Must All Heroes Be Canceled?
The San Francisco School Board is officially now the laughing stock of the nation, with its “incorruptible, Robespierre revolutionary” zeal (in the words of my friend Gary Kamiya in The Atlantic) to slap more politically correct names on 44 public schools. One school board member wondered aloud if schools should be named after ANY prominent people, because human beings are by their very nature, well, human. Malcolm X, for instance, was a pimp before he became a Black liberation leader — but the board decided to excuse his earlier exploitation of women because of his later radical heroics. No such waiver was granted less revolutionary figures.
So can our rigid times allow for heroes, flaws and all? It’s a question that I’ve been chewing over for some time because I’ve just finished coauthoring a book (with my sister Margaret) about the radical heroes of the 1960s and ‘70s. All of them had personal and sometimes political liabilities. Martin Luther King Jr. was a womanizer. So was Tom Hayden — and a drunk as well. Dennis Banks and Russell Means — the charismatic leaders of the American Indian Movement — were both street criminals before they became heroes of the Native American rights movement. And so on, and so on. And yet it took these extraordinary men and women to galvanize people and move history forward. For me, their human flaws and how they struggled with their demons make them even more fascinating — and yes, heroic.
So screw the little Robespierres of the world — the censorious bureaucrats of the left and right who try to purge life of all ambiguity and complexity. I might not look up to statues of Washington and Jefferson anymore (I draw the line on slave owning). But I still want heroes, even with feet of clay.
The Lost Dreams of Youth — and Other Self-Publishing Tales
My long, dear friend Richard Ravin has written a novel that I was moved to blurb. I did this not because Dick is a long, dear friend — in fact, I’ve lost good friends in the past when my publication Salon reviewed their work badly. I praised Nothing to Declare because I truly enjoyed it. The book, which is a journey back in time to the Santa Cruz (California) of my tribal youth, should have been grabbed by a major publisher. In fact, it’s so much better than many of the new novels that come my way — elegantly written, emotionally deep, and (I can attest) historically true, even though Dick (a Boston-born boy) was not part of my Santa Cruz grand experiment in political and sexual revolution. So, at my urging (nagging?), Dick finally went out and self-published his novel. If you’re looking for a good read about our 1960s-’70s generation, this is the best fictional treatment I’ve read in years. You can buy it here.
I know what you’re thinking — self-publishing is a vanity game for losers who aren’t talented enough to score a New York book contract. But that’s not true anymore. New York publishing has increasingly become a sales racket, with titles purchased and promoted based on the author’s age, gender, looks, social media marketability etc. — with literary quality coming a distant last. Now that’s not true of all New York literary gatekeepers, I hasten to add. And yes, I myself have been fortunate, by and large, in the publishing jungle. But, too often, mediocre (but “hot”) authors get lucrative contracts, while much more worthy scribes get snubbed.
In fact, book publishing has become such a dispiriting maze that some authors I know who could land contracts with leading houses are seceding from the business and self-publishing because it’s less stressful — and perhaps more profitable. Take another long, dear friend of mine — Karen Croft. As I recently reported, she has written a wonderful, witty, Wildean book of essays on the decline of common decency, Mind Your Manners: How Bad Behavior Is Destroying Civilization. You should also click on her page and immediately buy this mordant little classic. It’s not only hugely and wryly entertaining (and instructive), it’s beautifully printed by a small shop in Florence, making it more of an artifact than a product (another creative part of the publishing process that the book industry has long ago forsaken).
Come to think of it, maybe authors have always been screwed by the publishing industry. Lately I’ve been reading the 2017 biography of Henry David Thoreau by Laura Dassow Walls, and I came across this forlorn entry in Thoreau’s journal — which he wrote after the success of his most famous book, Walden. “It costs so much to publish,” Thoreau complained, “would it not be better for the author to put his manuscripts in a safe?”
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was.
The Man Who Exposed the Warren Commission
Historian Gerald McKnight, whose 2005 book on the Warren Commission, Breach of Trust, remains the best dissection of the notorious JFK assassination panel, has died. McKnight, who was at one time the chair of the history department at Hood College in Maryland, is still one of the few campus scholars to ever take on the explosive subject — which nearly six decades after the gunfire in Dallas’s Dealey Plaza remains taboo in university (and media) circles. It was the Warren Commission’s glaring coverup of this national trauma that began the deep erosion of the public’s faith in authority. But rather than examining this fundamental “breach of trust,” timid scholars and pundits today continue to mouth the party line about accused “lone gunman” Lee Harvey Oswald — and lump all independent Kennedy researchers with paranoid QAnon cultists.
But Gerald McKnight, whom I had the pleasure of meeting once, was not easily intimidated. A crusty veteran of the Korean War, he simply followed the path of his honest scholarship, even when it was widely considered politically and (academically) incorrect. His book on the willful failings of the Warren Commission — which should have been called the Dulles Commission because of ex-CIA chief (and Kennedy-hater) Allen Dulles’s huge influence over the panel — still ranks as one of the Top 10 books on the Kennedy assassination. That’s Dulles, the dark subject of my book The Devil’s Chessboard, looming (in a bow tie) behind President Johnson as LBJ was given a copy of the Warren Report in 1964.
