"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis
Monday, February 08, 2010
While Obama Still Strives For Unattainable Bipartisan Consensus, GOP Sticks To Delegitimizing His Presidency & To Pure Obstructionism
This morning-- in a discussion on CNN about Sarah Palin's scrawled notes on her hand at the teabagger convention-- former Reagan advisor Ed Rollins mentioned that the Republican Party is an opposition party and its job isn't to get things done for the American people in Washington but to stop President Obama from getting anything done. This harkens back, somewhat more politely, to what shrill reactionaries like Rush Limbaugh and Jon Kyl were screeching from the day Obama was overwhelmingly elected president with an electoral vote of 265-173, most of the 173 being former breakaway Confederate states plus much of the Mormon West. From the very beginning, the obstructionist Republicans have done everything they could to demonize Obama in the minds of the most gullible Americans-- and they have quite the media empire to facilitate just that-- and to undermine his authority with outlandish claims that his presidency is somehow "illegitimate."
A cautious moderate, Obama has played into their treachery with his quest for a kind of bipartisanship they had already made clear they would never participate in. Yesterday, amidst all the hullabaloo over the Saints-- representing Blue America-- kicking the ass of the favored Colts-- representing Red America-- Obama announced a bipartisan forum for February 25 to sit down with leaders of both parties to work out the parameters for a healthcare reform bill. If it takes two to tango, this conference was D.O.A.
With the GOP united against the Democratic bill, Mr. Obama said Sunday he would ask Republicans "to put their ideas on the table." The half-day meeting will be Feb. 25 and broadcast live, the White House said.
"I want to come back and have a large meeting, Republicans and Democrats, to go through systematically all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward," the president told CBS in an interview broadcast Sunday.
In polling after the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts, it seemed clear that voters there want a better healthcare bill than the corporate-friendly bill in the Senate. Republicans choose to interpret Brown's election as though the voters (nationwide) are demanding even worse solutions than what the conservative Senate has hammered out. Republican reaction to Obama's invitation to work together was predictable-- and very much in line both with what Limbaugh said about wanting the president to fail and with what Rollins said today about not solving problems, just keeping the Democrats from solving them. In both cases, the underlying goal is to make the situation worse for Americans so that they react in anger against Democrats.
When the Republicans tried this after they caused the Great Depression and FDR was swept into office with majorities in both houses of Congress, FDR and the Democrats were deft enough to turn the obstructionism against Republicans. The GOP's 270-164 seat majority in the House in 1928 sank to a 218-216 majority in 1930 and then turned around when FDR won the presidency in 1932 to a Democratic landslide everywhere in the country, the GOP losing 101 seats in the House to give the Democrats a 313-117 majority. The 117 Republicans embarked on an identical program of hysterical obstructionism and name-calling. But FDR and his team-- unlike Obama's inept Chicago team led by the blustery incompetent Rahm Emanuel-- knew how to deal with the treacherous Republicans. (Perhaps if David Plouffe calls the shots instead of Emanuel, the Democrats' electoral fortunes will start looking more like 1934 and less like 1994.) In the 1934 midterms the GOP lost 14 more seats, and in 1936-- FDR's first re-election-- the GOP, still hell-bent on obstructionism, was dealt another mighty blow from the public. With 15 more seats lost, itts 103 minority was turned into an 88 seat rump. A similar pattern was taking place in the Senate, where the former GOP majority was gradually cut down to a total of 17 seats by 1936.
Both John Boehner, the GOP House leader, and Miss Mitch McConnell, the Senate leader, answered the president's call for bipartisan solutions with more hysterical right-wing posturing and extremist ideology. Boehner:
The American people have overwhelmingly rejected both of the job-killing trillion-dollar government takeover of health care bills passed by the House and Senate. The problem with the Democrats' health care bills is not that the American people don't understand them; the American people do understand them, and they don't like them.
"The best way to start on real, bipartisan reform would be to scrap those bills and focus on the kind of step-by-step improvements that will lower health care costs and expand access. The House Republican alternative, which would lower premiums by up to 10 percent while increasing access for Americans without health insurance, would be a solid starting point. I look forward to discussing these issues with the Democratic Leadership and the President."
The GOP "solution," as embodied in the "roadmap" prepared by Paul Ryan: gutting Medicare and Social Security and giving the wealthiest Americans bigger tax cuts in the hopes that some may trickle down to the rest of the country someday, although this has never worked in the history of mankind. And McConnell was just as discouraging of any kind of real intention of working together for the American people:
If we are to reach a bipartisan consensus, the White House can start by shelving the current health spending bill, and with it their goal of slashing a half trillion dollars from Medicare and raising a half trillion in new taxes. The American people want lower costs, not Medicare cuts and tax increases. Setting these proposals aside would be a sign that the administration and Democrats in Congress are listening to the country and are truly interested in a bipartisan approach.
“The fact is Senate Republicans held hundreds of town halls and met with their constituents across the country last year on the need for health care reform, outlining ideas for the step-by-step approach that Americans have asked for. And we know there are a number of issues with bipartisan support that we can start with when the 2,700-page bill is put on the shelf.”
Wall Street shill Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA-$3,677,585) speaks for the whole obstructionist GOP when he says that it doesn't matter that Obama won the presidency and that America elected more Democrats than Republicans in the House and in the Senate. If Obama wants GOP help to pass healthcare, he has to throw out all Democratic ideas and adopt the failed and rejected reactionary Republican ideology, which basicallyamounts to a Law of the Jungle (real death panels) approach:
After going it alone on health care reform for nearly a year, President Obama has decided he wants to bring Republicans into the conversation. Here’s the problem: unless the President and Speaker Pelosi are willing to scrap their government take over and hit the reset button, there’s not much to talk about.
Republicans believe the status quo is unacceptable, but so is any health reform package that spends money we don’t have or raises taxes on small businesses and working families in a recession. To that point, House Republicans have offered the only plan , that will lower health care costs, which is what the President said was the goal at the start of this debate.
Whether you're marking the birthday of Renoir, Meher Baba, Zeppo Marx, George Harrison or Carrot Top on February 25th, it's highly unlikely you will be celebrating any kind of a breakthrough that will make the healthcare system in America better for anyone other than the big insurance companies, which have spent so many millions of dollars bribing politicians and lying to the public.
Scott Lee Cohen-- Who's To Blame When The Party Gets Out Of Hand?
Sure, when Rahm Emanuel was DCCC chair he saddled Democrats with a brace of extremely reactionary candidates-- personal picks Heath Shuler and Tim Mahoney have been standouts, the former for being a congenital aisle crosser and an inhabitant of the cult-like Family house in DC where he rooms with Jim DeMint, and the latter, an actual Republican, for a spate of sex scandals-- but you can't always blame Democratic Party bosses for picking bad candidates. Creigh Deeds and Martha Coakley, two recent examples, both won vigorously contested primaries. Last night you probably read about another Democratic Party primary winner, Scott Lee Cohen, dropping out as the party's nominee for Illinois Lt Governor. Thank God.
