Culture Wars – Page 37 – The Wrongologist

Should a Controversial Opera Be Seen?

On Monday night, hundreds of people protested outside New York’s Metropolitan Opera that the presentation of “The Death of Klinghoffer” is anti-Semitic, and should not have been offered by the Met.

A summary: In 1985, Leon Klinghoffer, a 69-year-old Jewish-American disabled man, and his wife, Marilyn, were passengers on an Italian cruise ship, the Achille Lauro. The ship was hijacked by Palestinian terrorists, who shot Klinghoffer in the head and threw him overboard in his wheelchair.

First produced in 1991, “Klinghoffer” contains a running debate between the killers—who voice a number of anti-Semitic slurs in the course of justifying their conduct—and Klinghoffer as their victim.

John Adams also wrote “Nixon in China”, another “docu-opera. With “Klinghoffer”, he has a much more provocative topic and aims to show both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was among the protestors, wrote a not completely unreasonable op-ed in his opposition to the Met’s staging of the John Adams opera. He says while the Met had a First Amendment right to present the opera:

Equally, all of us have as strong a First Amendment right to…warn people that this work is both a distortion of history and helped, in some ways, to foster a three decade long feckless policy of creating a moral equivalency between the Palestinian Authority and the state of Israel…this opera didn’t create but certainly contributed to a romanticized version of the Palestinian cause which led to the American administration giving them hundreds of millions of dollars meant for the Palestinian people but mostly taken by Arafat and his band of terrorist crooks.

So, Giuliani complains that Adams’s 23-year-old opera has contributed directly to the collapse of the Middle East peace process and to hundreds of millions of dollars being funneled to terrorists. What’s in that NYC water?

What has happened is that the protestors have brought the Israeli/Palestinian differences to New York. They are busy recapitulating the division, spin, shouting and reiteration of the talking points of both sides, this time through the medium of the Metropolitan Opera. Protesters are demanding that the opera be canceled; defenders of the opera couch their position in terms of artistic freedom or, as a two-sides presentation, giving a voice to the grievances of the Palestinians.

Some people say works like “Klinghoffer” encourage people to emulate the bad behaviors they see on stage. It is doubtful that anyone has engaged in sibling incest after watching “Die Walküre”. Let’s remember that “The Marriage of Figaro” is about a libidinous noble’s invocation of the historical “droit de seigneur.” That “Macbeth” is about regicide. That Broadway’s “Sweeney Todd” about a maniacal serial killer. That the opera “The Rake’s Progress” about someone selling his soul to the devil.

Let’s also remember Mr. Giuliani in 1999, as Mayor of all the people of New York, tried to shut down the Brooklyn Museum because he viewed an exhibition as “sick,” “disgusting” and sacrilegious. At the time, Giuliani argued that the Brooklyn Museum had no First Amendment right to show a British exhibition that featured a portrait of the Virgin Mary stained with elephant dung. He then threatened to terminate the Museum’s lease with the city and possibly even seize control of the Museum. The exhibit went forward.

The issue is what to do about provocative art that offends the sensibilities of some fraction of the population. The opera and the protests taken together, confront us with something we see all too often: Conflicts between, and often within populations, who have been traumatized by history.

You cannot reason with people when hyper-vigilance and condemnation are what drives any discussion with them.

Let the protestors protest. Let the show go on. Let the debate about the opera go forward. One can argue passionately about the Middle East, Israel or Palestinians. None of that makes the Klinghoffer murder morally acceptable. Or “Klinghoffer” great art.

If we want to bridge our differences, we have to start small, take a few risks, confess some offenses, forgive them and move to reconciliation. Then build on that.

It is the only solution. It does not begin in crowds.

Monday Wake-Up Call – October 20, 2014

Happy Monday! Here is your thought for the week:

“People react to fear, not love. They don’t teach that in Sunday school, but it’s true” − Richard M. Nixon

Not a complete surprise that Nixon was wrong. They DO teach fear in Sunday school:

In Liberia, only 43% of the adult population are literate, so radio, not the written word, is the best way to inform people about the disease. There are 16 local languages in Liberia, in addition to English. People rarely have access to the Internet or television.

