Midterm 2022 Reflections: Red Ripple, Anyone?

 

<The Gift: LP cover, 1982>

"Get the trans-global express moving

And see our marvelous leaders quiver

They know if that happens

Their lazy days are over

The day the working people rise together...

"We'll all rest much more easy
The responsibility you must bear
When it's your own future in your hands

Maybe a hard one to face up to

But at least you will own yourself!"

The Jam, "Trans-Global Express" (The Gift)

<i.>

The bats are back in the belfry, the red wave fizzed into a red ripple, the Republicans' hostile electoral takeover has crashed and burned, and best of all, I don't have to howl, "The long arc bends, my ass!" That's one way of summing up our now-bygone midterm election ritual, which we'll discuss shortly.

I dreaded that November 8 date more than most, as I was scheduled to report election returns for the Associated Press, a gig that I've held for nearly a decade. If the elephant party was really enjoying a big night, I'd be one of those suckers stuck \watching it. Though I doubted all the "red wave" ballyhoo, like many progressives, I struggled to contain the many anxieties playing tricks with my mind. 

So many unknowns loomed. Had the pollsters somehow missed a hidden appetite for autocracy lingering at the ballot box? With so many nail-biting races predicted, how would the Democratic coalition hold? Would voters buy into the Republican kayfabe about inflation and income, or the mainstream media's narrative that cast Biden as the pinata of the hour?

As it turned out, none of those things happened, and I've honestly never felt more grateful for a particular outcome. The Highwayman's cartoon, published here on the eve of the big day, won't haunt my dreams after all. I won't have to draw on a different Jam song ("Funeral Pyre") for inspiration.

Instead, I'm leading off with lyrics from "Trans-Global Express," one of the keynote songs from The Jam's final studio outing, The Gift (1982), which soared to #1 UK on its March 1982 release, and spent 25 weeks on the charts there. In the US, it peaked at #82, marking the band's second best position (after Sound Affects, which topped out at #72, in 1981).

"Trans-Global Express" outlines a theme that Paul Weller often expressed, as he prepared to wind down The Jam that year. The lyrics call for workers to push back against oppressive political elites for a more equitable world, and gain a stronger say in their own lives. Now 40 years old, "Trans-Global Express" also contains lines that seem eerily prescient for today, as well ("All the things you ain't got no more/Keep us divided with their greed and hate/Keep you struggling to put food on your plate"). Or maybe that's just a nice way of saying, "Same shit, different day," right? 

In any case, Weller felt strongly enough about the "Trans-Global Express" concept to tweak it slightly, as the title of the Jam's final world outing (the Trans-Global Unity Express Tour), and closed side one of the original album with it. Unfortunately, I don't think the production does the song justice.  For the most part, I find it claustrophobic and cluttered, with most of the lyrics lost in the murk of an otherwise fine funk-dub track.

Hell, for years, I didn't even know what the lyrics were, until I researched them online, after being asked to deliver an invocation for my local church. But I figured they'd work a treat, as the opposite of the far right's nostalgic paradise. You know the scenario: some hellish mixture of the 1950s and 1980s, when America made no apologies for kicking ass, with those pesky minorities kept firmly in their place, with the little woman always expected to have a pot of meatloaf humming on the stove, black eye be damned.

As usual, Bernie had it right. 

As usual, the punditocracy missed it. 

What else is new?

"In dreams begin responsibilities." 

<W.B. Yeats>

“By preaching the doctrine that nothing is to be admired except the steel and concrete, one merely makes it a little surer that human beings will have no outlet for their surplus energy except in hatred and leader worship.”

<George Orwell>

<ii.>

As midterm fizzles go, this one proved pretty spectacular, though some faceplants loomed larger than others. Here in Michigan, the entire Republican ticket bottomed out, starting with Tudor Dixon's 10.6% loss to Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who won re-election by nearly 470,000 votes.

Voters dished out the sharpest electoral humiliations to Republicans Kristina Karamo, and Matthew DePerno, two of the creepiest, most unhinged wannabe authoritarians imaginable, whose respective campaigns for Secretary of State and Attorney General focused on one simple premise: "Just give us the levers of power, and we'll beat the hell out of our enemies, real or imagined, with them.""

Incumbent Jocelyn Benson crushed Karamo by a 13-point margin, while incumbent Dana Nessel made do with a smaller margin (7.6%), that reflected a bitter, hard-fought campaign, as her victory statement suggested: "For all the LGBTQ kids out there who were demonized, and whose lives were weaponized by sad and broken adults during this election cycle: You are good enough. Your lives and stories matter. God loves you just as you are. Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise." 

Trump had endorsed them both, of course. Still, I'm glad that neither Karamo nor DePerno will get a shot at engineering an electoral victory out of thin air for the man who elevated them to prominence. Nor will DePerno get to enforce an archaic 1931 law that criminalizes abortion, which also fell by the wayside, after Proposal 22-3 passed by a 13.3-point margin.

Women here regained their reproductive freedom, and other significant protections, such as freedom from prosecution, in case of miscarriages. Michigan's story mirrored similar measures that passed in California, Kentucky, Montana, and Vermont. The results came as a sharp retort to the Supreme Court's call to let state voters decide on what they viewed as right.

Michigan Republicans also lost their 40-year hammerlock on the State House and Senate, too -- an outcome that lifted Democrats to power in unlikely places. For example, Joey Andrews became the first Democrat to represent his Southwest Michigan district since 1964, when Floyd Mattheeussen rode the Lyndon Johnson landslide to a one-term tenure in Congress. Hopefully, Andrews will get to stick around a bit longer than that.

