Hullabaloo

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

 
Claud Rains, please pick up the white courtesy telephone

by digby

I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked to find out that Michele Bachman was stabbed in the back by her pals, the social conservatives.

Rival presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s Iowa coalitions director, Jamie Johnson, sent out an email saying that children’s lives would be harmed if the nation had a female president. [...]

“The question then comes, ‘Is it God’s highest desire, that is, his biblically expressed will, … to have a woman rule the institutions of the family, the church, and the state?’ ” Johnson’s email said...

[H]e refused to back away from the substance of the email, saying “I was sharing my personal reflections with a friend…[T]hey were reflections on over 25 years of formal, theological study [based in] classical Christian doctrine.”

After Bachmann left the race, several of her advisers pointed to sexism as a contributing factor. “We did believe that sexism — I use the stronger word misogyny — was at play,” said Peter Waldron, her faith outreach coordinator.

Waldron said that several influential pastors called for her to drop out of the race, reasoning “that a female could not be a civil magistrate.” Johnson himself is a pastor at a central Iowa church.

Now where would they get an idea like that?

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digby 1/17/2012 06:00:00 PM |

 
Straight up racism, no dogwhistle necessary

by digby

James Fallows has some reader follow-ups to an earlier discussion of Newtie's "food stamp president" quip. And they've made me rethink whether or not this is a real dogwhistle.

One of his readers says that it wasn't racist in the least, that it was simply a dry, philosophical point about the virtues of hard work. This, of course, is nonsense. I quoted this yesterday, but it bears repeating since this is all taking place in South Carolina, the home of Lee Atwater, who famously said this:

Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry S. Dent, Sr. and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [the new Southern Strategy of Ronald Reagan] doesn't have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he's campaigned on since 1964 and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster.

Questioner: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?

Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."

This brings me to the Fallows reader who changed my mind on this. This South Carolinian claims that Newtie's "food stamp president" isn't a real dogwhistle at all (which implies something designed to fly under the radar.) He says this is just straight up racist, and I think that's probably right.

If Newtie were saying this about a white president, it would indicate sympathy or pandering to African Americans, a standard slam against liberals. But the president himself is a black man, which changes the context considerably. After all, as Fallows points out he could have picked any number of ways to express the idea that he's been bad for the economy: "foreclosure president", "bailout president", "pink-slip president". Picking food-stamps goes directly to Atwater's comments above, where the questioner even brings up food stamps as a way to appeal to the Wallace voter.

Atwater thought these racist appeals would be totally abstract by now, and for many people it is. But when you have a black president in a time of economic turmoil in which millions of people have lost their jobs, using phrases like "food stamp president" isn't abstract at all.

Recall what Gingrich originally said:

More people are on food stamps today because of Obama’s policies than ever in history. I would like to be the best paycheck president in American history. Now, there’s no neighborhood I know of in America where if you went around and asked people, “Would you rather your children had food stamps or paychecks,” you wouldn’t [SIC] end up with a majority saying they’d rather have a paycheck.

And so I’m prepared, if the NAACP invites me, I’ll go to their convention and talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps. And I’ll go to them and explain a brand new Social Security opportunity for young people, which should be particularly good for African-American males — because they’re the group that gets the smallest return on Social Security because they have the shortest life span.

Foodstamps = African American. No daylight there. He couldn't have been more clear.

By Atwater's standards, we're going backwards.


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digby 1/17/2012 04:30:00 PM |

 
Uh oh

by David Atkins

This doesn't sound good:

Top White House officials are warning liberal and labor leaders to brace themselves for President Obama’s budget proposal.

Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council, sought in meetings last week to lift the left’s gloom about Washington’s crackdown on spending by promising that the president this year will focus on job creation rather than deficit cutting.

Obama staffers sought to present their budget plan as a glass half full. According to sources familiar with the briefings, they promised that the president will focus on jobs and the economy, instead of deficit-cutting, which dominated last year’s debate on Capitol Hill.

Obama has signaled in recent weeks that he plans to run a populist reelection campaign. He will need to keep liberal activist and labor groups — important parts of the Democratic base — energized for his strategy to work.

In his first three years, Obama had a free hand to suggest spending levels for government programs in his annual budget blueprint. But that is not the case this year because the administration is constrained by the budget deal reached in August to raise the debt limit.

He must stick to the $1.047 trillion spending cap he agreed to with GOP leaders, which means he will call for less discretionary spending than he did last year.

Senior administration officials fear a backlash from the left and are trying to prepare their allies to expect a disappointing budget, sources say.

“A senior White House person said we weren’t going to be happy with the budget, but they’re doing the best they can” given the spending caps set by the 2011 Budget Control Act, said one source.

On the one hand, the White House is doubtless correct on its face that its hands are tied by the constraints of the debt ceiling deal to reduce a discretionary spending budget that is already preposterously low.

On the other hand, it isn't as if the President didn't have a direct hand in ramping up the Grand Bargain deficit hysteria that led to the debt ceiling deal in the first place.

And the consequences?

Obama took fire from the left flank of his party last year after he unveiled his budget proposal.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), including Illinois Democratic Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., ripped Obama’s budget proposal. CBC Chairman Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) said at the time, “We cannot win the future by leaving our most vulnerable behind.”

Democrats accused the president of endangering the lives of low-income people.

“It would have real-world consequences for some pretty powerless people,” Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said. “People would literally freeze.”

I don't agree with those who say that President doesn't care if people freeze in their homes. But I do think the President has bought into the delusional asset-based economic model that freaks out over budget deficits lest the Bond Trader Overlords be displeased. He has also bought into the idea politically that if he plays it cool and lets the other side play the extremist hand, he'll end up looking like the adult in the room. I think he probably figured that he could use his personal charisma to reach a deal with Republicans that didn't involve people losing their home heating assistance.

The former has been a disaster for the economy. The latter has probably been fairly successful for the President politically speaking, as it was for Bill Clinton. That in turn may help keep the crazies out of absolute power for another four years.

But maintaining the status quo isn't exactly acceptable when the country is on a 30-year downward trajectory. We needed more than that. Instead, we're going to get cuts to the discretionary budget that may be unavoidable now, but weren't inevitable before the Grand Bargain talk got started.


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thereisnospoon 1/17/2012 03:00:00 PM |

 
Mittbot and his daddy

by digby

Perlstein has a great piece on Mitt and his daddy in Rolling Stone that is not to be missed:

In my first weekly online column for Rolling Stone, I'm here to write about another loser and son: George and Mitt Romney – both almost-certain Republican presidential nominees. Pollster Lou Harris said late in 1966 that George Romney, then governor of Michigan, "stands a better chance of winning the White House than any Republican since Dwight D. Eisenhower." Then, just over a year later, he was humiliated with a suddenness and intensity unprecedented in modern American political history (of which more below). His son was 19 years old. What makes Mitt – né Willard – Romney, run? Much, I think, can be understood via that specific trauma.

