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After The Fall

“Man looks in the abyss. There’s nothing staring back at him. At that moment, man finds his character. And that is what keeps him out of the abyss.”

—Lou Mannheim (Hal Holbrook) in Wall Street

In Oliver Stone’s new film, World Trade Center, a rescue worker stands atop a pile of steaming rubble, planning his descent into the inferno below. “I need a medic up here,” he yells. “Anybody a medic?”

“I used to be a medic,” comes a voice from the darkness.

A tiny figure scrambles up the base of the hill like a large bug. As he passes into the light, we see that it’s Frank Whaley, an actor who got his start with appearances in Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July, The Doors and JFK.

“My license lapsed,” the figure says. “I had a few bad years. But I’m good.”

Such is the legacy of Stone — a towering figure in modern film who always seems to be wrangling his own personal demons — that it is almost impossible not to read a scene like that autobiographically. A three-time Oscar winner as both writer (Midnight Express) and director (Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July), Stone has spent much of the past dozen years surrounded by controversy or chaos: His satirical tabloid blitzkrieg Natural Born Killers caused novelist John Grisham to accuse him of engendering real-life murders. Nixon, his oddly sympathetic portrait of the ex-president, eluded liberals and conservatives alike. The jumpy, kinetic editing style he employed in the day-for-noir U Turn and the pro-football pageant Any Given Sunday inspired longtime Stone critic Elvis Mitchell to label the latter “the world’s first ADD epic.”

Then the first of two HBO documentaries (Comandante) on Fidel Castro was shelved for being too sympathetic, while a subsequent portrait of Yasser Arafat (Persona Non Grata) saw Stone’s crew fleeing Ramallah four hours before the Israeli army attacked the Palestinian leader’s compound. (A third film, expected to profile either Kim Jong-Il or Saddam Hussein, was canceled.) He has been arrested twice — in 1999 and 2005 — for DUI and possession of marijuana, respectively. During an appearance at HBO’s “Making Movies That Matter” panel at Lincoln Center in October 2001, he allegedly made inflammatory remarks regarding the September 11 attacks, earning him scorn and ridicule in The New Yorker and elsewhere. Most painfully, when Stone, in 2004, finally realized his 20-year obsession to make Alexander, a sweeping history of Alexander the Great filmed on three continents, the film failed to find a domestic audience.

Now comes World Trade Center, a delicate, contained and extremely powerful evocation of our 2001 national trauma, starring Nicolas Cage and Michael Peña as John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno, New York City Port Authority cops who were miraculously excavated from beneath the glowing rubble of Building No. 7. In an odd way, it brings Stone’s career full circle: His first student film, Last Year in Viet Nam, made at NYU in 1970 (for film professor Martin Scorsese), opens with a panorama of southern Manhattan and what would have been the Twin Towers, except that they weren’t completed until January 1972. But in another respect, World Trade Center may be Stone’s most subversive film yet — a rousing, populist, patriotic adventure story that kicks the legs out from under the right-wing criticism marshaled against him. It could prove the ultimate irony that the bête noire of American conservatives — the man who profiled right-wing death squads in Salvador, My Lai–like atrocities in Platoon, hostile takeovers in Wall Street, the anti-war movement in Born on the Fourth of July and, most notably, the fecund proliferation of Kennedy-assassination conspiracy theories in JFK — may find his most enthusiastic audience among the very partisans who have heretofore decried his lifetime of work. As no less a cultural observer than Mel Gibson said of Stone in the 1997 thriller Conspiracy Theory, “He’s a disinformation junkie for them. The fact that he’s still alive says it all. He probably should be dead, but he’s not.”

In person, Stone has an infectious laugh, seems genuinely engaged and takes the full measure of my questions before answering, at which point his ideas often come so fast they seem to be skipping across the surface of the conversation. He’s also the most fun kind of intellectual, in that he perpetually appears to be trying to figure himself out. Briefly a classmate of George W. Bush’s at Yale, he seems — at least on the evidence of our wide-ranging, three-hour discussion — to have absorbed a good deal more of its freshman syllabus. We spoke at his West L.A. editing suite, where he is currently preparing a three-hour, 45-minute DVD-only “road show” version of Alexander, complete with intermission.

L.A. WEEKLY: Where were you on the morning of September 11, 2001?

OLIVER STONE: L.A. Asleep. My wife put the TV on.

And what did you think was happening?

It was sensational. It was exciting. It was horrifying. It reminded me in its barbarity and ferocity of the French Revolution — the tumbrels, heads falling. And I had feelings of anger in me, and vengeance. I had a fight with my son, actually, because he was much more objective about it: “How do you know? Don’t assume anything. You’re acting like the mob.” But there were other feelings as well. You know, I realize I’m an older person; I’ve seen Vietnam and a lot of death and shit. Oklahoma City was horrible. JFK’s assassination. Watergate. The 2000 election. We’ve been through our times of shit in this country, so this was another version.

World Trade Centeris very powerful — emotionally powerful. I had a very visceral reaction to it. I think it’s obviously the film, but it’s also more than the film — it’s the fact that the subject matter is so loaded. If you make a film about fire jumpers, and a fire jumper comes to see it, he’ll say, “Well, you got this part right, you got this part wrong.’?” With this film, we’re all fire jumpers. It’s also very different from a lot of your other films — it’s gentle and contained and quiet. I’m wondering if you had to devise a different approach because the subject matter was so delicate.

I just want to say first that the way I look at myself — it’s not necessarily in the result — but with every film, I really have made an effort to make each one an island unto itself in this little sea that we go around in our ships. And every island has been a destination, a stop for a period of time. I’ve tried to take a different style for every film, because it’s the story that comes first, and the subject dictates the style. Even with something like Natural Born Killers, which seems very stylistic and eccentric, it’s still the content that I think is valid and important. With this film, certain things presented themselves: Obviously, the sensitivities of everyone involved, but ultimately that’s the sky around the project. With JFK, for instance, there were his children to think of, Jackie was still alive, Teddy Kennedy. Blowing his head off in Dealey Plaza didn’t go down well with them either. But there was a bigger story to tell.

Here we were limited by movement, so we worked out a style by which, methodically, the film would go in and out of light: Light would fight with the dark, or rather, light would try to make it up to the dark. Claustrophobia is an issue with a film like this. I did Talk Radio, so I know that feeling of being on one set the whole time. Also, Born on the Fourth of July: That was a very contained movie, in a way, because we had a young man in a wheelchair in the second half, where there’s very little movement. When I read this script, I said, “How do we make this movie watchable? How do we make the tension manageable for a mainstream audience?”

It may surprise a lot of people that you’re not using a lot of shock cuts, moving around inside the frame — what you’ve termed your “cubist” style.

Well, where can you move in a hole? A hole is limited. Finding the right point of view in the hole is crucial.

You once said about Platoon, “I felt like if I didn’t do it now, I’m going to forget.” We’re five years out from 9/11 now, and there is much public hand-wringing about whether it’s too soon yet to deal with this subject matter.

I think it’s a bogus question. The consequences of that day are far worse today. More people have died since then because of the war on terror. There’s more war, there’s more fear, and there is constitutional breakdown left and right. Have the good sense to go to the psychiatrist quickly. If you’ve been raped, talk to somebody about what that day itself was like before you build up all this armor.

You pursued this film, correct?

Yes. Petitioned. My agent, Bryan Lourd, a man of taste, said to me, “Look, I read this script two weeks ago — it stays with me, it’s emotional. I don’t know if it will make a dime, I don’t know if I can get it financed, but just read it.” So I read it, and I said, “My God, I never thought of this — to do 2001 this way.” I knew [World Trade Center producers] Michael Shamberg and Stacy Sher. But no one would make it; Universal dropped it at the [proposed] budget. I was doing other things, I wasn’t stopping my life. But then it came back around. Paramount was just coming into being [under new management]. We were very lucky, because that new studio energy was coming in, and they wanted to make it so badly that it happened right away.

And did you talk with the producers about politics — if there would be a political viewpoint that informed the story?

There was no room for it, because John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno were not interested in politics, per se. They don’t talk about politics like you and I do. Their lives are not determined by it; they live according to what is given them. So it never entered into the equation. I loved the script [by Andrea Berloff] as it was. I loved the inspiration of the story. So I vowed to stay inside those parameters.

New York is probably the most liberal city in America, and yet the 9/11 attack has been so politicized, its imagery considered so proprietary, that right-wing skepticism has been mounting steadily against you since this project was announced. A story in The New York Times said the film is being strategically marketed to right-wing opinion leaders using the PR firm that advised the Swift Boat Veterans group. It even quoted the conservative National Review Web site as saying, “God Bless Oliver Stone.”

I knew [the studio] was doing grassroots marketing to everybody — Hispanics, cops, firemen, teachers, church groups. I didn’t know that they had hired a specific firm; I found out that day. I’m pleased they like it, because it goes beyond politics.

Could you foresee a left-wing backlash against the film?

If people on the right are responding with their hearts, I’m all for it. But if they’re making it into a political statement, it’s wrong. Those on the left might say, “Oh, this is a simplified context, and these are simplistic working-class values. You’re not showing a wider political context.” Or secondly, that we’re sentimentalizing the event — which would be unfair, because I think there’s a lot of grit there. But this is a populist film. We’ve said that from the beginning. In our hearts, it was a Frank Capra type of movie. And he didn’t necessarily get great notices.

In an odd way, I was reminded of Preston Sturges’ Hail the Conquering Hero — a wartime comedy that pokes fun at the notion of patriotism and, by extension, patriotic movies but which, by the end, almost subversively, fills you with this patriotic fervor. I’m wondering if you see this as your “Nixon in China” moment: Only the director of Nixon and JFK could get away with a film where the most heroic character is an ex-Marine who consults with his pastor before putting himself in harm’s way.

That character, Dave Karnes, is an unlikely hero. He goes to church — that’s a documented thing; he checks with his pastor in a born-again church before he goes down to Manhattan. He evaded the authorities. Get it done; that’s a Marine thing. I think you can argue that the Marine is an ambivalent character, because at the end of the movie, this sense of vengeance is what fuels the wrong war in Iraq.

But for him it’s the right war.

For him it’s the right war. That’s correct. I think if you really look at JFK or at Nixon, which are the two political films I did uncensored in my career — which is amazing unto itself — JFK is neither right nor left, and was attacked equally by the left, who did not like the Kennedy figure of 1963. It was done in the centrist tradition of American dissent: It questioned government and the authority of government. So I was taken aback that the right made such a big issue out of it. I suppose, because they were in office [when the film came out]. But they had never done that historically. They would have been on the side of the investigation; [Barry] Goldwater may well have been. JFK was not a bunch of fantasies strung together. It involved an enormous amount of research — as much as World Trade Center, if not more.

You could make the same argument about Nixon. You took the dominant political figure in our lifetime and gave him the Shakespearean treatment his life cried out for.

It was a psychological point of view. The right wing thought it was going to be a hatchet job; instead, it made him a human being. Unfortunately, in my career, I have spoken out between films, and that’s what’s gotten confused with the films themselves. I think the focus has been lost. Somewhere along the line, I guess, I said, “Look, I’m a filmmaker, but I’m also John Q. Citizen, and things piss me off. I have a right to say, if people ask me and they’re interested, what I fucking think.” And that’s the line I’ve always gotten in trouble with. It’s always between the films, if you look at the statements I’ve made. There’s nothing in the films themselves, as far as I know, that’s really offensive politically.

How much of the criticism against you do you think is organized for partisan political gain?

I’ve always wondered that — especially in the ’90s, after the JFK situation. You have to wonder: Will it come out one day in a government file? You hear about those programs from the ’50s and the ’60s. I was so grateful that Michael Moore came along. He helped me.

He seems to enjoy it. Maybe it’s the counterpart to how the left treats Charlton Heston.

Charlton Heston once said in an interview, “People like Oliver Stone would never hire me in the new Hollywood.” And I went out of my way on Any Given Sunday to hire him. I loved him. I said, “Forget politics, I love your character.” Political reputation pigeonholes you, and in a society that’s very busy, it’s an easy way to get rid of having to think too much about people and what they’re saying. I’m a dramatist; I’m a humanist. I protest.

There’s one line in World Trade Center — I think we hear it on a TV monitor in an office at the Port Authority — where the announcer says, “. . . the shock of the explosion that was coincidental with the two towers coming down,” and then you move on to something else. Was the suggestion that an unexplained explosion might have accompanied the towers’ demise the one seed of doubt you intentionally planted in an otherwise apolitical movie?

Well, I think that all reality is questionable, as you know. Frankly, I’m not an expert on that at all. And I haven’t pursued it, because I think the consequences of where we are now are far worse. But even if there was a conspiracy, it wouldn’t change where we are now. We’re into another place, where there’s more war, more terror, more bankruptcy, more debt, above all more constitutional breakdown and more fear than ever before. That’s very serious. And we’re on the edge of possibly something bigger and very dangerous. Richard Clarke’s book [Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror], at least, is about a true conspiracy that we know existed, of a small group who took over the government and did it their way — manipulated, created the war. It’s 30 or 40 people, right?

Sy Hersh says it’s 11 guys.

It was a conspiracy, and it was basically at the top. It’s Cheney and Rumsfeld influencing Bush. Cheney and Rumsfeld go back to the Ford administration, and when they got their way, they kicked butt. That’s a great story. But that’s not even all of it. When you’ve got a guy like Representative Pete Hoekstra from Michigan, who was a friend of the Bush administration — who had approved of the Patriot Act, the eavesdropping, the taxes, the bank records, all of it — saying in the press that there’s something worse that he’s pissed off about, because they hadn’t consulted him. Something worse? I mean, all the cards are not on the table, right? This is a big story. And we’re living it. How can you write about it? We’re fucking rocking in the boat. It’s like trying to write a great war novel when you might be going into World War II.

Were you at Yale the same time Bush was?

I was in the same class, yeah. I don’t remember him. I was never in a fraternity. I went twice — I dropped out one year and then went back for half of a second year and dropped out.

But at one point Bush requested to meet you, didn’t he?

