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Pride And Promised Lands

I'm less interested in getting all misty over the "historic"-ness of the gay marriage vote than I am in pointing out that, as a practical matter, this was going to happen at some point, and now was as good as later. It's absurd to think that states across the northeast had made significant progress on rights for gay couples but the state on the East Coast with the most gay people - arguably the largest concentration of gays in the country, and possibly the continent - couldn't get a marriage bill passed.

Of course, that same state couldn't elect a woman to statewide office until Hillary Clinton, but never mind, the point is similar: When we move in New York, we really move.

(A quick hint to all you gals planning weddings in the NYC area: you might want to book all your services now, because finding a caterer and flowers and a cake is going to be hell in about 6 months.)

It's easy to say that gay marriage happened because gay people finally spoke up, but mostly it happened the way gay rights happened: some concentrated expressions of anger combined with a good deal of behind the scenes maneuvering. Gay people tend to assume we do best when there's a large concentration of liberals (read: Democrats) to help effect our agenda; the reality is we do better, generally, when we don't count too much on the kindness of one side, but work a much broader, practical kind of appeal across party lines. Not every Democrat is our friend. Not every Republican is our enemy.

The New York Times has an interesting breakdown of the road to gay marriage passing the New York State Senate (and it's so interesting I'm going to go ahead and link to it, even while bemoaning their pay plan), and it's clear that, as a practical matter, passage of the bill had a lot to do with backroom maneuvering and deal cutting. But it also had a lot to do with simple humanity - rather than thanking gay activists overall, we might do better thanking Sandra Lee's brother and Dorothy Turano's nephew:

Over time, however, championing same-sex marriage had become personal for Mr. Cuomo. He campaigned on the issue in the race for governor last year, and after his election, he was staggered by the number of gay couples who sought him out at restaurants and on the street, prodding him, sometimes tearfully, to deliver on his word.

The pressure did not let up at home. Mr. Cuomo’s girlfriend, Sandra Lee, has an openly gay brother, and she frequently reminded the governor how much she wanted the law to change....

Nobody ever expected Carl Kruger to vote yes.

... But unbeknown to all but a few people, Mr. Kruger desperately wanted to change his vote. The issue, it turned out, was tearing apart his household.

The gay nephew of the woman he lives with, Dorothy Turano, was so furious at Mr. Kruger for opposing same-sex marriage two years ago that he had cut off contact with both of them, devastating Ms. Turano. “I don’t need this,” Mr. Kruger told Senator John L. Sampson of Brooklyn, the Democratic majority leader. “It has gotten personal now.”

In the end, gay rights battles come down to this kind of awareness; it's harder to hate people when they are people you know rather than people you think of in the abstract. Gay visibility has always been the trump card. And the fact that "gay marriage" to gay people was not an abstraction, not some "nice to have" but more a practical concern of couples in long term relationships, went a long way to making this issue about concrete issues, not vague, feelgood hugs from the larger world. We don't have to make all the straight people like us; we do deserve to be treated fairly.

It matters too that opposition to marriage rights has pretty much fallen apart. Howard Kurtz did a long segment on his CNN show today about "was the other side ignored" in the press... but what "other side"? The "marriage is one man and one woman" crowd? They weren't ignored... but mostly, they were nowhere to be seen. And that's because, in part, "defending marriage" has become visible nonsense. Maggie Gallagher, head of the National Organization for Marriage, is a prime example of this. As she piously (what a good word for her Catholic roots) insists on retribution for Republicans, the hollowness of the threat shines through. The alternative, for conservatives is to defeat Senators in primaries with even more extreme right candidates who, in most areas of New York State, will lose to moderate Democrats.  

Gallagher's on the losing side, now, because she and those around her realized they had to soft pedal antigay rhetoric or risk being labeled simply as antigay bigots. It isn't that they hate gay people, they kept insisting, it's that they just wanted to defend marriage. From gay people. Who shouldn't be married... because there's something, well, wrong with being gay. Because if this is actually about "defending marriage" - something I, and even other gay people, have some interest in - then let's figure out what actually needs defending and discussion; like, say, easy divorce laws (which, let's point out, also matters here, since New York became the 50th state, last year, to allow no-fault divorce. Making it easier for straights to divorce than gays to marry).