I wrote a Los Angeles Times op-ed four years ago, just before Romney dropped out of the 2008 race, arguing that he would "go down as the most robotic big-ticket presidential candidate in history." I chalked it up to psychobiography: Even more than most kids, Mitt couldn’t help but view his dad as a messiah – because much of America did, too. George Romney's first appearance on the cover of Time, in 1959, came just before Mitt's twelfth birthday. As CEO of the Americans Motors Corporation, he had single-handedly set Detroit on its ear by calling its products "gas-guzzling dinosaurs." The first full biography of him came out in 1960. Soon after, he became Michigan's James Madison, heroically leading a bipartisan effort to redraft the state's messed-up constitution. By 1963, he was governor, a Republican in a Democratic state, a politician so beloved that John F. Kennedy was terrified at the thought of running against him in 1964. After his reelection in 1966, he ran 54-46 in a hypothetical 1968 match-up with Lyndon Johnson.

His calling card was his shocking authenticity; his courage in sticking to his positions without fear or favor was extraordinary.Read on ...

This is some fascinating history that, I think, probably gets closer to what makes the Mittbot tick than anything I've seen. The way he sees it is that daddy lost by being too principled. He is determined not to make that mistake:

Mitt learned at an impressionable age that in politics, authenticity kills. Heeding the lesson of his father's fall, he became a virtual parody of an inauthentic politician. In 1994 he ran for senate to Ted Kennedy's left on gay rights; as governor, of course, he installed the dreaded individual mandate into Massachusetts' healthcare system. Then he raced to the right to run for president.

Perlstein points out that the one area in which he seems to be utterly authentic is his fealty to wealth and capitalism --- and that's a reaction to his father too.

Read the whole thing. It's all good.

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digby 1/17/2012 01:00:00 PM |

 
Blue America Contest

by digby

Howie sez:

As you've probably read by now, New Jersey progressive candidate Ed Potosnak withdrew his challenge to Leonard Lance yesterday to take a job as the executive director of the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters. He was one of Blue America's favorite candidates, both in the 2010 cycle and again this year. We'll miss him, but we know he will accomplish a lot in his new job. Here's what he told me last night when he came up with the idea for this contest to help out a Blue America candidate.

Ed has some extra money in his campaign war chest, and he's offered to give the maximum amount allowable from one campaign to another, $2,000, to the Blue America candidate who gets the most contributions in the next 24 hours. So take a look at our ActBlue page and contribute-- whether a dollar or $1,000, it still counts as one "vote"-- and the candidate who gets the most "votes" will get a $2,000 dollar check from Ed's campaign.

The rules for this contest: Just contribute any amount to any candidate on this page and it will count as a vote for that candidate. And yes, you can vote for more than one if you want to. In 24 hours we count up all the votes (again, not the dollar amounts, but the votes), and the candidate with the most gets the check from Ed's campaign.

*I keep hearing that there are no progressives out there who are against the wars and for civil liberties. That's just not true. Look at the Blue America roster and you'll find a whole bunch of them.

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digby 1/17/2012 11:30:00 AM |

 
Retraction and contraction: why conservatives are scary

by digby

Perhaps we should all stop for a moment and contemplate how an advanced nation can suddenly take this regressive turn:

In the three months since the Israeli Health Ministry awarded a prize to a pediatrics professor for her book on hereditary diseases common to Jews, her experience at the awards ceremony has become a rallying cry.

The professor, Channa Maayan, knew that the acting health minister, who is ultra-Orthodox, and other religious people would be in attendance. So she wore a long-sleeve top and a long skirt. But that was hardly enough.

Not only did Dr. Maayan and her husband have to sit separately, as men and women were segregated at the event, but she was instructed that a male colleague would have to accept the award for her because women were not permitted on stage.

Though shocked that this was happening at a government ceremony, Dr. Maayan bit her tongue. But others have not, and her story is entering the pantheon of secular anger building as a battle rages in Israel for control of the public space between the strictly religious and everyone else.

At a time when there is no progress on the Palestinian dispute, Israelis are turning inward and discovering that an issue they had neglected — the place of the ultra-Orthodox Jews — has erupted into a crisis.

And it is centered on women.

“Just as secular nationalism and socialism posed challenges to the religious establishment a century ago, today the issue is feminism,” said Moshe Halbertal, a professor of Jewish philosophy at Hebrew University. “This is an immense ideological and moral challenge that touches at the core of life, and just as it is affecting the Islamic world, it is the main issue that the rabbis are losing sleep over.”

The list of controversies grows weekly: Organizers of a conference last week on women’s health and Jewish law barred women from speaking from the podium, leading at least eight speakers to cancel; ultra-Orthodox men spit on an 8-year-old girl whom they deemed immodestly dressed; the chief rabbi of the air force resigned his post because the army declined to excuse ultra-Orthodox soldiers from attending events where female singers perform; protesters depicted the Jerusalem police commander as Hitler on posters because he instructed public bus lines with mixed-sex seating to drive through ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods; vandals blacked out women’s faces on Jerusalem billboards.

Without wading into Israeli politics, let's just say that this is disturbing on any number of levels. But one thing is clear: fundamentalist religious influence always leads to the repression of women.

And there's nothing that says a Western democracy can't go backwards. It's the whole point of conservatism. From Corey Robin's book The Reactionary Mind:

Despite our Whiggish narrative of the steady rise of democracy, historian Alexander Keyssar has demonstrated that the struggle for the vote in the United States has been as much a story of retraction and contraction as one of progress and expansion, “with class tensions and apprehensions” on the part of political and economic elites constituting “the single most important obstacle to universal suffrage … from the late eighteenth century to the 1960s.” Still, the more profound and prophetic stance on the right has been Adams’s: cede the field of the public, if you must, stand fast in the private. Allow men and women to become democratic citizens of the state; make sure they remain feudal subjects in the family, the factory, and the field.

The priority of conservative political argument has been the maintenance of private regimes of power—even at the cost of the strength and integrity of the state. We see this political arithmetic at work in the ruling of a Federalist court in Massachusetts that a Loyalist woman who fled the Revolution was the adjutant of her husband, and thus not be held responsible for fleeing and should not have her property confiscated by the state; in the refusal of Southern slaveholders to yield their slaves to the Confederate cause; and the more recent insistence of the Supreme Court that women could not be legally obliged to sit on juries because they are “still regarded as the center of home and family life” with their “own special responsibilities.”

