Musings: Politics and Classic Rock Radio

 Reading The Wrong Side of the Atlantic (Lapham's Quarterly) leaves me thinking we have always preferred myth to self-reflection. Trump and MAGA may finally force us to look at ourselves. MAGA's attack on history, that slavery was not so bad or wasn't really white supremacy, are part and parcel of its anti-woke propaganda. Whatever woke means, the result is to not face up to the facts but bolster myths to hide the despicable and corrupt underpinnings of our history. This is Charles Dickens writing of his visit to America:

You live here, Macready, as I have sometimes heard you imagining! You! Loving you with all my heart and soul and knowing what your disposition really is, I would not condemn you to a year’s residence on this side of the Atlantic for any money. Freedom of opinion! Where is it? I see a press more mean and paltry and silly and disgraceful than any country ever knew—if that be its standard, here it is. I speak of Bancroft and am advised to be silent on that subject, for he is “a black sheep—a democrat.” I speak of Bryant and am entreated to be more careful—for the same reason. I speak of international copyright and am implored not to ruin myself outright. I speak of Miss Martineau, and all parties—slave upholders and abolitionists; Whigs, Tyler Whigs, and Democrats—shower down upon her a perfect cataract of abuse. “But what has she done? Surely she praised America enough”—“Yes, but she told us of some of our faults, and Americans can’t bear to be told of their faults. Don’t split on that rock, Mr. Dickens, don’t write about America—we are so very suspicious.” Freedom of opinion! Macready, if I had been born here, and had written my books in this country—producing them with no stamp of approval from any other land—it is my solemn belief that I should have lived and died poor, unnoticed, and “a black sheep”—to boot. I never was more convinced of anything than I am of that. 

A Sunday Reid: 'Fourteen words' conservatism has gone mainstream in Trump's second term. Part one: an assassination in Denver is from Joy Reid, and her writing makes its length go quickly. She traces the history of American crackpots that birthed MAGA.

You have to remove one key component of the human spirit: empathy. Some conservatives hate empathy so much, they’ve launched a war against it. They’re writing whole books opposing it. And these are the self-proclaimed Christians. Why would they do that?

Well … if young white minds are allowed to rethink immigration, deportation and American history; let alone their own inherited privileges, that might make them more empathetic to Black people, poor people, nonwhite immigrants, foreigners, gays, trans people or women. Such empathy could cause white children to grow up to be politicians or voters who give away group power, and who might also tax the overwhelmingly white billionaire class. And the billionaires certainly can’t have that.

 

I admit, it warms the cockles of my heart to find someone else writing about Christians and empathy. See my Musings: Love, Philosophy, Empathy, Religion.

Back to Joy Reid: 

In short: 14 Words Conservatism isn’t about making everyone equal, despite it often being shrouded in self-righteous demands for “colorblindness.” Because privilege — particularly economic privilege — is highly unequally distributed in this country on the basis of race, as a literal consequence of America having been a slave empire, this brand of conservatism winds up seeking to not just freeze the status quo, but rather to reverse it, repeal the 20th century, and allow undisturbed, unfettered, permanent political power and social control to return to and remain in the hands of conservative white American men, no matter how the demographics of America change (see: Texas.) And sorry white ladies, you’re meant to be at home churning butter from scratch and pumping out babies to prevent “the great replacement” in this scenario, and not even necessarily getting to vote.

 Her key theme she backs with evidence, but it does not use the word myth:

There are lots of different kinds of conservatism: fiscal conservatism, social conservatism, neoconservatism. And some of them even still exist (though most have been eaten alive by MAGA.) But there’s a reason 14 words-style conservatism has hung around in American society almost from the start, given that its primary concern has always been “protecting” white people; their feelings, history, wealth, neighborhoods and prerogatives, from the rest of us.

 Back to Lapham's and Charles Dickens:

...The sight of slavery in Virginia, the hatred of British feeling upon that subject, and the miserable hints of the impotent indignation of the South have pained me very much—on the last head, of course, I have felt nothing but a mingled pity and amusement—on the others, sheer distress. But however much I like the ingredients of this great dish, I cannot but come back to the point from which I started and say that the dish itself goes against the grain with me and that I don’t like it. 

 This morning's post from Sheila Kennedy, A Fascinating Analysis, also dives into the psychology of MAGA.

The other day, I came across a fascinating–and persuasive–analysis of MAGA’s fixation with the Confederacy and other “losing” episodes of American history. The author, Kristoffer Ealy, a political psychologist, did a deep dive into the pathology, and found what can only be considered one of the major wellsprings of the deep resentments that power the MAGA mindset.

What triggered his exploration was a media report about a southern Board of Education voting to restore the name of Robert E. Lee to the area high school.

As Ealy explained, he began his research with the conviction that there had to be a reason for people clinging so frantically to a symbol of defeat. Why, he asked, would people treat defeat like a comfort food? Clearly, this goes beyond mere “nostalgia.” As he concluded, it becomes “victimhood identity.

I was not brought up to think of myself as a victim. The people I grew up around from thought of victimhood as self-pity, and that was a spineless and worthless emotion. Americans were not victims - they may have the short end of the stick, but they endured. What the people I grew up with endured The Great Depression and World War Two. A loser was the one who did not persevere, a whiner, not anyone to emulate. Back to Ms. Kennedy:

Another dimension of that victimhood identity is what Ealy calls “glorification of martyrdom” —a tendency to romanticize sacrifice and loss as inherently noble. As he points out, once you glorify a loss, the outcome–the fact that you lost– becomes irrelevant. So to the MAGA mindset, the Civil War wasn’t a bloody, pointless rebellion. It was a heroic last stand. As he writes, “The statues aren’t about historical literacy; they’re altars to a story in which defeat proves righteousness. If the statues come down, the tangible symbols of “our eternal struggle” come down with them — and that’s an existential threat to an identity built on keeping the wound open.” 

