Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Centrist doubts

by David Atkins

Pass the smelling salts:

Propelled by a torrent of blistering television advertisements, President Obama is successfully invoking Mitt Romney’s career at Bain Capital to raise questions about Mr. Romney’s commitment to the middle class, strategists in both parties say, as the candidates engage in a critical summer duel to set the terms for this fall.

Despite doubts among some centrist Democrats about the wisdom of attacking Mr. Romney’s business career, millions of dollars in negative commercials painting him as a ruthless executive who pursued profits at the expense of jobs are starting to make an impact on undecided voters in swing states, according to strategists from both sides.

The petty, comfortable, centrist bipartisan fetishism of Thomas Friedman and his ilk is hypothetically excusable in its misguided earnestness.

But to claim that attacking Romney’s vulture capitalist record as a classic Gordon Gekko archetype is somehow going to make the President seem “anti-business” is so absurd it cannot possibly be in earnest.

The Gordon Gekkos of America are not the “business community.” People who actually make real things and provide real services in the real world are the “business community.” For better or for worse, the Koch Brothers, Bill Gates and Sam Waltons can legitimately claim the mantle of real American business. Vulture capitalists kind cannot. And yes, even moderate, undecided voters in swing states can tell the difference.

There are no authentic “centrist doubts” on this issue. There are only politicians who fear losing the Wall Street gravy train if they call out the vulture capitalists for what they are.

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Chinatown – There are many Deep Thoughts that I have gleaned over the years via repeated viewings of Roman Polanski’s 1974 “sunshine noir”. Here are my top five:

1. Either you bring the water to L.A. or you bring L.A. to the water.
2. Politicians, ugly buildings and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.
3. You may think you know what you’re dealing with, but, believe me, you don’t.
4. He owns the police.
5. She’s my sister AND my daughter.

The Deer Hunter– “If anything happens…don’t leave me over there. You gotta promise me that, Mike.” 1978 was a pivotal year for American films dealing head on with the country’s deep scars (social, political and emotional) from the nightmare of the war in Vietnam; that one year alone saw the release of Boys in Company C, Go Tell the Spartans Coming Home, and Michael Cimino’s shattering drama, which was (perhaps arguably) the most intensely affecting of the four. Cimino’s sprawling 3 hour film is essentially a character study about three blue collar buddies (Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken and Jon Savage) from a Pennsylvania steel town who enlist in the military, share a harrowing P.O.W. experience in Vietnam, and suffer through P.T.S.D. (each in their own unique fashion). I still remember the first time I saw this film in a theater. I sat all the way through the end credits, and continued sitting for at least five minutes. I literally had to “collect myself”, and no film has ever affected me like that, before or since. Amazing performances from the aforementioned players, as well as from Meryl Streep, John Cazale, Chuch Aspegren and George Dzundza. The film has been long overdue on Blu-ray, and Universal’s hi-def transfer really showcases the exemplary Oscar-nominated lens work by Vilmos Zsigmond (the film did end up winning in five other categories, including Best Picture and Director). It’s a little skimpy on extras, but still worth owning.

Forbidden Zone– Picture if you will: an artistic marriage between John Waters, Max Fleischer, Busby Berkeley and Peter Greenaway. Now, imagine the wedding night (I’ll give you a sec). As for the “plot”, well, it’s about this indescribably twisty family who discovers a portal to a pan-dimensional…oh, never mind. Suffice it to say, any film that features Herve Villechaize as the King of the Sixth Dimension, Susan Tyrrell as his Queen and soundtrack composer Danny Elfman channeling Cab Calloway (via Satan), is a dream for some; a nightmare for others. Directed by Danny’s brother Richard. Arrow Videos’s Blu-ray includes a “making of” feature, plus a choice of seeing the film it its original B&W or colorized version. Either way you look at it, it’s deliriously over the top.