Conservatism, then, is not a commitment to limited government and liberty—or a wariness of change, a belief in evolutionary reform, or a politics of virtue. These may be the byproducts of conservatism, one or more of its historically specific and ever-changing modes of expression. But they are not its animating purpose. Neither is conservatism a makeshift fusion of capitalists, Christians, and warriors, for that fusion is impelled by a more elemental force—the opposition to the liberation of men and women from the fetters of their superiors, particularly in the private sphere.

Perhaps women, racial minorities and other "traditionally" second class citizens can be forgiven for being somewhat appalled at the idea that these people could be empowered even more than they already are. It's really not all that abstract to them.

And to those who say the libertarian view precludes this, Robin explains why this is not so:

Such a view might seem miles away from the libertarian defense of the free market, with its celebration of the atomistic and individual. But it is not. When the libertarian looks out upon society, he does not see isolated individuals; he sees private, often hierarchical, groups, where a father governs his family and an owner his employees.

Devolution means regressing to traditional hierarchies. It's something those who were only recently second class citizens understand in their bones.


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digby 1/17/2012 10:30:00 AM |

 
Hates so good

by digby

Here's some video of an arrogant white man lecturing a black man about what black people have a right to be offend by --- on Martin Luther King day:

I especially liked the laughter at his nasty, sarcastic "well, first of all, Juan..."

Those dogwhistles were so loud that my neighborhood dogs all started howling in unison. (It sounded like "Dixie".)

This is what they love about Newt and why he continues to do well in these debates. He just hates so good.


Also too: "Andrew Jackson had a pretty good idea about what do with America's enemies: Kill them."

He's a historian dontchaknow.

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digby 1/17/2012 09:00:00 AM |

 
Colbert's latest Super PAC ad

by David Atkins

Stephen Colbert--or rather, the Super PAC totally not coordinating with him--is proving to be the master troll of the Republican presidential nomination. With Colbert unable to appear on the ballot himself or even to stage a write-in campaign, this latest ad is equal parts chutzpah and brilliance:



Even Republicans are starting to realize what a nasty piece of work Citizens United has turned out to be. True, it helps them over the long run, but there's more to even Republican politics than puppets dancing on the end of plutocrat strings. There are factions and kingdom-building egos aplenty who spend decades building up their careers, and might not enjoy seeing themselves put at risk if secretive and whimsical multi-millionaires decide they hold a grudge or would rather they were removed. Colbert is helping to make this point clear in a way that everyone can understand.


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thereisnospoon 1/17/2012 07:30:00 AM |

Monday, January 16, 2012

 
Failing Up

by digby

If I didn't know better, I'd think these people were looting their own company in anticipation of a massive failure:

Goldman Sachs will stoke the fury over bankers' bonuses this week when it increases the proportion of revenues paid to staff despite what could be its worst year for earnings since 1999.

The bank – which will report its final results for 2011 on Wednesday – has already set aside 44 per cent of the $22.76bn (£14.89bn) of revenues it generated during the first nine months of the year to pay staff. The lion's share will be shared by a small number of elite level "partners".

If pay remains at that level in the fourth quarter, the final compensation ratio will show a significant rise over the 39.3 per cent of revenues handed out by Goldman in 2010, when the total pay out was $15.38bn.

Although the average salary for the first nine months enjoyed by Goldman employees is down to $292,397 from $370.056 in the first three quarters of 2010, that the bankers' share of revenue is rising will anger critics.

This would counter banking industry arguments that remuneration policies are set up to reward those who generate good performance for all the bank's shareholders rather than just to keep senior staff in the manner to which they have become accustomed.

You don't say. And here I thought these job creators had a claim to every last penny that's generated. Workers, shareholders be damned. Let them go out and loot somebody else's company. Isn't that how it's supposed to work?


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digby 1/16/2012 06:00:00 PM |

 
RFK announcing the death of Martin Luther King

by digby

I guess I've been listening to too many GOP candidates recently because I can't imagine a modern politician making a speech like this off the cuff. And then he too was shot down just months later.

Those good old days were mighty violent. It's one of the reasons why some of us are so stubborn at the idea of losing such hard won ground.

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digby 1/16/2012 04:30:00 PM |

 
Ayn Rand or MLK: pick one

by David Atkins

MLK:

"Life's most persistent and urgent question is: 'What are you doing for others?'"

Ayn Rand:

If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject.

Conservatives get to claim one or the other. They can't have both.

And if they pick door #2, they can't have this guy, either.


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thereisnospoon 1/16/2012 03:12:00 PM |

 
La estrategia del sur

by digby

This takes some chutzpah. Or should I say "huevos":

On a day set aside to honor civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr., Mitt Romney plans to tout his extreme immigration positions during a campaign stop in South Carolina today — with Kris Kobach, the author of Arizona’s and Alabama’s immigration laws, at his side. He will attack his competitors Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry for their softer immigration stances, which could resonate with South Carolina voters who support that state’s harmful immigration law.
“Mitt Romney stands apart from the others. He’s the only one who’s taken a strong across-the-board position on immigration,” Kobach said, and he told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto that Romney was much farther to the right on illegal immigration than his fellow presidential candidates.

That's nice. It looks like we've got a new form of the Southern Strategy in place. Recall Lee Atwater's famous quote:

Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry S. Dent, Sr. and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [the new Southern Strategy of Ronald Reagan] doesn't have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he's campaigned on since 1964 and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster.

Questioner: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?

Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."

Looks like they've found a way to avoid that abstraction --- screaming "illegal, illegal."

There's always a way for white supremacy to make its case, isn't there?


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digby 1/16/2012 01:30:00 PM |

 

Tasing 'O the Day

by digby

If you watch this you will note that he officers didn't even give this fellow 10 seconds to comply with their orders. When he falls out of the car (in which his wife and three year old child were also sitting) and runs, screaming in pain as any human would instinctively do, they arrested him for resisting arrest. The charges were dropped but the officers were also exonerated by the police department. Their behavior is considered perfectly ok.

Unfortunately for the citizens, aside from being subject to similar violence, the city ended up having to pay tax dollars to the victim in this case:

A 24-year-old Columbia man has received $50,000 to settle a lawsuit against the city police department and two officers over their stun gun use.
The Columbia Daily Tribune reported that Cadilac Derrick settled his federal civil suit earlier this month. The case was then dismissed from Missouri's Western District U.S. Court after it went to mediation.

