Dispatches from Vilnius

The annual address to Congress and the nation seems to be coming a little late this year, February 12.  I guess there just wasn't enough room on the busy House schedule to fit the President in during the month of January. President Obama is riding a wave of popularity at the start of the year.  Washington Post has him with a 60% favorable rating , his highest since he took office back in 2009.  He has the added advantage of an improving economy, which would appear to debunk all the gloom and doom the Republicans would have had us believe during last year's election season.  This gives him a golden opportunity to finally put to rest the Bush Doctrine that was enunciated back in his 2002 SOTU address , a.k.a. "Axis of Evil speech," and has haunted us ever since. It is clear he will outline his proposal for new gun control legislation.  We can also expect him to deliver something in the way of a new energy proposal, since his first bill was sh...

I saw a trailer for this documentary  on my WWOZ feed .  I started listening to the New Orleans radio station after the first season of Treme , and greatly enjoy the variety of music on their live streams.  Bill Withers is still around, although most people wouldn't know it by the low profile he has kept in recent years.  I suppose it wasn't necessarily a matter of choice, but one hopes that the documentary has revived interest in this great musician, who seemed to straddle the divide between R&B and Folk.  His Carnegie Hall album  from 1972 sends shivers down my spine each time I listen to it.

There's seems to be a nostalgia for Woolworth's lunch counter these days on Facebook.  I think many people don't know the history of Woolworth's in the South, or have conveniently forgotten it.  Here's a clip from the History Channel on the sit-ins during the 60s as Blacks tried to break the color barrier and have a hot lunch. It seems a lot of folks have been "Gumped" when it comes to contemporary American history, preferring the warm and fuzzy world of Forrest Gump to what actually happened in the early 60s.  This nostalgia takes on many forms, ranging from Whitman's famous chocolate sampler to the way conservative politicians try to reshape the way we should view this deeply divided time by resorting to homilies.

On a different note, the Coen Brothers have put together a movie, Inside Llewyn Davis , that captures "Village" life in the early 60s.  It seems to presuppose the folk scene before Dylan came to dominate the scene, with the lead character loosely based on Dave Van Ronk, whose posthumous book, The Mayor of Macdougal Street  served as inspiration for the Coens. Joel Coen jokingly compares his movie to Les Miserables , as the film is built around full length folk songs that were common at the time, but rather than rush the movie to theaters before the Oscar nominations, it seems the Coens were content to let the film build up some buzz this Spring with a clever trailer , before premiering it in Cannes in May.  The first screening seemed to be a hit with Elijah Wald, who helped Van Ronk compile his memoirs, but he cautions not to read too much of Van Ronk into the title character. Here's Van Ronk singing Dink's Song .

Two new books supposedly shed new light on old subjects: Lincoln as the great emancipator and the death of Dixie.  The first book, Freedom National , I already touched on in the previous post.  This book puts the argument that the Civil War was fought over slavery front and center.  As Howell Raines noted in his Washington Post review, James Oakes argues that from the moment Lincoln assumed office, he sought every political and military means to end slavery as we know it.  Marx may have said that Lincoln never made a move until he had the will of the people behind him, but in Oakes' view Lincoln wanted a lasting Constitutional solution to the problem, not an executive order that could easily be overturned by a succeeding administration. Oakes makes the argument that emancipation was a process, not a means to an end.  He argues that the Emancipation Proclamation wasn't simply a means to keep the European nations out of the Civil War, as some historians hav...

Chuck Thompson appears to have a lot of fun with the theme of his new book, Better Off Without 'Em ,  He imagines a new Confederate States of America and the long term effects of secession.  Judging by the first pages , Chuck's main gripe is with the way religion has come to dominate Southern politics and in turn infect the nation.  The South is indeed the Bible Belt of America, and as one BBC pundit put it, Dallas is the buckle.  This is where you can find more megachurches with firebrand preachers per square mile than anywhere else in the country. Touchdown Jesus,  Solid Rock Church, Ohio But, Thompson apparently has a hard time coming to terms with Texas, which is probably the one state the United States can't do without.  I would add Florida and Virginia, but Thompson apparently has fewer problems with these states.  Of course, his views are couched as barbed wit, not meant to actually advocate secession.  He just wants it to be kn...