As I said, rejecting that point of view isn't "historic"... it's inevitable. As hatred of gay people and talk of "dirty sinners" has been pushed into dark, ugly corners - where it will never entirely go away - the arguments against marriage for two people of the same gender simply fall apart. As those arguments fall apart, it becomes absurd not to extend marriage to same sex couples (not, let's say it together, to polygamists or animal lovers, or whatever other wild extreme one can dream up). A world with gay marriage doesn't look different, really, from the world we had yesterday, even on Gay Pride Day here in New York. This isn't the gay Promised Land most of us had in mind (for one thing, being stuck with 8-12 more years of Andrew Cuomo seems like an unreasonable condition of surrender). But yeah, it's pretty great that the bill got passed, by whatever means necessary. It kind of restores one's faith in humanity... and even leaves one with a sense of, well, Pride.

Saturday Singalong: Summer Sun Days MixTape Memories

I should probably step back for a minute and re-explain this series, because although I've done it sporadically, I happen to really like it. Partly the idea for a list of fun songs I like was to counteract the idea of Worst Song Ever, which is fun, but alos a but negative. I do like music; indeed, I like a lot of different kinds of music, and the reason for "Worst Songs" is because they get in the way of the good stuff. A lot.

The singalongs also celebrate the old idea of "mixtapes" which has become a quaint cultural touchstone of the eighties and even early nineties. I remember when "I made a mix tape" started showing up in movies, first to show the emotional intensity of our geeky but loveable leading teen boy (thank you, John Cusack), and then to make fun of the kind of sad sack lonely boy it suggested (thank you, Adam Sandler). Like a lot of boys from that period... I really thought I was the only one doing it, until I found out otherwise. Then we all started comparing notes and sharing songs, and it was fun... and then the technology took over and it was all computers and digital paylists... and bye-bye mixtape.

I still have mine, but they're old, and largely unplayed (cars don't even come with cassette decks, these days), and I kind of miss them. I loved the idea of pulling together an eclectic mix of songs, built around a mood or a theme or the way one song suggested the next (segues - I learned that in college radio). You'd think I do that, now with iTunes... but not so much. I just keep a mix of about 200 songs that strike my fancy at the moment, and generally mix things up out of that.

In any case, this mix came to me a ways back, after writing that mean thing about Simon and Garfunkel; I just had to prove that I don't hate everything, even everything Paul Simon. That, plus a hard day at work and some great tunes in the car ride home (my eclectic tastes are very spoiled by having Sirius XM and the multitude of offerings on satellite radio), led me to... well, this. It's a mix that makes sense... if you just trust me.

U2, Beautiful Day - I really like this song, and I never get to hear it enough (the video, though, is kind of lame) because it somehow never makes my permanent playlist. The past few years have not been entirely kind to U2, or Bono's voice, but this song harks back, just enough, to the thing I loved when they first broke here - not the earnest preachiness, but Bono's soaring vocals and the Edge's jangly guitar work. And Bono's cagey enough to throw in just enough of an a-ha reference (see below) to make me think he did it on purpose.

Paul Simon, Boy in the Bubble - Like I said, I started here because I felt compelled to point out that I do like a lot of Paul Simon's work, especially, surprisingly (to me anyway), Graceland. This song, which kicks off that album, had me at the first listen, a reminder of Simon's real gift for an elusive kind of poetry that makes a point, but not in an obvious way. "It's a turn around jump shot, it's every generation throws a hero up the pop chart..." if you don't see the beauty in it, go listen to Billy Joel's We Didn't Start The Fire and get back to me. Come to think of it, there's another Worst Song...

Black Eyed Peas, Hey Mama - I give the Peas a hard time these days for their last album, which was lame, not mention their most recent album, which has been spinning out a series of really awful singles. It is worth remembering that those first two albums were a one-two punch of a wide variety of material that really did shake things up. This song, with it's gentle Afro-Caribe lilt (la la la, la la) and pretty joyful celebration of rhythm and dancing, is a summer pleaser that's still fresh as a breeze. Here's hoping they remember how to do that, someday.

Fountains of Wayne, Stacy's Mom - When I first heard this, I was stunned that anyone would put so much time and effort to sound like a song from 1986 (maybe 1984, but still). The punch line, of course, is that the song is also hilariously inappropriate and groan inducing all at once, a teenage boy fantasy that makes you mostly appalled and a little sorry for teenage boys. Which goes a long way to putting, say, "867-5309 (Jenny)" or "Centerfold" into better perspective.