Nationally speaking, just one of Trump's gubernatorial picks won, in Nevada. Most of his Senate picks also tanked, with the notable exception of JD Vance, in Ohio. Even then, Vance had to campaign hard for his five- to six-point victory margin, while his unassuming counterpart, Mike DeWine, romped to a 25-point re-election win as Governor. You know it's a weird night when that happens, but there you go.

By and large, Trump's cadre of election deniers also flamed out at the ballot box. I'm gratified that the bug-eyed likes of Doug Mastriano (Pennsylvania) and Mark Finchem (Arizona), or cooler counterparts, like Kari Lake (Arizona), and Jim Marchant (Nevada), won't get to try their hand at turning our democracy into a far right hellscape. 

In the end, the Democratic coalition held together and then some, driven by outsized turnouts among young, Latino and independent voters, something the pundits never saw coming, either. As Obama's former campaign manager, David Plouffe, succinctly put it: "This should teach us a lesson, that voters always have the last word." Quite!

<Promo Poster, 1982:

Featuring the individual shots
of (L-R) drummer Rick Buckler, bassist Bruce Foxton,
and guitarist/frontman Paul Weller,
that showed them in running poses
(hence, the red, green and yellow shades
selected for the original album cover).>

<iii.>

So what should we make of all this, exactly? For me, the biggest takeaway is the canyon-sized gap between all breathless predictions of a Democratic rout, and how Election Night actually played out. That had been the mainstream media's prevailing narrative until June, when the Supreme Court's dunking of Roe v. Wade -- followed by the eagerness of GOP-dominated state legislatures to pile on, with so-called "trigger laws" -- suddenly made it seem unthinkable.

The narrative changed again this fall, when these types of headlines began carpet bombing my inbox: "Dems Are Suddenly Playing Defense On Abortion" (10/21)."Democrats Aim to Hold the Line Against Heavy Midterm Losses" (11/4). "Democrats Warn of Massive GOP Turnout In November" (9/23). "Democrats Worry They're Being Overshadowed In Arizona Governor's Race" (10/15). "Did The Democrats Peak Too Early?" (10/7). "Inflation Shifts Midterm Momentum Back To GOP" (9/30). "The State That Could Doom Democrats' Senate Chances" (9/27).

And those were just the headlines that I kept in my email! But just imagine the effects on an undecided voter who hadn't paid much attention. Had you read any of these headlines, you might have decided the whole shebang was already over, and stayed home. Thank God it didn't play out that way.

The same goes for a similar onslaught during those final weeks of negative poll stories, that showed mostly Democratic candidates in some dire strait or other. The problem? Much of the sourcing came from Republican-affiliated polling firms, like Trafalgar or Rasmussen, whose numbers have always raised eyebrows. Or should have raised more eyebrows, in this case.

In the end, Michael Moore -- whose predictions of a "blue tsunami" drew howls of laughter around the Beltway -- turned out to be the most accurate forecaster of 'em all (aside from Plouffe, perhaps). But, as he pointed out (see below), anyone outside the Beltway Bubble could have foreseen the outcome, if they'd applied a little common sense:

"We were lied to for months by the pundits and pollsters and the media. Voters had not ‘moved on’ from the Supreme Court’s decision to debase and humiliate women by taking federal control over their reproductive organs. Crime was not at the forefront of the voters ‘simple’ minds. Neither was the price of milk. It was their democracy that they came to fight for yesterday.”

I agree with Moore's other key observation, that Democrats should stop adopting a defensive crouch as their default stance. Yes, to nobody's great surprise, Trump has announced a third White House run in 2024 -- underwhelming results, or not -- because he has no Plan B, beyond trying to avoid getting fitted for an orange jumpsuit. (At least it'll match his makeup, if it happens.)

But Trump won't always be on the ballot to juice turnout, as Moore points out: "They may be trying to gin up the vote through fear – ‘This is going to happen so you’d better get your butts to polls’. They may think it’s noble, but I don’t think it’s noble at all."

Yet that sort of appeal may not work so well against up-and-comers like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, whose 20-point re-election victory gave the GOP one of its few bright spots on Election Night. DeSantis shares many of the qualities that Trump rode to success in 2016, but make the former President an increasing liability for 2024 -- the same brittle defensiveness, blinkered, grievance-fueled governance, outsized authoritarian instincts, and willingness to push his base's darkest, most primal buttons.

Unlike Trump, however, DeSantis seems far smarter and disciplined, without any of the baggage, which will require a different approach to fend off. The type of freeze-dried machine politics that backfired in New York -- where Republicans gained new unforeseen openings, after the courts tossed out a Democratically-tilted electoral map -- don't strike me as the right answer.

John Fetterman's successful Senate campaign in Pennsylvania offers a better way forward. Unlike many of his cohorts, Fetterman leaned into economic issues, like the $15 an hour minimum wage, and the need to pry healthcare away from the profit mongers. He went on the offensive from the start, and never let up. Through creative use of social media, Fetterman kept his TV doctor opponent, Mehmet Oz, constantly off balance, and scrambling to play catchup.

Most importantly, though, Fetterman defined himself as someone actually worth voting for: "I'm proud of what we ran on. Protecting a woman's right to choose, raising our wage, fighting for the union way of life, healthcare as a fundamental human right." I'm positive that posture played a critical part in lifting him over the finish line, instead of simply casting himself as the lesser, blander evil (Mainstream Democrat 101), or larger than life, "I alone can fix it" authoritarian messiah (Textbook Republican 101).

Even so, the most inspired campaigns in the world won't mean anything, unless progressives continue pushing for basic structural reforms -- like an end to gerrymandering -- that would make the system more responsive than it is now. Michigan's midterms, for example, marked the first districts redrawn by an independent citizen's commission that voters approved in 2018.

