The video clip below popped up first thing this morning and it is a real kick to the gut. Federal police pepper spray this man just … just because they can. Not for anything he is doing or for anything he is saying, although that is a serious reality check. What values and principles America claims it stands for are often just cover for gratuitous violence against anyone standing in our way, whether in Vietnam or at home. Federal police cooperate by making his point for him.
A few days ago, the president of the Portland, Ore., branch of the NAACP complained that the killing of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement has been lost in the ongoing confrontations with the acting president’s personal militia in Portland. This is no time for spectacle, writes E.D. Mondainé:
If we engage them now, we do so on their terms, where they have created the conditions for a war without rules, without accountability and without the protection of our Constitution. This makes me fearful for the safety of everyone demonstrating in Portland. That’s why we need to remember: What is happening in Portland is the fuse of a great, racist backlash that the Trump administration is baiting us to light.
We cannot fall for their deception. We cannot settle for spectacles that endanger us all. This is a moment for serious action — to once again take up the mantle of the civil rights era by summoning the same conviction and determination our forebears did. We welcome our white brothers and sisters in this struggle. In fact, we need them. But I must ask them to remain humbly attuned to the opportunity of this moment — and to reflect on whether any actions they take will truly help establish justice, or whether they are simply for show.
There are always those on the left on whom long-term strategy is lost. As far back as the 1960s, there were always lefty friends more interested in showing out or confrontation with “The Man” than in advancing the cause, whatever it was. They’ll be telling their grandchildren about the time they got shoved by a cop whether or not their protests or their shoving changed anything.
Point them to the example of John Lewis.
The body of Rep. John Lewis on Sunday was carried across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where, in 1965, Lewis helped guide hundreds of people marching for voting rights. Read more here: https://t.co/RyfGg2T771pic.twitter.com/qg6jzlisNZ
For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like. Note: The pandemic will upend standard field tactics in 2020. If enough promising “improvisations” come my way, perhaps I can issue a COVID-19 supplement.
The current 2020 Electoral College projection from Rachel Bitecofer of the Niskanen Center. Read the full analysis here.
Here’s the big news:
July 26: Florida moves from Toss-up to Leans Democratic, Texas from Leans Republican to Toss-up; Michigan, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin from Leans to Likely Democratic.
The U.S. Ambassador to Iceland wants to carry a gun.
Despite being assigned to one of the safest countries in the world, Jeffrey Ross Gunter has been “paranoid” about his security since coming to Reykjavik last year, according to a dozen diplomats, government officials, former officials and individuals familiar with the situation. As a result, Gunter wanted the State Department to obtain special permission from the Icelandic government for him to have a firearm. He also wanted door-to-door armored car service, and entertained the idea of wearing a “stab-proof vest.”
The State Department declined to say if there is any credible threat to Gunter’s safety, but U.S. government officials told CBS News the ambassador has been informed multiple times that he is at no extraordinary risk. Regardless, the embassy recently placed a jobs listing in Icelandic newspapers looking for local, full-time “bodyguards.” Those same officials said they believe security is being augmented to placate Gunter’s “irrational” concerns.[…]
Since his nomination in May 2019, Gunter has created an increasingly “untenable” working environment at the Embassy in Reykjavik, according to current and former diplomats familiar with the situation. He has already had seven Deputy Chiefs of Mission (DCM’s), experienced Foreign Service Officers who traditionally serve in the number-two jobs. The first deputy prepared for more than a year and spent months learning Icelandic, only to be blocked from coming to post because Gunter reportedly “didn’t like the look of him” at their introductory meeting. The second DCM made it to Iceland, but only lasted six months.
After that, Gunter tried to persuade frustrated officials in the European Bureau he didn’t need a DCM and could manage the relatively-small mission on his own. Unconvinced, they set up a rotation system until a suitable candidate could be found.
“In order to ensure continuity of support for Embassy Reykjavik while Ambassador Gunter selected a new, permanent DCM, the State Department also deployed four experienced career foreign service officers to serve short-term details as Acting DCM from January 2020 to June 2020,” a State Department Spokesperson said when asked about the high turnover. “These temporary duty assignments were of short duration by design.”
But Gunter didn’t get along with the acting deputies either. According to three individuals familiar with the situation, the ambassador once “flew into a rage” because a DCM left snow boots under their own desk in the middle of the Icelandic winter. Sources said he accused others of various, unsubstantiated infractions, including trying to undermine him to Washington and being complicit with the “deep state.”
Senior leadership at the State Department is well-aware of the trouble in Iceland, according to current and former agency officials, but has been reluctant to take action against anyone perceived to have close ties to the White House. Supervisors have also had difficulty getting Gunter to follow protocol or respect the chain of command. In February, after attending a conference in Washington, Gunter refused to return to Iceland — leaving a temporary deputy in charge on the ground for months, in the middle of a global health crises.