Yeah, I met him. It was a political breakfast speech here in California at a club, the Republican right wing. They invited me — they’ve always had fun with me, I don’t know why — and it was a big hotel room and a speech about tough love and justice in Texas. He was governor then, around ’98 or so. I swear, I knew in that room on that day that he was going to be president. There was just no question. He had that confidence, and they adored him. There was an organized love for him. He asked for me to come up to the podium and we had a one-on-one. I was in the Bush spotlight — that thing where he stares at you and he gets to know you a little bit.

Assigns you a nickname.

There was one funny line. He knew I’d been in Vietnam. Actually, I didn’t know he’d been at Yale. He told me he’d been in my class; it was a surprise to me. But then he said he’d had a buddy who had been to Vietnam who’d been killed. “Buddy,” he said. It was funny — it was on his mind, he raised it. And it was the way he looked at me: I just felt like, boy, I bet you he’d rather his buddy had come home than me. But he was very friendly, very charming — a very sociable man.

Have you ever thought about going into politics — running for office? Would you consider doing that in a later part of your life?

Not seriously, no.

Orson Welles wrote a weekly political newspaper column during WWII — he was friends with FDR through Sumner Welles, a distant relative of his and a presidential adviser, and at one point he considered running for the Senate from California or his native Wisconsin.

Politics is about raising money and being popular and shaking a lot of hands and spending a lot of time with people. Those are not my strengths. It would be exhausting and would completely destroy my ability to do what I do.

You were pro-Vietnam before you enlisted in the infantry, right? You were fairly conservative?

Yes.

So we could say that you spent the entire 1960s across the political divide from most of what you’ve now come to stand for?

My story is complicated. I did write a novel about being 19 called A Child’s Night Dream. My parents divorced when I was 14, and being the only child, there was no family to go back to. Basically, going to Vietnam was really throwing myself to the wolves. It was a form of rebellion and suicide.

I’ve read a quote to the effect of, “I felt like I had to atone for the act of imagination.” Was it actually the failure of the novel that sent you over the edge?

After I left Yale the second time and finished the novel — I was writing the novel instead of going to class, and that’s why I flunked out — my father was supporting me, and that’s an impossible situation: 19 years old, your father is furious at you for the tuition that he’s lost, and you’re living in his apartment trying to finish a novel. It’s like Jack Kerouac moving back home with his mother. But I really believed in it: I was insane with passion. It was the only thing I had. I had no woman friends in my life. I had nothing to support me beyond that. And when that failed, I went into the Army with the idea of “Let God sort it out, whoever I am.” It’s egregious to think that you can be on the level of Mailer or any of your heroes — Hemingway, or Joyce; I was into Joyce heavily at the time.

Part of the fun of watching someone like you working without a net, from a distance, is charting the rises and falls of your career. And sometimes there are films that don’t hit right, that suffer because of the moment or the context — the sky around it, as you put it. I’m thinking specifically of Nixon, which was a commercial failure, but seems to get more sophisticated every time I see it. Or, more recently, Alexander.

I’ve had three big setbacks, in terms of being completely dismissed: Heaven and Earth, Nixon — by many people, at least — and Alexander. On Alexander, it was just devastating, because in America and England, the numbers were so tough. It wasn’t just that people didn’t like it. It was ridiculed. It was destructive criticism. Meanwhile, in the rest of the world we were connecting, we were among the top 20 films of that year in the foreign market. We did better than four of the five Oscar nominees abroad. It was well respected.

Why didn’t Alexander connect? Do we agree that it didn’t connect with English-speaking audiences?

I like the director’s cut better than the first version, because I had more time to prepare it. And the structure is different. It wasn’t because of the homosexuality — that’s a red herring. The mother’s back story and father’s back story, which are really essential, don’t come in until later. We’re doing a third, expanded version now — we’re going all out. This is not for theatrical; it’s for the people who love the film who want to see more of it. It’s the Cecil B. DeMille treatment — three hours and 45 minutes. What I’m doing is going back and showing the whole thing in its sumptuousness, really going with the concept that it had to be an old-fashioned movie, with an intermission, like a road show. Be a showman, instead of trying to be a responsible filmmaker. Go all out on this one. This is my Apocalypse Now, my DeMille epic. [The first time] I was trying to step up to the plate, so to speak. I should have pulled it back, taken an extra year like Marty did with Gangs of New York. But it would have cost a lot of money.

In Oliver Stone’s America, the documentary included with the DVD box set of your films, you say, “I’ve always admired Alexander because of the momentum and the speed with which he traveled and conquered. In my small metaphoric way, I would say the countries were films, and I moved through them like him . . . he’s striking everywhere. I think it was great. We had a great run. But it’s definitely a new phase.” Is Alexander the figure you most closely identify with?

I am a Method director to a certain degree. I do become part of what I shoot. And I think with Alexander, the perception is of hubris, certainly — “Alexander the Great? Who the fuck is he? He thinks he’s Alexander.” I could see that coming. But I always knew who Oliver Stone was. I never lost track of that. And I made the film humbly, in 94 fucking days on three continents. I ran the crew like I always run the crew. Nothing changed in my habits. I walked in the deserts, we shot in a sandstorm once, and it was the same old Oliver who did Salvador. Hubris is taking 110 days on some stupid comedy. That’s an insult to filmmaking the way I was raised. I’m sticking to NYU principles, and I still do to this day. Movies are a tradition; we didn’t invent it — we take it from somebody else and pass it on.

But with Alexander, you faced a challenge like you’ve never faced before, because no matter how bruising the attacks on JFK and Nixon, your core audience was always still with you. For whatever reason, Alexander failed to connect with an audience.

Yeah. In America.

In America. I don't wish to judge it; this is an empirical observation.

No, it didn't connect. Alexander is the high point of my life, and it always will be. I’m not asking for universal love on that; it’s just impossible. It’s not paced to the American style, nor is he a conventional hero. He’s filled with doubts. But Alexander is a beautiful story, and I think I did him well. I mean, I wouldn’t have released it [otherwise]. But I can’t give up; I would never give up. I would be all wrong in my assessments of myself as I work. You have to hear your own self, follow your own drama, or whatever Thoreau said long ago at Walden Pond. [“Follow your genius closely enough, and it will not fail to show you a fresh prospect every hour.”] Alexander was a huge setback for me, and it certainly hurt me in this business. But you have to understand that people have been saying bad things about me for years. I don’t listen; I have to try to keep going.

I don’t want to make specious connections, but you’ve had several high-profile drug arrests in the last few years. Before that, you were making super nihilist films in an edgy, frenetic style. I'm wondering if these are all moving parts of the same phenomenon.

I’ve smoked dope and drunk alcohol most of my life, okay? Getting pulled over and arrested is a fault, it’s a mistake — a wake-up call. I did get busted a couple of times. One was at a roadblock, so it’s not like I was endangering anybody’s life. The other time, I got pulled over by a civilian cop; I was actually busted for driving too slow. And when the tests came back, I was below the intoxication level. Nobody knows that, because it never got published that way. I should get a chauffeur is what I fucking should do. [Laughs.]

But nobody cares if you smoke pot. They care if it affects the work, if it’s part of a larger problem.

Okay, but I don’t feel bad. I got heavier, physically, at certain points, and I think that gives the appearance of degradation, like Jim Morrison. But I did have a pre-diabetic condition through my mother, and I was on too much sugar. Any Given Sunday, I love that movie, but it was more effort than you think — it was like a three-ring circus, to make five football games in five stadiums work. It took so much energy. There were some problems with the crew on that film. So by the end of that movie, my doctor said I was too stressed, and at my age it was dangerous. There were some issues of medications and stuff, no question about it. But sports people love that movie. With Alexander, there’s a fan site where there are people who have seen it 50 times. They go to the sites in Macedon. They love the romanticism of it. So it’s confusing to me. I’ve tried every fucking time to get it right, even if I haven’t been in my best physical shape. I will get it right. Not everyone is going to agree with me, but I’m going to get it right.

With World Trade Center, it's your first time to deal with studio financing in a decade; you look better, healthier. Has your life changed? Is this a new start?

Your story is a journalistic narrative, and it’s a good one, about Oliver coming back after Alexander, and how there’s a change in his life. And I’ve somewhat agreed with it, but I’ve also pointed out that my methods have stayed the same. But it is about your storyline, in a way — about life. If you go to film school, and you think about your career traditionally, you arc up, in the sense that your budgets get bigger, the stars, whatever. There’s a nice arc to a man’s life. You make your better films later — it’s horrible if you’re Orson Welles, if you make your best film first. And Alexander was a chance to do something on another level entirely. So I reached a peak of ambition. And the ambition was perhaps not matched by my execution, although there are points in the execution that do match the ambition, I think. So then it died a metaphoric death. Point of view died with it, as it died when Heaven and Earth came out. That [movie] was a very sensitive side of myself that I loved — it was tender, and the woman was tender. And it was ridiculed and killed, and part of me, you know . . . those feelings were hurt and eradicated for a while. Same thing with Nixon. You want to get rid of the person after you finish. You want to go back to being who you are, but you’re no longer the same person, because your journey has changed.

And part of me did die [with Alexander] — that part that was enamored of “my very important storyline,” end of quote. Me being the storyline. I played it out. I did all my biographical figures. I have no need to be John or Will. I had a need to be Ron Kovic. I had a need to be Alexander. I had a need to be Nixon and Morrison and Garrison. That’s the change. So now I can be myself, maybe. I can be more authentic to myself. I think there was an attraction to go from the past into the contemporary world in its most hellish moment. It’s like I dropped out and I couldn’t get back in, until by going back to 2001, I could come back into this era. I feel liberated, in the sense that, not that it would be next, but I feel I could do a movie about those next five years. Not that I think it’s complete yet — I think there’s a lot going on that we don’t know about in the government. But I think there’s something in the air. I smell it, and I feel fresh again, having done something — my new, 24-hour, humble microcosm of that day. Wherever I go with World Trade Center, it’s going to spin off to wherever I go next.

-Paul Cullum, "After The Fall," LA Weekly, Aug 9 2006 [x]

#world trade center #la weekly #george w. bush #politics #alexander #oliver stone

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365days365movies · 3 years

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February 9, 2021: Doctor Zhivago (Part 3)

INTERMISSION’S OVER! Hope you got your snacks and popcorn, because we’ve got an hour and 20 to go!

Recap (Part 3/3)

Train’s stopped, but not at its intended location. The reason is because there’s a battle taking place up ahead in Yuriatin, where the train is headed through. See, the Bolsheviks - well, actually, the Communists now, to be accurate - are waging battle against the anti-Communist White Army, and have occupied Yuriatin.

Yuri leaves the train to find out what the deal is, and he’s captured by the Communists under suspicion of being a spy. Leading them, of course, is Pasha, now going by Strelnikov. After a brief round of suspicion, Pasha admits a former admiration of Yuri’s poetry, now viewed as anti-Communist. Yuri reveals his connection to Pasha’s wife, and Pasha reveals that he has not seen her during the war, and she’s living in...Yuriatin.

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JESUS PASHA WHAT THE HELL

Well, after having this friendly discussion with a GODDAMN MONSTER, Pasha lets him go back to his family, luckily for him. He gets back to the train JUST in time, and the family are left at their intended destination, as planned. It almost seems that their struggles are over, as flowers are blooming amidst the previously ubiquitous winter.

Can’t say the same for Yuriatin, as we see it on fire in the distance. However, the Gromeko’s cottage is apparently totally fine, untouched by the Red and the White Armies.

Well, mostly untouched, as it’s been sealed up by the Red Army. Stopping Alexander from breaking in, Yuri and their local friend, Petya (Jack MacGowran) figure out that the cottage of the house is still open, and the family happily settles in there.

During their time there, Tonya becomes pregnant once again. Strelnikov leaves for Manchuria, which seems like good news. But that’s tempered with the very, VERY bad. Czar Nicholas and the Romanovs, exiled for years, have been shot. Sorry, Anastasia.

Spring to summer, summer to winter, and winter once again to spring, and the family is doing well, in relative poverty as they are. By the way, before I forget to mention this, why does Omar Sharif (he plays Yuri) ALWAYS look like he’s been crying? Dude has perpetually red puffy eyes, I swear. Like, look at the GIF below. See? He wasn’t crying, he wasn’t even sad there, but his eyes ALWAYS LOOK THAT WAY. Not his fault, but I just can’t not notice it.

But now, we go to another place, and another set of eyes. Yuri makes his way to Yuriatin on a visit, and there, a reunion takes place at the library in town.

Yuri and Lara catch up, have a good time, and then OH GODDAMN IT

EVERY TIME! WHY IS IT INFIDELITY IN EVERY ONE OF THESE GODDAMN MOVIES??? Yuri’s seemingly happy, he’s got another kid on the way, and I get that he’s loved Lara for a long time at this point, but can we just have a SINGLE. FAITHFUL. RELATIONSHIP in these movies, for the love of CHRIST!!!

And this is just as Tonya’s close to giving birth to their second child. Yuri seems to realize this, and he heads to Yuriatin to officially end it with Lara...and he does, to some credit. It hurts them both pretty grievously, but he does what’s right. But NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED I GUESS

Red Partisan Army just kidnapped him! BECAUSE OF COURSE THEY DID. His poetry has finally caught up to him, and he is taken away from his “private life.” After all, like Pasha said, private life is dead in Russia. Fuck me, man.

So, Yuri’s been kidnapped as a field doctor for the Civil War, as the Red Partisans go up against the White Army, at one point killing a unit of literal children. During his stay, allies advocate for his release, but to no avail. Yuri is stuck with the army for TWO GODDAMN YEARS, away from his wife and two children.

He eventually just leaves, in the middle of the winter during a trek. He just...wanders off. Frozen, tired, and probably badly frostbitten, he makes his way back to Yuriatin, where he discovers that his family has left. However, it would appear that Lara may still be in town. Finding a key and letter meant for him, he makes his way into the apartment, where he passes out.

Lara cares for him as he wakes up, and reveals that Tonya and the kids are safe. Later, she gives him a sealed letter from Tonya, which was sent six months prior. It’s revealed that he was a daughter, Anna, and that they have been deported from Russia, and are going to Paris. They don’t know where they’ll be headed, and there’s no telling if Yuri will ever see them again. Which...sucks.