Godzilla – It’s no secret that the “king of the monsters” was borne of fear; the fear of “the Bomb” as only the Japanese could have truly understood it back in 1954 (especially when one considers it was released only 9 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki). It’s also important to distinguish between Gojira, the original Japanese cut of the film, and the relatively butchered version released in the U.S. in 1956 as Godzilla, King of the Monsters. That is because the original Japanese cut not only has a more haunting and darkly atmospheric quality, but carries a strong anti-nuke message as well (it’s an American H-bomb test that awakens the long-slumbering beast from his deep-sea hibernation). The U.S. cut downplays this subtext (replacing cut footage with inserts featuring Raymond Burr). This is why American audiences remained oblivious to the fact that the film was inspired by a real 1954 incident involving a Japanese fishing vessel (“The Lucky Dragon”). The boat was in an alleged “safe zone” near one of the Bikini Atoll bomb tests conducted by the U.S. Many crewmembers received serious burns, and one of the injured eventually died of radiation sickness. Criterion’s Blu-ray includes both the original 1954 Toho version (the first and the best of what was to ultimately become a silly franchise) and the U.S. cut. Needless to say, the films have never looked better. Insightful commentary tracks and a plethora of fascinating extras make this one a winner.

Harold and Maude– Harold loves Maude. And Maude loves Harold. It’s a match made in heaven-if only “society” would agree. Because Harold (Bud Cort) is a teenager, and Maude (Ruth Gordon) is about to turn 80. Falling in love with a woman old enough to be his great-grandmother is the least of Harold’s quirks. He’s a chronically depressed trustafarian who amuses himself by staging fake suicides to freak out his patrician mother (the wonderful Vivian Pickles). He also “enjoys” attending funerals-which is where they Meet Cute. The effervescent Maude is Harold’s diametric opposite; while he wallows in morbid speculation how any day could be your last, she seizes each day as if it actually were. Obviously, she has something to teach him. Despite dark undertones, this is one “midnight movie” that actually manages to be life-affirming. The late Hal Ashby directed, and Colin Higgins wrote the screenplay. The memorable soundtrack is by Cat Stevens (a disc extra features a recent interview with the reclusive musician, who for the first time talks about how all the songs came together). Criterion’s transfer is outstanding.

Notorious – It’s really a tough call to name my “favorite” Hitchcock movie (it’s like being forced to pick your favorite child). Now, if you want to throw in qualifiers, like say, which of the Master’s films would I consider his sexiest…then that makes it a little easier. Or at least I would narrow it down to three: North by Northwest , To Catch a Thief (see my review below), and this superb 1946 espionage thriller (no, I don’t have a man-crush on Cary Grant…not that there would be anything wrong with that). To be sure, Grant makes for quite a suave American agent, and Claude Rains is a fabulous villain you love to hate, but it’s Ingrid Bergman who really, erm, holds my interest in this story of love, betrayal and international intrigue, all set in exotic Rio. Bergman plays her character with a seemingly counterintuitive mixture of worldly cynicism and unselfconsciously sexy vulnerability that to this day, few actresses would be able to sell so convincingly. To be honest, MGM’s Blu-ray was not quite what I had hoped for, vis a vis the picture quality (it’s only a marginal improvement over Criterion’s out-of-print SD edition), but it is the best looking print currently available, and it’s relatively inexpensive.

The 39 Steps– Along with The Lady Vanishes, this 1935 gem represents the best of Alfred Hitchcock’s pre-Hollywood period. In fact, many of the tropes that would come to be known as “Hitchcockian” are already fomenting in this early entry: an icy blonde love interest, a meticulously constructed, edge-of-your-seat finale, and most notably, the “wrong man” scenario. Robert Donat stars as a Canadian tourist in London who is approached by a jittery woman after a music hall show. She begs refuge in his flat for the night, but won’t tell him why. Intrigued, he offers her his hospitality, but imagine his surprise when he awakens the next morning, just in time to watch her collapse on the floor, with a knife in her back and a mysterious map clutched in her hand. Before he knows it, he’s on the run from the police and embroiled with shady assassins, foreign spies and people who are not who they seem to be. Fate and circumstance throw him in with a reluctant female “accomplice” (Madeleine Carroll). A suspenseful, funny, and rapidly paced entertainment. Criterion’s new Blu-ray transfer is as good as a 77 year-old film is going to look. The biggest improvement is in the audio quality, which has been problematic in previous DVD versions. A highlight amongst the extras is a 1966 TV interview, wherein Hitchcock shares some amusing backstage tales about his early career.