“Ambassador Gunter had scheduled personal leave after the Chief of Mission conference,” a State Department Spokesperson told CBS News when asked about the absence. “His return to Iceland was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
But multiple sources in Washington, Reykjavik and elsewhere said Gunter wanted to work remotely from California and told senior officials he would not go back overseas unless expressly ordered to do so by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Those sources were unclear if Gunter wanted to stay in the US because he was worried about the virus or had other, unspecified safety concerns.
Increasingly higher-ranking individuals tried and failed to get the ambassador back to post. Eventually, a State Department Official told CBS News, Pompeo had to call Gunter directly. The exchange was described as “polite” and “gentle,” which the official speculated may have been to avoid angering a potential future political donor. Pompeo is widely expected to run for office after his term ends, though he has repeatedly denied it.
Having heard from on high, Gunter finally returned to Iceland in May. His new DCM, Michelle Yerkin, arrived this month. CBS News attempted to reach Gunter for comment multiple times through the State Department press office, the embassy in Reykjavik and directly by email, but did not hear back.
Icelandic officials declined to comment on any specific incidents or characterize their interactions with the American ambassador, but he has become an increasingly controversial figure in his host country. Earlier this week Gunter drew widespread ire for a referring to COVID-19 as “the Invisible China Virus!” on Twitter. Many Icelanders said the phrase was offensive and ethnocentric.
Gunter is one of a number of Trump administration appointees with little or no foreign policy experience now filling top jobs at American embassies around the world. Woody Johnson, owner of the New York Jets and ambassador to the United Kingdom, is reportedly under investigation for making inappropriate comments to his staff and trying to get the British Open moved to a Trump resort. In South Africa, handbag designer and frequent Mar-a-Lago visiter Lana Marks dismissed her DCM and then allegedly tried to promote her son to a senior-level position.
Forty-two percent of current American ambassadors are political appointees, according to the American Foreign Service Association. That’s up from thirty percent in the Obama administration and thirty-two percent under George W. Bush. But Neumann, who now runs the American Academy of Diplomacy, said the percentage of political appointees isn’t as important as making sure they are qualified to do the job.
“Its not all one thing or the other,” he said. “They have appointed some competent people, but they have also appointed an excessive number of incompetent people who are an embarrassment to the nation.”
They are just a reflection of America’s current leadership.
Trump said he would only hire the best. These are his best.
Approval of President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic has hit a new low, with just 32 percent of Americans saying they support his strategy, according to a poll released Sunday.
In fact, only 81% of Republicans still back him at all in this poll.
Trump managed to provoke people into staging protests again with his paramilitary move into Portland so maybe he’ll have better luck this time. I doubt it. People sided with the protesters last time and it’s no less likely they’ll do it now since it’s so obviously an election ploy.
He cannot run from his inept handling of the most important crisis of his presidency. His whining about how unfair he’s been treated and how everyone’s out to get him as if the virus is the same as Hillary Clinton and the New York Times isn’t working for him anymore. People are dying by the tens of thousands.
He looks smaller and smaller every day. Paramilitaries in the streets aren’t going to change that.
There are stories that this consulate had links with protest groups in the US providing financial and logistical support. That’s unconfirmed.pic.twitter.com/QkQf7vjPza
The wingnuts are apparently getting themselves completely wound up by this.
This seems like a laughable distraction from increasingly desperate Trumpies. It’s hard to imagine that anyone believes a word they say about any of this. It’s so stupid I can hardly believe they’re going for it.
Let’s just hope that nobody takes the bait. Just as we had to rely on the ayatollahs to keep their heads when Trump tried to wag the dog last January on the eve of his impeachment trial, we must now hope that the Chinese government doesn’t see an advantage in responding to this nonsense.
As Florida became a global epicenter of the coronavirus, Gov. Ron DeSantis held one meeting this month with his top public health official, Scott Rivkees, according to the governor’s schedule. His health department has sidelined scientists, halting briefings last month with disease specialists and telling the experts there was not sufficient personnel from the state to continue participating.
“I never received information about what happened with my ideas or results,” said Thomas Hladish, a University of Florida research scientist whose regular calls with the health department ended June 29. “But I did hear the governor say the models were wrong about everything.”
DeSantis (R) this month traveled to Miami to hold a roundtable with South Florida mayors, whose region was struggling as a novel coronavirus hot spot. But the Republican mayor of Hialeah was shut out, weeks after saying the governor “hasn’t done much” for a city disproportionately affected by the virus.