Here’s an excerpt from a 2005 interview conducted with McKnight, courtesy of Alan Dale:
I think there are several telltale (Warren Commission) evasions: 1) The WC’s failure to launch a real investigation into Oswald’s Mexico City trip. This, I believe, is a key to what forces or interests were behind the murder of JFK. 2) The destruction of JFK autopsy materials and the writing of a second autopsy protocol after it was learned that Oswald was murdered—in short, the fabrication of the JFK autopsy protocol. 3) Lastly, the fact that the FBI and the WC had the Atomic Energy Committee (AEC) run sophisticated Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) on Oswald’s paraffin casts and other forensic materials and then failed to include those results in the final Commission Report. The fact that some of the best evidence in the case was never disclosed in the Warren Report leads to one inexorable conclusion: that results exonerated Oswald.
Some people, especially those born after the assassination, seem to think this is “old news.” How do you explain to them that the unanswered questions surrounding that event are still incredibly relevant more than 40 years later?
A president is assassinated—there can be no more de-stabilizing crime in our system of government—and there is no good-faith effort to uncover the facts. What does this say about the legitimacy of our government? Moreover, once JFK was removed, there followed possibly history-altering changes in our foreign policy. Had Kennedy lived, would he have liquidated our involvement in Vietnam? Many credible historians speculate that he would have ended our involvement by the end of 1964. Kennedy’s tentative steps toward a rapprochement with Castro’s Cuba ended with Dallas. Once LBJ heated up our Vietnam involvement, the Soviet-American detente growing out of the peacefully resolved 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was terminated. This raises the foreboding question: Was JFK’s assassination a coup d’etat?
More on Gerald McKnight
Democrats, Stay Strong… Or Get Rolled Again
It’s bracing to see Democrats — from President Biden down — finally stand up to Republicans. Either Republican senators sign onto Biden’s big $1.9 trillion bailout plan — or the Democrats will play the “reconciliation” card and ram the bill through the Senate with no GOP support. Republicans are screaming about Democratic bullying — but this is exactly what Mitch McConnell and his majority did when they rammed through Trump‘s massive tax cut for the rich in 2017 without one Democratic vote.
Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer know that if they again cater to Republican senators — this time a pack of 10 led by the inevitable card sharks Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski — the GOP will only water down and drag out essential legislation. This is EXACTLY what Republicans did to President Obama’s economic recovery plan and health care proposal. The result back in 2009 was a bailout that was geared more to Wall Street than to Main Street and a minimalist health plan that sacrificed the single-payer option. Obama’s concessions to Republicans set up the Democrats for the great Trump populist backlash of 2016. Sure, it was a phony, gilded populism and Trump proved to be a crooked crony capitalist, not the man of the people that MAGA zealots still weirdly embrace. But the point is that Democrats get screwed whenever we compromise with the GOP and when we side with Wall Street — and the party DESERVES to get punished.
So now Democrats need to keep breathing fire as they try to get the country back on its feet. It’s reassuring to hear that even the wobbliest Senate Democrat — Joe Manchin of West Virginia — has advocated reconciliation hardball if no Republicans jump on Biden’s bailout bandwagon. But even more inspiring to me lately is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose response to the traitorous Ted Cruz was perfect when he tried to tie himself to her call for Congressional investigations into Wall Street racketeering. She’s all for bipartisanship when it comes to the GameStop probe, AOC declared, but she draws a line when it comes to working with the likes of Cruz: "I am happy to work with Republicans on this issue where there's common ground, but you almost had me murdered 3 weeks ago so you can sit this one out," the New York congresswoman wrote in a tweet directed at the Texas senator.
That’s the way that Democrats should work with their conniving colleagues across the aisle. Bipartisanship with a bite.
Support Free Speech
Free speech — it’s coming to the USA. Even Twitter billionaire Jack Dorsey is now talking about the need to decentralize the social media giants which dominate global discourse. Of course, like oil giants Exxon and Chevron, these tech monopolies also want to delay the alternative future — with Google and Facebook threatening to shut down the Internet in Australia if they’re forced to pay reasonable fees for their massive news theft. And these tech giants are already buying decentralized social media engines to make sure they’ll own the future too. But this is all the more reason for us to declare our independence from Facebook and the other prison camps of thought.
To keep independent media alive, you must help support it. You can do this by donating or subscribing and by joining the discussions — not on Facebook or Twitter but in our own oases of open discussion. As I’ve written, I have started subscribing to about a dozen independent sources of news and commentary, outlets, blogs and newsletters that I value for their bold reporting and free thinking. I, too, have now put up my shingle with The David Talbot Show — and I’ll continue writing my frequent posts as long as you find them valuable.
Please donate today — and please join the discussions on these pages. Believe me, your thoughts are much more valued at The David Talbot Show than on Zuckerberg’s plantation.
Movie of the Week
The Dig
Yes, the new Netflix film based on the true archeological discovery at Sutton Hoo, England on the eve of World War II features deep and sensitive performances by Carey Mulligan as Edith Pretty, the landowner on whose estate the ancient Anglo Saxon treasure was discovered, and Ralph Fiennes as Basil Brown, the working-class excavator who led the dig. And yes, the film is a great relief in its sober and somber mood and its quiet belief in the maturity of its audience — particularly after the usual raucous fare dished out as entertainment (I’m thinking here of the cynical and overhyped White Tiger). But what really tied together the room for me was the sudden appearance midway through The Dig of a secondary character played by actor-musician Johnny Flynn. Whether he’s performing his songs or appearing in films, Flynn has become a favorite of mine.