Maybe if a few more towns and cities had to pay out money for this authoritarian brutality, police departments might find it in their best interest to curb this behavior. There's no excuse for it, but until someone, somewhere, is held responsible any one of us could be electrocuted in the front seat of our car for failing to properly respond to a police officer in less than half a minute.

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digby 1/16/2012 12:30:00 PM |

 
Government as political machine

by digby

Didn't we just go through something like this with the Bush administration?

I think an intelligent conservative wants the right federal employees delivering the right services in a highly efficient way and then wants to get rid of those folks who are in fact wasteful, or those folks who are ideologically so far to the left, or those people who want to frankly dictate to the rest of us,” Gingrich said in response to a question from a federal employee at the forum.

I don't think people ever properly understood what was going on with the Bush administration's manipulation of the government itself for partisan gain. For example, they turned normal non-partisan jobs into political appointments, purged departments of those who they deemed to be suspiciously liberal and unleashed the Department of Justice to intervene in elections on behalf of the GOP.That's not even counting the systematic takeover of the judiciary.

This is a hallmark of conservative movement goals, which seeks to transform the government itself into a partisan apparatus. It most closely resembles machine politics, with a full blown patronage operations devoted to installing like-minded and financially dependent operatives into the permanent machinery of the government.

We knew this, of course, after watching the Bushies over eight long years.But the Democratic administration came in believing they had vanquished this unseemly form of partisan warfare by the sheer will of Will.I.Am so there was no need to look in the rearview mirror to try to right what was wrong. No lessons have been learned as a result --- and presidential candidates feel perfectly free to campaign on the idea that they have a right to fire government employees who they don't see as being ideologically congenial. Considering that they think science and facts have a liberal bias these days, I think we can see the writing on the wall.

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digby 1/16/2012 11:00:00 AM |

 
MLK and conservatives

by digby

Judging by a cursory look at the news this morning I see that the right wingers are fully engaged in the annual airbrushing of their real relationship to Martin Luther King. It's sort of become a tradition.

Here's Perlstein to set the record straight:

When Martin Luther King was buried in Atlanta, the live television coverage lasted seven and a half hours. President Johnson announced a national day of mourning: "Together, a nation united and a nation caring and a nation concerned and a nation that thinks more of the nation's interests than we do of any individual self-interest or political interest--that nation can and shall and will overcome." Richard Nixon called King "a great leader--a man determined that the American Negro should win his rightful place alongside all others in our nation." Even one of King's most beastly political enemies, Mississippi Representative William Colmer, chairman of the House rules committee, honored the president's call to unity by terming the murder "a dastardly act."

Others demurred. South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond wrote his constituents, "[W]e are now witnessing the whirlwind sowed years ago when some preachers and teachers began telling people that each man could be his own judge in his own case." Another, even more prominent conservative said it was just the sort of "great tragedy that began when we began compromising with law and order, and people started choosing which laws they'd break."

That was Ronald Reagan, the governor of California, arguing that King had it coming. King was the man who taught people they could choose which laws they'd break--in his soaring exegesis on St. Thomas Aquinas from that Birmingham jail in 1963: "Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. ... Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong."

That's not what you hear from conservatives today, of course. What you get now are convoluted and fantastical tributes arguing that, properly understood, Martin Luther King was actually one of them--or would have been, had he lived. But, if we are going to have a holiday to honor history, we might as well honor history. We might as well recover the true story. Conservatives--both Democrats and Republicans--hated King's doctrines. Hating them was one of the litmus tests of conservatism.

The idea was expounded most systematically in a 567-page book that came out shortly after King's assassination, House Divided: The Life and Legacy of Martin Luther King, by one of the right's better writers, Lionel Lokos, and from the conservative movement's flagship publisher, Arlington House. "He left his country a legacy of lawlessness," Lokos concluded. "The civil disobedience glorified by Martin Luther King [meant] that each man had the right to put a kind of Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval on laws that met with his favor." Lokos laid the rise of black power, with its preachments of violence, at King's feet. This logic followed William F. Buckley, who, in a July 20, 1967 column titled "King-Sized Riot In Newark," imagined the dialogue between a rioter and a magistrate:
"You do realize that there are laws against burning down delicatessen stores? Especially when the manager and his wife are still inside the store?"
"Laws Schmaws. Have you never heard of civil disobedience? Have you never heard of Martin Luther King?"

King was a particular enemy of Chicago's white ethnics for the marches for open housing he organized there in 1966. The next year, the Chicago archdiocese released a new catechism book. "One of the leaders of the Negro people is a brave man named Martin Luther King. ... He preaches the message of Jesus, 'Love one another.'" Chicago Catholic laymen, outraged, demanded an FBI investigation of the local clergy.

We know about the Chicagoans who hated King enough to throw bricks at him. We have forgotten that, while such hooliganism was universally reviled, the reviling establishment also embraced Reagan-like arguments about why that was only to be expected. Upon King's assassination, The Chicago Tribune editorialized: "A day of mourning is in order"--but this was because civil disobedience had finally won the day. "Moral values are at the lowest level since the decadence of Rome," the editors argued, but only one of their arguments was racial: "If you are black, so goes the contention, you are right, and you must be indulged in every wish. Why, sure, break the window and make off with the color TV set, the case of liquor, the beer, the dress, the coat, and the shoes. We won't shoot you. That would be 'police brutality.'" Another was: "At countless universities, the doors of dormitories are open to mixed company, with no supervision."

The conservative argument, consistent and ubiquitous, was that King, claiming the mantle of moral transcendence, was actually the vector for moral relativism. They made it by reducing the greatest moral epic of the age to a churlish exercise in bean-counting. Shortly after the 1965 Selma voting-rights demonstrations, Klansmen shot dead one of the marchers, a Detroit housewife named Viola Liuzza, for the sin of riding in a car with a black man. Vice President Hubert Humphrey attended her funeral. No fair! Buckley cried, noting that a white cop had been shot by a black man in Hattiesburg shortly thereafter; "Humphrey did not appear at his funeral or even offer condolences." He complained, too, of the news coverage: "The television cameras showed police nightsticks descending upon the bodies of the demonstrators, but they did not show the defiance ... of those who provoked them beyond the endurance that we tend to think of as human." (In actual fact, sheriff's officers charged into the crowd on horseback swinging rubber tubes wrapped in barbed wire.)

