Open Left - culture

Democrats as a whole becoming more like the Progressive Caucus

Chris Bowers — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:26:10 GMT

What percentage of Democratic voters are one or more of the following?

Self-identified not-"white non-Hispanic" (39%)
Self-identified non-Christian (28%)
Some form of vegetarian? (14%*)
A union member (13%)
Not self-identified heterosexual (7%)

(* With 10% of the country following some form of vegetarian diet, this number is based on the assumption that vegetarians break Democratic 3-1, which is a margin very similar to the LGBT community, non-Christians, and not "white non-Hispanic."

Also note: Women are also disproportionately Democratic. However, unlike all the other groups listed here, women make up a significant percentage of Republican voters, too.)

Even though there is some overlap between these categories, the vast majority of Democrats fall into at least one of these five. And by "vast majority," I mean "over 70%."

Now, of course there is still a not-insignificant straight, meat-eating, non-union, white Christian contingent within the Democratic Party rank and file. However, that group is older than the rest of the party, and as such continues to shrink as an overall percentage of Democratic voters. Non-whites, non-Christians, LGBTs and vegetarians are all disproportionately under the age of 50, which will make future incarnations of the Democratic Party even more skewed toward these groups. This process is accelerated even further by Republicans targeting their messaging, and making the vast majority of their gains, among Americans who do not fit into one of those five categories.

I write--or at least attempt to write this--in a value-neutral sense. It isn't good or bad, it is just who the Democratic Party is at this point. It is significantly not-"white non-Hispanic," and the "white non-Hispanic" segment is significantly vegetarian, non-Christian or non-straight. Among Democratic voters who fit into neither of these groups, it is significantly union. Further, demographic and political trends will only make this more so in the future. The end result will be a Democratic Party that looks much more like that Congressional Progressive Caucus, and a Republican Party that includes the Blue Dogs and Conservadems.

More in the extended entry
This departs from my prognostications in the past in that I now see it more as a description of the future of the Democratic Party than a likely future progressive governing majority. Through a combination of a long-term decline in immigration (already underway), and by capturing an even larger percentage of the white Christian vote (a process that is long underway), Republicans and conservatives can stay competitive with Democrats electorally for a long time to come. However, this will also necessitate that states and congressional districts currently occupied by Blue Dogs and Senate Conservadems shift toward Republicans, remaking the demographic and cultural composition of the Democratic Party.

Over the long-run, Democrats in Congress will look more like the Progressive Caucus. Right now, the CPC is only group of Democrats in Congress who are representative of the Democratic rank and file. At least 74.7%, or 59 of 79, of the full-voting House members of the CPC are one or more of the following: non-white, non-Christian, or non-straight. Among all other full-voting Democrats in the House, that percentage is only 23.5%, or 42 of 179.

That is an astounding gap. It is also temporary. With such a large percentage of the Democratic rank and file fitting into the five categories described at the top of this post, almost inevitably more Democratic candidates for higher office will fit into those categories, too. Gradually--or maybe not so gradually, if a major Republican wave takes out hordes of Blue Dogs and New Dems in 2010--Democrats in Congress will become demographically and culturally more like members of Progressive Caucus.

This shift is also partially responsible for the current disconnect between Democratic leaders and the Democratic rank and file. The vestigial Blue Dog wing of the party bears little cultural and demographic resemblance to rest of the coalition. In fact, as we have written in the past on Open Left, in this regard it is far closer to the Republican Party than to other the Democratic Party. This is both why there is a major problem in passing progressive legislation right now, and why that wing of the Democratic Party is eventually going to be largely swallowed up by Republicans.

It is in this sense that President Obama can actually be understood as a transitional figure. Obama is able to connect the non-white, cultural progressive, and New Democratic branches of the Democratic Party all at the same time. He has also altered the national political landscape, in that the areas with the largest concentration of white Christian Democrats--which happen to coincide with the areas represented by Blue Dogs--are now the most Republican voting areas in the country. It wasn't long ago that Democrats were competitive in places like Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Tennessee and West Virginia were competitive in Presidential elections. Now, those are 5 out of the 14 states that John McCain won by 13% or more. Don't expect them to come back to the fold on the national level anytime soon, either (although the situation is very different in most other parts of the South).

Finally, this shift will also result in figures like Sarah Palin will playing a larger role in the future of the Republican Party. Digby points out that, despite her shortcomings as a candidate in other ways, Palin is good at making jokes about liberal cultural adherents, such as vegetarians, and how this endears her to the social conservative base. As the two parties become even more divided along cultural and demographic lines, more of the successful, conservative, Republican figures will demonstrate this ability.

It is also possible that the coalitions will rearrange themselves, and new dividing lines may form. In fact, this is inevitable, as it is a process that has occurred throughout American history. But from the vantage point of the now, the outlook of the two major coalitions over the next twenty or thirty years points almost entirely to an expansion of the cultural and demographic divide we are already witnessing.

Friday night smiles

Chris Bowers — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 02:30:00 GMT

Pretty dreary day. Here are some links to try and perk you up:

---Larry Sabato on twitter:

If Sarah Palin is the 2012 GOP nominee for President, the Republican party platform will be the longest suicide note ever written.

--Rush Limbaugh on Joe Sestak:

During a three-hour tirade about Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to transfer five detainees from Guantanamo Bay to the United States for criminal prosecution, Rush Limbaugh attacked the "dangerous" "ideologue" Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), who in a Fox News interview that day discussed his support of Holder's decision.

---Blue Dogs on deficits

--If Democrats do lose a significant number of House seats in 2010, the chamber as a whole will shift to the right. However, given who will lose, the Democratic caucus will actually shift significantly to the left.

--Yey, there is lots of water on the Moon! That's great and all, but if you want something that will really excite you about potential human colonization of space, check out the new VASIMR rocket--it can travel to Mars in only 39 days! Best of all, it was actually designed to ferry people and goods back and forth to a permanent Moon base, and is already being tested on the international space station. The pieces are really falling into place...

--New Stargate Universe tonight-and the premier of the Prisoner on Sunday. Woo-hoo

--Our fundraiser is up to $13,782.99!

What's making you smile tonight?

Nobel Committee: We Really Hate Republicans

Chris Bowers — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:00:58 GMT

I will have a post up a little later looking at the merits of the Nobel Committee's decision to award President Obama with the Peace Prize. For now, however, I want to focus on the messaging of the award. It is pretty great:

Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts.(...)

Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.(...)

His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.

Shorter Nobel Committee: we really hated unilateral Republican foreign policy. In fact, we hated it so much, we are going to give President Obama the award pretty much for just not being a Republican. Just having the United States talk to other countries is good enough for us.

Seriously--it is hard to read this award as anything but the Nobel Committee giving the middle finger to American exceptionalism as the driving force behind American international relations.

The messaging from the DNC in response to Republican outcries is pretty exceptional, too:

The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists - the Taliban and Hamas this morning - in criticizing the President for receiving the Nobel Peace prize. Republicans cheered when America failed to land the Olympics and now they are criticizing the President of the United States for receiving the Nobel Peace prize - an award he did not seek but that is nonetheless an honor in which every American can take great pride - unless of course you are the Republican Party. The 2009 version of the Republican Party has no boundaries, has no shame and has proved that they will put politics above patriotism at every turn. It's no wonder only 20 percent of Americans admit to being Republicans anymore - it's an embarrassing label to claim.

Wow! That is just about the most aggressive, hard-hitting rhetoric I have ever read from a Democratic Party committee. It is like Alan Grayson wrote this response.

So, say what you will about the merits of the award--which I will discuss a bit later on--but the messaging is phenomenal. The world gives the finger to Republicans, Republicans can once again cheer against America, and Democrats actually get aggressive in their response messaging. That's not nothin'.

Update: Just to be clear, I like that the DNC is willing to be so aggressive, not that they are calling everyone who disagrees with the award Taliban sympathizers.

Opt-Out Of Spite

Chris Bowers — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:30:00 GMT

The latest public option compromise now floating in a trial balloon somewhere over D.C. is an "opt-out" public option that starts nationally but allows individual states to leave the program. The basic idea is that blue states get a public option, while red states don't.

