-torture appointee should get to be on the Supreme Court.

I’ll stick my neck out: if it ever begins to look like McCain has the slightest chance of winning, Dobson will frantically signal to the McCain campaign that he is willing to let bygones be bygones and help get out the vote– and if the election looks close, McCain will have to bite his tongue– or somebody else’s tongue– hard to tell lately– and accept the assistance. And if he wins, he’ll have to invite Dobson over to the White House and let him drop his name on the website and brag about his political influence again.

And those of us who used to think McCain had some independent spirit will shed a tear or two over lost illusions.

Now here’s a bet: McCain could win in November if, among other things, he announced that no self-proclaimed unaccountable religious leader is going to tell him who gets to be on the Supreme Court.

[Moments after writing the above, I googled the issue and was shocked to find that part one has already happened: Dobson has been making overtures to McCain to come meet him at his “Focus on the Fascist” headquarters in Boulder, Colorado. McCain has so far declined.]

 

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The Scariest Song Ever Recorded

Which is it? “Monster Mash”? Theme from “The Exorcist” (Tubular Bells)? “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”? “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap”? “Sympathy for the Devil”?

Nah. The scariest lyrics I have ever heard are those in the sidebar to the right: “You Don’t Own Me”. And you can draw a line from that song through the 60’s and 70’s to Lindsay Buckingham’s “I’m So Afraid”, or, more indirectly, “The Chain”, and you would have the darkest, fiercest, most frightening lyrics imaginable. And unique. Can you think of another song like it?

And please, please, please, in the name of all that is decent and respectful and witty, don’t cite “I am Woman”. (Helen Reddy claimed that she wrote the lyrics while Ray Burton wrote the music; his recollection is that she gave him some scraps of ideas but he is the one who turned it into a set of lyrics and a song. Reddy performed the song at– get this!– the 1981 Miss World competition. Reddy used the money she earned from the song– while repeatedly claiming she “wrote” it– to buy mansions, speedboats, limousines, and jewelry. She squandered almost all of the money and went through an acrimonious divorce in 1982.)

But if you said “I’ve Never Been to Me” is it’s evil twin– it’s polar opposite– damn right!

Now– you may have noticed that this proto-feminist lyric was written by… yes, two men. Turns out that one of them, John Madara, is also associated with the ridiculous “Dawn of Correction”, a song that testifies to the absurdity of it’s own message. Look it up sometime– it’s an answer to “Eve of Destruction”. But don’t mistake it for a right-wing response like Barry Sadler’s “Ballad of the Green Berets”. “Dawn of Correction” points out that things aren’t so bad– we have the Peace Corps, and the United Nations!

So, unsurprisingly, the writer of the most feminist lyric of the 60’s is a liberal.

So what’s so scary about “You Don’t Know Me”? It’s the affront to the most fundamental of all human needs. We often think of it as the need to love. But in it’s naked form, isn’t it really a lot more like the desire to be loved, to be needed, to be indispensable to someone we badly want to be indispensable to?

There is the shock of “don’t say I can’t go out with other boys”– an attack on one of the most fundamental assumptions we hold about love relationships: it’s exclusivity. I don’t need you– so our relationship depends on whether or not I want you. And if I want someone else, I’m not going to allow anything in our existing relationship– the poor boy– to be an impediment to my pursuit of those other relationships.

It gets worse! “Don’t try to change me in any way”. Yes, yes, we all claim that we love our beloved just as they are, and almost none of us mean it. In fact, the ability to manipulate someone goes right to the essence of our relationships, as much as we all passionately deny it. And once again– if you won’t change because I want you to change, doesn’t that really mean that my power over you– because you love me so much– is really limited? That my fantasy of you suffering because you have lost my affection and approval is deflated and empty?

But the pinnacle of horror isn’t even expressed until we get to “I don’t tell you what to say/Oh [I] don’t tell you what to do”. To some people, that sounds a lot like “I don’t care what you do”, and that is the last, fatal statement on a relationship that has entered the terminal phase. But doesn’t it really mean that I accept you as you are, and that I love the qualities you have, not the ones I imagine you have after I have fixed you up? I think so. But that’s not where most of us are at. It’s not what — if we were honest– most of us really want from a relationship.

