Democrats, Wake Up!

Oh the wails from Waukesha...

Last night Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s campaign dealt a decisive blow to our party’s attempt to reverse, through a recall vote, the results of the 2010 election.  Governor Walker had won the 2010 election by a significant margin, and he'd proceeded to do what he’d promised during that campaign--to end collective bargaining rights for the bloated sector of public employees, and to enact fiscal reform in a state whose budget was pushing it into insolvency.  Yet Wisconsin Democrats fought for an election to recall him from office.  Walker defeated last night’s recall attempt not, as suggested by CNN, by a “narrow” margin, but by a wide and decisive one of 11%.  What's more, the lieutenant governor, also facing a recall election, was re-confirmed.  And then Republican candidates won the four State Senate seats up for election.  This in Wisconsin, traditionally a Democratic stronghold.

The results of the Wisconsin vote have been bitter for many, but it is a taste of what the Democratic party will receive come November unless the party’s leaders, and its rank and file, and President Obama’s political aides reform the party’s platform and discourse.

I urge them to do so now, starting here:

Stop treating our own who speak uncomfortable truths, truths that can save the party, as heretics. (Cory Booker is, in fact, righteous, heroic and right.)

Stop bashing productive businessmen, small or large.  Our country’s financial health depends on what they do.

Stop bashing bankers who act honestly and responsibly.  There are still a few and small businesses and large businesses depend upon them.

Propose REAL reform of Wall Street: if financial risk becomes socialized, profits must not be privatized.

Renounce the Occupy Wall Street movement.  It is not in any way, as has been argued by the NYT and others, like the Arab Spring, and the suggestion that it is is an insult to the brave Arab youth who stood up last year and this against murderous dictators.  The OWS movements have been a blight on the cities that hosted them; they became a rabble of unwashed and unemployed who in a number of instances committed rapes and other felonies.

In foreign affairs, stop treating our enemies better than our friends.

In domestic politics, stop treating our political adversaries like our enemies by demonizing them.  Stop criminalizing policy differences.

On Green Energy, be real.  Until it is “sustainable” (one of our own buzzwords) ours will be a carbon based economy.

On greenhouse gases, CO2 is not a “pollutant” but a part of the cycle of life.  Forests and plants need it.  When a cow sighs, a tree smiles.

Pass the Keystone legislation.  We now know what Dick Cheney was doing when he secretly huddled with oil men in 2000; he was plotting the long-term energy independence of America through the shale oil and gas revolution.  We should be thankful to him for that.  There is no longer a need to fund our enemies by buying it from any of those bad people who sit on top of it in Iran, Venezuela, or (since we’re still not sure about them) Russia.

(Addendum: we didn’t go to war with Saddam Hussein for oil.  If we wanted his oil we could have bought it from him.)

Stop pretending that the last decade’s conflicts, and matters of international and domestic security, are simple.  They involve a series of tragic choices, none of them attractive, but this is what our time has brought to us.

On counter-terrorism, stop blabbing about secret operations, and stop bragging about successful ones.  Take a cue from those we all know to be the actual heroes, the ones who put their lives on the line, and continue to do good work quietly.  

Embrace our returning warriors, help them find jobs and cherished places in society.  (Hint: the returning young leaders of our armed forces are set to become a formidable generation of political candidates.)

Stop baiting the “birthers.”  Our president, who was of course born in Hawaii, once as a young man opportunistically allowed his literary agent and publisher to market him as a Kenyan writer.  Everyone get over this.

Stop with the undertones of anti-Mormon bigotry.

Stop enacting regulations that force Catholic organizations to act against their beliefs.

We have coddled and even pandered to fringe elements who should be beyond the pale.  I mean Alinksy-ites and 9/11 Truthers.  We all know who Saul Alinsky was (and you do too John Cassidy of the New Yorker).  He was a Stalinist communist organizer who did his apprenticeship in the 1930s studying the rackets of Al Capone’s machine in Chicago.  His beliefs and methods do not belong within the Democratic Party of the United States.  As for those who believe the US government had anything to do with the planning or execution of the 9/11 plot, let them discuss such in a cafe east of Suez, but in any case we were wrong to tolerate them under the umbrella of our party.

As for those in the media loyal to the Democratic party, and that is most of you, you have done Democratic politicians no favor by reinforcing their delusions that they can hold the positions they do, act in the ways they do, and still be popular outside New York, DC and California.  Your readers and viewers are not fooled, and it has not made them love our politicians, or you.