By now you may be asking: What is the point of this unpleasant exercise? Shouldn't there be a statute of limitations on ideological sins? Well, not every conservative wrong has been righted. It's true that conservatives today don't sound much like Buckley in the '60s, but they still haven't figured King out: Andrew Busch of the Ashbrook Center for Public Policy, writing about King's exegesis on just and unjust laws, said, "In these few sentences, King demolishes much of the philosophical foundation of contemporary liberalism" (liberals are moral relativists, you see, and King was appealing to transcendent moral authority); Busch (speaking for reams of similar banality you can find by searching National Review Online) also said that "he rallied his followers with an explicitly religious message" and thus "stands as a stinging rebuke to those today who argue that religion and politics should never mix"; and Matthew Spalding of the Heritage Foundation wrote in National Review Online that "[a]n agenda that advocates quotas, counting by race and set-asides takes us away from King's vision" (not true, as historians have demonstrated). Still, why not honor their conversion on its own terms?

The answer is, if you don't mind, a question of moral relativism versus transcendence. When it comes to Martin Luther King, conservatives are still mere bean-counters. We must honor King because there wasn't a day in his life after 1955 when he didn't risk being cut down in cold blood and still stood steadfast. Conservatives break down what should be irreducible in this lesson into discrete terms--King believed in points X, Y, and Z--but now they chalk up the final sum on the positive side of the ledger. But this misses the point: King alone among contemporary heroes is worthy of a national holy day not because he mixed faith and politics, nor because he enunciated a sentimental dream. It was because he represented something truly terrifying.

When King was shuttling back and forth to Memphis in support of striking garbage workers, Tennessee Governor Buford Ellington typified the conservative establishment's understanding of him: He was "training 3,000 people to start riots." What looks today obviously like transcendent justice looked to conservatives then like anarchy. The conservative response to King--to demonize him in the '60s and to domesticate him today--has always been essentially the same: It has been about coping with the fear that seekers of justice may overturn what we see as the natural order and still be lionized. But if we manage to forget that, sometimes, doing things that terrify people is the only recourse to injustice, there is no point in having a Martin Luther King Day at all.

And many of these people are still terrified. And angry. Which is why we have things like this happening just last year:

Had his homemade bomb gone off—one he had diabolically constructed using shrapnel coated with a substance meant to keep blood from clotting in wounds—Kevin Harpham would have undoubtedly caused the death and injury of many people at last year’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Unity March in Spokane, Washington

When bomb experts from the FBI Laboratory reconstructed the device and detonated it, the results were sobering, Cleary said. “The shrapnel exploded with such a high velocity that some targets in the shape of humans were blown over, and a metal filing cabinet was perforated—it was filled with holes.”

“Harpham intended to use this extremely lethal weapon on individuals solely because of their race and perhaps their religion,” Cleary said. “His plan was to wreak havoc on a crowd of innocents.”

Instead, Harpham was eventually caught and recently sentenced to 32 years in prison for a hate crime and other offenses related to the attempted bombing. The case illustrates how a quick response by citizens and local law enforcement averted a tragedy, and how teamwork and time-tested investigative techniques led to the apprehension of an individual who has shown no remorse for his actions.

“Clearly he intended to detonate the device, cause mass carnage, and then survey the devastation,” said Special Agent Frank Harrill, who supervised the investigation. “Harpham was acting out against what he termed multiculturalism, but his hatred was firmly rooted in violent white supremacy. This was a prototypical hate crime.”

According to the SPLC Harpham was heavily influenced by the film Loose Change, which seems to be a favorite of the Alex Jones crowd. It's a production of the group We Are Change (unironically known as WAC) which harbors the usual compendium of wingnut fantasies:

Today, the group’s website frets about a looming “one world order” and says it seeks “to uncover the truth behind the private banking cartel of the military industrial complex” that wants to “eliminate national sovereignty.” Rudkowski now seems particularly worried about the alleged role in the supposedly imminent “New World Order” of organizations such as the Bilderberg group and the Trilateral Commission. These institutions have been targeted for decades as major global evildoers by Patriot groups and other far-right organizations, including several that are racist and virulently anti-Semitic.

Oy. It never ends completely. Vigilance is necessary.



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digby 1/16/2012 09:48:00 AM |

 
CA 26 and Linda Parks: Proof Anti-partisanship isn't progressive

by David Atkins

The passage in 2010 of a non-partisan redistricting law and a top-two primary system eliminating partisan primaries has led to some interesting developments in California's Ventura County. Longtime Republican incumbent Elton Gallegly retired after being redistricted out of his comfortably Republican seat. The new CA26 is very competitive, which has led to a myriad of candidates coming out of the woodwork to contest it, including Democratic 1st District Supervisor Steve Bennett and the hyper-conservative anti-tax crusader and State Senator Tony Strickland. This seat has quickly vaulted to national prominence as one of most competitive in the country.

But there's another candidate in the race as well, who is already becoming the darling of Broderist centrists everywhere. Her name is Linda Parks, a moderate Republican County Supervisor who has survived well-funded challenges against her supported by the local Republican party, including against Tony Strickland's own wife Audra.

Because of the new top-two non-partisan primary system, she gets to run without taking a party label--something she intends to do:

Supervisor Linda Parks of Thousand Oaks, vowing that she will be someone "who is not beholden to parties or special interests," on Monday announced she will be a candidate in Ventura County's new 26th Congressional District.

Parks is a Republican, but she made it clear that she does not intend to run as a partisan. She said in a statement that she intends to declare "independence from the party politics that are failing our nation."

Under the rules of the state's new top-two primary system, Parks has the option of declaring that independence on the ballot. The rules allow candidates to proclaim a preference for any qualified political party or to have their names listed on the ballot as having "no party preference..."

Parks has long been a political maverick unaligned with partisan interests in county political circles. During her 2010 re-election campaign for the Ventura County Board of Supervisors, in which she defeated former Assemblywoman Audra Strickland of Moorpark, she was opposed by the county Republican Central Committee, the hierarchy of her own party.

Parks is in the middle of her four-year term as supervisor, and thus can run for Congress this year without giving up her seat on the board.

She said she intends to highlight her independence in the congressional campaign, vowing not to accept campaign contributions from labor unions, political action committees or political parties. She will rely instead on individual contributions...

"Steve is backed by the Democratic Party and Tony by the Republican Party," she wrote. "The partisan slugfest hopefully will remind voters how wedge politics and hyper-partisanship has led to polarization, brinkmanship politics and the lowest ratings for Congress."

Mavericky shades of John McCain and Joe Lieberman, anyone?

The problem, of course, is that Linda Parks has to cast a vote for Speaker of the House. In an election year where control of Congress could well hinge on single vote, her vote might be the deciding one. She would almost certainly vote for Boehner or Cantor for speaker. Even in the unlikely event that she were to abstain, her vote wouldn't go to Pelosi, thus potentially gifting control of the House to the Tea Party crowd. Moreover, she would either end up toeing the Republican Party line in Congress, or she would be shut out of every important Committee and position of authority. She would also be denied funding for the district by the GOP Congressional hierarchy, which would make her an utterly ineffective representative to keep jobs in the county.