Songs about Ebola are popular in West Africa. One of the most popular is “Ebola in Town” by Samuel “Shadow” Morgan and Edwin “D-12” Tweh, along with Kuzzy, of 2Kings. The song sounds like American hip-hop, but the style is called “Hip Co”, a form of colloquial English that appeals to young Liberians (about 50% of the population is under 18).

Here is an audio file of the song. There are YouTube videos out there, but they have extremely graphic depictions of Ebola victims, and may not be suitable for viewing at work or at home, if kids are in the room:

https://soundcloud.com/shadowmrgn/ebola-in-town-d-12-shadow-kuzzy-of-2kings

A sample of the lyrics:
Something happen
Something in town 
Oh yeah the news 
I said something in town
Ebola
Ebola in town

[Snip]

If you like the monkey 
Don’t eat the meat
If you like the baboon
I said don’t eat the meat
If you like the bat-o
Don’t eat the meat
Ebola in town.

Songs can’t do all that much in a nation with the second-fewest doctors per person in the world.

Here are today’s hot links for your breakfast buffet:

Ebola got you stressed? Try textual healing. A new breed of online-therapy services offers flat-rate plans that allow you to text-chat with a licensed, accredited therapist as much as you like (need).

At least 30 states are still providing less funding per student for the 2014-15 school year than they did before the recession hit.

Researchers have created what they call Alzheimer’s in a Dish — a petri dish with human brain cells that develop the telltale structures of Alzheimer’s disease.

And we were doing so well in Pakistan: Six senior members of the Pakistani Taliban vowed allegiance to the Islamic State.

Go ahead, take your time getting to the party: Study shows that the median arrival time of 803 guests was 58 minutes after the party’s start time.

Of course we love our allies: Saudis to behead, then crucify a cleric who spoke out against the King. Did you know that Saudi Arabia doesn’t have a constitution?

We will never learn: John Allen, the general in charge of the US-led coalition’s response to ISIS says the US will create “a home-grown, moderate counterweight to the Islamic State”. Didn’t work in Vietnam, Afghanistan, or Iraq. Why would it work this time?

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – October 12, 2014

“Be afraid. Be very afraid.” In 20 letters, it’s the platform and program of the GOP:

Complete version: Be afraid of Africans, Hispanics, Democrats, Liberals, Muslims, Atheists, Foreigners, Gays, etc. If fact, be afraid of just about everyone except the GOP. Because those OTHERS will take your money, take your job, take your gun, infect you with diseases, break into you house, rape your women folk, strengthen and enlarge your government, spend your taxes, use your resources, raise your prices, insult your God, hurt your feelings (saying ‘Happy Holidays’ instead of ‘Merry Christmas’), corrupt your children, impoverish your descendants, enlarge your government, make life in your suburb or your condo no better than that of a slave on a plantation… and did we say enlarge your government?

If the above makes sense to you, then vote the Republican ticket in November. The GOP won’t accomplish anything, but they will validate your paranoia, and that will feel so good!

Stock Market gives back all of the year’s gain in one week:

The Supremes non-decision causes a wedding:

Malala winning the Nobel makes many parents jealous:

ISIS recruiting steals American Slogan, “E Pluribus Unum”:

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – October 5, 2014

Our country is hated abroad, and frightened at home. We have reached a point where we could reasonably refer to the great American Republic in the past tense. We have edged into a post-constitutional era, no longer a nation of laws, but an autocracy run by law evaders and law ignorers, a culture in which corruption is no longer a form of deviance, but the norm.

We all live in a Mafia-run neighborhood:

By now, everyone knows about the evils of bankers and their Washington facilitators: Wall Street lobbies Congress for favorable deals, Congress then approves them at taxpayer expense. When things are this bad, the very structure of our society is threatened, and voters have to stress fundamentals over issues. We need to move beyond the divisive cultural issues, all the single issues, even critical things like the environment, war and peace, and the “economy”, and focus on structural issues. We have to leave the culture wars and even big political differences behind, and make alliances among voters–because right now, none of us are being heard.