As the virus spread out of control in Florida, decision-making became increasingly shaped by politics and divorced from scientific evidence, according to interviews with 64 current and former state and administration officials, health administrators, epidemiologists, political operatives and hospital executives. The crisis in Florida, these observers say, has revealed the shortcomings of a response built on shifting metrics, influenced by a small group of advisers and tethered at every stage to the Trump administration, which has no unified plan for addressing the national health emergency but has pushed for states to reopen.
DeSantis relies primarily on the advice of his wife, Casey, a former television reporter and host, and his chief of staff, Shane Strum, a former hospital executive, according to Republican political operatives, including a former member of his administration.
“It’s a universe of three — Shane and Casey,” said one Republican consultant close to DeSantis’s team who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer a candid assessment.
The response — which DeSantis boasted weeks ago was among the best in the nation — has quickly sunk Florida into a deadly morass. Nearly 5,800 Floridians have now died of covid-19, the disease caused by the virus — more deaths than were suffered in combat by Americans in Afghanistan or Iraq after 2001. One out of every 52 Floridians has been infected with the virus. The state’s intensive care units are being pushed to the brink, with some over capacity. Florida’s unemployment system is overwhelmed, and its tourism industry is a shambles. How Florida’s coronavirus reopening unfolded under Gov. DeSantisBehind the twists and turns of Florida’s decision to reopen is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).
DeSantis began the year as a popular governor, well-positioned to help his close ally President Trump win this crucial state in November’s election. DeSantis is now suffering from sagging approval ratings. Trump is polling behind Democrat Joe Biden in recent polls of Florida voters. And both men, after weeks of pushing for a splashy Republican convention in Jacksonville, succumbed to the reality of the public health risks Thursday when Trump called off the event.
Trump asked DeSantis in a phone call in May whether he would require masks for the convention and whether the virus would be a problem, according to a person with knowledge of the conversation. DeSantis said he would not require masks and the virus would not be a major problem in August in Florida[…]
During the same period, DeSantis spoke regularly to members of the Trump administration. He appeared twice on Fox News and called in to Rush Limbaugh’s radio show[…]
But the crisis in Florida has been especially acute, infectious-disease specialists say, because politics have dictated the response at crucial junctures — never more so than with the state’s reopening, which was cast by the governor as a return to normal rather than as a new and even more precarious phase of the pandemic.
Trump told aides that Florida’s early success gave other states a justification to reopen, according to three administration officials. Meanwhile, DeSantis quickly turned presidential rhetoric into gubernatorial orders, all while rejecting measures, including a statewide mask mandate and an extended stay-at-home order, that helped other states contain their outbreaks […]
The governor’s small inner circle stands in contrast to the number of people tapped for his reopening task force in April. The group included more than 100 participants but only five doctors, who were placed on a working group alongside representatives from the elder-care industry and farming leaders.
The working group met twice for 2½ hours, said one member, dentist Rudy Liddell, and did not develop written recommendations or provide continued input once the report of the executive committee was released at the end of the month.AD
The guidelines that emerged from the executive committee closely mirrored the reopening recommendations issued by the White House. There were few specific benchmarks following the first phase of a statewide reopening on May 18 — after about six weeks of sweeping restrictions — with movement into new phases premised instead on “adequate health care capacity” and the absence of a resurgence of the virus. In early June, DeSantis announced that much of the state could move into the second phase, lifting restrictions on bars and movie theaters, on the same day the state recorded 1,317 new cases, the largest surge in six weeks.
“It was outcome-determinative — they knew what they wanted to do,” said state Sen. Gary Farmer, the incoming Senate minority leader. “It was a joke. . . . It was, ‘Here’s the plan. Here’s the chance to rubber-stamp it.’ ”
As the state shifted into reopening, the Republican National Committee announced plans for its convention. The National Basketball Association opted to finish its season in Orlando. Disney World reopened July 11.
Compliance in April with the sweeping stay-at-home order brought the state’s numbers down to a point that reopening looked feasible, said Cindy Prins, an epidemiologist at the University of Florida. The problem, she said, was the speed with which the state moved through the subsequent phases of its economic restart.
“There was hardly enough time for the new infections even to show up,” she said.
The governor’s quest to put the pandemic behind him undermined the very message — that the virus was still a deadly threat — that could have made his reopening a success, said J. Glenn Morris, director of the University of Florida’s Emerging Pathogens Institute.
“One of the areas where we failed in Florida was in convincing people that as things began to open up, that we still had a serious situation, that the virus was still present in the community and that there remained a critical need to maintain the basic practices recommended by the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention],” he said.
Actually, the same thing happened in California. Apparently, a huge number of people don’t follow the news and thought that since the government opened up they could just go back to normal. The government failed to get the message out. Even now, with cases surging, a lot of people are just ignoring it.