Cohen would probably have sunk the entire Illinois Democratic ticket and would certainly have dragged Governor Pat Quinn-- who would have been yoked to him-- down to defeat. The short version:
For days, the pawn broker-turned Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor was dogged over allegations he abused anabolic steroids, went into fits of rage, sexually abused his then-wife, got behind in child support payments and held a knife to the throat of a former girlfriend who is a convicted prostitute.
The race would have been a godsend for the GOP. The man is actually of the caliber of David Vitter, and his departure from the race is the best news Democrats in Illinois have heard since he actually surprised everyone by winning the 6-way primary, spending over $2 million of his own money in the process.
Illinois Democratic leaders, foremost among them Michael Madigan, the party chair and state House speaker, pressured Cohen out of the race. Senator Dick Durbin, Illinois Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias and Gov. Quinn were also calling on Cohen to step aside for the good of the party. Mayor Daley had said the party was stuck with Cohen, refused to pressure him -- and blamed the press for not vetting him thoroughly during the campaign. It was as though he was reminding everyone of the good old days when the Mayor of Chicago picked the Democratic candidates for... well, everything.
Billy Kennedy Is Who The Founding Fathers Had In Mind When They Drew Up Plans For The House Of Representatives
It's only 6am here on the West Coast, but back in Watauga County in northwestern North Carolina it's 9 and Billy Kennedy is officially kicking off his uphill election campaign to replace one of Congress' most clueless members, mean-spirited reactionary Virginia Foxx. Right this moment Billy's at the Watauga County Courthouse Board of Elections in Boone meeting up with supporters who will caravan with him to the Wilkes County Heritage Museum in Wilkesboro, the Forsyth County Democratic Party headquarters in Winston-Salem and ultimately to the North Carolina Board of Elections at 506 North Harrington Street in Raleigh.
I spoke with Billy on the phone at great length this weekend, eager to gage if he could really be as good as everyone I know in North Carolina tells me he is. I walked away a believer and I asked him to write up in his own words what he said to me about not wanting to build himself a political career in Washington but wanting to serve his neighbors and help leave his daughters a better world. I'm sure he'll be a Blue America candidate soon-- board meeting next week-- but meanwhile, DownWithTyranny has an ActBlue page and you can contribute directly to Billy's campaign on it. The first half dozen people who do so today-- to the tune of at least $25-- will get a great hits CD from either Tanya Tucker, Lynn Anderson or Little Jimmy Dickens. Here's what Billy sent me yesterday:
I just finished talking to a supporter who picked up on some thoughts of mine during our conversation, and he asked me to write them down and send them to him.
My first thought was what did I say? Then I thought when will I find the time in this already busy campaign to do it?
So first I had to go feed my animals. They don't seem to have any idea that I'm running for Congress. It was snowing, a beautiful white dusk, with all the branches outlined against the sky. The ground was covered and crunchy, all clean with the new snow falling.
I know, I 'm supposed to be writing about how I don't want to spend the rest of my life in Washington, but it all is part of who I am. I've told a lot of people that it took me two months to convince my wife to agree to this run for office. Not just the campaign, but the prospect of winning and then going to DC to live! My daughter was especially concerned, but I assured her that we were not going to sell our house and farm and move away. This will always be our home and we hope to leave it to our children after we're gone.
I decided that I wanted to live in Western North Carolina 30 years ago and have mostly managed that, with a few limited stays away from here over the years. When I am away I appreciate it even more, and can't wait to return, but I also thoroughly enjoy the stimulation and energy of being in new places, urban as well as rural, and meeting and interacting with people.
We all have so much in common, even coming from different places and cultures. So I do not plan on making Washington my home forever. But I am willing to spend a few years working hard to bring some of the values and lessons I've learned so far, to a place where so many representatives seem to have gotten lost inside the beltway. I am worried about what motivates some people to want to be elected officials.
I believe in a government “of the people, by the people, for the people.” We need to elect people who have life experience and who want to help others, not just themselves. We need to elect people with different skills who can add to the problem solving that our times require. The demands of running for office are daunting, both financially and personally, but if only selfish or misguided people end up doing it, we all lose. I'm not willing to give up and let the wrong people ruin this great country for my kids or yours!
Without saying so directly, my parents instilled in me a sense of responsibility and confidence that I must do my part and can make a difference, for the better, in this life. So I am going to give this race my all and more. When the voters send me to Washington to replace a Representative who doesn’t represent us, I won't forget who I am or forget the people in the 5th District. I want to come home as often as possible and hear people's stories and struggles so that I can help them.
When I'm done I hope to return to my great life on the farm, and hopefully, still be able to make some furniture that will outlast me.
This is a challenge which we are ready to take on. We have to! The stakes are too high not to.
I don't see how anyone can tune into what Billy is saying and not want to help him!
Harold Ford Would Be Even Worse For New York Than An Actual Republican
Saturday's my birthday. I was born in New York City but I've now lived in California longer than I did in New York. Doesn't matter; I'll always been from NY. When I was 21 I spent a winter in a tiny hamlet in the Hindu Kush where no one spoke Farsi, let alone English. In fact no one had ever heard of the United States or experienced electricity. When I got back to Kabul in the spring my friends all noticed that my Brooklyn accent was as strong as ever-- although my Pashto was almost passable. I don't remember 10 words of Pashto (or Farsi/Dari) but my Brooklyn accent... I could still be living on East 17th Street between O and P, around the corner from Dubrow's or in Atlantic Towers on Homecrest Avenue just beyond Avenue Z. There's about as much a chance that someone would mistake me from an Afghan as for a Californian.
Soon after I first got to San Francisco a Sufi connection from the meditation center I worked at in Amsterdam got me a job at a p.r. firm off Union Square. One day I picked up the phone and there was a distressed, actually hysterical, woman on the line, a friend, she said, of my boss, and she was threatening to jump out of a window. I went into red alert mode and interrupted my boss, who calmly told me to put her on hold and get back to work. How inhuman, I thought. I went back to the damsel in distress and talked her off the ledge-- a proverbial one, it turned out, more or less. It was the beginning of a close friendship, which ended a few years ago when she was brutally murdered. Her father had been a notorious Mafia don; he had been brutally murdered too-- before I met her. He left her a lot of money; she was my first wealthy friend. I used to stay at her mansion in Pacific Heights and when I went to New York City I stayed in her snazzy apartment on Sutton Place, a part of New York I had heard of but never been too. It wasn't for people from Brooklyn.
Sutton Place gave me the creeps. It didn't smell like the NYC I knew. It smelled... like money; it smelled Republican. Oh, yes, there are Republicans in NYC. I once read a report on George W. Bush political donations by zip code. The biggest donor zip codes for his campaign where from Manhattan-- Sutton Place included. The Republicans in NYC hardly run for office anymore-- or if they do, it's as part of a freakshow like Giuliani or Bloomberg. If you hear about a Republican elected official in NYC, it's probably someone from Staten Island or maybe a sociopath from Queens. But the big Republican money in New York City doesn't go to waste. It goes to the state-- well that has been a waste-- and national parties and their candidates. But it also goes towards making the Democratic Party more.... well, more Republican.