Will White House security improve with new leadership?

However, a new threat jumped the fence:

For months, the Ebola outbreak was confined to West Africa, a region more than 8,000 miles away. But this week a patient was diagnosed with the deadly virus in Dallas, Texas, bringing Ebola hysteria right on home. We have heard typical reassurances from the CDC, while some politicians have engaged in fear-mongering. But, unless lots of Americans plan on exchanging bodily fluids with people who live or work in West Africa, we’ll be fine.

Politicians talk about terror and say: “we could all be killed”. They speak about Ebola and say: “we could all be killed”. Mothra could also come back, and you know the nation isn’t prepared for Mothra. Where will we get enough Raid? Do we have Godzilla’s cell number? OK Obama, what are we supposed to do?

Meanwhile, the actors in the Middle East continue to mis-hear each other:

And in HK, not only no hearing, there is no listening:

Is Secession From the USA a Possibility?

According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Sept. 19th, 23.9% of Americans polled from Aug. 23 through Sept. 16 said they strongly supported or tended to support the idea of their state breaking away from the country. The poll had 8,952 respondents. About 53% of them strongly opposed or tended to oppose secession, slightly less than the percentage that kept Scotland in the UK.

The exact wording of the question asked was: “Do you support or oppose the idea of your state peacefully withdrawing from the United States of America and the federal government?”

The LA Times reported the results by region:

You can see the interactive results here. They can be filtered by age, region, income, party affiliation, etc. Any way you slice it, the data are startlingly clear: Almost a quarter of those surveyed said they were strongly or provisionally inclined to leave the US, and take their states with them. Given the size of the polling sample, the online survey’s credibility interval (digital for “margin of error”) was only 1.2%, so the poll seems to be an accurate representation of where the country stands.

Politically, conservatives and Republicans seem to like the idea of leaving more than Democrats. Among people who said they identified with the Tea Party, supporters of secession were in the majority, with 53%.

Secession got more support from Republicans than Democrats, more from right-than left-leaning independents, more from younger than older people, more from lower- than higher-income brackets, more from high school than college grads. In general, men were slightly more predisposed to secession than women. Those making $25,000 a year were 11 points more favorably disposed to rebellion than those making more than $150,000 a year. But there was a marginally higher level of support in every group, especially the Rocky Mountain States, the Southwest and the old Confederacy.

Fifty years ago, most Americans would have laughed at the idea of any state or region seceding, calling it the talk of a radical or a crackpot out of touch with reality. But, with Americans becoming increasingly frustrated by the protracted economic recovery, and by big government, they seem to be expressing an interest in returning to smaller jurisdictions. In the last year or so, we’ve seen:
• Actual secession votes in California and Colorado
• More than 125,700 Texans signed a secession petition
• Secession petitions were circulated in Maryland, Arizona, and Michigan
• Wisconsin Republicans came close to voting on a secession plan this spring

Had the poll first presented lists of “This is what you will no longer have from the Feds, and have to get along without, or pay for them yourself”, the vote might have been different. Consider, for example: the FAA, all those little City, County, State “Grants”, Court Systems, Law/Medical, and various Copyright, Food inspections, education grants/research etc. Who will pay for these things?

As in Scotland, the vote might have been different if the estimated increase in taxes and other payments to fund secession were included in the discussion.

For example, earlier this year the personal finance website WalletHub.com conducted a study of the amounts individual states are paying in federal taxes compared to the amounts they are receiving. WalletHub analyzed data from the IRS, the US Census Bureau, the US Commerce Department and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

As it turns out, it is red states that are overwhelmingly the Welfare Queen States, with Mississippi scoring the first (worst) position with 45.8% of its funding coming from the federal government. Yes, that’s right. Red States — the ones governed by folks who think government is too big and spending needs to be cut — take in more federal spending than they pay out in federal taxes.