Who and what, then, is the Democratic party?  It is the party of the great middle class (yes, there still is one), of working men and women, of people with compassion for the vulnerable, and for those starting out.  It’s the party that believes wealth, especially inherited or corporate wealth, should not play an undue role in elections. It’s the party that tries to makes sure everyone gets the same fair start.  It’s the party that works toward creating a nation where each of us, citizen or immigrant, candidate or accused, will be judged by what they have done, and on the content of their character.

Last night a bell was sounded, and there is now a long, challenging race to November.  Despite the Republicans' resounding defeat of our candidates in a solid blue state, there is still hope.  Democrats, wake up!

Where the Wild Things (Still) Are

In the second half of the last bloody century, a new model for rational man emerged... or so we were told.  With the ever-increasing union of the former nation states of Europe the peoples on this continent would transcend national identity.  International conflicts would be decided by law rather than war, and armies could be mostly disbanded leaving only rump forces for the purpose of humanitarian and peace-keeping operations.  Not only would war crimes be prosecuted at the Hague but a new body of law would be developed outlining "crimes against peace."  The European Union would ensure free movement of people across borders and goods across markets.  The EU would enforce a maximum 35 hour work week.   Death would be optional.

Okay maybe no one actually claimed this last, but in 1992 Francis Fukuyama argued that "history had ended."

Meanwhile, the Spanish banking system is right now creaking, and Greece is falling apart and will soon likely be dropped from the Eurozone.  The late twentieth century Eurocrat vision of a paradise for rational man is in some doubt.   Somehow apropos of this, last month, during a flight from Mexico back to London I picked up a copy of British Airways' High Life magazine and was struck by a portfolio of bizarre photos by Charles Freger.   This Frenchman had spent two years in remote pockets of Europe documenting the costumes of contemporary masked participants in ancient festivals in Europe.

 "Hirsute and horny," as the accompanying article explains, these were no New Age dabblers.  Gaze upon them.  It's not that paganism is making a comeback in Europe, but that in certain corners it apparently never went away.  Fréger's subjects were reclusive, and with the aid of ethnologists and translators he spent years conducting "granular research of the phenomenon, visiting remote pockets in eighteen European countries, from France to Finland, from Sardinia to Slovenia."

"Celebrating life and death, fertility and the cycle 
of the seasons, these masquerades were mainly captured by Fréger in the winter and spring, during key moments in the pagan calendar, such as solstices and equinoxes."

"Once disguised, the men often channel the creature they represent, be it a boar or goat or bear, the symbol of fertility."

"In one memorable encounter, Fréger embedded with the Mechkari (bears) in Macedonia. After three sleepless days wearing heavy animal skins and masks, dancing and drinking spirits, the men became, says Fréger, 'twisted in the mind'."

The High Life "Wilder Mann" feature, with text by Lucy Perceval, may be found HERE.

Charles Freger's website is HERE.

His book, Wilder Mann: The Image of the Savage (£25, Dewi Lewis), is out this month, with information HERE.

Roman Polanski's Short Film for Prada

Roman Polanski's latest entry for the Cannes Film Festival, billed as a "new work" and presented before the screening of a new print of his 1979 film Tess, is a short film entitled "A Therapy."  At less than four minutes, co-written with Ron Harwood, and starring Ben Kingsley and Helena Bonham-Carter (winners or nominees of Oscars and BAFTAs all of 'em), is this a short film, or is it instead a glorious advertisement?

Polanski's early short films, made in the 1950s and early 1960s when he was a film student in Poland, showed a precocious mastery of the form and are still watchable today.  This new film too is watchable, but not quite the revelation that those early films were.

Nonetheless, for your viewing pleasure...



Among Polanski's shorts, I especially recommend you see "Two Men and a Wardrobe" and "The Lamp," available along with others in this collection.

Here, below, is "Two Men and a Wardrobe."  Look for a young Polanski as the second assailant.

... to Mexico

                                                                                                                                    photo: JSL

I've landed in Mexico, to write about the Zona Maco art fair and the contemporary art world here.  Updates to come.

Recent Work by Ai Weiwei

... in the Lisson Gallery...

... and just outside the gallery.

- Lisson Street, London, 2011