It's not a coincidence that much of the power inside the Democratic Establishment is conservative power-- especially when it comes to financial matters. Wall Street wealth searches out amenable (i.e., easily corruptible if not ideologically predisposed) Democrats to nurture. That is certainly why Rahm Emanuel wound up in the House leadership after one term and why he's now the White House Chief-of-Staff. And it also goes a long way towards explaining Harold Ford's bid for a New York Senate seat.
Ford's Memphis House seat was part of the family business he inherited from his father, Harold Ford, Sr. The family's political shenanigans are a caricature of the kind of political corruption that preys on inner city populations. In the House Ford was the most conservative Democrat representing a major urban area in the country. And one of the most corrupt. To this day, when you look up who the Financial Sector has most favored, Harold Ford, Jr is still up near the top. In the entire history of the U.S. House of Representatives the only congressional criminals who have managed to rake in more than the $3,682,599 Big Finance gave Ford, are senators plus 4 members of the House expressly working on Wall Street-- ex-Chairman of the House Banking Subcommittee on Housing Rick Lazio, who went on to "work" as an executive vice president of JPMorgan Chase (R-NY- $6,424,123), ex-Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-MO- $5,094,782), Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Charlie Rangel ($4,602,317) and Ranking Republican on the House Financial Services Committee (and notorious insider-stock trader), Spencer Bachus (R-AL- $4,107,424. That's right, Big Finance has given more to their boy Ford than they have to their biggest and most corrupt GOP bets, Eric Cantor ($3,677,585), John Boehner ($3,369,029), Roy Blunt ($3,080,155), Pete Sessions ($2,929,240), Mark Kirk ($2,879,320), Bill McCollum ($2,722,300), Mike Castle ($2,684,612), Jeb Hensarling ($2,440,100), Tom DeLay ($2,261,566), David Dreier ($2,199,788) and Paul Ryan ($1,726,095).
Earlier today Maureen Dowd did a Times column about Ford's possible run in New York. She termed him "the darling of what he calls the 'Manhattan social philanthropic crowd.'” Not what you would have found around Dubrow's or Sheepshead Bay or at James Madison High School, where Ken and I were students, along with Chuck Schumer, Bernie Sanders, and, a few years earlier, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She describes Ford as a "Merrill Lynch rainmaker," a nice way of saying he used his influence to suck taxpayer dollars from our pockets and put it into the pockets of Wall Street fatcats-- like himself. He's currently a Vice-Chairman of Bank of America in charge of stealing taxpayer money.
[H]e gets pedicures and has breakfast at the Regency on Park Avenue (where Rielle Hunter famously picked up John Edwards by calling him “so hot”). He often gets chauffeured by MSNBC to his gigs on Morning Joe and has flown to the boroughs in a helicopter... There are top Democrats who find Ford too slick. “He could sell a snowball in a blizzard,” said one... Being a Wall Street bonus baby is not a plus. “I’m not running from the fact that I worked at a bank and brought in clients,” he said. “Am I proud of everything that went on? Of course not.”
He didn't give back the millions of dollars he's pocketed though-- so I guess he isn't that not proud. Ford is the living, breathing definition of the words "self-serving" and "sleazy," a stereotype of the very worst politics can throw up.
In 2006 the Blue America PAC enthusiastically endorsed Kirsten Gillibrand for her first-- and successful-- run for Congress. One fourth of all the money she raised online came from 584 Blue America donors. We didn't endorse her again in 2008 because she had joined the Blue Dog caucus and I was disappointed when she was appointed to Hillary Clinton's Senate seat. That said, she has been a decent senator (with a ProgressivePunch score of 97.90, not quite as good as Sherrod Brown's 99.32 or Sheldon Whitehouse's 98.64, but slightly better than Al Franken's 97.84 and Bernie Sanders' 96.99) and even as a Blue Dog was never a gratuitously conservative a-hole like Ford.
With solid progressive Jonathan Tasini as her only opponent in the primary, Blue America pretty much decided to steer clear of endorsing her-- and even considered endorsing Tasini. But then Wall Street's candidate stepped in and now we're wondering about this race again. Suggestions are welcome.
The Big Scary Gay Video CBS Was Afraid To Show You Today
I hope you enjoyed that! Now have a great Super Bowl but, first, consider a proposition. One of the Senate's most vicious homophobes, South Carolina reactionary Jim DeMint, is tweeting away his devotion to the Colts. A few days ago Ken explained why the whole DWT crew is rooting for New Orleans. How about every time the Saints score a touch down you give one dollar to Jennifer Brunner, a progressive Democrat who supports marriage equality and will balance out every crappy, bigoted vote DeMint ever takes if she gets into the Senate? You can do it here.
Did Ed Rendell Just Make Dangerous Wingnut Pat Toomey A U.S. Senator?
I really don't want to sound as paranoid as a tea partier but sometimes I almost wonder if largely conservative Democratic insiders want Republicans, more reliably conservative than Democrats, to be able to hold an effective veto over... well, everything. Yesterday, as Mike Stark illustrated so poignantly, the Pennsylvania Democratic Party just about handed a far worse Republican than Scott Brown a Senate seat.
Arlen Specter is a Republican who changed the color of his team jersey from red to blue after polls showed that radical right extremist Pat Toomey would kick his ass in the closed Republican primary. Now it looks just as likely that Toomey will kick his ass in the general election as well. Joe Sestak offered the Democrats a way out-- which plenty of grassroots Democrats are taking him up on-- in the form of a primary. Specter is senile, incredibly corrupt, well known as the most mean-spirited and personally vicious member of the Senate, and conservative. Why should thinking grassroots Democrats even consider voting for him? Especially when they have someone like Joe Sestak as an alternative-- who isn't senile, isn't corrupt or vicious, and isn't conservative. Here's what Sestak's campaign had to say about the Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee, firmly controlled by Gov. Ed Rendell, endorsing Specter:
"The establishment has long made it known that it struck a deal to anoint the long-time Republican Senator. But as we have visited 26 counties with more than 230 events in a month-plus, we have found that Pennsylvanians are tired of business as usual and are ready to turn the page on a generation of deal-making done to maintain the status quo. This is another event in the hundreds more we will have in the campaign and we do want to gain the votes of those in attendance for the primary and the general election.
"At the debate last night, Senator Specter said he supports the 'basic values of the Democratic Party' after he spent the last 30 years voting against them. Joe Sestak actually believes in our Democratic principles because he believes in our working families. We look forward to continuing to spread a message of accountability for the working family and integrity as a public servant while campaigning across the state in the months to come."
Sunday Classics: Super Bowl Special -- Finally we piece together the Mahler 2nd and 3rd Symphonies
The first half of our old friend the Scherzo (3rd movement) of the Mahler Third Symphony, from Leonard Bernstein's April 1972 video recording with the Vienna Philharmonic -- not nearly as good as his earlier and later audio recordings with the NY Phil, but what are you gonna do? (The second half of the movement is here.)
by Ken
We've already done most of the work, so we're not going to need much talk today. For weeks now we've been puttering around the three symphonies, Nos. 2-4, that Mahler wrote during the period of his preoccupation with the folk-poetry collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth's Magic Horn -- see also here and here). We've even heard the whole of the deceptively simple "little" Fourth Symphony. Now it's time to put the monumental Second and Third Symphonies together.