To Catch a Thief– This is one of those rare Hitchcock films that’s really more about the romance, the scenery and the clever repartee than it is about the chills and thrills, but that certainly makes it no less entertaining. Cary Grant is perfectly cast as “retired” cat burglar John Robie, an American ex-pat and former Resistance fighter living on the French Riviera. Life is going quite swimmingly, until a string of high-end jewel thefts (all resembling his M.O.) put the police on Robie’s back and raise the ire of some of his old war buddies. As Robie goes to work to clear his name and help smoke out the real culprit, his life becomes more complicated when a love interest enters the picture (an achingly beautiful Grace Kelly). To be sure, it’s pretty lightweight Hitchcock, but holds up well to repeated viewings, thanks to the sexy chemistry between Grant and Kelly, intoxicating location filming and the delightful supporting performances (particularly from Jessie Royce Landis, who steals all her scenes as Kelly’s mother). The witty, urbane screenplay is by John Michael Hayes (who also scripted Rear Window , The Trouble with Harry and the 1956 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much ). MGM’s Blu-ray transfer is sparkling, doing full justice to Robert Burks’ colorful, Oscar-winning cinematography.

Tokyo Drifter – The key to understanding what makes this existential hit man thriller from Japan’s Nikkatsu studios so uniquely entertaining…is to not try to understand it. Don’t get hung up on silly conventions like “narrative coherence”; just turn off your mind, relax and float downstream. If that sounds like the reassuring counsel someone might give to a friend who is taking their first acid trip…you’re right. Because when this film was made (1966), an awful lot of people were taking their first acid trip, including director Seijun Suzuki (at least that’s my theory). The “drifter” of the title is a yakuza with a strong personal code (and really cool Ray-Bans) who is trying to go legit…but of course, “they pull him back in”. But as he does not wish to dishonor his boss/mentor, who is also trying to get out of the game, he splits the big city to wander Japan and let the chips fall where they may, as members of various rival gangs dog his every step. Highly stylized and visually exhilarating, this is a real treat for lovers of pure cinema. Suzuki’s wild mash-up of genres, which quotes everything from French New Wave to James Bond and westerns to film noir, was pretty bold stuff for its time, and it’s obvious that postmodernists like Tarantino have watched it once or twice. Criterion’s Blu-ray transfer dazzles the senses.

Yellow Submarine – This is a new one for me…a Blu-ray viewing completely turning my opinion around on a film. Despite being a die-hard Beatles fan, over the years I’ve felt somewhat ambivalent about this 1968 animated feature “starring” the Fab Four; or rather, their cartoon avatars, voiced over by other actors. While I adored the music soundtrack, I never quite “got” what all the fuss was over the “innovative” animation (which could be partially attributable to the fact that I never caught it in a theater, just on TV and in various fuzzy home video formats). But, being the obsessive-compulsive completist that I am, I snapped up a copy of Capitol’s new Blu-ray version, and found it to be a revelation. The restoration for the 2012 transfer was apparently done by hand, frame-by frame (an unusually artisan choice for this digital age), and the results are jaw-dropping. The visuals are stunning. The audio remix is superb; I never fully appreciated the clever wordplay in the script (by Lee Minoff, Al Brodax, Jack Mendelsohn and Erich Segal) until now. The story itself remains silly, but it’s the knockout music sequences (“Eleanor Rigby” being one particular standout) that make this one worth the price of admission.

