THREE HABITS OF SUCCESSFUL REPUBLICANS

THREE HABITS OF SUCCESSFUL REPUBLICANS

 

      The Republican Party's slick, cynical manipulation of American voters has vetoed, stonewalled and brinkmanshipped whatever respect I had for it. The superrich smell blood: if they can leverage a supposed citizen consensus about ending governmental deficits into a belief that anything is right that decreases the size of government and that any taxation is only a way of increasing the size of government, they will have cemented into place their phenomenal aggrandizement of assets.

     "Since the 1980s, income for the richest 1 percent of Americans has exploded, while hardly budging at all for everyone else," wrote one analyst of U. S. Labor Department statistics. Cornell economist Robert Frank found that the top 1 percent owned 8.9 percent of the nation's wealth in 1976, but by 2007, that had increased to 23.5 percent. "In the same period, the average inflation-adjusted hourly wage declined over 7 percent," he found. But the average voter doesn't like to hear experts cited in speeches. Academics-what do they know?

      If the electorate can be persuaded that deficit control is the essence of civic responsibility, in effect we will have traded the Bill of Rights for The Right to Be Rich. Make no mistake, the current clash over the federal debt ceiling is a historic juncture, a point at which our society will make a critically important decision. The Republicans are like a poker player making a big bet, which may or may not be backed by a good hand, in the case of the poker player. If Congress caves on No New Taxes, the Roberts Court ruling on corporations having the same free speech rights as individuals will let those with money to burn spend it on highly sophisticated, poll-driven, focus-group-tested catchphrases that will keep the momentum going for many years to come.

     I chose the words "slick" and "cynical" to begin this piece because there are several tactics I can count on the Republican Party to use again and again, in blatant disregard of the fact that many people can see through them. As long as those people are in the minority, it doesn't matter how correct their analyses may be-the sloganeering will go on.

     To illustrate what I mean, I will give three examples of ways that the right wing has shown its contempt for the intelligence of the average voter.

1. Pre-emptive namecalling.

For instance, as soon as anyone starts talking about how the Bush tax cuts have added trillions of dollars to the federal deficit and worsened income inequality, they are accused of starting class conflict, even though the conflict has been going on for years and one side has been the overwhelming victor. To describe a problem is to be the cause of it. This sort of preemptive strike has been employed again and again, so keep looking for it.

 

2. Fearmongering.

     The federal debt ceiling has been raised numerous times without bringing catastrophic consequences, and doing so again would not result in any. There is general agreement that budgets need to be balanced, but the ship of state can't be turned in a different direction like a taxicab. There is momentum of many sorts that will only be braked with time, military involvements being the most obvious. But to hear the Republicans talk about it, adding debt would bring down the nation-when in fact it is the threat of not increasing the debt ceiling that could bring disastrous results. The fears aroused around the world by Republican intransigence are crossapplied by the fears' creators to the federal budget, and goodhearted voters who believe in balancing their own checkbooks are suckered into thinking that their household finances are a good guide to national policy. (Actually, if a household is facing big bills, part of the solution is likely to include taking a temporary job, starting a sideline home business, holding a yard sale, selling something on eBay, etc, etc.-raising revenue as well as cutting expenses.) It hurts to see honest, sincere, hardworking people being manipulated like this-but as I've said, the right-wing Republicans don't care if you can't fool some of the people all of time as long as they can fool most of the people most of the time.

     The repeated statements that Social Security is about to create a debt crisis fall into this category. In fact, trillions of dollars have gone into the Social Security fund, only to be taken out by Congress and used to reduce the apparent debt, leaving only promises that the money will be returned. If those promises are not kept, all the talk about preserving the full faith and credit of the U.S. by avoiding default is just hot air. But for the Republicans, it's only when something might have an effect on business conditions that debts must be paid.

 

3. Misnaming.

     In a landmark essay, George Orwell, the author of the anti-fascist and anti-Stalinist novels 1984 and Animal Farm wrote that his time was faced with a seeming conspiracy to call things by the wrong names. That hasn't ended.

     Take, for instance, the Bush tax cuts. They were a tax break, intended to be temporary, with a sunset date written into the law. But now that the time has come for them to end, terminating them is characterized as raising taxes. Restoring taxes to their normal levels isn't raising them, but by hammering away at the idea, they have fixed it as such in many people's minds. If so many political figures are saying the same thing-that it's raising taxes-surely it must be true, or at least many people think it is. To believe the reverse, they would need to accept that it is possible for powerful people who say they are acting for good of This Greatest of Godfearing Nations to have unspoken hidden agendas, and their minds just won't go there. In Hitler's day, this was called the Big Lie method of propagandizing a population-but of course to make such a comparison is to be guilty of saying that the Republicans are Nazis (see the section on preemption).