* * * * *
MAHLER: Symphony No. 2 in C minor (Resurrection)
We've already heard how Mahler transformed his delicious Wunderhorn setting "Des Antonius von Paduas Fischpredigt" ("Anthony of Padua's Fish Sermon") into the Scherzo (3rd movement) of the Second Symphony (first here, then here and here). We've heard how the Scherzo's suspended ending, taken over from the song, leads directly into his haunting setting for alto solo of the Wunderhorn poem "Urlicht" ("Primal Light," 4th movement -- first here, then here, here, and here). And last night we took the plunge, venturing beyond "Urlicht" into the vast expanse of the finale, incorporating Mahler's own souped-up version of Klopstock's "Resurrection" ode.
Let's take a deep breath and hear them all put together. I've chosen two recordings by the Vienna Philharmonic, which was once Mahler's own orchestra, and probably represented (and to the extent that modern orchestras retain a sonic imprint of their former selves, still represents) his idea of what an orchestra might sound like. When the Boulez recording appeared, one of the last installments in his DG Mahler symphony cycle, I was pleasantly surprised at how compellingly dynamic it is -- this isn't a quality one necessarily expects in a Boulez performance. The Maazel recording, meanwhile, is chosen just as a fine, all-around, beautifully played and sung performance.
(The Maazel recording is also chosen in part, I admit, as an intended poke in the eye of that pompous twit Norman Lebrecht, who declared it one of his ten all-time worst classical recordings. Lebrecht some time back anointed himself the clear-eyed gadfly of the classical music world, which might have been useful, and indeed he has asked lots of pertinent, interesting questions about our world. The only problem is that most of his answers are nonsense. A good 25 percent of what he writes is flat-out wrong, factually or otherwise, and another 50 percent is really stinky bullshit.)
MAHLER: Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection), mvmts 3-5
iii. In ruhig fliessender Bewegung (In calmly flowing tempo) iv. "Urlicht" ("Primal Light"): Sehr feierlich, aber schlicht (Very solemn, but simple)
O rosebud red! Man lies in the greatest need. Man lies in the greatest anguish. Far rather would I be in heaven.
Then I came to a broad path. Then a little angel came and wanted to send me away. But no! I didn't let myself be sent away.
I am from God, I want to return to God. Dear God will give me a little light, will light me all the way to eternal blessed life.
v. Im tempo des Scherzos (In the tempo of the Scherzo)
Rise again, yes, rise again, Will you My dust, After a brief rest! Immortal life! Immortal life Will He who called you, give you.
To bloom again you are sown! The Lord of the harvest goes And gathers in, like sheaves, Us together, who died.
ALTO O believe, my heart, O believe: Nothing to you is lost! Yours is, yes yours, is what you desired Yours, what you have loved What you have fought for! SOPRANO O believe, You were not born for nothing! Have not for nothing, lived, suffered! CHORUS What was created, That must pass. What has passed, rise again!
Leave off your trembling! Prepare yourself, prepare yourself to live!
ALTO O pain, you penetrator of all things! From you, I have been wrested! SOPRANO O death, you masterer of all things! Now, are you conquered! With wings that I won for myself In love’s fierce striving, I will soar upwards To the light which no eye has penetrated! Its wing that I won is expanded, and I fly up.
I will die in order to live.
Rise again, yes, rise again, Will you, my heart, in an instant! That for which you suffered, It lead you to God!
iii. In ruhig fliessender Bewegung (In calmly flowing tempo)
iv. "Urlicht" ("Primal Light")
v. Im tempo des Scherzos (In the tempo of the Scherzo)
[final "Auferstehn" section at 33:00] Christine Schäfer, soprano (in v); Michelle DeYoung, mezzo-soprano (in iv and v); Vienna Singverein (in v), Vienna Philharmonic, Pierre Boulez, cond. DG, recorded May-June 2005
iii. In ruhig fliessender Bewegung (In calmly flowing tempo)
iv. "Urlicht" ("Primal Light")
v. Im tempo des Scherzos (In the tempo of the Scherzo)
Eva Marton (in v) and Jessye Norman (in iv and v), sopranos; Vienna State Opera Concert Chorus (in v), Vienna Philharmonic, Lorin Maazel, cond. CBS/Sony, recorded Jan. 5-10, 1983 [note: Jessye Norman, with that famously voluptuous, contraltolike lower range, is singing the mezzo part here, so she's the one who sings that gorgeous "Urlicht"]
Of course you want to hear the missing first two movements, the snarling opening Totenfeier ("Death Memorial" -- 25 minutes in the performance we're about to hear, which is impressively long until you measure it against the 35-minute finale) and Mahler's tribute of sorts to the minuet. I've chosen this live performance by Klaus Tennstedt, not because I disdain his studio-recorded Mahler cycle with the London Philharmonic, which in fact I quite love. This is one case where the CD edition impressed me in a way that the LPs hadn't. I thnk Tennstedt's dark (I've described it as "nocturnal"), elegantly relentless vision is captured beautifully. But yes, Tennstedt's live performances often do offer a little something extra on the intensity meter, and this is also a performance you're perhaps less likely to have heard.
By way of "link-up," I've included Tennstedt's Scherzo, so we get to hear one more round of Father Anthony with his river-dwelling parishioners.
MAHLER: Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection), mvmts 1-3
i. Allegro maestoso
ii. Andante moderato
iii. In ruhig fliessender Bewegung (In calmly flowing tempo)
North German Radio (NDR) Symphony Orchestra, Klaus Tennstedt, cond. Live performance in Hamburg, Sept. 29, 1980
* * * * *
MAHLER: Symphony No. 3 in D minor
Friday night we added the 4th movement setting for alto solo of Nietzsche's "O Mensch! Gib acht!" (from Also sprach Zarathustra) to our previous components: the orchestral Scherzo expanded from the Wunderhorn song "Auflösung im Sommer" ("Transition in Summer" -- first here, then here); the 5th movement setting for boys' chorus, women's chorus, and alto solo of the Wunderhorn poem "Es sungen drei Engel" ("Three Angels Were Singing" -- first here, then here and here); and the 6th movement, the glorious final adagio.
Which means that we're now in position to string togther the 3rd through 6th movements of Mahler's longest symphony.
For those of us with longish memories, it's astonishing that nowadays there's hardly an orchestra in the world, down to the humblest community ensemble (okay, that may be an exaggeration, though I'm frightened at what a YouTube search might turn up), that doesn't play the Mahler Third. First, it's astonishing that there's demand for all those orchestras to play a piece that for so long was scorned and ridiculed. Second, this is a piece that strains the symphony orchestra's resources to the limit, requiring not only the ultimate in precision and chamberlike delicacy and the fullest range of dynamics and colors, but the maximum sheer force of which an orchestra is capable.
The Chcago Symphony under Georg Solti certainly qualifies. Their 1982 recording may not be the most probing or soulful, but it's a gorgeous piece of work (Solti's Mahler doesn't seem much in favor among the Mahler faithful, which seems to me wasteful, given the depth of his knowledge of and love for the music, and the uniquely un-neurotic confidence and flair he developed with it), and we get to hear onetime dramatic soprano Helga Dernesch (Herbert von Karajan's Fidelio, Brünnhilde, and Isolde) settled happily in the mezzo range. (Her Fricka in both Das Rheingold and Die Walküre in San Francisco in 1985 is one of my really happy musical memories, and she did such a bang-up job as Mrs. Peachum in the Mauceri-Decca Threepenny Opera, it's a shame she didn't get a crack at the imperious Leocadia Begbick in the Brecht-Weill Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny.)