While the results weren't deemed ideal by Democrats or Republicans, they still created a more level playing field than observers had seen in decades -- forcing both parties to actually compete for the voters they desired, rather than cherry-picking them from some artificially crafted boundaries designed to keep the status quo forever. 

As I've joked to my friends, any map that ticks off Detroit Democrats and West Michigan Republicans can't be a bad thing. Without it, though, Michigan Democrats wouldn't have broken the logjam that prevented them from advancing their signature priorities. Now that they finally have, Whitmer and her allies should try doing exactly that. Showing people that government actually works is the best defense against extremism.

While there will always be some people who get some illicit thrill from marching around in camo drag, that doesn't mean the majority will join them, especially if their lot improves -- whether it means restoring the child tax credit, or passing the $15 an hour minimum wage. Combine those outcomes with an electoral and judicial system finally freed from its current dysfunction, and manipulation, and maybe then, we'll bring home some version of the Trans-Global Express, and the ideals that it represents. All aboard! --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Raise A Glass
To The Republic, As It Still Stands):

Lucid: Instead Of A Red Wave, The Midterms

Produced A Wave Of Firsts In American Politics:
https://lucid.substack.com/p/instead-of-a-red-wave-the-midterms

New York Times: Abortion On The Ballot:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/11/08/us/elections/results-abortion.html

The Guardian: "I Never Doubted It":
Why Film-maker Michael Moore Forecast "Blue Tsunami"...:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/14/us-midterms-film-maker-michael-moore-blue-tsunami

The Huffington Post: How John Fetterman's

"Punk Rock" Campaign Defeated Mehmet Oz:
https://news.yahoo.com/john-fetterman-punk-rock-campaign-104505922.html

Yahoo News: Five Myths That The 2022 Midterms Demolished:
https://news.yahoo.com/5-myths-that-the-2022-midterms-demolished-215620892.html

Yahoo News: What Voters Told Republicans In The Midterms:
https://news.yahoo.com/what-voters-told-republicans-in-the-midterm-elections-212302560.html

My Corona Diary (Take XXXV): It's 2022 Already. Feel Any Different Yet?

 

<"Here's Looking At You, Kid..."/

The Reckoner>

<i.>

Here's a rhetorical question that sums up New Year's Day perfectly for me. One of my Facebook friends asked, "Why do we celebrate merely making it from one end of the calendar to another?" It's a fitting one, especially when you consider how rough the last couple years have been -- from the onset of COVID-19, to the inevitable economic convulsions that accompanied it, and the twilight of the Trump era, as its Dear Leader plotted to hang onto the power that he saw slipping from his grasp (even though 84 million people told him so last November).

The Squawker and I kicked off 2022 in low-key fashion. Amid ominous rumblings of a heavy snowstorm gripping the Midwest, with four to eight inches expected for our area, we ordered an extra large pizza (delivered), and watch the usual barrage of special programs targeted at unwilling shut ins like ourselves. 

Hence, we opted for gentler, quirkier fare during the day, like a marathon of "Crikey! It's The Irwins." Seeing Australia's first family of animal rescue in the cavernously hollow space of their massive zoo was truly surreal, as Steve Irwin's widow, Terri, recounted the challenges of struggling to feed 1,200 animals when the COVID-19 bomb dropped. "Definitely not an experience for the faint-hearted," I told myself.

Our choices got progressively quirkier and darker as the night wore on. I caught the first half of a "Columbo" howcatchem I've seen before, I think -- "Publish Or Perish," featuring Jack Cassidy one of the oiliest, most slippery villains ever to grace the show. 

More commonly identified these days as David Cassidy's/Keith Partirdge's late father, Jack really got around '70s TV, typically playing a heel who's there to get his comeuppance -- but few people played those roles with such zest and relish. (Or, as his Wikipedia bio describes it: "His frequent professional persona was an urbane, witty, confident egotist with a dramatic flair." That's a fair description, I think.)

I wrapped up the night with "Disappeared: Finding Andrea," a four-part look at the disappearance of Andrea Knabel, a single mother of two who -- wait for it -- often volunteered to look for missing persons. "How surreal is that?" I asked Squawker. "How safe can anybody feel, when the finder of missing persons goes missing?"

The Squawker let out a short, sharp sigh, and leaned forward on the couch, where an art project needed closer attention. "I can't believe we're starting three years of this." I didn't have to guess what that last word meant. "I'm waiting till spring, and then, I'm living my life. I can't deal take anymore of this."

It's 2022 already. Feel any different yet? I thought so.

<Setting Sons/The Jam:
Front Cover (1979)*

Meet me on the wastelands - later this day

We'll sit and talk and hold hands maybe

For there's not much else 

to do in this drab and colorless place...

We'll sit amongst the rubber tires

Amongst the discarded bric-a-brac

People have no use for - 

amongst the smoldering embers of yesterday...

<"Wasteland">

<ii.>

It's been awhile since I've referenced a song here from Paul Weller, or the Jam, that band that cast him as a "spokesman for a generation," or something along those lines (not that he encouraged that label, which he publicly disdained). But I find his lyrics as relevant as ever, and "Wasteland" certainly qualifies, even if it's not as mentioned as often as the "biggies" in their back catalog (like "Away From The Numbers," "In The City," "Start!," or "That's Entertainment," for example).

"Wasteland" itself has led something of a checkered existence, closing out side one of the UK edition of Setting Sons (Polydor Records: 1979), the album on which it appeared, but then, shifted to the closing position on side two for the Canadian and US versions. That strikes me as a better idea than the UK version ending with a cover of Martha & The Vandellas' "Heatwave." 

