A Lion Departs

About 45 years ago, with JFK making his Presidential run, Ted Kennedy was in charge of the campaign in the western states. That was a fascinating campaign. It was the first campaign to exploit TV coverage. JFK was genuinely charismatic, cool, sure of himself and actually funny. The three Kennedy brothers were obviously intelligent and secure in their own persons, unlike the paranoid Richard Nixon, their opponent. As in Obama's last election, the Democrats had the support of young, who didn't buy into anti-Catholic rhetoric.

When Ted Kennedy barnstormed through Los Angeles and Orange Counties, I was given the unpaid job of driving his advance vehicle, a caliope, from site to site, helping to build a crowd for each of Ted Kennedy's arrivals. They crowds proved huge, and Ted fed on that. He was only a few years older than I was, maybe in his early thirties, handsome as the Devil, full of energy, rich and famous. He'd bound onto the stage surrounded by the beautiful young women--the sort who always accompanied Kennedys--we called "Kennedy girls." Then he'd give a rip-roaring speech that ended with a chant: "Let's put Jack in the White Shack!" The crowd would go nuts.

Ted Kennedy, the least of the brothers, soldiered on, his life on the line, after seeing Martin, Robert and John assassinated--deaths that altered the curve of American history, sending us Nixon, the Southern Strategy, and the rise of empty Presidents of no substance: Reagan and two Bushes. Ted Kennedy became a major factor in just about every piece of progressive legislation passed in forty years, pushing voting rights for Blacks and equal rights for gays and women. Right to the end he was the best voice the Democrats on the Left had. This would have been true at any time, but in fact Ted Kennedy has died just when we need him most.

So it goes. Ted Kennedy, well done.

Somewhere There's Music

While my wife and I were living Back East, we learned that Les Paul, then in his 80s, still had a gig, Monday nights, at the Iridium Jazz Club in Manhattan. Our son-in-law, Mark, expert on the metal guitar, was coming to visit, so we took him and our daughter into Manhattan, where we had a few drinks in a crowded bar and listened to Les Paul play and then talk a bit about Mary Ford between songs. I suspect that one day Mark and Sarah will be telling their grandchildren, "Yes, we heard Les Paul live."

Les Paul was one of the inventors of the solid body electric guitar. In a sense, this made rock music possible. The various Les Paul guitars produced by Gibson have been central to the lives of major rock musicians. Paul invented the home studio. He was one of the inventors of overdubbing, multi-track recording and many guitar licks.

Les Paul and his wife, Mary Ford, made a string of mega-hits at home on which he provided the guitar and she did the voice: "Lover," "How High the Moon," "Bye Bye Blues, "The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise" and "Vaya Con Dios." Earlier Paul had recorded a major hit with the Andrews Sisters, "It's Been A Long Long Time."

Les Paul is dead at 94. Somewhere there's music/ how faint the tune. . . .

"I want my country back!"

When I was about 30, my brother and I were pawing through dusty cardboard boxes our grandparents had left to my father, and we came across a photograph of our grandfather in a KKK sheet. Astonished we approached our father, who told us that his dad had heard that the KKK served free beer, so he had joined. No beer materialized, so the misinformed Cal Goss had dropped out after one year.

These events had taken place somewhere near Sanger in the Big Valley more than 100 years ago.

Recently, while I was watching an obviously misinformed woman in a spotted house dress sobbing hysterically at a town forum on TV, saying, "I want my country back," I thought of my grandpa. What the woman meant was that she wanted her white male country back. She was totally scared. Suddenly her straight white country had a Black President, a sharp-tongued woman in a suit as secretary of state, a stout Latina on the Supreme Court, and grey-haired gays in the Episcopal establishment. This could not, from her perspective, be America.

Of course the tea-baggers and birthers contain many fake members of the working class, Republican functionaries who found some bib overalls at Goodwill and attend public meetings pretending that their soft hands are the hands of hard workers. But there are also genuinely terrified haters in the mix, not descendents of the Nazi party but descendents of the Whiskey Rebellion, the vigilantes, the lynch mobs, the KKK, the Know Nothings. They are part of us. They have always been with us, and we owe them something: an attempt to calm them down and convince them that they are not in danger.

