Now That They've Gone

Things learned, from the passing of another two of a generation.

At 90, Jack Klugman. Bitten by the bug at around 14

... when his sister took him to a play, "One Third of a Nation," a "living newspaper" production of the Federal Theater Project about life in an American slum; the play made the case for government housing projects.

"I just couldn't believe the power of it," he said of the production in an interview in 1998 for the Archive of American Television, crediting the experience for instilling in him his social-crusading impulse. "I wanted to be a muckraker."

He landed in Pittsburgh, where he auditioned for the drama department at Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon University).

"They said: 'You're not suited to be an actor. You're more suited to be a truck driver,'" he recalled. But this was 1945, the war was just ending and there was a dearth of male students, so he was accepted. "There were no men," he said. "Otherwise they wouldn't have taken me in."

More on career and roles of an always credible "everyman," who had an old-fashioned social consciousness—

In "Quincy, M.E.," which ran from 1976 to 1983, Klugman played an idealistic, tough-minded medical examiner who tussled with his boss by uncovering evidence of murder in cases where others saw natural causes.

"We had some wonderful writers," he said in a 1987 Associated Press interview. "Quincy was a muckraker, like Upton Sinclair, who wrote about injustices. He was my ideal as a youngster, my author, my hero.

"Everybody said, 'Quincy'll never be a hit.' I said, 'You guys are wrong. He's two heroes in one, a cop and a doctor.' A coroner has power. He can tell the police commissioner to investigate a murder. I saw the opportunity to do what I'd gotten into the theater to do -- give a message.

At 89, Charles Durning.

It sounds even more remote than the 1920s, the kind of poverty, disease, and loss his family endured during his childhood. But: another reminder of why we once had a New Deal.

The World War II experiences he survived are jaw-dropping. And then,

After the war, still mentally troubled, Mr. Durning "dropped into a void for almost a decade" before deciding to study acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, he told Parade magazine in 1993. The school dismissed him within a year. "They basically said you have no talent and you couldn't even buy a dime's worth of it if it was for sale," he told The Times in 1997.

He went from job to job, from doorman to dishwasher to cabdriver. He boxed professionally for a time, delivered telegrams and taught ballroom dancing, meeting his first wife, Carole, at an Arthur Murray studio. Every so often he landed a bit part in a play.

His big break came in 1962, when Joseph Papp, founder of the Public Theater and the New York Shakespeare Festival, invited him to audition. It was the start of a long association with Papp, who cast him, often as a clown, in 35 plays, many by Shakespeare.

It was decades before he spoke publicly of his war experience and how it marked him.

In the [1993] Parade interview, he recalled the hand-to-hand combat. "I was crossing a field somewhere in Belgium," he said. "A German soldier ran toward me carrying a bayonet. He couldn't have been more than 14 or 15. I didn’t see a soldier. I saw a boy. Even though he was coming at me, I couldn't shoot."

They grappled, he recounted later — he was stabbed seven or eight times — until finally he grasped a rock and made it a weapon. After killing the youth, he said, he held him in his arms and wept.

Mr. Durning said the memories never left him, even when performing, even when he became, however briefly, someone else.

"There are many secrets in us, in the depths of our souls, that we don't want anyone to know about," he told Parade. "There's terror and repulsion in us, the terrible spot that we don’t talk about. That place that no one knows about — horrifying things we keep secret. A lot of that is released through acting."

"RIP, "king of the character actors."

The More Things Change...

Via Digby, here's a bit of old history I've been reminded of too, thought about, too, and it does give a sense of déjà vu—

WASHINGTON -- On Jan. 1, 2000, the world awoke to find that little had changed since the night before. After years of hype around what was then called Y2K -- the fear that computer systems across the globe would collapse, unable to handle the year shifting from '99 to '00 -- the date change turned out to be a momentous non-event.

Next week, the United States is in for much the same, after months of frantic hype about the economic disruption that awaits if Congress and the president fail to reach a deal and the federal government goes "over the fiscal cliff." (The difference between Y2K and the fiscal cliff being that computer programmers worked around the clock to ensure the former was a non-event.)

The so-called fiscal cliff is a combination of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1. But the agencies responsible for implementing those changes, including the IRS and the Pentagon, are well aware that congressional and White House negotiators will most likely come to some sort of deal within weeks or months -- and so they are planning to carry on as usual, according to a broad review of private and public government plans.