Bowling For Soup, 1985 - Then, too, there's Bowling for Soup's equally wise and funny observance of eighties nostalgia, which draws on the period's tuneful lite metal (whoo-whoo and fuzz guitars) while gently teasing the "Springsteen, Madonna, way before Nirvana" crowd. Who didn't want to be the girl on the car in a Whitesnake video? :)

a-ha, The Sun Always Shines On TV - Everyone remembers Take on Me; few remember the follow up, which actually did quite well as a single and had another arresting video (though mannequins are no match for animation bursting out of frame). I've always had a soft spot for it because the cultural observation that TV gives us a sunnier, brighter picture of us than we actually are, which deserves to be made again and again. And it's nice if you can sing along, too.

Prince, Let's Pretend We're Married - It's easy to forget, after Purple Rain and all that came after that, before 1984, Prince was primarily represented by 1999, an elaborate double album brimming over with remarkable pop-funk. It's also easy to forget that, long before he broke huge, Prince was already signalling that new wave and funk cvould live together in interesting ways. I'd forgotten, until this song just leapt to mind, that Prince featured new wave synths not all that different from, say, Eurythmics, before many of us had started to connect the dots. Plus, Prince was pure sex. And songs like "Let's Pretend" don't even bother to try and disguise it. Tipper Gore may have been wrong about Darling Nikki... but she wasn't that far off.

Friday Evening Floralude

 
jinb

Worst Song Ever: Next Big Things

Or... Turn off the radio:

Adele, Rolling in the Deep. Every one to two years we get the "next big thing" out of England, often an appealing young woman (oh... say, Sade, or Duffy, or Amy Winehouse) with a soulful voice and a song about heartbreak. Some times they work out (I was just thinking... does Sade even have a worst song?) and sometimes they don't (though Winehouse could still get sober and pull it together), but I'm usually a sucker for it. Not so much with Adele, who just seems... well, strangely ersatz. She sure belts it really hard, but to what end? Rolling in the Deep is an especially miserable song - "We could have had it all"... there's an up thought - without much payoff and that "rich soulful voice" I hear so much about mostly sounds like braying on this sad single. Acquired taste? Perhaps. Just not the right song? Maybe. But for now, I think Adele as next big thing is more hype than fact.

Jennifer Lopez, On The Floor. Ah, yes, the new, kinder, gentler J-Lo, grizzled veteran of the music biz. I'm happy enough that Lopez has found something of a new niche on American Idol - where, true to form, she's mostly a pale copy of other, more interesting judges - but let's not take this too far. Recycling "The Lambada" (it took the gossips at PopBitch for me to realize why the thing seems instantly familiar) and doing yet another "let's get this party started on the dancefloor" type lyric is tired, tired, tired.... and that's before the tired recitation of international party destinations. Let's be clear: I don't hate all Lopez; go back and check out "On the 6" and see for yourself. But what seemed at first like a canny, effective deployment of limited singing strength (most notably in the hands of Darkchild, one of the greatest of session producers), has largely run it's course (and I'll even forgive "Jenny from the Block", which I thought charming as a record). Maybe someone can yet redeploy Lopez in some new and unfamiliar way... but she'll never be, say, Cher. Though she may hang around for a long time, insisting that longevity equals stardom. Not quite.

Blake Shelton, Honey Bee. Shelton is country's latest lunky heartthrob - and all you people who gave Billy Ray Cyrus even a few listens deserve to hang your heads in shame at what's happened since - with crossover appeal. What that appeal is... I can't say; I've committed to Brad Paisley. But Shelton seems to have sticking power, especially since he's Prom King to country's current female crossover darling Miranda Lambert (whose success I find so inexplicable, I can't even tell you which of her forgettable songs I'd call a Worst Song). I've grown especially weary of Shelton and Lambert making dual appearances on awards shows, singing their latest moony ballads to each other, googly eyed all the way. That, on top of the eternal cutes, Shelton is finding pop success with this especially cliched, hack-ish collection of dull metaphors ("you be my honeysuckle, I'll be your honey bee"... ick, ick, ick) just ices an already tasteless cake.  