But then, soon after, the two get an unexpected visitor: Victor Fuckin’ Komarovsky! Yeah, thought you’d seen the last of him! he comes from Moscow, and offers the pair his help. See, Tonya and the kids are not in the best of situations down in France, and Yuri’s not only a deserter, but seen as a dangerous man by the government for his poetry, which has officially been labeled anti-Communist propaganda. Fuckin’ YIKES.

The two refuse their help at first, but Lara realizes the real danger that Yuri’s in. Turns out that Victor knows so much because he’s been appointed the Minister of Justice, and offers the two an out from the country. They continue to refuse him, and it’s revealed that Lara’s ALSO in trouble, as her husband is still technically Strelnikov. But, after Victor is ONCE AGAIN a DICK, they kick him out.

Realiing that they’re in trouble, the two escape to Varykino, which is gorgeous, by the way. Although the whole place appears to be dusty and a bit snowed in, the two and Lara’s daughter, Katya (Lucy Westmore) settle in. There, Yuri does something we’ve never actually seen him do: write poetry. To be specific, he writes a set of poems that he is famous for, by the time we get to the time period from the beginning of the film, all of which are themed around Lara.

It’s also at this point that the two begin their love affair in earnest, and...I weirdly am OK with this. Look, they’ve loved each other for a long time, and the likelihood that either of them will see their spouses again is EXTREMELY low. The two embrace their love, and begin to imagine what life would’ve been like if they’d met each other before.

But Victor, surprisingly, returns. He makes them an offer once again, and it’s revealed that Strelnikov is dead. Turns out that he was sought by the government, as they wished Strelnikov dead all along. He was headed to Lara when he was caught, and comitted suicide while in custody, returning to his true identity of Pasha at the end. Fuckin’ WHOOF.

But there’s the problem: with Lara’s usefulness as a lure gone, she’s now set to be executed, along with Katya. Given this information, Yuri agrees to go with Victor, and Lara and Katya come along. But guess what! THERE ISN’T ENOUGH ROOM ON THE CARRIAGE OUT OF THERE. BECAUSE OF COURSE THERE ISN’T.

And in case you weren’t sure, Zhivago is indeed left behind, as he actually never intended to go with Victor, due to his dislike for the man. But Lara’s now safe, which is what he wanted all along. Not to mention the fact that Lara is now pregnant with Yuri’s daughter. Which is when we cut back to the present day.

Tanya, from the very beginning, is almost certainly Lara and Yuri’s daughter. Born the same year, in the China or Mongolia (where Lara was headed with Katya and Victor), and with similar eyes and complexion, it’s a near certainty. She denies it, but Yevgraf continues. See, he eventually did find Yuri, malnourished, and cared for him.

Stalin’s now in charge, and Yuri is practicing Dr. Zhivago once more. Years later, he boards a trolley in the city, suffering from a heart disease at this point. On the trolley, he sees Lara walking on the street, and tries to get off to see her. But, once he finally gets off the trolley, the strain is too much for him.

At Yuri’s funeral, Lara and Yuri meet. There, she asks for Yevgraf’s help to find her child, but they never do. And after that, at some point...she’s taken to one of Stalin’s labor camps, where she most certainly died. Jesus, man.

And now, we learn of Tanya’s fate. Komarovsky, whom she believed to be her father, abandoned her on the streets when running from the chaos of the Russian Civil War. BECAUSE HE IS A GODDAMN DICK. She does not want to believe that this is the truth, but she says that she’ll consider it. As she and her partner, David, leave the interview, it’s revealed that she can play the balalaika, which her departed father could never do. But the fact that she’s a self-taught master of it speaks to her ancestry, as Zhivago and Lara’s daughter.

And uh...I’m gonna be honest, that didn’t even feel like 3 hours and 20 minutes. Really! That was Doctor Zhivago! I really liked this one! But more on that in the Review. Stay tuned for that!

#doctor zhivago #david lean #omar sharif #julie christie #geraldine chaplin #tom courtenay #alec guinness #rod steiger #romance february #user365 #365 movie challenge #365 movies 365 days #365 Days 365 Movies #365 movies a year #useramby #mygifs #my gifs

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suffragettecity100 · 4 years

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1913: The Suffrage Parade in Washington D.C.

62. The 1913 Suffrage Parade in Washington D.C. (abridged)

This well-known event is considered a turning point in suffrage history. Many times it is portrayed as huge mobs intentionally attacking the women in the parade and police just standing by or encouraging it. Examining primary sources, the record of the senate hearing on the incident, the reports in suffrage journals and regular newspapers about the event, and learning that this parade was not just a parade but a series of civic art protest pieces coming together makes a more accurate picture of why this event has become such a touchstone of suffrage. This SuffragetteCity100 episode will have two versions: an abridged overview of basic points and an unabridged overview with more explanation and links to in-depth articles and resources. This is the abridged version.

The idea of a national constitutional amendment was not new (Episode 33) but it was pretty much a dead issue. Alice Paul (Episode 61) was assigned the undesirable task which also came with no funding or support from National American Women’s Suffrage Association headquarters. Paul created a national spectacle which brought the idea back to life and rebranded the suffrage movement.

The entire event was intentionally planned to compete with the presidential inauguration and in the highest traffic area. It was composed of three components: the main suffrage parade with lots of coordinated costumes, thematic floats, and pageantry, a one-hour theatrical art piece performed on the steps of the U.S. Treasury Building, and the end of the 17 day suffrage hike which started in Manhattan and finished by joining the D.C. suffrage parade.

The D.C. police tried to persuade Paul to pick a different date or parade route that was easier to manage because unusually large and rowdy crowds come for inaugurations. The Pennsylvania Avenue route also went through rougher areas of town, but she and other women went to higher and higher officials to get the permits. According to the Senate investigation, there were 950 officers sent to work the parade both in uniform and in support duties and a cavalry unit was put on standby by the Secretary of War. (The presidential inauguration had 840 officers in total.) Given that no suffrage parade before (or after) had ended in violence, there was no reason to foresee a problem.

There is a lot of confusion about the issue of women of color marching. At best, vague answers were given to direct requests by African-American groups. At worst, the requests were ignored. The question of segregating the parade really wasn’t decided until an hour before the parade began and the final compromise was that the Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage would march between the states’ division and African-American women groups. General Rosalie Jones and the suffrage hikers (Episode 61) marched last. Ida B. Wells (Episode 39) famously slipped back into her states’ division with the help of two white friends. Mary Church Terell (Episode 45) is reported to have been both in the college group and the segregated group. However, Native-American lawyer, Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin (WCW 27) marched with white women lawyers in division three and international women including women of color would have been with the first division.

The parade was spectacular and the play was epic. See the unabridged version for details.

Crowd control became a problem because due to a delay in permits, the streetcar and regular car traffic was only stopped an hour before. The inaugural crowd was already partisan and easily riled. Drinking was common. People ignored barriers and crowded into the parade route. Because the parade routes weren’t able to be kept clear, it created several bottle necked areas. This seems to be where most reported incidents happened especially pushing, shoving, and tripping. However, spectators joined in to help the women including Boy Scouts, and the Pennsylvania National Guard. The cavalry was called in, the parade was able to move on, and the majority of participants completed the route. Out of a parade of 5,000 participants and a crowd of 500,000 spectators, there are reports of about 100 people being taken to the hospital.

Despite credible reports of verbal abuse, slapping, or spitting in the chaos of the crowds, the next day most newspapers declared the parade an overall success. However, top suffrage leader, Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, was extremely outraged at the lack of police protection and Oswald Garrison Villad, editor of the “New York Evening Post”, who had marched in the men’s division demanded a congressional investigation.

The senate investigation lasted from March 6 through March 17 and called over 150 witnesses. (Full 817 page transcript and 16 page summary listed in sources on unabridged version.) It concluded that in retrospect, the police could have done more to keep the parade route clear. There were indeed credible reports of women being harassed both physically and verbally. While some officers may have been derelict in duty, no one was specifically named. Other officers worked to protect the women and clear the route.The investigation concluded that there was no evidence of official police policy to harass the women or leave them unprotected but that it was shameful that women could not hold a peaceful protest down a main street in the nation’s capital without harassment.

The parade still looms large in the history books and current imagination thanks to Alice Paul’s savvy use of both the positive and negative aspects of the event to garner national attention and sympathy for the cause. However in a 1974 interview for “American Heritage” magazine, Alice Paul herself recalls that while there was the usual verbal and sexist harassment, unusual delays, and crowd control issues, she did not recall exceptional violence happening at the parade.

This week’s song pick:

“Like a Phoenix” by Molly Sanden (multiqueen fan compilation) https://youtu.be/sNAMBkCTKxI

#SuffragetteCity100 #FightForThe19th

See unabridged version on main website for sources. www,suffragettecity100.com Episode 62b

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robert-c · 5 years

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Why Democrats Should Be in Power and Why They’re Not

The simplest answer is this: the Republican agenda represents and serves only a minority of the populace; the very rich and the very extreme religious right. So how do they manage to maintain so much control for so long? Because while a majority of the populace doesn’t agree with them a significant portion are more afraid of the Democrats.

Some of those fears are untrue and unreasonable but have taken hold after decades of lies promoting them that were not successfully countered. Some are fair concerns based on the fact that the Democratic party has always been a much more “open tent”, welcoming many diverse ideas. Those diverse ideas are important, they often challenge us to think ahead to the sorts of changes that we should be moving toward. At the same time they are often too far ahead of their time. Ideas like the 40 hour work week and time and a half for overtime, were considered extreme, called “socialist” or even “communist” when they were first proposed. The key is they weren’t implemented until the time was right.

Another reason people fear the Democratic party is that it is the party for change, for progress. In our individual lives change is upsetting and stressful, even if it is positive change we ourselves have chosen. In a society it is even more fearful. We also need to remember that in every situation, no matter how manifestly unjust or exploitive, some people are rich and powerful because of it. They definitely don’t want things to change and they will never be so honest as to say it is because they fear losing their wealth and power. They can come up with very persuasive tales. For example, the masses of poor, landless whites who fought for the Confederacy thought they were defending “State’s rights and a way of life”, not that they were defending a relatively few rich plantation owner’s “rights” to own slaves.

The mechanics of modern campaigns give entirely too much influence to the extremes. Here’s how and why. The extremists of any position are the people who let that idea consume their life. The vast majority of their time and/or money go to their “cause”. As such, they are terrific tools for a political party to use. In addition to being a source of volunteers they are also a funding source. But as the party relies more and more on their efforts they naturally want more say in the platform and the policy decisions of any administration or Congress that is elected with their help.

That alone would create an ever increasingly vitriolic partisan divide. One might argue that when there is a clear majority for one side or the other it would be resolved. But that ignores two basic truths about this division. The first is that the more extreme the positions, the more they try to paint themselves as morally superior, making compromise or acceptance of defeat more difficult. The second is that fear of change unifies any diversity of conservative opinions, and that fear always makes conservative positions appear the safest, while the forces for change are often fractured and diverse, and in truth the outcome of these changes is not always easy to predict. Thus extremes on the “right” tend to cluster closer together on their issues and agenda than the extremes on the “left”.

Following the “traditional” political advice of the late 20th and early 21st centuries the Democrats have catered to their extreme left flank. Except that it isn’t a unified flank, and incorporating all of its divergent pieces in the party’s main platform has scared away the significant group of “moderate” voters who don’t agree with the Republican’s extreme right wing agenda, but who think it will create less chaos than the combined ideas of the extreme left.

Historically there have mainly been two ways major social changes occur. In the first the forces resisting change remain very strong, creating an ever greater need for change until the forces for change put aside any differences and agree that getting rid of the status quo is the most important next step. Unfortunately this is usually a turbulent if not outright violent transition. The second way is for there to be a strong voice for change that is more peaceful and less extreme, a choice like that between a Dr. King and the Black Panthers. Of course a mix of these methods is what we often end up with, and that complicates our map forward.

This much seems clear – the forces that want to return America to some version of the 1950’s (institutionalized racism, sexism and all) are much better organized than they have ever been. They have been using their own version of the truth so long that now they feel confident in calling actual facts “fake” while continuing to offer no evidence for their outrageous claims. It is a lesson straight out of history. The Nazis were masters at the constant repetition of lies. Heard often enough, from enough apparently different sources, people inevitably believed that there must be at least a grain of truth in it. Given some of the Republicans most outspoken supporters I don’t think the Nazi reference is out of line.

All of this should lead us to a three conclusions: 1) we need to select a platform and candidates which appeal to those voters who oppose the core issues on which the Republicans stand, without incorporating our most extreme elements. 2) The most outspoken extreme elements need to understand that their ideas still have a place and discussion in the party, but moving them front and center risks making any progress toward them at all. 3) We need to find a mechanism for getting out the message and the vote that is less dependent on the resources (time and money) that have typically been provided by the most extreme supporters.

To the argument that our most committed (i.e. extreme) elements will just stay home and not vote I can only say that I fervently hope they are not that stupid. I can understand that they could be so caught up in their causes that they don’t expend extra energy to get out the message and the vote (that’s why there’s item three above). But failing to vote for a side that isn’t everything you want, while the other side is everything you don’t want seems colossally stupid. One must give the Republicans credit, they have kept their extreme elements at the voting booth, even while only going part of the way down their path under most administrations. Our supporters seem to think “likes” on social media, or even demonstrations count for something, even if there is no voting. Let’s be perfectly clear about this: It doesn’t matter how the majority of people feel, the government only responds to the feelings of those who vote.

Some lies get repeated so long that they seem to acquire an element of plausibility. Like Democrats just want to tax and spend. There is far more truth to the saying that Republicans only want to give tax breaks to the rich and leave the middle class and the poor to fend for themselves. But we don’t seem to spend enough effort exposing that. The elephant in the room, that we don’t talk about, is that conservatives (ever since Ronald Reagan) have harbored a pernicious belief that if you aren’t rich, it must be because you are lazy, stupid or in some other way unworthy. We rarely get to hear them enunciate this clearly, but if you look at the things they say, it is there, even if between the lines.