They talk a good game, but are sticking the Blue States with the bill. WalletHub’s research demonstrates that, as a rule, the states that are the most likely to rail against “big government” are the most likely to be benefiting from it.

Secession is not illegal, unilateral secession is. A state can secede with the approval of the Federal Government by means of Constitutional amendment. A state that wants to secede legally and peacefully has to convince not only their own population but the rest of the country as well.

Think about Arizona seceding. It would be surrounded by the country it had just left and the country it seemingly hates most (Mexico) with little hope of defending itself, educating itself or paying its own way. Plus, a large number of their citizens are on Social Security and Medicare from (gasp) the United States of America. Decidedly not smart.

The question is, what do these results mean for the country?

The US hardly seems on the verge of a successful secession movement. But the poll results scale up to represent 60 million unhappy people in America, who are willing to consider secession.

This should scream out to our leaders that we are susceptible to the sophistry of a demagogue, or to a serious political reform movement.

The Secret Service Must Do Better

Over the weekend, The WaPo reported about an attack on the White House that happened in 2011. The story was reported back then, but without clearly describing how the event was completely botched by the Secret Service. This is from the article:

A bullet smashed a window on the second floor, just steps from the first family’s formal living room. Another lodged in a window frame, and more pinged off the roof, sending bits of wood and concrete to the ground. At least seven bullets struck the upstairs residence of the White House.

Here is a representational photo of where the bullets struck the WH:

The story of how the Secret Service reacted to the attack on Nov. 11th, 2011 is hard to believe. The actions of the Secret Service in the minutes, hours and days that followed the 2011 shooting were largely dysfunctional. Consider these points:
• It took the Secret Service four days to realize a shooting had occurred
• Officers who were on the scene and who thought gunfire had probably hit the house that night were largely ignored, and some were afraid to dispute their bosses’ conclusions
• Nobody conducted more than a cursory inspection of the White House for evidence or damage
• Key witnesses were not interviewed until after bullets were found in the walls

On the night of the attack, President Obama and his wife were in San Diego, but their younger daughter, Sasha, and Michelle Obama’s mother were in the WH, while older daughter Malia was expected back any moment. WaPo reports that with the first couple gone, the Secret Service had slipped into a “casual Friday” mode. An undercover agent in charge of monitoring the White House perimeter for suspicious activity had left with a more junior officer to fill up his service car at a gas station about a mile away.

The shooter was Oscar R. Ortega-Hernandez. The 21 year old had left his Idaho home three weeks earlier, during a time his friends said he had been acting increasingly paranoid. He kept saying that President Obama “had to be stopped.” He arrived in Washington on Nov. 9th with 180 rounds of ammunition and a Romanian-made semiautomatic rifle, (similar to an AK-47) that he had purchased at an Idaho gun shop. Writings by Hernandez and testimony from those who knew him showed that he believed President Obama was the antichrist.

After firing the shots, Hernandez, who had parked his Honda in a no parking zone on Constitution Avenue, sped away, and crashed his car 7 blocks from the White House. He left the driver’s-side door open. In the driver console was the semiautomatic assault rifle, with nine shell casings on the floor and seat, but Hernandez was gone.

And the worst part is that the man who had shot at the White House had disappeared on foot, with the Secret Service still trying to piece together what had happened.

It would be days before Hernandez was connected to the gunshots fired at the White House.

Secret Service officers initially moved to respond. One stationed directly under the second-floor terrace where the bullets struck, drew her .357. Snipers on the roof, standing just 20 feet from where one bullet struck, scanned the South Lawn through their rifle scopes for signs of an attack. In 2011, there was little camera surveillance of the White House perimeter. From WaPo:

Then came an order that surprised some of the officers. “No shots have been fired. . . . Stand down,” a supervisor called over his radio. He said the noise was the backfire from a nearby construction vehicle.

But several agents seemed to know that was not true: A pair of agents said they could smell gunpowder, while another had heard debris fall from the Truman balcony. But they stayed quiet, apparently out of fear of angering their superiors.