Like most of these "compromises"--namely triggers or co-ops--it has three fatal flaws:

First, it is yet another example of compromising with ourselves, even though we have enough votes to pass a national public option through the Senate.
Second, only one side, Progressives (as always), are required to give up anything. This "compromise" moves in only one direction--toward a weaker public option.
The only floated compromise where this was not the case was the "stronger trigger" Pelosi floated last month. In that compromise, Progressives would be allowed to write trigger language, thereby making it a certainty to kick in and also allowing for a much stronger public option than any of the ones currently on the table. Of course, the Maine Republicans saw right through that trick, and the idea was quickly nixed.
The opt-out "compromise" offers nothing comparable in return, such as a public option that would be available to 100% of all residents in the states that did not opt-out.
Third, there is no indication this compromise actually has any votes behind it. In addition to garnering no Republican votes, it is a safe bet is that this would be opposed by a lot of House Progressives, and also opposed by a lot of other House Democrats who are from the red states that would opt-out.
Given both that we all expect Progressives to fold on anything and that it seems the 60-vote culture of the Senate means the House doesn't matter anymore, it is a common misconception that just because an idea is floated by a Senate Conservadem leader--in this case, Tom Carper--the idea has the votes to pass into law. That just isn't true.
Yesterday produced a perfect example of why Senate Conservadem ideas are often non-starters. Just before the CBO released the score on Max Baucus's health care bill, a huge, 150 member coalition of House Progressives and Blue Dogs pronounced it DOA. 24% of the funding for the Baucus bill comes from taxing high-cost insurance plans, even though such a proposal apparently has less than 100 total votes in the House. Single-payer has more votes in the House than the Baucus plan to tax high-cost insurance policies.

The lesson here is that just because a Senate Conservadem likes it doesn't mean the idea can actually pass into law.

On top of all that, this compromise has a problem all its own:

It would be a Democratic and Progressive-sanctioned middle finger to the 16,094,055 Obama voters who live in McCain states. This is not even to mention the 4,282,367 Floridians who voted for Obama but whose Republican dominated legislature would opt-out the week after the health care bill passed. There are even a lot of non-voters and Republicans who would use, need and want a public option but who live in red states.

For all of these reasons, the opt-out compromise is not worth supporting. There is, however, one thing that it offers, and which I admit will be very tempting to many Democrats:

Spite

A public option opt-out is a good way for blue state Democrats frustrated with Republican obstructionism to both experience the benefits of progressive policies and engage in punitive action against those who oppose them. You don't want to stand up to insurance companies, are fine with having large uninsured populations, and don't mind crippling health care costs? Fine, you go and do that red staters. Enjoy your corporate free for all, while we start living better.

I admit, that can be a pretty tempting viewpoint. The vicious rhetoric against liberals and progressives for decades, not to mention the damage caused by conservative governance and power grabs, increases the desire to just go our separate ways. Just let red America have its corporate free for all, while maybe here in blue America we can regain some control over the system and prove we have better polices.

The opt-out plan still isn't a good idea, and we need to stop talking about supporting it. However, I do at least understand why it is tempting. Spite can be a powerful emotion in politics these days.

Being More Civil Won't Solve Anything

Chris Bowers — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:30:00 GMT

I was on MSNBC this morning talking about the Obama administration's difficulties in passing their agenda. There were three other guests on for a five minute segment, so I only ended up getting in one line. That is very frustrating, because there is something I really wanted to day: being more civil won't solve any of our problems.

All three of the other guests, and the host, at least partly blamed increasing in our political discourse for the problems we face. Pardon my French, but that doesn't make any fucking sense.

Being more civil won't create a single job.
It won't prevent a single home from being foreclosed.
It won't give a single person health insurance.
It won't lower the cost of health care by one cent.
It won't take a single molecule of greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere.
It won't stop a single soldier or civilian from dying in Afghanistan or Iraq.

Incivility is not the source of our problems. However, thinking that our problems are caused by things like incivility is a major problem we face. If we keep suggesting fake, bullshit solutions to serious problems, then we will never get to the actual source of those serious problems and thus have no chance of solving them.

Even when Democrats are in charge, our government has becoming overwhelmingly responsive to corporate, moneyed interests. That is the problem. That is why real income for the bottom 90% of Americans hasn't increased in 30 years. That is why health care costs so much. That is why we are unable to address climate change. That is why we are funneling hundreds of billions of dollars to Wall Street even after they crashed the economy. Just becoming more civil won't change any of that. Thinking otherwise is akin to just sticking your fingers in your ears and singing "lalalalalalala."

What we need are Democratic leaders who are as willing to take on these corporate interests-and their lackeys in Congress--as they are willing to take on the lack of civility in our political discourse. We don't have that right now. The Democratic leadership in the White House and Congress are much more interested in coddling the conservative, corporate Democrats who are a barrier to even modest reforms. They help them avoid key votes, close off primary challenges, and even work to shut down progressive advertising campaigns that seek to hold them accountable. We should be holding these corporate Democrats accountable with every political means at our disposal instead of talking about being more civil. Until we do, don't expect any change from the status quo.

We Didn't Deserve The Olympics

Chris Bowers — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:30:00 GMT

I am glad that Rio got the Olympics. Brazil is an emerging powerhouse, and South America has never received an Olympics before. Its about time.

Further, the simple fact is that no city in the United States deserved it. If the Olympics are really supposed to be about increasing international cooperation, giving to the Unites States now would be a terrible decision. Here is why:

The United States hosted the Summer games in 1984 and 1996, as well as hosting the Winter Games in 1980 and 2002. If this is really about co-operation, one country should not be hosting one out of every four Olympic Games.
The last time the United States hosted the Olympics, the leaders of the host city's bid team were charged with bribery by the Justice Department, and ten members of the International Olympic Committee were expelled. Not exactly the best image for an event that is supposed to be about international co-operation.
It is more difficult for people from many countries to enter the United States than to enter other nations. Again, if this is really about international cooperation, that makes the United States a pretty poor choice.
The United States recently invaded another country under false pretenses and against the dictates of international law. No country doing that should be given the Olympics for a long, long time.
The Unites States failed to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, unlike virtually every other country in the world. Why the one country unwilling to protect the planet from climate disaster should be allowed to host the premier event of international cultural co-operation is difficult to fathom.
Other examples of our lack of international co-operation include extraordinary rendition, the use of torture, not being a signatory to the land mine treaty, and the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. There is a very long list of our refusals to accept international standards for pretty much anything.

The fact is that we don't deserve to host such an important international event of cultural cooperation until we actually start cooperating with the rest of the world. In fact, I am pretty sure that is exactly why we didn't get the 2016 Games.

We may often not think that there are any forms of sanctions the rest of the world can levy on us for our actions, but the harsh reception to Chicago's bid--the first city to be eliminated once the political (that is, voting) stage of the finals began--shows that there are. Whether we like it or not, the rest of the world has not taken kindly to the list of actions I presented above. Not getting the Olympics is the first real comeuppance.

This defeat was exactly the outcome should be expected after our actions over the past decade. The 2008 election was not enough to just obviate everything have done--and continue to do--against the wishes of most of the rest of the world. Either we change, or international rejections of this sort will become more frequent.

Update: Oh yeah--as commenter Adam in Portland writes, there was also that bit about the United States crashing the worldwide financial system and sending the world into its deepest recession since World War Two. Bet that made us real popular, too.

More Americans Paying Close Attention to News

Chris Bowers — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:12:19 GMT

Gallup has some polling data that should provide a bit of optimism about the state of the country. Over the past decade, there has been a steady increase in the percentage of Americans reporting that they are paying "very close" attention to the news:

Even adjusting for the peaks around Presidential elections, that is clearly an upward trend. Just guessing, but some factors involved in this increase include:

New technologies and media that make it easier to follow the news
Political and economic turbulence
An aging population

It is also worth noting that Democrats actually pay less attention to the news than do Republicans:

Reasons for this gap are largely demographic. According to Gallup, there is a correlation between high income, older age and paying close attention to the news, which favors Republicans. Also, according to Gallup's data, men (42%) pay significantly closer attention to the news than women (30%), which also favor Republicans.

