Republicans Just Wanna Help You

Our thanks today to Jonathan Chait of New York magazine,* who alerted us to an article in the Wall Street Journal in defense of the filibuster. Chait’s own article is entitled, “Is This the Dumbest Filibuster Defense Ever Written?” 

The authors of the WSJ piece are Mike Solon and Bill Greene, identified by Chait as 

former advisers to Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, respectively, and now (naturally) lobbyists.

Their defense of the filibuster, the way a minority of Senators can thwart the passage of legislation favored by a majority of that body, focuses on those citizens that the authors identify as “political innocents . . . political nobodies.” Solon and Greene see these Americans who spend their time

playing, praying, fishing, tailgating, reading, hunting, gardening, studying and caring for their children

—if allowed to exercise their political rights—having to spend their time 

rallying, canvassing, picketing, lobbying, protesting, texting, posting, parading and, above all, shouting.

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Now, the article by Solon** and Greene may well offer the “dumbest” defense of the filibuster, but it is totally in-line with standard Republican thinking. After all, don’t they want us all down on our knees praying rather than mobilizing to effect a fairer, more equal America? School prayer vs. desegregated schools—which side are Republicans on? Keep the “nobodies” from posting a mail-in ballot; restrict the franchise to the somebodies—who, miraculously, happen to be Republicans. 

A “dumb” but standard Republican argument.

*

As a further example of this standard thinking, consider the words of the Republican lovechild the economist Milton Friedman, as reported in the most recent issue of The New Republic*** In a speech in apartheid South Africa in 1976, Friedman rejected the principle of “one person, one vote.”

Voting, Friedman declared, was inescapably corrupt, a distorted “market” in which “special interests” inevitably dictated the course of public life. Most voters were “ill-informed.” Voting was a “highly weighted” process that created the illusion of social cooperation that whitewashed a reality of “coercion and force.” True democracy, Friedman insisted, was to be found not through the franchise, but the free market . . . . 

After 45 years, the Republican song remains the same:

“Political innocents,” “political nobodies,” “the ill-informed” have no business partaking in the political process, no business in deciding who should establish the laws that they must live by. Once upon a time, our colonial ancestors declared, “No taxation without representation.” Today, our Republican somebodies are dedicated to keep taxing the “nobodies” (not the rich), while preventing them from voting. 

“We the self-identified ‘informed’ know what’s good for you; don’t worry your little heads over it.”

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* https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/06/is-this-the-dumbest-filibuster-defense-ever-written.html

** Irony alert: According to Greek mythology, the name of the wise Athenian who gave the laws (democracy) to that city was Solon.

*** https://newrepublic.com/article/162623/milton-friedman-legacy-biden-government-spending

Q & A

Last night, the Montreal Canadiens defeated the Vegas Golden Knights 3-2 in overtime in game three of the Stanley Cup semi-finals. The Golden Knights looked to have the game sewed up, leading 2-1 with less than two minutes to play in regulation. However, the Golden Knights goaltender, Marc-Andre Fleury, bobbled a puck behind the goal line, sending it out to the front of the net, where Montreal’s Josh Anderson backhanded the tying goal into the unguarded net. Then in overtime, Anderson once again scored, giving the Canadiens a most improbable victory.

I did not stay around the broadcast to watch the post-game interviews. I hope that Fleury (by all reports a genuinely nice guy) did not have to undergo the inquisition- by-reporter that losers often have to endure. To me, asking athletes after a defeat to fess up their faults and errors is something just faintly short of a Maoist self-criticism punishment.

Mao provides a significant focus on the idea of self-criticism, dedicating a whole chapter of the Little Red Book to the issue. Mao saw "conscientious practice" of self-criticism as a quality that distinguished the Communist Party of China from other parties. Mao championed self-criticism saying "dust will accumulate if a room is not cleaned regularly, our faces will get dirty if they are not washed regularly. Our comrades' minds and our Party's work may also collect dust, and also need sweeping and washing.”*

*

I once had to deal with someone who would introduce criticism with the words: “How could you be so stupid as to . . .?” And who did not pose that as a rhetorical question. I was expected to self-flagellate by answering. At least afterwards I wasn’t sent to work on a pig farm in a distant province.

*

Even in the best of times, the questions asked of athletes are often an outpouring of inanities. One former athlete who is now a media person (and actually usually worth listening to) has the habit of framing questions like this: "John Doe has scored 20 goals this seasons; how has he affected your team?"

I am waiting for the day that Doe’s coach or teammate responds: "Doe is a waste of space. Yeah, he’s scored some goals, but he is a terribly selfish teammate who is hated by the rest of the players."

*

Perhaps the only way that athlete interviews can be enjoyable is for the interviewee to pull a Cristiano Ronaldo. CR7, as he likes to be known, at an interview session before the start of the 2020 European soccer tournament earlier in the week,** disposed of two bottles of Coca-Cola that had been placed alongside the table microphone, preferring "Agua!"

Ronaldo’s action had an immediate effect on the stock market valuation of that tournament sponsor.

The company’s share price dropped from $56.10 to $55.22 almost immediately after Ronaldo’s gesture, a 1.6% dip. The market value of Coca-Cola went from $242bn to $238bn – a drop of $4bn.***

His action almost made me want to root for Portugal. 