I have no issues with "Heatwave," per se. However, closing on such a bouncy, upbeat note seems a little jarring, especially after the listener has absorbed songs about enforced unemployment ("Smithers-Jones," bassist Bruce Foxton's brilliant songwriting cameo), social apathy ("Burning Sky"), the breakup of friendships ("Thick As Thieves"), the loneliness of suburbia ("Private Hell"), and the tolls of classism ("The Eton Rifles") and war ("Little Boy Soldiers"). So 

Setting Sons marked the Jam's fourth album, one that cemented its position as critical and commercial favorites -- entering the UK charts at #4 on its November 1979 release. "Making that album was an intense business, as we concentrated a lot more on the sound and the arrangements of the songs, and we seemed to do many more takes than we were used to," drummer Rick Buckler observes in his memoir, That's Entertainment: My Life In The Jam (2015). "By the end of the recordings, there were boxes of tapes around the wall of the control room."

"Wasteland" certainly reflects that brief, one that I'd call "the sound of ambitious maturity," perhaps. Start with the title, which reminds me of T.S. Eliot's 434-line epic poem, "The Waste Land." I doubt that Weller intended it that way, since he didn't express enthusiasm for Eliot's work in interviews (unlike, say, George Orwell). 

But the association is hard to escape, anyway, and the theme certainly fits -- of "the decline of the old certainties that had previously held Western society together," according to enotes.com. "This has caused society to break up, and there's to be no going back. All that's left to do is to salvage broken cultural fragments from a vanished past."

That dark and doleful mood dogs the nameless protagonists, "The ones overshadowed by the monolith monstrosities called council homes," who are  caught in some dramatic social catastrophe that's not their fault, and not of their own making, but one they feel powerless to change ("For to be caught smiling is to acknowledge life/A brave but useless show of compassion/And that is forbidden in this drab and colorless world").

It's 2022. Feel any different yet? I thought so.

Meet me later but we'll have to hold hands
Tumble and fall (tumble and falling)
Like our lives (like our lives)
Exactly like our lives

<"Wasteland": Closing lines>

<iii.>

In the end, all that's left for the narrator is to invite his companion -- friend, loved one, or co-conspirator, who knows? -- to somehow look beyond the bleakness of their surroundings ("The holy Coca-Cola tins, the punctured footballs"), and hark back to better times long, long gone, as the song suggests, though there are no guarantees, even of seizing that moment ("We'll sit and probably hold hands"). 

The dominant impression is one of sodden resignation, reinforced by a recorder that floats above the band's signature Who-like power trio thunder. It's an unusual choice, but a great choice, one that manages to make "Wasteland" feel lilting and menacing at the same time. It's a suitable counterpoint to the dour observations that Weller's dishing out, such as: "We'll smile, but only for seconds."

Sounds like what we're going through now, doesn't it? No matter where you cast your eye around the landscape, the fog of uncertainty feels hard to shake -- such as our local hospital, where some two dozen nurses walked off the job last month, or so I heard. Our local church services have abruptly gone back to online-only, after several congregants tested positive for COVID, and forced them into quarantine at home.

I myself dodged a bullet of sorts a couple weeks ago, when I was invited to cover a fair dealing with small cities' infrastructure problems. Long story short, I didn't end up going. I later found out, through the grapevine, that one of the organizers tested came down with COVID.

That news, in turn, forced several people I knew to get themselves tested. Fortunately, nobody reported any ill effects, but the whole business left me redoubling my vows to keep my public distance, both figuratively, and literally.

The big picture news doesn't feel any better. Last month, if you don't already know, Congress approved the final version of our national defense budget. As usual, they did it late at night, when fewer people would pay attention (presumably). As usual, only 51 Democrats, mostly pro-peace progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, voted against it. 

As usual, the final figure ($777.7 billion) wound up way above the initial estimate ($752 billion) that President Biden proposed. (In contrast, Biden's predecessor, Donald Trump, spent $740 billion.) "Meanwhile," as progressive Senate candidate Erica Smith notes, "a bill that would dramatically upgrade our climate change response, expand our healthcare system, and build more than one million affordable housing units, is left for dead in the Senate."

Why? Well, essentially, because reactionary greed creeps like Senator Joe Manchin ("D"-WV) don't like it. They'll think you, oh, I don't know. Hoover it up your nose, or something, the same place where they stick that COVID testing swab. 

That's doubtful, but the absurdity of such a premise tempts me to joke: "Look at the bright side, folks. At least they've let us know where we really stand, in the greater scheme of things."

It's 2022 already. Feeling any different yet? Me neither, but I'm ready to pull "Wasteland" back out again, for another few spins. It's at the end of a cassette tape, but you know what? Something tells me, I'd better make the effort. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry,
Before The Wasteland Gets Dark):

Al Jazeera: Biden Signs
Enormous US Military Budget Into Law:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/12/27/biden-signs-enormous-us-military-budget-into-law

Down WIth Tyranny: Guest Post:
Erica Smith: Re-Evaluating Defense:
https://www.downwithtyranny.com/post/do-you-want-congress-to-re-direct-funds-towards-domestic-priorities-instead-of-war-vote-for-that

The Jam: Wasteland (Lyric Video):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRvXfVEKgdw

Vox.com: Why The US 
Is Paying More For The Military...:
https://www.vox.com/22840615/us-defense-spending-increase-afghanistan-withdrawal

One Last Blast Of Jam Trivia...

(*Setting Sons's front cover is an Andrew Douglas photo of Benajmin Clemens' 1919 bronze sculpture, The St. Johns Ambulance Bearers, which the band found in keeping with the themes they were exploring, according to Buckler. Yet that choice came with a slight hitch, as he notes: "Sadly, that bronze sculpture has been in long-term storage for many years, so nobody has been able to see it for a long time." Guess that fits the current mood, too, doesn't it?)

