The Party Of Nowhere

Conservative writer and NYT columnist David Brooks has an interesting piece here about what the Republican party must do to revive itself. After a not especially original interpretation of John Ford films as being about community building and safeguarding, Brooks writes:

Today, if Republicans had learned the right lessons from the Westerns, or at least John Ford Westerns, they would not be the party of untrammeled freedom and maximum individual choice. They would once again be the party of community and civic order.

They would begin every day by reminding themselves of the concrete ways people build orderly neighborhoods, and how those neighborhoods bind a nation. They would ask: What threatens Americans’ efforts to build orderly places to raise their kids? The answers would produce an agenda: the disruption caused by a boom and bust economy; the fragility of the American family; the explosion of public and private debt; the wild swings in energy costs; the fraying of the health care system; the segmentation of society and the way the ladders of social mobility seem to be dissolving.

Now, I don't knock Brooks' sincerity in writing this; however, I do wish that he would remove his rose-colored glasses. Because the truth is that in the 1968 presidential campaign, Richard Nixon perverted phrases like "the party of community and civic order" into code words for his race-baiting Southern Strategy.

Ronald Reagan's simple-minded platitudes belied the underlying cynicism of his 1980 campaign kickoff in Philadelphia, Mississippi, locale of the 1964 murder of civil rights activists James Cheney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. Reagan did not have reconciliation in mind when he averred that

I believe in states' rights ... I believe we have distorted the balance of our government today by giving powers that were never intended to be given in the Constitution to that federal establishment.

Reagan communicated nothing subtle when he committed to states' rights, the euphemistic mask behind which southern politicians had created a system of apartheid below the Mason-Dixon line.

In 1984, Reagan campaigned for reelection on the claim that under his leadership, it was morning again in America:

Watch the commercial a second time. The only black and Latino faces are prepubescent (read: unthreatening) boys gazing up adoringly after the words "under the leadership of President Reagan" and just before a montage of flag raisings and displays. This ad makes it perfectly clear that "morning in America" is reserved for traditionally minded white people and minorities who know their place.

Now, reread Brooks' second paragraph. By asking "What threatens Americans’ efforts to build orderly places to raise their kids?" he strikes directly at conservative paranoia and fear of the other. This renders the remainder of the paragraph into so much noise until he closes with "the way the ladders of social mobility seem to be dissolving." This phrase could mean almost anything. Liberals might point to income disparity and rising college costs, but today's conservatives will be drawn immediately to affirmative action, and immigration -- that is, ongoing threats to tradition white social mobility.

Again, I'm not arguing that this is Brooks' intent. He seems like a decent and well-meaning man who believes in the best parts of his writings and public statements. But he doesn't push the Republican party to confront the way that social conservatism -- social fascism, really -- has polluted any ideals that the party might have. Most of the country has turned away from right wing values issues as divisive and disconnected from everyday reality. Until Republicans face up to this, the party will remain in the grip of the Deep South and the rural west, a sure path to national irrelevance...

The New Orleans Times-Picayune excoriates the Army Corps of Engineers for recommending an obviously inferior plan for NOLA's canals that would

leave deficient floodwalls in place -- something that a regional levee official described as "criminal." The fear is that the existing canals and floodwalls won't be able to hold water from a 100-year rainfall if one occurs during a storm, and that's a reasonable concern.

The Corps selected the cheaper of two options ($800,000,000 compared to $3.4 billion) while freely admitting that the second option was technically and operationally superior. Here's what Citizen K. doesn't understand: The impetus for this came from the destructive aftermath of a hurricane that did over a hundred billion dollars worth of damage. In light of this, the Corps is being penny wise and pound foolish, and the difference between $800,000,000 and $3.4 billion seems downright piddly. Anyway, what is the price of an orderly place to raise kids (as David Brooks might put it)?

"We can't ever again let the corps force us to live with inferior protection," Jefferson Parish Council member John Young said last week.

That's for sure, and the fact that the corps is putting its weight behind an inferior plan is a bitter disappointment...

Here's a real howler, courtesy Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY):

The president is free to nominate whomever he likes. But picking judges based on his or her perceived sympathy for certain groups or individuals undermines the faith Americans have in our judicial system.