The Republican advantage shows that while there is an increase in civic engagement taking place in America, that engagement does not necessarily favor progressives. More people are paying attention to the news, but not necessarily the lower-income, largely younger people who have been most severely hurt by the economy of the past decade. No matter how successful Democrats have been in wooing and increasing turnout among young people, there is still a lot of work to be done.

Conspiracy Theories

Chris Bowers — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:30:00 GMT

According to PPP, 35% of the country thinks either that President Obama was not born in America (23%), and / or that George W. Bush had something to do with the 9/11 attacks (14%). My favorite line in their press release is "a very troubled 2% of the population buys into both of those conspiracy theories." Ha!

On the bipartisan front, 25% of Democrats think that Bush was involved in the 9/11 attacks, while 42% of Republicans think that Obama was not born in the United States. While the relatively high number of Democrats who think Bush was involved in 9/11 does not really surprise me, it is something of a relief that a smaller percentage of Democrats hold that position than Republicans who believe Obama wasn't born in America.

I'm glad PPP did this poll, but I think they missed a chance to poll the actual Democratic equivalent of the "birther" conspiracy theories: that Bush stole the 2004 election. Those two conspiracies are equivalent because they deny the legitimacy of the President. Thinking that Bush was involved in 9/11 is more like thinking that Obama has a secret plan to indoctrinate American children with Islamo-socialism.

My guess is that belief in the stolen 2004 elections is more widespread among Democrats than Bush having foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks. It certainly seems extremely widespread within the comment sections of the progressive blogosphere. I have never been kosher with that theory, and actually find it pretty irritating. This is both because I tend to find all conspiracy theories irritating, and because of the whining complaints about "a-list" bloggers like me being involved in a supplemental conspiracy to suppress evidence of 2004 theft (mainly because we are cowards who want to be taken seriously, or something). And I'm pretty sure that even writing this will result in a bunch of posts about how naïve and uninformed I am about the 2004 elections.

One thing I will say in defense of people who subscribe to all of these conspiracy theories is that such "radical" beliefs are to be expected when our political and economic system continues to fail such an enormous percentage of the country. Over the last 33 years, the bottom 90% of America has received less than a 10% of the growth in real income, and less than 25% of the total increase in our national wealth, even as the cost of education, health care, transportation, food and housing have all soared. When the system is failing people, they will inevitably turn to alternative ideas and conceptualizations for the cause our problems, no matter unsubstantiated those ideas may be. After all, why should you believe the official explanation for anything, when the people offering those official explanations have just been ripping you off for decades on end?

The "Culture Wars" Will Always Be With Us

Chris Bowers — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:00:00 GMT

In response to the weekend's murder of George Tiller, MSNBC's lead thought this morning was that the "culture wars" have returned.

Not to always be the irritating know it all sitting in the first row of class or anything, but I have news for MSNBC. The culture wars never left American politics. In fact, they will always be with us. We are never going to enter a period as a nation where our cultural differences fail to have an impact on our political choices.

The only way we will ever enter into a post-culture war phase of American politics is if there is no longer an statistical significance in both partisan and ideological self-identification between people of different ethnic, gender and lifestyle demographics. To put it more bluntly, we will end move past the culture ways when cultural factors are no longer proving to have statistically significant impacts on partisan and ideological self-identification. As soon as there is no ideological and partisan gender gap, no difference ideological and partisan gap among people of different races, or between people who are straight and those who are not, or between gun owners and non-gun owners, and no difference between the way people with different religious identifications and attendance habits, then we will have entered the post-culture war period.

Problem is, that is never going to happen. It certainly has never happened before in American politics. Cultural factors like religion, ethnicity, and lifestyle have always had a statistically significant impact partisan and ideological self-identification. Irish-American Catholics and white southerners used to be overwhelmingly Democratic, for example.

In fact, cultural identity actually has a larger impact on how people vote than income. This difference had been eroding somewhat before 2008, but it actually increased dramatically in last year's elections. Voting patterns in the Democratic primary were almost entirely based on factors like gender and ethnicity. In the general election, according to exit polls, ethnicity played a significantly greater role in determining how people voted than did income. Future projections indicate that these cultural partisan tendencies will actually continue to increase, rather than decline.

It is worth considering if, when people call for an end to partisanship and ideology in politics, they are actually calling for an end to cultural differences in America. I doubt there is often a self-conscious connection between the two. The case of the David Broder's of the world, it is probably a symptom of living in a hermetically sealed demographic bubble for a while. In the case of the Obama administration and Obama campaign, it probably is / was a case of sending out code that "it's OK to trust me even if you think I am different." Also, it might be connected to an understandable desire to enter an era when cultural differences won't divide us as badly. However, given just how central cultural differences always have been, and always will be, to our partisan and ideological divides, it is still an unattainable goal.

On A May-December Romance, Part Two, Or, Las Vegas, Integrated

fake consultant — Tue, 12 May 2009 12:38:20 GMT

Moulin Rouge.

The mention of that name, in the right circles, brings back a flood of associations.

Among them: a famous cabaret in Gay Paree, a Nicole Kidman movie rich in costume and set design and...well, a movie, anyway; or, if you really know your films, perhaps the association is with the 1952 John Huston "biography" film of the same name.

The one association that might not quickly come to mind, even though it should: ground zero in a battle that led to the desegregation of Las Vegas.

Today's story will fill in the blanks that you might have regarding that association-and by the time we're done, we'll have covered, just as we promised last time, the 55-year history of a place that began in 1955, lasted for not quite six months, and ended just last week...maybe.

It's another one of those American history stories you never heard before, and it's well worth the telling...so let's get right to it.

"Last year people won more than one billion dollars playing poker. And casinos made twenty-seven billion just by being around those people."
--Samantha Bee, "The Daily Show", March 10, 2005

For those of you who missed Part One, we better take a moment to catch up:

Las Vegas, as World War II came to an end, was very much a segregated city, with blacks, who by that time were roughly 3000 of the city's total population of 20,000, literally forced to live on the Wrong Side of The Tracks (a problem that continues to create headlines even as recently as 2008).

(Irony number one: "The Tracks", or at least 60 acres of the land upon which they used to sit, are now the site of an upscale redevelopment effort ("Union Park") that Westside residents note has the potential to leave them even more geographically isolated than they were when The Tracks occupied the site. To further the irony, far more redevelopment money is being spent on the Union Park project then is being spent in the severely economically disadvantaged Westside.)

As the casinos began to become the major driver of the local economy, blacks were allowed to work on the properties, but they could not patronize the segregated casinos in which they worked.

This extended to the highest levels of worker, as even the entertainers who were brought in to work the showrooms were forced to seek accommodations in the Westside neighborhood...which is why the neighborhood's rented cottages and hotels, such as the famous Harrison Boarding House, could count among their many famous guests Nat King Cole, Lena Horne, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Jack Benny's "valet" and sidekick Eddie "Rochester" Anderson.

By the middle of the 1950s there had been unsuccessful efforts in Nevada to pass laws mandating an end to segregation in the casinos and elsewhere (oddly enough, there had never been a law requiring segregation); and it has been suggested that casinos were resistant because their customer base at the time was mainly Californians who had settled there from the Southern states, and who presumably brought their racial animus with them.

And it wasn't as if blacks were not allowed in bars or casinos: there were several on the Westside that catered to a black clientele.

(Irony number two: it's reported that among those were Jewish-owned properties, including the Brown Derby, the Cotton Club, and the Ebony Club.)

Want to see a product of Strip segregation history with your very own eyes? The New Town Tavern, who once hosted Redd Foxx and B.B. King on its now-closed showroom stage, has remained open on the Westside from 1955 to the present day at the corner of F Street and Jackson Avenue.

Which brings us to Frank Sinatra.

By 1953 Sammy Davis, Jr., and the other members of the Will Maston Trio, of which he was the featured player, were splitting $5,000 a week for their services...but they could not stay at the place they played. By 1954, Sinatra convinced Sammy to open for him at The Sands; and in November of that year The Will Maston Trio was not only making $7500 a week at the Frontier, the hotel "comped" their room, board, and drinks, and allowed them the run of the casino, making them the first black act to receive that sort of treatment from a Strip casino (although others report that Nat King Cole was actually the first, in 1955).