"Ghosts": Up Against The Establishment With Bernie Sanders (& The Jam)

“Why are you frightened, can’t you see that it’s you
That ain't no ghost, it's a reflection of you
Why do turn it away, an' keep it out of sight?

“Oh, don't live up to your given roles
There's more inside you that you won't show"

--The Jam, "Ghosts"

The "adults" in the room are panicking. They're visibly nervous and sweating, even shaking a little bit. You can practically see the clamminess glistening off their palms. What other conclusion can you reach when Hillary Clinton sends her Hollywood buddies -- who work once a year, even as they remind us, "I'm just like you" -- to verbally pile on her opponent, Bernie Sanders, for having the nerve to question how she can call herself a reformer...

...when she and her husband, Bill Clinton, have hauled in $125 million in speaking fees since they left the White House in 2000. Seems like a rational question to me, but that's probably why you won't hear Clinton broach that subject on the campaign trail. Still, as we head Monday into the first Democratic contest in Iowa, it's time to touch on why a vote for Sanders might actually mean something.

The Squawker and I have weathered a hellish month. Our ordeal began at the end of December, when an ice storm killed two days of power -- forcing us to spend $150 that we didn't really have. Like most households on pinched budgets, this situation created a budgetary tsunami of massive proportions.

I've had to borrow money for food, and pay my phone and car registration. I paid my car insurance premium on the last possible day (before they charge for two months, instead of one). Last Tuesday, I had a tire blow out, which forced me to find another $100 from out of the blue. We've gone to food pantries and community dinners to stretch an already slender food budget. If I could summarize the mood, it might be: "Been There, Done That, Torn Up The T-Shirt."

Same as it ever was.
Same as it ever was.
Same as it ever was.
Same...as it...ever...was.


“But there's no need, just 'cause it's all we've known
There's more inside you that you haven't shown”

Such experiences naturally make you ornery, which is only one reason why I won't give Clinton my vote. The media calls her a better campaigner than in 2008, but I don't see it, especially as you ponder her positioning as "the candidate of continuity," which I'd paraphrase like this: "If you loved the '90s, you'll love me. Help me bring back those heady days of Soul Asylum soundtracking the Inaugural Ball, and the go-go finance that kept the Slacker Generation safely on their couches."

However, nostalgia is often a lie, and Hillary's brand of hullabaloo is no different. Though she often claims that her husband helped the little guy, that doesn't square with my own experience. During that era, I held three jobs, which paid raises of roughly 75 cents to $1.50. Needless to say, I didn't get them all in one sitting. Talk about leaving pennies on the kitchen table! Meanwhile, Clinton presided over one of the most sweeping deregulatory frenzies in recent memory -- and one that exceeded the expectations of the most diehard government-hating Reaganaut.

The bill came due in 2008, when the economy tanked, and the banks -- bigger and flusher than ever, thanks to their Clinton-era goodies -- came cap in hand, asking for more money. Obama showed little more stomach for a fight than his Democratic predecessor, so he crowbarred his congressional allies into coughing up the $800 million that the banks demanded as the price of propping up the economy (read: Bahamian vacations, bonuses, golden parachutes). By contrast, when Iceland weathered a similar crash, its government responded by breaking up the biggest banks, sending the most flagrant violators to prison, and returning the money to its people. Hmm...maybe I should buy a plane ticket for Reykjavik?

“One day you'll walk by, out of this life
And then you'll wonder why you didn't even try"

By contrast, it's not hard to see why Bernie Sanders draws record crowds. He asks us to imagine a better future than the dog-eat-dog hell we've been creating since the go-go '90s, when the safety net started shredding at indecent speed. How well Bernie's big plans pan out remains to be seen, assuming that he can make it past Iowa, and New Hampshire, which seem like good demographic matches for him -- but verbally, at least, his rhetoric marks a major advance on the tip-toeing timidity that characterized the Clinton and Obama eras.

Sanders is often dismissed as starry-eyed and unrealistic by detractors who prefer to ignore their own mulligans -- like the endless Afghan and Iraq wars that bankrupted the country. Funnily enough, I don't recall anybody asking many hard questions about those ventures. They certainly didn't come from the countless Baby Boomer-era journalists who embedded themselves with the military to live out some warped Ernest Hemingway-esque fantasies -- only Ernest would probably have asked a few harder questions. Nor does the wave of mainstream media endorsements for Clinton -- including the Boston Globe, Des Moines Register, New York Times -- impress me. After all, the newspaper industry is struggling, and undoubtedly dreams about some kind of life preserver getting tossed out by a prospective Clinton administration.

Yet, in spite of this dismal litany, Clinton and her allies ask us to hold our noses yet again, because -- God forbid -- you don't want some nasty Republican behind the desk at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, right?  This dilemma is typically described as tactical voting, which -- as the term implies -- is commonly done to pursue a strategic objective, like keeping an undesirable candidate from winning an office. Examples include the Edwin Edwards-David Duke gubernatorial slugfest in 1991, which forced a truly unenviable choice on Louisiana voters: elect the rascal (Edwards), or his ex-Klan opponent? 

And, as that Shakespeare chap once suggested, therein lies the rub. Tactical voting hardly implies happiness with your lot. How could it, when you're often presented with that evil of two lessers dilemma? However, if you accept the realpolitik argument (Sanders can't win 'cause the Republicans will paint him a nice shade of pink, blah-blah-blah), and cast your vote for Hillary on that basis, don't expect anything. Clinton's willingness to scoop up dark money and finance industry money makes her an uncertain advocate, at best, for the kind of reform that this country desperately needs. Trust me: I'll keep a box score on that one, if she wins.