It is tough to realize just how far the current-day performance of the Secret Service is from their image as a highly trained, highly professional force. This shooting demonstrates that this organization mostly viewed as an elite force of selfless patriots, willing to take a bullet for the good of the country, is not always up to its job.

Just this month, a man carrying a knife was able to jump the White House fence and sprint through the front door. There have been incidents in the recent past, including a 29-shot barrage aimed at President Clinton in 1994, and the February, 2001 White House shooting, when Robert Pickett shot in the general direction of President Bush’s office from outside the White House perimeter fence.

Then there was Lynette Fromme who waved a gun but didn’t actually shoot at President Ford, and Sara Jane Moore who fired, but missed him.

Hernandez was caught, and in September 2013, he plead guilty to one count of destruction of property and one count of discharging a firearm during a crime of violence. He was sentenced to a term of 25-years imprisonment.

The 2011 event indicates that the Secret Service had a failure of leadership. The agents outside the WH took appropriate action. The guy who gave the “stand down” order retired soon after, and started a security firm. The culture at the time would not allow agents to contradict the bosses. Some of the leadership, including the person at the top, has been changed, but the Secret Service must stay sharp.

There is always more work to be done.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – September 28, 2014

The Saudis make its relationship with the coalition very clear:

We learned this week from the Wall Street Journal that Mr. Obama made a deal with the Saudis. They will lend legitimacy for our attacks against ISIS and Al Qaeda in Syria (Jabhat al-Nusra). Then, the US will move against the Assad government in Syria. The neocon editors of The Economist are doing victory laps. Here is the “Obama Accomplished” photo from The Economist story:

Despite the new strategy, Obama is not sleeping well:

America sends troops to Africa, Cuba sends doctors and nurses:

Finally, in new analysis from the Pew Research Center, fewer Republicans believe in evolution today than did in 2009:
• 43% of those who identify with the Republican Party say they believe humans have evolved over time, plunging from 54% four years ago
• 48% say they believe “humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time,” up from 39% percent in 2009.

How unbelievably stupid does one have to be to believe that evolution is a hoax? It’s only a guess, but it is probable that a poll would show a higher percentage of Americans believe in the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus. Here are the data:

Never let facts get in the way of a good belief system.

Friday Music Break – September 26, 2014

Today we feature one song by Paolo Nutini, “Iron Sky”. The song is inspired by, and features an extract of the speech given by Charlie Chaplin at the end of “The Great Dictator”.

First, watch the video of Chaplin’s speech in “The Great Dictator”. In the movie, Chaplin plays a Jewish barber who looks just like the dictator. The dictator ends up being mistaken for the barber, and is arrested, while the barber is mistaken for the dictator.

At the end of the film, the barber makes this speech, and frees the countries that the real dictator had conquered.

Chaplin was investigated by the FBI in 1942. J. Edgar Hoover was suspicious of Chaplin’s political leanings, and tried to generate negative publicity about Chaplin using a smear campaign. The FBI named him in four indictments related to a paternity case, including an alleged violation of the Mann Act, which prohibited the transportation of women across state boundaries for sexual purposes.

In 1952, The US Attorney General revoked Chaplin’s entry permit into the US. Twenty years later, Chaplin received an honorary award from the Motion Picture Academy, and he returned to the US for the first time to receive the award. At the Academy Awards gala, he was given a 12 minute standing ovation, the longest in the Academy’s history.

Here is the speech that some would call a prophecy:

Now to the song by Nutini, who is a Scot. Some think the song is designed to inspire the Scots to vote “Yes” on the independence referendum, but apparently, Nutini never revealed his preference about the vote. The part of the Chaplin speech Nutini uses, says: “You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful. Let us use this power.” The song’s lyrics are superimposed in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQzZk69P69E

Is a New World Order Coming?

In the prologue to his 1987 book of essays, Hidden History: Exploring Our Secret Past, historian Daniel Boorstin wrote about “the Fertile Verge”, a place where something and something else, something unexplored, meet.