Absolutely Nothing? Say It Again!

Just to stick with the frustrations of the upcoming election cycle (hey, at least I got something), one reason I remain interested in watching the Repubican crack-up is because Republicans - still - don't seem to know that they're in the midst of one.

Never mind, for  a moment, that the GOP is bereft of ideas on so many big issues - healthcare, economic problems, a general sense of how to govern; to me, if you want a good indication, just now, of how Republicans are struggling, it's the curious debate on foreign policy that's already begun to derail their primary contests.

So far, the Republicans have had more or less two full-on "debates" with Presidential contenders. "Debate" in this context meaning some cable news network sends out a signature star (Bret Baier on Fox managing the one in South Carolina, John King doing similar duties in New Hampshire for CNN), vague questions are asked, and bumper sticker generalities offered in return. So far, mostly, we've learned that Tim Pawlenty is bad at bu,per sticker generalities... but then, we knew that.

The debates haven't provided much in the way of interesting output, especially with Washington's political pundit class, who are vaguely part of the Democratic Establishment. But then, we Democrats are not, really, the intended audience. The debates are, after all,m meant to provide insights into the GOP primary process, and that means the real audience that matters is Republican. And on the right, the debates have a somewhat different meaning. 

That doesn't mean Republican pundits are much more enthused than their lefty counterparts - the ennui is breathtaking - but they do hear things the rest of us don't. And that, I think, is why foreign policy suddenly became the news out of the debates that's really throwing people off course.

This all started, more or less, because Mitt Romney pointed out, in offering general opposition to the war in Afghanistan, that Americans can't really fight another nation's war of independence. If the Afghan people want the Taliban gone, he said, that's their fight, not ours.

To many of us, that may seem obvious, if a little remarkable from a Republican. But on the right, it's revealing a deep rift that may highlight why Republicans can't get it together for 2012.

One thing to note is, among Republican Presidential hopefuls, Romney is not alone. Over the two debates, when they're not reminding their right wing audiences about how awful Barack Obama is, there's been a remarkable willingness to question the army-first, warlike propensities of the conservative wing. Getting out of Afghanistan, even out of Iraq, reducing American presence in overseas conflicts are points made by a number of contendes, from Ron Paul to Herman Cain to Romney and Pawlenty as well. 

The blowback after the recent debate was surprisingly strong as well - over the weekend, the lions of the GOP SEnate roared back and insisted that America needed to continue to support military presence on a variety of fronts. John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Liz Cheney and others all cited Roney specifically and called his characterization of Afghanistan incorrect. That's pretty revealing of some pretty deep internal tensions. 

The media has labeled a lot of this "war weariness" with plenty of voices to point out that Afghanistan has lasted longer than Vietnam with less to show for it, which then likens are presence there to the Russian foray into Afghanistan in the seventies and eighties. I don't think either metaphor exactly holds, and I think "war weariness" is a mirage. America's been "war weary" since pretty much its founding. That hasn't stopped us from a lot of pointless killing and bombing of stuff.

What the Republican candidates are noting, really, is that it's fashionable, right now, to appeal to the national desire to see these wars end. That's a position that appeals to both the rural communities of Republicans where many soldiers come from, and the urban liberals who've opposed military intervention on principle all along. It's a rejection of foreign policy notions on the right that date back, at least, to Henry Kissinger. And, as much as anything happening in politics, it's a signal that long-established divisions between "left" and right" are breaking down.

This desire to cater to a national preference against war would be fine, except that as a foreign policy, it's incoherent. Agreeing to the ideas about drawing down troops in Afghanistan is approving of the Obama Administration, though the candidates insist that Obama's foreign policy is lousy, too. The opposition to NATO-led intervention in Libya - which is also a hallmark of the Presidential group - leaves few, if any, options for how American can be a force in the world. 

Republicans are in this place, of course, because the George W. Bush presidency was such a failure on so many levels. Bush's "freedom agenda" - an attempt to codify our policy of "good intentions" as doctrine - suggested a policy having little to do with our actual national interests. Claiming that we encourage "freedom" and "Democracy" everywhere is at odds with what we actually do and what we actually want in our foreign allies. It's why, for more than 30 years, Presidents of both parties quietly looked the other way as Hosni Mubarak ruled Egypt with an iron fist. It's why, for God's sake, George W. Bush tried to sell the notion that Vladimir Putin was somehow a good guy. Democracy, even as we practice it, is messy. Oligarchs and Despots may be problematic, but it does make negotiations a lot easier.