Later that same month, Sammy lost an eye in an automobile accident, and was offered $25,000 a week to play The Sands, along with what are described as "Sinatra-like accommodations".

In May of 1955, in an effort to "change the rules of the game", Alexander Bisno and Lou Rubin opened the Moulin Rouge Hotel and Casino on a site in between the Strip and the Westside.

Bisno and Rubin opened the property as a completely integrated facility, bringing blacks and whites in as guests and staff...and even as management and owners. Boxing great Joe Louis was both the official greeter and a partner in the venture. The great Benny Carter was brought in as musical director.

(Fun Fact: the distinctive neon signage for the Moulin Rouge was designed by one of the few women in the business at the time, Betty Willis, who also designed one of the most recognizable signs in advertising history, the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign.)

The hotel was an immediate and massive hit with visitors, who were treated to the best entertainment available anywhere: Sammy, naturally, played the room, along with The Platters, Harry Belafonte, Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, and Eartha Kitt, to name but a few.

But here's the thing: a major reason the place was so popular was because Sinatra, Dean Martin, and the rest of the Rat Pack would head over to the Moulin Rouge, either to put on impromptu performances or to just hang out in this newly swinging atmosphere-and suddenly, the Moulin Rouge, after the other shows on the Strip had ended for the evening, became possibly the hottest joint in the world; with everybody, and I mean everybody, heading over to see and be seen with Sammy, Sinatra, Dino, and the rest of the Pack...and of course, the "Tropi-Can Can" girls.

Things got so crazy that the Moulin Rouge added a 2:30 AM "Third Show"-but within six months, the Moulin Rouge had closed its doors; possibly the victim of mismanagement, possibly the victim of an oversaturated market, possibly the victim of policies designed to make blue-collar black patrons feel less welcome...and possibly the victim of "The Mob", who had a hand in several of the Strip hotels that were suddenly losing significant amounts of gambling business to the new hotel.

"We don't think that we, or any other hotel, should give away a $30,000 show for a Coke and two straws."
--Former Riviera Hotel Chairman Morrie Mason, in "Time" Magazine, September 19, 1955

And with that, you'd think the history of the Moulin Rouge had come to an end.

In fact, there was quite a bit more history yet to come.

Throughout the '50s, Sinatra had been busy working to eliminate what he called the "national disease" of bigotry. He wrote this in a July 1958 "Jet" Magazine article, "The Way I Look At Race":

"A friend to me has no race, no class, and belongs to no minority. My friendships were formed out of affection, mutual respect, and a feeling of having something strong in common. These are eternal values that cannot be racially classified. This is the way I look at race."

By 1959, the Rat Pack was in town filming "Ocean's Eleven" and going after segregation in their own unique way. They would show up at a casino, and if the casino would not admit Sammy Davis, Jr. to the gaming floor, then they would move on to the next one. Since no one wanted the bad publicity...Sammy usually got in. (That same year, blacks and whites in Nevada were legally allowed to marry.)

Because so many people were pushing for integration, segregation was beginning to be bad for business, and something had to be done.

Even Nevada's Governor, Grant Sawyer, was trying to change the culture of segregation...and as 1960 rolled around, the NAACP was applying its own pressure.

Dr. James McMillan, leader of the local NAACP chapter, announced that he would organize a series of "sit-down strikes" in the restaurants of the Strip casinos. The day before the strikes were to begin, Oscar Crozier, representing the hotel interests, met and negotiated with NAACP representatives, Hank Greenspun, the publisher of the "Las Vegas Sun", and some assorted politicians at...wait for it...the abandoned Moulin Rouge, where the Moulin Rouge Agreement was struck, which immediately desegregated the patronage of casinos on the Strip.

"When these fellows realized that they weren't going to lose any money, that they might even make more, they were suddenly colorblind."
--Dr. James McMillan

(The new colorblindness, oddly enough, did not extend to the Downtown casinos, and Binion's Horseshoe was among of the last of those casinos to desegregate.)

Over the next few years, employment on the gaming floors was also desegregated, and in 1971 the State Legislature passed a law barring racial discrimination in the housing market.

Even after all that, the Moulin Rouge wasn't through making history. The property and buildings and...casino license...passed from one owner to another, and eventually one of those owners, Sarann Knight-Preddy, became the first black woman to hold a Nevada gaming license.

The property did operate as a sort of "apartment-motel" for a number of years, and even reopened as a casino during the 1990s, but a 2003 arson fire destroyed the casino/showroom building and removed it from Preserve Nevada's list of 11 most endangered historical sites in the State.

Even then the remaining "hotel" buildings became low-income housing...until they became too dilapidated for that purpose.

And even then plans continued to float around, including an effort that seemed to be gaining momentum in 2008 to build an entirely new project on the old site...until a bad economy and bankruptcy brought that momentum to a crashing halt.

In an ending reminiscent of something that might have happened in the movie "Casino", on May 5th of this year, Olympic Coast Investments of Seattle took ownership of the Moulin Rouge through foreclosure...and on May 6th, another fire took out the remaining buildings on the site. Olympic Coast reports they intend to sell. (Luckily, the neon sign had been removed in the weeks before the fire to the Neon Boneyard.)

We have come a long way with this story, but here we are at last.

Las Vegas, we've learned, has had to deal with a history of racial segregation, was able to break the back of that segregation through the efforts of people as diverse as local neighborhood organizers, Jewish financiers...and the Rat Pack.

That history was forever changed because one casino, for not quite six months, showed what Las Vegas could be-but as we said at the beginning of Part One, even though the casino was only open for those few months, the history it represents continues to unfold, more than 50 years later.

What happens next, no one knows...but in Las Vegas, with a piece of land and an available gambling license to work with...I wouldn't be too quick to bet that the history of the Moulin Rouge is over just yet.

Warning-commercial message ahead: I'm competing for a Netroots Nation scholarship, and I could use your support. Just head on over to the Democracy for America website, click on the "Add your support" link under "Grassroots Supporters", and offer a word or two...and with that, thanks very much, and we return you to your regular programming.

Star Trek As Progressive Mythology

Chris Bowers — Fri, 08 May 2009 23:00:00 GMT

In celebration of the new Star Trek movie, which I will be watching tonight, I am taking the liberty of re-publishing an old article of mine: Star Trek As Progressive Mythology. My view is that science fiction that takes a positive view of the future, perhaps best exemplified in popular culture by Star Trek, is a progressive shift in the use of mythology. Instead of taking our ideal of society in an unattainable past, as conservatism does and as mythology has usually done, Star Trek views the ideal of society in an as yet unattained future, ala progressivism:

[L]ike with the X-Files, there are basically two types of Star Trek episodes. While the X-Files has "monster of the week" episodes and "myth" episodes, Star Trek has "ethical problem of the week" episodes and "galaxy politics" episodes. While I love both kinds of episodes, the focus on this post is on the "ethical problem of the week" type. Specifically, they always seem to resolve their problems by being, well, liberal humanists.

Star Trek is a rare phenomenon in popular culture: a detailed, future fantasy universe that is both based on our own past and that takes an overwhelmingly positive view of our future. Most popular culture science fiction either views the future in negative terms (The Matrix, Phillip Dick) or as an indecipherable "other" (X-Files, Arthur C. Clarke). Star Trek is an unusual view of our future simply because it is so darn positive. Poverty has been eliminated. Humans are free and united. People live to be over 100 years old on a regular basis. There isn't even any money! As Jean Luc Picard puts it, in the future world, individuals do not search to acquire wealth or power, but rather "to better themselves." As we travel around the galaxy making more new friends all the time, our beliefs in equality and self-determination always serve to make us stronger, even against totalitarian adversaries such as the Borg that in many ways are more powerful than the United Federation of Planets.

Star Trek not only shows what is best about liberal political structures and philosophies, but it is fundamentally a representation of the culmination of modernism and the great march of progress. It shows us what liberalism and modernism hope to eventually achieve, rather than what they have already achieved. It is, in that sense, a powerful mythology of modernism, of liberalism, and of progressivism. That works perfectly for those beliefs since, in contrast with conservatism, progressivism always sees the ideal of society as lying somewhere in the future, rather than in the past. As a result of our march of progress, things will be better in the times to come. Even for the characters in Star Trek, rather than trying to live up to some past ideal, rather than trying to imitate the unmatchable actions of super-human archetypes from the past, the best is always yet to come in new worlds and new cultures that are not yet known.