In terms of governance, she would be somewhere between a Blue Dog Dem and an Eisenhower Republican--the same thing these days, really (in fact, the Blue Dogs are almost certainly to the Right of the old Eisenhower Republicans.) She would be a reliable vote for economic policies that favor the 1%, but would temper that with safety net preservation, moderate environmental policies to maintain the status quo (a carbon tax would almost certainly be out of bounds), and moderately liberal social policy.

While that's better than a raging right-winger, she's also the sort of politician who won't do any heavy lifting to get the country out of this mess. She'd be as essentially useless on the GOP side as Joe Lieberman has been on the Dem side until his recent expulsion. Ironically, by seeming like such a breath of fresh air to the anti-partisans, she would be a legislator most likely to defend the status quo from incursions on the left or the right.

The interesting thing about the Tea Party Objectivists is that at the very least they understand, like progressives do, that the system is broken and needs change. Their version of change is horrifying, of course, but they have the same sense of times out of joint needing to be set right that progressives do. The increasingly partisan tug of war in this country is due to the fact that close observers can see the wheels coming off the wagon, and know that something has to be done about it. The very last thing the country needs is more politicians invested in the status quo, which is ironically what the anti-partisan Broderists would attempt to ensure.

Unsurprisingly, however, the media adoration has already begun, including from our local "progressive" weekly, the VC Reporter:

Just a few days after Gallegly’s announcement, Republican County Supervisor Linda Parks of Thousands Oaks stated her intention to run for the 26th District. The new district had already attracted a few known contenders, including progressive liberal County Supervisor Steve Bennett; conservative state Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Thousand Oaks, is expected to announce his run for the seat soon. But what makes Parks’ election campaign unique in comparison to, really, any other we have seen in the county, is that for a partisan seat, she has decided to declare “no party preference.”


Too many of us have relied on partisan politics to ensure that our ways of doing things remain steadfast on Capitol Hill and in Sacramento. As long as they were blue, red or green or whatever the preference, that’s where our votes would go. It didn’t matter exactly who the people were that represented us as long as their parties were clear. Over the years, though, more voters in general have begun to shift gears, some claiming that they have become fiscally conservative, yet socially minded, eco-friendly, etc. We were voting for whatever party best suited our moral compass because that evolution hadn’t been translated into politics. In June 2010, though, California voters did away with the two-party primary and replaced it with the two top vote-getters. Enter Parks. Taking advantage of the new law, it is pretty clear that Parks is geared up to fight the battle to best fill the position, not to be the best Republican.


It’s refreshing to see such a progressive stance in politics. While we are still wary that campaigning could get dirty, that it could turn into mudslinging instead of being about pride in accomplishments and future goals, we stand by Parks in her decision to put down the partisan mascot. We hope to see similar strides as the political atmosphere shifts into a truer representation of what and who Ventura County is.

Of course, Parks' run is neither a progressive nor positive development, nor is it truly in keeping with the values of Ventura County, which used to be solidly Republican, but has become much more Democratic in recent years and now has a voting majority of registered Democrats. Linda Parks would be a politician out of step with the views of the majority of Ventura County residents, who would be much better served by the likes of Steve Bennett instead.

But this is what happens when problems caused by pro-plutocratic policies get blamed on partisan infighting, and when supposed progressives get suckered into the rhetoric of anti-partisanship.


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thereisnospoon 1/16/2012 07:30:00 AM |

Sunday, January 15, 2012

 
Virtually Speaking Sunday

by digby



Digby and CultureOfTruth discuss the developments of the week.

6pm PST, 9pm EST
Call in number to speak with the host (646) 200-3440

Listen to internet radio with Jay Ackroyd on Blog Talk Radio

digby 1/15/2012 05:30:00 PM |

 
The abortion bowl

by digby

For those who are complaining that Colbert's The Definitely Not Coordinated With Stephen Colbert Super PAC's new ad against Mitt trivializes our elections, well I'm afraid that ship sailed when the Supremes ruled in favor of Citizens United. If you think Stephen Colbert is offensive, get a load of this:

Anti-abortion activist Randall Terry has been running graphic ads of aborted fetuses in key primary states, as my colleague Tim Murphy has reported. Now the gruesome ads are coming to the Super Bowl.

Nothing says "pass the dip" like a bloody fetus. Normally, Terry wouldn't be able to get these kinds of ads on television. So he's launching a non-serious campaign for president (running as a Democratic challenger to President Obama) in order to exploit a loophole in Federal Communications Commission rules that requires station to run campaign ads in the weeks ahead of a primary election—no matter how grisly they might be. In the 45 days ahead of a primary and 60 days ahead of a general election, candidates for federal office can run whatever they want on local stations, as long as they pay for the airtime.

Yes, the FCC can try to fine you a half-million dollars for a "wardrobe malfunction," but bundles of bloody body parts is A-okay.

Here's what you're going to be seeing:

The good news is that they can only run in states with primaries 45 days ahead of a primary, so anyone who isn't living in a Super Tuesday state should be spared. For now.

I wrote earlier about this creative campaign by Terry. They are very serious about using these new rules to proselytize and lie and there's not much anyone can do about it as long as it's "election related." Terry is recruiting candidates all over the country for the specific purpose of being able to run these ads.

You have to appreciate this worldview though. To zealots, nothing is more important than their own crusade and they just don't think about anything else. It must be nice to live in such a black and white world where the trade-offs are so obvious and everything is so simple.

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digby 1/15/2012 04:30:00 PM |

 
Mitt the Ripper

by David Atkins

Stephen Colbert and his team are amazing:

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

There are many layers of brilliance in this ad: a commentary on our campaign finance system, on our over-the-top attack ads, on Mitt Romney's duplicity, on Bain Capital, and on corporations themselves. It's genius.


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thereisnospoon 1/15/2012 03:00:00 PM |

 

Devolution in more ways than one

by digby

In our brave new states' rights dominant country,there will be many places where things like this will be common:

Three Indiana state senators, all Republicans, have introduced a bill that would allow schools to require the recitation of the Lord's Prayer every morning, if they want to.

The Lord's Prayer bill says the point is to help "each student recognize the importance of spiritual development in establishing character and becoming a good citizen," but you can get out of reciting it if you or your parents want.

Well that's good. Little first graders whose parents don't want them to say it will have a fine time in school, I'm sure. But then that's the price they have to pay for being heathens.