The failure of the Bush Administration to create and promote a sensible idea of a Republican approach to foreign policy - one that involved something other than the armed forces - has left Republicans with few real ideas on how to approach a changing world no longer interested in the idea of the US as the world's cop. Virtually all that's left - a Cold War hangover that makes China the last enemy - may have some visceral appeal to xenophobic conservatives, but offers no real answer to the challenges we face as a nation doing business and relating to other wealthy powerful players.

As with so much else about this election cycle, the real shame her is that the President and the Democratic Establishment may well succeed in reelecting President Obama with little real challenge to the status quo, when a robust debate is needed with some real competition among ideas. That Republicans will find themselves voicing discontent with the Afghanistan War, agitating more vocally than the left to end international interventions is both heartening and bewildering. Welcome to the quest to ask "War... what is it good for?" The real shame, though, will be watching them lose because of it.

Field Of Dreamzzzzz...

So today is the day when the Republican field gets more interesting because Jon Huntsman...

Oh, hell. I can't even finish that sentence.

If you (still) wonder why I haven't been writing, imagine how I feel. Faced with "maybe I can write about Michelle Bachmann" or "how about a stab at evaluating Jon Huntsman"... is it any wonder I've found myself more interested in watching The Vampire Diaries?

(No, seriously... turns out The Vampire Diaries is the next most awesome show ever. Seriously, dude.)

Even the professional election watchers - surely, by now, a most embarrassing and embarrassed group - have a hard time trying to make the upcoming election cycle interesting or compelling. Me, I can hardly be bothered. On the Democrat side, there's absolutely no choice but to watch the lurching efforts of Barack Obama's zombie reelection effort. While on the right, there's a Republican Party in spectacular disarray, flailing amongst a group of choices that can't possibly get worse... until it does.

So, then, is it really any surprise that a former Governor of Utah, who's recently served as Ambassador to China, fancies himself the great next hope of the GOP? Of course not. But try and find a Republican whose reaction to Huntsman's candidacy doesn't fall somewhere between "who?" and "that guy who spent the last few years working in the Obama Administration?" Just try. And then get back to me on how Huntsman should be taken seriously. I can't even muster the amused snorts of seriously contemplating liberals who say "Huntsman's got some real appeal" when what they mean is Huntsman's the kind of Republican only a Democrat can love.

Huntsman may manage to generate some primary heat - though between his Obama connections and his Mormonism, I'd say he's doomed from the start - but the idea that he'll be the Republican nominee seems ludicrous, and the idea that he poses serious competition for Barack Obama only more so. But then, that assessment follows for essentially the entire current field: none of them seem like especially inspired choices for the Republican nomination, and less like an alternative to four more years of Barack Obama, however dismal that prospect appears as well.

Michelle Bachmann? Oh, please. Get real.

I could wait some more and write pretty much this same piece in a month or two when, it seems, someone may convince Rick Perry that he, and only he, represents the hope of the GOP to win in 2012. Rick Perry, already, seems to be finding some sense in this. Rick Perry may represent, at best, the attempt of the GOP establishment to try and rein in the alternative of chaos. But Perry is such a spectacular disaster waiting to happen, I can't imagine even the most gullible Americans falling for the idea that a repeat of the George W. Bush act - in far less skillful clothing - will suffice.

With more than a year of this to go... I'm just disgusted. Which is not me writing from my happy place. Which is why, really, the prospect of being eaten by a male model gorgeous member of the undead seems like way more fun. I'm trying to keep my energy going to write about something... but it's hard, I gotta tell ya. Damn hard.

Friday Evening Floralude

 
jinb

The Explanation, This Time

So, I feel like I've been in this weird phase for a while, and a lot's happening outside of the blog world. And as much as I want to dive back into writing more, there's all these other things pulling me in different directions.

The past few days have been surprisingly helpful in getting me to clear some stuff up; and for me, it's like there's this shift of - how do I put it - tectonic plates within me before I can make the other changes to what's going on around me.

Anyway, it's all good. Work has been hectic (again), and it's also been hard, but I'm also getting back into doing more theater (which brings me a great deal of joy), and there's some other, deeper life change stuff going on. Plus, I miss my nephews.