“So why are you frightened, can’t you see that it’s you
At the moment there’s nothing, so there’s nothing to lose
Lift up your lonely heart and walk right on through”

Like many political decisions, mine just simply comes down to good old-fashioned gut feeling. If nothing else, the contentious Clinton-Sanders matchup has shone a bright light on the Democratic Party's glaring disconnect between its troops in the trenches, and the donor base that actually writes the checks. Going by the last two Democratic presidencies, that gap isn't getting any better -- because once the ink dries on all those campaign promises, the troops in the trenches get shut out and shit on. But they're just the mooks whose job is to shut up (and suck it up) once the last image of the electoral victory party fades from the screen. To the donor base, that's just the natural order of things.

In my view, however, it's exactly this warped dynamic that has pushed our country to the brink of disaster. As I've observed before on this subject, realpolitik doesn't improve real people's lives. Yes, politics is a game of inches. I get that. However, if you end up settling for weaker policies -- or gutted ones, or sidetracked ones, or postponed ones -- then what have you accomplished? That's an uncomfortable truth often lost in all the cattle trading.

America's dance with voodoo economics has lasted since Reagan's election in 1980, with predictable results. I've watched this two-step play out for half a lifetime now. How much longer must I wait for something else? I'd rather reach for bigger possibilities than accept another round of the same-old, same-old -- which is why "Ghosts" remains one of my all-time favorite songs (appearing on the Jam's last album, The Gift (1982), during the equally noxious Thatcherist era). According to its composer, Paul Weller, "I was trying to call out to my generation, a rallying call in the name of inspiration and fulfillment." Keep those words close to your heart, wherever you're heading to the ballot box. And don't let anyone tell you any differently. Especially the donor class. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Read 'Em & Hurry
Before More Dark Money Falls Off The Tree):
Common Dreams:
Iceland Jailed Bankers
& Rejected Austerity: And It's Been A Success:
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/06/12/iceland-jailed-bankers-and-rejected-austerity-and-its-been-success

The Washington Post: Bernie Sanders Is The Realist We Should Elect
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bernie-sanders-is-the-realist-we-should-elect/2016/01/26/6af4d268-c392-11e5-a4aa-f25866ba0dc6_story.html

Think Progress:
Iceland, Where Bankers Actually Go To Jail
For Committing White-Collar Crimes:
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/10/23/3715775/iceland-jails-bankers-and-survives/

Greetings From (A Town Called Malice)

Better stop dreaming of the quiet life

'Cause it's the one we'll never know

And quit running for that runaway bus

'Cause those rosy days are few

And stop apologizing for the things you've never done

'Cause time is short and life is cruel but it's up to us to change

This town called Malice
--The Jam, "A Town Called Malice"

<i.>

Released in February 1982, "A Town Called Malice" ranks among the more durable 45s released during the Jam's so-called "soul mining" period (mind you, anybody with ears would have heard those influences from the start, but that's a discussion for another time). The song shot straight to #1 UK -- holding the top spot for three weeks -- and marked the Jam's sole US chart entry, too (#31 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks). "Malice" also won New Musical Express's "Best Single" award that year, as well.

The song has retained a strong foothold in pop culture, turning up in movies like National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985), Billy Elliot (2000), and The Matador (2005). You can also hear it showcased in TV shows like the sci-fi cop drama, Ashes To Ashes (episode 3.5), and the BBC cop drama, Criminal Justice (first and last episodes) -- plus the "Rock Band" video game.

All in all, not a bad return for a song that the Jam's frontman, Paul Weller, cited as a snapshot of his experiences as a teenager in Woking, and a play on Nevil Shute's 1950 novel, A Town Like Alice (though he claimed not to have read the book) -- which recounts a woman's struggles to bring prosperity to a isolated Australian outback town (using her inheritance as the springboard for its development). The novel, in turn, has been adapted for a six-part mini-series (1981) and radio drama (1997).

<ii.>

Rows and rows of disused milk floats

Stand dying in the dairy yard

And a hundred lonely housewives clutch empty milk

Bottles to their hearts

Hanging out their old love letters on the line to dry

It's enough to make you stop believing when tears come fast and furious

In a town called Malice, yeah

For my money, "A Town Called Malice" stands among the savviest statements of the Jam's later career. Built around an uptempo, fingerpoppin' guitar and organ groove, the song carries an irresistible melody that dares not to clap along -- until you stop and hear what it's actually about. It's an old songwriter's trick that works quite well, as this writer can attest.

However, it's also remiss to consign "Malice" to the that-was-then bin -- by writing it off as "the sound of the precints," or some such nonsense (as I recall one reviewer doing). Today's world bears an eerie resemblance to the one that Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and their free market acolytes drooled about -- corporate power left to wreak unrelenting havoc, thanks to a perfect storm of shredded safety nets, gutted unions and a working world that looks like a 19th century robber baron's wet dream of a permanently insecure underclass (ithe 99%).

More relevantly, "Malice" talks about the forced austerity that keeps people forever powerless and marginalized, simply becuase they don't have enough money to make everything right. For the Squawker and myself, the last six months have served up snapshots that feel all too familiar: pay this medical bill now, or buy a couple more packages of chicken? Put off the radiator hose another week, or pay the phone bill in full now, so they're not dogging us later? And so on, and so forth....wash, rinse, repeat.

Many people around the world are struggling with these issues -- as in Greece, where media coverage of the recent rioting there focused mostly on corruption and a social system that allows people to retire at 45. What went largely unmentioned, however, was that even the International Monetary Fund questioned the bailout loan terms as overly burdensome. If an agency like the IMF -- which is in no way a radical entity -- has problems with the arrangement, someone should listen, right?