One of the problems with the mythology of almost any culture is that it tends to find our ideals in the distant past. The ways we should act as members of a family, as citizens of a public society, or simply as social animals have always been laid down for us by people who lived long ago (or who didn't live at all). In this way, most of mythology has been inherently conservative, depicting contemporary society, and indeed all societies, as but a poor imitation of the greatness of the past. However, if we are always trying to live up to the greatness of the past, we may have difficulties imagining a better future, which is a necessary aspect of any progressive. By taking the unusual step of placing your mythological greatness in the future--and not in an eschatological future, as the rapturists would have it--then what we are ultimately trying to live up to is the fulfillment of the promises inherent in our own liberal democracy: equality, self-determination, prosperity, and friendship. With this shift, mythology can become a progressive vision for self-improvement that is not bounded by the dictates of the past. Hell, San Francisco even becomes our capital. Hard to imagine a better place for the capital of a progressive future.

Dif-tor heh smusma. (Or, for you humans out there, live long and prosper.)

Rosenberg - wrong about Conservatives?

Christian_Dem_NY — Sun, 03 May 2009 23:13:50 GMT

I started out fully agreeing with Rosenberg's recent posts, about inherent differences between Conservatives and Liberals.
But that agreement, and my first posts on the topic, occurred when I was half-awake last night. Today I have second thoughts, which I think we should all consider.
It is true that SOME Conservatives have a completely authoritarian mindset, and some are cynical and power-hungry predators. SOME of those may be that way, due a family tradition or culture that comes from the old landed aristocracy.
But, here is the problem. There are millions of Conservatives in America, and they have a range of traits. Some are further to the Right than others, and likewise each one will vary in the degree of authoritarian ideology, degree of cynicism, and so on.
I think that it would be "naive and dangerous" to believe that we can negotiate in good faith with men like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and others that are hopelessly far to the right. The only way of dealing with those far-right fanatics is to remove them from power (vote the politicians out of office, and bring down the approval ratings and audience size of far-right media figures).
But in the long run, we will be most successful if we can convert the Joe-the-Plumber types, and show them that our policies are best. And even if there are millions of Joe-the-Plumber types that have been brainwashed by the Right for so long that they will never see the truth, we can build a media machine to rival that of Limbaugh and Murdoch, so that the children of all the Joe-the-Plumber types will embrace Progressive politics.
If each of us begins to belive that every Republican is actually a ruthless Fascist, we will lose the ability to reach out to, and recruit, Joe-the-Plumbers. And likewise, when we talk about Republicans and Conservatives, we will speak about them in terms of stereotypes.
I will be a lifelong, die-hard opponent of Social Darwinsim and of theocracy. But even though I need to recognize that many of my opponents may be ruthless and cynical liars, I will constantly remind myself not to take a "guilty until proven innocent" view of my conservative opponents.

On Assessing Risk, Or, Swine Flu: Is It Time To Panic?

fake consultant — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:07:14 GMT

We are going to be talking a lot about swine flu over the next few weeks.

The conversation about the politics of the thing is already well underway, engulfing those who sought to remove funding for infectious disease control out of the "stimulus" bill.

We are lacking, however, an examination of the science of the thing, and that's the point of today's conversation.

How dangerous is this infection?
Why is it killing people in Mexico but not here?
Exactly what is a pandemic?
Do those facemasks really serve any purpose?
And what about closing the border?

They're all good questions; and they are all questions we'll try to answer today.

"I've always been a hypochondriac.
As a little boy, I'd eat my M & M's one by one with a glass of water."
--Richard Lewis

Why don't we define a pandemic first, then move on to the "what we knows"?

A pandemic is a global event characterized by the emergence of a new virus that readily spreads from human to human. When humans are exposed to new viruses, the lack of previously developed antibodies means we lack biological defenses, making new viruses the most dangerous to human health.

(Vaccines are designed to safely expose humans to diseases. The body makes antibodies based on that exposure, making it better prepared for the next exposure.)

So here's what we know: a swine flu outbreak that seems to have begun in Mexico has claimed more than 150 lives and sent more than 2000 to the hospital in that country as of Tuesday morning.

As of Wednesday, there are 91 laboratory-confirmed cases of swine flu in the United States, with 81 of them occurring in New York, California, and Texas. There has been one confirmed death in the US as of Wednesday, a child who had come to the US from Mexico to be treated for this infection.

In an ordinary year, the CDC reports, about 36,000 people die from influenza in the United States (during the 1990s, the number varied from 17,000 to 52,000).

There are a smaller number of infected individuals in numerous other countries.

The World Health Organization had, early this week, declared a Phase 4 alert, meaning that we have:

"...verified human-to-human transmission of an animal or human-animal influenza...virus able to cause "community-level outbreaks." The ability to cause sustained disease outbreaks in a community marks a significant upwards shift in the risk for a pandemic...Phase 4 indicates a significant increase in risk of a pandemic but does not necessarily mean that a pandemic is a forgone conclusion."

As of Wednesday that has been raised to a Phase 5 alert, which:

"...is characterized by human-to-human spread of the virus into at least two countries in one WHO region. While most countries will not be affected at this stage, the declaration of Phase 5 is a strong signal that a pandemic is imminent and that the time to finalize the organization, communication, and implementation of the planned mitigation measures is short."

We also have suspicions about a number of things.

We suspect that a pig farm near La Gloria, Mexico was the source of the outbreak.

We suspect (with very high confidence) that the number of confirmed infections will grow substantially as labs are able to complete the testing that changes probable and suspected cases to confirmed ones.

We suspect there will be additional deaths in the United States from this infection beyond the one that has already been confirmed.

Because at least 45 of the confirmed cases in the US are associated with a group of spring breakers just back from Cancún, we are suspicious that they might be the group responsible for introducing the virus into the country....however...the CDC reports that cases were first seen in San Antonio, Texas, and in Southern California in late March and early April.

Because the health authorities in Mexico might not have been tracking minor infections, it is suspected that the very high death rate currently associated with this infection in that country is overstated.

There is, as you might imagine, an entire list of things we cannot as yet explain.

The question of why young and presumably healthy Mexicans are dying at an alarming rate while citizens of other countries are not is first on that list. There are several possible explanations besides the potential statistical problems we note above, and one of those is the question of air quality in Mexico City.

The amazing level of air pollution in Mexico's capitol city has created a childhood asthma problem of such long standing that it has now also become an adult asthma problem. It is known that people with compromised respiratory systems are predisposed to become victims of opportunistic respiratory infections, lending credence to this supposition.

It is possible that nutritionally compromised individuals in Mexico are becoming targets for more severe infections than individuals in the US who are getting sick but have more robust overall health due to better nutrition.

There is confusion due to an inability to accurately track the infection in Mexico. It is possible that new infections are still occurring, that the virus is in regression, that it is has mutated in new ways, or that another, as yet unidentified virus is now circulating; but due to a lack of reliable information it is impossible to tell which, if any, of these events are actually taking place.

The US public health authorities seem to be better able to respond to this health event than Mexican authorities have been. For example, there are reports, confirmed by Mexican Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordoba, that people who had close contact with individuals who have died from swine flu have not had access to medical or epidemiological follow-up...or access to antiviral drugs.

There have been questions as to whether border screening should be intensified to prevent infected persons entering from Mexico. In testimony before Congress Tuesday it was pointed out to Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison that infected persons might not show any symptoms while crossing the border, rendering such screening techniques as temperature monitoring ineffective.

Now let's talk about this virus.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, in the same hearing room, gave us a lot to worry about. He points out that this is an almost unique virus, in that it has, within its structure, genes from bird, pig, and human influenza viruses (the process of these genes combining themselves in new ways is called "reassortment"); and seeing a "triple reassortment" is highly unusual.

The H1N1 virus that is the basis of this new virus is inherently capable of human-to-human transmission, he tells us, which is particularly problematic.

