"Taliban Dan" and symmetric political tactics [updated]

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Usually when I see the term "coarsening the political debate," it's usually part of a quote attributed to a member of the establishment political class, including politicians, think tank spokesmen, and celebrity columnists. Both sides denounce the practice, but I think our shared media experience strongly indicates that it's Republicans who systematically began doing this in earnest during the Nixon administration. I remember when Vice President Spiro Agnew, previously the corrupt governor of Maryland, being deployed over the media to tar liberals as the "nattering nabobs of negativism." It was an absurd construct that we teenagers laughed about, but it's my earliest recollection of a politician attempting to demonize a mainstream category of people. There were certainly other, more significant examples that went right past me.

After years of respite during the terms of Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, the team that invented Reagan brought with it a whole arsenal of sneaky little tricks to coarsen the political debate in the form of deftly delivered wisecracks aimed at a lost generation of slowly aging hippies who had become ashamed of what they'd been (i.e., yuppies). During the early and mid-80s, I was less tuned into Republican attack politics than what was happening to public policy at their hands. I was paying more attention to the damage being wrought than the "enabling technologies" for that destruction. Still, I assume that there was some subtlety being applied by Reagan's strategy team.

Many of us might agree that Ground Zero of the postmodern "coarsening," yearwise, was 1988 shortly after the Democratic National Convention. Massachusetts Governor Mike Dukakis had won the nomination. He was a short, wonky, funny-looking guy who had performed well in his acceptance speech and was polling extremely well immediately afterward with what appeared to be a GOP-weary electorate. But the diabolical Lee Atwater was on the job for George Herbert Walker Bush, the patrician establishment archetype who somehow remained an utter pussy even after being shot down while piloting a torpedo bomber in the Pacific during World War II. I'm sure that most people over 40 or so remember the "Willie Horton" capital punishment campaign commercial during the 1988 presidential campaign, and the opportunity it set for a debate moderator to ambush Dukakis in one of the debates and finish taking the wind out of sails. The New England blueblood and a cynical South Carolina bigot teamed up to mainstream the coarsening of the political debate. My perception to this day is that Democrats rarely do it, and Republicans do it all the time because it's the best tactic they have for ongoing minority rule: keep average white people terrified of everyone who is different from them.

Democrats stupidly try to counter Republican coarsening with "taking the high road," which is an asymmetric strategy that has driven the party to timidity and irrelevance. Today they only participate in the power structure by giving Republicans what they want and pretending that even their most heinous enemies work in good faith. The last mainstream Democrat I remember pushing back hard against Republicans on the Senate floor, Dick Durbin in 2005, was quickly chastened after his experiment with expressing his unvarnished opinions about the Bush administration's Guantanamo interrogation tactics. He has behaved as if emasculated ever since he apologized for the remark a week after he made it. You see, by noting parallels between federal government activities and Nazism, you are coarsening the dialog... and we can't have that. Unless you're a Republican or a Tea Partier slandering a Democratic president's origin, religion, character, and motives.

Which (finally) brings me to this: a campaign ad by a Democrat that tries the novel approach of proactively using symmetric, not asymmetric, tactics against a right-wing opponent.



Alan Grayson's approach here is very much in the spirit of Lee Atwater. We could deconstruct its sleazy production value, the editing of the "Taliban Dan" clip, and especially the demonization of an already-unsavory right-wing nut with a catchy, ugly nickname shown in a pseudo-Arabic font. But what makes it different than Atwood's work, in my opinion, is that in back of the media packaging the ad's claims are documented and undeniable. They are not overstretched interpretations, lies, or pure hateful mockery as deployed by Atwater so effectively.

Coarse? Yes. But that cat was let out of the bag decades ago by the masters of divide-and-conquer politics. Effective? Yet to be seen. For an early indication, listen for Republican outrage about how Grayson has coarsened the dialog "beyond the pale" or some such thing. Next, note whether a debate moderator asks Taliban Dan live on TV whether he supports any rights for battered wives or whether he still believes God wills wives to SUBMIT to their husbands without exception. Finally, count the votes. There is reportedly some very big out-of-state money from "Big Pill," as Grayson calls Pharma, and other usual suspects. Moneywise, he's outgunned. So how else to fight overpowering opponents but by attacking their weakness... in this case, Taliban Dan. But you attack him using symmetric tactics.