Meanwhile, Florida’s wingnut government has starved public health and there was virtually no ability to follow the mitigation strategies required to suppress the virus. The government refused to use some of the methods which might have helped and a number of the state experts have left or have been purged for giving advice and data that challenges DeSantis’s preferred narrative.
DeSantis is more interested in hobnobbing with Dear Leader:
DeSantis has left Florida for the White House numerous times during the pandemic.
At an April briefing in the Oval Office, Trump offered to hold the governor’s foam display boards as DeSantis detailed how Florida had corralled the coronavirus better than almost any other state.
“Everyone in the media was saying Florida was going to be like New York or Italy, and that has not happened,” DeSantis said.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Florida now eclipses New York’s caseload by more than 3,300. Florida has at least 168,000 more cases than Italy, a country with about three times the state’s population.
DeSantis joined Trump for a White House event on drug pricing Friday, when the state recorded 12,444 new cases of the virus and 136 deaths.
DeSantis was a little-known congressman in the first half of the Trump administration who made a name for himself with appearances on Fox News denouncing the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
He netted the president’s endorsement in the 2018 Republican gubernatorial primary, riding it all the way to the governor’s office.
“What’s the old phrase — dance with the one who brought you,” said Farmer, the incoming Florida Senate minority leader. “That’s what he’s doing. His political fortune in becoming governor was not just closely tied, but almost exclusively tied, to the Donald Trump train.”
Trump feels bonhomie with DeSantis, likes having him in the Oval Office and regularly speaks with him on the phone, even though many around the president do not trust the governor, people familiar with the matter say. DeSantis also regularly consults with Brad Parscale, the president’s recently deposed campaign manager.
Florida’s initial ability to skirt the worst effects of the virus was a boon for DeSantis and for Trump: The governor’s aggressive efforts to jump-start hiseconomy were right out of Trump’s playbook, perceived at the time as a benefit in the battleground state. Administration officials regularly sent reports and clips of DeSantis bragging about Florida not having cases early in the outbreak, to argue that many states were overreacting and, at times, that seasonal heat could cure the virus.
Now, with the virus spreading uncontrolled in Florida, former health officials think DeSantis has joined the president in seeking to manage expectations about its consequences rather than formulate a plan to bring it under control.
“They keep hoping it’s going to go away by itself,” said Richard Hopkins, an epidemiologist who spent 19 years at the Florida Department of Health. “I don’t know what’s going on — whether they’re afraid that they will get primaried by someone to their right if they take appropriate public health action.”‘You are doing nothing!’: Florida governor heckled at briefingThomas Kennedy accused Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) of doing “nothing” to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. (The Washington Post)
Approval of DeSantis’s handling of the pandemic has fallen by double digits since April, when 50 percent of registered voters in Florida backed the governor’s approach. Now, 38 percent of residents approve of his response, while 57 percent disapprove, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday.
Reality bites:
Darlene Dempsey, a nurse in West Palm Beach and a lifelong Republican, said she could no longer support Trump or DeSantis, both of whom, she added, had chosen to “gaslight nurses” instead of using the time in March and April to ramp up production of medical equipment and develop a testing plan.
“The fairy tales about all being under control are nonsense,” she said. “Our government has failed us.”
When you hitch your wagon to an orange imbecile, I’m not sure why you would expect any other outcome.
DeSantis went to Yale and Harvard, by the way, showing once again that an elite education is no guarantee of political acumen or policy judgment.
Situation desperate, echoes of the victims cry If I had a rocket launcher, some son of a bitch would die – “If I Had a Rocket Launcher” by Bruce Cockburn
“The situation is desperate,” said Dr. Jose Vasquez, the health officer for Starr County, Texas on the US-Mexico border. At the only hospital in the county, over 50% of patients are testing positive for the COVID-19 virus — 40 new coronavirus cases were reported Thursday. Starr County Memorial Hospital in Rio Grande City made plans to set up a committee to decide which patients to send home to die. The hospital will ration its resources to patients with the best chances of surviving (CNN):
The hospital quickly filled the eight beds in its Covid-19 unit, so it expanded to 17 and then 29 beds, Vasquez said. About 33 medical workers, including medical practitioners and lab technicians, were deployed by the state to assist the hospital.
“Unfortunately, Starr County Memorial Hospital has limited resources and our doctors are going to have to decide who receives treatment, and who is sent home to die by their loved ones,” Starr County Judge Eloy Vera wrote in a Facebook post on Thursday. “This is what we did not want our community to experience.”
That was before Hurricane Hanna hit the Texas coast Saturday as a Category 1 storm with maximum winds of 90 miles per hour.
Social gatherings are to blame, Starr officials said. “We are seeing the results of socialization during the 4th of July, vacations, and other social opportunities,” Judge Elroy Vera wrote July 23 on the county’s Facebook page. The county issued a shelter-in-place order and a mandatory curfew a day later.