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*  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-criticism_(Marxism%E2%80%93Leninism)

**  Postponed from last year.

***  https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/jun/16/cristiano-ronaldo-snubs-coca-cola-billions-wiped-off-drink-giants-market-value

Reds Under the Beds

It has fallen upon me recently to educate media types about the dark period of American life after WWII called the Red Scare. For example, there was the writer of an article in a California magazine who regularly called the House Committee on Un-American Activities (usually referred to as HUAC) the “House Committee on Un-American Affairs,” a minor quibble, perhaps. Then there was a writer in a left-wing British magazine who claimed that the egregious Senator Joseph McCarthy was the harasser of Hollywood, when it was the above-referenced HUAC that was the culprit. McCarthy mainly took aim at alleged communists in government. Worst of all was the confusion by a writer of a book on cabaret who seemed to have no idea that Congress is a bi-cameral institution; he had Senator McCarthy in charge of the House of Representatives committee.

I have received no acknowledgements from the first two periodicals. The book writer I did not try to reach, deeming him a hopeless case, as his tome was so chock-full of errors that I stopped reading early on.

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I bring all this up as it seems we’re into a new chapter of the Red Scare—with a strange twist. Republicans—politicos and shleppers—have been shouting recently about communists, but with a bizarre choice of alleged reds. For example, the 2012 Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney:

Mitt Romney has been under fire from Republicans for quite some time over his condemnation of Donald Trump. At a state party convention Saturday in Utah, Mitt Romney was booed while taking the stage, shortly before a failed bid to censure him for voting to convict Donald Trump.

According to The Salt Lake Tribune, some called Romney a “traitor” and a “communist.”*

It had never occurred to me before that the GOP had once been promoting a commie as leader of their party.

Another recent example of this Republican obsession with finding reds is found in a New York Times article about cherries, of all things. Mask-wearing and politics have divided a Michigan community, leading to a split having to do with who shops at what cherry stand. The Times tells us that a kook named Randy Bishop, “sometimes called the ‘Rush Limbaugh of Antrim County,’ ”

will boycott King’s [one of the fruit stands] forever . . . “along with other progressive, communist business owners in this county.”**

So, in addition to looking for reds in the forefront of the Republican Party, we should beware of business owners, who, presumably, desire to have their enterprises appropriated by the state.

With the disappearance of actual communists, the word communist is devoid of substance but still loaded with powerful connotation—muy malo.

*

I sit here in silent hope that President Joe Biden in his Geneva conversation with ex-KGB apparatchik Vladimir Putin implored the Russian to resurrect the Soviet Union. That would bring real communists back into the world—and the Republicans could with truth assail Mischa in Moscow and Andrei in Arkhangelsk.

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*  https://thesource.com/2021/05/03/mitt-romney-booed-and-called-a-communist-at-republican-convention/https://thesource.com/2021/05/03/mitt-romney-booed-and-called-a-communist-at-republican-convention/

**  https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/michigan-masks-covid-farm-stands.html?action=click&module=Editors%20Picks&pgtype=Homepage

Your Life, Our Money

The 2021 French Open tennis championship will reach its climax this weekend at Roland Garros Stadium in Paris. However, the woman who is second-ranked in the world will not be on the court. Naomi Osaka withdrew from the tournament before the second round.  

Osaka had announced before the tournament that she would not participate in any post-match interviews. When she declined to appear before the microphones after her first-round victory, she was fined $15,000. But more importantly, she was warned that she would be barred from future participation in Grand Slam tournaments (i.e., Wimbledon, the US Open, and the Australian Open) if she persisted in refusing to appear for the interviews.

Osaka had predicated her refusal on the fact that she was concerned that negative questions about her play affected her mental health. On Instagram Osaka tried to explain herself further:

The truth is that I have suffered long bouts of depression since the US Open in 2018 and I have had a really hard time coping with that.

Naturally enough, in the perverted world we live in, many of the criticisms of Osaka revolved around money. For example, the New York Times referenced Donald Dell,“a founder of the men’s tour, the ATP, and a longtime agent and tournament promoter,” who said that

media access to the biggest stars is essential for the promotion of any sport, and vital to engaging its most loyal fans.

Access creates name recognition . . . . [I]t is part of the sport and part of trying to build a bigger sport.*

The Times goes on to say,

It can also have a direct effect on the bottom line. Sponsors often pay millions of dollars in part to have their names on banners behind top players at news conferences and to have their products, such as a bottle of water or an energy drink, next to the microphones in front of the athletes. If players do not have to attend those news conferences, the value of those deals could drop significantly.

So, put all your concerns about your physical and mental health behind you. Just keep greasing the wheels of  the commercial juggernaut. 

(Not that we have to worry about the economic welfare of Naomi Osaka. At 23 years of age, she earned $55 million last year.) 

*

Perhaps the best summation of the belief that money is the be-all and end-all is the following from The New Yorker:

Last December, a twenty-two-year-old employee surnamed Zhang at the e-commerce company Pinduoduo collapsed on the ground in the middle of the night, on her way home from work, and died six hours later, apparently from exhaustion and overwork. Two weeks later, another Pinduoduo employee leaped to his death, during a visit to his parents, reportedly after he was fired for criticizing the company’s work culture. In response to an outpouring of anger and grievance, the company appeared to dismiss Zhang’s death, posting a comment on its official social-media account: “Who hasn’t exchanged their life for money?”**

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*  https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/01/sports/tennis/naomi-osaka-french-open-media.html?searchResultPosition=12

 **   https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/chinas-involuted-generation#:~:text=Naming%20a%20condition%20like%20involution,deployed%20to%20describe%20many%20things.