Editor's note: I'll acknowledge Atrios for pointing to Digby's earlier discussion of Taliban Dan's bona fides, which include associations with the Christian Reconstructionists and white supremacist groups.

Addendum: also be alert in coming days for Responsible Liberals to scold Grayson for... guess what...?

Update: after posting this piece I appended with the first link in the fourth graf, which I discovered a few moments ago.

Saturday Night Fish Fry

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I'm taking a moment to remember The Day That Zeppelin Died, which coincided with the premature demise of drummer John Henry Bonham, then 32, on 25 October 1980. Bonham is reported to have begun his last full day of life with about half a liter of vodka, "The Breakfast of Champions" (one might say if it wouldn't be overinterpreted as a trademark infringement), and then remained with that general refreshment protocol throughout that day 30 years ago until sinking into his final sleep after midnight.

"Achilles Last Stand" is my favorite Zeppelin track, and I do not believe it can be fully appreciated at much below ear-bleeding level. Try it cranked into some "earbuds" for a dim facsimile, but do listen. It's ambitious and mighty, with all the authority of the best Lummox Rock, but having too much compositional and production complexity to be confined to that category.



As you can hear, Bonzo Bonham put about half a career's worth of effort into this track. But to be fair, so did everyone else.

Achilles Last Stand, Led Zeppelin (1976, from "Presence," Swan Song LP SS 8416), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.

Friday Night Prayer Meeting

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Buddy Holly performing in a sub-genre that I've christened as "Kennedy Rock":



I have an iTunes placeholder playlist that I intend to populate with Kennedy Rock, which to me is evocative of a period during the dawn of my pop musical consciousness that roughly corresponded in time to the Kennedy administration. To make my playlist, a song must showcase a strong melody performed by a distinctive, youthful pop voice, and is usually accompanied, at least, by a studio chamber orchestra. Additionally, they may display unusual studio production methods that, technologically, are uniquely of that period. An example of the former would be "The Night Has A Thousand Eyes," by Bobby Vee; examples of the latter would include "It Might As Well Rain Until September" by Carole King or "Our Day Will Come" by Ruby and the Romantics. What they all have in common is that most of them bounce and the sister formerly known as Oscar would think they were swell. I imagine these songs to have been marketed to girls graduating from high school during the Camelot era and launching their lives in the typing pool or as homemakers, listening to the radio while ironing their A-line skirts or their husband's monogrammed hankies.

While not a huge fan of Buddy Holly, I don't have anything against him, and do highly esteem a few of his performances, especially this one. It's a highlight, in my opinion, of "The Buddy Holly Story," and the recreation of it in the movie may even be better than his original. Of course it's hard to ignore that this cut is not rock and roll in any elemental sense --- it's adult middle-of-the-road pop performed by a rock idol (which is another way to describe Kennedy Rock, I guess). Nothing wrong with that it the sound is nice, but it makes me wonder what we'd think about Holly today if he'd flown out of Iowa alive in February 1959. Would he have totally fallen into this "pretty" style of music on his agent's advice? And what then, after that --- Vegas? Branson?

True Love Ways, Buddy Holly (1960, Coral 57326/757326), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.

Saturday Night Fish Fry

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Listen for the "chicka-chickas."



It's John Mayall without the Blues Breakers, live at somewhere. The quartet consisted of himself, Jon Mark (guitar), Johnny Almond (reeds), and Steve Thompson (bass). This tune exemplifies what was unique about this lineup: a highly percussive sound without the use of any percussion instruments except Mayall's tambourine here and there. (Personally, I think he should have left the tambourine at home for purity's sake.) To my ear it's remarkable how percussive Mayall makes the "harp," and most of the other percussion sounds come from "chicka-chickas," blowing on the mike, tapping hollow-body guitars, and so forth. Mayall, incidentally, comes from what I call The Dudley Do-Right School of Voice." This is a peculiarity of several British blues and rock performers of the era, and I'll dig a few more up in the future.