So it's no surprise coming from the Chicago Symphony, but would you expect the Dallas Symphony to produce a Mahler Third of this caliber? I was quite blown away by Andrew Litton's Delos recordings with them of both the Resurrection and Third Symphonies.
MAHLER: Symphony No. 3, mvmts 3-6
iii. Comodo. Scherzando. Ohne Hast. (Comfortably. Jokingly. Without haste.) iv. "O Mensch! Gib acht!" ("O man! Beware!"): Sehr langsam. Misterioso. (Very slow. Mysterious.)
O man! Take heed! What says the deep midnight? "I slept, I slept -- , from a deep dream have I awoken: -- the world is deep, and deeper than the day has thought. Deep is its pain -- , joy -- deeper still than heartache. Pain says: Pass away! But all joy seeks eternity -- , -- seeks deep, deep eternity!"
v. "Es sungen drei Engel" ("Three Angels Were Singing"): Lustig im Tempo und keck im Ausdruck (Merry in tempo and saucy in expression)
Three angels sang a sweet song, with blessed joy it rang in heaven. They shouted too for joy that Peter was free from sin!
And as Lord Jesus sat at the table with his twelve disciples and ate the evening meal, Lord Jesus said: "Why do you stand here? When I look at you, you are weeping!"
"And should I not weep, kind God? I have violated the ten commandments! I wander and weep bitterly! O come and take pity on me!"
"If you have violated the ten commandments, then fall on your knees and pray to God! Love only God for all time! So will you gain heavenly joy."
The heavenly joy is a blessed city, the heavenly joy that has no end! The heavenly joy was granted to Peter through Jesus, and to all mankind for eternal bliss.
vi. Langsam. Ruhevoll. Empfunden. (Slow. Reposeful. Deeply felt.)
iii. Comodo. Scherzando. Ohne Hast. (Comfortably. Jokingly. Without haste.)
iv. "O Mensch! Gib acht!" ("O man! Beware!")
v. "Es sungen drei Engel" ("Three Angels Were Singing")
vi. Langsam. Ruhevoll. Empfunden. (Slow. Reposeful. Deeply felt.)
Helga Dernesch, mezzo-soprano (in iv and v); Glen Ellyn Children's Chorus, women of the Chicago Symphony Chorus (in v); Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded Nov. 13-16, 1982
iii. Comodo. Scherzando. Ohne Hast. (Comfortably. Jokingly. Without haste.)
iv. "O Mensch! Gib acht!" ("O man! Beware!")
v. "Es sungen drei Engel" ("Three Angels Were Singing")
vi. Langsam. Ruhevoll. Empfunden. (Slow. Reposeful. Deeply felt.)
Nathalie Stutzman, mezzo-soprano (in iv and v); Texas Boys Choir, women of the Dallas Symphony Chorus (in v); Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Litton, cond. Delos, recorded May 14-19, 1998
It's dangerous to go making up rules about most anything, as I just did about the orchestral standard required to approach a piece like the Mahler Third. For one thing, through sheer repetition the piece has become infinitely more familiar and so, somehow, more accessible, to more humble orchestras. That happens. All sorts of music that was once considered "unplayable" over time has become, if not exactly easy, then at least readily manageable.
Even this new rule I've just made up, in the face of necessity, doesn't help us with the performance we're about to hear, which dates back to 1969, when the piece was still infrequently performed and hardly familiar to most orchestras or audiences. The well-intentioned but meagerly funded and modestly staffed Hallé Orchestra certainly wouldn't have been the orchestra one would have wished to hear undertake it. Which suggests that we have to point a finger at the conductor, and indeed Sir John Barbirolli had taken to Mahler in a big way in the '50s, and the music clearly stirred something in him that wouldn't have been predicted from his combined Italian and English roots.
And so it turns out that (uh-oh, sounds like yet another rule coming) even an orchestra not fully up to the demands of the Mahler Third may, in the right hands, take us closer to the heart of the piece than a better-endowed ensemble under less knowing direction, and so, rather to my surprise too, I've chosen the Hallé Orchestra under Sir John for our first hearing together of the first two movements -- and then once again we're going to "link up" by continuing on with the 3rd movement. The mammoth 1st movement of the Third, which roughly duplicates the roughly 35-minute length of the finale of the Second, is the movement that, as I noted, Bruno Walter declared himself sure the Devil had gotten into, explaining his disinclination to perform the symphony.
MAHLER: Symphony No. 3, mvmts 1-3
i. Kräftig. Entschieden. (Powerful. Emphatic.)
ii. Tempo di menuetto. Sehr mässig. (In minuet tempo. Very massive.)
iii. Comodo. Scherzando. Ohne Hast. (Comfortably. Jokingly. Without haste.)
Hallé Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli, cond. BBC Legends, recorded live in Manchester, May 3, 1969
A NOTE IN PASSING (ON WHAT -- IF ANYTHING -- WE'RE DOING HERE)
We just had what I think was an interesting exchange in the comments section of last night's post focusing on the finale of the Resurrection Symphony. The commenter distilled his unresponsiveness to Mahler quite plausibly: "Mahler broken down into little segments is great, it's just if you put them all together I go sound to sleep."
This is legitimate and important, and I wanted to share my response with the group, such as it is:
Thanks for checking back in, Anon. Not to worry, I never thought of taking the comment personally -- it was directed at Mahler, and goodness knows he had a thick hide on the subject of his music. He trusted, though, that in time listeners would develop a capacity to take in what he was serving up.
I really mean it when I say that not all music is meant for all listeners. The tricky thing is finding your way to the music that does do the trick for you. In my own case, a lot of the music I now love the most took a fair amount of patience to "get into," and involved a certain amount of initial trust -- as long as there was some point of contact to keep me coming back, there was the possibility of an amazing relationship developing.
I just realized that, purely by coincidence (?), I've got Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde playing, and we're in the great final song, "The Farewell." I'm sure I didn't begin to understand or even properly appreciate its half-hour expanse the first 20 or 30 times I heard it. Something kept me coming back, though, and over time it became one of the stretches of music that not only entertains and moves me most deeply, but tells me most about the experience of both living and dying. And that said, I now find that my "favorite" movement of Das Lied isn't that great concluding farewell, but the opening "Drinking Song of Earthly Despair." I never saw that one coming! It just happened over time.
Anyway, I wanted to make clear that I do appreciate and respect the comment!
I've already expressed unease about how long our Mahler project was drawing out, knowing that it would try the patience of some reader-listeners. And I have to apologize for that. At the same time, I didn't see any way to speed up the process we'd begun. There isn't any music I cherish more, and I didn't want to give up the chance to help it reach listeners who might not have experienced it.