To call this a naïve and “Pollyanna” view of America is way too charitable. What makes this such a powerful lie is that it is something most people want to believe. Everyone likes to feel like they are in control of their life. It is easier to believe, if you also believe that misfortune is the result of things that someone did wrong. It has the additional benefit of relieving you of any moral or ethical obligation to feel compassion or sympathy for the “less fortunate” let alone any sense of charity. In all, it is about as perfect a delusion as could be contrived to allow a rich, ruling class to feel self-righteously, morally secure. At the same time it’s attractive to the wannabe rich with its promise that they can achieve their wildest dreams of avarice through whatever means, without a shred of guilt. It even appeals to a certain element of the poor who would rather believe that the rich are there because they deserve to be, rather than feel that there should be some call to action on their part. All in all it is a “perfect” belief system for those who are lazy or limited of thought and those who like to think highly of themselves regardless of their actions. It is at the heart of every story from the so called “self-made man”. He (or she) started with nothing and built it all, and if they can do it, so can you. You have no excuse for your circumstances.

To make matters worse, there is a germ of truth in it. Most people can do more for themselves than they imagine. At the same time ‘more’ does not equal enough in every situation. Likewise, there is also some truth to the idea that too much charity and support can breed a dependence that is not good for either the individual receiving it or the public budget. The whole truth is that the ‘more’ people could do, is usually not nearly enough. And whether or not the dependency feared is as prevalent as Republicans would have us believe, it is more often the result of a patch work quilt system that works against itself. Requirements to reapply periodically at government offices during “normal business hours” makes keeping a low wage job very difficult. Most Americans not working at the bottom end of the economy imagine that a day off, or a few extra hours off can easily be approved by their supervisor. This is not the case for the majority of people working at jobs even a few dollars above the minimum wage.

Lately some Republicans have found another bogeyman to blame for the poor prospects of some people – ‘cheap foreign labor’. The next best thing to blaming the poor and less advantaged for their own plight is to give them a scapegoat. If you can claim to slay the scapegoat you can temporarily win their support. Of course it won’t work and can’t last; this is really about changing economies and more reliance on automation and high technology. This is more of a replay of the time when we simply didn’t need buggy whip makers in the age of the automobile.

The solution consists of three parts, I think. First we need to educate our extremes that it is more important to unite for victory, even if all of their agenda is not enacted, than it is to be “morally” superior and completely, uncompromisingly devoted to a single cause.

Second, we need to develop a strategy and tactic for getting out the message and the vote that doesn’t depend on so much manual effort being put in by volunteers (who tend to be the most extreme devotees).

Third we need to tell a simpler story about who we are, one that counters the myths and outright lies that have become accepted by the public.

The second most likely involves social media and perhaps using donation money to pay for Lyft or Uber transport to polling places if there are not enough volunteers to provide rides.

The third probably consists of two parts. The first is to tell stories about the personal impact of the injustices the current system creates. People responded to Ronald Reagan’s myth of the “welfare queen” who supposedly drove a late model Cadillac and lived in a plush apartment all on welfare – even though it was later proved to be a complete fabrication. That story appealed to a bias that people had about others getting around the “rules” that everyone else had to follow. We should have been countering that lie with stories of real people who were struggling through no fault of their own, and for whom the so called “social safety net” had failed.

The second part might be as simple as starting the conversation with the idea of looking at the profit motive. So often touted as the key to America’s greatness, it is actually a two edged sword. Where is the profit in providing a cure for a disease compared to a treatment that must go on forever? If I sell you a promise to pay for medical care (medical insurance), do I make more or less money if I manage to keep you from getting medical care? Remembering that time is money, do I make more or less money even if I only delay paying for your care? In the ordinary businesses of the world, is it easier to make money by cutting corners on quality and service or by educating the consumers about the cost and value of quality? Let’s call out the supporters of “free markets”. Most business people talking about free markets really mean free of taxes and the regulations that make their work environments and products safe. They aren’t talking about a system where there is open access to compete on the basis of price and quality of the goods and services offered. On the contrary, most businesses seek to eliminate their competition and to stifle the emergence of new sources of competition.

And let’s not forget about the reasons we have most of these regulations that are so often treated as inherently bad things. It’s because of the abuses of profit seeking people who thought that it didn’t matter if their promises were lies, and their product was worthless or worse, dangerous. “Let the buyer beware” may be a fine piece of cautionary advice, but it is hardly the basis of a code of ethics or responsible governance.

We like to believe that the “free market” brings about innovation and technological improvement. But the sad truth is most of the actual inventors and innovators don’t make money from their discoveries. They are either bought out (usually for a lot less than the idea will ultimately reap) or suppressed so that the current technology can have a longer life. This has been the actual history of business in America for a long time. Certainly there are exceptions where the actual innovator did make good, but not only are those the exceptions, on closer examination you will often find that they succeeded in retaining the profit of their innovations through the same sort of ruthless and questionable practices of other businessmen. In other words, the system itself, doesn’t reward or properly incent innovative behavior exclusively or directly. In fact, it most successfully rewards a short term oriented, exploitative behavior. All of which alone, are enough reason to regulate and monitor the “free market economy” in order to ensure that there is at least a level playing field for those new to the market or with a longer term idea for the betterment of all.

It is most often government “regulation” from visionary leaders that helps us get to the next stage. Without the FAA promoting and supporting airlines the railroad lobby was more than happy to paint air travel as dangerous and to support the sort of regulation that would cripple the emerging industry. Do you imagine that the people supplying natural gas to the gas lights in cities didn’t try to stop the electric lights from being installed? And aren’t those same fossil fuel magnates the ones trying to convince us that we don’t need to convert to clean and sustainable energy sources?

There is certainly a lot more to be said about the economic system and the myths surrounding it, but if we could just get people to realize that it is not always about the betterment of all; that in fact the profit motive actually works against the common good at least as often as it (unintentionally) helps it, that would be a step in the right direction.

It took decades of slowly building these lies into a cohesive mythos, but we don’t have that sort of time to break them down. We need to tell this story more clearly and forcefully. We need to start with health care because I believe most people will understand that their health is not completely within their control.

The opposition likes to appeal to a bias we all want to believe, which is “bad things only happen to bad people”. We want to believe that because it gives us a sense of control over our lives. To be sure, certain life style choices do have a negative influence on our health; smoking, too much drinking, etc. But that is not the whole story. People who never smoked can get lung cancer, and where is the “moral outrage” over choices like eating lots of red meat and a sedentary lifestyle, which are just as injurious to overall health as things like smoking?

This all goes back to picking the right issues at the right time, instead of trying to make a “full court press” on every issue. Take the issue of the rights of transgender people. Personally I’m only interested in the character and talents of individuals. I really couldn’t care less about their sexual identity unless I’m pursuing them as a sexual/romantic partner. I also think that long term, the majority of people will come to the same idea. But in the meantime, the Republican base likes to promote “anti-transgender” laws to provoke a kind of fear that there is a great movement afoot to push this acceptance on everyone, ready or not. Spending lots of resources to counter these idiotic moves only validates their fears, and wastes precious capital that could be spent on battles we can win. A simple condemnation of these ideas and pointing out their ineffectiveness (any passable transgender could move completely unnoticed through any number of public restrooms etc.) should be all the attention we give it. We are talking about an extremely small minority of the population, not that their rights don’t matter because of those numbers, they do. However, we are in a “battle field triage” situation and we simply can’t afford to spend time and money on fights that only help the opposition make their bigoted cases. Transgender rights and acceptance have a much better chance of moving forward with us than they do with Republicans and so we need to tell our TG friends to keep faith with us, but not expect that we are going to mount a Supreme Court fight over every idiotic law some moronic right winger gets passed in some redneck red state haven.

I do truly hope that my fellow Democrats and progressives will take this to heart. We need to win, now more than ever. And I think I can speak to these tactics because I count myself among those who support some of the more ‘extreme’ positions. I just know that the time is not right for all of them. But it will be if we stay in the forefront and continually push, I believe we will be successful.

I believe personal tales of injustice, where everything was done “right” and according to the “rules” and it just didn’t work will win folks over. People want to believe that we have a basically good society that doesn’t let the deserving get a bad deal. But that isn’t really how it is. We need to show people the places where the system fails and people suffer unfairly. Intellectual and philosophical arguments may win over the better educated, but chances are most of them are already on our side. If we want to reach the vast majority of people we need to engage them with the facts that the simple fixes they think should solve these problems don’t work and let them see people who could but for the grace of God be themselves suffering because that system doesn’t work.

I am a member of that generation called the ‘Baby Boomers’. We grew up with the ‘Greatest Generation’ telling us how great America was, and watching super heroes who fought for ‘truth, justice and the American way’. I remember believing it was a place where no matter who you were, or where you started in life, you could achieve anything your talent could deliver. Later we discovered that America wasn’t quite all of the things we were told it was. We demonstrated, we voted, and all because we wanted it to be the America we thought it was. We need that spirit, that commitment again.

#Democrats #politics #election 2020

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recommendedlisten · 5 years

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There was no rest for the weary music writers of the world this week, as it was another heaping offering of new music from all directions. The latest recommended listen album came by way of Potty Mouth, who’ve finally returned after six long years to deliver their sophomore shock to the system SNAFU. Nobody probably would have predicted that the National would be back so soon with their latest effort, however, offering a peak into its soul with its first single. Chatter on Charli Bliss’ highly anticipated new album continued, as did that of Field Medic in spite of his disenchantment, and a self-immolating American Pleasure Club. Meanwhile, a brilliant single from Channel Tres and a new one from Gemma played it cool.

Here’s the best of the rest from the week of March 3rd, 2019…

Fontaines D.C. - “Roy’s Tune” [Partisan Records]

Punks out of Ireland always seem to hold their native land with both an adoring reverence and bitter disdain, with the first half realized out of a love of its people and the potential for its culture to be something so much bigger, and the second being the downsides of when those in power do very little to support either in minding their priorities onto government wealth and shotty politics. Dublin’s Fontaines D.C. are the latest to lend their voices to the plight of rock music as a savior from the country’s ills, and with “Roy’s Tune”, the latest listen from the rising band’s forthcoming debut Dogrel, due out on May 12th, they continue onward in surveying its bleak scene set on lead single “Big” with a melancholic, grey sky drift of guitars moving further in. “I like the way they treat me but I hate the way they use her / I hate the way they use her,” solemnly sings frontman Grian Chatten. Its video, directed by Liam Papadachi, stars Dafhyd Flynn (Michael Inside) in a slice of life portrait of that daily struggle, good and bad. Fontaines D.C. will no doubt be continuing to build buzz on the road in the coming week at this year’s SXSW, and embark on a U.S. tour with fellow isle post-punks Idles later this spring.

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The Get Up Kids - “Satellite” [Polyvinyl Records]

Darling emo veterans the Get Up Kids found a fitting home last year when they signed to Polyvinyl Records and put out Kicker, their first new music since the 7 year stretch of silence between 2011′s post-reunion comeback There Are Rules and the now. Fortunately for longtime listeners, Kicker had more in common with the band’s early batch of punchy, fervent guitar punk than the proggy experimental departures of that album, and there’s going to be more of that on the horizon when they release their sixth studio effort Problems on May 10th. What’s been a tale of the best of both worlds with the Get Up Kids’ music these days is how they’ve rediscovered how to faithfully bring their signature sound into the present using their grown-up lens, as is the case with the album’s lead single “Satellite”. It’s a song about feeling isolated and anxious within a crowd, which frontman Matt Pryor pulled inspiration from in his own stage habits and observing those of his contently introverted 14-year-old son. In its video directed by Kerstin Ebert, we watch a cute cardboard creature contend with just that in the big city noise of their daily life.

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Greys - “These Things Happen” [Carpark Records]

Is there something in the water, or does it sounding like the spirit of the‘60s and ‘70s is bleeding its way back into today’s modern punk and indie rock landscape? Bands like Culture Abuse and Angel Du$t have trimmed down their hardcore weight in favor of breezy flower punk, and further down this read, there’s more evidence of tie dyed fashion coming back into style by way of Ezra Koenig’s design. Toronto’s Greys have gradually chiseled away at the gravely post-hardcore the burst onto the scene, and with 2016′s two-fer Outer Heaven and Warm Shadow, they turned their amplifications toward an experimental dreamy gaze further out into the atmosphere. Age Hasn’t Spoiled You, their third proper full-length set for release May 10th, could see them returning to the earth, but not in the way you might anticipate. Its first singles “These Things Happen” simmers in a radiation of psychedelic feedback and harmonious comedowns as frontman Shehzaad Jiwan searches for footing amidst the confusion of our current political climate. “Look at the road behind you / See how far you’ve come from home,” he sings, not necessarily as a fete, but in perspective of how lost we’ve gotten.

Age Hasn't Spoiled You by Greys

Laura Stevenson - “Value Inn” [Don Giovanni Records]

At month’s end, punk songwriter Laura Stevenson will release her fifth studio effort The Big Freeze, an album that while recorded in between the familiar space of her childhood home, feels both vast in its exploration of space and vulnerability compared to all of her work preceding it. She tore the walls right down with a bout of long distance pining on its first single “Living Room, NY”, and on her latest preview “Value Inn”, Stevenson again delivers an emotional wrecking ball into her surrounding interiors. Though this time, it’s not much about seeking comfort in the arms of another as it is an escape from the outside world altogether. ”The song is about going somewhere deliberately to disappear and to harm yourself. And in that isolated place, the loneliness is so extreme that the world feels completely empty, and you are the only one who can pull yourself back out,” she elaborates. Recently, Stevenson wrote a piece for the Talkhouse on her battle with dermatillomania that adds even further context to the listen, further devastated by acoustic reverb and her pierced words. The Big Freeze will without a doubt be Stevenson’s career-defining moment because of this honesty.

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Mary Lattimore & Mac McCaughan - “I” [Three Lobed Records]

In the spring of 2017, Los Angeles multi-instrumentalist Mary Lattimore and Superchunk’s Mac McCaughan turned to an improvised experimental collaboration to rediscover their version of beauty in a world on fire on the heels of a traumatic 2016. The finished result, New Rain Duets, will see the light of day for the rest of us who need it on March 22nd. We’ve already heard the warmly buzzing sprawl of “III”, one of four instrumental compositions that make up the listen, and now the pair have shared the album’s opening part “I”. This one nearly doubles in length at 11-minutes long as it hesitantly tip-toes its way out of the dark by way of Lattimore’s harpsichord ornation before McCaughan illuminates the path her arpeggios dance with sprightly synthesizers. Let this be your reminder to move your clocks forward this weekend for an extra hour of daylight...