In The Dig, Flynn plays a shy, introspective amateur archeologist and photographer with a seemingly doomed love for a married young woman (played by Lily James) and a date with destiny in the skies as an RAF pilot. His stumbling diffidence in the movie mirrors his quiet personality on concert stages, where he deflects audience adoration by modestly segueing from one brilliant song to the next.
I still think of Johnny Flynn as a singer and songwriter, so I’m especially keen on seeing his next film role, for which he seems perfectly suited — the starring role in a David Bowie biopic.
Watch the trailer
And here are a couple of Flynn songs:
The Water (in concert with a surprise guest)
Book of the Week
Walking with Ghosts
By Gabriel Byrne
Do all of the Irish write like poets? Probably not. But if actor Gabriel Byrne had no gift for the dramatic arts (which he clearly does), then he could’ve made his living with a pen. Like his first book, Pictures in My Head (1995), his new autobiography shimmers with musical language. The 70-year-old actor conjures finely-observed memories of his childhood on the outskirts of Dublin, where his working-class family of eight was stuffed into a modest home, and young Gabriel found refuge in the wild fields and farmlands around him – or in the dark cinemas where Hollywood dreams unspooled.
But the stories that made the deepest impression on me are his portraits of the actor as a young man. He writes of his days on the London stage when he was badly roughed up by drunken English soldiers newly returned from policing the Irish Troubles, the sun-blanched afternoons around swimming pools in the Los Angeles wasteland (livened up once by an earthquake), and how he fled in shell-shock from the publicity barrage of the carnal Cannes premiere of The Usual Suspects. One of his most memorable tales is from Venice, where he was given a role as a spear-carrier in a 1983 TV miniseries starring his idols Olivier, Burton, Gielgud and Richardson.
Richard Burton proved, as advertised, to be a wonderful drinking partner and sympathetic mentor. But Laurence Olivier seemed to be a tougher nut. When Byrne stumbled upon the great man rehearsing his lines by himself one day, all the tongue-tied young actor could do was ask for the time.
“Are they paying you for this thing?” Olivier barked. Byrne stammered that they were.
“Then you should buy yourself a watch.”
Byrne has a gift for the self-effacing anecdote. He lashed himself with Irish guilt for days afterward. But you also had to think badly of Olivier – what an arrogant old curmudgeon! But the story has a lovely ending.
As production halted and the cast prepared to leave the splendor of Venice, Byrne found a small envelope in his dressing room. In it was a handwritten note from Olivier.
“Apologies old chap if I appeared rather brusque when we met. I was attempting to knock my lines into my stupid old head.
“I’ve thought about your question regarding the time. It’s something I think about a great deal these days. And in reply please allow a greater mind than I to answer.”
Oliver then quoted Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 60,” underlining the following lines:
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end…
And Time, that gave, doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.
Affectionately
Larry
You can (should) buy Byrne’s beautiful memoir at your local independent bookstore – or online at Bookshop.org, the indie consortium.
Big Pharma Makes Me Sick
There’s fuming and foaming throughout the land over Wall Street’s big-footing of small day traders — the so-called “dumb money” that outwitted the smart money by driving up the stock price of companies like GameStop and AMC (go, movie theaters!) after the big banksters had decreed that it was game over for these struggling businesses. So, yes, down with the Wall Street titans and the way they’ve rigged the stock trading system. But let’s also raise our pitchforks at the pharmaceutical manufacturers that are profiteering from the worldwide COVID plague at the expense of billions of people around the world — after getting heavily subsidized with OUR taxpayer money. In my mind, the executives who run these Big Pharma corporations are more loathsome creatures than even the corrupt czars of Wall Street. While we get sicker and poorer, they are robbing our public treasuries — on both the R&D AND distribution ends — to get infinitely richer and more powerful.
If you’re not feverish already, you will be after reading this article on the unmitigated greed of the coronavirus vaccine makers. These companies’ vaccine research was heavily subsidized by the U.S. and European governments, with Cambridge, Mass.-based Moderna admitting that the entire cost of its vaccine R&D was underwritten by taxpayer dollars. And yet these companies insisted on secret contracts with nations, complete immunity from lawsuits (no matter how serious the side effects turn out to be), and tight ownership of patents so poor countries have to wait patiently in line for the life-saving vaccines. And after this massive infusion of cash and this web of legal protections, the vaccine makers are STILL shaking down public treasuries for each shot that goes into an arm.
Pfizer is charging the U.S. government nearly $20 per vaccine —nearly $5 more per shot than the company is charging European governments. And meanwhile AstraZeneca — based in Oxford, England — is only charging the European Commission $2.19 per shot. Then there’s Maryland-based Novavax, which has proudly announced that its vaccine will soon be ready — after receiving a whopping $1.6 billion from the U.S. government (i.e., us). There’s only one catch — the Novavax shot might be useless against the rapidly spreading COVID variants. And there’s no provision for the U.S. to recoup its investment if the vaccine turns out to be a dud.
Why are the contracts with vaccine manufacturers still being withheld from the public? And since these life-saving drugs were developed at “warp speed” with billions of dollars of public money, why are the patents still private? India and South Africa have filed lawsuits to force the sharing of vaccine patents so they can begin the mass inoculation of their people. But Big Pharma has blocked these efforts, calling its rank profiteering the “lifeblood” of its industry. Unless the Biden administration intervenes, Big Pharma will will continue to play God, deciding who gets to live and die. And we’ll just have to keep underwriting their divine power.