No such luck, of course. And that's why the next Grecian riots are only a question of time, since the people know the austerity they're being forced to accept is one that will come solely off their back. For the people on top, the endless blur of country villas, imported foods and never-ending limo rides will roll on uninterrupted. For them, austerity isn't likely to enter the conversational equation any time soon. If ever.

Struggle after struggle, year after year

The atmosphere's a fine blend of ice I'm almost stone cold dead

In a town called Malice, ooh yeah

A whole street's belief in Sunday's roast beef
Gets dashed against the cop
To either cut down on beer or the kids' new year,
It's a big decision in a town called Malice, ooh yeah

Ooh, the ghost of a steam train echoes down my track

It's at the moment bound for nowhere just going round and round

<iii.>

Even then, no matter how carefully you plan, it often feels like some malevolent force is rolling the bones against you dream. The Squawker and I got that impression when an ice storm left roughly one-eighth of our county (31,000 customers, give or take) without electricity this week. Monday ticked by in a blur of "what the f#ck" decision-making: tough it out,, 'cause we don't wanna spend half our latest emergency stash ($100) on a motel? Or get a room now, where there's at least some warmth (and a bit of electrical current)?

So we  spent the night shivering under a heap of blankets, even as our apartment complex quickly took on the aura of a ghost town, once most of our neighbors reckoned the lights weren't coming back up too soon. Eventually, we gave up on sleep altogether, and drove around town....first, dining out at McDonalds, then cooling our heels in the hospital ER till 1 a.m.-ish, hoping that things might work out.

We returned to a still-dark, still-freezing complex -- which we braved a few hours more, till 7 a.m. -- and finally agreed that a warm motel room beat the hell out of whatever we were enduring now. I called a friend, who agreed to fund a second night, if needed. As it turned out, the power came back up at 9:20 p.m. Tuesday, just as I was gathering more pillows and blankets for the Squawker...who was (finally) getting to sleep off the ill effects of the previous night.

Just then, the kitchen lights kicked back on, and the TV revved up for another mindless volley of infomercials, past-their-prime sitcoms, and God knows what else. We ended up finishing out the night, and dragging ourselves back home Wednesday morning. Between food and lodging, we spent roughly $150 that we didn't really have, which meant I'd come up short on two bills -- the car registration, and the phone -- whose deadlines loomed only a week away.

So i called a relation who was willing to lend a hand this time, which meant that I could pay the basic monthly bills (electricity, Insurance, Internet) without a hitch. This is the struggle that plays out daily in every Town Called Malice, without pause, without missing a beat -- and will continue to roll on, for the short run, until some previously unseen social force or collective expression of popular will finally changes the tide.

For now, at least, we're finally grateful to have gotten a few days of peace and quiet. So goes life in this Town Called Malice. --The Reckoner

Playground kids and creaking swings

Lost laughter in the breeze
I could go on for hours and I probably will
But I'd sooner put some joy back in this town called Malice, yeah ooh

In this town called Malice, ooh yeah

Strange Town Revisited (Your Hometown, Newly Unrecognizable)

Found myself in a strange town

Though I've only been here for three weeks now
I've got blisters on my feet
Trying to find a friend on Oxford Street

I bought an A to Z guide book
Trying to find the clubs and YMCAs
But when you ask in a strange town
They say don't know, don't care
And I've got to go, mate
--The Jam, "Strange Town"

"Strange Town" is arguably the Jam's forgotten single. Released in March 1979, the song peaked at #15 UK, right in the middle of a sterling chart run. "Down In The Tube Station At Midnight" preceded it; "When You're Young" followed it, yet "Strange Town" only found an outlet on the Canadian pressing of Setting Sons -- issued that November -- and, light-years later, on the Snap! singles compilation.(A US single duly followed, but didn't chart -- fiercely dedicated Anglophile fanbase aside, the Jam remained "a spaceman from these UFOS" in America for much of their career.)

There have been two notable covers, including a Noel Gallagher duet with the song's original composer, Paul Weller, and one by Garbage (albeit a B-side)  All in all, it's a curious position for a song whose theme -- the newcomer struggling to make an impression amid shrugs of indifference from his newfound fellow residents -- sadly, feels truer more relevant than it seemed back in the pre-Internet era that Weller and his Rickenbacker guitar inhabited.

You appreciate the relevancy of those lyrics in your own life. About a decade ago, you moved back to your old hometown for a job that evaporated under your feet. Vague promises of coaching and mentoring were made, then rapidly forgotten, with little or no help from a management that kept itself to itself. Eventually, inevitably, they cut you loose, leaving you adrift in a landscape permanently altered by the imprint of big money -- professional types pouring in from Kalamazoo, northwest Indiana and Chicago. 

Once upon a time, they only came for a weekend getaway here, a seasonal rental there, but lately, the unthinkable has become habitual: they're buying houses and putting down roots, having followed business opportunities, jobs or social relationships that took them there. (In unguarded moments, they even refer to this place as "The Riviera Of The Midwest." Make of that what you will.)

Big money's arrival doesn't take long to make itself felt. As always, the most visible signs happen downtown. The dive bars and mom-and-pop burger and sub shops that typified your youth are disappearing, surrendering to overpriced gastropubs, double-digit wine bars and corporatized coffee shops whose pricing leaves nothing to the imagination. The same reality goes for the beachfront, where "park and pay" is now the rule. You make do by driving past it, or idling your van for a few minutes in a remote area that attracts less attention.

They worry themselves about feeling low
They worry themselves about the dreadful snow
They all ignore me, 'cause they don't know
I'm really a spaceman from these UFOs

The gastropubs make their mark in all the wrong ways: separate charges for similar menu items like burgers and fries, long waits and lines that wind down the block. You shrug your shoulders and stick with the burger joint on which you grew up. The prices aren't creeping up into double digits yet, and the owner brings the food out to you. All that spoils this low-budget vision of paradise is a conspicuous absence of trees, whose next door neighbor has cut most of them down.