The Republicans finally got their chance to call Hillary in on the mat, and what does she say, " I screwed up ." If only we heard confessions like these from Bush cabinet secretaries.  Instead, all we heard for eight years was more lies and attempts at obfuscation to cover up one of the most heinous foreign policy records ever compiled by a standing president of any country.  But, the Republicans weren't going to let Hillary off that easy.  Paul Rand (channeling Donald Trump) said he would have fired her if he had been President (god forbid)! The big show was a big let down, as Hillary pretty much took the blame for the Benghazi debacle, returning questions back at her adversaries by saying "what difference, at this point, does it make," when it was called an act of terror.  I'm sure that won't stop the Republicans from further questioning the White House response, despite McCain, Johnson and other Republican Senators missing briefings that were h...

Oliver Stone devoted a whole episode to Eisenhower, and it wasn't very complimentary.  He wanted to counter the recent spate of "I like Ike" books that have come out like this one .  Ike's "Hidden Hand' leadership has been both praised and derided by historians over the years.  Among many of Stone's and Kuznick's allegations is that the US essentially fought a proxy war in Vietnam under his watch, covering 80% of France's military expenses, and providing additional logistical support.  This was one of many proxy wars and other covert activities carried out during Eisenhower's administration. Evan Thomas counters with the view that Eisenhower, being an excellent Bridge player , knew how to bluff at propitious moments in the Cold War, to avoid direct confrontation with the USSR, or full scale involvement in Vietnam, not wanting to repeat Korea.  His mission was to "avoid any war," says Thomas, at least directly.  This doesn't...

In case anyone is interested, here is the syllabus for Peter Kuznick's class on Oliver Stone's America at The American University in Washington, DC.  The focus seems to be on the role of film in history, Stone's films in particular, with Robert Toplin's Oliver Stone's USA as one of the required texts.  Other texts include Daniel Ellsberg's Secrets and Christian Appy's Working Class War .  After all the publicity generated by the Showtime series, the history department of The American University should offer this class on line.

That was quite an inauguration with a number of historic firsts in his address to the nation.  President Obama was the first president to explicitly reference gays and lesbians in an inauguration speech , noting Stonewall and equating the long struggle for equal rights with that of the Civil Rights Movement, by relating Stonewall to Seneca Falls and Selma.  He also called on a gay Hispanic poet, Richard Blanco, whose very inclusive poem of America, One Today , which echoed that of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself." It was a very inclusive speech, repeatedly starting a passage with "We the people," as he reached out to the nation as a whole.  He also repeatedly referenced the middle class and its shrinking economic base, noting. " our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it. We believe that America’s prosperity must rest upon the broad shoulders of a rising middle class." He spoke of his admini...

Oliver Stone tells us that in 2011 the US spent 40 per cent of its national budget on the military, security and surveillance.  That is roughly $1.2 trillion, far exceeding the yearly average during the Bush administration.  He sees Barack Obama not as an agent of change, but rather a more effective "war president," relying on a "7000 drone armada" to police the world's air space.  The network of military bases and offshore naval fleets is now so great that virtually no country escapes US surveillance, and can be subject to US punitive strikes at any time. It is kind of surprising that Stone would reserve his most bitter scorn not for George W. Bush, but for Barack Obama in the final episode of his Untold History of the United States .  Ollie spends roughly 20 minutes on Bush and over 30 minutes on Obama, often blurring the line between the two.  An example is the $700 billion TARP program, which was initiated under Bush, but oversaw by the Obama administr...