“I have been a nurse for almost 30 years and I had never seen a time like this in our community,” said Corando Rios, a nurse at Starr County Memorial Hospital’s Covid-19 unit. He tested positive for coronavirus a few days ago and is recovering at home in quarantine.
“We are not ICU [intensive care unit] capable, but we are doing ICU work. We now have a state emergency response team of nurses, medics, respiratory therapists, and nurse assistants, and last week two doctors, nurses, and respiratory therapists came from the US Navy,” added Rios. “We are doing the best we can with the resources available.”
Alternate facts meet alternate state
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) issued his quarantine order after nearly half of other states. He refused in April to allow Texas cities to enforce penalties for citizens not wearing masks. He let his quarantine order lapse on May 1 (the second state after Georgia). He downplayed rising hospitalizations in mid-June, reassuring Texans that the state had “abundant hospital capacity.”
Now, with a hurricane emergency on top of the medical one requiring “death panels” in one county, Abbott has issued disaster declarations in 32 counties in Hanna’s path and has set up an Alternate State Operations Center in North Austin, the Statesman reports:
“As people are doing everything possible to protect their lives and loved ones from the storm … I strongly urge you to remember to do everything you can to protect your lives and loved ones from the transmission of COVID-19,” Abbott said during the Saturday news conference. “Do not, in haste, take action that could cause you, a family member or loved one to lose their life in the coming weeks to COVID-19 by disregarding all of these practices that we’ve become accustomed to … such as wearing a face mask.”
7 PM Update on Hurricane #Hanna – Hanna has made landfall along Padre Island and will continue to push across South Texas tonight. – Heavy rain remains our biggest threat tonight pic.twitter.com/bD9asZVlYJ
One in every 50 people in the region is already infected. A baby boy under 6 months old tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday in Nueces County. He died shortly after.
Republicans screamed that passage of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) would bring “death panels” to America. President Obama’s “socialist” health care would be a “government takeover” of U.S. medicine leading to rationed care. They have worked for years to kill the system that, whatever its flaws, is keeping many Americans alive. They are in court trying to kill it even now.
“Obamacare. We’re going to repel it, we’re going to replace it, get something great. Repeal it, replace it, get something great!” Donald Trump the candidate promised. It would be quick. It would be easy. It would be any day now, he declared within weeks of taking office.
Republicans warned there would be “death panels.” And rationed care. On those promises, they delivered.
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like. Note: The pandemic will upend standard field tactics in 2020. If enough promising “improvisations” come my way, perhaps I can issue a COVID-19 supplement.
In my 2009 review of Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock, I wrote:
“If you can remember anything about the sixties, you weren’t really there”. Don’t you hate it when some lazy-ass critic/wannabe sociopolitical commentator trots out that old chestnut to preface some pompous “think piece” about the Woodstock Generation?
God, I hate that.
But I think it was Paul Kantner of the Jefferson Airplane who once said: “If you remember anything about the sixties, you weren’t really there.” Or it could have been Robin Williams, or Timothy Leary. Of course, the irony is that whoever did say it originally, probably can’t really remember if they were in fact the person who said it first.
You see, memory is a funny thing. Let’s take the summer of 1969, for example. Here’s how Bryan Adams remembers it:
That summer seemed to last forever And if I had the choice Yeah, I’d always wanna be there Those were the best days of my life.
Best days of his life. OK, cool. Of course, he wrote that song in 1984. He’d had a little time to sentimentalize events. Now, here’s how Iggy Stooge describes that magic time:
Well it’s 1969 okay. We’ve got a war across the USA. There’s nothing here for me and you. We’re just sitting here with nothing to do.
Iggy actually wrote and released that song in the year 1969. So which of these two gentlemen were really “there”, so to speak?
“Well Dennis,” you may be thinking (while glancing at your watch) “…that’s all fine and dandy, but doesn’t the title of this review indicate that the subject at hand is Ang Lee’s new film, Taking Woodstock? Shouldn’t you be quoting Joni Mitchell instead?”
Patience, Grasshopper. Here’s how Joni Mitchell “remembers” Woodstock:
By the time we got to Woodstock We were half a million strong And everywhere there was song and celebration.
She wrote that in 1969. But here’s the rub: she wasn’t really there.
There was a point in there, somewhere. Somehow it made sense when I was peaking on the ‘shrooms about an hour ago. Oh, I’m supposed to be writing a movie review. Far out, man.
2020 has been quite a year; the kind of year that gets memorialized in song. Actually, with five months still to go (survive?), somebody already has memorialized 2020 in song:
New Year’s Eve, don’t it seem Like decades ago? Back in 2019 Back when life was slow
Now it’s June, we’re just halfway done 2020, hey are we having fun? How many years will we try To cram into one?