Mayall was a giant in British blues and rock in the '60s, but most Americans probably know him more by his proteges than his own self. I'm not well versed in this aspect of pop music history, though, so I won't bother with a bunch of Wikipedia cites for something I know little about. However, I'll bet the 59er may know a thing or two about Mayall and his British associates of the period.  (If you do, S, send me a note and I'll append this post for the information of myself and the Fifty50 community.)

Room To Move, John Mayall (1969, from "The Turning Point," Polydor), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.

A riddle for you

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Q: What do you get when you cross a CEO with a cadaver and a rodeo clown?

A: Newton Leroy Gingrich.

Yes, I'm talking about that depraved homunculus who this morning earnestly declared to his Christian disciples at the so-called "Value Voters Summit" in Washington, DC, that we need federal action now to prevent the application of Sharia Law in U.S. courts. Yes, immediate action by the selfsame federal government that Ronald Reagan first vilified as scary, then actually made it so in his own lifetime.

Well, the thing is that the U.S. founding fathers took said federal action 220 years ago by composing and ratifying the U.S. Constitution. If Dr. Gingrich had studied U.S. history more closely, rather than dedicating his salad years to the study of "Belgian Education Policy in the Congo: 1945-1960," we would not be able to excuse him at all for this kind of asshattery.

If I may offer a slice of my personal philosophy here, I could probably be tempted to support an amendment to the constitution banning Sharia Law if the amendment also explicitly banned any and all activities whatsoever by all religions except those conducted inside their "houses of worship." Do I have a second?

Editor's note: today I have provided you a bonus "doke." Please make a note of it.

Nonlinearity and Future Shock

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I stumbled on the post I quote below via the interesting Technoccult blog. It makes some points I've been wanting to get to, as touched upon in this recent post and this one and others. Specifically, I've been working toward some synthesis based on Alvin Toffler's Future Shock and Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine. I heard Klein lecture at the University of Illinois about a year ago, but since her book hasn't risen to the top of my reading list yet (it's very close, though), I've avoided referencing her thoughts directly. But here's an author named Charlie Stross, with whom I'm not familiar, that neatly draws connections between themes from those two books and the nonlinearity I've started trying to understand:

The term Future Shock was coined by Alvin and Heidi Toffler in the 1960s to describe a syndrome brought about by the experience of "too much change in too short a period of time". Per Wikipedia (my copy of Future Shock is buried in a heap of books in the room next door) "Toffler argues that society is undergoing an enormous structural change, a revolution from an industrial society to a 'super-industrial society'. This change will overwhelm people, the accelerated rate of technological and social change leaving them disconnected and suffering from 'shattering stress and disorientation' — future shocked. Toffler stated that the majority of social problems were symptoms of the future shock. In his discussion of the components of such shock, he also popularized the term information overload."

It's about forty years since "Future Shock" was published, and it seems to have withstood the test of time. More to the point, the Tofflers' predictions for how the symptoms would be manifest appear to be roughly on target. They predicted a growth of cults and religious fundamentalism; rejection of modernism: irrational authoritarianism: and widespread insecurity. They didn't nail the other great source of insecurity today, the hollowing-out of state infrastructure and externally imposed asset-stripping in the name of economic orthodoxy that Naomi Klein highlighted in The Shock Doctrine, but to the extent that Friedmanite disaster capitalism can be seen as a predatory corporate response to massive political and economic change, I'm inclined to put disaster capitalism down as being another facet of the same problem. (And it looks as if the UK and USA are finally on the receiving end of disaster capitalism at home, in the post-2008 banking crisis era.)

My working hypothesis to explain the 21st century is that the Toffler's underestimated how pervasive future shock would be. I think somewhere in the range from 15-30% of our fellow hairless primates are currently in the grip of future shock, to some degree. Symptoms include despair, anxiety, depression, disorientation, paranoia, and a desperate search for certainty in lives that are experiencing unpleasant and uninvited change. It's no surprise that anyone who can offer dogmatic absolute answers is popular, or that the paranoid style is again ascendant in American politics, or that religious certainty is more attractive to many than the nuanced complexities of scientific debate.