We will talk about what drugs might be effective in a moment...but first, a word or two on uncertainty.

There is no way to know if the virus we are dealing with today will mutate into new forms, nor can we predict if the virus will become relatively more dangerous if and when new populations are exposed. (It is also possible that the virus might mutate into a less harmful form).

We have no way to predict whether this virus will return, even stronger, in the fall, which would not be uncommon.

We cannot predict what other influenza viruses might appear, or if the two other currently circulating "seasonal" viruses might mutate in ways that cause greater concern.

We cannot predict the potential for further reassortment caused by the current seasonal flu viruses that had been circulating before the emergence of swine flu interacting with this new virus.

We cannot predict where the virus (and its antecedents) will crop up.

We cannot say for certain that the virus will not develop resistance to currently effective antiviral drugs.

These are problems associated with influenza management every flu season, and they are not particular to this virus.

"Excessive calm...may be a symptom of swine flu."
--Stephen Colbert

Because things can change on literally a day-by-day basis, some of our comments on drugs will be correct as of today, but not necessarily correct in the future.

There are four antiviral drugs available, and two of them are rather ineffective in dealing with certain strains of influenza due to the fact that those strains have developed resistance to those drugs.

That leaves two useful drugs, Tamiflu and Relenza.

When deciding what drug to prescribe for someone who shows up at the doctor's office, the doctor needs to have an idea what kind of flu you have. If you show up with swine flu, today, a doctor might be inclined to offer you Tamiflu...but if you showed up with an infection caused by the "seasonal" Type A H1N1 virus from 2007-2008, Tamiflu would be the wrong choice, as that virus is resistant to Tamiflu.

Why not just dose the entire US population with Tamiflu or Relenza right now, you might ask?

It's partly a question of side effects and the damage they can cause, multiplied by 300,000,000 patients.

In the case of Relenza, there are significant side effects for those with respiratory diseases, and the drug is not normally recommended for those patients. The FDA recommends that patients who do use this drug have ready access to a fast-acting inhaled bronchodilator at the time it is administered. Some patients have experienced "transient neuropsychiatric events" (specifically self-injury or delirium) after using the drug.

Roughly 10% of Tamiflu users experience vomiting, and there are also patient reports of transient neuropsychiatric events with this drug ("confusion, paranoia, anxiety attack, nightmares" were among the listed symptoms). The use of this drug by children under one year of age is not normally advised, but on Wednesday an Emergency Use Authorization was issued for such use.

It's also, to some extent, a question of uncertainty about this flu: will this virus turn out to be less harmful than the impact of those side effects? Will it, in other words, "just fade away"?

Beyond that, to try to prevent these viruses from developing resistance, we need to use these drugs as sparingly as possible; with that in mind, if we can avoid mass administration of these drugs it would be to our advantage.

The preferred approach would be to vaccinate...and it is hoped that by this fall a vaccine will be available...and it is hoped that the virus that is in circulation this fall will be roughly the same virus that was "designed into" the vaccine between now and summer.

Now a quick word on facemasks and respirators:

The CDC recommends facemasks for those in crowded settings...but they strongly suggest limiting the time in which you are in those settings more than they do the use of facemasks. They also strongly emphasize handwashing, covering your mouth when you cough, and washing hands after shaking hands.

It is also noted that airborne droplets can get around the edges of facemasks, rendering them fairly ineffective.

Respirators, on the other hand, can be effective, and are currently recommended for people who cannot avoid contact with infected persons. The "all-day" use of these respirators, however, is a challenge simply because of the increased effort involved in breathing while wearing such a device.

An artist asked the gallery owner if there had been any interest in his paintings on display at that time.
"I have good news and bad news" the owner replied. "The good news is that a gentleman inquired about your work and wondered if it would appreciate in value after your death. When I told him it would, he bought all 15 of your paintings."
"That's wonderful!" the artist exclaimed. "What's the bad news?"
"The man was your doctor."
--From Doctor Jokes at "Resources for Attorneys"

So what good news, if any, is there to tell?

As of right now we have no reason to believe that this flu is more likely to cause fatalities than the seasonal influenzas that we would normally see. (Keep in mind, however, that this could quickly change.)

If the pattern we have seen so far were to continue (and there is no particular reason to say it will or it won't) we could end up with a virus that is widely transmitted but no more dangerous than what we are used to seeing in normal years.

Ironically, the virus' wide dissemination would itself be good news; as it would expose more of us to this new virus, enabling us to develop antibodies to the infection even before a vaccine is developed for the fall.

We have covered a lot of ground today, so let's wrap it up:

An influenza caused by a nearly unique virus is moving through the population of Mexico, that infection has spread to several other countries, and so far the number of fatalities worldwide has not exceeded 200. (We expect more than 35,000 deaths annually from influenza in the United States, by way of comparison.)

Because it is a virus to which humans have not been previously exposed, there is heightened concern among The Experts.

There is no reason, at this moment, to believe this influenza will be more lethal than the seasonal influenzas currently circulating among the US population.

This flu can currently be controlled by administration of either of two readily available antivirals. (By the way, don't forget all that handwashing, covering your mouth when you cough...and handwashing....is pretty helpful as well.)

This type of virus (H1N1) is generically known for its ability to transmit readily from person to person, and not for its inherent lethality. (It is not yet certain, however, if this specific virus will follow that pattern.)

It is possible that a useful vaccine will be available for fall-and it is also possible that this virus will have morphed into a form that will be resistant to the newly developed vaccine.

Closing the borders isn't logical, facemasks don't really work, respirators do, but they're not the sort of "all-day" accessory that a lot of us will enjoy...and avoiding crowded places is what the CDC today feels will work best.

There are a host of unknowns that could change all of this, and there are no predictive tools that can reliably give us reasons to be either sanguine...or scared to death.

All of this can and will change rapidly-sometimes on a day-to-day basis. In the time I spent putting all this together, the WHO raised the alert to Phase 4, then Phase 5, the number of US cases doubled, and the CDC has changed their recommendations for antiviral drug administration twice.

Put it all together, and at the moment things are nowhere near as bad as they could be, with a whole lot of uncertainty ahead.

Progressive Workplaces Are Part of the Problem

Chris Bowers — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:24:50 GMT

In the print edition of the latest Harper's, Terry Eagleton describes the radical, liberating thought behind the "art for art's sake" movement of the 19th century:

Art was play, not labor, and it held out a promise of emancipation to the wage slaves of the first industrial capitalist nation in history. The work of art obeyed no law but its own and could therefore be seen as a model of human autonomy. It had no reason or purpose beyond its own self-delight; and in a utilitarian age that judged things in terms of their practical functions, this glorious uselessness carried some subversive implications.

From William Blake to Oscar Wilde, art was an image of what men and women could become in changed political conditions. They, too, could be gloriously pointless; in fact, this was the whole point of human existence, which the gray-bearded champions of the work ethic had never understood. Human beings resembled works of art in being ends in themselves. Art of art's sake was not a retreat from politics; it was a politics all its own.

This article really hit home for me back on Sunday night, as I was returning from my first days of non-holiday related vacation since, well, since Open Left was founded two years ago. Why is it that progressive activists, who still seek to transform society in many of the same liberating ways sought by Blake, Wollstonescraft, Shelley or Wilde, are willing to live such utterly shitty existences to bring about said change? That is, why are our lives entirely dedicated to bringing about progressive political change, instead of actually experiencing the liberating progressive lifestyles we seek?

A lot of you know exactly what I am talking about. Working conditions for most people who make a living in progressive politics completely suck. Weekends don't exist. Vacations don't exist. 60+ hour workweeks are common, if not the norm. You don't make enough money to save up for a house, much less pay off student debt or save for retirement. Job security doesn't exist. For many, health care doesn't exist. Someone is always willing to work harder than you feel like you can possibly manage. Whether you are a blogger, a staffer for PIRG, working for Grassroots Campaigns, an SEIU organizer, or a campaign staffer, you have basically no life outside of work. And, even if you did, you couldn't afford that life anyway.

In September of 2007, one weekend I went to the Jersey Shore with a few friends in progressive politics. During the trip, someone said "oh--so this is what a vacation is like!" Sadly, someone else responded, "no--this is what a weekend is like." It was funny because it was so painful.