Kino Classics Presents: The Devil’s Needle and Other Tales of Vice And Redemption (7/3), Barbarella (7/3), Outland (7/10),Altered States (7/10), Chariots of Fire (7/10), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (7/17), Singin’ In The Rain: 60th Anniversary Collector’s Edition (7/17), Mean Streets (7/17), Down by Law (7/17), Metropolitan (7/24), The Last Days of Disco (7/24),Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (7/31), TThe Seven Year Itch (7/31), Johnny Guitar (8/7), Shaft (8/14), Quadrophenia (8/28), Man on a Swing (9/4), Children of Paradise (9/18), Eating Raoul (9/25), Bond 50: The Complete 22 Film Collection (9/25).

Where is the Tea Party?

by digby

I’m sure you are dying to know:

Tea partiers told TPM this week there was some chatter following the decision about a national rally to pressure Congress to overturn the health care law — but grassroots activists and corporate-funders alike seem to agree that’s a bad idea.

FreedomWorks, the Koch brothers-funded group responsible for many of the tea party’s largest rallies, is hosting a strategy call Saturday afternoon with tea party activists to plan the initial next steps of the grassroots health care fight. Group campaign organizing director Brendan Steinhauser told TPM that FreedomWorks plans to target key battleground states with big organizing efforts. The federal holiday next week is the big kickoff.

That should take us through the dog days of August.The Kochs will undoubtedly come through with some advertising to support their message. Rumors are that they and Ameican crossroads have bought up just about every minute of available airtime in swing states. It’s already a hot summer and it looks as though they want to make it as miserable as possible.

Tea Party Patriots urged its members to find out where their members of Congress will be while on recess next week and flood “every parade, town hall, civic speaking engagement they plan to attend.”

It’s an old tea party tactic reminiscent of the town hall battles of 2009. It’s clear the Tea Party Patriots want to recapture that spirit, starting on July 4.

“When you see them, ask them 2 questions ON VIDEO: a. ‘If elected will you repeal government-controlled health care in full in early 2013 so that the taxes increases are not implemented and we maintain control of our doctor-patient decisions?’” reads the email. “b. ‘If elected will you vote to balance our budget in 5 years without raising taxes and actually have the fortitude to stick to the budgeted spending?’”

I think we should show up too and start yelling incoherently like their martyred hero:

Here’s the chant for you to memorize:

Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! You are freaks and animals! You’re freaks and animals! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Learn to behave yourself! Stop raping people! Stop raping people! Stop raping people! Stop raping people! Stop raping the people! You freaks! You filthy freaks! You filthy filthy filthy raping murdering freaks!

Catchy, ain’t it?

I am human and I need to be loved. Just like everybody else does

by digby

Via Salon and Alternet, I see that the godless atheists are under attack again:

In a widely disseminated and discussed opinion piece, Anglican minister Rev. Gavin Dunbar made an interesting and even compelling argument that grief is necessary for love and humanity… and then went on to argue that, unless you believe in God, you have no reason to care whether the people you love live or die, or even to love them in the first place.

Again: I wish I was joking. I quote:

The new atheists proclaim their gospel with the fervour of believers: God is dead, man is free, free from the destructive illusions of religion and morality, of reason and virtue. But then a someone dies, suddenly and cruelly, like the young man known to many in ..[this] parish [in [Eastern Georgia] who was killed in a freakish accident last weekend. And his death casts a pall of grief over his family, his friends, their families, his school, and many others. Yet if he was no more than an arrangement of molecules, a selfish gene struggling to replicate itself, there can be no reason for grief, or for the love that grieves, since these are (we are told) essentially selfish survival mechanisms left over from some earlier stage in hominid evolution. Friendship is just another illusion. But of course we do grieve, even the atheists. And in so grieving, they grieve better than they know (or think they know).

The grieving atheist cannot provide any reason why he grieves, or why he (rightly) respects the grief of others.

Read the whole thing for an explanation of what the “new atheists” really do believe, which is quite interesting. But for me the answer to the question is fairly simple. Everyone grieves because they are going to miss having the person in their lives. It’s the loss to themselves that makes them so sad.

However, if one must take it to another, more philosophical or spiritual level, it seems to me that the atheist has far more cause to grieve than the believer. After all, the atheist believes that’s the end of the line, curtains, fade to black. The believer, on the other hand, should not just not grieve, he should be happy. They believe their loved one is in heaven, where everything is perfect.