You thought we’d be living 1918 again But we messed that up so bad God had to toss 1930 in
As the sun rose on 1968 this morning A tweet from the john Please let’s not add the Civil War How many years will we cram into one?
Oh boy How much more will she take? Boys, hope you enjoy Your beautiful tax break
We’re not repeating history, just the parts that sucked 2020, what the actual fuck? Pray we get through, but hey don’t hold your breath ‘Cause there’s plenty left to wreck We got six months left
How many years How many years will we try How many years will we try To cram into one?
— Ben Folds, “2020”
Do you see what he did there? Since we are still ensconced in “2020” (and all it implies) I think it’s safe to confirm Ben Folds is really there, in 2020-right along with the rest of us. And if I may add…I think Mr. Folds has written the best pop elegy for 2020 (in ¾ time!). Since first hearing it last Thursday on The Late Show, I must have watched this 25 times:
https://youtu.be/qqfRitJDQ-Q
It got me thinking (which is always dangerous) about other songs I love with a year as the title…or in the title. So here are my top 10 picks, presented chronologically (how else?!).
“Hilly Fields (1892)” – I was hooked on this haunting, enigmatic song from the first time I heard it on a Bay area alt-rock station in 1982 (it was either KTIM-FM or KUSF-FM; I used to listen to both stations religiously when I lived in San Francisco in the early 80s). It sounded like the Beatles’ Revolver album, compressed into three and a half minutes. The artist was Nick Nicely, an English singer-songwriter who released this and one other song, then mysteriously vanished in the mists of time until reemerging with a full album in 2004 (which was basically a compilation of material he had accumulated over the previous 25 years). He’s since put out several albums of new material, which I have been happily snapping up.
“Paris 1919” – This lovely chamber-pop piece by Velvet Underground alum John Cale is from his eponymous 1973 album, which I think is his finest song cycle. Obviously I wasn’t alive in 1919, but when I close my eyes and listen, Cale’s evocative lyrics make me feel like I’m sitting in a sidewalk cafe somewhere in Europe between the wars:
The Continent’s just fallen in disgrace William William William Rogers put it in its place Blood and tears from old Japan Caravans and lots of jam and maids of honor Singing crying singing tediously
Efficiency efficiency they say Get to know the date and tell the time of day As the crowds begin complaining How the Beaujolais is raining Down on darkened meetings on Champs Elysee
“1921” – Got a feeling ’21 is gonna be a good year… Great track from the The Who’s classic 1969 double-LP rock opera Tommy, with nice vocals from Pete Townshend.
“1969” – From The Stooges’ debut album…
Last year I was 21 I didn’t have a lot of fun And now I’m gonna be 22 I say oh my and a boo hoo
I get a sense that 1969 was not Iggy’s happiest year.
“1979” – The Smashing Pumpkins’ 1996 single was a sizeable hit for the band. It’s an autobiographical song written by front man Billy Corgan about coming of age in the ‘burbs (he was 12 in 1979). Sense memories of hanging with his buds; the restlessness of budding adolescence. I see it as an update of Gerry Goffin and Carole King’s “Pleasant Valley Sunday”.
Creature comfort goals, they only numb my soul And make it hard for me to see Ah, thoughts all seem to stray to places far away I need a change of scenery
— from “Pleasant Valley Sunday”
That we don’t even care, as restless as we are We feel the pull in the land of a thousand guilts And poured cement, lamented and assured To the lights and towns below Faster than the speed of sound Faster than we thought we’d go, beneath the sound of hope
— from “1979”
“1983(A Merman I Should Turn to Be)” – I’d love to post the 1968 Electric Ladyland version by Jimi Hendrix, but it is not currently available on YouTube. However, this dynamic cover by The Allman Brothers (performed live in 2013) is the next best thing.
“1984” – Spirit’s ominous song, like its literary inspiration by George Orwell, never seems to lose its relevancy. In fact, in light of very recent events, you could easily rename it “2020”:
Those classic plastic coppers, they are your special friends They see you every night Well they call themselves protection but they know it’s no game You’re never out of their sight
1984 Knockin’ on your door Will you let it come? Will you let it run?
“Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five” – It’s tough to pick a favorite from Wings’ finest album (it’s a strong set) but I’ve always had a soft spot for this one. I wouldn’t call it Sir Paul’s finest lyrical moment (I just can’t get enough of that sweet stuff my little lady gets behind) but McCartney has such a genius for melody and arrangement that I am prepared to forgive him.
“1999” – Mommy…why does everybody have a bomb? Good question; I yearn for the day it no longer needs to be asked. In the meantime, this Prince classic IS the bomb. I’ll never tire of it.