New Rain Duets by Mary Lattimore & Mac McCaughan

Pile - “Bruxist Grin” [Exploding In Sound Records]

With bands like Kal Marks and Krill no longer with us (or are they?) and Speedy Ortiz splintered across the northeast, it would seem that Pile are the last band standing from Boston’s DIY scene of the early decade, and for good reason at that. The big-riffed shredding of their early work that never ceased to get compared to ‘90s indie veterans amplified has steadily meticulated itself into its own rock formation over the years, especially as lead singer Rick Maguire does his own aging process justice in his songwriting. That Converge brought them out on tour in support of 2017′s The Dusk In Us is all the seal of approval you need to know that they’re their hometown’s modern day heroes in guitar-slinging. On May 5th, they’ll return with their 7th full-length effort Green and Gray, and its anxiety-filled first listen “Bruxist Grin” makes the most out of Maguire’s twisted up emotions. Guitars cranking and cymbals stomping overhead target a panic attack straight toward his chest, and that there’s a cohesive formation in this imminent chaos is what puts his mind on the defense.

Green and Gray by Pile

Vampire Weekend feat. Steve Lacy - “Sunflower” [Columbia Records]

The details behind the long-awaited new album from Vampire Weekend are making themselves known little by little, as we now know that their fourth studio effort entitled Father of the Bride will be released May 5th. Its official cover art is also a departure from the granular Insta-portrait aesthetic of its predecessors, and shares more in common with patchouli-minded Paint design you'd have found if you wandered into a Dancing Bear store circa ‘96. VW’s hippie prep makeover extends beyond just the visual, however, and into the band’s evolved sound, with one of its two leadoff singles in “Harmony Hall” being spirited by a Dead live jam, and all the more blazoned on “Sunflower” and “Big Blue”, LP4′s latest coupling of singles. The former sees the Internet’s guitar guru Steve Lacy joining Ezra Koenig and company for a brief, but far out journey that leans into free form jazz and psychedelic spheres tripped on in ‘70s FM waves, but without getting lost in the haze. But who knows -- Maybe all the scat-bat-doo-bopping will get a 15-minute-long extended jam once Vampire Weekend begin their summer tour...

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#the best of the rest #fontaines d.c.#the get up kids #greys #laura stevenson #mary lattimore #mac mccaughan #pile #vampire weekend #steve lacy #Songs #new music & videos

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orbemnews · 3 years

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Evaluation: Biden conjures hope and bears ache for a grieving nation In a transferring interlude to his inaugural tackle, silence fell over the US Capitol and the Nationwide Mall as Biden paused to guide Individuals in a second of silent prayer, to honor the greater than 400,000 fellow residents taken by Covid-19. However as he has completed all through a life scarred by household tragedies, Biden sought power within the second of mourning, prepared the nation to beat its divides, after admitting that ignoring their existence was a “silly fantasy.” “Now, we’re going to be examined. Are we going to step up? All of us?” Biden requested as he began into the nation’s huge inside on the West Entrance of the Capitol that was invaded by a marauding mob solely two weeks in the past. Regardless of warning of a “winter of peril,” Biden’s inaugural tackle was a uncommon second of hope and inspiration almost a yr into the nation’s battle with a virus that has shut down regular life and fractured group and households. The forty sixth President struck a pointy distinction with the darkish rant about “American carnage” issued by Donald Trump in his inaugural tackle 4 years in the past. The ex-President was unseen behind the partitions of his Florida resort membership on the hour when his tumultuous time period expired. Biden did not point out Trump. However by praising the survival of American democracy and condemning “shouting,” “exhausting outrage,” a “state of chaos” and politics as a “raging hearth destroying every part in its path,” Biden clearly sought to show the web page from the discord of the Trump years. He additionally pointedly rejected the signature attribute of the Trump period of lies which within the former president’s refusal to just accept his election defeat threatened the democratic constructions of the nation itself. “We should reject the tradition during which details themselves are manipulated and even manufactured,” Biden mentioned. Solely two weeks in the past, the platform on which Biden delivered his inaugural tackle was overcome by a pro-Trump mob on its solution to riot within the Capitol. Recollections of that outrage added poignancy to the brand new President’s remark that “at this hour, democracy has prevailed.” Biden’s tackle was much less hovering than some inaugural addresses. However its energy lay in the best way he gave the impression to be speaking to each particular person American, virtually like President Franklin Roosevelt in his fireplace chats during which he guided the nation out of the Nice Melancholy. “Let’s begin afresh, all of us, let’s start to pay attention to at least one one other once more, hear each other, present respect to at least one one other.” The swearing-in of Kamala Harris, America’s first feminine, first Black and first South Asian vp, will ship certified progress within the halting march to racial justice and gender equality. Biden’s empathy was cast within the unfathomable horror of burying his first spouse, toddler daughter and grownup son. Simply as he comforted bereaved supporters on numerous marketing campaign path rope traces, he’s now assuming the nation’s grief over the pandemic. After discovering new cause to dwell following his personal bereavements, he is difficult Individuals to honor their very own losses by uniting to win the battle to revive regular life. Biden’s first responsibility on his return to Washington Wednesday was to guide a transferring sundown vigil below a purple sky on the Lincoln Memorial for these misplaced — a step by no means taken by Trump, a longtime pandemic denier who appeared to consider that dignifying the lifeless stained his personal picture. The solemn occasion, that includes Michigan nurse Lori Marie Key, who sang “Wonderful Grace,” underscored Biden’s guarantees to revive decency to the middle of energy as he seeks to nurture the nation’s battered soul. Below the marbled gaze of the statue of Abraham Lincoln, who took workplace in maybe the one time when America has been extra divided than in the present day, traces of lights stretched like gravestones in direction of the distant Washington Monument. Biden’s grave challenges As he labored on his personal inaugural tackle, Biden needed to ponder a pandemic that has by no means been worse, a vaccine rollout that may be a complicated mess, an financial system pulverized by shutdowns and a technology of children who’ve missed essential months of in-person education. His challenges have grow to be much more acute because the election, as Trump’s refusal to confess defeat and try to steal Biden’s victory, in addition to an riot in opposition to Congress, hammered Biden’s legitimacy and uncovered a White nationalist inner insurgency that can pose an ongoing risk to US safety and democracy. America’s present chasms recommend but extra synergy between Biden and his second of historical past. Regardless of many years of worsening nationwide polarization, the President-elect nonetheless thinks he can enlist his previous Senate Republican sparring companion, Mitch McConnell, in passing components of his legislative agenda and a brand new pandemic stimulus plan. Many Democrats are extremely skeptical. And Republicans who dwell in worry of Trump and his 74 million voters haven’t any cause to make Biden’s presidency successful. However Biden’s old school wager on constructing an administration on compromise at a time when such sentiments have not often been much less incentivized was enticing to many citizens weary of Washington’s partisan wars. And after Trump tried to make it a legal responsibility within the marketing campaign, his half-century profession as a Washington insider would possibly simply equip him to overtake the lame federal response to Covid-19 and lead the nation out of its nightmare. An unlikely journey When Biden positioned his hand on the Bible on Wednesday and takes the oath of workplace, he accomplished a political and private journey that had appeared fated to fall in need of the White Home. The person who was as soon as one of many youngest senators in historical past grew to become at 78, the nation’s oldest president. At the present time would by no means have come had Biden adopted his preliminary instincts and given up the newly gained Delaware US Senate seat he gained in 1972 after his spouse and toddler daughter died in a automobile crash. Biden spent months by the facet of his surviving sons, Beau and Hunter, as they slowly recovered from critical accidents. Within the late Nineteen Eighties, he skilled his personal well being crises with a mind aneurysm that almost killed him. However he bounced again. Tragedy would go to Biden once more in Could 2015, when Beau, an Iraq Struggle veteran and Democratic rising star, died of mind most cancers. Biden at all times noticed Beau as a greater model of himself. A tearful President-elect on Wednesday confessed: “Girls and gentleman, I solely have one remorse: he is not right here as a result of we must be introducing him as president.” Beau’s dying finally satisfied Biden to not mount a bid for the Democratic nomination in 2016 in opposition to Hillary Clinton amid concern about his household’s emotional endurance for a race. However destiny referred to as him again into the political area due to Trump’s aberrant presidency and the commander in chief’s equivocation over condemning marches by White supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia. “Joe Biden has a therapeutic coronary heart. He has been by means of a lot,” former Vice President Al Gore advised CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Tuesday night. A modified man Biden is now a much more disciplined politician than he was for a lot of his profession. His portrayal within the seminal “What It Takes — The Approach to the White Home,” an account of the 1988 presidential marketing campaign by the late Richard Ben Cramer, was as a political charmer, with a stunning smile, glad-handing type and preening self-belief that the presidency was his future. However Biden’s 1988 marketing campaign dissolved amid a plagiarism scandal. In 2008, he dropped out after an anemic exhibiting within the Iowa caucuses. Even when he was chosen by Barack Obama as his vice presidential nominee, lots of the youthful aides across the soon-to-be president thought of Biden a loose-lipped caricature — an impression he strengthened by including to his lengthy checklist of political gaffes. However Vice President Biden’s regular stewardship of the Restoration Act — which added to his pedigree as he sought the presidency this time round — gained him admirers, and after eight years of loyalty to Obama, he was liked and revered within the White Home. Now, slowed somewhat by age, and with the windy opening statements that set eyes rolling within the Senate International Relations Committee only a reminiscence, Biden has displayed surprising late-in-life political adeptness. Solely a yr in the past, it appeared his political ambitions would once more founder after horrible leads to the Iowa and New Hampshire nominating races. However with trademark persistence, he hauled himself again up off the mat with a well-known win in South Carolina, which rocketed him to the Democratic nomination and the presidency. His dealing with of Trump’s unprecedented disruption throughout a treacherous transition was distilled from the knowledge of many years in excessive workplace, and a willingness to subvert his personal ego for the great of the nation — one other stark comparability with the outgoing President. His marketing campaign benefited from the curtailment of an exhausting journey schedule. However each time he wanted to point out gravitas and poise — like within the debates in opposition to Trump and on the Democratic Nationwide Conference — Biden delivered, exhibiting a brand new, spare talking type that was probably a preview of his presidential bully pulpit and was formed by his tragedies and redemption. That sturdiness within the face of non-public angst is the power that lastly propelled Biden to his longed-for vacation spot — the Oval Workplace — on Wednesday. And it is why he would possibly simply be the person for a dangerous American second. Supply hyperlink #Analysis #Analysis:Bidenconjureshopeandbearspainforagrievingnation-CNNPolitics #bears #Biden #conjures #grieving #Hope #Nation #pain #Politics

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theliberaltony · 3 years

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarah (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): On Wednesday, a mob of pro-Trump rioters attacked the U.S. Capitol as Congress met to certify the 2020 presidential election results. But as shocking as Wednesday’s events were, they were, in many ways, the culmination of the past four years of Trump’s presidency.

President Trump has long spewed lies to his supporters about the election, refusing until very recently to concede, and routinely has shown his disdain for both the integrity of America’s elections and its tradition of a peaceful transfer of power. And right before the chaos broke out on Wednesday, Trump had just finished urging his supporters to protest Congress’s vote to certify the election results, telling them “[Y]ou’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.” Within an hour, the Capitol was under attack.

This violent episode raises many questions about the future of democracy in America — not only its continued health, but the extent to which the U.S. has already become less democratic. So let’s first unpack this question by diving into this data point: Polls show while the majority of Americans condemn what happened on Wednesday, a plurality of Republican voters support it. What does that say about the current state of democracy in the U.S.?

jennifer.mccoy (Jennifer McCoy, professor of political science at Georgia State University): It shows that Americans are terribly divided over the perception of democracy itself — including whether it is even under threat and who is responsible for the threat. This makes it extremely difficult to propose solutions. But it’s important to keep in mind that we’re talking about 15 percent of the population, maybe 20 percent, who said they condoned the violence.

lee.drutman (Lee Drutman, senior fellow at New America and FiveThirtyEight contributor): Democracy requires parties that are committed to free and fair elections and will accept the outcome — even if they lose. So if the dominant position in the Republican Party is that the only free and fair elections are those where Republicans win, and anything else is “stolen” and fraudulent, then we’re on the precipice of not having a democracy.

But as Jennifer said, the one silver lining here is that the overwhelming majority of Americans reject the anti-democratic rhetoric of Trump and his allies. This is important.

cyrus.samii (Cyrus Samii, professor of politics at New York University): I find it helpful to place this moment in a broader historical context, as I think there are two trends at play here. First, decades of mobilization and a fight for a more democractic, inclusive society have brought about generational changes in America’s politics, including more women, people of color and other long-excluded groups now having a seat at the table. That has made our politics more inclusive and more democratic, but there is a second trend here — a politics of resentment that cannot tolerate this growing diversity. This mindset is particularly rampant within the Republican Party, and part of what CNN’s Van Jones has called a “whitelash,” or conservative white Christian Americans mobilizing against the type of progress embodied by President Barack Obama’s time in office. The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer has also written on the pendulum swinging between moments of progress on inclusion and white resistance.