It was a big liberal win for the federal courts to uphold the concept of secular public schools nationwide and end this practice. Those who want to institutionalize religion in civic functions have never gotten over it. Interestingly, the battle started in the states, as these things often do. But states aren't actually sacred boundaries embedded in the sacred constitution which must be respected above the federal government. They are just a relic of British colonial rule and a bunch of compromises with landowning aristocrats centuries ago. In fact, their fake "sovereign" status makes this nation more unequal and nearly ungovernable.

From a liberal perspective, states play one useful role in our national life. They are where the first challenges to prevailing norms of privilege and discrimination are often waged --- but with the goal of eventually applying these rights and liberties to the nation at large. Devolving to the states, as the conservatives and libertarians insist we should do, does the opposite. If states didn't exist, it would likely be easier to challenge prevailing norms --- because "sovereignty" wouldn't be spread out among 50 entities plus the federal government.

There's danger in large tyrannies to be sure. There's also danger in medium and small tyrannies. And frankly I'm not sure which is worse. Judging by the endless arguments over garbage cans and parking spaces, if my neighbors were allowed to make decisions about my rights and freedoms I have a sneaking suspicion that I wouldn't be as free as I am today. Tyranny is tyranny.

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digby 1/15/2012 02:00:00 PM |

 
Don't listen to the douchebags

by digby



digby 1/15/2012 01:00:00 PM |

 
Desecrating for flag and country

by digby

Wow. Rick Perry is proving to be the nasty piece of work we always thought he was:

Texas Gov. and presidential aspirant Rick Perry believes the Obama administration is using "over-the-top rhetoric" and shows "disdain for the military" in its handling of the Marines videotaped urinating on dead fighters in Afghanistan.

Speaking to CNN Chief Political Correspondent Candy Crowley Sunday, Perry said, "What's really disturbing to me is the over-the-top rhetoric from this administration and their disdain for the military."

"When you're 18 or 19, you do dumb things. These kids made a mistake, there's not any doubt about it," Perry continued.

He added that those involved in the incident should be "appropriately punished," but that charging the Marines with a criminal act is "over the top." He maintained that the soldiers were following in the tradition of Gen. George Patton, who he said acted similarly in war times.

Now that's the kind of Commander in Chief we've been waiting for: the kind who says that urinating on corpses is a part of the great American military tradition.(Just don't do it on an American flag or you'll regret it.)

I'm not surprised that this is Perry's strategy in South Carolina.Only a few years ago it would have been a huge winner there. It's a testament to changing times (and Perry's remarkable inability to appeal to anyone but bloggers at Red State) that it's not working. Standing up for crude martial violence is usually quite successful in that state, but it doesn't appear to be working. Baby steps?


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digby 1/15/2012 11:30:00 AM |

 
Making the GOP kiss his ring

by digby

Watch Colbert on This Week. All we have is satire now, folks.Nothing else will work. As dday said:

As satire, this goes light years beyond the March to Restore Sanity. Colbert is displaying every single problem with the Citizens United decision, and the mess of our campaign finance laws, by showing the practical application of them in the real world. He can raise unlimited funds from anyone and put them into his own campaign effort, circumventing all campaign finance laws. We’re not only seeing this play out in theory. Practically all the Presidential candidates have SuperPAC support from former associates. In Huntsman’s case the SuperPAC is mainly funded by his dad. They all claim no coordination – witness Newt Gingrich’s showy call today for his SuperPAC to “correct inaccuracies” in the ads slamming Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital record – but this is transparent nonsense. The SuperPACs clearly advocate on behalf of candidates, and have changed the course of elections – witness Gingrich’s implosion in Iowa after a barrage of Romney SuperPAC spending – without complying with any of the campaign finance laws for candidates.

Between this satire and the nearly satirical awakening of Newtie to the big money monster he created maybe there will be a tiny opening for sanity to creep back in. The press certainly isn't going to do it.

In any case, it's clear that the only way we will get through this period in our political history is with a sense of humor and a good supply of the beverage of your choice. The only question is how long we can keep it up.


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digby 1/15/2012 10:15:00 AM |

 
Questions for Focus on the Family

by David Atkins

The odious Focus on the Family people have taken an interest of late in the careers two people: Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow, and presidential candidate Rick Santorum. Tebow was a subject of the organization's Super Bowl ad last year, while organizational leader James Dobson and fellow Godbothers just met to back Santorum's futile bid for the presidency.

During last night's Broncos-Patriots playoff game in which Tebow's Broncos got crushed 45-10 by the heathen Northeasterners, Focus on the Family aired this bit of creepiness:



A normal person might just see a football game and a presidential election where the hyper-religious stars just happened to lose. But given the tendency of Focus on the Family to see the hand of the Lord in everything, one might ask the following questions concerning the failures of the organization's standard-bearers:

1) Did God already know Tebow and Santorum would fail? If so, why not help them?

2) Did God make Tebow and Santorum fail, presumably as a cruel test of faith?

3) Did God give Tebow and Santorum the free will to perform better, but they failed Him?

4) If they had the potential to do better but failed Him, did God know they would fail Him in advance? If so, why the interest, and why create the conditions for their failure?

5) If God knew they would fail and made them fail, and Tebow's and Santorum's victories were important enough to involve Himself, how could God find testing the faith of their followers more valuable than showing the righteous glory of their ideals through victory?

So many questions, so little time.

The alternative, of course, is that if there is some Divine Power that guides the universe and meddles in mortal affairs, Her grace and interest are about as far from the likes of Tim Tebow, Rick Santorum and James Dobson as can possibly be imagined.