It was interesting to see Oliver Stone show a fragment from the 2007 movie, Charlie Wilson's War , to note how the US armed the Afghan mujahideen during the 1980s.  Apparently, one of the primary culprits was Charlie Wilson, who thought he was doing good to watch the movie.  But, this would ultimately become one of those snakes that would come back and bite you.  The movie was no great shakes, but it was apparently based on a book by George Crile that came out a few years earlier.   Charlie Wilson comes across as a good ol' Texas boy in the movie, but to read his wiki bio, he seemed like a true blue Democrat.  Even though he had an unabashed taste for beautiful women, he championed equal right during the 70s.  But, unfortunately, when it came to Foreign Policy, it seems Charlie let himself be blindly led by rogue CIA operatives into regions he would have been well advised to stay out of.   Not only did he become a friend of t...

To continue the densely packed Episode 9 , Ollie seems to think that the real reason for the Persian Gulf War was not so much oil, but rather to send a message to the Soviet Union that the US would remain the world’s dominant super power.  The Truman Doctrine revisited.  Stone shows us doctored photos, phony eye-witness accounts and other damning evidence that the first Bush administration built an unwarranted case against Saddam Hussein in late 1990 and carried out another illegal war (like it did in Panama a year earlier) largely to undermine the Soviet Union’s presence in the Middle East. In Stone’s vision, Yasser Arafat didn’t recognize Israel because of pressure put on him by the United States, but rather in acquiescence to Gorbachev’s benevolent wishes.  However, a cursory look at Arafat's bold declaration in late 1988, while Reagan was still President, shows that secret negotiations with the Palestinian Liberation Organization had been going on since 19...

In Episode 9 of Oliver Stone’s Untold History of the United States , he cites Fukuyama’s famous declaration  in 1989 that the collapse of the Soviet Union signaled the end of history as such, and the universalization of Western liberal democracy.   However, what may have appeared to be a new era of great peace soon found itself bogged down in another war.  Oliver Stone sees the 1988 election of George H.W. Bush not so much an extension of the Reagan administration, but a new era in “triumphalism” that would continue through the Clinton administration, in which the US emerged as the world’s lone superpower intent on exerting its military and economic influence all over the world.  The opportunity had been missed to build a brand new alliance with the Soviet Union . Stone assails H.W. Bush for not fully reaching out to Gorbachev at this time, but instead caving into neo-conservative interests that wanted to see the Soviet Union cleaved apart a...

I did a double take last night when one of the television programs marking the confrontation with the Soviet tanks in Vilnius on January 13, 1991, showed Nixon before the nascent Lithuanian parliament in March, 1991.  This was before the United States had formally recognized Lithuania's independence.  It was part of a two-week visit to the Soviet Union, including stops in Tblisi and Moscow.  Apparently, Nixon had a soft spot for Lithuanians.  Nixon returned the favor by inviting provisional president Vytautas Landsbergis to Yorba Linda in May, and facilitating talks that led to the US recognition of Lithuania as an independent country.  Dan Quayle visited the country in February, 1992, after its second independence had formally been recognized by the United States. Photo courtesy of profimedia .

Good episode on Charlie Rose the other night with David Axelrod .  It was a friendly loose discussion on the nature of Obama, his first term and what transpired in the recent election.  Axelrod noted how the Republicans have boxed themselves into a corner due to the current voter distribution in Congressional districts.  Democratic candidates won over 50% of the statewide vote in North Carolina, but only gained 27% of the Congressional seats due to the way the state has been gerrymandered in recent years.  He said not only is this bad for the House, but bad for moderate Republicans who don't stand a chance in the primaries against hard-line conservatives.  This voting trend occurred all over the country. Axelrod defended Obama's record.  Rose raised some good points on Obama's ability to get his message across and whether he isolated himself from Republican Congressional leaders.  Axelrod countered by saying that when the stated goal of Republic...