What’s the Matter with Appalachia? Nothing that Joe Biden — and Tyler Childers — Can’t Fix
During the Great Depression, FDR solidified the generational allegiance of working and unemployed families in the South by funding major federal projects there, like the Tennessee Valley Authority. By bringing electricity — and jobs — to the forgotten and hollowed out corners of the South, President Roosevelt won the deep loyalty of poor Southerners, who stuck with the Democratic Party until it sided with the civil rights movement. (Race, it always divides and conquers working Americans.)
Now President Biden has declared he will go beyond his hero by retraining the tens of thousands workers who earn their living in coal mining, fracking and other dirty energy fields and giving them unionized jobs in the green future. Unlike President Roosevelt, he will massively invest in clean energy jobs that will benefit both white AND black workers. “Today is climate day in the White House, which means that today is also jobs day in the White House,” stated Biden yesterday, making it clear that he won’t allow Republicans to also do their divide and conquer act on workers and environmentalists.
This is the best possible way for Democrats to win back the South, especially deep red states like West Virginia, which gave Trump his biggest vote percentage in the last election — nearly 70 percent! Coal-mining Kentucky and Ohio also gave Trump healthy margins in November, and must-win Pennsylvania was closer than it should’ve been because of Trump’s embrace of fracking and other dirty energy.
Who wants to hang onto the old ways in the blasted terrain of coal country? Not the mayors and healthcare workers and labor unions (what’s left of them) — they see every day what a declining economy tied to a 19th century fuel source is doing to the people of Appalachia. Last year, for the first time, renewable energy accounted for more jobs than coal. In the place of a vibrant economy and a proud, unionized labor force, these fossil fuel states now have pills, booze, guns and Trumpism. It’s a deadly brew.
But now President Biden is pointing the way to a new future for Appalachia. And so are young musicians like Tyler Childers. I began listening to the songs of this young son of eastern Kentucky in recent weeks, though he’s been touring and recording for several years. His father was a coal miner and his mother a nurse — somehow a perfect combination for this ravaged region. Listening to his soulful songs, I can’t think of my white brothers and sisters from the South as the enemy. And, in the middle of America’s trauma last year, Childers released a video that made clear how deeply connected white and blacks are in this country — and said loud and clear that the races must no longer be divided and conquered.
I’m a skeptical journalist. But Joe Biden gives me hope. Tyler Childers gives me hope. Watch him perform these songs; watch his video. They’re bleak, they’re heartbroken — but they’re deeply real. And they make me believe in America again.
Tyler Childers on video:
“Keep Your Nose on the Grindstone” (and out of the pills). Damn, this song gives me chills every time I hear it.
“Whitehouse Road” — Self-annihilation as liberation. “It’s a damn good feeling to run these roads”
“Tattoos” Black and blue heart.
Tyler Childers’s unpreachy sermon about America’s racial divide. A remarkable statement by this white son of the South.
The Proud Boy Informer
The Reuters scoop about Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio — revealing that he worked undercover for the FBI and local law enforcement in Miami for years, starting in 2012 — is intriguing. Recent reports have indicated that extremist, right-wing groups are heavily infiltrated by law enforcement agents. Tarrio, who was arrested in Washington DC on gun charges and for burning a Black Lives Matter flag, was conveniently run out of the capital two days before the January 6 insurrection. Is he still under the FBI’s protection?
The liberal media has been trying to lionize the FBI and the U.S. security apparatus for many years — certainly since the post-9/11 patriotic surge and, even more desperately, during the reign of Trump, despite ex-FBI chief Robert Mueller’s deflating investigation of the tyrannical ex-president and other lame “deep state” efforts to bring down Trump.
But independent journalists and civil liberties watchdogs have long regarded the FBI and other security agencies with a jaundiced eye. Considering the FBI’s long, dark track record on infiltrating and subverting militant domestic groups (going back to J. Edgar Hoover’s nefarious COINTELPRO tactics in the 1960s and ‘70s), it would be unsurprising if many leading members of the white nationalist movement were working clandestinely for the bureau.
The infiltration tactics employed by the FBI and police agencies don’t always work. They’ve sometimes created monsters. They’ve often crossed legal lines. It would be good to know more about the true identity of Enrique Tarrio and the other far-right extremists who are calling for war in America. Who’s pulling their strings and what’s their game?
The Cancel Culture Is Coming For You
There’s wailing on the right. Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul who brought you Fox News, recently denounced “the awful woke orthodoxy” from his Cotswolds estate in England where he’s sitting out the plague (and getting ready for the next season of “Succession”). Murdoch’s New York Post also featured a front-page fulmination by Senator Josh Hawley headlined “The Muzzling of America,” raging against Simon & Schuster for canceling his book contract after Hawley led the Senate battle to disenfranchise the majority of Americans who voted for Joe Biden and then fist-saluted the violent insurrection while it was in progress at the Capitol. It’s hard to sympathize with Murdoch and Hawley’s cries of censorship, when they have ready access to a sprawling media empire, which includes the dominant TV channel in news and opinion.
It’s also difficult to take up the right’s crusade against the cancel culture when right-wing extremists — like the ones who threatened the lives of Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and his family, as well as the lives of other prominent progressive legislators like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — are the biggest “cancelers” of free speech in America. Threatening to murder public figures — and their spouses and children — is the ultimate in cancel culture.