A similar all-or-nothing mentality characterizes your hometown's housing stock. This town boasts three major apartment complexes, all built during the '60s and '70s housing boom, when rent didn't gobble up three-quarters or more of your paycheck. For now, though, it seems best to tinker with your current situation -- whose rent has grown from $650 to $760 per month -- than gamble on a tight housing market that's tilting toward an influx of eggshell white or earth-toned brown condos downtown, or crackerbox palaces that charge lower rents -- in most cases, topping out at $500 or $600 per month -- yet offer little or nothing in  services or amenities.

For a further reminder of your place in the scheme of things, you only need look no further than your current complex's parking lot, where it's not unusual to see Hyundai hybrids, Kias and Pruises competing for parking spaces with your 11-year-old Dodge Caravan, which is now beginning to show conspicuous signs of rust along the bottom...and that's before we get to whatever surprises lurk beneath the hood.

I've finished with clubs where the music's loud
'Cause I don't see a face in a single crowd
There's no one there
I look in the mirror
But I can't be seen
Just a thin, clean layer of mister sheen
Looking back at me

The cultural climate proves equally unforgiving. For awhile, you and the wife attend a writer's group at one of the local art centers downtown, until the leader starts charging a hefty fee for everybody's time and participation. "Dig deep" is the motto here. Not  long ago, you saw the fruits of their labors -- chapbooks nestled quietly in a display box near the counter, priced at nine or ten dollars, now barely disturbed and stacked on top of one another, quietly gathering dust.

A similar vibe dogs the other artistic events that you try. Now and again, the art center hosts a couple of poetry open mikes: but those feel formal and stilted, compared to similar events that you've done before.  You must tell the organizers ahead of time what you're reading or performing, and no real audience participation is allowed until you finish The whole thing feels like a hellish piano recital, minus the black keys.

On your own, you play guitar at a handful of open mikes. The experience is a hit-or-miss affair, depending on who shows up -- although you can always count on a healthy contingent of people trafficking in flavors that leave you cold (Birkenstock rock, warmed-over folk and stuffy roots music). 

And, just like when you first tried these things in college, you can count on hearing certain chestnuts again and again -- anything by the Grateful Dead, for example, or Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" -- to the point of listening for mistakes. Needless to say, most of the traffickers don't bother talking to you -- when they can peel themselves away from the mega-entourages that they often bring with them, which is rare.

You've got to move in a straight line

You've got to walk and talk in four four time

You can't be weird in a strange town

You'll be betrayed by your accent and manners

You've got to wear the right clothes

Be careful not to pick or scratch your nose

You can't be nice in a strange town

Cause we don't know, don't care

And we got to go, man

Needless to say, you don't fit in with all the bug-eyed careerists that you encounter, In most cases, their empty chatter revolves around work -- what they're trying to accomplish there, or not, depending on the management's anally retentive tendencies -- or what new toys they've recently acquired, or what they're doing this weekend. 

You tend to avoid such drones if you can, because Stockholm Syndrome isn't part of your psychological makeup -- "How do they get them to identify with your oppressor so vividly?", you often ask yourself -- and neither is bowling alone. In fairness, though, your hometown's soaring new pricing structure makes it tough to sustain social relationships, as everybody's spending so much more time on the work-earn-spend treadmill (yourself included).

You're savvy enough to understand that you're hardly on an equal footing. In most cases, an unspoken expectation hangs in the air: "Play by our rules, or forget it." You give up making suggestions -- whether it's to the local grocery chain store, the municipal powers that be, or the art clique with whom you've already butted heads -- because they seem to humor them. For the most part, however, your ideas will dissipate into the ether, never to be aired again. 

Naturally, this unequal relationship doesn't stop them from pressing you to cover this or that event they're hosting, or pat you on the back and say, "I always read your stuff." You grit your teeth and smile at the predictability -- not to mention the chutzpah -- of such behavior, while you count down the time till you can work on projects that seem more satisfying.

The lack of disposable income makes itself in unusual ways. The other day, you drove past the budget thrift store -- where you and the wife could count on better pricing breaks than the likes of Goodwill, whose unapologetic profiteering would cause Marx to spin in his tomb -- only to find numerous signs announcing its death knell: "PRICES HALF OFF." 

None of these things seemed imaginable as you grew up here. Back then, your hometown seemed fated to remain a coastal backwater, where -- if a place was really swinging, it might stay open till eight or nine o'clock. Nowadays, however, everything's up for grabs. The air hangs thick with the scent of power and prestige that reminds all concerned to either get in line, or get out of the way. "We're a lakefront community," the city fathers constantly remind us. "We're winners now. We better act like it."

You, by contrast, have never felt more alienated and isolated -- "a spaceman from these UFOs," just like the song says. Solutions remain maddeningly elusive, though you're sure of one thing: you didn't pledge allegiance to the in-crowd then...and you're not ready to do it now. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Click 'Em & Steel Yourself)
Carnegie Community Action Project:
A Small Mountain Town Fights Gentrification:
http://ccapvancouver.wordpress.com/2009/04/05/a-small-mountain-town-fights-gentrification/

Chairman Ralph (Guest MP3): "Tourist Trap":
http://chairmanralph.com/sitebuilder/flash/player?f=/featuredsongs/flash/playlist.xml%3Ft%3D59

Planetizen.com:
Is There Such A Thing As "Rural" Gentrification?:
http://www.planetizen.com/node/54684
San Antonio Express News:
Quirky Marfa Feels Growing Pains
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/Quirky-Marfa-feels-growing-pains-5617718.php