In that regard, I was aware even last night that I'd let down the cause. Once the great finale of the Resurrection Symphony was broken down into those manageable bits (and not by me, I should note, but by the DG music presenters who chose to insert all those track points on the CD), I assumed I would have some pithy, helpful observation to make about each bit. Partly because the manual labor required to get all of that into bloggable form was so time-consuming and wearying, I found I didn't have much that was either pithy or potentially helpful to say. (I found myself thinking mostly, "Hey, wouldja listen to that?" So, especially with the clock ticking (tick-tock, tick-tock), I just let it go. That's something I'm going to have to work harder at.
I really don't like telling people how to listen. What I've come to understand -- it will sound pathetically obvious, but at least to me it sure wasn't -- is that the process of developing a relationship with great music involves more than anything finding one's own way of listening. There are an infinite number of ways that this process can be influenced and helped, and even the bad old "music appreciation" efforts I disdain could have the value of simply focusing a listener's attention productively.
What makes Leonard Bernstein's musical commentaries, including the Young People's Concerts, so valuable is that something, or probably a whole bunch of things, in the way he thought, harnessed to his passion for music, made it possible for him to find tangible connections in music that listeners who were receptive to his manner could readily relate to and that would stimulate and enrich their own way of listening. He wasn't necessarily giving us the whole truth about the music, which would have been impossible in any case, but he had a genius for finding and communicating features of a piece which might trigger a listener's imagination.
If you want to appreciate just how difficult this is, ask yourself who else has been able to do this. It's not for want of trying. By now there have been thousands of imitations of Lenny's YPCs. What there's never been, to my knowledge, is another Lenny. No, wait, that's not what I mean. It's true, but beside the point. I'm sure that in various times and places there have been other lecturers and commentators who have produced truly useful lectures and commentary, and more power to them. (As for the zillions of pretenders who have produced yawning travesties, well, they know who they are. Or do they?) But no one has yet found his or her way to doing anything remotely comparable to the job Maestro Bernstein did.
In the 1960 Mahler YPC I wrote about last week, he broke down a series of dualities he found in Mahler, among which one of the strongest was the tension between being simultaneously a conductor and a composer, which, as he explained, he could readily identify with, since he was in the same position. And he was remarkably good at both. Just to have created the four or five minutes of the Overture to Candide is an achievement most of us can't match in a lifetime.
Pakistan Isn't Cambodia But Afghanistan Really Is A Lot Like Vietnam
I spend a lot of time on the phone with grassroots progressives from all over the country hoping to overcome nearly insurmountable odds and displace reactionary incumbents. Ever since my sewer-like experience with duplicitous Blue Dog Chris Carney, I've learned how to detect when someone is being sincere about their progressiveness or just playing me the way Carney did. Carney-like characters don't get more than the briefest of brittle hearings. So this post isn't about them. It's about good Democrats torn between supporting Obama and breaking with him over Afghanistan.
You've probably seen how difficult it is all through the netroots to find a common approach to this one. As you probably know, Blue America has opened a page strictly for people who go beyond campaign rhetoric against the war. The page, No Means No! highlights the 32 Democrats who voted against Obama's War Supplemental last June. The only way to get on the list is to vote against the war. (We made an exception for Mike Quigley because he campaigned against the war in a special election-- to fill Rahm Emanuel's House seat-- after the supplemental vote was taken and, when he won the seat, he got up on the House floor and made a barn-burning anti-war speech.) This spring there is likely to be another supplemental vote from the Obama Administration and I expect there will be a lot more than 32 (or 33) Democrats who will vote against it.
Candidates have a lot on their plates and I hate to bother them with more books to read. Rick Perlstein's Nixonland is close to 900 pretty dense pages, but it really is a must-read for anyone trying to understand the political lessons of the 70s U.S. involvement in Vietnam and how it applies to Afghanistan. On page 423 Perlstein recounts a letter the NY Times reprinted from 6 of the top Vietnam experts from the Rand Corporation, the country's top defense think tank at the time.
America should withdraw, they said, unilaterally and immediately-- not "conditioned upon agreement or performance by Hanoi or Saigon." They went on, "Short of destroying the entire country and its people, we cannot eliminate the enemy force in Vietnam by military means." Even further, if every enemy soldier or sympathizer was somehow magically eliminated, the other side would still not make "the kinds of concessions currently demanded"-- a divided Vietnam with the South overseen by a government that the people there thought fundamentally illegitimate. "'Military victory' is no longer the U.S. objective," despite what the American government told the American people, and that wasn't even the worst of the lies: "The importance to U.S. national interests of the future political complexion of South Vietnam has been greatly exaggerated as has the negative impact of the unilateral U.S. withdrawal"-- whose risks "will not be less after another year or more of American involvement."
That was less than 40 years ago. It only seems like yesterday to me. But it appears as though it just never happened in Obama's world. The conventional wisdom is about how awesomely smart and well-educated he is. Really? Then he doesn't have the excuse Bush and Cheney did. And Cambodia, unlike Pakistan, didn't have nuclear weapons-- or 173 million pissed off people.
Sunday Classics preview: "Prepare yourself to live!" -- Mahler and resurrection
The final 4:44 (our No. 11 below) of Mahler's Second Symphony, the Resurrection, with Bernard Haitink conducting the Concertgebouw Orchestra, with mezzo Jard van Nes and soprano Roberta Alexander, in 1984 -- our No. 11a comes at 1:40 of the clip, the grand final peroration (our No. 11b) at 2:14.
by Ken
We're bumping this edition of "preview" into DWT prime time because, even though as you'll see I'm not really undertaking to say much about the music itself, we're tackling one of the grandest monuments in the musical literature: the finale, the "Resurrection" movement (incorporating a setting of a somewhat custom-tailored version of Klopstock's ode "The Resurrection"), of Mahler's mighty Second Symphony, the Resurrection. Somehow this didn't read as a mere "preview."
So let's start with an anecdote.
A MAHLER SECOND SYMPHONY ANECDOTE
I wasn't a big fan of the "Europeanized" Leonard Bernstein of the '70s and '80s, when his tempos generally seemed to have slowed to a crawl and the playing he drew seemed to me to grow rather mooshy and shapeless. During this period, on one of his regular guest-conducting returns to the New York Philharmonic, he was scheduled to conduct one of his specialties, Mahler's Second Symphony, the Resurrection.
As it happened, the orchestra had recently instituted a policy of opening many of the orchestra's Thursday morning rehearsals, which is to say the rehearsal on the morning of what was normally the first of four performances (running through Tuesday night) of that week's subscription program, at a preposterously low price. Of course attendees were guests of the orchestra, which was there to work, and there was no guarantee that you would hear an actual performance. You might hear a run-through of one of the works on the program, or you might hear the conductor and orchestra quickly get up to speed on an as-yet-unrehearsed piece on the program, especially if it's one that the orchestra has played a lot. But it was a way of getting a glimpse at the rehearsal process, not to mention getting to hear some real music at dirt-cheap price.
There was indeed an open rehearsal for Lenny's Resurrection, and it turned out to be his first opportunity to rehearse with the Westminster Symphonic Chorus, which had been prepared only by its own conductor, who presumably had discussed basic interpretive issues with Maestro Bernstein to find out how the chorus was to be prepared. But of course that's not at all the same thing as having actually rehearsed with him. And clearly they didn't have a lot of rehearsal time available.