But yes, the left has its own problem with free speech — and with erasing history and public figures in the name of political correctness. Take the San Francisco Board of Education — please! These illustrious public servants have just followed through on their threat, voting to strip the names from 44 public schools in the city. I’m all for changing the names of schools that honor notorious slaveholders, colonialists, conquistadors, imperial generals, butchers of Native Americans, mediocre presidents and other humdrum public servants.
For instance, George Washington, the “father of our nation,” was indeed a notorious slaveowner on his Virginia plantation. Marquis de Lafayette — the young French general who was like a son to Washington — thought he convinced the first American president to free his slaves, but was bitterly disappointed when he did not. “I would never have drawn my sword in the cause of America if I could have conceived thereby that I was founding a land of slavery,” Lafayette later declared. So yes, strip Washington’s name off the high school — and rename it maybe after Lafayette… or Frederick Douglass?
But why rename Robert Louis Stevenson Elementary School? Stevenson wrote and spoke out against imperialism and colonialism, especially in his final years when he lived with his wife Fanny on the island of Samoa. Stevenson’s classic “Treasure Island” inveighs against the lust for gold that drove European explorers mad and his “Kidnappped” is a passionate embrace of Scottish independence against bloodthirsty British invaders.
The San Francisco Board of Education was guided (or misguided) by a task force, which supposedly deliberated for months on the question of which schools should be renamed. But the board entertained little public input, and its members could’ve used far more historical sophistication and learning before they made their haphazard decisions.
So yes, the cancel culture — on the right and the left — has spun madly out of control. It’s the job of the level-headed American citizenry — and yes, there’s millions of us out there — to restore reason in the land.
British Costume Drama Escapism
We all have our secret pleasures — especially during the pandemic purgatory. (I won’t call them “guilty” pleasures because I agree with Fran Lebowitz that there should be no such thing). For me, it’s British costume dramas (among other “vices”). But forget the new Masterpiece Theatre offerings — the one about the Victorian female detective, which manages to stuff every cliche into its stillborn drama; and the new “All Creatures Great and Small,” with its snivelly lead character and its obsession with penetrating cows’ bum holes. Instead, I recommend digging back into the streaming treasures of yesteryear — when fortunately I wasn’t yet watching British TV or it was unavailable in the States.
Here are two of my favorite gems from the past:
Bleak House — the 2005 BBC production of the Charles Dickens classic, adapted by the talented writer Andrew Davies, and featuring an all-star cast, including Gillian Anderson, Charles Dance (nobody plays a better villain), Denis Lawson and Anna Maxwell Martin. Dickens brilliantly drew character roles — the conniving and the buffoonish (or combined) — and Burn Gorman as the oily Guppy and Phil Davis as the cartoonish Smallweed nearly steal the 8-episode show.
Cranford — a 2007-2010 BBC series about love and intrigue in an 1840s English village, based on the novellas of Elizabeth Gaskell and featuring another all-star cast, including Judi Dench, Jim Carter and Michelle Dockery (later of “Downton Abbey” fame), Eileen Atkins, Tom Hiddleston, Jonathan Pryce, Imelda Staunton, Michael Gambon etc. Part of the joy of this two-season series is just recognizing actors you’ve long admired strut their time upon the “Cranford” stage.
See also: “Detectorists” and “W1A,” two comedies I’ve hyped before; the remake of “Upstairs, Downstairs” and the historical farm documentary series (the Victorian farm, Edwardian farm and Wartime farm (WW II). Scholars Ruth Goodman, Alex Langlands, and Peter Ginn have become as adorable to me as the performers in beloved drama.
The Vaccine Needs to Go Viral
Everyone I know is getting the same runaround. Even though close friends and I fit the profile (late 60s to late 70s, preexisting health conditions etc.), we still can’t get immunized against COVID. I registered with the San Francisco vaccine site and was notified that I qualify for a shot, and was directed to my health provider. But a recorded message at my clinic — Mercy Doctors, connected to St. Mary’s, one of the biggest hospitals in SF — informs patients that the vaccine has still not been delivered to them and suggests... you guessed it, that we contact SF.gov. In other words, the old runaround.
Yes, the vaccine distribution system is a mess — a cluster fuck of problems that started because Trump was too busy trying to pull off a coup to make the medical emergency a top priority. A few people I know have managed to get the vaccine, by being lucky, by donating money to a hospital, by driving to a different county, by jumping the line. In other words, like always in this dog-eat-dog country, you have to hustle, to know somebody to get inoculated against the deadly disease. To live.
I don’t want to elbow other people out of the way who are more deserving than I am — those who are 75 and older, medical workers and other frontline heroes, nursing home residents and employees — and prison inmates, for god’s sake, who’ve been sacrificed to the pandemic. But when it’s my turn — and according to the SF.gov guidelines, it IS now my turn — I want to get my place in line without working the system like a K Street lobbyist.
But it’s not just a distribution problem, it’s a production bottleneck. Pfizer and Moderna, the two pharmaceutical manufacturers whose COVID vaccines are approved so far, have stated they will produce enough shots for 100 million people BY APRIL. That’s not good enough. We need over 200 million Americans immunized as soon as possible. The Biden administration needs to intervene under the Defense Production Act and vastly increase the vaccine supply by contracting with other pharmaceutical companies to produce the government-approved vaccines. During medical emergencies like this, no pharmaceutical company should have monopolies on supply.