“In the Year 2525 (Exordium and Terminus)” – Look in the dictionary under “one-hit-wonder”, and you will see a picture of Zager & Evans. Love it or hate it, if man is still alive, if can woman can survive– I bet this song will still be playing somewhere in the year 9595. In case you’re wondering, Evans passed away in 2018, and Zager now builds custom guitars.
(One more thing) RIP Peter Green
I was dismayed to learn this morning about the passing of English musician Peter Green, one of my guitar heroes. Most obits are noting that he wrote “Black Magic Woman”…but that is just a minor part of his significance in the rock ‘n’ roll pantheon.
An expressive player and distinctive vocalist, the original Fleetwood Mac co-founder was also a master at creating memorable riffs:
While he could obviously rock out with the best of them, he also crafted music of incredible beauty and subtlety; perhaps none more so than the classic Mac instrumental, “Albatross” (which was acknowledged by the Beatles as inspiration for the Abbey Road track “Sun King”).
Sadly, Green struggled with drug dependency and mental health issues for most of his life, but his influence and musical legacy is assured…as evidenced by tributes from his peers:
Most sadly have lost one of the most tasteful guitar players ever I have always been a huge admirer of the great Peter Green may he rest in peace.
But how many times Must I be the fool Before I can make it Oh make it on home I’ve got to find a place to sing my words Is there nobody listening to my song?
Rest assured, Mr. Green…I will be listening always. RIP.
This Vanity Fair piece about Trump’s daft strategy to stoke culture war is fascinating. If this is true, Trump may have signed his own political death warrant:
Shortly after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, the Democratic research firm Avalanche went into nine battleground states—Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Georgia, North Carolina, Iowa, and Pennsylvania—to measure how segments of Americans were reacting to the protests. Unlike most pollsters at the time, Avalanche surveyed two large back-to-back samples of 6,986 registered and unregistered total voters—one on June 1 and a second on June 10 and 11—allowing it to track how sentiments changed during what might have been the most consequential chapter of the protests. Like most polls, Avalanche found widespread support for the protests by June 11, with 68% of respondents saying the protesters were “completely right” or “somewhat right.” But rather than measuring responses by self-identified partisanship—Democrat, Republican, independent—Avalanche measured by vote choice. It organized respondents into five segments: Vote Trump, Lean Trump, Mixed Feelings, Lean Biden, and Vote Biden.
Avalanche found resounding support for the protests not just among Biden supporters, but among persuadable voters and even soft Trump supporters. The hardcore Vote Trump respondents were against the protests, with 56% opposing them. But among the softer Lean Trump set, an eye-opening 59% said the protesters were “completely right” or “somewhat right”—probably not what the president had in mind when he commandeered Lafayette Square. And 72% of Americans with Mixed Feelings about the presidential race—precious undecided voters—said the protesters were right too. “There’s not a lot of issues where you get even a strong majority of Americans on the same page,” said Michiah Prull, the CEO of Avalanche. “It speaks to that historic moment, and it speaks to a degree of national alignment on something that’s honestly pretty rare these days.”
But just as remarkable were the shifts among those persuadables in the 10 days between June 1 and June 11, a window that opened with burning cities and Trump’s march to St. John’s Church, but concluded with mostly peaceful demonstrations nationwide. During that period Avalanche found that support for the protests grew 10 points among Mixed Feelings voters, 14 points among Lean Biden voters, and a head-spinning 25 points among Lean Trump voters. “I had never in my research career seen public opinion shift on the scale in this time frame,” Prull said. “When we look at this from electoral context, when you see a 25-point swing in Lean Trump supporters from disapproving of the protests to at least somewhat agreeing with them, that’s just a scale of public opinion shift you don’t see in this line of work very often.”
The reasons persuadables moved from opposing to supporting the protests, Prull said, can mostly be attributed to the demonstrations growing and becoming largely peaceful by their second week, with human stories of everyday police brutality saturating the media environment. Trump’s strongman performance on June 1 did almost nothing to turn public opinion against the demonstrations. Instead it likely backfired. “Between those two dates, the big driver that I see is the protests becoming larger and even more peaceful each day,” Prull told me. “The story was being told by people who are being hurt by police every day, and the empathy with that, and frankly the reasonableness of that, was breaking through. And then the president tear-gassing protestors outside the White House lawn, I think, was a nontrivial part of this. You had the draconian response of the government, and then the protests just seemed even more reasonable when it was a bunch of regular people being tear-gassed in the middle of Washington D.C. for the sake of a photo op.”