I’ve actually often thought it was somewhat selfish of believers to grieve with such energy when according to their beliefs, the person they purport to love is in a better place. (In fact, one could even make the argument that there’s little point in life itself, when the big payoff lies beyond the grave. It’s the atheists who value life — it’s all they’ve got.)

Anyway, I’m being somewhat flippant and will probably regret it. Read the piece, it’s very serious about all this. But it’s true that the religious folks who believe that atheists don’t have any cause to grieve or care about love or life don’t know what they’re talking about. Atheists and believers may not agree on much when it comes to the existence of God or an afterlife, but they are all human. They should be able to at least agree on that much.

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QOTD: from the black kettle files

by digby

“Nancy Pelosi is a dingbat.“

— Sarah Palin, in an interview on Fox News.

No, that is not a joke.

Very cogent critique, as usual.

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“Who is gonna make it? We’ll find out in the long run”

by digby

Krugman quoting DeLong

Of course, we historically-minded economists are not surprised that they were wrong. We are, however, surprised at how few of them have marked their beliefs to market in any sense. On the contrary, many of them, their reputations under water, have doubled down on those beliefs, apparently in the hope that events will, for once, break their way, and that people might thus be induced to forget their abysmal forecasting track record.

I would guess that people who are secure in the knowledge that they suffer no professional sanctions, loss of reputation or discomfort in their own lives by simply waiting for “the market” to eventually right itself, however cruel and painful that is for most people don’t feel any pressure to admit wrong.

You-know-who:

The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is past the ocean is flat again.

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Ezra explains why the White House isn’t going to run on its health care accomplishment:

If the Affordable Care Act is ever going to become the popular piece of law that its supporters hope it is, it’s not going to be because Democrats finally figure out the magic jingle necessary to sell it. It’s going to be because it sells itself by providing insurance to 30 million Americans. But it doesn’t really start doing that until 2014. The question for the law’s supporters is how to keep it alive until then. And the answer, at least in the White House, is simple: Reelect Obama.

I see the logic from a political perspective. Mitt Romney will surely do his best to dismantle the reforms if he wins, therefore, to protect the reforms it’s important to have Obama in office when they are slated to take effect. And since the “plan”, to the extent people understand it, which isn’t very much, is unpopular, I’m guessing the Republicans will do whatever they can to ensure the people continue to be as misinformed as possible.

There are several problems with this. The first is that implementation is only 2 years away now and a large portion of the people who are going to be immediately affected — the working poor and those who currently don’t have health insurance, don’t have a frigging clue about what they’ll need to do and what effect this law will have on them. At some point someone’s going to have to tell them. Maybe this outreach is being left to the exchanges which don’t exist yet, but I’m guessing that it’s only in certain places where that they’re going to be up to speed to inform the public of the plan. I hope they’re working on it all over the country or we’re going to have a very lousy buy-in in 2014 and that could result in some very unhappy people and some unpleasant headlines on April 15th 2015.

Saturday morning music, courtesy Bach and Respighi

by David Atkins

A little change of pace for everyone this Saturday morning to lift the mood and spirit, courtesy of J.S. Bach and Ottorino Respighi. Below are two versions of Bach’s famous and extraordinary Passacaglia in C Minor.

A “passacaglia” is an old Spanish musical form best noted for its use of ostinato, or sequentially repeated melody, usually in the bass line. Bach’s famous C Minor passacaglia repeats this melody with variations no less than 21 times, with 12 variations on a related fugue theme interlaced as well.

The first version here is played masterfully by Ton Koopman as Bach originally wrote it for solo organ. It’s one of the greatest pieces ever written for the organ. Listen for the simple 16-note melody that begins the piece, and for the mesmerizing repetition of that melody line again and again even as the higher treble notes increase in rhythmic and melodic complexity.

It’s such a powerful piece that numerous later composers arranged it for a full orchestra. Probably the most famous of these orchestrations was created by Ottorino Respighi, commissioned by Arturo Toscanini. Respighi’s orchestration is magnificent and somewhat more accessible to a modern ear than Bach’s original, while still capturing the beautiful simplicity of the passacaglia form.