The old, the frail, the incarcerated, the at-risk workers should not have to hustle to survive the plague.
The Politics of the Super Bowl
After being an ardent NFL fan (and a high school football player), I stopped watching football a few years ago. The head injury crisis (particularly after my own brain trauma in 2017) simply made the game unenjoyable for me. Then the Covid eclipse made pro sports even more invisible for me. But I have to admit, when I heard that Tom Brady — who will turn 44 this year and has won a staggering seven Super Bowl rings — is going to star in another Big Game (as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers QB this year), it made my head, yeah, explode.
As a hardcore 49ers fan back in the day, I used to bemoan the team’s failure to sign up the Bay Area boy wonder, who could’ve kept the post-Joe Montana, post-Steve Young dynasty going for years more. I assumed that, like Joe, Tom Terrific was a good San Francisco values kind of guy. But then I heard he was a Trumpie — and Brady joined my enemies list. While I was still watching football, he became the player I loathed the most — a loathing made easier by the ruthless, robotic personality of Coach Bill Belichick and the win-at-any-cost ethos of the New England Patriots.
And now Brady is a Buc, but he’s just as easy to hate. A Florida resident (like you know who), he recently bought a mansion in the same exclusive neighborhood as the even more repulsive Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.
Facing off against Brady in this year’s Super Bowl will be Kansas City’s 25-year-old QB Patrick Mahomes, who has appeared in a Black Lives Matter video, joined LeBron James in a 2020 voter registration drive, and spoken out forcefully for “equality” in our nation.
If I end up watching the Big Game on February 7 — which I admit I just might — I know which team I’ll be rooting for.
Stand Back and Stand Ready… to Protect Democracy
That should no longer be just a Trump message to the Proud Boys — it should be the motto of democracy’s defenders. It’s now brutally clear that Donald Trump tried to defy the will of the people and declare a dictatorship… up until the final hours of his administration. As the New York Times just revealed, not only was Trump leaning heavily on state officials and judges to overturn the vote and inciting an insurrectionary mob, he was also conspiring with Justice Department Jeffrey Clark to overthrow democracy through extra-legal machinations. (And how many other seemingly milquetoast bureaucrats like Clark are there interspersed throughout the federal government, waiting for their big treasonous moment?)
The Times also reports today that a broad progressive coalition formed immediately to defend the results of the presidential election. This is a bracing evolutionary step for the American Left, which has tended in the past to sheepishly accept whatever authoritarian power grab that Republican wolves engineer. Less encouraging were the members of the progressive coalition, like a woman identified as a leading liberal “messaging” expert, who cautioned strongly against using the word “coup” to describe Trump’s post-election aggression. Well, excuse me, but that is precisely what Trump was attempting until the midnight hour. Why sugarcoat a fascist putsch?
The front page of the Times (which is especially compelling today) also carries a sobering report on the January 6 Capitol invasion and how it inspired a global network of white nationalists, neo-Nazis, QAnon conspiracy freaks and other far-right militants. These anti-democratic forces, by and large, don’t see the spasm of Washington violence as an inglorious defeat, but rather as a harbinger of what their power can accomplish if it’s fully organized (and weaponized).
Most of the MAGA base still regards Trump as their leader — and Trump himself has made it clear that his dark political ambitions are far from vanquished. This is another reason why it’s vital for American democracy to convict Trump in the Senate — and then pursue him until the end of his days in state courts for his endless crimes. If Trump makes a political comeback, or if he acts as kingmaker (or rather dictator-maker) for a demagogue smarter than he is, then American democracy might finally die.
Under these dire circumstances, Democrats should hold their noses and cut a deal with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. Yes, he’s an oozing pustule on the body politic, but McConnell also came to loathe Trump and rightly regards him as poison for the Republican future. Our only hope to convict Trump in the Senate next month — and to drive him from the electoral arena — is by cutting a deal with McConnell.
More important, the forces on the left — and I’m talking about everyone from antifa street fighters to liberal members of Congress — must stay mobilized and on high alert against further attacks on democracy. Those in the post-election progressive coalition who advised against sending Protect-the-Vote protesters into the streets as Trump attempted his coup were probably right. These counter-demonstrations might have played into Trump’s hands by allowing him to scream "Anarchy!” and declare martial law. The system — even Republican election officials — did hold. Democracy’s defenders didn’t have to pour into the streets this time, until Joe Biden was officially declared the victor — and then the demonstrations were dancing in the streets jubilation.
But there will be fire next time — and there WILL be a next time. And we can’t be caught soft and asleep. Yes, as I argued yesterday, channel your passion into the system now — keep pressuring the Biden administration to do the right thing, instead of adding to the nation’s sound and fury. But stand back and stand ready. If Biden fails or is foiled — and if the forces of fascism again threaten U.S. democracy — we must be prepared to fight.
Give Peace (and Biden) a Chance
I understand the continuing rage of the militants and anarchists in Seattle and Portland, one of whose leaders denounced Joe Biden as a “feckless” tool of the power elite, as radical protestors in those cities again took to the streets and battled with police. The Pacific Northwest has a LONG history of radical activism (see the recent novel, “The Cold Millions”). But now is the time for the American Left to channel its understandable fury into pushing the system forward, instead of further destabilizing it. The left-wing echoes of right-wing tropes in these recent protests (with radicals carrying the same “Not My President” signs that MAGA rioters wielded as they stormed the Capitol) were, to put it mildly, unnerving.