More on the Republican plan to oppose President Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court -- whoever he or she might be -- here. The choice of ultraconservative white Southerner Jeff Sessions to be the Republican public face during the nomination hearings must tempt Obama mightily to nominate an urban minority woman...

Cinco de Mayo: Lila Downs explains then sings "El Quinto Regimiento," a song of liberation from the Spanish Civil War:

What Cinco de Mayo would be complete without Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass:

Sunday Funnies & So Much More

As always, click to enlarge www.tomthedancingbug.com for more...

Adding clairvoyance to their brief, Focus On The Family Action has published a twisted 16-page letter to the faithful, purporting to be a communication from "Obama's America" in 2012. The words "homosexual," "homosexuals," and "homosexuality" appear 16 times, mostly in the first six pages. ("Same sex" appears four times and, oddly, "lesbian" only once. One gets the impression that -- like Queen Victoria -- James Dobson and his demonic ilk simply won't believe that it exists.) Among other dire consequences of an Obama administration are gay troop leaders sharing tents with innocent Boy Scouts, gay church youth leaders, and the suppression of "hate speech" (quotes theirs). About the only good news is Antonin Scalia's retirement from the Supreme Court because he's sick and dying or something. The whole sick enterprise is enough to make one question the right to vote...

I spent yesterday afternoon phone banking for Obama. The office was full of volunteers, and neighborhood canvassers came steadily in and out the whole time I was there. We're going to win this thing...

Onward and upward to the Arts:

Tell Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 8 (1989-2006), Bob Dylan. Who would have thought that a collection of demos, alternate versions, old folk songs, live cuts, and previously unreleased songs would be one of the top releases of the year?  It helps when the demos and alternate versions are superior to the original releases. It helps even more when the sum total projects the dystopian vision of a world gone wrong from the most significant American songwriter ever. This world is no great shakes, Dylan says, but listening to the music is at least a way of getting to the truth of it while celebrating the ability of humans to create and communicate through song. Then he takes us on a tour of virtually every popular American music form that involves setting words to a tune. What in lesser hands might have made an interesting collection of an artist in development instead becomes a great album, arguably the best of the year and inarguably one of the best of an amazing career.

Shake Away/Ojo De Culebra, Lila Downs. Crossover albums risk diluting an artist's sound by flirting with a low common denominator aimed at making him or her "accessible" to a wider audience. Too often, an authentic sounds becomes bland and the album neither crosses over nor satisfies the artist's original audience. Happily, the Mexican-American singer Lila Downs uses the opportunity to expand her sound to a pan-Latin musical vision encompassing the border, the Caribbean, and the jungles and beaches of Central and South America. Singing in both English and Spanish, Downs' dazzling contralto bounds from rock to folk to blues to Latino ballads and dances with the exuberance of children rushing to recess on the first sunny day of the year. The creative arrangements fit her like a glove: A soprano sax extends her voice. A New Orleans brass band tuba marks the beat for salsa horns. Guitars swoop in and out like hawks. Seemingly at will, her contralto leaps to a high soprano. Wow.

South Pacific (New Broadway Cast), Kelli O'Hara, Paulo Szot, Matthew Morrison. To these ears, it surpasses the original cast, which is saying something. Opera singer Szot's dashing Emile elicits all of the romance and passion from "Some Enchanted Evening" and the showstopper "This Really Was Mine." Morrison's fine tenor elicits the longing and sorrow of Lt. Cable's doomed affair. But it's Kelli O'Hara's Nellie Forbush that shines brightest. Through the first act, she brings just the right touch of self-importance to Nellie's insouciance and cock-eyed optimism. Then when confronted with her own bigotry, the self-importance gives way to the self-knowledge that makes Nellie a true heroine. It can't be easy to convey this in the soundtrack of musical, but O'Hara is more than equal to the task. Moreover, all of the beloved favorites are performed with just the right touch, especially Loretta Ables' knowing "Bali Hai" and "Happy Talk." Note: As this is the CD era, we get all of the reprises and incidental music that the space limitations of vinyl precluded...

Fan's Notes: We're having internet difficulties at home, so blog entries could be sporadic for a few days.