I'll quibble about the last clause in this quote, because there are also conflicts between "scientific certainty and the nuanced complexities of religious debate" (to use Stross' construct), and also between dogma versus open-mindedness in both "communities." But his working hypothesis, as his post is entitled, corresponds to key points of my own, so I'm happy to have him do some heavy lifting to help me progress on my own synthesis.

Incidentally, these Stross bon mots are extracted from a more specialized question that his post directly addresses: is religious tolerance beneficial? And his answer, similar to mine, is mixed. Yes, religious tolerance is beneficial because the opposite of tolerance never is. But tolerance should not venture up to the point where a "religion" adopts dogmas that dehumanize women, children, and The Other; or where religious proselytizing becomes intrusive, coercive, or mandated by law.

Favorite blog headline of the week

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Chief of International Pedophilia Ring Blames Nazism on Atheism.

The post is worth reading, too.

September 11, 2010 [updated]

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Most commemoration of the violent "Muslim" attacks on New York City and elsewhere, which occurred on the subject date 9 years ago, just leaves me wondering. Ccreeped out and revolted, too.

Most TYPICAL AMERICANS are expected, from what I can tell, to believe that this EVIL MUSLIM  force majeure from the skies "essentially free[d] both parties from liability or obligation [because it was an] extraordinary event or circumstance beyond the control of the parties... [that] prevent[ed] one or both parties from fulfilling their obligations under the contract." That is, THE CONTRACT.

And furthermore, in order to visibly document one's strong approval of how one or both of those parties did perform, even though they didn't, TYPICAL AMERICANS are expected, from what I can tell, to publicly express strong, heartfelt patriotic opinions about American righteousness in the face of those attacks. And in order to meet the approval of TRUE PATRIOTS, though, everyone instinctively knows it is best to pretend, fetishistically, that we are very sad, or very angry, or very defiant, or very solemn about these events even though we, ourselves, were not harmed on that date; and no one we know lost limb or life, either. And even though all of us are constantly indoctrinated by corporate-sponsored media to understand that the East Coast, north of the Confederate States of America, is a decadent hive of scum and villainy. As well as some other places.

Therefore, I strongly recommend that you read this recap, by Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), documenting how mainstream corporate media rapidly volunteered to serve as a cat's paw for America's right-wing "assignment editors" as they fabricated false connections, slanderously, between EVIL MUSLIMS and AMERICAN LIBERALS:

At least one commentator blamed the left for the attacks themselves. Columnist Steven Schwartz (New York Post, 9/12/01) wrote that "the anti-globalist rioters seek to intimidate world capitalism into shutting down altogether, and the distance between breaking the windows of McDonald's to achieve that end and blowing up the World Trade Center is pretty damned narrow."

I think this FAIR article is important because, to me, it undeniably illustrates the core sickness of so many self-identified Republicans, conservatives, Tea Partiers, rednecks, and "patriots" today: the readiness to either seize or create opportunities to slander, silence, and if necessary eliminate people THE OTHER. That is, everyone who looks like they do not belong to THE TRIBE. Routinely, the opportunity to vilify THE OTHER is driven entirely by paranoic fanasy or prima facie hate. And journalists are paid to pretend that they are blind and deaf to this.

In advance, I apologize for the churlishness with which I may respond to any assertion that "both sides do it." No, they don't. In America, they really really don't. But the Kens and Barbies who staff our nation's network and cable news shops pretend that they don't know that. They are key members of the ideological lynch mob that has held this nation in fear and moral atrophy for 3 decades.

Update: here's another example of a perverted lunatic spinning slanderous "theories" about liberals with full impunity granted corporate journalists. Although he immediately quit his position as Georgia representative and Speaker of the House, in disgrace, upon being re-elected in 1998, Newt Gingrich is still highly regarded by the polite establishment as a political visionary. He claims, whether in sincerity or deception, that in effect Barack Obama is de Mau Mau incarnate. His motives mostly don't matter; what matters is that he's still portrayed as a policy expert and political bellwether by the media lie machines.

Editor's notes: (1) Rubber Crutch's decision to post this item on September 12, not September 11, was fully intentional. (2) Yes, he did knowingly begin this counter-commemoration post with a strange but genuine Wikipedia/Fifty50 "mashup." (3) This post is likely to need subsequent editorial review for after-hours booboos that elude detection at this hour. (4) Thank you for your attention to these matters.