Yes, Joe Biden is a creature of the DNC, a longtime spear carrier for corporate centrism. But he also strikes me, at age 78 and after suffering more personal anguish than most Washington politicians, as a decent man who wants to lift America from its dark hole. Who wants an FDR-like legacy before he dies. A man who has already signaled in his first days in the White House that he will be a bolder, more progressive president than Obama or Clinton.
Should leftists therefore just pack up their battle gear and go home? No, that would leave the field to the MAGA army, which remains fully mobilized. But we need to engage with the Biden administration in forceful but constructive ways. This will not be easy for the left, which has been in combat mode (or AWOL from mainstream politics) for a long time. But it’s essential.
As I write in “By the Light of Burning Dreams,” the forthcoming book by my sister Margaret and me, nearly a half century ago Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda left their comfortable New Left bubble and harnessed the growing antiwar ardor of heartland America, slashed Congressional funding for the Vietnam War, and helped finally end that long conflict. Hayden and Fonda accomplished that historic feat, while other radical leaders were going underground or burning out, by learning to trust their fellow American again, and by building a coalition that included seven religious denominations, labor unions, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, veterans groups and farmers. In his memoir, “Reunion,” Hayden wrote of the night when their hard work finally paid off in the Capitol building. After cheering the war budget-cutting vote from the House balcony, Hayden and his Indochina Peace Campaign comrades “walked into a starry Washington night, thanking the heavens for our trust in the process.”
We need to revive Hayden’s and Fonda’s radical will to revive American democracy. And rebuilding a peace movement — to align itself with Black Lives Matter and the Sunrise environmental movements — should be a top priority. President Biden is off to a generally good start on social justice and the climate emergency because of strong grassroots pressure in those areas. But a nationwide peace movement is still missing in action. As as result, Biden’s national security appointments have been from the hawkish wing of the Democratic Party.
My point is that especially in areas where Biden is tilting right (like national security), we need to build broad coalitions and to pressure power — not just scream and trash in the streets. Tom Hayden was forced into the streets for a time, he was branded an “ideological criminal” by the Nixon administration and put on trial for conspiracy in Chicago. But then Nixon was toppled from power (with several of his top aides going to prison) and Hayden saw the historic opportunity to organize middle America and end an endless imperial war.
We need the same bold vision — and organizational discipline — today.
Whatever Happened to Elizabeth Warren?
Looking back on the 2020 presidential race, Joe Biden was probably the only Democrat who could’ve beaten Trump (a depressing assessment of America’s political psyche), but Elizabeth Warren was clearly the best candidate to lead the country out of its economic morass. I understand why President Biden can’t pluck her out of the 50-50 Senate for his Cabinet or some other high post. (Massachusetts weirdly has a Republican governor who would tip the Senate back to Mitch McConnell’s control if Warren vacated her Senate seat.) But why did Senator Amy Klobuchar get picked as the host of the Inaugural ceremony instead of Warren? I’d much rather have seen the solid voice of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party in that high-profile ceremonial role than the bland voice of Midwestern centrism — a woman who not only drew fewer Democratic primary votes than Warren, but had to drop out of the running for VP because of her racist record as a Minneapolis DA. (A woman of color who eagerly locked up black people when SHE was a prosecutor proved more politically acceptable.)
Elizabeth Warren came to mind again because a recent article in the January 18 issue of The New Yorker reminds us that Senator Warren has been fighting for working people for a long time. Back in 2015, she introduced the Schedules That Work Act, which would’ve prevented service employers from firing their workers for asking for regular hours and compelled them to give two-weeks notice of any changes to their schedules. “The bill never had a chance of passing,” Jill Lepore notes in the magazine. It never even came up for a vote in the Senate millionaires club, even after it was reintroduced in 2017 and 2019.
Warren has tilted at windmills on behalf of working people for many years. Even before she was in the Senate, she clashed with then Senator Biden over the crushing power that the credit card industry — which Biden championed — wielded over struggling Americans. Biden graciously gave her props for putting up a good (if losing) populist fight. Old Joe is nothing if not gracious, even when serving the financial elite. But now, as he tries to be the new FDR to revive America’s blasted economy, he needs to surround himself with true-blue progressives like Warren.
So, yes, keep Elizabeth Warren in the Senate, because we need every Democratic senator (especially progressive ones). But let’s also bring her into the White House limelight where she belongs as an influential economic advisor. Warren was a Biden loyalist when it counted, after she dropped out of the race, much to the fury of Bernie supporters. She was effusively loyal again after Biden’s inauguration, declaring, “Here we sit tonight, and we have a decent man as president of the United States, one who believes in the competency of government.”
It’s time for Biden to repay the compliments. Colorizing the Cabinet was a good move on Joe’s part. But he must also bring smart, aggressive progressives into his brain trust. It’s the only way he can deliver on his bold economic promises and undercut the phony populism of MAGA Republicanism.
Lovely Day One in the White House
That’s a beautiful picture of President Joe Biden (below), standing next to the new First Lady and holding his youngest grandchild, eight-month-old Beau (named after his dead oldest son). The Bidens seemed at home right away in the White House. (I hope it was properly fumigated to get rid of Covid contamination and exorcise the sulfurous fumes of the Trump cabal.) The nation’s first grandparents didn’t seem to miss the round of canceled inaugural balls; they didn’t need to slow dance like the sexy Obamas on their inaugural night. It was reassuring enough to have old Joe and Jill in the people’s house where they belong.