Last Wednesday embodied this dynamic in the span of a few hours: We had the historic election of two Democratic senators in Georgia, followed then by a mob, including a number of white supremacists sacking the Capitol in the name of Trump, and most Republicans to date being unwilling to do much about it.

jennifer.mccoy: Yes, and I think the question now is whether this unwillingness to condemn the mob, or call out their colleagues who are perpetuating the myth of a “stolen election,” is the dominant position in the Republican Party or only a faction that can be contained.

sarah: Do we have a sense of what is driving these attitudes?

jennifer.mccoy: The politics of resentment, written about by a number of scholars, including Kathy Cramer and Arlie Hochschild, who wrote definitive books on the topic, derives from perceptions of unfairness or injustice that accompany the diversification of one’s workplace or community, changing the power structures that Cyrus spoke about. The urban-rural divide in America’s politics exemplifies this. Rural Americans, mostly Republicans, perceive urban dwellers, more Democratic and more racially diverse, as receiving more than their “fair share” of tax revenues and opportunities. With wage stagnation and the growing service-based economy, white males without a college degree, in particular, feel a loss of social status that can lead to rage and support for more authoritarian politics. This is why “identity politics” are arguably more of an issue for the GOP than the Democratic Party today. What’s particularly troubling here, though, is that the political rhetoric from politicians and media personalities are really whipping up latent attitudes of resentment to create the politics of outrage we saw on display last Wednesday. Republicans have gone further than Democrats in using vilifying language and painting horrific scenarios if the “radical, liberal, socialist Democrats” and their “anarchic mobs” take over.

lee.drutman: To follow up on Jennifer’s point about politicians driving some of this, take what Vice President Mike Pence said at the Republican National Convention this summer. He said that the election was about “whether America remains America.” Those are incredibly high stakes, so when you add that kind of rhetoric to our winner-take-all election system, you have a recipe for a very angry minority convinced that the system is rigged against them. As we saw last Wednesday, one response is to take matters into their own hands through violence.

We also know that opposition to democracy is much stronger among Republicans who have beliefs that political scientist Larry Bartels has called “ethnic antagonism,” a measure of “unfavorable feelings towards Muslims, immigrants and other out-groups … [and] concerns about these groups’ political and social claims” in his research.

The chart below is extremely striking as it shows that among Republicans, the higher the level of ethnic antagonism, the more likely they are to say they don’t trust election results, use force as an alternative and support authoritarian stances. (Bartels “normalizes” the distribution so that half of Republicans are above zero on the ethnic antagonism scale, and then presents the data two ways — using statistical analysis to estimate values (left) and reporting the actual data in the limited survey sample (right).) Overall, though, the takeaway is clear: Bartels finds troublingly high support for these sentiments among Republicans.

sarah: Is what happened Wednesday, then, a somewhat expected consequence of what happens when a sizable portion of the electorate loses faith in our elections and institutions?

jennifer.mccoy: To be clear, the research we have doesn’t necessarily show that losing faith in elections and institutions leads to violence. It can, for instance, have repercussions like withdrawal and political apathy. We saw this in Venezuela when the opposition cried fraud, without evidence, after losing a referendum to remove President Hugo Chávez in 2004. They had trouble turning out supporters in governor elections right after, and then called for a boycott in the 2005 legislative elections, handing total control to Chávez’s party and enabling them to name loyalists to all of Venezuela’s political institutions. It took another decade before Venezuelans could mobilize to win back the legislature, but by that time, Chávez’s successor had turned even more authoritarian and remains in power today.

However, if political rhetoric is drumming up violence, using demonizing and dehumanizing language and glorifying battle language, then yes, supporters are likely to engage in violence, thinking their leaders are urging that, as we saw last Wednesday.

lee.drutman: Jennifer’s point about political rhetoric is extremely important. The level of nativism, or anti-immigration sentiment, has been roughly consistent in the population for a while now. But there are signs that it has become a much stronger partisan issue in the last decade or so as Trump and other Republicans have played with rhetorical fire. It’s true that far-right leaders have been stoking this issue in multiple western democracies, and as the chart below shows, it’s evident among Republicans in the U.S.

jennifer.mccoy: And the future of the Republican Party is absolutely key to what happens to U.S. democracy. Early signs after Jan. 6 are not encouraging — the party reelected Trump’s hand-picked candidates for the RNC, chair Ronna McDaniel and co-chair Tommy Hicks, and many party leaders have also avoided calling for any accountability for Trump, instead saying that this will further divide the country when we need to unify.

sarah: Some historians have argued if there isn’t accountability, this will all escalate. Is that accurate? How are you all thinking about the importance of consequences for what happened Wednesday for democracy moving forward?

Historian of coups and right-wing authoritarians here. If there are not severe consequences for every lawmaker & Trump govt official who backed this, every member of the Capitol Police who collaborated with them, this "strategy of disruption" will escalate in 2021

— Ruth Ben-Ghiat (@ruthbenghiat) January 7, 2021

cyrus.samii: If there is no accountability, then the lesson for Republicans will be that they can continue to use illiberal means to maintain a grip on power. And on the left, this might play into the hands of those who would say there is no point in sticking with liberal institutional processes when the other side doesn’t. A clear recipe, in other words, for escalation.

jennifer.mccoy: And if there isn’t any accountability for what happened Wednesday, it gives organized citizens, as well as the next generation of political leaders, license to engage in the same — or worse. Political learning is a real thing, and it can be positive or negative.

If Congress or others fail to act, the road remains open to Trump (and anyone else) to continue to act with impunity, run for office again or support future violent acts. Congress has the ability to impeach Trump and take the extra step of disqualifying him from running again, and the power to censure and even expel the members of Congress who spread the same disinformation about the election and voted against the certification of results in two states. This is important because failing to condemn the exclusionary and hate-filled rhetoric Trump used in his presidency means that catering to the fears, anxieties and resentments of a portion of the electorate might remain a viable political path moving forward.

sarah: Let’s take a step back. In November, The New Yorker’s Andrew Marantz wrote a feature on how civil resistance can stop authoritarian-style leaders from cementing their power, comparing what’s happened in the U.S. under Trump to other parts of the world. “In the past 15 years, there has been a marked global increase in what international relations scholars call ‘democratic backsliding,’” wrote Marantz, “with more authoritarians and authoritarian-style leaders consolidating power.” To what extent is there democratic backsliding in the U.S.?

lee.drutman: If democracy depends on a set of shared rules for free and fair elections, we are definitely in a period of backsliding.

cyrus.samii: I don’t know, the term “democratic backsliding” is problematic in my opinion insofar as it fails to clarify how the conflict in the U.S. is between those using democratic means to achieve progressive change (and succeeding at some moments) versus those who want to push back against that change by undermining democracy. The fact is, a lot of progress is occurring through the ballot box, the U.S. Senate runoffs in Georgia being a prime example, and this is precisely why Republicans are intent on throwing up obstacles to its broad-based use. Republicans have been trying to disenfranchise minority voters, for example, and these efforts are subject to heated legal fights.

sarah: So as Cyrus said, democratic backsliding may be too toothless of a term, but how would we describe the trajectory of democracy in the U.S.? Are we less democratic than one year ago? Four years ago?

jennifer.mccoy: According to international rankings, U.S. democracy is eroding faster than what we see in other major western democracies — it is more on par with Brazil, Bangladesh, Turkey and India, according to the global think tank V-Dem Institute’s 2020 democracy report. The Economist Intelligence Unit also downgraded the U.S. to a flawed democracy in 2016. Expert surveys of political scientists, such as Bright Line Watch and Authoritarian Warning Survey, also measure higher threats.

Each of these groups measure democracy using different measures — electoral integrity, rule of law, media and academic freedom, civil liberties, to name a few. But one measure I want to zoom in on is “toxic polarization” (which I call “pernicious polarization” in my research with Murat Somer), as we’ve found it’s especially delegitimizing and on the rise. Essentially, it’s when society is divided into two mutually distrustful camps and there is increased demonization and delegitimization of opponents. Our research has found that it can often result in calls to violence, too.

It’s also something V-Dem uses in its assessments. It found in a 2020 paper that the Republican Party was on par with autocratic parties in Turkey, India and Hungary on their new illiberalism index, especially in their use of demonizing language to describe political opponents, disrespect for fundamental minority rights and encouragement of political violence.

lee.drutman: (If you’re interested in how these various surveys evaluate the quality of a country’s democracy, here’s a great paper that outlines the different ways they measure democracy — summary table below.)

sarah: It’s true that in survey after survey, Republicans, as you all have said, have expressed less support for democracy than Democrats, but I was hoping we could unpack a little more the debilitating effect that this has had on American democracy writ large.

For instance, in the wake of the protests in Portland, Oregon, last summer, FiveThirtyEight’s Maggie Koerth and contributor Shom Mazumder found evidence of members of both parties holding anti-democratic views.

As the chart illustrates, this was especially true among Republicans, so I’m not trying to “both sides” this, but I do want to unpack the effect that severe polarization might have on democratic erosion. That is, how do you factor in polarization when looking at how the U.S. has become less democratic? Is it the number one factor driving what we’re seeing? Or is that too simplistic?

cyrus.samii: Breakdown by party is exactly the right way to look at it. Democrats are involved in a bottom-up struggle to broaden political inclusion while Republicans have been fighting to limit that, including in this past year’s elections. And so it is not so much a question of democratic backsliding at the country level, but rather in terms of whether parties see themselves as being competitive democratically or whether they need to use anti-democratic strategies to maintain their grip.

lee.drutman: Jennifer’s work on pernicious polarization is incredibly important here, and has really influenced my thinking. When politics becomes deeply divided in a binary way along cultural and identity lines (as it is now in the U.S.), democracy is in a really dangerous place.

jennifer.mccoy: And this type of polarization is more likely to lead to democratic erosion because it is based on an “us vs. them” division, not just disagreement on issues.

lee.drutman: On that chart, Sarah, showing support for strong leader/army rule, I’ve co-authored two recent reports on the topic, one in 2018 and another in 2020. And it’s true, we did find some support for these alternatives to democracy on both sides, which is worrying. But again, the overwhelming majority of Americans are in support of democratic institutions.

But here is where political leadership is so important. That some voters have weak connections to democracy is not a new problem. In fact, research has found that is typical among those who are the least educated and least politically engaged. The new problem is having political leadership that encourages and stokes these anti-democratic sentiments.

jennifer.mccoy: And as partisan antipathy grows, perceptions of out-party threat grow, and that leads people to challenge democratic norms so as to keep their own party in power and keep the others out.

cyrus.samii: The way I interpret the question, Sarah, is: How does polarization affect Republicans’ thinking on whether or not to abandon the strategy of limiting democratic processes to retain their hold on power, rather than seeking new coalitions, broadening their appeal and making themselves more competitive democratically?

In other words, it’s all about the strategy that the Republicans pursue. So when you take that into consideration, increased polarization — by which I mean distancing oneself from and dehumanizing outgroups — could sustain Republicans’ fixation on limiting democracy because they cannot see themselves forming any new alliances with people outside their traditional white Christian base.

lee.drutman: Cyrus — that is the central question, but I think there is a significant division among Republicans. So let me reframe your question slightly: What will it take for Republicans who want to build a more inclusive, pro-democracy party to triumph over those who are committed to ethnonationalism and grievance?

cyrus.samii: Yes, Lee, exactly.

lee.drutman: And as long as we think of this as a zero-sum Democrats vs. Republicans fight, we’re stuck. But if we think of this in terms of the forces of democracy vs. the forces of ethnonationalism (or whatever you want to call it), I do think we can make some progress.

sarah: Are there institutional changes (abolishing the Electoral College, reforming the Senate, etc.) that would bolster American democracy or make it less vulnerable to similar challenges in the future?

lee.drutman: I’ve written a lot about what would happen if the U.S. moved to a more proportional voting system, and I do think that would enable a center-right party to operate independent of a far-right party. It also might allow for a broader governing coalition that could keep the far-right out of government, as has happened in many Western democracies with more proportional voting systems.

And maybe we see this play out a little in the U.S. That is, I could see a pro-democracy faction within the Republican Party joining with Democrats to support electoral reforms (such as the Fair Representation Act, a piece of election reform legislation that would establish multi-member districts with ranked-choice voting).

cyrus.samii: Institutional changes to the Electoral College or the Senate would certainly make a difference, since those institutions are a part of what Republicans currently rely on in the anti-democractic aspects of their strategy. But changing them is probably too hard, politically.

Of course, once, say, Texas goes blue, those institutions will come to have the opposite effect and lock out Republicans — unless they change who they can attract. Also, Sarah, I think the idea that “overall trends point to increased illiberalism” is only true when it comes to the kinds of strategies that Republicans are using to try to maintain a grip on their power, rather than with respect to U.S. democratic politics as a whole.

lee.drutman: Yes, changing the Electoral College or the Senate would require constitutional amendments. Enacting proportional representation, interestingly enough, is entirely within Congress’s power, though.

jennifer.mccoy: I want to go back to an earlier point about HOW we get here. I’ve written with Somer about how democracies could solve this dilemma by “repolarizing” along democratic lines vs. authoritarian lines, and what we found is very similar to Lee’s and Cyrus’s point about inclusive movements vs. exclusionary ethnonationalist movements. That is, shifting the axes of polarization to the principle of protecting democracy instead of a divide between different partisan and social identities could actually help protect democracy, as long as it’s not done with demonizing or hyperbolic language.

And that’s important, because as political scientist Daniel Ziblatt has written, a principled conservative or center-right party is essential for a functioning democracy. Even President-elect Joe Biden has reiterated the need for a Republican Party for the health of our democracy. The problem is our two-party system is currently mired in toxic polarization and so the extreme elements within the parties are amplified. We need institutional reforms to allow for political incentives to change.

lee.drutman: I do think the events of Jan. 6 have been a tremendous wake-up call to many on the urgency of democracy reform.

cyrus.samii: It certainly was a wake-up call, Lee. I also think that the incredibly tumultuous times that current 18- to 35-year-olds have endured — 9/11, the Iraq War, the Great Recession, Trump’s presidency, the events that inspired the Black Lives Matter protests this summer, and of course, COVID-19 — could generate a political consciousness that we haven’t seen since the 1960s or 70s.

lee.drutman: Cyrus — yes, there are lots of similarities to the Great Society Era which was the last era of major democracy reform and included major voting rights reform. There are also lots of similarities to the Progressive Era, which was the previous era of large-scale democracy reform.

So if you believe in political scientist Samuel Huntington’s theory that there is a 60-year cycle of democracy reform movements — that every six decades or so, American democracy falls short of its democratic ideals and reform movements emerge to expand our democracy, we’re right on schedule.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #A FiveThirtyEight Chat

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paulbenedictblog · 4 years

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%news%

New Post has been published on %http://paulbenedictsgeneralstore.com%

News Democratic presidential aspirants disregard political gift of ACA court ruling - The Washington Post

News

Less than an hour after an appeals court docket invalidated piece of the Cheap Care Act and pushed off a name on the the leisure of it, congressional Democrats started punching, accusing President Trump and his occasion of imperiling Individuals’ insurance coverage and consumer health protections.