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thereisnospoon 1/15/2012 07:30:00 AM |

Saturday, January 14, 2012

 

Saturday Night At The Movies

VHS only: 5 hidden gems from the ‘80s

By Dennis Hartley

“Ka-CHUNK...(click)…whirr…” (*sigh*)

If video killed the radio star, then surely ‘twas the internet what killed the video store. Which, in addition, took all the fun out of being a geeky film collector (well, most of it, anyway). It’s getting tougher all the time to be able to reach into the deepest recesses of my vaults, pull out a coveted “VHS only” title and raise it to the heavens for all to behold without some smug git from the peanut gallery gleefully pointing out that Netflix has it, or that you can watch it for free on YouTube (a 27th-generation copy, in ever-buffering 10-minute segments? Enjoy!). You also have to understand the mindset of the collector. You see, we need that tactile experience of actually removing the Sacred VHS (or DVD, CD, cassette, 8-track, LP) from its (jewel case, slipcover, sleeve, golden sarcophagus, whatever) and holding it before placing it into the Holy Player. It’s all about the ritual. With that in mind, I have perused my stash and dug up five good reasons to hang on to that clunky VCR; a handful of worthwhile gems not available on DVD, Netflix, or cable:

Heartbreakers (1984) - A true hidden gem, this is arguably the most quintessentially 80s film on this list, and one of my favorite “L.A. stories”. Director-writer Bobby Roth delivers an absorbing character study about two 30-something pals who are both going through big cha-cha-cha-changes in their personal and professional lives. Peter Coyote is excellent as a petulant man-child named Blue, a starving artist who specializes in quasi-pornographic, fetishistic female portraiture (his character is supposedly based in part on real life artist Robert Blue). Blue is nurturing a broken heart; his long-time girlfriend (Kathryn Harrold), tired of waiting for him to grow up, has recently dumped him. Blue’s friend Eli (Nick Mancuso), while much more together financially (he’s a wildly successful super-Yuppie who lives in a dream bachelor pad with the requisite lofty L.A. Basin view) is feeling equally unfulfilled emotionally. With his male model looks and shiny toys, it’s not like he has any problem with hookups; he just can’t seem to find The One (yes, I know- how many nights of empty sex with an endless parade of beautiful women can one guy stand?). However, just when the commiserating duo’s love lives are looking absolutely hopeless, they both meet The One. Unfortunately, she is the same One (Carole Laure). The plot thickens, and the friendship is about to be sorely tested. Formulaic as it sounds, I’ve always really liked this film; I think it’s a sharply observed look at modern love (and sex) in the Big City. Max Gail (best known for his role on TV’s Barney Miller) is surprisingly good, as is Carol Wayne (in her very last film appearance).

Light of Day (1987) – From off the streets of Cleveland comes…that rare Paul Schrader film that actually doesn’t culminate in a blood-spattered catharsis. Rather, this is a character study about a pair of blue-collar siblings (Michael J. Fox and Joan Jett) struggling to make a name for themselves in the music biz. That being said, this is still Paul Schrader we’re talking about, so don’t expect a bubbly musical-comedy (a la That Thing You Do!). In fact, the film is more like an American version of one of those gritty, working-class “kitchen sink” dramas that came out of Britain in the 60s, with intense performances from a uniformly fine cast. Jett, naturally, does her own singing and playing; but it’s worth noting that Fox and the other actors portraying “The Barbusters” do so as well. That fact, coupled with the no-nonsense performances, adds up to one of the most realistic narrative films I’ve ever seen about what it’s really like to eke out a living in the rock’n’roll trenches; i.e., these guys actually look and sound like a bar band. Gena Rowlands is a standout as Jett and Fox’s mother (she is also the most “Schrader-esque” character in the piece). Bruce Springsteen penned the title song (originally a little number called “Born in the USA”…which the Boss wisely decided to keep for himself).

One Night Stand (1984) - An early effort from eclectic filmmaker John Duigan (Winter of Our Dreams, Year My Voice Broke , Flirting , Sirens , The Journey of August King , Lawn Dogs ), this is a worthwhile, yet largely overlooked entry amidst the flurry of nuclear paranoia-themed movies that proliferated during the Reagan era. Through circumstance, four young people (three Australians and an American sailor who has jumped ship) find themselves holed up in an otherwise empty Sydney Opera House on the eve of escalating nuclear tension between the superpowers in Eastern Europe. In an effort to deflect their anxiety over increasingly ominous news bulletins droning from a portable radio, they find various creative ways to amuse themselves. The film is a little uneven at times, but for the most part Duigan is able to juggle this busy mashup of romantic comedy, apocalyptic thriller and art house anti-war statement. There are several striking set pieces; particularly an eerily affecting scene where the quartet screen Metropolis as the Easybeats hit “Friday on My Mind” is juxtaposed over its orchestral score. Midnight Oil performs in a scene where the two young women attend a concert. The bittersweet denouement (in an underground subway station) is powerful and moving.

Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987) - I think that the thing I adore most about this criminally underappreciated comedy-drama from accomplished British director Stephen Frears (My Beautiful Laundrette , Prick Up Your Ears, Dangerous Liaisons , The Grifters, High Fidelity) is that it is everything that the Rush Limbaughs of the world fear and despise the most: Pro-feminist, gay-positive, anti-fascist, pro-multiculturalism, anti-colonialist and Marxist-friendly. In other words, they don’t make ‘em like this anymore (no 3-D potential there, I’d reckon). At first glance, Sammy (Ayub Khan-Din) and Rosie (Frances Barber) are just your average middle-class London couple. However, their lifestyle is somewhat unconventional. For example, they have adapted a libertine approach to their marriage; giving each other an unlimited pass to take lovers on the side (the implied in-joke of the movie title is that Sammy and Rosie seemingly “get laid” with everyone but each other). They also don’t seem to mind that their neighborhood has turned into a veritable war zone; ethnic and political unrest has led to nightly riots and clashes with police (this is unmistakably Thatcher’s England). However, when Sammy’s estranged father (Shashi Kapoor), a former Indian government official haunted by ghosts from his murky political past, returns to London after a long absence, everything goes topsy-turvy for the couple. Wonderful performances abound (including the great Claire Bloom, and Fine Young Cannibals lead singer Roland Gift), buoyed by the fine direction and a literate script (by Hanif Kureishi). This is a terrific little film, ripe for rediscovery.

Tokyo Pop (1988) - A likable entry in the 80's New Wave genre (in the vein of Starstruck , Breaking Glass , Desperately Seeking Susan , Smithereens and Ladies And Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains ). The fluffy premise is buoyed by star Carrie Hamilton's winning screen presence (Hamilton employs the same mixture of goofy charm and genuine warmth that her mother, Carol Burnett, parlayed into a long and successful career). Hamilton (who does her own singing) plays a struggling wannabe rock star who buys a one way ticket to Tokyo at the invitation of a girlfriend. Unfortunately, her flakey friend has flown the coop, and our heroine finds herself stranded in a strange land. “Fish out of water" misadventures ensue, including cross-cultural romance with all the usual complications. For music fans, it’s a fun time capsule of the late 80s Japanese music scene, and the colorful cinematography nicely captures the neon-lit energy of Tokyo nightlife. I can't help but wonder if Sofia Coppola took inspiration from this for Lost in Translation (at any rate, it makes a perfect double bill). Director Fran Rubel Kuzui later helmed the 1992 film version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Sadly, Hamilton died of cancer at 38 in 2002.

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Dennis Hartley 1/14/2012 05:30:00 PM |