The sitcom “Cheers” had one thing right– Diane and Sam like each other but both recoil in horror at the prospect of admitting that either of them needs the other. When Diane succeeds in teasing even a modest admission from Sam, that he does kind of like her, she immediately mocks and humiliates him. It’s all very high schoolish– craving the power to refuse. To be “old enough to repay/ but young enough to sell” as Neil Young put it.

You Don’t Own Me
by John Madara and Dave White Tricker.

You don’t own me,
I’m not just one of your many toys
You don’t own me,
don’t say I can’t go with other boys

And don’t tell me what to do
And don’t tell me what to say
And please, when I go out with you
Don’t put me on display, ’cause

You don’t own me,
don’t try to change me in any way
You don’t own me,
don’t tie me down ’cause I’d never stay

Oh, I don’t tell you what to say
I don’t tell you what to do
So just let me be myself
That’s all I ask of you

I’m young and I love to be young
I’m free and I love to be free
To live my life the way I want
To say and do whatever I please

A-a-a-nd don’t tell me what to do
Oh-h-h-h don’t tell me what to say
And please, when I go out with you
Don’t put me on display

I don’t tell you what to say
Oh-h-h-h don’t tell you what to do
So just let me be myself
That’s all I ask of you

I’m young and I love to be young
I’m free and I love to be free
To live my life the way I want

I’m pretty fed up with the Internet song lyric sites telling you that this is Leslie Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me”, or Elvis Presley’s “Suspicion”, or Madonna’s “Don’t Cry for me Argentina”.

The songs belong to the composers and writers, not the singers. The songs will return again and again as other artists cover them, and the constant tag should be the name of the composer.

By the way, in terms of female empowerment, “I Will Survive” is not only a crummy song, but it was also actually written by a man. So much for all that audacious self-satisfaction. But then again, as I said, truthfully, it’s a horrible song. [Added 2018-11]

Another horrifying extraordinary song of personal autonomy “That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard it Should be” (written by Carly Simon and… wait for it… yes. A man: Jacob Brackman, 1971):

You say we can keep our love alive
Babe – all I know is what I see –
The couples cling and claw
And drown in love’s debris.
You say we’ll soar like two birds through the clouds,
But soon you’ll cage me on your shelf –
I’ll never learn to be just me first
By myself.

You owe it to yourself to listen carefully to this song, with the lyrics before you: it’s one of the finest songs of the 1970’s, and one of the most powerful statements about the realities of women and men and romantic love, ever.

So why, oh why, oh why, are the lyrics by a man (Jacob Brackman, a friend of Simon’s from high school)? Why!? Can’t a woman eager to proclaim her need for independence and self-realization at least write her own lyrics about it? Jeez! The best I can hope for is that she told him how she felt and he put it into very, very elegant words. But it’s still disappointing.

And one more, from The Mamas and the Papas (John Philips)

You gotta go where you wanna go
Do what you wanna do
With whoever you want to do it with
…you don’t understand
that a girl like me can love
just one man…

There is something uncannily poignant in that — she’s young and naïve, and at that moment, he’s the only man she will ever truly love. And she may be right– she may find someone else, but it will never be the same. Written by…. a man.

And, okay, one more yet– from “The Chain” by Lindsey Buckingham

And if you don’t love me now
You will never love me again
I can still hear you saying
You would never break the chain.

I almost forgot. This one might be the scariest of all– Lindsey Buckingham, again, whipped into a despairing frenzy at the thought of being unable to express or receive love, thereby condemning himself to solitude. You have to hear this one to receive the full effect– like John Philips, Buckingham works a lot of his magic around the arrangements and performance, rather than the lyrics: (From “I’m So Afraid”)

I been alone
Always down
No one cared to stay around
I never change
I never will
I’m so afraid the way I feel

And yet one more– Lucinda Williams “Side of the Road”

If only for a minute or two
I wanna see what it feels like
to be without you
I wanna know the touch
of my own skin
Against the sun, against the wind

It must be said: at least Lucinda wrote her own lyrics.

But then again, isn’t she a lesbian?