And I have to admit, a lot of this political stuff going on right now is just dishearteneing. In any case, if I can get more than a few hours sleep, and a clear head when I'm not pushing coffee, I should have something up in the next few days. As always, thanks for being patient and not giving up on me. I'm not giving up on me, or this blog. As usual. :)

Friday Evening Floralude

 
jinb

"Tax The Rich" Isn't Just Some Lefty Slogan.

I don't usually bother with this, but Kevin Drum's invitation to respond is just too hard to miss:

Reading Tim Pawlenty's paean to double plus supply-side-ism yesterday made me wonder, once again, why conservatives think we liberals are opposed to it. I mean, if it actually worked, why would we be? It's politically popular, and by their accounts it would generate trillions of dollars in extra revenue that we could use to finance our beloved lefty social programs. What's not to like?

The only answer I can come up with is that conservatives are now completely invested in their theory that we liberals loathe rich people so much that we don't care. We all want to screw the wealthy so badly that we're willing to forego the elections we'd win and the mountains of revenue we'd gain if we lowered their taxes. We hate them that much.

Or is there some other wacky theory that's popular in conservative circles but that I'm unaware of?

There's a strain of liberal argument just now - I was mentioning it yesterday about the left's intellectual elite - that insists we pick these liberal ideas because we're so smart, so capable, so careful to analyze and think things through. This ignores a lot of natural biases and assumptions that people bring to these discussions. When I first started arguing with conservatives - probably in college, as I recall - I was surprised to discover - no, really, surprised - that they actually believed that stuff. It's a reality that I think is best illustrated, still, by arguments about abortion, where liberals who support abortion rights wonder why conservatives hate women, because who could possibly believe, so firmly, that abortion is murder? Or that, if you did believe abortion is murder, that a different line of argument naturally follows from that.

It would be nice if the reason liberals hated "supply side economics" was simply that "it doesn't work." But the idea that you can lower taxes and see gains in overall revenue - which does have some empirical evidence to back it up - is also very antithetical to how liberals approach tax policy. And while liberals may not "loathe rich people", it is a kind of standard assumption across the left that those who make more should pay significantly more in taxes. the vision of "progreesivity" in a progressive tax code, for progressives, is that the more you have, the more you pay in. That's just, you know, fair.

Let's be clear: I'm not pro-supply side, or pro Tim Pawlenty's absurd new economic proposal with its striking unseriousness. I've said, for more than ten years, that the Bush tax cuts were a terrible idea, should never have passed, and once passed should, fully, expire. I am one of those believers in a progressive tax code. But just as fundamentally, I believe that everyone needs to pay into the system, and that tax policy could stand to be more creative. If there's a "right mix of tax rates" that increases revenues, I'd generally favor it. And there is a point, I'm convinced, where raising tax rates simply diminishes overall returns, because rich people can move their resources easily, and because onerous tax rates do stifle economic activity in the private sector.

The point, Kevin, is that liberals do oppose supply side policies proposed by the right because the right proposes them. Because we don't believe, entirely, that supply side is popular, because, secretly, deep down, we think people will, if we explain it right, understand what we're trying to do - that when we say we want to help those in need by having us all contribute to the system, that people will favor that. Opposing low taxes and less government spending is instinctive, I think, for the liberal mindset. It doesn't add up. It means doing less for people in need. "If it actually worked"? Don't be absurd. It can't work. We know it can't work. We knew it couldn't work before they even tried to explain why it could.

The right doesn't think we liberals hate the rich. The right thinks - knows - that the left hates the right. That we dislike conservative ideas because they're conservative, because they come from conservatives, because it involves a view of the world we just don't share. The beauty, the miracle, the frustration of our American system is that we need each other, we need the tension of competing ideas, and we cannot make progress - even limited progress - without being willing to make compromises. That's why our tax policy is such a mess, while, at the same time, often working just fine.  Right now it doesn't, and we need a solution, probably, that combines both liberal and some reasonably conservative thinking on taxes. Whether the right can come off their ledge of "no tax increases ever" is one problem we have, a big one. The other problem, yes, is that "tax the rich" isn't just some lefty slogan - it's a belief system. And we lefties need to get beyond that, too.