In other words, there will be no cliff. There won't even be a slope. Congress and the president can have their public and private dramas, but the government officials responsible for carrying out their eventual orders have seen this movie before, and they know how it ends.

Oh well: some truth in labeling, at last. Though the "post-bipartisan" has always amounted to as much.

The libraries have wait lists for copies of this, but I have heard David Graeber's Majority Report interviews, including this.

As I remember his historical summary, cash markets evolved around military operations. When paper money came into use, a bank would lend cash to the king, who would go into in debt. The king would then lend his debt to the populace, who used it for the exchanges that make up an economy, before sending it back as taxes.

"If the king ever paid back the debt," says Graeber, "there'd be no money."

Thanks, As Usual

The Propaganda Remix Project

Robert Bork.

John Kerry.

It's That Time Again

Release of the annual list of "best countries to be born in."

Here on planet We're Number One!, it's just one week after the latest mass shooting. One horrifying enough to still be in the news and public consciousness: a massacre of twenty 6-year olds, along with women school employees who must have reminded the guy of his mother.

But: a white loner guy, not terrorism, etc., etc., blah, blah to infinity.

Subtle marketing, this.

The usual crowd set out to prove how "Everything Except Guns Kills People." And to offer their solutions, like this.

Though the Right's newly discovered interest in mental health is quite touching.

An excellent business model; too bad about the sudden bad publicity.

And nice job, National Geographic: egging on deranged "preppers." One home stockpiler of an arsenal appears to have been the late Nancy Lanza.

To think: we geezers only needed to Duck and Cover against an abstract threat. Yes, it was assumed that at some time there would be a nuclear attack—and I think many of my contemporaries grew up assuming we wouldn't live long enough to become geezers. But no generation expects to become geezers, and this threat was deep in the background: something the authorities kept vague and "survivable," and certainly not something that was present daily in our lives.

Nope: civil defense drills were occasional, and nuclear holocaust was not a presence in our lives, as the terrifying images from Newton are for children now. And, if the noise machine gets its way, children will grow up with kindergarten teachers packing heat.

The NRA kept a low profile, until today's news dump no-questions event. Though Wayne Pierre with "bats flying out of both ears" could be a good thing, as far as attracting some public notice.

It remains to be seen if activism will overcome the longstanding absence of political will. And general public acceptance of a daily toll widely accepted as what "they" get for living in the wrong neighborhood.

The Newtown massacre followed last week's Michigan notch in ALEC's belt. Anti-union measures signed and sealed, Gov. Snyder dithered a few days over this. Evidently, Dick DeVos had no particular investment in this one.

One more state wrapped up and delivered for plutocrat Xmas. National austerity on the way, for deadbeat kids, disabled, and elderly. A bit hard to envision those armed guards being installed in every school, not when we don't fucking fund teachers or supplies.

"Best countries," indeed. Who would trade an ample safety net for our Freedom here, where any disturbed person is free to buy weapons of mass destruction, but health care, both physical and mental, is a privilege.

All In A Day's Work

OK: it took two or three days, that frenzy of legislative ramming that ended the week in Michigan.

Or, make that "Michissippi," as Charles Pierce now calls it—over stuff like this.

Commenter Rick Massimo added—

Gee, the Michigan legislature is working awfully hard all of a sudden. It's like they're up against a deadline of some kind. I cannot imagine what it could possibly be.

Whatever it is that poses as representative government has quickly gone beyond words I can find. Add to it this bit of timing; emptywheel, writing December 14—

There is absolutely horrifying news coming out of Newtown, CT, where 27 people–18 of them young children–are reported dead in a gun rampage.

The President's spokesperson, Jay Carney has already said today is not the day to talk about gun control laws.

Can we talk about this, then? A bill passed in the MI legislature's last day frenzy last night will expand concealed carry to include schools, day care centers, churches, and stadia.

Reporting on the bill's "sweeping changes" for formerly "gun-free zones" here.

Digby, on the Michigan bill, and on

...a gun worshiping culture that has morphed into an unimaginable level of barbarism. And apparently we are all just the idiot victims in the boiling water not able to recognize that America is killing itself one kid at a time.

Among their many accomplishments this week, the legislature undid the voters' rejection last month of power grab "emergency managers," appointed by the governor to oust elected local governments.

In his 2010 race for governor, former Gateway CEO Snyder's "One Tough Nerd" branding no doubt played on the "Bill Gates walks into a bar" psychology—elect him, and the average Michigan income will soar. Of course, the guy was also marketed as a "moderate" and "problem-solver."

