From the Department Of WTF

by tristero

Neocons are, first and foremost, assholes. And they go out of their way to be assholes. Case in point.

I started the article because I have a great interest in music manuscripts, and in fact, am avidly reading an excellent book that goes through Beethoven ‘s sketches for the Diabelli Variations in the kind of excruciating detail that, in other circumstances, would merit a psychiatric diagnosis. True, the new documents donated to Juilliard don’t seem particularly important, but anything scribbled by these great composers is inherently interesting. Then, as I was finishing the Times article, I got to this:

[Manuscript donator] Mr. Kovner, in the interview, stressed the importance of making such materials available to scholars and seemed to take particular pride in an online consortium that has begun to form around the collection. Tentatively called the Music Treasures Consortium, it so far involves the Morgan Library & Museum, the Harvard University Library, the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress and the British Library, he said.

“But please don’t say that I invented the Internet,” added Mr. Kovner, who is on the board of the American Enterprise Institute and a backer of other conservative causes, and presumably no fan of Al Gore.

Wha??????

First of all, Al Gore never claimed he invented the Internet, as Somerby has documented beyond any conceivable doubt, so there was no reason for the Times to bring up Gore in this context, and once they did, it was more than incumbent on them to expose Kovner’s ignorant, snotty remark for being… that’s right, ignorant and snotty.

Secondly, whatever his numerous faults, Beethoven (if not Mendelssohn) was a profound lover of nature who would certainly have passionately supported Al Gore’s environmental politics. Furthermore, Beethoven, while dependent upon the largess of the aristocracy, was an egalitarian, if not a liberal – the exact antithesis of the kind of elite, pompous, incompetent asses worshipped, and underwritten, by the likes of AEI. There’s a famous story told about Beethoven and Goethe, which gives insight into the composer’s attitude towards the political elites of his time:

Beethoven was 42, Goethe 63, with the publication of the first part of Faust four years behind him. Of this meeting, the following vignette has come down to us. – As Beethoven and Goethe walked, some of the nobility passed with their entourage. Goethe politely stepped aside and bowed deferentially to the nobles – while Beethoven, in a typical gesture, strode almost defiantly right through their midst, with his hands behind his back and without acknowledging the presence of the nobles, who had no alternative but to give him clear passage. When Goethe asked Beethoven how he could so disrespectfully treat these nobles, the composer replied, again characteristically, “There are countless ‘nobles’, but only two of us.”

Third, Kovner’s quip wasn’t funny. Unless, that is, you find neo-conservative discourse, after the disaster they inflicted on Iraq, a laugh riot. I don’t.

Yes, it’s a trivial thing, the Times printing this bozo’s nonsense buried deep in a puff piece about a donation to a music school, yet paradoxically, that’s why it’s important. This kind of bowing and scraping to neocons, especially filthy rich neocons, is so prevalent in the media that we tend to discount its pernicious cumulative effect. Intentionally or not, it keeps conservative lies, myths, and ideologies within the mainstream discourse. And that perpetuates the notion that these people are, in some sense, advocating a sensible mainstream American political philosophy. They aren’t, and the Times shouldn’t give them carte blanche to spread their lies, especially in a story that is presumably far removed from their wacky thinking.