     Calling Social Security an "entitlement," as if people were being given money just because the program exists, is another example of misnaming. The elderly are entitled to that money because they paid it. A promise is a promise-or at least it should be.

 

     As in the past, I hope that these or similar writings will reach the less academic members of my high school class and others like them. I know they are capable of standing up to tyranny, just as much as the Tunisians or the Syrians, once they know who the enemy is. Friends, if my word means anything, please believe me when I say that government is not the enemy. Government of the people, by the people, and for the people-as Lincoln put it in the Gettysburg Address that gets read at Fourth of July commemorations every year---may be the only thing standing in the way of a takeover by the powerful. Don't let Congress do what our enemies have been unable to do: tear it to pieces.

 

VERMONT’S PRESERVATION HALL JAZZ BAND

VERMONT’S PRESERVATION HALL JAZZ BAND

 

         Tom Stanizola, for instance, was so old that he needed help just getting onto the stage area at the Salisbury Congregational Church. But at his seat, with his clarinet, he went to some very high places that very, very few people ever reach.

         I was only half joking when I told band leader and cornet player Gene Childers that I felt privileged to have seen the Jubilee Jazz Band in their prime. The 70-somethings that comprise this unit have lost little or nothing musically, and would be stirring to hear for someone who was blind and unaware of their longevity. I call them Vermont’s Preservation Hall Jazz Band in reference to a group of veteran New Orleans musicians whose performances became legendary in the years before Hurricane Katrina hit. “Living Treasures” would be good, too, since they, like the artists and artisans so honored in their home countries have kept alive skills and sensibilities that continue to enrich us.

         For the Salisbury series, Childers had arranged a musical tour of the Roaring Twenties, as the decade preceding the Depression became known. Year by year, he picked a hit number that helped to convey that time of speakeasies, bobbed haircuts, and dancing the Charleston. Each time, his cohorts rose to the challenge and delivered a resounding performance, each musician taking his solo as well as contributing to the ensemble playing. No, he said afterward, they hadn’t rehearsed the program. He had sprung it on them that night—and troupers that they were, they came through in grand style.

For the record, in order as Childers wrote the names down, they are: Tom Stanizola, clarinet; Andy Ellenberger, piano; Woody Strobeck, trombone; Tom D’Andrea, drums; Peter Williams, bass; Gene Childers, cornet. Childers, by the way, is the father of Nathan Childers, who has gone on to a distinguished career as a New York City jazzman. Hearing the father, you understand why the son chose the saxophone, not the trumpet, as his instrument.

         There is an Irish folk song in which an old woman recalls the heroes, long gone, of the first rebellion against English rule, and says, “We may have as good, but we’ll never have better. Glory-o, glory-o, to the bold Fenian men.”

         Go hear the Jubilee Jazz Band if you can. Dance to their music if you still can, or if you can’t, remember when you could and smile.

 

 

THE GOOD SIDE OF THE RAIN?

 

 

         This year’s superabundant precipitation may have created above-average conditions for fireflies.

         We live in town, and in most years, there have been only a few fireflies. This has seemed true of the lowlands in general. The best fireflies I’ve seen in Vermont were on mountain in Shrewsbury—the kind of display where groups begin flashing together, as if creating veins of gold ore in the air.

         What we’ve seen behind our house this year hasn’t approached that, but it’s been quite a spectacle. For several weeks now, dozens have appeared at dusk, at first flying close to the ground then zooming around the neighborhood at house height or above.

         This makes sense, from what I know of firefly behavior and habitat. The ones who fly around are the guys, looking for females. The females glow, too, but are wingless, living in placing with abundant humus. At the place I used to live, I would invite neighbors to dump their maple leaves, which my son would pound to fragments by jumping in the pile, after which they composted quite nicely. With some regularity I would find the glowworms, as the females are known, in the dark, wet, ßdecaying leaves.

         The widespread use of insect sprays, by homeowners and by mosquito control districts, has done bad things for firefly populations. With West Nile virus lurking, and eastern equine encephalitis a continuing possibility, it’s hard to blame people for wanting to clear the air. But this year the fireflies appear to be in the ascendant for a change, and it’s lovely to see.