A verge is like a frontier region, a place where ecosystems, or ideas, mingle. Verges between land and sea, between civilization and wilderness, between state and national governments, between city and countryside – all are a part of the American experience. Boorstin said that the movement westward by colonists into the American continent was a verge between European civilization and the culture of the American Indians.

America is clearly now on the verge of something new, possibly a big change in the world order. The old rules are broken. New states may emerge out of conflict in the Africa and the Middle East. Our old allies see their future drifting away from ours. The old order is rapidly disintegrating. But is there a new order that will replace it? Will it happen only in America, or will it be a global change?

Consider the following about America:
• In August, the Wall Street Journal reported on an FBI database that contains a file on one in three adults, or 77.7 million Americans.
• Our schools aren’t succeeding,
• Our infrastructure is crumbling,
• American corporations are heading for the exits (to tax havens).
• 45 Million Americans live in poverty, and that number hasn’t changed since 2010.

We are taking on some of the trappings of a police state. And there is no reason to suppose that the FBI’s (and the NSA’s) increased sophistication in domestic spying, and data storage and retrieval will do anything but make that trend more efficient, and penalties more severe and long-lasting. That is not a prescription for maintaining a united Homeland.

Our coffers are shrinking, yet we march off to one risky war after another, with all of those billions going where, and for what? Our Republic now seems to want only compliant workers and consumers. All others need not apply.

Last bit of history; the Principate, (27 BC – 284 AD) was the first stage of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire succeeded the Roman Republic. The Principate was characterized by a concerted effort by its Emperors to preserve the illusion of the continuance of the Roman Republic. And just like the Principate, the illusion of the American Republic is what now remains.

The order of things that underpinned our era is in crisis. Part of peoples’ concern is the sense that the old order isn’t holding, but we’re not quite yet able to see the terms of any new order, one that may be based on different states, different global powers, or on different principles.

So, what’s next for America? A nation founded explicitly on an idea of individual freedoms and representative governance, the US has always identified its success with the spread of liberty and democracy. Today, those very rights are threatened here at home.

The post-WWII bipolar world ended when the USSR collapsed under their own weight. That brought about a different world order, a uni-polar era, with the US as the sole superpower, possessing the only military strong enough to deter any other potential rival from engaging in aggressive war.

Even that order is ending. We are on the frontier of something completely new in global politics in addition to change in our domestic society. Consider what is happening around the globe:
• Our people see what’s happening in Ukraine; what’s happening in Syria, with what Assad has wrought on his own people; in Iraq, where Sunni, Shia and Kurd fail to compromise, even in the face of invasion; the war between Israel and Gaza; the challenge of ISIS.
• Libya is in civil war, Pakistan is close to one, and Afghanistan’s democracy may be on the verge of paralysis. Egypt again has a military-dominated government.
• Add to these troubles the relationship between the US and China, that bounces between pledges of cooperation and public recrimination.

In Africa and the Middle East, the 21st Century has collided with the 8th Century, and the 8th Century is armed with 21st Century weaponry, so it is winning on the ground. An entirely new paradigm for deciding our priorities is required.

What will that new paradigm be? The most important questions to ask are – what is in the best interest of our country?
• What do we seek to prevent, no matter how it happens, and if necessary, alone?
• What do we seek to achieve, even if not supported by a multilateral effort?
• What do we seek to achieve, or prevent, only if supported by an alliance?
• In what should we not engage, even if urged on by a “responsibility to protect”, or by a multilateral group or alliance?”

All of our intermediating of trouble in the world has weakened us. Continuing to do so will only hasten our eclipse as the indispensable power. Our role in the world depends on a strong economy and few structural/societal problems at home. Shouldn’t taking care of the Homeland be our primary concern?

We may feel that a new “Fertile Verge” is almost upon us, but no one knows yet what it will be, or if we will make it across to the other side.

Or, if crossing to the other side will be better for America.