Here it is:

I’ve had Bach’s ostinato base line from the Passacaglia as an earworm for the last several days, but I don’t mind. It’s a gift worth sharing. Enjoy your Saturday!

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QOTD

by digby

Anti-abortion zealot Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America:

“Women want to make their own decisions when it comes to their health care, with the support of their families and their doctors. It’s preposterous to suggest the government would do a better job at deciding what is best for us and our loved ones.”

I’d be impressed if I thought she was doing it consciously. But I honestly think she’s an idiot.

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What now?

by digby

In the wake of the ACA decision, Howie featured a great dialog yesterday on DWT with several progressive congressional candidates who also happen to be doctors, David Gill, Lee Rogers, Sayed Taj and Manan Trivedi. The entire discussion is well worth reading, but I thought I’d just share one part of it — the “what do we do now” part of it:

Dr. Taj:

The Supreme Court’s ruling on the Affordable Care Act and the individual mandate means that those of us that support reform of our health care system must now act to build on what has been done and improve it. For one, health care costs are a major contributor to the federal deficit that must be reigned in if we’re to put our nation on a stable fiscal foundation. The individual mandate is the centerpiece of the ACA and projected cost reductions would have been impossible without a larger insurance pool. It would have meant increasingly less take-home pay for middle class families to pay for the same or worse coverage. There’s a lot we must do to improve the legislation.

The decision gives us the opportunity to keep reforming and designing a better system. Polls have shown widespread public support for a universal health care system and this is the window of opportunity for our leaders to act. A recent report by economist Gerald Friedman shows that this would “save as much as $570 billion now wasted on administrative overhead and monopoly profits.” While there are costs involved with insuring millions of uninsured and underinsured we’d save much more by eliminating middlemen and simplifying the system as a whole, especially by eliminating the incentive to deny care for larger profits. Even with its virtues, the ACA doesn’t do nearly enough to bring down long-term costs or correct the deeply rooted problems of our health care system.

Dr. Rogers:

I think the whole panel would obviously agree that we need doctors at the table making healthcare decisions. Not bureaucrats or lawyers. This decision draws attention to the good parts of Obamacare and the bad parts. Most of us can agree that eliminating pre-existing conditions to qualify for insurance, allowing adult children to stay on parents insurance, and extending coverage for preventable diseases are good things. Where Republicans and Democrats disagree is how to pay for it. Healthcare is so important for the well-being of our nation, that it should be a high priority. We’re wasting a lot of money on a war which we already won, on military aid to wealthy nations, on redundant nuclear weapons systems when we could already destroy the planet multiple times over, on putting nonviolent drug offenders in prison instead of in treatment, giving away billions in subsidies to big oil companies, and many other things that should take a back seat to making sure our citizens have access to quality, affordable care.

The Supreme Court ruled that the federal government has the Constitutional authority to regulate nearly all aspects of healthcare including a provision that requires citizens to purchase health insurance. People who have benefited from the law will continue to benefit. That’s the good part. The bad part is that the law still needs to be fixed. No law is perfect, but this one benefits the big insurance companies like no other. It mandates you purchase a product but has no cost controls on that product. We need to put patients first, not big insurance companies.

Dr Trivedi:

The problem with the ACA was that it was too complicated and did not do enough to rein in healthcare costs or hold the insurance companies accountable. The SCOTUS decision still allows for an opportunity to pursue a much more simplified system, like a Medicare buy-in, which would provide competition in the marketplace and provide patient consumers public and private choices. This coupled with a much greater focus on comparative effectiveness research, so we can better figure out what works and what doesn’t work, would be a system that covers everyone, brings costs down and improves the quality of healthcare for everyone.

Dr. Gill, direct and to the point:

We need to once again push for Improved Medicare for All.

It would be helpful to have these people in the congress, don’t you think?

You can contribute to Blue America candidates Gill and Rogers, here.

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