President Biden immediately signaled the reversal of the Trump reign by signing a flurry of executive orders and declarations aimed at ending “the Trump policies that were deeply inhumane and did not reflect our country’s values,” in the crisp words of new national security advisor, Jake Sullivan. Together, these 17 new presidential commands state that grandpa Joe actually cares about little Beau and the next generations of humanity. That singular lack of concern about future generations has been the dark hallmark not only of Donald Trump, but of Mitch McConnell and the entire Koch brothers’ corporate sponsorship of Republican rule. These rich and powerful men just don’t give a damn about future life on the planet, even their own flesh and blood, only their bottom lines and reelections.
So let’s take a minute to celebrate President Joe Biden’s day one, history-making flurry of proclamations — and the dawn of a new day in the United States and the world.
Here’s a partial list of what Biden accomplished yesterday with a wave of his presidential pen:
Returned the U.S. to the Paris climate accord; terminated the Keystone XL pipeline carrying dirty shale oil from Canada; rescinded Trump rollbacks to auto emission standards; imposed a moratorium on oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; reestablished a working group on the social costs of greenhouse gasses.
Established more coordination for federal response to the coronavirus pandemic; restored the directorate eliminated by Trump that oversaw global health threats; terminated Trump’s efforts to leave the World Health Organization, sending Dr. Anthony Fauci to a WHO executive board meeting today.
Overturned Trump’s ban on travelers from Muslim countries; protected DACA “Dreamers” from deportation and established a path to citizenship for other immigrants; reversed Trump order to exclude noncitizens from the census count; stopped construction of Trump’s Mexican border wall.
Directed federal agencies to make equity a top priority and eliminate systematic racism; canceled Trump’s 1776 Commission, which attempted to rewrite American history and whitewash the national stain of slavery.
Extended a federal ban on evictions and foreclosures; called for Congress to cancel up to $10,000 in individual student debt.
Now it’s our job to continue pushing the Biden-Harris administration to keep doing the right thing — against the iron resistance of the GOP-corporate lobby that has already begun the fight. We have to win — for all of our little Beaus.
America, the Infomercial
Yes, I was often moved today — how could you not be? Four years ago, I was watching in shock and horror as Donald Trump (!) was sworn in as president. Today, as Van Jones put it, in addition to Joe Biden’s at times stirring speech about the need for national unity (while also crushing white nationalist extremism), America’s “cultural firepower was back on line.” After the cultural wasteland that began on Trump’s inauguration day, when to his fury he couldn’t get any A-list entertainers to celebrate his takeover, we were treated on Joe and Kamala’s day to an all-star cast.
Some of this evening’s highlights for me: Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters singing “Times Like These.” Yo-Yo Ma playing “Amazing Grace” (but one rendition of this overused hymn would’ve been enough), and whoever sang Leonard Cohen’s equally omnipresent “Hallelujah.” Fran Lebowitz says there’s no such thing as guilty pleasures — why feel bad about something that makes you feel good? — but I also took guilty pleasure in John Legend singing Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good” and Justin Timberlake and Ant Clemens teaming up on “Better Days.” OK, and even Jon Bon Jovi’s rendition of “Here Comes the Sun.” Hey, I wanted to feel good tonight. We all did.
But still, thanks to Jake Tapper for keeping it real tonight. While even Van Jones was sounding heavily dosed with X (“after the rain comes the rainbow” — yeah, man), Tapper was the only CNN talking head to point out some dark truths. There was no peaceful transition this time, like his happy-talk colleagues kept chirping. People died just two weeks ago at the Capitol crime scene. Tapper said he didn’t want to be Professor Buzzkill, but he also pointed out that “if we whitewash what happened, it can happen again. And next time, it could work.” Indeed, Tapper continued, if it weren’t for a handful of decent and honorable state officials around the country, Trump could’ve stolen the election and turned America into a dictatorship.
So yes, fireworks good. The Black Pumas — an Austin band I never heard before tonight — good. Essential frontline workers, diligent schoolteachers, kids who bundle care packages for elderly shut-ins… all very good. But fascism bad. And the wolf is lurking out there, maybe even next door. If Joe Biden and Kamala Harris deliver on their promises to a devastated America, then democracy triumphs. But if this administration stumbles or sells out, then Trump was just the dress rehearsal, the comic relief before the real horror.
The Biden inauguration’s missing verses
Even when America is on its best behavior, as it was today in Washington for Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration (ding dong, the Don is dead), there’s something always left out. Yes, Biden hit many fine notes during his speech (more on that later) before he collapsed near the end in a mishmash of rhetorical cliches. But the celebrity high points came during Lady Gaga’s triumphant version of “The Star Spangled Banner” (wisely she left out Francis Scott Key’s vituperatively racist stanza about hunting down slaves who sided with the British during the War of 1812) and J-Lo’s tacky medley of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land"” and “America the Beautiful.” J-Lo also left out a couple key verses from the classic Guthrie folk song — the same ones that have been excised from the schoolroom version of the song which has become an alternative national anthem. The missing verses from the song. which Guthrie wrote during the Great Depression, seem strongly relevant these grim days. So let’s remember them here:
There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me.
The sign was painted, said: 'Private Property.'
But on the backside, it didn't say nothing.
This land was made for you and me.One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple,
By the relief office I saw my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there wondering if
God blessed America for me?