Much of Episode 8 of Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States focuses on the relationship between Reagan and Gorbachev, highlighted by Reagan's famous speech at Brandenburg Gate in 1987.  Stone skips around a lot in this episode, following little chronological order, but he does provide an entry to the Reagan years through Ford's and Carter's failed administrations. Of note was the Halloween Day Massacre which occurred in October 1975 when Ford purged his cabinet of moderates and brought Cheney and Rumsfeld on board.  Two figures who would come to haunt American politics.  In turn, Stone blames Brzezinski  for leading Carter down a dark alley on foreign policy by instigating the Soviet-Afghan War with support of counter-insurgency groups in Afghanistan who were antagonistic to the Soviet-backed government. Ollie uses these incidents as a set-up for the heinous foreign policy set by Reagan, which was pushed by neo-conservative think tanks led ...

Every once in awhile a movie comes along that truly captures the imagination, and for me that was Beasts of the Southern Wild .  It is gratifying to see it has received so many Oscar nominations, including best actress for young Quvenzhane Wallis. This film is startling in so many ways.  Foremost is the humane way Benh Zeitlin and Lucy Alibar have depicted the extreme poverty of this bayou community.  It makes you squeam watching little Hushpuppy make a meal for herself when she can't find her father, and flinch at her pain when stuck by a catfish her father forces her to strike with her tiny fist.  Yet, this little girl stands tall, literally growing in front of your eyes from beginning to end of this film.  Innocence gives way to world-wise young lady with the full impact of the storm is felt. While this film is ostensibly a response to Katrina, the director breaks apart any sense of a conventional time and place, reminding me a little of Faulkner's T...

This will be an open discussion on Washington Irving for those interested in exploring his rich literary and diplomatic legacy.  Irving is probably best remembered for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle .  His work was wide and varied, including his Knickerbocker's History of New York and a biography of George Washington , whom his parents named him in honor of.  He was probably the first commercially successful writer in America.  He was well traveled, spending a large period of time in Europe, where he took a particular interest in Spanish culture, penning several works of fiction and non-fiction, notably Tales of the Alhambra .  In 1842, he was appointed US ambassador to Spain. With so much to draw from, one would think that Brian Jay Jones would have written a very compelling biography, but alas it falls flat.  One needn't read the biography to join in the discussion.  Irving is one of those writers we have all heard of,...

I struggled to find the right title for my thoughts on Episode 7 of Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States .  Many came to mind in watching the episode.  I also liked the famous quote he took from the clip he showed from Apocalypse Now, " I love the smell of napalm in the morning ."  I also was struck by how Ollie viewed American political figures as "Demons and Angels," presenting them more as caricatures in his long running narrative of America's Cold War, rather than as the complex figures they all were. In this episode it is Lyndon Johnson who gets the short end of the stick, as Stone vilifies him as a Cold War demon, whose "foreign policy was profound in a primitive way."  Johnson was certainly intent on winning the war in Vietnam, and would accept no compromise, but Stone fails to mention that LBJ pushed through the Civil Rights Bill in 1964 and ended poll taxes and other nefarious forms of restricting black voting rights in...

Mary Wells is finally getting her due, unfortunately this  new biography appears to fall short of the mark.  Better to buy the wonderful retrospective of her early music put out by Motown and Hip-O-Select.  She would eventually be upstaged by Diana Ross and suffer through the last years of her life in obscurity, but for an all too brief moment she was the Queen of Motown , covering Berry Gordy's songs and collaborating with Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye.  This set includes seven duets with Gaye.  I leave you with Mary Wells singing My Guy .

F-R-double-E-D, D-O-M spells Freedom! We fight for freedom, for one and for all! It's you-and-me-dom, and ten foot tall! Freedom, freedom, and oh-can-you-see-dom, we'll always beat 'em with star-spangled freedom!  Criterion has released some wonderful box sets over the years, but one of the most delirious has to be this set of William Klein movies, including the fabulous Mr. Freedom .  This classic satire on American exceptionalism remains one of the best.  There was also the highly amusing Team America with perhaps the greatest depiction of the late North Korean strongman Kim Jong-Il.  While the freedom-loving puppets obviously owe their debt to the Thunderbirds , whose creator passed away recently, I think a some of the inspiration came from  Mr. Freedom .