The Republicans, who manipulate and use these terrified people, deserve to drop out of history and be replaced by an honest conservative party that is dedicated to conserving what is best in our country. No true conservative encourages mob rule--the idea is ridiculous.

Peace Project Attacked

Last night the Healdsburg Peace Vigil came under attack from a group of tourists or perhaps organized tea-baggers. The vigil has been treated well through the years by local people and by the police. Incidents have occurred before, mostly with visitors. These particular visitors commented inaccurately on the sizes of the folks' asses, their sexual orientations, their employment status, and so on. When it looked as if violence might start, a vigil leader called the police, and the small mob left.

The incident was witnessed by a Santa Rosa blogger, in town for dinner. Perhaps I shouldn't name her. She wrote the following:

Thursday night was my husband's birthday. I took him to dinner in Healdsburg, California. Healdsburg is what is known as a destination town in Sonoma County. People come for the Michelin rated restaurants, the wonderful square with shops and for the surrounding wineries. It's a short drive from our house, so off we were to a lovely evening.

Every Thursday, the Healdsburg Peace project holds a vigil for peace on the square. People drive by and honk and many just walk by. This Thursday there were about ten people, with signs supporting single payer insurance, a "never again Hiroshima", Pace flags, American flags and some Green flags. This group has been holding the vigil since before the Iraq war, every Thursday evening.

I had seen this group before, but I am from Berkeley where there has been a peace vigil for over thirty plus years on the western side of the campus at UC Berkeley. It's a peace vigil, you would think it's not anything controversial. If you don't agree, you walk by. But, not tonight.

A group of wine country tourists, in the 35 year old range, was walking by across the street and we hear some screaming, I don't know how it started. I am getting used to boisterous "wine tasters". The shouters were wearing an assortment of t-shirts with Philladelphia teams, bars. Maybe they were from there, maybe not. But clearly, they were not locals.

We heard some bits of the shouting, repetitive shouting at the vigil holders:

"Get a job"

" We pay our way, we pay our taxes"

"Get off the streets"

" Fucking socialists"

Men, women, shaking their fists, turning red and screaming at these folks who are doing something that is legal and in their town. The vigil holders were quite restrained. The mob crossed the street and went into their faces.

The vigil holders stood up to them and one of the mob guys, pulled away a woman who was the most aggressive and they walked away shaking their heads and fists. Their faces were contorted from anger.

The bullies had this look on their face of having done something virtuous -- a gleeful, high five we kicked their butts look. I had my phone, but did not think of taking pictures of the brutish expressions on their faces. I cussed at them as they walked by and glared at them. There were not enough people on the square to shame them.

There was something grotesque about them calling the man holding the "Hiroshima, Never Again" sign all kinds of vulgar names in the name of patriotism and America.

Is this an outcome of the sanctioned RNC mob tactics? Or, is this particular group not related? Am I making a connection where there is none? I don't think I am. There was something evocative of the tone in those televised meetings.

When they left, I was disturbed and agitated. My husband tried to calm me to consider who they were, just a hodge podge, probably drunk, bunch of people that have no political consciousness. But I don't think so, I think they are emboldened by Rush and the others who are pushing them. They are the by product of the fanaticism.

I was shocked at their collective lack of shame. The fact that they had no internal control, that some smaller contingent of their group did not try to pull the main culprits away earlier.

I am convinced that people have no respect for the social rules of behavior in a democracy. The rules that give the people of the "peace vigil" the right to hold a peace vigil without being bullied and threatened, were of no importance to the mob. It was as if I was watching a live flame war.

I have heard people say that commentors on the internet are rude because they are anonymous, that most people would not act like that in public. Well, today from what I saw, those barriers of behavior are gone. They do act that way.

The same applies to the mobs opposing health care reform that are attending the town hall meetings and turning them to town hells. Joan Walsh asks who are the real brownshirts?

A moonlit August night, turned into an ugly shouting match by a group emboldened by the likes of Rush and other propagandists. Who will stop them? The culture wars are not finished, they are here, and they are gonna get uglier because people benefit from the artificial divisions.

On the drive home I was thinking of the movie Cabaret, the summer scene where the brownshirts start singing and Michael York asks the following question to one of the men in uniform: "Do you still think you can control them?"

Once you start a mob, once you fuel a mob, feed a mob, embolden a mob, how can you control them?