Avalanche’s data bear this out. The firm marries polling with what it calls “deep listening surveys,” using a language-processing system that analyzes written responses to open-ended “listening” questions, as a way to extract more depth and texture about public opinion. They operate like focus groups at scale, performed online. The purpose, Prull told me last year, is to get beyond hard numbers and better understand the emotional undercurrents of politics. “We, as Democrats, have a really bad habit of bringing facts to an emotional battle and getting our asses kicked,” Prull said. In the case of the protests, Avalanche’s survey asked if protesters were doing the “right thing or the wrong thing,” with the responses analyzed using the firm’s listening tools. The idea that the protesters were “completely right” was most pronounced among Vote Biden respondents, Black respondents, and young Americans between 18-35. Those supporters described the protests using terms related to ending police brutality, achieving justice, and the urgent need to address racism.
The persuadables—the Lean Trump and Mixed Feelings segments—were more inclined to say the protests were “somewhat right,” describing them using hazier terms like “equality” and “change.” But at the same time, they expressed unease with rioting, looting, and property destruction. So when the demonstrations became almost completely nonviolent and penetrated even the smallest American towns, public opinion came their way—even among soft Trump supporters. “Even among voters who say they will probably vote for Trump, there are still more than 40% of people who talk about this as being a moment about racial equality,” said Tovah Paglaro, Avalanche’s cofounder and COO. “So when you’re talking about what’s going on with those persuadable voters, and figuring out spaces where they’re more aligned with Biden, for them this moment is about racial equality. And 20% of them also cite that it’s time to create change. That’s a surprisingly large percentage of soft Trump supporters saying something’s got to happen here. They’re saying, ‘I don’t like rioting and looting and I’m not crazy about the tactics, but I do acknowledge that there’s a problem with racial equality.’ It connects to police brutality and a need for change.”
Beyond the presidential race, the Avalanche survey picked up a treasure trove of detail about the anti-racism moment. As seen in other national polls, the intensity of feeling was stronger among Black Americans, who were more likely to talk about the protests in the context of racial justice and reforming police departments, compared to white Americans and undecided voters, who responded with more abstract terms like “equality” or “opportunity.” “When Black respondents talk about what’s happening right now, their response is twice as likely to be about racism or racial justice as it is about equality generally and good treatment,” Paglaro said. “Fear,” “anger,” and “bad” were the terms most used to describe police among Black respondents, who talked about personal experiences with bias and excessive force. White respondents, meanwhile, were more likely to use terms like “good,” “safe,” and “proud” when referring to their local police. Despite those differences, 75% of Americans in the survey favored some kind of policing reform, with respondents expressing a desire for better officer training, increased diversity, and more police accountability. Among both Black and white respondents, there was almost no support for fully defunding police departments, an idea that turned off the persuadable voter segments. There was even less support for hiring more police and raising officer pay.
But according to Prull, the biggest story of early June was the widespread support that rapidly emerged in favor of the protesters, people of all races and ages, who took to the streets to make a statement about racism in America. The protesters, he said, were winning a values argument with Americans of all races, backgrounds, and political persuasions at the very moment President Trump was trying to paint them as an angry and radical minority. “Trump could not be more on the wrong side of this issue for anyone except for a very isolated group of his base, and that’s what he’s stuck with,” Prull said. “He’s taking a line of messaging that works for 34% of his base in our survey. It’s not even that big of a part of his base. He’s really alienating folks. There’s a compelling argument here that Trump’s negatives can be driven up even further among some of these Lean Trump folks, based on his behavior and relationship with the protests,” Prull said, suggesting that NeverTrump groups like the Lincoln Project and Republican Voters Against Trump could take up that work.
Yet Trump seems to be doing the work on his own in recent days, by dispatching federal troops to cities like Portland, Chicago, and even Albuquerque to tangle with protesters who, for the most part, have been behaving peacefully for more than a month. As with Lafayette Square, Trump is perversely creating mayhem in the name of law and order, clinging to the apple-pie idea that the “silent majority” of 1968 is still hiding out somewhere. The country will “go to hell” if Biden wins, Trump said this week, as if people don’t understand that he’s the one presiding over the chaos. But if Avalanche’s research is correct, the silent majority of 2020 is firmly on the side of Biden when it comes to issues of race and justice, and its members walked out of Trump’s community theater Richard Nixon impression many weeks ago.
I suppose we shouldn’t be too surprised. It’s a little bit startling that Lean Trump people would have moved away from his on the basis of this issue (where have they been?) but maybe it’s a straw that broke the camel’s back thing. Trump acting the fool during the pandemic and then on top of it staging stupid photo-ops and acting like Bull Connor might have been one bad move too many.
Whatever the case, I don’t think he’s making this dynamic any better with the police state tactics in America’s cities with the pandemic surging all over the country due to his bumbling lack of response.
![Wag The Dog in line-art [Request] : DrawForMe](https://i0.wp.com/image.slidesharecdn.com/englishidioms-090402165037-phpapp02/95/english-idioms-41-728.jpg?ssl=1)