I'm not saying that people in progressive politics have it worse than people in any other profession. Certainly, there are many worse jobs someone could have than being a professional political activist, and undoubtedly there are tens of millions of Americans facing similar, or worse, problems of work exhaustion despite continued financial difficulty. What I am saying is that progressive political professionals are doing a pretty lousy job of demonstrating a better way to live. If we are working to make the country more like our organizations, then we seriously must be stopped. We are not ourselves living the progressive ideal, or really anything close to it.

I can't help but shake the feeling that the lifestyle created by the low-pay, few benefits and long-hours of progressive political organizations is actually part of the problem in our society, not the solution. We are operating like base cogs in an enormous utilitarian machine, not living up to the ideal that human beings are ends unto themselves and should be given ample time to live as such. It makes me think of David's great recent post "Existential Question: What The F%$@! Are We Doing?" Josh Marshall also had a must-read recent post relevant to this subject, and President Obama gave a good response when asked if he ever regretted running for President. Even so, there seems to be a big contradiction between what progressive activists are trying to achieve, and how we are actually living. Our lifestyles and workplaces seem to be part of the problem we are trying to fix. If haven't even liberated ourselves, how can we help liberate anyone else?

On A May-December Romance, Part One, Or, Las Vegas, Segregated

fake consultant — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 02:03:59 GMT

There may be no more recognizable icon of "Retro-Cool" than that photograph of the Rat Pack standing in front of the marquee at The Sands Hotel in Las Vegas.

They're right there, lined up in front of their own giant names on the marquee: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop.

Night after night they would gather with friends such as Shirley MacLaine, Angie Dickinson, and Johnny Carson, to deliver some of the greatest nightclub performances in entertainment history.

Today's story, however, focuses on what happened after the show: when four of those five could leave the showroom, drink at the bar, gamble at the casino, and go upstairs to their rooms.

In a town sometimes known as the "Mississippi of the West", however, one of those five performers could not do any of those things.

Our Journey In Two Parts literally crosses over to the "wrong side of the tracks", tells a story of segregation overcome, and recounts the six-month history of a Las Vegas hotel that has a 55-year history: the Moulin Rouge.

"...We boast of the freedom enjoyed by our people above all other peoples. But it is difficult to reconcile that boast with a state of the law which, practically, puts the brand of servitude and degradation upon a large class of our fellow-citizens, our equals before the law. The thin disguise of "equal" accommodations...will not mislead anyone, nor atone for the wrong this day done."
--Justice John Marshall Harlan, from the dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896)

So let's start with the "literally" part: Las Vegas' "Westside", which was the original Vegas townsite, was located across the "Cement Curtain" of railroad tracks from "new" Las Vegas, and it was the only place the black population was allowed to live.

This was not a new situation in Nevada, or unique to Las Vegas: when the Six Companies built what became Hoover Dam in the '30s, some say only 30 blacks are estimated to have been employed on the entire project. (Others put the number nearly 50% higher, suggesting 44 out of the workforce of 5000 were black.)

World War II had swollen Las Vegas' population, and the "new" Vegas-the white Vegas-included the land that would eventually become The Strip. While blacks were allowed to work out of the Westside, beyond that area they could not own property...and they most assuredly could not be guests of the hotels and casinos in which they worked.

In fact, blacks who owned businesses beyond the borders of the Westside were "motivated" to move them there during the '40s.

By the early 1950s the Thunderbird, the El Rancho Vegas, and "Bugsy" Siegel's Flamingo, among others, were drawing big crowds from Los Angeles and points beyond for the floor shows, lounge entertainment, and casino gambling.

With the exception of Josephine Baker's performance at the El Rancho, blacks were generally not allowed among those crowds; and performers such as Louis Armstrong and Sammy Davis, Jr. were forced to stay in rooming houses or other accommodations on the Westside.

"In Vegas for 20 minutes, our skin had no color. Then the second we stepped off the stage, we were colored again...the other acts could gamble or sit in the lounge and have a drink, but we had to leave through the kitchen with the garbage."
--Sammy Davis, Jr.

At this point, a few words on Rat Pack history (and if you only click on one link in this story, this might be the one...).

Humphrey Bogart was the founder of the first Rat Pack; then called the "Holmby Hills Rat Pack", after the Los Angeles neighborhood in which he and Lauren Bacall lived following their 1945 marriage. These Rat Packers included Judy Garland, "Swifty" Lazar (still considered one of the most notable agents in Hollywood history), and, eventually, Frank Sinatra.

This members of this group were not "Hollywood Society" types; as a result the Rat Pack spent a lot of its time up in the Holmby Hills...laughing at Hollywood Society over cocktails...making the odd trip to Vegas to spend a night out...and occasionally adjourning to fellow Rat Packers Mike and Gloria Romanoff's restaurant...where the Hollywood Society types vied to be seen with them.

Upon Bogart's death in 1957 Sinatra, partly because of his friendship with Bacall, was able to continue the Pack (at one point called "The Clan"; a name that was quickly dropped) with new members (and old friends) Dino, Sammy, Joey Bishop, and Peter Lawford (Not-Yet-President John F. Kennedy's brother-in-law), while still keeping continuity with Bogart's Rat Pack. (Some might also describe Sinatra and Bacall's romantic relationship following Bogart's death as another part of that continuity.)

We've come a long way to get to this point, and we have a long way to go-which makes this a perfect "rest stop" between Parts One and Two.

A Barstow, if you will.

Way back at the beginning, we learned that blacks in Las Vegas really were living on the wrong side of the tracks, that separate was in no way equal; and that even if you were Louis Armstrong, or Lena Horne, or Sammy Davis, Jr., you might be allowed to work in white Las Vegas, but you weren't going to be allowed to eat there, drink there, or sleep there...and you weren't going to be allowed to gamble your paycheck away there, either.

In the meantime, Las Vegas was attracting entertainers-black and white-who would chafe at these rules. The group that would become the new Rat Pack was going to be at the heart of that change...and in our next installment, we'll talk about six months of Las Vegas history that ultimately, despite great resistance, forced that change to happen.

That Band Was Good Before They Were Popular

Chris Bowers — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 03:03:17 GMT

In a short article criticizing Rachel Maddow, Brendan Nyhan laments the stupidity of the mass audience (emphasis mine):

The only way for a pundit to assemble a large enough audience to succeed in prime time is to pander to their audience's ideological sensibilities and to dumb down their content to the lowest common denominator.

The notion that popularity is earned through stupidity can't die a fast enough death. Not that the notion is actually dying, just that it is an idea that needs to go away. The implication of such sentiments is that people are generally pretty dumb, or at least dumber than the person doing the evaluating. It is fundamentally a statement of elitism over the masses.

More in the extended entry.
The very notion of "high" culture, incubated from the market economy by non-profit foundations and the academy, but containing an aesthetic and intellectual property absent in mass, largely market-based, "low" culture, is an idea that has been around for a great deal of time. Centuries, really. And even before mass culture, as long as there has been some form of social elite which enjoy a different set of cultural activities from the great mass of the people, the sentiment that stupidity equals popularity has been prevalent.

As someone who has spent several years studying avant-garde poetry in graduate school and trying to make a living, at least in part, by acquiring a large audience for my puny little independent websites, I can honestly say that a hell of a lot of brain power are required for both. I mean, if it was easy to get hundreds of thousands of people to listen to you, then why wouldn't just about everyone do it? And don't say that most people don't want to, because there are probably at least a few times in everyone's life when they wish more people would listen to them.

The fact is that it is very, very hard to acquire a large audience. This is because, in the final analysis, humans are actually very clever. We may not have the purest of intentions, but we are definitely clever. Really, our innate intelligence should be obvious, given that you are reading this article on a self-directed medium both used, and created, by billions of people around the world. Being able to impress several hundred thousand, or even millions, of humans long enough to have them stop and listen to you is a remarkable achievement.

Granted, certain institutions, due to their economic position, will always have an easier time getting large numbers of people to listen to them. And, yes, even cultural products can be put together in a cheap, shoddy fashion like so many lead-infested Chinese toys. However, to make a blanket statement that a large audience requires dumbing down your content is hard to read as anything except social elitism. Hell, such a statement is a pretty good definition of social elitism.

