GUEST BLOGGER: A Letter Sent To Our Representatives and Senators By My Girlfriend

Please do everything in your power to defeat the King amendment to the Farm Bill. This amendment is an attack on democracy and threatens to undermine Americans' confidence in their ability to have any meaningful input on the laws under which they live. As just one example, in 2008, according to Wikipedia, more than 8 million Californians (63% of voters) approved Proposition 2, which confers some meager protections on farm animals. By contrast, there are only some 3 million people in Iowa, of whom only 200,000 (53%) voted for Mr. King. And he has the power to set farm policy for the United States? By attaching an odious amendment to must-pass legislation, Mr. King seeks to get by trickery what he could never achieve by legitimate means. It is as much to keep the faith with American voters as to protect farm animals that we must defeat Mr. King's noxious, antidemocratic amendment. Better no farm bill at all than one that spits in the face of the people of California and other states and rewards the bullying tactics of a single, out-of-step individual.

MR. BOEHNER, CALL A HALT TO THE COUP D'ETAT

If you haven’t already, you must hear this excerpt from an actual House of Representatives proceeding, because all Americans need to know how far the House has gone to constrict the life breath of our democracy. As you hear it, note the smugness of the speaker pro-tem chairing the session as he rebuffs the arguments of a representative who wants to bring to the floor for a vote an amendment proposed by the Senate to end the shut down and debt payment crisis we now face.

Next consider this definition of coup d’état that comes from Wikipedia.

A coup d'état  . . . is the sudden deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to depose the extant government and replace it with another body, civil or military. A coup d'état is considered successful when the usurpers establish their dominance. When the coup neither fails completely nor succeeds, a civil war is a likely consequence.

A coup d'état typically uses the extant government's power to assume political control of the country. In Coup d’état: A Practical Handbook, military historian Edward Luttwak states that "[a] coup consists of the infiltration of a small, but critical, segment of the state apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from its control of the remainder." The armed forces, whether military or paramilitary, are not a defining factor of a coup d'état . . .

The House of Representatives has amended its standing rule so that only the speaker or his delegate could call for a vote on an amendment made by the Senate, effectively putting in the hands of one man, John Boehner, the ability to call a house vote on a sensible and necessary plan to permit the government to function, with no recourse to the full House, and to make timely payments of debt service This is the latest step of a coup d’etat designed to concentrate power in the hands of the Tea Party rump. It’s clear that the change to the long-standing and sensibly-democratic House rule  was adopted simply to prevent a vote that the Tea Party rump would probably lose.

Earlier steps include use at record levels of frequency of procedures in the Senate to prevent bills and appointments that the Democratic majority would pass ; court decisions that permit unlimited and often anonymous campaign donations; radically gerrymandered House districts, proposals to have presidential electors chosen by congressional districts instead of statewide. Some call the Tea Party crazy, but these small steps are beginning to form a pattern of concentrating power in a minority of Republicans.

A small group of government insiders using the power of the government to take over functions constitutionally assigned to both Houses of Congress and the President is  happening and it closely tracks the definition of coup d'état. And now it has come to this: a small rump of Congress has amassed the power to prevent the U.S. government from functioning according to our constitution and laws.

I offer no solutions, but we must prevent the democracy hating rump of Congress from taking over the government for its own purposes. Add to court decisions that, the absolute refusal of a minority of the House of Representatives to permit the nation to function according to its constitution and laws, and there is real danger present. The Tea Party rump is drawing about itself, in small steps, a wall of undemocratic actions to preserve and extend its power over the majority made up of Republicans and

Democrats. I offer no solutions except to exhort the sane members of both parties to put a stop to the power-hungry rump’s ongoing coup.

Many have called the Tea Party faction crazy, but they begin to seem diabolically clever. They’re on the verge of causing untold damage to this Country’s finances for a long time to come, of severely reducing our reputation as the leader of the “free world;” of depriving Americans of lawful benefits; and repealing the democratically elected and Supreme Court approved Affordable Health Care act by simply withholding the funds necessary to implement it.

President Obama and the Democrats are doing the right thing by not yielding to the demands of bullies but, oddly enough, only John Boehner can call a halt to this passive violence by calling for a vote in the House. He hasn’t so far been a profile in courage but we can only hope.

MR. PRESIDENT, DON'T APPEASE THE BULLIES

[N. B. Ironically, President Obama's website says that, because of the shutdown, his office may not see this letter I sent today until it is over. Thanks to the invaluable Nancy for her editing help.]

 

Dear President Obama:

 

I’m 74 years old, a Democrat since college when I campaigned for Adlai Stevenson; I’ve been a loyal supporter of President Obama, Senators Levin and Stabenow, and Representative Dingell. Although I depend on social security and Medicare I’m also a patriot, as my immigrant father taught me. As much as the government shutdown may hurt me, the imminent danger to the nation that I hope my grandchildren will inherit with pride, will hurt me more.

The passive aggression of the smug, do-nothing anarchists of the far right must be resisted at all costs. To me, this means that you must not give them anything in return for modifying or even dropping their extortionate demands. To do otherwise, would be to invite an ongoing crisis by rewarding behavior that partakes of disloyalty and borders on treason.

Airplane, the 1980 film comedy, has a satire on Point Counterpoint in which the conservative says of the trapped plane passengers, “They bought their tickets, they knew what they were getting into, let ‘em die!” Thus, yesterday’s satire is today’s doctrine. Food inspection, medical research, aid to the hungry, Medicare, Medicaid, and many other services that have an impact on health either have been or will be interrupted or just lost if the “Let ‘em die!” faction isn’t stopped now.

Please, I beg you, no matter the short-term cost, stand your ground to save our democracy.