Saturday Night Fish Fry

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Being a bit lazy here, , for expediency --- going back to my favorite iteration of Blood, Sweat & Tears, masterminded by Al Kooper with very nice, bluesy white-boy vocals and a little psychedelic guitar around the edges. I dedicate it to my old friend, the daughter of a preacher man, who digs horn bands from the late '60s and who was evidently moved by her own political passions to utter the word "fuck" on this very blog a few days ago. Shame on you! Haha!



I Can't Quit Her, Blood, Sweat & Tears (1968, from "Child Is Father To The Man," Columbia CS 9619), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.

Two roads diverged near a wood, and I...

*...I fucking "augered in," as the top gun pilots say, about 90 minutes later. Augered in how, and to what? one may wonder. On my road bike is how, and into a goddam curb that was supposed to be a curb cut, according to my beautiful mind, is what. Happily, I made the most of the time dilation phenomenon, which is well known to all who have witnessed themselves heading toward an inevitable high-speed calamity. With the grace of an Ed Sullivan acrobat opening for Freddie and the Dreamers, I relinquished the handlebars and handsprung onto the concrete sidewalk, pulling off a maneuver, with my arms, something like what parachutists do when their feet meet the ground too fast for comfort. Strangely, I suffered no hand abrasions from the concrete sidewalk, or any other scrapes except one about a quarter-inch in diameter at the crotchward side of the left knee.

However, I spent the next several days in fairly intensive pain, greatly fearing I'd ripped up my only unsullied rotator cuff. Now, after a negative x-ray and some healing time, it looks like I get off the hook with a moderate-but-manageable shoulder sprain. And that, loyal reader, is why I've been offline for almost a week. It also partially accounts for the muddled portions of my previous post.

Anyway, I took the photo at the early cusp of the photographers' "golden hour" with a highly limited iPhone 3G camera. I do believe that I may get on the bike again on Sunday and try again... but not 76 miles this time.

Hedley Lamarr syndrome

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With respect to the so-called "paralysis of analysis," in the words of Hedley Lamarr:

My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.

I haven't lost interest in offering my interpretation of current events, but I've been temporarily exhausted by the effort. From the peanut gallery where I've watched the world turn for more than 5.5 decades, current events are simply unprecedented. Therefore, they are inexplicable from my conventional perspective and analytical framework. Part of my problem, and maybe yours, too, if you have one, is that there are too many sensational data points to comprehend. Analysis --- the process of understanding a large, complex whole by breaking it into smaller, comprehensible parts --- fails us as our daily experience becomes an atomistic horrorshow of disturbing factoids lashed around by Big Lies that are driving half of us to insanity and the other half to impotence. And those factoids, of course, are served up fresh every day by Big Media, and they inflame even those of us who keep our distance from mass media.

During my relative silence here I've been trying to synthesize a big picture or long view that might begin to account for the actual or imminent failure of every major institution this country has evolved over 2.5 centuries. Without abandoning any well considered opinions I've offered here, I've become certain that the die for this epoch was cast 30 years ago and we're now well under way toward Destination: Inevitable, wherever and whenever that may be located. I've been trying to elevate my inquiries to many levels above Mr. President Jelly Bean because I don't believe that America ever was or ever will be all about Him, his homespun values, or his worship of The Corporation as the ultimate organizing principle of society. History will view him as the vulgar homewrecker of U.S. constitutional democracy. I can't see myself disowning those opinions outside of a torture chamber, yet our modern history is no more sacred than the history of the Roman Empire, or Egyptian antiquity, or the rise and fall of Native American civilization. All of us are vessels (or flotsam, take your pick) in a tide of global history, and the tide happens to be rushing out toward the unimaginable ends of the Flat Earth. But it will well up again, after 50 years, or 100, or 200 --- maybe 400 if Western history is any indicator.

Synthesis is where I'm headed; I'm asking myself what this chaos might add up to if we try using a longer view of history to rise above the hurricane of scary-looking events. My first stop is 14th century Europe. Without reading some medieval European history, you'd have no idea how modern the 1300s look to us... or how medieval we look compared with, for example, The Enlightenment. That's where I'm headed for the moment.