If you think it is easy to acquire a large audience through stupidity, then really, give it a try it sometime.

On Tradition, Or, Same-Sex Marriage, Seen Through A Telescope

fake consultant — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 05:43:44 GMT

Dangerous Things are happening in America these days, we are told, and the once-innocent citizens of Iowa and Vermont have already been exposed to the hazard...and now it looks as though the contagion might spread to States across New England.

But lucky for us, our friends on the Right are here again to save to save us from...(insert horror film music here)...

...The Gay.

The Gay, it turns out, want the opportunity to marry.

Among other complaints, our friends on the Right feel this will destroy religious tradition, which will ultimately destroy first Christianity, then the Nation. Therefore, religious tradition must be protected at all costs.

Well as it turns out, there are some people from our past who know a few things about religious traditions and how they distort reality-and today, we'll examine the lessons they have to teach us.

The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.
--"The King James Bible", Ecclesiastes 1:5

"...I wish, my dear Kepler, that we could have a good laugh together at the extraordinary stupidity of the mob. What do you think of the foremost philosophers of this University? In spite of my oft-repeated efforts and invitations, they have refused, with the obstinacy of a glutted adder, to look at the planets or Moon or my telescope."
--"Through which the satellites of Jupiter were visible", Galileo Galilei

"The proposition that the sun is in the center of the world and immovable from its place is absurd, philosophically false, and formally heretical; because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scriptures."
--From the Catholic Church's indictment of Galileo Galilei, 1633

So you get up every day and look up at the sky, and it's obvious that the sun starts out over here...and at the end of the day it ends up over there.

Aristotle and Ptolemy figured it all out: each planet was placed on its own "sphere", the earth in the center, and everything rotating around it; each planet (and the sun) inside the other, with the stars on the outside, in a Celestial Sphere"...all of this resembling Russian "Matryoshka" dolls.

And it's no surprise that this interpretation of the motion of planets and the sun became not just "common sense", but the official position of the Roman Catholic Church. After all, it was in the Bible, it was something you could see every day, and as the Greeks would have told you, it was logically "beautiful"-and who could want better proof than that?

To make a long story short, a Polish-born Church Canon named Nicolas Copernicus did. In 1543, near the end of his life, he released the book "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" ("On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres"), which suggested that all the planets, including the Earth, actually orbit the Sun.

It took another 40 years before someone would challenge Dogma on this point in a "threatening" way, but by 1584 Giordano Bruno's "The Ash Wednesday Supper" was considered challenging enough to earn him the Heretic's Fork...just before he was burned alive on the order of the Church.

By 1616 Galileo Galilei was being warned by the Catholic Church to stop talking about what he was seeing through his telescopes; a moon that was not a perfect sphere and the viewing of the phases of Venus being just two of his problematic observations.

Of course, the real reason all this was so problematic was because there were those in the Church who felt that the Word of God was to be interpreted literally...which meant that anyone who challenged either the text of the Bible or Church Dogma in any way had to be both factually wrong...and an enemy of the Faith.

Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?
--Groucho Marx, from the movie "Duck Soup"

Despite the warning, Galileo wouldn't let it go. He kept observing, and he kept writing, which led to his attempt, in 1632, to obtain a license to publish the "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems"...which led to his being hauled before the Inquisition...which led, in June of 1633, to him forswearing any of his previous beliefs, presumably to avoid the Heretic's Fork himself.

The Church was able to hold all this together for another half-century-but Isaac Newton essentially "won the argument" with the publication of his three editions of the "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica" from 1686 to 1742.

Many of you will recall that the Catholic Church was in fact destroyed by this chink in the armor of Biblical literalism, with the Church actually ceasing operations in 1802.

Obviously, I'm kidding-but the fact that nothing terrible happened hasn't stopped any number of religious leaders in this country (and their followers, for that matter) from claiming that allowing same-sex marriages will have the same impact on faith in America today.

Which brings us to the moral of today's story: the next time someone tells you that same-sex marriages will destroy religious traditions...that the world as we know it will come to a horrible end...and that anyone with any "common sense" can see that for themselves...tell 'em to go get a telescope and get over it.

A Night of Cultural Moments

Chris Bowers — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 06:13:43 GMT

Wow.

Holy crap.

Syracuse defeats Connecticut in six overtimes, and Jon Stewart buries Jim Cramer.

This is a day that will be long remembered.

And this is an open thread.

Only Going To Church On Christmas

Chris Bowers — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 06:31:36 GMT

What should we expect from President Obama's State of the Union speech on Tuesday night? Probably talk of our economic difficulties, but talk of how we are going to fix them through more public spending (especially on health care), less military spending (especially in Iraq), and eliminating the Bush tax cuts. And bi-partisanship. And hope. And by getting past ideology.

But I have to ask: why are State of the Union speeches a big deal? Presidents deliver speeches all the time, but these speeches are rarely covered lived on by all major television, Internet and radio news outlets. Within the professional political world of D.C., the SOTU not only is worthy of an acronym, but its annual parties are second only to changes of partisan power in Congress and / or the White House in terms of celebratory atmosphere. What is it about the SOTU that generates such intense coverage from major political and media institutions?

The answer, I'm pretty certain, is that over one-quarter of Americans actually watch the SOTU (possibly because many have no other choice). This makes it second only to Election Day in terms of popular engagement in politics. So, of course, it is a big deal in political and media circles. For all the cynicism and snide comments made about politics, the word derives from the Greek polis, which pretty much just means "place where many people live together." In other words, politics is simply the business of figuring out how people should live together. It is also why politics remains just about the only highly esteemed, creative class profession for which no real qualifications are required. In the final analysis, almost anyone is qualified to hold an opinion on how people should live together--and on how to convince them they should live together. So, of course, people in politics and media take this event seriously.

But this begs a more fundamental question: why do so many people watch the SOTU? (More in the extended entry)
Part of the reason is, of course, that they don't have any other choice. For example, even I didn't have cable until today, when I moved (the move is why I didn't blog on Monday).

Tomorrow night, part of it will be Obama himself. Not only does he have a huge following (I mean, when is the last time you saw the President's picture hanging up in local shops?) but, to keep speaking anecdotally, yesterday a friend of mine remarked that she wanted to watch Obama's speech because "we might actually get real information this time." Although I haven't dug up the numbers to prove this, I bet that, over that past 15 years, there has been a direct correlation between presidential approval ratings and SOTU ratings.

However, and this may sound strange coming from an avowed atheist such as myself, but mainly I think it is kind of like people who only go to church on Christmas. Apart from voting, watching the SOTU is an annual, ritual form of political engagement for many Americans who are otherwise disengaged. Even nine months from an election, even in an odd numbered year, even when we basically already know what the President will say (which is every year), many still tune in just because, well, for the same reason people go to church only on Christmas. It is just something you do to show you are a part of the team, even if you can't stand and / or can't be bothered by the trappings for regular engagement.

Anyway, that's one theory. Why do you think the SOTU gets such big exposure, and such a big audience?

Shifting the Meaning of Words

Chris Bowers — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 04:56:43 GMT

There are quite a few words that seem to have changed their meaning as a result of recent political discussion. For example:

Maverick
I used to think that "maverick" meant "someone who defies convention." Now, I'm pretty sure Natasha is correct when in thinking it means "irresponsible rogue."

Oversight
In the not to recent past, "oversight" meant "careful supervision." Now, the proper definition of the word is "meaningless promise." Another possible meaning: "I have secured peace for our time."

Pragmatist
For a while, "pragmatist" described someone who took the real-world outcomes to be the ultimate determinant for the meaning and / or value of an action, idea or policy. Now, I'm almost certain it means "someone who considers challenging the status quo to be too great a risk."

Ideological
At one time, called something "ideological" meant it related to a larger system of values or beliefs. Now, it is almost exclusively used to call someone or something "non-centrist."

****

While I am trying to be funny, I am not trying to be snarky. The meanings of words are contextual, and they can change as their use changes. The definitions of these words really are changing as a result of their use in our political discourse. How do you see the meaning of these and other words changing?