 The Bulwark's Despotism at the Door does not dismiss our past, and hopes that we will face up to the danger of MAGA.

...In only seven months, we’ve seen a remarkably sustained if somewhat chaotic series of abuses and usurpations in pursuit of the object of despotism. 

It’s a purposeful project, not an inadvertent one. All societies obviously have authoritarian elements. Every democracy is susceptible to the claim of a demagogue who insists, “I alone can fix it.” Every polity is susceptible to bigotry. Every public is susceptible to the lure of false promises and the fear of invented threats. It may even be that the arc of political life naturally bends towards authoritarianism.

Dealing with endemic authoritarian tendencies has always been part of the work of preserving democracy. Our failure in curbing and managing such tendencies has certainly made our society more vulnerable to despotism.

But whatever our past failures, however many authoritarian elements embedded themselves over time in our liberal democracy, the challenge we face today is closer to straight-up despotism. And the project of imposing that dictatorship is no longer much disguised, if at all. The enemies of a free society—the enemies of limited government and the rule of law, the opponents of political liberty and human equality—don’t sugarcoat what they’re doing. There’s surely no reason we should sugarcoat what we’re seeing.

 But we have sugarcoated our history. We've coated it with so much sugar that slavery's evil can be called non-existent, that Native Americans were not the victims of genocide, that we gleefully sterilized people who were poor in the pursuit of eugenics, and deny that until 1965, this country was always run for the benefit of white people. The sugar we have used is myth - myth of white supremacy, the myth of Manifest Destiny, the myth of the Lost Cause for the Southerners, the myth of our self-righteousness.

And the bill for self-delusion is coming for us:

 As GOP lines up behind mid-cycle redistricting, voting rights advocates caution against ‘hasty’ maps 

Protesters reject plan to hold migrants at Camp Atterbury 

“ We're modeling courage for the Republicans that know this is wrong, but don't say anything because they want to get along with their friends and family," Meyer, a former contractor for the U.S. Navy, told the crowd. "And we're modeling courage for the Democrats who are afraid to speak out."

And what we need now, the Library of America is giving us for free: Reading Democracy in America. I did not get around to reading Democracy in America until pretrial detention, you can find my notes under the topic of pretrial detention.

 Not with a bang but with a whoop, your dictatorship rolls along. The Business of a Wannabe Strongman makes this point:

 So the National Guard is being slowly—or not so slowly—turned into the president’s own rapid domestic deployment force, to be used at his unchecked discretion. Its deployment, regardless of the wishes of local authorities or any real showing of emergency, was once presented as exceptional in the cases of Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Now, it is to become the rule.

***

With the press in the Oval Office at the beginning of the meeting, Trump did not take the opportunity not to praise our historic and close relationship with our ally South Korea, whose democratically elected leader was seated beside him. Instead, he chose to brag about his “great relationship” with the dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong-un. “Look, I get along great with Kim Jong-un.”

***

Justice Antonin Scalia—a conservative hero of another, vanished age—once had this to say about flag-burners: “If I were king, I would not allow people to go about burning the American flag. However, we have a First Amendment which says that the right of free speech shall not be abridged. And it is addressed, in particular, to speech critical of the government. . . . Burning a flag is a symbol that expresses an idea. . .”

President Trump seems to agree—but only with the first sentence. Yesterday afternoon, he signed an executive order at the White House titled “PROSECUTING BURNING OF THE AMERICAN FLAG.” The order states that burning an American flag is “uniquely offensive and provocative,” a “statement of contempt, hostility, and violence against our Nation,” a possible incitement to “violence and riot,” and an act “used by groups of foreign nationals” to “intimidate and threaten violence against Americans.”

It’s the sort of thing conservative Trump foes—back when there were any—used to decry as a star-spangled, jingoistic version of the speech-policing of the left. If it’s offensive to MAGA, it should be illegal to say it.

 Let's talk about another kind of propaganda: classic rock radio. I detest the format. What radio I listen to comes to me through the internet, and those radio shows are certainly not classic radio stations.

Listen to this video, claiming that songs are forgotten. They were songs I heard back in the day, and I swear "Slip Kid" is still played. 

If the classic radio format omits classic songs, why is this? It seems to me that certain bands, certain styles, have been given approval by commercial interests as suitable for consumption by the masses. Those of us old enough should wonder where is Elton John and Ted Nugent, Linda Ronstadt and Heart's quieter songs, or Grand Funk Railroad and Molly Hatchet? No Sly Stone, no Stevie Wonder, and Hendrix limited to only two to four songs - all of which fit better with Led Zeppelin. 

So, a certain sound is considered properly rock, What is supposed to follow must fit into the same sound to be accepted as proper rock music.

So, it must be white - for all it takes from black music in lyrics and playing.

Therefore, we have an art sanitized and drained of life. Sterility kills and Pete Townsend was wrong to think rock was dead, hail rock.

Worse, it recycles the emotional impact of the music, trapping our emotions in the amber of nostalgia. The music is trapped and with it our emotional growth. Our emotional lives become a stagnant pool.

And the format does trap us in the past. When have you heard any of the so-called classic rock stations play the latest from The Rolling Stones, McCartney, Bob Seger, Lou Reed, or David Bowie? Ricky Nelson understood what was going on long before anyone else.

 

 

Talking to the guys in my group therapy last week, I found they did not know the names of Margo Price, Government Mule, or Florence + Machine. None of which are exactly new performers. I included Margo Price because I wondered if the country stations were playing her. 

And I do think this is a propaganda that creates a culture; a sterile culture.

 

sch 8/28