PERFORMANCE NETWORK’S BECKY SHAW STIMULATES, ENTERTAINS, TITILLATES, AND SATISFIES

Last week, I saw the premiere of Becky Shaw at the Performance Network: funny, touching and troubling, it gives us five interesting (frightening in one case) characters and five outstanding performances, with perfect timing and pacing under the direction of Phil Powers.

The characters are richly drawn by playwright, actors, and director. Sarab Kamoo and David Wolber, play non-siblings who were raised together, have a complicated relationship, and let us peer into to every nook and nuance of it. Wolber’s Max and Kamoo’s Suzanna are obviously damaged. He hides his insecurities behind manly bravado but lives as a responsible man, the picture of the Yiddish “Mensch.” She lives through her insecurities but leaves us with the feeling that she’s going to be all right.

 Only the title character (Maggie Meyer) dismays and confounds, a stone idly tossed into a pond, making ripples that radiate from the point of impact, a playwright’s shortcut, like the crazy neighbors in A Delicate Balance or the goat in “The Goat.”

The script leaves the conclusion of the story in doubt, which is far better than a forced happy ending, but suggests a conclusion which, as I understand it, would have sold out cheaply one of the characters. Can’t say more without ruining the second act for you, but since nothing seems final when the house lights go on, does it matter?

 Monika Essen turns in her usual excellent and serviceable sets: there isn't a false note anywhere in this production.

Once, I said to an actress friend that plays are about characters; she said, no; plays are about relationships. Either way, Becky Shaw draws us deeply into the lives of some very lively and very human people, a fine place to be for a couple of hours.

THE TEA PARTY SILLY SEASON

The silly season, having degenerated into stupid on its way to the psychotic season, moves on. Two recent Huff Post posts may be seen as guide posts to the end of the journey. Or to put it another way, there seems to be a stampede on the road that should be less traveled. One from June 28 reports:

“Matt Davis, a Michigan attorney who was once the state Republican Party's spokesman, sent out an email that asked whether armed rebellion would be justified in the wake of the court's [Affordable Health Care Act] decision. 

… It begins: ‘Implicit in Benjamin Franklin's fabled response at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention was a dire warning: That the Republic would one day devolve into tyranny unless we the people prevented it.’ 

It goes on to characterize Obama's election as the end point of a "100-year progressive trek to tyranny."

In fairness, according to the Detroit Free Press, Mr. Davis later apologized for sending what he called “unedited work product.” He took back what seemed to be a call for armed insurrection but he didn't retract or explain his misquotation of Ben Franklin.

Franklin never said what Davis attributes to him. He did say this at convention’s end about the Constitution,

“. . . I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people, if well administered; and I believe, farther, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.”

The meaning is obvious: despotism will come only if the people become so corrupt they are otherwise ungovernable. Then, Franklin goes on to laud the constitution:  “It approach[es] so near to perfection … I expect no better, and … I am not sure that it is not the best.” Yet conservative websites quote only the part about despotism and pretend, as Davis has, that Franklin predicted the inevitability of despotic government. Quoting out of context and distorting the plain meaning of the words, Davis and others have wandered far from the truth to tell a bald lie.

The other whiff of political sulfur came July 2.

“Tea Party lawmaker in Montana [Krayton Kerns] said the relocation of 60 bison -- which he blamed on Walt Disney's creation of "Bambi" -- could lead to gas jumping to $25 a gallon as part of a liberal federal government plot.” …

Kerns said the moving of the 60 bison from Yellowstone National Park to the Fort Peck Native American Reservation this winter is part of "a four step process to crush the republic and bring our populace into perfect dependence on big government -- just as Karl Marx dreamed.”

I don’t know what Marx’ dreamt but there is no record of it in his voluminous writings. It’s contrary to what he wrote in “The Communist Manifesto” where he predicted that at the end of the process begun by a working-class revolution the state would “wither away” because people satisfied by economic justice won’t need a government.

These folks are not ordinary private idiots, but serious public ones. As Davis made up a pseudo quotation for Ben Franklin, Kerns put an idea into Karl Marx’ dreams that would have been anathema to him. Two Tea Party activists, two plain lies, batting a thousand for the team. The level of divorcement from reality that informs these people and their websites is awe-inspiring. Their willingness to distort and ignore the truth for political ends is a fine example of the corruption among the populace that Franklin was afraid of. Ironic, no?

Thomas Huxley wrote, “If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is a man who has so much as to be out of danger?” 

Surely not in the Davis-Kerns wing of the Tea Party.

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BRIAN BEDFORD-ANOTHER TONY NOMINATION

Congratulations to Brian Bedford: Tony nominated -- as Lady Bracknell -- for the fifth time in five Broadway appearances over the last eighteen years He'd already won for Jumpers in 1974, School for Wives, 1971, and The Misanthrope, 1968 -- the last two having opened in Ann Arbor with the APA (Phoenix) Company before New York. He's also won several Drama Desk awards for other performances. Because of his frequent visits to this town in the sixties and seventies with APA, and our proximity to his Stratford (Ontario) base, we've seen him on stage more than any other great actor.

His comic appearances, in Moliere plays, as Dogberry in Much Ado, as Elyot in Private Lives (ones I've seen) make him one of the best comic stage actors of our time. His understated approach magnifies his gifts; he has an almost supernatural ability to use long silences to brilliant effect and uproarious laughter. In The Moliere Comedies at Stratford he took his curtain call in full period costume and bowed with a great arcing swipe of his feathered hat then stood straight and stared unsmiling at the full house for an almost unbearable time, eventually provoking giggles, and then, just when you could stand it no longer, he raised an eyebrow and brought down the house.

He'll be back at Stratford this summer in The Misanthrope.

Thanks, Brian Bedford. I hope to see you again soon.

AN AMATEUR CYNIC ASKS, "WHITHER CHARLIE SHEEN?"

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