Nonetheless on a debate stage Thursday night, Democrats vying for his or her occasion’s nomination for president did no longer point to the most foremost court docket decision. As another of pivoting to defend the regulation and branding Republicans as existential threats to the ACA — a manner that helped Democrats take modify of the Dwelling final twelve months — the candidates persevered their months-prolonged difference over whether or no longer a single-payer health-care gadget would be most effective for the nation.

For Republicans, that split-conceal Democratic treatment represents every hazard and change heading into the 2020 elections. The 98 pages of dusty authorized prose redefines battle traces the parties possess drawn on health care — an be troubled on voters’ minds more than nearly any various. Nonetheless the ruling spares the GOP the political chaos that could well well possess erupted if the Fresh Orleans-primarily primarily primarily based federal court docket had given the president and various Republicans what they've prolonged sought — elimination of the total regulation.

“The court docket provided Republicans the change” to proceed talking about smaller-bore changes that please customers, similar to drug costs, “without needing to bounce into a health-care debate that is extremely unpredictable,” said Josh Holmes, a Republican book and ancient chief of workers to Senate Majority Chief Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

In terms of health care and elections, politicians have a tendency to succeed when they are going to dispute the high ground as protectors of parts of the health-care gadget that voters price, in step with candidates and strategists in every parties.

“The dominant truth relating to the politics of health care within the United States is that most folk are timid of sweeping changes to their health-care preparations, imposed by Washington,” said Ramesh Ponnuru, a conservative pupil affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute.

Via that lens, this week’s ruling, by a 3-prefer panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, is a present to Democrats who take it, strategists said. The lawsuit became started by a coalition of Republican attorneys general, and the Trump Justice Department took their aspect, at the starting build arguing that best seemingly the insurance coverage requirement became unconstitutional and later becoming a member of the attorneys general’s stance that the total regulation became invalid.

The two Republican-appointed jurists within the panel’s majority directed a conservative Texas trial prefer, who ruled a twelve months within the past that the total ACA became unconstitutional, to “make utilize of a finer-tooth comb” and reconsider whether or no longer the the leisure of the statute could well well per chance also merely remain after they ruled in opposition to the requirement that most Individuals elevate insurance coverage.

In consequence, capabilities of the regulation in limbo encompass its novel insurance coverage protections for the thousands and thousands of Individuals with preexisting scientific stipulations, a diffusion of Medicaid in three dozen states, federal subsidies for most oldsters that buy health plans thru marketplaces created beneath the regulation, more preventive appreciate older Individuals and more.

“It leaves the Democrats in a tall role, because it elevates the chance and verbalize of affairs that the ACA could well well per chance also proceed,” said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster who has centered on health care as an election be troubled and is working for ancient vice president Joe Biden’s campaign. “It additionally will get rid of a little quantity of credibility Trump became acquiring in step with his rhetoric spherical prescription medication. This shows he remains to be relentlessly centered on laying aside the ACA.”

Democratic congressional candidates are fervent to redeploy their approach from the 2018 midterm elections in which they won the Dwelling majority by portraying themselves because the regulation’s guardians.

“Right here’s what this approach: This lawsuit gentle threatens to take health care costs and fetch rid of protections for Arizonans with preexisting stipulations,” said Price Kelly, a high Democratic Senate recruit difficult Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.).

In strikingly identical language, Jaime Harrison, difficult Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), accused his opponent of “trying to position the health of the thousands and thousands of Individuals that rely on the ACA in anxiety.”

The ruling “is unifying for the Democrats,” Ponnuru said. In the presidential foremost disappear, the candidates “are clearly deeply divided about their have health care plans. The voters are divided. . . . They are all united about this lawsuit.”

Nonetheless in no longer placing down the total ACA, the appellate ruling carves out situation for Republicans to point out voters that nothing is changing for now. In helpful terms, preserving that the insurance coverage mandate on people is unconstitutional has tiny rapid enact, coming two years after a Republican Congress voted to fetch rid of the monetary penalty the regulation had imposed on folks that did no longer possess insurance coverage.

Since Wednesday’s ruling, Republicans were comparatively silent. Most who possess spoken publicly possess emphasized that no American’s insurance coverage is changing at the second.

In stopping trying voiding a regulation of more than 2,000 pages, the Fifth Circuit spared Senate Republicans and Trump — who has promised a change notion however no longer produced one — of the accountability of drafting recent consumer protections they dispute they could well preserve.

“It helps must it is seemingly you'll well per chance perhaps also disclose thru the functionality predicament, comparatively than trying to legislate with a gun to you head,” Holmes said.

Asked Thursday relating to the political impact of the court docket notion, Kayleigh McEnany, the Trump campaign’s nationwide press secretary, did no longer answer straight. “President Trump has diminished prescription drug costs, expanded health care preference, protected preexisting stipulations, and eliminated the vastly unpopular and unconstitutional person mandate,” she said in an announcement. “The American folks acknowledge that President Trump’s insurance policies are working as Democrats threaten to deprive thousands and thousands of Individuals of their employer-provided health care.”

That reference to Medicare-for-all plans, championed by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), is what makes the health-care be troubled “a double-edged sword in 2020,” said Republican pollster Chris Wilson.

“On the one hand, preexisting stipulations were a winning be troubled for Democrats in 2018 and one many Republicans didn’t answer as smartly as they should always possess,” he said. “On the many hand, the substantial distinction between 2018 and 2020 is that Medicare-for-all and authorities takeover of health care has moved from a fringe role. . . . So now Republicans possess a manner to hit abet.”

It permits Republicans, hoping to ward off Democratic assaults, to counter with claims that Democrats are the ones working to solve the recent health care gadget.

“The court docket no longer ruling on the constitutionality of Obamacare leaves all of this in play thru next November,” Wilson said in an electronic mail.

Legal students said the limbo interval doubtlessly will final smartly previous the November elections, as Have Reed O’Connor, of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Texas, reconsiders whether or no longer the the leisure of the ACA could well well per chance also merely be regarded as legally certain from the insurance coverage requirement, the Fifth Circuit experiences that ruling and the case almost absolutely then goes to the Supreme Court.

The Democratic attorney general main the fight to preserve the regulation hopes to shorten that limbo.

“It’s time to end this uncertainty,” California Legal skilled Similar outdated Xavier Becerra said Thursday, contending the Fifth Circuit panel “verbalize a time bomb by sending it abet to a decrease court docket.”

Becerra suggested reporters that while he desires to talk over along with his 20 Democratic counterparts, he desires to quiz the Supreme Court to take the case in time to listen to and prefer it by unhurried spring. He acknowledged the high court docket already has determined on most of its cases for this term however contended it is no longer too unhurried.

Amid the swirling politics, some puzzled whether or no longer the timing of the Fifth Circuit’s notion had a political component, since it became printed right thru the Dwelling floor debate sincere earlier than the chamber’s vote to impeach Trump.

“It’s continuously difficult to know,” said Nicholas Bagley, a talented-ACA College of Michigan regulation professor who said the notion “has the fingerprints of a partisan hit job.” He said the Fifth Circuit panel could well well per chance also were trying to enact its work earlier than Christmas, or the 2 Republican-appointed judges within the bulk could well well per chance also were struggling over the notion’s authorized reasoning or the Democratic-appointed prefer could well well per chance also were unhurried in writing her dissent.

Peaceable, Bagley said, “you open a extremely partisan notion on a day the nation is distracted, it’s cheap to quiz whether or no longer the timing became deliberate.”

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fourgods-nobrakes · 1 year

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It's SO GOOD to see him out there letting off some steam and being a fucking force of nature and murdering the shit out of some people

#extremely partisan chaos hours #abaddon the despoiler

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theantisocialcritic · 5 years

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This AntiSocial Life: Revenge of the Outsider

I’m furious today. I’m rarely ever mad but today I’m furious. In the light of the horrifying terrorist attack by an extremist in New Zealand that resulted in the death of 49 innocent people, I’m more furious than I’ve ever been in one of these public massacres. It’s easy to be cold and cynical and let the numbers pass by in the background at work while you move on with your daily life but today I’m stewing in my anger.

Christchurch, New Zealand

A monstrous white nationalist and self-described “eco-fascist” psychopath (and apparently three of his friends) sought to end the lives of dozens of innocent people and succeeded. What followed was the usual cavalcade of cynical bi-partisan political pandering. The side loosely affiliated with the attacker obfuscates any involvement and/or distances themselves from their actions. The other side begins pandering about how the violence proves their arguments right and tries to push legislation that goes nowhere. We’ve all seen this song and dance dozens of times at this point.

What became more frustrating in the hours that followed was the slow realization of just how bad things had gotten. Even beyond the horror that was the Australian Senator blaming Islamic immigration for the massacre, it quickly settled over the situation that the normal debate and bi-partisan dehumanization was something the shooter was actively seeking to perpetuate. In the shooter’s own manifesto he stated that the entire purpose of the shooting was to be as politically calculated as possible to spark mutual disdain and purposely accelerate reactions.

Beyond the obvious uncontionable violence he inflicted on an innocent house of worship, he did everything he could to make his event as infuriating as possible. He used weapons he knew would start firearms debates across the world. He namedropped contentious political and cultural figures like Candace Owns and Pewdiepie. At a time when the edgiest parts of the internet are hotly contested (in Europe, copyright laws are about to become so strict that they could effectively ban memes) he lined the weapons he used with memes just to draw attention to them. He did everything in his power to make sure his act of violence translated into vicious political discourse in a purposeful attempt to get contentious conversations about gun control and social media censorship rolling as a backdoor means of brewing hostility.

We’re at the point in discourse where vicious politics are so predictable that psychopaths can read the room enough to direct the outrage to purposely make discourse of difficult topics more broken. He actually thought he could go as far as to start a race war with his actions. Remember, the second bloodiest war in human history was caused by one man being assassinated. It could’ve worked. We’re already so far beyond the pale already that there’s hardly been any discussion of the actual people who were victimized in the massacre. Nobody cares about the dead and wounded beyond how useful they are as tools for political gain. Ask yourself, what did you hear first: the names of the victims or calls for a political response? For all the discussions of gun control, far right extremism, far left extremism, radical Islam, toxic masculinity, mental health reform, overzealous media coverage and hate speech that spins every time these events happen there’s never a truthful discourse about the most important things that matter. What is causing young men to actually become so nihilistic and disenfranchised in the first place?

The Revenge of the Outsider

I’m primarily a film writer but I do most of my writing for websites that primarily cover politics and religion. Outside of my Flawed Faith series, I very rarely talk about these issues outside of the venues in which I’m generally encouraged to do so. Simply put, I’m not a confrontational person and I don’t want to spend my entire life litigating contentious issues. My entire ethos as an entertainment writer and TV host has been that entertainment is the last bastion of shared culture in the modern world. There is a reason that films become hotly debated topics like Ghostbusters, The Last Jedi and Captain Marvel. People recognize the politicization of films is effective and either see it as useful or as innately divisive. Historically I’ve attempted to stay out of these conversations because they’ve seemed innately useless to me. Today however I need to make an exception.

Prior to today, I’d been deliberating a lot about the messages of a number of recent films. I’d been thinking of it ever since I saw The LEGO Movie 2 last month. That movie crystalized an interesting idea in my mind about the nature of villainy in recent popular films. There's an undercurrent of satire that covers a number of the most popular films of the past several years. In this movie, I finally understood it in the character of Rex Dangervest. Spoiler for The LEGO Movie 2 but it turns out that Rex Dangervest is an older version of Emmet who was lost for several years and decided to take revenge on his friends for abandoning him to suffer alone for years without hope of rescue. In order to do this, he foments hostility between The Man Upstair’s children to cause the LEGO equivalent of the apocalypse as retribution. With this character, I suddenly began to realize how much this story is repeated in recent films.

In Black Panther, we have a version of this with Killmonger, a man who was abandoned as a child by Wakanda after his father betrayed them and who was left alone to suffer in poverty now seeking his claim to the throne as a means of overthrowing the world and fomenting a worldwide revolution.

In Star Wars, we see this embodied in the character of Kylo Ren, a young man once destined to inherit the ways of the Jedi who was failed by every adult and institution in his life except for the leader of the First Order who offered him the opportunity to blow up the system that betrayed him. His most famous lines in the recent movies have all been variations of letting the past die. The moment the power reaches his hands and he takes control of the Imperial Death Cult, all he wants to do with it is reign destruction down on the Galaxy and destroy every institution before him.

Of course, the most famous example of this story is unquestionably The Dark Knight. In that film, the battle of the soul of Gotham City is literally played out by a battle of minds between symbols of order and chaos. It predicted the modern world of escalation and reactionary impulses that drive radical movements across the political spectrum. The Joker in that film doesn’t actually have a singular motivation for his impulse but that doesn’t matter in that film. He’s the embodiment of chaos, meant to call the hypocrisies of the world out as he sees them and create some semblance of equilibrium as he sees it.

It struck me just how frequently this kind of story pops up in modern fiction. What’s interesting in these stories is that at the end of the day, the heroes facing off against these villains ultimately come to the conclusion that society itself is at fault for the disenfranchisement of the villains. The order they perceived in the world was a lie that could only be set straight by ending the circumstances that gave the ideologies of each of these characters are very different, coming from identity, abandonment, oppression of the minority at the fringe of society, etc. What’s important is what they have in common. Regardless of the ideology of the viewer, there is a shared collective sense that society is fomenting the forces that seek to destroy it unintentionally. These characters all share a combined desire to destroy order and rule over the ruins.

Unfortunately, this is the very story we’re watching play out in Christchurch.

The Crisis of Modernity

There is a term used In Christian circles known as the “crisis of modernity”. It speaks to the notion that despite the entirety of humanity’s social, economic, technological and ethical progress that people still aren’t happy. There is a sense in the world that something is amiss in spite of the fact that there has never been a more prosperous and free time to be alive as a human than this very moment. As a result, young people specifically are seeking out meaning in alternative avenues. Most dull their senses in enormous amounts of food, drugs porn or video games to make their senses feel less lacking. In the case of the latter with video games, young men don’t seem to be seeking out relief from stress but an artificial form of challenge. Video games provide an artificial sense of completion and journey for young men to hone a set of skills and exercise them at their needs. The same is true of pornography. The only alternative to this is for young people to see out meaning in radical ideologies. People become so attached to their narratives that the thought of losing causes them to radicalize. We fear for an uncertain future so badly that we come to the conclusion that we must win by any means necessary. We compromise our values and punching down on innocent people. Then the other side reacts and does the same thing and the world spirals.