Now, the chorus's first entrance in the finale of the Resurrection, No. 8 in our breakdown below, which occurs at roughly the midpoint of the roughly 35-minute movement, is -- or can be -- one of the truly magical moments in music. The finale explodes out of the final chord of the fourth movement, Mahler's setting of the Des Knaben Wunderhorn poem "Urlicht," which by now should be an old friend. (We've heard it sung by Maureen Forrester (with Glenn Gould conducting!), by Christa Ludwig (her 1978 recording with Zubin Mehta and the Vienna Philharmonic), and by Janet Baker (with Otto Klemperer and the Bavarian Radio Symphony, in 1965).
There have been a number of false starts, when the audience might have expected to see that big chorus that's been sitting on its collective duff all evening finally start singing. But now is the moment, and Lenny clearly wanted that first "Auferstehn" to sound as if it was coming out of nowhere. He also wanted it slow, and I do mean slow! It was so slow, it didn't even seem to ge moving. Which certainly fit well with my not-wild-about-Lenny mood of the period.
When I mentioned this to my friend Sedgwick, whose life, I think it's fair to say, had been changed by Bernstein's Mahler, he insisted that I attend the Saturday night performance (yes, including getting me into it!). And it was one of the transcendent musical experiences of my life. What I think Lenny had been doing was preparing the chorus to sing the section even slower than he planned to do in performance, to prepare them mentally and physically for an even more exhausting ordeal -- and then the actual performances turned out to be, relatively speaking, a cinch.
It's my understanding that Lenny, the Philharmonic, and Deutsche Grammophon, for which he was then engaged in recording a final Mahler cycle with various orchestras, decided then that not only the Resurrection but the Third and Eighth Symphonies would have to be recorded in New York, however expensive that would be. Since Lenny was making all his recordings by then from live performances, this meant shoehorning the works into the already largely planned Philharmonic schedule. The Resurrection duly took place in April 1987 -- and proved to be an even slower performance than the 1986 one -- and the Third in November (same calendar year, but different seasons, of course -- 1986-87 and 1987-88. I understand that the Eighth was also scheduled, but Lenny died before that much-hoped-for event could take place. (To complete the audio cycle, DG used the audio from the 1975 Salzburg video recording of the Eighth, and also from the 1974 video recording of the Adagio of the Tenth.)
When the Resurrection recording came out, I thought oh for Lenny's sake this is just too damned slow. It took awhile, but eventually I came around.
MAHLER: Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection)
iv. "Urlicht" ("Primal Light") Sehr feierlich, aber schlicht (Very solemn, but simple) [6:18]
O rosebud red! Man lies in the greatest need. Man lies in the greatest anguish. Far rather would I be in heaven.
Then I came to a broad path. Then a little angel came and wanted to send me away. But no! I didn't let myself be sent away.
I am from God, I want to return to God. Dear God will give me a little light, will light me all the way to eternal blessed life.
v. Finale (1) Im Tempo des Scherzos. Wild herausfahrend. (In the tempo of the Scherzo. Driving out wildly.) [1:46]
v. Finale (2) Langsam (Slow) [3:59]
v. Finale (3) Im Anfang sehr zurückhaltend (At the start very held back) [1:19]
v. Finale (4) Wieder sehr breit (Very broad again) [3:42]
v. Finale (5) Molto ritenuto. Maestoso. (Suddenly very slowed. Majestic.) [4:16]
v. Finale (6) Wieder zurückhaltend (Held back again) [3:58]
v. Finale (7) Sehr langsam und gedehnt (Very slow and drawn out) [2:48]
v. Finale (8) Langsam. Misterioso. (Slow. Mysterious.) [4:10] "Auferstehn, ja auferstehn wirst du" ("Rise again, yes you will rise again") [chorus with soprano solo]
Rise again, yes, rise again, Will you My dust, After a brief rest! Immortal life! Immortal life Will He who called you, give you.
v. Finale (9) Langsam ppp. Nicht schleppen. (Slow ppp. Not dragged.) [3:57] "Wieder aufzublühn, wirst du gesät" ("To bloom again, you are sown") [soprano solo with chorus]
To bloom again you are sown! The Lord of the harvest goes And gathers in, like sheaves, Us together, who died.
v. Finale (10) Etwas bewegter (Somewhat more animated) [3:34] "O glaube, mein Herz, o glaube" ("O believe, my heart, o believe") [alto solo, soprano solo, chorus]
[a] at 2:36: "Hör auf zu beben" ("Leave off your trembling")
[b] at 3:08: "Bereite dich! Bereite dich zu leben!" ("Prepare yourself! Prepare yourself to live!")
ALTO O believe, my heart, o believe: Nothing to you is lost! Yours is, yes yours, is what you desired Yours, what you have loved What you have fought for! SOPRANO O believe, You were not born for nothing! Have not for nothing, lived, suffered! CHORUS What was created, That must pass. What has passed, rise again! [a] Leave off your trembling! [b] Prepare yourself, prepare yourself to live!
v. Finale (11) Mit Aufschwung, aber nicht eilen (With impetus, but not hurried) [5:09] "O Schmerz, du Alldurchdringer" ("O pain, you penetrator of all things") [alto and soprano solos and duet, chorus]
[a] at 1:44: "Sterben werd' ich um zu leben"
[b] at 2:17: "Auferstehn, ja auferstehn"
ALTO O pain, you penetrator of all things! From you, I have been wrested! SOPRANO O death, you masterer of all things! Now, are you conquered! With wings that I won for myself In love’s fierce striving, I will soar upwards To the light which no eye has penetrated! Its wing that I won is expanded, and I fly up. [a] I will die in order to live. [b] Rise again, yes, rise again, Will you, my heart, in an instant! That for which you suffered, It will lead you to God!
Barbara Hendricks, soprano; Christa Ludwig, mezzo-soprano; Westminster Choir, New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. DG, recorded live April 1987
AND FINALLY --
let's hear the whole thing put together. We go back here to Lenny's middle recording of the Resurrection, made in conjunction with the famous September 1973 performance in Ely Cathedral. (So no, this is not the soundtrack of the much-circulated video recording,which would become the first installment of an LB complete Mahler video cycle.)
MAHLER: Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection)
iv. "Urlicht" ("Primal Light") Sehr feierlich, aber schlicht (Very solemn, but simple) [6:03]
v. Finale Im Tempo des Scherzos. Wild herausfahrend. (In the tempo of the Scherzo. Driving out wildly.) [36:23] (1) 0:00, (2) 1:48, (3) 5:40, (4) 6:50, (5) 10:30, (6) 14:37, (7) 18:27, (8) 21:05, (9) 24:44, (10) 28:14, (10a) 30:32, (10b) 31:00, (11) 31:23, (11a) 33:05, (11b) 33:37
Sheila Armstrong, soprano; Janet Baker, mezzo-soprano; Edinburgh Festival Chorus, London Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded 1973-74
POSTSCRIPT: Not that her work here seems to me to call for any kind of apology or explanation, all the more so in view of Lenny's extremely broad tempo for "Urlicht," but perhaps more in a sense of wonder I note that Christa Ludwig was 59 at the time of this performance.