The travesty in Michigan is the same old stuff, instigated by the likes of Dick DeVos and the Kochs (through their "Americans for Prosperity"), using "model legislation" provided by ALEC. More details on the players and the "right to work" law they paid for here.

Another state; another version of Scott Walker, "the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their Midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin."

Way back here, Brother Snyder got a shout-out during Walker's chat with "David Koch"—

WALKER... I talked to Kasich every day, you know John's got to stand firm in Ohio. I think we can do the same thing with Rick Scott in Florida, I think Snyder if he got a little more support could probably do that in Michigan. We start going down the list, you know, there’s a lot of us new governors that got elected to do something, big.

KOCH: You're the first domino.

WALKER: Yep. This is our moment.

Next Order of Business

December 12, 2012: Workers' "rights" newly bestowed, the Michigan legislature turns to women's "health"—with "One Of The Nation's Most Extreme Abortion Bans."

This is the same group of medical experts who six months earlier had punished a legislator for saying "vagina.".

The Michigan of 1954 appears to have valued this sort of thing:

A good thing we're all getting over it; an educated public might be on to the meaning of "rights," "health," and other words.

Instead, it's time to do what Tengrain suggests, and heed the wisdom of Bobby Jindal—

"As a conservative Republican, I believe that we have been stupid to let the Democrats demagogue the contraceptives issue and pretend, during debates about health-care insurance, that Republicans are somehow against birth control. It's a disingenuous political argument they make."

After all, says Tengrain,

Yes, ladies, welcome the warm embrace of the party who brought you Tod Akin and Cardinal Frothy Santorum; they are at your cervix.

Ancient History

1954: a booster pamphlet published by a local Michigan newspaper could boast about this—

That publication credited organized labor, along with strong public services, as contributors to the state's prosperity.

More of those old-fashioned notions here.

Today, meanwhile: State House fait accompli.

Enacted by record stealth and speed, when January looms, and the lame [why insult ducks?] extremists would lack the votes.

Then:

Governor Snyder signed the bill in the secrecy of his office or a closet or wherever else he goes to deal with the shame of turning his state into Indiana or Mississippi or Bangladesh because he wasn't tough enough to stand up to Dick DeVos.

The latter being Michigan's version of Koch ownership.

Quel suprise; as in Koch-owned Wisconsin, "The bill passed today takes language verbatim from ALEC's model legislation."

In Wisconsin, police and firefighters understood that, even if Scott Walker promised to exempt their unions, their rights most certainly would be next on the chopping block.

Wisconsin firemen, February 2011 (photo here).

Today, Michigan state police were busy protecting the Republicans inside the Romney Building...

(AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

... from evildoers.

(AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

The usual suspects staged a "union thugs" incident ready for handing to the noise machine, and from there into mainstream consciousness.

After previously pretending not to push anti-union legislation, this is the current footwork:

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) defended his state's right-to-work legislation on Wednesday, saying it will lead to more jobs and give workers "freedom of choice."
"I don't believe this is actually anti-union," he said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "If you look at it, I believe this is pro-worker."
MSNBC's Richard Wolffe pressed the governor on the legislation, saying the it "undermines" the ability for unions to organize.
"This does not deal with organizing at all," Snyder responded. "This does not deal with collective bargaining at all. This has nothing to do with the relationship between an employer and a union. This is about the relationship between unions and workers. And this is about giving workers the power to choose."

Back in the world of facts and their liberal bias, there's this background—including some of that outmoded historical context.

Compassion

London collection box photo: Philip Watson

Why would Republicans be expected to show it?

Not when they can rev up The Base: by foiling the heinous UN plot for global wheelchair access—modeled on the Americans with Disabilities Act. And if rejection of the UN Convention on Persons with Disabilities was a slap in the face to one-time party powers like Bob Dole—and to treaty supporters like veterans' groups—so much the better.

It's all fodder for Rick Santorum's next presidential bid.

Digby's been coveried here digbysblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/black-helicopter-child-killers.html and here digbysblog.blogspot.com/.../these-zealots-can-find-controversy.html

Even if the UN Treaty was patterned after American law, the sitting, lame duck, and perennial candidate Republicans can take great pride that, in this country a state can keep an intellectually disabled man on death row over 30 years, without a valid conviction.