We see this crisis playing out in the zeitgeist across the world. It’s easy to write these anxieties off as toxic masculinity or unconscious bigotry but the problems go far deeper than mere anxiety or prejudice. There’s a more primeval issue at the core of modern life’s failures. People are unhappy. There is a reason why so many people resonate with these revenge of the outsider characters like Kylo Ren and Killmonger. People sense that the order of modern life is spiritually killing them. Modernity as we know it doesn’t feel normal to people. Modern life is unfulfilling and lacks meaning. It’s easy to become disenfranchised and look upon the greatest creations of man and find them wanting. At that point, what choice is there left but to burn the past? What choice is there but to accelerate political tensions to burn down the old corrupt order. In the Post-Christian world, where every ideology and institution from the church, to the government, the country, the family and even the individual has been so thoroughly deconstructed, laid bare and revealed corrupted, where is there left to find meaning in?

These characters, these real-life men exist and they’re looking out into the void and desperately aching to lash out and cause as much damage as possible. We talk so much about abuse and broken men but we rarely talk about where these men are coming from. To quote C.S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man, “We make men without chests and expect from them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.” We’ve raised generations of young people who have been gifted with the spoils of history and yet who lack the inner strength to enjoy them. These problems begin with how we raise our children. These problems begin with what we teach our children to believe about the world. The only solution to the crisis of modernity, the epidemic of mass shootings and the bifurcation of American life is to resolve the meaning crisis. Until then, expect the worse.

#christchurch #new zealand #kyle ren #star wars #black panther #revenge #disenfranchised #the joker #the dark knight #crisis of modernity #the lego movie 2

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back-and-totheleft · 3 years

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After the Fall

“I used to be a medic,” comes a voice from the darkness.

“My license lapsed,” the figure says. “I had a few bad years. But I’m good.”

L.A. WEEKLY: Where were you on the morning of September 11, 2001?

OLIVER STONE: L.A. Asleep. My wife put the TV on.

And what did you think was happening?

World Trade Centeris very powerful — emotionally powerful. I had a very visceral reaction to it.I think it’s obviously the film, but it’s also more than the film — it’s the fact that the subject matter is so loaded. If you make a film about fire jumpers, and a fire jumper comes to see it, he’ll say, “Well, you got this part right, you got this part wrong.’?” With this film, we’re all fire jumpers. It’s also very different from a lot of your other films — it’s gentle and contained and quiet. I’m wondering if you had to devise a different approach because the subject matter was so delicate.

It may surprise a lot of people that you’re not using a lot of shock cuts, moving around inside the frame — what you’ve termed your “cubist” style.

Well, where can you move in a hole? A hole is limited. Finding the right point of view in the hole is crucial.

You once said about Platoon?, “I felt like if I didn’t do it now, I’m going to forget.” We’re five years out from 9/11 now, and there is much public hand-wringing about whether it’s too soon yet to deal with this subject matter.

You pursued this film, correct?

And did you talk with the producers about politics — if there would be a political viewpoint that informed the story?

Could you foresee a left-wing backlash against the film?

In an odd way, I was reminded of Preston Sturges Hail the Conquering Hero — a wartime comedy that pokes fun at the notion of patriotism and, by extension, patriotic movies but which, by the end, almost subversively, fills you with this patriotic fervor. I’m wondering if you see this as your “Nixon in China” moment: Only the director of Nixon and JFK could get away with a film where the most heroic character is an ex-Marine who consults with his pastor before putting himself in harm’s way.

But for him it’s the right war.

You could make the same argument about Nixon. You took the dominant political figure in our lifetime and gave him the Shakespearean treatment his life cried out for.

It was a psychological point of view. The right wing thought it was going to be a hatchet job; instead, it made him a human being. Unfortunately, in my career, I have spoken out between films, and that’s what’s gotten confused with the films themselves. I think the focus has been lost. Somewhere along the line, I guess, I said, “Look: I’m a filmmaker, but I’m also John Q. Citizen, and things piss me off. I have a right to say, if people ask me and they’re interested, what I fucking think.” And that’s the line I’ve always gotten in trouble with. It’s always between the films, if you look at the statements I’ve made. There’s nothing in the films themselves, as far as I know, that’s really offensive politically.

How much of the criticism against you do you think is organized for partisan political gain?

He seems to enjoy it. Maybe it’s the counterpart to how the left treats Charlton Heston.

Sy Hersh says it’s 11 guys.

Were you at Yale the same time Bush was?

I was in the same class, yeah. I don’t remember him. I was never in a fraternity. I went twice — I dropped out one year and then went back for half of a second year and dropped out.

But at one point Bush requested to meet you, didn’t he?

Assigns you a nickname.

Have you ever thought about going into politics — running for office? Would you consider doing that in a later part of your life?

Not seriously, no.

You were pro-Vietnam before you enlisted in the infantry, right? You were fairly conservative?

Yes.

So we could say that you spent the entire 1960s across the political divide from most of what you’ve now come to stand for?

I’ve read a quote to the effect of “I felt like I had to atone for the act of imagination.” Was it actually the failure of the novel that sent you over the edge?

Why didn’t Alexander connect? Do we agree that it didn’t connect with English-speaking audiences?

I like the director’s cut better than the first version, because I had more time to prepare it. And the structure is different. It wasn’t because of the homosexuality — that’s a red herring. The mother’s back story and father’s back story, which are really essential, don’t come in until later. We’re doing a third, expanded version now — we’re going all out. This is not for theatrical; it’s for the people who love the film who want to see more of it. It’s the Cecil B. De Mille treatment — three hours and 45 minutes. What I’m doing is going back and showing the whole thing in its sumptuousness, really going with the concept that it had to be an old-fashioned movie, with an intermission, like a road show. Be a showman, instead of trying to be a responsible filmmaker. Go all out on this one. This is my Apocalypse Now, my De Mille epic. [The first time] I was trying to step up to the plate, so to speak. I should have pulled it back, taken an extra year like Marty did with Gangs of New York. But it would have cost a lot of money.

Yeah. In America.

In America. I don't wish to judge it; this is an empirical observation.

I don’t want to make specious connections, but you’ve had several high-profile drug arrests in the last few years. Before that, you were making supernihilist films in an edgy, frenetic style. I'm wondering if these are all moving parts of the same phenomenon.

But nobody cares if you smoke pot. They care if it affects the work, if it’s part of a larger problem.

With World Trade Center, it's your first time to deal with studio financing in a decade; you look better, healthier. Has your life changed? Is this a new start?

-Paul Cullum, “After the Fall,” LA Weekly, Aug 9 2006 [x]

#oliver stone #la weekly #World Trade Center #alexander #arrests #dui #drugs #September 11 #politics

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jobsearchtips02 · 4 years

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North Korea Blows Up Liaison Office as Tensions Rise

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Video released by the South Korean defense ministry shows the inter-Korean liaison office along the border with North Korea being destroyed. The move comes amid rising tensions between the countries, and as the North’s nuclear talks with Washington remain frozen. Photo: Yonhap/Associated Press

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watchilove · 4 years

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Haute Horlogerie has no room for compromise – and that’s why Roger Dubuis has never been one to play by the rules. It asserts its uniqueness by combining the mysterious secrets of the noblest traditions with visionary flashes of genius through which it has achieved an uncontested position as the master of expressive and contemporary watchmaking. The brand’s most recent creation is a stunning juxtaposition of the brilliance of these past artisans and the most inventive modern techniques. Enter the Excalibur Diabolus in Machina, a creation guaranteed to astound even the boldest souls and partisans of the idea that life must be lived intensely, passionately and – let’s say it like it is – excessively!

youtube

A UNIQUE TIMEPIECE

Everyone knows that the devil is in the details. And because creative irreverence is a temptation that Roger Dubuis finds irresistible, Excalibur Diabolus in Machina pushes sophistication to breaking point, offering the exclusive members of the Roger Dubuis tribe an experience that is as exceptional as it is passionate.

This new challenge combines technical prowess with aesthetic daring, those ultimate freedoms that only a specific production model can allow against the background of a state-of-the-art Manufacture providing as much the strength as the independence to develop a distinctive vision of Time that flies in the face of all existing conventions.

In a sassy move within which manufacturing perfection bearing the Poinçon de Genève meets disruptive design, every effort has been made to ensure that Excalibur Diabolus in Machina is up there with the most extraordinary Haute Horlogerie experiences. Roger Dubuis thus has fun violating its own codes by allowing its famous star to literally implode, resulting in an incredible design that brings harmony to opposites while aligning geometric rigour with chaos. Not one element of this de-structured neo-star is positioned on the same level, creating an even more complex but far more exciting watchmaking feat!

Roger Dubuis Calibre RD107

A NEW TAKE ON THE CALIBRE

The story of Roger Dubuis cannot be told without mentioning the very finest horological complications, especially the highly sought-after minute repeater. The maestro himself, an exceptional watchmaker, designed the plans right at the start when the Manufacture was created. Today, this legacy has become a veritable treasure and by integrating two watchmaking complications, Roger Dubuis once again demonstrates its devilish expertise and passion for impossible challenges.

The difference lies in Roger Dubuis’ application of a mischievous futuristic approach to the minute repeater concept. Invented at a time when turning on a night light involved much more than flicking a switch, this horological complication is one of the most challenging to achieve. The wearer can check the time using a pushpiece that activates a ring tone with a low pitch for the hours, a high pitch for the minutes, and two tones for the quarter hours. At Roger Dubuis, the watchmaker have not stopped there, preferring to add functions designed to make using the timepiece more fun. First, perched high at 11 o’clock is a disc that has been skilfully blended with a Roman numeral. Marked with the words Hours, Quarters and Minutes, the disc starts to turn as soon as the minute repeater is activated, visually illustrating the time intervals being chimed. To achieve this, the watchmakers have enriched this second visual indication with the minute repeater’s main feeler-spindle system, which requires mechanically seeking information on the time before striking it.

Further proof of the obsessive, excessive nature of Roger Dubuis watchmakers, a second functional indicator – in the form of a lever placed between 3 o’clock and 4 o’clock – instantly lets the wearer know whether the watch is in “manual winding” or “time setting” position. This visual safety feature is extremely important as adjusting the watch while the minute repeater is playing can damage the movement.

Finally, one other function has been developed to make life easier for the user. This is the minute repeater’s pushpiece, which has been embellished with a mechanism called “all or nothing”. Only allowing the minute repeater to be triggered if the pusher has been fully and completely pressed, this second safety feature prevents the mechanism from being triggered or providing merely a partial indication of time.

Roger Dubuis combines this major complication with its famous flying tourbillon, that has been an integral part of the brand’s identity right from the start, and which requires peerless skill and experience to assemble and fit. Designed to compensate for gravitational effects on the accuracy of a watch movement and the hands it drives, the tourbillon is a mechanical device enabling a watch to communicate with the great “master clock” of the universe.

DIABOLUS IN MACHINA

Roger Dubuis has chosen to tune its minute repeater to the sound of the tritone, the famous “Diabolus in Musica” chord outlawed in medieval religious music, and found, for example, in Camille Saint-Saëns’s symphonic poem, Danse Macabre. This primordial dissonance is also the secret key to all clever and complex melodic harmony, music being the art that has chosen Time as a backdrop against which to weave its spells and govern the laws of beauty. Tuned here to C and G flat, its tones are enhanced by the nobility of the materials through which they resound, offering listeners an enchantingly sensory experience.

A masterpiece representing the paradoxes of Time, a hedonistic invitation to “Carpe Diem”, and a poetic reminder of our fleeting condition, Excalibur Diabolus in Machina is much more than just a watch. It is a manifesto for an exclusive tribe of pioneering minds on an incessant quest to constantly reinvent their own game.

About Roger Dubuis

The brainchild of two daringly disruptive visionaries, Roger Dubuis has been all about mindset since 1995. Its bold spirit continues to shatter all watchmaking clichés. Building on powerful savoir-faire and total mastery of intricate horological complications, it is sustained by an integrated Manufacture enabling total independence. Expressed through boundary-pushing technical sophistication and extravagance, the Maison is driven by an innovative spirit inspired by other cutting-edge industries and out-of-the-box designs. Symbolised by its signature skeleton, its unleashed creativity enables Roger Dubuis to create bold, non-conformist timepieces that are daringly expressive and unmistakably contemporary. This, along with a firm belief in the value of living larger than life, showcasing excess at every level, a resolute determination to ensure its clients can expect the unexpected at every turn make Roger Dubuis unquestionably the most exciting way to experience Haute Horology.

Roger Dubuis Excalibur Diabolus in Machina Technical Specifications

Reference RDDBEX0842

Case

Skeletonized,

Ø45 mm,

Case, bezel and crown CarTech Micro-Melt BioDur CCMTM (® in the USA).

Case back CarTech Micro-Melt BioDur CCMTM (® in the USA) with sapphire crystal and anti-reflective treatment.

Thickness: 16.8 mm

Dial

Double surface flange with engraved minute track, transfered texts. Polished hour markers filled with SLN.

Water resistance

3 BAR (30 m)

Strap

Interchangeable 3D calf leather strap

Buckle

Interchangeable titanium cover with titanium triple folding buckle

Calibre

RD0107 calibre,

Minute repeater and single flying tourbillon

Decorations:

circular-grained or trued-up or shot-blasted or Cotes de Genève and NAC coated bridges and plate

Number of parts: 558 components

Jewels: 54 rubis

Diameter: 14 ¾’’’

Thickness: 10 mm

Frequency: 3 Hz (21’600 vph)

Power-reserve: 60 hours

Production

Unique series 1 of 1

Roger Dubuis Excalibur Diabolus in Machina Gallery

Roger Dubuis Calibre RD107

Roger Dubuis Excalibur Diabolus in Machina – Mind Over Matter Haute Horlogerie has no room for compromise – and that’s why Roger Dubuis has never been one to play by the rules.

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