In last night's preview we added one more element to our survey of Mahler's Third Symphony. Tomorrow is the big day: We finally assemble all our elements of the Resurrection and Third Symphonies -- and throw in the first two movements of each, which we haven't even touched!
Will Teabagger Mayhem And Palin Interference Hand Democrats A Kentucky Senate Seat?
Unless you go out and speak with hordes of teabaggers at their own events, you might want to romanticize their movement into something more than pure racism and Know Nothing bigotry. You'd be making a mistake-- and that has largely been borne out this weekend in Nashville, starting with Tom Tancredo's xenophobic opening address (see above). The "Tea Party Movement" is mostly an unfocused ad hoc coalition of the paranoid, the racist, the angry, the extremely stoopid and brainwashed... people angry Obama won the presidency. On the teabagger-oriented video below, you'll hear Texas arch-reactionary Ron Paul carefully trying to distance himself from the excesses that really do define teabaggery, while hoping to exploit those same passions for his own "movement" (or career trajectory). He seems to be laboring under the delusion that the teabaggers are actually protesting deficits, flawed foreign policy, inflation and the monetary system rather than "anchor babies," "illegals," and poor Blacks achieving some kind of societal equality with poor whites.
In the end, Paul pretty much admits the teabaggers are a hodgepodge of fringe kooks with few unifying principles other than diffused anger at Washington. He says he prefers to talk with conservative college students. I bet he does! That's why Sarah Palin is getting the big $120,000 check from the teabagger organizers tonight and he isn't. She's not as cerebral and idealistic as Paul and her training on the national stage has taught her not to come off as blatantly racist and bigoted as Tancredo. Remember, until you scratch a bit below the surface, many teabaggers want to come off as quasi-respectable, just the way Germany's bourgeoisie did in the early 1930s when they were voting for Hitler's right-wing party. Today's Guardian points out perceptively that the "amid such a ragbag of phobias, paranoia and principles, one unifying force was support for the former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who will speak to the convention at its close tonight."
Ironically, Kentucky's mini-GOP civil war pits Paul's son, Rand-- with the high profile backing of Palin-- against Trey Grayson, the handpicked candidate of the boss of Kentucky's Republican Party Machine, Mitch "Miss" McConnell. Palin's candidate in NY-23, some kook named Hoffman, lost a solidly red seat for the GOP. In Massachusetts Scott Brown wisely kept her at arm's length-- as did the successful Republican gubernatorial candidates in Virginia and New Jersey late last year. Rand Paul, on the other hand, is running on her skirttails. Kentucky is... well, Kentucky.
She has thrown her support behind Rand Paul, a favorite of anti-establishment conservatives such as RedState.com and Gun Owners of America, who is running for Senate in Kentucky.
Palin waded into the race despite it being widely known among political insiders that McConnell backs Rand’s opponent, Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson.
GOP strategists in Washington believe Grayson has a much better chance of winning the general election but Palin has channeled conservatives' frustration over “go-along-to-get-along” Republicans in Washington.
Palin’s not-so-subtle challenge to McConnell’s political authority shows the overall difficulty GOP leaders have in taming the resurgent conservative base, which has made Palin and the Tea Party newly powerful political forces.
McConnell has not endorsed Grayson formally but he has worked for the candidate behind the scenes. He contributed $10,000 to Grayson through a leadership PAC and hosted a fundraiser for the candidate in New York.
Paul, a career doctor, has made clear [not really-- he flips back and forth constantly] that he is running against the GOP establishment. He said in a CNN interview Friday that he could win the May 18 primary without the help of party leaders in Washington. Earlier, he declined to promise that he would vote for McConnell to remain Senate leader if elected.
Palin, who will deliver the keynote address at the inaugural Tea Party Convention this weekend, said her support for Paul is designed to shake up Washington.
“While there are issues we disagree on, he and I are both in agreement that it’s time to shake up the status quo in Washington and stand for common-sense ideas,” Palin said in her statement of support.
“It shows that Sarah Palin is independent and not deferential to party leaders in DC,” said Brian Darling of the Heritage Foundation. “You have a split, you really have a Republican Party that is divided and it shows in the Kentucky race where you have the Senate leaders supporting one of the candidates and Sarah Palin another.”
“It’s going to be a high profile battle between two leaders of the Republican Party,” he said.
...McConnell has to be careful not to take on Paul directly because it could antagonize the portion of the party base that views him coolly, even skeptically.
“A big chunk of the Republican Party doesn’t care too much for Mitch MConnell, they think he’s too much the insider and too much the earmark man,” said Al Cross, a political pundit and director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky.
The emergence of the Tea Party and the hostility of its members toward the GOP establishment gives party leaders cause for concern because it reflects growing estrangement with the party base... It’s questionable whether Tea Party conservatives could develop enough strength and unity to upset the leadership hierarchy in Washington, but they certainly threaten to play havoc in primaries.
One DC insider said that Palin may regret her support for Paul because the candidate has taken stands that could prove controversial among Republican primary voters, such as opposing the war in Iraq. Paul has drawn criticism for saying that detainees from the Guantanamo Bay detention camp should be returned to their home countries. He has since recalibrated his position to say that Guantanamo should stay open for the short term and that suspected terrorists should stand trial before military tribunals and kept off U.S. soil.
“I don’t think Governor Palin knows very much about Rand Paul,” said a senior Republican aide who supports Grayson. “I can’t believe she thinks it would help her to support someone with the views he has.”
Kentucky political experts say boosting Paul may ultimately cost Republicans the seat in November.
“McConnell truly sees the prospect that the tea baggers could veer his party further to the right, far enough to the right to turn off moderates trending his way,” said Cross, using a derisive term for Tea Party activists.
“The Democrats best chance of winning the seat is for Rand Paul to be the nominee,” he said.
UPDATE: Palin's $120,000 Speech To Her Drooling Fanclub
Palin reading the joke Matthew Skelly wrote for her about Obama using a TelePromTer for set speeches from cards, and making a mockery out of the fake "Q&A" session by having the answers written on her palm, was only part of what made her performance so very sad last night. I was immediately reminded of the ending of Charles Pierce's book, Idiot America, which is, after all, in essence, a book about how someone with as little to offer as Sarah Palin could capture the imagination of 600 angry misfits and be broadcast on three national television networks. Writing about the Father of the Constitution, James Madison, he talks about ideas that would never occur to the self proclaimed "constitutionalists" gathered in Nashville, more widely known as teabaggers:
But we were supposed to keep things where they belonged, so their essential value would be enhanced and not diluted. Religion would remain transcendent, and not alloyed cheaply with politics. The entrepreneurial spirit used to sell goods would be different in kind from the one used to sell ideas. Our cranks, flourishing out there in the dying light, would somehow bring us around to a truth even they couldn't see.
We need our cranks more than ever, but we need them in their proper places. We've chained our imagination because we've decided it should function as truth. We've shackled it with the language of political power and the vocabulary of salesmanship.
Laugh all you want though; it's us who created this political Frankenstein that makes a mockery of the uniqueness and greatness of the United States.
which would become the first installment of an LB complete Mahler video cycle.)
